Sir Moses, without hesitation, disregarding his advanced age and feeble state of his health, accepted the invitation, and promised to proceed to the Holy City as soon as the necessary preparations for such a journey would permit.
Before giving the reader a full account of this fresh journey to the Holy Land, I have still to bring to his notice some entries in his Diary of the current year.
October 19th.—"The Times of to-day," he writes, "gave me the mournful intelligence of the death of that great and good man, Lord Palmerston. I most sincerely grieve at his loss. I have had very many interviews with his Lordship, and he was on every occasion most kind and friendly. He was ever ready to attend to any representation I had to make on behalf of the Board of Deputies. On my return from Morocco, the last time I spoke to him, he was kindness itself. Peace to his honest soul. May he rest in Heaven."
November 1st.—Sir Moses endowed the Judith College; and on the 15th of the same month he considered the constitution of the same, which he subsequently submitted to his friends to ascertain their views on the subject.
December 31st.—Notwithstanding the severity of the weather, he frequently went to town and attended the meetings of companies and associations.
CHAPTER XXI.
1866.
SIXTH JOURNEY TO THE HOLY LAND—A NEW JEWISH CENSUS—THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS—DEATH OF DR HODGKIN—ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM.
JANUARY 26th, 1866.—Sir Moses had the satisfaction of hearing from the Foreign Office that the grievances of which the Jews of Persia complained, and which were happily now about to be removed, where unknown to the Shah. Sir A. H. Layard thus addresses him on the subject: