THE JEWS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3003, 10 November 1882, Page 3

THE JEWS.

The Jews are the great riddle of humanity. The history of the world has passed on, a fleeting panorama, apparently, to one spectator only—the Jew. In the down of human progress his form fills the horizon, and every page in the annals of culture boars the impress of his influence. Ages before the nations of Europe took upon themselves their present features, he had colonised their soil, and it is probable that, before Caesar had even more than a hearsay acquaintance with Britain, the Jew bad trodden its shores as the

supercargo of the Phoenician mariner. The one standard of morality recognised by the world, the basis of nil civilised law, has b-*en ban led by Hebrews ; the religious ideas ■ f b th the East and the West acknowh dge t he fatherhood of Hebrew And yet never were the Jews politically or numerically powerful. Originally but a small nation, they had to endure mi para lied pulil led woes; "'ere decimiatorl nn l ostracised, hut yet wore not exterminated ; they wore dispersed amongst the people of the earth, and all their political bonds utterly destroyed, but sriil i hoy preserved their distinctiveness. Alternately the objects of persecution an l massacre, cursed and shunned of all men, they Inve with mysterious persistence se..ii race alter race of their conquerors rise and disappatr. Through all the vicissitudes of their ruvn and the world s his torv they have lived on unimpaired, and their powers of endurance have apparently triumphed over the passions and numbers of their conquerors. The Hebrew of to-day receives, through an unbroken lino ot descent, the living traditions of 6000 years ago, and stands before the world the only link between these modern times and misty epochs when humanity was cradled.—Exchange.