THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS. 



one of the 

 one of the 

 one of the 

 pressions of 



any other basis than I would that of the 

 Gipsies ; for, with both, it is substan- 

 tially a question of people. They are a 

 people, scattered over the world, like the 

 Gipsies, and have a history the Bible, 

 which contains both their history and 

 their laws ; and these two contain their 

 religion. It would, perhaps, be more 

 correct to say that the religion of the 

 Jews is to be found in the Talmud, and 

 the other human compositions, for which 

 the race have such a superstitious rever- 

 ence ; and even these are taken as in- 

 terpreted by the Rabbis. A Jew has, 

 properly speaking, little of a creed. He 

 believes in the existence of God, and in 

 Moses his prophet, and observes cer- 

 tain parts of the ceremonial law, and 

 some holidays commemorative of events 

 in the history of his people. He is a 

 Jew, in the first place, as a simple mat- 

 ter of fact, and, as he grows up, he is 

 made acquainted with the history of his 

 race, to which he becomes strongly at- 

 tached. He then holds himself to be 

 first-born of the Lord," 

 chosen of the Eternal," 

 " Lord's aristocracy ;" ex- 

 amazing import in his 

 worldly mind, that will lead him to al- 

 most die for \i\sfaith : while his reli- 

 gion is of a very low natural order, 

 " standing only in meats and drinks, and 

 divers washings, and carnal ordinances," 

 suitable for a people in a state of pupil- 

 age. The Jewish mind in the matter of 

 religion is, in some respects, pre-emi- 

 nently gross and material in its nature ; 

 its idea of a Messiah rising no higher 

 than a conqueror of its own race, who 

 will bring the whole world under his 

 sway, and parcel out, among his fellow- 

 Jews, a lion's share of the spoils, consist- 

 ing of such things as the inferior part of 

 human nature so much craves for. And 

 his ideas of how this Messiah is to be 

 connected with the original tribes, as 

 mentioned in the prophecies, are childish 

 and superstitious in the extreme. Writ- 

 ers do, therefore, greatly err, when they 

 say, that it is only a thin partition that 

 separates Judaism from Christianity. 

 There is almost as great a difference 

 between the two, as there is between 

 that which is material, and that which 

 is spiritual. A Jew is so thoroughly 

 bound, heart and soul, by the spell which 

 the phenomena of his race exert upon 

 him, that, humanly speaking, it is impos- 

 sible to make anything of him in the 

 matter of Christianity. And herein, in 



his own way of thinking, consists his 

 peculiar glory. Such being the case 

 with Christianity, it is not to be suppos- 

 ed that the Jew would forsake his own 

 religion, and, of course, his own people, 

 and believe in any religion having an 

 origin in the spontaneous and gradual 

 growth of superstition and imposture, 

 modified, systematized, adorned, or ex- 

 expanded, by ambitious and superior 

 minds, or almost wholly in the concep- 

 tions of these minds ; having, for a foun- 

 dation, an instinct an intellectual and 

 emotional want as common to man 

 as instinct is to the- brute creation, for 

 the ends which it has to serve.* We 

 cannot separate the questions of race 

 and belief, when we consider the Jews 

 as a people, however it might be with 

 individuals among them (p. 501.) 



Amid all the obloquy and contempt 

 cast upon his race, amid all the perse- 

 cutions to which it has been exposed, 

 the Jew, with his inherent conceit in 

 having Abraham for his father, falls 

 back upon the history of his nation, 

 with the utmost contempt for every- 

 thing else that is human ; forgetting 

 that there is such a thing as the " first 

 being last." He boasts that his race, , 

 and his only, is eternal, and that all 

 other men get everything from him ! 

 He vainly imagines that the Majesty of 

 Heaven should have made his dispensa- 

 tions to mankind conditional upon any- 

 thing so unworthy as his race has so 

 frequently shown itself to be. If he 

 has been so favoured by God, what can 

 he point to as the fruits of so much 

 loving-kindness shown him? What is 

 his nation now, however numerous it 

 may be, but a ruin, and its members, 

 but spectres that haunt it ? And what 

 has brought it to its present condition ? 

 " Its sins." Doubtless, its sins ; but 

 what particular sins ? And how are 

 these sins to be put away, seeing that 

 the temple, the high-priesthood, and the 

 sacrifices no longer exist ? Or what 

 effort, by such means as offer, has ever 

 been made to mitigate the wrath of God, 

 and prevail upon Him to restore the 

 people to their exalted privileges ? Or 

 what could they even propose doing, to 

 bring about that event ? Questions like 

 these involve the Jewish mind in a 

 labyrinth of difficulties, from which it 

 cannot extricate itself. The dispersion 



Quoted at pages 51 and 5: 



