Student Volunteer Movement; Peritz, Ismar J.; McP. Scott, J.; Meyer, Louis.World-Wide Evangelization: The Urgent Business of the Church; Addresses Delivered Before the Fourth International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, Toronto, Canada, February 26-March 2, 1902. New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1902. Portions pertaining to Jewish evangelism only are reproduced here.
WORLD-WIDE EVANGELIZATION
THE URGENT BUSINESS OF THE CHURCH
ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS TORONTO, CANADA, FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 2, 1902
NEW YORK STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 1902
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JEWISH MISSIONS
Present Condition of the Jews throughout the World and their Religious Needs The Jew in North America The Obligation of Christians to the Jews
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PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AND THEIR RELIGIOUS NEEDS
PROFESSOR ISMAR J. PERITZ, PH.D., SYRACUSE, N. Y.
THE subject naturally falls into two main parts, the first dealing with the present condition of the Jews throughout the world. It will be best to consider this phase of the subject from the point of view of one of the most remarkable movements of the present day, the Zionist movement, of which you have all undoubtedly heard. That movement stands for furnishing a country to a people that have no country and a people to a country that has no people.
Our first question is, What is the origin of Zionism? It is the revival of the persecution of the Jews, an old terror under the new name of anti-Semitism. The so-called modern emancipation of the Jewish people dates back to the French Revolution. It was the outgrowth of the cry of equality and fraternity that led the French first to realize that it must include the Jews also, and naturally enough it belongs to Napoleon to have taken the first step to secure for them equal legal rights in France. With his conquests throughout the continent the same principle found its way to other parts of Europe; and yet it was a slow, and it seems with the present light that we have on the subject, a very doubtful emancipation. The last legal disabilities of the Jews were removed in the year 1870 in Prussia, and very soon after that the persecution began. Though at the present time there is no disability directed against the Jew on the statute book, yet none of us dares to say that they are really treated as are other peoples in Europe.
Take Russia, for instance. Some place the world's total Jewish population at about 11,000,000, nearly one-half of whom live in Russia under about the worst possible conditions that civilized people can endure. Persecution began very soon after the assassination of Alexander II. He had been liberal toward the Russians as well as toward the Jews. The advisors of his successor insisted that the policy should be reversed, and of course tyranny took the place of liberalism and the Jews had to bear their share. In 1881, in three different parts of the Empire, open violence was used against the Jews. In 1884, in other places, as a result of the persecution that reached down to 1895 over $1,000,000 worth of property was destroyed belonging to the Jews, and scores of lives were
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taken. They were partially driven out of Russia or else enclosed in what is called “the pale of settlement,” composed of about twenty-six provinces, sixteen in Russia and ten in Poland. They must live, not in villages, but in already overcrowded towns where they do not have the freedom to earn a living in any way they may choose. Circumscribed by poverty, by squalor and by misery, they are huddled together there. It is stated that the Russians are of all European nations the most prolific, but the Jewish people outnumber them four to one. You can imagine then the outlook that there is for them, with one-half of the race crushed within these narrow limits of the pale, deprived of the possibility of living as other people live and under special laws that permit any cruel Russian officer to do almost anything he pleases with them.
Next to Russia most of the Jews, some two and a half millions, have settled in Austria-Hungary, Roumania and Galicia, and these together with those in Russia make about three-quarters of the race. In those last mentioned countries they are treated exactly as the Russians treat them. Even in Germany that old accusation has been revived, that the Talmud requires for certain ritualistic purposes the blood of Christians—the most false, wicked charge ever brought against any people. A child disappears and the first thing that is said is that the Jews have killed it for ritualistic purposes. The Jews are guiltless, but the populace has heard the cry, “The Jews have done it!” and they persecute, burn their property, and slay them. In Germany, Austria and France, the same anti-Semitic feeling prevails, though it does not show itself openly. Even in England, which has the best Jews because of the English treatment of them, statements are heard that the English have to be protected against the aliens who come in and are a danger to the life of the people. But leaving all that aside and taking the broad view, you will see that the origin of Zionism lies in the revival of the persecution of the Jews, nearly three-fourths of the race. They are still treated as foreigners and aliens, and they realize it and feel it.
The question may be asked, What is the reason for this anti-Semitic feeling? It is to be remembered that the anti-Semitic agitators most definitely declare that it is not on account of their religion that the Jewish people are being persecuted, and I suppose from the point of view of modern religious liberalism that is very plausible. The real reason as assigned is that it is a racial, a social, or an economic question. The Jewish people are charged with these three things, aloofness, cosmopolitanism and materialism. By aloofness is meant that somehow the Jewish people do not know how to assimilate. Almost everywhere they are a community within a community. They will not intermarry, they will not eat with Christians, they constantly speak of themselves as a chosen people with a special mission. Consequently they insist
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on being separate from the rest of the world. They say that is an irritant; it causes prejudice. It is stated it is to their failure to become a part of the people with whom they live that anti-Semitic feelings are due.
It is even said that they are so cosmopolitan that they cannot be real patriots. Sometimes the figure of the Gulf Stream is used; though it is part of the ocean, it always keeps separate. Another figure is used, when it is said the Jew is like the chameleon; it can sit on a rock and partake of its color, but on another rock it will take the color of that one.
But the greatest charge is what is called materialism. It is claimed most definitely that the Jew still worships the Golden Calf, that somehow he has tremendous ability to make a sharp bargain. They say, also, that he can cheat more successfully than anybody else; that he knows how to float vast concerns of inflated value; and they say that Jews cannot perform any physical work, but are parasites and have to live as middle men. For these reasons, and also because they are the alleged originators of modern socialism and have spread discontent through Europe, everything that is evil is charged to the materialistic spirit of the Jewish people.
In answering these charges there is a danger of going to extremes, and I think we might well admit it. If we examine these accusations we shall on the one hand find that they are not altogether without foundation, and on the other, that in the way they are presented they are not true. That the Jew is capable of patriotism, that he is capable of self-sacrifice even unto death, you only have to read the Bible to find proven. He who stands before the world as the one great example of the highest love and patriotism and self-sacrifice was a Jew. There is in the race the capability of all that is noblest and highest, because Jesus was a Jew. On the other hand, it is true that under present conditions they have not reached that high ideal; if they had there would be no Jewish question at all. That they really need bettering, that something is required to bring them up to that which they ought to be, I need not take time to discuss.
All this is said simply to indicate the origin of Zionism. Whether these accusations are true or false they are held, and the Jews are persecuted. They are being made to feel that nobody wants them. Even in Germany and in England they say: “We have to be careful not to let in too many Jews, because we must protect the poor English of London. Jews will take away their labor, the same as the Chinese, who are consequently excluded from the United States.” Nobody wants them. They all wish them well, but they wish them somewhere else.
There is yet within that people a spirit which says: “Though nobody wants us, we have the power within us to take care of ourselves.
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Give us a chance: let us go back to our own country; provide for us a place where we can show all the various activities of national life, agricultural life, manufacturing and mercantile life, the life of letters and art. Give us a chance to get back upon our own soil where we can be free, untrammeled, and we will show the world that we can take care of ourselves and win their respect.” That is Zionism. The movement really started in 1897 when the first Congress was held in Switzerland. It was originated from an earlier attempt at colonization. These are two distinct matters. One was an attempt on the part of certain rich Jews to carry colonies to Palestine, but Zionism is a national movement. The whole Jewish nation, as a nation, is to be interested, to be restored,—either by purchase or by renting property there,—to its own Holy Land. There is to be a Jewish government. The Jewish language is to be spoken and written. It is to be national rather than colonial. Though all Jews may not go, a national government is to be established in Zion.
What should be the attitude of the Christian toward this movement? I would say that as a means of alleviating a suffering people it is to be most heartily commended and helped. And I would enter a protest against the statement which I read recently in one of the most prominent missionary journals in America. The statement was: “Zionism does not help Christian missions very much; it hardens the Jew against the approaches of missionaries.” What a shame to say anything like that! It is not the Spirit of Jesus. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus does not teach that the Samaritan had to ask the man what his views are. He simply showed this Samaritan in need, and we ought to help any man in need. From the point of view of trying to help a race that is helping itself, and that wants to win self-respect, by all means let us help by our money, by our enthusiasm, or in any other way, that the Jews may win that which it is noble to seek, their own self-preservation and their own self-respect.
But we must consider the second part, namely, the Jews' religious needs. Here also it is better to consider these needs from the point of view of their attitude towards Zionism. There is, in the first place, the Jew who is well taken care of where he lives, and he says: “The mission of the Jews is spiritual, and there is no need of a national government. Let them fulfil their mission by living among the people.” That is the attitude of a large class of Jews. The second class has no religious motive, and the principal leaders of the Zionist movement, Herzl and Nordau, are absolute agnostics, who do not regard this question from any religious point of view whatever. They do not care whether the Jew goes to Zion or to the North Pole. They would be willing, if they could find a place outside of Palestine that would hold them and where
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they could do as they wished to do, to have them go there. Then there is a third class, which I will call the religious Zionists. That includes the large majority of the Jews. They believe that the Jewish religion is to be upheld, and that when the Jews go back, they will establish a national life upon the basis of the law of Moses and of the Talmud. So you have these three classes representing agnosticism, Reformed Judaism, and real national Judaism.
What is their need? In one word it is Jesus. But I do not mean simply by that that they are to learn the prophecies, see how they are fulfilled and then say that Jesus is the Messiah. It is possible for a man to be very orthodox and yet not be a Christian at all. There is something more and stronger than this in its influence on life, and that is the life of Jesus. The Old Testament has three ideals of religion, one of which is represented by Christianity. One of these is the priestly idea, the second is the prophetic idea and the third is the Christian. The priestly idea is narrow in spirit; that is Talmudic Judaism. The prophetic idea is freer; it is cosmopolitan, in the sense that to the Gentiles also is to come the light of God. There is a third kind, however, not represented by Judaism except in Jesus Christ, and that is found in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and in the Book of Job. It is that part of the prophetic religion which teaches that it is right and the highest thing attainable by man to lay down one's life for the good of others—that noble altruism of which Jesus is the highest type and which the world has not yet begun to learn. When I say that the Jews need Jesus, I mean just that. The charge of materialism would be removed from them if they would catch the spirit of Christ and suffer for the good of others, even, as it were, be willing to die as a nation.
I conceive that this is the greatest thing that the Jews can do, and in that lies their mission. I do not believe that their restoration to Palestine is to be regarded as an end; probably it is a means. But the Jews' power does not lie in the fact of their strength as a nation. They can do a great deal better away from their own land than on their soil; but the highest mission of the Jew is a religious mission, and that reached its climax when God sent forth Jesus. For the Jews to accept Jesus and become His missionaries in the world and bring it to the feet of Christ,—that is the mission of the Jew.
You can help in this in two ways. One way is to become more like Jesus yourself. It is strange but true, that somehow we expect of our enemies much more than we demand of ourselves. The Jews are charged with materialism as though they were the only people inclined to be materialistic. But churches are full of materialism and worldliness, and the first step is to become more like Jesus ourselves. The second is to have that spirit of personal interest in the best that is in the individual for the best of the individual
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life. You should know that a Jew hates to be worked for by a missionary as such, while he yields to the power of love. If we go to him in a Christian spirit that seeks to win him simply for his own sake and for his highest good, if we go in the Spirit of Jesus, we shall aid him to fulfil this great mission, and he will become one of the disciples of Christ.
THE JEW IN NORTH AMERICA
REV. J. MC P. SCOTT, M.A., TORONTO
FOR many of us the Jewish people have a peculiar fascination. Their history is absolutely unique, and their present position and condition challenge the attention of the Christian Church and of thinking people everywhere. What I now say has to do only with the representatives of this race who have found their home on this continent.
After somewhat diligent investigation, I venture with some misgiving as to accuracy the statement that the number of Jews resident in the United States and Canada is 1,060,000. My faith in the accuracy of missionary statistics has been somewhat shaken by the discovery that the Jewish population of the world as reported in missionary literature varies between 7,000,000 and 12,000,000, while the Jewish population of the United States is placed as low as 600,000, when by government returns, the Jewish emigrants entered at American ports of entry from 1881 till June 30, 1901, were 644,966.
The number resident in Canada has been over-stated, but may be computed with some approach to accuracy as not exceeding 20,000. The last issue of the American Jewish Year Book gives the Jewish population of the world as 10,766,749; and of this number, 1,060,000 find their home in the United States and Canada, that is, about one-tenth of the whole. The annual increase in the number of our Jewish population may be roughly approached by noting that 49,421 foreigners of this race landed in the United States through three ports of entry in the year ending June 30, 1901. Of the total Jews in those two countries, fully thirty-seven per cent. are in New York State and most of these in New York City. Reporting by States, Illinois furnishes a home to fully 100,000; then come Massachusetts with 60,000 and Missouri and Ohio with 50,000 each. Of the comparatively few Jews in Canada, the greater number are in Montreal, with a somewhat slowly increasing number in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Jews of Russian and Polish origin preponderate with an increasing number in recent years from
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Austria. I have no information as to the approximate numbers of this race belonging to the different nationalities. We note, however, from the returns, that of those who landed in the United States in 1901, fifty per cent. were of Russian birth, twenty-nine per cent. were Austrian, twelve per cent. were Roumanian and seven per cent. were Germans.
Great differences in the social condition, and the material advancement of the Jews, obtain on this continent. Very many of foreign birth but now of English tongue have attained to positions of wealth and honor through their industry. In the course of time many extricate themselves from the thraldom of Old World conditions in which they were encased and by which they were handicapped and become creditable citizens. The children and grandchildren of these, becoming emancipated from the conditions in which their fathers lived, have possessed and displayed the characteristics of highest citizenship and patriotism. As in the Old World, so in this, Jews have taken a foremost place in finance, in literature and in the councils of the State. When all this has been said, there remain problems in regard to these people as they congregate in the large cities of these two countries, which perplex the most sanguine optimist. Coming to this country from Eastern Europe—and the larger number are from Russia and Austria—they land on our shores dulled and dispirited and denationalized.
These Jewish newcomers are great unorganized masses, usually penniless, ignorant of the manners and customs of the country and unfamiliar with the industrial conditions which prevail here. The result is that they congregate in the already over-crowded Jewish centers, and are forced to accept employment—chiefly in the sewing trades—where they serve long hours for little wages; and they not infrequently find that in the New World their life is but little improved over the unbearable Old World conditions from which they had fled. They crowd into unwholesome and ill-smelling quarters and in many cases suffer from a poverty that is as terrible and persistent as they ever knew in Russia, and thus they become the dismay of Jewish charity leaders. Whether disposed to admit it or not, the Jew to many in our land is an unlovely personage and not a hopeful candidate for citizenship.
We forget that he is unlovely because we have made him so. When we hear the Israelitish junk-dealer crying through the streets, we hear a voice from the Middle Ages; and that cry was forced from Jewish lips by the cruelty of our Christian forefathers. Looking back to the Middle Ages, it is impossible to conceive the attitude of mind that led the Christian Church to the awful barbarities which at that time were visited upon the Jews. Yet through it all, God has preserved them—the miracle of history—and saved for them their national individuality and racial characteristics. They have inherited the heirloom of racial immortality. They are seemingly
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incapable of extinction or amalgamation. But we must not judge the Jew by the condition in which he comes, but by his power to rise superior to this adverse condition. Christian judgment should be tempered by the memory that the stress of life into which they have been driven, and the unspeakable hardships imposed upon them, have determined their present characteristics. This remembrance forbids impatience at their apparent unreadiness to adapt themselves to the spirit of the New World, and enter into full citizenship. We complain sometimes that, in the heart of our great cities, we find them entrenched in tribal exclusiveness, refusing intermarriage and treating the rest of the community as Gentiles. Slow as it may appear, there comes in time to those born in this country a gradual emancipation from Old World exclusiveness. Their industry, frugality and business instincts have given many of them a distinct place in the business life of these two countries. Many have attained to great wealth, and are factors now to be reckoned with in the industrial and commercial life of the country.
The Jewish Chautauqua Society for the study of Jewish History and Literature; The Council of Jewish Women, an organization with a similar object, with a membership of more than 5,000; The Jewish Publication Society, with an enormous membership; and the Federation of American Zionists; together with their strong educational institutions, charitable societies, social agencies—all these indicate the existence of a strong and growing communal life.
All the world to-day looks in wonder upon the remarkable movement known as Zionism. To the Gentile world it is a matter of absorbing interest, and to the Christian Church, a thrilling spectacle. It has for its object the creation of a home secured by public rights for those Jews who either cannot or will not be assimilated in the country of their adoption. At the beginning of this movement a sympathetic response was not generally forthcoming from the Jews in this land; but with multitudes of Jews who emigrated here, there slumbered the hope of a return to their own land. This has been rekindled and strengthened by the repeated appeals of Dr. Herzl and others, “that the Jews in America in particular forget not in their own happiness in the glorious land of freedom, how heavy is the bondage of their brethren.” It need not be doubted that, as soon as some feasible plan of repatriation is devised and the way is opened by permission of the Turkish authorities, there will be a general concert of action on the part of the Jews in this land, whatever their rank or condition may be. To their honor be it said that they are a temperate and law-abiding people. The saloon is not an element in their social or political life, and in criminal statistics the number of Jews is creditably small.
The phenomenon of anti-Semitism is less of a factor in the life of the Jewish people on this continent than in any other large Jewish center in the world. The cruel exhibitions of it found in Eastern
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Europe would be simply impossible in the United States or in Canada. Yet an inborn prejudice against the Jews, however unworthy or inexcusable shows itself here in a social ostracism that it seems hopeless to overcome. Consistent with the native exclusiveness which we charge against them, there is a distinct awakening of the national feeling among them. There is a movement toward a new life. New World conditions conduce to the nation's re-discovery of itself. The American Jewish Year Book furnishes interesting reading. With the gradual discovery of themselves, movements inspired by national interests will take place among all the different Jewish elements. They are well organized religiously. There are more than 800 congregations of Hebrews in the United States and Canada, most of whom are enrolled in Unions representative of either the Reformed or the Orthodox elements of Judaism in this country. In a recent report of the United States Bureau of Education there is an interesting chapter on Hebrew Sabbath-schools, for the study of Hebrew religious literature, and the propagation of the Jewish faith. From it we learn that there are 112 Sabbath-schools, with an attendance of 13,506 scholars, with 558 volunteers and paid teachers in charge.
The work of Christian missions among the Jews of this continent should have a consideration which we fear the length of this address now forbids. The conditions, experiences and results of Jewish missions in North America are similar to what they are in Great Britain. There are, so far as we can learn from careful investigation, thirty-four distinct missions on this continent working for the Jews. Thirteen of these are denominational organizations and twenty-one are undenominational, with a reported staff of 150 missionaries. The larger and better-equipped missions are in New York and Chicago. The attitude of the Jew toward Christian missions is more favorable than formerly. The hostility that so often offered is diminishing, and many believers are now found within the Christian Church. Outside the larger Jewish centers, and even where the best work is done, the attendances of Jews at the meetings in these missions are usually small. And so the work goes on. The Church of the present day has not adequately arisen to her great work of a world's evangelization. Within her great commission so inadequately realized there lies, in a measure forgotten, the command to give the gospel to the Jew, which to them, as to the Gentile, is the power of God unto salvation.
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THE OBLIGATION OF CHRISTIANS TO THE JEWS
REV. LOUIS MEYER, HOPKINTON, IOWA
VERY few Christians will deny that the Jew is included in the general obligation which binds the followers of Jesus Christ to evangelize the whole human race. “Preach the gospel to every creature” is the imperative and standing commandment of the risen Savior to His disciples, and this command is not to be questioned, or argued about, or neglected, or passed on to others, but it is simply to be obeyed. It is true that the Jews rejected Christ, but “God hath not cast away his people.” The terrible words of Luther,—” It is just as impossible to convert a Jew as to convert the devil. A Jewish heart is so stony and iron-like, that it cannot be touched in any way. In short, they are young devils, condemned to hell,”—are generally acknowledged as unjust and not based upon the Word of God. Were not the evangelists and the apostles Jews? Did not the first congregations of Christian worshipers consist mainly of Jewish believers? Did not the grace of God display its marvelous power first of all in the conversion of Jews? Is not the gospel even now “the power of God unto salvation”? If it can convert the heathen, why not the Jew? Surely, the Jew must be included in the divine commandment, “Go, preach!”
But we do injustice to God's ancient people, if we are satisfied to place the Jews thus on a level with the Gentile world, for our obligations to bring the gospel to them are paramount. Far stronger are the claims of the Jews upon the followers of Jesus Christ, than those of any other nation, and among the great multitude, to which the voice of the herald of the gospel is to reach, the Jews should occupy the very front rank. Why?
1. Gratitude for benefits derived calls for especial consideration. All antiquity was ready to admit the existence of Jehovah, for the idea of a great supreme ruler is an innate one; but heathenism taught that there were other gods who were mighty and who should be served. It was the narrow and exclusive Jew who revealed the true conception of God to the surrounding nations, and who, even in the periods of greatest declension, preserved the knowledge of the one true Jehovah. And thus the Jew gave to the Gentile the invaluable patrimony of true religion!
Again, “unto them were committed the oracles of God.” The Bible is nothing else but a consecutive history of the Jewish nation.
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“All its allusions to other peoples and to other events in the stage of this world's everchanging panorama are but introductory, subordinate and subservient to its one grand theme, the Jews!” It was written mostly by Jewish authors under God's inspiration, and we owe it to the jealous care with which the Jews watched the Old Testament, that its text has been preserved to us in such purity and perfection.
But not alone was the Bible given to the world by the Jewish people; they gave to it Him of whom the Bible testifies. Jesus Christ Himself was a Jew. And thus, salvation is of the Jews. But alas! though they have been the bearers of the light, they themselves remain in darkness, thus calling for our special consideration.
2. Injuries and cruelties inflicted by nominal Christians demand reparation. The record of the sufferings of the Jews is unparalleled. History, past and present, bears testimony to the cruel wrongs inflicted upon the exiles from the land of their inheritance. For a long series of centuries the Jews were thrown back upon themselves, were confined to special quarters of the cities which they inhabited, and, warned off from settling in the open country, they were only grudgingly and by a bare tolerance allowed to exist. Expulsions, oppressions, spoliations and injustice in every shape and form were the cruel and inhuman treatment that the Jews have received from nominal Christians in every land during long ages. And to-day? The cry of the suffering Jew is heard from Russia, while Roumania in cruel hatred drives Jewish citizens from its territory. Germany silently permits anti-Semitic outrages, and France is shaken to its very foundations by the struggle between the friends and the foes of the Jew. The alien-law in England is directed against the Jewish refugees from Russia and Roumania. Alas! Italy and North America alone are fair and friendly to the “homeless tribe of the wandering foot and the weary breast.” Think of all these persecutions, the horrible wrong, the great iniquity, that has been perpetrated generation after generation, century after century, upon the Jewish people. Does not justice cry aloud for reparation and satisfaction for injuries so various, so accumulated, and so aggravated?
3. The future mission of the Jews demands attention. For 4,000 years Jehovah has been preserving them a distinct and peculiar people, by what seems to be a perpetual miracle of Providence—like the bush in Horeb, burning yet not consumed. Scattered among the Gentiles for more than eighteen centuries yet not crushed to extinction, they continue a “cast-out but not cast-off” nation, a people of a marvelous destiny. After the long and dark day of their dispersion, the light of eventide that shall shine upon the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah will be glorious. Yes; God says unto His chosen people, “Though ye have lien among the pots,
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yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.” They are now lying among the pots, with plumage polluted, ruffled and torn; but soon the weary-footed wanderers in all lands will have accomplished their sorrowful pilgrimage, and God will bring them back and give them rest! Then the veil shall be taken away, and the triumphant shout shall arise, like the sound of many waters, “This is the Lord! we have waited for Him, and He will save us!” Then universal religious knowledge will be diffused, and uninterrupted peace will be enjoyed; then a new and blessed era will commence for all nations.
“When the Lord shall again bring Zion,” the whole fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in; for the Jews, having found their Messiah, are to be the missionaries in the regions beyond who shall give to all flesh the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can never expect any particular enlargement of the Redeemer's kingdom till the veil be removed from Israel. Israel's conversion means the conversion of the world. When Israel's light is come, then shall the Gentiles come to her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising; then the name of Christ shall be known “from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,” and His praises shall be heard and celebrated in the uttermost parts of the earth. Since the conversion of the Jews is indisputably an object most intimately connected with the glory of God and with the honor of Christ, does not a special obligation rest upon the followers of Christ to turn their attention unto the Jews?
4. The wonderful care with which God is preparing the Jews for their glorious mission calls for immediate effort. God almost always prepares those destined for important work in the fiery furnace of affliction and suffering. Thus the suffering of the Jewish people is only the process of purification preparatory to rule; and out of suffering shall come not only blessings to themselves, but, blessings to the world. “Perfected by suffering” the Hebrews shall reveal God's glory among the heathen, preachers especially prepared to express every movement of the loving heart of God and to apply the healing balm of the gospel to every bleeding heart.
How marvelously God has distributed this people over all the world. Inured to every climate, they can live in all parts of the inhabited globe, an army in actual occupation of the world, prepared as an instrument for diffusing the gospel, because they are familiar with the languages, manners and customs of all the nations among which they are dispersed. And what a peculiar disposition to preach the gospel God gives to those of His Jewish children who follow Jesus “outside the camp”! Thus all the first preachers of the gospel were Jews who believed in Christ. And to-day about one in every hundred of the army of Hebrew-Christians in the world is actively engaged in preaching Christ, while of the Hebrew-Christians
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living now in the United States and Canada, one out of every thirty-seven is a messenger of the gospel.
Again to the desire to preach the gospel God has added a singular ability to teach. Time fails us to repeat the names of all the illustrious Bible scholars found among the Hebrew-Christians of the past century. Neander, Margoliouth, Bissenthal, Jacobi, Edersheim, Hellmuth, Schereschewsky, are names familiar to every Christian scholar.
Add to these considerations the facts of the continuously increasing prominence of the Jewish people in education, politics and literary work of every kind, and of their wonderful success in commerce and in the accumulation of vast wealth, and can one deny that God is preparing with marvelous care the instrument which He has chosen for a glorious mission? Think what a mighty power for Christian work is ready to your hands in the conversion of a scholarly Jew. With those characteristics that have made them such strong factors in human history converted to Jesus Christ and made subject to the principles of His Kingdom, what a reinforcement they will give to the Church of the living God, what an onward march we may look for! God has prepared the instrument with marvelous care, and now He calls to us, “Go, preach the gospel to the Jew.”
5. The readiness of the Jew for the reception of the gospel demands recognition. Here is a people with the knowledge of the One True God, as He is revealed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament—a people looking hopefully for the Messiah, although their knowledge of the prophecies is but superficial. Here is a people groping after something which will satisfy the longing of their souls. The Jews are now realizing that their religion is a dead one and that it is a physical impossibility to be a true Jew, according to their understanding of what that means. So the children of Israel are growing restless, are reforming their services, are looking for the living God and the veil is being removed, though slowly, from their eyes. The crisis in the history of the people of the Old Covenant is reached; the movement toward Christian truth is growing.
How often we have been told that the Jewish field is discouraging and almost hopeless. We do not deny that it is a peculiarly difficult one, but those who call it discouraging or hopeless, make a serious mistake, for no field of Christian effort is so fruitful as the Jewish field. Statistics tell us that 3,500,000 heathen and Moslems were gathered into the visible Church during the nineteenth century, while 204,000 Jews professed their faith in Christ by public baptism. Be it far from me to exaggerate the value of these figures; but none can deny that both are of the same value, and that they prove that one in every 300 heathen and Moslems became a convert, while one in every sixty Jews found the Messiah. Is a work
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discouraging and hopeless where the converts are five times more numerous than in other similar effort?
North America with its million of Jewish citizens and its erratic, and at best inadequate, Christian efforts among the Jews, has reported 5,200 Jewish baptisms from 1870 to 1900, or an average of 140 per annum, with an increase to 179 annually for the last six years,—1895 to 1901. Three hundred and seventy-three Hebrew-Christians have occupied pulpits of evangelical churches in America since April 15, 1818, when J. S. C. F. Frey was ordained by the Westchester and Morris County Presbytery, of which number sixty-three are still living. Two hundred and fifty-four ministers occupying to-day pulpits of American evangelical churches have Jewish blood in their veins. Are not these figures surprising? Do they not indicate that if the Church enters this field so peculiarly prepared by God with zeal and consecration there would be results that would astonish the world? Is not opportunity the fingerpost of duty? We have a people whose mind is full of God-given truth regarding the Messiah, but who are without the Messiah Himself; a people groping after something which will satisfy the longing of their hearts; a people never so ready to listen to the blessed gospel as they are to-day; a people calling loudly for immediate attention and help. Do we hear the cry?
How shamefully have we neglected our duty to the benighted Jew! The treatment of him by the Christian is among the darkest pages of the world's history, and may well fill all Christendom with shame and should impel the Church of Christ to fall on her knees and pour forth her penitent prayer. Surely, we are very guilty as concerning our brother. Let the consciousness of this supply the motive for amendment, and constrained by the love of Christ, enabled by His grace, encouraged by His approval may we pay our debt to our long-neglected Jewish brother. Then, “Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit,” and then we shall be blessed, for “blessed is He that blesseth thee” and “they shall prosper that love” Israel.
QUESTIONS
Q. Would the Jews, if they returned to Palestine, find a home and sustenance for themselves there? A. I would say, on the authority of the Consul-General of the United States in Palestine and men of that stamp, that the country is capable of supporting such a population as the Zionists intend to send there. In fact there are already certain colonies that are quite successful, and it is urged on that account that other Jews be sent there. The land is neglected now, because of the centuries of war that have passed over it, but there is a good basis in Palestine soil. There is better soil in South America; but there must be something more than simply
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the idea of making a living. There must be some religious motive, and this the Holy Land furnishes; so that the way is open, and they will be supported.
Q. What proportion of the Jews are interested in the Zionist movement? A. I think a very large proportion. There are no statistics possible; but at the last meeting of the Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, a few months ago, there was evidence that the movement is constantly gaining force. In the United States a journal has been started, called The Maccabbean, printed partly in English and partly in the Jewish dialect; and from that it seems that Zionism is spreading into almost every city in the United States. Local societies are formed to instruct the people and to raise the funds necessary to purchase or rent Palestine.
Q. Is there any missionary effort directed toward the Jews in Europe? A. There are a great number of societies in London and Germany. The Society in London is doing a great work. I think the greatest work that can be done for the Jews is not done by special missionaries, but by Christian people and by the ministers, if they would only once a year invite the Jewish people around the churches to come and have a talk about these things. The Church is neglecting its greatest opportunity. I was converted through the instrumentality of an individual. What is necessary to emphasize is not so much the importance of establishing Jewish Missions,—though they are helpful,—but the necessity of making every Christian and every minister who has the chance a special missionary to show them how much they lose when they have not Jesus in their lives now. The question of future salvation is important, but the life that now is, is also important and no man can make the most of himself, unless he has Jesus as the power of God in him.
Q. What response would the Jews give to such an invitation as was just suggested? A. I think it would be worth while trying. I have an idea that at first you might not get a response. It depends on the community; it depends on circumstances. But I venture to recommend that you take up the subject on Sunday evening and ask your members to invite their Jewish neighbors to church.
MR. MEYER.—I was a Jewish missionary in Cincinnati for four years and then went into the regular ministry and have a congregation in Iowa. When I was in Cincinnati as a missionary, I got into touch with all classes. We had no complaints about Jewish audiences because we had evangelistic meetings and mixed audiences. But here arises the question, Am I doing more now? I answer that undoubtedly I am. I am in touch to-day with more of the prominent Jews by letter than when I was a missionary. As a missionary I was absolutely excluded by prominent Jews, and to-day where I am a minister they come. I was converted through a minister
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and not through a missionary, and I was converted directly under his private influence. If you have seen an article published in the December number of The Missionary Review of the World, I there made the statement that 1,072 baptisms occurred in the United States between 1895 and 1901, and then I added that out of these 1,072 baptisms more than 500 were administered by ministers, while only 200 were baptized by missionaries. I think you have the whole statement there that after all the Church is the place to win the Jews, and not the exclusively Jewish mission. And so I believe that every one of you has a personal mission, and then in that audience of one let the Holy Spirit work.
MR. JACOB FINGER, Drew Theological Seminary.—As a student will you allow me, please, to give my experience? I simply wish to tell how I, a Jew, became a Christian and how I look upon Jewish work. I didn't become a Christian because some one came to me and proved out of the Old Testament that Jesus Christ had fulfilled prophecy. I became a Christian because a janitor in a certain place asked me one day whether I wanted to go to school. I can look back to that very morning, and to-day I believe that he was only joking; but from that day I can date, not my conversion, but almost a new life. The treatment in the schools which I have attended was sometimes shameful, because a great many people have no idea as to what Judaism is. The Jew has a heart as truly as the Gentile, and if you want to touch the Jew you must go to him in no back-door way; you must face him and treat him as a brother. I believe that the hope of the Jew is Jesus Christ and a true national assimilation. If you try to transport them you will have the same experience as Bishop Turner had, who found that for every negro whom he sent to Africa, 700 were born the next day. If you give us the privileges of men, I believe that the Lord God Almighty has created us with the same instincts that he has placed in you, and all that the Jew needs is the same privileges that you afford to your sons and daughters. Time only will tell whether he is capable of being a man or not.
632 [in section, Appendixes, A. The Exhibit, Part I—General Missionary Library (a bibliography listing)]
MISSIONS TO THE JEWS
Gidney, W. T.—The Jews and their Evangelization. 1899. s Kellogg, S. H.—The Jews; or, Prediction and Fulfilment. 1883. r Leroy, B. A.—Israel Among the Nations. 1895. r Zangwill, I.—Children of the Ghetto. 1893.
638 [in section Appendix B, Organization of the Convention, Section Conferences (a listing of personnel involved in the conference)]
JEWS. . . . . . . . . . . .R. P. McKay, Chairman Miss C. Wilson, Secretary
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APPENDIX D
OUTLINES FOR MISSIONARY MEETINGS
THIS volume contains an abundance of material suitable for missionary meetings. The addresses, delivered in the first instance by the foremost missionary speakers before audiences of young people, are capable of much wider service in thousands of churches and colleges. The suggestions here given should by no means be followed literally, as local conditions vary too greatly to permit of definite recommendations. For this reason the merest outline only is given with references to material found in this volume and in the few others most likely to be accessible, especially in institutions of higher learning. The hints below are the result of considerable experience and should be especially useful for those who are novices in the work of preparing missionary programs.
1. In choosing participants do so with a view to enlisting persons who, while capable of performing the task, are usually silent in public gatherings. An assignment to a definite piece of work on a missionary program will oftentimes prove an opening wedge, leading to active participation in other meetings. With this undeveloped material two or three capable and experienced persons should also be associated. Do not make the mistake, however, of selecting all the best speakers for the first meeting, if a series of them is in contemplation.
2. Do not plan for too many parts at a given meeting. It will result either in a long and wearisome session, or else will furnish information in such minute sections as to be unsatisfactory or confusing to the audience. Eight speakers should be the extreme limit for young people's meetings, while not more than four or five speakers at most can do successful work in those for older people. Not more than an hour should be allowed for the ordinary missionary meeting.
3. Aim at variety in the program, not following the same order of exercises in successive meetings. Even in the same meeting it is well to have variety in the form of presentation. Thus a lady may prefer to prepare a paper, while a superior reader may venture to render some choice selection suggested in the outline below, and a third participant may be most effective in extemporaneous address.
4. The leader should be on the alert to see that the speakers
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are kept to time, and that the interest of the audience is continuously maintained. Very brief comments, an occasional question to elicit forgotten items of interest, a tactful word of appreciation, a timely request for special prayer—these and a host of other helpful and enlivening features should be at the leader's command.
5. Make as large a use as you profitably can of accessory aids, such as maps,—hand-made, if others are not accessible,—pictures, curios, etc. Nearly every community has in it persons who have traveled in mission lands, or else books that can be used for the enrichment of the meeting. Do not forget that a Sunday-school library, or that of the pastor, may contain side-light material that can be effectively used to strengthen or brighten the program.
6. The devotional element should never be lacking in a missionary meeting; yet in those here contemplated the singing, Scripture selections and hymns should all be subordinated to the theme under discussion. These parts of the program demand thought and preparation as truly as do literary features.
7. In the references given below the order of books, etc., is determined by the alphabetical order of the authors, except that references to “World-Wide Evangelization” appear first, wherever it is named. It should be understood by those who prepare parts that many items in the pages or chapters referred to have no specific reference to the subject assigned. Participants should make selection of material bearing upon the topic, eliminating that which refers to other subjects.
THE BECKONING FIELDS [here follow sections Africa, The Desire of the Nations; Burma, India's Largest Province; Ceylon, India's Pearl; China, the Giant Empire; India, the Cradle of Protestant Missions; then Jewish Missions]
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JEWISH MISSIONS
Present Number and Distribution of the Hebrews. World-wide Evangelization, pp. 413, 418, 419. Beach, H. P.—Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, vol. I, pp. 516, 517.
America's Contingent. World-wide Evangelization, pp. 418-421.
Christian Causes of their Present Sad Condition. World-wide Evangelization, pp. 413, 414, 419, 420, 423. Beach, H. P.—Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, vol. I, p. 518. General encyclopędias, article Jews.
Zionism, Israel's Latest Hope. World-wide Evangelization, pp. 413-417, 420, 427.
Can the Jew Be Won to Christ? World-wide Evangelization, pp. 421, 425, 426.
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Ways of Working. World-wide Evangelization, pp. 417, 418, 421, 427, 428. Beach, H. P.—Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, vol. I, pp. 522, 523.
The Church's Obligation. World-wide Evangelization, pp. 422-426.
[Then follow sections Japan and its Phenomenal Progress; Korea's Awakening; Lands of the Bible; Mexico, our Next-door Neighbor.]
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