Chapter V: Part 5

This is what I suppose I felt in my race unconscious days, and when I woke to consciousness, I rebelled against the artificial barriers, suffering much and no doubt causing others to suffer. I was eager to leave home because I supposed that in the larger world there was a larger view of life, and when the driver told us all to get out and walk up the Oresco Hill, I climbed it with joy; for I thought it led to those heights.

XXIII

THE SYNAGOGUE

"Beyond the hill there are also people" is a German proverb whose meaning is obvious, yet the people "beyond the hill" are strangers and foreigners; here home ends and the world begins. From the hilltop the whole valley lay in panoramic view--the town, the clinging villages, the winding river and the encircling mountains--this was home. I knew each path and roadway; knew, by the sound of the bell, the village and church from which it came; sheep and cattle were of a certain breed; horses were harnessed in a peculiar way; the peasants of each village had their own picturesque style of garment and I knew at a glance each man's habitat. Nobody or nothing was strange to me. The whole valley was home and I felt the gripping sense of homesickness as I viewed it for the last time. I could have embraced it all--yet in only a small spot of that small valley had I moved with any sense of freedom.

Our street was plainly visible from the hilltop. The "_Porte_" or "_Forte_" as it became corrupted--was a gorge-like, bottle-shaped street, the narrow end of which was the gate of the Jews, now the toll-gate over which the _Kisbir_ presides. Through it came my ancestor, Reb Abraham Bolsover, with a bundle on his back containing sacred books and worldly goods. In the one was his _life_, in the other his _living_, and between barter and the study of God's law his life moved, never without a struggle. When they carried him out of that same street to the God's Acre, they said of him that he died poor in possessions but rich in good works.

Through that gate my father went out at the call of his Fatherland, and when they carried him to his resting-place they made great lamentation. He left to his widow five children--one yet unborn, money enough to keep them from want and a name which always stood for self-sacrifice and devotion.

These ancestors of whom I know, harmed no man and must have done some good; yet they were regarded as aliens and could not move freely beyond a certain boundary. The _Porte_ was our home and this diminutive Ghetto shut us in--or shut us out. In later days I discovered that it did both.

I have looked down from many a hilltop since that morning; from the ruins of Athens, the hills of Rome, the mountains round about Jerusalem, the sky-scrapers of the New World metropolis, and I have discovered that one's world, no matter how large or how small, is full of compartments. Everywhere people shut themselves in and shut others out; they are moved by what they call class-feeling, race-prejudice, religious intolerance; but it is all of a kind, only labelled differently according to the circumstances. The main lines of our divisions were visible from the little hilltop in that little corner of the world and were plowed into the consciousness of the people through hundreds and thousands of years of conflict--and alas! they bore sacred symbols.

The synagogue, with its oriental minarets, was crowded in among the encroaching houses of the Ghetto; the Roman Catholic church, with its severe buttresses, bulbous steeple and shining cross, occupied the centre of the town, dominating the landscape; the Protestant church, with its ugly, square tower, over which a rooster weather-vane indicated the shifting winds, stood at the edge of the town, close to green fields and pastures.

Once my brother by vaccination, wishing to ingratiate himself, told me he believed the Jews were the trunk of the tree, the Catholics were the branches, and the Protestants were the leaves which the wind shook and carried away and scattered. That was good news to me and I rewarded him with a big piece of bread and butter. After it was safe in his grasp he said: "Yes, the Jews are the trunk, but it is old and decayed, and the Lord has grafted a new tree upon another trunk." Then he ran away as fast as he could, and I hoped that kind Providence would let him stumble and fall; but Providence seemed to be on his side. Nevertheless, that was good news to me--news which no doubt he had heard some time in church. It was a truth which expressed relationship, but it was one of which the synagogue seemed quite unconscious.

Our rabbi's chief function seemed to be, to determine for the housewives whether a pot in which meat had been cooked might still be used if a drop of milk fell into it; whether a goose whose fat leg showed a bruise must be sold to the Gentiles or whether it was _kosher_ for the Sabbath meal, and how the rigid rabbinic laws could be circumvented without transgression.

Thus, our Sabbath law forbade all manner of work for us and our servants; but the Gentile servants did light our fires, cook our meals, and sweep our rooms. "Of course," the rabbi said, "the servants have to live--they do it for themselves and not for us--we just eat with them."

On the Sabbath no burden must be carried; but one must have a handkerchief. "Then bind it about your loins and it is part of your apparel."

"Two thousand yards is the distance one may walk on the Sabbath, but if I have to walk four thousand--what then?" "Stop at the two-thousand yard line, put a piece of bread on the ground and say: 'This is where I live,' then walk two thousand yards more."

Such was the casuistry with which our rabbi's mind was filled. Poor man! he had to spend his time with "annis and cummin," he had to glorify trifles and so minimize the real glory. He had so much to say about rabbi this and rabbi that, and so little of what God said to the seers and prophets.

This was my early quarrel with the synagogue, although at that time I could not express myself. First, it made the traditional ceremonials and observances a law of God. Secondly, it was intolerantly exclusive against those outside its own pale and those within, who saw the larger light. Yet memories crowd upon me whenever I see the synagogue from this hilltop.

The synagogue was at its best on the eve of the Sabbath. Through the rusty iron gate came its Israel, the fathers and sons; the women being busy with the evening meal, the best of the week. Israel looked outwardly renewed. The Sabbath scrubbing was a religious duty; each boy showed its effects in his clean and glowing face, and he was clothed in his best garments.

How unconventionally Israel approaches its God, and how democratically! There is a ceremonial rigidly adhered to, but each man follows it as he pleases, without regard to harmony or order. There are noise and confusion; noble psalms are mumbled, pious petitions are repeated mechanically and only the Sabbath hymn has melody. It is sung by the reader, but his is no easy task with such an individualistic congregation. Some one cuts short his crescendo, another checks his flight as he approaches the high C, and when he imagines himself near Heaven's gate, a third pulls him to earth by a threefold Amen, five minutes ahead of schedule time.

No one thinks it out of place to discuss the affairs of the day, especially the affairs of some neighbour. Strangers who happen in are weighed in the balance and their moral avoirdupois discussed, as is their fashionable or unfashionable clothing. Business is transacted on Sabbath eve; but this, of course, _sub rosa_.

Our pew adjoined that of a grain dealer. Hardly had he thrashed his way through the Ninety-fifth Psalm--"Come let us sing unto the Lord"--than he said to his neighbour, who was just catching breath for the Ninety-sixth Psalm: "_Nu_, how was the grain market in Hodowin?" "God's enemies shall have grain to sell now!"--was the pious answer (business is never unqualifiedly good, to the Jew). Then both hastened through the Ninety-sixth Psalm, a few seconds behind the rest, yet setting a pace to bring them out far ahead, the grain dealer skipping the last lines.

"Will you sell?" he asked. "Sell on the Sabbath?" and then through the Ninety-seventh and Ninety-eighth Psalms without interruption. Here the Twenty-ninth Psalm is repeated. How did I know, how _could_ I know, that this is a Psalm in which some great soul saw the glory of Jehovah in nature?

"The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters: the God of Glory thundereth: the Lord _is_ upon many waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests; and in His temple doth every one speak of His glory."

Not a word did I understand. It went over their lips like grain through a threshing-machine, and it was all straw to me. Far more interesting was the fact that, after the Sabbath hymn, six loads of grain changed hands, while the congregation repeated this injunction:

"And the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant. Between Me and the children of Israel is a sign forever; for in six days Jehovah made Heaven and Earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."

The weary service ended, there was no time for gossip; each man and especially the boys hurried home to the Sabbath meal, which, more than its religion, keeps so many faithful to Israel.

Our best room was at its best; the whitest linen covered the table, the brass candlesticks were burnished, mother had blessed the candles and lighted them, and with her cheery face shining brighter than they shone, she put her hands upon my head, blessing me.

"God make thee like Ephraim and Manasseh;" and while I did not know just why, "like Ephraim and Manasseh," it was a blessing just to feel her hands upon my head. Then with true unction, this High Priestess of Jehovah repeated:

"May the Lord bless thee and keep thee,

May He cause His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee,

May the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

Still more sweetly she led us in saying: "For He will give His angels charge over thee, to guard thee in all thy ways. He will guard thy going out and thy coming in, from now and forevermore."

The thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, which then follows, she never repeated nor permitted us to read, for it is the praise of the virtuous woman by her husband, "who praiseth her in the gates." _Her_ husband no doubt praised _her_ in the Eternal City.

To have given the world the Sabbath is no small achievement for a race, and the Israel I knew kept its rigorous laws and was rewarded by its rich blessings.

The _Porte_ was solemnly quiet on Sabbath morning. Every store was closed, although in later days many a merchant could not resist receiving the Gentiles' money over his counter, and quiet business was done behind closed doors. The service of the day began at nine, and the women's gallery was crowded, while a constant chatter was kept up, much to the annoyance of the men, who were glad to be able to blame some one for the disorder.

I remember how indignantly the grain dealer looked up to the gallery and tried to hush the women into silence, on the very morning after he had bought six loads of grain between the repetitions of the Ninety-fifth Psalm and the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy.

The younger men found the encircling gallery very attractive. From it the young girls looked down upon them; eyes met and there were sweet smiles and blushes. There the bride stood, the first Sabbath after the wedding, and if the bridegroom had brought her from abroad, she was viewed and criticized from all angles; the size of her dowry was commented upon, her looks, her family and her dress; although a large dowry "covered a multitude of sins."

From the gallery mothers watched their restless youngsters, and I can imagine my mother's dear face looking down upon me, often reprovingly. From here they looked with pride upon their sons, called for the first time to read the law, on their thirteenth birthday. This gallery was the Jewish Women's Club; here they discussed in small or large groups the blessings and pains of motherhood, their own and others' griefs; here they pitied the orphan and the widow and comforted one another.

The younger boys were admitted to this gallery during the reading of the law, which seemed very uninteresting to them, for it was all in Hebrew and chanted in a most monotonous way. But that which preceded it was very absorbing indeed; it was the sale, practically an auction, of the privilege of carrying the _Torah_, of "undressing" it, reading small portions of the law, redressing it and returning it to the Ark. These privileges were bought and presented to visitors or any one whom one wished to honour. It was as exciting as any auction sale, only it was all done without a word's being spoken.

Upon a board with movable letters and figures was announced the peculiar part of the ceremony for sale. The price advanced at the raising of a hand or the nodding of a head, and when some rivalry entered into the sale, the whole congregation watched the proceedings with ill-suppressed excitement.

The rabbi, the reader and the dignitaries of the congregation approached the Ark, and that was the one, great, solemn moment. The rich, velvet curtain was drawn aside; the Ark was opened, and the scrolls of the law carried in solemn procession around the synagogue. We children left our pews and crowded close, to kiss the passing scroll.

The white-bearded rabbi looked like one of the priests of old, and I could easily imagine myself in the Temple on Mount Moriah. This solemnity was but momentary; those who had the honour of performing the various ceremonies were called; they pronounced the blessing, quickly and mechanically a portion of the law was read, and then the readers made offerings for various charitable purposes. There is no religious or social function in Israel at which an offering is not made, and gratitude to Jehovah always expresses itself in gifts.

The sermon followed immediately and while old men listened to the expounding of the weighty things of the law, women gossiped, children in the yard played rather boisterously, and the young men talked about their _affaires d'amour_, much to the hurt of those of us who were old enough to listen and too young to fully understand.

The Sabbath dinner had a peculiar fragrance, and lingers in one's memory more, I fear, than the teachings of the synagogue. The meal was prepared on Friday, and consisted of _Scholeth_. Pork and beans is, to the New England Puritan, what _Scholeth_ was to his Jewish prototype.

In huge, black pots, the combination of beans and goose was carried to the communal bake-oven, where for eighteen hours it slowly simmered and baked, and was ready, piping hot, when the morning service was over. The pots were nearly all alike, the owner's name or number being marked in chalk. Once at least it happened that we got the rabbi's _Scholeth_. His wife was reputed a poor housekeeper, and the _Scholeth_ proved the fact. When we returned it to its owner we found, much to our dismay, the rabbinic family getting to the bottom of our own.

In the afternoon, mother and I went visiting, usually among the poor and sick, and one of the heritages of those visits is a deep sympathy with human suffering. As I grew older, my uncle took me with him to the weekly discussions of the law, which were held in an anteroom of the synagogue.

I remember two questions which I asked on different occasions. One was, why we were permitted to drink the beer brewed by Gentiles and not the wine which they pressed. The rabbi's reply was, that we were not permitted to drink the wine, because wine is used for social occasions and there would be danger of contact with the Gentiles. When I replied that beer was used for the same purpose, I was told that beer was not brewed in Talmudic times, and consequently could not be forbidden.

In a German translation of the prophets, I had read the first chapter of Isaiah. I felt its vigorous denunciation, I caught its first glimpse of true religion, and when I asked why the rabbi commanded and approved what Isaiah condemned, he told me that the prophetic writings were beneath the law, and that he who kept all the points of the law was greater than they. I never enjoyed these discussions, but now I wish I would have had the patience to sit through them, if only to fasten fully upon my mind one such discussion.

I do remember the stuffy room, for since that time I have sat in it with the new rabbi, who has studied theology in Germany and knows more and preaches less than he believes.

The old rabbi was genuinely orthodox; his Sabbath cap and velvet gown were full of lint and dust; his head was unkempt, for to comb it would have been labour. He sat in a dilapidated grandfather's chair and before him lay the old Talmud; huge, forbidding looking volumes, a mixture of truth and superstition; a Magna Charta, bills of sale into slavery; wings and chains, the sublime and the ridiculous; but to him every sentence was sacred, every letter inspired of God. Around him sat the pious men of the town and such of their sons as were inclining or being inclined towards the study of the law.

"What did rabbi so and so reply to rabbi this and that?"

Back and forth went questions and answers, like the flying shuttle through woof and warp. It seemed trivial, much of this; but after all, to them those things were vital--more vital certainly than the occupation of their impious neighbours, who spent the Sabbath in idle gossip. Certainly it was more elevating than the way most of their Gentile brethren spent their Sabbaths. They danced, drank, fought and staggered home to beat their wives, or do worse, if they were not married. After all, Israel's Sabbath was Israel's salvation. It ennobled him, kept alive the spiritual, and prevented him from utterly falling a victim to Mammon.

I have no quarrel with the synagogue except this:--that it never revealed to me the _riches_ of Judaism. It showed me its beggarly edge, its vulnerable trivialities, its pathetic pharisaism and its absurd worship of the letter. That Israel had a mission to the world I never knew; that Moses and the prophets were names of which the world took cognizance I never heard; that the Catholic and the Protestant were feeding from the same spiritual sources which fed us was hidden from me, and that we all had "one Father" was never revealed to me.

I surmised all this in my boyish way and I searched for that very thing--through many painful years; but when I discovered it, I had left the synagogue behind me and there is no way back.

XXIV

THE CHURCH WITH THE CROSS

The cross dominated the landscape; crowning the hilltop stood one, black, austere, forbidding ... a suffering, emaciated Christ hanging on the tree. Cut out of white limestone, another shone against the dark forest guarding its sylvan mysteries. The cross rose above the river, from the centre pier of the bridge where it vibrated to each shock of the swift rushing stream; at every turn of the road, on the dividing line of orchard and meadow, marking the boundaries of fields and villages, stood the sacred emblem of The Church, itself surmounted by this Roman gallows of beaten gold, proud symbol and sign of victory!

No one ever told me its meaning, yet I soon learned that it was something ominous ... terrible; and that because of Him who hung upon it _we_ suffered and were persecuted.

This I learned by painful experience; for I felt many a lump on my head raised by the benevolent fists of Gentile youth because I would not look at the cross and kiss it. On the other hand, my ears were pulled much too often by my guardian because I _did_ look at it. Once I was all but choked to death because I would not make the sign of the cross, and again was threatened by punishment temporal and eternal, because I carried in my pocket a little crucifix given me by the goose girl in my race-unconscious days. At that time I regarded it as a toy. It never repelled me, although as I now analyze my feelings it was to me a symbol of unforgiveness, something which was angry with me, that I should like to make up with, yet did not dare approach. It was unpleasant to me, not because I suffered bodily harm through it, but because it stood aloof and kept me from enjoying all for which my life hungered. It seemed to say: "This is a Catholic mountain; this is a Christian river, and these fields and meadows, these birds and wild flowers are not for you."

Whenever I passed a cross I seemed to hear the Christ saying: "Get out of here, you little Jewish boy, you crucified Me!" I heard Him say that, because every Catholic I met seemed to be especially angry with me if we met before a crucifix or shrine. Even now when walking along those highways I have the same feeling.

During my childhood I named most of these holy places after some bodily punishment that I received there. Not long ago I sat in the shadow of an acacia grove and saw the crucifix of the "bloody nose," as I called it. I know some beech trees overshadowing a shrine, which I called the shrine "_Zur Ohrfeige_" a peculiar form of punishment which my countrymen will readily recognize.

Once, when I shared in Christmas exercises, taking the part of Moorish King, as I have already told, and was hurled from my high estate, I received presents and a kiss from the sister of the _Pany_, a woman as saintly as he was wicked. She carried a rosary with an ivory crucifix to church with her and the cross lost much of its terror for me because she was associated with it. Twice, I think, after I took the part of Wise Man, she sent me at Christmas time a present of russet apples; and while she never spoke to me again she smiled at me always when in passing I doffed my cap to her.

There was also a hatter in our town who, it was rumoured, had studied for the priesthood; he too had a share in reconciling me to the crucifix. He was the priest's right hand man, assuming all sorts of parish burdens. On _Corpus Christi_ he carried the large crucifix at the head of the procession. This holy day was a peculiarly trying one to the Jewish community, for the Catholic population was enraged when a Jew refused to bare his head as the crucifix passed.

To keep one's head covered and stand erect in the synagogue was regarded by us children as a protest against the Christian faith and practice; while to share in the Christian worship even by the removal of one's cap, would have been regarded as a most sinful and humiliating act.

The Jews usually drew the shutters, locked the doors and kept out of sight while the procession passed; but I was lured by the music, the gaily coloured banners and by all that in a procession appeals to a boy. I was pushed far to the front and when the head of the procession approached I stood there erect with covered head and immediately became the target for well-aimed blows, which sent my cap flying and threw me violently to the ground. I might have been crushed beneath the feet of the mob had it not been for the hatter, who, shifting the heavy crucifix to one hand and supporting it against his body, stooped, lifted me, led me half around the church and through its open portal; while the bells rang, pious worshippers sang and priests chanted. The good hatter and the crucifix thus became closely identified.

That was the first time I had seen the interior of the church on a festal day. Candles blazed on the altars, banners waved, the organ was reinforced by blaring trombones and huge brass horns; priests and acolytes wore their most splendid vestments, and clouds of incense trailed upward to the loft where pigeons cooed and ventured many a flight around the awestruck congregation.

I am sure that I worshipped; at least I was uplifted; the crude and discordant in my nature seemed to leave me and I felt buoyant as if floating on the air. It was a moment akin to that when, on her death-bed, the miller's daughter passed her wasted fingers through my hair and kissed my hot temples.

Why should I not remember that first, conscious sharing in Christian worship? It brought swift punishment. The acolytes beat me unmercifully and the Jewish lads who saw me going into the church, beside calling me "_Goy_" Christian, told on me, and the consequences may be imagined. Yet I remember the punishment less than the fact that it was my first conscious worship; a real attempt to commune with the Unseen. The mysterious in my own nature had touched the eternal mystery, and the cross had lost much of its aloofness; I had entered its domain.

I do not know what I felt when I saw the golden cross that day from the omnibus; but I was conscious of a reconciliation and perhaps something more. "We are not such strangers after all," I suppose I said to myself. "I don't hate you although I don't quite understand you--but some day I shall."

Perhaps it was merely a youth's resolve to taste the forbidden thing as soon as he escaped his environment--perhaps I have magnified my feeling, recalling it now in the light of my later experiences. I am fairly positive, however, that I felt a premonition that some day I should enter into whatever experiences the cross held for a human soul. The life which awaited me was favourable to this, and in looking back I can plainly see the guidance of a good Providence.

Far beyond our cross-crowned hill and many another, my new life began. My teachers were Jesuit fathers, the schoolroom was an anteroom to the church and the crucifix was everywhere. The fathers looked very much like the Christ I remembered, painted upon the crosses that dotted our highways; austere and forbidding. They were skilled teachers and splendid disciplinarians. Even my untrained mind was forced into a groove.

There were pages and pages of Latin, curious problems in mathematics and such history as they deigned to give us; but the curriculum consisted largely of Latin, and there are not many questions which the soul can ask when the mind is being drilled in Latin grammar. Living itself began to be a task in which the higher and lower curiously blended; although the unrestrained lower nature threatened ascendency.

Being a Jew, I had to live among my own people, and of course chose so to live. I have slept on harder beds and have eaten coarser fare since then; but I have never felt contrasts more keenly than when I exchanged home for that boarding-place. It was kept by people who had "seen better days"--a fate they shared with boarding-house keepers the world over.

I had little or no time for social life. The town was totally Slavic and the Jews who lived there were strangers; so I was left much to myself. Most of the students were living with the Fathers, wore clerical attire and were destined for the priesthood. Their pleasures were few. For exercise they walked by classes or in pairs; what they thought or how they lived, I never knew, although I went into the same class-room with many of them. The larger world into which I had entered had even more compartments and smaller ones than the world I had left, and for a good many years I was in a compartment by myself, with no one to share my confidences or to exchange thoughts with me.

My social nature was almost starved, and because those who lived on my level did not take me in, I sought the companionship of those morally and intellectually beneath me and found them ready enough to receive me. What they offered and what I shared I never fully enjoyed. I know that it lowered me and while I never reached the nethermost depths, I went low enough to know something of the humiliation of meeting one's higher nature when one emerges from the abyss.

In such a mood I strolled into a church during my last year in the gymnasium. I had long outgrown my boyhood and was a man in my thoughts, feelings and desires; although less than the man I wished to be. The preacher spoke about sin. I do not remember either the text or the sermon, but I know it was the first time that I felt myself reproved, as if by God. I seemed to see my own soul--a puny, struggling, mean thing and not what I desired it to be. I began to loathe it and myself, and when the preacher offered peace, renewal and pardon to all who would confess and repent, I was sure that my soul's hour had come, that I must set it free and let it grow Godward no matter what the cost to me.

When the congregation knelt, I knelt too and prayed--my own prayer--which had no words, which was just an aspiration Christward. My eyes sought the crucifix in faith, and I was ready to claim its power whatever it was, if it could cleanse me and renew me. I looked at the priest who held it up before the kneeling congregation and saw something strangely familiar in that homely face lighted by the fervour of his faith. It led me back to the village of Deephole. It was Sabbath afternoon; an old man lay voiceless and motionless upon his hard bed because his son was an apostate. Then I could feel the hand of my mother leading me out of that stricken home, along the fields where poppies and bachelor's buttons grew. How she restrained me from plucking them because it was the Sabbath! I felt as if she were touching my hand as I knelt. She led me past the lighted altar, out of the throng of kneeling worshippers and she seemed to say: "No, not while I am living, my son."

XXV

THE CHURCH WITH THE WEATHER-VANE

The synagogue and the church with the cross seemed quite unconscious of any change in wind or weather; although our world moved with those trade winds on the sea of time, which the Germans call the _Zeitgeist_.

Not so the church with the gray tower, on whose pinnacle its symbol from the barnyard turned and twisted, but always bravely faced the fiercest winds. To judge from its early history, this lean, long-legged bird was a _fighting_ cock. From the time that it was lifted to its exalted position till now, the men above whose temple it "watched for the morning," were fighting men who worshipped in a fighting mood.

On Sunday morning I watched from our doorway the churchgoers who came from many a surrounding mile; Catholics and Protestants, Magyars and Slavs, filling the gray, monotonous street with a riot of colour.

The Magyar peasants wore broad, white linen trousers, shaggy, sheepskin coats and small, rakish hats, always decorated by a sprig of rosemary, placed there by wife and sweetheart, who, heavy-booted, walked beside them, their full, starched skirts claiming a large part of the sidewalk.

The Slavs were by far more picturesque in their attire. The men wore tight-fitting, blue trousers, braided and embroidered from the knee up to the abbreviated, gorgeous waistcoat, which was always unbuttoned, to allow the still more splendid shirt--the show garment of the Slav--room to display itself. Whether the hat was broad or narrow, chenille braid richly ornamented it to the top, from which hung defiantly, graceful, varicoloured feathers.

The women's clothing outshone the men's, and to even catalogue their elaborately trimmed garments would require a sartorial vocabulary which, unfortunately, I do not possess.

On the whole it was a pageant worth seeing, and I watch it with the same interest from the same doorway whenever I have the good fortune to be at home again.

Besides the riot of colour which attracted me, I very early began my ethnographic studies; for there were variations in dress, which denoted the mountaineer, the man from the valley, the peasant and the mechanic. Each locality had some style of its own, each race, occupation and faith was marked.

Those who went to the church of the weather-vane were the most soberly attired. Theological divisions were accentuated by the presence or absence of colour, braid and buttons; for there were Puritans among those worshippers. Their forefathers swore fealty to the faith of Calvin rather than that of Luther, and while all of them worshipped in the same church, the historic division was manifested in clothes, if often in nothing else.

Had not clothes marked the churchgoers, I could easily have detected the difference between faiths by facial expression, posture and gait.

The Catholics walked to church rather more reverently than the others. Rosaries hung from the folded hands of the women, who looked neither to the right nor the left, reserving all abandonment to the passions of youth and life until after the services were over.

The Protestants marched like soldiers, their heavy psalm-books clasped to their breasts. Thus fortified, as if by gun or bayonet, they went to the house of God, erect and defiant. Although the generation that I knew never fought for its right to worship according to the dictates of its conscience, its forefathers fought, killed and were killed; while the weather-vane turned on its rusty hinges to face the storms that raged.

The Reformation came with its good and ill to the Carpathians as it came to the Alps, and it seems strange that the Teutonic Tyrolese submitted to being forcibly rebaptized into the Mother Church, while the more sluggish Slavs fought and retained their faith.

Church historians have taken scant if any notice of these Slavic Protestants, who were as brave as the Huguenots and suffered as much.

There were bishops who forsook mitre and crozier, becoming one with the peasants in suffering imprisonment and martyrdom.

There were priests who followed their example, and, for preaching the new faith, were chained to the block. A group of twenty was sentenced to the galleys and perished miserably at the cruel task.

There were nobles, both men and women, who jeopardized their titles and their lands.

There were peasants innumerable who were wakened out of an age-long slumber and refused to relinquish their freedom in the faith.

The old chronicles of this parish, which but recently fell into my hands, justify my early proclivities for these Protestants. The Chronicle narrates: "The Roman Catholic Bishop, George Barsony, bringing with him a company of Croatians, began forcibly to baptize our members. At the communion, when he placed the wafer on the tongue of the peasant, Stefan Pilarek, the same bit the finger of the Bishop to the bone, and not until the Croatians hit him over the head did he relinquish his hold. The other members who were about to receive the communion refused to take it; they began to fight; the Croatians opened fire at them, and two were killed. Protestants came from the neighbouring villages and surrounded the house of the priest, where the Bishop lodged. They got hold of him and gave him such a beating that he died from its effects." The Chronicle does not say that they murdered him.

Two regiments of Croatians appeared the next week; the preacher, teacher and sexton were hanged in proper order, while the peasants were broken over the wheel, impaled or quartered. The Chronicle concludes this part of the narrative: "From that time the free exercise of religion ceased in this parish."

Besides their fighting mood and the struggle for liberty which drew me to the Protestants, their sober house of prayer as well as the simplicity and order of their worship, appealed to the Puritan within me, and did not offend my aesthetic feelings.

From the bell-tower I could look down upon the congregation (having bought this privilege from the _mendic_). On the straight-backed benches sat these stiff Puritans, praying with heads erect, singing hymns which had in them the ring of battle. There were no images to offend a mind trained to see in them an insult to Jehovah; no dark corners or dimly lighted altars to suggest mystery; no incense to artificially arouse the desire for worship. Green fields and acres of swaying poppies and bearded barley were visible from the windows, and when the people sang it seemed to me as if all nature were in tune with their psalmody.

That of which I am now most conscious as having appealed to me was, that I understood every word of the service which floated up to me; and even those broken and stolen snatches were to me the first bits of religion rationally interpreted.

There were certain texts which remained in my memory, and when later in life great social questions pressed for solution, the words that had been so eagerly listened to by the little Jewish boy, hidden in the belfry, came back to the struggling man with promises of hope.

When, finally, on this side the Atlantic, I united with the Protestant Church, no struggle preceded it, no reaction was necessary; mind and soul were merely coming home.

In reality, I have found in the church of the Puritans the best that my race has bequeathed to the world. The prophets and seers are more at home, I think, in the meeting-house than in the synagogue or the cathedral. To me at least, the really great, vital notes of religion which they have struck were not revealed by the rabbi or the priest; but by the great Puritans, who spoke to me out of English literature and here and there from pulpit and platform.

I cared but little, if at all, for the salvation which Christianity promised or the theology over which it quarrelled.

When Protestantism becomes rabbinical, and when it holds or withholds the keys of Heaven, I shall feel myself as much a stranger to it as I felt to the synagogue or the cathedral. In its cry for righteousness and personal purity, in its emphasis upon a Christian democracy, in its demand for rational self-sacrifice to achieve great, social ends, it appeals to me and claims my allegiance.

Its creeds, even the most historic, leave me untouched; its sectarian quarrels I cannot comprehend and its dogmatism repels me. When it proclaims the supreme value of the human soul, and demands for it a right to seek its God, unhindered; when it pleads for protection of the child and the woman, and labours for the day when they shall not need protection from a rapacious society; when it struggles to bring to earth the Kingdom of Heaven, I am one with it and am among mine own. Then I hear the voices of my Fathers speaking as they were moved to speak by the Holy Spirit.

I do not wish to imply that I hold lightly the salvation which Christianity offers to the individual. It is a goal and a prize worth striving for; but for some reason I have lost the sense of self, at least in these higher reaches of the soul.

When I "got religion," to use a well-worn phrase, I did not want the isolation of a "chosen people," even if, to be a Jew, had meant the plaudits of the world instead of its derision. I did not consider the security of my soul from the pains of Purgatory or the torments of Hell, promised by an infallible church. What I wanted and am fairly confident that I have obtained, was: a fellowship with a God whose chief attributes are social; who, when He revealed Himself to man, made the revelation through His Son, who came to save a world.

Out of all the many confusing interpretations of Christ's teachings, this is clear to me: That He meant to bring together the alienated, to harmonize the discordant, to heal the ancient wounds caused by the mere struggle for self, and that into the world's disorder He intended to bring a new order, which He called: The Kingdom of Heaven.

The most valuable possession which Christianity holds for me is this conviction: That the task is unfinished, that the conflict is still on and that it is my business to invest my life in such a way as to make true the dream of the Son of Man.

XXVI

TOLSTOY THE MAN

After many painful years I discovered that neither religion nor culture has very materially modified racial antagonisms. The years I spent in the gymnasium, sheltered by the arms of the church with the cross, were bearable, only because neither my face nor speech betrayed my racial origin. They were painful years and as they pass through the channels of my mind I realize that it would add little or nothing to the purpose I have in view, should I give a detailed account of them.

I learned my Latin astonishingly well, excelled in history, and lagged frightfully in mathematics. Science there was none, at least none worth mentioning. There were logic and rhetoric in which I did good work. In religion, which dominated the curriculum, I was a sceptic, demoralizing the classes. On the whole, I fear I was a disturbing element; for when I passed my finals and said good-bye to the rector, he muttered: "Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ!"

At the university, where nationalistic lines were closely drawn, I drifted towards the Slavic groups, forming close and lasting friendships with a number of Russians whose idealism was contagious. They regarded man entirely from the standpoint of humanity, were delightfully impractical, always in debt, smoked cigarettes incessantly, slept until noon, and stayed awake into the morning hours, vehemently discussing everything under the heavens. I owe much to them; above all, my acquaintance with Russian literature and the personal friendship of Tolstoy, who has been the most vital factor in shaping my "_Weltanschauung_."

When I started for Russia on my first pilgrimage, I had not much in my pocket besides the letter of introduction they gave me. I went to see the man who taught religion in terms I understood and which I thought I could accept and practice.

Of my journey there is little to say, except that I travelled a great distance on foot, that I was the recipient of much kindness everywhere and that the peasants shared with me their scant crust and cabbage. I have since tried to find the old woman who gave me some cold potatoes, and who in giving them bestowed more than those who now entertain me at their banqueting tables.

As for the many who offered me hot tea and a bed in the true spirit of charity--ah! if I were rich and could find them all! The only time I wish for money is when I try to repay kindness; but as our Slavic poor used to say: "_Pan Bogh Zaplatz_"--"God repay you."

So let it be then--God repay you--you Russian sisters who have washed my weary feet and soothed them with mutton tallow; you brother who gave me your place on the cart while you trudged along beside your poor, shaggy horse, as thin and wretched and as kindly looking as yourself.

God repay you, you Jewish innkeeper with whom I pawned my silver watch, who kept it safe for a year or more and would take no usurer's interest.

God repay you, too, you black-eyed, Jewish maidens who smiled at me. God repay you the smile, which was good stimulus for a lonely lad, to whom a kindly look was more even than bread.

God repay you, you Russian matron who took me into your beautiful home and tried to wean me from my "Tolstoy madness" by offering to keep me as tutor for your half savage children.

God bless them all, even the homely kitchen maid who refused to admit me when I knocked at the Count's door, and after giving me a huge piece of black bread told me to "go in peace." I ate the bread but knocked again, and when my letter reached the Countess she came to shield her husband from the intruder.

Yes, God repay you too, you guardian of this genius, standing between him and the world, which, acting upon his word, would have taken all he was willing to give away. I shall never forget your motherly kindness after I kissed your hand in greeting and you discovered my plight, nor the glorious days I spent under your hospitable roof.

Sometimes I thought you sheltered him too much, that wonderful man--your husband; that you slipped silken underwear beneath the hair shirt he wore, and made soft the hard bed on which he wished to sleep. He would have perished long ago had you not loved him so--and yet, what a death it would have been!

It is easy to glorify those who already wear a halo, and I felt all the emotions which one is likely to experience in the presence of one's ideal; but the final, distinct impression which remained, strengthened rather than weakened by renewed acquaintanceship, was that I had met a man--not a Russian Count or the peasant he tried to be; not a cosmopolitan who has a touch of culture borrowed from the capitals of the world--but a _man_ who had thrown off all antagonisms and prejudices, and was able to meet all human beings upon a high and common level.

It was this rare quality in him which enabled me to tell him frankly and honestly all that brought me to him. I do not remember the words I used, I fear they were not simple enough; but I know that all I told him was absolutely true. That is no credit to me though; for like all truly great personalities he is truth compelling. His remedy for my ills was disappointingly simple; the remedy for the greatest of the world's ills was "in myself."

"Do not repay evil for evil." "Do not hate anybody." "Maintain the dignity of your own personality." "Love everybody, even your enemies." "Give everything and ask nothing in return."

"Am I to set the world right?" I asked him.

"No, not the world, but yourself."

"How shall I know that I am right?" I queried again.

"By living in obedience to the law of God," he answered emphatically.

He read to me the words of Jesus, and for the first time I heard them without theological arrogance or ecclesiastical intonation. He read them, not with the tenderness one associates with the speech of Jesus, but as Moses might have read them from the tablets of stone, or John the Baptist might have preached them before he met Jesus by the Jordan. As a dictator might read the law, so he read the Beatitudes and he laid the same stress upon "Sell all thou hast and give to the poor," as filled his commanding voice when he read those words of Jesus: "But I say unto you love your enemies."

Very decidedly he pressed upon me the necessity of changing my whole attitude towards life, and it was not difficult in that atmosphere to persuade myself that I had changed it. I soon discovered, however, that for me, at least, this was no "once for all" task, but a continual struggle. I found the world always with me, my temper strong, and my passions stronger still; yet I am sure that my view-point had been modified at least, if not changed. I certainly felt my transgressions keenly, my repentance sincere and my conscience more sensitive.

I have tried since under different conditions to work for a permanent change, to reach some high level in which obedience might come without struggle; but that exalted plane I have never reached. The best I can say for myself is, that I left Tolstoy with less faith in the materialistic philosophy with which I had become inoculated, that I trusted less the things which can be demonstrated by touch or sight and that I felt a faint touch of the power of the spiritual.

This early acquaintance with Tolstoy helped me to understand rationally the doctrine of the New Birth which I have so often heard expounded since.

While Tolstoy's rationalism forbade him to speak of his experience in terms of mysticism, the change which had taken place in him was fundamental, and Lyoff Tolstoy, the follower of the Man of Nazareth, was a totally different man from Count Tolstoy; nobleman, soldier, courtier and author.

I coveted the experience which brings about such results and I believe that it is not only rational but essential to an entrance into true discipleship with the Master. I know something of the pangs and pains of this new birth, this attempt to like the unlike, to love the unlovely, to regard wealth, place, honour, of no import, and to believe that the purpose of life is to do God's will.

This conscious substitution of the "_Alter_" for the "_Ego_" is no light achievement, and but few men win victory in the struggle as calmly and serenely as did my host and teacher. Yet I am sure that the most valuable lesson I learned then and have since relearned from the same teacher is, that national and racial divisions are much more superficial than my professors in the university led me to believe.

"Alles ist Rasse" was the note which dominated the teaching of History in all its multitudinous divisions. I sometimes think that the opposite is true and that there is nothing in race; for I have experienced oneness with all sorts of people, both in the lower and the higher spheres of our nature.

This latter theory Tolstoy dogmatically affirmed. "You are a Jew, you say," and he would grasp my arm so tightly that I could feel the pulsing blood in his sensitive hands. "I am a Russian; yet I feel no difference in the touch of your hands, in the look of your eyes, and hear none as you speak to me. There are differences in the colour of the skin, the shape of the nose and eyes, but beneath the surface we are all alike."

So far as I know, Tolstoy has not changed these views, but I doubt that even the man who alters his view-point often has changed in that one fundamental belief.

To me this oneness of all men has become a conviction, the one religious doctrine which I hold with a scientific dogmatism; for I know Chinamen, whose slanting eyes do not prevent them from seeing the world just as I see it; Hindoos who, removed from their imprisoning system of caste, take this human view of man. I have met Japanese the travail of whose soul is akin to mine, and Negroes whose souls are so white that one might envy them their purity.

Knowing every shade of Slav, Teuton and Latin, the Aryan and Semitic peoples, I have found them all alike at their best and at their worst. Dissimilar they are in their various environments, reflecting all the differences of climate, food, religion and government; but let them climb the heights to which the soul aspires or let them sink to the level to which fleshly lust drags them, and they are brother angels or brother brutes.

Yes, one other thing I learned from Tolstoy and learned repeatedly; it is, perhaps, of more value than all the other things he taught me. It was the initial lesson and the hardest. "Give everything and ask nothing in return."