The Jews lost their independence B.C. 63 in becoming subject to the Romans, and in A.D. 70 Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were dispersed. Since that time they have been wanderers on the face of the earth, and there is no part of the world where they are not to be found. They have maintained their racial characteristics with remarkable purity. They were an agricultural people until the Babylonian captivity, after which they became a commercial people. Persecutions, which have universally followed them, making the acquirement of fixed property unsafe, had much to do with this change. =The Home.=--The Jewish family was the purest of antiquity. In general, monogamy was practiced, and the wife was regarded as the companion and equal of the husband. Children being accepted as the gift of God, the father stood in the same relation to his children as Jehovah stood to man. Therefore the father's highest aim was to bring up his children in the knowledge and service of the Lord. We have here the highest and best type of family training to be found in history, a characteristic that still holds in Jewish families wherever they exist, and that has contributed largely to the maintenance of the strong racial peculiarities of the Jews. The father taught his boys reading and writing, and the mother taught the girls household duties; but the latter were not entirely excluded from intellectual training. Great attention was given to the rites and ceremonies of the tabernacle and the Jewish law. History was also taught as a means of stimulating patriotism. The Jewish child was early made acquainted with the Scriptures, and history, law, and prophecy became familiar to every Jew. As there were no schools, this was all done in the home by the parents. Religion was the central thought of all education, and preparation for the service of the tabernacle and the worship of God was early given to every child. Thus in an atmosphere of love and piety the Jew discharged his sacred duty with care and faithfulness. Obedience to the commands of parents, veneration for the aged, wholesome respect for their ancestors, and familiarity with the Jewish law were instilled into the minds of all children. Music and dancing were taught in every household, not for pleasure, but as a means of religious expression. By prayer and holy living, by precept and example, by word and deed, the father discharged the duty committed to him by God, leading his children by careful watchfulness toward the ideal manhood which was revealed to him by the teachings of Holy Writ. There were no castes among the Hebrews, and the same kind of training was given to the children of rich and poor, high and low, alike. No other race of people has given such careful home training to its children, from earliest times to the present.