Walker, Peter. “Loewenthal, Isidor.” Pp. 231-36 in The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review Index Volume from 1825 to 1868. Philadelphia: Peter Walker, 1871.

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LOEWENTHAL, ISIDOR, was born of Jewish parents in the city of Posen, in Prussian Poland, in 1826. He was the oldest of a family of eight children. His father, like many other of the same people, was indifferent to matters of religion, but observed, from custom only, the ceremonies and rites of his ancestral faith. His mother was a strict adherent to the traditions of the Rabbis, and at the same time instructed her children carefully in the principles of morality. His parents bestowed upon him an education more liberal than their circumstances and the number of their children might seem to warrant. He was first placed at a Jewish school where he learned the first principles of science, and to repeat prayers which he did not understand. After a few years he left this school, and then attended the soi-disant Christian schools and gymnasia of his native city. In these religion was taught like other branches of science, as a thing of which it was necessary for a man to know something in order to get along in the world. The manner in which religion was taught in the gymnasium may be known from the following extract from one of his letters: “We had two recitations (in religion) weekly, which I was not obliged to attend. We studied Greek, but were never told that the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament were written in that language. We studied Hebrew—read Isaiah—were taught to admire his style, which according

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to our professor's opinion was almost equal to that of Homer. I was early enough taught to look upon the greatness of the Jews—Philo, Spinosa, and Mendelssohn; and the Christians, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, and Bolingbroke. I was told of the fanatics Milton and Locke, and of the discoveries of Newton, a genius who, notwithstanding his greatness, could not rid himself from the common superstitions of the greater part of mankind. I was taught to give as much credit to the Bible as to the work of some ancient Greek who wrote on National History.” Such was the character of the training Mr. Loewenthal received in the professedly Christian schools and gymnasia of his native city.

After completing the course of study of the gymnasium—which is about equal to that of our college—he entered a mercantile house in Posen as clerk. But merchandizing had no attractions for him—his tastes led him in a different direction. In the midst of books he was happy, and no where else. He had a strong desire to enter one of the German universities, but what interfered is not known. While acting as a clerk he formed associations with educated young men of his own age, who had imbibed liberal political sentiments. This was in 1844 and 1845, when there was great political agitation throughout continental Europe, and which culminated in the upheaval of 1848. These young men were in the habit of meeting secretly for the discussion of political questions, reading essays, and rehearsing poetry of their own composition, usually political in its character. Mr. Loewenthal was so bold as to publish a piece of poetry in one of the public journals, which brought him under the displeasure of the authorities. Learning that he was in danger of arrest, and knowing the fate that awaited him in such an event, he hastily fled from his native city, and after many difficulties and narrow escapes reached Hamburgh, whence after much trouble he succeeded in getting a passport, and sailed for New York, where he landed in the latter part of the summer of 1846. Here he was a stranger, not possessed of much means, and ignorant of the language of the people, except what little he had learned on board the English vessel in which he had crossed the Atlantic. He endeavoured first to find employment in New York and failed; then he visited Philadelphia with the same want of success. He then went into the country and sought employment from the farmers, but was again disappointed, although he offered his services to several for whatever they chose to give him. His funds were now almost exhausted, and he became despondent. At last he invested the small amount of funds that remained

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to him in a few notions, and started out as a pedler. His stock was small—as a small basket was by no means filled by it. In this capacity, in November 1846, he came to the house of the late Rev. S. M. Gayley, near Wilmington, Delaware, drenched with rain, and suffering with cold. Mr. Gayley kindly asked him in to warm himself, and gave him his dinner. After disposing of some of his wares to Mrs. Gayley he was about to depart, when Mr. Gayley seeing that he was thinly clad for the season, and the day was cold, asked him to tarry for the night, which invitation he gladly accepted. Upon inquiring as to his home, occupation, &c., Mr. Gayley discovered that he was well acquainted with the ancient classics—also Hebrew—several modern languages, also that he had studied some philosophy and mathematics. His sympathies were drawn to the young stranger, and he persuaded him to remain at his house until he would make an effort to obtain employment for him more congenial to his tastes and wishes than his present one. Mr. Gayley, among others, wrote to George Junkin, D.D., then President of Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., also to his own nephew, the Rev. S. A. Gayley, now of West Nottingham, Maryland, who was then in the Junior class of the same institution; the result of which was the formation of a class in modern languages in the college, and the employment of Mr. Loewenthal as the teacher. His fees were sixty dollars for the session. To save him expense, Mr. S. A. Gayley agreed to take him into his room, share with him his bed, and generally aid him in any way he was able. The Faculty directed him to have his board in the College refectory. The offer thus tendered him he gladly accepted. About the 1st of January, 1847, he started for Easton, where he immediately entered upon the discharge of his new duties. During the six or seven weeks that Mr. Loewenthal resided in Mr. Gayley's family, the latter was totally ignorant of the race and lineage, also of the religious views and feelings of the former. During their conversations, this subject was never touched. It was not until he received a long letter from Mr. Loewenthal in the following July, that he became aware that he was a descendant of Abraham, also that during his residence at his house, “the veil was taken away” from his mind—that he had become convinced of the truth of Christianity, and after much mental conflict and deep sorrow for sin, had found peace in believing on Jesus. In the letter above referred to, he gives the agencies employed by the Holy Spirit to bring about this change. After stating the influences by which he was surrounded in his early life, which we have already given, the condition of the Jewish

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mind on the subject of religion and the character of the Christianity with which he had been surrounded—Popery with image worship, and a nominal Protestantism without life, having no power over the heart and conscience, ministered to by a card-playing, ball, and theatre-visiting clergy, he described the darkness of his own mind, when God in his kind providence brought him to Mr. Gayley's house. He says: “It was at your house, by your earnest prayers (at family worship,)—to which I first went, half from curiosity—half from politeness—by your humble supplications, that I was awakened to apprehend my danger, to consider that I had an immortal soul. I began to open the Bible. I was astonished. I waited with eagerness, morning and evening, for the summons to family worship, to hear you pray; I was more and more convinced that I was on the wrong path.” During the time he was at Easton, Mr. Gayley corresponded regularly with him, and frequently in his letters gave him religious advice, although ignorant at the time of the peculiar state of Mr. Loewenthal's mind. These kind words happened to be exceedingly appropriate to him, as the letter above referred to shows. In the following fall he made a public profession of his faith, was baptized by his father in the gospel, and received into the membership of the Rockland Presbyterian church, to which Mr. Gayley was then stately ministering.

Mr. Loewenthal entered the Senior class of Lafayette College the following year, and graduated with his class. After graduation he acted as Tutor in the college for a short time. In the fall of 1848 he accepted an offer from Dr. Samuel Miller, to take the position of teacher of languages in the collegiate school at Mount Holly, N. J., which he accepted. Here he remained until the fall of 1851, when he entered the Princeton Theological Seminary. Here he took the full course, graduated with honour, and was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. After completing his theological studies he offered himself to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church to go to India—to Affghanistan—as a missionary, and was accepted, and sailed for his field of labour about the 1st of August, 1855.

His eminent linguistic acquirements had become known among the colleges of this country prior to his sailing for India; and several of them endeavoured to secure his services—all of which he declined. As a linguist he had few if any equals in this country. In mathematics and philosophy he was equally proficient. But all his talents were unreservedly given to God. The Society of Inquiry of the Seminary selected him

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as their essayist at the commencement at which his class graduated. His subject was “India as a missionary field,” and was afterwards published in the Princeton Review.

He reached Peshawur in 1855, and immediately addressed himself to the acquisition of that difficult language, the Pushtoo, which he soon mastered. He had completed a translation of the New Testament into it, and was about commencing that of the Old Testament, for which labour his thorough knowledge of the Hebrew and the oriental languages so admirably fitted him, when he met his death by violence, on the 27th of April, 1864, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. It appears that Mr. Loewenthal suffered much from headache, and was in the habit of going out very early to get the air. On the morning he was shot, he had got up about three o'clock, and went to walk in the verandah, when the watchman, taking him for a thief, as he alleges, discharged his carbine, killing him instantly. He could preach with ease in Pushtoo, Persian, Cashmere, Hindustanee, Arabic, and in fact in all the languages and dialects of the country which he had selected as his field of labour. Perhaps no man in India had so great a knowledge of Asiatic literature, and few were so completely master of the manners and customs of the natives and oriental politics. His intellect was of the highest order, and his method of studying all subjects was exhaustive. His library, the collection of years, was one of the richest in manuscripts and rare books in India. It was astonishing the amount of intellectual labour he accomplished. Three or four hours rest was all that he allowed himself. In addition to his linguistic labours, he contributed many valuable papers to English and American quarterlies, also instructive letters to the missionary periodicals of the church, full of valuable information. He also carried on an extensive correspondence and regular preaching in the Bazaar. In controversy with Mohammedans in these exercises he was a master. The only rest he sought was in passing from one of these labours to another. It was astonishing how his fragile physical organism could stand such unremitting intellectual labour, but although in stature diminutive, almost a dwarf, he had the strength of will and power of endurance of a giant.

In the social circle he was a charming companion. With a perfect command of our language he combined a mind thoroughly cultivated and richly stored with knowledge, fine powers of illustration, a genial humour, and great conversational powers.

We have sketched nothing here but his outer history from the time of his making a public profession of his faith in Christ

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to the time of his death. But there is another history, the history of his religious experience, that our space forbids us to touch upon. This is more fully given in his correspondence with the late Rev. S. M. Gayley, his father in the gospel, than can be found anywhere else. He unbosomed himself more fully and freely to him on these subjects than to any other human being. He always spent his vacations at Mr. Gayley's house. Their correspondence was frequent and voluminous. The materials found in these letters should not be permitted to lie in oblivion. Some person competent to the task should prepare his life and give it to the church in a permanent form. It would form a volume intensely interesting, suggestive, and instructive.

They both now rest from their labours, and are again united in that presence where there “is fulness of joy,” where no longer “through a glass darkly, but face to face they can see their Saviour as he is,” and can contemplate without a cloud the glories of his person and the greatness of his work, topics which so often formed the subject of their correspondence and conversation while here upon earth.

The following articles were written by him:

1852. Harrison on the Latin Grammar—The Origin of Language—The Gymnasium in Prussia.

1853. Life and Studies of C. G. Zumpt—Education in the High Schools of Germany.

1854. India: its Past and Future.

1855. Exegesis Heb. vi. 4-8—Christianity in India.

1858. The Present State of India.