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according to God's commandment, written in the Book of the Law" (Exod. xiii. 2; Numb. xviii. 16, 17). The Rabbi replies, Do you, indeed, wish to redeem this your first-born son with the price prescribed in the law?" To this the father answers, 'I greatly desire to redeem my son, and here is the redemption money according to the law of Moses." The Rabbi then takes the money and returns the child to the father, who, holding a glass of wine in his hand, returns thanks to God, for permitting him to behold this joyful occasion. After the Rabbi and the father have tasted the wine, the former takes the tray with the redemption money in his hand, and placing it upon the child's head says, "This is instead of this" (i.e. the money instead of the child). "This is in exchange for this. This is the redemption of this; and may this child be well instructed in our holy law, enter in due time into the marriage state, and at the last be found full of good works. Amen." The Rabbi then blesses the child. "The Lord make thee like Ephraim and Manasseh; may long life and peace be granted unto thee; may the Lord preserve thee from all evil, and may He preserve thy soul. Amen." The religious rite is now. ended, and the evening concludes amid great festivities.

CHAPTER III.

JEWS IN BELGIUM-A JEWISH FUNERAL.

JEWISH BURIAL-PLACE AT GAZA.

N the autumn of 186-, I

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was staying at Brussels for the purpose of inspecting some archives relating to the history of Counts Egmont and Horn. My lodgings were in the Rue de, kept by an old Jew of the most orthodox type. Hebrew manners and customs were far from being unfamiliar to me; and oc

casionally I had long conversations with my landlord respecting the past history and future condition of his race. His life had been an eventful one. At an early age he had been forced to enter the French army, and had served in the terrible expedition to Russia in 1812. On obtaining his captaincy he quitted the army, married, and at the expiration of eight years became a widower, with the care of five children thrown upon his hands. When I first made the acquaintance of the old Hebrew he was living with his two nephews, whom he had adopted, for his own children

had all been converted to Christianity, and then had married and settled in different parts of Europe. To the old Jew they were virtually dead, for nothing would induce him to forgive them or express a wish to see them. He died cursing them as apostates to their faith, and almost his last words were regrets that they had ever been born. As I saw the old man stretched on his last couch, with his dark eyes upturned to heaven, his long snow-white beard flowing half down his breast, his black skull-cap crowning his venerable but thoroughly eastern head, moaning over his, to him, false and renegade children, I was reminded of a picture I had once seen at Rome, of king David lying on his bed bewailing the fate of his son Absalom. Two months after my arrival at Brussels the old man died. I was present at his obsequies, and an account of how the funeral of a true orthodox Jew is conducted may be interesting.

As the old man's end was rapidly approaching, a longfrocked, dark-visaged Rabbi bent over his bed, and said to him, "Rest thou in the faith of thy God, and He will do what He thinks best. Call to mind all thy deeds which thou hast done in thy lifetime. In thy dying bequests take consideration of the poor, the schools, and the synagogues, inasmuch as almsgiving accompanies thee after thy decease. Confess thy sins. before God, and crave the pardoning of the same; for all who are truly repentant of their past sins take part in the Olam habbo (the world to come)." To this the moribund replied, "Such I have done;" and then repeated these words,-"I acknowledge and confess before Thee, O Lord, the God of my forefathers, that my health and death rest in Thy hands. If it be Thy will that I die, then let my death be a reconciliation for all my sins, transgressions, and wickedness which I have committed, and in Thy infinite mercy be pleased to allot me my share in the

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Garden of Eden, and to deem me worthy of the life to come of which the righteous partake."

It was very evident that the old man was fast sinking; his two nephews and various friends stood around his bed reciting prayers from their prayer-books for his eternal salvation. As soon as the watchers perceived that the patient was on the point of death, they and the bystanders ceased reading the prayers, and, taking such a position as enabled them to look at the face of the dying person, they repeated, as distinctly and solemnly as they could, the following verses:-"The Eternal reigneth, the Eternal hath reigned, the Eternal shall reign for ever and ever. Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. The Eternal is the only God. Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is one God, the Eternal is ONE." The bystanders are careful that the last word, which contains the essence of the Jewish faith, shall be repeated at the very moment when the sufferer expires. After a few minutes had elapsed a murmur went through the room, "He is dead!" "He is dead!" and then some around the corpse began to tear their coats on the left side of the chest, making a rent of about three inches wide, and at the same time saying, Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who is kind, and shews kindness to others."

The last duties which the Jewish ritual enforces upon its sons were now carried out. The body was taken from the bed, and placed upon long straw laid on the floor, the head being covered with a black cloth, and a lit candle placed upon it. This done, the members of the Chobhorah Redushah (a religious society, whose special duty is to deal with the dead) entered the apartment, approached the corpse, laid it on a table, stripped and washed it thoroughly with warm water; cut off

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