The seclusion of the Ghetto widened the breach between the two worlds. If the Gentile forbade the Jew to assume the title, or to pursue the callings, of a Christian gentleman, the Jewish communal law forbade him to wear the garb of the Christian gentleman. The diversity in dress was only an external type of the deeper diversity of character that separated the two elements. The ignorance of the Gentile grew more profound, and the prejudice of the Jew more implacable than they had ever been before. The Ghetto was an institution beside which monasticism might appear the ideal of sociability. The young monk on entering the cloisters of his convent carried into them the indelible impressions of family-life and the tender memories of boyhood. The inmate of the Ghetto, so far as the outer world was concerned, was born a monk. Everybody within the walls of the Ghetto was a brother, everybody beyond its gates an enemy. In infancy the outer world was an unknown, non-existing world. Later the child of the Ghetto was accustomed to hear those beyond described as idolaters; monsters whose impurity was to be shunned, whose cruelty to be feared, whose rapacity to be baffled by cunning--the protection and the pest of the weak. These lessons were illustrated by the tales of assault and insult, of which its parents and its relatives were constantly the victims, more especially on Christian holidays. Still later personal experience gave flesh and blood to the hearsay tales of childhood. But this outward misery was redeemed by the purity and purifying influence of domestic life. The home was the one spot on earth where the hunted Jew felt a man. On crossing the threshold of his house he discarded, along with the garb of shame, all fear and servility. Everywhere else spurned like a dog, under his own roof he was honoured as master and priest. The Sabbath lamp chased the shades and sorrows of servitude out of the Jew’s heart. His pride was fostered and his humanity saved by the religious and social life of the Ghetto. Rendered by familiarity callous to obloquy on the part of the Gentiles, the Jew remained morbidly sensitive to the opinion of his own people. Persecution from without brought closer union within. As often happens in adversity, individual interests were sacrificed to the public good. Reciprocity in spiritual no less than in temporal matters--the power of combination--the principle of social fraternity--always a characteristic of the Jew--grew into a passion unparalleled in history since the early days of Christianity.