mud holds the dignity of woman in high respect, for he states that "love your wife like yourself; honour her more than yourself," is a Talmudical command. Where? In the epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter I have learned that "love your wife like yourself, honour her more than yourself," is a precept laid down by Scripture; but where is such a precept inserted in the Talmud? As a rule, the doctors of the Talmud do not hold the female sex in very high estimation. They pray, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, that Thou hast not made me a woman." They class those of the fair sex with slaves and children; for again and again we read phrases such as these: "Women, slaves, and children are exempted." "You shall teach the laws to your sons, and not to your daughters." "He who teaches his daughter the law is like as if he teaches her to sin." "The mind of woman is weak." "The world cannot exist without males and females, but blessed is he whose children are sons; woe to him whose children are daughters," etc.

Let any man visit the land where the Talmud is studied, and its precepts obeyed, and see whether the Jewess is loved and honoured like her husband. Let him visit Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Constantinople, the Holy Land, Egypt, and the coast of Africa, and then compare the condition of the Jewesses there with their sisters in England, France, Germany, and Italy, and see whose state, morally and socially, is the better. In Europe he will see that, thanks to Christian influence, the Jewess is the true wife and companion of her husband, and equal, in a domestic point of view, with her Gentile neighbour. In the land of the Talmud, he will see her the minion, the toy, the slave of her husband. There the wife never walks out with her husband, nor takes her meals

with him, nor even with her sons; but humbly waits, together with her daughters, on the man who professes to love her, and on the sons to whom she has given birth; and only when these lords of creation rise from the table is she permitted to sit down and eat. No wonder that such being her menial condition in the East, every Jew thanks God that he is not a woman, and also, in the same breath, not a Gentile nor an idiot.

Where, then, is this surprisingly new Talmudical command to love and honour your wife! The reviewer does not give the treatise nor the page of the Talmud from which he has translated his text. To refute him we must search through the two thousand, nine hundred, and forty-seven folio pages. Perhaps the reviewer had the following passage before him :—

"Rabbi Tanchuma said that Rabbi Hanilai had said, Every man who is without a wife is without joy, without blessing, without goodness. Without joy because it is written, 'Thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household,' Deut. xiv. 26; without a blessing, for it is written, 'That he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house,' Ezekiel xliv. 30; without goodness, for it is written, 'It is not good that the man should be alone.' In the West they add, that the man who is without a wife, is also without a law, and without a wall. Without a law, for it is written, 'Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?' Job vi. 13; without a wall, because it is written, 'A woman shall compass a man,' Jeremiah xxxi. 22. Rabba, the son of Olah, says, also without peace, as it is written, And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace, and thou shall visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.' He who loves his wife like himself, and he who honours her more than himself, and he who directs his sons and his

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daughters in the right way, and gives them into marriage at the proper ages, concerning him the Scripture says, 'And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace, and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin.'

But here it is not the imperative, "Love your wife;" but an optional command, "He who loves." Let those who speak of the morality of the Talmud translate the whole of the above paragraph or the treatise called the "Callah," and then the answer given to the question, "What is the Talmud?" would be, "It is utterly filthy."

According to the Talmud the command to marry and have children is the most important of all the six hundred and thirteen precepts that a Jew has to keep. If a Talmudical Jew has been married ten years, and has no children, he is obliged to divorce his wife, and marry another. The earlier he marries, too, the better. We read in the Talmud that Rabbi Chisda said, "I am better than my companions, for I married when I was sixteen years; and if I married when I was fourteen I might have laughed at Satan himself." The Talmud allows a woman to marry at the age of three years and one day, and says that when Isaac married Rebecca she was three years and one day old!

'Not only is the Talmud a holy book," says the reviewer, "but it is a work full of astronomical, mathematical, and medical research." Let us examine the truth of this assertion by a few Talmudical extracts showing the boasted learning of this scientific volume.

And, first, as regards its knowledge of astronomy.

Rabbi Bar Bar Chana relates that a merchant told him to go with him, and he would show him where the heaven touches the earth. He went with him to the spot, having his

bread basket with him; the Rabbi placed this basket at the window of the firmament till he had finished the appointed prayer, but when he looked for his basket it was gone. The Rabbi now asked the merchant, Are there thieves here? The reply was, 'No, your basket is gone round with the globe of heaven; wait here till to-morrow about this time, when the heavenly globe will reach the same position which it had when you arrived here, and you will find your basket again!' -When God was about to bring the deluge upon our earth, He took two stars out of the firmament; through the holes which were thereby made in the firmament, the water gushed forth. . . . When God made the flood to cease He put two stars in the holes, and the water was prevented from streaming down.""

And now for the Talmud's arithmetical lore:

In the town of Bither, in the Holy Land, there were four hundred colleges; in each college there were four hundred masters; and each master had four hundred pupils.”—“ In the great city of Rome there are three hundred and sixtyfive streets; in each street there are three hundred and sixty-five palaces; and in each palace is a staircase of three hundred and sixty-five steps; and at each step there is laid up as much provision as to suffice for the maintenance of the whole world.”—“ King Janai had a town on the mountain of the king; from this town they exported every Friday sixty thousand tons of tunfish to supply the men with them who were occupied in keeping the fig-trees of the king's garden in order."

But, thirdly, the Talmud is deeply skilled in medicine:

"Rabbi Jacob suffered from indigestion. When Rabbi Ami --others say it was Rabbi Assi-heard of it, he advised him.

to take seven red grains, put them into a linen collar of an old shirt, and bind them together with a cord of cow's hair, then dip the bundle into white pitch, burn it, and take the ashes and put them on the stomach, and the malady will be cured."—"The best remedy against ear-ache is the following: Fill the ear with olive oil, make seven wicks of wheat straw, bind to it the rind of garlic with a cord of cow's hair, then light the wick and put it into the ear-but be careful not to burn the sufferer; and when one of the wicks is consumed, take the other, and continue to do so till the pain ceases."

So much for the scientific nature of the Talmud. Its moral character, notwithstanding the few moral sentences that the reviewer has, with difficulty, culled from the two thousand, nine hundred, and forty-seven pages is on a par with its scientific learning. The reviewer accuses the investigators of the Talmud that they mistook the grimy stone caricatures over our cathedral for the saints within. Let us enter into the cathedrals of the Talmud, and see these saints.

The first of them is the holy Rabbi Jehudah, the compiler of the Mishna, who when asked why he was called "The Holy Rabbi," gave a reply which I cannot translate, but suffice it to say that he based his claim to be considered holy because he had never done what the wildest Arab in the desert would have been ashamed to do.

Rabbi Abuha is said to have been so gross an eater that a "fly could not rest upon his forehead."

Rabbis Ami and Assi ate so much that the hair fell from their heads.

Rabbi Simeon ate so much that he lost his senses.

To Rabbi Simeon came a Gentile with a golden vessel: says the saint, it is brass, and buys it for four pieces of silver;