The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 263

JENNER, EDWARD, an English physician, born in Berkeley, and practised there; was the discoverer of inoculation with cowpox as a preventive of smallpox, or vaccination as it is called, a discovery which has immortalised his name (1749-1822).

JENNER, SIR WILLIAM, an eminent physician, born at Chatham; held several professors.h.i.+ps in University College; was physician to the Queen and the Prince of Wales; discovered the symptoms which differentiate typhus from typhoid fever (1815-1899).

JEPHTHAH, one of the Judges of Israel, famed for his rash vow in the event of victory to offer in sacrifice the first object that came out of his house on his return, and which happened to be his daughter and only child, and whom it would seem he sacrificed, after allowing her two months to bewail her fate along with her maidens; it is not said her father sacrificed her, and it is thought she was only doomed to perpetual virginity.

JEREMIAD, a lament over degeneracy in modern times.

JEREMIAH, a Hebrew prophet, born at Anathoth, a priestly city 3 m.

N. of Jerusalem, where, after his removal thither, he spent as a prophet the greater part of his life, viz., from 629 to 588 B.C.; his prophecy was a lifelong protest against the iniquity and folly of his countrymen, and was conceived in bitter foreboding of the hopeless ruin they were bringing down upon their heads; his faithfulness offended friend and foe alike, and more than one plot was laid against his life, which was one of ever-deepening sadness and one long wail over the ruin of the country he so loved; he lived to see the issue of his prediction in the captivity of the people, though he did not go into captivity with them, the conqueror having allowed him to remain as he wished; he appears to have died in Egypt; he was the author of "Lamentations," and it is thought of sundry of the Psalms. See HEBREW PROPHECY.

JERICHO, an ancient city of Palestine, in the SW. of a plain of the same name that extends W. of the Jordan and NW. of the Dead Sea; it was the first city taken by the Israelites when they entered the Holy Land, the walls falling down before them after being compa.s.sed for seven days by the priests blowing on rams' horns and followed by the people.

JEROME, JEROME KLAPTA, dramatist, journalist, &c., author of "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," "Three Men in a Boat," "Diary of a Pilgrimage," &c., as also of plays; editor of the _Idler_ and of a weekly magazine journal, _To-Day_; _b_. 1861.

JEROME, ST., a Father of the Church, born in N. Illyria, of rich parents, presumably Christian, although he first became Christian himself of his own election after he was grown up; and from the day of his baptism, "he left," as he says, "not only parents and kindred, but the accustomed luxuries of delicate life"; his fame rests on a translation of the Scriptures into Latin, known as the Vulgate, which he executed at Bethlehem at intervals from A.D. 385 to 404, with the design of showing to the Latin world what was and what was not contained in the original doc.u.ments for the faith of the Church, and with the result, that in the long run the Old and the New Testaments were for the first time presented to and received by the Church as both of equal, or at least common authority, and as both sections of one book (331-420).

JEROME OF PRAGUE, born at Prague; studied there and at Oxford (where he came under Wycliffe's influence), Paris, Heidelberg, and Cologne; acquired great learning, and displayed great energy and oratorical power; attracted the notice of the Kings of Poland and Hungary; joined John Huss in his agitation against the abuses of the Church; became involved in the movement against Huss, and though he recanted, afterwards withdrew his recantation, and was burned at Constance (about 1365-1416.)

JERROLD, DOUGLAS, dramatist and celebrated wit, born in London, son of a theatrical magistrate; began life as a printer; composed "Black-eyed Susan"; contributed to _Punch_ "Mrs. Caudle's Lectures" among other pieces, and edited magazines; the keenness of his satire was the reflex of a feeling heart (1803-1857).

JERSEY (55), the largest and richest of the Channel Islands, lies 15 m. off the French coast, 100 m. S. of Portland Bill, is oblong in shape, with great bays in the coast, and slopes from the N. to the SW.; the soil is devoted chiefly to pasture and potato culture; the exports are early potatoes for the London market and the famous Jersey cattle, the purity of whose breed is carefully preserved; the island is self-governing, has a somewhat primitive land tenure, is remarkably free from poverty and crime, has been under the English crown since 1066; the capital is St.

Helier (29), where there is a college, a public library, a harbour, and a good market.

JERSEY CITY (206), the most populous city in New Jersey, is separated from New York, of which it is practically a part, only by the Hudson River; has no pretension to beauty, but is a busy railway centre; has very varied manufactures, including sugar, flour, machinery, and chemicals, extensive s.h.i.+pping interests, and great trade in iron, coal, and agricultural produce.

JERUSALEM (41), the capital of Palestine, holy city of the Jews, belonged originally to the Jebusites, but was captured by David and made his capital; a strong place, built on four hills 2000 ft. above the Mediterranean, enclosed within walls and protected nearly all round by deep valleys and rising grounds beyond; it has been so often besieged, overthrown, and rebuilt that the present city stands on rubbish heaps, the ruins of ancient structures.

JERUSALEM, KINGDOM OF, kingdom founded by G.o.dfrey of Bouillon in 1099 and overthrown by Saladin in 1187.

JERUSALEM DELIVERED, an epic poem in 20 cantos by Ta.s.so and published in 1575, the appearance of which const.i.tutes one of the great epochs in the history of literature.

JERVIS, SIR JOHN, an English admiral, born in Staffords.h.i.+re; entered the navy at 10, rose to be Rear-Admiral of the White in 1790; his great feat his defeat of the Spanish fleet of 27 s.h.i.+ps with one of 15 s.h.i.+ps off St. Vincent in 1797, in consequence of which he was raised to the peerage as Earl St. Vincent; was buried in St. Paul's, London (1734-1823).

JESSICA, Shylock's daughter, in the "Merchant of Venice".

JESUITISM, popularly regarded as an attempt to achieve holy ends by unholy means, but really and radically the apotheosis of falsehood and unreality to the dethronement of faith in the true, the genuine and the real, a deliberate shutting of the eyes to the truth, a belief in a lie in the name of G.o.d, a belief in symbols and formulas as in themselves sacred, salutary, and divine, fiction superseding fact, and fancy faith in G.o.d or the divine reality of things, the embodiment of the genius of cant persuading itself to believe that _that which is not is_, while atheism, on the other hand, tries to persuade itself to believe that _that which is is not_.

JESUITS, or SOCIETY OF JESUS, the religious order founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1534, and approved of by bull of Paul III. in 1540, for the conversion of heretics and the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith, and reputed, however self-denying at times, to be unscrupulous in the means they employ to achieve their ends, which is, broadly speaking, re-establis.h.i.+ng over Christendom the tyranny of the Church; they established themselves in the several countries of Europe, but their policy was found dangerous to political liberty as well as religious, and they are now everywhere nearly stamped out; there are nevertheless still several communities of them in the south of Europe, and even colleges in England, Ireland, and the United States, as well as missions under them in heathen parts.

JESUS, THE SON OF SIRACH, the author of the book of ECCLESIASTICUS (q. v.).

JESUS CHRIST (i. e. the anointed Divine Saviour), the Son of G.o.d and the hope of Israel, Saviour of mankind, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary four years before the commencement of the Christian era, and who suffered death on the cross for the salvation of His people in A.D.

33, after a life of sorrow over the sins of the world and an earnest pleading with men to turn from sin unto G.o.d as revealed in Himself, in the life He led, the words He spoke, and the death He died, and after leaving behind Him a Spirit which He promised would guide those who believed in Him unto all truth, a Spirit which was and would prove to be the spirit of His manifestation in the flesh from birth onwards to death, and through death to the very grave. See CHRISTIANITY.

JET, a hard, black, bituminous lignite, capable of an excellent polish and easily carved, hence useful for trinkets and ornaments, which have been made of it from very early times; is found in France, Spain, and Saxony, but the best supplies come from Whitby, Yorks.h.i.+re.

JETSAM, part of the cargo of a s.h.i.+p thrown overboard to lighten her in a case of peril.

JEU DE PAUME, an oath which the deputies of the Third Estate took on June 13, 1789, not to separate till they had given France a const.i.tution.

JEUNESSE DOReE (lit. gilded youth), name given to a body of young dandies who, after the fall of Robespierre, strove to bring about a counter-revolution.

JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY, logician and political economist, born in Liverpool; in 1866 was professor of Logic of Owens College, Manchester, and 10 years later professor of Political Economy in University College, London; distinguished himself in the departments of both chairs both as a lecturer and a writer; was drowned while bathing at Bexhill, near Hastings (1835-1882).

JEW, THE WANDERING, a Jew bearing the name of Ahasuerus, whom, according to an old legend, Christ condemned to wander over the earth till He should return again to judgment, because He drove Him brutally away as, weary with the cross He carried, He sat down to rest on a stone before his door; in symbolic token, it is surmised, of the dispersion of the whole Jewish people over the earth as homeless wanderers by way of judgment for their rejection of Christ.

JEWELL, JOHN, early English Protestant divine, born near Ilfracombe; educated at Oxford; became Tutor of Corpus Christi; embraced the Reformed faith, and was secretary to Peter Martyr in 1547; he received the living of Sunningwell, Berks, in 1551, but on Mary's accession fled to Strasburg; Elizabeth made him Bishop of Salisbury in 1559, and three years later he published his "Apology for the English Church," in his defence of which he sought to base the faith of the Church on the direct teaching of Christ apart from that of the Fathers and tradition (1522-1571).

JEWS, THE, a people of Semitic origin, descended from Abraham in the line of Jacob; conspicuous for the profession of a religion that has issued from them, and affected to the core the rest of the civilised world. Their religion was determined by a moral standard; through them more than through any other race has the moral principle, or the law of conscience, been evolved in humanity as the sovereign law of life, and this at length resolved itself into a faith in one G.o.d, the sole ruler in heaven and on earth, the law of whose government is truth and righteousness, only they stopped short with the a.s.sertion of this divine unity, and in their hard monotheism stubbornly refused, as they do still, to accept the doctrine of trinity in unity which, spiritually understood is, as it has been well defined, the central principle of the Christian faith, the principle that to have a _living_ morality one must have a faith in a Divine Father, a Divine Son, and a Divine Spirit, all three equally Divine. But, indeed, it is to be noted that the Jewish religion never was nor ever has been the religion of the Jewish people, but was from first to last solely the religion of the law-givers and prophets sent to teach them, to whom they never as a race paid any heed. There was never such antagonism of Yea to G.o.d and Nay to Him in the history of any nation as among them; never such openness to whisperings, and such callousness to the thunder of G.o.d's voice; on the one side, never such tenderness, and on the other, never such hardness, of heart. Nor except by their religion, which they did not believe at heart themselves, and of which they have but been the vehicles, have they as a race contributed anything to the true wealth of the world, "being mere dealers in money, gold, jewels, or else old clothes, material and spiritual." And it has been noted they have all along shown a want of humour, a want of gentle sympathy with the under side, "a fatal defect, as without it no man or people is good for anything." They were never good for much as a nation, and they are still more powerless for good since it was broken up, numerous as they have been, and are in their widely scattered state; for there are 4,500,000 in Russia, 1,600,000 in Austria-Hungary, 1,567,000 in Germany, 567,000 in Roumania, 300,000 in Turkey, 120,000 in Holland, 97,000 in France, 72,000 in England, 101,000 in Italy, 50,000 in Switzerland, 4652 in Servia, and 15,792 in Greece, in all, 7,701,261 in Europe; throughout the globe altogether 11,000,000, while the numbers in Palestine are increasing.

JEYPORE (2,832), a native state in Rajputana; has been under British protection since 1818, and was loyal at the Mutiny; the soil is rocky and sandy, but there is much irrigation; copper, iron, and cobalt are found; enamelled gold ware and salt are manufactured; education is well provided for; at the capital, Jeypore (159), the handsomest town in India, there is a State college and a school of art; its business is chiefly banking and exchange.

JEZEBEL, the wicked wife of Ahab, king of Israel, whose fate is recorded in 2 Kings ix. 30-37; gives name to a bold, flaunting woman of loose morals.

JINA (lit. the "victorious" one as contrasted with Buddha the merely "awakened" one) is in the religion of the JAINAS (q. v.) a sage who has achieved _omniscience_, and who came to re-establish the law in its purity where it has become corrupted among men; one of a cla.s.s, of which it appears there have been 24 in number, who have appeared at intervals after long periods of time, in shapes less imposing or awe-inspiring than at first, and after less and less intervals as time goes on The Jainas claim that Buddha was a disciple of the Jina, their founder, who had finished the faith to which the latter had only been awakened.