260 Existing Disabilities of the Jetvs in the British Empire. 



in his famous essay on " Toleration," " tolerate all religions but Popery ! 

 for popery tolerates none !" We resisted its demands, for the additional 

 and still higher reason, that, seeing it denounced, in the most solemn 

 words of Holy Writ, as the grand corruption of Christianity, which was 

 to be suffered for a while, only for the trial of the human heart, and was 

 finally to be extinguished by the open and tremendous vengeance of 

 Heaven ; the attempt to raise it into the place of power and honour was 

 a national pledge to its support, and a public scorn of the high denun- 

 ciations which had forewarned us of its offence to Heaven, and of its 

 determined fall. Those reasons are as strong with us as ever ; they were 

 founded on neither party nor passion ; and they will survive both : our 

 opinions were not formed on the fluctuating policy of man ; and they are 

 not to be shaken by the temporary triumph of men, from whose prin- 

 ciples we shrink with still more instinctive disdain, as their success urges 

 on the crisis of their country. 



But we can discover no sufficient reason why the Jew, if a natural-born 

 subject of Great Britain, should not possess every privilege attached to 

 so fortunate a distinction. He already exercises one office, which is, 

 perhaps, more important to society than any other that England con- 

 templates ; he sits on juries, and thus decides on life and fortune. We 

 are not aware that he has exhibited any unfitness for this important 

 trust ; and the chief qualities which it demands are satisfactory evidences 

 of his fitness for the other general trusts of the commonwealth. We 

 unhesitatingly lay down the principle, that religious opinions are not 

 justifiable obstructions to public employments or national privileges, 

 except where out of those religious' opinions political prejudices or hos- 

 tilities grow. To such exceptions the papist is as obviously exposed as 

 the Jew is not ; and on this ground we say, that the exclusion of the 

 Jew is not less an act of injustice to himself, than a wrong to the country 

 which is deprived of the public services of a portion of its people. As 

 to any fear that the public councils may be perverted by the overflow 

 of Jews into the legislature, the idea is chimerical. The Jews are a small 

 community ; in general a very poor one ; and in general a very secluded 

 and unambitious one. They have no party stimulant to urge them to 

 faction, and the strong probability is, that if half a dozen of them 

 became Members of Parliament, it would be the full number, and that 

 of those the attention would be much more turned to commercial than 

 political details. The whole population of the Jews in England is esti- 

 mated under 30,000. The religious maxim of the Jews is also directly 

 adverse to public disturbance. " Seek ye the peace of the city where 

 ye dwell, and pray for it, for in the peace thereof ye shall have peace !" 

 The Jew looks upon himself as of too distinct, and perhaps of too supe- 

 rior a race, to make the struggles for popular rank in other nations of 

 much interest to him ; he retains a good deal of the original impres- 

 sion of the patriarchal age of sojourning and pilgrimage ; and, looking, 

 like his great forefather, to a glorious consummation in his original land, 

 feels but few of the stings that rouse other men to force their way to 

 eminence up the perilous path of human passions. The Jew has been 

 often a victim to popular violence or to regal rapacity ; but it is remark- 

 able, that during the long period of their residence in the British empire, 

 there has been no Jewish insurrection. Mr. Goldsmid asserts, that 

 there has not been even a single instance of a Jew being, " he does not 

 say guilty, but even suspected, of any offence against the state." 



