XX. THREE WITNESSES.

In Prague there is an ancient Synagogue, the interior of which is black with the mould and dust of seven centuries. There is a tradition that at some unknown point in it the holy name of Jahve is written, and, for fear of its obliteration, no cleansing or sweeping, however slight, has been permitted, until now the Synagogue has become a show-place of accumulated dirt, which tourists pass through with torches. This ancient structure is but a too faithful symbol of temples which preserve the superstitions of ages through fear that, if some holy name or creed be touched, religion and morality will suffer.

Early in the last generation three Jewish boys—Israel, Jacob, and Henoch—were seated together in this Synagogue on a Saturday morning, awaiting the beginning of service. They were of different families, but playmates. No person was near them, and, oblivious of the traditional prohibitions, they began to amuse themselves by scraping off with their knives an inch of the black mould, here and there, to see what wood or stone was beneath. The Rabbi, happening to pass at the time, cried out with horror at the sacrilege, and said, “The curse of Heaven may fall on you for that act!”

The terrified lads put up their knives. Some neighbours who heard the voice of the angry Rabbi, but not his exact words, reported that he had said, “May the curse of Heaven fall on you for that act!” And this was the form in which the story was whispered about. Gradually a small saga grew up among the Jews of Prague about these three boys. They were regarded with an evil eye, under which their prospects suffered blight; they were supposed to be under some mysterious doom, they were avoided, and their families suffered much distress. The venerable Rabbi, repenting of his hasty words, tried to disabuse the minds of his congregation as to what he had said; but he was unable to undo what had been done. As the three advanced towards youth, the prejudices against them, and the belief that a doom overhung them, made their lives so miserable, that they desired to leave Prague altogether, and their parents thought this the best course. The families were in good circumstances, and the young men went off fairly well educated and with some means. They resolved to emigrate to different regions.

Jacob went to Northern Germany. He entered a university there and succeeded in his studies. Animated by the hope of doing so well in life that his parents might ultimately have the happiness of seeing the prejudices of their neighbours disappear, he presently excelled all other students. He became a favourite with the professors. But this excited the jealousy of other students. These conspired against him, and one of their best swordsmen was appointed to pick a quarrel with him. The quarrel came; Jacob was challenged; in the duel he received an ugly wound, which deprived him of one eye, disfigured him, and injured his health. These troubles gradually affected his nerves to such an extent that his mind was partially affected. He began to suspect that there might be some truth in the belief of the neighbours in Prague, that he had fallen under a divine curse for having cleaned an inch of the old Synagogue-wall. This dread grew upon him to such an extent that, from having been a courageous youth, he became timid. Whenever he went out at night he seemed to be confronted by the student with whom he had fought the duel. He began to be looked upon as an uncanny person by the common people in the city where he dwelt. Some even hustled him on the street, and the Christian boys sometimes threw refuse at the miserable man. He was one evening purposely tripped by some one and suffered a severe fall, which lamed him. Amid the shadows that darkened his room, which had gradually become dingy through poverty, he imagined that, like the patriarch after whom he was named, he had wrestled with a dark phantom, which, however, had prevailed against him. The curse seemed to be fixed upon him irremissibly. The accumulated filth of the old Synagogue of Prague had carried with it the accumulated superstitions of ages; his childish attempt to clear away a little of that visible mould had been vain, and he was now equally helpless to free any smallest space of his own mind from hereditary beliefs in dooms, spectres, spells. Thus he wandered, limping, miserable, amid Christian scoffs and Jewish suspicions, and so he wanders this day.

The second of the lads that left Prague, Israel, came to England, where he was well educated. He thought over this Prague incident carefully, and came to feel a certain contempt for a Synagogue which so jealously cherished all its dirt. He found it written in the Talmud that “next to godliness is cleanliness,” and began to perceive that the filth he had tried to scrape off was a type of the irrational usages and petty exactions which had overlaid the religion of his race. He had united himself to a Synagogue in London which was kept fair and beautiful; but, as time wore on, he found that around the good hearts and fine minds of the English Jews there were walls on which had gathered the repulsive dust and dirt of ages transmitted from ancient Syria. So Israel resolved that he would make good the promise of his boyish knife, and clear away some of the spiritual mould from English Judaism. His attempts at reform awakened the ire of Wardens, the hostility of Rabbins, and the opposition of a wealthy Semitic caste. Israel still believed in Jahve, and in the fundamental doctrines of the Jewish faith; he believed that if Judaism could be freed from its antiquarian walls it must lead the world. But he struggled in vain for years to secure from the chiefs of the Synagogues any modification of their usages. Furthermore, his efforts in this direction began to tell seriously upon his personal prospects. He had studied law, been admitted to the bar, and for a time found some employment from his co-religionists; but after it was discovered that he was endeavouring to interfere with the traditional usages of the Synagogue, he soon found himself without clients, and with but a few friends—these being of Christian families.

One evening Israel went to a theatre in London to witness the performance of the Merchant of Venice. He was much impressed by an incident of the Bible used by Shylock as a parable, wherein Jacob stuck wands before the ewes in breeding-time, and secured parti-coloured lambs, which, according to Laban’s agreement, were all to fall to his (Jacob’s) part. Shylock says:

The Christian Antonio must needs accept the “holy witness” of a book infallible to him and Shylock alike, and says that the result so good for Jacob was “sway’d and fashioned by the hand of Heaven.” Israel went away from the theatre to his poor room, and bethought him that, great as was the wealth and power of a few Jews, the parti-coloured lambs had somehow fallen to the Christian lot. Was the “hand of Heaven” in this? If the declaration of Jahve of old that his approval should be manifest in blessings, his disapproval in cursings, were faithful, could there be any doubt where the divine approbation rested in England? Was Houndsditch the seal of Jahve’s benediction on his people? or was not Belgravia rather the expression of his smile? Houndsditch and Belgravia alike appealed to Jahve; to which had he sent the multitude of spring lambs and the plenteous wool?

The germ that fell into Israel’s mind at the theatre gradually grew. He presently found that the traditions of Judaism attained their real power and glory in Christianity. In the end he was baptized; he was speedily surrounded by troops of friends. He possessed brilliant powers, and became eminent in literary and political life. Even his former co-religionists were inclined to utilise him, now that he no longer attempted to use his pen-knife on their mouldy customs. He was able to serve them in many ways, they were willing to repay his services; and, thus, assisted by the race which gained prestige through his genius without the danger of it, and by the Christian community which saw in him a triumph of Christ, he became a great minister of State and a favourite in Palaces. And such he is to this day.

The third of the three youths who left Prague, Henoch, wandered restlessly through Asia and Europe—then came to France. He also was a man of brilliant powers, and for some time kept up his friendship with young Israel in London. In the course of their correspondence, the idea arose in him also of trying to reform the Synagogue to which he had attached himself in Paris. He failed in the same way, but the effect on his mind was different. He could not recognise a direction from Jahve in the superior thrift of Christendom. He had heard that in America the Jews were in every way more liberal and progressive, and he resolved to emigrate thither. For this purpose he engaged a passage, and repaired to Havre to take his steamer.

On his way to the wharf in Havre, Henoch was passing a small book-stall, when his attention was arrested by the appearance of the bookseller. This was an extremely aged Jew, with long white beard, deep-set eyes, and a queer, antique figure. He sat beside his little stand of dingy fourth-hand books, holding a small volume in his bony fingers, which he perused attentively. Henoch approached him and, speaking in Hebrew, asked him what books he had suitable for a traveller. The old man asked him whither he was travelling, and having received the reply, said: “Ah, that, too, was my dream; but I never got farther than this. I am too old now—too old and too poor—and must leave the New World hope for our younger men. But I sit here, and read about that land of promise, and my dim old eyes follow every ship that sails that way.” Henoch asked to look at the book the aged Jew had been reading. It was an old Spanish book—Herrera’s History of the Indies. Israel knew the language, and proposed to buy the book. The aged bookseller was somewhat reluctant but finally said: “It is the story of the discovery of the New World to which you are going; take it, with an old man’s good will; and may you carry to America something better than those Spaniards did, who tried to plant there every evil the Old World had produced!”

On board the steamer Henoch read this book, and one narrative in it haunted his memory. It related that when the Spaniards had taken possession of the newly-discovered island they called Hispaniola—now Cuba—they began to trade in the Indians, who were shipped off as slaves to various regions. The island found itself in want of Indians, and having heard that the neighbouring Lucayan Isles were full of them, asked permission of King Ferdinand to allow them to bring these Lucayans over to Hispaniola, “that they might enjoy the preaching and political customs” which they (the Spaniards) had introduced. Having received this permission, the Spaniards went over to the Lucayans and told those simple islanders that they had come from the paradise of their ancestors; they said that all whom they (the Lucayans) had loved and lost by death were now in a happy abode, enjoying perfect repose and every felicity; and that their ships were ready to bear them to that happy land. The poor Lucayans crowded with laughter and joy to the Spanish ships; the light of the Blessed Isle shone upon their faces. They sailed away from their island home, where they had known only peace and friendship, and were soon all working in dark mines under the slave-driver’s scourge. The kid was seethed in its mother’s milk.

Henoch read and re-read this tragic history, and looked out over the sea westward. What a fearful fate was that of hearts that followed a dream of paradise which led them into slavery and despair! But slavery, what is it? Is it only the subjection of one will to another? or bondage of the body to toil for others? May there not be islanders, even amid continents, following dreams of paradise, and of clasping their ancestral dead, into spiritual slavery, into a living entombment among skeletons and simulacra of things for ever turned to dust?

In the vision of Henoch there arose a memory of the ancient Synagogue at Prague. His eyes filled with tears as he recalled the dear and tender faces that he had seen there. His kind father, his gentle mother, the good-hearted neighbours, the once happy circle of playmates—how fair and peaceful that Lucaya had been! But it was all at the mercy of a bit of dirt come down from the thirteenth century, consecrated by awe of four letters of a dead language. Under that spell kindly hearts had turned to stone, suspicions arisen, fear and dread, and from the ruin of a happy home he had been sent to wander through the world. The dream of an ancestral paradise had made that blackened Synagogue as dark a mine as any in which the discoverers of the New World set the islanders to toil; it had imprisoned the Jewish genius and chained the Jewish heart.

One morning, when his thought was full of these reflections, and the book received from the ancient Jew at Havre was open before him, Henoch caught his first sight of the New World, radiant in the sunshine. He resolved that into that land of fresh opportunity he would carry no dogma or custom which rested upon tradition or authority. In that land he saw the human race given a fresh opportunity, and he also would begin again. The Old World had followed its dreams of heaven through massacres and martyrdoms into a dreary and endless routine of wrong, which found its fit symbol in that fable his experience could well interpret, of an eternal Wanderer.

His own race had been mainly responsible for that fatal misdirection of the energies and enthusiasm of the Old World which, had it not sought a Paradise among the dead, might have made the earth a paradise for the living. Now he would consecrate his powers to persuade the people of the human race, to which in America he might belong, to burn behind them all these holy ships of Zion in which the Past might be imported, and to receive the Past only as it might be able to minister to science, or might come in confessions of the moral ruin it had wrought, as a warning for the new Age.

In the New World, Henoch began his work of founding societies whose religion is to perform divine service for mankind, to make every day eternal, and to steadily transfigure man with the shining light of science and pure raiment of a renovated world. The wanderings of Henoch have changed to unhasting, unresting progressions, traceable in fair transformations. His eloquence, which has learned every sweet and subtle tone of the Past, and caught the brave accents of hope, wins the Christian from his cross and the Jew from his altar. He is still a welcome Voice in the cities, sierras, savannas, eldorados, crying The Kingdom of Man is at hand.

THE END.