Page:The message of the hour - four sermons delivered on the new years' day, and the day of atonement, 5651-1890 (IA messageofhourfou00moseiala).pdf/45

 through the purity of his faith, and the unselfish devotion of his life to humanity's highest tasks, the faith of mankind in the One, Eternal God of Israel, the Father of all men.

6. If this be our mission now, as it has ever been in the past, the question which the Day of Atonement puts to us is: "Have you been true to your mission?" And the answer comes back: We have not! We have been true to our material interests, but false to our divine trust. We have striven to accumulate wealth at the cost of our religious and intellectual life. We have sacrificed the soul for the body, the end for the means; we have given God for Baal! From our houses we have banished the faith of our fathers; with our own hands we have broken down the altars of devotion, and brought our children up in ignorance of Israel's great truths. We have sold our Sabbaths and our holidays, and bartered away the rest of the body and the peace of the mind. To our sons and daughters we have set the example of cold indifference or stupid sneering at the holiest and most venerable forms of our ancestral faith, and now we wonder why the heaven of our spiritual life is closed and the ground of our religious activity is dry and barren; why our prayers are without devotion, our services without uplifting inspiration; why our children turn away from our sanctuaries to seek not a truer faith, but the enchanting worship of Baal and Astarte wealth and pleasure!

7. If we are not true-hearted and sincere in our convictions, if we ourselves are halting between two opinions, how can we call down the heavenly fire of true faith upon the souls of our children? That we may be better able to fulfill our mission, God has endowed us with wonderful faculties and abilities, which have made us proverbial; he has given us greater vitality, to survive the storms of hatred and persecution; wealth and wisdom, to emulate in the solution of the greatest problems of mankind. What use have we made of these faculties and endowments? Have our sacrifices in behalf of toiling and suffering humanity, in behalf of the ignorant who are striving for light, the down-trodden who are yearning for liberty, the poverty, misery and vice stalking in our streets have our sacrifices for all these things been commensurate with our means? What have we done for the honor of Israel, for the