many of them have exchanged the Jewish faith for the Mahomedan, and their numbers have greatly diminished. Their only employment is husbandry, and they live in such a retired state that they have never been known to attack or to defend themselves. They are skilled in the superstitions of the Abyssinian people, and are looked upon as witches. I found they had no books among them, but an old Bible in the Ethiopian language, which they did not understand, and had I been in possession of the New Testament in their own language they would have received it with pleasure. Many of the Jews, I am of opinion, in that country, would be induced to express their belief in the Word of God if they had the presence of missionaries amongst them."

It is a remarkable circumstance, that Dr. Wolff, a believing Israelite, should have been the means of saving Mr. Gobat's life. God made the son of Abraham the instrument of preserving the natural life of the Gentile missionary; may he make the same missionary, now consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem, the blessed means of saving the souls of many sons and daughters of Abraham!

Mr. Gobat thus spoke of that event at the public Meeting in May, 1838:- "When I heard my dear friend and brother, Wolff, who had been the instrument, under the hand of God, of saving my life and my family from ruin, I was inclined to offer my gratitude to him, in the presence of this Meeting, for the great kindness which he showed me

Doctor Wolff, at the same Meeting (in 1838), thus referred to the above-named circumstance:

"About three years ago, upon my reaching Abyssinia, I found there the Rev. M. Gobat, my esteemed friend and brother of the Church Missionary Society, labouring under a painful and dangerous disease which confined him to his bed, and led me, at that time, to abandon the idea of going into Africa, and to accompany him as far as Jiddah. For I am convinced of the truth of the religion of Jesus Christ, that it not only can make the Gentile love a Jew, but that it can make a Jew love a Gentile."

The Lord Bishop of Calcutta preached the sermon at the consecration of Bishop Gobat. His text was Isaiah lxii. 1. Bishop Gobat left England very soon after his consecration, to proceed to Berlin, and thence by Constantinople to Jerusalem. We trust that the prayers of many of our readers will be offered. up for his safety, and that the blessing of the God of Abraham may abundantly rest upon him.

"Father in God, go up in peace!

Thy fathers' God up with thee go;
Make in thy hands the flock increase,
And alien hearts thy mission know.
Go, build thou up the broken walls,
The paths to dwell in, go restore,
Until through long-forsaken halls

The voice of joy resound once more.

"Who knows? The time may not be long,
When he who scattered Israel
Shall gather him, and call the throng

Of wanderers in one fold to dwell?

But be they many, be they few,

The flock of God, oh! do thou tend;
And may thy doctrine, as the dew,
Upon the parched ground descend,"

AN INHABITANT OF THE ROCK, A PECULIAR feature in the religious biographical works of the present day is, that there are anongst them so many lives of believing Jews. We shall notice some of these from time to time,; that we may magnify the grace of God which brings so great a number of his ancient people from ignorance of the true Messiah to peace in believing in bim from enmity to his very name to regarding him as "all their salvation and all their desire."

Under the title, "An Inhabitant of the Rock,"* is given us the "history and conversion" of Joseph Beibitz, "with a few remarks on the Jewish religion, with an Introduction by the Rev. Hugh Stowell." This little work contains much that is very interesting, and a few extracts from it will, we hope, be acceptable and profitable.

"I was born," says Mr. B., "and brought up a Jew, and received a Rabbinical education. At the age of fourteen I understood the Talmud well, and made great progress in all the Jewish literature; but I knew very little of the Word of God, although I had a great desire to know it. I was told that young people ought not to read the Prophets because they are so holy, and that Satan takes advantage of those who study them, and either makes them mad or turns them away from the God of Israel to embrace Christianity. I hated the name of Jesus; I hated the Gentiles, as I imagined all Gentiles must be Christians.

"The town of Brody, in Austrian Galicia, was the place of my birth; it contains about

* Published by B. Wertheim, Paternoster-row, London; M. Ehrlich, Cheltenham; and H. Whitmore, Manchester. 1846.

twenty-six thousand Jews, and about five hundred Roman Catholics. All that I (or indeed any of the Jews of that place or country) knew about Christianity was, that Jesus flew in the air, and cried that he was God. The Jews did not believe him, and therefore put him to death; the foolish Gentiles (the Roman Catholics) did believe him, and they now carve his image in a piece of wood or stone, and worship it as their god. Towards the evening of Good Friday they bring this image of Christ into a churchyard; the whole of the following day they look for it, and about half-past twelve, on the Sunday morning, they find it in the same place in which they buried it, and there is great rejoicing. No wonder the Jew stands by and laughs at the idea that the Christians bury their God, and find him again, after three days, in the same place.

"It is almost impossible for a Jew, in that country, to become acquainted with the truths of Christianity, for so strongly is he prejudiced against it that he will not willingly pass a church, and when obliged to do so, he stops his ears, lest the sound of the organ, lending its harmony to swell the note of praise to the despised Nazarene, and the name of Jesus pronounced by Christian lips, should reach them. I cannot describe my hatred to the (to me now precious) name of Jesus."

How great must be the guilt of that dreadful apostasy, the Romish Church, when, through her idolatry, the name of Jesus is thus hated by the Jews. We cannot marvel at their unbelief, when what is called Christianity is thus presented to them. But should Protestant Christians be at ease? should they be content tha

such reproach should rest upon the name and religion of their Lord. "The name of Jesus is blasphemed" daily through Popery, amongst the Jews, and amidst the sins which weigh heavily upon her, and under which she must finally sink, next to her being "drunken with the blood of the saints," surely none will press with such erushing power on her guilty head as the evil she has done, in hiding God's truth from perishing millions, and substituting for it a system of idolatry as degrading to the human intellect as any practised by the heathen, and which has led so many, amongst both Jews and Gentiles, to blaspheme and to reject.

We

After many trials and difficulties, Mr. Beibitz finds employment with a merchant, and goes on prosperously in worldly things; but his soul was "dead before God." When he had been at Leipsic about two years, his attention was drawn to Christianity in the following manner. give his own words :-"I was one day going to receive goods from a warehouse, at the time of the fire, when I forgot my way, and asked a gentleman, whom I met in the street, if he could tell me where the merchant (for whom I inquired) lived. He said he could not, but asked, Are not you a Jew?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Well then,' said he, 'I have some Hebrew books at home, perhaps you would like to look at one.' He went to the house of that gentleman, who was a missionary to the Jews. There he received a New Testament in Hebrew, by reading which he became acquainted with the true character of the Lord Jesus, and the nature of Christianity. After many a conflict, such as none but the sincere Jewish inquirer can know, he confesses