to spare it that painful trial, in which it only sees sorrow and affliction.  This allegory may be suitably applied to a people who have only to expect contempt, mistrust, and hatred, everywhere.  The Israelites, therefore, clung enthusiastically to the hope of the advent of a Messiah who should bring back to them the happy days of the land of promise, and they looked upon their absence from Palestine as only a passing exile.  “But,” the Christians said to them, “this Messiah has long since come.”  “Alas!” they answered, “if He had appeared on earth should we still be miserable?” Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres, preached three sermons to undeceive the Jews, by endeavouring to prove to them that their Messiah was no other than Jesus Christ; but he preached to the winds, for the Jews remained obstinately attached to their illusion that the Messiah was yet to come.

In any case, the Jews, who mixed up the mysteries and absurdities of the Talmud with the ancient laws and numerous rules of the religion of their ancestors, found in the practice of their national customs, and in the celebration of their mysterious ceremonies, the sweetest emotions, especially when they could devote themselves to them in the peaceful retirement of the Ghetto; for, in all the countries in which they lived scattered and isolated amongst Christians, they were careful to conceal their worship and to conduct their ceremonial as secretly as possible.

The clergy, in striving to convert the Jews, repeatedly had conferences with the rabbis of a controversial character, which often led to quarrels, and aggravated the lot of the Jewish community.  If Catholic proselystism succeeded in completely detaching a few individuals or a few families from the Israelitish creed, these ardent converts rekindled the horror of the people against their former co-religionists by revealing some of the precepts of the Talmud.  Sometimes the conversion of whole masses of Jews was effected, but this happened much less through conviction on their part than through the fear of exile, plunder, or execution.

These pretended conversions, however, did not always protect them from danger.  In Spain the Inquisition kept a close watch on converted Jews, and, if they were not true to their new faith, severe punishment was inflicted upon them.  In 1506, the inhabitants of Abrantes, a town of Portugal, massacred all the baptized Jews.  Manoel, a king of Portugal, forbad the converts from selling their goods and leaving his dominions.  The Church excluded them from ecclesiastical dignities, and, when they succeeded in obtaining civil employments, they were received with distrust.  In France the Parliaments tried, with a show of justice, to prevent converted Jews from being reproached for their former condition; but Louis XII., during his pressing wants, did not scruple to exact a special tax from them.  And, in 1611, we again find that they were unjustly denounced, and under the form of a Remonstrance to the King and the Parliament of Provence, on account of the great family alliances of the new converts, an appeal was made for the most cruel reprisals against this unfortunate race, “which deserved only to be banished and their goods confiscated.”