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Jews in the McAll Mission, Paris.

379

A certain Jew, a gentleman in manners and dress, wearing a light felt hat and gloves, and carrying a cane with ivory handle, comes frequently to the New York Hall on Rue St. Antoine. His salutation is always courteous, and he greets Pastor Brown with "God bless you, sir," in English. He is select, keeping apart from other Jews. He is an Austrian by birth, a gold beater by trade, and has lived long in England.

Pastor Brown thinks that he was excommunicated from a London synagogue because he smoked on the Sabbath. He says that he lit his pipe because he had a headache, and forgot that it was the Sabbath. His plea was, "That to light a match was not like lighting a fire." But the authorities would not accept the explanation.

He seems not to be poor, for he never begs. Every evening he goes to the hall, sitting alone near the door, and instead of listening to a French sermon he reads the New Testament in English or German. But he tarries after service to ask questions. He has the large- type New Testament given to the Hall by Mrs. Porter, wife of our ambassador, Gen. Porter. The story of the Passion thoroughly upset him. He went to Pastor Brown to talk about it and said, "Too bad! too bad! I would not have believed it. Even Pilate found no fault with him. Judas said 'He was innocent.' I hope, sir, he did not suffer much. I could have saved him. I would have saved him. Why did not some one save him. They were a minority that cried, 'Crucify Him;' and He a holy man. Too bad! I am very sorry."

Then he was told, "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, when he made His soul an offering for sin." He was further told, "He suffered even to death, the death of the cross-suffered for us." So this Jew read at Pastor Brown's request, Luke 24, 25, 26, “It became-Him to suffer these things;" and Peter's words, "for us." It was all new to this man. Then Pastor Brown said, "Shall we pray?" and those two knelt down and the Jew repeated after Mr. Brown such words as these, "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Thou God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for sending Jesus to suffer and die for us sinners. He hath borne our sins in His own body, on the tree. We were as sheep going astray, and Thou didst lay on Him our iniquity. Take away our sins. May we be healed by His wounds."

He picked up his Testament, said "God bless you, sir," and went out. Sunday came around. The Jew was in his usual place near the door, reading his Testament during the sermon. He stayed to the Bible class. The leader of the Bible class said afterwards, "I never met a Jew like him. He believes in Jehovah and Jesus; says He is the Messiah; studies his Bible. He is not far from the kingdom of God."

Pastor Brown adds: The Jew turned out of a synagogue in London, he hopes will soon enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

380

Evangelization of the Jews.

THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN NEW YORK. The inaugural address of the president-elect of this new institution, the distinguished Professor Solomon Schechter (of Cambridge University, England), was delivered in the hall of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, Lexington avenue and Ninety-second street, before an assemblage of over 1,000 men, including merchants, bankers and scholars, of the Hebrew faith.

The most interesting feature of his address, to his fellow believers in Moses and the prophets as the messengers of God, was a plea for the old doctrines of the Torah, or Law; which made it perfectly plain to those interested in the work that the students who sought to become ministers and preachers of the faith in this country would receive in the institution over which he will preside none of the interpretations of the Talmud. He said that there should be no introduction into the place of learning of any of the modern mystical teachings of some scholars of the present day. There is no other Jewish religion than that of the Torah, which conforms to history and tradition and sinks into the consciousness of catholic Israel. Any attempt to place the centre of gravity outside the Torah must end in disaster.

If the Jews will make the Hebrew Scriptures their study and rule of faith, it will not be long until the hostility to their Messiah which the Talmudical doctors and rulers at Jerusalem inaugurated will melt away. Real Old-Testament Jews cannot be far from the kingdom of God.

It is stated that Jacob H. Schiff and Leonard Lewisohn, have endowed the new seminary so that its financial status is now established.

There is a momentous conflict in sight between the Jewish believers in the Old Testament and those represented by Rabbi Hirsch, who deny the books of Moses and the Divine illumination and leading of the Hebrew race; and such conflict must logically involve the uninspired traditions which have overlaid and nullified the Word of God, but can offer no evidence of superhuman authority. One or the other of these "bibles" must go, when once they are compared in the light of open discussion with modern opposers; for neither their teachings nor their pretensions can be reconciled, and only the original Scriptures can make so much as a claim of Divine authority. This conflict and its issue for the Jews may prove one of the greatest designs of Divine Providence in the modern hostile criticism of the Old Testament.

How the Grand-street Mission is Situated.

PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE MISSION TO THE JEWS, No 424 GRAND STREET, NEw York.

381

Since June 10, 1902, the "physical basis" of this memorable evangelistic work, (apart from the personal support of Mr. Warszawiak) has been represented by the responsibility of a private individual in New York, who has expended therein the sum of $1359.28, with the aid of miscellaneous donors abroad in America and England to the amount of $255.49 leaving $1103.79 of deficit supplied; a part of this (275) having passed from the same source through the hands of Rev. Dr. Patterson as Treasurer, and having appeared in his statement of "receipts," in "SALVATION" for November.

It is not fitting that either the responsibility or the auspices of such a work as this should be so confined as to leave it in the status of a private enterprise wholly or mainly.

It must be organized, on a public and also a permanent basis. We have hoped and still hope that the existing and only incorporated institution in America for Jewish Missions (entitled "The American Mission to the Jews") would very soon be in a position to assume such a relation of responsibility for the work as the work demands of some such incorporated body.

Meanwhile, the work must go on as it is, so far as it can by the further aid of friends at large. Its frugal necessities are well defined; being but a trifle more or less than $150 per month, for rent, fuel, light, and subordinate assistance. The evangelist, Mr. Warszawiak, has withdrawn from any relation to mission finances, and forbids any solicitation by any one on his behalf for family or personal uses, leaving all that in faith to the spontaneous impulses of those who for his work's sake feel moved thereto by the Spirit of the Master.

One hundred and fifty dollars, or about thirty-one pounds: who will help keep it up? The indomitable few (enough to say “we”) who at unstinted personal sacrifice revived and have carried through under God, this most marvellous mission to the Jews, against an overwhelming and unrelenting storm of united Jewish and Christian persecution, have hitherto been and are now unsupported and unrepresented before the public by any responsible organization, yet have been upheld by a singular manifestation which they could understand only as of God and as imperative on them as servants

382 Present Aspects of the Mission to the Jews.

of God. No personal partiality or partizanship influenced them; even as none such has influenced that unparallelled concourse of Jews at No. 424 Grand street; unfailing summer or winter, no matter who was the preacher, although five months together once passed without a sermon from any one who could draw an audience of Jews anywhere else; and although there has never been in that humble Gospel hall in Grand street the slightest attraction of any kind except the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And thus it continues, after six years completed since its revival on October 10, 1897, unslackening, but only increasing, in supernatural power for the gathering of Jews to Him who was lifted up that He might draw all men unto Him. Let any one who will, look in (for he cannot get in) while the preaching is in progress on the Jewish Sabbath eve (Friday night), and it will be a rare exception if he does not find a shifting crowd about the door and as dense a crowd as possible within, of respectable-looking Jews, listening to the story of the Cross with a rapt attention that any of your ministers would be mighty glad to see in the faces of his own congregation. The Bible Class also, on Saturday afternoons, though unorganized and conducted through an interpreter, and though more variable in attendance, is yet a phenomenon in Israel worth seeing on most occasions.

We have only to add, that the intermediate financial management, until a more responsible and permanent control can be obtained, remains in the same hands that have poured in the bulk of means hitherto, and which for that reason may perhaps be trusted to give a good account of aid rendered them now. Rev. James G. Patterson, D.D. (who reduced himself to destitution in his indefatigable championship of Mr. Warszawiak through all the successive judicatories of the Presbyterian Church during three or four years) remains the treasurer, who will account to all donors; and through the Editor of "SALVATION" as lessee and temporary superintendent of the Grand-street hall (where Mr. Warszawiak conducts the spiritual work) will see that funds are applied with strict economy to the expenses of the place, and will report the same through "SALVATION," monthly, in detail.

EXPENDITURES, FROM A PRIVATE SOURCE, 1902 FROM JUNE 10. Rent at $100 per month: arrears, 2 3-4 months...

Rent for 6 months (July to December)...

Assistant Missionary, June to Dec. 31, 30 1-2 weeks at $5.

$275.00

600.00

152 50

Financial Situation.

Janitor, June 14 to Dec. 31, 29 1-2 weeks at $4
Organist June to October, 5 months at $6 (then discontinued)
Lighting and Fuel, April 18 to Nov. 15, and Dec. 18...
Paid Treasurer's note for money borrowed Oct. 18, 1901
Printing and Postage on Special Letter' of H. W.
Advanced H. W., July 2, 1902, $35, Aug. 18, $24.
Brooms, 70 cts; mending chairs, 30 cts; cleaning, 1.75.

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Less Donations from outside sources, received by Rev. Dr.
Patterson, June 10 to Dec. 31..

DEFICIT..

383

118.00

30.00

21.74

50.00

50 29

59.00

275

$1359.28

255.49

$1103.79

SUPPORT OF THE JEWISH EVANGELIST, HERMANN

WARSZAWIAK.

This notice, and the like monthly, in "SALVATION," is understood to be the only communication between Mr. Warszawiak and friends, "as concerning giving and receiving;" that is, a monthly publication of total amounts received by and for him, for the information of those who may wish to adjust their contributions according to the apparent necessities of his labor in the Gospel. We are authorized by Mr. Warszawiak to request ALL contributions for private use to be forwarded to Treasurer James G. Patterson, D.D., 140 Nassau Street, New York, or at least to be stated to Dr. Patterson, in order that the full amount received personally by him (H. W.) may be at all times correctly known to the public.

This situation dates from June 10, 1902.

From that date to October 28, 1902, there was received by H. W. (as reported in November "SALVATION")

Special per Treasurer Patterson; $35 for house rent,

To this should have been added:

and $24 for nurse in sickness

And further, to Dec. 29, 1902,

Total, 6 2-3 months, so far as known,

.$465.64

59.00

89.36

$614.00

"IN THE DAYS OF ISAIAH."

This is the title of a Hebrew romance by Abraham Mappu (1848-1898); translated by B. A. M. Schapiro, and published by "The People, the Land and the Book" Publishing Co., 345 East Third street, New York. It is not strictly a historical novel, but mainly a love story laid among the scenes of Jerusalem and Judea in the reign of Hezekiah, "and dallies with the innocence of love,

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