whose bond is wholly religious, and who aim at extinguishing all distinctions derived from birth and race. The Jews having no idea of converting others, estimate differently from us an apparent conformity with the creeds of the people among whom they sojourn.[222] The Jews have in common with the Mussulmans everything like doctrine--the unity of the Godhead--the attributes of God--the inspiration of the Sacred Books, the Creation, the scheme of Providence, the prophets on earth, the chosen people, the law of Sinai and of Horeb, the ceremony--the abhorrence of idolatry. There is nothing the Jew believes that the Mussulman does not believe; there is no ceremony the Jew performs that the Mussulman does not respect, or meat that he prepares, which the Mussulman cannot eat.[223] The passage, therefore, from Judaism to Islamism appears easy. It was amongst the Jews that Islamism first and most rapidly spread: fifty thousand were converted in one day, yet in its subsequent stages it has been by them most uncompromisingly resisted. Millions of Christians have become Mussulmans; of the Jews, no influx has taken place. I know but of two cases of apparent conformity: the one is a tribe at Thessalonica, who are called the Changed (Dunmeh). The other a tribe in Suz, also known by the name of the Changed.[224] In both cases they live as a distinct race; do not intermarry with the Mussulmans; and, though enjoying the privileges of Islamism, are not looked upon by the Jews as renegades. The father of the boy whose story I have told, professed Islamism to escape popular vengeance, aroused by the extortions of a governor at Dar el Baida, whose agent he was. He nevertheless continued to live in the Jews’ quarter with his wife and child: instead of bringing up the child in his new faith, he sedulously inculcated on him the observance of the law. The Jews seem to have looked upon him as one who had incurred a misfortune. His Islamism was rather a disease, for which he had to be pitied, than an apostacy for which he was to be abhorred; and as the Jews took no offence at his religious profession, so the Moors took none at his domestic habits.