Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ Part 29

That second visit, more hazardous even than the first, was made with the purpose of ascertaining the fate of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly,--two Englishmen, who, as subsequently transpired, had been murdered. Wolff's arrival in the city was witnessed by 20,000 persons shouting "welcome" to the enterprising traveller, whose costume--gown, hood, and shovel-hat--roused no small astonishment. Wolff obtained permission from the king for the Jews to repair their ancient synagogue.[26]

[26] "Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara."

In 1833 we find Wolff in India, visiting the white and the black Jews of Cochin, and the Beni-Israel of Poona, Calcutta and Bombay. This was not an unexplored field, as the L.J.S. missionaries had been working there from 1820 to 1830. Wolff found plenty to do, and at Calcutta, for six successive days, talked twelve hours on end to all who came to his "retreat."

Hitherto Asia had been the princ.i.p.al scene of Wolff's labours, but in 1835 he was in Abyssinia and in 1836 in Arabia, visiting the Yemen. At Sanaa he expounded Isaiah liii. to the Jews, and subsequently baptized four with their families. The Jews were polygamists, but apparently dissatisfied with the state of things thus entailed.

Lack of s.p.a.ce prohibits us from enlarging on Wolff's labours in the East. His own descriptions remain to this day the most entertaining of missionary annals, and bear witness to the wonderful activity of the man whose striking personality, not unmixed with a harmless and naive egotism, carried him through numberless dangers, and extricated him from perilous situations. The restlessness of his nature, which in early life impelled him to wander over Europe in search of light and learning, developed in succeeding years into that consecrated fiery energy and impulse which made him so peculiarly fitted to play the _role_ of pioneer missionary. Many of his friends, as he said, "believed him to be Elijah," though he archly added, "he always believed himself to be Joseph Wolff!" But a pioneer he was in every sense of the word, and as such rendered yeoman service to a cause, which more than all others, perhaps, needs all the glamour and romance it can call to its aid. So great was his dramatic power in describing his travels that Archbishop Whately proclaimed him to be "a missionary Shakespeare."

Wolff had an iron const.i.tution and a powerful frame, absolutely impervious to matters of climate, and privations, however severe and enduring. He records that, when travelling in India in 1832, he was stripped of everything, and in danger of being "made into sausages," and "had to walk without a rag of clothing on for 600 miles from the Hindu Koosh to the Punjaub, through storms and snow!" He was relieved and clothed at Cabul by Lieutenant Burnes. Wolff's character, wonderful activity, and resources, were thus caustically summed up by one who knew him:--

"He appears to me to be a comet without any perihelion, and capable of setting a whole system on fire. When I should have addressed him in Syria, I heard of him at Malta, and when I supposed he was gone to England, he was riding like a ruling angel in the whirlwinds of Antioch, or standing unappalled among the crumbling towers of Aleppo. A man who at Rome calls the Pope 'the dust of the earth,' and at Jerusalem tells the Jews that the 'Gemara is a lie'; who pa.s.ses his days in disputation, and his nights in digging in the Talmud; to whom a floor of brick is a feather-bed and a box is a bolster; who makes or finds a friend alike in the persecutor of his former or of his present faith; who can conciliate a Pasha or confute a patriarch; who travels without a guide, speaks without an interpreter, can live without food, and pay without money, forgiving all the insults he meets with, and forgetting all the flattery he receives; who knows little of worldly conduct, and yet accommodates himself to all men without giving offence to any--such a man (and such and more is Wolff) must excite no ordinary degree of attention in a country and among a people whose monotony of manners and habits has remained undisturbed for centuries. As a pioneer I deem him matchless, _aut inveniet viam, aut faciet_; but, if order is to be established or arrangements made, trouble not Wolff. He knows of no church but his heart, no calling but that of zeal, no dispensation but that of preaching. He is devoid of enmity towards man, and full of the love of G.o.d. By such an instrument, whom no school hath taught, whom no college could hold, is the way of the Judaean wilderness preparing.... Thus are his brethren provoked to emulation and stirred up to inquiry. They all perceive, as everyone must, that whatever he is, he is in earnest; they acknowledge him to be a sincere believer in Jesus of Nazareth, and that is a great point gained with them, for the ma.s.s of the ignorant and unconverted Jews deny the possibility of real conversion from Judaism."[27]

[27] The Rev. Lewis Way, quoted in "Travels and Adventures of Dr.

Wolff," vol. i., p. 287.

General Sir Charles Napier said that Wolff had "worked harder for religion, and had gone through more dangers for it, with a brave heart, than any man living."

Of his life in England as a parochial clergyman, but little can be said in this biography. He married, when a young man, the daughter of the Earl of Orford, Lady Georgiana Walpole, with whom he lived happily for thirty years, and whose son was Sir Henry Drummond Wolff. When he settled in England, he became vicar of Linthwaite, a small village in Yorks.h.i.+re. His friend, Henry Drummond, after whom he had named his son, wrote, "Your call is to be an evangelist for all the nations of the earth, and for this you are fit; but, to use your own simile, you are as fit for a parish priest as I am for a dancing-master." Wolff shortly afterwards removed, on account of his wife's health, to the sole charge of High Hoyland, another Yorks.h.i.+re village, with about 120 souls. There, too, he must have felt like a lion in a cage; and when, five years later, he resigned his charge on the ground of not being able to meet his expenses, and undertook his second journey to Bokhara, he must indeed have rejoiced in an aftermath of the freedom and action of his earlier career. One little incident is too good to be omitted. Before Wolff entered upon the curacy, his predecessor, doubting the sentiments of his successor, preached his farewell sermon from the text, "After my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you." Wolff remarks, "However, he was very merciful, and made no allusion to the coming 'Wolff' in his sermon!"

On his return from Bokhara, Wolff was appointed to the living of Isle-Brewers, in Somersets.h.i.+re, with a population of 300, amongst whom were two farmers, all the rest being peasants. There Wolff remained for the remainder of his life, his talents and brilliant gifts being wasted in such retirement, but his energy knowing no diminution. He built a new parsonage and schools, defraying a portion of the expense from the proceeds of his works and lectures; and erected a new church, for the cost of which he laid all his numerous friends and everybody else, under contribution by incessant correspondence and personal applications. He was a father to his poor, and every winter supported thirty-five families with the necessities of life. Wolff was the neighbour and firm friend of George Anthony Denison, "dearer to him than any," although theologically in the opposite camp. Amongst Wolff's other numerous friends and acquaintances, we may mention the names of Sir Walter Scott, Dean Stanley, Dean Hook, Alfred Tennyson, and Alfred and Margaret Gatty.

Wolff died in 1862, at the age of 66 or 67 years--a long life, when the restless activity of brain and body is taken into account, and a full life, in every sense of the word. He exemplified in his person the saying, "It is better to wear out than to rust out." And his epitaph might well have been, "The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."

WOLFF, Oscar Ludwig Bernard, was born in Altona, 1799. After embracing Christianity (the date uncertain) he held the professors.h.i.+p of modern languages and literature successively at Weimar and at Jena, where he died in 1851. His literary works appeared at Jena in 1841-43 in fourteen volumes. The best known of his works are "Poetischer Hausschatz des Deutschen Volkes" (Leipzig, 1839); "Hausschatz Deutscher Prosa" (_ib._, 1855) and "Geschichte des Deutschen Romans," Jena 1843.

WOLKENBERG, Rev. Marcus. Mordecai Wolkenberg (for such was his Jewish name) was born in 1834 in Russian Poland. When quite young he was smuggled over the border into Galicia (Austrian Poland) to avoid being Christianized and trained for military service, it often being the custom in the time of the Emperor Nicholas I. to seize Jewish lads for those ends. Mordecai was placed by his parents with pious and orthodox relatives at Brody, where he gained the interest of the famous rabbi of the town, Salomon Kluger, and through his teaching soon acquired a good Hebrew and Talmudical education. When quite a young man he was appointed tutor in the home of the rich banker Cahner at Ja.s.sy, where he remained about two years. During his stay there he made the acquaintance of the Rev. W. Mayer, the L.J.S. missionary. After a time of great heart-searching and deep spiritual experience, he was led to embrace the Christian faith, and was baptized. Thereupon he had to pa.s.s through a period of bitter trial and persecution, instigated chiefly by his employer. His occupation had brought him in contact with many people.

All these forsook him when he made his public confession of Christianity. At length he had to leave Ja.s.sy, and, after a while, Marcus (as his name now was) went to the Malta Protestant College; later on he came to London, when he read theology with the Rev. A. S.

Thelwall. In 1863 he was appointed an a.s.sistant missionary at Ja.s.sy.

This was a great trial to his feelings and faith, for it was there that he first found Christ, and there, in consequence, that he had first tasted the venom of religious hatred. Here, however, to his surprise, he was sought for and visited by numbers of his former acquaintances. A wide door, and effectual, was thus opened to him, one result of years of patient school and other missionary work by those who had long laboured in Ja.s.sy. Of this circ.u.mstance he says: "Most of these visitors were teachers, some merchants, and others near relatives of one of the wealthiest Jews here. Nor has the bold proclamation of the truth, on my part, deterred them from continuing their intercourse with me." For seven years he thus worked in Ja.s.sy and in Bacau for Christ, and with much blessing. In 1870, owing to the illness of his wife, he had to return to England; where he laboured successively in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and lastly in Liverpool, where he died April 17th, 1900, very much regretted by all who knew him, and not least by many Jews, who spoke in the highest terms of his goodness, piety, and scholars.h.i.+p.

XERES, Jonah ben Jacob, was a native of North Africa, where he came in contact with English Christian merchants and learned the truth as it is in Jesus from them. In 1707 he came to London and was instructed and baptized by Dr. Allix in 1709. He then wrote an "Address to the Jews,"

containing his reasons for leaving the Jewish and embracing the Christian religion. (See Wolff Bib. Heb., 14, N. 823.)

The book is dedicated to the then Archbishop of York (in 1709), and prefaced by an attestation to the respectability of the author by seven London merchants, and another by the learned Dr. Allix.

"We, whose names are underwritten, merchants trading into Barbary in Africa, do hereby certify, all whom it may concern, that we, each of us, having formerly lived for several years in those parts, did then, as we do now, personally know Jonah ben Jacob Xeres, who was born in Saphia, a sea-port town on that coast. His parents, being Hebrews, were reputed to be honest and substantial people; who employed much care in educating this their son, Jonah, in the Jewish religion, and no less expense in instructing him in the Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean tongues. He the said Jonah lived in that country a professed Jew, till the age of five and twenty, or thereabouts; and always behaved himself sober in his conversation, and no less just in his dealing, as some of us have experienced, having had occasion to employ him on several accounts, whereby, amongst other conversation, he had an opportunity of discoursing with some in our factory about matters of religion; and, as he now informs us, was thereby possessed with some notion, that the Messiah had already come; whereby, being uneasy under such a weighty doubt, he came over to England about eighteen months ago, in order to acquire a full satisfaction. After some time here, he applied himself to some of us to recommend him to some learned Divine for information; whereupon he was sent to the Rev. Dr. Allix, on whom some of us have since waited, who, requesting of us a character of the said Jonah, is the occasion of this paper, which we do in all respects believe to be true, and have a very good opinion of the probity and sincerity of the above-mentioned Jonah; and that we trust upon his examination, he will prove to the judgment of the Most Reverend the Archbishops, the Right Reverend the Bishops, the Reverend the Clergy, and all other pious Christians, to whom we recommend him, &c.

"Done at London, this eight and twentieth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and nine.

"Peter Fleuriot, Samuel Robinson, John Lodington, John Adams, Val.

Norton, Robert Colmore, Thomas Coleman."

"These are to certify, that upon several discourses had with the aforementioned Jonah ben Jacob Xeres, I have found him very well acquainted with the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, and all other Jewish and particularly Talmudical learning; so that he was very ready, upon the chief objections that Jews make to the doctrine, deity, and office of our Saviour. But, as he is endowed with very good natural and acquired parts, I was the more able to satisfy and convince him of the truth; so that, after having examined by Scripture all the most material controversies, he hath freely declared to myself, and his other friends, his desire to renounce the errors and prejudices of his education in the Jewish religion, and to embrace and profess the Christian faith.

"Witness my hand this 30th day of July, 1709.

"Peter Allix, D.D."

ZABANSKI, J., was born at Minsk in Lithuania. His father, a bigoted Talmudist, sent him once on an errand to a Christian n.o.bleman, who made him a present of a Hebrew New Testament which, on coming home, he innocently enough shewed his father, and was peremptorily told to take it back. This excited in him the curiosity to know the contents of the book, and he soon procured one. Detected in reading it, he was punished by his father more than once, and at last the father got the police to give him twenty-five strokes with a rod for disobedience. The consequence was that he got ill and had to be taken to a hospital. After being there nine weeks, he ran away, obtained a situation as a teacher in a family for three years, where he got possession of a German New Testament and Dr. McCaul's "Old Paths." He then returned to his father and asked his permission to go abroad. As this was not granted, he again ran away, and this time to Constantinople, where he heard the Gospel from a missionary named Goldberg. Thence he went to Jerusalem, and was admitted by Hershon into the House of Industry. His countrymen there, who knew his father as a learned Talmudist, tried every means to s.n.a.t.c.h him away from the Mission. They even went to Rachel's grave to pray for his return to Judaism, and finally sent two Jews to his father to come and fetch him, but Zabanski became a Christian and laboured afterwards as a missionary of the L.J.S. from 1864 to 1867, and for a long period as an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in Bulgaria.

ZECKHAUSEN, Rev. Leopold. The following is from his own pen:--

"I was born in December, 1862, at Kovno in Russia, of strictly orthodox Jewish parents, and, with the rest of my brothers, I got the usual education of rabbinical Jews. My mother, like so many mothers in Israel, would fain have seen me devoting myself entirely to the Talmud. I was to be the rabbi of the family. My inclinations, however, were in the direction of secular knowledge, and my father was broad-minded enough not to insist upon an exclusively rabbinical training. At the age of eleven I was accordingly sent to the local Gymnasium, or grammar school.

After a stay of six years at this school I left Russia with the intention of studying medicine at the University of Koenigsberg in Prussia. But six months later financial difficulties, in which my father found himself, necessitated my dropping the studies and accepting a post offered me in an office (July, 1881.)

"Once in business I threw myself heart and soul into my new vocation, and kept on rising steadily. At the end of ten years spent in business houses in Koenigsberg, Frankfort and Amsterdam, I was offered a partners.h.i.+p at Libau in Russia. I declined it, however, after some deliberation, and decided to leave business for good (1891).

"That step was the outcome of another and a more important one, which I had taken three years previously, and which proved to be the turning point of my life. While still at my father's house I had begun to get weary of the endless, and often meaningless ceremonies of rabbinical Judaism. In Germany and Holland, surrounded by general religious indifference and rampant scepticism, my faith in Judaism waned more and more. I tried to make myself acquainted with Christianity, a.s.sayed to study the New Testament, but not with the hope of finding in it truth and peace. My studies were mostly of a critical nature. My Jewish prejudices, though largely toned down by frequent intercourse with Christians, were still potent enough to prevent an impartial investigation. The difficulties of the Gospels seemed to me insuperable.

So I continued to drift further and further away from religious influences, until at Amsterdam I found myself at a boarding house in the company of some earnest Christian young men. They were schoolmasters--intelligent, idealistic, eager to learn and to exchange thoughts with others, and before very long we were on friendly terms.

Through their intercourse, the almost extinguished interest for religious thought once more revived in me. Not that we ever went in for regular theological discussions--mere politeness forbade that--but Dante's 'Inferno,' Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' and other literary productions with a religious basis, were often talked over among us, and I could not help being impressed by the true, though un.o.btrusive, religious fervour of those educated young men.

"I decided to look for a person competent to deal with my prejudices and willing to a.s.sist me to a spiritual understanding of Christianity. An Encyclopaedia helped to the address of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, and a letter from the Secretary introduced me to the Society's missionary at Amsterdam, the Rev. A. C.

Adler. I told that gentleman, on my first visit to him, that it was not so much the history of Christ and Christianity as the spiritual element of the New Testament that baffled me, and that I should feel obliged to him for some light upon the subject. I did not pretend to any desire of embracing Christianity, nor did Mr. Adler, on his part, so much as hint at that eventuality. He most readily acceded to my request for enlightenment, and suggested that we should read together the Gospel of St. John. For some seven weeks I had the little expected pleasure of listening to a masterly exposition of a book that had been till then the least intelligible one to me in the New Testament. I shall never forget the impression Mr. Adler's intelligent interpretation of that Gospel produced upon my mind and heart. I felt myself literally introduced into a new world--into that spiritual world of which the carnal mind and the materialist know nothing. The person of Christ kept on growing before and within me until I could think of nothing else. But I was not to yield myself to Him without a struggle.

"Mr. Adler, with an unerring tact, restricted himself conscientiously to the task of instruction. He asked no questions, nor did he invite me to a confession of faith. Had he done so, I fear he had but succeeded in repelling me, at least for a time.

"When I found myself face to face with the question:--'What think you _now_ of Christ?'--pride of reason and lingering prejudice seemed to a.s.sert themselves more. I at once suddenly ceased visiting Mr. Adler and thought of getting Christianity out of my head entirely. I cannot tell whether Mr. Adler still entertained the hope of ever seeing me again in his study; I certainly intended that it should not be the case.

"The Lord Jesus, however, had become too strong for me to resist Him successfully for any length of time. My peace of mind was clean gone, and I had, for my own part, experienced the truth of our Lord's words, 'No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me, draw him.'

"After a time I was again at Mr. Adler's. When, in answer to my knock there came his Dutch 'Binnen!' ('Come in!'), and I stepped into the room, Mr. Adler came hurriedly up to meet me, and, taking both my hands, exclaimed joyfully, 'You have come again. Then all is right. I knew you would not come unless your doubts were conquered. I have been praying for that.'

"A few days after this episode I received a telegraphic message necessitating my immediate return to Germany. I took at once a train to Zandvoort, a seaside place near Amsterdam, where Mr. Adler was at the time with his family for their summer holiday. I told him I had to leave Holland without delay and requested, as a special favour, that he would admit me into the Church of Christ by baptism the very next day. Mr.

Adler looked rather perplexed. He was, on principle, he told me, opposed to doing things in a hurry, and especially when baptism was under consideration. But my case was so exceptional that he thought he saw in it the Lord's doing, and could not therefore refuse my request.

"The following morning, Sunday, August 12th, 1888, Mr. Adler was in the pulpit of his church, after explaining the reason of his unexpected return to Amsterdam, he invited the congregation to be present at my baptism that afternoon. Saintly old Mr. Bloch, late missionary of the L.J.S., and the beadle of the church, acted as witnesses to my public declaration of faith in Christ crucified.

"On the day following my baptism I had already left Holland, and was on my way back to Koenigsberg. There I spent another three years, following my commercial vocation and keeping up all along a pretty regular correspondence with Mr. Adler, to whose instruction I owed so much. In those letters he frequently reminded me of my Christian duty toward my Jewish brethren, and invited me to offer myself for missionary training.

I doubted my qualifications for such a calling, questioned the advisability of going back to college after an interval of ten years spent in commercial pursuits, but at last I decided to follow the call, and sent an application to London for admission into the London Jews'

Society's Missionary College. I was admitted there in December, 1891, and remained a.s.sociated with the Inst.i.tution for three years and a-half, till July, 1895.

"Having completed the course of my studies, I was attached to the staff of the London Mission, thence I was transferred to work at Manchester in 1896, and exactly three years later to Jerusalem. Here I was ordained deacon at Christmas, 1900, and priest on Trinity Sunday, 1902, by the Bishop of the Church of England in Jerusalem and the East, Dr. Blyth.

Here also I was married to Miss Sara Jane Ellison, daughter of the late Dean Ellison, of s.h.i.+llelagh, County Wicklow, Ireland, April, 1901.

"I may be allowed to mention in conclusion that the decision to give up my business prospects, in order to become a missionary to the Jews, was soon amply rewarded by the Lord. My elder brother, with whom I had exchanged many letters on the subject of Christianity ever since I had embraced it myself, without apparently making much impression on him, wrote to me now--having heard of the step I had taken--to express his appreciation of what I had done. 'Whatsoever people may think of your motives or your actions, there is probably no one that can put them down at their proper value better than myself,' ran his note. 'I have seen you during the last ten years steadily climbing the ladder of commercial success, gaining in experience and reputation, and about to earn the fruit of much labour, and then to throw it all deliberately over in order to become a missionary! I cannot help admiring you. You have done the right and proper thing. Though we differ in our religious opinions, we do not on the point of principle. You have acted as I should have expected an honest man, with soul above s. d. to act. It is refres.h.i.+ng to find enthusiasm for ideal goods in our sordid age of materialism.'

"This brother of mine is now, I am grateful to say, himself a worker in the Lord's vineyard, labouring with marked success as a medical missionary amongst the Jews of New York, faithfully a.s.sisted by his wife--also a convert from Judaism."

In 1902 the Rev. L. and Mrs. Zeckhausen were transferred from Jerusalem to Cracow; and in 1908, on the death of his spiritual father, the Rev.

A. C. Adler, he succeeded to the heads.h.i.+p of the L.J.S. mission at Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

ZUCKERKANDLE, Dr., and his wife were converted and baptized in Pesth through the instrumentality of the Rev. William Wingate. He was afterwards a missionary of the L.J.S. in Bucharest, and later on he entered the service of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews and conducted a school at Rustschuk in Bulgaria, where he died in 1874. The widow came then to London, and laboured amongst the Jewesses in Spitalfields for many years with great blessing upon her work of love. She was probably the first to organize a Jewish mothers' meeting.

ZUCKERTORT, G. J., father of the famous chessplayer, was won for Christ through the preaching of the L.J.S. missionary Wendt, and was baptized by him in 1831. In 1836 he was appointed a.s.sistant missionary at Lublin, where he preached the Gospel to his own relations, one of whom, a thriving medical doctor of the same name, confessed Christ and was baptized with his four children in 1845, and his wife later, in 1849.