Added to this hoary mysticism was a very disjointed idea of world's history and a crude conception of Evolution. He believed that God's purpose with the Race was being worked out through the development of Democracy--which he understood to be another word for loving-kindness and brotherhood. He had never seen Democracy. He knew nothing of the crimes committed in its name; he had no conception of the modern Plutocracy, which is everywhere in a life-and-death struggle with Democracy--and as often as not seems to be winning the fight. This vague idealization of Democracy was stimulated by the rare letters from his sister Martha in New York. While Benjamin was still a lad she had married David Goldstein, a ne'er-do-weel of the community, and with her dowry they had emigrated. The poor woman could hardly be blamed if she hid from her family the cruel realities of her life. She wrote what she thought would please them. As her imagination was limited, she borrowed her metaphors from the Scriptures and had milk and honey flowing down the Bowery. Benjamin often illuminated his talks on the Promised Land by references to the freedom and justice of America. It was not hard for him to believe in a Utopia. It did not seem too much to ask that all men should be as unselfish and gentle as himself. Living thus in his dreams he grew to manhood. In the early twenties he married. His wife, fortunately, had common sense enough for two, and protected his patrimony from waste. The first child they named Benjamin, and a few years later Yetta was born. The father held a privileged position in the Jewish community. His pure, unworldly life, his ever ready sympathy, his learning and homely wisdom, had earned him the rank of a saint. There were some, of course, who shook their heads over his dreamings. With so much money to start with, they said, he might have become rich--perhaps a "merchant of the first class." But every one loved him. The women came to him with their troubles, and even the busiest, most careworn men liked to sit for a while and hear him recite the sonorous prophecies and talk of the Kingdom which is to come. It was in 1890 that Benjamin and his daughter were torn loose from their anchorage. The affair lacked the proportions of the later and more formal Jew-killings of Kishineff and Odessa. The cause of the outbreak was never explained, but we, who lynch negroes on so slight provocation, may not throw stones. Unexpectedly a mob--the scum of the Christian quarter--rushed into the Ghetto. At first they were intent on loot, but the hooligans had had to drink much vodka to generate sufficient courage to attack the defenceless Jews. Passions so stimulated cannot be controlled, and soon the mob was engaged in murder and rape. Benjamin went out on the street to reason with them. They left him for dead.