Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/487

 the Prophets. And we appeal confidently to every reader of these papers to decide whether the New Testament or the Talmud is the better book, and to say which is the most agreeable to the will of God as revealed to their forefathers. We earnestly call upon them to make the decision, and to deliver themselves from that unmerited weight of odium which has rested upon them for centuries; and from that still more dreadful evil, the displeasure of Almighty God, which has followed them ever since they forsook the Old Paths wherein their fathers walked.

It is time for those, at least, who profess to abhor certain parts of the Talmud and oral law, to justify their professions by consistent conduct. If they wish people to believe them when they profess love and charity towards all men, they must begin by repudiating the authority of the oral law, and renouncing the worship of the synagogue. How can we possibly believe that those are sincere in their professions to men, who declare that they are insincere in their worship of the heart-searching God? Every man who uses the prayers of the synagogue, there confesses himself to God as a believer in the oral law, and consequently ready to execute all its decrees of cruelty, fraud, and persecution—ready, when he has the power, to convert all nations with the sword. That is his profession in the synagogue; when, then, he comes forth from the solemn act of Divine worship, and tells me that he is liberal and charitable, and that he abhors persecution, how can I possibly believe him? There is falsehood somewhere, and the only possible mode of removing this appearance is by a public renunciation of the oral law, and an erasure of those passages in the public prayers which affirm its Divine authority. This all truly liberal-minded Jews owe to themselves, to the Christian public, to their brethren, and, above all, to their God. To themselves they owe it, because so long as their words and their deeds contradict each other, a mist hangs over them. To the Christian public they owe it, for they must naturally desire to know the principles of those with whom they are connected. To their brethren they owe it, for this is the only way of delivering the nation from the calamities of centuries. To their God they owe it, for by the blasphemies of the oral law, His character is misrepresented, and His name blasphemed.

THE END.