Lastly, both Puritans and Jews had suffered sorely for dissent, and they had both made others suffer as sorely for the same reason. The heroic fortitude of both sects under affliction was disgraced by their fierce intolerance when in power. This close similarity in temperament and ideas found expression in many ways, more or less marvellous, more or less amusing. It originated that partiality to the Old Testament which was responsible for most of the Puritans’ peculiarities and sins. The Lord’s Day in their mouths became the Sabbath; their children were baptized by the uncouth names of ancient Hebrew patriarchs and prophets; their everyday conversation was a compound of sanctity and Semitism. Hebrew was revered as the primitive tongue of mankind, and it was held that a child brought up in solitude would naturally speak Hebrew at four years of age. Not only were their notions on social and moral questions derived from the code of Moses, but even in matters judicial that code was gravely recommended as a substitute for English jurisprudence, and the extreme Puritans, who migrated to America, actually adopted the Mosaic law in Massachusetts, acted Hebrew masquerades in the island of Rhode, and called the members of the Constitutional Committee of New Haven “The seven pillars hewn out for the House of Wisdom.” Last, but most important of all, Cromwell’s Ironsides found in the Old Testament precedent and sanction for deeds which are utterly abhorrent to the teaching of the New. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that, while the persecution of Papists and Episcopalians was at its highest in England, the public attitude towards the Jews should have undergone a marked change for the better. Members of the race were already established in London, though secretly. On January 5, 1649, two inhabitants of Amsterdam presented to Fairfax and the Army a petition for the repeal of the banishment of the Jews under Edward I., and they must have found the public mind not unprepared for their request. The question of the rehabilitation of the Jews formed about this time the subject of earnest consideration in certain circles. Edward Nicholas, ex-Secretary to Parliament, advocated it with fervour and biblical erudition, declaring his belief that the tribulations which England had endured for a generation were a punishment for the expulsion of God’s people. A newspaper, published on May 6, 1652, contains the account of a visit to a synagogue in Leghorn by a friendly sailor, ending with the appeal, “Shall they be tolerated by the Pope, and by the Duke of Florence, by the Turks, and by the Barbarians and others, and shall England still have laws in force against them?”[132] ♦1652♦ When Dr. John Owen drew up his scheme for a national Church and submitted it to Parliament, Major Butler and some others attacked it as not liberal enough. Not only did they denounce interference on the part of the State in matters