The Jews

The reputed wealth of the Jews has subjected them to persecution and torture in many countries, and in different ages: and it is humiliating to reflect that our own history furnishes many illustrations of the damning fact. During the reign of Henry, III, these proscribed people were subjected to pillage, persecution, and to torture, to gratify the avarice of an extravagant prince, and the hatred of his bigoted and ignorant subjects. An immoderate zeal for the external rights of Christianity was a distinguishing characteristic of the age, and persecution, or extermination of those who differed from them in religious creed, was deemed virtuous and patriotic amongst our remote ancestors. Treating of the persecutions of the Jews in this reign, one of our popular historians says,

"The Jews, who had been for some time increasing in the kingdom, were the first who fell a sacrifice to the enthusiastic zeal of the people, and numbers of them were slaughtered by the citizens of London, upon the very day of the King's coronation. Five hundred of that infatuated people had retired into York Castle, for safety, but finding themselves unable to defend the place, they resolved to perish by killing one another, rather than meet the fury of their persecutors. Having taken this gloomy resolution, they first murdered their wives and children, next threw the dead bodies over the wall against their enemies, who attempted to scale it, and then setting fire to their houses, perished in the flames."

Henry, after extorting vast sums of money from the Jews, under various pretexts, at last carried his tyranny to such a length, that the whole body of the Jewish people solicited the permission to leave the kingdom. Henry, however, found oppression too profitable to allow them to elude it: according to Hume, "he delivered over the Jews to the Earl of Cornwall, that those whom the one brother had flayed, the other might embowel, to make use of the words of the historian, Matthew Prior." This Monarch was a worthy scion of his sire John, who, once having demanded 10,000 marks from a Jew in Bristol, on a refusal, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn each day until he should consent; nor was it until seven teeth had been thus extracted that the wretched man complied with the extortion. Such was the estimation in which the children of Israel were held at that time in England that by the laws of the land if a Christian man married a Jewess, or a Christian woman married a Jew, it was felony, and the penalty was burning alive.

Subsequently, in the reign of Edward I, many arbitrary laws and taxes were levied upon the Jews, two hundred and eighty of whom were hanged upon a charge of having adulterated the coin of the realm. The property of the remainder was confiscated, and the whole of them banished from the kingdom.

In conclusion we may observe, that in addition to the persecutions which the presumed wealth of the Jews entailed upon them, the most absurd and unfounded calumnies have been heaped upon them, of which we shall adduce one instance. The Abbe Guenne, author of Letters on the fertility of Palestine, addressed to Voltaire, states a circumstance which will stagger the faith of any modern converter of Jews. The tale is of one of the Kings of Persia, who, "allured by the fame that had spread abroad of the fertility and opulence of Palestine, marches to Jerusalem, besieged that city, and carried off from thence an immense number of Christian captives" and now comes the best part of the story, which is, that the Jews actually purchased ninety thousand of these Christian slaves, for the sole purpose of having the pleasure of cutting their throats. The author does not add whether the Jews afterwards eat these Christian captives; but whilst his "hand was in" he might as well have "gone the whole hog."

The London Jewish Intelligencer says

that "England had attained the praise of being the first of the Gentile nations that has ceased to tread down Jerusalem."-This is indeed, no more than justice, since she was the first to set the evil, and cruel example, of banishing the whole people in a body, from her inhospitable bosom.-France next, and then Spain aped their unchristian and wicked precedent. Spain, may, if possible, have exceeded them in barbarity, but they invented the oppression and preceded her in the infliction of it. God "afflicted them a little and they helped forward the affliction."

They may think that the doom of God will be averted, but it will not be so. The Lord said that he would punish Babylon formerly, and the decree of Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem, did not alter the decree of God to that devoted city; neither will the moves of the present nations alter the testimony of the prophets, or change the decree of Jehovah. "Wo to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and wo to thee that dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee; when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt also be spoiled; and when thou shalt cease to deal treacherously, they shall also deal treacherously with thee." And that they have been spoiled is evident. Herschell's sketch, Pg. 7. says, "Look to their present state of suffering in Poland, & Russia, where they are driven from place to place, and not permitted to live in the same street where the so-called christians reside! It not unfrequently [infrequently] happens that when one or more wealthy Jews have built commodious houses in any part of the town not prohibited before, this affords a reason for proscribing them; it is immediately enacted that no Jew must live in that part of the city; and they are forthwith driven from their houses without any compensation for their loss being given them. . .. . They are oppressed on every side yet dare not complain; robbed and defrauded, yet obtain no redress; in the walk of social life insult and contempt meet them at every turning."

No sooner did England give shelter to the Jews under Cromwell, and Charles, than she started forward in a commercial career of unrivalled [unrivaled], and uninterrupted prosperity. Holland, embracing the principles of the reformation, threw off the yoke of Philip, opened her cities to the Hebrew peeple [people], and obtained an importance far beyond her natural advantages; while Spain, in her bloody, and furious expulsion of the race, sealed her own condemnation.

The following are the feelings of one of the seed of Abraham, upon this subject: and is entitled, "A word in season from an Israelite, to his brethren."

The existence of our nation as a distinct people, after having been for so many ages expelled our own country, and dispersed over the face of the whole earth, is so unparalleled by any instance in the history of other nations as to be considered a miracle equal to any recorded in the sacred writings, and well may it be so considered. The Babylonian, Grecian, and Roman Empires, which, in turn overcame our nation, dragged our people into captivity, and by the most dreadful cruelties did all they could to exterminate us, and eventually dispersed us over the then known world. What has become of those mighty empires; of those proud conquerors? What of their laws, their worship, their institutions? Gone! passed away and dissolved, "as the baseless fabric of a vision," leaving not a vestige of their existence behind them except what may be found in the pages of history, and in some few mouldering ruins of their cities-whilst we the prescribed, and persecuted by them, and by every succeeding nation, still exist, and have in our keeping those imperishable truths through which alone is to be learned the real situation of the causes of the rise and fall of those empires; and before which the wisdom of their wise men has become folly. . . . . We are as completely a nation as when first established as such, for we acknowledge ourselves now, as then, as being under the immediate government of the sovereign of the universe [universe], with the same law for our obedience as was then vouchsafed to our ancient fathers. He says, "We are expressly told in the sacred volume that we are a "chosen people" a peculiar people to our God.-That we should be to him a "kingdom of Priests"-a holy people-a separate people, from all the nations of the earth. . . . . That in accordance with the above gracious announcement of the Deity, the great object of our selection was to constitute us the instrument to work out the redemption of mankind, from the darkness, and unhappiness of a false worship. Does every knee now bend to the one, and only true God? Do

those of high stature bow down to him? Is his name yet one over all the earth?-Until these questions can be answered in the affirmative, as they surely will in due time, the purpose of our selection will not be fulfilled; and the keeping of us as a separate people will still be the will of him, who has appointed our lot among the families of the earth. . . . . Shall we cast aside our real law at the bidding of the "London Society?" and the written law at the command of Deists, and self-styled philosophers? Ought we merely to accommodate our religious observance merely to suit our conveniences, and thus subject ourselves to be swayed by every wind that blows? What, if we were so lost to a sense of our own dignity, would become of the trust reposed in us by the Supreme Being? what of our religion?-of ourselves as a people, and of our offspring? Answer ye fathers of families: and above all, remember the day of retribution, when we shall each be required to render an account of the manner in which we have executed our holy office, and the trust committed to us?"