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It is a fact not to be disputed, that,
notwithstanding the undeserved wrongs which Israelites have had to
endure, they have always been ready to alleviate the sufferings of their
fellow-men whenever distress was presented to their notice; and this is
constantly seen even in those countries where persecution is still their
lot. It was therefore to be expected that here, where they have no such
injuries to complain of, they would be ready to aid, to as great a
degree at least as elsewhere, whatever sorrow is presented to their
notice; and candid truth will demonstrate that this is actually so. We
well remember that when a dreadful earthquake devastated Guadeloupe, one
of the French West India Islands, the Israelites of Philadelphia held an
especial meeting, by request of the French consul and other citizens;
and we think that an entire tenth of all the funds raised here was
contributed by our members. When a fire laid a large part of Pittsburg
in ruins, again a handsome contribution was offered by our congregation
as such; and though for the relief of the Irish no congregational
movement has been made, we are credibly informed that individuals have
given largely. It is therefore with much satisfaction that we lay before
our readers the action of the Israelites of New York, belonging to the
Shearith Israel Synagogue, under charge of Reverend Mr. Lyons, which
resulted, as we learn, in a collection of near two hundred dollars. We
have only received two of the addresses, that of Mr. Lyons being
contained in the Globe of the 10th of March; Mr. Judah sent us his in
MS. We need not call the attention of our readers to the proceedings,
since they are so well calculated to do so from the subject on which
they treat; and we express the hope that, as it has thus been proved
what public action can effect, other schemes of benevolence and utility
may meet with a response equally prompt and efficacious.—Ed. Oc.
“A large and respectable assembly of the
Congregation Shearith Israel took place on Monday evening at the
Synagogue in Crosby Street, between Broome and Spring Streets, for the
purpose of taking measures for the relief of the famishing thousands of
their fellowmortals in that unfortunate and destitute country, Ireland.
“The meeting was organized by the appointment of
Samuel Lazarus as Chairman; Isaac Phillips, Vice President; and J.
Josephs, Secretary.
“The Rev. J. J. Lyons, after a hymn, opened the
services by offering the following fervent and highly appropriate
Prayer
God of the feeble, God of the needy! Thou who art
the joy of the afflicted and the comfort of the distressed, have pity on
our famishing and suffering fellow-creatures, whose distress to
alleviate we have with thy permission here assembled.
Who is like thee, O God! in whose hands is the fate
of nations—who buildeth up and breaketh down at his pleasure. It is to
thee, and to thee alone that we turn our hearts in thanksgiving and in
praise that thou hast spared our country from the prevailing calamity.
May it please thee to impress on the hearts of this community, the true
sense of the numerous blessings that we receive daily at thy hand. Deign
to convince them that their own destiny depends on thy mercy and
thy will, and inspire them with fellow-feeling and with proper
kindness for their suffering brethren.
We pray, O God, that thou may bless our efforts to
religion by the practice of universal love and charity, and that
whosoever assists in this holy work may receive proofs of thy approval
and satisfaction, here and hereafter. Amen.
“The reverend gentleman then took the platform, and
delivered a most feeling and instructive address, of which we are
pleased to present the following report. The words of the speaker were
listened to with the utmost attention, and a deep feeling of pity and
commiseration, seemed to be evinced by the entire congregation:
Address.
Brethren,
I address you on this occasion with feelings of
diffidence and anxiety; diffidence caused by the novelty of the
undertaking—anxiety by the importance, the interest, the solemnity of
the subject which for a few moments I propose to dilate upon. That it is
important and interesting is evinced by the unanimous and simultaneous
action of the whole country, by the spontaneous assemblages of citizens
to consider it, by its engrossing and all-absorbing discussion. Its
solemnity is graven in the heart of every intelligent and thinking
individual. What is it, my brethren, that has thus affected us and
others? Wherefore are the prejudices, the divisions, the hostility of
all sects forgotten, and wherefore are found on the same platform men
of all denominations, earnestly and zealously engaged in co-operating
for a common object? Wherefore are the contests, the bickerings, the
opinions of parties thrown aside to permit their respective partisans to
act in unison for a single purpose? What great, what wonderful event in
the progress of the world, has from a dormant state of toleration into
recognition and fellowship called that people, chosen as His people by
the God on high, but rejected, oppressed and persecuted by their
fellow-men? No devastating pestilence has invaded our shores; all with
us is teeming with life and health. No dreadful blight has
consumed our fields: all nature is smiling in beauty and abundance. No
intestine commotions have threatened the permanency of our liberties,
our rights, our government. Our national enemies have prevailed not
against us. The elements themselves, restrained and tempered by a
merciful God, have spared our cities, our villages and our plains, have
only been ministers to our comforts, auxiliaries to our happiness, our
prosperity.
Yet sadness and gloom pervade the land. A nation is
in distress, a nation is starving. Numbers of our fellow-creatures have
perished, dreadfully, miserably perished from hunger and
starvation. Millions are threatened with the same horrid fate, the same
dire calamity. The aged and the young, the strong and the feeble alike
are prostrated. The heart of civilization is touched by the distress and
wo of the sufferers. Relief, and if not relief at least alleviation, is
the first sentiment to which utterance is given, and in obedience to
that sentiment are we, my brethren, assembled this evening. When
information was received in our country that great distress existed in
unhappy Ireland, that her inhabitants, her peasantry and her labourers
were suffering from the failure of the potato crop, that supplies must
be drawn from this and other countries, the benefits we were to derive
from such a state of affairs was the paramount consideration. That cases
of individual suffering would ensue was admitted.—That the energies and
capacities of the people would surmount their difficulties was
confidently predicted, and it was not till the reality was made evident
to us, not until we were absolutely horrified and heart-sickened by the
accounts of the distress that measures were taken to prevent if possible
the further ravages of the visitation. Our fellow-citizens have come
forward with promptitude and generosity; contributions have poured in
from all classes, from all sects. Aid and assistance to unhappy
Ireland—raiment, food and life itself to her destitute people are
now invoked at your hands. Each of you, I know, acknowledges the
necessity of action, each feels that a state of affairs there exists,
which it is the duty of society to change and improve. But while there
is no diversity of opinion on these points, there is a great diversity
of opinion as to what we should do in the premises. We are told
that we have a large number of our own poor and destitute to take care
of, that the charity which we dispense should be bestowed in this
quarter, that the peculiar position of ourselves and our
co-religionists demands it at our hands, that justice is a higher virtue
than generosity, that self-preservation is a law and principle of our
nature. Examine these objections for yourselves. Reflect upon them
seriously and conscientiously; then ask yourselves whether they be
forcible and true, or whether they are not in fact excuses which the
lips utter, while they are rejected by the heart.—Ask yourselves if the
contribution which this day you are requested to make will diminish in
the smallest degree the other calls which you admit are imperative and
binding; and if the responses be those which I anticipate, our meeting
for this purpose will not have been in vain. It is true that there is
but one connecting link between us and the sufferers; that while most
others know only apolitical and geographical separation from them, we
alone realize that formidable and eternal one which the hand of man made
not. But thanks to the Lord that connecting link is strong
enough, and long enough to withstand all attempts to make the
separation complete and irreparable. Prejudice, bigotry, fanaticism
with their attendant spirits, ignorance, intolerance and persecution
cannot break it. Selfishness, avarice, cruelty in vain assist in the
unholy work. Forged as it was, by religion, virtue and charity it is
indestructible, it is all-powerful. That link, my brethren, is
HUMANITY! Its appeal to the heart surmounts every obstacle. Clime,
colour, sect, are barriers which impede not its progress thither.—Reason
at its approach deserts its strong places, its impregnable fortresses.
Pride from its lofty seat and imperious throne leaps down to welcome its
presence. It is lighted on its way by the divine spirit within us, and
the halo and glory which accompanied it illumines its biding-place long,
long after its departure. It is this which has brought you here
to-night, it is this and this only which will produce any result from
this assemblage. Nothing that I can say, nothing that the more eloquent
gentlemen who are to follow me can say (and I speak this with a full
appreciation of their abilities and eloquence) can add one word which
will make its action more prompt, its result more satisfactory. Its
promptings enforce their own obedience, its commands require neither
interpreter or assistant.
I have taken it for granted that you are all well
acquainted with the present state of Ireland; that you are fully aware
that the pursuit of its population is agriculture; that its land is
chiefly owned by large proprietors, few of whom live on their estates;
that it possesses no government of its own, and that its wants, its
prosperity, its existence, depend upon the caprice of a minister, or the
exigencies of a party; that the failure for two successive years of the
staple article of food, and the withdrawal from its shores (even in such
times) of its productions for the use of its absent landlords, have all
tended to that end. I have also omitted all details of the sufferings of
the people, though of thrilling interest, and affecting and persuasive
for my purpose. Neither shall I dwell upon the position in which we are
placed, as the first Israelite Congregation assembled for this purpose;
that the eyes of the community are turned upon us, that their attention
is directed to us, ought not, cannot, and will not affect us. The ground
on which we stand is holy ground. No evil thoughts, no base passions, no
worldly considerations here actuate us. The better principles of our
nature here exercise their beneficent and ennobling control. Our
hearts turned to God and his glory, his goodness, his mercy, direct us
to that hath which his laws and his commandments teach us to he the true
one. The guide-posts to the path are numerous and distinct; and among
the first and foremost placed before our eyes do we behold thee, oh,
Charity! We recognise thy beautiful face, beaming with goodness and
cheerfulness, and reflecting the joy and the happiness which thy
practice brings with it. We neglect not thy precepts, we fail not at thy
bidding. I have endeavoured briefly, and I know imperfectly, to express
the ideas which have presented themselves to me on this occasion. I
have sought to impress them on you, not by texts drawn from our sacred
writings; not by arguments based on our creed, our forms, our
traditions, or our laws; not by appeals to your sympathies, your
passions, or your pride. I have attempted only to to express the ONE
simple truth, that the sufferings of our fellow-men, wheresoever and
howsoever situated, demand from us alleviation, assistance and relief.
Grant it in this case, for it is a pressing one. Grant it,
mothers, for mothers once happy and blessed as ye are ask it of you for
their own sakes and for the sakes of their suffering babes; they ask it
of you by that bond of sympathy which nature has created between
ye; they ask it of you with streaming eyes and outstretched hands, to
save them from disease and starvation. Grant it, wives: to save a
famishing husband, a wife asks it of you, and what stronger claim can
she present to you? Grant it, sisters: in a brother’s name, in
the name of the poor of Ireland, to contribute your portion towards
alleviating the sufferings of the destitute, and to illumine with joy
the dreary path of those who are dying of starvation, with no roof, save
yon canopy of heaven, to shelter them from the keen blasts of the
tempest’s fury, or the pitiless ravings of the midnight storm. With
hopes blasted and prospects blighted, they must now battle with the His
of life, and contend with that misery which awaits them in their onward
struggle.
“Should we not cherish, then, sweet charity,
Peace, and good-will, the bright humanities,
To shed a cheering radiance o’er the gloom,
To arch the glittering rainbow on the cloud,
Lift from the o’er-tasked heart its crushing grief,
Still the wild blasts and smooth the raging waves,
Bid the eye sparkle joyous through its tears,
Drive from the shattered temple of the soul
The fiend misanthropy, restore the shrine
Of faith; and, wreathing it with fresh new flowers,
Let the bright angel Love administer
Again, in gifts of goodness to mankind?”
And for whom do I plead? For Ireland, unhappy
Ireland! the birthplace of that Emmet, who stood unrivalled for the
splendour of his talents and the brilliancy of his legal attainments ;
for the land of that departed martyr, who, in the last moments of
existence—ay, when his grave was opening to receive him—promulgated the
noblest sentiments of the human heart, in accents soul-stirring and
eloquent, in language beautiful and sublime.
As American citizens, are we not under great and
lasting obligations, to the people of Ireland? On the bloody field of
battle, during our struggles for liberty, were there no Irishmen engaged
in the contest? no generous and daring son of the Emerald Isle, that
nobly and bravely stepped forward to the rescue? He who fell at
Quebec, while leading on your troops, and urging them to victory, drew
the first breath of life in Ireland’s persecuted clime; and he, whose
tomb has been bedewed with the tears of his mourning countrymen, that
illustrious soldier and conquering general, who for two successive
terms filled the highest office within your gift, was born of Irish
parents. And now, let me ask you if Ireland has no claims upon our
sympathy, no demands upon our friendship, for services rendered in the
darkest hours of adversity, in our conflict for liberty, in our
struggles for equal rights? But, admitting that we act up to the
principle that individuals as well as nations are ungrateful, has she
then no claims upon us on the broad ground of charity, and of its
heavenly attribute, brotherly love?
And in this,—which in all probability you will deem
as the most correct view of the case, and as forming the basis of
action,—I would ask if there is one in this holy edifice so lost to
feelings of humanity, so heedless of the cries of distress, as to regard
with indifference the least of God’s creatures? Are there any in this
hallowed house of prayer whose hearts cannot throb at the misery of the
child of sorrow and of wo? To all such I would say, that there will come
a time, in the progress of events, when there will be no distinction of
persons, when the ensign of royalty will have passed away, and the gold
of the miser become as dross; a time to come, when the man of tattered
rags will stand side by side with the wealthy nabob who spurned him from
his door; when the son of pride will be stripped of his earthly
grandeur, and placed upon an equal footing with the poor man who has
brooked his insolence; and with those who have never gladdened the
widow’s heart, or dried the orphan’s tears, how slight will be their
chance of experiencing that unalloyed felicity which is yet to be won.
“Go to the mart, where squalid want reclines,
Go to the shade obscure, where merit pines;
Abide with him whom penury’s charms control,
And bind the rising yearnings of his soul;
Survey his sleepless couch, and, standing there,
Tell the poor pallid wretch that life is fair.”
Can you this evening retire to your stately
mansions of affluence, your homes of quiet, and of comfort, and of
plenty, and there, amid the dazzling splendour which surrounds you,
forget the unhappy condition of those in whose behalf I am pleading? Can
you this night repose in tranquillity upon your richly-curtained
couches, unconscious of the intense misery of those who have no beds to
lie on? The bare earth is all their resting-place, its roots their food,
some cliff their habitation.” Do you owe no gratitude to that God who
called you into being, and from the dust of the earth permitted you to
assume his image? who watched over you in your midnight slumbers,
awakened you to a joyful morrow, while tens of thousands of his
creatures were suffering for their daily bread; who formed this grand
arch over our heads, and placed the sun—that bright luminary—at such a
convenient distance from the earth as not to annoy, but to refresh us;
who leads the planets on their dance—the mighty sisterhood; who strikes
the harp of harmony? When languishing on a bed of pain, and the frail
cords of existence rapidly yielding to the pressure of disease, who
restored you to life, and to health, and to hope?
Glad am I, on an occasion so momentous as this,
that the kindhearted daughters of Israel have enlivened the scene with
their presence. Wherever Charity unfurls her merciful banner, there
should woman be, in the very midst thereof, smiling upon the
efforts of the self-styled lord of creation. As I turn my eyes upward, I
behold, in all the pride and beauty of feminine loveliness, the last and
best of all creation, formed alike in the image of God, generous, the
enlightened, the high-minded, the intellectual wife, mother, daughter,
sister, and friend, joining her efforts to ours in the good and glorious
work of relieving the distressed and comforting the needy. I have beheld
woman in all stations of life, and marked and noted her leading and
governing traits of character and to the praise of the female sex be it
spoken, I have never known her, in a single instance, to shrink from her
duty in the furtherance of any cause, which in its action could in the
least degree benefit the human family.
With the friendly disposition of the Hebrews toward
promoting and sustaining every object based upon a benevolent purpose, I
am perfectly conversant. In the revolution of time, fifteen years have
glided away since I had the honour of addressing the members of this
Synagogue, in behalf of one of their most laudable institutions; and
well do I remember the liberality displayed on that occasion, and the
encouragement extended toward that feeble effort of mine, then my first
attempt in public speaking; and in the present instance I have every
reason to entertain the opinion that you will alike evidence the
generous and humane sentiments of your hearts.
There is not one now listening to me, old or young,
but who must appreciate my feelings upon this subject. I call upon you
then, by the endearing ties which bind this common race in fellowship,
to refect upon the unhappy condition of those for whom I solicit your
aid; I call upon you, as you value your future happiness, to think of
their distresses. But you ask me, what your future happiness has
to do with it? Let me tell you that herein much depends upon your
charitable actions. I have not said your earthly felicity will be
frustrated; I can form no opinion as to that. Your destinies are in the
hands of that everlasting God whose understanding there is no searching;
but if I correctly understand the Sacred Volume, and so comprehending,
reflect upon the commands enjoined, as regards benevolence and charity,
I am certainly of opinion that uncharitable actions cannot be pleasing
to that Almighty Being who created you; for it is thus recorded by the
eloquent moralist: “Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and
to-morrow I will give, when thou hast it by thee.”
And now, in conclusion, permit me to engross your
attention and to trespass but a few minutes longer on your time, while I
unfold to your view the ample recompense of your uncompromising
liberality towards Ireland’s suffering sons. Throughout the residue of
your days you will merit and experience the approbation of that
ever-enduring God of Israel, to glorify whose blessed name you have
reared and hallowed this beautiful temple of adoration; and as time, in
its onward progress to eternity, brings you to the approximation of your
earthly pilgrimage, the goal of all cherished hopes and the climax of
man’s fondest ambition: then, oh! then, in the feebleness of the dying
hour, the frail cords of existence, which bind you to this fallen world,
will loose their hold with the calmness, and gentleness, and loveliness
of the mildest sunset of a summer’s eve, in tranquil beauty, without a
cloud to dim its splendour.
“So will thy lot be happy; so the hour
Of death come clad in loveliness and joy;
And as thou layest down thy blanched head
Beneath the narrow mound, affection’s hand
Will bend the osier o’er thy peaceful grave,
And bid the lily blossom on thy turf.”
He was succeeded by Jonas B. Phillips, Assistant
District Attorney, in a speech of great beauty and eloquence, which was
listened to with intense interest.
M. M. Noah, Esq., also spoke at length upon the
absorbing subject, the warm and feeling heart of this long and well
known philanthropist being evidently more than ordinarily stirred with
the fearful exigencies of the starving population of our sister land.
Another hymn was then sung, and a large collection
taken up in aid of their unfortunate fellow-men across the Atlantic,
when the meeting adjourned. |
