Life — February 4, 1909 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“ While there is Life ther VOL.LUT FEBRU Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J.A. Mireur, Pres't 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York. , CCORD- / % ING to the ee World Almanac i (a veracious pe- ~SD> riodical not yet under prosecu- tion by President Roosevelt) Rabbi Sam- uel Schulman, the minister of that stylish Synagogue on Fifth Avenue that over- looks the park at Seventy-sixth Street, is the one whom the Times reports as guilty of passionate behavior at the recent mecting of the Union of Ameri- can Hebrew Congregations, in Phila- delphia. The matter under discussion at the meeting was the reading of the Bible in the public schools. The He- brew Congregations are opposed to it, and Brother Schulman was one of a committee that brought in a resolution that the Congregations would like to carry the matter to the United St Supreme Court, “yet seeing that even high judicial authorities are influenced by the prevailing sentiments of the people, especially on the subject ‘is this a Christian country,” it would be wiser to take a different action which the resolutions defined. But some of the other Rabbis objected to casting aspersions on thé impartiality of the Supreme Court, and were only willing to say in their resolutions that “ from a constitutional standpoint this is not a Christian country,” which looks to be true, but fell so far short of satis- fying Brother Schulman, who wanted it put down unqualified, that this - a Christian country,” that wrath, would not. si room when or- is not he chortled in down nor leave the dered by the chairman, and so excited himself that, as Colonel Ochs’ paper says, “indescribable confusion pre- vailed.” Miter, Sectyand Treas. There seems to be no real need for trother Schulman, or any one, to ex- cite himself unduly, much less make in- describable confusion prevail, over the question whether this is a Christian country, or the matter of reading the Bible in the public schools. There is nothing Christian in the country ex- cept some of the folks, and they are not Constitutionally Christian, but per- The supposition that any 1 resources, as our kero- sonally so. of our mater sene, or our ready-made clothing, have been Christianized or are in danger of it, is quite erroneous. Because we have given up cannibalism, and provided ourselves with clothes, churches, clubs, hospitals, juils, insane asylums, arse- nals, colleges, railroads and professional baseball, and because we observe Sun- day in a great variety of curious ways, it is admitted that we are civilized, and suspected that our civilization is Christian, But the country is not Christian in the sense that there anything in it (except perhaps some of the girls and some hospitalities) that our Jewish brethren want, which is denied to them because they are Jews. All the chances of material profit or political preferment are open to them. Some of the laws, like the Sunday laws, are made to fit the convenience of the majority of the people, and minorities have to adjust themselves to them. It is hard to help that. cS 65 Dm S for the Bible in the public schools, personal discretion ought to regulate that, and doubtless does. It would scem that in schools where most of the scholars are Jewish the readings, if there are any, can be chiefly from the Old Testament, and where all are Jewish, entirely from the Old Tes- tament, and where the scholars are pretty evenly divided it ought to be possible any morning to get two schol- ars to match cents in a reverent man- ner and determine whether Old or New Testament should be heard. Our Jew- ish brethren, especially the Rabbis, and more especially the strictly orthodox Rabbis, are solicitous, of course, to maintain their ancient religion among Jews in this country, and they are jeal- ous of the exposure of Jewish children to Christian influences during the edu- cational period. Their feelings about that ought to be respected as far as they are reasonable, and not merely obstructive. Nevertheless, this seems a likelier country for the Jewish race than for the Jewish religion. To pre- serve that religion in its strictness seems to require a much stronger pres- sure of persecution from the outside than is at all likely to be available in this country for the job. The excellent system of free transfers in religion which prevails here seems to tend to bring all the sects into a more or less common fold. Probably we shall all be high church Baptists in the end, and surely any observant young Hebrew, seeing how blessed in that persuasion have been Mr. Rockefeller in one line of endeavor and Mr. Hughes in an- other, must already be considerably drawn to participate in its benefits. Meanwhile we hear like stories from Jews and Roman Catholics. The Jews find their rising generation disinclined to be separated from the mass of Americans. The young ones don't want to be “a peculiar people,” but prefer to be as much like other folks as circumstances, details of in- heritance and the other folks will per- mit. Accordingly they are more dis- posed to minimize their religious pe- culiarities. than to emphasize them. So the Roman Catholic brethren resent the propensity of their best young men to reject the church colleges whiclt have been carefully instituted to give them a sheltered education, and bolt off to Protestant, or secular, univer: sities, where they meet all kinds o youth and get to know them. It is in- convenient in this country to be pe- culiar and separate, and any priesthood that is trying to preserve the separate- ness of its own ecclesiastical constit- uency has a hard job, and a very doubtful outlook ahead. comicbooks.com