Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
knowledge of Greek in the Theological Seminary at New York, which he
entered in 1857. The Christians with whom he first came into contact
belonged to the Baptist and the Presbyterian denominations; he was
baptized by a minister of the former, and studied theology in a seminary
of the latter body. But before he had finished his studies, he had
learned and acknowledged the position of the Episcopal Church, and was
admitted a candidate for holy orders under the Bishop of Maryland. In
1859 he was ordained deacon in St. George's Church, New York, and in the
following year was advanced to the priesthood in China, whither he had
accompanied the elder Bishop Boon on his return from a home visit.
In the autumn of 1861, Schereschewsky made a translation of the Psalms
into the colloquial. This was his first work. In 1863 he moved to Pekin
and began, with Bishop Burdon of Hong Kong, the translation of the
first Mandarin Prayer Book. The main part of this book, viz., Morning
and Evening Prayer, the Collects, and the Psalter, were his work; Bishop
Burdon taking the remainder of the Book. This was completed in 1864. In
1865 a committee of five leading Chinese scholars, Dr. Edkins, Dr.
Martin, Dr. Blodgett, Bishop Burdon and himself, undertook the
translation of the New Testament into Mandarin. This is still in use
generally throughout the Empire. The only other Mandarin version in
existence at that time was Dr. Medhurst's "Mandarin," which was based on
the so-called "Delegates' Version" in Wen-li. The Bishop began the
translation of the Old Testament himself into Mandarin, in the autumn of
1865, and finished this colossal undertaking at the end of eight years.
This, with the Mandarin Testament mentioned above, forms the ordinary
Chinese Bible in general use by Christians in China, and is read at
every service from the lecterns in the China Mission of the American
Episcopal Church, as mentioned in the organ of the Domestic and Foreign
Missionary Society of the American Church.
In 1875, Dr. Channing Moore Williams, the American Bishop for China and
Japan, having been assigned to the work in Japan alone, Dr.
Schereschewsky was elected Bishop of Shanghai. With great modesty and
self-distrust he declined the office; but being again chosen in 1877, he
was persuaded that it was his duty to undertake its labours and
responsibility. He returned as Bishop to Shanghai in the autumn of
1878, and, in the course of the year 1879, translated the whole Prayer
Book into Wen-li, or classic style, blending with it as much as possible
the English and American Prayer Books, with the hope that all missions
of the Anglican communion might use it in China. Although this hope was
not gratified, the book was for many years the only one in use in all
the American missions, and formed the basis of the colloquial versions
which have since superseded it. In 1879 the Bishop went up the river to
Wuchang, and began the translation of the Apocrypha. He had only
completed one book when he was smitten down during the intense heat of
the summer of 1881, and his physicians ordered his removal to Europe,
whither he went the following spring. He was under treatment from 1882
to 1886, at Geneva in Switzerland. In 1883 Bishop Schereschewsky,
unwilling to retain an office whose duties he could not discharge,
resigned his Bishopric.
With wonderful perseverance he now devoted all his energies of mind,
which remained unimpaired, to the work of bringing the Scriptures within
the reach of the Chinese nation. Fully acquainted with their language in
its different forms, and being not only a skilful Sinologist, but one of
the most learned Orientalists in the world--and that by the testimony of
Professor Max Müller--using a pen as long as he could hold a pen, and
then, owing to paralysis, working on a typewriter with the two fingers
which he could control, he translated the Old Testament from the
original Hebrew into the Mandarin dialect, leaving to a secretary only
the reduction of the typewritten words into the Chinese character. For
twenty years, day after day, in China, and for a while in Massachusetts,
and more recently in Japan, when he was near a printing-press which he
could use, he worked under disadvantages which would have put an end to
the courage and the labours of almost any other man. Not long before his
death he completed his greatest work, the translation of the whole
Bible, including the Apocrypha, into the Wen-li dialect. He also wrote
Chinese grammars and dictionaries, and translated the Gospels into
Mongolian, preparing also a dictionary of that language. He died at
Tokyo, on October 15th, 1906.
We may add the following extract from the Bible Society's memoir of the
Bishop, written by the Rev. Crayden Edmunds, M.A.:
"His early training, whereby he came to know Hebrew better than any
other language, specially fitted him to become a translator of the Old
Testament. This peculiar fitness was soon recognised by his missionary
colleagues, who about 1865 entrusted him with the translation of the Old
Testament into Northern Mandarin. He also worked on the Peking Committee
as a translator of the New Testament. His version of the Old Testament,
first published by the American Bible Society in 1875, has since been
repeatedly issued by both the A.B.S. and the B.F.B.S. A revised edition
appeared in 1899. But a still greater work was his translation of the
whole Bible into Easy Wenli; he added the New Testament in this case,
in order to secure uniformity; both Burdon and Blodgett's, and Griffith
John's versions of the New Testament being in a somewhat different
style. This Bible the A.B.S. published in 1902.
"The significance of Bishop Schereschewsky's achievements, however, lies
not so much in their extent and scholarship as in their testimony to the
indomitable courage of the man and his devotion to his work. Six years
after his consecration as Bishop he became paralysed, and had to resign
his episcopal jurisdiction. His malady increased till it left him with
the use of only the middle finger of each hand. Fortunately his
intellect remained unimpaired, and with these two fingers he was able to
type out his MSS., which were afterwards rewritten in Chinese characters
by his secretary.
"But the toil was well worth while. To this man alone has it been
granted to give to the two hundred and fifty million Mandarin-speaking
Chinese, as well as to the mass of readers in China, the Oracles of God
as found in the Old Testament. Reviewing, therefore, his life in the
light of these facts, we may surely trace the divine purpose in taking
him from one task, for which a successor would without difficulty be
found, and setting him free for another, for which his whole previous
life had been a unique preparation. As a translator his influence has
been far wider than it could have been as a Bishop, and Chinese
Christians will ever remember, with gratitude to God, the great scholar
who out of weakness was made strong--who laid so well and so truly the
foundations of the Bible in their greatest vernacular, and in the more
popular form of their written language."
SCHLOCHOW, Rev. Emmanuel, was born at Wingiz in Silesia. His father
being indifferent to religion, he had no religious education, and became
only aware that he was a Jew when his fellow-Christian scholars
mockingly reminded him of it at school. This he could not endure, and
his father advised him to go to a Roman Catholic priest and be baptized.
However, he was then a thorough infidel, and at one time, on account of
some disappointment that he had met with, he bought a pistol and was
about to commit suicide, when the Scotch missionary Cerf knocked at the
door of his room, and not only rescued him from taking away his life,
but by God's help enabled him to devote that life to His service. He was
converted and baptized in 1848. In 1851 he became connected with the
L.J.S., and was sent as a missionary in 1853 to Jassy, where he remained
three years. In 1856 he was appointed to Alsace, and had his station at
Strassburg, whence he itinerated to France and the Rhine provinces, and
met everywhere acceptance among Jews and Christians. In 1874 he went
with the Rev. A. Bernstein on visits to several rabbis in Alsace and
Lorraine, when they were cordially received and had profitable
conversations. He then was transferred to Crefeld, but much suffering
from asthma obliged him to retire to Worthing, where he died in 1876,
and upon his tombstone in the churchyard there can be read the words in
Hebrew, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," so that he still preaches to
Jewish visitors.
SCHÖNBERGER, Rev. C. A., after embracing Christianity, studied at Pesth
and Basle and Leipzig, laboured for some time as a Scotch Free Church
missionary at Pesth, where many Jews attended his lectures. He was
ordained in Stuttgart in 1867, laboured then at Prague till 1872, when
he entered the service of the British Society, and was sent back to
Prague, and from there he was transferred to Vienna, where he was very
efficient and realized the fulness of blessing upon his ministry. Some
of his converts became preachers of the Gospel among Jews and
Christians. About 1892 he returned to England, and on account of illness
resigned his office. After the death of his brother-in-law, Dr. Saphir,
he felt that he was called to supply in some measure his influence on
behalf of the Jews, and he connected himself with the work carried on by
Rabbi Lichtenstein at Pesth, and joining the Rev. David Baron, they both
founded a mission in East London, under the name of the "Hebrew
Christian Testimony to Israel," where a great work has been going on
ever since in their own mission-house in Whitechapel Road, whence the
Gospel has been carried by word and literature to Hungary, the Danubian
Principalities, and Russia.
SCIALITTI, Rabbi Moses, an Italian Jew, was baptized on Trinity Sunday,
1663 by Dr. Warmestre, Dean of Worcester, at the Church of St. Margaret,
when the Bishop of Chester, Dr. Samuel Collins, the Countess Lucy of
Huntingdon, and other persons of high standing were sponsors by proxy.
Scialitti subsequently addressed a letter in Italian and English to the
Jews, stating the grounds for his embracing Christianity, and exhorting
them to go and do likewise.
SCHUFFAMER, Rabbi Elisha, came from Salonica to Jerusalem, and was
through the preaching of Dr. Ewald converted to Christianity and
baptized in 1848. He then returned to Salonica to fetch his family, but
four of his children had died, yet his wife followed him to Jerusalem.
There he was employed for a time as layreader, and was afterwards
transferred to Cairo, where he had a Bible depôt.
SCHULHOF, Dr. M., a Jewish convert, was a medical missionary of the
British Society. In 1854 he published: "Notes on Diseases in Turkey in
reference to European troops and Memoir of the remittant fever of the
Levant."
SCHWARTZ, Rev. Dr. Karl (Solomon), was born at Meseritz in Posen in
1817. His father, Isaac Schwartz was a merchant, and gave him a strict
rabbinic education, cherishing the hope that he would one day become a
teacher in Israel. To this end he was sent to Berlin in 1832 to study at
the rabbinic Seminary there. In the lectures the professors occasionally
compared Judaism with Christianity, to the disadvantage, of course, of
the latter. This excited in Schwartz a desire to examine Christianity
for himself, so he took the first step by exchanging the Seminary for
the Gymnasium. During the course of his studies he was instructed in
Christianity and baptized October 18, 1837. He then studied theology for
a year at Halle, under Tholuck, and then under Neander, Hengstenberg,
and Twesten, for four years at Berlin. At that time he used to give