Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
lessons in foreign languages to the inmates of the Berlin House for
foreign missions, when his landlady said to him once, "It is all very
nice for you to teach these young men foreign languages in order that
they may be qualified to preach the Gospel to the heathen. Have you at
all thought of your own brethren who live in your own neighbourhood
without the light of the Gospel?" This was a word in season. Thereupon
he entered into correspondence with the L.J.S., joined the Church of
England, and was ordained deacon by the Bishop of London on March 20,
1842, and was sent by the Society to Constantinople. On his way there he
sojourned for awhile at Pesth, where his lectures on Isaiah liii. bore
good fruit, and it seems that he then got engaged to Maria Dorothea, a
daughter of Israel Saphir. He did not remain very long in
Constantinople, because his connexion with the Scotch Mission at Pesth
caused him to join the Free Church of Scotland, and he was sent by that
Church to Berlin, where he was stationed from 1844 to 1849, and he went
then to Prague, but settled in the same year at Amsterdam. There he
found that the Dutch Jews were not so accessible as the Jews in Hungary,
Turkey, and Germany, so he adopted the method of preaching special
sermons in churches and inviting the Jews through advertisements to
attend them. In 1850 he issued a Dutch paper, giving expositions of
Messianic prophecy and the like, for circulation among the Jews. This he
edited for several years. In 1856 a mission church was built for him,
and his first sermon then was on Zech. iv. 6. In that church he baptized
quite a number of Jews. On Sunday, August 1, 1858, Schwartz ascended the
pulpit to preach to a congregation of 1,200, on St. John xii. 26, and
while bowing down to offer up prayer, a young Jew quietly crept up the
steps and stabbed him with a dagger in the left shoulder so that he was
saturated with blood, and had to be carried home in a fainting
condition. The attempted assassin was put into prison, where Schwartz,
after his recovery, visited him but did not succeed in bringing him to a
better mind. However, a near relation of his became a Christian after
that event; and a Jewess, too, was thereby induced to come to Schwartz
for instruction and baptism. After fifteen years' arduous labours in
Holland, Schwartz accepted a call in 1864 from the congregation of
Trinity Chapel, Newnham Street, London, to succeed Ridley Herschell. In
London he founded a home for enquirers; and edited a periodical
entitled, "The Scattered Nation." In 1866 he founded "The Hebrew
Christian Alliance," and delivered lectures, besides preaching twice
every Sunday. In this good work he continued till August 24, 1870, when
he died on his knees at the age of fifty-three, and was buried near his
friend, Ridley Herschell.
SCHWARZENBERG, Rabbi Abraham, lived in the little town of Kasimir in
Poland, and was employed by a Jewish merchant who at last became a
bankrupt, yet on account of his Talmudic learning was chosen as rabbi at
Lublin. Schwarzenberg, who was an upright, conscientious man, knowing
that his master had deceived many poor people, took offence thereat, and
reproached the Jews for not acting according to the law in this matter.
After this some one gave him a New Testament which missionaries had left
in the town. After reading it he persuaded others also to read it, and
exposed himself to persecution. He then went in search of the
missionaries, and coming to a Roman Catholic priest he expressed a wish
to be instructed and baptized, but the priest told him that he must
first of all lay aside the New Testament. Schwarzenberg concluded that
he was not a missionary, and went to Lublin, where he had heard there
was an Evangelical minister. This worthy man looked upon him with
suspicion and received him coldly, so he went to a river and dipped
himself three times in the name of the Holy Trinity. At last he heard
that the missionaries resided in Warsaw, so he tramped at once to
Warsaw, where Dr. McCaul instructed and baptized him in 1828, in his
65th year. In spite of his age Schwarzenberg began to learn German in
order that he might intelligently take part in the services of the
Church of England. His mode of life was quite that of a Polish Jew, with
long fore-locks and dressed in a long kaftan with girdle. He used to say
that a converted Jew must have a changed heart, but not a change of
dress. He maintained himself by selling fruit in the street, and also
worked voluntarily as a missionary. The police had an order to protect
him against the Jews, though when he was in a lonely street he was often
stoned by them. In this manner he ran the Christian race until 1842,
when he departed at the age of eighty to be with Christ.
SEGALL, Rev. Joseph F., a native of Piatra (Moldavia), came with a
number of young friends into possession of missionary literature which a
colporteur from Bucharest had left in the town in 1874. This they
studied secretly in rotation. After being solemnly impressed by the
truth, they wrote a letter to the Rev. F. G. Kleinhenn, asking for
admission to some institution in which they might learn more of the
Gospel. Mr. Kleinhenn replied that he had no such home, and could not
encourage anyone to come to him except on his own means and on his own
responsibility. However, one day Segall and his friend Suffrin appeared
at Mr. Kleinhenn's house, and he had to take them in. They were then
instructed by Mr. Kleinhenn and Mr. Bernstein for some considerable
time, and then baptized. The history of the two runs to some extent
together. The relations of each tried their utmost to win them back to
Judaism, but they had grace given to them not to yield. In the same year
Mr. Bernstein, then stationed at Strasburg, was the medium of their
being admitted by Dr. Heman, at Basel, into his home for proselytes, to
be trained for future usefulness. After finishing their course of study
they applied to the L.J.S., passed through its missionary college, and
were appointed missionaries. Segall was stationed at Birmingham, and
ordained by the Bishop of Worcester in 1877-8 to the curacy of St.
Martin. Subsequently he was appointed to the charge of the mission at
Damascus, where he also acted as chaplain to the English colony there.
SIMON, Erasmus, was one of the earliest converts of the L.J.S. This
excellent man seems to have been a native of Holland. In London he made
the acquaintance of J. Frey, and heard the Gospel from him and was
baptized. In 1820 he was appointed to work under the Rev. A. S. Thelwall
at Amsterdam. In 1829 he formed a society called the "Friends of the
Hebrew Nation," under the patronage of the Bishop of London. This
society rented three houses in Camden Town for Jewish enquirers, and
started the "Operative Jewish Converts' Institution." Amongst its
inmates were the future founder of the British Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, Ridley Herschell, and
Wertheimer, the future well-known bookseller. The former was one of
twelve candidates for baptism presented by Simon to Bishop Blomfield,
who baptized them in St. James', Piccadilly.
SIMSON, Martin Eduard, son of a banker, German jurist and statesman,
born Nov. 10, 1810, at Königsberg, and died at Berlin, May 22, 1899. He
embraced Christianity as a young man, studied law, and in 1833 he became
professor of Roman law, and three years later a judge. In 1848 he
received the title of "Rath" in the higher court. In 1848 he was sent
as a deputy from Königsberg to the National Congress at Frankfurt, and
was soon raised to be its president, and had the honour to offer the
crown of the German Empire to King Frederick William IV. of Prussia.
Subsequently he held high offices of state, and in 1879 he was appointed
first president of the German Supreme Court at Leipzig; in 1888 he
received the decoration of the Black Eagle of Prussia and was ennobled.
In 1892 he retired to private life. He was the author of "Geschichte des
Königsberger Ober Tribunals." Of his three baptized brothers, one became
professor of Oriental languages at Königsberg, and the other two lawyers
at Berlin.
SKOLKOWSKI, J., was a native of Calwary in Russian Poland, baptized at
Königsberg, and then studied at the L.J.S. Missionary Training College
in London. In 1849 he laboured as a missionary in London, Cairo, Lublin,
Gnesen, and Posen, and then, in 1869, at Königsberg. "His annual
reports," says the Rev. W. T. Gidney, "supplied most interesting details
of mission service, together with glimpses of the social condition,
pursuits, and religious opinions of Jews, among whom he devotedly
carried on the work of preaching Christ and Him crucified, until his
retirement in the beginning of 1888, after a long service of very nearly
forty years."
SOBERNHEIM, Dr. Joseph Friedrich, an earnest convert in Berlin in the
middle of the nineteenth century. The history of his conversion is as
follows. A student had pawned a New Testament with a Jew for a paltry
sum of money, and when he came to redeem it, the pawnbroker, having in
the meantime read it and become a Christian, gave the student a hundred
Louis d'or as a token of gratitude because he had through this book come
to a saving knowledge of Christ. This Jewish convert was instrumental in
the conversion of nine other Jews, among whom was Dr. Sobernheim and his
father. He was esteemed as an author of medical works. He wrote:
"Handbuch der Praktischen Arzenimittelehre" (Berlin, 1844), "Beiträge
zur Phänomenologie des Lebens," _ib._, 1841. He died in 1846. ("Jewish
Intelligence," December, 1864.)
SOLOMON, Rev. Benjamin Nehemiah, was born at Lemberg in 1791, and in due
time became a rabbi. In 1814 he came to London, and through the
instrumentality of J. Frey became a Christian, and was ordained in 1817.
He then accompanied Lewis Way on his missionary journey through Holland,
Germany and Russia, both preaching the Gospel to the Jews everywhere.
Lewis Way having obtained for him permission from the Emperor Alexander
to work in Poland, he first of all translated the New Testament into
Yiddish, for the use of Polish Jews. In 1821 he accompanied McCaul to
Warsaw, but from Amsterdam he wrote to Thelwall that the condition of
his wife and children in Galicia obliged him to return home. His own
father declared to the missionary Smith, in 1827, that he was living as
a Christian.
STAHL, Friedrich Julius, son of a banker, jurist and publicist, was born
at Munich, January 16, 1802, and died at Bruckenau, Aug. 10, 1861. He
became a Christian in his eighteenth year, and was baptized at Erlangen
in 1819. Already at the age of fourteen he discussed religious topics
with his fellow scholars. The writings of Thiersch had a great influence
upon him. After he had become a Christian, he acted as a missionary to
his own family and brought his parents and brothers and sisters to the
Saviour. He studied law at the Universities of Wurzburg, Erlangen, and
Heidelberg. In 1834 he represented the University of Erlangen in the
Bavarian Parliament. In 1840 he became professor of law at the
University of Berlin, where his lectures drew an audience of all
classes. His idea of Christianity was that it should pervade the whole
life and also the State. According to Lord Acton, Stahl had a more
predominant influence and shewed more political ability than Lord
Beaconsfield (Acton, Letters to Mary Gladstone, p. 103, London, 1904).
His writings are as follows, "Die Philosophie des Rechts nach
Geschichtlicher Ansicht," 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1830-37); "Ueber die
Kirchenzucht" (1845-58); "Das Monarchische Princip" (Heidelberg, 1845);
"Der Christliche Staat" (_ib._, 1847-8); "Die Revolution und die
Constitutionelle Monarchie" (1848-9); "Was ist Revolution?" (_ib._,