1871.

They shall look on Me whom they have pierced.

A FRAGMENT.

O Salem! for thy long drear night of woe,
What tears of bitterest grief might justly flow!
But though at morning's dawn and evening's close
Thy wandering children find no sweet repose-
Though exiled now, 'mid many an alien throng,
Scattered and lone-a byword and a song-
Though Israel be not gathered, and the cry
Of "Allah!" rises proudly to the sky,
As still at eventide those massive stones
Send a sad echo to their yearning moans-
Fear not, O Sion! wipe thy tearful eyes;
Shake off thy bands, and from the dust arise!
Thy dead shall live—the bones all dry and pale,
With moving myriads shall fill the vale;

For those few tombs, that now bestrew the sod,
So shall thy seed be as the stars of God!
E'en now the gloomy shadows flee away,
And faith, exulting, waits the break of day!
I know not if the visions glimpsed of old,
In glowing strains by gifted prophets told,
Shall find their full fruition 'neath a sky
Where sorrow reigns, and all are born to die!
Nor if on Zion's summit e'er again

Shall rise the summits of a statelier fane;
And, brought to their ancestral home once more,
Ephraim and Judah side by side adore.

But this I know-o'er all their darkened sight

Their God shall pour a flood of holiest light:
They shall behold-aud as they gaze shall mourn-
The spotless Lamb who all "their grief hath borne;"
Before his cross-the true Messiah-fall;
The Man of sorrows, yet the Lord of all!
And this I know-in Sion's fairer shrine,
From Eden's ruins reared, by power divine,
As precious stones they shall for ever stand,
'Mid jewels garnered by no mortal hand.
E'en now, heaven's azure portals wide unfold;
I catch the echoing strains from harps of gold:
Nearest the throne, with blaze of glory dim,
Thy sons, O Judah, chant the loftiest hymn!
And Israel's ransomed multitudes are seen
Casting their crowns before the "Nazarene."

REV. R. H. BAYNES, M. A.

In Lyra Anglicana.

CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED from SEPT. 16th, to OCT. 16th, 1871.

FOR THE BRITISH CHRISTIAN HOME, ORPHANAGE, AND SCHOOLS FOR JEWS, from Sept. 16th, to Oct. 16th, 1871.

SERMONS AND ADDRESSES ON THE BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY

Have been delivered as follows:-From Sept. 16th, to Oct. 16th, 1871.

THE JEWISH HERALD:

A

Record of Christian Effort for the Salvation of Israel.

"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth."—Is. lxii. 1.

"Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth."-Is. lxii. 6, 7. "Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel."-Jer. xxxi. 7.

Sketched by J. Walker, Esq.

N

1871.

The Ghetto in Rome; as it was, and as it is.

(Concluded from p. 111 of the Jewish Herald for July, 1871.)

THIS same tax the Jews had to pay to modern Pontiffs, and at the same office in the Capitol, as well as to Roman Cæsars, till the happy 20th of September, 1870, arrived, when the priestly rule over them ceased, and Victor Emanuel, whom they sometimes call their modern Moses, became king, and their deliverer.

From the time of Vespasian, under Titus, Domitian, Nerva, Trajan, Nero, —even the reign of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, not excepted,— to the last boy-emperor Augustolus, their history presents nothing but a series of persecutions, taxation, spoilation, and bloodshed. Frequently they were expelled from their homes, and obliged to live in hovels on the other side of the Tiber; but even there they had to pay their taxes. Their sufferings were often very great, and at one time they became so reduced that, as we are informed by an old writer, "a basket to hold their provisions in, and a bundle of straw on which to rest the weary head, was all the property they had." Another author tells us 66 that the phylacteries were so scarce among them, that they had to wait one for another, when saying their morning prayers;" and for a long time they had to hold their religious services, as the persecuted Christians often did before them, in secluded places, in caves and in catacombs, on account of the constant insult to which they were exposed. A few examples from the times of the Cæsars will suffice to show how they were treated: Tiberias forced many to abandon their religion and to become heathen; 4000 of them who refused to do so were transported to the marshes of Sardinia, and one Roman lady, who embraced Judaism, was expatriated, and all her possessions confiscated. When Caligula caused his statue to be placed in the temple at Jerusalem, and in front of the temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome, many Jews were massacred because they refused to fall on their knees before his marble image. Claudius had their synagogues burned and ordered them to leave Rome, though this order was not executed. Nero caused many to be put to death. Vespasian carried on a continual war against them, and laid heavy taxes upon them; Titus brought 100,000 Jews to Rome, who were obliged to do the hardest and most degrading work; 12,000 of them were employed at the building of the Coliseum, and others were sent to work in different quarries in Italy. Domitian increased the taxes imposed on them by Vespasian, and they had to wear yellow scarfs to distinguish them. Nerva, who for a short time had relieved them from many burdens, soon resumed the persecutions, and many were sold as slaves in the open market. Adrian interdicted their law of circumcision. Under Antoninus Pius and Mark Aurelius they had some relief from their troubles. Caracalla wished to exterminate them. Valerius and Diocletian caused many to be executed, and Constantine issued equally pitiless decrees against them. But among these hard rulers there appeared from time to time one and another of a more compassionate and charitable disposition towards them. One of these was Severus, who revoked many of the cruel enactments, allowed them to return to their Ghetto, secured protection for them, per

1871.

mitted them to have intercourse with the rest of the people, and to put their synagogues and schools in order again. Many availed themselves of these privileges, and embraced the opportunity of developing their talents. Some became eminent physicians, others apothecaries, a few studied law, and a number of them other sciences. Their medical men gained renown for their professional skill, and for a long period afterwards, Bishops, Popes, Cardinals, and the best families in Rome, employed none but Jewish physicians;—they were loved and blessed, though their nation and creed were cursed.

But, hard as their lot was under the Cæsars, it became harder still when in the eighth century the ecclesiastical head was crowned by Pepin le Bref, King of the State of the Church. Their intercourse with the people around them was now strictly forbidden, and both men and women had to wear a badge to mark them out from the Christians. During the Christian festivals the gates of the Ghetto were closed, and very few holy weeks passed by without some atrocities and murders being inflicted upon Jews. When they passed before churches, crucifixes, and Madonnas, they had to take off their hats, and woe to the poor Israelite who did not bow down on his knees when by chance he passed a procession or the host! On the installation of every new Pope, they had to send a deputation bearing the law of Moses, and bringing a sum of money. On the law a blessing was pronounced, their money was received, but they themselves were cursed. And on such occasions they had to pay large sums besides, to defray part of the expenses for carpets and silk hangings on and around the arch of Titus,—the very monument which now commemorates the destruction of their holy city and temple. Almost every Pope added new decrees of humiliation and persecution to the old ones. Paul IV. strengthened the gates of the Ghetto; Pius V. ordered that no Jew should be allowed to go out of the Ghetto, and if one was seen in any other street in Rome, to murder him was not considered a crime. If any Jew was accused before the court of the great Vicar, no testimony in his favour was allowed. They had no civil rights whatever, and no law that could justify them was applicable to them; they were accounted a religious, but a cursed community. Those who were dispersed in various parts of the Roman state were allowed to hold worship, but had to pay a tax for it, in Rome, 300 scudi (£60.), and in the country 10 scudi (£2.), and an additional tax of 1100 scudi for the convent into which their converts were received. Paul IV., however, ordered that all their synagogues in the country should be suppressed, with the exception of that in Rome, though all the taxes had to be paid, in addition to those extorted from them on provisions, clothing, and the poor merchandise of which their traffic consisted.

All rights of parents over their children were denied them, the affections of husband and wife, parents and children, were trampled under foot; at the pleasure of the clergy they were torn away from each other, forced into the convent of the Catumeni, where they received a short instruction, and, nolens volens, were baptised. A Roman Catholic writer of the present century has the following lines on this subject :- "Miserable fathers! unfortunate mothers! your tender children, sons and daughters, the only joy in your life of misery, are barbarously taken away from you. In vain do you weep and