I never was in Jud?a, thank God! and I never will go there. I have met with men of all nations who have returned from it, and they have all of them told me that the situation of Jerusalem is horrible; that all the land round it is stony; that the mountains are bare; that the famous river Jordan is not more than forty feet wide; that the only good spot in the country is Jericho; in short, they all spoke of it as St. Jerome did, who resided a long time in Bethlehem, and describes the country as the refuse and rubbish of nature. He says that in summer the inhabitants cannot get even water to drink. This country, however, must have appeared to the Jews luxuriant and delightful, in comparison with the deserts in which they originated. Were the wretched inhabitants of the Landes to quit them for some of the mountains of Lampourdan, how would they exult and delight in the change; and how would they hope eventually to penetrate into the fine and fruitful districts of Languedoc, which would be to them the land of promise!

Such is precisely the history of the Jews. Jericho and Jerusalem are Toulouse and Montpellier, and the desert of Sinai is the country between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

But if the God who conducted the Israelites wished to bestow upon them a pleasant and fruitful land; if these wretched peopl............