Free Church of Scotland.

REPORT

ON THE

CONVERSION OF THE JEWS,

SUBMITTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, MAY 1852:

WITH

CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO THE EXPULSION OF THE MISSIONARIES FROM THE AUSTRIAN DOMINIONS.

REPORT.

THE grave has closed over the chief of the Assembly's missions to the Jews, the mission at Pesth. Its revival can only be as a resurrection from the dead, and in the mean time it must have its record among things that are past. In so regarding it, your Committee cannot but express their deep conviction that its fruits have more than realized the most sanguine expectations of the Church-have equalled, if not exceeded, its early promises-and have rarely, if ever, been surpassed in the history of missionary effort. It has borne the Christian message, not only to the thousands of Jews in Pesth, but to the hundreds of thousands throughout Hungary; it has carried a blessing to the Protestant churches of this interesting and injured country; and raised a quiet but effective testimony in the midst of Popish idolatry and iniquity. In the brief space of two years from its unobtrusive commencement, it so broke forth on the right hand and on the left, that the Lord's Supper was dispensed on our first Disruption Sabbath to sixteen converted Israelites, whose number that same year was more than doubled. This Hebrew Church of Christ was afterwards exposed to a trial of intense severity, both by the civil commotions of the country and by the consequent removal of its beloved pastors; but by divine grace it stood the ordeal nobly, and came forth from the furnace puri fied. After a brief but most important respite and restoration, the fruits of the mission indeed are not destroyed, but the mission itself is definitvely suppressed, its church scattered, its Christian associations severed, and its life-giving streams throughout the land arrested; but now, more than ever, there is manifested the greatness of the work that has been given us to accomplish in the name of the Lord. The hold which the mission has taken of the Jewish mind in Pesth has been amply evidenced during the residence of the missionaries, at the time of their removal, and by facts which cannot be made public since their departure.

In addition to this direct result, the mission has enlarged the

sympathies of the Free Church, by bringing her into acquaintance and communication with the Protestant churches of Hungary, and engaged the sympathies of other Christians toward the Free Church, by bringing out before the world what the Lord has done through her, and what her missionaries, not less than her ministers, have suffered for His sake; it has given opportunity of testifying for Christ, and pleading for the souls of men in the high places of the earth; and has become the providential instrument of this Church's first definite collision with Anti-Christ,-of her first suffering at the hands of Christ's chief enemy on earth, and her most significant warning to prepare for what may follow this beginning of sorrows. Altogether, this mission and its history have become bound up with the Free Church of Scotland and her history, it has borne in many and marked characters the impress of the Lord's own seal, and will ever furnish a standing proof how well pleasing it is to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that this Church should go forth to seek the salvation of their lost and neglected children.

In presenting a brief account of the various stations, the Committee, as usual, begin with

PESTH.

As the missions in Austria have recently been so much before the Church, and as the circumstances of their suppression are brought out in the Committee's correspondence with Government, which is appended to this Report, it is the less necessary for the Committee to enter into details of the past; and on some present features of very peculiar interest, they must for other reasons be altogether silent.

There was latterly much hindrance to the work by the progressive abridgment of religious liberty, yet in nine months of the past year, without any gratuitous distribution, there have been sold and paid for 11,000 copies of the Word of God; hundreds of New Testaments have been sold to Jews, and to their rabbis and teachers; and many interesting opportunities have been afforded to the Bible agents of testifying, and proving from the prophets, that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah. This most important agency is now suppressed, and their work is closed, for Popery everywhere hates and fears the Word of God.

The school, as reported two years ago, was attended by 100 scholars; in last Report the attendance was 250; and since that time the premises have been enlarged, and the number on the roll had increased to 360, there being room for no more. Through these children the missionaries were brought into contact with from 120 to 150 Jewish families, many of whom appear to be favourably impressed toward the Christian religion. The Commitce can only add, that the school has suffered no interruption.

On the Church itself the blessing of the Most High was evidently and richly resting at the time when the door was shut, and for some months preceding,-warning all to work while it is today, and reminding all that the door that seems only to be opening, is already hasting to close. During the last six months of the mission a very marked increase had taken place in the numbers attending the German service: the chapel had become quite full every Lord's-day, and frequently there were not seats enough for the hearers. These meetings were characterised by great earnestness and solemnity, and even sometimes breathless attention. Love and mutual confidence reigned among the brethren, interrupted only by one breach, which, when divinely healed, issued in more perfect unity of spirit. In the course of as many weeks, no fewer than seven or eight persons gave hopeful evidence of a saving change, and one daughter of Abraham died calling on the Lord Jesus.

It was when the mission was so full of richest promise in its Bible-agency, in its school, and in its church, that the imperial order arrived, commanding the immediate removal of the missionaries, which was carried into effect on the 16th of January last. The closing scenes are thus described by themselves: "The history of the last few days it would be vain attempting to depict. The sorrow and love marked on every countenance-the outpouring of these in every form in which they could find utterance-our utter exhaustion of mind, body, and feeling-the heart-rending scenes of last farewells, again and again repeated by those who, having once left us, returned to perform anew that act which was lacerating their own and our bosoms;-all this, and much besides, forms a picture which it is impossible to describe, as it ever will be to efface it from our memories. Our beloved Pesth, where we had laboured for ten long years, often under much discouragement, but, by the Lord's blessing, with much success, that city, where almost the whole period of our ministerial course had been spent-where many people of the Lord now dwelt, to whom we were knit, soul to soul-where we had enjoyed a Christian fellowship in a degree seldom found on earth, free from jealousies and suspicions, in the full open-hearted, generous flow of love-we were now leaving, and perhaps for ever. Lord, lay it not to the charge of those who have thus rudely trod on the tenderest divine and human affections."

The following extract from a recent letter will shew, in one instance, how the good seed has been striking root, and is ready to spring up in the day of divine visitation; and who can tell how many more cases may be disclosed in the day of the Lord? It will shew, also, that in that country those who seek the Lord must be ready to suffer for His sake.

"There was only one inquiring Jew visiting me for some time after our pastors left. I read with him the New Testament and the Messianic Prophecies in the original, since he understood Hebrew better than German.