Two maliciously disposed baptized Jews, Christian Kahtz and Francis Wenzel, sought to prejudice the new king and the population against the Jews. "Blasphemy against Jesus"--so runs the lying charge. The prayer "Alenu" and others were cited as proofs that the Jews pronounced the name of Jesus with contumely, and that they spat in doing so. The guilds not being well disposed to the Jews utilized this excitement for fanatical persecution, and such bitter feeling arose in the cities and villages against the Jews, that (as they expressed themselves, perhaps knowingly exaggerating) their life was no longer safe. King Frederick proposed a course which does honor to his good heart. He issued a command (December, 1700) to all the presidents of departments to call together the rabbis and, in default of them, the Jewish school-masters and elders on a certain day, and ask them on oath whether, in uttering or silently using the blasphemous word "va-rik," they applied it to Jesus. The Jews everywhere solemnly declared on oath that they did not refer to Jesus in this prayer at the place where the lacuna was left in the prayer-books. John Henry Michaelis, the theologian, of Halle, who was asked respecting the character of the Jews, pronounced them innocent of the blasphemy of which they were accused. As the king continued to suspect the Jews of reviling Jesus in thought, he issued orders characteristic of the time (1703). He said that it was his heart's wish to bring the people of Israel, whom the Lord had once loved and chosen as His peculiar possession, into the Christian communion. He did not, however, presume to exercise control over their consciences, but would leave the conversion of the Jews to time and God's wise counsel. Nor would he bind them by oath to refrain from uttering in prayer the words in question. But he commanded them on pain of punishment to refrain from those words, to utter the prayer "Alenu" aloud, and not to spit while so doing. Spies were appointed to visit the synagogues from time to time, as eleven centuries before in the Byzantine empire, in order to observe whether this concluding prayer was pronounced aloud or in a whisper.