Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
anthems to Almighty GOD, ascribing to Him the glory of a gift so
felicitous and so auspicious to the church! It would not be the
first time, I believe, that Lord John has set the _Te Deum_ of
cathedrals going, like the whistles of a juggler's barrel-organ.
Forgive me, Basil; I am not mocking the agonies of your church, but
I am scorning a British minister that can use for her destruction
the powers confided to him for her nourishment and defence. I
have learned my notions of your politics from Edmund Burke, and I
remember what he said in his _Reflections on the French Revolution
of 1792_--for, by the way, revolutions in France must be always
referred to by dates, and will soon be known, like policemen, by
letters and numbers. "The men of England," said that great and
honest man, "the men I mean of light and leading in England, would
be ashamed, as of a silly deceitful trick, to profess any religion
in name which, by their proceedings, they appear to contemn." Does
not Lord John profess to be a Christian? I must caution you, too,
against supposing that I dislike the Israelites. Far from it. In my
own country I am glad that they labour under no disabilities, and I
can testify to their good order, decency, and propriety of behaviour
as citizens. But we have "no past at our back," and nothing in our
system which demands a prior consideration. No, Basil--I honour a
Jew, however much I may pity him. Crying old clothes, or lolling in
a banker's chariot, the Jew is to me a man of sacred associations.
And then--a Jewish gentleman--he makes me think at once of the sons
of Maccabæus and all the Asmoneans; those Hebrews of the Hebrews,
those Tories of Israel! What natural sympathy has a Jewish gentleman
with a Whig? Were I merely covetous of votes I would say--let the
Jews in! I could trust _their_ conscience; I could appeal to their
own feelings; I would put it to them whether their liberalism
would consent to eat pork with the Gentiles, or to call in the
uncircumcised to make laws for the synagogue. We pity the blindness
of the Jews that offered their thirty pieces of silver--but we do
not despise them. Our contempt settles on the head of the Christian
who consented to take them at the bargain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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