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fanaticism of le Tellier. The 'temples' of the Reformed Faith were closed, the ministers were exiled or brought to the rack. Half a million at least of peaceful traders were driven from the country, and the cruelty of the dragonnades was perhaps more barbarous than that of the Russian police. The result was hurtful only to France, and beneficial to all those countries into which the Huguenots fled. In North Germany, as Voltaire records, whole towns were peopled by them, and the trade in stuffs, in stockings, in hats and laces,-articles formerly brought from France-was transferred to their new country. In London they established a new silk industry, at the Cape of Good Hope they introduced the vine, and in their native land the prosperity which was so largely due to their industry, at a time when they formed a sixth of the whole population, declined steadily after their expulsion. So has it been in a less degree in England in consequence of Jewish immigration. However bitterly the British workman may complain of their competition, it is to the Jews who have been expelled from other lands that he owes the fact that he can now buy clothing, and furniture for his house, at less than half the price which he was once forced to pay.

Various schemes find favour with the leaders of Jewish society under this sudden emergency. Colonies in the United States and in South America have been advocated, and money freely spent on these objects. But there is no doubt that the scheme which has appealed most strongly to the hearts and to the imaginations of the Jews is that of a restoration to their own land. It has obtained influential support among sober and experienced men of affairs, and the organisation created for the purpose-the Society of the Chovevie Zion, or Friends of Sion'. has suddenly grown to an association, with thousands of members, when but a year ago it reckoned only a few hundreds. The object of the society is expressed in the Hebrew Memorial, which was read to a great meeting in the Assembly Hall, off the Mile-End Road, on the 23rd May, and which Lord Rothschild consented to lay before Lord Salisbury. The thought and wording of this document, which at once obtained two thousand signatures, is very characteristic of

Jewish character, and preserves a truly Oriental tone, such as is natural to its authors. With grateful hearts,' it says, 'we own that we have found a resting-place for the sole of our foot in this island of the sea, and breathe the breath of freedom among a people that loveth justice.' 'But happily placed as we are, how can we endure to see the evil that hath come upon our people, who are left forsaken in the hands of their enemies, and how can we endure to see the destruction of our kindred?' Many who are outcasts from the North Country yearn to return to the Holy Land; they love the very stones, and favour the dust thereof. They would deem themselves blessed indeed were they permitted to till the sacred soil. If at this moment the ground is barren in parts, and refuses to yield its increase, we know that it is the hand of man that has wrought the evil. The hand of man shall remedy it. We beseech the governors of this land to help our afflicted and down-trodden brethren: to help them not with the sword, but with the friendly service it is in their power to render.' 'Let them be their advocates with the Government of Russia, so that it may make their departure easy, and with the Government of Turkey, that it may enable them to dwell in safety, and gain possession at a just price of parcels of land, for cultivation and for the raising of cattle, in Palestine and the districts round it.' For in all ages, when their yoke was heaviest, Israelites have been mindful of the wise man's exhortation, "My son, fear thou the law and the King," and have honoured and obeyed the teaching of their Rabbis, "The law of the land is law for us.""

For more than ten years this movement has been growing. Colonies at Jerusalem, Artuf, Sammarin, Latakia, and in the Jordan Valley, have been initiated, which have in some cases prospered, though contending against all the difficulties which want of capital and of recognition have brought. The number of Jews in Palestine has, during that period, increased from about 8000 to more than 100,000 souls, and already, without waiting for aid, other families are setting out for Jerusalem from Moscow and Odessa. The Jewish Chronicle, which represents the most cautious and moderate Jewish views, admits

that a 'Palestine-hunger' has taken hold on the Jews of the East, who have no doubt discovered that the first venturers, who fled thither in 1881, have prospered more than they were thought likely to do. The old objection so often raised that the Jew will not engage in agriculture, is not only answered by the words of their memorial, but has also been disproved by the success of Jewish agriculturists in America. The advantages of a similar language, and of somewhat similar manners in Palestine, to those natural to their race, are also felt, as compared with the strangeness of speech and custom in the distant new world, which alone seems open to those about to be expelled, unless permitted a shelter in the dominions of the Sultan or in Persia. The movement, at the very least, appears certain to add greatly to the Jewish population of Syria, and if as successful as its promoters expect, may in time make Palestine once more a Jewish country.

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In face of such a movement it may be interesting to give some account of the Oriental Jews, who differ in many respects from their brethren who have become European, and of the history of their dispersion in Western Asia and in Russia, where, with varying fortunes, they have so long maintained all their characteristics of faith and custom. dispersion was not originally due to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., though many of the foreign colonies were then no doubt increased by fugitives. It was first caused by the Assyrian policy of transplanting the rebellious populations to other parts of the Empire, and though, through the clemency of Darius and Artaxerxes, a free return to Jerusalem was granted, there is no doubt that a great number of the Jews remained in the land of exile, where, as we learn from the cuneiform tablets, they were already prospering in trade.

The Greek persecutions in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and his successors drove many of the Jews to Egypt and to Persia. Hillel, the famous Rabbi, came from Babylon, and a large colony existed in Alexandria in the fourth century B.C., and perhaps had never been wanting since Jeremiah's exodus to Egypt. About the Christian era the Jews were established throughout Asia Minor and in Greece and Italy. They were

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numerous in Rome, where their ghetto was by the Porta Portese, beyond the Tiber, and Claudius vainly decreed their expulsion. While yet the Temple was standing, a monthly communication by bonfires was kept up between the Jews of Jerusalem and of Babylon, to signal the appearance of the new moon. The Jewish catacombs of the via Portuensis, at Venosa, Oria, and Lavello, are evidence of the Jewish population in Italy in the second and third centuries of our era; and about the same time the early Karaites or readers '-Jews who had separated before the writing of the Talmud began in Palestine and in Babylon-had reached the Crimea, where seven hundred of their tombstones have been found, dating from the second to the tenth century. The trade of the East through Palmyra was in the hands of a Jewish population, which still maintained its independence even in the twelfth century, at which time there were very few Jews in Palestine itself. The schools of Tiberias had been famous in the Antonine age, when the Mishna or 'Second Law' was there composed, and Jewish trade had prospered under the Khalifs of Damascus and Baghdad; but the richer Jews seem to have fled from Syria on the appearance of their old Norman persecutors, though they remained in Chaldea, and were held in honour by the Moslem rulers.

One of the most remarkable episodes of the history of Jewish dispersion is, however, that of the Jewish kingdom in South Eastern Russia, which appears to have endured till the time of the Mongol invasion, resisting the attacks of the Byzantines, the Persians, and the Arabs. The Khozars, over whom Jewish kings ruled in the eighth century A.D., were a mixed Slav and Turkic population. There were Moslems and Christians among them, as well as many Karaite Jews. In 740 A.D., according to Moses bar Nahman, a certain Isaac Sinjari taught the Khozar chief the principles of Judaism, and many of the chief men became Jews. The Khozars, who were related to the Hungarians, were at first subject to the Hunns. They became powerful after defeating the Persians in the sixth century; and Khosru Anurshivan protected his dominions against them by the wall, still visible near Derbend,

which closed the passes of the Caucasus in Daghestan. North of the Caucasus their power extended into the Crimea, and the Sea of Azov was called the Sea of the Khozars; but in the tenth century their power had been much diminished by the Russians. The Jews fled to this centre when persecuted by the Byzantine Emperors. Ibn Haukal (in 931 A.D.) says that there were six thousand Moslems among them, but the power of the Khalifs never penetrated into this region, for Rabiat el Bahli, who was sent to conquer them in 661 A.D., was defeated, though their army was a small one, in Ibn Haukal's time. The King of the Khozars was then a Jew, and another Jewish king ruled in Asmid. Masudi gives an account of their customs, which included suttee and the happy despatch, and it appears that the Jewish Khakhan (a Turkic title) ruled over a mixed population of Aryans and Turks, among whom many were heathens and others Christians or Moslems. Down to the present time it is said that the Karaites of Southern Russia still speak a Turkic dialect like that of the Khozars, and that many of them have Turkic and Persian names. The last independent Khozar prince, Georgius Tzulos, is said to have been captured by a Byzantine General named Mongus Adronicus in 1016 A.D., but the Mongols still found them a distinct people.

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This curious Jewish State gave rise by its existence to the mediæval legends of the 'Ten Tribes,' living in the land of Gog and Magog, and held in by a wall in the Caucasus. In 1175 A.D., Petachia of Ratisbon, a well-known Jewish pilgrim, went forth to search for the lost tribes, and states that after passing through Persia and Media he reached the tribe of Issachar' in the mountains beyond. About the same time Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela set forth from Saragossa, and found the Jews to be very prosperous under their Prince of the Captivity' in Chaldea, and Arabia, and Persia. In his time there were said to be 23,000 Jews in Ceylon, and a large Jewish population in Egypt. He, too, speaks of the independent Jews who had spread eastwards into Turkestan, no less than 50,000 being established in Samarkand. The Jews near the Kizil Ozein were ruled by their own prince, Joseph Amarkhela Halevi, and their territory extended twenty days journey

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