"PUBLISH YE, PRAISE YE, AND SAY, O LORD, SAVE THY PEOPLE, THE REMNANT OF ISRAEL." OFFICE:-No. 1, CRESCENT PLACE, BLACKFRIARS, LONDON: No. 205.] JANUARY 1, 1863. [Price 1d. The New Year. OUR New Year's greeting has somewhat of the character that marks the onward path of the sun after the 21st December. We look back on sunny days, sometimes clouded, and gradually shortening, and our spirits are depressed; but the sky brightens,-light shines down upon the promise; and if indeed we are humbled before the Lord, a voice may be heard, even amidst wintry winds, "From this day I will bless you." The financial pressure and anticipations, to which frequent reference has been made, have awakened sympathy, and elicited kind assistance. On the part of the Society's officers and agents, too, cordial offers have been made to share, by voluntary diminution of salaries, in relieving the burdens. For all this we are thankful,-and yet the conviction deepens, that if efficient help is received, it must be expected in answer to prayer. We pause, for a moment, on the twofold inquiry" Is the cause of Jewish Evangelisation one which may be brought before God in prayer, and in the exercise of faith ;" and, secondly, Is prayer made as extensively and as earnestly as it should be ?" In reply to the first inquiry, we think of the teachings and examples of our Lord and of is disciples, and of the promises so abundantly recorded on the sacred page, and so intimately connected with the outpouring of the heart in prayer. We call to mind instances of Jewish conversion, from the day of Pentecost to the present hour, thankfully noting how Christian effort has always been attended with tokens of Divine approval, and that seasons of spiritual revival have been strikingly marked with instances of Jewish conver sion. We reflect with deepest interest on the actual condition of the Jews at the present time. The description of the Gentile world by the apostle fearfully applies to them now, as "Without Christ, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." Yet are not all dead; there are movements. Never was the Gospel so widely diffused among them, or so attentively studied. The holy character and prophetic office of Jesus are freely and fully admitted, but "There is no breath in them." VOL. XVIII.-NEW SERIES, VOL. IX. A Divine influence is needed to render human agency appropriate and available, and to awaken consciences to the truth presented to them. This is promised in answer to prayer. And then our thoughts love to dwell on the benefit that would arise to the cause and kingdom of Christ from the awakening and conversion of the Jewish people. They are everywhere. Almost everywhere the New Testament is possessed and read. Suppose only that wherever a converted Jew is found he were to bear an outspoken witness for Christ,-that witness being sustained by a consistent life,-would not the influence be invincible? Let the instances be multiplied, and the sceptic would be put to shame, and the energies of men of little faith would be called forth. Would not a new flame be enkindled, or the smoking flax be fanned, in Christian communities, and a new type of fraternal affection be presented to the world in the union of Jews and Christians for the universal dissemination of the truth as it is in Jesus? "The remnant of Israel shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord." And "many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths." "For all this shall prayer be made." But is prayer made? We have heard confessions of failure in the pulpit recently, and breathings at the prayermeeting, and we have had communications from various directions that excite hope, some of which we hope to publish. The closet should bear witness, and the hearth, too, to the reality of our desires and the fervour of our prayer. Set hours for this exercise have been, to some extent, observed, e.g., the morning of every Jewish Sabbath; and it has been suggested that a concert of prayer should be arranged. Will our friends think of this, and favour us with their views? We shall be thankful for brief communications on subjects bearing on the spiritual welfare of Israel (Malachi iii. 16, 17). We have every inducement to provoke each other to this work of faith and labour of love. "And hark! amid the flashing fire, "Tis Abraham's God who speaks so loud, His people's cries have pierced the cloud,― "He shall redeem them one by one, "Gentiles! with fix'd yet awful eye, Our Missions. JAFFA. DR. PHILIP thus introduces a narrative which he proposes to give of a tour through Palestine and Philistia. Our space is so limited, and missionary record so full, that we shall be unable to do more than present extracts from these interesting papers : From the accompanying paper you will observe that I have made a tour through Philistia and other places in Palestine; and though there are no Jews in the former, yet I am sure that you and the friends at home will read a short description of my tour with interest. On the last tour I had very interesting conversations with a number of Jews in Hebron, and though I cannot say that I have found any of them converted, yet I believe that the frequent visits of some of the missionary brethren in Jerusalem have done much good, and the truth which they have spread there evidently is sown in good soil, and will take root in due time. Many of the Jews there are reading the New Testament, and may often be heard reasoning about the truth among themselves. There is no missionary resident there, but missionaries from Jerusalem visit the place from time to time. I found that my visit was very welcome, as the only medical man, the quarantine surgeon had left. As soon as it was known that I had arrived there, I was surrounded by a number of Jews, who asked for medical advice, and a number of them kindly invited me to their houses; I saw many of their sick, administered to their medical wants from the small medicine chest which I had taken with me; and had interesting conversations with a few, as I shall mention to you in my paper containing my visit to Hebron. D. V. when I shall have time at my disposal, I intend to visit the Jews in Hebron again, and spend a week or longer with them. Here at Jaffa my work continues as usually, and my hours at the dispensary are fully occupied with Jews and Jewesses, whilst at the same time I visit them in their houses, and though seeking every oppor tunity to preach to them Jesus the Messiah, I am well received by them. VISIT TO THE LAND OF THE PHILISTINES. There are several roads emerging from Jaffa towards the land of the Philistines; one along the sea-shore, and two of them inland. I preferred to take the middle of these three, for the purpose of traversing the plain where Jonathan defeated the army of Appollonius, after his successful capture of Joppa (Jaffa)-see Josephus, Antiq. xiii. iv. 4—and of visiting several spots on the sea-shore, no more than two miles distant from the road which I had chosen. Leaving the crowded marketplace, outside the gate of Jaffa, one passes for about two miles through lanes between the rich orange groves and gardens lined on both sides by fences of the prickly pear (Opuntia vulgaris), very thickly planted, and some of them about 15 feet high. Emerging from these lanes an extensive plain opens uniting towards the N.E. with the plain of Sharon, and to the south with that of Philistia; to the west the sands have accumulated from the sea shore inland for more than a mile and a half to the height of 150 feet above the level of the sea. At a distance of about 20 miles are seen the hills of Judea stretching in gloomy ranges nearly due west and south, as far as the eye can reach, and far beyond them, here and there, the peaks of Moab's mountains appear like the heads of giants in various shapes and looking over Israel's hills and Israel's plains. The soil of this plain is very good, but for want of inhabitants, industry, and agricultural enterprise, it has been neglected; and the Halfee grass has so overgrown it, that it would be easier to clear a field where Lucern has been grown, than this plain. Traversing this road for about three hours, we find the bed of a river stretching west by north, but dry, like most of the rivers here, except in winter after the rains have fallen. This river is called Rubeen by the natives, and in Scripture Rakkou, and formed the southern boundary of the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46) About a mile from its mouth there stands a wely, to which every year thousands of Mahomedans go on a pilgrimage of feasting. The tradition among the ignorant of them is, that there Ruben the son of Jacob was buried; here multitudes of tents and all sorts of sheds may be seen at that season, and an average number of 10,000 Mahomedans, men, women, and children, from all the different parts of the country, enjoying themselves in their own way, by drinking coffee, smoking, eating fruit, and drinking the water of the river Rubeen, until they become sick, and then they return to their homes, and every year I see more than fifty per cent. of them with fever or eye-diseases. The feast lasts an indefinite time, till at the leisure of the last, they return to their homes. All tents and sheds and cafés then disappear, and not a single creature remains, except a host of sparrows and crows feeding upon the crumbs that have been left. A little more than a mile from this celebrated spot the river, when it has water, flows into the Mediterranean; and not far distant from it is the Meena Yebna (the port of Yebna), so called by the natives. The village of Yebna is, however, about eight miles distant from it, in the direction south by east. To return to my tour. In four hours I reached Yebna-a poor, miserable village The houses built of the debris of ancient masonry, but plastered over with a mixture of red clay and chopped straw; and here and there a few pieces of columns of white marble are lying before the doors to serve as thresholds. Yebna has a few gardens, carefully fenced in with the cactus and small olive groves around it. The only object of interest in the place is an old Christian church, now converted into a mosque, and united to it is a conical-shaped tower, employed now as a minaret, from which the Muezzim invites to prayer the followers of Mahomed. The church has several arches, supported upon plain columns with cornised capitals; and the only piece of white marble to be seen there is immured to support a staircase leading to the tower. The church has no roof; and the stones of the tower, on the outside, are very likely of a remote date. The rest of the building probable dates from the time of the Crusaders. One door within the church, the Mahomedans say, was the entrance for Christians. It is now blocked up with stones, and they have made a new door for themselves. Of the origin of Yebna we know very little. It is probably the site where Jebna stood, which was taken by the king Uzziah (2 Chronicles, xxxvi. 6), or one of the border cities of Judah, the Jabneel of Joshua, xv. 11. It is at present a village of about one hundred houses, with a population of about five hundred, who are all Mahomedan. I took my luncheon here in a miserable hut, where the Sheik ElBelad (magistrate) holds his courts; I was soon surrounded by a number of the vil lagers, who took their seats on the ground around me, and we entered into a friendly conversation. I spoke to them about the former greatness of this country, comparing it with the miserable state in which it is now, and explained to them at the same time how this misery was brought on, viz. by the sins of the ancient inhabitants. It is true (replied one of them), but they were heathens-they were worshippers of idols; but we are Mahomedans. "And do you think,” said I, “that because you are Mahomedans, you are better than other men? Are you not all the creatures of one God-the children of the same parents, Adam and Eve? Are we not all sinners by nature? Our holy Gospel says, 'All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,' and unless every one repents of his sins, and believes in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ, none can be saved. Read in your own Koran," I continued, “and see what Mahomed says, 'They are all deaf, dumb, and blind, for they will not repent."' All were amazed, and remembering well that passage in the Koran (Kor. ii. 17), exclaimed with a united voice, "Sahhi, Sahhi, how well the hakeem knows the Koran, Mash Alla!" "Look also," I said, "what your Mahomed says of Sidna Isa (our Lord Jesus), that He was the Word, i. e. by which God had created all things-that He was the Son of the Virgin Mary-that He was appointed God's apostle to teach man the way of salvation" (Kor. iii). To shift the conversation as they are in the habit of doing on such occasions, one of them said, "Was not there a great man here who was called Iskander ?" (Alexander). "Yes," said I," there were two Alexanders here, one 300 years before Christ, and one 150 years before Christ (viz. during the time of the Maccabees)." 'Well," replied another, "He was a great man," saying to his neighbour that he had always two Pashas along with him, the one a Mohamedan, and the other a Nazarene. Upon which I told him that at that time there were no Mohamedans, at which he seemed very much surprised, but referring him to the date of the Mohamedan religion, and the times of Iskander, he confessed his error, and looking to his neighbours, he said, "Sahhi, the hakeem knows it better than we." This is one of the examples of their utter ignorance of chronology and history, as well as of religion; often they will speak as if Mahomedanism had existed from the time of the creation. Having thus spent about an hour to rest, I continued my journey southward towards Ashdod. Descending the narrow streets of the villages passing here and there a few very old olive-trees, and taking with me many salams (peace) from the gazing boys and girls, who very seldom see a European, I found myself again upon the road of the dreary plain, which, however, soon assumes a more fertile character, the plain of Philistia. 66 To be continued. ORAN. WE are thankful to insert the following from the Rev. A. BEN OLIEL, as strikingly illustrating the inspired truth with which he presents the facts: "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days," or in the course of time. This inspired maxim is of widest application. Missionaries frequently experience its truth. They sow "beside all waters," not knowing which may grow up and bring forth fruit. But they know this, that God's word "shall not return unto Him void"—it shall not be preached in vain or fruitlessly, and therefore proclaim it on all sides. How frequently has my heart been unexpectedly cheered up and encouraged by tidings of the conversion of individuals who attribute their awakening to my feeble instrumentality! When, in 1851, I made a tour to Algeria and Tunis, my stay in each place was of short duration. It was merely a visit of inquiry. The Gospel was, however, preached everywhere, and Scriptures, religious books, and tracts plentifully disseminated. The good seed was sown in faith, without any expectation of reaping its fruits, or |