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- The story opens in a typical Russian Kaback, or inn. The peasantry are enjoying a rollicking country dance. It is attended by a dissolute Russian officer and his companion who, under the influence of Vodka, insult the daughter of the Jewish innkeeper. The young Count Borris, son of the Governor-General of Kiev, happens to be there seeking shelter from the storm which is raging outside. He protects the young Jewess from the insult of the drunken officers, and throws them out. They return during the night to make trouble for the innkeeper, and Count Borris, rising from his bed, again saves them from persecution. Love springs up between the young girl and Count Borris. In the meantime Ossip, the son of the innkeeper, has joined the secret order of the Nihilists. When the order is raided by the secret police Ossip is entrusted with the papers of the organization. When taken to task by his father for becoming a member of the organization, he admits that he is a Nihilist. The Russian officer, who Count Borris drove from the inn, spreads the report which reaches the Governor-General that the innkeeper's family are suspected of being Nihilists; he is instructed to act as spy in the Nihilist's den. He brings the news to the Governor that there is a secret order of Nihilists in Kiev. The place is raided, but the son of the innkeeper manages to save the papers which he gives to his father. The father and son are arrested and brought before the Governor. The father takes the blame, and is sentenced to hard labor in Siberia. In the meantime, Count Borris has become very much in love with the daughter of the sentenced innkeeper and meets her clandestinely. He is spied upon by some of his father's officers, who tell the Governor that Count Borris is being bewitched by a Jewess. The Governor-General accuses his son, who admits that he loves the girl. He is then degraded by having the insignia of his rank torn from his uniform. Burning his bridges behind him, he seeks out Ossip, his sweetheart's brother, and asks him to enlist him in the cause. They put him through a terrible test, but he shows his manhood by refusing to turn informer on his new friends. The scene changes to the terrible march of the Nihilist prisoners under the guard of Russian soldiers across the frozen steppes. The Nihilists, acting on the information they received by secret means, draw lots to assassinate the Minister of Interior, who is to be in attendance at the coming Embassy Ball. The Nihilists successfully carry out a spectacular explosion, causing a fire to break out in the palace. After awful privations, some of them through the assistance of Count Borris escape. Among the fortunate ones are the innkeeper, his wife and daughter, who reach a place of comparative safety. With the aid of a loyal family servant, who drives them at breakneck speed across the snow, they reach a port and embark on a ship which takes them safely to God's Land of Liberty.
- The story of Acosta deals with the persecution of the Jews during the time of the middle ages. Our unfortunate hero is a descendant of an unhappy family whose father was driven out from Spain on account of his religious belief. He settled down in Portugal where he fell a victim of the inquisition, leaving a wife and three children. The church at that time issued a decree that the Jews should be burned alive unless they turned Christians. Acosta's mother, for the sake of her children, embraced the Christian religion, and Acosta, a born genius, found favor with the Cardinal of the Church. He adopted and educated him according to the formalities of the Catholic faith of those days. But the beaten path was too narrow for the born genius. As a boy of twelve, he stole out at night from the dormitory, taking with him a cross to safeguard against persecution and a volume of the Talmud which was so near to his heart. Such were the companions that accompanied him on his unknown journey, unmapped, for the present as well as for his future life. But, luckily, the following morning he was found, exhausted and starved, by Dr. De Silva, who recognized him as a Jew by a volume of the Talmud in the boy's possession. He took him to his home and informed Acosta's mother, by letter, that he had found her boy. Dr. De Silva adopted him and gave him a liberal education. Fifteen years later, we find the unhappy family in Amsterdam reunited. Here the Jews enjoyed more freedom than in Spain, and acquired wealth and culture. As a great teacher, Acosta. like all great men, came before his time; as a noble soul, he was too tender to fight the bigots and conventionalities of his age, and as a reformer, his ideas soared above the crowd. In his days of affliction, Judith, the daughter of Vanderstraten, shared his trials, his pains and woes with him. Her tenderness and sympathy won Acosta's admiration and their constant companionship soon ripened into love. After he had published his first book, he aroused the attention of the most enlightened minds of his age, and stirred up the fanatics who found his views to be detrimental to the prevailing ideas of the time and the church especially. He was brought before the Council of the Wise, and found guilty of blasphemy, excommunicated from the church, banished from the country and his book committed to the flames. When brought in the synagogue before the Council of the Wise to renounce his teachings and repent, he said that he had nothing to renounce and repent. He wrote what his mind and heart dictated to him. And when the ban was put upon him, and when Judith heard the curses from the Rabbi's lips that, "Crave shalt thou for the love of a woman and whoever yields it be dead," she threw herself in his arms, denounced the judges and made a declaration of love to which Ben Jochai vigorously protested. When Vanderstraten finds himself financially embarrassed, he applies to Ben Jochai for aid, who, in turn, asks him for his daughter's hand. The bargain is made with the consent of Judith. And when on the wedding day Acosta comes to bid farewell to his dearest, who, in his day of trial gave him so much succor, he finds that she took the vial. Acosta finds that he has nothing to live for now, but the gloomy shadows of his thoughts. Despondent and grief-stricken, Acosta dies by his own destruction.