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 THE MESSAGE OF 
 THE HOUR 
 
 FOUR SERMONS 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE NEW YEAR'S DAY, AND 
 THE DAY OF ATONEMENT, 5651-1890. 
 
 BY 
 
 ISAAC S. MOSES, 
 
 RABBI OF CONGREGATION ANSHE MAARAB. 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL.: 
 
 E. RUBOVITS & BRO., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1890.
 
 THE MESSAGE OF THE HOUR 
 
 FOUR SERMONS 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE NEW YEARS' DAY, AND 
 THE DAY OF ATONEMENT, 5651-189O. 
 
 BY 
 
 ISAAC S. MOSES, 
 
 RABBI OF CONGREGATION ANSHE MAARAB. 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 E. RUBOVITS & BRO., PUBLISHERS. 
 189O.
 
 Stack 
 
 Annex 
 
 1 
 
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 THE MESSAGE OF THE HOUR. 
 
 SERMON FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 Text: Malachi Hi. 22, 24. ''Behold I send unto you Elijah, the prophet, and he shall turn the 
 heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart, of the children to Ihd fathers." 
 
 I Kings, Chap, xvii, i. " And Elijah the Tishbite, -who was of the inhabitants of 
 Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Eternal the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, 
 there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. 
 
 Silently and noiselessly it has come and gone, the year just past, 
 and with sudden step the young giant, the new year, enters upon the 
 threshold of time, like that gaunt figure of old, who, as we read in 
 ancient lore, often unexpected and unbidden appeared before the king 
 and the people, exhorting, rebuking, threatening, but also advising and 
 encouraging. It is the towering, heroic figure of the Thesbian prophet, 
 Elijah, on whose brow the grateful memory of popular tradition has 
 placed a crown of immortal glory, sparkling with the gems of myth and 
 miracle, of song and story, of national ambition and lofty ideals, of 
 undaunted courage and grim victory; of remorse, weariness and despair; 
 of reawakened hope and undying faith in the final triumph of truth and 
 right. The burden of that prophetic messenger is also the message of 
 this hour, commissioned by the time-hallowed law of Israel to marshall us 
 into unknown fields, to lead us upon the untrodden paths of the future. 
 
 What is the import of that message? Is it one of gladness and 
 good tidings, or of threatening fear and gloomy forebodings? Will the 
 heavens of our future, now veiled by the sombre clouds of anxiety, open 
 for us the treasures of life, distilling the dew of joy upon our pleasures, 
 and showering the rain of fruitfulness upon our undertakings, or does 
 the twilight of this hour hide the haggard features of want and sorrow, 
 to be but too soon revealed in the lurid glare of harsh reality? No, the 
 
 5
 
 prophecy of this hour sounds a sweeter strain, it echoes a more heavenly 
 melody than the wearisome theme of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. 
 Life and death are of God's ordaining; happiness or misfortune often the 
 result of our own doing or misdoing. Should \ve dread the rulings of 
 Infinite Wisdom and Eternal Goodness? Or shall we tremble before the 
 shadows'of our unborn actions? Not our own petty wishes or super- 
 cilious fears, but a higher revelation of love, a divine message of peace is 
 this hour's assuring promise. Not a prediction, but an illumination 
 from within, shall this beginning of a new time be to us, disclosing to 
 the eye of the soul the richer life, the purer joy, the unfading hope, 
 which we in the blinding chase after the transitory goods of this world 
 often fail to see. 
 
 The wisdom of our sages rightly interpreted the true mission of the 
 stern prophet of old, whose name is in later Israel interwoven with 
 every festive occasion and joyous happening. Not to settle by the 
 sword of his authority the partisan strifes and the theological bickerings 
 of the times shall Elijah come again, but only to make peace in the 
 world. Nor are we left in doubt as to the nature of that peace. The 
 last in the line of the inspired Seers of Israel, forecasting the vision of a 
 better humanity, assigns to the austere Gileadite the mission of fore- 
 runner and preparer of the great Judgment Day; but not to punish the 
 estranged as on the day of Carmel.but to unite those who have been sepa- 
 rated, shall be his duty. In the words of Malachi : " To turn the 
 heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to 
 their fathers." Let us, then, listen to the voice speaking to us across 
 the gulf of centuries; and find in the heroic epos of Elijah the sugges- 
 tive themes for the festive meditations on this New Year's Day and the 
 Day of Atonement. 
 
 I. 
 
 "To turn the heart of the fathers to the children." This is the first 
 promise of the prophetic message of this hour. 
 
 i. No one who has any capacity for reading the signs of the times 
 can fail to notice the radical changes which have been and are still going
 
 on in the opinions of men as to their social, moral and religious relation- 
 ships. While every age may be called a time of transition, ours is one 
 of rapid movement and continual surprises. Everywhere the old order is 
 changing, giving way to the new. And the fact cannot be disguised 
 that the tendency of this new order has been, and largely still is, one of 
 destructiveness rather than of reconciliation. This century, now on its 
 wane, was born amidst the clash of arms and the thunder of cannons, 
 announcing in most distinct tones that the reign of despotism was over, 
 and that human right must be re-enthroned. And since that time the 
 nations have been at work re-arranging the distorted relations of men 
 to one another. Tyranny and abject servility are being replaced by 
 popular governments; slavery and serfdom have been swept away by 
 the reign of free labor. Commerce and industry have broken down the 
 barriers that divided men and nations, and have given to the restless 
 activity of man new scope and new direction. But such rapid move- 
 ments cannot go on without unsettling many a firm foundation of the 
 social structure. Fiercer than ever rages the struggle of existence; in- 
 stead of master and slave it is capital and labor wrangling for suprem- 
 acy. Will this death-struggle end in mutual destruction, or is it the 
 forerunner of a better time, a better social order, based not upon the 
 cut-throat competition of unorganized industries, nor upon the unscru- 
 pulous greed of monopolies and trusts, but upon the righteous and 
 peaceful adjustment of human labor and human ingenuity? It is cer- 
 tainly no glory for any one to chuckle over the victory over a number of 
 men liable to be crushed between the cars, or to rejoice over the fabu- 
 lous dividends gladdening the hearts of an idle aristocracy, or feeding 
 a speculative parasitism. To them, and to all like them, who misinterpret 
 the signs of the times, the grim prophet of Israel predicts years of drought 
 and barreness, with no smiling heaven of social peace, refreshing with 
 the dew of happiness the languishing fields of human enterprise. The 
 Messiah of the better time cannot come, says an ancient tradition, until 
 Elijah shall first have brought his message to the world ; and this 
 message is, not to destroy in the bitterness of combat, but to reconcile 
 the Old with the New, to establish social peace on the basis of human 
 dignity, justice and love. 
 
 7
 
 2. And even so, morally, the new time holds diverging tendencies, 
 hiding fatal dangers to the higher life of humanity. The old founda- 
 tions of morality have been undermined by the current of the new 
 science and the spread of an utilitarian theory of ethics changing the van- 
 tange ground of man's motives, duties and responsibilities. Right and 
 wrong, good and evil, have shifted their meaning; the sanctions of time 
 honored institutions are questioned, and the individual is left to drift be- 
 tween the stagnant waters of selfishness and the changing quicksands of 
 public opinion. Can we expect the beauteous flowers of domestic joy 
 and stainless purity, of self-sacrificing love and lofty idealism to grow 
 and blossom in this time of unrest and moral disturbance? Morality is 
 no invention of the speculative genius, to be adjusted to every passing 
 need; virtue is no experimental theory, to be displaced whenever a new 
 formula is offered. This hour emphasizes the stern fact that, from what- 
 ever source our moral nature may be derived whether it be inspira- 
 tion or evolution the law of virtue is an immovable rock, against which 
 the whims, greeds and passions of the individual dash in senseless impo- 
 tence. This firm conviction was the strong foundation of the moral life 
 of our fathers; this the secret of Israel's indestructibility. Not because 
 their minds harbored the larger truth, but because their hearts cherished 
 a purer ideal of domestic sanctity, and their soul was thrilled by the 
 august sense of moral responsibility, could they survive the changes of 
 time and the destructive sweeps of human hatred and persecution. The 
 new morality, making simple pleasure and pain the motives of life, 
 and individual happiness the ultimate ideal, withdraws from man every 
 stay and support, cuts asunder the invisible ties which connect the 
 present with the past and make the living generation the heir to all 
 glories and achievements of by-gone ages. To reconcile the virtue of 
 the past to the wisdom of the present, to turn the heart of the fathers 
 to their children, is the meaning of the prophetic message of this hour. 
 There is no other cure for the ills and woes of modern life, but in the 
 moral rejuvenation of the home, that fostering place of all virtue, nobility 
 of character and lofty aspirations. 
 
 Fathers and mothers, who to-night pray for the life and happiness
 
 of your children, a holier charge is laid on your soul than all fervid sup- 
 plications; see to it that the sanctuaries of your hearts are wide open 
 to the moral needs of your sons and daughters; that in you and through 
 you they may learn to revere the higher sanctities, and to love the 
 purer joys that lie in the obedience to the moral law. There are no two 
 editions of ethics, one for you, another for your children one for the old, 
 another for the new generation. It has always been the pride of Israel 
 that a richer feeling of inter-dependence, a deeper sense of love, rev- 
 erence and gratitude, mark our parental and filial relations. Let this 
 hour be one of holy reunion of hearts that may have grown callous and 
 indifferent; let noble resolves for each other's true welfare crown this 
 natal hour of the year ; let the sacred ties of family affection hold in 
 sweet embrace those who need each other's love and friendship for 
 strength and for guidance to a better, a happier life. 
 
 3. And more than that. Let this hour also be a reunion of minds, 
 reconciling the faith of the fathers with the faith of the children. It can 
 not be denied that a fatal split runs through all the issues of our spirit- 
 ual life, that the edifice of religion is cracked to its very foundations. 
 The new spirit of inquiry and criticism has questioned the authority by 
 which religion claims its title of leadership; it has examined the records 
 and declared them to be human fabrications, instead of divine, infallible 
 truth; it has consigned the Biblical version of creation, of man's origin 
 and early history, to the curiosity chamber of childish guesses and con- 
 fused notions of the dawning intellect; it has scaled the heavens and 
 pushed the old firmament into infinite space and caused the splendor of 
 the celestial court to fade before the brightness of human reason. 
 
 To the influence of such changes in the intellectual position of man- 
 kind, the Jewish mind is as amenable as the mind of any other class of 
 people, nay, it is perhaps more disposed to be affected by them than 
 others; for.aside from these general currents of modern thought, our career 
 is beset by special historical and racial difficulties. The older genera- 
 tion, though they may, perhaps, in theory profess the contrary, still 
 hold fast to a form of faith which the younger have outgrown; they still 
 cling to notions of special selection and inherent excellence of descent,
 
 which those, cradled in the sunlight of a universal humanity, cannot 
 share, can hardly understand; they still look back upon the glory of the 
 past as the one and chiefest end of Israel's mission, instead of listening 
 to the pulse-beat of modern time, and making the inspiration of the past 
 the throbbing life-blood of the present day and a prophecy of still greater 
 glory yet to come. No wonder that the fresher life and the unspent 
 vigor of our young are not attracted by the spiritual stagnation of Juda- 
 ism. Deplore as we may this intellectual disunion, we cannot turn 
 back the advancing tide; we cannot reduce the larger thought, the wider 
 sweep of the new time to the narrower circle and the retrospective 
 vision of the older generation. If the new year and the new time is to 
 bring new intellectual life and health, spiritual activity into the religious 
 system of Israel, then this hour must be the harbinger of the spirit of 
 Elijah, the spirit of a higher faith, that will turn the heart of the fathers 
 to their children, and teach them the divine duty of love, which con- 
 quers while it yields. Let not, by our indifference or stubborness, the 
 heaven of true religion be closed over the hearts of our sons and daugh- 
 ters, so that no' refreshing dew of faith and reverence, and no quicken- 
 ing rain of hope and spiritual guidance, descend upon their languishing 
 souls; but let this hour be the beginning of a richer, deeper, higher life, 
 blending the poetry of the past with the music of the present, reconcil- 
 ing the imperishable truths from of old with the larger thought of to- 
 day; turning, indeed, the heart of the fathers to their children. 
 
 II. 
 
 But this twilight hour is charged with still greater significance; it 
 shall also "turn the heart of the children to their fathers." 
 
 i. That this age is in advance of all former ages in social prob- 
 lems, moral endeavors and intellectual achievements, is simply because 
 all those ages of toil and sorrow have preceded it; because all the genera- 
 tions past have been stepping-stones to the present; their wisdom and 
 their follies, their truths and their errors, their loves and their hatreds, 
 have nurtured the soil for the luxuriant growth of modern civilization. 
 
 10
 
 We are children of the past. As our features have semblance to those 
 from whom bodily we are descended, so all our institutions, systems and 
 methods, are the direct continuations of the life-long labor of untold gen- 
 erations; and history is but revelation of the continually unfolding and 
 developing humanity; and time a mirror, reflecting both the grosser and 
 finer features, the light and the shade of the same picture of life. 
 
 2. He, therefore, who is impatient with the present and would 
 build for the future, must learn to look with reverence upon the past, 
 and humbly listen to the voice speaking through events and succes- 
 sions, through systems and methods, which have inspired, propelled, 
 strengthened and guided the patient toilers of the past. In architecture 
 and art, in rhetoric and philosophy, in law and administration, we are 
 still the disciples of the great Masters of old; should we not draw inspi- 
 ration and encouragement also from the treasury of those thoughts and 
 experiences which reveal the higher and holier life of man ? Have our 
 fathers lived in vain, thought in vain, suffered in vain, and built up the 
 great structures of moral and spiritual humanity in vain, for their child- 
 ren's children? If the advance of knowledge and the widening of our 
 perspective enable us to see that much which they cherished is illusory, 
 can we dispense with the deeper experience and the clearer insight of 
 their prophetic souls, giving to mankind its true position, its dignity, 
 its goal? And if, in the persons of our own fathers and mothers, we see 
 living representatives of that faithfulness and trust, that loving obedi- 
 ence to the higher law and devotion to a divine idea, characterizing the 
 life of Israel, must we not, in a spirit of humanity that is born of greater 
 wisdom, bend in reverence before their faith, enlarging with childlike 
 piety the narrower meaning of their symbols, and reconciling our truth 
 to their truth? 
 
 3. This prophetic appeal to our filial duty finds to-night a respon- 
 sive echo in our hearts. The festival we celebrate is termed in our 
 prayers " Day of Remembrance." 
 
 They to whom God has granted the joy to live in happy commu- 
 nion with their parents, remember with gratitude the treasures of bodily 
 and spiritual blessings they have received from them; and those upon 
 
 ii
 
 whose path has fallen the shadow of death, remember in this hour the 
 loving care, the tender solicitude of the sainted lives that have gone 
 before them. The noble, manly features of father, brother, or husband, 
 the beauteous form of mother, wife, sister, or daughter they are before 
 us now through our tear-bedewed eyes we see them all, and are re- 
 united with them in this hour, welcoming a new year; and in the solemn 
 and grateful memory of their lives, we learn to honor and revere their 
 faith and renew our allegiance to the God of our fathers. Happy those 
 whom their sorrows have made richer in soul; they who sow in tears, in 
 joy shall they reap. Thrice happy those who are privileged to look 
 into the eyes of their beloved ones and there read the meaning of their 
 wishes and hopes, trust and prayers. For them this hour holds a 
 sweeter promise than immunity from sorrow and pain; it comes to ful- 
 fil the prophetic mission "to turn the heart of the children to their 
 fathers." 
 
 Thus we greet thee, with cheerful trust, new-born Year, prophet 
 of a new time! Thy features forebode no evil tidings; thy message is 
 one of peace, thy promise reconciliation. Over and above the confused 
 noises of struggling mankind we hear the triumphant song of human 
 right and human love, and our eyes behold the lovely forms of Purity 
 and Happiness, Wisdom and Faith, rising in ever clearer outlines on 
 the heaven of humanity. Yea, that promise will be fulfilled; the spirit 
 of Elijah will come again, and, as in this solemn hour, so in all issues and 
 conflicts of life and belief, "he will turn the heart of the fathers to their 
 children and the heart of the children to their fathers!" 
 
 "\Velcome from God, O glad new year! 
 
 Thy paths all yet untrod, 
 But prophecy and promise all 
 
 O' glad new year of God ! " 
 
 AMKN. 
 
 12
 
 THE GIFTS OF LIFE. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S MORNING. 
 
 Text: I Kings, xvii, 2-14. ''And the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Get thee hence, 
 and tiirn thee eastward, and hide thyself in the valley of the Cherith, that is before (or on 
 the east side of) the Jordan. And it shall be, thou shaft drink of the brook; and I have 
 commanded the ravens to feed thee there. And it came to pass at last, that the brook dried 
 up, becattse there had been no heavy rain in the /anal And the -word of the Lord came to 
 him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath (or Sareptd], -which belongeth to Sidon, and 
 dwell there; behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to feed thee. So he arose 
 and 'ivent to Zarephath. And when he came to the entrance of the city, behold, a widow 
 woman was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, 
 a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called 
 to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand. And she said, As 
 the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a pitcher, and a little 
 oil in a cruse; and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me 
 and my- son, that we may eat it and die. And Elijah said to her, Fear not; go and do as 
 thou hast said; but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it out to me, and 
 afterwards make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel, 
 The pitcher of meal shall not be finished, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day 
 that the Lord sendeth heavy rain upon the face of the earth. And she went and did 
 according to the saying of Elijah; and she, and he, and her house, did eat for many days. 
 And the pitcher of meal was not finished, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the 
 word of God, which lie spake by the hand of Elijah. ' ' 
 
 Not while winter's icy breath sweeps over snow-shrouded fields and 
 nature lies motionless as in death-like slumber, but when the earth is 
 teeming with life and the kindly soil rewards with unstinted gifts the 
 patient labor of man, does Israel celebrate with prayer and song the 
 birth of a new year. Life, not death, is the central thought of Israel's 
 faith; life with its joys and cares, its pleasures and sorrows, its toil and 
 peace, all the thousandfold gifts of the changing seasons, is the song of 
 this first day of the new year. We look back upon the time that lies 
 
 13
 
 behind us, and we are astonished at finding it so brief, so fleeting, as if 
 it were but yesterday we entered upon our career. How rapidly do the 
 events and experiences of the past flit across the horizon of our memory! 
 The dim vision of childhood vanishes before the brighter image of early 
 youth and the sunny days of strength and vigor and hope. However 
 rich and eventful our later years may have been, again and again our 
 thoughts revert to that period of our life, when, as we stood amidst the 
 scenery of nature, we thought her beauties of earth and sky were but the 
 frame for the picture of ourselves, and life seemed a flowing stream of 
 plenty, inviting us to fill our cup with its limpid waters and quench our 
 thirst for the unknown pleasures of the world. What strange enchant- 
 ment then hovered over wood and glen, hill and dale ! The very air 
 seemed to breathe happiness and joy, and in the friendly sky we saw 
 floating lustrous clouds, images of our hopes and dreams! And yet, no 
 dreams; for reality was fairer than all fancy could portray. How sweet 
 the delight of increasing knowledge; how proud the feeling of self- 
 acquired possession; how glorious the sense of victory over the first ob- 
 structions on our path! In the struggle of existence we proved our 
 strength, changing the dark, cruel powers of our desires, appetites and 
 wants into beneficent messengers of our will to win for us our daily- 
 bread. As in the quaint poem of Elijah, God commanded the ravens, 
 the most cruel and voracious of winged creatures, to bring to the pro- 
 phet twice daily bread and meat, so in our youth and early manhood, 
 the cruel and destructive forces of nature, and the dark powers of human 
 greed and selfishness, are turned as by divine command into agencies of 
 our sustenance, into means for our welfare. 
 
 But a change comes over the scene of life. The freshness and 
 buoyancy of youth evaporate like a mist, the vigor and energy of 
 early manhood vanish and dry up like a feeble brook in the summer's 
 drouth; the heavens look empty, the earth barren, and the hungry ravens 
 of cruel want and black care are gathering over our heads, or follow 
 our weary footprints, while we wander in quest of food and drink. 
 Thus, life appears to us in the perspective of riper days. A lonely pil- 
 grimage from the happy streams of youth, through the sorrowful disen- 
 
 14
 
 chant men t of manhood, to the emptiness of age and the dreary prospect 
 of the grave. 
 
 But is this vision a correct picture of life? Compressed between 
 the border lines of a few years, is man's existence on earth but a brief 
 dream and a long, weary struggle, to end in death? Is it then worth 
 while to live at all, to continue this pilgrimage to the bitter end? 
 
 The wonderful legend of the ancient Seer of Israel, to whose cheer- 
 ful message of peace we listened yester eve, holds, under the thin dis- 
 guise of story and miracle, the true answer to the questions which this 
 day suggests; and in his blessing to the poor widow at whose door he 
 begged for a refreshing drink of water and a morsel of bread, assuring 
 her that for the sake of that gift the pitcher of meal shall not be 
 finished, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, we hear the divine promise of 
 a higher compensation for life's toil than weariness and death; we read 
 the deeper meaning of this day's lesson of the fleetness of time. As 
 yesterday, in the t\vilight of the natal hour of the new year, the prophet 
 brought to us the first message of peace and reconcilation, so to-day, in 
 the bright sunshine of this morning, he comes to us with his second 
 message of hope and consolation, as never failing- gifts of God. 
 
 i. The popular philosophy of to-day finds a grim satisfaction in 
 holding up to the gaze of man the sad picture of life, and pointing out 
 all the darker features which add gloom to ugliness. Life, it tells us, is 
 not a dfeam, but an awful reality. Nature is not the beneficent goddess, 
 inviting us to her feast; a cruel sorceress is she, deceiving us by her arts, 
 until she has made us her dupe, to carry out her designs. She lures us 
 with the promise of pleasure, with the hope of happiness, but she casts 
 us aside as worthless rubbish as soon as we reach out for her dainties. 
 Behind her smiling countenance are hidden the ghastly features of 
 cruelty, destructiveness and death. Look how pitilessly the strife is 
 carried on in the animal world, the strong feeding upon the weak; 
 myriads of sentient beings cast into existence merely to be a prey to 
 the murderous tooth of the pursuer. The higher we rise in the scale 
 of life the more accentuated is this struggle of existence, until in man it 
 reaches its most pronounced type, borrowing weapons of destruction 
 
 15
 
 and cruelty from the higher kingdom of the mind. But inseparably 
 connected with struggle is pain and suffering. If the end of life is hap- 
 piness, pleasure, enjoyment, then existence is a miserable failure, for the 
 pain by far outbalances all pleasures; the sorrows of life are more nu- 
 merous than its joys, the moments of happiness rarer than the long 
 hours and days of grief and suffering. 
 
 2. From the lo\ver sphere of natural life, man carries the struggle 
 of existence with all its attending suffering into the higher realms of 
 social life. And here the question, as to the value of existence, assumes 
 a moral aspect. The cynic's answer is: Life is not only a misfortune, 
 it is a positive evil; it lacks the prepondering element of goodness; it is 
 devoid of that higher purpose which dreamy sentimentalists would 
 ascribe to it, and which, if true, would make it worthy of pursuit. But 
 a glance upon human society convinces the impartial observer that wis- 
 dom and virtue are the exception, stupidity and meanness the rule. 
 Selfishness, envy and vanity are the motives in the lives of most men, 
 fear and hope the pole-stars of their morality. With some, inherent 
 wickedness is joined to greater cunning; they are the beasts of prey, 
 feeding upon the stupidity of the unwary. Purity, honesty, self-sacrifice 
 are virtues publicly admired but not followed, perhaps secretly sneered 
 at, as the characteristics of vainglorious saints or infatuated visionaries. 
 "The majority are bad," is an old cry of pessimistic philosophers, 
 repeated in every age, but especially emphasized to-day by tfte lurid 
 illustrations of modern literature, priding itself upon the nudeness of its 
 realism. If the lives of the majority be such as depicted by the latest 
 novel of the fashionable Russian, then human life is not worthy of exist- 
 ence; then all the embellishments of culture, the arts that refine, the 
 melody that stirs the soul, the poetry and philosophy that uplift the mind, 
 
 are but vile hirelings, pandering to the lower or the higher passions of 
 man; then all social life is a subversion of naturalness, simplicity, and truth, 
 all is semblance, deception, falsehood, as one of thp most vehement 
 critics of his time has pithily stated: " We possess honor without virtue, 
 knowledge without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness." 
 
 3. Nor is the outlook of life more cheering if measured by the 
 
 16
 
 intellectual standard. How small is the sum of accumulated knowledge 
 in comparison with the unlimited range of the unknown and unknowable! 
 How wearisome and slow the march of the sluggish intellect ! From the 
 first stupid glance at the brilliant sky to the latest interrogations of 
 science, how much fruitless labor, how much wasted energy, how many 
 childish guesses, how many fatal errors, not yet wholly overcome by the 
 riper mind, lie scattered upon the path of humanity, like the bleached 
 bones from numerous caravans lining the trackless wilds of Africa. 
 There they rise in fantastic and grotesque forms like the' shapeless and 
 shifting clouds of the starless sky, the systems of old, the cosmogonies 
 and theogonies of the ancients ; the philosophical theories of later 
 schools ; the ideals of the barbarous, self-torturing Middle Ages ; the 
 Utopias of reawakened learning; the maddening search for nature's 
 mysteries; and the new formulas of scientific hypothesis, claiming to 
 possess the keys of heaven and earth, unlocking all secrets of infinite 
 space and the twofold flight of time, backwards and forwards. And yet, 
 with all our vaunted wisdom, what do we knozv f What things are 
 absolutely established ? Perhaps to-morrow a new theory might disprove 
 all our sifted information, and throw us back upon the traces which we 
 traversed. Once, humanity was as absolutely sure of the truth of the 
 Ptolemean astronomy and the Aristotelean philosophy as we are to-day 
 of the law of gravitation and the potency of evolution. What guaranty 
 have we that these are the final words of scientific discovery ? And, 
 granting even that mankind's intellectual labors are not futile attempts, 
 not meaningless efforts, but successive stages of progress; that knowledge 
 is increasing in spite of this prodigious waste of mental energy, what is 
 the practical outcome of this knowledge ? Does it increase the sum 
 total of human happiness? If it has multiplied our comforts, has it not 
 also multiplied our wants and sharpened our sensibilities, deepening our 
 cares and giving a keener edge to the increasing sorrows of life ? Where 
 are the pangs of disappointment, the misery of want, the agony of 
 dishonor, more deeply felt than by those whose trained intellect lays 
 them open to every influence of civilization ? If the larger knowledge 
 has given us a clearer insight into the methods of nature, has it not 
 
 17
 
 thereby robbed us of so much that was dear, and holy, and comforting to 
 the heart ? Whence do we come ? Whither do we go ? These are 
 questions that urgently demand reply. The latest wisdom answers with 
 the oldest cynic : " We came from the dust and we go to the dust, and 
 pre-eminence of man over the beast is not, for all is vanity;" we are 
 linked to the brute below and we go to the grave beneath us. Let us 
 not deceive ourselves by the poet's oft cited wisdom "And the individual 
 withers that the world be more and more;" for in the light of this wisdom 
 we read of the inevitable doom that awaits the dwellers on earth as our 
 whole planetary system. As it has begun in time so will it end; one 
 after another of the bright orbs will sink into the sun, and all wisdom 
 and all virtue, the moral grandeur and the intellectual splendors of 
 humanity, will be dissolved into the fire-mist of the new world-conflagra- 
 tion. How dreary the outlook, how vain the hope, how cheerless the 
 consolation of humanity ! Better not to be, than to live this aimless life! 
 This> in brief, is the sum of that philosophy which claims to stand upon 
 the shoulders of all preceding systems. 
 
 4. Are these arguments as to the misery, worthlessness and futility 
 of existence false ? Is the picture thus drawn of human life untrue to 
 reality ? No, not false, not untrue, but one-sided, and therefore incom- 
 plete. There is wanting that one and chiefest element of it all, that 
 element of light \vhich alone will account for the presence of the deeper 
 shadows; it is the element of Religion. Without it mankind, with all 
 its intellectual life, may indeed be likened to that poor widow with her 
 only child, gathering a few sticks to prepare the last meal and then die. 
 What matters it how long or short the time allotted to man on earth, 
 how slow or swift the years come and go and the seasons change in 
 endless succession ! The tide of time brings no promise of compensa- 
 tion ; the changing seasons hold out no hope for future happiness; they 
 but repeat the monotonous plaint of the perishableness of all things. 
 One meal more or less, one pleasure more or less, then all is night and 
 unutterable gloom. Religion, like the prophet Elijah in our story, comes 
 to mankind in the humble garb of a suppliant, begging for a gift to 
 sustain its life in this universal drought and famine, this moral and 
 
 18
 
 intellectual despair ; but its very demand includes the promise of true 
 blessing. " Prepare first the meal for me, then think of thyself and thy 
 son, for as the Lord liveth, the meal in the pitcher shall not cease, the oil 
 in the cruse shall not fail, until the time when the Lord shall give rain 
 unto the land." 
 
 Meal and oil are the symbols of human enjoyments, bodily as well 
 as spiritual ; the meal that nourishes and sustains, and the oil that 
 gladdens and enlightens; they typify the whole range of earthly goods, 
 the objects of all the longings, desires, and yearnings of the human heart, 
 for the possession of which the race of man has been wrestling, strug- 
 gling, shedding its blood upon every battle-field, hoping to find in them 
 and through them the soul's peace and happiness, only to find after 
 thousands of years of strife and suffering that they are not worth striving 
 for. And this sad experience of the human race is repeated in the life 
 of the individual. When the few years of his youth, with their greater 
 susceptibility and seemingly inexhaustible fountains of enjoyment, are 
 passed, when one after another of the sweet illusions that lent special 
 charm to life have dissolved into mist, and cold, sober common sense 
 beholds the realities of life, how much is there left in his estimation of 
 the goods of this world worth striving for? In none of the things that 
 once seemed part of himself has he found lasting peace and happiness. 
 Driven by the hungry desire from pleasure to pleasure, from enjoyment 
 to enjoyment, he finds at last his life wasted in a profitless chase, and a 
 bitter feeling of discontent gnaws at his soul, a sense of disgust with life 
 fills his heart; or, if his be the cynic's temperament, the melancholy mood 
 will give room to the sneer of disdain and the sarcasm of contempt. To 
 save himself from the misery of life's disgust, or from the irony of his 
 self-contempt, man has in every age sought refuge and protection. Old 
 heathenism and its modern devotee say : Drain the cup of life to its 
 dregs, then fling it away; eat and drink, for to-morrow thou shalt die, 
 when the last remnant is consumed. Buddhism answers : Pleasure is 
 the cause of pain, desire the source of sorrow; therefore renounce 
 pleasure, kill desire, abnegate the joy of life, flee from its allurements, and 
 thou shalt be free from the horrors of existence. Christianity modulates 
 
 19
 
 these strains: Sacrifice the body for the soul, mortify the flesh, deny this 
 world with all its pleasures, and thou wilt purchase thereby everlasting 
 joy in the heaven above. Nor is the stoic's answer more consoling : 
 Pain is the inseparable companion of pleasure; enjoy the one, endure 
 the other. Be not a coward ; what thou canst not alter, bear, and if the 
 burden be too heavy, give up thy charge, wrap thy mantle around thee 
 and lie down to eternal sleep. However various these answers, in one 
 point they all agree : Life is a fleeting show ; it holds no abiding 
 happiness for man; for his ills and woes, for his sufferings and sorrows, 
 for all the unfulfilled longings of his soul, there is but one remedy its 
 name is deatJi. 
 
 What answer did Israel voice through the mouth of its prophets ? 
 Not death, but life, not destruction, but devotion, is the solution of the 
 problem of human existence. The magic word which changes the 
 perspective and lends fullness to our view: Duty is its name ! The 
 gift which religion demands of humanity is not sacrifice and renuncia- 
 tion, but devotion to duty, sanctification of the world's goods and 
 pleasures to higher aims and purposes. Prepare first this meal for me, 
 says prophetic religion, then prepare for thyself and thy son, and behold, 
 the source of thy earthly pleasures will not fail, the fountain of thy 
 spiritual life will not case until the time when the dew of a new life, 
 and the fructifying rain of God's eternal love shall descend upon thy 
 mortal existence, and turn death into deathlessness. 
 
 5. Your pleasures are indeed shallow and insipid and are soon ex- 
 hausted, if intended but for yourself and yours; but if of the means you 
 possess, be they much or little, you seek first to feed the hungry, to 
 reach out the gift of love to the needy, the weary, the fainting, ere you 
 think of your own pleasures, you thereby create for yourself inexhaust- 
 ible blessings. The joy you plant in the heart of others is multiplied a 
 thousandfold in your own heart; the happiness you spread for others 
 opens the fountain of happiness for yourself. Egotism is self-delusion 
 and self-bereavement; love, kindness, helpfulness, are the wonder-work- 
 ing gifts which, while we extend them to others, are making our own 
 souls the vessels of unceasing, never failing happiness. Israel's faith 
 
 2O
 
 does not glory in poverty, asceticism, mortification of the natural 
 faculties of man; it rejoices in the gifts of God, which nature at his 
 command produces so abundantly; but it asks in return that these gifts 
 and faculties be first dedicated to the divine purpose of a moral and 
 spiritual life, making them not ends in themselves, but means for 
 upbuilding a nobler self than an eating, drinking and enjoying animal, 
 a nobler humanity than a wrestling, struggling mass, engaged in a war of 
 all against all. The goods of this world are the scaffolding within which 
 man shall erect the beautiful edifice of a truly human character, a real 
 personality. 
 
 6. Looked at from this point of view, the intellectual labors of man 
 and mankind rise into the higher sphere of divine knowledge. Without 
 the religious idea, nature is blind, cruel, meaningless. Endowed with a 
 divine purpose, the study of nature's laws lifts us up into the presence of 
 that supreme wisdom which holds and directs the world, and its 
 destinies. Then every seeming failure is a step to higher knowledge, 
 every contribution of the God-seeking mind of man a rich source of 
 never failing wisdom. In the light of this thought the individual finds 
 his labor richly compensated in the increasing wealth of humanity, in 
 the growth of freedom, the reign of virtue, the supremacy of reason wedded 
 to love- -in the Kingdom of God on earth. And as the individual 
 man is thus made an integral part of the ever rising and unfolding 
 humanity, so the life of humanity becomes an integral part of a large 
 spiritual system, whose beginning and whose goal is the eternal wisdom 
 and love of God. At this limit of human reason man can think only in 
 symbols, and the soul must reach out in faith and trust to that greater 
 knowledge that is born of immortal hope. 
 
 7. And even so are the pains of life transformed into perennial 
 springs of consolation at the miraculous touch of religion. " Whom God 
 loveth he chastiseth," holds more than a convenient phrase. As in the 
 world of nature pain is the goad to the self-preservation of organisms, 
 the indicator of clanger, the price for the higher development of races; 
 so in the moral world of man is pain the divine method of education, 
 tears the dew drops falling upon the dry soil of selfishness; sorrows 
 
 3 21
 
 and woes are the showers irrigating the parched ground of our spiritual 
 life, causing our better nature to blossom and bear a richer harvest than 
 before. And when the rude hand of death lays hold on what is indeed 
 a part of our very selves; when the hope of our heart and solace of our 
 eye is snatched away from us, and our soul is left in unutterable gloom, 
 refusing to be comforted, it is the miraculous power of religion alone 
 that can assuage our pangs and lift us up out of our depths. The poor 
 mother in our story of Elijah, weeping over her dead child, and in her 
 frantic grief accusing the prophet of having caused the death of her only 
 son, is a type of poor, sorrow-stricken humanity, mourning over its dead; 
 she is a type of every mother and every father who have laid their 
 treasures away under the soil, and with their tears bedew the graves of 
 their beloved ones, and stand questioning, doubting, accusing the wis- 
 dom of Providence. To them, like to the poor widow of old, the prophet 
 Elijah, the spirit of true religion, comes and mildly speaks: "Give me thy 
 son; entrust thy child to my fatherly care; in the presence of God there 
 is no death, but eternal life; see, thy son liveth." Yea, behold the 
 wonder which this prophet has wrought in every age, which he is per- 
 forming before our very eyes, breathing the spirit of faith upon our dead 
 ones as they live in our loving memory, in our richer sympathy with 
 sorrows of others, in all the sweeter and loftier hopes of our soul for a 
 better, nobler life. 
 
 These hopes will not deceive us ; they are echoes from a divine 
 world. May the coming year bring us nearer their fulfillment. May we 
 learn to consecrate our lives to higher aims than the pursuit of pleas- 
 ure, and endeavor to fill out the frame-work of our existence with the 
 ideals of duty, of love and devotion; striving to enrich the world by 
 our contribution of heart, and mind, and soul, and by thus giving 
 our best, we shall open for ourselves the never failing sources of 
 true happiness. The dark clouds that obscured our sight sink earth- 
 ward; brighter than ever we behold the visions of life; golden the future 
 lies before us. Let us not fear, but march courageously on the path of 
 time, mingling our songs of faith, and trust, and hope with the immortal 
 hope of humanity. Amen. 
 
 22
 
 SEEKING GOD. 
 
 SERMON FOR THE EVE OF DAY OF ATONEMENT. 
 
 Text: I Kings, xix, 8- 13. ''And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went on the 
 strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto the mount of God in Horeb. And 
 he came thither to a cave and lodged theie. And behold, the -word of the Lord came to 
 him, and said to him, What doest thou here, Elijah ? And he said, I have been very 
 zealous for the Eternal the God of hosts. For the children of Israel have forsaken thy 
 covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets iuith the sword ; and I only 
 am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon 
 the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by; and a great and strong wind 
 rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not 
 in the wind. And after the wind tJiere was an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the 
 earthquake. And after the earthquake there was afire; but the Lord was not in the fire. 
 And after the fire there was a still small voice. And it -was so, when Elijah heard it, he 
 -trapped his face in his mantle, and went ottt, and stood in the entering in of the cave. ' ' 
 
 Into the silence and solitude of the desert Elijah retires, seeking 
 there the God of his fathers, whom, in the tumult and turmoil of human 
 strife, he could not discern. Into the silence and solitude of our soul we 
 must retire, if we are to find again the God of truth, whom, in the struggle 
 of life, in the chase after pleasure, in the obscuring clouds of doubt and 
 disbelief, we have lost. Twice we have listened to the cheering and 
 consoling words of the prophet of Gilead, bringing us the message of 
 peace and the assurance of hope. To-night we follow him across the 
 land of Israel, over the dreary wastes of Judah, up to the many-peaked, 
 awe-surrounded Horeb, the Mount of God, waiting with him for the 
 voice of that revelation that shall dispel our darkness and our fears, and 
 open our spiritual eye to the vision of divine truth. The sacred sounds 
 of the past still vibrate in our ears. With that wonderful song on whose 
 wings are borne through the silent air the sighs and sorrows, the prayers 
 and hopes of Israel's by-gone generations, we began this day's solemn 
 
 23
 
 services. What tones ! What sublime, unearthly melody breathes in 
 those strains, thrilling the heart to its depth, and awakening in us those 
 memories of childhood and youth, which the busy experience of riper 
 years may for a while repress, but can never obliterate. 
 
 This quaint Jewish melody, the ancient Col-Nidre song, is a faithful 
 interpretation of our heart's unexpressed and inexpressible longing 
 for that for which the mind of man has been searching ever since 
 it has dawned into consciousness. It is the soul's outcry for God! 
 Since the time that man lifted up his eyes to the starry vault above and 
 questioned : Who are these, and who made them all ? when he looked 
 upon the earth beneath and saw the wondrous growth of teeming 
 life in its thousandfold forms and colors, and asked : Who gave birth to 
 all these ? Since that time, the spirit of man has been wandering through 
 fertile plains and cheerless deserts, along the winding paths of history, 
 ascending the mountains of larger visions and sacred associations, and 
 still, like the prophet of old, is waiting in silence, perhaps in doubt, for 
 a sign of absolute certainty that its search has not been in vain, but 
 that God will reveal himself to the patient and trusting soul. 
 
 Into the cave where once a greater and more patient leader had 
 received a true vision of God, Elijah entered. What was he seeking 
 there in the silence of the night? He followed the shining footprints of 
 Moses, the father of all prophets. There, in the mount of revelation, he 
 hoped to receive the sanction to his life's work, his great zeal for the God 
 of his fathers. So every man and every age will believe in the truths 
 which their minds have found, however imperfect their thoughts may be, 
 and then search, and surely find, the confirmation of their convictions and 
 experiences, in the world of nature around them, in the voice of human 
 history behind them, and in the echo of divine consent reflected in 
 the soul's vision from above. To the savage, in constant struggle with 
 the evil forces of nature, the image of God bears the distorted features 
 of cruelty. He bends before the greater power and reverences that 
 mysterious strength that manifests itself to him in fierce wrath and 
 destructiveness. He sees God in the storm that rends the mountains 
 and breaks in pieces the rocks; he finds Him in the earthquake, 
 
 24
 
 destroying the habitation of man and beast; he worships Him in the 
 fire, leaping as a thunderbolt from the heaven above and consuming 
 the mighty oak under which he has found shelter. He sees God in 
 nature, because he projects nature and himself into the image of his 
 God. The ages of barbarism believed that they were fighting the 
 battles of God, conquering the earth, and making it a waste, to carry out 
 a divine command. For the honor of God they slaughtered nations and 
 destroyed human welfare; for his glory they burned the heretics and 
 banished disbelievers from the heritage of their fathers. To their minds 
 God was a great king, sending out his armies to execute his sovereign 
 will, to bend the nations under the sceptre of his majesty. History was 
 to them but the records of God's wars to wreak vengeance on his 
 enemies. Every nation has had its God of revenge. 
 
 But the mind is not satisfied with its own creations. The riper 
 intellect soon detects their parentage, and disrobes the idols that had 
 usurped the divine throne. Nothing short of absolute truth will still the 
 craving of the soul. In the collective wisdom of the ripest minds men 
 thought to have found this absolute truth, and worshiped it as the final 
 revelation of that Highest Wisdom that shines in the sunbeam and 
 blossoms in the flower, that rules in nature's laws, and communes 
 through the avenues of thought with the God-seeking soul of man. So 
 every nation has had its Holy Writs and its Mounts of Revelation. The 
 speculative genius of man finds in them all but partial truth, fragments 
 of knowledge, all pointing to a still higher truth, which shall satisfy the 
 hunger of the soul. However much human reason will weary itself in 
 the attempt to define the Infinite and invent new names for the Name- 
 less, it is soon left behind by the onward-reaching power of the soul, 
 which yearns for greater truth than all intellectual postulates. For 
 God is not the product of the human mind, not the result of human 
 reasoning. The soul feels that God is, and that He is the source of all, 
 and struggles upward to its divine origin. All the experiences of the 
 past, the God of nature, the God of history, the God of revelation, man 
 must first translate into experiences of his soul, ere these ideas and ideals 
 can become truths for him. 
 
 25
 
 And so to us, as to the ancient prophet, waiting for the revelation 
 of the highest truth, seeking to find the true nature and essence of God, 
 comes the divine voice : What doest thou here ? Here thou wilt not 
 find Me. I am not closed up in the mystery of a past revelation. Go 
 forth, stand upon the mount of a larger vision. The storm, the earth- 
 quake and the fire are the ideals of past generations. God is not in 
 them now. Proud mortal, behold, thou canst know nothing outside of 
 thyself. Into thy inmost being turn thine eye, seek there the traces of 
 Him who has made thy soul an image of Himself, and thou wilt discern 
 Him everywhere, in the tempest as well as in the calm that follows it, 
 in the destroying earthquake and in the consuming fire, as well as in the 
 soft and peaceful rustling of the leaves, making sweet music to the play 
 of the sunbeams. 
 
 This answer is an echo of another revelation which one, greater 
 than Elijah, had received on Mount Horeb. After all the manifestations 
 of God's power in behalf of Israel ; after the exodus from Egypt and the 
 proclamation on Sinai, Moses still desires to see the glory of God. And 
 he is bidden to stand where Elijah stood six hundred years after him, 
 and wait for the glory of God to pass by him. In words that will for- 
 ever stand as the soul's deepest experience, that divine glory is described 
 there. And the Lord passed by before his countenance, and proclaimed 
 His true name, saying: "The Eternal, the Eternal, is a merciful and 
 gracious God, patient, and abundant in love and truth, keeping kindness 
 unto thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, but \\ ill by no 
 means clear the guilty." This is not the language of philosophy, it is 
 the language of the heart, the language of human experience. This is 
 the " still small voice," or to give a better translation, the "soft voice 
 of silence," speaking louder than the thundering hurricane, that silence 
 of the inward vision, coming to us after the storm of passion has spent 
 its fury and the. fire of misguided imagination has consumed itself. 
 
 What is God ? God is Eternal Goodness, this the first assurance of 
 the God-seeking soul. Whatever God be to the myriads of worlds rolling 
 in their courses, to man He reveals Himself only through this human side. 
 If you seek to find God, seek Him in the goodness of your heart, in the 
 
 26
 
 kindness of which you are susceptible, in the grace which you bestow 
 upon others, in the love which reveals to you the depths of another's 
 soul, in the patience with which you bear the faults and frailties of others, 
 in the mercy of forgiveness to which your heart is moved by the penitent 
 tear of him who has grieved you. What theory can bring home to you 
 the truth that God is the loving father of all men, except that your heart 
 goes out in sympathy to others, and learns to love and honor the human 
 dignity in every man ? No theology can convince you that God may 
 forgive your sins, unless you have learned to open your soul in mercy, 
 repressing anger and revenge, and lovingly forgive the sins committed 
 against you. Through this experience of your soul, you touch the 
 springs of that Eternal Goodness, from whose fathomless source human 
 goodness must be derived. There is no other way of reasoning; not 
 backward from God to man, but upward, from man to God. This is the 
 meaning of the Psalmist's seeming paradox, when speaking of the mani- 
 festations of God in man : "To the pure Thou wilt show thyself pure, 
 to the merciful Thou wilt show thyself merciful, to the upright man 
 upright, and to crooked Thou wilt show thyself perverse." This was the 
 experience of all the seers and inspired bards of Israel. They found 
 God in their loving soul, therefore they could find Him again in the 
 events of nature and of life, in the history of nations, and in the fate of 
 their people. God's love is eternal and unchanging; man's uncontrolled 
 desires, his hatred and revengefulness, his unloving temper, separates 
 him from God. 
 
 And this, too, we find in the deepest recess of the soul: God is 
 Eternal Justice; his righteousness is commensurate with his love. He will 
 by no means clear the guilty. God's love often manifests itself in deeds 
 of justice, in the punishment of wickedness, in the destruction of evil, in 
 the trials of the best and noblest souls. In the lower realm of nature, 
 we have found the law of heredity as the stern decree by which organ- 
 isms survive or succumb. In the sphere of man, the sins of parents are 
 visited upon the children in the consequences of evil deeds and evil 
 inclinations. Sin carries its punishment along with the deed, and 
 reaches forward into the next generations. Not by any frown on the 
 
 27
 
 divine brow, but by the silent working of forces following along the 
 traces of our sins until they have overtaken us and crushed us, are we 
 made to feel that we are amidst eternal and unbending laws which brook 
 no contradiction, and thus arises in us the consciousness of a just and a 
 righteous God, who will not clear the guilty, visiting the sins of the parents 
 upon the children and the children's children to the third generation. 
 And when we are gone astray, when we have torn the crown of human 
 dignity from our head and sunk to the level of brute creation, when 
 we have sought through selfishness and greed, through deception and 
 falsehood, through heartlessness and ingratitude, to gain the better 
 advantage of life what is it that indicates our wrong-doing, and punishes 
 us for our sins? Is it not that soft voice of silence, the tender voice of 
 conscience, rebuking us for our follies, robbing us of the rest of mind 
 and the peace of the soul? No tribunal can inflict a severer punishment 
 than the tribunal of our conscience in the silence of self-examination. By 
 unimpeachable evidence it proves our guilt; for we ourselves must testify 
 against ourselves; the law by which we are judged needs no interpretation, 
 it is engraved upon our hearts; and the verdict of conscience is severer 
 than death it is self-contempt. Is not that a voice divine, speaking 
 louder than the roaring storm or the rolling thunder? Whence comes 
 to us this soft voice of silence, if not from Him who is Eternal Justice and 
 Love, bearing the universe in His arms, yet choosing to dwell in houses of 
 clay and making the soul of man the temple of his glory ? Yea, man's 
 innate sense of justice, his recognition of his shortcomings, his pangs and 
 sorrows and self-inflicted punishment, are the heart's deepest assurance 
 of God's presence. 
 
 Go not, my soul, in search of Him, 
 
 Thou wilt not find Him there, 
 Or in the depths of shadow dim, 
 
 Or heights of upper air. 
 
 For not in far-off realms of space 
 
 The Spirit hath its throne; 
 In every heart it findeth place 
 
 And waiteth to be known. 
 
 28
 
 Thought answereth alone to thought, 
 And soul with soul hath kin; 
 
 The outward God he findeth not 
 \\'ho finds not God within. 
 
 And if the vision come to thee 
 
 Revealed by inward sign, 
 Earth will be full of Deity 
 
 And with His glory shine ! 
 
 Thou shall not want for company, 
 
 Nor pitch thy tent alone; 
 The indwelling God will go with thee 
 
 And show thee of His own. 
 
 O gift of gifts, O grace of grace, 
 That God should condescend 
 
 To make thy heart His dwelling place 
 And be thy daily Friend ! 
 
 Then go not thou in search of Him, 
 
 But to thyself repair ; 
 Wait thou within the silence dim, 
 
 And thou shall find Him there ! 
 
 F. L. Hosmer.
 
 THE ALTARS REBUILT. 
 
 MORMXr, SERMON !-<>R 'I UK DAY OF ATONEMF.NT. 
 
 Text: 1 Kings, .\riii. jo jo (Abridge^). ''And Elijah drew nigh unto all the people, and 
 said, How long halt ye between two opinions '? If the Elemal be God, follow him : but 
 if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah to the 
 people, I, one only, remain a prophet of Hie Eternal ; but Baal' s prophets are four hun- 
 dred and fifty men. And Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me. And all the 
 people came near to him, and he repaii fd the altar of the Lord that was broken down. 
 And it came to pass at the time of off er in gup the meal offering, that Elijah the prophet came 
 near, and said, O Eternal, God of Abraham, oj Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this 
 day, that thoit art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these 
 things at thy word. Answer me. O J-'.tei nal, answer rue, that this people may know that 
 thou art God,, and do thou turn their heart back again. 1 hen the hre of the Lord fell, 
 and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up 
 the water that was in the trench. And when the people saw it, they fell on their / 
 and they said. The Eternal, He is God, the Eternal, He is God.''' 
 
 Were to-day, by some miraculous proceeding, one of the ancient 
 Seers of Israel to come among us, say the austere prophet of Gilead, 
 the fearless and undaunted Elijah, addressing us in his wonted plain, 
 undisguised words, rebuking us for our negligence in matters that con- 
 cern our holiest interests, threatening us, in the burning anger of his 
 conviction, with dire calamities and utter destruction, or lifting up his 
 tearful voice in prayer to the God of our fathers, imploring him to turn 
 the perverted heart of his children unto Him, or performing before our 
 eyes any of the miracles reported of him in the chronicles of old; what, 
 my friends, do you think, would be the impression produced upon us ; 
 what kind of reception would we accord him ? I am afraid we would 
 in this respect not be " better than our fathers." We would, perhaps, 
 listen to him, appreciate his good intention, then turn to our wonted 
 occupation and way of thinking. His words, I am bold to sav, would 
 
 30
 
 not effect a radical change in our opinions, nor leave a lasting impression 
 upon our hearts. Some of us would even raise serious objections to his 
 ministraton. 
 
 To a great many, the lean, long, haggard figure of the mountaineer, 
 the dark, piercing look, the coarse, unfashionable habilament, the plain, 
 unpolished speech, would seem decidedly out of date and place in a 
 modern Jewish congregation; badly fitting into the frame of our services 
 and gatherings. The man to conduct our divine worship, and to speak to 
 us the word of God, is not expected to be of the Elijah type; but rather 
 a portly, polite gentleman, not careless even of the smaller duties of 
 dress and gesture, unobtrusive in mien and look, careful and measured 
 in speech as well as in action, knowing his position to be, not a leader of 
 public opinion, not a pathfinder of new ways and methods, but simply 
 a trained orator and skillful expounder of opinions and customs held 
 by those who placed him there, and whose word of wisdom and might 
 generally the latter may displace him from his honorable post. No ! 
 Elijah would not do at all in a modern Jewish congregation. A man 
 who has the audacity to frown at the king, and to lay the charge of 
 corruption and murder upon his very crown ; who, in face of an over- 
 whelming majority of prophets and priests, eating at the king's table 
 and fawning at his majesty, declares that he Elijah alone is right; 
 that the word of God in his mouth is truth, and that those who obey 
 the king's behest and minister at the new altars of Baal and Astarte 
 are traitors to their God and their people ; a man who could speak so 
 disrespectfully of those who differed from him in their religious opinions, 
 and who, in a fit of rage, could slaughter four hundred and fifty prophets 
 of Baal such a man, and be he the greatest of God's prophets, the most 
 earnest and convincing defender of Israel's faith, could not be elected 
 to the pulpit of the smallest or the most ignorant of our congregations. 
 He could not get so much as a hearing. 
 
 In synagogues and churches the name of Elijah is uttered 
 with great reverence, and is associated with many living hopes 
 of the two religious systems. Whether in the literal or spiritual 
 interpretation of the great Messiah's idea, Elijah holds the title of pre- 
 31
 
 decessor and preparer of the way. In a New Testament vision he 
 appears by the side of Moses ; in Jewish tradition, he comes to every 
 family gathered around the festive board on the eve of the Passover, 
 partaking of the cup of wine specially placed at his disposal; he is 
 present whenever a son is introduced into the covenant of his fathers ; 
 he often appears to toiling, care-worn men, giving a coin or a key which 
 change whatever they touch into genuine gold, or teaching them a 
 simple word which, uttered at the right time, turns the tears of grief into 
 pearls of happiness. And still, I hold, were this same Elijah to come 
 among us, living, speaking, acting in accordance with his character, he 
 would find himself confronted by the same difficulties which he found in 
 the days of Ahab. No doubt, to the " gentlemen " in Samaria, the wild 
 preacher from Gilead was a most repulsive sight ; to their refined taste, 
 his growling, thundering voice was very unsympathetic; his denuncia- 
 tions coarse and untimely. They preferred the smoother eloquence of 
 the royal prophets, and the sweet, enchanting music coming from the 
 lips of Astarte's priestesses. But, friends, we need have no fear that 
 Elijah will ever come to frighten or to fret us with his presence; he will not 
 intrude upon our well-regulated system of worship, nor offend our cul- 
 ture by his rude speech. 
 
 Whether Elijah ever lived at all, is a disputable question among 
 scholars ; but if he did, he quitted the scene of life over twenty- 
 seven hundred years ago, and is not likely to be in a position for 
 itinerant preaching. Even should we believe in the literal word of the 
 Bible, that Elijah was taken up by a fiery team and in body ascended to 
 heaven, it is not at all probable that, remembering the sad experiences 
 of the past, and foreseeing the poor result of his work among us, he 
 should leave his serene home, and undertake a new journey to the earth. 
 So let us dissuade our minds from any anxiety on that point. Neither 
 Elijah, nor any of the old thundering prophets, will trouble us to-day. 
 
 And yet I assure you, though Elijah is dead, and the prophets that 
 lived after him are dead also, one prophet is here among us who thinks, 
 and feels, and speaks with the soul of Elijah, one who with the courage and 
 fearlessness of the prophets of old, cries to us in accents not to be over- 
 
 32
 
 heard or misunderstood, appeals to us in words that burn like leaping 
 flames into our souls, chastising us for our sins and follies, and calling us 
 back to our duty to our God and to the religion of our fathers. It is 
 none else than the Day of Atonement itself! This day comes to us, indeed, 
 like the prophet Elijah, plain, old fashioned, sombre looking, unyielding, 
 uncompromising. What it tells are not festive congratulations; it is not 
 a day of gladness, but of deep, earnest self-examination. Of all the festivals 
 and sacred days of Israel, this day alone has retained its original 
 character; with Elijah it says: I alone have remained a true prophet of 
 God ! It has not yielded to the pressure of the times, and refuses to be 
 "reformed." As a true prophet, it brings its heavenly message of warn- 
 ing to rich and poor, high or low, without fear or favor, and challenges 
 us to. a test between the results of true religion and the beguiling 
 influence of make-belief and self-deception. As yet, this prophet has 
 never spoken in vain; year after year it has aroused in us holier feelings 
 and noble resolves, and often has brought us back to our better selves. 
 Let me, to-day, be its interpreter; let me speak to you in plain, earnest, 
 undisguised words of the sins and evils we have committed, let me plead 
 to you in the name of Him, before whom falsehood cannot stand, and 
 deception cannot abide. Oh, that I had the power of Elijah to call down 
 the heavenly fire of true conviction upon the altar of your hearts, that I 
 could shame into silence the false prophets carelessness, selfcomplai- 
 sance, cowardice, time-serving, greed and stupidity that step between you 
 and your God to lead you away from the religion of your fathers ! Alas, 
 mine is but the weak word, quickly spoken and soon forgotten ! And 
 yet I trust that God will bless this word of mine that it shall not return 
 empty, but shall bring to pass that for which it was sent. Oh my God, 
 strenghten me for this work, and take away from my eyes the fear of 
 man, and let thy truth alone and the thought of thy presence guide me 
 in this hour ! 
 
 i. To the prophets of old religion was not a matter of tradition or 
 conventionality, far less was it to them a matter of business or policy, as 
 it was to the priests or kings. With them religion was the deepest and 
 
 33
 
 most conclusive of all convictions, it was life itself. God, to their minds, 
 was not a term for an indefinite religious aspiration, but the life of their 
 life, the soul of their soul. Their very occupation and name became to 
 them symbols of their divine mission. Elijah means : My God is 
 Jehovah, the Eternal, I know no other. To him I have devoted my life, 
 my powers. This name stands as the type of all prophets of Israel, 
 before and after Elijah. They were all men of thorough-going conviction; 
 their faith in the God of Israel did not rest upon popular assent, but was 
 a direct voice speaking to them through their own consciousness. Such 
 men are always in the minority. The true people of Israel have always 
 been few in number. The masses are not moved by conviction, but by 
 convenience; their God is not Jehovah, the Invisible, the Eternal, whose 
 law is unyielding truth, whose service is uncompromising devotjon to 
 duty, whose nature is unchanging love, justice and holiness; but Baal, 
 the visible deity, whose symbol is the sun, now smiling in friendly rays, 
 now hidden behind obscuring clouds, to-day kissing the flowers out of 
 their sleep, to-morrow parching up field and meadow, that all creatures 
 languish for thirst a type of that idol worshiped at all times by the 
 masses, the idol called: Public Opinion. The masses are swayed by the 
 outlook of temporal prosperity; they bend the knee before the success- 
 ful hero ; they praise the victorious conqueror. Let the tide of fate 
 s\\ cep against them, and the loudest praises quickly change into public 
 accusations. He who yesterday knelt in reverence before the child of 
 fortune, will to-day, when the sun of luck no more smiles upon it, be the 
 first to strangle it, if by this act he may win the favor of the new powers 
 that be. Public opinion is no gauge of the worth of a man; it is not the 
 measure of value of principles or institutions; it is no criterion of truth or 
 right. "The voice of the people is the voice of God," is one of those 
 favorite catchwords skillfully employed by demagogues to tickle the 
 long ears of his sovereign majesty the Public. One man with the con- 
 viction of truth in his heart is a majority, and his voice is the voice of 
 God. And when his words fall like thunderbolts upon the torpid souls 
 of the massees, awakening into consciousness whatever there is yet in 
 them that is divine, and thus morally forcing their assent to his con- 
 
 34
 
 victions, then, and then only, the voice of the people becomes the voice 
 of God. 
 
 2. This spiritual fact is the key to the right understanding, not only 
 of the activity of Israel's prophets, but to the great question of the 
 Mission of Israel. 
 
 What is the meaning and purpose of Israel's existence, what is the 
 position he occupies in the life of the nations, what is his destiny in the 
 larger kingdom of the spiritual life of humanity? The prophets of old, 
 as well as the best and noblest minds of the people, conceived this 
 mission to be at all times a divine one. Israel is to be a people of God, 
 that is, his mission is to historically body forth those religious ideas 
 which constitute mankind's true dignity and wealth; developing upon the 
 basis of his national life those laws, institutions, and ideals which have 
 given value and direction to the higher life of humanity. That this was.his 
 divinely appointed mission, and not the result of accidental combina- 
 tions, that Israel did not happily or unhappily blunder into his true 
 vocation, but was purposely led, nay often forced, upon his line of action, 
 is testified by every page of his wonderful history. To many a nation 
 of antiquity the thought of its mission dawned when its history had 
 closed; but Israel's history begins with a clear outline of his divine 
 calling. The true, the ideal Israel, though constituting but a minority 
 of the people, always thought, felt, and acted in the spirit implied in the 
 name, Elijah: "My God is Jehovah; I am sent into this world to pro- 
 claim his truth, to preach his holiness, to testify of his righteousness, to 
 spread the knowledge of his justice and love, to teach the nations the 
 fatherheacl of God and the brotherhood of man, to build up the kingdom 
 of God on earth." 
 
 3. Not so did this mission appear to the majority of the people, 
 their leaders, priests and kings. To them the worldly welfare was the 
 first concern. To be a strong, prosperous nation, to push the border 
 lines of the country far into the neighboring kingdoms ; to build strong 
 cities, stud the mountains with fortresses, and crown the hills with royal 
 palaces and stately temples, was the ambition of those who, through 
 popular favor, treachery, rebellion, or the massacre of dynasties, held 
 
 35
 
 the reins of government. To them the religion of Israel was but a part 
 of the state machinery, and Jehovah, the God of Israel, stood on a par 
 with all other respectable or disrespectable deities of the surrounding 
 heathen nations. To win their favor, and the political alliance of the 
 people who worshiped them, was considered an act of prudence and 
 statescraft. Baal and Jehovah were all the same to them, if but by the 
 change some profit was visible, new conquests, better times, new markets 
 for Israelitish goods, honors at foreign courts ; or, to the stupid majority, 
 the outlook for a good harvest or immunity from prevailing sickness. 
 
 Against such treachery and faithlessness toward the inmost life of 
 Israel the prophets protested most vehemently, even at the risk ot their 
 own lives and not in vain. Before their thundering voices the thrones 
 of idolatrous kings trembled, and the walls of their palaces sunk into 
 ruins. This inward conflict between the ideal interests of the people 
 and the question of material welfare could end but in the destruction of 
 the Iraelitish commonwealth. Yea, the great zeal of the prophets for 
 the purity of the religion of Israel, for the ideal life of the people, was 
 the direct cause of the total annihilation of the Jewish State. They 
 killed the body that the soul might live. What would have been the fate 
 of the people without these uncompromising upholders of the ideal 
 mission of Israel ? If the policy of their kings had obtained, the nation 
 might have existed a few hundred years longer; the princes would have 
 built some more palaces, filled their stables with more horses, their 
 courts with more slaves, their harems with the daughters of many 
 nations; the nobles and grandees would have enjoyed more gorgeous 
 feasts, the priests would have continued tor some time longer to slaughter 
 victims, and unctiously sprinkle their blood upon the altars, to swing 
 the censer with grace and dignity, and with well-trained, melodious 
 voice utter the prescribed benediction. Israel's merchants would have 
 carried on much longer a successful and profitable business with Tyre, 
 Sydon, Egypt and Babylon. But the religion of Israel would have been 
 stifled by this material prosperity. The God of hosts would have lost 
 his identity among the host of gods, and Israel would have shared the 
 fate of those very nations whose beliefs, customs and laws they were so 
 
 36
 
 eager to accept. Through the loss of his political existence, Israel has 
 saved his soul alive, and has become, by the very martyrdom which he 
 had to endure, the Savior, the Messiah, of humanity, the mediator 
 between God and man. The soul of Israel is his religion, which, in one 
 form or another, is now the animating spiritual force in the life of the 
 civilized nations of the earth. 
 
 4. Nor is this mission of Israel, to be the prophet of true religion, 
 ended in our time, though some of the fundamental principles of his 
 faith have been universally accepted. The last word of Israel has not 
 yet been spoken; Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, are not final 
 truths, but phases of his spiritual life. The religion of humanity, the 
 all-embracing faith of an Universal Religion is yet to come, and as of old, 
 Israel is the Elijah, the forerunner and preparer of that great messianic 
 time out of the soul-life of Israel must that future religion of humanity 
 be born. This is no dream, nor proud self-exultation, nor the vaunt of 
 despair it is the verdict of history as well as of faith. Of all the nations 
 of antiquity, before and after Israel's appearance in history, none has 
 survived a certain period of time. Within the limits of a few hundred 
 years the proudest and most powerful nations had exhausted their 
 productive genius; they gave their contribution to the wealth of human- 
 ity, and then disappeared from the face of the earth. Their mission was 
 ended. New nations sprang up in their stead, to take up the task of 
 humanity, to labor at the solution of some new problems, and to con- 
 tribute their share to the larger life of mankind. But^all along the line 
 of history we see Israel continue his life-work. Deprived of his national 
 independence, twice exiled and robbed of his rights, driven from land to 
 land, and proclaimed an alien wherever he set his weary foot, plundered, 
 tortured, burned, massacred, on account of his faith, Israel could not be 
 destroyed, but still exists, and is to-day as numerous as he has ever been 
 in the days of his kings! What truth does his historical exception teach 
 us ? What else, but the divine lesson that Israel's mission is not yet 
 ended, that his presence is still needed as an essential element of 
 humanity ? 
 
 5. Applying these truths to our own wants and the problem oi 
 
 s 37
 
 to-day, the question comes home to us with double force: What are 
 we ? If not a Religions Community, inspired by the life-mission of 
 Israel, what place do we hold in the organic life of modern nations ? It 
 is not difficult to find the answer, though it be humiliating to our self-love. 
 Then there is no room for Israel on this earth! Then we stand on a 
 level with the Gypsies or some other wandering tribes who have out- 
 lived the mission of their people, and who, in smaller or larger numbers, 
 present the painful spectacle of a degraded race. The irreligious Jew, the 
 Jewish atheist, is an anomaly, an historical self-contradiction. To claim 
 superiority on the strength of some racial differences and distinctions ; 
 to boast of the keenness of the Jewish intellect and ability, so gloriously 
 demonstrated by the large number of our successful merchants, finan- 
 ciers, artists, statesmen, or even politicians; to "point with pride" to 
 borrow a favorite phrase of our great after-dinner orators and political 
 aspirants to the great men that come from "our people," gracing the 
 pages of modern history, our Rothschilds, Bleichroders, Mocattos and 
 Belmonts; our Disraelis, Cremieaux and Laskers, our Mayerbeers, 
 Mendelssohns, Rubinsteins and Offenbachs, our Rachels, Davisons, 
 Barnais and Sarah Bernhardts not to mention the innumerable 
 host of famous Jewish chess-players, billiardists, dancers and ward-poli- 
 ticians to hold these up as the types of Israel's genius and the flowering 
 of our millennial historical career, is a most sorrowful misinterpretation of 
 the grandest and holiest mission, of the noblest and loftiest purpose 
 that has ever been conceived by any nation on the earth ! All these 
 worldly achievements may be very desirable, but they are of secondary 
 importance. Israel shall not exclude himself from the practical life of 
 the nations, but shall remain in close contact with all tha^t concerns the 
 welfare of the people with whom he shares a common political life; but 
 his true, his higher mission, is to be a prophet of God, to exemplify in 
 his domestic relations, in his social intercourse, in his religious associa- 
 tions and intellectual labors, the spirit that animated the prophets of old, 
 the spirit that breathes through the Mosaic legislation, aiming to tone 
 down the harsh distinctions of wealth and poverty, to inspire with the 
 fervor of his enthusiasm the moral endeavor of the age, to clarify 
 
 38
 
 through the purity of his faith, and the unselfish devotion of his life to 
 humanity's highest tasks, the faith of mankind in the One, Eternal God 
 of Israel, the Father of all men. 
 
 6. If this be our mission now, as it has ever been in the past, the 
 question which the Day of Atonement puts to us is : "Have you been 
 true to your mission?" And the answer comes back: We have not ! 
 We have been true to our material interests, but false to our divine trust. 
 We have striven to accumulate wealth at the cost of our religious and 
 intellectual life. We have sacrificed the soul for the body, the end for 
 the means ; we have given God for Baal ! From our houses we have 
 banished the faith of our fathers ; with our own hands we have broken 
 down the altars of devotion, and brought our children up in ignorance of 
 Israel's great truths. We have sold our Sabbaths and our holidays, and 
 bartered away the rest of the body and the peace of the mind. To our 
 sons and daughters we have set the example of cold indifference or 
 stupid sneering at the holiest and most venerable forms of our ancestral 
 faith, and now we wonder why the heaven of our spiritual life is closed and 
 the ground of our religious activity is dry and barren ; why our prayers 
 are without devotion, our services without uplifting inspiration ; why our 
 children turn away from our sanctuaries to seek not a truer faith, but 
 the enchanting worship of Baal and Astarte wealth and pleasure! 
 
 If we are not true-hearted and sincere in our convictions, if we our- 
 selves are halting between two opinions, how can we call down the 
 heavenly fire of true faith upon the souls of our children ? That we may 
 be better able to fulfill our mission, God has endowed us with wonderful 
 faculties and abilities, which have made us proverbial ; he has given us 
 greater vitality, to survive the storms of hatred and persecution ; wealth 
 and wisdom, to emulate in the solution of the greatest problems of 
 mankind. What use have we made of these faculties and endowments ? 
 Have our sacrifices in behalf of toiling and suffering humanity, in behalf 
 of the ignorant who are striving for light, the down-trodden who are 
 yearning for liberty, the poverty, misery and vice stalking in our streets 
 have our sacrifices for all these things been commensurate with our 
 means ? What have we done for the honor of Israel, for the strength- 
 
 39
 
 ening of our faith, the spreading of our truths, the sanctification of God's 
 name among the nations, that through our actions we may kill the hydra- 
 headed monster of prejudice and race-hatred still prevailing against the 
 descendants of Abraham ? Where are the Jewish libraries, high schools, 
 seminaries and universities, established by our Jewish Astors and Van- 
 derbilts ? How piteously poor do the few attempts at a larger humani- 
 tarian work look in comparison with our wealth and numbers in this 
 country. I mention with due respect the praise-worthy efforts made 
 by collective bodies and by some large-hearted individual men and 
 women our asylums and hospitals, which must live from hand to 
 mouth, our theological seminary in Cincinnati, which ekes out a preca- 
 rious existence, the manual training school in this city, the royal char- 
 ities of Mr. Jacob Schiff, of New York, and last, but not least, the blessed 
 work of the "Society for the Education of Jewish Orphans," created by 
 the munificence of Mrs. Elisa Frank in our midst, who thereby has set a 
 noble example of the true uses of wealth. 
 
 But I ask you, is this sufficient ? Should not a city like this possess 
 a Jewish library, offering ample information as well as living instruction, in 
 the shape of lecture courses on the most vital questions of Israelitish life ? 
 Should not a Jewish community like this provide an institution where our 
 daughters may receive as thorough and classical an education as in the 
 best and most fashionable seminaries in the land, with the additional bene- 
 fit of Jewish religious influence, and not leave the task of moulding the 
 heart and mind of the wives and mothers of the coming generation, to the 
 quiet proselytizing efforts of Catholic and Methodist schools? - 
 
 Nor should we overlook the dangers threatening the honor and faith 
 of Israel in connection with the increasing immigration of brethren from 
 lands of barbarism, political misrule, and religious darkness. If Christian 
 associations go to the trcjuble of establishing missionary schools among 
 them, shall not we, who are of their flesh and blood, take a warmer 
 interest in their moral and intellectual welfare, and by patient toil, by 
 kindly and brotherly treatment, win their confidence, their implicit trust, 
 and raise them up to that level of American citizenship on which we 
 stand ? 
 
 40
 
 /. Yes, ignorance, intellectual and spiritual torpitude, is the evil 
 which besets modern Israel; the Baal against whom we must fight with the 
 weapons of the ancient prophets, with the weapons of the spirit, the weap- 
 ons of truth, sincerity and faithfulness to principle. Step up to your duty, 
 ye leaders in Israel, you fathers and mothers, build up the altar of your 
 faith, put the fragments of the religion of your childhood together, and 
 place upon the rebuilt altar the sacrifice of your devotion, your love, and 
 see whether the true God of our fathers will not accept your offerings and 
 respond with the heavenly flame of enthusiasm kindling the hearts of our 
 children for the higher, the deviner life of Israel ! Witness the miracle 
 which sincere faith can perform before our eyes. If this Day is a true 
 prophet of God it will not leave us ere we shall have decided for ourselves 
 whether we shall serve Adonay, the God of our fathers, the God of truth, 
 and right, and duty, or whether we shall continue to follow Baal, the 
 idol of selfishness, pleasure, mental and moral indolence, pride, ignorance 
 and stubborness. Behold, long enough have we prayed to our idols to 
 open for us the heaven of happiness and to shower upon us the blessing 
 of true religion. Long enough have we followed after every fashion and 
 worshiped at the altars of every new theory : Atheism, materialism, 
 agnosticism they have not responded to our call, they have not answered 
 the soul's cry for the God of truth. But now, this day comes near to us, 
 like the prophet Elijah to misguided Israel of old, and with the words of 
 his prayer it thrills our souls with awe and reverence. In tones that 
 will forever ring through the ages, piercing the ears of indifference and 
 arousing the hearts of the faithless to their duty, it cries: "O Eternal, 
 God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that thou 
 art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all 
 those things at Thy word. Answer me, O Eternal, answer me, that this 
 people may know, that thou Adonay art God, and do thou turn their 
 heart back again !" Touched by the spark of faith, rekindled by the 
 heavenly fire, we cry out with penitent Israel of old, even as we shall 
 once utter with our last breath: "Adonay ha-Elohim The Eternal, he is 
 God ; the Eternal he is God !" With this prayer and with this answer we 
 dedicate and consecrate ourselves anew to the service of the God of our 
 fathers, to the divine mission of Israel, to be the Elijah of humanity. 
 
 41 Amen.
 
 171 6
 
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