to every sphere of political, social, and intellectual life! Nothing of all this came to pass; exactly the opposite happened. Not only were the barriers in the way of a prosperous, free development of Jewry not removed, but fresh hindrances without number were multiplied. Some spectre of the middle ages, some power of darkness, put brakes upon the wheel of history. It first appeared in the West, under the name anti-Semitism, among the dregs of European society. But in its earliest abode it was and is still met with an abrupt rebuff on the part of the most intelligent circles, those whom even the present age of decadence has not succeeded in robbing of belief in lofty moral ideals. Anti-Semitism in the West is in _anima vili_. Its cult is confined to a certain party, which enjoys a rather scandalous reputation. But there are countries in which this power of darkness, in the coarser form of Judophobia[13], has cast its baleful spell upon the most influential members of society and upon the press. There it has ripened noxious fruit. Mocking at the exalted ideals and the ethical traditions of religious and thinking mankind, Judophobia shamelessly professes the dogma of misanthropy. Its propaganda is bringing about the moral ruin of an immature society, not yet confirmed in ethical or truly religious principles. Upon its victims, the Jews, it has the same effect as the misfortunes of the middle ages, which were meted out to our hoary people with overflowing measure, and against which it learnt to assume an armor of steel. The recent severe trials are having the same result as the persecutions of former days: they do not weaken, on the contrary, they invigorate the Jewish spirit, they spur on to thought, they stimulate the pulse of the people. "The hammer shivers glass, But iron by its blows is forged."[14] [13] As anti-Semitism is called in Russia. [14] Pushkin. The historical process Jewry has undergone repeatedly, it must undergo once again. But now, too, in this blasting time of confusion and dispersion, of daily torture and the horrors of international conflict, "the keeper of Israel slumbereth not and sleepeth not." The Jewish spirit is on the alert. It is ever purging and tempering itself in the furnace of suffering. The people which justly bears the name of the veteran of history withdraws and falls into a revery. It is not a narrow-minded fanatic's flight from the world, but the concentrated thought of a mourner. Jewry is absorbed in contemplation of its great, unparalleled past. More than ever it is now in need of the teachings of its past, of the moral support and the prudent counsels of its history, its four thousand years of life crowded with checkered experiences. XII THE TEACHINGS OF JEWISH HISTORY Let us return now to the starting point of our discussion, and endeavor to establish the thoughts and lessons to be deduced from the course of Jewish history.