fairies of European folk-lore, but believed in the solemn and sober spirits of Asiatic mythology. Altogether they must have seemed a singular and sinister people, with usury for their favourite pursuit, and prayer for their main recreation. Thus they lived, and when they died they were buried in special cemeteries, emphasising the amiable principle that there could be no union or intercommunion between Jew and Gentile even in death. Is it to be wondered at that the Jews everywhere were looked upon with aversion and suspicion? The chastity of Jewish life, the gracious charm of the Sabbath, the serene beauty of the Jewish home were unknown, for Jewish homes in the Middle Ages rarely received a non-Jewish guest. If an inquisitive Catholic strayed into a synagogue on a Sabbath morning, what he saw therein would tend to strengthen his antipathy. He would find a congregation of men with their heads covered, gathered together in a place which had none of the attributes of a church: no images, no font, no altar, no holy-water stoup; a club-room rather than a House of the Lord. He would see some of these men absorbed in learned study, and others in lively gossip; some chanting, and others chattering aloud; many dropping in casually at odd times; all heedless of the precentor, whose trilling airs soared aloft in triumphant discord, amid the pandemonium of tongues, now melting into melodramatic tears or hysterical laughter, now drowned by the shrill blast of the ram’s horn. How could the ignorant Gentile know that these listless or belated worshippers had already prayed abundantly at home, and, like people who go to a public banquet after having enjoyed a good dinner in private, had no appetite for further devotion? To him the whole scene, with the din of children crying and running about, and the free and easy nonchalance of the men, must have appeared an orgy of indecorous levity. Worse still, he might have surprised this congregation discussing lawsuits, or prices of goods; for the synagogue was much more than a prayer-house to the Jew, and in it were made proclamations and bargains such as the mediaeval citizen was accustomed to see made in the market-place. Everything that the visitor witnessed would impress him as uncouth, unchristian, and uncanny; and he would go away amazed and scandalised, if not disgusted.