any man on account of their honour, and this is the way in which the disciples of the wise men ought to walk. In what case is this to be applied? When they have been despised or reviled in secret. But if the disciple of a wise man be despised or reviled by any man publicly, it is unlawful for him to forgive any affront to his honour, and if he forgive, he is to be punished, for this is a contempt of the law. He is, on the contrary, to avenge and keep the thing in mind, like a serpent, until the offender entreat to be forgiven.' (Ibid. c. vii. 13.) The great object of these laws is plainly to uphold the power and dignity of the rabbies, and to make it impossible for the people to shake off their yoke. The care which is taken to punish every offence against the wise men betrays a lurking consciousness of error, and a fear lest the common people should compare their precepts with Scripture, assert the plain unsophisticated truth, and thus shake off the galling chains of Rabbinism. To prevent this, the very first semblance of disobedience is to be punished with excommunication. But for the poor and unlearned, if insulted by a learned man, there is no satisfaction. He cannot thunder out an excommunication or an anathema in return. For him the oral law makes no provision, except for his punishment. If Judaism, therefore, should ever attain the supreme power, the working and unlearned classes will be placed in the power and at the mercy of the learned, and every disciple of a wise man will wield the absolute power of an autocrat.

But some one may say, that if the disciple of a wise man should excommunicate any one hastily that the people would not regard his excommunication. But if they did not, they would do it at their peril, for the oral law expressly declares that they are bound to observe the excommunication not only of a rabbi, but of one of his disciples.

הרב שנדה לכבודו כל תלמידיו חייבין לנהוג בו נדוי במנודה • אבל תלמיד שנידה לכבוד עצמו אין הרב חייב לנהוג בו נדוי אבל כל העם חייבי' לנהוג בו נדוי :

"When a rabbi excommunicates on account of his honour, all his disciples are bound to treat the excommunicate person as such. But when a disciple excommunicates on account of his own honour, the rabbi is not bound to treat that person as excommunicate, but all the people are bound." (Ibid, c. vi. 13.) Nothing can more clearly prove the injustice of such excommunication. If the rabbi be not bound to regard the disciples' excommunication, why should all the people be bound? If the offence committed against the disciple be a sin before God, and such it ought to be to require such severe punishment, the excommunication ought to be as binding upon the rabbi as upon the people. But if it be not binding upon the rabbi, then the offence for which it was inflicted cannot be a sin in the sight of God, it is therefore an arbitrary and unjust punishment, and it is both wicked and cruel to require the people to obey it. monstrous, that the disciple of a rabbi should be constituted both judge and jury in his own case, and have the power of lording it over those, whose circumstances do not permit them to devote their time to study, and who, therefore, cannot be enrolled in the privileged class. Just suppose that the clergy of this land, or the professors and students at our Universities, were to claim such power, and to excommunicate and anathematize all who treated them with disrespect, and that without any trial or conviction before a legal tribunal, and that the unfortunate victims were to be separated from society, ruined, and then their dead bodies treated with dishonour, would not this be regarded as a monstrous and insupportable tyranny? Yet this is what the oral law claims for the rabbies and their disciples, and

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But the principle itself is

what they would possess and exercise if Judaism ever attains to supreme power. Would the Jews wish such a power established? Do they desire to live under such a government? If they do not, if they prefer the personal liberty and the even-handed justice secured to them by Christian laws, then they confess that the Christian principles are better than those of their own religion, and they must be charged with inconsistency in professing and asserting the truth of a religion, which they hope may never triumph. Every man who believes his religious principles to be Divine, must wish that they should triumph, and that they should have free scope for their development. Any man who dreads the triumph of his religion must have secret misgivings that it is false. We therefore ask every

Jew whether he desires that the oral law should attain that absolute power which it claims, and that every rabbi and his disciples should have the power of excommunicating and anathematizing all who affront them? One of the most perfect tests of a religion, is to consider what would be its effects if supreme. At present there are various systems of religion in the world, some of which, as directly contradicting others, must be decidedly false. The hope of all reflecting men is, that the truth will ultimately triumph, that God himself will at last interpose, and establish the dominion of truth and eradicate all error. Each hopes that his own system will then prevail, but let him follow out that system, and see how it will work, when all resistance shall be vain. Let the Jews calmly consider the state of things, when the rabbies and their disciples shall be masters of the world, as they must one day be, if Judaism be true. The unlearned will then be completely at their mercy, their servants and their bondmen. Will this be a happy condition, or is this state of things desirable? In the first place, there will be no personal liberty. Any man who may

chance to differ from a rabbi, and treat him with disrespect, will immediately be excommunicated. In the second place, there will be no liberty of conscience or of thought. Every man must then let the rabbies think for him, and he must be content to receive their decisions without any appeal. The body will scarcely have the appearance of being free, and the intellect will be bound in fetters of adamant. It will no doubt be a glorious period for the wise men and their disciples, but they will always form a small minority, compared with the bulk of mankind. The majority of Israel, not now to speak of the Gentiles, will then be degraded into poor, crouching, submissive servants of the learned, afraid to use their reason, and always having the fear and dread of excommunication before their eyes. Do they then honestly wish for such a state of things, to be tied hand and foot, and given into the hands of their learned men? If they do not, if they see the horror and the injustice and degradation of such a state of things, why do they profess a religion which will inevitably lead to it, if it be true? If such laws be unjust, and such a consummation dreadful, instead of desirable, the religion of the oral law must necessarily be false; and it is the duty of every Israelite to consider what he is doing in upholding it. The present state of things will not continue always. The Jewish nation cannot always wish to be wanderers in foreign lands. They look forward to a restoration to the land of their fathers, and they wish in that land to be happy and prosperous. But happiness and prosperity will be unknown words, if they are then to be governed according to the principles of the oral law. That law gives the learned a monopoly of power and happiness, but leaves the mass of the nation in bondage. Do they then, in contemplating the re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel, expect another than the oral law, and other principles of

religion and justice? If they do, they confess that the oral law is false, and if it would be false and hurtful, and destructive of all happiness, if supreme, it is equally false and hurtful now. The Israelite, therefore, who upholds it, is upholding a false system. He may do it in ignorance, and we believe that this is the case with the majority; but it is most unbecoming in any reasonable man to profess a religion of which he is ignorant. He may answer, I have no time to acquire an accurate knowledge of my religion. The books in which it is contained are too voluminous to admit of my acquiring an acquaintance with them. I must work for my bread. We grant that this is the fact, but then this brings us back to our original position, that Judaism is only a religion for those who have leisure, that is, for the rich and the learned, and we conclude, on that very account, that it cannot be from God, who looks neither at riches nor learning, but considereth the welfare, and, above all, the religious welfare of the poorest of his creatures. The especial character of the Messiah is, that he will care for the poor. "He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy." (Psalm lxxii. 4.) He, therefore, cannot have the religion of the oral law. He will not be a rabbi, nor a rabbi's disciple.

No. XXXII.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

THE season of the Jewish year, which we are now approaching, naturally leads us to the consideration of some subjects more important than those which we have lately discussed, the oral law teaches that the festival of the new year is nothing less than a day of judgment, on which God