Year wil sound all too mechanical an effort to make more than a momentary effect. But we believe that it is true of the younger generation to say that however vague its ideas, these ideas are only so because they have not heard the great spiritual call for which their ears are open, and to which they are willing to respond as only Jews respond in an hour of great passion, and willing faith.
THE FIFTH PERIOD.
There have been five generations in a century of great conflieting thought. A generation. that had and still has faith because "the Buok says so; another that spreads itself in a mash of words, with a general tendency to spite the Book ; a generation that temporised, not having the courage to stand on either side of the hedge; a generation that walked in supreme contempt of all things religious. Something of each of these generations has arrived into our own times, but there is another generation, one that is spiritually homeless, and unclassified, without “bell, book or can- die,” and that has something of all these four foregoing generations within its make-up, but one that is more than all the others in its zeal, in the intelligence of its love for things Jewish, and more than all of them in its pride, and its ability to defend both its ideas and itself. It is a generation that offers at the shrine of art in New York, and sacrifiecs at the barricades in Russia, that speaks Hebrew under the shad-
ow of the gret churches in Paris, and exhibits its mental unquiet in London and Chicago; that worships Jewish artists in Berlin, and wears the scars of the duel in Vienna; a generation that is earnest in its cravings and its yearnings. It is this generation with its intense equality, to which no man can preach merely because he is a preacher; which no man can direct because he has wealth; it is this generation whose spiritual ideals need interpretation, and which strains its ear for the voice of abid- ine faith.
New Methods.
This generation is not drawn to the synagogue or temple by what the house of prayer offers them to-day; they are the reverse of spiritualised by the excitement offeerd by advertisements of Great Chasa- nom and special choirs—a degrading form of business and speculation if ever there was one. Their self-volition should lead these men and women to act for themselves, but their uncertainty keeps them inactive. It is therefore for those on the outside to endeavor to lead them towards religious ideas. But the how—is not easily answerable. The methods are questions of men. And in the end we must leave it there. Strong men, full of great conviction, men who can set the humdrum aside, or who can at least breathe new life into the old platitudes—such men can knit together and give concrete shape to the ascent in re- ligiousity of our rejuvenated youth.