intercourse was good not only for the religious, but for the commercial, interests of the various congregations. As the eighteenth century drew to its close, echoes from the thunders of the French Revolution (1789) were borne to English shores, and the pitiful, passionate cry for liberty, equality, and fraternity, which, after all, was but a stammering version of ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself,’ seemed in the air; but yet, and for a long while, in the air only. The conscience of men was stirred, yet still, for many years to come, the Jews of England were regarded not as neighbours, but as ‘aliens.’ It is written that ‘it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.’ The long hoping without fuss, the long waiting without anger, of those days were good for the English Jews; and their quiet steadfastness, no less than their active work, had a share in bringing about the happy state of things that was, though so slowly, coming to them. =6. The Nineteenth Century.=――The years went on, and the nineteenth century opened on a numerous community of Jews in England, who were loyally fulfilling all the duties of Englishmen, and who were still denied most of the privileges and many of the rights of English subjects. When Benjamin d’Israeli was born, in 1804, trade was fettered by restrictions, professions were handicapped, university education was barred, and any municipal or state service was impossible to Jews. Prejudice certainly was dying down, and this was due, in some respects, to Jewish conduct, and in some respects, it may be gratefully acknowledged, to Christian effort. Novelists and dramatists often can preach to wider audiences than priests, and a certain Richard Cumberland, in 1794, by a kindly conceived and well-written play called ‘The Jew,’ did what he could to make Jews better known and better appreciated. His play became fashionable, and thus Richard Cumberland, in his degree, helped, like Lessing, in good work. But the work was of terribly slow accomplishment, and clever Jews and ambitions Jews grew often impatient, and now and again steadfast and observant Jews grew unwise in their zeal. Those who were in authority saw so plainly the temptations to apostasy, that their very keenness of vision was a danger. They drove too straight, and held the reins too tight, for waverers on the road. ‘For us or for our enemies?’ the Synagogue seemed to ask. It listened to no compromise. ‘Belong to us altogether, or leave us altogether,’ was its way of meeting half-hearted adherents. It was an attitude which admits of defence, and even excites admiration, but it was one, nevertheless, which lost many a member to the fold, among the rest the family of D’Israeli. The future Lord Beaconsfield was a boy of nine years old when (in 1812) his father, Isaac d’Israeli, then leading the life of a scholarly recluse, was fined 40l. for refusing to accept the office of warden in the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue.