" No asceticism for him. All kinds of human feelings deserve our
respect, for it is not the body that feels but the soul, and the soul,
"being a part of God on high, cannot possibly have an absolutely bad
tendency." Men may not be heresy-hunters and fault-finders, for none is
free from heresy and faults himself: the face he brings to the mirror,
he finds reflected in it. Yea, even the followers of Abraham possess
evil propensities, and noble qualities frequently belong to the
disciples of Balaam himself.[11]
These democratic principles put the most ignorant Jew in Russia on an
equality with the erudite Lithuanian. No wonder that they obtained such
strong hold on the people of the Ukraine, the province shorn of all its
glory. Hasidism invaded Podolia and Volhynia, swept over Galicia and
Hungary, and found adherents even in many a large community in Western
Russia and Prussia. It brought cheer and happiness in its wake, and
rendered the unfortunate Jew forgetful of his misery. Gottlober
maintains that the inspiring melodies of the Hasidic hymns were largely
responsible for the spread of the movement, even as Moody attributed the
success of his revivals to the singing of Sankey.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73