ely crushed beneath the load of sorrow,
hibernated until the gentle breath of a new time, levelling Ghetto walls
and heralding a dawn when human rights would be recognized, awoke them
to activity and achievement.

Mighty is the spirit of the times! It clears a way for itself, boldly
pushing aside every stumbling-block in the shape of outworn prejudices
and decaying customs. A century dawned, the promise of liberty and
tolerance flaming on its horizon, to none so sweet as to the Jew. Who
has the heart to cast the first stone upon a much-tried race, tortured
throughout the centuries, for surrendering itself to the unwonted joy of
living, for drinking deep, intoxicating draughts from the newly
discovered fount of liberty, and, alas! for throwing aside, under the
burning sun of the new era, the perennial protection of its religion?
And may we utterly condemn the daughters of Israel, the "roses of
Sharon," and "lilies of the valleys," "unkissed by the dew, lost
wanderers cheered by no greeting," who, now that all was sunshine,
forgot their people, and disregarded the sanctity of family bonds, their
shield and their refuge in the sorrow and peril of the dark ages?

With emotion, with pain, not with resentment, Jewish history tells of
those women, who spurned Judaism, knowing only its external appearance,
its husk, not its essence, high ethical principles and philosophical
truths--of Rahel Varnhagen, Henriette Herz, Regina Froehlich, Dorothea
Mendelssohn, Sarah and Marianne Meyer, Esther Gad, and many others,
first products of German culture in alliance with Jewish wit and
brilliancy.

Rahel Levin was the foster-mother of "Young Germany," and leader in the
woman's emancipation movement, so fruitful later on of deplorable
excesses. Rahel herself never overstepped the limits of "_das
Ewig-Weibliche_." No act of hers ran counter to the most exalted
requirements of morality. Her being was pervaded by high seriousness,
noble dignity, serene cheerfulness. "She dwelt always in the Holy of
holies of thought, and even her most daring wishes for herself and
mankind leapt shyly heavenwards like pure sacrificial flames." Nothing
more touching can be found in the history of the human heart than her
confession before death: "With sublime rapture I dwell upon my origin
and the marvellous web woven by fate, binding together the oldest
recollections of the human race and its most recent aspirations,
connecting scenes separated by the greate