I saw that passion demonstrated in my Jewish teacher, whose grave is level with the ground in the old God’s Acre; I believe that the Slavic candy-maker—the by-product of whose trade and the remnants of whose library I purchased—possessed it. I believe it shone out of the face of the Pany’s sister, who kissed my blackened cheeks and put russet apples into my trousers’ pockets; the Lutheran pastor preached and lived it in his narrow environment. I have faith to believe that the Jesuit fathers and German savants had it, hidden behind pious phrases or bold rationalistic utterances.
Perhaps my race bequeathed this love of humanity to the rest of the human race; even then it proves that for which I am contending: That all a race or family can leave to its progeny which is worth inheriting, is not in the cell or nerve or blood, but is what is cast upon the waters of life, of which “whosoever will may come and drink freely.”
The sons of the prophets develop into the sons of Belial, and a poor, ignorant villager’s child ministers in the true spirit before Jehovah’s altar.
“Think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father!” cries the indignant John. “For I say unto you that God is able out of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” This is the great tragedy of races, nations and families; yet it is the great comfort of the outcast, the oppressed, the burdened and the heavy laden.
What else have I that is specifically Jewish? What shines from my eyes or manifests itself in gait and gesture, I do not know. Many of my characteristics, no doubt, are betrayed in these pages which are a frank revelation of my younger self.
I have no passion for barter or money; I am invariably worsted in a bargain and always accept unquestioningly the wage offered me. But even were I a Shylock, a veritable Shakespearean Jew, and worse, if that is possible, I could point to men of other races not unlike him.
I know very intimately men and women of many races who profess the Christian faith, yet love barter more than prayer and mammon more than God; who preach or teach or write, “for revenue only,” and never for the glory of God; and who tenaciously hold to the letter of their contract, even to the cutting out of the very heart of their unfortunate victims.
Perhaps one of my Jewish traits is that I cannot hide my faults. What few virtues I may possess, I trust I do not flaunt in the market-places.
I have tried to be humble in this New World environment, so garish and loud; which trumpets from the housetop the things that have been “spoken in the closet”; which “makes broad its phylacteries” and writes all about their length and breadth and cost in the society columns of our daily press.
The Christian virtue of humility is hard to practice in a land controlled by the publicist; a land in which the advertising value of a thing is regarded more highly than the thing itself.