694 Report on Shoa [No. 140. 



and in their attempts to obtain moral influence over their Pagan hosts, 

 were far from being inactive in their adopted home. The early Chris- 

 tian church, that of Egypt especially, having embraced many Hebrew 

 customs, was now introduced into a country, where similar doctrines 

 and practices were already in use, and hence it arose, that the population 

 so readily became converts. 



In process of time the Jews increased in numbers, and a consequent 

 augmentation of influence was obtained over the fickle mind of the 

 Abyssinian. Christianity was wanting from the beginning, and their claim 

 to the appellation of " Habeshi," a mixed and mixing people, was never 

 more aptly exemplified than in the strange medley of religion which 

 resulted in the confusion. A mixture from different nations — as stig- 

 matized by the original term — they have garbled the faith of all their 

 ancestors, and there is assuredly no Christian community in the whole 

 world, which has jumbled together truth and falsehood with such utter 

 inconsistency as the vain church of Abyssinia. 



With the destruction of the race of Solomon, the Jewish party ob- 

 tained the preponderance, because their assistance was indispensable to 

 the usurper. Again, on the restoration of the legitimate dynasty, they 

 were hunted among the mountains as a race accursed, and the feeling 

 reigned paramount to sweep the wanderers from the face of the land. 

 But the custom of ages had impressed the Hebrew practices too deeply 

 to be removed. They were in fact regarded in the light of orthodox 

 Christian doctrines, and as might have been expected from a wicked, 

 bigotted, and superstitious people, the severest persecutions were en- 

 forced against the members of another creed, without the Abyssinians 

 observing in how far they were themselves tainted with those very prin- 

 ciples, which in others they considered so justifiable to oppress. 



The same restrictions which prohibited the Jews from partaking of 

 the flesh of certain animals pronounced unclean by the Mosaic law, 

 still heavily binds the stubborn neck of the Ethiopian. The act 

 which is deemed disgraceful in the eyes of men is in itself firmly be- 

 lieved to be a moral transgression, and is visited, as was the case in the 

 Mosaic institution, by the stern reprimand of the priest. The penance 

 of severe fasting, or of uneasy repose upon the bare ground is enforced 

 by the father confessor, to efface the taint of the interdicted animal ; 

 and prayers must be repeated, and holy water pentifully be springled 



