20. THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION AND LAND

SUCH, then, is a bare sketch of the line of prophecy which concerns the Jew up to the time when the Lord will restore the Kingdom to Israel. The design of this book, and the consequent need of brevity, forbid any reference to the interesting details in which the Scriptures abound; but we must add a few words on the present condition of the Jewish nation and land.

It is clear that the first great sign of the end must be the return of the exiles in considerable numbers to their own country, and the subsequent rebuilding of the Temple. Now this return has actually commenced, and various causes already in operation seem likely to favour it, some of which we propose to notice.

And, in the first place, we may mention that Jerusalem itself is gradually becoming a centre of civilization, and is assuming the appearance of a modern city: villas are being erected in its neighbourhood, and no

¹ Isa. xiv. 7. ² Isa. xxv. 7, 8. ³ Isa. xi. 9.

less than three exclusively Jewish building societies have been for some time carrying on their work.

Again: during the last ten years the Jewish population has doubled itself, so that at the present time it outnumbers the remainder of the inhabitants. Such a condition of things has not previously been known in Jerusalem since its destruction by Hadrian.

Various causes have contributed to bring about this result, and seem likely to extend it. Among them are the following:

In 1840, at the request of Sir Moses Montefiore, the Sultan issued a firman for the relief of his Jewish subjects. After stating in the preface that the various accusations—such as that of sacrificing a human being to make use of his blood at the Passover—which were popularly brought against the Jews were pure calumnies, he declared that thenceforth the Israelitish nation should be protected and defended, and should possess the same advantages, and enjoy the same privileges, as the numerous other nations under his sway. Thus one great obstacle to the return of the Jews to Palestine was removed.

In 1867, the Turkish Government made an important concession in regard to their land laws, and gave permission to the subjects of foreign powers to purchase land in their own name. It is easy to see how favourable this change is, indirectly, to immigration, since any rich European Jew can now buy up property in Palestine, and let it as he chooses to families of his own nation. And not a few have availed themselves of the opportunity.

In 1874, Russia—in which vast empire there are between two and three millions of Jews—adopted the

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION.

German military system, so that all Hebrews became liable to service in the army. This was very distasteful to them; and about the same time they were subjected, especially in Poland, to divers persecutions, such as are frequently raised by the Greek Church. It is reported that, for these reasons, nearly the whole of the Jewish community has resolved to leave Russia, family by family, as each may be able to extricate itself; and certainly a steady emigration is continually going on, stimulated at intervals by fierce assaults and cruel outrages, from which the Government seems by no means anxious to protect its alien subjects. Many families have arrived in Palestine, to the great increase of the Hebrew population: others escaped to America, where they found the people strangely unwilling to receive them: still larger numbers have poured into Germany.

In the latter country, however, they find no case, neither rest for the sole of their foot; but seem likely to be driven on to seek another home, and possibly even to cause the departure of their brethren who had previously settled there. For, within the last few years, the ancient hatred of the Jews has been revived in Germany, their wonderful prosperity and rapidly increasing power having excited jealousy and prejudice, and induced a persuasion that many of the ills of the country are to be referred to their presence in it. An agitation—commenced by Herr Stöcker, the court chaplain—was lately set on foot under the auspices, strange to say, of the Liberal party. It was taken up with enthusiasm by all ranks of society: vast meetings were held, and anti-Semitic associations formed throughout the country. The object of the agitators was to check the further immigration of foreign Jews, and to deprive those who were already resident of many of their civil rights, by excluding them from state or judicial office and from the legal and educational professions.

Just now there is a lull in the violence of the persecution, interrupted, however, now and then by local outbreaks, more especially in Russia and Austria. But unless the strong anti-Semitic feeling quickly subsides, all Jews will be compelled to leave the countries which we have mentioned; nor does it seem certain that they would find a welcome among other nations of Europe. A London newspaper recently remarked upon the matter as follows;—

"This feeling is not, of course, expressed in the same crude manner among ourselves, nor in anything like the same measure; but we know from our own correspondence that it would be going too far to say that Englishmen themselves have got rid of it completely. . . . The truth undoubtedly is, that the Jews are more or less an object of jealousy in every country in Europe. The antagonism they excite is, no doubt, partly an antagonism of religion, yet more an antipathy of race; partly, also, it is the survival of an age far less humane and much more ignorant than our own. Mainly, however, it is due to the fact that during the present century they have made an extraordinarily rapid advance in enterprize and prosperity. On this point there is little exaggeration in the talk of their enemies. Even when trammelled by every kind of restriction, they were in some departments of commercial activity more than a match for their rivals; and since their emancipation they have vastly extended

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION. 265 the scope of their energy. And why they should have done so is clear enough: they possess in a high degree the qualities which it was to be expected that centuries of oppression would develop—patience, tact, industry, and resource."¹

Such is a competent opinion upon the state of European feeling toward the Jews. And Russia, Germany, and Austria, are not the only countries in which the sentiment has already ripened into open hostility; for the new states liberated by the Berlin Treaty are, doubtless through the influence of the Greek Church, showing a strong disposition to persecute the Hebrew race. This is no new feeling, as may be seen by a significant appeal from the Jews of Bucharest² which appeared, some time ago, in the Jewish Chronicle. The subjoined clauses are extracted.

"The troubles which the Jews of Roumania are compelled to suffer are well known to you. It is a land whose princes are like the wolves of the forest in their endeavours to annihilate the children of Israel. With fearful zeal they seek to persecute us; one day they pursue us under the name of religious enthusiasm, and on the morrow they abandon the cry which is so disgraceful to them. But then they conceal their hatred under the name of economy, alleging that the state of trade and the mercantile prospects of the country compel them to act oppressively to the Jews who absorb the substance of the Roumanians, and many other such excuses. Thus are we constantly and severely attacked, and our powers of endurance are exhausted. We have, therefore, resolved, after

¹ St. James's Gazette, Nov. 19th, 1880.

² Dated Aug. 20th, 1880.

mature deliberation, to leave the country. With this view we have formed ourselves into a Society for the Colonization of the Holy Land, consisting of a hundred families. Every one of the members is experienced in the work of cultivating the soil, and it is our intention to journey to Palestine to 'till the ground and to guard it.'$^{1}$

"God," says Mr. Friedländer,$^{2}$ "has sent a feeling of homelessness into the hearts of many thousands of Jews, and that feeling is spreading far and wide. The handful of well-to-do Jews in England and Germany will not admit it, but the fact remains all the same. Wherever the spirit of persecution is prevailing, there the Jews begin to think of Palestine as the only safe home which this world can give them. *The thought is a new one, and is forced upon them by very remarkable occurrences.* That America, open to all the world, should send back Jewish refugees from her shores is so extraordinary an experience that all intending emigrants are feeling themselves shut up to the one idea, that in order to found a new home they can go nowhere but to Palestine."

Even so: for who can withstand the will of the Almighty, or who shall change His purposes? And the set time for their fulfilment seems now to have come.

$^{1}$ I have never had the opportunity of speaking to Roumanians about their feelings in reference to the Jews. Though I would fain hope that they have some conscientious reasons for doing what they do, it is very hard to understand them. With a finesse worthy of a better cause, they pass law after law to deprive Jews in Roumania of the means of making a livelihood, and the result is ever-increasing emigration."—H. FRIEDLÄNDER, Oct. 15th, 1884.

$^{2}$ In his interesting report of Oct. 15th, 1884.

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION.

Just before the commencement of the anti-Semitic agitation in Germany, the Jews appeared to be comfortably settled in most parts of Europe, except Russia. Their wealth and influence were continually increasing: and, probably, their satisfaction and confidence in the future had never been so great since the destruction of Jerusalem. Their prevailing sentiment was well illustrated at the time by an article in the Jewish Chronicle, the writer of which made merry with the Christian idea of the destiny of his nation. He affirmed that they were far too much at home in the luxurious cities of Europe to think of returning to a barbarous Asiatic country, and quoted with approval the saying of a well-known Jew, who, when the prophecies of the restoration had been mentioned to him, replied;—"Well, if we have to go back to Palestine, I know what I shall do. I shall petition his Judaic Majesty to send me as ambassador to Paris."

At last, then, the thought had arisen in the hearts of the children of Abraham, that they would forget their own land, and be as the nations; and at the same time the hour for God's interference was approaching.

A furious persecution was being arranged in Russia: the Jews perceived the rising of the storm, and intimations were conveyed to them from the highest minister of the Government, that, by paying a vast sum of money, they might avert it. They refused to do so, and a series of cruel outrages followed, involving great destruction of life and property, besides other sufferings of a terrible nature. And immediately afterwards the Germans, who had long been regarding with envy and anger the riches and influence of the Jews in Germany, also began to give open proof that their hatred of the devoted race had revived.

Could there be a more signal and literal fulfilment, in its first stage, of the vivid words of Ezekiel?

"And that which rises up in your mind shall not be at all, in that ye say, We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.

As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you.

And I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out.

And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face."¹

The last verse contains a terrible threat which may be now in process of fulfilment, but is not yet completely realised. We sometimes speak of the solitude of London; and few circumstances are more depressing than to suffer need and distress amid vast crowds in which we can perceive no glance of compassion, nor find a helper. But the Jews seem likely before long to suffer something worse than this, and, wherever they turn, to find themselves encompassed with faces lowering, menacing, and cruel. The wilderness of the nations will prove far more dreadful to them than the waste howling desert in which Moses was their leader.

But the jealousy and hatred of those among whom they sojourn will be God's means of driving them back to the place where He will deal with them; just as, in

¹ Ezek. xx. 32 35.

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION.

the days of old, their hard bondage made them glad to leave the flesh-pots of Egypt, and to turn their faces toward Canaan.

And it may be that He is already beginning to set His seal upon the elect remnant of which the prophets so often speak, the one-third which He will guide safely through the time of trouble into the Millennial glory: for a very startling and significant movement is now going on among a portion of the Jews.

During the persecution in South Russia, a lawyer of Bessarabia, named Joseph Rabinowitch, became impressed with the thought that his harassed kinsmen could find rest only in their own land. Meeting with much sympathy from the Jews around him, he turned his mind to the ways and means of carrying out his idea, and, in order to obtain full information, undertook a journey to Palestine. During his stay there, he was deeply moved as he realised the great discrepancy between God's description of the country, as a good land flowing with milk and honey, and its present actual condition.

Had he been imbued with the spirit of the Nineteenth Century, he would have quickly solved his difficulties by giving the lie to revelation. But he believed in the God Who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters, and, therefore, proceeded, on the spot, to inquire how those things could be, by diligently searching the Old Testament Scriptures. His faith was rewarded by the discovery that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and only hope of Israel, and that the curse had fallen upon the children of Abraham and their land because they rejected Him.

Having so far apprehended the truth, from an exclusively Jewish point of view, he returned to Bessarabia and set it forth in the synagogues, with the result that a separate community has been formed which already numbers some eight hundred persons. Its members hold that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah, and the only One Who can restore His nation to their own land and to peace. They do not, however, recognise Him as the only Begotten Son of the Father, and probably will not do so, as a body at least, until they behold Him with their eyes. But they call themselves "The National Jewish New Covenant Congregation," and have adopted a new liturgy for their Passover service, in which the Lord is recognised as their Redeemer, and as the Subject of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and other prophecies.

Thus, then, it would seem that the cry, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," is at last beginning to ascend from Jewish hearts; and, if it continue and increase, the separation between themselves and their King will be removed, and He will fulfil His promise by coming to them again without fear of a second rejection. Truly the purposes of God are speeding to their end!

And while the Jews are harassed in many other lands, the finger of God seems to be revealed in the comparatively friendly attitude of the present owners of Palestine toward them, and their appreciation of it. This appreciation they showed very manifestly, during the late difficulties between England and Russia, by their vigorous support of Lord Beaconsfield's policy. And when they were taxed by the Opposition with their preference for Turkey, a letter appeared in the

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION.

Times admitting their bias, and justifying it on the ground that they had always received better treatment from the Mussulmans than from the Latin and Greek Churches; so much so, indeed, that for centuries they had used the proverbial saying, "The children of Ishmael are more merciful than the children of Edom."

It is not unlikely that these friendly relations may continue, and that the Jews may be re-settled in their land with the approval and good-will of the Turks, who have once before received them as outcasts from Christendom, and who have never exhibited toward them that systematic hatred which has at all times characterized the Catholic Churches.

But even if the Turkish empire should have fallen apart into its four ancient divisions—as it must do at the time of the end—before Palestine is re-peopled, the Jews will, nevertheless, have little cause to complain of the governing power, whatever it may then be, in Syria. For the great prophecy of Ezekiel¹ proves that they will be able to establish themselves in peace and security, and to dwell with all their wealth in unfortified towns,² until the Prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, comes down upon them. It is thus sufficiently indicated that the instinct of the Jews is correct, and that Russia, and not Turkey, is the great enemy of Israel.

Such are some of the influences which are powerfully affecting the exiles of the Two Tribes. Their operation may continue, or may not; but certainly, so far as we can read the present signs of the times, God seems to have cast up a highway for the return of the Jews, and

¹ Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix.

² Ezek. xxxviii. 11, 12.

to be both driving and alluring them toward their own land.

Meanwhile, the general interest—and especially that of British Christians—which is awakened in regard to Palestine, the frequent journeyings of Europeans and Americans through the length and breadth of it, the exploring and surveying expeditions, and the exertions of Sir Moses Montefiore and other Jews, have done much to ameliorate the condition of the country, and remind us of the prophecy—

"Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion;

For it is time to favour her;

For the set time is come.

For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones,

And favour the dust thereof." ¹

Among the many striking incidents of the last few years, we may mention the proposal for the colonization of Eastern Palestine suggested by Mr. Lawrence Oliphant,² who, in common with the majority of thoughtful and unprejudiced Englishmen, has viewed with alarm the rapid southward advance of Russia, and felt the necessity of checking it before the British route to India becomes seriously endangered. For the results of the late war have placed some important military positions in the hands of the Czar, and have extended the Russian empire into Armenia; while Turkey, owing to her continued mal-administration, which is ceaselessly fostered by Russia, can no longer be regarded as a reliable barrier, and indeed, unless reforms be introduced, must soon collapse, and leave

¹ Psa. cii. 13, 14.

² This scheme is explained in Mr. Oliphant's interesting book, "The Land of Gilead."

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION. 273 for the Muscovites an open road to Jerusalem and to the Suez Canal.

With such a prospect into the future, it occurred to Mr. Oliphant that, by placing a large colony of Jews in the land of Gilead, the finances of Turkey might be increased, and an example of good government displayed which would probably be imitated by other provinces of Asia Minor; while, if the colony could be developed, a powerful Hebrew community, with all the influence of the race, might in course of time be interposed between Russia and the Red Sea.

Accordingly, he drew up the outline of a scheme which received the private approval of Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury, and also of M. Waddington, who was at that time French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in which the Prince of Wales and the Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein evinced a warm interest. Shortly afterwards he started for Syria, and made a careful survey of the country in which he proposed to establish the colony, and which he found to be fertile, admirably adapted for cultivation, and at the same time practically uninhabited.

He received the cordial support of Midhat Pasha, the governor of Syria, and then proceeded to Constantinople with his completed scheme. There the Grand Vizier, Khaireddin Pasha, regarded the project with great favour, quickly perceiving the advantage which would accrue to the Turkish empire by a course which might easily be made to procure for it an alliance with the whole of the wealthy and powerful Jewish race. But at this critical time the Turkish ministry was overthrown; and its successors were suspicious of every proposal which emanated from a foreigner.

All hope of an immediate carrying out of the plan was therefore checked: but the delay may be merely temporary; for the political importance of Palestine is daily increasing. The Congress of Berlin has for the present placed a bar to the advance of Russia in Europe; but that restless power, which seems destined to be a great disturber of the world, is thereby rendered the more free for operations in Asia. And, owing to the late war, her Asiatic frontiers are now as near to the Mediterranean as her European; while in the countries bordering upon the former there is nothing to hinder her progress, except the Convention of Cyprus, which she is likely, owing to the present mood of the British people, to regard as a cancelled document. And if she should thus reach her goal, the shores of the Mediterranean, by way of Asia Minor, and establish herself at Alexandretta, an easy march through Palestine would give her the command of the Suez Canal, Egypt, and the Red Sea; and the British passage to India would be closed.

But although the command of two seas and the interception of British communication with India would be advantages sufficient in themselves to stimulate Russia to the most desperate exertion, there is, nevertheless, another motive which would urge her still more powerfully along the route which we have mentioned. Her fanatical population has always longed for the possession of the holy places in Palestine; so much so that even during the Crimean war their martial feelings were excited and sustained by the promise that Jerusalem should be their ultimate goal. Nor does the intervening time appear to have cooled their ardour. "Every year," says Mr. Oliphant, "about four

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION. 275 thousand Russian pilgrims, composed largely of discharged soldiers, make painful and laborious journeys to visit the sacred shrines. One comes in contact with them in crowds during the Holy Week, and it is impossible not to be struck by the air of fanatical superstition which characterizes them."¹ Such a nation might easily be incited to a crusade which, while it would satisfy the superstitious desires of the people, might also be made subservient to the insatiable ambition of their leaders.

Should the English discover—before their opportunity has passed—the necessity of opposing a barrier to Russian advance into Palestine, it is not improbable that the establishment of a large and influential Jewish colony would form a part of their plan. That such a project has received much consideration may be inferred from the fact that a second gentleman, Mr. Cazalet, elaborated a scheme similar to that of Mr. Oliphant, which was published about the same time as the latter.

When, however, we consider the present condition of this country, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that she may be in the decrepitude of old age: for on every side we see a waning of patriotism, a preference of party to imperial interests, a general indifference to the colonies and frontier lines, an unsteadiness in foreign policy and neglect of allies, and a false security which insists that the empire can be defended by thousands, though her ambitious neighbours are beginning to reckon their armies by millions. Unless all this be quickly changed, England will prove unequal to the struggle which she cannot avoid, and in that

¹ "Land of Gilead," pp. 517, 518.

case another nation is ready to step into the arena

The ceaseless vigilance of France in every matter which concerns Egypt, and her known designs upon Syria, point to her as the power which will then confront

Russia. And the idea of the restoration of the Jews as an aid to French policy in the East is not new: it has been already suggested by the first Napoleon, and seems, indeed, to be a part of the traditions of his family.

Possibly, therefore, we may now be able to discern, in dim outline, the manner in which the nations will unconsciously work out the will of Him Who knows the end from the beginning; but whether this be the case or not, certainly the progress of events has at last made Palestine the centre of the great Eastern question.

Nor are signs wanting that its soil is destined before long to be the battle-field of the nations, though not, probably, until the Jews have been settled in it. Then the conflicts of opposing armies, like the ancient struggle of the kings of Syria and Egypt, may, perhaps, form no small part of the discipline through which the kinsmen of the Lord have yet to pass during the time of

Jacob's trouble. And what deep shadows these coming events are already casting before them may be seen by the following extract from a daily newspaper, in which the writer is commenting upon the delay in the publication of the one-inch map of Palestine, made in the late survey. After an historical sketch to prove the strategical importance which has ever attached to the Holy Land "as the gateway between the East and the West, or rather, as the barbican which commands the two avenues of the Euphrates and Red

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION. 277

Sea lines of communication," he concludes with the words;—

"It is probable that the power which, from the date of the inroads of Thothmes III. to the present time, has made the most advance towards a permanent acquisition of Palestine, is Russia. 'Standing on the approximate site of the old tower of Psephinus,' says the author of 'Tent Work in Palestine,' 'the Russian hospice commands the whole town (of Jerusalem), and is thought by many to be in a position designedly of military strength.' Nor is this the only place on which the grip of the Czar has been laid. If the contest between the civilization of the West and the autocratic barbarism of the North be ever committed to the arbitration of arms, nowhere is the contest so likely to be decided as in the region which guards the two roads from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Nor is it needful to wait for that time to become aware of the strategical value of the one-inch map of Palestine."¹

It would seem, then, that we may be very near to the times of which it is written, "And it shall come to pass in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone to all the peoples; all that lift it shall be wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it."²

The grand swoop of the Russian eagle appears to be described in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth chapters of Ezekiel, in which it is now almost universally admitted that the name and titles of the Northern king should be rendered, "Gog of the land of Magog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal." The

¹ St. James's Gazette, Sept. 15th, 1880. ² Zech. xii. 3.

kingdom of this leader can be identified in no dubious manner with the present dominions of the Czar, and, as Dean Stanley remarks, "this early Biblical notice of so great an empire is doubly interesting from its being a solitary instance. No other name of any modern nation occurs in the Scriptures."

The Scythian, or Tartar, tribe of Ros—mentioned by Byzantine writers of the tenth century as being located to the north of Taurus, and by Ibn Foszlan, an Arabian of the same age, as dwelling on the banks of the Rha, or Volga—has been recently acknowledged by a consent of Russian ethnologists to be the origin of their name and people.

Meshech was another Scythian tribe, known to Classical writers as the Moschi. Of these Rawlinson says;—"They are frequently mentioned in Scripture under the name of Meshech, and occur as Muskai in many of the Assyrian inscriptions. . . . There is reason to believe that they ultimately took refuge in the Steppe country, where they became known as Muscovs, and gave their name to (Moscow) the old capital of Russia."¹

The clans of Tubal, a third Scythian tribe, are, under the name of Tuplai, associated with the Muskai in Assyrian inscriptions; while in Classical authors they are called Tibareni, or the people of Tubal, and are usually coupled with the Moschi. The Assyrian records place them in Lower Cappadocia, on the Southern flanks of the Taurus; but, after a few centuries, we find them driven up to the South-eastern coast of the Black Sea; and they seem to have subsequently continued their Northward wanderings

¹ Rawl. "Herod," vol. iv. p. 180.

PRESENT CONDITION OF THE JEWISH NATION. 27)

until they settled in Western Siberia, where they have given their names to the river Tobol, and also to the city and government of Tobolsk.

Thus these three Scythian tribes of Asia Minor, which appear in olden time to have lived in close proximity, and two of them at least on terms of friendship and alliance, were gradually forced away from their pleasant habitations and fertile lands into the cold and inhospitable region of the Steppes, and are now united as Russians, Muscovites, and the people of Tobolsk, in the great empire of the Czars. And if we keep their history in mind, it will, perhaps, give a peculiar significance to the words addressed to Gog, "I will cause thee to return,"$^{1}$ which may have meant that in the latter times these Scythians should make their way back again to the country from whence they came: that they should burst the "Iron Gates," which they did when they annexed the Trans-Caucasian provinces, and should stream on through Armenia, which they have already begun to do, until, having re-crossed the ridge of Taurus, they have reached the plains of Mesopotamia and the banks of the Euphrates, where we first hear of them in the times of the old Assyrian empire. And then they will not be very far from the borders of the Holy Land, upon which they shall come as a storm, and shall cover it like a cloud.$^{2}$

There is, then, bitter tribulation awaiting the sons of Abraham in the immediate future. The curse which the miserable people called down upon their own heads is not yet exhausted: the blood of Him Whom the

$^{1}$ Ezek. xxxviii. 4. This rendering is better than that of the English Version, "I will turn thee back."

$^{2}$ Ezek. xxxviii. 9.

THE JAWS.

Father sent is still upon them and upon their children : there is no fountain as yet opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness ; they are still bearing every one his own iniquity. But the hour of decision is approaching, when that which can be saved shall be saved, and that which will perish shall perish : the time is near when the people shall be gathered in unbelief into their own country, as men "gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it :'¹ the day is not far distant in which the inhabitant of Jerusalem shall indeed say, "I am sick," and all the cities and fields of the devoted land shall be anguished with pain, and sorrow, and crying, and death. For the last end of the indignation, like the closing trouble of Joseph's brethren, shall be the worst suffering of all. But its fruit will be the broken and contrite heart ; and then mercy will take the place of judgment, and He shall appear Who is able to save to the uttermost, and Who "turneth the shadow of death into the morning.'²

Exck. xxii. 20.

¹ Amos v. 8

I.