Their Temple is destroyed, and the crowd which had once pressed beneath its portico as the flock of the living God has become a miserable tribe, restless and unquiet in the present, but full of hope as regards the future.  The Jewish nation exists nowhere, nevertheless, the Jewish people are to be found everywhere.  They are wanderers upon the face of the earth, continually pursued, threatened, and persecuted.  It would seem as if the existence of the offspring of Israel is perpetuated simply to present to Christian eyes a clear and awful warning of the Divine vengeance, a special, and at the same time an overwhelming example of the vicissitudes which God alone can determine in the life of a people.

[Illustration:  Fig. 357.—­Expulsion of the Jews in the Reign of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 135):  “How Heraclius turned the Jews out of Jerusalem.”—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Histoire des Empereurs,” Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal, Paris.]

M. Depping, an historian of this race so long accursed, after having been for centuries blessed and favoured by God, says, “A Jewish community in an European town during the Middle Ages resembled a colony on an island or on a distant coast.  Isolated from the rest of the population, it generally occupied a district or street which was separated from the town or borough.  The Jews, like a troop of lepers, were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarter of the city, as miserable as it vas disgusting.  There, in ill-constructed houses, this poor and numerous population was amassed; in some cases high walls enclosed the small and dark narrow streets of the quarter occupied by this branded race, which prevented its extension, though, at the same time, it often protected the inhabitants from the fury of the populace.”

In order to form a just appreciation of what the Jewish quarters were like in the mediaeval towns, one must visit the Ghetto of Rome or ancient Prague.  The latter place especially has, in all respects, preserved its antique appearance.  We must picture to ourselves a large enclosure of wretched houses, irregularly built, divided by small streets with no attempt at uniformity.  The principal thoroughfare is lined with stalls, in which are sold not only old clothes, furniture, and utensils, but also new and glittering articles.  The inhabitants of this enclosure can, without crossing its limits, procure everything necessary to material life.  This quarter contains the old synagogue, a square building begrimed with the dirt of ages, and so covered with dirt and moss that the stone of which it is built is scarcely visible.  The building, which is as mournful as a prison, has only narrow loopholes by way of windows, and a door so low that one must stoop to enter it.  A dark passage leads to the interior, into which air and light can scarcely penetrate.  A few lamps contend