“As to Missions to the Jews.” New York Times, June 19, 1893, p. 11.

AS TO MISSIONS TO THE JEWS

HE PROPRIETY OF THEIR MAINTENANCE ASSERTED.

Where the Christian and the Jewish Beliefs Agree and in What They Are at Variance — Why the Christian Thinks He Is Attempting to Do Good to the Jew in Striving to Convert Him to the Worship of Jesus Christ Dispassionately Stated — For all Mankind, Not a Race.

To the Editor of the New-York Times:

As there is so much controversy at present over missions to the Jews, it is important to understand just what they are, as they vary very materially from missions to the uncivilized heathen, and those who have only missions of the latter kind in mind may well ask why missions to the Jews should exist at all. The Christian Church has never had the impertinence to assume that our Jewish brethren need missions in this sense of the word. In fact, missions to the Jews differ so much from missions to the heathen, both in object and method, that they might fairly be called by a different name, and need an explanation.

In the first place, it must be remembered that Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, begun by a Jew, and preached for many years exclusively by Jews, until Gentile converts so outnumbered Jewish Christians that the connection and origin were practically lost sight of. Naturally, therefore, both Christians and Jews hold a great many beliefs in common, and the points of difference are far fewer than those in which they agree, and centre in reality on one point. Christians, for instance, accept absolutely as implicity and reverently as Jews the whole of the Old Testament, and base their beliefs upon them. They believe as fully as do the Jews that in these Scriptures God has revealed himself to mankind, at various times and in different ways, and principally through the Jewish nation, which He made use of to teach mankind generally the great truths of His existence and His creation and government of the world.

The Jews, from the teaching of these books, look for the coming of a Messiah, sent by God for the purpose, who shall restore their nation to more than its former highest degree of prosperity and power as an independent nation. The Church recognizes the correctness of this belief as being fully and explicitly taught in the Scriptures.

But here the difference begins. Jews restrict their belief to national advantages and privileges. Christians look for world-wide blessings from the coming of the Messiah. And, much more important than this, Christians believe that the Messiah has come once, in lowliness and weakness, to accomplish a work which was necessary to prepare mankind for His coming in power and glory, and that this first coming was fully and precisely foretold in the very prophecies upon which the Jews base their own belief.

The records upon which Christians believe this was written by Jews, (the four Evangelists,) who took great pains to quote specifically the passages in the Scriptures which, referring to the Messiah, were literally fulfilled in the person and acts of Jesus, in order to establish the fact that He was the Messiah. The future coming of the Messiah Christian speak of and look for as the second advent, in which all prophecies still remaining unfulfilled will receive the same literal accomplishment that those relating to His first coming did.

It is easy now to explain the object, method, and reason of Christian missions to the Jews. The object is to convince them that the Messiah has come once, according to the Scriptures, in the person of Jesus, who is generally spoken of by the title Christ, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah.

The method adopted is, first, to convince Jews, from their own sacred books, that this coming of the Messiah was foretold in all its important details, and that these predictions must have received their accomplishment before the others which relate to the final and permanent restoration of the Jews to independent national existence in power and prosperity could be fullfilled; second, to show them, from the historical records of the New Testament, that these preliminary predictions were fulfilled by Jesus, the Christ.

The reason Christian missions to the Jews exist is that it is distinctly foretold that the national blessings that Jews look for are dependent upon their acceptance as a nation of Jesus as the Messiah, and that they will ultimately so receive Him, when the "Golden Age" of the world will dawn; and that to the Church belongs, in the interval before the Jews do believe in Him, the duty and privilege of proclaiming the Gospel to all men, whether Jews or Gentiles.

It is due both to the Church and to the Jews that the nature of Jewish missions should be understood. What naturally seems to be an impertinence, when only heathen missions are understood by those who read of missions to the Jews, becomes a natural and reasonable thing when its real meaning is known. And while Jews themselves may retain their old antipathy to Christianity, they will at any rate be able to see that the effort to convert them to it is based upon the profoundest acceptance of their own beliefs of the blessings that will accrue to their own nation and to the world by the coming of the Messiah and the desire to see these longed-for blessings speedily become realities.

ERNEST C. SAUNDER.

COLD SPRING, N. Y., June 1, 1893.