For no one, I conceive, will deny, that the Jewish dispersion contains a number of not less than five millions of immortal souls, living without God and dying without hope; and yet capable of grace and pardon as well as ourselves; destined to appear before the same bar of God; and who can only be rescued from destruction by the same mighty redemption of the divine Saviour. Nor can it be doubted that this people are at present, for the most part, in a peculiarly wretched condition; without a country, without religion, without morals, without education, without character; filled with enmity against the name of Christ; the scorn, in short, and the rebuke of the earth. As little can it be denied that their former privilegesas that favoured nation to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises-shed yet a ray of splendour even over their fallen state; whilst the incalculable benefits they have been the means of communicating to the world-benefits which comprize all we enjoy here and all we hope for hereafter-benefits which comprehend even that adorable mystery of our salvation which alone gives us the pre-eminence over the Jew or the heathen, constitute at least a claim upon our warmest gratitude.

What then are the steps which our Society

is taking for the benefit of this most interesting people? It is educating their children in the Christian faith. It is translating the New Testament into their sacred language. It is delivering Courses of Lectures on the evidences of the Messiahship of Christ. It is publishing books on the questions in controversy between the Jews and Christians. It is supporting a Jews' Episcopal Chapel for the public worship of God. It is maintaining a correspondence in various parts of the world with persons interested in the welfare of the Hebrew people. It is affording in particular cases temporal relief to those whose profession of Christianity exposes them to inevitable desertion and ruin. It is opening a point of union and protection to Jews from every quarter, who are sincerely inquiring into the evidences of our religion. It is thus gradually lessening the deplorable hostility of the Jew to the Christian name, and convincing him that we can deplore his infidelity, whilst we pity and love the person of the infidel, and aim at instructing and saving his soul.

How admirable then is such a design, even in the confined view we are as yet taking of the subject! Surely the Jew is our brother; and his pitiable case should at all events touch our compassion, and lead us to employ a proportionate zeal in promoting his salvation, consider

ing him simply as a fallen and wretched sufferer. And when we consider the number of children that have actually been educated in this school, amounting to nearly two hundred; the large portion of the Hebrew translation of the New Testament which has already been printed under the patronage of six most learned Prelates of our Church, and in a manner to obtain the commendation of the first oriental scholars a work so important, that if it were the only object of our Society, it would of itself more than repay all its exertions-when we consider the number of true converts to the faith of Christ which has blessed our labours, and the interest for their temporal and spiritual improvement which has been created in various countries, I really think this infant Establishment presents as strong and affecting an appeal to the piety and benevolence of Christians as was ever advanced by any charitable association.

But how inadequate a view have we taken of this subject, in considering the Jews merely as on the same footing with the suffering and ignorant nations around us. There are other and more commanding topics to be adverted to; topics which raise the question from the ordinary mass of beneficent efforts, and place it upon a peculiar and most sacred elevation.

For may I not be allowed here to ask, in

the first place, whether the Scripture does not expressly foretel the future conversion of the house of Israel? This is, I believe, so little controverted, that I will not stop to insist upon it. I will merely say, that if there be one point of the prophetic word more clear than another, it is, that the Deliverer shall come from Sion, that the veil shall be removed from the heart of this people, that they shall be inserted again into their own olive, and that so all Israel shall be saved. The future conversion of the Gentile nations, does not in my judgment rest upon such numerous and unequivocal testimonies of the divine word, as that of the antient people of God; and yet of the universal diffusion of the Gospel among the Gentiles, what Christian entertains a doubt?

I inquire then, in the next place, whether the ordinary means of instruction are to be employed in accomplishing this great event. And who can hesitate on such a point? In what single step, relating to the propagation of the Gospel or the conversion of sinners, does not God use the means which he has enjoined on us as our duty, and to which he has promised to attach his blessing? In what part even of the eventful history of the Jews themselves were not instruction, and reproof, and warning, and invitation, the force of argument and the tenderness of persuasion employed? At the

very moment when they triumphed over the bondage of Egypt, and the opening waves divided at the rod of the prophet, was not that law delivered, which was to controul their conduct and direct their obedience? Even in the midst of all the miracles which attended their subsequent journeys or repose, their captivity or their return, the infancy of their nation or its maturity, were not exhortation and instruction added to the extraordinary symbols of the divine presence? And this in the period of the church when a theocracy yet subsisted, and the splendour of miracles shone around it. And can we doubt whether means are to be employed now, when miracles have been suspended for so many centuries, and when all the astonishing operations of almighty grace in the present day, are carried on by ordinary combinations of human wisdom and effort? Whether indeed any thing properly miraculous may accompany the conversion and restoration of this people to their own land, if we are right in our expectations of that restoration, I am not concerned to determine; it is quite sufficient to know, that the use of means is indispensable in the order of the divine procedure, and therefore binding on the conscience of every obedient Christian. In fact, I do not hesitate to say, that we might as well wait for the intervention of miracles in our attempts to convert the Gentile, as in the case