Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/204

196 Has the Israelite a fatherland besides Jerusalem?

Yes; the country wherein he is bred and born, and in which he has the liberty to practise his religion, and where he is allowed to carry on traffic and trade, and to enjoy all the advantages and protection of the law in common with the citizens of other creeds; this country the Israelite is bound to acknowledge as his fatherland, to the benefit of which he must do his best to contribute. The sovereign who rules over this land is (after God) his sovereign; its laws—so long as they are not contradictory to the Divine Law—are also the Israelite’s laws; and the duties of his fellow-citizens are also his duties.

It will be seen from this extract what view the Jew is taught to take of his relations to Englishmen.

Though they are scattered all over the country, it is generally in towns that the Jews congregate; and this because there must be at least ten men to constitute a congregation, their law prohibiting the performance of congregational worship by a less number. Moreover, the requirements of their law are much more easily and economically fulfilled when a number of them dwell together than when the reverse is the case. As to their moral qualities, the evidence seems to show that the lower class of Jews are decidedly superior to the same class among ourselves. They are far less given to drinking; their religious customs enforce a certain amount of cleanliness, both personal and in their dwellings; two families are seldom or never found inhabiting the same apartment, so that the scene described by the Inspector of Lodging-houses of a room in which there was a family in each corner, and an Irish gentleman in the middle, who was declared to have recently introduced discord among the previously happy inmates by taking in a lodger, is never witnessed among them. They are very hospitable to each other, and we are all aware of the strict manner in which they, as a body, keep their Sabbath—at least, so far as regards refraining from trade—though, as the expounders of their law have laid down that it was intended as much for pleasure and recreation as for spiritual improvement, they avail themselves of the liberty thus accorded to them with an eagerness which is unknown among their Gentile neighbours. The extent to which they patronise theatres, concerts, dancing-rooms, and other places of amusement, on Saturday evenings, must considerably affect the weekly receipts at some of those places; and the style in which they get themselves up for these occasions has made their love of finery notorious.

The conceit which in ancient times made them such a stiff-necked people still adheres to them. It is said that nothing is more difficult than to get them to adopt a plan suggested by an individual among them, the carrying out of which requires unity of action, every man wanting to be a leader and none followers. On the other hand, if the Jew is conceited, and is taught to consider himself as one of a chosen people, he is also taught that the people of other nations whose worship does not resemble his own are by that circumstance in no way disqualified for admission into Paradise. In an educational work intended for the instruction of Jewish youth, which has received the approval of the highest authority among them, it is laid down that:

Whereas all religions, the foundations of which are constituted on moral principles, qualify man to guide himself in a proper path, and to render him happy both here and hereafter, what avails it what way he arrives at the destined end? it follows hence that man is destined by the circumstances of his birth and education to adhere to the religion of his forefathers.

And in the same educational book from which I have already quoted there occurs the following question and answer:

Are the Jews commanded to convert other nations to Judaism?

No! The Jews are destined by God to be a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation; but all men cannot be priests, and all nations need not to become Jews in order to obtain the favour of God, or to be his true worshippers.

Thus, being instructed from their very infancy that there is no reason why they should seek to convert others to their faith, they do not see why they should abandon their own; hence all attempts to convert them usually fail. The Roman Catholic ecclesiastics had an excellent opportunity of testing their impressionability, for I have seen it stated in an article on the Jews in Rome, that a certain number of the Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto were compelled to attend the daily service of the Romish Church for generation after generation without any result in the way of conversion. I have not seen any report of the success, or the want of it, on the part of the society founded for the express purpose of propagating the Gospel among the Jews: but I have before me a newspaper published in Utah, in which I see a paragraph stating, on the authority of the Rev. J. Wolff, that a society which existed in London for the express purpose of converting the Jews had, during the last fifty years, spent 500,000l. and converted two Jews and a half. This statement is not strictly accurate, but it is certain the number of conversions is not great. However, that is a branch of the subject which I need not discuss in an article intended merely to give some information concerning the present customs of this ancient people. G. L.

! a blushing spring, Violet-strewn and blossoming, April’s sunshine, April’s rain, April ne’er to come again.

Boyhood! sun-kiss’d summer hours, Fragrant with a thousand flowers, Smiling ’neath a tearless sky, Chasing life’s bright butterfly.

Manhood! in autumnal suit, Rich in russet golden fruit, God-stamped, noble, tender, true, Harvest of preceding two.

Age! a silvery winter scene, Blessing joy-dreams that have been.been, [sic] White with hoarfrost, angel-given, Last and nearest step to heaven!