of mind;" while in other parts of Spain, such an overwhelming storm fell upon them, that, as they themselves confess in Juchasin, upwards of 200,000 were compelled to turn Christians with heavy hearts.

In the 15th century persecutions awaited them in Hungary, Polonia, Italy, and Portugal, which, as the learned bishop whom we have before quoted remarks, "it would be too tedious to recount."

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But in the 16th century the terrible words of the prophecy, Among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a

The historian Hallam speaks of the sufferings of the Jews during the Middle Ages, in the following terms: "They were everywhere the objects of popular insult and oppresion, frequently of a general massaere. A time o festivity to others was often the season of mockery and persecution to them. It was the custom at Toulouse to smite them on the face every Easter. At Beziers they were attacked with stones from Palm Sunday to Easter, an anniversary of insult and cruelty generally productive of bloodshed, to which the populace were regularly instigated by a sermon from the bishop. It was the policy of the kings of France to employ them as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, which they might afterwards exact with less odium than direct taxation would incur. It is almost incredible to what a length extortion of money from the Jews was carried. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance was borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a talent of accumulating riches, which kept pace with the exactions of their plunderers. Philip Augustus released all Christians in his dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France." (Hallam v. i. pp. 233-4.) Sir Walter Scott, in one of his historical romances of the same period describes the Jews" as a race which during those dark ages, was alike detested by the credulous and prejudiced vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and rapacious nobility. Except, perhaps, the flying fish, there was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or on the waters, who were the objects of such an unremitting and relentless persecution, as the Jews at this period. It is a well known story of King John, that he confined a wealthy Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his teeth to be torn out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy Israelite was half disfurnished, he consented to pay a large sum which it was the tyrants' object to extort from him." (Vol. 1. pp. 83, 120.) It is pleasing to be enabled to recount the marvellous change towards the despised Jew in this country, as the following incident, recorded in the daily papers, sufficiently testifies. A Jew laid a complaint before a London magistrate against an omnibus driver for insulting him by offering him a piece of pork, and inviting him to partake of it. As the driver did not deny the charge, the judge condemned him immediately to a fine of 20s. and costs, or, in default, to 14 days imprisonment, remarking that “it was not to be tolerated that respectable citizens of London were to be insulted as they walk along the streets, merely because they are Hebrews."

trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life," appear to have been accomplished with more than usual severity, by that dreadful massacre which was made of them at Lisbon for three

days together; where men were not suffered to die," as Bishop Patrick states, "of their deadly wounds, but where dragged by their mangled limbs into the market place, where the bodies of the living and the slain, with others half alive, half dead, were burned together in heaps, which spectacle was so horrible, that it quite astonished the rest of this wretched people, 2,000 of whom perished in this barbarous manner. Parents durst not mourn for their children, nor children sigh for their parents, when they saw them haled to the place of torment; so that their hearts no doubt were ready to break with grief and sorrow.” In short, as Osorius in his 4th book "De Rebus Emanuelis" declares, "fear had so dispirited them, that the living in their aspect did not much differ from the dead," an unconscious testimony to the truth of the prophecy, "I will give thee a trembling heart, and failing of the eyes, and sorrow of mind."

One of the chief Jewish authorities, Abarbinel in his commentary on Isaiah xl. 11., reckons four universal banishments from the countries where his brethren had formerly lived, the first out of England-the second out of France-the third out of Asia, Germany, Tuscany, Lombardy and Savoy-and the last out of Spain, when he himself was constrained to leave that country and knew not whither to go; which calamity, the heaviest since the time of their expulsion from Judea in the days of Titus, as he considers, the author of Schebet Judah transcribes in his own words. "A decree was made and proclaimed publickly that all the Jews should change their religion in three months time. Abarbinel had then a place at court, where he petitioned the king, and besought his ministers and counsellors to revoke the edict and be content with their estates, which they offered to him; but all in vain, for 300,000, old and young, men and women, and he among the rest, went away upon foot one day, not knowing whither to go. Some went to Portugal, others into Navarre, where they conflicted with many calamities; for some became a prey, or perished by famine and pestience. Others committed themselves to the sea, hoping to find a quiet seat in some other countries. But on the sea they met with new disasters; for many were sold as slaves when they came on any coast, many

were drowned, many burnt in the ships which were set on fire: in short all suffered the just punishment of God the avenger : for after all this, a plague came and swept away the rest of the miserable wretches, who were hated by all mankind; so that all that vast number perished by one calamity or other, except a very few." And the same author further relates that when they emigrated to the kingdom of Fess, their sufferings appeared to reach the climax, by their being compelled to "live upon grass, eating its very roots, and when they died, their bodies lay exposed, none being so charitable as to bury them." (Schebet Judah, 53.)

Sufficient, then, has been said concerning the condition of this despised and persecuted people during the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era, to prove how exactly their history verifies the most minute predictions of what Moses nearly 4,000 years before foretold should befal them; and the bare recital of facts by both Christian and Jewish authorities, too well authenticated to be disputed, and too notorious for contradiction, is the best commentary on that terrible denunciation against them which is given in the xxviii. ch. of the book of Deutronomy. And we cannot do better than close this chapter in the words of one the most distinguished of the Jewish historians, in confirmation of what has been said, "Kings have often employed the severity of their edicts, and the hands of the executioner, to destroy them; the seditious multitude has performed massacres and executions infinitely more tragical than the princes. Both kings and people, heathens, Christians, and Mahometans, who are opposite in so many things, have united in the design of ruining this nation, and have not been able to effect it. The Bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, has always burnt without consuming. The Jews have been driven from all places of the world, which has only served to disperse them in all parts of the universe. They have, from age to age, run through misery, and persecution, and torrents of their own blood." (Basnage Hist. des Juifs, vi. 1., 1.)

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE JEW.

Dan. viii., the vision of the Ram, the Goat, and the Little Horn, literally fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes's profanation of the Temple at Jerusalem, and setting up of "the abomination of desolation" for 2300 eveningmornings, or 1150 days-Proved from the internal evidence of the pro. phecy, by the testimony of Josephus, and the contemporary history of the books of the Maccabees.

IN the previous chapter it has been seen how exactly the prophecy of Moses was fulfilled in the past judgments upon the Jews; but as other prophets were inspired by God to foretel similar sufferings, which have been equally accomplished at different periods of their mournful history, it will be right, before we proceed to consider their present condition and their future prospects, to notice other denunciations, and to prove their accomplishment, in order that we may find a warrant in the past of learning God's intentions towards them for the future, as it is written in the prophecy of Jeremiah, "Thus saith the Lord, Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them." (xxxii. 42.)

One of the many visions, with which the prophet Daniel was favoured during the Babylonish captivity, affords us a striking instance of this, as we see in its accurate fulfilment a warrant to assure us that God's purposes and promised blessings towards the Jews will, in his own time, be accomplished likewise.

DANIEL VIII.

1. "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared unto me, Daniel, by the river Ulai."

THE VISION.

3. "Behold there stood before

THE INTERPRETATION. 20. "The ram which thou

4. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward, so that no beasts might stand before him; neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.

5. And as I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

6. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power.

7. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped

sawest having two horns, are the kings of Media and Persia.

21. And the rough goat is the King of Grecia, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

*The ram and the goat were symbols of the Persian and Grecian, or Macedonian, empires respectively, as the coins which are given in Calmet testify. It is well known that the ancient Macedonian capital was called Ægæ, and its people Ægeadæ, or goat people, from the legendary tradition concerning Ceraunus, the first king of Macedon, having been directed, according to an oracle, by a flock of goats to its site. Hence Alexander's son by Roxana was called gus, son of a goat. (See Elliott's H. A., part 2, iv.) In the British Museum there is a coin, a tetradrachm of Lysimachus, having, on the reverse, a portrait of Alexander the Great with horns.