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of those integral parts of the British empire will derive, in consequence of the provisions of this measure.

15. That the taxes on knowledge or on paper, the land tax, the house and window taxes, and the taxes on bricks, tiles, and slate, shall be totally repealed.

16. That the taxes upon malt and hops shall entirely cease.

17. That the taxes on soap, tallow, and coals sea-borne, shall be totally abolished.

18. That the duties on sugar, molasses, coffee, and cocoa, shall be abolished.

19. That supposing the amount of all the taxes repealed to be sixteen millions, two millions shall cease to be collected after the payment of the first instalment of the general assessment; and in like manner, two millions more in each of the succeeding quarters; and that after the payment of the eighth and last instalment, the collection of all the above taxes repealed, shall entirely cease.

20. That the Government shall be authorised to decide whether the two 'millions of taxes to be reduced in each successive quarter, shall be applied to the whole of the taxes to be repealed collectively, or to some of them, or to a single one, as they may deem expedient for the public benefit and the Exchequer.

21. That all Acts of Parliament, Laws, and Regulations, contrary to these dispositions, shall totally cease.

22. That a Committee composed of able, resolute, and above all, practical, men, shall be appointed to arrange the details of this measure, and overcome the obstacles and difficulties that may arise in carrying them into effect. pp. 506–510.

Of all the works which have come under our consideration, connected with the great subject of statistics, commerce, and the wealth of nations, we have never met with one which appears to be more completely unexceptionable in every respect than the production before us. It is a model of industry in the varied multiplicity of the authentic documents which it contains; the care, the solicitude, with which the author weighs and estimates every fact is absolutely conscientious; and in no book of its dimensions, in any language, we will venture to affirm, will there be found a more valuable collection of permanently important and useful knowledge.

ART. X.-The Genius of Judaism. 1 vol. 8vo. London: Moxon. 1833.

THE great object of this curious little work is to open an inquiry, with a view of discovering the causes which have made the Jewish people what they are, and always have been, the most peculiar and anomalous race on the face of the earth. The Jews are the only community in Europe, whose modern history, and whose character, as a body, have been under the influence of an origin which is prior to the annals of mankind.

Nothing could have been more calculated to impress a peculiar character on the people than the circumstances under which their religion was given to them. This was a ceremony in which the Creator himself interposed, when from the dense cloud, on which he was veiled on Sinai, "the voice of the words" was uttered, and Judaism sanctified and established.

The divine origin of their religion was always the most prominent object of contemplation with the Jew. He never, for a moment, lost sight of it; it was the subject of all his meditations, and formed the chief theme of nearly the whole of the traditions which have been handed down amongst the Hebrew generations. Every where, and at all hours, either the law itself, or some symbol of it, was kept continually before their eyes; this symbol was either worn about their persons, or nailed to the doors of their houses.

In surveying the conduct of the Jews, it will be very obvious, that their religion was every thing to them; it was their civil code, and it entered minutely into their daily occupations, and all their domestic affairs. Thus an intimate connexion always subsisted between their worldly avocations, and their religious sentimentstheir great festivals were all governed by the nature of the productions of the season-the Passover, for example, could not be kept till their flocks furnished the paschal lamb; the Pentecost could not be observed till the harvest was ripe enough to supply fresh loaves of propitiation. In short, the spirit of the religion was so universally pervading, that every Jew fulfilled, virtually, the office of a priest.

The circumstances under which the Jewish religion was established, gave rise to a form of government for that people, which stands alone in the history of the human race. This government was a Theocracy; the Creator was the earthly monarch of the Jews

their first civil magistrate, as he was the head of their religion. The state of Jewish society, under this sort of rule, was a model of magnificence and simplicity. The schoolmen used to call the Jewish government a republic, because there was no visible ruler; but essentially and practically that government was monarchial. The Jews admitted of no privileged orders; age alone contributed any distinction of rank; and the customs relating to possessions and property were altogether made subservient to the one grand principle which assumed that all Jews were members of the same family, all being included in the affectionate designation of "the Children of Israel." But so far from resembling the nature of a republic, the Jewish Theocracy admitted of all the gorgeous splendour of a kingly power. The first minister of the Deity announced his exalted station by the uncommon magnificence of his pontificial robes; and especially by the mystical pectoral which he bore. In fact, from the time of Moses himself, the temple of the Jews was decorated with such costly ornaments as would be sufficient to satisfy the great body of the Jewish people, that in enter

ing the palace of their earthly sovereign, they were admitted into the temple of their God. The furniture and utensils employed in the ceremonies, were of the most precious materials; embroidered tapestry, draperies of fine linen, transparent curtains, variegated needlework, with golden branched lights, and incense fuming from the altar, constituted the usual auxiliaries by which the Jewish service was conducted.

As a further proof of the identity of their religion, with the ordinary business of life, we may mention, that, at an early period, the Jews became a military, as well as a sacerdotal people; still looking up to their king as the leader of their army. Their conquests were proclaimed in the name of the "Lord of Hosts ;" and amid the four great standards of Israel was borne Jehovah Sebuot, their God and chief. The ark of alliance, covered by a veil of celestial blue, and usually called the "Glory of Israel," was carried in the military procession, and was, as the visible sign of God's presence amongst them, the object to which all eyes were turned. So unchangeable is the Jewish religion, that, even to this day, the solemn response of Jewish congregations, on the Sabbath, is the loud cry of "Holy! holy! holy! is the Lord of Hosts."

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But, as Moses foresaw and foretold, in process of time the Jews fell off from the purity and simplicity of their early principles; they set up an earthly king, and were brought at last to reject the institutes of Moses, and substitute in their stead two codes which are of pure human invention. These are called the Talmud, or the doctrinal, which has been successfully imposed by a body of fanatic Rabbins on the Jewish people. It was pretended by these impostors, that Moses, after his retirement to the Sacred Mount, and on returning to his tent, delivered the written law, as well as the interpretation of it to Aaron. But the interpretation not being written, became an oral law, and was to have an existence only in the traditions of the people. The legend then goes on to state, that the sons of Aaron were called in, and received the proper structions from their father. Next the seventy elders were admitted, with such of the people as desired to go in. The oral law was four times repeated, according to the partizans of the Talmud; and they also represent, that when Moses was preparing to withdraw from this world, he invited all those who had forgotten what they had heard from his lips, to come to him, in order that their memories might be refreshed. The system of traditions ultimately became irrevocably incorporated with the Jewish religion. To the Talmud, which consisted of fourteen volumes, was added the "Mishna," or "The Repetition," which was a digest of Jewish customs. It was written by Rabbin Judah the Holy, who was said to be the fortieth receiver of the traditions from Mount Sinai : he flourished in the reign of Antonius Pius, in the second Christian era. Instead of simplifying the practice of religion, the Mishna only added to the previous complications, and from that moment

the system of faith embraced by the Jews may be described as composed of a vast mass of contradictory opinions, an infinite number of casuistical cases, a logic of scholastic theology, puerile tales, oriental fancies, ethics and sophisms, subtle solutions, with maxims and enigmas. The worst of it was, that the education of Jewish children was uniformly restricted to the law; all other learning was deemed profane, and was accordingly prohibited. Perhaps a better proof of the determination of the Jewish race upon this point cannot be adduced than the contemptuous language in which Josephus, the Laureate of the Jews, speaks of those who devote themselves to other studies. "We esteem not those," he says, "who learn different languages: such profane studies are better adapted for slaves than for free men: and we consider no one to be truly enlightened, who has not acquired that deep knowlodge of our law and holy writings as to be capable of explaining them." Cardoso, a learned convert to Judaism, shows still later what was the spirit of the Jews on the subject of education. This writer was a physician of high reputation at Madrid, and flew to Italy for the purpose of openly professing the Jewish religion, in which he had been a long time a sincere but concealed believer. "Our law," says Cardoso, " is our science and our understanding, and truly Israel cares not for human sciences, for uncertain philosophy, empirical medicine, and dreaming chemistry. Israel cares not to learn the histories of other nations, nor the chronology of civil events, nor the politics of princes.' Under such circumstances as these, it was quite natural that presumptuous pretension should lord it over the minds of the ignorant Jews, and that this was actually the case, history abundantly proves.

But whatever may be the truth with respect to the points of belief entertained by the Hebrew nation, one thing is certain, that up to the present hour, they have remained a distinctly defined people, wholly separated from other men. By this peculiarity have they been at all times characterised; and so universally and so uniformly was it observed as a striking mark of these people, that the ingenuity of philosophers has been taxed in more than one country to find out the causes of this strange law of separation. It seems to us, however, that a consideration of the circumstances in which the Jewish nation has been placed, would sufficiently account for what appears to be so inexplicable an anomaly. The religion of the Jews being communicated directly from the hand of God, gave them at least, in their own estimation, a superior rank in the scale of creation. It was impossible that a Jew could hold a Pagan or Mahometan in the same respect as a man that he held a member of his own persuasion. This sense of being a privileged race, produced an habitual assumption of excellence, which in time degenerated into an obduracy of resistance, and this became the notorious peculiarity of the Hebrew character.

Another cause of the separation of the Hebrews from every

people is mentioned by the present author, as being the unexampled prescription of the Jewish religion, that an entire cessation from all the affairs of life should take place on each seventh day. Amongst the Jews, the minutest violation of the Sabbath was punished with death. A man who gathered faggots on a Sunday was stoned to death: this punishment was usually reserved for those who perpetrated the blasphemous act of pronouncing in mockery the name of the God of Israel. So inviolable was the Sabbath, so profoundly did the Jews believe in its sanctity, that instances are recorded where life itself was sacrificed in order to preserve the uninterupted tranquility and forbearance observed on that day. The Pagans used to ridicule the Jewish people for their attention to the Sabbath; for they could not, by any proofs or reasoning, comprehend why it was, that at a stated moment every week, the Jew abandoned his ordinary and perhaps most profitable occupations; his fields, which required the viligance of the husbandman, were forsaken; the ass was unsaddled; the house of the Israelite was a silent desert; the fire extinguished; the provisions unprepared; the servants at rest; and the trafficker refusing the proffered coin: nay, when an army of Jews was led forth, it stopped on the Sabbath day, and even ceased to defend itself on that day from the most furious assaults of the enemy. But though this observance was the object of ridicule alternately with remonstrance, and though we find in the Roman poets some allusion to this amongst other Jewish practices,* yet neither the Pagans nor even the Christian fathers, seem to have been acquainted with the manner in which the Sabbath was spent in the interior of Jewish families. This is sketched in a pleasing manner by the present author as follows:

The interior delights of the habitation of the Hebrew were alike invisible to the Polytheist and the Christian fathers. They heard not the domestic greetings which cheerfully announced "the good Sabbath," nor the paternal benediction for the sons, nor the blessing of the master for his pupils. They could not behold the mistress of the house watching the sun-set, and then lighting the seven wicks of the lamps of the Sabbath, suspended during its consecration; for oil to fill the Sabbath-lamp, the mendicant implored an alms. But the more secret illumination of the law on the Sabbath, as the Rabbins expressed it, bestowed a supernumerary soul on every Israelite. The sanctity felt through the Jewish abode on that day, was an unfailing renewal of the religious emotions of this pious race. Thus in the busy circle of life was there one unmoveable point where the weary rested, and the wealthy enjoyed a heavenly repose. It was not without some truth that Leo of Modena, a philosophical Hebrew, called this day, the festival of the Sabbath."

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It is beautiful to trace the expansion of an original and vast idea in the

* Juvenal appears to believe, that it was a custom brought about by the innate indolence of the Jews.

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