Chapter XV: Part I: , for 1776, London, 1776, pp. 100-6. (The narrative is somewhat (13)

These lessons have been learned and these teachings taught by the foremost minds of every epoch and latterly of every generation. From the time of Reuchlin's defense of the Talmud and Jewish literature generally against the fanatics of his day, a defense which caused a religious and political agitation that became the prelude to the Reformation, down to our present time, there have not been wanting Christian men of learning and of understanding who strove successfully in the defense of Jewish polity against the prejudices of ignorance. The great Renaissance of German letters in the latter half of the 18th century afforded numerous instances of men of this character, among whom need but be cited Lessing, Herder, Schiller, and Goethe. These writers and thinkers carried on their polemics in the domain of idealism, in poetry and philosophy, and their thoughts were soon re-echoed in the out-givings of the succeeding generation of scientists, students and statesmen. We will not attempt here to adduce all the great array of leading minds who have been impelled to express themselves on this theme, but will limit our citations to a few of the most authoritative thinkers and a quotation of the most positive utterances on the subject.

In marked contrast with the accusation of the passing school of anti-Semitic writers against Judaism as materialistic in its tendencies, there may be cited an expression by the great German and cosmopolitan philosopher, ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. In a letter to a Jewish friend regarding the natural idealism expressed in Hebrew literature, he refers him to the following passage in his _Cosmos_ (_Vol. III, p. 44_), and closes his letter as below.

"It is a characteristic sign of the natural poetry of the Hebrews,
that, as a reflex of Monotheism, it always comprises the whole
of the universe in its unity, both life on earth and the bright
realms on high. It seldom dwells upon single phenomena, but
rejoices in the contemplation of great masses. Nature is not
described as self-existent, or glorified by a beauty of her own;
to the Hebrew singer she always appears in connection with an
over-ruling spiritual power. Nature to him is ever a thing created
and ordained, the living utterance of God's Omnipresence in the
works of the world of matter. Therefore, the lyrical poetry of
the Hebrews, by reason of its subject, is grand and grave in its
solemnity."

"Stand fast by your brethren who have accomplished so remarkable
a course of martyrdom through centuries and now stand on the
threshold of their liberation; devote all the energies of your
intellect to the spiritual labor wherewith your millennial history
is instinct; success cannot, will not fail you and the rich results
that you, my young friend, will obtain from the mines of science,
will calm and comfort you in many a sad experience in the dull and
cloudy present, that is but the precursor of the bright dawn of the
day of liberty."

* * * * *

Another world-famous scientist, ALPHONSE L. P. PYRAME DE CANDOLLE, in his _Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deux siécles_, Geneva, 1873, makes the following very remarkable observations:

"If Europe had been peopled by Jews only we might have witnessed
a curious spectacle. There would no longer be any wars; hence
the moral sensibility would be violated much less and millions
of people would not be torn away from useful occupations. Public
debts and taxes would decrease. The cultivation of science, of
literature, of fine arts, especially music, for which the Jews have
a great predilection, would be furthered to the highest extent.
Industry and commerce would flourish. Few crimes of personal
violence would be committed, and those against property would but
seldom be accompanied by violence. The wealth of the community as
a whole and of individuals would largely increase by the effect of
intelligent and regular labor, combined with economy. This wealth
would have a beneficent effect. The clergy would not come in
collision with the State. Perhaps there would be less corruption
among the officials and greater firmness."

The above passage is approvingly quoted by another great leader in the world of science, Professor Carl Vogt, in an article published in _Westerman's Monatshefte_, wherein the writer, treating of the habits and qualities acquired by European peoples through hereditary transmission, speaks of the Jewish people as having attained the highest civilization notwithstanding their having lived for ages under oppression.

* * * * *

On the occasion of the centennial anniversary, in 1891, of the political enfranchisement of the French Jews, the celebrated leader of the French Liberal Catholics, PERE HYACINTHE, addressed to the Grand Rabbi of Paris the following expressive communication:

"MONSIEUR LE GRAND RABBIN:--You will have seen from the papers that
our Gallican Catholic church intends to commemorate the centenary
of the emancipation of the Jews by the Constituent Assembly.
The 27th of September, 1791, is a date of even greater glory to
France than it is to the Jews. It was a day that witnessed the
reparation of a long and cruel injustice; it inaugurated for the
whole world an era of liberty and brotherhood from which no evil
disposed person has since been able to make us swerve. We are
too enlightened and too liberal-minded to become anti-Semites.
Besides, we are Christians, and as such we must not forget that it
is from Israel's bosom that we have sprung. Israel, the grand old
olive tree from which we have been grafted. For the French Jews
the interregnum which commenced with Sedecias ended with Napoleon.
Napoleon it was, who boasted of being the King of the Jews, and the
Jews accordingly treated him as their political Messiah. Than him
they could not have had a greater.

"But Napoleon's empire, like the kingdom of David, is no more, and
the French Republic now has the keeping of these two illustrious
necropoles, that at Jerusalem wherein reposes the race of David,
that at Paris wherein rests the hero who was in himself his own
sole dynasty.

"But none the less, France has remained, as Bonaparte remarked, the
new tribe of Judah, where Frenchmen and Jews constitute one people.

"Republicans by virtue of the Mosaic legislation, I would almost
say socialistic, in the best sense of the term, before they became
monarchists by Samuel's dispensation, the traditions of the Jews
comprise all the essentials for the service of France.

"'Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah and bring him unto his people; let
his hands be sufficient for him, and be Thou a help to him from his
enemies.'

"These are my wishes, Monsieur le Grand Rabbin and may the God of
the Jews, who is also the God of the Christians, cause them to be
fulfilled speedily.

"Accept, monsieur, the assurance of my fraternal friendship.

HYACINTHE LOYSON, Priest."

* * * * *

As focussing effectively the most salient aspects of this general subject, we will here cite a thoughtful statement from a strictly orthodox Roman Catholic source, the French clerical journal, _Le Monde_:

"The immortality of the soul has been repudiated by the Academie
des Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. The Jews had to serve as the
occasion. The Old Testament, however, was vindicated. But in how
many feeble minds was not an uncertainty left? How many will take
the trouble to read over the Sacred Books, when the reading of the
daily papers absorbs all their time? Voltaire knew well enough that
to sustain his iconoclastic views he had to discredit the Jewish
people, to falsify their history, and to take up again the pagan
theory of presenting them as the most degraded of people.

"Such, indeed, was the opinion of the Greeks and Romans in regard
to the Jews. The Greeks, given over to all conceivable turpitude
and tyranny, to an anarchy without bounds and without end,
incapable of even simulating a defence against Rome, despised
the Jewish people, and the Romans entertained the same feelings.
They despised them for the same reason that the economists, the
capitalists, the modern free-thinkers, despise the Catholics.
The Jews did not worship idols; they alone did not prostrate
themselves before nature; they condemned, despised that pantheism,
that idol-worship, which sanctified the vices and the passions and
which the Greeks and Romans embraced with such ardor. The dignity
and regularity of their habits formed a striking contrast to pagan
dissipation. They opposed in their individuality, the beauty of
their rigorous law to the impure teachings of paganism. They never
presented a disgraceful spectacle in the time of their prosperity;
they never participated in the bloody games of the ring; they held
human sacrifices in horror.

"The Jews did not profess the principle of equity, of which the
Greeks and Romans boasted so much--themselves absolute partisans of
Slavery. They simply upheld the institution of family hierarchy,
the paternal authority. Their habits and institutions, inspired
by the parental sentiment--were they not full of kindliness and
foresight? Could they overlook the feeble and the poor? Amongst
them brothers could not know contention and strife, because they
were equals in reality. Without the parent, fraternity would
disappear.

"In order to subsist it is necessary that children should always
have before them the image, the memory, the principle of the
paternity from which they emanated, which formed the bonds of their
friendship. Their unity proceeds from thence, a unity, sweet,
lively, inculcated in infancy, formed by the heart before the mind
could grasp it. The lawgiver had no occasion, therefore, to enjoin
fraternity, but needed only to submit it to that law of nature
which organizes the paternal authority. The Jews were ignorant
of those social ideas that desolated the ancient cities and that
spring up again in modern times. The poor had no demands to make
upon the rich. The Jews never forget, and had they done so, the law
reminded them that the earth belongs to the Lord and that in God
they are all brothers. The constitutional wars between the poor and
the rich in Rome and Athens were caused by extortion. This question
of extortion fills Roman history with its pale shadow; it is at the
bottom of all the troubles, dissensions, periodical massacres and
revolts. It has again taken possession of society with the reform
of the Nineteenth Century. Only in 1789 France passed from under
the yoke of extortion. The Jewish fraternity condemned extortion as
a principle of tyranny.

"This fraternity, so powerful a principle, led the Jews to love
their fellow-beings, to see in them colleagues and brothers;
they received the stranger willingly, extended to him their
hospitality, even a share in the benefits of their law--something
that was foreign to all other nations. With these other nations the
stranger was regarded simply as an enemy; "enemy" and "stranger"
were expressed by one and the same word. Pantheism, denying the
principle of unity, as indicated in the Divine origin, left men in
a continual state of war. And war never ceased; the cities fought
with each other, until the strongest had subdued the others, and in
their turn were conquered and absorbed by a greater. This is the
invariable history of Greece and Rome. The dogma of Divine creation
exhibited to the Jews all men as brethren. They did not treat the
stranger therefore as a barbarian. They, the Israelites, alone of
all the nations of antiquity, did not carry on aggressive wars;
once established upon their soil, they had no other desire than to
live in peace by living out their laws. This is the object of all
their institutions. They do not make war upon the stranger, because
they had no hate against him.

"Their God, greater than the gods of the Olympus, neither flattered
nor served their passions. He was a jealous God, who exacted the
submission of the heart. He chastised his rebellious children. And
this people purified by persecution and misfortune, returned to the
laws of their fathers, to the observance of their precepts. No city
in ancient, no people in modern times could have passed through
like vicissitudes and recovered again. It is not through progress
that they endured and were capable of resistance, but by holding
fast to the past; by rallying around the law, which they had never
abandoned and which they never modified, hard as it was. It often
became irksome, it never bargained with its conscience. What
else existed, before the laws of Moses, than that paganism which
legalized all vices? The Jews defended their law with their lives;
they fought for it against the Greek kings of Syria; they preferred
to be buried under the ruins of Jerusalem to making a compact with
Roman paganism. The Greeks and Romans never had the idea that one
can die for one's religion.

"By their habits in the government of the State the Jews were
separated completely from Greece and Rome. They never brooked the
insults of the ancient or modern mobocracy, because they respected
the principle of the family, the foundation of their political,
judicial, administrative and military organization. They alone in
antiquity repudiated slavery. They practiced a national brotherhood
which the Christian people are hardly capable of comprehending;
it is so sublime, and almost beyond human nature. The institution
of the jubilee, of the seventh year, the seventh day, was the
perfection of social order; but even with Christianity these
institutions could not maintain themselves. Dispersed, reduced to
direst need and to the humiliation of exile, the Jews have never
abandoned these first principles. Tacitus remarked the close
ties of brotherhood that united them in his time. _Inter ipsos
obstinata fides_. Since then and up to this time is it not the
same sentiment? Are there many dissensions amongst them? This
moral greatness of the Jewish people made them the target of pagan
enmity. The policy of Rome was to be enforced upon all nations. The
Jews share with the Christians the honor of having been singled out
as the victims of utter extermination.

"The Jewish nation has survived all its victors; it alone, says
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, withstood the power of time, fortune and
defeat. Greece and Rome were enveloped in a system of superstition
which weighed heavily upon the actions of public and private life.
The Jews lived beyond the pale of that ignominy. The causes of this
intellectual and moral superiority became the subject of jealous
depreciation generally."

* * * * *

The essential spirit of the Jewish polity has seldom, if ever, been more effectively portrayed than by REV. DR. HENRY M. FIELD, in his scholarly work, _On the Desert_, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1883. It deals with the system of law instituted by Moses, which became ingrained in the Jewish people through long centuries of victorious contention against barbarism in all its historic forms, and which remains to-day the guiding principle of Jewish life in all the relations of man to man.

We quote from Dr. Field's work as follows:

THEOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

"Perhaps it does not often occur to readers of the Old Testament
that there is much likeness between the Hebrew Commonwealth and the
American Republic. There are more differences than resemblances, at
least the differences are more marked. Governments change with time
and place, with the age and the country, with manners and customs;
yet at the bottom there is one radical principle that divides a
republic from a monarchy or an aristocracy; it is the natural
equality of men--that "all men are born free and equal"--which is
as fully recognized in the laws of Moses as in the Declaration of
Independence. Indeed the principle is carried further in the Hebrew
Commonwealth than in ours; for not only was there equality before
the laws, but the laws aimed to produce equality of condition in
one point, and that a vital one--the tenure of land--of which even
the poorest could not be deprived, so that in this respect the
Hebrew Commonwealth approached more nearly to a pure democracy.

"Of course the political rights of the people did not extend to the
choice of a ruler, nor did it to the making of the laws. As there
was no king but God, it was the theory of the State that the laws
emanated directly from the Almighty and his commands could not be
submitted to a vote. No clamorous populace debated with the Deity.
The Israelites had only to hear and to obey. In this sense the
government was not a popular, but an absolute one.

"But how could absolutism be consistent with equality? There is
no contradiction between the two, and indeed, in some respects,
no form of government is so favorable to equality as a theocracy.
Encroachments upon popular liberty and the oppression of the
people do not come from the head of the State so often as from
an aristocratic class which is arrogant and tyrannical. But in a
theocracy the very exaltation of the Sovereign places all subjects
on the same level. God alone is great and in His presence there is
no place for human pride. Divine Majesty overawes human littleness,
and instead of a favored few being lifted up above their fellows,
there is a general feeling of lowliness and humility, in the sight
of God, in which lies the very spirit and essence of equality.

"As the Hebrew law recognized no natural distinctions among
the people, neither did it create any artificial distinctions.
There was no hereditary class which had special rights; there
was no nobility exempted from burdens laid on the poor, and from
punishments inflicted on the peasantry. Whatever political power
was permitted to the Hebrews belonged to the people as a whole.
No man was raised above another; and if in the making of the laws
the people had no voice, yet in the administration of them they had
full power, for they elected their own rulers.

"Moses found soon after he left Egypt that he could not administer
justice in person to a whole nation, so he directed the tribes to
choose out of their number their wisest men, whom he would make
judges to decide every common cause, reserving to himself only the
more important questions. Here was a system of popular elections,
which is one of the first elements of a republican or democratic
state.

"In the administration of justice a Theocracy is an ideal
government, for it is Divinity enthroned on earth as in Heaven,
and no other form of government enforces justice in a manner so
absolute and peremptory. In the eyes of the Hebrew lawgiver the
civil tribunal was as sacred as the Holy of Holies. The office
of the judge was as truly authorized, and his duty as solemnly
enjoined, as that of the priest. The judgment is God's, said Moses,
and he who gave a false judgment disregarded the authority of Him
whose nature is justice and truth. The judgment seat was a holy
place, which no private malice might profane. Evidence was received
with religious care. Oaths were administered to give solemnity to
the testimony. Then the Judge, standing in the place of God, was to
pronounce equitably, whatever might be the rank of the contending
parties. 'Ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall
hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of
the face of man, for the judgment is God's.' He recognized no
distinctions, all were alike to him. The judge was to know no
difference. He was not to be biased even by sympathy for the poor.
'Neither shall thou countenance a poor man in his cause. Thou
shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of
the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.'
Magistrates were not allowed to accept a gift; 'for the gift
blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.'

"The humanity of the Hebrew code is further seen in its mitigation
of slavery. This was a legal institution of Egypt, out of which
they had just come. They themselves had been slaves. Their
ancestors, the patriarchs, had held slaves. Abraham had over
three hundred servants born in his house. The relation of master
and slave they still recognized, but by how many limitations was
this state of bondage alleviated! No man could be subjected to
slavery by violence. Man-stealing was punished with death. The
more common causes of servitude was theft or debt. A robber might
be sold to expiate his crime, or a man overwhelmed with debt might
sell himself to pay it; that is, he might bind himself to service
for a term of years: still he could hold property, and the moment
he acquired the means might purchase back his freedom, or he
might be redeemed by his nearest kinsman. If his master treat him
with cruelty; if he beat him so as to cause injury the servant
recovered his freedom as indemnity. At the longest his servitude
came to an end in six years. He then recovered his freedom as a
natural gift; 'If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall
serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.' A
Hebrew slave was therefore merely a laborer hired for six years.
Nor did the law permit the servant to go forth in naked poverty,
and with the abject feeling of a slave still clinging to him. He
was to be loaded with presents by his late master--sheep, oil,
fruits, and wine--to enable him to begin housekeeping. Thus for
a Hebrew there was no such thing as hopeless bondage. The people
were not to feel the degradation of being slaves. God claimed them
as his own, and as such they were not to be made bondmen. Every
fiftieth year was a jubilee, a year of universal emancipation.
Then 'liberty was proclaimed throughout all the land to all the
inhabitants thereof.' This was the time of the restitution of all
things. Though a man had sold himself as a slave, his right in the
land was not alienated. It now returned to him free of encumbrance.
At the year of jubilee all debts were extinguished. His native
plot of ground, on which he played in childhood, was restored to
him in his old age. Again he cultivated the paternal acres. He was
not only a free man but a holder of property. Says Michaelis: 'The
condition of slaves among the Hebrews was not merely tolerable, but
often extremely comfortable.'

"That the sympathies of the law were with the oppressed appears
from the singular injunction that a foreign slave who fled to
a Hebrew for protection should not be given up: 'Thou shalt
not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from
his master unto thee.' No Fugitive Slave Law remanded the
terror-stricken fugitive to an angry and infuriated master and to a
condition more hopeless than before.

Such was the democracy of Theocracy--a union in which one sprang
out of the other. Men were equal because God was their Ruler--a
Ruler so high that before him there was neither great nor small,
but all stood on the same level. But the Hebrew Law did not stop
with equality; it inculcated fraternity. A man was not only
a man, he was a brother. That law contains some of the most
beautiful provisions ever recorded in any legislation, not only
for the cold administration of justice, but for the exercise of
humanity. The spirit of the Hebrew law was broader than race,
or country, or kindred. What liberality, for example, in its
treatment of foreigners. Against race hatred Moses set up this
command, 'Thou shalt not oppress a stranger,' which he enforced
upon the Israelites by the touching remembrance of their own bitter
experience, 'for ye know the heart of a stranger seeing ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt.' But not only were foreigners to be
tolerated; they were to receive the fullest protection. 'Ye shall
have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for one of your
own country.'

"In several requirements we discern a pity for the brute creation.
Long before modern refinement of feeling organized societies for
the prevention of cruelty to animals, Moses recognized dumb beasts
as having a claim to be defended from injury. Birds' nests were
protected from wanton destruction.

"But perhaps the most beautiful provision of the law was for the
poor.

"'When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap
the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings
of thy harvests. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither
shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt have them
for the poor and the stranger.' If the reaper dropped a sheaf in
the field, he might not return to take it. Whatever olives hung
on the bough, or clusters on the vine, after the first gathering,
were the property of the stranger, the fatherless and the widow.
Under the shelter of this law came many a Ruth, gleaning the
handfuls of golden corn to carry home to her mother, who was thus
saved from utter destitution. By these means the law kept the poor
from sinking to the extreme point of misery. At the same time, by
throwing in their path these wayside gifts, it saved them from
theft or vagabondage. As a proof of its successful operation, it is
a curious fact that, in the five books of Moses, such a class as
beggars is not once mentioned. The tradition of caring for those of
their own kindred, remains to this day and it is an honorable boast
that among the swarms of beggars that throng the streets of the Old
World or the New, one almost never finds a Jew.

"The law took also under its care all whom death had deprived
of their natural protectors; 'Ye shall not afflict any widow or
fatherless child.' They were sacred by misfortune. God would punish
cruelty to them. 'If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry
unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and your wives shall be
widows and your children fatherless.'

"Thus the Hebrew law took the poor and the weak under its special
protection; death, sorrow, widowhood, orphanage, all threw a shield
of protection over the desolate and the unhappy. By this spirit of
humanity infused into the relations of life, all the members of a
community--the rich and poor, the strong and the weak--were united
in fellowship and fraternity. One sacred tie bound them still
closer; not only were they of the same race and nation, but they
had the same religious inheritance; all were fellow-citizens with
the saints and of the household of God."

* * * * *

As a supplement to Dr. Field's effective presentation of his subject we add here, an extract from the _Christian Union_, on "Moses and his Laws," by HARRIET BEECHER STOWE:

"The strongest impulse in the character of Moses appears to have
been that of protective justice, more particularly with regard
to the helpless and down-trodden classes. The laws of Moses, if
carefully examined, are a perfect phenomenon; an exception to the
laws of either ancient or modern nations in the care they exercised
over women, widows, orphans, paupers, foreigners, servants and dumb
animals. No so-called Christian nation but could advantageously
take a lesson in legislation from the laws of Moses. There is a
plaintive, pathetic spirit of compassion in the very language
in which the laws in favor of the helpless and suffering are
expressed, that it seems must have been learned only of superhuman
tenderness. Not the gentlest words of Jesus are more compassionate
in their spirit than many of these laws of Moses. Delivered in the
name of Jehovah, they certainly are so unlike the wisdom of that
barbarous age as to justify of them to Him who is Love."

* * * * *

Another woman of commanding authority, GEORGE ELLIOT, speaks on this topic as follows:

"Unquestionably the Jews, having been more than any other race
exposed to the adverse moral influences of alienism, must, both in
individuals and in groups, have suffered some corresponding moral
degradation; but in fact they have escaped with less abjectness,
and less of hard hostility toward the nations whose hands have
been against them, than could have happened in the case of a
people who had neither their adhesion to a separate religion
founded on historic memories, nor their characteristic family
affectionateness. Tortured, flogged, spit upon, the _corpus vile_
on which rage or wantonness vented themselves with impunity, their
name flung at them as an opprobrium by superstition, hatred, and
contempt, they have remained proud of their origin. Does any one
call this an evil pride? The pride which identifies us with a great
historic body is a humanizing, elevating habit of mind, inspiring
sacrifices of individual comfort, gain, or other selfish ambition,
for the sake of that ideal whole; and no man swayed by such a
sentiment can become completely abject. That a Jew of Smyrna,
where a whip is carried by passengers ready to flog off the too
officious specimens of his race, can still be proud to say, 'I am
a Jew,' is surely a fact to awaken admiration in a mind capable of
understanding what we may call the ideal forces in human history.

"And again, a varied, impartial observation of the Jews in
different countries tends to the impression that they have a
predominant kindness, which must have been deeply ingrained in
the constitution of their race to have overlasted the ages of
persecution and oppression. The concentration of their joys in
domestic life has kept up in them the capacity of tenderness; the
pity for the fatherless and the widow, the care for the women and
the little ones, blent intimately with their religion, is a well of
mercy, that cannot long or widely be pent up by exclusiveness, and
the kindness of the Jew overflows the line of division between him
and the Gentile.

"On the whole, one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history
of this scattered people, made for ages 'a scorn and a hissing,' is
that, after being subjected to this process, which might have been
expected to be in every sense deteriorating and vitiating, they
have come out of it (in any estimate which allows for numerical
proportion) rivaling the nations of all European countries, in
healthiness and beauty of physique, in practical ability, in
scientific and artistic aptitude, and in some forms of ethical
value. A significant indication of their natural rank is seen in
the fact, that at this moment the leader of the Liberal party in
Germany is a Jew, the leader of the Republican party in France is a
Jew, and the head of the conservative ministry in England is a Jew."

* * * * *

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULEY (afterwards Lord Macauley) delivered a celebrated oration in the British House of Commons on April 17, 1833, in support of the bill for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews. After a destructive criticism of the arguments and reasons which were then being advanced by the opponents of liberalism, arguments which have since then been so completely outlived as to be no longer, in any Anglo-Saxon community, deemed worthy of consideration, the great statesman concluded his masterly presentation in a lucid statement and eloquent peroration, as follows:

"Whatever the sect be which it is proposed to tolerate, the
peculiarities of that sect will, for the time, be pronounced by
intolerant men to be the most odious and dangerous that can be
conceived. As to the Jews, that they are unsocial as respects
religion is true; and so much the better; for surely, as
Christians, we cannot wish that they should bestir themselves to
pervert us from our own faith.

"But that the Jews would be unsocial members of the civil
community, if the civil community did its duty by them, has never
been proved. My right honorable friend who made the motion which we
are discussing has produced a great body of evidence to show that
they have been grossly misrepresented; and that evidence has not
been refuted by my honorable friend, the member for the University
of Oxford.

"But what if it were true that the Jews are unsocial? What if it
were true that they do not regard England as their country? Would
not the treatment which they have undergone explain and excuse
their antipathy to the society in which they live? Has not similar
antipathy often been felt by persecuted Christians to the society
which persecuted them?

"While the bloody code of Elizabeth was enforced against the
English Roman Catholics, what was the patriotism of Roman
Catholics? Oliver Cromwell said that in his time they were
Espaniolized. At a later period it might have been said that
they were Gallicised. It was the same with the Calvinists. What
more deadly enemies had France in the day of Louis XIV, than the
persecuted Huguenots?

"But would any rational man infer from these facts that either the
Roman Catholic as such, or the Calvinist as such, is incapable
of loving the land of his birth? If England were now invaded by
Roman Catholics, how many English Roman Catholics would go over to
the invader? If France were now attacked by a Protestant enemy,
how many French Protestants would lend him help? Why not try what
effect would be produced on the Jews by that tolerant policy which
has made the English Roman Catholic a good Englishman and the
French Calvinist a good Frenchman?

"Another charge has been brought against the Jews, not by my
honorable friend, the member for the University of Oxford--he
has too much learning and too much good feeling to make such a
charge--but by the honorable member for Oldham, who has, I am sorry
to see, quitted his place.

"The honorable member for Oldham tells us that the Jews are
naturally a mean race, a money-getting race; that they are averse
to all honorable callings; that they neither sow nor reap; that
they have neither flocks nor herds; that usury is the only pursuit
for which they are fit; that they are destitute of all elevated and
amiable sentiments.

"Such, sir, has in every age been the reasoning of bigots. They
never fail to plead in justification of persecution the vices which
persecution has engendered. England has been, legally, a home to
the Jews less than half a century, and we revile them because they
do not feel for England more than a half patriotism.

"We treat them as slaves, and wonder that they do not regard us as
brethren. We drive them to mean occupations, and then reproach them
for not embracing honorable professions. We long forbade them to
possess land, and we complain that they chiefly occupy themselves
in trade. We shut them out from all the paths of ambition, and then
we despise them for taking refuge in avarice.

"During many ages we have, in all our dealings with them, abused
our immense superiority of force, and then we are disgusted
because they have recourse to that cunning which is the natural
and universal defense of the weak against the violence of the
strong. But were they always a mere money-changing, money-getting,
money-hoarding race? Nobody knows better than my honorable friend,
the member for the University of Oxford, that there is nothing in
their national character which unfits them for the highest duties
of citizens.

"He knows that, in the infancy of civilization, when our island was
as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were still unknown
to Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what was afterward
the site of Rome, this contemned people had their fenced cities
and cedar palaces, their splendid temple, their fleets of merchant
ships, their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen and
soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians and their
poets.

"What nation ever contended more manfully against overwhelming
odds for its independence and religion? What nation ever, in its
last agonies, gave such signal proofs of what may be accomplished
by a brave despair? And if, in the course of many centuries, the
depressed descendants of warriors and sages have degenerated
from the qualities of their fathers, if, while excluded from the
blessings of law and bowed down under the yoke of slavery, they
have contracted some of the vices of outlaws and slaves, shall we
consider this as a matter of reproach to them?

"Shall we not rather consider it as a matter of shame and remorse
to ourselves? Let us do justice to them. Let us open to them the
door of the House of Commons. Let us open to them every career
in which ability and energy can be displayed. Till we have done
this, let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the
countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the
Maccabees.

"Sir, in supporting the motion of my honorable friend, I am, I
firmly believe, supporting the honor and the interest of the
Christian religion. I should think that I insulted that religion
if I said that it cannot stand unaided by intolerant laws. Without
such laws it was established, and without such laws it may be
maintained.

"It triumphed over the superstitions of the most refined and of
the most savage nations, over the graceful mythology of Greece and
the bloody idolatry of the northern forests. It prevailed over
the power and policy of the Roman Empire. It tamed the barbarians
by whom that empire was overthrown. But all these victories were
gained, not by the help of intolerance, but in spite of the
opposition of intolerance.

"The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little
indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from
persecution as an ally. May she long continue to bless our country
with her benignant influence, strong in her sublime philosophy,
strong in her spotless morality, strong in those internal and
external evidences to which the most powerful and comprehensive of
human intellects have yielded assent, the last solace of those who
have outlived every earthly hope, the last restraint of those who
are raised above every earthly fear!

"But let us not, mistaking her character and her interests, fight
the battle of truth with the weapons of error, and endeavor to
support by oppression that religion which first taught the human
race the great lesson of universal charity."

* * * * *

Here is an utterance on this subject by OTTO VON BISMARCK. This man, whose iron hand puddled the smelt of the furnace wherein, with fire and blood, the German people were fused into political unity, was--or rather, is, for he is yet living, and will long remain a power--this man is no friend of the Jews. His spirit crystallized, and his nature drew its inspiration out of the time when "_Polen, Juden und Franzosen_" were a trinity of bugbears for the worshippers of royal divinity in Europe. Bismarck never fully recovered from that nightmare of his youth and early manhood, but he towered above his fellows, and he had the faculty of perceiving the truth and a habit of telling it which, notwithstanding his diplomatic training, he was wont to indulge. In a notable debate in the Prussian Landtag during the session of 1871, he expressed himself as follows:

"In my position as President of the Ministry I must repudiate any
obligation to fill the places in the civil service with Roman
Catholics according to their proportionate number in the population
of the country.... The existence of a distinctively religious body
in a political assembly is in itself a monstrous phenomenon....
This tends to make religion the subject of parliamentary
debates.... I adhere to the principle that every religion should
be allowed perfect freedom, without considering it, for that
reason, necessary that it should be represented in the executive
departments in the same ratio as in the population. Every religious
body would have as much right as the Catholics to claim this; the
Lutherans as well as the Jews, and _I have found that it is the
latter particularly who are most distinguished by their special
intelligence and capacity for administrative functions_."

* * * * *

As an estimate of Jewish citizenship by a man whose life experience has afforded him a rare insight into social and political conditions on both sides of the Atlantic, we quote the following expression by CARL SCHURZ, on the occasion of the dedication of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, in New York City:

"Honor to the men and women who have accomplished this and who are
bound to accomplish still more. They do honor to the community
which calls them its own; for any community, whatever its
pretensions, will be honored by citizens who take so high a view of
their duties to humanity.

"And who are these citizens? They are Jews. This is not the only
monument the Jews of New York have planted to their benevolence
and public spirit. There are others--some even far exceeding this
in costliness and grandeur. But none--none of their own and none
instituted by any other class of citizens excels it, nay, perhaps
none equals it in beauty of sentiment and devotion. And for whom is
this done? Hear the noble words of the President of the Society as
found in last year's report: 'As Israelites we are compelled, both
by circumstances and inclination, to provide for the needy of our
own faith; but this must not induce us to exclude any human being
because of his religious belief from the benefit of an institution
charged with the improvement of bodily ailment.' Thus it is done
for the brotherhood of men. This is the true spirit, worthy of
him whose name this edifice bears. It is the spirit, too, which
more than any other, has created the brightest, the most stainless
glories of our great American Republic--the spirit which, without
any governmental action, out of the spontaneous initiative of the
patriotic citizen, through private munificence, through individual
solicitude for the welfare of all, has covered this land all over
with educational institutions and enterprises of benevolence. In
our school days we read of the Roman matron Cornelia, who, when
other noble ladies exhibited to her their stores of pearls and
precious stones, called in her children, and pointing to them,
said: 'These are my jewels.' So when the Old World shows to us the
magnificence of its baronial halls and royal castles, the American
Republic may point to her colleges and hospitals and asylums
founded by the patriotic generosity of simple citizens, and say,
'These are my palaces.'

"And to entitle the American people to this proud distinction,
the Jews have done as much as any other class of citizens--nay, I
may repeat in their presence what I have frequently said in the
presence of others--the Jews have, in proportion to their numbers,
done far more. I repeat this with all the greater willingness, as
I have recently had occasion to observe the motive springs, the
character and the aims of the so-called "anti-Semitic" movement, a
movement whose dark spirit of fanaticism and persecution insults
the humane enlightenment of the 19th century; whose appeals are
addressed to the stupidest prejudice and the blindest passion,
whose injustice affronts every sense of fairness and decency and
whose cowardice--for cowardice is an essential element in the
attempt to suppress the competing energies of a mere handful of
people--whose cowardice I say, should provoke the contempt of every
self-respecting man.

"In the face of this movement, which for years has stirred some
European countries, and thrown its shadows even across the ocean,
upon our shores, it is most grateful to the human heart to hear
the President of the Montefiore Home say, that while this roof
is to shelter the neediest of Israel, no human being because of
his religious belief shall be excluded from its protection. He
might take the clamorous anti-Semitic by the hand, show him the
hospitals, orphans homes, charity schools, founded and sustained
by Jewish money, Jewish labor, Jewish public spirit, benevolence
and devotion and say to him: 'If you have any sick, any aged,
any children who cannot find help elsewhere, here we shall have
room for them, and they are welcome.' What has the anti-Semite to
answer? No, no, that movement cannot survive. It must perish in
shame. It will be consigned to an ignominious grave by the generous
impulses of human nature and the civilization of this age. And what
will remain will be the beneficent influence and the sweet memory
of such good actions as yours, and the brotherhood of mankind."

* * * * *

On the same occasion as that noted above, the opening of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, HON. ABRAM S. HEWITT, Mayor of New York City, spoke as follows:

"No other people, so far as I have observed, no sect or
denomination or party have done so much as the Jews, to relieve
distress, give education and elevate the standard of morality
in our midst, and I make that statement after a good deal of
observation and attention, particularly that part of it concerning
the subject of education.

"I have never found the Jews lacking in public spirit. It is said
of them that they have the art of getting wealth. If but a part
of what is said of them be true, they understand well the use of
wealth when once acquired. They are found among the first admirers
of art, they love music and have since the daughters of Judah hung
their harps on the willows by the waters of Babylon.

"This charity is unique, and it is a link in the chain of Jewish
institutions. So long as there are calls by suffering humanity, the
Jews will year by year add new links to their beautiful chain until
it embraces every need of society regardless of race and religion.

"I have read at the door as I entered, that the Israelites erected
this building to the chronic sick in honor of Moses Montefiore, a
Jew, who for nearly a hundred years set an example to other people
and creeds of a broad charity that affects all people and all lands.

"This institution was one long wanted in New York for a class
for whom there is no hope save such offered by the poor-house
or Blackwell's Island. They were here given instead a home in
which love reigned and religion presided, religion which opened
the portals of the other world where all must go, rich and poor,
Jew and Christian, where reigns the Heavenly Father whose chosen
people have proven steadfast amid all oppression and persecution,
and who has so long preserved them, but who nevertheless knows no
difference between His children."

* * * * *

From a deeply thoughtful address before the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Philadelphia, by JUDGE F. CARROLL BREWSTER, on the Valley of Baca as referred to in Psalm lxxxiv, we quote the following as the expression of a Nestor among jurists:

"Perhaps, then, the very dreariness of this barren place was
intended as a prophecy of the woes which God's chosen people should
encounter on their march through the history of many ages. And the
water to be found in the midst of this desolation might prefigure
the refreshing deliverance which the centuries were to bring. Of
bitterness and of persecution, of suffering beyond man's power
to describe, of its depth, of all that is sad and sorrowful, the
history of the Jewish nation bears tearful testimony. The student
has two marvels, as he turns these weary pages of the very monotony
of cruelty. He wonders how the ferocity of man could ever enact
this horrible tragedy, and then he wonders how the race survived.

"It would be a vain and painful task to recite here the thousandth
part of what history tells us, and it is certain that history does
not, in this case as in many others, falsify the facts. These
narratives were all written by the actors who took a horrid pride
in recounting their own infamy. The man who has but a moderate
installment of feeling in his breast must cry out with indignation
as he reads of these outrages. To the jurist they are especially
repugnant, for they tell not only of the slaughter of human beings,
but of the murder of justice."

* * * * *

The following is from the pen of GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, the life-long editor of "Harper's Weekly" and "Harper's Magazine." As a prominent actor in the stirring events of his generation he has left a marked impress on our national life, but great as was his influence in the councils of the nation he was yet best known to the large mass of the American people as the genial, persuasive writer of the "Easy Chair" in the magazine which he so ably edited. The extract which we print is from that department of Harper's Magazine, where it appeared in July, 1877, vol. 55, p. 300.

WHAT WE OWE TO THE JEWS.

"One beautiful June evening in Paris the 'Easy Chair' strolled
with a friend into a café on the Boulevard. They had been to hear
'Robert le Diable' at the French Opera, and gaily humming and
gossiping they sat upon the broad walk that was still thronged on
the still summer night. Presently a dark-haired man came quietly
along and seated himself at a table near by. He was alone, and
seemed not to care for recognition. He was simply dressed and was
entirely unnoticeable except for the strong Jewish lines of his
intellectual face. The 'Easy Chair's' companion whispered, 'That
is the man to whom we owe the delight of this evening; that is
Meyerbeer.' After a little while he added with feeling, 'How much
we owe to the Jews and how mean Christendom is!'

"It was remarkable how much of the conspicuous work and influence
on that evening was due to the genius of a people whose name is
so constantly used as a word of reproach. A few months before,
Mendelssohn had been buried in Leipsic, and in Berlin the 'Easy
Chair' had heard the memorial concert of his music at the
Sing-Akademie. Rossini was still living, and Verdi was writing
operas, but Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were the recognized masters
of music. The evening before, the 'Easy Chair' had seen the Jewess
Rachel in 'Phedre'--the one woman who contests the laurel with
Mrs. Siddons, and who was then the great living actress. Beyond
the channel, Disraeli, the child of Spanish Jews, was just about
to kiss hands as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to become the
political leader of the British Tories. In the vast city in which
they were sitting, the 'Easy Chair' knew that the Jewish Heine
was living, breathing his weird and melancholy song, while in
Paris and London and Frankfort and Vienna the great masters of
the mainspring of industrial activity, the capitalists, who held
peace and war in their hands, and by whose favor kings ruled, were
Jews. The philosophy, the arts, the industry, the politics of
Christendom were full of the Jewish genius, the gayety of nations,
the delight of scholars, the scepters of princes, the movements of
civilization, hung in great degree upon it. It is as true to-day
as in that long summer night, and the words of the 'Easy Chair's'
friend are still as shamefully true. 'How mean Christendom is!'

"Recently in New York an estimable and accomplished gentleman
was rejected as a member of the Bar Association 'for no other
reason that can be conceived,' indignantly said one of the leading
members, 'except that he was a Jew.' Doubtless a few votes would
procure the rejection. But the Association is not a social club,
and presumptively a man who is an honorable member of the Bar is
a fit member of the Association. The few hostile votes, however,
represent the prejudice. It is very old and very universal. To the
audience of to-day there is nothing in Shakespeare more vital and
intelligible than the fervent appeal of 'Shylock' to the common
humanity of the world around him. The Jew is still separate, and
the prejudice which has pursued him for generations is but slightly
relaxed. The lines of demarcation are fine. They are often almost
invisible. But they are deep, and apparently absolute. It is one
of the most common and most tenacious of the objections to 'Daniel
Deronda' that it deals with Jews and Jewish life and character.
The fact is sometimes almost resented as an offence to the mass of
readers. Even in 'Ivanhoe,' although torrents of Christian tears
have flowed over the closing pages, where the noble and beautiful
'Rebecca' asks to see the face of the fair 'Rowena,' yet such
is the fell and weird outlaw of the Jew from general sympathy,
that the catastrophe seems to be an inevitable fate. There is no
doubt that this prejudice is as cruel in its effects as it is
unreasonable in its origin....