The Californian journals printed many of the Eastern and European letters sent me, and Mr. Bryant's commanded their special admiration on account of its chirography, which was beautifully clear and firm for a poet, and he of eighty years. When will men of genius learn to write, and those who aspire to greatness cease to be ashamed of fair penmanship?

I cannot enter more fully into the detail of reviewers and reviews; suffice it to say that two large quarto scrap-books were filled to overflowing with such notices of the Native Races as were sent me. Never probably was a book so generally and so favorably reviewed by the best journals in Europe and America. Never was an author more suddenly or more thoroughly brought to the attention of learned and literary men everywhere.

Thus it was that I began to see in my work a success exceeding my wildest anticipations. And a first success in literature under ordinary circumstances is a most fortunate occurrence. To me it was everything. I hardly think that failure would have driven me from my purpose, but I needed more than dogged persistency to carry me through herculean undertakings. I needed confidence in my abilities, assurance, sympathy, and above all a firm and lofty enthusiasm. I felt with Lowell, that "solid success must be based on solid qualities and the honest culture of them."

Hubert H4 Bancroft

REV. SAMUEL M. ISAACS

It was in picturesque Leeuwarden, in the old-time province of Friesland, Holland, where Samuel Myer Isaacs was born on January 4, 1804. The most conservative of all sections of Holland in fidelity to traditional dress and customs, Friesland has much to commend itself to the tourist, and Leeuwarden is one of the handsomest places of its size in Holland. Its streets are broad, its houses spacious, its shops are attractive, and its many book and art stores testify to the cultured taste of the community; while its inhabitants are a sturdy, temperate, well-preserved race, the women being preeminently tall and fine-looking. The subject. of our sketch did not reside very long in Holland. When the French entered Friesland, and the future seemed as insecure as the present was unpropitious, his father gave up his business of banking and emigrated with his family to hospitable England, Samuel then being in early boyhood. Arrived in London, the father, being a man of scholarly attainments for his day, became a teacher, and exerted every effort to secure a good education for his children-four of his sons becoming teachers in Israel in different quarters of the globe.

Spurred on by his father's example, Mr. Isaacs was trained for the ministry, and gaining esteem as teacher was elected head of a prominent Jewish institute in London. Here his genial qualities found an excellent, although somewhat narrow, seed-field, but a change was to come. One Sabbath two Americans who were visiting London listened to his ministrations and were pleased with his genial manner. They sought an introduction and soon made known their purpose. It was to announce that the Elm street synagogue of New York extended a call for his services. as minister.

If prejudice still exists in many quarters in England against everything American, how much more intense and certainly more justified must have been the sentiment half a century ago. America was regarded as an unknown continent, with the savages still in the majority, and the most crude ideas prevailed as to American life and manners. It was natural, then, for Mr. Isaacs at first to hesitate, particularly as he was about to be married, before he accepted the call. But duty, which was to be stronger than inclination throughout his whole career, made his course clear. It seemed imperative for him to enter upon a life-mission in the new world,

where the workers were but few and the work urgent. So without further delay he consented, married a young bride, and set sail for New York in 1839. The voyage lasted three months, and the packet's safety was despaired of. It is interesting to notice that Audubon the naturalist was a

companion on the journey. The arrival of an English Jewish preacher was indeed a novelty in those days, for in 1839 preaching in the vernacular was a rarity. The Elm street synagogue near Walker street was crowded every Sabbath to hear the new preacher, and not a few nonIsraelites were attracted. There were then only two synagogues in the

city which provided for its six hundred Jewish families. The growth in fifty years from two to twenty-five large houses of worship and from three thousand to one hundred and eighty thousand Israelites is significant.

Mr. Isaacs was just the reverse of a fashionable preacher. His mission and message were simple and direct. Conservative from ancestry and training, he taught the old-time traditional Judaism, laboring earnestly to correct abuses that had impaired the purity of the service and impeded the devotion of the worshiper. As a preacher he was hampered somewhat by being educated in the English pulpit method, his discourses usually being written out and delivered from manuscript. He was at his best in his extemporaneous efforts in pulpit and on platform. His themes were generally practical and had one aim-to teach Jewish doctrine and elevate the moral life. His sermon's strength lay largely in the preacher himself, whose honest convictions were bluntly expressed and whose principles were never compromised.

Rev. Samuel M. Isaacs's activity was by no means confined to the pulpit. He was frequently heard on the lecture platform, and his services were extensively utilized throughout the country in dedicating synagogues. He used to tell an amusing story of how, when he was called to Chicago to lay the corner-stone of synagogue, a horse was brought for him to ride to the appointed site, which was a barren tract of land now the centre of a flourishing metropolis. His amazement at seeing the horse was equaled by his consternation on a similar occasion in another city when he was asked to follow a brass band which led the procession to the new edifice. He refused the horse in the one instance, and took a short cut to the synagogue in the other.

Besides these labors which made his name widely known, Mr. Isaacs early saw the necessity of providing charitable and educational agencies for the Israelites of New York. He was one of the founders and for a time vicepresident of the Jews', now the Mount Sinai hospital; the Hebrew Free School Association owes its conception largely to his foresight, while in all local and national movements for Jewish education his activity was pronounced. His love for Palestine brought him into sympathetic relations with Sir Moses Montefiore, and he was zealous in his efforts to relieve poverty and promote enlightenment in the East.

In 1857 he founded the Jewish Messenger as an organ of conservative Judaism. In its columns he advocated many measures of communal utility and furnished a standard of journalism which won general esteem. Besides his editorials and an occasional sermon he contributed a large number of miscellaneous articles, of which his "Leaves from the Diary of

a Jewish Minister " acquired more than local fame. These formed a partial autobiography, and the incidents were invariably founded on fact. Their chief trait was a delightful humor. Written hastily and amid diverse duties, they are readable and piquant still. He was fond, too, of writing short stories and sketches, generally in a humorous vein. Like the typical rabbi, he had an inexhaustible fund of humor, and needed it in the trials and anxieties of a minister's life.

ness.

Rev. Samuel M. Isaacs, while sincere and punctilious in his adherence to conservative Judaism, was happily free from any taint of bigotry. Without the least infusion of clerical conceit, there was no approach to narrowHe was intensely American in his sympathies, and his standing in the community was recognized by his being asked to read a selection from the Scriptures at the Lincoln memorial service in New York in 1865. His personal habits were just the reverse of ecclesiastical-he was a family man, never brighter than in his family cirtle, sharing the pleasure and grief of each inmate. If he was among the earliest to attend the daily morning service in his synagogue, which after successive removals finally was established on Forty-fourth street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, he was the promptest to visit the sick and the destitute. His parish was never restricted to his own congregation and his own creed. He was by no means an ascetic, but his life was temperate in all things. He knew only one amusement, the game of whist, and he belonged to a regular circle which met every two or three weeks at each other's homes to enjoy the pastime. Old Dr. Chandler Gilman, who used to live on Thirteenth street near Fifth avenue, was one of this whist club, and a good Catholic priest was occasionally of the party. Simple in his tastes, he found his highest happiness in his devotion to the synagogue with the self-sacrifice of the old-time clergyman. In some respects much of what Emerson writes of Ezra Ripley can be applied to him: "His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt." He knew so well the common experiences of men and "sympathized so well in these that he was excellent company and counsel to all, even the most ignorant and humble." "He gave himself up to his feelings, and said on the instant the best things in the world." "He believed, and therefore spoke." In one word: "He was a man very easy to read, for his whole life and conversation were consistent."

Rev. Samuel M. Isaacs was always a busy man. His activity was a marvel to his friends. He never took a longer vacation than a week or two in August, and then always within call. He was an early riser, and from