nity; Divine persons are the agents, and the redemption of
the whole family of man the result. If the Jews had not prevailed upon
the Romans to crucify our Lord, what would have become of the Atonement?
But the human mind cannot contemplate the idea that the most important
deed of time could depend upon human will. The immolators were
preordained like the victim, and the holy race supplied both. Could that
be a crime which secured for all mankind eternal joy--which vanquished
Satan, and opened the gates of Paradise? Such a tenet would sully and
impugn the doctrine that is the corner-stone of our faith and hope. Men
must not presume to sit in judgment on such an act. They must bow their
heads in awe and astonishment and trembling gratitude.

But, though the opinion that the dispersion of the Jewish race must be
deemed a penalty incurred for their connection with the crucifixion
has neither historical nor doctrinal sanction, it is possible that its
degrading influence upon its victims may have been as efficacious as if
their present condition were indeed a judicial infliction. Persecution,
in a word, although unjust, may have reduced the modern Jews to a state
almost justifying malignant vengeance. They may have become so odious
and so hostile to mankind, as to merit for their present conduct, no
matter how occasioned, the obloquy and ill-treatment of the communities
in which they dwell and with which they are scarcely permitted to
mingle.

Let us examine this branch of the subject, which, though of more limited
interest, is not without instruction.

In all the great cities of Europe, and in some of the great cities of
Asia, among the infamous classes therein existing, there will always be
found Jews. They are not the only people who are usurers, gladiators,
and followers of mean and scandalous occupations, nor are they anywhere
a majority of such, but considering their general numbers, they
contribute perhaps more than their proportion to the aggregate of the
vile. In this they obey the law which regulates the destiny of all
persecuted races: the infamous is the business of the dishonoured; and
as infamous pursuits are generally illegal pursuits, the persecuted race
which has most ability will be most successful in combating the law.
The Jews have never been so degraded as the Greeks were throughout the
Levant before the emancipation, and the degradation of the Greeks was
produced by a period of persecution which, both