secution which the nation endured in those days, and partly by their blindness of heart, which prevented them from receiving Jesus as the Messiah and prompted them to transform their heaven-bidden neutrality into hostility towards other nations. The unsocial spirit of those precepts was subsequently increased by the commentaries of different Rabbis, written under the feeling of deep injuries; and however much it may have been repressed or softened in other countries, it continues to exist in its full intensity amongst the superstition-ridden Jews of Poland. A proficiency in Talmudic learning constitutes a kind of aristocracy amongst the Jews, and by its means a humble pedlar may obtain the hand of the daughter of some rich Jewish banker. Aristocracy of birth is disregarded except in the case of a descendant from Aaron. The education of a Polish Jew begins when he is four years old, and his mind is so early defiled by the impure disquisitions of the Talmud, that he becomes unable to entertain any sentiment with regard to the other sex but that of the grossest description. The Jews marry when very young, and the circumstance that their inclinations are never consulted by their parents, is calculated to stifle in them all refined feeling of affection. Marriage is to them an absolute obligation, and this may be the cause that profligacy is so rare amongst them. Their favourite occupations are retail trade and inn keeping. A Jewish smith, carpenter, or bricklayer, is a rare phenomenon, but a Jewish tailor or furrier is not uncommon. Agriculture, for which in Poland they enjoy such excellent opportunities, does not accord with their views, as they live in the expectation of being recalled to the Holy Land. To this belief may be traced the astonishing indifference which the Polish Jew, in spite of his proverbial thirst for gold, exhibits on the loss of fortune. Messiah will come, and amply recompense him; such is the philosophy, or rather mistaken faith, which supports him in adversity. As the Jews consider women as inferior beings to men, they keep them in a kind of oriental subjection, though certainly the condition of the former materially improved after the abolition of polygamy about 1060 through the influence of Rabbi Gierson. They are seldom acquainted with the Hebrew language, and generally know only so much corrupt German as is necessary to enable them to keep their accounts, and read novels written in the same jargon. A divorce is easily obtained, but seldom sued for. There exist amongst the Polish Jews four principal sects, which must be considered as so many principal organs of the spirit that animates this body. What has been already said of them generally, is to be understood particularly of the first sect, that of Rabbinists, or Talmudists, the most numerous of all, and considered as descendants of the Pharisees. The second sect is that of the Chassidim or Hassids, of quite modern origin and found only in Poland. They however claim kindred with the Assideans mentioned in the Book of the Maccabees, who were remarkable for the most rigorous observance of the Mosaic law, and devoted to the service of the Temple. But except the name, which means zealous, pious or holy, the modern Hassids have nothing in common with their ancestors, notwithstanding the pretension they make to superior sanctity. The founder of this sect was Rabbi Israel Bashlem, of Miedzybor in Volhynia, a town belonging to the Czartoryski family, about the year 1760 or 1765. He gave himself out for a prophet, and pretended that his soul was in the habit of quitting his body to visit the regions of the spiritual world, in order to avert from our earth many evils with which it is threatened by malignant spirits. In addition to such extravagances, he affected the most exemplary piety of demeanour, and in a short time gained ten thousand followers. Their actions unfortunately contrasted too forcibly with their assumed sanctity. Rabbi Israel was denounced by the Talmudists as an ignorant man, but dangerous to the state by his ambition, and an underminer of Judaism. He defended himself by the assistance of some of his wealthy adherents, and published a work, which is certainly full of abomination. His disciples are enjoined in it to refrain from cultivating their minds, on the ground that all knowledge is injurious to religion; they are also forbidden to shed tears during prayer, as God sees with more satisfaction his children full of joy than of grief. One of the leading maxims inculcated by the Rabbi was, that his followers may commit all manner of sin, and obtain absolution from one of their chiefs without amending their courses. This pernicious principle was the real cause of the rapid progress his doctrines made amongst the uninstructed Jews, forty thousand of whom had embraced them at the time of his death, which occurred fifteen years after he started as the founder of a sect. Two of his works were published after his death; in one of them, called Kesser Shemtow, he grants absolution for all sins, past and future, provided the offenders bring up their children in the Chassidim, and avoid all connection with such as are not followers of his doctrines. In the second work, called Likale Amuwiew, published at Lemberg, he tries to show that, in order to make the nearest approach to the Divinity, it is requisite to commit sin upon sin, because God being supreme in the scale of beings, and an obdurate sinner lowest, they must, on the supposition that the 1 B. ii. 42. scale is of a circular form, be contiguous to each other. It might almost be suspected that this work was composed by an adversary, with the view of bringing him into discredit, for it is hardly possible to suppose the human mind capable of being so distorted or blinded. His successors, nevertheless, seem even to have surpassed him in the wickedness of their doctrines, and to have proscribed every kind of virtue. In a book called Roam Hameleh, written by Rabbi Meleh, it is expressly said that every leader of the sect can remit unconditionally the greatest crimes. The use of medicine is also prohibited, upon the assumption that He who cau grant eternal life may protract at pleasure temporal life. But such things, stated by Rabbi Loebel, the greatest antagonist of the Chassidim, should be received with caution, as it is a very common occurrence that one sect ascribes to another opinions and conclusions which neither respectively may have admitted. ...The Hassids during their prayers more resemble a congregation of madmen or jugglers than persons engaged in devotion. They perform gesticulations of the strangest kind, strike their heads against the floor, jump about, and utter the most discordant sounds, but whether from assumed or real fervour it is difficult to decide. They make the same kind of uproar in their rejoicings at the conclusion of the Sabbath, and the police is often obliged to interfere in order to quiet them. For their Rabbis they profess a veneration equal to worship, and pay implicit obedience to their decisions, not unfrequently giving them credit for superhuman virtues. They relate that a Rabbi of the town of Mohileff, in White Russia, was endued with seven kinds of wisdom, each more perfect in degree, the last excelling all the rest. Of this he seldom availed himself, but whenever he did open his lips under its influence the air around was filled with fragrance. In the beginning of Napoleon's campaign in 1812, this Rabbi was one of the influential personages who had been carried away by the Russians, and the Hassids think that the failure of Napoleon and the success of Alexander were owing to the advice given by the Rabbi to the Czar respecting the mode of conducting the war. He died the same year, and was buried at Hadziacz, near Pultawa. His admirers built a house over his grave, in which a lamp is kept perpetually burning. Many of the Hassids are in the habit of making a pilgrimage to this Jewish Mecca, and leave their petitions in writing addressed to their deceased relations or friends, in the full belief that they will reach their destination. This circumstance may tend to account for the prodigious increase of the Hassids during the present century in all the Polish provinces incorporated with Russia. We have travelled thus far with feelings much like those of Dante : "Ahi quanto a dir, qual' era, è cosa dura, Questa selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte, And in the midst of this desert are glad to perceive at a distance a greener spot. We allude to the third sect of Polish Jews, called Caraites, or purely Scriptural Jews. Their origin has usually, though not altogether satisfactorily, been referred to the ancient Scribes, who adhered strictly to the Scriptures, disregarding all traditions. The Caraites do the same, but instead of viewing them as a sect, we are inclined to conclude from the disquisitions of Scaliger, Trigland, Morinus and others, as well as from what we have ourselves seen of them, that they are a remnant of true primitive Jews. This opinion is strengthened by the recent discovery which Mr. Samuel, to whose work we shall hereafter advert, thinks that he has made in Daghistan of the ten lost tribes. The Caraites speak amongst each other Turkish, which would point to their migration from the Crimea, when the latter country was a Turkish province, and where, as Dr. Clarke relates in his interesting account published about fifty years back, they still inhabit a town and portion of land. In Poland they are found in two places only; in the Lithuanian town of Troki and at Luck in Volhynia. Both their pursuits and conduct are honourable: agriculture is their favourite occupation, and although they have been settled in Poland for several centuries, there is no instance on record of a Caraite having ever been tried for a public offence. The fourth and last is the sect of the Frankists, founded in the last century by Jacob Frank. He was a native of Wallachia, but little or nothing is known of the early circumstances of his life. About the year 1757 he came to Poland with the avowed object of reforming the perverted doctrines of the Talmud, the followers of which accused him of infidelity. Supported by some influential partisans, Frank successfully resisted the Talmudists; but the affair becoming serious, both parties were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Court of Lemberg, and subjected to a singular trial. They were commanded to hold a public disputation on the merits of their respective tenets, and the defeated party was to embrace Christianity. Frank acknowledged himself vanquished, and was accordingly baptized with his followers, the most distinguished persons in the country standing as godfathers. From Lemberg he proceeded to Warsaw, where the number of his disciples considerably increased; but a rumour VOL. XXVII. NO. LIV. S being spread that he was in the habit of entertaining them in secret with the most fantastic visions, he was again cited before an ecclesiastical tribunal. There he affirmed that our Saviour and the Prophet Elias had appeared to him, prior to his arrival in Poland, commanding him to convert the Jews, and that he was still reminded in nightly visions of his mission. He added however in conclusion, that should the Church disapprove of his proceedings, he was ready to obey its command as became a dutiful son. He was acquitted of having any bad intention, but lest he should at some future time use his influence for a bad purpose, he was confined in the monastery of Czenstochowa. On being released some time after, he retired into Austria, where Maria Theresa gave him protection, with the intention of making him instrumental in the conversion of the Jews. After a residence of several years at Brünn in Moravia, and then at Vienna, he finally settled at Offenbach near Frankfort. There he lived in regal state, and was waited upon by chamberlains and pages, his disciples. The rich contributions he constantly received from Poland, enabled him to defray the expenses of his court until his death in 1792. He was buried according to the Roman Catholic ritual, and a cross was erected over his tomb. His daughter next presided for some time over the sect; and it is generally believed that the present chief of the Frankists is a distinguished lawyer, a member of the late Polish diet, now living in France as an exile. A great number of them reside at Warsaw, all moving in the respectable circles of society, and are mostly physicians or lawyers. Some assert that the Frankists only outwardly profess themselves Christians, and that in their hearts they adhere strictly to pure Mosaism. It is difficult to decide this question; but there is no doubt that such a simulation of Christianity by the Jews has many precedents. There are unquestionably swarms of such mysterious personages in Russia, who not unfrequently hold high offices in the state. It is also a historical fact that the same simulation was practised with perfect success in Spain and Portugal. A Jew is said to have even exercised the office of grand inquisitor in Portugal, and only to have revealed, on his deathbed, his real faith. According to the testimony of the celebrated Orobio, a Spanish Jew, who says that he himself feigned Christianity, monks of various descriptions, and even Jesuits, used to come from Spain, and expiate their simulation before the grand synagogue of Amsterdam. With such facts as these before their eyes, those who think that the Frankists are only half Christians have some reason on their side. The real tenets of Frank have never been accurately ascertained. He is said to have maintained that both Elias and our |