Page images
PDF
EPUB

III. In no case can there be more than one Consistorial Synagogue for each department.

IV. No particular Synagogue can be established, but after being propos ed by the Consistorial Synagogue to the competent authority. Each particular Synagogue shall be superintended by a Rabbi and two elders, who shall be named by the competent authorities.

V. There shall be a Grand Rabbi in each Consistorial Synagogue.

VI. The Consistories shall be com. posed, as much as possible, of a Grand Rabbi, and three other Israelites, two of whom shall be chosen among the inhabitants of the town which is the seat of the Consistory.

VII. The oldest member shall be President of the Consistory. He shall take the title of Elder of the Consistory.

VIII. In each Consistorial district the competent authority shall name twenty-five Notables among the Isra elites who pay the largest contributions.

IX. These Notables shall name the members of the Cousistory, who must be approved by the competent authority.

X. No one can be a member of the Consistory if he is not thirty years of age, if he has been a bankrupt, unless he honourably paid afterwards, or if he is known to be an usurer.

XI. Every Israelite, wishing to settle in France, or in the kingdom of Italy, shall give notice of his intention, within three months after his arrival, to the Consistory nearest his place of residence.

XII. The functions of the Consistory shall be,

1st. To see that the Rabbies do not, either in public or in private, give any instructions or explanations of the law, in contradiction to the answers of the assembly, confirmed by the decisions of the GREAT SANHEDRIM.

2nd. To maintain order in the inte

rior of Synagogues, to inspect the administration of particular Synagogues, to settle the assessment, and to regulate the use of the sums necessary for the maintenance of the Mosaic worship, and to see

that for cause or under the pretence of religion, no praying assembly be formed without being expressly authorised.

3d. To encourage, by all possible means, the Israelites of the Consistorial district to follow useful professions, and to report to government the names of those who cannot render a satisfactory account of their means of subsist

ence.

5th. To give annually to government the number of Jewish conscripts within the district.

XIII. There shall be formed in Paris a General Consistory, compos. ed of three Rabbies and two other Israelites.

XIV. The Rabbies of the Central Consistory shall be selected from the Grand Rabbies, and the rules contained in the tenth article shall apply to all others.

XV. A member of the Central Consistory shall go out every year, but he may always be re-elected.

XVI. The vacant places shall be filled by the remaining members. The member elect shall not take his place till his election is approved by govern

ment.

XVII. The functions of the Central Consistory are,

1st. To correspond with the Consis

tories.

2nd. To watch over the execution of every article of the present regulations.

3d. To denounce to the competent authority all infractions of these said regulations, either through negligence or through design. 4th. To confirm the nomination of Rabbies, and to propose to the competent authority, when neces sary, the removal of Rabbies and of members of Consistories. XVIII. The Grand Rabbi shall be named by the twenty five Notables, mentioned in the eighth article.

XIX. The new Grand Rabbi elect shall not enter into his functions till he has been approved by the Central Consistory.

XX. No Rabbi can be elected, 1st. If he is not a native of France

or of Italy, or if he has not been naturalized.

2nd. If he does not produce a certificate of his abilities, signed by three Frenchmen, if he is a Frenchman, and by three Italians, if he is an Italian; and from the year 1820, if he does not understand the French language in France, and the Italian in the kingdom of Italy. The candidate who joins

sent to the competent authority a plan of assessment among the Israelites of the district for the sums necessary to pay the stipends of the Rabbies. The other expenses of worship shall be fixed and assessed by the competent authority, on the demands of the Consistories. The salary of the central Rabbies shall be proportionally paid

some proficiency in Greek or Lat-out of the sums levied on the several in to the knowledge of the Hebrew districts. language, will be preferred, all things besides being equal. XXI. The functions of the Rabbies are,

1st. To teach religion.

2d. To inculcate the doctrines contained in the decisions of the Great Sanhedrim.

3d. To preach obedience to the laws, and more particularly to those which relate to the defence of the country; to dwell especially on this point every year, at the epoch of the conscription, from the mo ment government shall first call upon the people till the law is fully executed.

4th. To represent military service to the Israelites as a sacred duty, and to declare to them, that, while they are engaged in it, the law exempts them from the practices which might be found incompatible with it.

5th. To preach in the Synagogues, and to recite the prayers which are publicly made for the Emperor and the Imperial Family. 6th. To celebrate marriages and to pronounce divorces, without, on any pretence, acting in either case, till the parties who require their ministry have produced due proofs of the act having been sanctioned by the civil authority.

XXII. The salary of the Rabbies, members of the Central Consistory, is fixed at six thousand livres; that of the Grand Rabbies of Consistorial Synagogues at three thousand livres ; that of the Rabbies of particular Synagogues shall be fixed by the community of Israelites which shall have required the establishment of such a Synagogue; it cannot be less than a thousand livres. The Israelites of the several districts may vote an augImentation of these salaries.

XXIII. Each consistory shall pre

XXIV. Each Consistory shall name an Israelite, not a Rabbi, nor member of the Consistory, to receive the sums which shall be levied in the district.

XXV. This Treasurer shall pay quarterly the salary of the Rabbies, and the other expenses of worship, upon orders, signed by at least three members of the Consistory. He shall give his account every year, on a fixed day, in a fall Assembly of the Consistory.

XXVI. Every Rabbi who, after the promulgation of the present regulations, shall be unemployed, and will choose, nevertheless, to remain in France or in Italy, shall be bound to adhere formally, and to sign a declaration of his adherence to the decisions of the Great Sanhedrim. The copy of this declaration shall be sent to the Central Consistory, by the Consistory which shall have received it.

XXVII. The Rabbies who are members of the Great Sanhedrim shall be, as much as possible, preferred to all others, to fill the places of Grand Rabbies.

The work also contains an address from the Israelites of Frankfort on the Maine, and the answer sent by the assembly, and concludes by a speech of M. Avigdor, one of the secretaries, relative to the persecutions sustained by the Jews, the causes of these persecutions, the protection afforded to them by the clergy at different times, and a series of resolu tions thanking the Christian clergy in various parts of Europe for the manifold favours confirmed by them in former centuries on the Israelites.

Many of the speeches of the deputies evince very great talents; and the whole work is equally valuable for its curiosity and interest.

BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

THIS Society was instituted in the year 1804. Its exclusive object is to promote and assist the circulation of the scriptures both at home and abroad. The only copies to be circulated in the languages of the United Kingdom are those of the authorized version without note or comment.

The object of this Society being so simple, and the sphere of its proposed employment so extensive, it has been judged expedient to engage in its support all denominations of Christians who profess to regard the Holy Scriptures as the proper standard of religion.

Such a constitution of the Society, while it secures an adherence to the authorized version by the mutual jealousies of its members on all matters of construction and comment, provides at the same time for employing in its behalf more zeal and resour. ces than could be expected from its appropriation to any particular description of Christians.

Within the short space of three years the Society has succeeded in accomplishing many important parts of its comprehensive design. This will appear from the following facts.

It has produced by its aid and encouragement societies similar to its own, in Germany and Prussia. By the former of these, 5000 copies of a German Protestant New Testament have been printed; and types have been lately set up for the purpose of printing successively a supply of German Bibles for many generations: by the latter, an edition of the Bohemian Bible is in a course of printing for the use of the Protestants in Bohemia, Berlin, and elsewhere.

2000 copies of St. John, in the Mohawk language, have been printed in London at the Society's expense; 500 of which have already been distributed, with great acceptance, among the Mohawks settled on the Grand River; and 500 more are about to be sent, for the use of the Roman Catholic and other Mohawks lower down the St. Lawrence, in consequence of an application to that effect.

3000 copies of the Icelandic New Testament have been printed in Copenhagen at the Society's expense, 2000 of which have been bound and forwarded to Iceland; and very recently the sum of 3001, has been granted by the Society in aid of a fund now raising in Denmark, for printing the whole Bible in the Icelandic language.

Two separate sums of 10001. each have been granted towards the translations of the scriptures now going on in Bengal, into ten Oriental languages, among which are the Shanscrit and the Chinese. Specimens of these translations have been received: they are in different degrees of forwardness, and some are actually completed.

Arabic types and paper have been granted by the Society for the purpose of printing 5000 copies of the New Testament in the Turkish language at Karass on the borders of the Caspian Sea; a favourable opportunity having offered for introducing the scriptures among a people amounting to nearly 30 millions who speak that language, and who inhabit from the banks of the Wolga to the shores of the Euxine.

5000 copies of the Spanish Testament have been printed by the Society; 7000 of the French have been ordered at different times; and preparations are now making for procuring a stereotype edition of the latter.

Several thousand Welsh Testaments have been furnished to Wales larger supplies are in a course of preparation, besides 20,000 copies of a Welsh Bible, which will be completed with all dispatch.

English New Testaments have also been supplied to Ireland; and 20,000 copies of a neat Gaelic Bible, for the Highlands of Scotland, are now passing through the press.

The English and Welsh Bibles and New Testaments are all printed by stereotype, under the direction of the University of Cambridge.

To the above series of facts it may be added, that the Society has furnished copies of the New Testament, and occasionally of the whole Bible, AT HOME to the convicts at Woolwich; the prisoners in Newgate, and other jails; the German soldiers and

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

FRANCE.

Present state of the Clergy.-On ocasion of the Lent of the present year M. de Maddolx, bishop of Amiens, published an exhortatory note addressed to his diocesans, in which are the following observations. "We have learned, with the most lively grief, that many of our diocesans refuse to pay that light contribution which we had fixed towards the support of our seminary for clerical education. Are you then ignorant, my dear Christian brethren, that death mows down your pastors, and that we every day experience the heaviest losses? Two years are not elapsed since we have sat on the episcopal seat of Amiens, and already 101 priests have sunk under their painful labours: in the same time we have only ordained four: we are therefore Vol. III. No. 5.

FF

alarmed at the number of parishes which remain destitute of religious assistance, and of those which are threatened with the same calamity: especially when we reflect that among those who remain, 343 are more than 70 years of age, 94 have passed that age, and others more loaded with infirmities than with years are apparently on the borders of eternity." This representation agrees with what we have read in the French journals, that the minister of relig ion received in one day four notices from mayors of different towns, that they had performed divine worship on one Sunday, there being no priest in the neighbourhood whom they could obtain for that purpose. It is understood that the starving salary of the priesthood is the cause of this; as no young men will enter on a course of

life which does not admit the hopes of a maintenance. Those who see every thing done by Bonaparte and Talleyrand in the worst light, conceive that this is their plan for the extinction of Christianity, by extinguishing the priesthood! In some places recourse has been had to charitable contributions. How far this disposition may spread over France, or to what degree it may be permanent, or what may result from these circumstances, we cannot pretend to foresee.

French Statistics.-The French report the population of the 112 departments of that kingdom at 36,060,104 persons. The land forces, in 1805, at 607,671. The revenues at 256,500,000 francs.-The Confederation of the Rhine, they report at population 7,008,122; military force 80,000.Revenues 44,674,000 florins.The kingdom of Italy - population 5,439,555; military force 60,000; revenues 60,000,000 florins.-The kingdom of Holland - population, 1,881,880; military force 18,057; revenues 50,000,000 florins.

Phenomenon.-A most extraordinary child, was, on the 4th of May, presented to the Society of Physicians, at Bordeaux, where he was minutely examined. This boy is five years old, was born in Dauphine, near Valence, and is called Chacrelas Europeen; by this name M. Buffon describes those men which are born spotted and speckled of colours different from that of their nature. He is of two colours, although born of white parents; he is quite black from the foot to the hip, and also his arms up to the neck; the other part of his body is white strewed with black spots of different sizes, which spots are covered with long and thick hairs; his beard is as grey as that of a man 50 or 60 years of age; his figure is very handsome and white, and his features regular; his physiognomy is comely, with a smiling countenance; his eye penetrating; his voice very soft; and, considering his age, he answers well to all questions of a trifling

nature.

GERMANY.

Statistics, Vienna.-In the course of the year 1806 died in the city and suburbs of Vienna, 20,359 persons;

among whom were 59 from 90 to 100; one of 101, one of 102, one of 106, one of 111 years. The number of births was 10,876.

ITALY.

Decrease of Population.-Rome. According to a recent census of the population of this city, the number of inhabitants is diminished in a very striking degree. It is at present only 134,973 persons of every age and condition. It was in 1788 upwards of 165,000; and in 1794 it was more than 167,000. The principal diminution appears to have been first perceived in 1798, in which year the number of inhabitants was 151,000.

HOLY LAND PILLAGED. Genoa, March 18. Father Louis, deputy commissary of the Convent of Peace at Genoa, who went from hence July 22, 1805, to visit the Holy Land, and to carry the usual offering to the convent of Nazareth, returned yesterday; and reports that the rebel Wehabis had lately over-run Judeá, had pillaged the Christian treasury, and had laid all the French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Armenian inhabitants under contribution.

PORTUGAL.

Earthquake-Lisbon, June 12. At four o'clock in the afternoon, on Saturday last, the 6 inst. a shock of an earthquake was felt here, of very much more force, and longer continuance, than has been experienced since the dreadful one in the year 1755. In all parts of the city and suburbs the houses were abandoned, and the inhabitants, on their knees, and the greater part in most pitious and lamentable tones, supplicated the Divine Mercy. The universal impres sion was, that a shock so alarming would be presently followed by others more fatal, and while some with a pious resignation awaited the expected cricis, others gave way to a frantic despair; and nothing could ex ceed the general horror. Happily, however, it terminated with the first great shock. The dread which it excited caused vast numbers to leave the city, and to pass that night in the open fields, but an undisturbed tranquillity continued, which in the course

« PreviousContinue »