Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/391

 would hardly justify the dismissal of a servant. He may rudely tear asunder the sacred ties of conjugal affection, and separate between mother and children, if the unhappy woman should only make a mistake in her cookery. One of the worst charges brought against the slave-dealers was, that they had no respect either for maternal or filial affection; that they separated between mother and children. The very same accusation can be brought against modern Judaism, which legitimatizes the very same disregard for the feelings of a mother. Can, then, such a religion, which thus daringly snaps the ties of nature, be from God? Is it possible that God should thus expose one half of his rational creatures to the caprice and the tyranny of those who ought to be their defenders and protectors from every insult and every harm? If the same right were given to women, though the laws would be most contrary to the divine institution of marriage, it would at least have the appearance of justice; but this is denied. The oral law says,—

"The words, 'If she find no favour in his eyes,' teach, that the husband does not divorce except voluntarily; and if the woman be divorced against his will, she is not divorced. But the woman is divorced with or without her will." (Jad Hachazakah Hilchoth, Gerushin, c. 1, 2.) According to this doctrine the happiness of the wife and the children is absolutely vested in the power of the man; and in any paroxysm of ill-humour, he may make them both unhappy for life; he may turn the mother out of her home, drive her forth like a criminal from the bosom of her family, and introduce a stranger. Who does not see that this is a power unfit to be trusted to the hands of any man or any people? We do not mean to impute anything peculiar to the Jews; we believe that as to their natural propensities, humours, and caprices, all men are much alike, and that therefore none ought to have the power of thus lightly breaking up the domestic constitution. It is no answer to this to say, that in this country divorce is not so lightly practised. Thanks to the power of Christian principle and the existence of Christian laws, it cannot be. But every one, who has had much opportunity of seeing rabbinical Jews, knows that divorce is practised amongst them with a facility and frequency that is astonishing. But this is not the question; we are not examining Jewish manners, but the modern Jewish religion; and if divorce had never been practised, we should still pronounce of the oral law, which inculcates such principles, that it cannot be from God; and of its authors that they