wish hadarim, and adopted once more Jewish
ways and customs. Several hundred Jewish university students,
proverbially irreligious, sent to Vilna for tefillin
[phylacteries]!

In many cities fasts were observed and prayers for forgiveness offered,
and the prodigal sons of Israel repaired to the synagogue, participated
in the services, and wept with their more steadfast though equally
unfortunate coreligionists. Many converts, too, began to feel qualms of
conscience, and endeavored to make up for their youthful indiscretions.
Some of them fled to places of safety, and returned to Judaism. The
gifted young poet Simon Yakovlevich Nadsohn died of a broken heart.
Sorkin, the classmate and friend of Levanda, committed suicide, while
Levanda, the great novelist of assimilation, was so affected by the
massacres and their consequences, that he became melancholy, and died in
an asylum for the insane.[6]

If this was the fate of the assimilated and estranged, one may guess the
effect of the reaction on the religious. If the students of the
universities sacrificed their careers, their daily bread, for the
austere satisfaction of discharging their moral obligation to the best
of their knowledge, the students of the Law, always loyal to the
heritage of their people, became more zealous than ever. Lilienblum who,
in 1877, believed that life without a university education was not worth
living, became a repentant sinner. Russian Jewry seethed with religious
enthusiasm. Moses Isaac Darshan, "the Khelmer Maggid," preached for six
hours at a time to crowded synagogues. Asher Israelit, less trenchant,
but equally effective, exhorted crowds to repentance. Zebi Hirsh
Masliansky, a finished orator, went from town to town, and aroused a
love for whatever was connected with the history and religion of the
Jewish people. In Kovno those who were preparing themselves for the
rabbinate formed something like a new sect, the Mussarnikes (Moralists),
which practiced asceticism and self-abnegation to an extraordinary
degree.[7]

[Illustration: MOSES LOeB LILIENBLUM, 1843-1910]

Those, however, were most affected who had been misled by dreams of
assimilation. They suffered most, for they lost most. Their hopes were
blighted, their hearts broken. The leading-strings proved to be a
halter. They saw they had little to expect at the hands of those they
had believed to have become fully civilized, and they were embittered
toward civilization,