Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/157

 experiment would convince him. To this Turnus Rufus consented, and the results are described in the following words:—

"His father came up every day of the week, but on the Sabbath-day he did not come up. On the first day of the week he brought him up again, and said to him, Father, hast thou been made a Jew since thy death; why is it that thou comest up on all the other days of the week, but not on Sabbath? He replied, Whosoever will not keep the Sabbath voluntarily in your world, must keep it here in spite of himself. He then said, Father, have you then got work on the other days of the week, and rest on the Sabbath? The father replied, On the other days of the week we are judged, but on the Sabbath we are at rest." (Bereshith Rabba, fol. 9, col. 4.) Such are the legends which the Jewish Prayer-book, on the solemn feast of Pentecost, stamps with all the authority of authentic history. Is it necessary to prove to the Jews of England that both these stories are utterly untrue? Is it necessary to say, that there is not, and never was, such a river as the Sambation? Within a century the world has been explored in every direction. From Cooke to Kotzebue the globe has been many times circumnavigated, but none has brought us any tidings of the Sambation. Since the times of Benjamin of Tudela, and Abraham Peritsol, there has been a host of adventurous travellers, but none had the luck to behold the miraculous torrent of the Sambation. In this very city Jews are occasionally found from every part of the world, but from the banks of the Sambation no messenger has yet arrived. The whole account is a fiction, and is unworthy of a place in the prayers of the Jews of England. The same may be said of the necromancers, who obtain no answer on the Sabbath-day. It is nothing more than a clever fiction. By the law of Moses necromancy is forbidden to the Jews, and therefore the inventor well knew that no pious Jew would ever make the experiment, either on the Sabbath or the other days. The story of Turnus Rufus, and his father, as told in the Bereshith Rabba, is plainly contrary, even to the assertions of the oral law itself. The father is made to say, "Whosoever