il, and holding the Jewish
race up to public scorn and hatred. This is not the way to make
converts.

There have been two great colonies of the Jewish race in Europe; in
Spain and in Sarmatia. The origin of the Jews in Spain is lost in
the night of time. That it was of great antiquity we have proof. The
tradition, once derided, that the Iberian Jews were a Phoenician colony
has been favoured by the researches of modern antiquaries, who have
traced the Hebrew language in the ancient names of the localities.
It may be observed, however, that the languages of the Jews and the
Philistines, or Phoenicians, were probably too similar to sanction any
positive induction from such phenomena; while on the other hand, in
reply to those who have urged the improbability of the Jews, who had no
seaports, colonizing Spain, it may be remarked that the colony may
have been an expatriation by the Philistines in the course of the long
struggle which occurred between them and the invading tribes previous
to the foundation of the Hebrew monarchy. We know that in the time of
Cicero the Jews had been settled immemorially in Spain. When the Romans,
converted to Christianity and acted on by the priesthood, began to
trouble the Spanish Jews, it appears by a decree of Constantine that
they were owners and cultivators of the soil, a circumstance which
alone proves the antiquity and the nobility of their settlement, for
the possession of the land is never conceded to a degraded race.
The conquest of Spain by the Goths in the fifth and sixth centuries
threatened the Spanish Jews, however, with more serious adversaries than
the Romans. The Gothic tribes, very recently converted to their Syrian
faith, were full of barbaric zeal against those whom they looked upon as
the enemies of Jesus. But the Spanish Jews sought assistance from
their kinsmen the Saracens on the opposite coast; Spain was invaded and
subdued by the Moors, and for several centuries the Jew and the Saracen
lived under the same benignant laws and shared the same brilliant
prosperity. In the history of Spain during the Saracenic supremacy any
distinction of religion or race is no longer traced. And so it came
to pass that when at the end of the fourteenth century, after the fell
triumph of the Dominicans over the Albigenses, the holy inquisition was
introduced into Spain, it was reported to Torquemada that two-thirds of
the nobility of Arragon, that is to say of the proprietors of the lan