Rab got

"Say Beth," Rab continued; and the Persian sceptic repeated, "Who says this letter is called Beth?” angry, and drove him out of the house. The Persian went to the learned Samuel, the colleague of the former, and made the same proposal. Samuel also began to teach him the Hebrew alphabet, and the Persian repeated his questions, "Who tells me surely that this is Aleph, and that is certainly a Beth?" Samuel caught the sceptic by the ear, and pinched him so hard that he cried out : "O my ear! O my ear!" Who tells you that this is called an ear?" Samuel asked. "Why, everyone calls it so," replied the Persian. "Well, then," said Samuel, "everyone calls these letters Aleph, Beth."-Midrash Koheleth.

ISAAC AND ISHMAEL.

The lot of the unfortunate Ishmael and his unoffending mother have always been to me peculiarly interesting. An infant expelled his father's house for no offence, thrown under a tree to starve, the victim of an old man's dotage, and a termagant's jealousy. God forgive the wicked thought (if it be wicked), but speaking in a temporal sense, and knowing the histories of the two families, I would rather be the outcast Ishmael than the pampered Isaac, the father of the favoured people of God.

I know not what divines may see, but I see nothing contrary to the Divine attributes, in supposing that when in the one, God thought proper to give a grand example of mercy and benevolence, He should think proper to give in the other a grand example of retributive justice. The descendants of the pampered Isaac have known little but misery; have become a bye-word of contempt, the slaves of slaves; but the descendants of the outcast Ishmael in

H.

their happy country, proverbial for its luxuries and happiness (Felix), have walked with heads erect. The world has bowed beneath their yoke, or trembled at their name; but they never have either bowed or trembled, and I hope and trust they never will.-GODFREY HIGGINS. Celtic Druids, page 68.

MENASSAH BEN ISRAEL.

Barbosa contends that Menasses Ben Israel was a Portuguese, not a Spaniard. Thus are they proud of a man whom they would have burnt. The Jew has left some verses of a tolerant creed, somewhat free in metre as in principle.

Cunctorum est coluisse Deum; non unius ævo

Non populi unius credimus esse pium.

Si sapimus diversa Deo vivamus amici,

Doctaque mens pretio constet ubique suo,

Hæc fidei vox summa meus est, hæc crede Menasses,
Sic ego Christiades, sic eris Abramides.

He went to England, and under the protection of old Oliver, printed three Hebrew Bibles in his own house. -SOUTHEY. Common Place Book, Series ii., page 252.

FIRST MENTION OF ENGLISH JEWS.

The first mention that we find made of the Jews in any document connected with English history, is in the canons of Ecbright, Archbishop of York, which contains an ordinance that "no Christian shall Judaize, or presume to eat with a Jew." These canons were issued in the year 750, and having been promulgated for the government of the province of York alone, shows that the Jews were, even at that early period, already resident in this country.—J. E. BLUNT. History of Jews in England.

CHARTER OF WHITGLAFF.

Ingulphus, in his history of Croyland Abbey, relates that in the year 833, Whitglaff, King of the Mercians, having been defeated by Egbert, took refuge in that abbey; and in return for the protection and assistance granted him by the abbots and monks on the occasion, granted a charter, confirming to them all lands, tenements, and other gifts which had at any time been bestowed on them by his predecessors, or their nobles, or by any other faithful Christians, or by Jews.

The notice which is taken of the Jews in this charter, affords a proof that previously to the time when it was granted, there were some Jews settled in England. But the circumstance of their being distinctly mentioned, would at the same time induce a belief that they were then considered as standing in a different situation, with respect to property, from the Christian inhabitants.—Ibid.

ABRAHAM'S TOMB?

We are told by D'Herbelot, that in the year 1119 Abraham's tomb was discovered near Hebron, wherein Jacob and Isaac also were interred. The bodies were very entire, and many gold and silver lamps were found in the place. The Mahometans have so great a respect for the tomb that they make it their fourth pilgrimage (the three others being Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem). The Christians built a church over the cave of Macpelah, where Abraham was buried, which the Turks have changed into a mosque, and forbidden Christians from approaching.

THE SURNAME "JEW" OR "JEwe."

This surname seems to have been somewhat common in

Devonshire.

"Land in Beerholl came after unto John Jew by inheritance from Thomas Norton." "Poltimore, at length the inheritance of Jewe, of Cotleigh, from whom by the daughter of William Jewe, it came unto Yeo, of Heanton Sackvil." "In the forty-seventh of Edward III., Thomas Jewe, and Julian, his wife, granted the Manor of Widworther, at Cotligby."

In King Edward the Second's "tyme" I find the name of "Sir Roger le Jewe," who had issue. The name seems afterwards to have glided into Yeo. Extracted from Description of Devonshire, by SIR JOHN DE LA POLE.

DREAD OF PRINTING.

In 1462, the Latin Bible was first printed; in 1488, the Old Testament in Hebrew was printed; and in 1516, the Greek Testament was printed at Basle. In 1474, the art of printing was brought into England by William Caxton, and a printing press was set up by him at Westminster.

This proceeding greatly alarmed the monks, who declaimed from the pulpit "That there was now a new language discovered called Greek, of which people should beware, since it was that that produced all heresies; that in this language was come forth a book called the New Testament, which was now in everybody's hands; was full of thorns and briary; that there was also another language started up, which they called Hebrew, and those who learned it were termed Hebrew."-Compiled.

The understanding a little Greek was not only sufficient at that time (Reuchlin's) to make a man suspected, and the understanding Hebrew to make him convicted of heresy; but the design of studying the language was enough to bring cruel enemies on one's back.-BASNAGE. History of the Jews.

DUTY OF TOLERATION.

"There can be no difference between these men (the Jews) and ourselves," observed M. de Talleyrand, in the Assemblée Nationale, 1791, "but in the exercise of their religious worship; take that away, what can we see in them but fellow-citizens and brothers? Were it otherwise, it would be religion that gives civil and political rights; but it is birth, domicile, or landed property (propriété) that confers them. If we reject the Israelites as Jews, we punish them for being born in one religion rather than in another; this is a manifest infraction of all laws humane or civil."

LEARNING OF PAUL.

Whatever may be said of the learning of Peter, it will not be contended that Paul, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and most thoroughly versed in all the rabbinical lore of the day, did not understand Hebrew well enough to know what the idiom of Psalm xvi. would bear. I can see no reason why, as a mere rabbi, as much deference is not due to him as to Maimonides, and Aben Ezra, and Kimchi.-American Bible Repository.

EMBASSY TO THE POPE.

Among the Venetian State Papers (March, 1524), it is recorded that " an ambassador has come to the Pope from the Jews in India, offering him 300,000 combatants against the Turks, and asking for artillery." (Si non e vero, etc.)

LAWS OF THE VISIGOTHS.

These laws, passed from the fifth to the seventh centuries, were marked with the most intense hatred against the Jews.