tribe alone presents itself to our minds.

Notwithstanding the vicissitudes the nation has undergone, the Divine laws, which we contend is the authority alluded to under its proper symbol, the Sceptre, have been preserved, and are at this day in the keeping of the Israelites, by whom, as we have shown, is to be understood the tribe of Judah principally; confirming the prediction that a lawgiver of that tribe should never be wanting. Nor do we understand the expression "until Shiloh come," as including that then the sceptre should depart, but that it rather bears the construction, the Divine laws shall be preserved in the tribe of Judah until that remote period when it is said the beneficent purposes of the Deity towards the whole human race will be fully accom. plished; and so far from the sceptre then departing from Judah, we have the authority of the Scriptures for believing the Divine laws are even then to be promulgated by these his servants.* Those laws, the operation of which, as stated in the early part of our subject, are calculated to impress the most noble bearing and beneficent expression of countenance on their observers, will be found, as we think we can show, to have exerted their influence in producing likewise those traits of an unfavourable description which some, from prevailing prejudices, rather than from their own experience, have been too ready to assign as the characteristics of many of the Israelites of the present day; supporting in a most extraordinary way the proposi. tion we have laid down, that the laws, manners, and customs of a people exert a great influence on their external appearance.

From the understood nature of the expression of countenance to which we have just alluded, it will at first view appear a little extraordinary to assert that the Divine laws should operate to produce two such very opposite effects; and our readcrs, we imagine, will not be a little curious to learn how this apparently

* Isaiah xi. 1, 5, 10; lxi. 6; lxii. 8,9; Zech, viii. 23,

incongruous doctrine can be reconciled; but a little patience on their part may satisfy them of the possibility of solving their doubts upon it: For this purpose we must trace the Israelites through the weal and the woe of their destiny. It may then be perceived that the good traits they have been able to preserve in their character to the present time, is owing to their possessing the Divine laws, their love of them, their acknowledgment of their excellence, and their remarkable attachment to their religion. The almost miraculous preservation of this law may be truly considered the means by which the Deity fulfils his promise to them in the words, "When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." (Isaiah xliii. 2.)

In order that our readers may more clearly comprehend the arguments we are urging, we must refer them again to the vast difference between human and Divine laws. The first are generally made to meet

the local circumstances and interests of a certain people and country, embracing, however, some laws that are common to all civilized nations, and received by them as axioms in legislation; such, for instance, as relate to the protection of life and property, and others to which it is unnecessary to allude. If you commit murder, you shall be put to death. If you rob, you shall undergo imprisonment, receive stripes, or be banished, &c. Here the fear of corporeal punishment is made the instrument for deterring man from the commission of crimes.

Now, not only are the same crimes denounced by the Divine laws, but, after undergoing the penalty to be inflicted by his fellowman for infringing the laws of the society to which he belongs, the culprit is still in the predicament of having offended a much higher power, for he has yet to make his peace with his God. If death has been the penalty incurred, and the criminal has been subjected to it, he

cannot suffer it again here; it is clear, therefore, that he has to appear before the awful tribunal of his Maker in another life, to be there judged by Him.

Besides, there are many commands and precepts in the Divine laws. which are not found in human laws; because, were they even introduced there they could never reach the party who infringes them. We shall instance a few of such commands, to show the utter impracticability of human laws being framed to any purpose in similar cases.

"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." "Thou shalt love the stranger that dwelleth with you as thyself.” "And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen into decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner, that he may live with thee." "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again." "If thou seest the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burthen, and wouldst forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him." The punishment for not observing these and similar commands, is reserved by the Sovereign of the universe to himself, plainly enough intimating that he has not delegated his authority to any one to search the human heart, or to legislate on points of vital importance toward promoting that love of peace, and of beneficent feelings among mankind, which are the main props for sustaining the whole frame of human society, on those principles which alone can render the human race the perfect and happy beings it was doubtless the beneficent purpose of their Creator they should be when he made man.

Into whatever country they may have been thrown or wanderedwhatever might be the variety and defects of the laws of those countries however imperfect their moral codes, and absurd or cruel their religious doctrines and rites, the Israelites were guarded always against their evil effects by the possession of their perfect law on every one of those points. "It is not hidden from thee, neither is it

afar off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." (Deut. xxx. 11-14.)

To their own law in every country it has always been their bounden duty to pay implicit obedience—it is more dreadful for them to offend their God than man. And our readers must recollect that so far from their dispersion and sufferings having caused them to lay by that law, or to consider its statutes a dead letter, they have become more and more attached to it, and would be found constantly refusing obedience to the laws of any country in which they might be dwelling, if such laws were opposed to those entrusted by the Deity to their keeping.

Our readers of other religious creeds would be struck with the solemn and affecting scene, presented in the house of prayer of the Israelites, on that Sabbath when the portion of the Pentateuch is read, narrating the delivering of the law at Mount Sinai. On the reader of the service coming to the twentieth chapter of Exodus, containing the Ten Commandments, his modulation of that species of recitative in which the law is delivered, assumes a more solemn and impressive style than usual; the whole congregation rise simultaneously, and in deathlike silence listen to the sacred injunctions.

At such a moment, it is impossible for a true Israelite to keep his heart from throbbing violently and his feelings from rising almost to suffocation. It brings to his mind the awful and momentous period of his history, when these same commandments were delivered to the highlyfavoured ancestors of his nationwhen a whole people (entering into a mutual compact with their God) promise to serve him faithfully, and He vouchsafing to declare that they shall be his peculiar people, they seem

again to stand before Him as at Sinai, and to hear again his dread but beneficent commands. The people now hearing those commands repeated to them are the descendants of the same people who first received them, and of those who, for thousands of years since, have heard them delivered to them every year. Do we require any thing more to explain how this law came to be so deeply engraven on their hearts, and its precepts to be constantly present to their minds? Having satisfactorily ascertained this, we proceed to its application to our subject.

The sense of their dependence on the will of other nations is affect ingly exhibited in Nehemiah's lament. Behold," he says, "we are servants this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, Behold, we are servants in it, and it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins; also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress."

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The struggles, however, that were then taking place between the Greeks and Persians, in which the latter suffered dreadfully, must have occasioned the rigour of the Persian Government over the Israelites to be relaxed, especially after the victory obtained at Cnidos, by Conon the Athenian general, when, by the treaty entered into with the Grecian States, it became of importance to Persia to secure the fidelity of the Israelites, whose city, Jerusalem, was now in a measure a frontier town between the Grecian States and the Persian Empire: And the Jews subsequently evinced their sense of the lenient treatment which they experienced, and the confidence placed in them, by faithfnlly adhering to the Persian monarchy and refusing to join Alexander the Great in his attack upon it.

In the enjoyment of peace themselves, whilst the struggle for empire was carrying on around them, they kept increasing in numbers and opulence; for, by means of their brethren settled in the cities and pro

vinces of Babylon, and of those that had removed to Egypt, together with the favourable position of their country, they must have carried on an extensive and lucrative commerce, as we know of no other means by which they could have attained to that wealth and prosperity they very soon after exhibited.

We shall advert here to a circumstance of great importance, which, whilst it most probably contributed to preserve the nation from ever after abandoning the worship of the true God, and served to bind them closer together, it may likewise have produced the surely unexpected and undesirable effect of subsequently engendering feelings that were not only irreconcilable with the tenets of their religion, but diametrically opposed to its beneficent precepts.

The dread of falling again into idolatry, added to the mortifications and sufferings they had experienced since the loss of their independence, occasioned the rulers and heads of the nation to exact a more rigid observance of the ordinances of the law than had ever been done before, and even to add to it many observances as fences to guard and secure it.

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Their disgust at every other religion grew the stronger, the more satisfied they became of the purity and excellence of their own. This induced in them a rather contemptuous feeling towards persons and nations not so well instructed on that point as themselves, and it undoubtedly first gave rise to that dislike and hatred they themselves perienced afterwards from other nations. The feeling of contempt on their parts had its origin in that pride of the human heart so frequently and energetically denounced in their law and other sacred writings: Had they, on the contrary, followed the beneficent spirit of that law, and fully understood the tend. ency of their other writings, they would have deemed it their duty to behold with commiseration, instead of pride and contempt, the lessinstructed children of the same Almighty Father of all. Their prophets had told them, that He looked with pity on his benighted creatures; and surely his own people ought not

to have despised what he loved. To this fatal fault, we apprehend, many of their subsequent sufferings may be traced.

Alexander the Great, having overthrown the Persian monarchy, appears to have entertained a great regard for the Jews; doubtless, because his sound discrimination and philosophical education under Aristotle enabled him at once to perceive and appreciate the superior purity and truth of the Jewish religion over the Grecian mythology, but which he dared not insist upon his people's adopting.

The Jews from this period begin to grow into notice and importance in the history of the times, and their constant and intimate intercourse with Grecians, Persians, and even Indians tinged them with the respective systems of philosophy of those people, and led them to adopt many of their manners and customs, without, however, altering their notions on religious points: Those demonstrations of a predeliction to imitate other nations laid the foundation for great dissensions afterwards among the Jews themselves, for the more rigid observers of the law, taking the alarm, dreaded, and most probably with reason then, that it would lead at last to their people embracing the worship of the Greeks, which, we must recollect, was free from those cruel rites that of themselves would have proved a sufficient barrier against their being adopted by the Israelite, had they formed part of the Grecian religion.

The means adopted, however, for preventing the apprehended result, may have been injudicious and, probably, even led to some unhappy effects. The party who dreaded the subversion of their religion may have considered it proper to assume an austere exterior-to make an open and ostentatious display of devotionand to practise the minutest observances of their religion;-but they may have neglected, at the same time, to observe and practise those great and more important commands of the law, enforcing peace and goodwill among all mankind, and more especially towards their own brethren. It may have escaped them,

that pride of heart was denounced, and that lip-service was an abomination to their God. Need we quote the innumerable passages in the Sacred Writings themselves that too plainly indicate what were the sins of our forefathers, or, shall we cast a veil over them? We fear that in too many cases the ceremonials were more observed than those great precepts of our religion, through the practice of which alone could the purposes of the Deity be accomplished by Israelites as his instruments; for, to the truly devout, and, at the same time, strict observers of all the forms, rites, and ceremonies of our holy religion, it must be quite evident that if, as they cannot deny, we are appointed to be a kingdom of priests to the Most High, our office cannot be taken to consist in merely performing the ceremonials of our religion, but does undoubtedly imply a strict observance of all its beneficent statutes. history of the Israelites of those times shows too clearly, that, though they did not worship idols, their conduct in other respects was unhappily calculated to bring a reproach on their religion; so dreadfully are we poor mortals apt to err and mistake our path!

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For this, it is to be presumed, were our forefathers punished; for had they not sinned, we are bound to believe, our God would not have subjected them to so many miseries they then experienced, nor have subsequently exposed them to the merciless cruelties of their oppres

sors.

Let us for a moment consider what might have been the effect if, even at the time of the Maccabees, the nation, firm in their determination to die or to become free, but, considering that both life and freedom were desirable only as each might be put to good and worthy purposes, had looked closely into their religion, and, perceiving the high purposes for which they had had been selected by the Deity, instead of disdaining other nations, they had discovered, on the contrary, that it was their bounden duty to endeavour by mild means, sound reasonings, and above

all, by a uniform and consistent practice of the beneficent precepts of the religion they professed so much to admire, to bring the uninstructed to understand its tendency, and the sublime truths it involves? Might it not be presumed, that, acting thus in conformity with their mission, they would have experienced the favour and support of their God, and attaining again the important and imposing position they once held among the nations, they would have influenced greatly and beneficially the destinies of the rest of mankind, not by the force of arms, but by means more appropriate to the office to which they had been appointed-meekness- -reason- - and goodness?

At the destruction of the second temple, and subsequently, in the several countries to which they, were dragged as slaves, as well as in those where they had been settled long before the fall of their country, the people suffered dreadfully from the hatred that had been encouraged against them, arising, most probably, from the causes already assigned, and from the obstinate, if not courageous, resistance they had offered to the Romans. Notwithstanding the immense numbers that had been cruelly put to death, they are not long after found in a comparatively flourishing state; and repeatedly undergoing several changes in their condition and fortunes, we find they had, at length, attained to such degree of prosperity and consideration, all over the world, as to render that period in their history deserving of being denominated their "golden age."-"Every where they are seen not only pursuing unmolested their

lucrative and enterprising traffic; not merely merchants of splendour and opulence, but suddenly administering the finances of Christian and Mahomedan kingdoms; and travelling as ambassadors between mighty Sovereigns."-That prosperous state was of different duration in different parts of the world; but it was too soon succeeded every where by an age, which, for its contrast to that we have just noticed, might justly be called their "iron age," of much longer duration than the happier era.

It would lead us too far to enter into the various causes that have been assigned for the dreadful change the Jews underwent in their condition: The details are to be found written in their blood, in the histories of the several countries they inhabited. That they had faults, we may confess; but surely no one at this day will stand up and say they were such as to merit the cruelties and oppressions practised upon them for ages.—Willingly would we have passed over this melancholy portion of their history, were it not that it is too much connected with those traits in their countenance and bearing which are the immediate purport of our writ ing.

The great change in the aspect of the world, produced by the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the northern hordes, had as much effect on the fortunes of the Jewish people ultimately as on any other nation. The great Barons and Chiefs became the sole lords of all the lands; whilst the inhabitants of the countries they had conquered were made slaves or serfs, Though we have no evidence that the Jews generally were reduced to the same abject state, owing probably to their notbeing found settled on the lands, they in the end came to suffer more than others from the proud and barbarous conquerors. For having in progress of time lent them large sums of money on mortgage upon their estates, the powerful debtors, unable or unwilling otherwise to settle the claims against them, found the easy way of discharging them by pillaging the Jews of what other property