556 



JEWS. 



with fine linen cloth stretched upon frames of 

 wood. 



The monastery of Jarrow suffered frequently by 

 fire, and through the violence of the Danes ; at the 

 Norman conquest, the church was but a poor 

 thatched hovel, made up of old walls, with a root' 

 of unhewn timber. Bishop Walcher, however, 

 who had been presented to the See of Durham, by 

 William I., assisted in restoring the ruined monas- 

 tery. He bestowed upon it several neighbouring 

 manors, and excited some monks of Munkchester, 

 (now Newcastle,) to take up their residence in his 

 diocese, Munkchester being then included in the 

 jurisdiction of the earl of Northumberland. The 

 monastery being thus established, and afterwards 

 much increased, both in revenues and numbers, a 

 division took place among the brethren, and bishop 

 William de Carilepho, Watcher's successor, re- 

 moved the inmates of the establishment to Dur- 

 ham, when it became only a cell to that monas- 

 tery. Jarrow monastery was dedicated to St 

 Paul, and the monks were of the Benedictine 

 order. The remains, which do not betoken any 

 great extent of the ancient building, are situated 

 on an eminence. The church appears, from the 

 situation of the tower, to have been in the form of 

 a cross, but it has been so frequently dilapidated, 

 that it is difficult to decide this with accuracy. The 

 present structure is part of the ancient building 

 connected with a portion restored in 1783. Jarrow 

 was the birth-place of the venerable Bede. 



JEWS, (a.) The popular impressions with re- 

 spect to the character and fate of the Jews are not 

 so distinct as so important a history requires. We 

 know of no divine inflictions; the punishments of 

 individuals and nations are the natural consequences 

 of their conduct ; the misdeeds of communities, as 

 well as the sins of individuals, put an end, some- 

 times for ever, to that quiet which it is the best 

 prosperity of men and nations to enjoy. The 

 founder of the Hebrew nation, acting under the 

 authority of Heaven, had framed a constitution 

 for this favoured people, which prescribed pursuits 

 adapted to their soil and character, guarded them 

 against the excesses of passion, bound up the hands 

 of national ambition, and gave each individual as 

 much freedom as was consistent with the general 

 welfare. It protected the possessions of the rich 

 and the earnings of the poor, encouraged habits of 

 industry, and set bars to violence and corruption. 

 Had the Hebrews been content to sit down quietly 

 under the shadow of these institutions, they would 

 not have had wealth to invite oppression, and would 

 not have lost strength to repel any invasion of ad- 

 venturers. But they could not understand the 

 wisdom of their law, and disregarded it so com- 

 pletely, that the very book was lost ; and when it 

 was accidentally recovered in the reign of Josiah, 

 all hearts were filled with dismay to find how 

 widely they had wandered. Still they were not 

 instructed by experience ; even Hezekiah, one of 

 their best kings, could not resist the strange ambi- 

 tion of displaying his wealth to robbero. The na- 

 tural consequences followed. As their welfare 

 depended on the observance of their civil system, 

 their misfortunes followed hard upon its violation. 

 Their occasional reformation restored their char- 

 acter and happiness for a time ; but the whole ten- 

 dency of the state was downward ; and the in- 

 spired prophets foretold, with amazing and awful 

 exactness, all the particulars of its righteous doom. 

 We cannot help thinking, that the national char- 



acter is too unfavourably represented on this ac- 

 count. The same argument is made use of, by 

 which the friends of Job attempted to convince 

 him that he was more guilty than others, because 

 he suffered more. Their character was not an 

 amiable one ; but it will be observed, that the se- 

 verity of the prophets, as well as of our Saviour, 

 falls not so much on the people, as on those who 

 misled them. A deep and burning spirit of patriot- 

 ism was their strongest passion ; and it cannot 

 be denied, that they exhibited a resolution when 

 their country was in question, which under better 

 guidance might have made them a virtuous people. 

 But under the direction of the Pharisees, it led to 

 fatal results, even to the barbarous murder of Jesus 

 Christ. But it should be remembered, that when 

 John appeared, calling them to repentance and re- 

 form, he became their favourite, and their dema- 

 gogues dared not say a word against him. The 

 same popularity attended Jesus Christ, though his 

 appearance disappointed all their hopes, which foi 

 centuries had looked for his coming in the high and 

 commanding majesty of the conqueror and king. 

 It required the most unwearied malice on the part 

 of their leaders, to weaken his influence, and to 

 work them up to that mad excitement, in which 

 they demanded his blood. All this, we think, is 

 implied in the memorable words, " Father, for- 

 give them, for they know not what they do." 



We mention this, because there is a prevailing 

 error on this subject, and the sympathies of men 

 are unfairly divided between the Jews and Romans. 

 Josephus, who wrote under the eye of the con- 

 querors, has been too long suffered to mislead men 

 by those representations of the atrocity of the 

 Jews and the humanity of the Romans, by which 

 he endeavoured to cover the shame of deserting a 

 cause, for which his countrymen thought it a pri- 

 vilege to die. Let it be remembered, that what- 

 ever might have been the national guilt which 

 brought them into bondage, their rebellion was an 

 effort to be free ; a rebellion, occasioned not by the 

 extortions of Hebrew viceroys, nor the severity of 

 Roman procurators, hard as those evils were for 

 their proud spirits to endure ; but, after years of 

 suffering, they rose in a universal flame, the mo- 

 ment an insult was offered to their religion. If 

 any respect is due to patriotic self-devotion, we 

 cannot withhold it from theirs. And it is an evi- 

 dence of the power which a popular historian has 

 over the moral judgment, that readers in general 

 should so long have sympathised with Hume against 

 the English patriots, and with Josephus against the 

 Jews. For nothing can be more absurd than to 

 look on the Romans with complacency, because 

 they were employed on this occasion, like the bar- 

 barian who afterwards overran their empire, as a 

 scourge in the hands of God. It is quite too much 

 to be called on to admire the humanity of Titus, 

 whose heart was not all stone, though it seems that 

 he tortured his wretched prisoners till no more 

 ground remained for a cross to stand upon. The 

 march of their armies was well described as the 

 " curse of desolation ;" wherever was found the 

 "carcass" of a fated city, there one might be sure 

 that their " eagles were gathered ;" when they 

 spread their pinions, it was like the waving of the 

 death-angel's wing ; and yet from our youth, we 

 are taught to bless the name of the ravenous and 

 grasping plunderer, and it is bad taste to give even 

 the alms of compassion to the memory of his victim. 



We do not deny that the annals of the Jews 



