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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE DISPERSED OF ISRAEL. Considering the large number of Israelites dispersed over the various parts of the world, who, by their annual contributions, and the delegation of parties to offer vicarious sacrifices, had been wont to acknowledge Jerusalem as their political and religious capital, it certainly appears strange that some attempt should not have been made by them to assist their brethren in the common national contest. Although the Jews who had settled in other lands had in some cases departed from the pious observances of their co-religionists in Palestine, theirs was the exception, and not the rule, as even the successful zeal of so many to win proselytes to Judaism amply attested. Their apathy on this occasion has been ascribed by some to the liberty of conscience which they enjoyed in the lands of their dispersion, ?to the feelings of patriotic attachment which they consequently entertained towards those countries, ?and to the political alienation from Palestine which had thereby been induced. But the history of these Jews amply proves that such motives could not have been at work. In truth, aid had actually been promised to their brethren in Palestine, and the national party reckoned upon it to the very end of the contest. But the fact that the rising in Palestine took place before its plan had been properly preconcerted, and that the war itself had been prematurely hastened on by the actings of a party, besides the confusion arising from the want of one recognised leader, would have rendered any regular co-operation extremely difficult. The distance, also, between the various lands of the dispersion, and the JEWISH SETTLERS IN BABYLON. 49 peculiar circumstances of their Jewish inhabitants, go far to account for their inactivity. A rapid survey,