geographers." The immense plain of Central Asia is hemmed in, and almost inaccessible by mountain ranges of the greatest elevation, which surround it on all sides, except towards China; and when the watchful jealousy of the government of the Celestial Empire is considered, it will scarcely be wondered at that the vast region in question is so little known.

Such is the country which these newly-discovered Jews are said to inhabit in such numbers. The following facts may, perhaps, serve to throw some additional light on this interesting subject.

In the year 1822, a Mr. Sargon, who, if we mistake not, was one of the agents to the London Society, communicated to England some interesting accounts of a number of persons resident at Bombay, Cannanore, and their vicinity, who were evidently the descendants of Jews, calling themselves Beni-Israel, and bearing, almost uniformly, Jewish names, but with Persian terminations. This gentleman, feeling very desirous to obtain all possible knowledge of their condition, undertook a mission for this purpose to Cannanore; and the result of his inquiries was, a conviction that they were not Jews of the one tribe and a half, being of a different race to the white and black Jews at Cochin, and, consequently, that they were a remnant of the long-lost Ten Tribes. This gentleman also concluded, from the information he obtained respecting the Beni-Israel, that they existed in great numbers in the countries between Cochin and Bombay, the north of Persia, among the hordes of Tartary and in Cashmere; the very countries in which, according to the paragraph in the German paper, they exist in such numbers. So far, then, these accounts confirm each other, and there is every probability that the BeniIsrael, resident on the west of the Indian Peninsula, had originally proceeded from Bucharia. It will, therefore, be

interesting to know something of their moral and religious character. The following particulars are collected from Mr. Sargon's accounts.-1. In dress and manners they resemble the natives, so as not to be distinguished from them except by attentive observation and inquiry. 2. They have Hebrew names of the same kind, and with the same local terminations, as the Sepoys in the ninth regiment Bombay Native Infantry. 3. Some of them read Hebrew, and they have a faint tradition of the cause of their original Exodus from Egypt. 4. Their common language is the Hindoo. 5. They keep idols and worship them, and use idolatrous ceremonies intermixed with Hebrew. 6. They circumcise their own children. 7. They observe the Kippoor, or great expiation-day of the Hebrews, but not the Sabbath, or any feast or fast days. 8. They call themselves Gorah Jehudi, or White Jews; and they term the Black Jews Collah Jehudi. 9. They speak of the Arabian Jews as their brethren, but do not acknowledge the European Jews as such, because they are of a fairer complexion than themselves. 10. They use on all occasions, and under the most trivial circumstances, the usual Jewish Prayer, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." 11. They have no cohen (priest), levite, or casi among them, under those terms; but they have a kasi (reader), who performs prayers and conducts their religious ceremonies; and they appear to have elders and a chief in each community, who determine in their religious concerns. 12. They expect the Messiah, and that they will one day return to Jerusalem. They think that the time of his appearance will soon arrive, at which they much rejoice, believing that at Jerusalem they will see their God, worship him only, and be despised no more.

This is all the information that can be collected from the accounts of Mr. Sargon. The celebrated Oriental Geo

He

grapher, Ibn Haukal, however, describes with great minuteness, under the appellation of Mawer-al-nahr, the region in which these Jews are said to have been discovered. speaks of it generally as one of the most flourishing and productive provinces within the dominions of Islam, and describes the people as distinguished for probity and virtue, as averse from evil, and fond of peace. "Such is their liberality," says he, "that no one turns aside from the rites of hospitality; so that a person contemplating them in the night, would imagine that all the families in the land were but one house. When a traveller arrives there, every person endeavours to attract him to himself, that he may have opportunities of performing kind offices for the stranger; and the best proof of their hospitable and generous disposition is, that every peasant, though possessing but a bare sufficiency, allows a portion of his cottage for the reception of his guest. Thus, in acts of hospitality they expend their incomes. Never have I heard of such things in any other country. The rich and great lords of most other places expend their treasures on particular favourites, in the indulgence of gross appetites, and sensual gratifications. The people of Mawer-al-nahr employ themselves in a useful and rational manner; they lay out their money in erecting caravanseries, or inns, &c.-You cannot see any town or stage, or even desert, without a convenient inn or stagehouse, for the accommodation of travellers, with every thing necessary. I have heard that there are above two thousand nehats or inns, where, as many persons as may arrive, shall find sufficient forage for their beasts, and meat for themselves."

These particulars, we should presume, can scarcely fail to prove interesting both in a moral and a religious, as well as in a geographical point of view. The number of the scattered members of the tribe of Judah and the half-tribe

of Benjamin, rather exceed than fall short of five millions. Now, if to this number be added the many other millions to be found in the different countries of the East, what an immense power would be brought into action were the spirit of the nationality once roused, or any extraordinary event to occur, which should induce them to unite in claiming possession of that land which was given to them for an "heritage for ever," and to which, in every other clime of the earth, their fondest hopes and their dearest aspirations never cease to turn!-Caledonian Mer.

[C.]

In further elucidation of this subject, and to express strenuous disapprobation of what has been lately much spoken of—namely, the formation of a Hebrew church, I gladly avail myself of a valuable paper supplied by a friend, who has kindly consented to my making this use of the following extracts :—

"In the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul makes known the Lord's will respecting the future state of the church. In the ninth chapter he declares, that the Jews have stumbled at the stumbling stone which is laid in Zion, and shall therefore be for a time removed from the favour of God, excepting a remnant according the election of grace. In the eleventh chapter, the church is compared to an olive-tree, of which Christ is the life. The Jewish nation are represented by some of the branches broken off, and the Gentiles as a wild olive-tree, graffed in, and abiding in, by faith. This breaking-off is declared to be only for a season; unbelief shall be dispelled by faith, by which they shall again be graffed into their own olive-tree. As therefore there never has been but one church existing

in the world, divided into various local churches for the convenience of discipline, it would appear, that should any of the children of Isaac receive of the Lord faith, and then refuse to join the church from which they were broken off, they set themselves in array against the Lord's revealed purpose, rend the body of Christ, and are guilty of schism. Two churches can never exist, seeing the Lord's body is but one, as St. Paul declares to the Ephesians: "Christ having made both one, and broken down the middle wall of partition which was between the two, and reconciled both unto God, in one body, on the cross, and given access to both, by one Spirit unto the Father." (Eph. ii. 14, 16, 18.) The same truth is clearly revealed in 1 Cor. xii. where all the members of one body, being one body, is used as a figure to represent the oneness of the church, which, with its head, is called "Christ." So also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free, and have been made to drink into one Spirit. And then, returning to his illustration, he sets forth the oneness of the body, by the various offices of the members, which are so ordered, that there shall be no schism in the body; which would be the case, if any member set itself apart from the rest. Then, having declared the church generally to be the body of Christ, and individual believers to be the members in particular, he enters into a recapitulation of the diversity of gifts bestowed on the church, which recapitulation shows the church to be composed of Jews and Gentiles, the first named apostles, having been all Jews, and the gifts afterwards enumerated, having been bestowed on Gentiles also.

That this was a truth, which the Jews found it difficult to receive on the first entrance of Gentiles into the church, St. Paul accounts for, by declaring it to be a mystery not made known unto the sons of men, in other ages; as it is

P