40 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



the ten tribes separated from the house of David, 

 and when each kingdom was zealously supported 

 by a rival priesthood ; yet both parties religiously 

 preserved the books of the law, without changing 

 a letter. 



" From the Christian era down to this day, the 

 Jews, though dispersed into every country of the 

 globe, continue to read the books of Moses and 

 the Prophets every Sabbath day, in the original 

 Hebrew ; and, however they may differ from us, 

 or among themselves, in the interpretation of va- 

 rious expressions, they have always considered 

 the strict preservation of the original text as the 

 most important of their duties. Those books 

 have now been translated into so many lan- 

 guages, and cited by so many authors, and have 

 been the subject of so much discussion from the 

 times of the Apostles, that it is absolutely impos- 

 sible that any fraudulent change can have taken 

 place since that period. I may add, that the 

 books of the Old Testament were translated into 

 Greek by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 

 about three centuries and a half before that pe- 

 riod ; and they have therefore been for upwards 

 of two thousand years in the hands of heathens 

 and sceptics, who would have been eager to detect 

 any alteration that might have been attempted. 



tf It is, indeed, a most striking circumstance, 

 that notwithstanding the many corruptions which 

 the Israelites fell into while they had the sole cus- 



