ly pleaded, much to the
astonishment, most undoubtedly, of those bigoted ecclesiastics who,
deeming the traditions of the Romanist Fathers equal in authority with
the Bible, look down upon the older and truer traditions of the Talmud
with the contempt which ignorance always cherishes for what it cannot or
does not understand. Sentiments, as the learned Professor Hurwitz wrote,
worthy of Plato have been described as rabbinical reveries, and their
authors arraigned of impiety on no better grounds than what the
detractors supplied by wantonly imposing their own literal sense on
expressions evidently and unmistakeably figurative.

In the synagogue is the worship daily or weekly of the devout Jew
performed, for the aim of that worship is to connect itself with the
daily life. Dr. Arnold's idea of the Church and State being
synonymous--an idea as old as the judicious Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity--is undoubtedly in its origin Jewish. The officers of the
synagogue are a complete political as well as religious administration.
A synagogue forms a little world of its own. A volume would be requisite
to tell of the officers of the synagogue and of their various duties.
There is among them no separation into lay and secular. The community
consists of three kinds of members--the Cohen or priest, the Levite, and
the Israelite. A minister must often support himself, but his ministry
never ceases. To the last hour of his life he maintains his ministerial
character. "The rabbis are men of great learning; and now in the Jews'
College the students," writes a report just received, "have the advantage
of a careful and systematic clerical education, and an equally valuable
advantage, an example of piety and earnestness in their teachers."

The oldest synagogue in London is, as we have said, that of the
Sephardim, in Bevis Marks. Let us go there first. All Jewish synagogues
are alike; all the men keep their hats on, and wear a scarf round their
shoulders, hanging down to their knees. At one time, in another respect,
they were much alike--that was in the use of a service not understood by
the people generally. All this is altered now. Within the last thirty
years there has been a great change for the better. There are but few
even of the poorest Jews who do not understand Hebrew.

The governing officers of the synagogue are the Wardens, the Treasurer,
the Overseer, and the Elders. The clerical officers are the Chazan, or
read