Excerpt from Post-Biblical History of the Jews, Vol. 1 of 2: From the Close of the Old Testament, About the Year 420 B. C. E. Till the Destruction of the Second Temple, in the Year 70 C. E

Ever since men have begun to throw elf the trammels of prejudice and the fetters of ignorance, the history, the character, and the condition of the Jews have, in every land, excited the attention Of the reflecting part of the community. We may say in every land, for there is no land which does not, or did not at some former period, number Jews among its inhabitants. Wherever Civiliza tion dispenses its blessings, the Jew is found its harbinger or its immediate follower. Wherever Commerce spreads its sails, the Jew is foremost in cementing that bond which unites the most distant nations. Wherever the dignity Of human nature has been respected in him, wherever he has been treated as a man and a brother, he has proved that he likewise is made in the image Of God - that his bosom, too, can harbour every virtue that dignifies mankind. And even where the iron hand of Bigotry has crushed him to the dust, or the soul-chilling venom Of Contempt and the '4 oppression (that) maketh a wise man mad had gnawed his mind and cowed his better part of man, even there he strove, and strove not in vain, to preserve those nobler feelings inseparable from the memory Of his former great ness. Even there he remained very different from what his Oppressors laboured to render him, and his detractors would fain make him appear. And though full justice is still but too frequently denied to him, the truth, that he has been more sinned against than sinning, - that his fail ings have been forced upon him, while his virtues are his own, - is gradually working its way in the conviction Of every one who, with unprejudiced mind, reflects on the severe ordeal that, during eighteen centuries, the Jew has passed through, and on the unyielding constancy with which he has maintained his principles.

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