The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-10-31
JEWISH PEOPLE
WORK WONDERS
Preservation of the Race is One
of Most Remarkable of
the Centuries.
PATRIOT IN EVERY LAND
DR.. Purvis Says Hebrew is In
destructible Despite Age
Long Persecution.
SERMON BY
The Rey. DR.. Samuel w. Purvis
in The Philadelphia Evening

in The Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin.
Texts: And | will bless them tina
bless thee and cure them that curseti
thee; and in thee shall all families o
the earth be blessed. Gen. 1878. VIVA
advantage then hath the Jew? Much
every way. Rom. 1912.
Our Jewish friends are now observ.
ing their New Year-the 5,681st. This
period includes the fast of Guadalial
and eliminates in Yom Kippur. the
most solmen Day of Atonement, mex
Wednesday.
AS a man of affairs | want to stoI
and take notice of one of the most
remarkable phenomena of the cen
turtles the preservation and indesatue-
tibilily of the Jewish race. Here is a
marvellous thing-a bush is burning
and is not consumed! SHOW me mir
acle," said Frederick the Great to his
chaplain. Sire, 1t is the Jews" an
swered the man of God. AS an am
bassador of God, /, too, in a labor of
love, would stop and pay tribute of
nppreciative recognition to this won
derfuI people to whom you and | are
Indebted for so many things, not the
least OF WHICH - the "
our own Christian religion.
All the worlds a stage wherein not
pnly individuals but nations and races
arc players. Every nation has played
some part. great or small. Each one
has had it's message for the centuries
in which it lived. Rome gave govern
ment; Greece, culture; Phoenicia, com
merce; the jew has carried monothe-
.l.s - Oh 10
through the ages. He has played his
part and played it well. Where he has
faltered or blundered he always paid
a fearful penalty. / know of no other
that has suffered so much and sur
vived.
When the temple in Jerusalem was
destroyed the Jew became wanderer,
a man without country. There ism 7
a, continent, there isn't a nation upon
the face of the earth Of which he is
not an. inhabitant. Innumerable forces
OF history through many ages have
helped to form his destiny. His story
is at once the miracle and the romance
of human history. None can blot him
out, Balbylontan captivity, Roman dom
ination, Grecian absorption, medieval
persecution, modern massacre, have
been in vain. Talk about the splendid
limo OF Roman pontiffs on the banks
of the yellow Tiber-the Jew has out
lived Egypt. Chaldea, Assyria, Persia
and the dynasties of the past. While
our fathers were savages living on
roots In the forest or gnawing a bone
in a cave his were Princes in the
house of King David. He of today is
nothing more or less than a child of
his great yesterday. Though removed
from his Asiatic origin well-nigh 1000
years, there's q queer dualism which
makes him q creature old and new
He has one foot on the soil OF antlqul-
ty the other rests on the foreground
of today. His profile is that of Ur OF
Chaldees, but in Russia his features
are Russian, In Italy Italian, in Spain
Spanish. There are $4,000 black Jews
In Abyssinia, negro Hebrews. while
there are even Chinese Jews who OBJ
serve all the Jewish religious rites and
their dietary laws--yet they shave the
almond eyes, the flat noses and the
yellow skin of Mongolians.
In the Fiery Furnace.
The three Hebrew children in the
fiery furnace were forerunners.
In the sixteenth century in Venice
was begun the concentration camp
known as the Ghetto. Back of the old
rhetto. or iron foundry. the Jew had
TO live in a restricted district. The
name was gradually applied to the
Jewish quarter of every city. In each
ghetto he developed a life of his own
religion. custom. literature, tradition,
song. pleasure all his own.
During those Middle Ages he was
prosecuted relentlessly. bitterly. 1t
wouldn't surprise me If that medieval
life had not left an indelbile impress
on him. That past, indeed his any past,
Is not a mere memory to be cherished
and revered, but hideous. living
ever present experience, burned on his
consciousness. Is he peculiar IL he
Is circumstances have made him so.
Sunpose we had taken a few hundred
thonsand people of any nation 1000
years ago, set them apart to 1--we IN
restricted districts, forced them to
wear a distinctive garb. forbidden
them to engage in agriculture, limited
their usefulness to particular trades,
only in rarest cases allowed TO own
property, many other things prohibited
under main of death-wouldn't any
neople become peculiar? Would it be
wondered at If long-continued perse-
cution would leave them suspicious!
The constant menace of the proselyter
would make them no less fearsome
than the torture chamber itself-they
would soon fear the Greeks when
bearing gifts Each period OF oppres-
sion would send him back decades,
grieved and hewildered.
In spite of all this he has devel-
oped a marvellous love for his step
mother lands. The Jew has always
been patriot of the land which gave
iim birth. He quickly adapts himself
% the country that gives him food
ind shelter. He soon finds himself