Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE JEWISH ADVOCATE.

JUNE, 1849.

THE HOSPITAL AT JERUSALEM.

WE, last month, presented our readers with a view of the Hospital, and some account of its establishment; we now give them fuller infor... mation respecting it, in the words of Dr. Macgowan, the Physician of the Society, under whose care this important institution has flourished.

At the Annual Meeting in London, Lord Claud Hamilton showed, by the testimony of the Jews themselves, how influential this monument of Christian love was found to be. The Jewish Rabbies and many of the Jews in Jerusalem have addressed most pathetic letters to Sir Moses Montefiore, appealing for help in their poverty and disease, and in these letters we have evidences of the effect of this Institution. The passage read by Lord Claud Hamilton, from one of these appeals, was this:

We are terrified by the formidable enemy opposed to us, by the great Hospital of the Missionary Society, so superior in its arrangements, and the number of physicians attending it. Hence many of us, spite of the Herem of the German and Portuguese ecclesiastics, will resort to the conversion hospital, and, alas! in several instances, follow the inducements held out, and

[blocks in formation]

forsake the religion of their ancestors. For not only does the conversion hospital afford to them every necessary comfort, not only do they cunningly appoint a separate place for the Jews, but a bribe is put into their hands on leaving the hospital, and the distress is too great to resist the temptation of proffered benefits. Thus are many caught by the various baits employed, and if once entangled in the net, all attempts at recovery are useless." "I am sure you will be rejoiced to hear," added his Lordship, "that the bribe spoken of is nothing else than a copy of the New Testament, which is put into the hands of every one on leaving the hospital."

The poor Jews, in another letter to Sir Moses Montefiore, say: "They," the Society, "are daily increasing their Hospital, which affords shelter and comfort, besides gratuitous aid and the attendance of skilful men, and are thus, notwithstanding all our warnings and exhortations, successful in decoying many of our brethren away from the house of their fathers, and making them confess to a religion in which they do not and cannot believe. . . Therefore ZION BITTERLY WEEPS, and every heart fainteth.””

[ocr errors]

We have this direct testimony from the Jews themselves, as to the tendency of the Hospital to Lead men to Christianity; and we have also an ample confirmation of the views of those who established it as a means to that important end. Dr. Macgowan, in the course of his deeply interesting speech, said :

"In speaking of this institution, I feel my mind full of gratitude and thankfulness to Almighty God for the temporal and spiritual prosperity with which he has blessed that Institution.

You are all aware of the difficulties with which we have had to contend in the first establishment of the Hospital. You are aware of the excommunications, and of the violent measures which were resorted to, in order to prevent Jews from entering it, and availing themselves of the relief afforded to them in their sicknesses; and you are also aware that the Pasha and the public authorities were bribed, in order to prevent patients from entering our wards. Men even stood at the door armed with sticks, to prevent Jews from entering. But, thanks be to God! their excommunications, intrigues, and measures of violence, have proved ineffectual; and for the last eighteen months we have had no opposition from the rabbies, who it seems have exhausted all their artillery, and now leave the Hospital to take its course. In the first place I must mention to you the manner in which the Hospital is rendered directly efficient in contributing to the progress of missionary objects. For two or three years we had to struggle for the existence of the Hospital. It was soon after that time-after all opposition had been disarmed—that serious thoughts were entertained of rendering the Hospital the vehicle of Gospel truth. I must confess that I felt rather nervous when the experiment was made. I felt that there was a danger of again raising opposition by introducing the New Testament into the wards of the Hospital, and of having divine Christian worship established there. But, through the wisdom of our Committee, under the blessing of God, the attempt was made, and has succeeded. Divine Christian worship is daily performed in the Hebrew language-a language in which the Jews can understand Gospel truth.

A copy of the Old and New Testament is also placed by the bed-side of every patient who is able to read; and I can assure you, that the New Testament is read; and frequently on my visits round the wards I have been surprised to see the attention with which it is studied. There was one old man in particular a man between seventy and eighty years of age, with a long and venerable white beard. He came from the coast of Africa, and I may say that, until he entered the wards of the Hospital as a sick patient, he had never even seen a Testament, and I also venture to say, he had never heard of a New Testament. He had heard of Christianity; but considered it as synonymous with idolatry. He had heard of Christians; but had been brought up in hereditary hatred towards their very name. When he entered the Hospital, however, he had an opportunity of seeing Protestant Christianity. He saw none of those superstitious ceremonies, none of those mummeries which have been the great stumbling-block to their becoming instructed in Christianity. He had no sooner seen the New Testament, than he began at the very beginning, and read it on regularly to the end. The last time I saw him, he was engaged in reading the Apocalypse. He has since departed this life; but who knows what those words of truth which he read may have effected? What a revolution may they not have produced in his mind? He made no open profession; but he had heard the word of truth, and, even at the eleventh hour, he may have been visited in love and mercy by his Messiah, and have been received into heaven as a true believer. Another anecdote I should like to mention, concerns the wife of a

shoemaker with whom some of our converts have been apprenticed. When they first came to Jerusalem they were in heathenish ignorance of their own Scriptures. They were first taught these, and put into a course of regular instruction. The wife was a young woman of nineteen years of age, and,

I think, one of the most beautiful creatures I ever saw. She was shortly taken ill, and was admitted as a patient into the Hospital. When she first entered the wards, she was as full of vanity and obstinacy, as full of pettish humours and conduct, as it is possible to imagine. She would do

nothing she was ordered to do. She would not take her medicine; she would not obey the nurse, or take the food provided for her. In fact, she was a perfect rebel. One would have thought that the contagion of European revolution had entered our Hospital; for there was a perfect revolution throughout the wards. After ten or twelve days residence in the Hospital, she determined to leave. I told her she left at her own risk, and that she might become a victim to her disease. She went, and in the course of two or three months again applied for admission. But what an alteration had taken place. During her absence she had been taught to read the Holy Scriptures in the German language. There is a lady here present, the sister of my dear wife, to whose attention she is mainly indebted for being instructed in that language. No sooner had she become able to understand the message of salvation, than a new light dawned upon her mind; and she was literally a new creature. things had passed away, and all things become new. She was mild, meek, and obedient. Her bible was ever by her bed-side, and scarcely ever

[ocr errors]

"Old

« PreviousContinue »