Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Volume 62, No. 386, December, 1847

by Various

In this country, Parliament, in the shape of its three estates, rules every thing. In making any man a member of Parliament, we, in a certain degree, make him our master—we give him the power of sharing, at least, in the making of those laws which are our masters; and although the individual may be but little, yet he may, if he have talent, or the industry or skill to form a party, or the skill to direct one, do infinite evil to any interest which he determines to destroy. Opening the doors of Parliament to the Jew, is actually opening the doors of power, and of a power which, if he have a conscientious adherence to his own belief, he must use against ours. The question, then, is not of mere municipal regulation, but of the very life of our religion. Religion is the highest concern of human existence, and the source not only of our immortal hopes, but of freedom and Protestantism in their purest form; and to possess it in its freedom, to preserve, it with its rights, and to transmit it unmutilated to posterity, has been the great struggle of ages, and has been well worth the struggle. It is unnecessary to detail here the especial doctrines of Christianity; but the Jew rejects them all, charges them all with falsehood, and affirms, that it would be our duty to both God and man, to cast them all under our feet. Therefore, we cannot expect any assistance from the Jew in defending our religion, or our religious rights, or the national support of that religion.

But in the legislature there is already a powerful party openly hostile to Protestantism, with many individuals who may be willing to aid that party, though not of their belief. On which side would the Parliamentary Jew vote? There can be no doubt that, if at all conscientious, he would vote for the extinction of Protestantism. Can we then be justified to ourselves, or our country, in giving the additional strength of a new, opulent, and influential party to the antagonists of Protestantism?

It is true, that any direct attempt to destroy our religion in England is not likely to occur, at least for a considerable time; but are there not a multitude of minor ways, of insidious approaches, of dangerous artifices, and malignant tamperings, which, without open violence, would have all the effect of active hostility? And in these, would the Jew be for or against us?

But there is a still more solemn consideration. God punishes those who abuse his gifts, or neglect his trusts. Protestantism is both a gift and a trust, and of the most invaluable order. Must there not be a public and personal crime in disregarding the interests of both; and disregarding them for a thing so worldly, contingent, and paltry, as political convenience? The Jew outside the legislature, however he may hate our religion, is powerless to injure it; but once inside the legislature, he may conspire to its ruin. If we put a weapon into the hand of an enemy, whom but ourselves can we blame for the consequences. If we do an act which cannot be undone, what sympathy shall our wailings deserve, when we feel that we have actually recruited for a hostile faction.

But having disposed of the cant of Liberalism, let, us now turn to the more dangerous cant of Security. "What reason is there to apprehend public evil from a single Jew, or from half a dozen at most in Parliament?" We remember that exactly the same language was used for the admission of the Papists. "What harm can be done by letting in one or two Papists? they can never amount to above half-a-dozen, let them do what they will at the hustings." Yet their votes and partisans now amount to at least fifty; they carry every object which they determine to carry; and they have crumbled down cabinets like the discharge from a battery.

In the instance of the Jew, the answer is clear. They have the means among them of coming to the hustings with irresistible force. On this topic we say no more; but every body knows the nature of a popular election under the Reform Bill.

But then we are to "trust to character;" the individual in question is unambitious, or immersed in his own affairs, or afraid of the sound of his own voice, or is a parliament phantom. He may be all this, or quite the contrary, for any contrary knowledge of ours; but once in Parliament, with his whole sharp and craving community at his heels, he must make an effort—or he will be soon driven back to his counting-house. Or if he were at once as fixed and silent as a rock, who shall answer for his successors? In no instance of party violence is the first man the true representative. He comes full dressed into the levee, bows as he enters the presence, and offers his petition with the air pleasing to the souls of lords in waiting. His successor comes; the sans culotte roars at the head of his rabble in the streets, and storms the palace, stairs. The Jew in parliament will be no longer the emblem of sly submissiveness that traverses Houndsditch. History tells us well the fierceness of his day of authority; the daring zealotry, the bitterness of his national anger, and the mortal venom of his personal vindictiveness. If those outbursts have seldom occurred in our days, the loss of political position may be justly taken for the cause; with every thing to risk and nothing to gain, we can easily account for quietude. But, give him that position, make him the leader, the treasurer, or the recruiting officer of a party,—give him the hope of seizing place,—make his voice the key-note of doubtful debate,—make his party the prop of a tottering ministry, or the champions of an aspiring opposition,—give him the power of carrying fifty votes, or half the number, across the House, the utterers of the words of life or death to a cabinet standing in the Dock,—and what measure of revenge or spoliation, of insolent triumph or irremediable evil, might they not demand, and might they, not obtain?

We solemnly declare, that much as we deprecate Papist influence, we think that all its hostility is not to be dreaded the hundredth part so much as political power in Jewish hands. There would be no lazy braggadocio, no loose riot of success, none of the vulgar intoxication that goes to sleep after the victory,—we should have the steady, sullen, cool antagonism, whose subtlety never slumbers.

But there are other and important considerations. The British empire extends over a variety of creeds. If the Christian legislature admits one sect known as the open antagonist of Christianity, why not admit the neutrals? Why not the Mahometan? Why not the Hindoo? Are they half as much opposed to Christianity as the Jew? We have conquered a Chinese island,—why not have a parliamentary believer in the god Foh, and in his prophet Confutzee? Ceylon is ours,—why reject the votary of Boodh? We have the Cape, and we shall soon have the land of the Caffre,—why not admit the worshipper of the Serpent, or the man who trembles before the mystery of the Fetish? The Dyak of Borneo, and the Malay of Singapore are already basking under the beams of the British crown; neither will trouble us with controversies,—why not compile them all into one imperial representation? They are fully as honest as the Jew, not much more ignorant, and much less likely to quarrel with us.

In the largeness of this subject we are forced to pass by a multitude of pressing considerations; but there is one, to which we cannot avoid making some slight reference—the actual state of the Jewish religion. Many, who have not attended to this subject, evidently feel all interest in the Jew, as the "descendant of the original receivers of the law, a mistaken and stiff-necked generation, perhaps, but still clinging to the law of Sinai." On this subject we speak with perfect reverence, but also with perfect truth, when we say, that it is scarcely possible to discover the religion of Sinai in the Jewish ritual of the present day; their religion is Rabbinism, precisely the same, (except for its additional excesses and inventions) that it was when the most sacred of all authorities pronounced to the Sadducee, and the Pharisee, and the nation, that they had made the law of Moses of "none effect by their traditions." The "oral law," wholly traditionary, is now the law of all the Jews, (the Karaites, a small sect, excepted.) Their liturgy is wholly formed from the oral law, and some of its comments, among an abundance of trivialities, are dangerous. The "deniers of the law are cut off for ever, and perish through their wickedness, and have no part in the world to come." Among those thus condemned for ever are the Christians and Mahometans. But some of the passages in the Talmud show the personal peril into which the oral law may condemn the recusants of any kind.