Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/400

is carrion." (Ibid., c. iv. 11, 12.) It is hardly necessary to say, that the above quotation from the oral law is now-a-days altogether out of place. Moses was not speaking of Christians nor of the inhabitants of these countries, but of the nations of Canaan. He had been declaring the words of the Lord, "Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite." And then adds, "Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice." (Exod. xxxiv. 11-15.) So then, according to the oral law, because Moses forbade the Israelites to partake of the idolatrous sacrifices of the Hivites and the Jebusites, a poor famished creature here in London is not to touch Christian meat, nor to partake of Christian bounty. A more cruel or oppressive law could hardly have been devised. It is all very well for the rich, but it is very little short of murder to the poor. It binds their consciences with fetters of iron, so that even when relief is offered, many turn from good and wholesome food sent to them by a kind Providence; and if a spark of light has visited the mind of some victim of poverty, and he thinks it lawful to bring home the Christian bounty to save the lives of his starving children, fear prevents him. Perhaps his wife is still enveloped in all the darkness of superstition, and would spurn the proffered relief as an unclean thing, or perhaps his children might innocently betray him, and draw down all the weight of rabbinic indignation. A grosser insult has rarely been offered to the Majesty of heaven, than to call good and proper food, the work of his hands, carrion. A mistake in the slaughtering, an ignorance of the rabbinic art, a Gentile hand, is to be sufficient to turn the bounty of Almighty God into an unclean thing, and to deprive the poor of their daily food. How can the Jews expect God's blessing so long as this state of things continues—how can they be surprised if poverty and want, and wretchedness and scorn, tread close upon their heels, when they themselves spurn God's bounty from them with disdain? As nations deal with God and his word, so he deals with them, (Hebrew characters), measure for measure; and therefore, so long as the oral law teaches them to scorn his bounty, and to deprive the poor of their food—so long as the cries of the poor ascend and enter into the ears of the Lord of Hosts, so long must they expect to feel the rod of his indignation. The times of ignorance and superstition God winked at; but those times have passed away. Good or bad, there is a stir in the world—there is a shaking of all old opinions, true and false; and from its effects the Jews have not escaped. There are many who, for themselves and their families, have renounced Rabbinism—who eat Gentile food, and know that in doing so they