Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
Austria to the Benedictine monastery of Krems-Münster, where he was well
received by the monks. Too restless to remain long in any place, Wolff
travelled through Bavaria, Switzerland, and France, entering first this
monastery and then that. At Paris he met with Robert Haldane, who
exercised a powerful religious influence over him; and with whom he
journeyed to London.
We naturally find our interest in this talented and eager youth
increasing on his arrival in England, in 1819, at the age of
twenty-four, when he came under the notice of Mr. Henry Drummond, the
Rev. Charles Simeon, the Rev. Lewis Way, and other well-known friends of
Israel. Wolff made his way, as almost every baptized or enquiring Jew
did when first arriving in this country, to "Palestine Place," the
missionary headquarters of the London Society for Promoting Christianity
amongst the Jews, where all were sure of a hearty welcome. He attended
the service in the Episcopal Jews' Chapel, conducted by the chaplain,
the Rev. Charles Sleech Hawtrey, and, to use his own words, was
"enchanted with the devotion and beauty of the ritual." Henceforth he
considered himself a member of the Church of England. The Society sent
him to Cambridge to be trained as a missionary, and to study theology
under Simeon (himself of Jewish extraction), and other Oriental
languages under Professor Lee. Two years' residence there, and a short
course at the London Society's Seminary in Sussex, were sufficient for
the zealous young convert who was longing for active missionary service
abroad. Mr. Drummond sent him forth on his career. His feverish anxiety
to be thus employed is seen in his selection of the words of Francis
Xavier, "Who would not travel over land and sea to be instrumental in
the salvation of one soul?" as the motto for the title page of his
"Travels." Wolff left England in April, 1821, and with passing calls at
Gibraltar, and Malta (where he baptized a Jew) in due time he reached
Alexandria. He spent three months amongst the Jews of that city and of
Cairo, preaching in their synagogues, and distributing New Testaments. A
visit which he paid to the Convent of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, is
interesting from the fact that the monks promised to pray for the
conversion of the Jews.
Wolff's eyes, however, were fixed on the Holy City, and his work in
Egypt was regarded by himself as a "preparation for preaching the Gospel
of Christ at Jerusalem." He did so first in the synagogue of the
Karaites; and afterwards made daily efforts for three or four months to
reach the Sephardim, Ashkenazim and Chassidim, both by word of mouth and
circulation of the Holy Scriptures.
Towards the end of 1822, Wolff visited Antioch and Aleppo, just before
the terrible earthquake visitation of the latter city, when hundreds of
Jews confessed that the truth of the Gospel could not be denied. In the
spring of 1823 he was again in Egypt following up his previous work, and
going on to Jerusalem for Easter. His three months' labour there amongst
the Jews, thus described by himself, "I lodged among them, and was
engaged in preaching the Gospel from morning to night, and often all
night," cleared the way for subsequent efforts.
In the same year Wolff visited Damascus, where the Jews eagerly accepted
the Arabic Bibles which he had with him, and Aleppo, where he was again
well received.
Wolff's account of his visit to Bagdad in 1824, and other cities of
Mesopotamia, is most interesting reading. He seems to have visited the
scattered communities of Jews, amongst all of whom he had easy access.
At Mosul he was shewn a Hebrew translation of the New Testament which
had been made by a rabbi a hundred years previously. Left as a precious
heirloom to the rabbinical college, it had remained neglected until
Wolff pointed out its priceless value. At Orfa, the ancient "Ur of the
Chaldees," Wolff found about fifty Jewish families, and some Jacobites,
or Syrian Christians, claiming to be lineally descended from Jews who
received Christianity through the preaching of St. James at Jerusalem.
Their peculiar ceremonies, as also their features, gave colour to their
claim to be literal as well as spiritual children of Abraham.
In 1825 Wolff visited the various Jewish communities of Persia, who,
perhaps, have better grounds than any other people to be regarded as
descendants of the "Lost Ten Tribes." In 1827 and 1828 Wolff visited the
Ionian Islands and Asia Minor. At Smyrna he awakened, as indeed he did
everywhere, a widespread enquiry into Christianity on the part of the
Jews.
Probably the most romantic and thrilling of all Wolff's experiences were
those which he encountered at Bokhara in 1832. "Adventures to the
adventurous" is a truism, and Wolff was bold and daring to the last
degree, otherwise he would not have accomplished his purpose. He dressed
as a Turkoman, and so obtained an audience of the king, when he was
denounced as a Russian spy by the Jews. By his wonderful adroitness he
overcame all opposition, and received permission to evangelize the Jews,
but was forbidden to hold religious converse with Moslems. He took
lodgings at the house of a Jew, and was visited by his brethren, who
asserted that their forefathers had been carried from Samaria by the
Kings of Assyria and brought to Haran (Isa. xxxvii. 12), _i.e._,
Bokhara. The three months spent there by Wolff, especially amongst the
learned class, were fruitful, and he baptized as many as twenty. These
men had all remained faithful when he visited Bokhara again in 1844.
That second visit, more hazardous even than the first, was made with the
purpose of ascertaining the fate of Colonel Stoddart and Captain
Conolly,--two Englishmen, who, as subsequently transpired, had been
murdered. Wolff's arrival in the city was witnessed by 20,000 persons
shouting "welcome" to the enterprising traveller, whose costume--gown,
hood, and shovel-hat--roused no small astonishment. Wolff obtained
permission from the king for the Jews to repair their ancient
synagogue.[26]
[26] "Narrative of a Mission to Bokhara."
In 1833 we find Wolff in India, visiting the white and the black Jews of
Cochin, and the Beni-Israel of Poona, Calcutta and Bombay. This was not
an unexplored field, as the L.J.S. missionaries had been working there
from 1820 to 1830. Wolff found plenty to do, and at Calcutta, for six
successive days, talked twelve hours on end to all who came to his
"retreat."
Hitherto Asia had been the principal scene of Wolff's labours, but in
1835 he was in Abyssinia and in 1836 in Arabia, visiting the Yemen. At
Sanaa he expounded Isaiah liii. to the Jews, and subsequently baptized
four with their families. The Jews were polygamists, but apparently
dissatisfied with the state of things thus entailed.
Lack of space prohibits us from enlarging on Wolff's labours in the
East. His own descriptions remain to this day the most entertaining of
missionary annals, and bear witness to the wonderful activity of the man
whose striking personality, not unmixed with a harmless and naive
egotism, carried him through numberless dangers, and extricated him from
perilous situations. The restlessness of his nature, which in early life
impelled him to wander over Europe in search of light and learning,
developed in succeeding years into that consecrated fiery energy and
impulse which made him so peculiarly fitted to play the _rôle_ of
pioneer missionary. Many of his friends, as he said, "believed him to be
Elijah," though he archly added, "he always believed himself to be
Joseph Wolff!" But a pioneer he was in every sense of the word, and as
such rendered yeoman service to a cause, which more than all others,
perhaps, needs all the glamour and romance it can call to its aid. So
great was his dramatic power in describing his travels that Archbishop
Whately proclaimed him to be "a missionary Shakespeare."
Wolff had an iron constitution and a powerful frame, absolutely
impervious to matters of climate, and privations, however severe and
enduring. He records that, when travelling in India in 1832, he was
stripped of everything, and in danger of being "made into sausages," and
"had to walk without a rag of clothing on for 600 miles from the Hindu
Koosh to the Punjaub, through storms and snow!" He was relieved and
clothed at Cabul by Lieutenant Burnes. Wolff's character, wonderful
activity, and resources, were thus caustically summed up by one who
knew him:--
"He appears to me to be a comet without any perihelion, and capable of
setting a whole system on fire. When I should have addressed him in
Syria, I heard of him at Malta, and when I supposed he was gone to
England, he was riding like a ruling angel in the whirlwinds of Antioch,
or standing unappalled among the crumbling towers of Aleppo. A man who
at Rome calls the Pope 'the dust of the earth,' and at Jerusalem tells
the Jews that the 'Gemara is a lie'; who passes his days in disputation,
and his nights in digging in the Talmud; to whom a floor of brick is a
feather-bed and a box is a bolster; who makes or finds a friend alike in
the persecutor of his former or of his present faith; who can conciliate
a Pasha or confute a patriarch; who travels without a guide, speaks
without an interpreter, can live without food, and pay without money,
forgiving all the insults he meets with, and forgetting all the flattery
he receives; who knows little of worldly conduct, and yet accommodates
himself to all men without giving offence to any--such a man (and such
and more is Wolff) must excite no ordinary degree of attention in a
country and among a people whose monotony of manners and habits has
remained undisturbed for centuries. As a pioneer I deem him matchless,
_aut inveniet viam, aut faciet_; but, if order is to be established or
arrangements made, trouble not Wolff. He knows of no church but his
heart, no calling but that of zeal, no dispensation but that of
preaching. He is devoid of enmity towards man, and full of the love of
God. By such an instrument, whom no school hath taught, whom no college
could hold, is the way of the Judæan wilderness preparing.... Thus are
his brethren provoked to emulation and stirred up to inquiry. They all
perceive, as everyone must, that whatever he is, he is in earnest; they
acknowledge him to be a sincere believer in Jesus of Nazareth, and that
is a great point gained with them, for the mass of the ignorant and
unconverted Jews deny the possibility of real conversion from
Judaism."[27]
[27] The Rev. Lewis Way, quoted in "Travels and Adventures of Dr.
Wolff," vol. i., p. 287.
General Sir Charles Napier said that Wolff had "worked harder for
religion, and had gone through more dangers for it, with a brave heart,
than any man living."
Of his life in England as a parochial clergyman, but little can be said
in this biography. He married, when a young man, the daughter of the
Earl of Orford, Lady Georgiana Walpole, with whom he lived happily for
thirty years, and whose son was Sir Henry Drummond Wolff. When he
settled in England, he became vicar of Linthwaite, a small village in
Yorkshire. His friend, Henry Drummond, after whom he had named his son,
wrote, "Your call is to be an evangelist for all the nations of the
earth, and for this you are fit; but, to use your own simile, you are as
fit for a parish priest as I am for a dancing-master." Wolff shortly
afterwards removed, on account of his wife's health, to the sole charge
of High Hoyland, another Yorkshire village, with about 120 souls. There,
too, he must have felt like a lion in a cage; and when, five years
later, he resigned his charge on the ground of not being able to meet
his expenses, and undertook his second journey to Bokhara, he must
indeed have rejoiced in an aftermath of the freedom and action of his