The latest blood-bath was instituted against the Jews of Russia in 1881. In the same year there was started in St. Petersburg a weekly periodical, _Jüdisches Volksblatt_, by the editor of the _Kol-mewasser_ which had gone out of existence ten years before. The purpose of the new publication was to focus all the available forces that had been dispersed in the decade preceding through the agencies that made for assimilation, and to prepare the way for a renewed activity among the people. These no longer needed to be urged on to progress, but had to be comforted in the misfortunes that had befallen them, and in the dangers that awaited them. In the first number of the new periodical there appeared the poem of J. L. Gordon on 'The Law written on Parchment,' while the second brought one by the same author, outlining his plan to sing words of encouragement to his suffering, hard-working brothers and sisters. However, very soon after all singing ceased. The year 1882 had been one of too much suffering, when even consolation is out of place. Two years later S. Rabinowitsch, who was destined by his unresting energy and good example to cause a revival of Judeo-German literature, justly exclaimed in the same weekly[63] in a poem 'To Our Poet': "Arise, thou Poet! Where have you been all this time? Send us from afar your words of wisdom! For what other pleasure have your brothers if not your sweet and consoling songs?" While no other singers were forthcoming, Rabinowitsch composed himself a series of songs, although he was preparing himself to be a novelist. His heart was with the poetry of the Russian Nekrasov, and his native Judeo-German gave him Michel Gordon for a model. He imitated both, taking the structure from the Russian, and the manner of the folksong from Gordon. When his talent was just reaching its fullest development, he abandoned this branch of literature to devote his undivided attention to prose. Only twice afterwards he returned to the use of rhythm, once in a poem, entitled 'Progress, Civilization,' an imitation of Nekrasov's 'Who lives in Russia Happily,' and at another time in a legend in blank verse. The first has never been finished, the other appeared in a collective volume of poetry published in 1887 by M. Spektor, his friend and rival in the resuscitation of Judeo-German letters.