athen Pantheon makes very little difference, but the worship of
the Christian Church is one and exclusive. The very ardor of its belief
renders it essentially intolerant. How is it possible to be indulgent to
error, when we are firmly persuaded that such error must lead to eternal
condemnation? But whatever apology may be made for intolerance by those
who do not suffer from its severities, it will not be approved of by the
thousands who find themselves deprived of their most prized social
rights for the sake of their faith. None suffer more from this Christian
spirit than the favored and exclusive race in Rome. While other nations
have been constantly relieving the Jews from the pains and penalties
which have been attached to their absence of faith, the Church of Rome
has stood over them stern, proud, and uncompromising. To be a Jew in the
Holy City, is at once to be deprived of half the social privileges of
citizenship. Among other grievances under which they suffer, they are
confined to a small district of the town called the Ghetto, where
formerly the gates were locked from sunset to sunrise, during which
period no one was permitted to pass out; on the slightest pretences they
used to be persecuted for any the least expression of irritation into
which they may have been betrayed: the poor people bear impressed on
their countenances the downcast dogged look of persecution. Confined to
such a small space, they have crowded their houses together until, in
some of the streets, or rather lanes, it is easy to step across from one
roof to another. The dark eye, the luxurious black hair, and a sensual
expression produced by a fulness of the lower lip are the
characteristics of the women. Long, dirty, scanty beards--thin, lank,
gray hair--frames which have grown decrepit through long
persecution--eyes piercing and crafty--sickly, wrinkled features, are
the characteristics of the men. Although, as I have remarked, the gates
and the pales of the Ghetto are now removed, a stranger can easily tell
when he enters what Catholic Rome considers its tainted circle, by the
miserable, poverty-stricken appearance of the whole district. The people
crowd around him, losing all sense of manly dignity or mental
degradation in the anxiety for gain. Skinny shrivelled hands touch his
clothes in the hope of arresting his progress; worn-out tawdry finery is
thrust before him, in the hope of tempting him to purchase. No shop, or
rather store, is dev