THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER, 1844.

A ROMISH LEGEND.

WE have just completed a series of Chapters on History: we are about, with the Divine permission, to enter on another series, touching one of the most interesting and instructive of all historical records; and, as usual, we avail ourselves of the intermediate rest to introduce a stray chapter.

Our readers need not be reminded of the enduring spirit of persecution manifested by the Romish Church against the people of Israel; but that pains should be taken at this day to keep alive the bitter hatred of the credulous people on the same grounds and by the same impiously-absurd fables as in the darkest ages, may require some proof to esta dish it as a fact. We have that proof now before us, in the form of a small thick pamphlet, bearing the impress of "Bruxelles, 1835," and purchased in that city a few weeks since, of a bookseller who appeared anxious to confine the sale to those of his own communion, among the poorer classes of whom especially OCTOBER, 1844.

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it was circulated even at the doors of the churches. It is entitled "Histoire de très saint Sacrament de Miracle, depuis l'an 1369 jusqu'à ce jour." The frontispiece exhibits a sort of open bee-hive, wherein is seated a man, the mitre on whose head would seem to indicate the Pope; but the glory around it usually appertains, in Romish pictures, to Him whom their idolatrous rites so deeply dishonour. This machine is surmounted by three crowns, and upborne in the arms of sundry little winged boys; while many more peep over the edges of the clouds to greet it. To this style of embellishment some of our own publishers are rapidly approximating; and we note it the rather as a sort of waymark, tending to exhibit our retrogression towards Rome.

The first chapter of this fabulous tale is headed, "Haine des Juifs contre Jesus-Christ." Truly that which they blasphemously term Jesus Christ may well be hated by a people alway so solemnly warned, often so terribly scourged by the Almighty, on account of idolatry! Throughout the whole work that adorable Name is applied exclusively to sundry old wafers hoarded up, it would seem, in Brussels, under the title of the Sacrament of the Miracle, in consequence of their marvellous escape from the hands of certain Jews, who stole and secreted in order to insult it. Now it is notorious that the strict Jews do carefully keep themselves from the contamination of any accursed thing, such as an idol; and that they would not defile their houses, much less their synagogues, with its presence; while those Jews who are not earnest in their own faith would be the least likely of all people to bring down certain vengeance on their own heads by an uncalled-for outrage on the

religious belief of others. There is not a shadow, either of proof or of probability, traceable in any of the tales circulated as a pretext first, and subsequently as an excuse, for the horrible barbarities perpetrated on them wherever the arm of Popery could reach them, either to plunder or to slay. In this our own island, rivers of their innocent blood flowed under the knives of pitiless oppressors: from our soil it still cries for vengeance; and well may we tremble for England in that day when the earth shall disclose her blood, and no more hide her slain! On the continent, in lands where the gospel is still excluded, the will to persecute them is strong as of old: the means used to keep that will in active preparedness are before us. “Leur plus grand haine,” says our author, "se portait contre le tres Saint Sacrament de l'Autel, dans lequel les Chrétiens reconnaissent le devin Messie, que leurs ancètres avaient crucifié." To those who are ignorant enough to recognize the Saviour of the world in a little round cake, what can be more exciting than a tale of sacrilegious robbery, concealment, indignities, and attempted annihilation perpetrated against a handful of such cakes by the descendants of those who did indeed in ignorance reject and crucify that Saviour, incarnate for our sakes! What more deplorably distressing to us who know the truth as it is in Jesus, than to behold a delusion so desperate reigning in the minds of nominal Christians, and rendering our holy faith an abhorrence and a scorn, oftentimes a terror, in the eyes of those to whom, before all others, the mission of mercy was sent?

The pamphlet very truly observes, as an introduction to the story, "Les espèces de ce Sacrament

pouvant facilement être cacheés et transportées," &c., yet the very words immediately preceding these had averred this same sacrament to be the object of Christian adoration. Would not any Jew, would not any believer in the Bible, turn at once to Isaiah's description of a helpless idol, produced by man's device" He maketh it a god: they fall down; yea, they worship; they bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him and set him in his place, and he standeth." A god so easily stolen, so utterly unable to help himself, so inevitably passive in any hands that he may happen to fall into, differs in nothing from the gods of the heathen, save in the aggravated blasphemy that would connect an impure, corrupting, material substance with the name and the essence of Eternal Deity.

But it is time to enter on the narrative, to which this first chapter only serves as a preliminary compendium of calumnious charges against the Jews for stealing sundry of these hosts from their Greek and Roman worshippers; with the miraculous discoveries made, and sanguinary vengeance inflicted on the accused: the only particular uniformly passed over being the accompaniment of plunder, and confiscation of all that belonged to the whole Jewish community, wheresoever one of these incidents occurred. The legend now industriously circulated among the ignorant people of Belgium sets forth how a certain rich Jew named Jonathas, dwelling at Enghien, being exceedingly desirous of venting his hatred against Christianity upon the object of worship, bribed another Jew, named Jean de Louvain, who, on receiving the sum of sixty pieces of gold, called moutons, undertook to steal from a church in

Brussels, a number of consecrated wafers. Then follows a long and most daringly profane parallel between the first and second Judas; one of whom, it is said, sold Jesus Christ for silver, the other for gold. Nothing can be more artful than the continued identification of these wafers with the Lord himself; unless it be the wily care with which that identification is turned into an occasion of vengeful hatred against the Jews.

Jean having got access to a somewhat obscure church, captured one large and fifteen small hosts; with which he made his escape to Jonathas. Here occur some more profane applications of scripture ; Jean being described as repeating, when he handed the wafers to his employer, the act if not the words of Judas, "This is He: hold him fast." It is then related that all the Jews in that neighbourhood assembled in that dwelling for the sole purpose of insulting and tormenting the God of the Christians. This they did by throwing the hosts on a table, reviling them, with various indignities. Not long after, Jean came to a cruel death, at the hands of some assassins, who the author suggests, may have been devils, sent to execute the divine vengeance upon him. The widow, afraid of retaining the hosts in her possession, gave them into the hands of the Jews in Brussels; whither they were conveyed in a bag. "Helas!" exclaims the scribe, "Jesus tombait là de noveau dans les mains sanguinaires de ces Juifs endurcis." We will only give one more specimen of the disgusting tone sustained throughout the work, in reference to this part of the tale: the hosts having been taken, as he pretends, to the synagogue, to be insulted, the writer proceeds, "Consi