{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26328/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26328","id":"gutenberg_26328","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26328","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jewish sermons -- Great Britain","World War, 1914-1918 -- Religious aspects"],"text":"The Central Synagogue Pulpit\n\n                       A Selected Series of Sermons\n\n                   Delivered at the Central Synagogue,\n\n                        Great Portland Street, W.\n\n                                  No. 4\n\n                               Intersession\n\n                     A Sermon Preached On \u05e9\"\u05e7 \u05e4\u2019\u05d5\u05d9\u05d2\u05e9\n\n                    Sabbath, December 30th, 5677-1916\n\n                                  by the\n\n                        Rev. B. N. Michelson, B.A.\n\n                   Acting Minister of the Congregation\n\n                     Printed for Private Circulation\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05dc\u05d7\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd \u05dc\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9\u05db\u05dd \u05dc\u05e9\u05d5\u05dd \u05dc\u05db\u05dd \u05e9\u05d0\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea \u05d1\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 \u05d5\u05dc\u05d4\u05d7\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea \u05dc\u05db\u05dd \u05dc\u05e4\u05dc\u05d9\u05d8\u05d4 \u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc\u05d4\n\n\n    \u201cAnd God has thus sent me before you to prepare for you a\n    permanence on the earth and to save your lives by a great\n    deliverance.\u201d\u2014Genesis xlv., v. 7.\n\n\nIn a time of effort, suffering and grief such as this country has never\nbefore known, it is well that we should have frequent occasions for a\nreview of the position in which we stand for a strengthening of our sinews\nto continue the struggle in the spirit of the high and noble resolve which\ninduced our participation in it.\n\nThis week-end will be a solemn occasion; it will draw together the\nreligious bodies in a rare unity of thought and action. If there be in\nthese times any who think themselves superior to the need of intercession\nand prayer they are not to be envied. For these are the days in which\nhuman values are changing and the folly of human pride and the weakness of\nhuman strength are brought home to men\u2014the old-time wisdom of the humble\nheart is vindicated once more. And so we take advantage of the fact that\nwe are again upon the threshold of a New Year to ask that the blessings of\nour God may still be poured upon us and those who, with us, are striving\nto right the wrong and to make the world the better and purer for our\nfight against injustice, barbarism and slavery. We of this generation feel\nthat we are so ordering our actions\u2014many of us so facing death\u2014that we may\nbe able to say to future generations: \u201cGod hath sent me before you to\nprepare for you a permanence on the earth and to save your lives by a\ngreat deliverance.\u201d\n\nThe land in which we live is overshadowed, its people perplexed and\nexasperated by the fears and resentments of a fierce and desperate War:\nand we must needs strive for balance, both mental and moral, if we would\nnot be swallowed up in the morasses of hate and vengefulness. Whilst we\nturn to our God for help in maintaining our just cause, which we cannot\ndoubt is indeed His cause, we still must guard our actions and our\nthoughts, to prevent the blotting out of the moral issues that are at\nstake.\n\nIt would be a wretched perversion of conscience to require of any man,\ncondonation of the infamous cruelties and treacheries which have disgraced\nour foes during the last two years. The best elements in us rise in\nirrepressible repugnance before such pageants of wickedness as have\nclothed the famous name of Wittenberg with infamy and made the story of\nnaval warfare a continuing record of wanton crime. No man can think,\nwithout shame, of the so-called civilisation and culture which could\npalliate such perversions of justice as those recalled by the fate of\nNurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt.\n\nYet there are two considerations that may help us to feel that the German\npeople, so far from being truly represented by the miscreants who have\norganised and carried through the atrocities on land and on sea, are\nwantonly misled and disgraced by them.\n\nHistory includes the record of similar horrors perpetrated by other\nnations which nevertheless are justly reckoned among the best human\nmaterial. May we not hope that the crimes of Germany in the twentieth\ncentury provide no truer index to the national character than did those of\nrevolutionary France in the eighteenth?\n\nPsychology unites its testimony to that of History. Civilised man stands\nas the latest link of a long chain of advancement from aboriginal\nbeasthood, and he retains within himself the germ of all his earlier\ntraits, though these are increasingly suppressed and held in check by\nhigher habitudes. Civilisation represents an elaborate system of auxiliary\ndisciplines, designed to stifle as far as may be the brute in man and to\nstrengthen the acquired qualities of justice, mercy and refinement.\n\nWhen some sudden catastrophe such as Revolution or War befalls, there is\nalways great danger that that elaborate system of artificial auxiliaries\nto virtue will be broken down and the beast let loose in unchecked\nsavagery. Unquestionably this gives the key to the atrocities that stained\nthe French Revolution: it probably gives the key to the crimes of German\nwarfare. It certainly leads us to the contemplation of the horrors from\nwhich we ourselves would be free\u2014a contemplation which helps to make our\nDay of Intercession one not merely of prayer for victory and its material\nbenefits, but for the ennoblement of our minds and the purification of our\nsouls.\n\nThe happenings of the past two weeks have led our thoughts to the\npossibilities of peace and the consideration of peace terms.\n\nMay the peace, whenever it come, be worthy of the conflict that it ends, a\npeace which enthrones justice in the affairs of the world and banishes\noppression. May the final treaty include specific provision for the trial\nand punishment of the men who have organised and carried out the crimes of\nthe war. So shall resentment die, when it is realised that our victory is\nunstained with injustice, and the German people themselves are helped to\nreturn to the fellowship of civilised mankind. Thus shall the nations now\nat war at last be bound together by the ties of international goodwill. If\nwe are able to realise these high aims then God will indeed \u201chave sent us\nto prepare a permanence on the earth and to save lives by a great\ndeliverance.\u201d\n\nHow great is the debt we owe to those who are bearing the brunt of the\nstruggle\u2014how deeply we realise our dependence upon the manhood of this\nnation! We cannot allow a day set apart for supplication to come and go\nwithout more than a passing thought for those who have sustained wounds or\nsuffered hardship for the maintenance of our integrity and our rights of\nexistence as a nation.\n\nMany are the movements to which the War has given rise, which aim at\nalleviating the ravages of the combat. When we think that of the\nseven-and-a-half million Belgians left in Belgium, more than\nthree-and-a-half millions are being fed by the free canteens or receiving\nrelief in some form from the charity provided in the first place by the\nlarge-heartedness of the American people, we shall understand something of\nthe vastness of some of the problems which arise only to be dealt with by\noutside agencies. The gallant stand of a gallant people is still continued\nboth before and behind the German lines, where the Belgians are as\nstubbornly resistant to day as they were when their King drew his sword\nand said: \u201cFor us there can be no other answer.\u201d And the passive\nresistance of the imprisoned millions in Belgium to the compulsion and\ncajolery alike of their would-be friend, the enemy, is a factor in the\nGerman subduing process the world outside must appreciate. But the\nBelgians are paying the price. Their resources are diminishing day by day.\nThe world\u2019s benevolence is dwindling and they are facing an immediate\nfuture wherein life\u2019s necessities will have to be defined in terms of the\nirreducible minimum. The whole nation, we are told, is growing so thin on\nthe small ration that can be provided, that wasting diseases, due to\nunder-nutrition, are increasing by leaps and bounds.\n\nThese facts are here referred to, first and foremost, that we may pay some\ntribute, if only in thought, to these and our other brave allies who have\nsuffered loss incalculable, and in the second place to direct our\nattention to our own more fortunate position and to remind us that amid\nall the devastation, the War is being commemorated by works of beneficence\nand mercy, works intended to show our sympathy for suffering and our\ngratitude to the God who is supporting us through these terrible days.\n\nHe is not a good man who fails to employ every possible effort to supply\nthe needs of those dependent upon him in his own household. No less is he\na moral failure who does not lend himself to support every noble effort\nfor the succour of those bound to him by the ties of religious faith,\nespecially when suffering has come upon them through their faithfulness.\nAnd so no one could have any compunction in appealing to you as was done a\nshort time ago for your own brethren. But we must not forget that he who\nbuilds a fence, fences out more than he can fence in. Israel must be\nfaithful to his own, but his own includes not only the members of Israel\u2019s\nfaith, who have the first claim upon him, but all the children of God, who\nare by the fact of their human birth, his brethren; and to-day the appeal\nis made to us on behalf of those to whom we have to pay something we\n_owe_. The sick and wounded of our soldiers and sailors have a claim we\ncannot ignore: their misfortunes have been brought about by their devotion\nto our country\u2019s cause. It is enough that they must suffer for us: we must\nsee that everything possible is done to alleviate the pains they undergo.\nThe Sick and Wounded Fund asks for your help, and, as I know you, I am\nsure you will give it with no unstinting hand.\n\nWe think to day of our wounded, but we think also of our dead. Men may be\nwilling to die for one cause in one age, and in another for what may seem\na different cause, but in the last analysis it will be found that that for\nwhich human beings lay down their lives is always what they regard as the\nEternal Right.\n\nIn every man created in the image of his God there is this strange\nmystical susceptibility, this urge to lay all he has upon the altar of the\nideal that he feels has the right to demand his uttermost. Nothing else so\nfully demonstrates man\u2019s spiritual nature: it is the one great fact that\ndifferentiates us from the brutes.\n\nOn the one hand is man selfish, greedy, earth-bound, false and sordid in\nhis aims. On the other, at repeated intervals, in great and solemn hours,\ncomes this austere appeal for all he has to give\u2014and he promptly gives it,\njoyously, willingly, without thought of reward, and derives a greater\nsatisfaction from that self-giving than from all other kinds of gain\ntogether. It is deep, mysterious, elusive, this stress of the spirit, but\nwe all know it unmistakably as all generations have known it. There is\nnothing so strong in human nature as this impulse to fling ourselves away\nat the bidding of we know not what, the something that incarnates itself\nnow in this cause or objective and now in that, and makes us feel \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05dc\u05d7\u05e0\u05d9\n\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd \u05dc\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9\u05db\u05dd \u05dc\u05e9\u05d5\u05dd \u05dc\u05db\u05dd \u05e9\u05d0\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea \u05d1\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 \u05d5\u05dc\u05d4\u05d7\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea \u05dc\u05db\u05dd \u05dc\u05e4\u05dc\u05d9\u05d8\u05d4 \u05d2\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc\u05d4 \u201cGod hath sent\nus before you to prepare a permanence on the earth and to save your lives\nby a great deliverance.\u201d There is nothing so exalting within the totality\nof human experience as the elevation of soul reached by the one who\nwillingly dies for the sake of the others.\n\nHow many men of character and intellectual gifts, how many thinkers,\nwriters, artists, how many men fitted to promote the prosperity of their\ncountry in industry and commerce have we lost in the War! And how many of\nthe rank and file, men who were distinguished for nothing in their lives\nso much as the manner of their death! How much poorer the next generation\nwill be! To the memory of them all we give the grateful tribute of\nsaddened and chastened hearts: we remember them all in our prayers, we\nrecall their heroism as we rejoice in their manhood and their glory. Never\nwas a time when so many of our best and noblest have gone from us\nwillingly because they have felt it to be their duty and never was a time\nwhen their parents and dear ones have shown such a noble example of\nuncomplaining patience under a loss which to them was the greatest that\nany loss could be. We may well feel proud not only of the sons but of the\nparents that they have willingly given their children and have borne their\nloss with dignity and resignation, not repining and bewailing their dead,\nbut putting their hands to works of charity and helpfulness. Let us who\nremain be worthy of those who have been taken, worthy of the country that\ncan rear such children. They have revealed to us the soul of the nation,\nthe soul by which, far more than by its wealth or its prosperity or its\nmaterial strength, a nation lives: and while the soul of England thus\nlives, England will maintain her greatness.\n\nLet us remember our heroes who have made the supreme sacrifice, not\naltogether with sorrow, but also with a solemn thankfulness\u2014to God who\nstrengthened them to play their part, to them for their simple example of\nduty done. The memories of these, our heroes, will for us and for those\nwho come after shine as a holy flame, a light that will burn for ever at\nthe altar of patriotism and of duty.\n\nAnd so we commend their souls, even as our own, to the mercy of our God,\nlooking to Him in all humility and trust to vouchsafe us in His good time\n\u201ca permanence on the earth and a saving of life by a great deliverance.\u201d\nAmen.","title":"Intercession: A Sermon Preached by the Rev. B. N. Michelson, B.A.","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":2316}