houses and in their habits, ignorant and ill-informed beyond all belief, very few of them knowing even the heads of their own interesting history. Their morality is at a very low ebb, but cer tainly not lower than the mass of the Christian population around them The better class of Jews are principally merchants and shopkeepers (the greater number drapers,) the middle class are artisans, and of tailors there is an immense number, the clothing both for town and country being principally made by them. The lowest class, of which there is a great number, are dealers in old clothes, common porters, seamen, and gatherers of rubbish.

They have one good quality, which is industry, and, as a natural consequence, in the midst of a wretched, starving population, they are generally well off, and many of them rich. They are hated beyond measure by the Greeks, who take every opportunity of insulting and ill-treating them; and were it not for the protection of the British arms, their situation would be insecure and wretched in the extreme.

Twenty years ago, a Jew dared not venture to show his face in the street during Passion-week. Detachments of troops at that season of the year, were stationed at their synagogues to protect them from insult and violence; but a great change has taken place since then, and they may now walk about the streets even on Good Friday with impunity.

The chief rabbi is a native of Gibraltar, and calls himself an Englishman. His name is Bibas. He is a genuine Pharisee of the old school, rigidly observing the Jewish law. Some time since he prohibited his people from carrying an umbrella on the Sabbath, as a violation of the fourth commandment. The Jews here are generally very strict in their observance of the Sabbath, which they will not violate for any temporal consideration, but they revolted against the prohibition to carry an umbrella on that day In reply to the inquiry whether there are any Christians at Corfu who care for the souls of the Jews, I can only say that the Christians here, whether Greeks, Roman Catholics, or Protestants, care little, generally speaking, for their own souls, and therefore have little thought for the souls of the Jews.

No. V.

JEWS OF DAMASCUS.

Communicated by ERASMUS S. CALMAN, from personal observations a few years ago

The Jews of Damascus are, like their brethren at Bagdad, the descendants of the first and second captivity; their descent may, many suppose, be traced as far back as the reign of King David.

The Jews at Damascus at present point out a cave, or grotto, about three miles from the town, as having once formed the temporary abode of the prophet Elijah, when he was sent to anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. The identity of this place, they say, has been handed down to them by an unbroken chain of witnesses, from the prophet to the present generation; and here their ancestors visited him, and brought to him the necessaries of life. The grotto is now metamorphosed into a kind of underground synagogue, and is resorted to on the last day of every month, which they spend in prayer and supplication. It is also a refuge in the time of danger. The number of Jews here in the time of the apostles must have been very great, but many of them were cut off during the wars of the Jews with the Romans, from which calamity they never recovered-and their number now does not exceed 5000 individuals.

Their secular occupation is much the same as that of their brethren at Bagdad—banking and traffic; but on a much smaller scale. They have little influence, and so have escaped much of the envy of their fellow townsmen. They live with more harmony and peace with the rest of the people than in any place in the East. Their prejudice to Christianity is on that account also much less than amongst the Jews elsewhere. They converse freely with the missionary, and interchange visits; they willingly receive Christian books and tracts, and are very communicative. The fact of the Jewish quarter being at a distance from that of the Christians, cuts off any kind of intercourse except that of business, and this deprives them of every opportunity of giving vent to their ill-humour, which they might otherwise have done, and likewise lessens their dislike to Christianity. The Pasha of Egypt, since he has taken pos session of Syria, has wrested all the secular authority from the hands of the rabbis, which is another reason for the liberal opinions of the Jews at Damascus. I would thus conclude, that Damascus, as a missionary station, is of the utmost importance, not only as it regards the direct preaching to the Jews, but also as it concerns the distribution of the word of God. Caravans come and go regularly from Damascus to Bagdad, Mosul, Aleppo, and other large towns, several times in the year, where the Jews purchase every copy of the Scriptures they can obtain from the British and Foreign Bible Society's Agent, and send them to the above-mentioned places, from which again they are sent to Persia and Cur. distan; and this is the only channel I am aware of, by which the word of God can reach the Jews in these distant regions. The Society's edition of the Bible is almost the only one which is used in their families and the schools.

Schools for Jewish children may likewise be easily established there, where the Hebrew, Arabic, and English should be taught. The latter language grows daily in importance since the trade with England increased. At Beyrout, where the number of Jews is comparatively small, not amounting to more than 100 indivi

duals, several families of Jews send their children to the American school intended for the native Christians there, and parents make no objection to their being instructed in the New Testament.

It is interesting to read the above observations, written before the sad persecutions of these Jews had somewhat changed their feelings and situation. Perhaps, however, even after all they have suffered at the hands of persecutors, on the ground of an alleged murder of a Christian, British Christians will be found as wel. come to the Jews of Damascus as ever before. For British Chris. tians have come forward to plead their cause as well as British Jews. Among others, the General Assembly of our Church in 1840, unanimously agreed to memorialize Government to interpose in behalf of the persecuted Jews at Rhodes and Damascus.

No. VI.

JEWS OF BAGDAD.

Communicated by ERASMUS S. CALMAN, who personally visited them.

The Jews of Bagdad believe that they are descendants of the Jews who were carried thither in the first captivity. They still have over them one called "Head of the captivity in Babylon," bamba, an office which arose in the first or second century.

Head * ראש נשיא שבא About the same time arose the office of

prince of the Holy Land." It is probable that these titles and offices arose from a desire to counteract the prophecy of Jacob, "The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come." They still apply the first part of this passage to their "Head prince of the captivity," and the "Lawgiver" to the "Head prince of the Holy Land." The Romans abolished the latter office, so that the Jews now content themselves with referring to the first. They further say, that none were made princes who could not prove their descent from Judah. It is said that the Jews themselves applied to the Romans to put down the Head prince of the Holy Land, because of his oppressions. At present, the Prince of the Captivity is not a descendant of Judah, but is raised up by the Porte and the local Government at Bagdad to exact from his brethren the money levied on the Jewish nation there. The people hate the office, and wish it was abolished. Mr. Calman, on a visit to him, once asked him "If he really thought himself the sceptre that was to remain in Judah ?" He gave no answer; he would not say that he believed it, but only smiled. Yet

the existence of this office is an argument used by the Jews in the East against Christianity.

The number of Jews in Bagdad is estimated at 5000 or 6000. Nine years ago there were five times as many; but they have been destroyed by the plague, the civil war, and the inundation,-all which followed each other in rapid succession. The population of the whole town was at that time reduced from 120,000 to not more than 20,000.

Their moral and religious state is bad to a proverb. They are generally as bad as the rest of the population, which is saying the worst of them. This change has taken place since these judgments, as if they thought the arrows of God were all spent, and there remained no fear of wrath, or as if they had grown hardened like Pharaoh. This applies only to their moral state; as to their superstitious belief, they observe the traditions of the Talmud bigotedly. They spare neither money nor trouble in performing duties enjoined by the Talmud. They count the performing of pilgrimages one of the chief works of merit; and accordingly many families every year accompany the caravans that go to Damascus and Aleppo, in order to visit the graves of their favourite rabbis, such as the author of the Zohar, at Marona. The poorer classes, who have not the means of making pilgrimages to the Holy Land, go on pilgrimages to the innumerable graves of the writers of the Talmud, in the vicinity of ancient Babylon. Some go to the graves of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who are supposed to be buried on the frontiers of Persia, making vows and prayers to them.

They are occupied in bartering and traffic, the commerce of Bagdad and its vicinity being entirely in their hands. They have occasionally stopped trade by withdrawing their capital from the market, when the Pasha attempted to make alterations in the currency injurious to their interests. Few have any manual trade, except writing out the Pentateuch on parchment scrolls, for which they are famous in all the East.

They are bitterly opposed to Christianity and to missionaries. The reasons of this are-If any Jew were to embrace Christianity, the Head of the Captivity has power to punish him; and he has done this occasionally in so severe a way that the criminal has died under the lash. Another reason is, that Christians-Armenians especially-avenge themselves on the poor Jews for wrongs done them by the Mahometans. The peculiar hatred which the Jews bear to the Armenians may arise from a charge often brought against them, namely, that Haman was an Armenian, and that the Armenians are the Amalekites of the Bible. When Mr. Calman visited Bagdad with Mr. Groves in 1832, to try to open a school among the Jews, the attempt completely failed, chiefly through the fear they have of the Prince of the Captivity.

The Cabbala is more a matter of study than the Talmud, both here and in the East generally. Poland, instead of Babylon, may be said to have become the seat of the Talmud. The reason as

signed for the comparative neglect of the Talmud, and preference of the Cabbala, in a country where the writers of Talmudism once flourished, is, that more than half the Koran was taken from the Talmud, so that to them it is associated with Mahometanism.

About two days from Bagdad is a place called Heet or Hith on the banks of the Euphrates, in the desert between Bagdad and Da. mascus. Here about twenty families of Karaite Jews reside. Mr, Calman visited them: they prosecute the business of silversmiths, making trinkets and ornaments for the people of the town, and for the Arabs of the desert. Finding it difficult, after all, to subsist by their industry in that small town, they tried to settle in Bagdad or its vicinity; but met with such determined opposition from the rab binical Jews, that they were compelled to remain in this spot, where they have been for centuries. But the days are coming when "the sound of the great trumpet" shall reach the ears of those that are "ready to perish in the land of Assyria."* When Mr. Calman visited their Hacham, he was dressed in a long, coarse shirt, with a rope about his loins. A small square chamber served him both as a study and a synagogue. He had a few manuscripts, which he would not part with for any price in the world. He was delighted when Mr. C. told him that he was as much opposed to the Talmud as himself; and then listened to him when he showed in the Old Testament the declarations of the prophets regarding a suffering Saviour. The Hacham's main objection to Christianity was Isaiah lxv. 4, "a people that eat swine's flesh." Mr. Calman showed him that this was not a reference to Christians, for the people spoken of "sacrifice in gardens," &c. The Karaites seem to be preserved as living witnesses against the Talmud, in the very seat of its former dominion and its birthplace.

No. VII.

STRIKING SIMILARITY IN THE MAIN FEATURES OF JUDAISM AND POPERY, PROVING THAT THEY HAVE ONE AUTHOR.

The object of both the systems of Judaism and Popery, is to lead men to go about to establish their own righteousness, and thus prevail upon them to live and die without submitting to the right. eousness of God. In the system of Judaism, the working of Satan is seen in excluding Christ, and offering the sinner a substitute for him in Popery, his work is seen in including Christ, yet still pre. senting a substitute for him. On the forehead of both is writtenMYSTERY OF Iniquity.

1sa. xxvii. 13.

+ Isa. lxv. 4.