thought had become deadened within us. Amongst this large congregation there is not one of us, nor, indeed, is there a single creature stamped in the Divine image, unto whom God has not vouchsafed to bestow some spiritual power. Far, then, be it from us to suffer this heavenly gift to run to waste. What good soever we may do during the current year will be ours, and of the effects thereof nothing can deprive us. It shall survive us though we may not remain on earth long enough to witness the development of its consequences; and it will not fail to cheer us as we are parting company with the world to reflect that we have been permitted to contribute in a measure to bring about something that is permanently good for ourselves or for mankind at large.

It is a good old Jewish custom for man to greet his fellow at the opening of the New Year, and to wish that it may be fruitful in all the blessings of family and social life, bring happiness to our homes, and peace and prosperity to our country.. Let us also supplement this natural wish by an inward prayer that the current year may work spiritually within us, and bring us nearer to God and to the line of moral duty. This is a prayer which may well be put up, especially by us who are parents and heads of families, and whose conduct must have a powerful influence on the young. As I have already remarked, this day, solemn though it be, gives no countenance to austerity and gloom. The constitution of man is adapted to the bright aspects of nature. Practical Judaism should in every way respond to the scriptural

1

2

call, Rejoice in the Lord," "Serve the Lord with gladness, come before Him with rejoicing; "" for cheerfulness is indispensable to man, who needs, like the plants, sunshine for his organic life.

At the same time, let us ponder well on the admonition of our text before it leaks out of our memory, and let us unite with it the following reflection :-That year after year carries away from our midst parents who leave to their children a legacy of sorrow and regret, and that the consequences of wrong-doing do not die with the parents themselves. It has been truly said that each individual of the common brotherhood of man is a link in the vast chain, stretching from the very dawn of time to the consummation of all things, and transmitting a subtle influence. Let us convince ourselves of this incontrovertible truth, and shape our course accordingly, since, for weal or for woe, our posterity will be for the most part what we make them. If anything could move us to lead a righteous life, or to redeem a godless one, it should be the thought of the future that awaits us, and the consequences we shall leave behind us after what is corporeal of us shall have mouldered into dust.

1 Ps. xxxiii. 1.

2 Ib. c. 2.

XVIII.

ON THE ETHICAL ELEMENT OF

ATONEMENT.

PREACHED ON THE MORNING OF 15 D (DAY OF ATONEMENT, 5643, SEPT. 23, 1882.)

תעיתי כשה אבד בקש עבדך כי מצותיך לא שכחתי :

"I have gone astray, like a lost sheep: seek thy servant, for I am not unmindful of Thy commandments."

FELLOW-WORSHIPPERS, the return of a year brings us together again to solemnise a day that has an ideal of its own, and which it would not be easy to translate adequately into words, albeit every true Jewish heart can realise its significance. From time immemorial this day has been consecrated in Israel to psychology, or developed consciousness, and its aim is to lift our mind out of the sphere of ordinary life, to augment the range of our spiritually realising faculty and to impress us with the supreme and transcendent excellence of moral good. In the solemnities of the our relationship to our heavenly Father finds its concrete expression, because it offers a means of bringing the great unknown within the range of the conceptions applicable to the known; and our better nature, under present influences, is enabled, to flash forth, because our senses having

for awhile lost their customary allurements, our communion is confined to our conscience and our God. The is especially fitted to still the throb of all mundane desires and of every unruly passion, and to renew in us holy affections which the daily friction of business life and its absorbing cares are so apt to weaken, if not entirely to dissolve. God grant that this auspicious hour, when the earth is, as it were, overshadowed for us, may awaken within us an earnest desire to open to our consciousness the radiance of a higher and more sublime state of being than this nether world affords! God grant that this day of grace, so mercifully vouchsafed unto us, weak and sinful mortals, may work in us what it is intended to operate, and that our hearts may be touched by its issues!

"I have gone astray like a lost sheep." Marvel not at this open confession, which is wrung out of the consciousness of a man of the Bible who might pass in our estimation for a hagiologist. Man is but mortal; we all alike share the infirmities common to humanity, and no one that has trodden the earth can presume to conclude that he has held himself altogether aloof from its follies and its errors. Who shall say,

עון

זך אני בלי פשע חף אנכי ולא

"I am pure and without transgression: I am innocent; and in me there is no iniquity?" 1 We have only to retire for a while into the labyrinth

1 Job xxxiii. 9.

of our lives, and suffer our thoughts to fasten on ourselves, in order to realise the incontrovertible truth that human nature, at its best, is anything but uniform. We have all to struggle hard with the inequalities of our reason, our proneness to error, our rashness of judgment, and our impulsive action. If it be an exceptional thing to hear of any one whose outward life has never been crossed by sorrow, nor ruffled by disappointment, it must be a rarer thing still for a man's inner life to have been invariably subjected to wisdom and virtue. In a large congregation like this there must be as great a variety in what appertains to moral nature as there is in physical form and expression; but it may be safely said that there is not one amongst us who should not be moved to echo the confession of the text, because there can hardly be one of us whom conscience does not remind of not having always been true to conviction, not having always been swayed by principle, or of not having at times suffered himself to be overborne by the persuasion of wrong. And if this be the case with the best of mankind, with what penitent fervour and contrition ought the confession n'yn to be poured forth by those, if any such there be, who, on this day of self-examination, recall instances of unfaithfulness to their homes and its affections, breaches of parental care and example, of filial gratitude and reverence, or violations of the great charities of life, and a total absence of self-sacrifice!

We may oftentimes be betrayed into sin from ignorance or unconsciousness; but it is scarcely possible for us to be leading an immoral and un