The excessive self-righteousness of this people, as described by Mr. Dodd, disclosed a serious obstacle to missionary success among them. "Two thousand years of punishment," he says, "have not destroyed the feeling, that they are the beloved of heaven. They pray, morning, noon, and night, and that too in the holy language. They always ask a blessing on their food. They neither eat nor touch any unclean thing. Except they wash their hands oft, they eat not. When they fast, it is by entire abstinence from food. They read the Word of God almost continually. In passing through the bazaars, you may see the shop-keepers taking up the Bible to read in their leisure hours; and if a visitor has to wait for you a few minutes, with a Bible within reach, you will certainly find him reading it, though it be in an unknown tongue; and once a year they sit up all night to read through the law. Their recognition of Providence is excessive. Every event is referred to God. He is thanked for every good; submission to his will is expressed in every trial. Every hope is uttered conditionally, in dependence on him; and his aid is invoked in trouble as frequently, and with as little meaning, as many Christians speak of fortune, or luck. As to the outward semblance of piety and devotion, I do not think another such people can be found. Like their fathers, they seek God daily, and delight to know his ways. As a nation, they take delight in approaching God. 'Is not the Lord among us?' 'No evil shall come upon us.' Talk to them of God's glory, and they will answer by quoting some beautiful Psalm of David. Talk of man's sinfulness, and they will repeat Psalm 51st, with seeming penitential devotion. Speak of God's wrath against sin; they will assent readily, but add, that he is pitiful, remembering that we are dust. Thus the missionary is baffled. Let him search the Word of God to find expressions that shall penetrate to their consciences; the Jew is familiar with them all, and repeats them every day in his prayers. They either mean nothing, or through a talmudic gloss, aided by self-righteous blindness, they foster his confidence in the mercy of the God who is his peculiar friend, and loves him more than he loves the Gentile world, or even his own justice and truth." Mr. Parsons also says, after a visit to Seres, a city fifteen miles northwest of Salonica: "The Jews of Seres have the same blind submission to the rabbis, the same prejudices, the same evasions of the truth. Gold is their God, and traffic is their religion,--one would say, who should meet them only in their fair. But in their prayers, and their Sabbath observance, the deceiver makes them appear to themselves the holy favorites of heaven, separate from the nations." Mr. Schauffler had now printed his Hebrew grammar, and commenced the printing of his Hebrew lexicon. The edition of the Pentateuch was nearly exhausted.