The Jews in Europe.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 116, 30 January 1872, Page 7

The Jews in Europe.

It is said that a very influential movement has been started at Frankfort —the headquarters of German Jews—-having for its object the return of the scattered Children of Israel to Palestine, and the re-establishment of the Jewish kingdom at Jerusalem. Such a project is not new ; but religious and national enthusiasm might accomplish what - ?t «ifi mi. - l: -. occtiiS IiOW clli liliDOoSlDiiluY. .LiiU ijUUouiUZI might be asked whether the projectors of this movement have taken any steps to discover the remnants and descendants of the ten lo3t tribes. The Jews in all known countries at present are supposed to be of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.— Graphic. • Speaking of the conversion of the Jews, a contemporary says :—We seem to be making no way with the conversion of the Jews. They are as perverse and implacable as they were eighteen centuries ago. In spite of every contumely, they stick to the old faith, and are strongly entrenched behind the old traditions. The Society for the Promotion of Christianity amongst them has been laboring diligently, if not wisely, for nearly sixty years, with very small profit. It has sent out a whole army of propagandists, without effecting a breach. A mint of money has been spent with the same object, and with the same results. A straggler or two has been captured now and then, and the society has not withheld the expression of its thankfulness for these small mercies. Bat the general tone of its reports has not been encouraging. There is a constant reminder of the difficulties to be overcome, and an absence of the glorification with which the achievement of great deeds is usually proclaimed. From the report presented to the Manchester auxiliary of the society, at its fifty-seventh annual meeting recently, we learn that the Jewish people " present the same general aspect that has characterised! them for many years,"—how many the writer does not state, but he probably means a few centuries. Many of them show the same zeal for the Talmud, but it is also gratifying that an increasing number is throwing aside its traditions, and seeking to establish a system more in harmony with the spirit and taste of the day. How far the society has been instrumental in bringing about a change which the truly orthodox of the Church regard with suspicion, we are left to conjecture. We learn, however, that at the commencement of the present year the society employed twenty-nine ordained missionaries, forty-nine unordained missionaries and readers, and twenty-five schoolmasters and schoolmistresses ; of these, sixty-two are stationed in va- : rious parts of Europe, twenty-two in Asia, and nineteen in Africa. The results of their labours are summed up in the statement that they have distributed amongst the Jews 2665 j copies of the Hebrew Bible, 29,000 portions of it, and over 23,090 copies of the New Testament, to say nothing of a large number of books and tracts of various kinds, includi ing 500 " interleaved copies of the Book of i Common Prayer in Hebrew and Gorman." The society, perhaps wisely, refrains from publishing statistics of the number of be- ; nighted Jews who have been brought into the i fold of the Church, because, notwithstanding . the protest of Mr Cawley, M.P., many people i will insist on applying to a missionary propa- ■ ganda the test which they apply to any other i undertaking, in order to ascertain whether ( the nett gains are at all commensurate with | i the means employed for their accomplishi j ment. This is, no doubt, the way of the world, but it is a safe way, and a safeguard i I against the abuse of confiding and generous I benevolence. This pardonable curiosity will • be stimulated rather than checked by the I results of the society's work in Manchester. i In this great population the Jewish element t forms a large contingent ; but it is admitted t that during the year only three Jews have i been converted and baptised, although 18 i have "made enquiries concerning the doct trines of Christianity." The society ought i r not to be robbed of any consolation to be 3 derived from this stupendous fact; but we I should like to know at what cost such impor- > tant results were obtained.