tory surrounding it; though it covers not the same area, as when first obtained. Many of the old notabilities are interred there; and its inscriptions are in themselves a study and an instruction. Of the larger cemeteries, that of Mount Sinai, in Bridge Street, Frankford, is non-Congregational.
The lesson of all is conveyed to the visitor, when he looks from below to the great height of the Penn Statue surmounting the dome of the wondrous City Hall: the lesson of peace. That teaching was the inspiration of the humble Quaker, who set the example to his posterity by
methods of the highest probity in his dealings with the Indians, the possessors of the Sylvan State; thus rendering Pennsylvania, the Keystone of the Arch of Liberty, and Philadelphia, the home of brotherly love, where peace and contentment might rule together; where the victories, not of the cruel sword, but of righteous conquests, might bring men nearer unto each other; and whereby once again, the Divine ordinance, proclaimed long since, and indicated in that Jewish axiom, would obtain: "Truth, justice, and peace shall rule within your gates."
Are the Jews a Race or a Denomination?
It is strange, but a fact nevertheless, that the question at the heading of this paper is still a subject of much controversy. And it is not merely an academic question. Here in America, and more so in other countries, it has its eminently practical side.
When, a year or two ago, the Department of Commerce in Washington, laid down the rule that Jewish immigrants should be listed as a race, and not as immigrants coming from the respective countries of their birth, and when it instructed its subordinate officers in New York City and elsewhere to act in accordance with this rule, many prominent Jews in the United States, my friend, the Hon. Simon Wolf of Washington, among them, thought it proper to remonstrate against this ruling and to ask the Secretary of Commerce to have the Jewish immigrants hailing from Russia, listed as "Russians," the Austrian Jews as "Austrians," the French Jews as
"French," and so on, and not to register at all that they are "Jews." For—so these gentlemen argued—the word "Jew" designates only the Church to which he belongs and it should no more be officially applied in the United States than the terms "Catholic" or "Protestant" or similar ones. Let it be stated here, to the credit of Mr. Wolf, that, during the course of his transactions with the authorities in Washington, he followed the classical example of former times to send Shaaloth regarding matters of importance to scholars and others considered to be competent and to request their Teshubhoth. En passant, I would recommend this good method to the younger generation of American Rabbis too, and would, if possible, dissuade them from following their own personal and often immature whims without first consulting the opinions of colleagues and of the scholars entitled to be heard.)
Mr. Wolf honored me, too, by request-