present degraded
and certainly unmerited position; and while it would improve _them_,
it would enable the Christian world to do that justice to their
talents and probity, for which at present, in an ignorance of their
true characteristics, little credit is given to them; not because
Englishmen are _now_ indisposed to act fairly or kindly to their
countrymen of a different religion, or from their indifference to the
wants of our co-religionists, but because (in the fear of thrusting
themselves before the public, where insult and contumely have too
frequently awaited them) the Jews have not collectively manifested any
desire for intellectual culture, nor attempted to disabuse the minds
of their neighbours from the prejudices of what, _as towards the
Jews_, may be termed _an illiberal and bigoted education_. As,
however, it forms no part of my plan to recapitulate the oppression of
the one party, or the quiet suffering of the other, nor to analyse the
causes, but to take the Jews as I find them, I will leave to others
the task of commenting upon the past, nor will I, by any invidious
remarks, prove that they have always been an ill-used body; yet I
cannot refrain from stating, that in no similar number of men in Great
Britain, labouring under the same social and political disadvantages
with themselves (unprovided for by the government, uninstructed, and
with very few attempts made, until recently, by their brethren, to
instruct them), will be found more humanity, kindness, honesty, and a
disinclination to heinous crimes, than in the body hitherto scornfully
designated _Jews_.

Attempts at _extensive improvements_ are always _termed visionary_;
and every effort towards advancement has been always met by the
clamours of the ignorant and the interested. The general spread of
knowledge has had to contend with the opposition of party and personal
feelings; but these have never been enabled to stem the onward
progress of enlightenment with any strength: I would, therefore,
entreat those who with myself are seeking to carry out this scheme,
and to arrive at a better state of things, to persevere, nothing
daunted at the first repulse, but to continue their course, rising
superior to the paltry prejudices that may and will assail them, until
they have succeeded in procuring for their brethren, a name and a
station worthy of them in the ranks of society--

"For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeath'd by _suff'ring_ sire t