It is the business of mind to follow facts and mark their results. The
Jewish nation had an existence prior to the Augustan or Athenian age,
and was far ahead of either in civilization and morality. The Jewish
people have often been reprobated, as a people almost without
literature, art and civilization, but we are persuaded that it is base
ingratitude upon the part of any scholar living in a civilized land to
speak of that ancient family thus in terms of reproach. What are the
scriptures of the Old and New Testaments but Hebrew productions? It
certainly corresponds with infidelity to speak contemptuously of the
people who, more than all others, were under the influence of those
scriptures for ages in the past, and who were the chosen people through
whom they were to be given to the world of mankind. The Hieroglyphics of
Egypt, and the Classics of Greece, are perishable monuments constructed
in memory of intelligence and civilization, when compared with the
undying influence of the Bible upon the hearts of the millions who
resort to it to find their way through life. For one edition of the
classics we have had ten thousand Bibles. Why is this?
Men of the profoundest wisdom have investigated the claims of the Bible
upon the attention of the literary and scientific, upon the attention of
the moral and civil in every nation. They tell us that its morality and
theology are far superior to the teachings of any and all of the ancient
teachings of the greatest known philosophers, and that the writings of
those philosophers are much inferior to those of Moses and the prophets.
The poetry and philosophy of the Hebrews, as presented in the Bible,
surpasses Homer and Aristotle. And their independent religion, existing
amidst the heathenism of the surrounding pagan nations, was the only
religion calculated, by virtue of its "one God" to worship, to unite the
human family in one great brotherhood. It is conceded upon all sides
that the Bible is the most remarkable book that the world ever read.
How base and unjust is it, therefore, to be speaking reproachfully of
the Hebrews as a nation. We should remember them with great kindness for
the inestimable treasures of wisdom and knowledge handed to the people
of the ages through them. To them the whole Christian world is indebted
for its morality and civilization. Even Thomas Paine got his notions of
civil government from the Pentateuch. If you doubt this read his work
entitled "Common Sense," and you will doubt it no more.
Jewish writings and American life and character are very intimately
blended, and we can not separate them without being guilty of great
injustice. "If British, Scottish, Roman, Saxon, Danish and Norman blood
runs through our veins, our minds have been cast in a Hebrew mould." To
this cause we owe the most of our greatness as a nation.