Year: 1876

i.t,. The Future OF the Jews. IS


In George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Book
WI, In Harper's Magazine for August, Nor
idecai, the Hebrew enthusiast thus expresses
his conception OF the character and destiny
Of, his rnce 81 ai! :. DO Yt,si - .
stWhere else is there nation OF whom 1t
may be as truly said TINT their religion and
law and moral life mingled as tho stream Of
blood in the heart and made: one growth
where else n people who kept and enlarged
their spiritual store Mt the very time when
they were hunted with hatred as fierce as
the forest fires that chase the 6wild beast
from his covert? There is q fable Of
the Roman that, swimming to save his
life, he held the roll Of his writ
ings between his teeth and saved them from
the waters. But how much more than that
is true of our race? They struggled to keep
their place among the nations like heroes
yea, when the hand was hacked off they
clung with the teeth; but when the plough
visible signs Of their national covenant. and
the fruitfulness OF their land was stifed
with the blood Of the sewers and Planters,
they said: 'The spirit is alive; let us make
it lasting habitation-lasting because
movable-so that it may be carried
from generation to generation, and our
sons unborn may be rich in the things
that have been, and possess hope built
on an Interchangeable foundation They
said it and they wrought it, though often
breathing with scant life, as in coffin, or
rs lying wounded amidst q heap OF slain.
Hooted and scared like tie unowned dog,
the Hebrew made himself envied for his
wealth and wisdom, and was bled of them
to fill the bath Of Gentle luxury. He alb
sorbed knowledge; he diffused it. His dis
persed race was new PhGnicla working
the mines Of Greece and carrying their pro-
ducts to the world. The native spirit OF
our tradition was not to stand still, but to
use records rs seed, and draw out the
compressed virtues of Raw and prophecy;
and while the Gentle, who had said,
What is yours is ours, and no longer
yours was reading the letter OF our law as
a dark inscription, or was turning its parch-
ments into shoc-soles for an army rabld
with lust and cruelty, our Masters were still
enlarging and Illuminating with fresh-fed
Interpretation. But the dispersion was
wide, the yoke OF oppression was spiked
torture as we'll as load; the exile was
forced afar among british people, where the
consciousness Of his race was no clearer to
him than the light Of the sun to our fathers
in the Roman persecution, who had their
hiding-place in cave and knew not that it
was day save by the DINNER burning OF their
candles. What wonder that multitudes OF
our people are ignorant, narrow, supersti-
tious? What wonder?
The night is unto them that they have no
vision in their darkness they are unable to
divine; the sun is gone down over the pro-
phets, and the day is dark above them;
their observances are rs nameless relics.
But which among the chief OF the Gentle
nations has not an ignorant multitude? !?
They scorn our peoples ignorant observ-
ance; but the most accursed ignorance Is
that which has no observance-sunkt to the
cunning greed of the fox, to which all law
is no more than trap or the cry OF the
worrying hound. There is a degradation
deep down below the memory that has with
cred into superstition. In the multitudes
OF the ignorant on three continents
who observe our rites and make the
confession of the divine Unity, the
soul>of Judaism is not dead. Revive the or
ganic centre; let the unity OF Israel which
has made the growth and form OF its reli-
gion be an outward reality. Looking to-
ward a land and polity, our dispersed
people in all the ends Of the earth may share
the dignity Of national life which has
voice among the peoples Of the east and the
west-which will plant the wisdom aud skill
of our race so that it may be, as Of old, a
medium of transmission and understanding.
Let that come to pass, and the living warmth
| will spread to the weak eXtremities OF
Israel, and superstition will vanish not in
the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the
illumination of great facts which widen feel
ing, and make all knowledge alive as the
young offspring Of beloved memories.
Our national life was q growing light.
Let the central fire be kindled again, and
the light will reach afar. The degraded and
scorned of our race will learn to think OF
their sacred land not as place for sanity
beggary to await death in loathsome idle
ness, but as q republic where the Jewish
spirit manifests itselfin n new order found
ed on the old, purified, enriched by the eX-
perience our greatest sons have gathered
from the life OF the ages. How long is II!
Only two centuries since vessel carried
over the ocean the beginning OF the great
North American nation. The people grew
like meeting waters: they were various in
habit and sect. There came time, q
century ago, when they needed a polity,
and there were heroes of peace among
them. What had they to form q
polity with but memories OF Europe, cor
rected by the vision of better? Let our
wise and wealthy show themselves heroes.
They have the memories OF the East and
West, and they have the full vision of bet
ter. A new Persia with purified religion
magnified itself in art and wisdom. So will
q new JudIa, poised between East and
West-a covenant of reconciliation. Will
any say the prophetic vision Of your race
has been hopelessly mixed with folly and
bigotry; the angel of progress has no mes
sage for Judasm-it is af.buried city for
the paid workers to lay open-the waters
are rushing by it as forsaken field? I say
that the strongest principle Of growth lies in
human choice. The sons Of Judah have to
choose that God may again choose them.
The Messianic time is the time when Israel
shall will the planting Of the national en-
sign"


"TRAMP, TRAMP, THE BoYs ARE MARCH
ING."-The tramp nuisance has developed
into alarming proportions in the West.
Bands OF over two hundred go together.
They board railway trains, refuse to pay
fares or get off, and in one case threatened
to tie the engineer and run the train them
selves If he refused to haul them. A few
days since they threw an express train on
the Alton and Chicago road off the track,
and they boarded Rockford train and