HULL. Mr. MOMBERT has improved his temporary sojourn at Hull, and renders us the following account: I have continued to visit my Jewish brethren in this town. A good many of them are continually passing through on their way to the manufacturing districts or Liverpool. I generally manage to be on the quay when the foreign steamers and vessels are coming in, and have, in that way, found many opportunities to speak a word in season, to distribute tracts and portions of Holy Writ. Many Jews, especially from Russia, Poland, and Northern Germany, emigrate to America and Australia, and pass through Hull. As their stay is usually very brief, I can seldom manage to see the same individuals twice, since the emigrants are mostly provided with through tickets, and are not allowed to spend more than a night at Hull. Emigrants, as a rule I think, are more or less willing to court religious conversations; they have left their friends behind them, and the memory of their beloved ones, in conjunction with the uncertainty of their future, and the long voyage before them, influences them to think more of their souls and of God than at other times. I have experienced no difficulty in freely conversing with them, and the tracts and Scripture extracts I put in their hands are generally received with much gratitude, and in two instances I was actually offered payment for tracts. The ignorance of many of them is very great indeed; and their long residence in Popish countries, or among nominal Christians, prejudices them very much against Christianity. A little love goes a great way. I am sure it would do you good to witness the happy expres. sion of gratitude which lights the countenances of some, who, accustomed to be spurned and despised at home, are greeted on their landing in England by a Jewish brother with "Peace be with you." I only wish our Gentile brethren could know more of the great susceptibility of Jews to kindly dealing. Since my arrival here I have been enabled to converse with upwards of sixty emigrant Jews, and to preach to them the Gospel of Christ. They have been provided with tracts, &c., and I trust that the seed of life they take with them to distant shores, may, by the blessing of God, lead them to Christ, their longexpected Messiah. Local visitation.-The number of my acquaintances among Jewish residents has much increased since I wrote last. I visit some ten or twelve families from time to time. They generally belong to the poorer classes. There is plenty of opportunity for visiting; but the usefulness of a Jewish Missionary at Hull is much impaired if he has not a relief-fund. It is impossible to visit the homes of the starving and the diseased, who are, on physical grounds, unable to work, without administering tem oral relief, while you impart spiritual advice and instruction. As I have already observed, many of the resident Jews are poor they are for the most part disappointed people. They have left their homes, and come to England with their families in the foolish anticipation to find England paved with gold. They find it often very difficult to get employment: their household furniture and scantily-provided wardrobe gradually dwindles down to nothing; hunger and disease stare them in the face; and, as strangers in a strange land, they are often in most distressing situations. I am sure I have witnessed some of the most heart-rending scenes in this place. I feel convinced that the question of temporal relief is very important, in this place especially. Union with France on behalf of Israel. WE are very much gratified in being able to state, as one of the happy results of Mr. Davidson's visits, the formation of a society, bearing the above title, at Bordeaux, and regret that we have not space for the rules, with a copy of which we have been favoured by the secretary, who, in his official communication, assures us of the joy with which the arrival of Mr. Frankel has been hailed, and expresses most fraternally the sympathy felt in our object. The friends will rejoice to aid this society financially, if, at the end of their year, the state of their funds will allow. We are encouraged, also, to believe that a similar movement is taking place in Toulouse and Bayonne, as well as at Marseilles. May the fruit be abundant in the temporal and spiritual welfare of the people whose country is the wide world! And may the union thus formed, between Christians of France and England, be marked with a holy rivalry in the work of faith and love, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and rendered diffusive in extending the principles of the Gospel of peace throughout our countries-and far beyond them! To the Friends of our Society. WE turn, with reluctance, to another subject; and yet it presses so urgently for consideration, that it must be mentioned. Our last number reported the unsatisfactory state of the Society's funds. No availing relief has come to hand, while, of necessity, our Missions must be supported or relinquished, and that at a moment when the prospect of usefulness is widening and brightening. Our Missionaries on the Continent are receiving far less than those of kindred institutions, while their labours are quite as abundant, and their necessities are painfully urgent. A few liberal donations, or even loans, and a moderate increase of subscriptions, would be of unspeakable service at the present moment; and, with early remittances of any sums in hand, carry us prosperously, by the blessing of God, through the year. CONTRIBUTIONS IN AID OF THE SOCIETY THE MONTHLY DEVOTIONAL MEETING will be held as usual at No 1, Crescentplace, Blackfriars, on Wednesday Evening, September 16, at 7 o'clock. The meeting is open to all friends of Israel. London Published by JOHN SNOW, 35, Paternoster Row. Printed by Charles Adams and William Gee, at 23 Middle Street West Smithfield, E.C.-No. 141-September 1, 1857. The Jewish Herald, AND RECORD OF CHRISTIAN EFFORT FOR THE SPIRITUAL GOOD OF GOD'S ANCIENT PEOPLE. PUBLISH YE, PRAISE YE, AND SAY, O LORD, SAVE THY PEOPLE, THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL." PUBLISHED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE AFTER Some interesting remarks on the political state and the social progress of the Jews, the Editor says: RELIGIOUS STATE.-We wish we could report thereon as favourably as we did on the social state. Truth, stern truth, extracts from us the mortifying confession that the apathy of which we complained in former years still lays heavily upon us, that the cancer of indifferentism still continues to prey upon our vitals. The reaction, for which we have been waiting for the last few years, has not yet come. The pulpits of most synagogues are still mute, and we are not acquainted with one single place of worship that should have engaged a lecturer this year. The only relieving feature, the only faint indication of the dawning of a stronger religious feeling in the community, the small cloud like the hand of a man, which may forbode a happier time, is the establishment of a scholarship in the Jews' College, of which we may now speak as an accomplished fact, since a sum adequate for the purpose has been collected." Far be it from us to peruse this confession of the respected author with one emotion of vanity or self-complacency. Rather would we adopt the language of the Jewish prophet: "To us belongeth shame and confusion of face, for we too have sinned." If Israel is reminded of her declension from former times-"the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals, when Israel was holiness to the Lord" (Jer. xi.)—we, too, are conscious of having often "left our first love." The penitence promised to Israel can alone meet our case (Zech. xii. 10); and we would adopt the language of her repentant monarch as all our own (Ps. li.). In one respect we both agree-we bow not down, like the heathen, before a tyrant deity or an unknown God, but before Him who "delighteth in mercy, and is ready VOL. XII.-NEW SERIES, VOL. II. and to forgive, but only, as we believe, through the propitiation that He Himself hath set forth. Oh, that Israel were convinced that forms of prayer the most devout, days of penitence, and the most profuse giving of alms, will not avail, so long as the declaration stands among the inspired words of their own prophets, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace supplications and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son; and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Another ten days' penitence has passed, and yet this note has not been struck. The promise stands amongst their most sacred archives, but the heart is not yet opened, nor the hand stretched forth to claim it. "Nevertheless (saith God), for all this will I be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Another spring has faded, the summer has passed, the harvest is ended, and yet Israel is not saved; her autumn does not repose in the consciousness of having yielded her fruit to God, nor does her ploughman yet plough in hope, nor the sower go forth to sow 'the seeds of truth. But, fellow-Christians, there will come a better spring-time. O'er the now barren soil the Sun of Righteousness will arise, the shower of the Holy Spirit's influence will descend. Wake we up to our duty; let this autumn be distinguished by a more plentiful broad-cast of the heavenly seed; while the winter lasts, let us watch and wait in prayer. It may be that mercy is close at hand, and that when "the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land," Israel may "blossom and bud." And when the scattered ones assemble to keep the Spring Festival of the "Lord's Passover," the Lord may Himself be with them, and on the day of Pentecost renew the mercies of the memorable times when 3,000 were converted in a day; and give to them and to the Church a far more plenary accomplishment of the prophecy of Joel than has ever been witnessed (Joel ii. 28). Reflections occasioned by the Events in India. How natural is it for the Christian to inquire-How long shall it be until the peaceful times arrive that are so glowingly depicted in the Word of God? That they shall arrive every believer in revelation regards as a certainty. The times and the seasons are in the power of God. What we know is, that we have already the dispensation, which, by its development, shall, realise these times; and that we have in review, and have at present, those things which are an carnest of what is to be realised. As it respects evils to be abolished, the idols shall be given to the moles and the bats; the abuse which has so long and so prominently prevailed, under the name of Christianity, shall be destroyed by the brightness of the Saviour's coming; and the false prophet shall pale his crescent, and it shall be no more. The powers of this world shall know their own place, and be contented with their own work. But, on the side of good, what do we want but the Saviour's familiar illustration to have its substance?-the leaven leavening the whole lump,-that each Christian be true to his principles, himself, and his God; that the individuality and union of Christians be felt and acted upon; and that Jews as well as Gentiles be brought into the one flock of the Saviour? The conversion of the Jews is that for which the Church and the world wait. Not that means are not to be used that the world may be Christianised until their conversion, for this would imply that it was wrong to make such exertions in the first promulgation of the Gospel. As both portions of the human race were then respected, so they should be still, and rich were the earnests afforded, in the first age of Christianity, of the harvest which shall be eventually gathered, and as including the Jews, for they were as a kind of first-fruits unto God; and it is the opinion of persons who are observant of operations bearing upon that people and their results, that since the Apostolic age there never has been a period of such remarkable achievement in this respect. If it be so, that long since the knowledge of one trustworthy brother of the house of Israel-his personal knowledgecould extend to as many as two hundred of his converted brethren, not only professing Christianity, but holding office in connexion with the Church of Christ, must not this silence the inquiry-Has any thing been achieved amongst the Jews? It may be the case that a large proportion of Jews, converted to Christianity, become ministers of Christ; but if a large proportion, still but a fraction in relation to the whole body. The fact of the proportion being large may resolve itself, in part, into the great sacrifice which almost every Jew-and especially the Jew qualified for ministerial work-must make on his becoming Christian. He obtains a hundred fold for his privations and sufferings, in the same kind that the primitive Christians did for theirs. Now the bearing of this is, that efforts for the Jews are not unsuccessful, as efforts in regard to the Gentiles are not unsuccessful, in proportion as they are scripturally made, while a comparison may be instituted that shall not discourage the Jewish efforts; but in regard to both, that which remains to be achieved-which is the certain hope of the Church and her prayer-is, that Jews and Gentiles shall so be turned unto God, as that the exception shall come to be with the unbelieving, and not with the believing-as comparatively rare that an unbeliever be found as it is now that a believer be. The expectation thus held out may, to some minds, be more impressive as bearing upon the Jew than upon the Gentile. The Jew has been for so many ages an unbeliever. He is reached, as some think, with so much difficulty. Disappointments are sometimes found, and they are sure to be marked; but, however surprising in the view of some, the end shall be reached. As the sheep not of the Jewish fold would be brought-though at the time there was no indication of it, or scarcely any-and be made to constitute one flock with the first-gathered Jews, so, undoubtedly, shall it be the case that the veil shall be taken from the face of Israel, and it shall be turned to the Lord. Whatever, then, the calamity occurring with the human race, is it not so that sin is the only real evil? and is it not so that Christianity is the only real remedy for sin? And if the conversion of the Jews be blended with the fulness of the Gentiles, and if the predicted happiness of the world in peace and purity is resolvable into the fact of the knowledge of the Lord then covering the earth as the waters cover the sea, whatever the calamity be that wrings the heart-as, for instance, we behold the way of transgressors and are grieved; we read of the delusion of indulgences of sin, for years upon years, upon the condition of certain meritorious repetitions; we read of Mohammedan cruelty, of the Hindu combining |