Jewish poet, Léon Halevy, brother of the composer, addressed to the French expeditionary corps on its departure for the scene of the disorders: "Pour punir des meutres infâmes, Vous courez aux bords syriens. Le juif a donné son obole Comme il donnera ses enfants." And still there were fanatical hearts in Europe which this action of the Jews could not soften. One journal publicly insinuated that they were actuated by a desire to expiate the ritual murder of Father Thomas in 1840. The Jews reaped, however, an unexpected reward. During the disturbances at Damascus the Church of the Capuchins was destroyed, and with it the notorious "Blood Accusation" tablet, imputing the alleged murder of Father Thomas to the Jews, which Sir Moses Montefiore had made so many unsuccessful efforts to have removed. CHAPTER XIV. LADY MONTEFIORE. Death of Lady Montefiore Her early years Education Marriage-Participation in her husband's humanitarian work Accompanies Sir Moses on his foreign missions - Diaries of the journeys to Palestine-Extracts from her journals-Home life Anecdote illustrative of her benevolence - Communal labours-The Funeral at Ramsgate-Memorial foundationsThe tomb on the East Cliff. On the 24th September, 1862-the eve of the Jewish New Year 5623-Sir Moses Montefiore experienced the great sorrow of his life, in the death of his dear help-mate of fifty years. The Continental tours advised by the doctors had proved only of slight avail, and since the return from Rome in 1859 so visibly had her health declined that even these had had to be abandoned. Lady Montefiore spent the last year of her life alternately in London and Ramsgate, the object of the unceasing solicitude of her affectionate husband. During the summer of 1862, when the Jubilee of her married life was celebrated, a slight improvement in her health inspired her friends with hope. "Providence," as one of her biographers* sympathetically remarked, "restored, * Jewish Chronicle, Oct. 3rd, 1862. before the final extinction of the lamp, a portion of the brightness which it once shed around." She was even able to take some carriage exercise with seeming benefit, and on the very day that she was attacked by the sickness which finally consigned her to the grave, arrangements had been made to take her to the International Exhibition. This was on the 19th September. The following Tuesday prayers for her recovery were offered up during morning service in Bevis Marks, and in the afternoon in the Great Synagogue. The next day was the Eve of the New Year, and again re-assuring symptoms showed themselves. Hopes for the prolongation of her life were entertained. She conversed with her usual serenity and pious resignation, and even expressed some anxiety on the score of the hospitable reception of her visitors. As the setting sun announced the commencement of the Jewish Festival, Sir Moses repaired to the room adjoining hers, which formed a kind of domestic oratory, and offered up in her hearing the prayers prescribed for the solemn occasion. These devotions over, he reentered her room, and, laying his hands on her head, pronounced the benediction, which he had never missed for fifty years on Sabbaths and Festivals, and then bowed his head to receive her blessing in his turn. Re-inspired with hope, he descended to his own room, where he cheerfully conversed with the friends and relatives assembled round his hospitable board. When, however, the physician came to pay his evening "Her visit he found the patient so weak and her pulse so low that he deemed it necessary to inform Sir Moses that the end was near. At half-past eleven Lady Montefiore peacefully breathed her last. death," said the sympathetic necrologer from whom we have quoted, "was like her life-calm. She did not die-she fell asleep. She expired without a struggle, as our sages say of Moses-by a kiss." "Good Lady Montefiore," as she was lovingly called by all who knew her, was a perfect daughter of Israel. "The woman who feareth the Eternal," said the wisest of kings, "deserveth to be praised;" and no woman's life was ever more completely or more happily governed by the fear of God than that of Judith Montefiore. Born two years before the death of Moses Mendelssohn, when the influence of the great "Regenerator of Judaism " had made itself felt upon Jewish women, to the extent of raising them to preside over some of the most brilliant of the continental Salons, Judith Montefiore readily assimilated all the culture of that restless period. At the same time she conserved the inherent sympathy with the historic aspirations of her race which constitutes the true Jewess, and which was so conspicuously absent in the characters of the brilliant circle of Hebrew women - Dorothea Mendelssohn, Henriette Herz, Rahel Levin, &c.-who were the high priestesses of German culture in her youth. Her father, Levy Barent Cohen, was already a wealthy London merchant, and a man of consequence in his Synagogue, when the first Montefiore and D'Israeli emigrated to this country; when the elder Rothschild was still a money-changer in the Frankfort Ghetto; and the London money-market was ruled by Sampson Gideon, the ancestor of the Eardley family. Levy Barent Cohen was a man whose mind had been widened by an extensive intercourse with men; but this, instead of weakening his allegiance to his faith, had enlarged his conception of his duty to it. The spirit that reigned in his home, situated in the heart of the Jewish quarter of London, was a happy combination of the religious idealism of Judea, and the cultivated spirit of the age of Gibbon and Hume, Walpole and Burke. No pains were spared to place his children on the highest mental level of the day, and the highest moral level of the Jewish Law. Taught by the best masters, and trained by the loving care of pious parents, they grew up to be accomplished and religious men and women. One of the daughters, Hannah, became the first Baroness Rothschild; Judith married Moses Montefiore on June 10, 1812. The young couple went into house-keeping in New Court, St. Swithin's Lane, close to the home of their relatives, Mr. and Mrs. N. M. Rothschild. Here they lived happily for thirteen years, undisturbed by distracting ambitions, and prospering steadily year by year. The wife idolised her noble-minded and handsome husband; he reverenced her beautiful womanly nature. Her pru |