It is well known that the Sephardim are far more strict in their talmudical principles than the German Jews, notwithstanding, even this strong barrier has been broken through by the unlimited kindness which they experienced at your hospital, which has been in a measure the means of removing from their minds that deep-rooted hatred and prejudice imbibed from their infancy against the name of our Blessed Lord and His followers; feelings of a different nature having now been aroused amongst them.

The missionaries have not only free access to their dwellings, but they themselves, even their rabbies and other influential families are not unfrequent visitors at the mission house, where they were always ready to enter into discussion on religious subjects. I know by experience that such is the effect which your hospital at Jerusalem has had upon the majority of the Jewish minds at Damascus; to which the missionaries there, and the Rev. H. Winbolt, who visited that place some time ago, can bear testimony.

I am myself indebted to Dr. Macgowan for his kindness and attention to a poor sick Jew whom I sent to him from Damascus; after keeping him for some weeks, and finding that his disease baffled all the efforts of skill, he (the Dr.) kindly sent him back to his family at his own expense. I had the satisfaction to hear from that poor man on his dying bed, "that by what he had experienced from the Christians at the hospital, and from what he had heard of the doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth, he was fully convinced that the latter was no other than the Messiah long promised to our forefathers by the prophets, who shall redeem Israel from all

their iniquities.' He acknowledged that the only drawback to his making a public profession of Christianity was, the dread of exposing his wife and children to the hostility of those Jews with whom he stood in connection.

I would beg leave to add, that the fame of your hospital at Jerusalem has spread even further than Damascus,-to my knowledge it has reached Aleppo and Bagdad. I have frequently conversed with Jews coming from the above mentioned places for traffic to Damascus, and found, generally, that the principal topic of their conversations turned chiefly on the good effects produced by that establishment.

It has been the means of leading their minds to enquire into the principles of Protestantism, and that of the other denominations, when they compare their experience of the hatred and cruel persecutions of the latter (so directly opposed to the doctrines of Him whom they profess to follow) with the kind treatment and disinterestedness of the former, they conclude that the one must act under the influence of Divine truth, while the other is influenced by mere human agency.

Poetry.

IF I FORGET THEE, O JERUSALEM.
Psalm cxxxvii. 5.

FORGET thee! when in thee was set
Jehovah's dwelling-place secure ;

No, Zion, we can ne'er forget,
While thought and memory endure.

Forget thee! when thine image stands
Indelible before the Lord;
Graven on His supporting hands,

Firm as His own unchanging word!

Forget thee! when thy sufferings drew
The tears Incarnate Godhead gave,
As back the Future's veil He threw,
And viewed thee as thy children's grave.

Forget thee! and the dolorous way
The thorn-crowned Saviour meekly trod;
When ripe for vengeance' fatal day,
Thou, Zion, crucified thy God!

Forget thee! and thy foemen's rage,-
Each prophecy fulfilled in thee;
No, stamped on history's darkest page,
Thy blood-stained memory will not flee.

Forget thee! and the latest breath
Of Jesus, ere He rose above-

"There first, where they have caused my death, Go ye, and preach of Life and Love.'

Forget thee! and the glorious things
Hid in God's treasury for thee;—
O temple of the King of kings,

How could I then thy brightness see?

Forget thee! Saviour, till thy sign
Our dark horizon comes to gem,

We urge the prayer of truth divine,
Remember, Lord, Jerusalem!

F. A. G.

LONDON: Printed at the Operative Jewish Converts' Institution, Palestine Place, Bethnal Green,

THE JEWISH ADVOCATE.

MARCH, 1849.

BIBLE HISTORY OF THE JEWS.

CHAPTER XLIII.

WHEN Solomon had completed the house of the Lord, he built for himself a beautiful palace in Jerusalem; he also repaired the walls of that city, which he made very strong with towers; he builded a palace for his queen, the daughter of the king of Egypt; and he built cities, "Geser, and Beth-horon the nether, and Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness."

Meanwhile the wisdom of her king and the fame of his doings, drew many strangers to Jerusalem. Amongst others, the queen of Sheba came "to prove him with hard questions;" who, when she had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, declared that the half had not been told her. "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth," was 66 Mount Zion, the city of the GREAT KING!" Here lay the real strength and beauty of Jerusalem, that GOD was "known in her palaces, for a refuge." From being "the fewest of all people," the Most High God had given them a place and a name among the nations of the earth, that through them His name might be exalted among the heathen; and so long as they clave to Him, He blessed them among all nations.

But, alas! Solomon, he who was so wise in his youth, that his "name went far unto the islands," he who had written books of the most profound "wisdom," forsook the guide of his youth, and drew down upon himself the displeasure of God, by acting in defiance of many of the Hebrew laws. He entered into an alliance with Egypt; he greatly increased the cavalry of Israel, respecting which it had been expressly said, that no king of Israel should "multiply horses to himself;" he gathered up silver and gold, much more than was needful for the Lord's house; and he took to himself wives from the idolatrous heathen, which led to the greatest falling away of all; because, for the sake of these strange wives, he tolerated their false gods; nay, to please them, he even went the length of building a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon, on a high hill which overlooked Jerusalem, in the very face of Mount Zion, where he himself had raised a temple to the Almighty.

For this the Lord was angry with Solomon, and declared that he would surely rend the kingdom from him, and give it to one of his servants. For David's sake the storm was stayed during Solomon's life-time, but we find that his latter days were darkened by the forebodings of coming trouble. Hadad, an Edomite, and Rezon, of Zobah, lately fugitives by force of David's arm, now returned; the one to reign over Syria, the other to possess himself of the city of Damascus, and they did much mischief to Israel, all the days of Solomon. But an adversary still more to be dreaded, appeared in the person of “Jeroboam