"In that beautiful spot, the so-called Garden of Gethsemane, I one evening met two servants of God, who began speaking to me. At the time it seemed that I had gone into the Garden merely by accident, but now, as one looks back over the past, it can be clearly seen that a loving unseen hand was guiding me. These two Christians explained to me from the Scriptures how that Jesus of Nazareth is in very deed the promised Messiah, Israel's greatest hope. As they reasoned with me, there was one passage of Scripture which I could not get over, that 'the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.'
"With this new light upon the Word of God I was given to understand that the promises regarding the coming One told not only of His glory and majesty, but also of His suffering and death (Isaiah liii. and Psalm xxii.).
"Slowly I began to see how great and true Jehovah is, and how that His divine word regarding the Messiah has been literally fulfilled in Jesus Christ. I saw my helpless condition, and realized as never before that my own righteousness was as filthy rags. And oh, what joy came to me, when the gracious promise of God was fulfilled, a promise which came to me now with such a new meaning. 'A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put withinyou; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you.' (Ezekiel xxxvi. 26, 27).
"Having then accepted Jesus Christ as my own personal Saviour, I began to wish that my own loved ones might know Him, whom to know is life eternal. But I feared to tell them of my new-found treasure, and it is impossible for me to describe the unrest and agony of soul that I passed through in consequence. It was only at the Throne of Grace that comfort could be found, and there I sought the strength and help I so much needed. After this it seemed very clear that the Lord was speaking to me through His Word, and was thus answering my prayer for guidance. The word which came to me was that given to Abram of old—'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will shew thee.' (Genesis xii. 1).
"To leave those who are dear to one, the relations and friends, yes, even to leave all for Christ's sake, is not easy; yet I knew it would be best to do what appeared to be the only right thing. It was a hard command to obey, but still I had the Lord's promises to take with me,—'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world' (St. Matthew xxviii. 20). 'If ye shall ask anything of the Father in My name, He will give it you' (St. John xvi. 23). Trusting therefore in God alone, and persuading myself that He would be faithful in fulfilling His promises, I started on my journey. And by the help of Almighty God I cameto England, arriving here as a perfect stranger, not knowing the language, and without an earthly friend. It was a time of great temptation, but the God of my fathers kept me. Letters came from my friends and relations in Jerusalem, trying to persuade me to go back, and my dear father said it would bring down his grey hairs in sorrow to the grave if I did not return. Truly I felt the presence of my Redeemer, and realized that He had called me. This joy filled my heart, and the peace which passeth understanding was my portion. I praise God for those Christians who have learned to sympathize with His ancient people. The Lord raised up kind friends who helped me through my difficulties, and daily I learned more of my Saviour's love, and found that 'His goodness faileth never.' His word says, 'They who put their trust in Him will never be put to shame,' and as I trusted, so I proved the truth of it. After spending some time in England, the way opened for me to enter the Bible Training Institute, Glasgow.
"Here I had opportunity of studying the Word of God, for which I was very thankful. At length a call came for me to enter active service in the vineyard of the Lord at the Bonar Memorial Mission to the Jews of Glasgow. On this work the Lord was pleased to set His seal, sending friends to encourage me, and in other ways blessing me abundantly."
Romann, Nathaniel, was born at Kobylin, Posen, in 1819, and was educated in the rabbinic schools of Lissa and Breslau, attending also at the latter place lectures at the University. From the reformed rabbi, Dr. Geiger,he learned to reject the Talmud, and from the missionaries Teichler, Caro, and Cerf, he learned to accept the Gospel, and to become a whole-hearted Christian. He then became a teacher in a Christian school at Zieginhals. In 1851 he was accepted by the L.J.S. as a candidate for missionary work, and after preparing himself in their college, he was sent to labour in Breslau and Berlin, where he discharged his duties faithfully, becoming a blessing to many Jews, till his death in Berlin in 1871.
Ronkel, Philipp Samuel Van, was born at Groningen, Holland, in 1819. His father was a teacher in a Jewish school, and when Pauli visited him, he shewed him a New Testament, which he often read, but concealed it from his son. Pauli said to him, "You may hide the New Testament from your son, but you cannot thereby frustrate the counsel of God." Philipp was well educated in rabbinic law, but he found no pleasure therein, nor did the services in the synagogue attract him. He was brooding upon something which his parents could not find out. At the age of nineteen he entered the academy of Groningen, and studied classics. A professor there drew his attention to the influence which Jesus exercises upon thinking humanity. From that time the personality of the Saviour occupied his mind, and he began to read with delight the poems of Da Costa. Just then he was requested by the Jewish congregation at Leerdam to deliver a sermon at the dedication of a new synagogue, and he took for his text Haggai ii. 10, and manifested in his sermon that he wasinclined towards Christianity. It then happened that a Christian pastor visited a poor sick woman, but she refused to have his services. Ronkel then tried to see what he could do with her, and succeeded in getting an attentive hearing from her to his stories about good women of the Old Testament. She then asked him to read the Bible, but he had not one with him, and her own Bible she had torn to pieces when the pastor visited her. Then she asked him to pray, but he had never offered up an extempore prayer. In this perplexity he thought he could repeat the Lord's prayer in Dutch, which he had learned in Greek. He then repeated it with such fervour that the woman shed tears. This was the turning point in Ronkel's life. He took now the decisive step, and was baptized on Christmas Day, 1856, Da Costa being one of the witnesses. He became a true Christian, according to the testimony of his own father. Later he became one of the most eloquent preachers in Holland, and the Lord prospered the work which He had committed to his hands.
Rosenberg, Rev. L., wrote the following brief sketch of himself shortly before he died:—"My parents were by birth Austrian Jews. By occupation my father was a landed proprietor and my mother carried on a drapery business. There were four children of the marriage, three boys and one girl. I was born on April 5th, 1828. My mother and three children died at a time when I was too young to remember them. My father was baptized into the Christian Church. I received a goodsecular and religious education, enough to lead me to avoid bad company; not so much to honour God as to honour myself in order to be respected and esteemed so as to mix with the best society.
"Ignorant of and prejudiced against Christianity, how wonderful were the dealings of the Lord with me will be seen from the following record:—About 1841 I visited Constantinople. Here a young Jewish friend persuaded me, after much effort, to go with him to a Mission House, where we heard a godly sermon preached before a gathering of young Israelites, by the Rev. Dr. Schwartz, who, later on, was Pastor of Trinity Chapel, Edgware Road, West London, and also a member of the Committee of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. His Scriptural discourse awakened in me a desire to know more about Christianity, and I often went to hear him preach at the Chapel of the Prussian Embassy on the fore-noons of the Lord's Day.
"Having for a few years been convinced of the truth of Christianity, I studied the Old and New Testament together, praying morning and evening for light.
"About 1844 I again visited Constantinople on my way to Asia Minor for hunting, with a view to becoming a naturalist by profession, collecting wild animals, birds, and insects of all sorts for the museum. It was whilst hunting on the top of Mount Olympus that the glorious scenery and the power of God's Word, created as it were, a voice within me, ordering me to leave all things, and I returned to Constantinople, and wasbaptized by Mr. Allen, son-in-law of Dr. Duncan, the well-known 'rabbi Duncan' of Edinburgh.
"Again I returned to Broussa, and on my own account I preached the Gospel for a whole year to Jews, Armenians, and Greeks, from among whom many, through Divine grace, were converted.
"Thus encouraged I went to Malta, where for about six years I studied literature and theology in the Protestant College there, and in return I gave lessons to boys in different classes, four hours a day. To complete my preparations for the ministry of the Church I studied both in London and Edinburgh.
"The Jewish Committee of the Established Church of Scotland engaged me for about seven years, during which time I laboured as one of their missionaries at the stations of Salonica and Smyrna, with encouraging results, through the Divine blessing resting upon the Jews, Armenians and Greeks. After this, on my resignation, I returned to Edinburgh and London.
"Whilst in London the Committee of the Malta Protestant College, to whom I was well known, and amongst whom were the late Lords Shaftesbury, Calthorpe and Kinnaird, engaged me, and I went to the East to establish British Schools for boys in all the principal towns bordering on the Mediterranean and Black Seas. I established in Cairo a large boarding and day school, and for over two years I worked on until my health completely broke down, and, acting upon medical advice, I resigned and came to London.
"On August 21st, 1865, I was engaged by the Committee of the British Society, and ever since then Ihave been labouring, in Adrianople, chiefly among the Jews, but also among the Armenians and the Greeks. During the first ten years I baptized forty Jews, whilst other enquirers of mine have been baptized in Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem and London. Many unbaptized Jews, Armenians and Greeks, have also been led to believe in Jesus as the Saviour of their souls." He died in 1905 after more than forty years missionary work in Adrianople.
Rosenberg, Samuel, M.D., was baptized at Constantinople about 1873. He accompanied General Hicks on his compaign in the Soudan, where he lost his life with the rest of the expedition.
Rosenbohm, a Jewish convert in Sweden, was tutor of Hebrew at the University of Upsala, in 1720. At the Coronation of King Friedrich, he delivered a rabbinic oration, and likewise at the conclusion of peace between the Kings of England, Denmark, and Prussia. (Wolff Bib. Heb. 3 N, 2138 a).
Rosenfeld, J. F. (Asriel), was born in 1807. His parents brought him up piously, and married him at the age of fourteen. Coming in contact in Berditsheff with a Scotchman, he received from him a New Testament. He then went to Warsaw, became an inmate in the House of Industry, and learned the trade of bookbinding, was baptized in 1828, and afterwards laboured zealously as a missionary in Poland until his death in 1853.
Rosenstrauch, Max, was born at Lemberg, on September 1, 1837. His parents Moses and Scheindell, were strictly orthodox, and brought him up in thestraitest customs of strict Judaism. As he grew up, they were proud of his Talmudical knowledge, their intention being that he should become a rabbi. When seventeen years old, family circumstances compelled him, however, to go into business, and he was apprenticed to a merchant, with whom he remained ten years. In 1865, he accepted the post of a schoolmaster in Jassy. Whilst there he heard of the Hebrew learning of the Rev. W. Mayer, one of the L.J.S. missionaries, and formerly a scholar in their mission schools in London. From him he received a New Testament, which he read with eagerness, leading him to take Christian instruction for eighteen months. Soon after this a strange event took place in his life. He had left Jassy, and was on a steamer going to Odessa, when the engine broke down. There being danger, the Captain called upon all the passengers to pray. This Max Rosenstrauch felt he could not do in the Name of Jesus Christ; all he could say was—"Lord, teach us to pray." Later on the captain gave an earnest address to the passengers on St. John iii. 14, 15; this he did not fully understand, but what he did made a lasting impression upon him. In 1867 he was in Kischineff, and of this period he says, "It only awakens in me painful reminiscences. My Talmudical supports had been broken by the instruction received at Jassy, and I fell altogether into unbelief. I could perform neither Jewish nor Christian prayers. I did not even believe in the existence of God. I sometimes disputed with the Scotch missionary, Mr. Tomory, and Mr. Daniel Landsmann, and theyknew me as a thorough infidel Jew. At Odessa I lived as an atheist, and I had no intercourse with any Christian. I was busy the whole day at a boarding-school, under Mr. Trübitsch. At Kischineff my slumbering conscience was aroused, and an unspeakable struggle agitated my heart, until the Lord opened my eyes, and in every page of the Bible I saw the glory of Him who said, 'I am the Light of the World.' In His Name I was baptized on Easter Day, 1868." After some years of missionary work with continental societies, he joined the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, in which he remained till his death, November 3, 1900. The "Prayer-book for Jewesses" and his "Catechism for Jews," which he wrote, have been most useful in his work, and in that of the above Society generally.
Rosenthal, Rev. Michael, Vicar of St. Mark's, Whitechapel, who died at the age of 63, was a converted Jewish rabbi, who for thirty years carried on an earnest missionary work among the Jews of East London. The story of his conversion is a remarkable one. Young rabbi Rosenthal, a Hebrew of German extraction, was a profound Talmudist, and as strict and zealous a Jew as was Saul of Tarsus before the journey to Damascus. Rosenthal was sent on missions in connexion with the faith of his fathers to Asia Minor, to North Africa and other countries, and finally to England. On a steamboat he met a very learned and able man, who he believed was a Jesuit. The man was certainly a Roman Catholic, and he possessed a good deal ofrabbinical lore. Rosenthal, as a strict Jew, observed all the dietary and other laws of his people, and took his meals separately. The supposed Jesuit ridiculed his scruples, and one day, when the young rabbi was dining alone, touched his bottle of claret, thereby, of course, rendering it defiled. Rosenthal was angry, and the man saw this and taxed him with over-niceness in ceremonial observance. "Do you really think," he asked, "that God is pleased by your rejecting things that are good enough for the captain and other people on the ship, and that you really serve Him by making yourself so different from anybody else?" They had some conversation, which left a great impression on the young rabbi's mind. One argument used by the supposed priest had considerable effect. The Jews in the course of their history during the last nineteen hundred years have acknowledged no fewer than twenty-four Messiahs, all of whom have turned out to be false, either impostors or self-deluded fanatics. Can a nation that has made the gigantic mistake of accepting twenty-four false Messiahs claim to be infallible in rejecting a twenty-fifth? All these false Messiahs have appeared and been accepted since our Lord lived on earth except "Judas of Galilee," who was a contemporary of Jesus Christ. Some time after his arrival in England Rosenthal became acquainted with Dr. Wilkinson, then rector of St. Peter's, Eaton Square. The young rabbi was tremendously impressed by Dr. Wilkinson's great abilities and spiritual earnestness. "Here is a Christian," he said to himself, "who isabsolutely sincere and of great intellectual power. Can Christianity be merely a modern form of Paganism when such noble souls as these profess it?" He listened to Dr. Wilkinson, and was on the way to conversion when the good rector advised him to have recourse to the learned Dr. Ewald, a celebrated Jewish missionary of the L.J.S., for the solution of difficulties which only a Hebraist could deal with successfully. Rosenthal was eventually baptized by Ewald. He took orders in the English Church, being ordained deacon by Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, in 1877. Four years later he was admitted to the priesthood, and he served for thirteen years as curate to the Rev. S. J. Stone, author of "The Church's One Foundation," at St. Paul's, Haggerston, devoting himself chiefly to mission work among the East-end Jews. He organized the East London Mission to the Jews, which first came under regular diocesan management when the present Bishop of London was Bishop of Stepney. In 1899 Bishop Creighton presented Mr. Rosenthal to St. Mark's, Whitechapel, a parish which is inhabited almost entirely by Jews. He met with a good deal of hostility from the Jews in the first years, but he talked straight to them and gradually the opposition died down, and he steadily pursued his mission work among them. His labours were attended with considerable success. He said that he had himself baptized over six hundred Jews and Jewesses.
Rosenthal, Wildan Charles (Simeon), a learned Jew in Jerusalem, was baptized with his wife, sonand daughter by Nicolayson in 1839. This family were the firstfruits of the L.J.S. mission in the Holy City. His daughter became the wife of Mr. Bergheim, the banker, a Jewish convert.
Rossvally, Dr. Max L., an American Jewish convert in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He had been an actor, and after his conversion became well-known as a lecturer in America and in England. He displayed great zeal in his endeavours to form a Hebrew Christian Union, and in 1877 it is recorded that two hundred converts were united together and held monthly meetings in New York and in Brooklyn. Rossvally wrote "The Dying Trumpeter and his Experience," a German version of which appeared in Hamburg, in 1891.
Ruben, Maurice, was born in Prussia, in 1856. His people were typical Jews, strict in their customs and in the observance of Jewish laws and traditions. He came to the United States when he was sixteen years of age. In 1895 he had the position of department manager in one of Pittsburg's largest stores. His brother was half owner of this enterprise. Plans were under way to admit him into a partnership in the firm, which would have made him to-day—had he chosen "the way of the world"—a man of wealth, with an annual income of 15,000 dollars.
Just prior to this he had married a charming and accomplished Jewess. In the matter of religion he had wandered from Judaism to infidelity. Being dissatisfied with unbelief, he began to "search the Scriptures"—both the Old and New Testament—whichresulted in the opening of his eyes; he began to appreciate his own sinfulness, and was thoroughly convicted of sin, the need of repentance, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. His conversion took place on March 19th, 1895, and resulted in a most striking change of both conduct and thought.
He continued to engage in earnest studies and to make it known to his friends and acquaintances that he had found Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, even the Messiah. Some months later he felt called upon to announce his determination to forsake business and become a servant of the Lord among his own people, believing he was being led by God even as his forefathers Abraham and Moses.
As a result of his decision he was baptized, and set out to illumine the spiritual darkness of "his brethren according to the flesh."
The Jews were very greatly disturbed at this conduct of one of their prominent young men, and here the trials and troubles of Maurice Ruben began. They made repeated efforts to induce him to forsake his "change of life," but their efforts were futile. His wife ostensibly left their comfortable home with her mother to visit friends in the West.
On a Sunday evening in August, subsequent to his conversion, he was awakened from his slumber by the ringing of the door-bell. Responding thereto he found himself face to face with two policemen. He was placed under arrest and taken to the police station without a warrant of law.
He was given no explanation as to the chargewhich had been preferred against him, and neither on Sunday nor Monday did a magistrate appear to give him a hearing. He was, however, visited twice by two physicians, who conversed with him in a mysterious manner. They introduced themselves as insanity experts. Two days and two nights in a felon's cell, with worse than a criminal's treatment, was a most trying circumstance. Yet God was there to minister strength unto him. (St. Luke x. 19.) He was visited on the second day by his wealthy brother, who kindly informed him that he had been crazed by religion and was to be sent for treatment to a sanatorium. He was taken that evening by officers of the law to an asylum for the insane.
In the course of a few days he was pronounced by the superintendent of the institution to be a perfectly sane man, but he was unable to release him. His Christian friends endeavoured to intercede for him, but without avail, and consequently this tried child of God was called upon to endure the humiliation of five weeks' confinement in a mad-house, and given the same treatment accorded to hundreds of demented folk in the institution.
He was visited several times by his wealthy brother who offered him his liberty if he would leave Pittsburg and go West, but he took a firm stand and gladly refused to do anything except to remain in the city and preach the Gospel of the Son of God to his brethren. A man of considerable business interests in the city, Mr. J. B. Corey, finally heard of him through the daily papers, and was led to call upon him incompany with a number of the officials of the institution. Mr. Corey and the gentlemen found Mr. Ruben in his little room reading the Bible. A short conversation satisfied the visitors that steps must be taken to obtain the freedom of this man. Mr. Corey then institutedhabeas corpusproceedings before the late Judge White.
At the close the judge frankly informed the wealthy brother and the insanity experts that they and all connected with this outrageous infamy ought to be sent to prison, and that the alleged demented man was saner than those who had pronounced him insane.
Mr. Ruben at once began to prepare himself for his missionary work, and sometime later opened up headquarters in Congress Street—the centre of the Jewish Ghetto—and suffered much persecution. For the first few years he was interfered with and maligned in every way imaginable. His street meetings were frequently broken up, and he was hooted and stoned by the Jewish element. "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." God, however, led him safely through all his difficulties and trials, and enabled him to found the New Covenant Mission, Pittsburg, Pa.[21]
Rubino, Dr. Joseph Karl Friedrich, was born at Wetzlar in 1799. He became professor at Marberg in 1831. His intercourse with earnest Christians at Cassel, and especially with a converted Jewess, known in Germany as Mother Jolberg, led him to investigate thequestion at issue between Judaism and Christianity for himself, and being convinced of the truth of the latter, he made a public confession of it by baptism at Cassel in 1842, and lived a consistent life. On the evening before his death he said to friends, "No other foundation can any man lay than that is laid, even Jesus Christ."
Runhold, Karl Wilhelm (Zacharia Lehman), Ph.D., was born at Hamburg in 1777. His father was a silk merchant there. At the age of twenty-two he became an evangelical Christian, graduated at Rostok in 1812, and distinguished himself afterwards as a writer. He edited the "Gemein-nützigen Unterhaltungs blätter," the "Allgemeine Theater Zeitung," and the "Archive für Theater und Literatur" in Hamburg. He died in 1841.
Sachs, Marcus, was born of wealthy parents in 1812, at Inowrallan in Posen. His father sent him to an uncle to study at the Gymnasium and afterwards at the University there. During his studies he lost his faith in Judaism and became a follower of Voltaire. In 1842 he went to Edinburgh and became acquainted with the professor of theology, Dr. John Brown, who made an effort to win him for Christianity, and gave him to read the well-known book of Abbot Guenée "Lettres de quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais à M. Voltaire." After he returned it Dr. Brown asked him whether he would like to read a book which defended the Christian religion? and on his affirmative reply he gave him Limbroch's "Amica Collatio cum eruditoJudæo." These two books removed his prejudices, and he then began to read the New Testament, and after months of enquiry, deliberation and prayer he decided to accept Christianity by faith, and was baptized by Dr. Brown, April 5th, 1843. He then studied under Dr. Chalmers, and was licensed to preach, and became tutor of Hebrew in the Seminary of the Free Church at Aberdeen. He is described as a most humble and loving Christian man by Dr. Saphir and others who knew him. He died there on September 29th, 1869, passing away with the leaves of autumn, a ripe sheaf into the garner of God.
Salkinson,Isaac Edward, was born at Wilna, and died at Vienna, June 5th, 1883. According to some, his father's name was Solomon Salkind. As a youth he set out for America with the intention of entering a rabbinical seminary there; but whilst in London he was met by agents of the L.J.S., from whom he heard the Gospel and was converted and baptized. His first appointment as a missionary to the Jews was at Edinburgh, where he became a student in the Divinity Hall. He was ordained a minister of the Presbyterian Church at Glasgow, in 1859. He was then a missionary of the British Society in various towns, including Pressburg, and finally settled in Vienna (1876). Salkinson translated "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation" under the title "Sod ha-Jeshu'ah" (Altona, 1858); "Milton's Paradise Lost," under the title "Wa Yegaresh et haadam" (Vienna, 1871); Shakespeare's "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet,"under the titles "Itiel ha kushi" (ib., 1874; preface by P. Smolensky); and "Ram we-Yael" (ib., 1878); Tiedge's "Urania," under the title "Ben Koheleth" (ib., 1876, revised); and the New Testament under the title "Haberith Hahadasha." The last mentioned translation was undertaken for the British Society in 1887; it was published posthumously under the supervision of Dr. C. D. Ginsburg at Vienna in 1886.
Salvador, Yonkheer Moses, flourished at Amsterdam in the middle of the nineteenth century. One of his ancestors built the Salvador house near the Bank of England. It is said that the Salvadors were direct descendants of the Maccabees, the Saviours of Israel, hence the name Salvador, meaning Saviour. Moses Salvador was intimately acquainted with Pauli and welcomed him to his house, where they discussed the subject of Christianity. The result was that he joined the French Reformed Church, at Haarlem in 1852. For a long time after his conversion he used to give Thursday evening lectures on Christianity, which were attended by Christians and Jews.
Samany, a native of Assesso in Abyssinia, was one of Flad's early converts there. He had to undergo bitter reproaches from his mother and relations on account of his becoming a Christian, but his reply to his mother was that he loved her now better than before, and that he would take care of her. Working on his weaver's stool he at the same time used to speak to his two sisters of the "pearl of great price" that he had found, and they too became Christians. During the imprisonment of the missionaries,he attached himself to Waldemayer, who was free. After the arrival of the English expedition he went to the coast, where he and his companion Petrus were met by the Jewish traveller Halevy, who gave them some money and promised to take them to Paris. Not perceiving at once his intention, they accepted the money, but they brought it back to him the next morning, and as he refused to take it back, they threw it into the sea, although they suffered hunger at the time. Then they went to Magdala, and afterwards with Flad to Europe, and were placed in the training school at St. Chrischona, near Basle. But as Samany could not stand the climate there, Flad took him to his own house at Kornthal, and was then obliged to send him back to Abyssinia. On his return he and Agashe preached the Gospel earnestly to the Falashas. Samany continued to do so even from his sick bed. Conscious that the time of his departure had come, he asked that the coffin which he had before prepared for himself should be placed before him, then saying, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," he entered into rest.
Samson, Lewis Paul, was an English Jew by birth, the son of a Dutch "sopher" (writer of scrolls of the law and of phylacteries). When a boy he used to hear Dr. McNeile at St. Jude's, Liverpool, and in other ways came in contact with Christian influences. When he became forty years old he was asked by his children to hear them repeat a portion of Scripture which they had been taught at school. It happened to be Isaiah liii., and it proved to be the turningpoint in his life. Like many another Jew, he could not believe at first that it was a part of the Old Testament, but it led eventually to his baptism by a Hebrew Christian, who was one of the Society's missionaries.
His public profession of Christianity made him an object of abhorrence to his brothers and sisters, though later on they learned to respect him for his simple, unswerving faith, and some of them, it is believed, became Christians. He continued his occupation, but at the same time was an active worker in St. Jude's parish, until his appointment under the Society. He was a man of one book and that book the Bible, which he knew almost by heart. Many a Jew was struck by his intimate knowledge of the Word of God, and none ever doubted his being a true believer, however much they disliked his invariably holding up Christ before them. Many of the poor Jews, both converted and unconverted, missed him, after his death, as a friend in need, who often used to minister to their necessities out of his scanty earnings. At one time, he was known to have lived for weeks on sixpence a day, to save up the money which he had borrowed and advanced to a Jew who either could not, or would not, repay. No wonder that so many Christians learned to love and respect him as "an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile."
Saphir, Rev. Adolph, D.D. We learn from him the story of his conversion in one short sentence: "I, at that time, a lad in my twelfth year, was the first of our family to accept the Gospel." Mr. Wingate,who gives an account of the event, says that the Jews testified to Adolph's being born again from on high. "We heard that the Jews were saying that the Holy Ghost had fallen on Saphir's son, and that he expounded the Scripture as they had never heard it before." In the autumn of 1843, Adolph went to Dr. Duncan in Edinburgh, that he might perfect his knowledge of English, where he remained six months, and then went to Berlin, and studied at the Gymnasium from 1844 to 1848, acquiring a thorough knowledge not only of German literature, but also of German philosophy. In 1848-49, he was tutor in the family of Mr. William Brown in Aberdeen. In 1854, after finishing his theological studies, he was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry, and licensed as a preacher in Belfast. He then laboured as a missionary to the Jews in Hamburg for one year. Then he had the charge of a church in South Shields, and in 1861 he received a call to Greenwich, where people from various churches flocked to hear him. In 1872 a church was purchased for him at Notting Hill, where his ministry was always attended by all sorts of earnest Christians, especially his Thursday morning lectures. This was also the case wherever he went to preach. Saphir's love and devotion to his people and to the cause of missions was boundless. He died April 4, 1891, a few days after his wife. His last sermon was on the text, "And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." The following are some of Saphir's works: (1) "Who is a Jew?"; (2) "Who is an Apostate?"; (3) "ExpositoryLectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews"; (4) "The Hidden Life"; (5) "Our Life Day"; (6) "Found by the Good Shepherd"; (7) "Life of Faith"; (8) "The Compassion of Jesus"; (9) "The Everlasting Nation"; (10) "Christian Perfection"; (11) "The Unity of the Scriptures"; (12) "Christ and the Scriptures"; (13) "The Lord's Prayer"; (14) "Israel's Present and Future"; and (15) "All Israel shall be Saved."
Saphir, Israel, brother of the famous satirist at Vienna, was living in Pesth in the first half of the nineteenth century, where, owing to his erudition and character, he exercised great influence upon the Jewish community, and was regarded by them as another Gamaliel. Coming in contact with the Scotch missionaries, Dr. Duncan, Mr. Wingate, Mr. Smith and Dr. Schwartz, he heard the Gospel from them, and when convinced of its truth he did not hesitate to embrace it. This is described by his son in a few words: "Through the instrumentality of the Scotch missionaries my father saw the truth as it is in Jesus, and was received into the Christian Church in 1843 at the age of sixty-three years."
Saphir, Philipp, an elder brother of Adolph, was rather inclined to worldliness, but became serious when there was an inundation in Pesth, and he had tried to save life. In 1842 Rev. Dr. Schwartz passed through Pesth on his way to Constantinople, and Philipp heard his addresses to Jews, and was impressed, becoming conscious of sin and the need of pardon. He was baptized in the Calvinistic Church of Pesth, in 1843, by Superintendent Paul Török. He wroteafterwards to Mr. Schwartz: "I was admitted into the Church of Christ. I cannot describe my feelings to you. Ah! the infinite love of God! He has given me much peace, nothing will deprive me of it. I am happy, joyful; my soul is with God. I praise Christ every hour." He then, being nineteen years of age, went to Carlsruhe to be trained as a teacher, and on his return to Pesth in 1845, at once set to work and organized a Y.M.C.A. Becoming ill, he taught poor Christian and Jewish children gratis from his sick bed "The Evangelical doctrine as he found it in the Word of God." He died September 27, 1849, whilst his father knelt by his side with two friends engaged in prayer. The daughters of Israel Saphir all became devoted Christians. One was married to Rev. Dr. Schwartz, and the other to Rev. C. A. Schönberger, both well known in the Christian Church.
Saul, Aaron, was baptized by the L.J.S. missionaries in 1812. Lewis Way took him to his Seminary. He however did not become at once a missionary, but engaged in business and held the office of Clerk in Palestine Place Chapel, and taught in the Sunday School for twenty-seven years. He devoted himself especially to the care of enquirers and to the circulation of the "Old Paths" and other missionary literature among the Jews in London. From 1841 to 1843, he laboured as missionary at Brussels, and died in London, Jews following his funeral.
Sargon, Michael, was born of Jewish parents at Cochin in 1795, and died about 1855. He was convertedin 1818, through the preaching of J. Jarrett of Madras, and became the first missionary of the L.J.S. to the Jews in India. In 1820 Sargon visited his parents at Cochin, who received him kindly, and for a time the Jews there seemed to have no objection to discussing with him his new faith. A local committee was found in Madras with Sargon as the representative missionary. Madras became the centre of the Society's work in India. In 1822 Sargon had 116 Jewish children under his charge at Cochin, but in 1824 he was transferred to Bombay, where he opened, under the auspices of the L.J.S., a school exclusively for Jews. In Cochin Sargon baptized a Jew and two Jewesses in 1828. He and his brother Abraham continued their educational activity for nearly thirty-nine years after the Society had ceased to give a grant to the Bombay mission. (Report of L.J.S., 1821.)
Schapiro, B. A. M. One summer morning in the year 1890 there visited the reading room of the Hebrew Christian Mission, 17, St. Mark's Place, New York, a Hebrew lad of nineteen years, with bright eyes and curly black hair. He had just arrived there from Germany, although he was a native of Poland. The boy's keen, intelligent countenance attracted the attention of the Rev. Jacob Freshman, Superintendent of the mission, and as several Jewish men were having a lesson in English, that gentleman suggested that the young Jew should become a member of the class. The stranger knew no English, the teacher had no knowledge of Polish or Russian, consequently their conversation was carried on mainly by pantomime,and with the help of one of the scholars, who acted as interpreter. Jews are naturally fine students, grasping knowledge with avidity. The new arrival proved no exception to the rule, and so before the forenoon ended he had learned the English names of the articles of furniture in the room, the days of the week, the numerals from one to ten, and also how to write his name, "Benjamin Aaron Moses Alexander Schapiro", in English script. Long after, when he had learned to speak English with ease, we asked: "Why did your parents burden you with such a number of names?" "Because," was his answer, "they hoped and wished that I might combine in my character, when I came to manhood, the qualities of patriarch, priest, prophet and king." He was a fine Hebrew scholar, and carefully followed in a Hebrew Bible the Psalms which the other pupils read in English. We found at our next visit the new pupil awaiting our coming. His countenance glowed with pleasure, as he cordially grasped our hand and proceeded to dispose of our satchel and umbrella. That morning he read several pages in an English primer. When we went again we found that Benjamin had taken his departure, though urged by the superintendent and his kind wife, for they both had become greatly interested in him, to make their house his home for an unlimited period. His proud, ambitious spirit chafed at the thought of becoming a burden on the hands of strangers, so he started out to earn his own living, an entirely new experience in his case. Hitherto he had never been called upon to solve the three vitalproblems: "What to eat," "What to drink," "Wherewithal to be clothed." His brief stay at the mission proved, however, a very important epoch in this young life. The seeds of Gospel truth were sown in his heart, and afterwards quickened by the Holy Spirit, sprang up, budded, blossomed, and ultimately bore the fruitage of earnest work for the Master. Two years had elapsed since our first meeting. One evening, at the close of the service in a Hebrew Christian Church, we were cordially greeted by a young man. The native dress had been changed for American, the hair arranged in a different style, etc. So great was the transformation that at the first glance we failed to recognize our quondam pupil and friend. He then told us what had befallen him since we last met. He had, soon after leaving the mission, found employment with Mr. Benjamin Clayton, a butcher at Jamaica, L. I. Imagine, if you can, what a trial it must have been to one brought up to a strict observance of the tenets of orthodox Judaism to have to handle "Gentile" meat, especially the abhorred pork. A Christian man who dealt at the shop became interested in the young stranger, seeing him to be the possessor of talents which ought to be improved and developed. This kind friend placed him under Christian tutors.
Eventually Mr. Schapiro was converted, and publicly confessed Christ, and united with a church in Brooklyn. Soon after taking this important and decisive step he was convinced that it was his bounden duty and glorious privilege to tell the story of aRedeemer's love to his own people. Very visionary seemed the project. How could he, a youth who had not yet attained his majority, a stranger, a foreigner, a "despised" Jew, without means, with few friends, accomplish this mighty undertaking? Faith laughs at impossibilities. Enthusiasm is ever contagious. A few friends became interested, amongst others Mr. Horatio S. Stewart, the gentleman who had previously provided him with a scholarship at Pennington Seminary. The first Jewish mission work in Brooklyn was inaugurated in that part of the Twenty-sixth Ward known commonly as "Brownsville." Here a colony of Polish and Russian Jews had taken up their abode. A small hall was hired and services held on Saturday afternoon. Great was the excitement, tremendous the opposition. Jews gathered in crowds, anxious to hear what the youth might have to say concerning his apostasy from the faith of his fathers. Men thrice his age plied him with questions regarding Christianity, quibbles mostly; occasionally, perhaps, an enquirer might have been moved with a genuine desire to know the truth. The young missionary, however, was enabled to possess his soul in patience, and with quiet dignity to repel their attacks. The following incidents will serve as representative specimens of these interruptions: Once, when the missionary was giving a brief exposition of the first chapter of St. John's Gospel—"In the beginning was the Word," etc., "'Logos' as 'word' here is in the Greek synonymous with 'Memrah' in the Rabbinical writings," he remarked. A Jew sprang to his feet ina second. "You cunning Mr. Missionary!" he shouted—"trying to prove your statements from the Talmud, which you profess to disbelieve, because you cannot prove them from the Old Testament!" Quick as a flash came the rejoinder: "David, in the thirty-third Psalm, sixth verse, says: 'By the "word" of the Lord were the heavens established.'" The assailant was effectually silenced, but so angry was he at having been outwitted in public by one so much younger than himself that whenever he chanced to see the missionary approaching he would quickly cross to the other side of the street.
On another occasion a Jew said: "You know perfectly well how wrong and wicked it is for a man to desert the religion of his fathers. Why, even the Gentiles despise those who are guilty of such an act!" "What do you mean by the religion of our fathers?" was asked in return. "Why, of course, I mean the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," the Jew answered. "But Abraham departed from the faith of his fathers. This 'apostasy' was imputed unto him for righteousness. You reproach me because I have departed from the religion of my fathers, which you claim to be the 'true religion.' Listen for a moment to the witness borne by Moses and the prophets concerning the religion of our fathers. Moses, our great lawgiver, says: 'Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not the good land to possess for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.' 'You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.'Isaiah the evangelist, says of our fathers: 'From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores.' 'Ah! sinful nation!' and mark the expression: 'A seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters.' In another place the same prophet says: 'Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.' Jeremiah says: 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.' The weeping prophet declares: 'All these nations are uncircumcised, and the house of Israel is uncircumcised.' Jehovah himself says to Ezekiel: 'Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. For they are impudent children and hard-hearted.' The suffering prophet again says: 'Thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech, and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; not to many people of a strange speech, and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand; surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto Me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted.' Jesus the great teacher, said: 'Ye are of your father, the devil.' Now, in view of all these assertions, can you still insist upon my still adhering to the 'religion of my fathers.'You say: 'The Gentiles despise those who have departed from the religion of their ancestors.' That statement can be easily disproved from history. Jesus, Paul and the other founders of the Christian Church all apostasized from the faith of their fathers. Luther, a Roman Catholic, became the leader of the Reformation. Neander, Edersheim, Saphir and a host of other converted Jews have been indeed 'the glory of Israel, and lights to lighten the Gentiles.'"
These Saturday services were continued for more than two years. An evening school, where Jewish people, employed during the day, could receive gratuitous instruction in English, was carried on with a great degree of success. A protracted strike among the tailors, cloak-makers and operators on men's clothing, the principal industries of this settlement, reduced the people to the direst poverty; hundreds were on the verge of starvation. In this, the time of their need, Mr. Schapiro, at his own expense, opened a soup-kitchen in his rooms, himself serving the tables, and for more than two weeks scores were fed. That no offence might be given to their prejudices, the meat was "Kosher," that is, bought at a Jewish butcher's, and prepared by a Jewish cook. This kind, thoughtful treatment did much to disarm their repugnance against him as a Christian. The missionary also opened a similar mission in the Sixteenth Ward, Eastern District, where there is a Jewish population of 50,000, and for nearly a year carried on the two stations, holding a service at Brownsville on Saturday morning, and a second one in the newmission in the afternoon. Finally his committee deemed it best to confine his labours entirely to the Eastern District station, as they considered it the more hopeful field, on account of the large number of Jews in the vicinity. Meanwhile a denominational mission had been established in Brownsville. The Brooklyn Christian Mission to the Jews has from the outset been interdenominational. This work in the Eastern District was not inaugurated without opposition. The missionary and the men who assisted him in the distribution of the notices for the services and tracts were targets for the stones of crowds of Jewish boys. The older people greeted them with sneers, derision, offensive epithets, and sometimes with curses. Among the Jewish boys, Samuel ——, acted as leader and instigator in the attacks. After a while he ventured into the mission, intending to create a disturbance, and, if possible, break up the services, but the story of a Saviour's love fell upon his ears, and as has many times happened in the history of missions, he who "came to mock remained to pray." Samuel was convinced, converted, and for two years has been a consistent member of a church in this city.
After seven years of mission work, owing to the combined labour of carrying on the service and collecting funds for the maintenance of the mission, his health broke down and he gave up the work.
In June, 1900, Mr. Schapiro published the first number of "The People, the Land and the Book." He had a theory that much of the variance existingbetween Jews and Christians had its foundation in mutual ignorance and misapprehension of their different religious beliefs. He designed to reach both parties in a spirit of love.
Mr. Schapiro for eleven years had no home, no intercourse with his own family. Having become an "apostate," he was worse than dead to them. All his overtures for reconciliation were scornfully rejected. To be cut off from all one's relatives, to have no home life, is ever a great affliction, particularly to a Jew, for the Jewish attachment and devotion to home and family are proverbial. A Jew who has embraced Christianity can sing in all sincerity, "Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee," for it is his veritable experience.
One day he chanced to meet a fellow-townsman, who, to his great surprise, told Mr. Schapiro of the latter's cousin, who lived in New York. Of course he lost no time in hunting up this relative. At first he was greeted with sharp, bitter reproach, for his change of faith, but when it was manifest that his love for Christ had not obliterated, but rather intensified, his love of kindred, speedy reconciliation followed. Mr. Schapiro learned that his father had lost his property, and also that his eldest son had died. Letters were exchanged, and complete reconciliation ensued.
The painful situation of the Jews in Russia made Mr. Schapiro anxious on his family's behalf. Through the assistance of kind friends he was enabled to bringover two of his sisters. They reached there one Thursday, and a week later found employment. There were still eight remaining at home, father, mother, brothers and sisters. Through the efforts of the once deemed lost brother "Joseph" they were enabled to go, and are now comfortably situated in their own home in New York.
Mr. Schapiro's life is not lacking in romance. Some years ago, while he was conducting the mission in Boerum Street, a pretty Jewish girl of thirteen, whose parents lived opposite, frequently attended the services. After a while the family moved and Mr. Schapiro lost sight of his little friend. After he had left the mission, and was conducting the magazine, they chanced to meet again. Their renewed acquaintance ripened into love, and a year after they were married. Mrs. Schapiro is a charming little woman, bright and attractive. Their union has been blessed with a darling little daughter, Beatrice Sylvia, now nineteen months old. The former homeless wanderer rejoices in a pleasant, tastefully arranged home, and a wife who delights to minister to his comfort, and is hospitable in the extreme, always welcoming his friends, and leaving nothing undone which can minister to their comfort.
This paper has already far exceeded the limits originally intended; still it seems impossible to close it without some slight character delineations. Mr. Schapiro, so the Jews who come from his native place tell us, is of a good family; his father was a man of wealth and position, and was noted for his rigidadherence to the tenets of orthodox Judaism. One can easily understand how sore a trial it must have been for such a Jewish father to have his son embrace Christianity, and what in his opinion was still more disgraceful, to have that son become a missionary of the Cross among his own people. Mr. Schapiro is intensely fond of books, is a good student, ambitious to be thoroughly educated, and is already quite a forcible speaker. Fearlessness forms one of the strong points of his character. He is positive, liberal, without being a radical, conservative, yet not bigoted. He has what is an absolute requisite to all who undertake leadership of any kind—good executive ability. Naturally sensitive, as a missionary among the Jews he has had many a fiery ordeal to pass through and many hard reproofs to bear. But to his credit, be it said, he has been enabled to retain his patience and to exhibit a forgiving disposition. He had a very correct idea of the propriety and reverence with which all religious services should be conducted. Never using cant expressions, and although gifted with a keen sense of the humorous, he never stooped to ridiculous illustrations, which, though they create laughter, leave no lasting impression for good. He has never sought notoriety. Mr. Schapiro is still a young man, and like all young people, has much to learn, but if health and strength are granted, he bids fair to become an able advocate of the Messiah among his own brethren after the flesh, the Jews.[22]
Schereschewsky, Dr. Samuel Isaac Joseph, from 1877 to 1883 missionary bishop of the American Church in China. He was born at Tanroggen, in Russian Lithuania, in the year 1831, and brought up in the religion and learning of the Jews, graduating from the University of Breslau. The reading of the New Testament in a Hebrew translation, which had fallen into his hands, convinced him of the truth of Christianity. This must have been the Society's version, as at that time Professor Delitzsch's and Salkinson's versions were not in existence; and, therefore, the Society was the first agent in the Bishop's conversion. Soon after his confession of Christ he went to the United States. He acquired his knowledge of Greek in the Theological Seminary at New York, which he entered in 1857. The Christians with whom he first came into contact belonged to the Baptist and the Presbyterian denominations; he was baptized by a minister of the former, and studied theology in a seminary of the latter body. But before he had finished his studies, he had learned and acknowledged the position of the Episcopal Church, and was admitted a candidate for holy orders under the Bishop of Maryland. In 1859 he was ordained deacon in St. George's Church, New York, and in the following year was advanced to the priesthood in China, whither he had accompanied the elder Bishop Boon on his return from a home visit.
In the autumn of 1861, Schereschewsky made a translation of the Psalms into the colloquial. This was his first work. In 1863 he moved to Pekin andbegan, with Bishop Burdon of Hong Kong, the translation of the first Mandarin Prayer Book. The main part of this book, viz., Morning and Evening Prayer, the Collects, and the Psalter, were his work; Bishop Burdon taking the remainder of the Book. This was completed in 1864. In 1865 a committee of five leading Chinese scholars, Dr. Edkins, Dr. Martin, Dr. Blodgett, Bishop Burdon and himself, undertook the translation of the New Testament into Mandarin. This is still in use generally throughout the Empire. The only other Mandarin version in existence at that time was Dr. Medhurst's "Mandarin," which was based on the so-called "Delegates' Version" in Wen-li. The Bishop began the translation of the Old Testament himself into Mandarin, in the autumn of 1865, and finished this colossal undertaking at the end of eight years. This, with the Mandarin Testament mentioned above, forms the ordinary Chinese Bible in general use by Christians in China, and is read at every service from the lecterns in the China Mission of the American Episcopal Church, as mentioned in the organ of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the American Church.
In 1875, Dr. Channing Moore Williams, the American Bishop for China and Japan, having been assigned to the work in Japan alone, Dr. Schereschewsky was elected Bishop of Shanghai. With great modesty and self-distrust he declined the office; but being again chosen in 1877, he was persuaded that it was his duty to undertake its labours and responsibility. He returned as Bishop to Shanghaiin the autumn of 1878, and, in the course of the year 1879, translated the whole Prayer Book into Wen-li, or classic style, blending with it as much as possible the English and American Prayer Books, with the hope that all missions of the Anglican communion might use it in China. Although this hope was not gratified, the book was for many years the only one in use in all the American missions, and formed the basis of the colloquial versions which have since superseded it. In 1879 the Bishop went up the river to Wuchang, and began the translation of the Apocrypha. He had only completed one book when he was smitten down during the intense heat of the summer of 1881, and his physicians ordered his removal to Europe, whither he went the following spring. He was under treatment from 1882 to 1886, at Geneva in Switzerland. In 1883 Bishop Schereschewsky, unwilling to retain an office whose duties he could not discharge, resigned his Bishopric.
With wonderful perseverance he now devoted all his energies of mind, which remained unimpaired, to the work of bringing the Scriptures within the reach of the Chinese nation. Fully acquainted with their language in its different forms, and being not only a skilful Sinologist, but one of the most learned Orientalists in the world—and that by the testimony of Professor Max Müller—using a pen as long as he could hold a pen, and then, owing to paralysis, working on a typewriter with the two fingers which he could control, he translated the Old Testament from the original Hebrew into the Mandarin dialect, leavingto a secretary only the reduction of the typewritten words into the Chinese character. For twenty years, day after day, in China, and for a while in Massachusetts, and more recently in Japan, when he was near a printing-press which he could use, he worked under disadvantages which would have put an end to the courage and the labours of almost any other man. Not long before his death he completed his greatest work, the translation of the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha, into the Wen-li dialect. He also wrote Chinese grammars and dictionaries, and translated the Gospels into Mongolian, preparing also a dictionary of that language. He died at Tokyo, on October 15th, 1906.
We may add the following extract from the Bible Society's memoir of the Bishop, written by the Rev. Crayden Edmunds, M.A.:
"His early training, whereby he came to know Hebrew better than any other language, specially fitted him to become a translator of the Old Testament. This peculiar fitness was soon recognised by his missionary colleagues, who about 1865 entrusted him with the translation of the Old Testament into Northern Mandarin. He also worked on the Peking Committee as a translator of the New Testament. His version of the Old Testament, first published by the American Bible Society in 1875, has since been repeatedly issued by both the A.B.S. and the B.F.B.S. A revised edition appeared in 1899. But a still greater work was his translation of the whole Bible into Easy Wenli; he added the NewTestament in this case, in order to secure uniformity; both Burdon and Blodgett's, and Griffith John's versions of the New Testament being in a somewhat different style. This Bible the A.B.S. published in 1902.
"The significance of Bishop Schereschewsky's achievements, however, lies not so much in their extent and scholarship as in their testimony to the indomitable courage of the man and his devotion to his work. Six years after his consecration as Bishop he became paralysed, and had to resign his episcopal jurisdiction. His malady increased till it left him with the use of only the middle finger of each hand. Fortunately his intellect remained unimpaired, and with these two fingers he was able to type out his MSS., which were afterwards rewritten in Chinese characters by his secretary.
"But the toil was well worth while. To this man alone has it been granted to give to the two hundred and fifty million Mandarin-speaking Chinese, as well as to the mass of readers in China, the Oracles of God as found in the Old Testament. Reviewing, therefore, his life in the light of these facts, we may surely trace the divine purpose in taking him from one task, for which a successor would without difficulty be found, and setting him free for another, for which his whole previous life had been a unique preparation. As a translator his influence has been far wider than it could have been as a Bishop, and Chinese Christians will ever remember, with gratitude to God, the great scholar who out ofweakness was made strong—who laid so well and so truly the foundations of the Bible in their greatest vernacular, and in the more popular form of their written language."
Schlochow, Rev. Emmanuel, was born at Wingiz in Silesia. His father being indifferent to religion, he had no religious education, and became only aware that he was a Jew when his fellow-Christian scholars mockingly reminded him of it at school. This he could not endure, and his father advised him to go to a Roman Catholic priest and be baptized. However, he was then a thorough infidel, and at one time, on account of some disappointment that he had met with, he bought a pistol and was about to commit suicide, when the Scotch missionary Cerf knocked at the door of his room, and not only rescued him from taking away his life, but by God's help enabled him to devote that life to His service. He was converted and baptized in 1848. In 1851 he became connected with the L.J.S., and was sent as a missionary in 1853 to Jassy, where he remained three years. In 1856 he was appointed to Alsace, and had his station at Strassburg, whence he itinerated to France and the Rhine provinces, and met everywhere acceptance among Jews and Christians. In 1874 he went with the Rev. A. Bernstein on visits to several rabbis in Alsace and Lorraine, when they were cordially received and had profitable conversations. He then was transferred to Crefeld, but much suffering from asthma obliged him to retire to Worthing, where he died in 1876, and upon his tombstone in the churchyardthere can be read the words in Hebrew, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," so that he still preaches to Jewish visitors.
Schönberger, Rev. C. A., after embracing Christianity, studied at Pesth and Basle and Leipzig, laboured for some time as a Scotch Free Church missionary at Pesth, where many Jews attended his lectures. He was ordained in Stuttgart in 1867, laboured then at Prague till 1872, when he entered the service of the British Society, and was sent back to Prague, and from there he was transferred to Vienna, where he was very efficient and realized the fulness of blessing upon his ministry. Some of his converts became preachers of the Gospel among Jews and Christians. About 1892 he returned to England, and on account of illness resigned his office. After the death of his brother-in-law, Dr. Saphir, he felt that he was called to supply in some measure his influence on behalf of the Jews, and he connected himself with the work carried on by Rabbi Lichtenstein at Pesth, and joining the Rev. David Baron, they both founded a mission in East London, under the name of the "Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel," where a great work has been going on ever since in their own mission-house in Whitechapel Road, whence the Gospel has been carried by word and literature to Hungary, the Danubian Principalities, and Russia.
Scialitti, Rabbi Moses, an Italian Jew, was baptized on Trinity Sunday, 1663 by Dr. Warmestre, Dean of Worcester, at the Church of St. Margaret, when theBishop of Chester, Dr. Samuel Collins, the Countess Lucy of Huntingdon, and other persons of high standing were sponsors by proxy. Scialitti subsequently addressed a letter in Italian and English to the Jews, stating the grounds for his embracing Christianity, and exhorting them to go and do likewise.
Schuffamer, Rabbi Elisha, came from Salonica to Jerusalem, and was through the preaching of Dr. Ewald converted to Christianity and baptized in 1848. He then returned to Salonica to fetch his family, but four of his children had died, yet his wife followed him to Jerusalem. There he was employed for a time as layreader, and was afterwards transferred to Cairo, where he had a Bible depôt.
Schulhof, Dr. M., a Jewish convert, was a medical missionary of the British Society. In 1854 he published: "Notes on Diseases in Turkey in reference to European troops and Memoir of the remittant fever of the Levant."
Schwartz, Rev. Dr. Karl (Solomon), was born at Meseritz in Posen in 1817. His father, Isaac Schwartz was a merchant, and gave him a strict rabbinic education, cherishing the hope that he would one day become a teacher in Israel. To this end he was sent to Berlin in 1832 to study at the rabbinic Seminary there. In the lectures the professors occasionally compared Judaism with Christianity, to the disadvantage, of course, of the latter. This excited in Schwartz a desire to examine Christianity for himself, so he took the first step by exchanging the Seminary for the Gymnasium. During the course ofhis studies he was instructed in Christianity and baptized October 18, 1837. He then studied theology for a year at Halle, under Tholuck, and then under Neander, Hengstenberg, and Twesten, for four years at Berlin. At that time he used to give lessons in foreign languages to the inmates of the Berlin House for foreign missions, when his landlady said to him once, "It is all very nice for you to teach these young men foreign languages in order that they may be qualified to preach the Gospel to the heathen. Have you at all thought of your own brethren who live in your own neighbourhood without the light of the Gospel?" This was a word in season. Thereupon he entered into correspondence with the L.J.S., joined the Church of England, and was ordained deacon by the Bishop of London on March 20, 1842, and was sent by the Society to Constantinople. On his way there he sojourned for awhile at Pesth, where his lectures on Isaiah liii. bore good fruit, and it seems that he then got engaged to Maria Dorothea, a daughter of Israel Saphir. He did not remain very long in Constantinople, because his connexion with the Scotch Mission at Pesth caused him to join the Free Church of Scotland, and he was sent by that Church to Berlin, where he was stationed from 1844 to 1849, and he went then to Prague, but settled in the same year at Amsterdam. There he found that the Dutch Jews were not so accessible as the Jews in Hungary, Turkey, and Germany, so he adopted the method of preaching special sermons in churches and inviting the Jews through advertisementsto attend them. In 1850 he issued a Dutch paper, giving expositions of Messianic prophecy and the like, for circulation among the Jews. This he edited for several years. In 1856 a mission church was built for him, and his first sermon then was on Zech. iv. 6. In that church he baptized quite a number of Jews. On Sunday, August 1, 1858, Schwartz ascended the pulpit to preach to a congregation of 1,200, on St. John xii. 26, and while bowing down to offer up prayer, a young Jew quietly crept up the steps and stabbed him with a dagger in the left shoulder so that he was saturated with blood, and had to be carried home in a fainting condition. The attempted assassin was put into prison, where Schwartz, after his recovery, visited him but did not succeed in bringing him to a better mind. However, a near relation of his became a Christian after that event; and a Jewess, too, was thereby induced to come to Schwartz for instruction and baptism. After fifteen years' arduous labours in Holland, Schwartz accepted a call in 1864 from the congregation of Trinity Chapel, Newnham Street, London, to succeed Ridley Herschell. In London he founded a home for enquirers; and edited a periodical entitled, "The Scattered Nation." In 1866 he founded "The Hebrew Christian Alliance," and delivered lectures, besides preaching twice every Sunday. In this good work he continued till August 24, 1870, when he died on his knees at the age of fifty-three, and was buried near his friend, Ridley Herschell.
Schwarzenberg, Rabbi Abraham, lived in the littletown of Kasimir in Poland, and was employed by a Jewish merchant who at last became a bankrupt, yet on account of his Talmudic learning was chosen as rabbi at Lublin. Schwarzenberg, who was an upright, conscientious man, knowing that his master had deceived many poor people, took offence thereat, and reproached the Jews for not acting according to the law in this matter. After this some one gave him a New Testament which missionaries had left in the town. After reading it he persuaded others also to read it, and exposed himself to persecution. He then went in search of the missionaries, and coming to a Roman Catholic priest he expressed a wish to be instructed and baptized, but the priest told him that he must first of all lay aside the New Testament. Schwarzenberg concluded that he was not a missionary, and went to Lublin, where he had heard there was an Evangelical minister. This worthy man looked upon him with suspicion and received him coldly, so he went to a river and dipped himself three times in the name of the Holy Trinity. At last he heard that the missionaries resided in Warsaw, so he tramped at once to Warsaw, where Dr. McCaul instructed and baptized him in 1828, in his 65th year. In spite of his age Schwarzenberg began to learn German in order that he might intelligently take part in the services of the Church of England. His mode of life was quite that of a Polish Jew, with long fore-locks and dressed in a long kaftan with girdle. He used to say that a converted Jew must have a changed heart, but not a change of dress. He maintainedhimself by selling fruit in the street, and also worked voluntarily as a missionary. The police had an order to protect him against the Jews, though when he was in a lonely street he was often stoned by them. In this manner he ran the Christian race until 1842, when he departed at the age of eighty to be with Christ.
Segall, Rev. Joseph F., a native of Piatra (Moldavia), came with a number of young friends into possession of missionary literature which a colporteur from Bucharest had left in the town in 1874. This they studied secretly in rotation. After being solemnly impressed by the truth, they wrote a letter to the Rev. F. G. Kleinhenn, asking for admission to some institution in which they might learn more of the Gospel. Mr. Kleinhenn replied that he had no such home, and could not encourage anyone to come to him except on his own means and on his own responsibility. However, one day Segall and his friend Suffrin appeared at Mr. Kleinhenn's house, and he had to take them in. They were then instructed by Mr. Kleinhenn and Mr. Bernstein for some considerable time, and then baptized. The history of the two runs to some extent together. The relations of each tried their utmost to win them back to Judaism, but they had grace given to them not to yield. In the same year Mr. Bernstein, then stationed at Strasburg, was the medium of their being admitted by Dr. Heman, at Basel, into his home for proselytes, to be trained for future usefulness. After finishing their course of study they applied to the L.J.S., passedthrough its missionary college, and were appointed missionaries. Segall was stationed at Birmingham, and ordained by the Bishop of Worcester in 1877-8 to the curacy of St. Martin. Subsequently he was appointed to the charge of the mission at Damascus, where he also acted as chaplain to the English colony there.
Simon, Erasmus, was one of the earliest converts of the L.J.S. This excellent man seems to have been a native of Holland. In London he made the acquaintance of J. Frey, and heard the Gospel from him and was baptized. In 1820 he was appointed to work under the Rev. A. S. Thelwall at Amsterdam. In 1829 he formed a society called the "Friends of the Hebrew Nation," under the patronage of the Bishop of London. This society rented three houses in Camden Town for Jewish enquirers, and started the "Operative Jewish Converts' Institution." Amongst its inmates were the future founder of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, Ridley Herschell, and Wertheimer, the future well-known bookseller. The former was one of twelve candidates for baptism presented by Simon to Bishop Blomfield, who baptized them in St. James', Piccadilly.