It was the month of March in 1492, a year of incomparable moment for Spain, for Europe, and for the world at large. That year witnessed the capitulation of Granada, and the downfall of the Mohammedan Empire in the West; a victory for the Cross which was received with hearty thanksgivings throughout Christendom as a providential compensation for the loss of Constantinople. The same year saw the departure of Christopher Columbus, under the flag of the Spanish monarchs, on that memorable voyage which was to result in a triumph wherein the whole of mankind had reason to rejoice. The same hands which signed those two glorious treaties now affixed their signatures to the edict that banished the Jews from the land in which they had lived longer than their persecutors, which they had loved as much, and adorned more than they. The end of July was fixed as the limit for their preparations. They were permitted to liquidate their possessions and to carry away the proceeds in bills of exchange, but not in gold or silver, for an existing law forbade the exportation of precious metals from the country. The consequence of the edict was that the Jews were forced to sell or barter away some of their effects at a nominal price, and to leave the greater portion behind them. If contemporary witnesses are to be believed, a house was seen bartered for an ass, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes. In Aragon the property of the Jews was sequestered by the authorities for the benefit of their creditors, and the people constantly reviled for their excessive wealth and usury were found to owe more than they possessed! The last months of the Jews’ sojourn in Spain were spent by the priests in frantic efforts at conversion. But those who had opposed an adamant firmness to temptation when they had much to lose, could not be expected to yield when reduced to beggary. The consciousness of suffering for the Idea brought with it an exaltation that shed a halo over their misery. This affliction also was a fatherly rod, to be borne with fortitude; an ordeal to be endured as a test of faith; a humiliation that contained in it a promise of future glory. The God of their fathers, who had led them out of the house of bondage and fed them in the wilderness in the days of old, would not suffer his children to perish. The waters would again be divided for them, and the sea made dry land. This last expectation, confidently encouraged by the Rabbis, proved vain when the exiles reached the coast. But failure did not shake the faith of the children of Israel. The severer the martyrdom, the greater the certainty of beatitude. Scattered and scorned though they were, the day would dawn when they would once more be gathered under Jehovah’s parent pinion. The light of Zion still shone in the distance undimmed.