[182] A different explanation has been given of Leopold’s strange changes in his treatment of the Jews. He is said to have shown them favour at first, on account of his attachment to a beautiful Jewess. But she was assassinated; and Leopold, at first believing the deed to have been done by the Jews, banished them. Afterwards, being convinced of his mistake, he allowed them to return. CHAPTER XXXIV. A.D. 1600-1700. THE JEWS IN HOLLAND.—DA COSTA, SPINOZA. The reader has already learned that, towards the close of the last century, many of the Portuguese exiles found a refuge from persecution in Holland. In truth, of all the countries of Europe, at this period of their history, none showed them such kindness as the republic of the Low Countries. If the Reformation had done the race of Israel no other service than that of opening to them this place of shelter, they would still have been largely indebted to it. No dream of the imagination could exceed the wretchedness of the Jews in Spain and Portugal at the outset of the seventeenth century. They had to choose between ruin, torture, and death on the one hand,—not for themselves only, but for their wives and children also,—or the surrender of their cherished faith, which was, in their eyes, the surrender of all hope, here and hereafter. Their only escape from these stern alternatives lay in a life-long duplicity and imposture, which must needs degrade them in their own eyes to the very dust. Of the three terrible issues thus offered them, we have seen that many of them did choose this last; but our contempt is disarmed, and only our pity is awakened, as we peruse their melancholy history. The toleration, however, that prevailed in Holland afforded a means of escape alike from the humiliation and the danger in which they were living. As the century advanced, increasing numbers of New Christians made their escape to the Low Countries, where they renounced the false profession they had made, and returned openly to their ancient worship. It has been already mentioned that in 1598 the first Jewish synagogue was built in Amsterdam. Ten or twelve years afterwards the numbers had so increased that a second became necessary, and in 1618 a third.