ham Abrahams, the author has thrown so much artless, unobtrusive, unaffected goodness into the character, as cannot fail to make him an object of the reader's admiration. He who peruses this truly amiable character of Abraham Abrahams, must confess that he had all the virtues that are most inculcated in the Evangelical code, though he believed only in the Mosaic dispensation.

Those who feel disposed to despise the Jews, should not forget, that to their literature may be traced the source of the moral culture of Europe. To their literature, Europe is principally indebted for its important victory over idolatry and paganism. No other people ever made the Unity of God so much the object of their belief, or the essential article of their worship, as the Jews. No other people ever employed so much pains, or for such a series of years, and indeed of centuries, in tracing the relations between the actions of men and the favour of the Deity. In the schools of the prophets, which prevailed from the earliest times among the Jews, the moral knowledge which had been acquired in one age, was transmitted to the prophets of the succeeding period, till the dross was thoroughly purged from the ore; till the ceremonial ritual was, at least in the minds of the later teachers, postponed to the moral code; when in the fulness of time, the whole previous scheme of prophetical teaching was consummated by the promulgation of Christianity.

Whatever may be the prejudices of the Jews, those who harbour any sentiment of in- . tolerance towards them, should at least recollect that they are half Christians. The moral writings of the prophets, place them at least half way in the high road to Christianity. Christianity may in some measure, be denominated a compound of two revelations, of which the first at least belonged exclusively to the Jews. The moral rays of a better sys-; tem that gleam in the prophets, opened at last upon the broad day-light of Christianity.

The Jews have the strongest possible claim to the benefits of a full and unlimited toleration under Christian governments. No reason can be assigned why a Jew should not be admitted to every civil right to which a Christian is entitled. BONAPARTE, who was a great proficient in political science, placed the Jews, with equal humanity and wisdom, on a level with other French citizens in eligibility to office, or to the different places of honour and emolument in the state. This was a noble example, worthy of the greatest genius, and of the most enlightened age, in any period of the world.

No creed can be common to all; and to make a common creed, whatever it may be, essential to eligibility to offices, and to the common rights of citizenship, is as unjust as it would be to require all men to have equally retentive memories, equally quick ears, or bright eyes, or to be six feet high. To believe, or to dis

believe, according to the impression of evidence upon the mind, is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. Creeds may be professed that are not believed; but the real internal feeling of belief or of disbelief is not optional. Beyond the hypocritical professions of his lips, a man's faith is not in his power; and hence governments are supplied with an irrefragable argument for the most extensive toleration.

If toleration is made to depend on adhesion to a common formulary, or to the articles of a particular creed, intolerance must always have a wide range. A large body of the more honest and more thinking part of the community will always be subject to the scourge. The minds of men are so differently constructed, that, where a creed is very complex, it will be difficult to get two reflective men to agree precisely in all its articles. To set up a common creed, therefore, of whatever nature it may be, as the standard of patriotism. or as a necessary qualification for the retention, or the exercise, of any civil rights, appears to be an outrage upon human nature, or upon that common humanity, which is anterior to all creeds and systems; and from which all, whether Jews or Gentiles, Christians or Infidels, derive rights which may be modified, but cannot be taken away, by any political institutions. It is this common humanity which ultimately constitutes the sovereign claim to liberty of conscience, and to every other political right. The relative sensibility of individuals may differ;

but all are, more or less, sensitive to the differences of pleasure and of pain. All have common appetites and wants-all need food for hunger and sleep for refreshment. There is no difference in this respect between Jews and Gentiles, between Christians and Infidels. This is the natural equality of mankind; independent of all artificial systems and political contrivances; and no system or contrivance can obliterate or annul those common rights, which a common nature incorporates and ratifies. The great precept of, Do as you would be done by, which is the primary trunk, to which the different branches of moral duty, both private and public, both social and political, may be referred, would not be obligatory on the conscience, if it had no foundation in the common nature of mankind. It is this common nature which renders it obligatory; and, indeed the precept itself is not only an acknowledgment of its existence, but an appeal to its sanctity.

When Mr. CUMBERLAND delineated the picture of Abraham Abrahams, and inveloped it with all the amiability which ever characterized the best Christians, when he described him as seeking to do good, and more anxious to conceal, than to blazon, the good which he performed, and the happiness which he communicated, he did no more than common justice to a persecuted race. But, as in doing this, the author of the OBSERVER had to encounter the hostilities of inveterate prejud 3

dice, which had almost excluded the Jews. from the rights of our common nature, and the sympathies of our common humanity, he merits a high place among the benefactors of his species. Mr. CUMBERLAND complains in his Memoirs (p. 457), that the Jews did not offer him any acknowledgment of their gratitude for the services which he had rendered to their community. His friends gave him joy of the honorary presents which he had received; but says Mr. CUMBERLAND, not a word from the lips, not a line did I ever receive from the pen, of any Jew.' But he, who renders such services to great bodies of men, must usually be contented with the internal satisfaction which the act itself will produce. Indeed is not this, as far as the present fugitive scene of things is concerned, the highest reward to which virtue ought to aspire? What can be more pleasurable than the state of the bosom, in which there is such a consciousness?

Where services are rendered to individuals, the expectation of gratitude is not usually frustrated; but, in great bodies of men the sense of gratitude, like that of justice, is seldom very vividly felt, or very forcibly operative. Men will often do, or neglect to do, as parts of an aggregate, what they would never do, or leave undone, as isolated individuals.

Mr. CUMBERLAND tells us (Mem. p. 456), that he was accused of plagiarism in the story of Nicholas Pedrosa; but he affirms, that no author has any claim to the invention of