Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 71:281 (Jan 1914)
Article: The Jews And Race Survival
Author: Edward M. Merrins

BSac 71:281 (Jan 1914) p. 64

The Jews And Race Survival

Edward M. Merrins, M.D.

I.

I. The Passing Of The Nations.

“All of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.”—Jewish Psalm.

Is it true that the opening and closing years of a century are more eventful than the intervening years, as if whole nations at these arresting divisions of time became restless and inclined to new courses, just as many individuals are at the close of each year? Certainly the opening years of the twentieth century are being marked by profound political and social changes in almost every country. What the ultimate issue will be, no one dares say. Perhaps the world is in the birth throes of a new civilization. Those who profess to be able to discern the signs of the times, see in the renascence of the great Oriental nations much that threatens the dominance, if not the very existence, of Western civilization. It will surely be tested very severely in the long and desperate struggle in one form or another between the East and the West, which is even now beginning.

At this critical period, we are informed that Western civilization, instead of being at its best and strongest, is showing startling signs of decay. In some directions progress has already been arrested, in others there is actual retrogression. If this is indeed the case, it ought not to cause sur-

BSac 71:281 (Jan 1914) p. 65

prise. A survey of history gives no assurance of the permanence of any civilization, nor of the uninterrupted and continuous advance of any race or nation. After an intense and progressive life for several centuries, each of the great nations of the past has declined and passed into a state of slumber or death. Empires that were the mightiest in their time have vanished so completely that were it not for the good fortune of their historical records having been written on clay tablets, which were marvelously preserved by the desert sands, we should hardly know they had ever existed. Why should modern nations be exempt from the fate which has overtaken all the nations of the past? There is some ground, therefore, for the gloomy forebodings now so common, not only in present facts, but also because it seems to be a universal law that after a period of strength and prosperity each nation must decline and pass away.

But men of patriotic spirit refuse to submit without a struggle to the verdict of the politicians, historians, and eugenists, who pronounce the doom of their nation. They contend that if the handwriting on the wall is indeed visible, at any rate the final word has not appeared, and it may be that what has been written is not ineffaceable. As compared with the ancient...