ps, sharing
those notions of the different value of the sexes, prevalent, from the
remotest period, in his beloved and ancestral East, Almamen might have
hopes for himself which did not extend to his child. And thus she grew
up, with all the beautiful faculties of the soul cherished and unfolded,
without thought, without more than dim and shadowy conjectures, of the
Eternal Bourne to which the sorrowing pilgrim of the earth is bound. It
was on this point that the quick eye of Donna Inez discovered her faith
was vulnerable: who would not, if belief were voluntary, believe in
the world to come? Leila's curiosity and interest were aroused:
she willingly listened to her new guide--she willingly inclined to
conclusions pressed upon her, not with menace, but persuasion. Free from
the stubborn associations, the sectarian prejudices, and unversed in the
peculiar traditions and accounts of the learned of her race, she found
nothing to shock her in the volume which seemed but a continuation of
the elder writings of her faith. The sufferings of the Messiah, His
sublime purity, His meek forgiveness, spoke to her woman's heart; His
doctrines elevated, while they charmed, her reason: and in the Heaven
that a Divine hand opened to all,--the humble as the proud, the
oppressed as the oppressor, to the woman as to the lords of the
earth,--she found a haven for all the doubts she had known, and for the
despair which of late had darkened the face of earth. Her home lost, the
deep and beautiful love of her youth blighted,--that was a creed almost
irresistible which told her that grief was but for a day, that happiness
was eternal. Far, too, from revolting such of the Hebrew pride of
association as she had formed, the birth of the Messiah in the land
of the Israelites seemed to consummate their peculiar triumph as the
Elected of Jehovah. And while she mourned for the Jews who persecuted
the Saviour, she gloried in those whose belief had carried the name and
worship of the descendants of David over the furthest regions of the
world. Often she perplexed and startled the worthy Inez by exclaiming,
"This, your belief, is the same as mine, adding only the assurance of
immortal life--Christianity is but the Revelation of Judaism."

The wise and gentle instrument of Leila's conversion did not, however,
give vent to those more Catholic sentiments which might have scared away
the wings of the descending dove. She forbore too vehemently to point
out t