or when opposing his intentions? A question more particularly embarrassing, when it regards a Divine anger, which we ourselves believe is to relax; and when it concerns a people for whom he entertains so paternal and lasting a solicitude-a people whom we never cease to consider as peculiarly His, first by choice, and lastly by promise-though deferred?
6. Are we not warned by all the events of Divine Providence, which regard the punishment of His people, that the instruments he selects for this unpleasing end are, not only the enemies of his disobedient children, but likewise His own? Are they not unblest scourges-moral pestilences-tools, worthless but for their dreadful purpose, and destined to be broken in pieces when their unhallowed work is done?
7. Ought we not to be fearful of voluntarily enrolling ourselves in this list of hapless and doomed agents, not of mercy, but of wrath? The Author of all good chooses angels for the ministers of His graces, but he elects demons, or those destined to become such, for the executors of his vengeance.
In fine; are we justified in violating the principle of our faith, and in opposing the direct commands of our Divine Master in our practices, under the pretence of becoming the gratuitous avengers of His justice, whose councils we cannot penetrate, and which it were even sacrilege to attempt; and which even could we, or dare we propound, were better suited to the lightning of the sword of Omar, than to the kiss of peace imprinted on our cheeks at our baptism into the pure faith of the meek and lowly Jesus?
I might add-Is this the way to draw others to our holy religion; and, in particular, those to the furtherance of whose rights this little production is devoted? Persuasion should be the weapon of religion; which, as the pious Jeremy Taylor has said, "is a sunbeam and not a tempest.' J. A. G.
TABLE TALK; OR, THE HEBREW CLAIMS.
When last we met, in friendly free debate,
To canvass matters much above our state,
It chanced (less grave than wont) in rambling vein—
No subject fixing my unsteady brain,
I lightly on our Hebrew brethren's claim
Touched, and awoke in you a generous flame
Of indignation; but the noble fire
Did, gently, at my words submiss expire:
And you, Philander, pledged in calmer mood,
The rights of Israel's children to make good.
Philander.
What hinders now that we the subject scan?
The rights of Israel are the rights of man.
With all
know my heart
Welcomes the wound from blest conviction's dart:
Proud on my breast I'd bear each glorious scar,
Memorial of an honourable war.
I'm not of those that are rejoiced to find
Occasions to oppress poor human kind:
Our common origin-our mutual need,
In one perpetual sermon, intercede
With man for man; and, by a brother's tie,
Ask what should forfeit brethren's rights-and why?
Can wealth, or rank, or creed, or hue, or clime-
Can change of place, or ever-varying time?
Never! say Nature, Reason, and our God.
While life's warm breath doth tenant earth's dull clod;
Let tongue or feature differ as they will,
From Ind' to Orkney men are brothers still.
Children of prodigies, in wonders nurs'd—
What nameless crime has Abram's lineage curs'd?
Ancient-beyond the boasted pedigree
That dates from Norman knights and chivalrie,
Ten times out-told-and graced with nobler names
Than rang thro' lists, or thrill'd admiring dames.
Industrious, learned, faithful, valiant, chaste-
How oft have Judah's virtuous exiles graced
All Europe's courts:* in council and in field,
Skill'd in the tongue, or knightly arms to wield.
The lamps of science-many a Jewish sage
Illumed the darkness of a barbarous age.
Admired and hated-honor'd and abused:
Their worth acknowledg'd, and their rights refused.
I will not drag back hoary centuries,
Like gray-hair'd murderers, to their great assize,
And show their million savage hands imbrued
In Judah's royal, patriarchal blood.
Enough of ancient, worn-out crime remains
To keep indelible those bloody stains
That tinge our annals with the deepest dye
In writing Israel's martyrologie.
But on the page before us let us look-
The to-be chronicled of history's book:
While nature prompts, let reason blush to ask
What seats in parliament may do with pasch:-
Why all the virtues that make men divine,
Shall in a Salomons or Goldsmid shine
In vain! nor find, in Freedom's chosen land,
The rights of birth, but mourn an alien's brand!
Faithful in bondage, and when poor, content;
When rich, as generous and munificent-
The dark ages furnish many examples; for which see the early historians and the authors of the Universal History. Dom Solomon was, in the eleventh century, the Wellington of Portugal.
Patrons of art, and fathers to the poor,
E'en Christians bless their ever-open door;
The robber Norman, or the pirate Greek,
May hear his race the tongue of freedom speak,
While not ten centuries can make a son
Of more than Socrates-a Mendelsohn!
Can we of virtue more than birth desire,
When birth is all that we of vice require?
Than vice, what fouler, then, taints Abram's line
I ask-
I answer, what from Palestine
(Once happy land) their hapless sires compell'd,
Have justly still the rights of birth withheld.
From them, offending still, who still deny
To lowly Jesus his divinity.
Moses and Jesus who revoke in doubt,
And hold all dogmas but as creeds worn out;
By what exemption do these sceptics wear
Titles of honour, or high office bear?
Who blasphemes Christ, and scoffs at Moses too,
May hold Church-lands and mock an honest Jew,
But, do we hold so loose the social tie,
That men may barter man's humanity?
As well might he his brother decreate,
As nature's rights annul or abrogate;
Shall he assert opinion's tyrant plea,
To prove that you're a slave, that I am free;
If I'm too blind to see my way to heaven,
Shall I from all earth's well-earn'd rights be driven?
Because Spinoza doubted of a God,
Did the warm sun forsake his mean abode ?
Shall one, tho' wise as Solomon, be dumb,
Because he dares to hope in Christ to come?
Who made us champions of a God defied?
Did Jesus teach us persecuting pride?
The great I AM hath said " Revenge is mine !"
Wilt thou, poor worm, assert that it is thine!
Jesus hath taught to love our enemies,
To render benefits for injuries:
And thou, his kindred, whom he lov'd to grace
(Whose features still recall his blessed face);
For when he wept and pray'd and prophesied,
But never curs'd! ye him, in them deride :
Still lov'd, an honored bliss he yet reserves,
And dare
ye still oppress whom he preserves !
I grant, Philander, that stern Justice' test,
And the sweet rule of our dear Lord's behest,
Brought with some force upon your side to bear,
Makes ours to my own eyes less bright appear.
But, still, there's something like impiety
In fighting, as it were, 'gainst prophecy,
In smoothing thus their rough and thorny path,
And sheltering rebels from Heaven's fiery wrath;
As if we dared to blame its just decree,
And bid, whom it bade captive, to be free.
Philander.
My dear Erastes, well I know your heart
In ought ungentle never hath a part;
But oft, with heaving breast and moistening eye,
Doth the more servile tongue's vain speech belie.
Blind prejudice, my friend, has warp'd your mind.;
Do you in turn compassionate the blind.
"Father, forgive! they know not what they do,"
Applies alike to Christian and to Jew.
Pride, interest, passion, bid thick vapours rise,
Obscure the truth, and cheat desiring eyes.
Not Israel's sons alone have Jesus slain,
Far deeper dyes his Christian murderers stain.
Those knew him not; we crucify him known;
The blindness their's-the malice all our own.
Participants in crime, shall we demand
To deal out judgments with a blood-stain'd hand.
O mount of mercy! shall our lips rehearse,
While our false hearts renounce each balmy verse
And turn from peace-the soul's delightful path,
For horrid ways trod but by imps of wrath?
O mad-O impious he who can suppose
Man's persecutors other than God's foes!
Whom God elects to bear his vengeful sword
Against his people, are themselves abhorr'd!
To do the demon's work, by guilt made fit,
Smiters themselves-themselves doom'd to be smit.
O let us blush that England's honor'd name
Should still be tarnish'd with old Egypt's shame.
O, my Erastes, shall the Eternal need
The arm of men, to work what He 's decreed?
Or can man's mercy to his fellow-man
Defraud His justice, or defeat his plan ?
Blest be the words of peace! and blest be he
That labors in thy cause, Humanity!
I feel that love and justice are allied,
And in one bond indissolubly tied.
My heart, but late with pride mistaken fraught,
Owns the conviction which your words have wrought:
Yet one faint hold long prejudice retains
One last retreat for wounded pride remains:
Think you, my friend, yon land that once was theirs,
That gilds their hopes and animates their prayers;
To which the unbanish'd heart for ever burns,
The fond eye melts, and, still expecting, turns ;
In hearts estranged, and yearning for a home,
Whose bye-gone glories emblem those to come,-
Could I believe a patriot-flame could light
A Hebrew brow; that Hebrew hands could fight
In England's cause, if mad rebellion lowered,
Or fierce invasion foreign foemen poured
On her loved fields? My all in her I'd stake
Of English Jews true Englishmen to make.
Your gen'rous wish, my friend, shall have its meed,
And Israel's sons be Englishmen indeed.
What bids all hearts with patriot ardor glow?
Dear native-rights that father-lands bestow.
What cools the flame and bids it feebly rise?
Those rights withheld, tho' 'neath Judea's skies.
Would Norman Clifford boast of Cressy's field,
If English honors were from Clifford sealed?
Eager to gain the meed that worth may give,
Who hopes for honors may all honor'd live.
But who forbid the laurel wreath to wear,
Will strive to gain, or to deserve it care?
Could free-born rights a Clare or Howard store,
Then a Mocatta or a Montefiore ;
And British Judah's names ennobled, then,
Like Talbot's, fired the souls of British men.
Where'er the sun (although in transient gleams)
Of favor, shed its ever-cheering beams
Upon the captive child of Palestine ;
We've seen the force of native genius shine,
And mark'd her exile with a stateman's hand
Upbear the fortunes of a Christian land.
Nor want there chronicles to send him down
O'er knightly hosts the chief of high renown.
England, thy pride of liberty, how poor !
Can keep such suppliants knocking at thy door.
Whate'er the all-watchful Providence intends,
Still, wards of Heav'n, it loves who them befriends.
One native-right withheld, the man's a thrall—
He is no Englishman that has not all.
The breath-the soul of freedom is, to be
One of a race who all alike are free.
Your words, my friend, my sleeping virtues wake
My heart, convinced, has no reply to make;
No more my country, heaven, and justice brave;
Who combats freedom, may he die a slave!
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