SERMON AT AN AUTO DA FÉ,

ETC.

"IPSE AUTEM POPULUS DIREPTUS ET VASTATUS; LAQUEUS JUVENUM OMNES, ET IN DOMIBUS CARCERUM ABSCONDITI SUNT: FACTI SUNT IN RAPINAM, NEC EST QUI ERUAT; IN DIREPTIONEM, NEC EST QUI DICAT: REDDE." ISAIAH, cap. xlii. 22.

Most High and Mighty Prince, and Lords.

I.

Oh! degraded remnants of Judaism, unhappy fragments of the Synagogue! the last spoil of Judea! opprobrium of the Catholics! abhorrence and laughingstock of your fellow Jews, it is to you I address myself, ye misguided men! You are the abhorrence and laughing-stock of the Jews, for your ignorance is such you know not how to observe the very law you profess. You are the opprobrium of the Catholics; for, being born within the pale of its church, your voluntary apostasy has banished you from its bosom; you are the last spoil of Judea, for (to our shame) your lot is cast here in Portugal to disgrace and scandalise us in the opinion

that

B

of the whole world-in our quarter of the globe as well as in your native East. You are the wretched fragments of the Synagogue, for all its former greatness is come to an end in your present misery. Finally, you are a degraded remnant of Judaism, the wretched offshoots of Israel, who, since the destruction of your country, have spread throughout Europe to infect whole nations by your presence.

II.

You are a people whose patience has never been exhausted by long-protracted hope, to whose minds the clearest evidence does not bring conviction, whom the severest suffering only disposes the more inveterately to persist in your obstinacy. Chastisement that softens brutes, only makes you more stubborn. Evidence that convinces even fools, only renders you more positive. Hope that wearies the spirit of others, makes you more enduring. You have, from the first, been deceived by four dotards, who have taught you to expect the Messiah after Christ had come into the world; so that instead of your hopes being abandoned upon that event, they have encouraged you to persevere in them, and to cling with desperation to your faith.

III.

How greatly do I pity your degradation, O children of Israel! how many tears of blood I shed through compassion for your misfortunes, contemplating what you are at this day, and what you formerly were. In ancient times, the inheritors of that affection which your continued obstinacy did not deserve; this day the objects of

well-merited anger, which fulfils in you a just retribution : this day, the scaffold is the theatre of your contumely; formerly, your tabernacles were the boast of your religion. In ancient times, the waters held you in respect, and no less the flames: this day, fire will feed on you, and your ashes, cast into the sea, will find a tomb in the waters. Now, everybody shuns your society; anciently, every body courted your friendship. Anciently, trumpets sounded the glory you reaped from the observance of your law; this day, trumpets proclaim your infamy in the superstitious observance (I will not say of an expiring law, but) of a law actually extinct. At the present time, to be a Jew is considered a reproach in every country: formerly, to be a Jew was deemed an honor throughout the world: formerly, your tents in the desert were dwellings wherein Heaven showered upon you its favours; now, your depopulated habitations are dwellings wherein the fire of justice reduces you to ashes. This day, the anniversary of your feast of Purim, is the day when you are to abjure and make atonement for your sins in the yellow and scarlet colours of your penitential dresses the emblems of the fire which will consume your dwelling-places, unless these dresses be changed for another colour before being committed to the flames. In former times, on the day of atonement for your sins, the scarlet thread that was bound on the horns of the goat which was to be sacrificed on that day was changed into white, to show that God had pardoned your sins. In former times, your inheritance was the unalienable property of your families; now the public treasury is your heir.

It is more than sixteen hundred and thirty-two

years since Titus brought destruction upon you, yet are you still lingering in bondage, and God only knows when your captivity will come to an end. Formerly your God was so disposed to have mercy on your sufferings, that your troubles never lasted more than a few years. Thus, on account of selling Joseph into bondage, which was your first sin, and in which all your progenitors conspired, you were punished by a pilgrimage in Egypt during the limited period of ninetyone years. In the time of the Judges, the dispersion you underwent for your idolatries, which formed your second crime, and in which your ancestors were all implicated, ended in a hundred and eleven years. In Babylon, whither you were banished for having murdered your prophets, your captivity ended in about seventy years. Such was the extent of your punishment when you put your prophets to death, worshipped idols, and sold the innocent.

IV.

Truly, O children, dear to my soul! the condition in which you are at the present day compared with what you were in times past, would soften a heart far less obdurate than mine; for though we may not be of the same blood, we are all your brethren through the blood of Jesus Christ who redeemed you, and through the holy water of baptism, wherewith you have been sprinkled.

Truly, O unhappy race! this change should in itself be sufficient to convert fools: how much more so you, who boast of possessing knowledge? The contemplation of what you once were and what you now