For two thousand years the Jews have led their daily lives under exposure to bodily harm, injustice, and all sorts of disaster, and under such grievous trials have preserved their ideals. The race is now to be put to another and severer test. In the free countries of Europe and America the Jews enjoy complete political and industrial liberty. They were for centuries excluded from most professions, arts, and industries, and were driven into trade and money-lending. Now all callings are open to them. In the Middle Ages there were only a few directions in which a successful Jew could safely spend his money. Now he can spend it in any direction--wisely and beneficently, or foolishly and ostentatiously. Will the race bear liberty as well as it has borne oppression? The liberty, which is the only atmosphere in which the strongest men and women can develop, often causes the downfall of weak-willed human beings. Rich Jews, like other rich people, are in danger of becoming luxurious--the more so because the race has been cut off from military service, and has not been addicted to out-of-door sports. The worst destroyer of sound family and national life is luxury. If the race is to meet successfully the test of liberty, it will get over its apparent tendency of the moment towards materialism and reliance on the power of money, hold fast to its social and artistic idealism, and press steadily towards its intellectual and religious ideals. [Illustration: Signature: Charles W. Eliot] Israel and Medicine BY SIR WILLIAM OSLER [Illustration: _SIR WILLIAM OSLER (born in Ontario, Canada, in 1849) Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford and one of the world's leading medical authorities; distinguished not merely as investigator, teacher, and practitioner, but also as essayist and ethical teacher of singular grace and humanity, as shown in the volumes entitled "Aequanimitas" and "Counsels and Ideals." The present address, delivered in London at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Jewish Historical Society of England, is here given its first publication in this country, with Sir William's special authorization._]