"I believe," said the Rabbi, in conclusion, "that we have gained a friend in the Governor, and I see rising above the horizon a new era of security and prosperity for Israel."
"God grant it," cried the listeners, fervently.
CHAPTER XX.
NEEDED REFORMS.
If Governor Pomeroff abandoned his original plan of Christianizing the Jews, he did not relinquish his friendship for Mendel. The Rabbi was frequently summoned to appear before him, professedly for the purpose of giving an account of this or that good work which he had undertaken, but in reality to entertain the Governor by his brilliant conversation. So frequent had these visits become that the guards about the palace were no longer surprised at the strange companionship and the term "Jew," with which they were wont to designate Mendel, gave place to the more respectful appellation of "The Rabbi."
As Mendel became better acquainted with his powerful friend, his appreciation of his noble qualities steadily increased and they became warmly attached to each other.
"Would that all the Jews were like you," Pomeroff occasionally remarked, to which Mendel would reply: "How fortunate would be our lot if all Christians possessed your nobility of character."
Then came the glorious year 1861, the year in which Russia freed millions of serfs and removed the shackles of slavery from a debased people.
While much praise should be accorded to the liberality and humanity of Alexander, the main cause of the emancipation act was the unprofitableness of serf labor. Public opinion, too, had demanded the change. What "Uncle Tom's Cabin" accomplished in this country Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Tourgenieff's "Recollections of a Sportsman" did for the Russian slaves. The disasters of the Crimean War were attributed to the corrupt condition of all classes, caused, it was claimed, by this pernicious institution of serfdom. By the edict of 1861, in the same year in which our own struggle for the emancipation of our Southern slaves began, the peasants were made free and were granted the right to purchase the lands occupied by them at the time. "Enfranchisement was effected in Russia in a manner far more skilful than in our own country, where it was accomplished through the terrible agency of a civil war. Yet the Russian people have been, perhaps, less satisfied with its results. Since then the serfs have been compelled to work harder than ever to pay for the land they had always cultivated and regarded as their own. The complete ignorance of the moujiks has laid them open to greater vices than serfdom possessed and drunkenness has greatly increased since the emancipation."[13]