By Alfred Morris Myres, a converted Jew

Chapter III, Page 249.

"For the hurt of my hope am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold of me. Jer. viii, xxii [8:21].

Experience must have taught every Christian in the nineteenth century, that there is a disposition of distrust lurking in the breast of the unconverted Jew towards not only Christianity, but also towards the professors of any other religion except Judaism: and that this feeling is the effect of satan's means, whereby he deterred

many well-disposed persons from endeavoring to promulgate the gospel of our Lord among the Jews, I am through bitter experience able to testify, Now if it is asked, "Does such a feeling exist indeed?" I answer, "it does;" but is this the wonder? surely not! had it been otherwise, then indeed it would have been a marvelous wonder. What! can I open my lips to express the least surprise at the murmur of the dumb animal when it sees him approaching whose hand has mal-treated him all the days of his life? And can you be surprised when you detect a suspicious feeling towards you in the Jew! If you have forgotten their centuries of miseries, be assured they have not; their history, since the destruction of their temple, is one characteristic of cruelty, misery, and despair which was exercised upon them in all those countries whither they fled for refuge. All that found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said: We offend not, because they sinned against the Lord, the habitation of justice, even the Lord, the hope of their Fathers." Jer. I:8. [50:1] Not only ought the rememberance [remembrance] of the sufferings which this people have sustained at your hands, be the means of raising your sympathy in their behalf, and thus induce you to alleviate their distress, as much as lies in your power; but it must also bring that forcible conviction home to such, particularly who will not stoop to receive the word of God in its original meaning, but are too fond to spiritualize such portions of it, which does not suit either the former expressed sentiments, or their present disposition. I say, to such the contemplation of the exact literal fulfilment [fulfillment] with regard to the afflictions of the children of Judah, ought to show that the blessings in store will as surely follow! For why should we give them the curses, and withhold from them the blessings?

Need I stop here to paint a picture of their long and unceasing miseries which they have undergone, even since the destruction of their Temple? This is generally admitted, but to give an idea of the extent and manner of their sufferings to such of my readers who may yet be unacquainted with it, I shall quote the testimonies of some esteemed writers, whose attention seems to have been impressively arrested, and who give us a short, precise, but candid account concerning it. "Kings have often employed the severity of their edicts and the hands of the executioner to destroy them; the seditious multitude has performed massacres and executions, infinitely more tragical than the princes. Both kings and people, Heathens and Christians, and Mahomedans, who are opposite to us, in so many things, have united in design of destroying this nation, and have not been able to effect it, The bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, has already burnt withont [without] consuming. The Jews have been driven from all places in the world, they have, from age to age, run through the misery and persecutions, and torrents of their own blood." (Basnage 1. vi. ci § 1. "Their banishment from Judea," says Keith in his evidence of Prophecy, "was only the perlude [prelude] to their expulsion from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom. Not only did the first and second centuries of the Christian era see them twice rooted out of their own land, but each succeeding century has turued [turned] with new calamities to that once chosen but now long rejected race. The history of their sufferings is a continued tale of horror. Revolt is natural to the oppressed: and their frequent seditions were productive of renewed privations and distress. Emperors, Kings, and Caliphs, all united in subjecting them to the same "iron yoke." Constantine, after having suppressed a revolt which they raised, and having commanded their ears to be cut off, dispersed them as fugitives and vagabonds into different countries, whither they carried in terror to their kindred, the mark of their sufferings and infamy. In the fifth century, they were expelled from Alexandria, which had long been their safest place of resort. Justinian, from whose principles of legislation a wiser and more human policy ought to have emanated, yielded to none of his predecessors in hostility and severity against them. He abolished their synagogues, prohibited them even from entering into caves for the exercise of their worship, rendered their testimony inadmissable [inadmissible], and deprived them of the natural right of bequeathing their property; and when such oppressive enactments led to insurrectionary movements among the Jews, their property was confiscated-many of them beheaded-and so bloody an execution of them prevailed, that as it is expressly related, "all the Jews of that century, trembled." Gregory the Great afforded them a temporary respite from oppression, which only rendered their spoilation [spoliation] more complete, and their suffering more acute, under the cruel persecutions of Heraclias. That emperor, unable to satiate his hatred against them by inflicting a variety of punishments on those who resided in his own dominions, and by finally expelling them from the empire, exerting so effectually against them his influence in other countries, that they suffered under a general and simultaneous persecution from Asia to the farthest extremities of Europe. In Spain, conversions imprisonments, or banishments were their only alternatives. In France, a similar fate

awaited them, they fled from country to country, seeking in vain any rest for the sole of their feet. Even the wide extended plains of Asia afforded them no resting place, but has been often spotted with their blood, as swell as the hills and valleys of Europe. The church of Rome ever ranked and treated them as heretics. The Canons of different councils pronounced excommunication against those who should favor or uphold the Jews against Christians; enjoined all Christians neither to eat, nor hold communion with them; prohibited them from bearing public offices, or having Christian's slaves appointed to be distinguished by a mark, decreed that their children should be taken from them, and brought up in monasteries; and what is equally descriptive of the low estimation in which they were held, and of the miseries to which they were subjected, there was often a necessity even for those who otherwise oppressed them, to ordain that it was not lawful to take the life of a Jew without any cause." (p. 79.) And who is able to tell the heart rending miseries which befell my nation during the long continued and ungodly proceedings of the Crusades? O! it is well for us that the powers of our intellects are limited by Him who knows the end from the beginning; else, were we able to recall the black and bloody scenes for many centuries under which the Jewish nation have groaned and despaired, and have them all presented into one view, the effect would be overwhelming! See for particulars, Gibbon's Hist. vol. vi: p. 17

In England-aye in Christian England too-my brethren have suffered great cruelty and persecution.

And why should I refrain from admitting that-here I had to pause, being blinded with the tears which spontaneously rushed into my eyes and fell upon the paper on which I am writing at the recollection, and at the necessity that I must class England too, amongst those who oppressed Israel? When I reflect that those who have rescued me from dark superstition, and presented me with the Gospel of my dear Savior have formerly too laid the iron yoke of tyranny upon the backs of my forefathers; when I remember that this country (where I for the first time heard about Jesus, and where I now find Christians who say to the Jew, "You are my brother, and, as a brother I love you," has once been a scene of unparalleled sufferings of the poor Jew; when I think of these things, then I am constrained to suffer the stream of my tears mixed with grief and joy' to have free course, which I trust my Christian reader will pardon.

But to return: we asserted that in England, too, the Jews have suffered cruelty and oppression. "During the Crusades," says Keith, "the whole nation united in the persecution of them." In a single instance, at York, fifteen hundred Jews, including women and children, refused all quarters; could not purchase their lives at any price; and frantic with despair, perished by a mutual slaughter. Each master was the murderer of his own family, when death became their only deliverance. The scene of the castle of Massada, which was their last fortress in Palestine, and where nearly one hundred perished in the same manner, was renewed in the Castle of York. So despised and hated were they, that the Barens, when contending with Henry VIII, to ingratiate themselves with the populace, ordered seven hundred Jews to be slaughtered at once, their houses to be plundered, and their synagogues to be burned.-Richard, John, Henry III, often extorted money from them, and the last, by the most unscrupulous and unsparing measures, usually defrayed his extraordinary expenses with their spoils, and impoverished some of the riches amongst them His extortions at last became so numerous, and his oppression so grievous, that in the words of the historian, he reduced the miserable wretches to desire to leave to depart the kingdom, but even self-banishment was denied them. Edward the First completed their misery, seized on all their property, and banished them from the kingdom. Above fifteen thousand Jews were rendered destitute of any residence were despoiled to the utmost and reduced to ruin.-Nearly four centuries elapsed before the return to Britain of this abused race.

It is, indeed, marvellous[marvelous], and the same has been the wonder and admiration in all ages of historians, sceptics [skeptics], and Christians, how the Jews, after having had such showers of persecutions poured down upon them, in which the kingdoms of this world have combined their powers to extinguish them from off the face of the earth, have still remained a people, a nation distinct from all others, though mixed up in the ocean of nations, and tossed with tempest, they have remained distinct as pearls in the cavern of the sea. But the wonder ceases to be a wonder when we remember that God had future blessings for them in store; and the only answer that I could give, if asked, how they endured the storms of persecutions for the many centuries with such amazing patience and perseverance is , that they rested their hope in the providence of God, who once for ever declared, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

But what is still more distressing, and what

ought to rouse us to still greater energy in behalf of the children of Zion is the circumstance that their sufferings came more directly from such as claimed the name of Christians; and I may add, that so great was the delusion into which the Christian word had fallen, that to inflict a wound on a Jew was with nations, as if it was never said in the word of God, "Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first fruits of his increase! all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord" Jer. 2: 3.

But I shall now pass on from the scenes of long past wrongs which my brerhren [brethren] of the House of Israel have sustained during a period of at least seventeen centuries, and making use of the language of the Prophet. I shall say, "In those days they shall say no more, The Fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the childrens teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity-every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge."-Jer. 31: 29, 30. I shall, therefore, direct your attention to the state of things as they are now in our times, though a knowledge and a reference to the past is very necessary, in order to show the cause of the present prevailing opinions of the Jews, and their prejudices against Christianity.

It has been continually urged by a certain class of people, that it is evident that the Jews were an obstinate people who would not come over to Christianity, but, I would ask, "What has been the character of those who strove with them, for many centuries, as to induce them to embrace Christianity? What were the means made use of to bring them to the foot of the Cross? Was it with that love and charity with which our Savior called their forefathers to repentance? Was it by presenting to them the true undefiled word of God? O no! The means were such as are not only contrary to the Bible, but also averse to human laws; the only alternative in some parts which was left them, as we have seen above, was either to profess their belief in Jesus (convinced or not convinced) or else their property was confiscated, and their persons given up to the sword; and as for the inducement which was held out to them, the religion to which they were invited, was "idolatry," the Church of Rome has been, and is still, the greatest enemy to the Jewish nation, not only in a temporal but in a spiritual sense. What do we see in our days? The large bulk of; the remnant of Israel are mixed up amongst a people who call themselves Christians, but who profane that holy name by their idolatrous practice, and that in the eyes of my poor brethren who have, by sad experience, been taught the lesson from Jehovah to abhor these evil practices.-Thus the name of Christ has became a still greater stumbling block than ever, until at last it became hateful to them. Add to this, (it may not be generaly [generally] known but it is a fact,) that Jews (particulaely [particularly] in my native country, and the surrounding kingdoms look upon the system of the Church of Rome as the very essence of Christianity which may be thus accounted for.

The Romanites have imbibed many superstitious observances from our forefathers, and, as my brethren value such amongst themselves, and as they are more strictly adhered to by pious Jews, therefore they make the same distinction and form the same conclusion with regard to Baptists and Protestants; the latter not regarding such things, and not only so, but are altogether, with but few exceptions, careless about any religion, so that the poor Jew has no opportunity to see vital Christians: what he really considers as such, is the idolatrous worshiping [worshipping] of Romon [Roman] Catholics, and hence the general predominant opinions prevailing amongst my brethren that Christianity is idolatry. What do we see when we cast our eyes to those parts where the Jews are most numerous, and where the Romish religion also is chiefly maintained? I have witnessed their religious ceremonies in Prussia, Poland, and in the adjoining countries, the thought of which makes my blood run cold within me, when I think of my poor brethren who are kept from the true light by witnessing these abominations practised [practiced] before their eyes and which is called "Christianity." But more of this in the next.

I have seen them on their appointed days parading the principal streets and squares exhibiting the different images of Joseph and Mary, and other Saints, ornamented in the most ridiculous manner, and when arriving at such spots where they have "set up the images of stone," they fell upon their knees thus praying to them with outstretched arms. And need it be wondered at that the Jew who is at such a period, looking on from his hiding place* whither he had fled as soon as the procession was approaching should turn away his head from this sight in disgust and contempt and be provoked to zealous indignation at the very thought of becoming a Christian.

• The last few years the Jews have been more privileged, but 30 years back when Jews were in danger of their lives, if ever they ventured to show themselves openly when these processions moved along; so it happened that an aged

Jew in my native place, having some business on good-Friday, which led him across the market place whilst the procession stopped to kneel down, he was shot dead on the spot. Chap. iv: page 262.