that became gross and filthy;-is not the fact of these corruptions and confusions the tragedy of life? Would that some poet could make plain the process of them to us, could show how the evil arose out of the good, how faint paroxysms of resistance were made and failed. and how the soul disappears from this earthly scene, coarsened, brutalized, lost. Or would that some poet would show that other and more glorious ending of the strife, how the soul climbs, how it raises itself above the attractions of earth and its evil, how it throws off the weakness and deformity which had seemed to grow to it, and become part of itself. What elements of interest are here-what terrible emotions accompany the struggle all through, what crises, what a doom! And yet, as we have said, the tragedy is unwritten; for in Goethe's poem, and in Bailey's too, the struggle is too exclusively one of the reason, and the way in which religion makes life a terrible battle-field does not

appear.

It is, then, no slight praise which has to be awarded to Mr. Macdonald; he has made the interest of his poem depend, in no inconsiderable degree, on the development, or rather, let us say, the expression of religious faith in Julian; and has made that sentiment reach and keep throughout a degree of intensity which gives to it dramatic interest. But the catastrophe comes too soon; the season in which he aspires towards God, and never doubts that God will one day meet him, terminates without our knowing enough of the moral experiences which preceded, and resulted in, a fuller faith and satisfaction. Despite this, however, the passages in which the religious feeling predominates are among the best in the poem.

If we were to find fault with the poem, as a piece of moral teaching, it would be on the ground that Lilia and her betrayer too easily regain lost peace and strength. When the wicked man turneth from the wickedness that he hath committed, between him and righteousness there lies no impassable gulf, thank God; but a sea of fire-a real Hell of regrets and fears so terrible, that many an one turns back to the less intolerable pangs of the less vivid consciousness of evil, which attends continuance in an evil state.

We have no space, had we inclination, to notice the faults of which Mr. Macdonald is guilty. We have taken this little book of his to our hearts; and have only, in conclusion, to bid our readers go to it and learn its many lessons of Faith, Tenderness, and Purity.

A NOTE TO THE SCATTERED.

FRIENDS,-I exceedingly regret that my Letters to you have been interrupted. It is not that I have become disheartened in my work. But illness, first in my family, and now personal, has held me in its meshes. I dictate these few words from a bed of compulsory rest.

Illnesses are sometimes the prescriptions of the highest Physician for the

recovering of the over-worn to true health; and the weapon whose edge has been turned, and its form bent, in the war of life, is thus restored to its efficiency. Hoping soon to become myself again, and to realize some of this happy effect of illness, I hope also to make the best amends I may be able to the kind and forbearing Editor of this Magazine, and to you my correspondents, for these interruptions.

July 20th.

T. T. L.

Letters to a Country Cansin.

III. JEWS AND THEIR SYNAGOGUES. MY DEAR COz,-Were you ever in a synagogue? I doubt it. Have you any other than the average notions about the ancient people? You know that they lend money and buy old clothes, and shut up shop on a Saturday. You know the Jew of the Merchant of Venice,' the Jew of Ivanhoe,' and the Jews in general of Disraeli. But do you, or I, or ninety-nine out of a hundred of our neighbours, really know anything of the inner life, or the religious state or worship, of the five-and-twenty thousand Jewish inhabitants of Britain? We are familiar with the historic Jews of the Old Testament and of Josephus, and Judaism in modern Palestine warms the hearts, and excites the imaginations of our travellers, whose pages suggest a pilgrimage to Jerusalem as the very summit of a traveller's wishes. But the Jews about us are almost as separate a people in respect to our knowledge of them, and of our care to know, as in creed, in physiognomy, and in social idiosyncrasies. It may be easy to account for this, and you, who perhaps could hardly hunt up a dozen Jews in your county, will, of course, set it down to lack of opportunity-an explanation which may shield you, at least, from the suspicion of being as much the victim of prejudice as the very Jews themselves. Yet is such indifference to be justified on either philosophic or religious grounds? We know what the British' and the London' Societies would reply-how Charlotte Elizabeth' would protest- and how the coteries so mercilessly ridiculed in Conybeare's Edinburgh article would exclaim and appeal. And all of them regard it as for a lamentation that Gentile Christians should have so little at heart the conversion of the seed of Abraham.'

But I have lately been to synagogue,' and hence my exordium! I did so years ago, with the mere curiosity of the boy, and then thought all I saw and heard strange, odd, and unintelligible. Going into a synagogue now, with the thoughtfulness of a man, I have found it one of the most suggestive places in the world. I have sat out the silence of a Quaker's meeting, and usually have found it very blank. I have, as you know, watched the flexions and genu-flexions' of the services of the Catholic Apostolic Church, but with wonder, of which impatience was the chief element; and I have, in spite of myself, felt

6

my Protestant blood warming within the walls of Romish cathedrals and chapels. But in a synagogue the faculty of memory, and the feeling of pity, are most in exercise-for where else will you find a sect linked to so august a history, or the subjects of prophecy so retributive ?

There are, I believe, more than a dozen synagogues, large and small, in London, and of these the chief is, I suppose, that in Duke's-place, Aldgate. It is also the most Jewish in point of locality, for it is the very centre of the Jews' quarter, abutting on Houndsditch, and in the midst of a labyrinth of streets and courts, where almost every face, and every inscription, tells you that you have stepped out of the Gentile world into a smaller one almost wholly Jewish. The building is large and plain, the principal features of the interior being the loftiness of its roof and the abundance of Hebrew inscriptions covering the galleries and other conspicuous places. At the east end is a semicircular recess, with its adorned curtain concealing the Keichel, or ark, and sacred rolls, and all the other characteristic mysteries of the place, and in front a lamp, the dim representative-oh! how dim!— of the Shechinah. The seats run down the sides, leaving the middle vacant, except in the centre, where there is an enclosed platform, occupied by the officials, on whom devolve the performance of the service. Below, males exclusively are admitted, all keeping the head covered. Above are galleries, surmounted by a brass lattice, behind which sit such Jewesses as attend. But very few are present, their attendance being, I believe, discouraged, and, indeed, their sex held in small repute. Else, how could the Jew thank God daily, as he does -Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman!'

I was present on a Friday night, and therefore at the first service of the Sabbath. The attendance was large, and the audience of a very mixed class-many of them looking as though they had but just finished the work of their Saturday. The congregation has its grades -its Parnassim, or warders-its Gobah, or treasurer-its Gobai Tsedakah, or overseer-its Tove Hangeer, or elders-its Chazan, or reader-its Shamas, or clerk-its Bangalei Battim, or masters of the house, who possess, and pay for, certain privileges-its Joshavim, who pay seat-rents-and its poor, who crowd together, without seats, as in Romish chapels. And what an array of faces for the study of the physiognomist! Many of them, it is true, look of the earth earthy,' but here and there are countenances 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought-heads that look made for depositories of rabbinical learning-beards, black and white, of magnificent dimensions, and eyes dark, large, and lustrous-the owners looking as though they had just stepped out of the studio of Rembrandt.

On the platform in the centre stand the Reader, and a choir of men and boys, all wearing black gowns and hats with wide brims turned up close to the side; the Reader also wearing a flannel-like looking scarf (called Tallith) across the shoulders. Except on the occasion of the great feasts and fasts, the service is, I believe, of a simple cha

racter, with but little of ceremonial, there being no preaching, and the worship being exclusively liturgical. The reading gives to a stranger an impression that it is hurried and undevout, and the part taken by the congregation is declaimed with an energy, and in varying keys, which have a very Babel-like effect. At times the sounds are almost hushed, and turning towards the east, the worshippers mutter forth their prayers with a suppressed intensity, which is not a little affecting. The musical portion of the service consists of cantillation (regulated by the accents) and singing, and is in the nature of recitative. Both are more striking than pleasing-some of the bass voices being magnificently deep; but the swelling and harmonious notes of our own congregations are wanting. Yet it is impossible to hear these songs of Zion,' thus sung in a strange land, without emotion; and, whatever may be the feelings of the worshippers, the auditor who chooses to give play to his imagination, will be thrilled by occasional notes, which suggest passionate regret for the lost glories of a nation, with a longing, almost uncheered by hope, for the coming of the long-deferred day of joy and triumph.

Yet, on the whole, I must say that the impression produced by the aspect of the congregation is not favourable, in respect to reverence and devotion. There is incessant motion-a going in and out, suggestive of the Stock Exchange-and a buzz which hints a suspicion that the trading spirit of the Jew finds a sphere for its activity even in the sanctuary itself. I, however, except from this statement the congregation at the branch synagogue in Great Portland-street, where there were but few present, but those few apparently intent on their evening's devotion. And, by the way, the idea of this separateness of the Jewish people is more obviously suggested on visiting such a synagogue as that which I have just named than that in Duke's-place. For, in the Jews' own quarter, the closed shops, and the Jewish look of all about the neighbourhood, are in keeping; but in leaving the flashing shop-lights and the welldressed pedestrians of Marylebone, and entering the petite synagogue, with its handful of Jews, closing by a brief service (there are four in all) the Sabbath which, in the Gentile world, is yet to commence, you have an illustration of the isolation which everywhere stamps its impress on the race.

How long will Judaism retain its fly-in-amber' character? Is the spirit of change, which is rife in other religious bodies, utterly without power in this, the oldest of them all? It seems not. The fact that there is a community of Reformed British Jews' is itself suggestive, and the confessions of the orthodox indicate that the Hebrew traditions are losing their hold upon the nineteeth century Jews, exposed to all the friction of social and religious life in England. I see that one of the Jewish journals-are journalism and Judaism homogeneous ?-declares that religious life in our communities is rapidly approaching an important and serious crisis;' and that 'an entirely changed state of the synagogue system will arise as the inevitable result of the fermentation.' But here is a passage from the Hebrew Observer' still more significant :

-:

'It must be admitted, that a large proportion of our community, even those living in the immediate locality of the synagogue, absent themselves from God's house; thus the national bond is daily becoming weaker; the children of the wealthy seldom hear the word of God from the preacher or precentor. What s melancholy prospect does such a state of things open for the future of Judaism! Many leave the synagogue under the impression that the ceremonies of Judaism are conservated and antiquated forms, that were suited to a former age, and have answered their purpose; they suppose them to have been founded in the vanities and conceits of men's minds, and will admit of re-organization to suit what they term "the on ward progress of the age!" If these false impressions are permitted to take root, we cannot wonder at the laxity of the Jew. Individually, I have heard men of the best intentions exclaim, "Oh, that Rabbinism! it is inimical to, and retards all progress in, the community."

So, while the Christian communities are mournfully comparing the census of their worshippers with that of the population, and are girding themselves for fresh efforts to bring the godless portion of the latter within the reach of religious influences, Judaism is alarmed at the discovery of the little real hold which its tenets have on the Jewish mind. And Rationalists and Newmanites, and the disciples of 'development,' are troubling the old as well as the British Israel. Verily old things are passing away-but what of the new? These are worth watching everywhere, but especially in the case of the Jew, for what Christian can contemplate with composure the swallowing up of the wrecks of the Mosaic economy in the gulf of modern infidelity? And may not the time be come for seeking the conversion of the Jew under the inspiration of a new motive-a solicitude for Christianity as well as for its ancient foe?

Yours, my dear Oliver, always,

Brief Notices of the German Cheological Press.

'AN Exhibition of the Lutheran and Reformed Ecclesiastical Doctrine concerning the Church,'* by a young and promising theologian named Hansen, is but one of a large number of treatises of all sorts and sizes, which still continue to appear in Germany on that most momentous theme. Our neighbours are evidently making some amends for the comparative neglect in which they have suffered the subject to rust almost ever since the Reformation. In no country has the Protestant Church been reduced to a more degrading condition of bondage to the State than in Germany. To such a degree has it sunk into a mere department of police, that even the texts of their sermons are chosen for the preachers by govern ment authority, and this, in some cases, not only on set occasions, but all the year round. The fundamental maxim of the territorial system, Cujus regio, ejus religio, has been nowhere more vigorously carried out than there. Dissent, whenever it showed its head, was ruthlessly trampled down beneath the iron

*Die Lutherische und Reformirte Kirchenlehre von der Kirche, dargestellt, von Th. Hansen, Cand. Theol.' Gotha. 1855. London: Williams and Norgate, 14, Henrietta-street, Covent-garden.