And does not this great country of the United States show similar transmutation of races and the resultant new powers, new life, which make her a young giant destined to write a deathless name on the scroll of history?

Yet England and Germany, Holland and the United States have of themselves benefited the world but materially. Whatever benefit of a spiritual nature they have conferred upon humanity has been simply the conversion of savages to the religion and the ideals of the Semite, not of the Aryan. Their spiritual achievements have been but to spread over the earth a book called the Bible, which was written by Jews, and the teachings of Jesus, who was himself a Jew.

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On the other hand, from the days when King Arthur ruled, or Varro lost his legions; from the day the races of the Scheldt and Meuse first fought the elements, and Icelanders first saw "Greenland's icy mountains"-and for how many ages before these events!—the Jew existed, separate, watching, suffering, hoping— always hoping! Was he, is he, simply an abnormality of nature? Did he have, has he, no function to perform? True, his blood has mixed with all nations; from the days of the Hebrew woman who married a Tyrian, and whose son came to King Solomon and wrought all his work"; from the days when the prophet Joel thundering his charge against Tyre and Sidon, those great seaports of antiquity, exclaimed, "The children also of Judah and Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians," even to the present day, when trace of Jewish blood is found in many a family, especially of the aristocracy. But as a nation he has remained, and he still remains, separate and distinct. Is it a result of human agency, or has a Power invisible and invincible so willed it? His own law-book tells the Jew: "Ye shall be holy for Me, for I the Eternal am holy, and I have severed you from the peoples that ye should be Mine."*

His victories have been but partly material. He has shown himself time and again endowed with the powers of mind to win renown as merchant or as scholar. He helped the Moor, if indeed he did not often teach him, to light for Christian students their torches of learning whose gleams dispelled the dark ages. His sons were in the following of Columbus, and if late research be true, it was a Jew and not Queen Isabel who supplied that navi

*Lev. xx. 26.

gator with funds for his great voyage. Certainly they helped Vasco da Gama., Certainly it was Behaim, aided by Roderigo and Joseph, who in 1480 invented the astrolabe. And equally certain it is that in modern enterprise the sons of the Hebrew are among the earliest settlers in African, Australian, and American wilds.

But his chief victories, his noblest victories, have been spiritual. The book and the teachings most loved, and most cherished, and most honored by modern civilization are the book and the teachings already referred to-the Book of the Jew, and the teachings of the Jew.

And now the most wonderful fact confronts us, a fact before which his past victories almost pale. This ancient nation, old when every modern nation was born, is becoming invested with new powers, new life, new youth. It is impossible not to see the signs. The process of his regeneration may have been slow, or may seem to have been slow, to us who are living at the moment of his apparent rejuvenation. It is some two hundred and fifty years since England opened her doors to him. It is a hundred years since France declared his equality. In the rest of Europe, and even in this country, liberties have been but slowly yielded to him. The revolution of 1848 did much for him. The fight for rights in England was won at last, though not half a century has passed since the House of Commons opened to him the portals of its historic hall. Two hundred and fifty years! What are two and three hundred years to a race whose history counts years by the thousand?

During this quarter of a millennium, the Jew has been slowly gathering strength. Strange to say, it was a hostile act which first demonstrated his inherent vitality and proved his rejuvenescence. The hostile act was the abduction of young Mortara. The Jewish world was thrilled by the outrage. AngloJewish, Franco-Jewish, and German-Jewish indignation was echoed by American-Jewish protest, and the sympathetic meetings, speeches, articles, and resolutions told the Jewish race throughout the wide world that the scattered nation had but one national heart, and that the life-blood as it pulsed in the old world or in the new was as healthy and vivific as ever.

The practical result was the organization of the Jews in the great countries. France took the lead by founding the Alliance

Israelite Universelle, with which is identified forever the name of Cremieux-the same Cremieux in whose hands France herself reposed such sacred national trusts a few years later. England followed, with its Anglo-Jewish Association, Germany with its Allianz, and the United States with its Board of Delegates.

These societies watch Jewish rights, and when occasion arises they use the regular channels of interference through the governments of the countries of their adoption; witness the action of the Berlin Conference in connection with Roumania and her treatment of her Hebrew population. They attempt the championship of the oppressed Jews throughout the world, and endeavor to ameliorate their lot. Their vigilance is ceaseless. Within the last few weeks the good offices of this government have, upon representation of one of these societies, been exercised on behalf of Hebrews exposed to religious persecution in the land of the Shah. They form by means of their committees a ready means for joint action in any emergency; and just as they supplied ready material of skilled brains to guide the awful exodus from Russia fifteen years ago, they stand ready at an hour's notice to organize in order to grapple unitedly with any problem affecting their race. Noble as is all this work, yet nobler is their educational effort.

They support schools from the West coast of Africa to the distant East, wherein boys and girls are taught in the most approved methods by trained teachers. I doubt if the Christian world is even aware of this activity. Perhaps the best way to show the enormous work thus attempted, and indeed accomplished, will be to present a list of the schools supported by the "Alliance."

In Paris the Alliance supports a preparatory school for boys, 42 inmates. Four years make a course, with professors of Hebrew, French,

Spanish, literature and diction, history, geography, mathematics, physical and natural science, writing, drawing, singing and gymnastics. There is also preparatory instruction for twenty students.

In Jaffa the Alliance supports an agricultural school which has 104 pupils, who receive a thorough course in scientific and practical farming, vine culture, etc.; and, finally, the Alliance maintains a farm school at Djedlida, near Tunis, where eighteen young men receive farming education.

Total expenses, 802,043 fr. 10 centimes. Boys' schools, 51; girls' schools, 27; "Ecoles maternelles," 2. Number of pupils, 18,100.

The Anglo-Jewish association subsidizes some of its work, but supports schools in English possessions besides. In addition to these "Pan-Jewish" organizations-Pan-Jewish because the Alliance of France has branches in most countries of the world from Turkey to Brazil, and subscriptions from Shanghai to Chicago, while the Anglo-Jewish association has branches in all countries under the British flag, from Canada to India-the Jewish communities in the great countries of the world are organized religiously, either under their own auspices, as in England, or under government auspices, as in France. In the United States, only the Reform-Jews are organized, but it is doubtful if they count 100,000 adherents out of the possibly 750,000 Hebrews in this country.

A further and remarkable evidence of the "Hebrew stock," as Washington terms it in one of his happy letters, becoming endowed with new life, is the creation of such societies as the Hoveve Zion (Lovers of Zion) and Shoveve Zion (Returners to Zion).

These societies also have branches in various countries. Their object is, chiefly, colonization of Palestine by forming agricultural settlements. Since 1881 over twenty colonies have been founded by various enterprises other than these societies. The founders had to learn by experience, and many would have sunk in the morass of failure but for the help of Baron Edmund de Rothschild of Paris. Now, they are practically successful, and their products, wine, soap and honey, are for sale in this country.

Colonization in Palestine has received an undoubted impetus through the failure of such attempts here. A new attempt is now being made in Salinas Valley, 118 miles from San Francisco. It is under the leadership of M. Ephraim Deinard, a scholar of wide repute, but no agriculturist. The American Hebrew of July 16 remarks:

"We hope that they will meet with success; we sincerely trust that