of American birth asking for opportunity to seek new homes in Australia; while the reports from one of our oldest and richest States Massachusetts show an increase in number of recipients of public charity between 1873 and 1877 of about fifty per cent. -- How to create these new wants, how to find new avenues for trade or enlarge those already existing, and how thereby to find or develop new employments for the masses, are therefore the most important questions of the hour that can occupy the attention of the statesman, the legislator, and the merchant; those whose business it is to educate through the school or the press, those whose mission it is to teach morality and religion. We repeat, more especially, those whose mission it is to teach morality and religion, because there is no greater or more insurmountable obstacle in the way of intellectual, moral, or religious growth than poverty. When the stomach clamors, when the back is bare, and the hands and feet are cold, there is little place in the mind of any person except for thoughts relating to the satisfaction of the animal. When the New York Prison Association state, as they do, in one of their recent reports, that crime is increasing in New York and New England and in other parts of this country in an alarming ratio- in a ratio greater than is manifest in England and Ireland—they present a case which is not to be primarily remedied by the preaching of sermons or the singing of hymns. And if half the time spent in preaching sermons and singing hymns, and in metaphysical discussions as to whether the Pope is the "man of sin," and "whether modern culture tends to infidelity," were spent in inquiring why it is that in this country, with all the elements of abundance, we have enforced idleness, increasing poverty, and, consequently, increasing crime; why it is that people who pass out of churches and tabernacles where sermons States sent more persons to England, Ireland, and Scotland in 1876 than was drawn from these same countries. In respect to emigration from Great Britain to Canada the Board of Trade reports that it "has fallen to the smallest dimensions, if it has not altogether been suspended"; and "that, in fact, the records of 1876 are the records of a movement of passengers to and fro," and not in any real sense “emigration" at all. On the other hand, the emigration to the Australian Colonies from Great Britain, on the whole, was well maintained; the emigrants to Australia and New Zealand for 1876 numbering 32,196, while the immigrants were only 2,597. are preached and hymns sung, pass out into an atmosphere so crammed with unnatural necessities that overcome virtue, and with artificial temptations to do wrong so powerful that human nature, as ordinarily constituted, cannot resist, there would be more souls made happy in this world, and more probably saved for the next, than there now is. But in respect to these new wants, new avenues for trade, and consequent new employments, can they be created, it may be asked, if all whose business it is should give the matter earnest attention? We answer unhesitatingly, that in respect to the United States, and to the present emergency, it is not only possible, but comparatively easy, to effect such results. But the demonstration of the how, and the presentation of evidence sufficient to enable each person who has followed this line of argument and investigation to arrive at an independent judgment and a selfanswer, is a work to be entered upon separately. DAVID A. WELLS. ART. VIII.-REFORMED JUDAISM. THE Jews are justly called a peculiar people. During the past three thousand years they have lived apart from their fellow-men, in a state of voluntary or enforced isolation. The laws of the Pentateuch directed them to avoid contact with heathens. Christianity in turn shunned and execrated them. Proud and sensitive by nature, subjected to every species of humiliation and contempt, they retired upon themselves, and continued to be what the seer from Aram had described them in the olden time, "A people that dwells in solitude." It followed that, in the progress of time, idiosyncrasies of character were developed, and habits of thinking and feeling grew up amongst them, which could not but contribute to alienate them still more from the surrounding world. They felt that they were not understood. They were too shy to open their confidence to their oppressors. They remained an enigma. At wide intervals books appeared purporting to give an account of the Jews and their sacred customs. But these attempts were, in the main, dictated by no just or generous motive. Their authors, narrow bigots or renegades from Judaism, ransacked the vast literature of the Hebrew people for such scattered fragments as might be used to their discredit, and exhibited these as samples of Jewish manners and Jewish religion. The image thus presented, it is needless to say, was extremely untrustworthy. And yet the writings of these partial judges have remained almost the only sources from which even many modern writers are accustomed to draw their information. The historian is yet to come who will dispel the dense mists of prejudice that have gathered about Jewish history, and reveal the inward life of this wonderful people, whose perennial freshness has been preserved through so many centuries of the most severe trials and persecution. In one respect, indeed, let us hasten to add, the popular judgment concerning the Jews has never been deceived. The intense conservatism in religion for which they have become proverbial is fully con Numbers xxiii. 9. firmed by facts. There exists no other race of men that has approved its fidelity to religious conviction for an equal period, under equal difficulties, and amid equal temptations. Antiochus, Titus, Firuz, Reccared, Edward I. of England, Philip Augustus of France, Ferdinand of Spain, exhausted the resources of tyranny in vain to shake their constancy. Their power of resistance rose with the occasion that called it forth; and their fervid loyalty to the faith transmitted to them by the fathers never appeared to greater advantage than when it cost them their peace, their happiness, and their life to maintain it. Since the close of the last century, however, a great change has apparently come over the Jewish people. Not only have they abandoned their former attitude of reserve and mingled freely with their fellow-citizens of whatever creed, not only have they taken a leading part in the great political revolutions that swept over Europe, but the passion for change, so characteristic of the age in which we live, has extended even to their time-honored religion; and a movement aiming at nothing less than the complete reformation of Judaism has arisen, and rapidly acquired the largest dimensions. The very fact that such a movement should exist among such a people is rightly interpreted as a sign of the times deserving of careful and candid consideration; and great interest has accordingly been manifested of late on the subject of Jewish Reform. In a series of articles we shall undertake to give a brief sketch of the origin and bearings of the movement. But before addressing ourselves to this task it will be necessary to review a few of the main causes that have enabled the Jews to perdure in history, and to consider the motives that impelled them to resist change so long, if we would properly appreciate the process of transformation that is even now taking place among them. Among the efficient forces that conduced to the preservation of the Jewish people we rank highest The Purity of their Domestic Relations. The sacredness of the family tie is the condition both of the physical soundness and the moral vigor of nations. The family is the miniature commonwealth, upon whose integrity the safety of the larger commonwealth depends. It is the seedplot of all morality. In the child's intercourse with its parents the sentiment of reverence is instilled, the essence of all piety, all idealism; - also the habit of obedience to rightful authority, which forms so invaluable a feature in the character of the loyal citizen. In the companionship of brothers deference to the rights of equals is practically inculcated, without which no community could exist. The relations between brother and sister give birth to the sentiment of chivalry, regard for the rights of the weaker, and this forms the basis of magnanimity, and every generous and tender quality that graces humanity. Reverence for superiors, respect for equals, regard for inferiors, these form the supreme trinity of the Virtues. Whatever is great and good in the institutions and usages of mankind is an application of sentiments that have drawn their first nourishment from the soil of the family. The family is the school of duties. But it has this distinguishing excellency, that among those who are linked together by the strong ties of affection duty is founded on love. On this account it becomes typical of the perfect morality in all the relations of life, and we express the noblest longings of the human heart when we speak of a time to come in which all mankind will be united "as one family." Now the preeminence of the Jews in point of domestic purity will hardly be disputed. "In this respect they stand out like a bold promontory in the history of the past, singular and unapproached," said the philosopher Trendelenburg.* According to the provisions of the Mosaic Code, the crime of adultery is punished with death. The most minute directions are given touching the dress of the priests and the common people, in order to check the pruriency of fancy. The scale of forbidden marriages is widely extended with the same end in view. Almost the entire tribe of Benjamin is extirpated to atone for an outrage upon feminine virtue committed within its borders. The undutiful son is stoned to death in the presence the whole people. That husband and wife shall become "as one flesh," is a conception which we find only among the Jews. Among them the picture of the true housewife which is unrolled to us in Proverbs had its original, — the picture of her who unites all womanly grace and gentleness, in whose environment dwell comfort and beauty, "whose husband and sons rise up to praise her." The marriage tie was held so sacred that it was freely used by the prophets of * Vide the essay on the Origin of Monotheism in Jahrbuch des Vereins für Wissenschaftliche Pädagogik, Vol. IX. 1877, by the author of this article. |