[28] The formula, however, is still perpetually repeated. On the Sabbaths preceding the new moons Jehovah is adjured to “gather the dispersed, the united people of Israel from the four corners of the earth.” The sunset devotions, the Yom ha-Kippur, or Great Day of Atonement, concludes with, “Next year we shall be in Jerusalem.” At the Passover feast before the fourth cup the Lord is blessed, and all say, as they have been saying during the last eighteen centuries, “The year that approaches we shall be in Jerusalem.” The burden of the Musaph concluding the Sabbath services is that God may be pleased to return His people from their dispersions, and restore them to the possession of Jerusalem and the Temple. [29] Not to be confounded with Hellenes. These Greeks are Syrian and Christian peasants (felláhín), without a drop of Greek blood in their veins, but belonging to the so-called Greek Church. [30] In 1873 the population of the Holy City is generally laid down as: Jews 9,500 Christians 5,300 Muslims 5,000 ------ Total 19,800 [Owing to the recent immigration especially of Russian Jews, and to the opening of the railway to the coast of Jaffa, these figures have been more than quadrupled. In 1896 the whole population was estimated at over 80,000, of whom nearly 40,000 were Jews, 25,000 Christians of all denominations, and 15,000 Muhammadans, chiefly Turks and Arabs.] [31] It has been well remarked that no Hebrew citizen was ever condemned to exile. If guilty, he was punished, but not made an outcast and infamous, forced to sin by dwelling beyond the holy soil of their own land in the impure and accursed rest of earth. [32] It is interesting to read what the inspired Jew Spinoza wrote upon the Jews: “The rite of circumcision, I am fain to persuade myself, is of such moment in this matter (_i.e._ of isolating nations) that it alone, methinks, were enough to preserve this people distinct for ever; indeed, unless the fundamentals of their religion bring upon them effeminacy of mind and character, I am inclined to believe that, with the opportunity afforded, since human affairs are notoriously changeable, they may again recover their empire, and God elect them to Himself anew.... To conclude, were any one disposed to maintain that the Jews, for the cause assigned, or for any other cause whatsoever, had been especially chosen by God to all eternity, I should not gainsay him, provided he allowed that this choice was most in respect of nothing but empire and personal advantages (in which only one nation can be distinguished from another), for as regards understanding and true virtue no nation is more remarkable than another, and so cannot on such grounds be looked on as elected by God” (_Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, chap. iii.).