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within a limited time to become the cultivators of the soil, yet such is their aversion to rural occupations, that none of them obeyed the arbitrary decree.

What is the condition of the Jews in the dominions of the Czar?

life.'

Although considerable attention has professedly been paid to the improvement and education of the Polish Jews, since they have been transferred to the authority of the Czar, they are now exposed to exactions sufficiently cruel and oppressive, to amount to the renewal of persecution. The Russian A. D. 1827. emperor ordered, that all the Jews in his empire should be rendered liable to military service. In his ukase upon this subject, he alleges as his motive for this proceeding, "We are convinced that the improvement and the knowledge which the Jews will acquire by their military service, will on their return home, after their legal time is expired, be communicated to their families, and greatly tend to accelerate the progress of their civil establishment and domestic But it cannot be supposed that the great autocrat of the North is very solicitous for the amelioration and improvement of this unhappy portion of his subjects; so far from this, he is their tyrant and oppressor; he has issued another barbarous, inconsistent, and impolitic ukase, which takes away from the Jews the privilege, to them so essential, of trading in the interior of the empire. This decree prohibits them from offering for sale any articles in the shops or in the streets, and from employing foremen, apprentices, and labourers, whether Christians or otherwise in any department whatever-that is to say, it is a decree to reduce them to the most abject misery and destitution. But when has Muscovite policy been otherwise than barbarous? and when has it bestowed a single consideration upon the happiness of mankind, when the aggrandizement of territorial and military power has intervened?

What is the condition of the Jews in Turkey?

In the vast provinces of the TURKISH EMPIRE, the Jews have enjoyed comparative rest from persecution; and it is probable that between one and two millions

are now to be found in the dominions of the Ottoman Sultan. In Salonichi, they established their schools without molestation; they were enriched by the lucra tive traffic of the Levant, and by those usurious transactions to which in all ages and in all countries they have been addicted; in Constantinople, where their numbers now amount to forty thousand, their fanatical abhorrence of the Christians has been permitted to be displayed by deeds of treachery and blood; and though often oppressed by their haughty and insolent Mohammedan lords, they have usually enjoyed the protection, and have sometimes participated in the favour, of the

court.

Born

Give the history of a pretended Messiah in Turkey? Almost two centuries ago the Turkish empire was the scene of some very extraordinary proceedings among the Jews. The son of an obscure Jew in the city of Smyrna, who had obtained pre- A. D, 1625. eminence among his companions by his progress in the Cabbala, by the rigour of his attentions to the Rabbinical fasts and ceremonies, and by the exquisite proportions and admirable beauty of his form, declared that he was the appointed Messiah; uttered the incommunicable name of God to substantiate his pretensions; in spite of the opposition and denunciations of the Rabbins, induced multitudes of his brethren to accede to his claims; and soon disseminated his fame through Europe and the world. His pretended miracles were repeated in proof of his divine mission; the richest presents were poured into his treasury; from the distant provinces of Persia to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, the Jews were in commotion; and they almost unanimously declared that at length their deliverer had appeared. Although the account which is given of Sabbathai Sevi, is evidently interlarded with fabulous narrations, yet there is no reason to doubt that such was his fanaticism, or his presumption, or his folly, that he repaired to Constantinople to present himself before the Sultan; that the monarch commanded him, either to put his Messiahship to the test by allowing three poisoned arrows to be shot at him, his invulnerability being the test of the divinity of his mission, or to embrace Islamism without delay; that

the wretched pretender, to escape from inevitable death, became a Mahommedan; and that he received not only a pardon, but tokens of honour, from the Sultan. But the delusion was not yet terminated. Sabbathai, from the traditions of the elders, and from the prophecies of the Old Testament, extracted passages which declared that Messiah was for a time to dwell among the unbelievers; many of his adherents credited his testimony and followed his example; but his career was soon terminated; he was thrown into prison by the Sultan, and died in his dungeon of a morA. D. 1676. tal disease. The death of Sabbathai did not involve the extinction of his party; it was announced that, like Enoch, he was translated to heaven; and his followers still exist as a distinct and discernible sect.

What has lately occurred among the Constantino politan Jews?

Among the Jews of Constantinople, considerable excitement for the last few years, has prevailed, in consequence of the profession which some of their number have made of their conversion to the Christian faith. A great number of copies of the Old and New Testaments in Hebrew having been purchased by the Jews in that city, the Rabbins have taken the alarm, and they have attempted to arrest the circulation of the Scriptures, and to terminate the discussions upon Christianity, not only by the exertion of all their private influence, but by endeavouring to bribe the Turkish officers to secure the death of those who have renounced the delusions of their ancestors, and avowed their conviction that the Messiah has already appeared, and that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God. Hitherto their efforts have been unsuccessful; the impression continues to extend; the number of converts increases; and, in the heart of a Mohammedan empire, the doctrine of the cross is triumphant over the superstition and obstinacy of Jewish infatuation.

Are there any Jews now existing in China and India?

It has been fully ascertained that there are a considerable number of Jews in CHINA, although few

particulars are known of their actual condition. With respect to the Jews in INDIA, however, the case is different. About a mile from the city of Cochin, on the coast of Malabar, there is a place called Mattachery and Jewstown, almost wholly inhabited by the Jews, who have two respectable synagogues. They are divided into two classes, the White and the Black. The White Jews reside at the place just mentioned, but the Black Jews are scattered through the towns in the interior of the province. The former give the following history of themselves. After the second temple was destroyed, a numerous body of men and women, priests and Levites, emigrated to India, and the king of Malabar gave them for their residence a place called Cranganor. This they state to have occurred about A. D. 490. Their internal quarrels brought upon them the resentment of an Indian king, who killed many, carried others into captivity, and reduced them to the lowest stage of depression. The White Jews are most probably the descendants of the true children of Abraham; the Black are, perhaps, the posterity of native slaves. The benevolence of British and American Christians has been directed to the deplorable moral and temporal condition of these outcasts of Israel; schools have been established at Cochin; and in the neighbourhood of Bombay, a short time since, the American Missionaries had under their care thirty-five educational establishments, in which between one and two thousand children were receiving instruction.

SECTION VI.

GENERAL STATE OF THE JEWS.

WHAT new spirit has lately appeared among the Jews?

AMONG the modern Jews the spirit of inquiry, and a desire for extensive and efficient improvement, have begun to prevail to an unprecedented degree. In different parts of the world, some of the most respectable

of their nation have earnestly intreated their brethren to attend to the necessity of a radical reformation in their habits, their morals, and their religious worship. And the motives which they allege for their addresses, are their own improvement, and the counteraction of the efforts which have been made for their conversion to the Christian faith. M. Berr has published a discourse, which he delivered in 1828, at a public meeting of the Jewish schools at Nantz, in which he anxiously inculcates the public reading and explanation of the word of God, the exercises of devotion, and exhortations upon matters of faith and practicetheir synagogues, he said, being the only places of religious worship in which there is not a pulpit devoted to these pious purposes. It is, however, to be regretted, that among some of these Jewish reformers, there is easily to be discerned a deplorable spirit of scepticism, and they seem to consider their own religion as a step to the establishment of a deistical system of universal morals, with little regard to any of the peculiarities of the divine Revelation of the Old Testament.

Give some account of Moses Mendelsohn?

Moses Mendelsohn was born at Dessau in 1729, though he afterwards resided principally at Berlin. His perusal of the Hebrew work of Maimonides, intitled the Wanderer's Guide, excited an ardent thirst for knowledge and led him to the study of ancient and modern literature. His works, Jerusalem, Phædon, or on the Immortality of the Soul, Morning Reflections, or on the Being of a God, have produced no inconsiderable impression upon the Prussian and German Jews. It was his anxious desire that his brethren should be emancipated from the thraldom of the Rabbins, and the superstitions of the Talmud; and that by conforming to the manners and institutions of the countries in which they resided, and by engaging in friendly intercourse and upright transactions with their inhabitants, they should remove the odium which has universally, and often with too much justice, been attached to their names. Mendelsohn died in 1786; and notwithstanding that he was a Jew, and oppressed with poverty, he lived in habits of intimacy with the most learned men of his time.

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