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 JEWISH CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 TO CIVILIZATION 
 
 BY D. G. LYON, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED IN CHICAGO BEFORE THE 
 
 ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1893 
 
 BOSTON, 1893
 
 JEWISH CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 TO CIVILIZATION 
 
 BY D. G. LYON, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED IN CHICAGO BEFORE THE 
 
 WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS 
 
 ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1893 
 
 BOSTON, 1893
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 U) 
 
 JEWISH CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION. 
 
 BY D. G. LYON. 
 
 [This address is the outgrowth of the author's studies in connec- 
 tion with a course of instruction on the " History of Israel," which he 
 gives annually to the students of Harvard University. Under the title 
 * 'Columbus and the Jew," it was first delivered at the "Temple of 
 the Congregation of the Sons of Israel and David," Providence, R. I., 
 as a part of the Columbian Celebration of that Society, on October 21, 
 1892. It was afterwards read before the Ministers' Club, of which the 
 writer is a member ; before a group of the members of the Elysium 
 Club, Boston ; and in its present somewhat modified form, before the 
 rirst World's Parliament of Religions, Columbus Hall, Chicago, Sept. 
 1 8, 1893. This explanation may make clearer certain of the forms 
 of expression employed. The address has appeared in full in the 
 Chicago I liter- Ocean, of Sept. 19, 1893, and in Vol. II. of the 
 " World's Parliament of Religions," edited by Rev. Dr. J. H. 
 Barrows, Chicago, 1893. In sending it out again, the writer hopes 
 that it may aid in hastening the era of brotherly love so beautifully 
 foretold by the ancient Hebrew prophet.] 
 
 In this glad Columbian year, when all the world is rejoicing with 
 us, and in this hall consecrated to the greatest idea of the century, I 
 could perform no task more welcome than that to which I have been 
 assigned, the task of paying a tribute based on history. I shall 
 use the word Jew, not in the religious, but in the ethnic sense. In 
 so doing, the antithesis to " Jew " is not Christian, but non-Jew, or 
 Gentile.
 
 The position of the Jews in the world is peculiar. They may 
 be Englishmen, Germans, Americans, and as such, loyal to the 
 land of their birth. They may or may not continue to adhere to a 
 certain phase of religion. But they cannot avoid being known as 
 the scattered fragments of a nation. Most of them are as distinctly 
 marked by mental traits and by physiognomy as is an Englishman, a 
 German, or a Chinaman. 
 
 The Jew, as thus described, is in our midst an American, and has 
 all reasons to be glad which belong to the community at large ; but 
 his unique position today, and his importance in history, justify the 
 inquiry whether he may not have special reasons for rejoicing in this 
 auspicious year. 
 
 I. Such ground for rejoicing is seen in the fact that the discovery 
 and settlement of America was the work of faith. Columbus be- 
 lieved in the existence and attainableness of that which neither he nor 
 his fellows had ever seen. Apart from his own character and his 
 aims in the voyage of discovery, it was this belief that saved him 
 from discouragement and held his barque true to its westward course. 
 What though he found something greater than he sought? It was 
 .his belief in the smaller that made the greater discovery possible. 
 
 What is true of the discovery is true of the settlement of America. 
 This, too, was an act of faith. The colonists of Chesapeake and of 
 Massachusetts Bays left the comforts of the old world, braved the 
 dangers of sea, and cold, and savage populations, because they be- 
 lieved in something which could be felt, though not seen, the guid- 
 ance of a hand which directs the destiny of individuals and of 
 empires. 
 
 Now the Jews, as a people, stand in a pre-eminent degree for faith. 
 They must be judged, not by those of their number who, in our day, 
 give themselves over to a life of materialism, but by their best repre- 
 sentatives, and by the general current of their history. At the foun- 
 tain of their being they place a man whose name is the synonym of 
 faith. Abraham, the first Jew, nurtured in the comforts and refine- 
 ments of a civilization whose grandeur is just beginning to find due 
 appreciation, hears an inward compelling voice, bidding him forsake 
 the land of his fathers, and go forth, he knows not whither, to lay in 
 the distant West the foundations of the empire of faith. The hopes 
 of the entire subsequent world encamped in the tent of the wanderer
 
 5 
 
 from Ur of Chaldea. The migration was a splendid adventure, 
 prophetic of the great development of which it was the beginning. 
 
 What was it but the audacity of faith which, in later times, enabled 
 an Isaiah to defy the most powerful army in the world, and Jeremiah 
 to be firm in his convictions in the midst of a citv full of enemies? 
 What but faith could have held together the exiles in Babvlon, and 
 could have inspired them once more to exchange this home of ease 
 and luxury for the hardships and uncertainties of their devastated 
 Palestinian hills? It was faith that nerved the arm of the Maccabees 
 for their heroic struggle, and the sublimity of faith when the daunt- 
 less daughter of Zion defied the power of Rome. The brute force of 
 Rome won the clay, but the Jews, dispersed throughout the world, 
 have still been true to the foundation principle of their history. They 
 believe that God has spoken to their fathers, and that he has not 
 forsaken the children, and through that belief thev endure. 
 
 II. A second ground for Jewish rejoicing today is that America, 
 in its development, is realizing Jewish dreams. A bolder dreamer 
 than the Hebrew prophet the world has not known. He revelled in 
 glowing pictures of home and prosperity and brotherhood in the good 
 times that were yet to be. The strength of his w r ing as poet is seen 
 in his ability to take these flights at times when all outward appear- 
 ances were a denial of his hopes. It was not the prosperous state 
 whose continuance he forsaw, but the decaying state, destined to be 
 shattered, then purified, then rebuilt, then to continue forever. It was 
 not external power, but external power in alliance with inward good- 
 ness, whose description called forth his highest genius. His dream, it 
 is true, had its temporal and its local coloring. His coming state, built 
 on righteousness, was to be a kingdom, because this was the form of 
 government with which he was familiar. The seat of this empire 
 was to be Jerusalem, and his patriot heart could have made no other 
 choice. We are now learning to distinguish the essential ideas of a 
 writer from the phraseology in which they find expression. A Jewish 
 empire does not exist, and Jerusalem is not the mistress of the world. 
 And yet the dream of the prophet is true. A home for the oppressed 
 has been found, a home where prosperity and brotherhood dwell 
 together. Substitute America for Jerusalem and a republic for a king- 
 dom and the correctness of the prophet's dream is realized. Let us 
 examine the details of the picture.
 
 i. The prophet foresees a home. In this lie is true to one of the 
 marked traits of his people. Who has sung more sweetly than the 
 Hebrew poet of home, where every man shall " sit under his vine and 
 fig tree, and none shall make him afraid ; " where the father of a large 
 family is like the hunter whose quiver is full of arrows ; where the 
 children are likened to olive plants around the father's table ; and 
 where a cardinal virtue of childhood is honor to father and mother.' 
 And where shall one look today for finer types of domestic felicity 
 than may be found in Jewish homes? Or, taking the word k ' home" 
 in its larger sense, where shall one surpass the splendid patriotism of 
 the Hebrew exile : 
 
 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 
 
 Let my right hand forget her cunning. 
 
 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
 
 If I remember thee not: 
 
 If I prefer not Jerusalem 
 
 Above mv chief jov." 
 
 Yet, nowithstandimg this love of local habitation, the Jew has been 
 for many cruel centuries a wanderer on the face of the earth. The 
 nations have raged, the kings of the earth have set themselves and 
 have taken counsel together, and the standing miracle of history is that 
 the Jew has not been ground to powder as between the upper and the 
 nether millstone. But these hardships are now, let us hope, near their 
 end. This young republic has welcomed the Jew who has fled from 
 the oppression of the old world. Its constitution declares the equality 
 of men, and experience demonstrates our power to assimilate all 
 comers who desire to be one with us. Here thought and its expres- 
 sion are free. Here is the restful haven which realizes the prophet's 
 dream. Not the Jew only, but all the oppressed of earth, may 
 here find welcome and home. The inspiring example of Columbia's 
 portals always open to the world is destined to alleviate the ills and 
 check the crimes of man against man throughout all lands. And what 
 though here and there a hard and unphilanthropic soul would bolt 
 Columbia's door and recall her invitation or check her free intercourse 
 with nations ! This is but the eddy in her course, and to heed these 
 harsh advisers she must be as false to her own past as to her splendid 
 ideal. Chinese exclusion acts and some of the current doctrines of 
 protection are as un-American as they are inhuman.
 
 2. But the Jewish dream was no less of prosperity than of home. 
 America realizes this feature of the dream to an extent never seen 
 before. Where should one seek for a parallel to her inexhaustible re- 
 sources, and to her phenomenal material development? No element 
 of the community has understood better than the Jewish to reap the 
 harvest which lias ever tempted the sickles of industry. Jewish names 
 are numerous and potent in all the exchanges and in all great commer- 
 cial enterprises. The spirit that schooled itself by hard contact with 
 Judean hills, that has been held in check bv adversity for twenty-five 
 centuries, shows in this free land the elasticity of the uncaged eagle. 
 Not only trade, but all other avenues of advance are here open to men 
 of endowments, of whatsoever race and clime. In journalism, in edu- 
 cation, in philanthropy, the Jews will average as \vell as the Gentiles, 
 perhaps better, while many individual Jews have risen to an enviable 
 eminence. 
 
 3. A third feature in the Jewish dream, an era of brotherhood and 
 good feeling, is attaining here a beautiful realization. 
 
 (1) Nowhere have we finer illustration of this than in the attitude 
 toward the Jews of the great seats of learning. The oldest and largest 
 American university employs its instructors without applying any 
 test of race or religion. In its faculty Jews are always found. To 
 its liberal feast of learning there is a constant and increasing resort of 
 ambitious Jewish youth. Harvard is, of course, not peculiar in this 
 regard. There are other seats of learning where wisdom invites as 
 warmly to her banquet halls. The spectacle at Harvard is, however, 
 specially gratifying, because it seems to be prophetically embodied in 
 her seal, >4 Christo et Ecclesiae," an acknowledgement of her obliga- 
 tions to the Jew and the dedication of her powers to a Jewish car- 
 penter and to a Jewish institution. 
 
 (2) The era of brotherhood is also seen in the co-operation of Jew 
 and Gentile to further good causes. To refer again, by permission, to 
 Harvard University, one of the unique and most significant collections 
 is a Semitic museum, fostered by many friends, but chiefly by a Jew. 
 And it is a pleasure to add here that one of the great departments of 
 the library of the University of Chicago has been adopted by the Jews. 
 Although taxed to the utmost to care for their destitute brethren, who 
 seek our shores to escape old world persecution, the Jews are still ever 
 ready to join others in good works for the relief of human need. If
 
 Baron Hirsch's colossal benefactions distributed in America are re- 
 stricted to Jews, it is because this philanthropist sees in these unfortu- 
 nate refugees the most needy subjects of benefaction. 
 
 (3) But most significant of all is the fact that \ve are beginning to 
 understand one another in a religious sense. When Jewish rabbis 
 are invited to deliver religious lectures at great universities, and when 
 Jewish congregations welcome Columbian addresses from Christian 
 ministers, we seem to have taken a long step toward acquaintance with 
 one another. The discussion now going on among Jews regarding the 
 adoption of Sunday as the day of public worship, and the Jewish 
 recognition of the greatness of Jesus, which finds expression in syno- 
 gogue addresses such things are prophecies, whose significance the 
 thoughtful hearer will not fail to perceive. 
 
 Now what is the result of this closer union, of which I have in- 
 stanced a few examples in learning, in philanthropy, and in affairs 
 religious? Is it not the removal of mutual misunderstandings? So 
 long as Judaism and American Christianity stand aloof, each will con- 
 tinue to ascribe to the other the vices of its most unworthv representa- 
 tives. But when they meet and learn to know one another, they find 
 a great common standing-ground. Judging each by its best, each can 
 have for the other only respect and good will. 
 
 The one great exception to the tenor of these remarks, is in matters 
 social. There does not exist that free intercourse between Jews and 
 non-Jews which one might reasonably expect. One of the causes is 
 religious prejudice on both sides, but the chief cause is the evil alreadv 
 mentioned, of estimating Jews and non-Jews by the least worthy mem- 
 bers of the two classes. The Jew who is forced to surrender all his 
 goods and flee from Russian oppression, or who purchases the right 
 to remain in the Czar's empire by a sacrifice of his faith, can hardlv be 
 blamed if he sees only the bad in those who call themselves Christians. 
 If one of these refugees prospers in America, and carries himself in 
 a lordly manner, and makes himself distasteful even to the cultivated 
 among his co-religionists, can it be wondered at that others transfer 
 his bad manners to all Jews? But let Jew and non-Jew come to 
 understand one another, and the refinement in the one will receive its 
 full recognition from the refinement in the other. Acquaintance and 
 a good heart are the checks against the unthinking condemnation bv 
 classes.
 
 III. A third and main reason why the Jew should rejoice in this 
 Columbian year is that American society is, in an important sen-e. 
 produced and held together bv Jewish thought. The justification of 
 this assertion forces on us the question, -'What has the Jew done for 
 civilization ? " 
 
 i. First of all, he has given us the Bible, the scriptures, old and 
 new. It matters not for this discussion that the Jews, as a religious 
 ^ect. have never given to the books of the New Testament the dignity 
 of canonicitv. It suffices that these books, with one or possibly two 
 exceptions, were written bv men of Jewish birth. 
 
 1 i ) And where shall one go if not to the Bible to find the noblest 
 literature of the soul? Where shall one find so well expressed as in 
 the Psalms the longing for God and the deep satisfaction of his 
 presence? Where is burning indignation against wrong-doing more 
 strongly portraved than in the Prophets? Where such a picture as the 
 Gospel gives of love that consumes itself in sacrifice? The highest 
 hopes and moods of the soul reached such attainment among the Jews 
 2.000 years ago that the intervening ages have not yet shown one step 
 in advance. 
 
 (2) Viewed as a hand-book of ethics, the Bible has a power second 
 only to its exalted position as a classic of the soul. The "Ten Words," 
 though negatively expressed, are, in their second half, an admirable 
 statement of the fundamental relations of man to man. Paul's eulogy 
 of love is an unmatched masterpiece of the foundation principle of 
 right living. The adoption of the Golden Rule by all men would 
 banish crime and convert earth into a paradise. 
 
 (3) The characters depicted in the Bible are in their way no less 
 effective than the teachings regarding ethics and religion. Indeed, 
 that which is so admirable in these characters is the rare combination 
 of ethics and religion which finds in them expression. In Abraham 
 we see hospitality and faith attaining to adequate expression. Grant, 
 if one will, the claim that part of the picture is unhistorical. Aye, let 
 him have it who will that such a person as Abraham never existed at 
 all. The character, as a creation, does as much honor to the Jew who 
 conceived it as the man, if real, does to the race to which he belonged. 
 Moses is the pattern of the unselfish, state-building patriot, who despised 
 hardships because tk he endured as seeing him who is invisible." 
 Jeremiah will forever be inspiration to reformers whose lot is cast in
 
 IO 
 
 degenerate (lavs. Paul is the synonym of self-denying zeal, which can 
 be content with nothing less than a gigantic effort to carry good news 
 to the entire world. 
 
 And Jesus was a Jew. How often is this fact forgotten, so com- 
 pletely is he identified with the history of the world at large ! We say 
 to ourselves that such a commanding personality is too universal for 
 national limitations. We overlook perchance the Judean birth and the 
 Galilean training. Far be it from me to attempt an estimate of the 
 significance of the character and work of Jesus for human progress. 
 Nothing short of omniscience could perform such a task. My purpose 
 is attained by reminding myself and others anew of the nationality of 
 him whom an important part of the world has agreed to consider the 
 greatest and best of human kind. I do not forget that the Jews have 
 not yet in large numbers admitted the greatness of Jesus, but this 
 failure may be largely explained as the effect of certain theological 
 teachings concerning his person, and of the sufferings which Jews 
 have endured at the hands of those who bear his name. But in that 
 name and that personality rightly conceived, there is such potency to 
 bless and to elevate, that I can see no reason why Jesus should not be- 
 come to the Jews the greatest and most beloved of all their illustrious 
 teachers. 
 
 Viewing the Bible as a whole, as a library of ethics, of religion, of 
 ethical-religious character, its influence on language, on devotion, on 
 growth in a hundred directions, exceeds all human computation. 
 
 2. Along with the sacred writings have come to the race through 
 the Jew certain great doctrines. 
 
 (1) Foremost of these is the belief in one God. Greek philoso- 
 phy, it is true, was also able to formulate a doctrine of monotheism,, 
 but the monotheism which has perpetuated itself is that announced 
 by Hebrew seer and not by Greek philosopher. Something was want- 
 ing to make the doctrine more than a cold formula, and that something; 
 the Jew supplied. It is the phase of monotheism which he attained 
 that has commended itself to the peoples of Europe and America. 
 to the teeming millions of Islam, and whose adoption by the remaining 1 
 nations of earth is more than a pious hope. 
 
 (2) This God, who is one, is not a blind force, working on lines, 
 but half defined, coming to consciousness only as he attains to expres- 
 sion in his universe, but he is a wise architect, whose devising all
 
 1 1 
 
 things are. "The heavens declare his glory and the firmament 
 showeth his handiwork." 
 
 (3) His government is well ordered and right. Chance and fate 
 have here no place. No sparrow falls without him. The very hairs. 
 of your head are numbered. Righteousness is the habitation of his. 
 throne. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? 
 
 (4) This one God, maker and governor of all things, is more ; he 
 is our Father. Man is created in his image, man's nostrils set vibra- 
 ting with the divine breath. The prayer of all prayers begins : " Our 
 Father." What infinite dignity and value does this doctrine place upon 
 the human soul ! From God we come, and his perpetual care we are. 
 How this conviction lifts men above all pettiness and discouragement! 
 Am I his, co-worker with him on lines which he has preordained? 
 Then mine the joyful task to work with zeal in the good cause whose 
 sure success is seen by him, though not by me. 
 
 (5) If God be our father, then we are brothers. The convenient 
 distinctions among" men, the division of men into classes, are all super-- 
 ficial all based on externals. In essence men are one. If we be all 
 brothers, then brotherly duties rest upon us all. Due recognition of 
 our brotherhood would stay the act or thought of wrong and open in 
 every heart a fountain of love. Brothers? Then will I seek the 
 Father's features in every face and try to arouse in every soul the con- 
 sciousness of its lofty kinship. 
 
 (6) The immortality of the soul, though not distinctively a Jewish 
 belief, is implied in much of the Old Testament, is clearly announced 
 in Daniel, is well defined in the centuries preceding our era, and in the 
 New Testament is often stated and everywhere assumed. The doc- 
 trine was rescued by the monotheism of the Jew from the grotesque 
 features and ceremonies which characterized it among the Babylonians, 
 the Egyptians, and the Greeks. The spritual genius of the Jew, while 
 asserting unequivocally the fact and emphasizing its moral significance, 
 has wisely abstained from an expression of opinion regarding a thou- 
 sand details. 
 
 (7) By the side of these great doctrines concerning God, his father- 
 hood, man's brotherhood, the soul, its dignity and immortality, we 
 must place yet another, the Jewish conception of the golden age. 
 This age to him is not past, but future. He had, it is true, his pic- 
 ture of Eden, that garden of God, where the first man held free con-
 
 I 2 
 
 verse with his Maker. But this picture is not of Jewish origin. It 
 came from Babvlon and never succeeded in making a strong impression 
 on the national thought. The Old Testament makes but little of it out- 
 side of the narrative in Genesis. In view of the emphasis given to 
 the story by later theologies, the reserve in the New Testament is like- 
 wise most signiiicant. The reason is clear. The age of gold is yet 
 to be. Prophet and apostle and apocalyptic seer vie with one another 
 in describing the glory of renewed humanity in the coming kingdom 
 of God. The Jew cannot fasten his thought on a shattered fortune. 
 The brilliant castle which he is yet to build is too entrancing to his 
 vision. There is here no place for tears over the remote past, but only 
 a fond looking forward and working toward the dawn of the dav of 
 righteousness and of peace. 
 
 3. I have spoken of our indebtedness to the Jew for the Bible and 
 its great doctrines. \Ve are under no less obligations for certain great 
 institutions. 
 
 ( i ) Whence comes our day of rest, one in seven, this benefi- 
 cent provision for recreation of man and beast, this day consecrated bv 
 the experience of centuries to good deeds and holy thoughts? \Ye 
 meet with indications of a seven-day division of time in an Assyrian 
 calendar tablet, but we are able to assert definitely by a studv of the Ass\ - 
 rian and Bain Ionian commercial records that these peoples had nothing 
 which corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the verv name of which 
 means rest. The origin of the Sabbath may well have to do with the 
 moon's phases. But the Jew viewed the day with such sacreclness that 
 he makes its institution coeval with the work of creation. From him 
 it has become the possession of the western world, and its significance 
 for our well-being, physical, moral, and spiritual, is vaster than can be 
 computed. 
 
 (2) I have spoken already of Jesus as a Jew. Then is the religion 
 which bears his name a Jewish institution. It has elements which are 
 not Jewish, it has passed into the keeping of those who are not Jews. 
 But its earliest advocates and disciples no less than its founder were 
 Jews. Not only so, but these all considered Jesus, his teaching and 
 the teaching concerning him as the culmination of the Hebrew develop- 
 ment, the fulfilment of the Hebrew prophet's hope. The greatest ex- 
 pounder of Christianity writes to the Romans that they have been 
 grafted into the olive stock of which the Jews were branches b\
 
 nature. Many chuses have wrought together to insure the victory 
 which Christianity has won in the world. But those who are filled 
 with its true spirit and who are thoughtful can never forget its Judean 
 origin. 
 
 (3) To the same source we must likewise trace institutional Chris- 
 tianity, the church. The first church was at Jerusalem. The first 
 churches were among devout Jews dispersed in the great Gentile cen- 
 ters of population. The ordinances of the church have an intimate 
 connection with Jewish religious usages. In the course of a long 
 development other elements have crept in. But in her main features 
 the church bears ever the stamp of her origin. The service is Jewish. 
 We still read from the Jewish psalter, we still sing the themes of 
 psalmist and apostle, the aim of the sermon is stfll to arouse the lis- 
 tener to the adoption of Jewish ideas, we pray in phraseology taken 
 from Jewish scriptures. Our Sunday-schools have for their prime ob- 
 ject acquaintance with Jewish writings. Our missions are designed to 
 tell men of God's love as revealed to them through a Jew. Our church 
 and Christian charities are but the embodiment of the Golden Rule as 
 uttered bv a Jew. 
 
 4. It may furthermore be fairly said that the Jew, through these 
 writings, doctrines, and institutions, has bequeathed to the world the 
 highest ideals of life. On the binding and title page of its books the 
 Jewish Publication Society of America has pictured the lion and 
 the lamb Iving down together and the child playing with the asp, 
 while underneath the picture is written the words, " Israel's mission is 
 peace." The picture tells what Israel's prophet saw more than twentv- 
 five centuries ago. The subscription tells less than the truth. Israel's 
 misson is peace, morality, and religion, or, better still, Israel's mission 
 is peace through moralitv and religion. This the nation's lesson to the 
 world. This the spirit of the greatest characters in Israel's history. 
 To live in the same spirit, in a word, to become like the foremost of 
 all Israelites this is the highest that any man yet venture to hope. 
 
 I have catalogued with some detail, though by no means with full- 
 ness, Jewish elements in our civilization. In most cases I have passed 
 no judgment on these elements. If one were disposed to inquire into 
 their value he might answer his question by trying to conceive what we 
 should be without the Bible, its characters, doctrines, ethics, institu-
 
 tions, hopes and ideals. To think these elements absent from our 
 civilization is impossible, because they have largely made us what \ve 
 are. Not more closely interlocked are the warp and woof of a fabric 
 than are these elements with all that is best and highest in our life and 
 thought. If the culture of our day is a fairer product than that of 
 any preceding age we cannot fail to see how far we are indebted for 
 this to the Jew. 
 
 Mv purpose has not been to inquire by what means the little nation 
 of Palestine attained to its unique eminence. Some will say it was by 
 revelation made to them alone, others that they were fortunate dis- 
 coverers, and vet others would explain it all by the spell, "develop- 
 ment." Be one or all of these answers true, the Deity can reveal 
 himself only to the choice souls who have understanding for the 
 higher thought ; discovery is made only by those who recognixe a new 
 truth when it floats into the field of vision ; development is only 
 growth and differentiation from germs already existing. Why should 
 Israel develop unlike other peoples ; why discover truth hidden from 
 others; why become receptacles for revelation higher than any attained 
 elsewhere? This is one of the mysteries of history, but the mystery 
 can in no wise obscure the fact. 
 
 However explained, or unexplained, the Jewish role in history 
 belongs to the most splendid achievements of the human race. Alas, 
 that these achievements are so often forgotten ! Forgotten by the [e\v 
 himself when he devotes his powers to the problems of today with 
 such intensity as to be indifferent to his nation's past. Forgotten by 
 those among whom he lives when they view him as an alien, and 
 when in the enjoyment they fail to recognize the source of some of 
 their greatest blessings. It is not alone the land which was discovered 
 by Columbus, but the entire world owes to the Jew a debt of gratitude 
 which never can be paid. 
 
 A practical closing question forces itself on our attention. The 
 great role in history was played by this people while it had a national 
 or semi-national existence. At present the Jews are separated from 
 the rest of the community mainly by certain religious observances. 
 Is the Jew of today worthy of the glorious past of his people, and is 
 he entitled to any of the consideration which impartial history must 
 accord to his ancestors? An affirmative answer, if it can be jnven, 
 
 c^ 
 
 ought to do something to remove prejudices which yet linger among
 
 -us and to alleviate the fortunes of the Jew in lands less liberal than 
 our own. 
 
 The ancient Jew was a man of persistence and of moral and spiritual 
 genius. His modern brother is not lacking in either genius or persis- 
 tence. His persistence and power to recuperate have saved him from 
 annihilation. His genius shows itself chiefly in matters of finance, in 
 the ability to turn the most adverse conditions into power. In litera- 
 ture, art, music, philosophy, he is of the community at large, averag- 
 ing high, no doubt, but with nothing distinctive. In the world's 
 markets, in commerce and trade, he distances competitors. 
 
 The extent to which he educates his children and helps his poor to 
 become self-supporting, and the very small percentage which he fur- 
 nishes to the annals of crime, give to him a high character for 
 morality. The Montefiores, Hirsches, Emma Lazaruses, Jacob 
 Schiffs, and Felix Adlers show what power and spirit of benevolence 
 and reform still belong to the Jew. 
 
 It would, perhaps, be too much to demand further great religious 
 contributions from this people. But the genius which showed itself 
 of old in the realm of religion, and which is today no less evident 
 in the realm of practical affairs, may be again expected to turn itself 
 more and more to the noblest living and to the amelioration of the lot 
 of men. Nothing will be so helpful in bringing about this end as for 
 the Jew himself to magnify the work of his fathers, and for the rest 
 of the community cordially to recognize what he has done and what 
 he still has the power to do. It can hardly be that a people of such 
 glory in the past and of such present power shall fail to attain again 
 to that eminence in the highest things for which they seem to be 
 .marked out by their unique history.
 
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