The Novoe Vremya, which often expresses the real Russian feeling,
declares that the persecution of the Jews, of which there has been a fresh instance at Gomel, is due entirely to Jewish malignity and hatred of all Christians. It admits that Jews cannot be expelled, and doubts whether they can be
'altered except by measures transforming the conditions of Jewish life, and especially reducing the authority of their sacred writings, such as the Talmud and the Cabala. That seems to point to a new and more directly religious persecu- tion, probably through an effort to suppress the circulation of Hebrew literature, the writer evidently not believing that the way to absorb the Jews, if it is their absorption he seeks, is to abolish all distinctions between them and Russians. It is most difficult for a sept to remain separate amidst a great community when nobody cares if it remains separate or not. The attractive force of the usual life, with its easier careers and higher social rewards, works silently, but almost irre- sistibly. The Quakers and Unitarians, being no longer persecuted, are as sects slowly fading away.
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