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Show Prayers For the Dead. The Jews of today, like those of them who lived in the time of Judas Maccabeus, Macca-beus, believe in offering prayer for the dead. A Baltimore paper prints this news item: . "At the regular service yesterday in McCullough street synagogue, Rev. Dr. H. W. Schneeberger, rabbi, prayers were offered for the late Rev. Dr. Benjamin Ben-jamin Szold, who died July 31 and whose funeral took place last Sunday from Eutaw Place temple, of which he was rabbi for many years." If some of the dead could not be benefited by prayers offered for them, such prayers would be useless. To pray for them, therefore, is to declare that they may be in a state in which they can be helped by the intercession of their friends on earth. It is practically prac-tically to admit that there is a purgatory, purga-tory, a place in which the dead who have died in lesser sins, which are called venial, may be freed from their, stains and be made fit for the innocence inno-cence of heaven. The practice of the Jews goes so far, at least, as to show that the doctrine of prayers for the dead originated, not with the Catholic church, but with the Jews in the days when they were the chosen people of God. As Judas Maccabeus said, as recorded record-ed in the Bible, so we say: "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." |
