Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
and peace. My studies were mostly of a critical nature. My Jewish
prejudices, though largely toned down by frequent intercourse with
Christians, were still potent enough to prevent an impartial
investigation. The difficulties of the Gospels seemed to me insuperable.
So I continued to drift further and further away from religious
influences, until at Amsterdam I found myself at a boarding house
in the company of some earnest Christian young men. They were
schoolmasters--intelligent, idealistic, eager to learn and to exchange
thoughts with others, and before very long we were on friendly terms.
Through their intercourse, the almost extinguished interest for
religious thought once more revived in me. Not that we ever went in for
regular theological discussions--mere politeness forbade that--but
Dante's 'Inferno,' Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' and other literary
productions with a religious basis, were often talked over among us, and
I could not help being impressed by the true, though unobtrusive,
religious fervour of those educated young men.
"I decided to look for a person competent to deal with my prejudices and
willing to assist me to a spiritual understanding of Christianity. An
Encyclopædia helped to the address of the London Society for Promoting
Christianity amongst the Jews, and a letter from the Secretary
introduced me to the Society's missionary at Amsterdam, the Rev. A. C.
Adler. I told that gentleman, on my first visit to him, that it was not
so much the history of Christ and Christianity as the spiritual element
of the New Testament that baffled me, and that I should feel obliged to
him for some light upon the subject. I did not pretend to any desire of
embracing Christianity, nor did Mr. Adler, on his part, so much as hint
at that eventuality. He most readily acceded to my request for
enlightenment, and suggested that we should read together the Gospel of
St. John. For some seven weeks I had the little expected pleasure of
listening to a masterly exposition of a book that had been till then the
least intelligible one to me in the New Testament. I shall never forget
the impression Mr. Adler's intelligent interpretation of that Gospel
produced upon my mind and heart. I felt myself literally introduced into
a new world--into that spiritual world of which the carnal mind and the
materialist know nothing. The person of Christ kept on growing before
and within me until I could think of nothing else. But I was not to
yield myself to Him without a struggle.
"Mr. Adler, with an unerring tact, restricted himself conscientiously to
the task of instruction. He asked no questions, nor did he invite me to
a confession of faith. Had he done so, I fear he had but succeeded in
repelling me, at least for a time.
"When I found myself face to face with the question:--'What think you
_now_ of Christ?'--pride of reason and lingering prejudice seemed to
assert themselves more. I at once suddenly ceased visiting Mr. Adler and
thought of getting Christianity out of my head entirely. I cannot tell
whether Mr. Adler still entertained the hope of ever seeing me again in
his study; I certainly intended that it should not be the case.
"The Lord Jesus, however, had become too strong for me to resist Him
successfully for any length of time. My peace of mind was clean gone,
and I had, for my own part, experienced the truth of our Lord's words,
'No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me, draw him.'
"After a time I was again at Mr. Adler's. When, in answer to my knock
there came his Dutch 'Binnen!' ('Come in!'), and I stepped into the
room, Mr. Adler came hurriedly up to meet me, and, taking both my hands,
exclaimed joyfully, 'You have come again. Then all is right. I knew you
would not come unless your doubts were conquered. I have been praying
for that.'
"A few days after this episode I received a telegraphic message
necessitating my immediate return to Germany. I took at once a train to
Zandvoort, a seaside place near Amsterdam, where Mr. Adler was at the
time with his family for their summer holiday. I told him I had to leave
Holland without delay and requested, as a special favour, that he would
admit me into the Church of Christ by baptism the very next day. Mr.
Adler looked rather perplexed. He was, on principle, he told me, opposed
to doing things in a hurry, and especially when baptism was under
consideration. But my case was so exceptional that he thought he saw in
it the Lord's doing, and could not therefore refuse my request.
"The following morning, Sunday, August 12th, 1888, Mr. Adler was in the
pulpit of his church, after explaining the reason of his unexpected
return to Amsterdam, he invited the congregation to be present at my
baptism that afternoon. Saintly old Mr. Bloch, late missionary of the
L.J.S., and the beadle of the church, acted as witnesses to my public
declaration of faith in Christ crucified.
"On the day following my baptism I had already left Holland, and was on
my way back to Koenigsberg. There I spent another three years, following
my commercial vocation and keeping up all along a pretty regular
correspondence with Mr. Adler, to whose instruction I owed so much. In
those letters he frequently reminded me of my Christian duty toward my
Jewish brethren, and invited me to offer myself for missionary training.
I doubted my qualifications for such a calling, questioned the
advisability of going back to college after an interval of ten years
spent in commercial pursuits, but at last I decided to follow the call,
and sent an application to London for admission into the London Jews'
Society's Missionary College. I was admitted there in December, 1891,
and remained associated with the Institution for three years and a-half,
till July, 1895.
"Having completed the course of my studies, I was attached to the staff
of the London Mission, thence I was transferred to work at Manchester in
1896, and exactly three years later to Jerusalem. Here I was ordained
deacon at Christmas, 1900, and priest on Trinity Sunday, 1902, by the
Bishop of the Church of England in Jerusalem and the East, Dr. Blyth.
Here also I was married to Miss Sara Jane Ellison, daughter of the late
Dean Ellison, of Shillelagh, County Wicklow, Ireland, April, 1901.
"I may be allowed to mention in conclusion that the decision to give up
my business prospects, in order to become a missionary to the Jews, was
soon amply rewarded by the Lord. My elder brother, with whom I had
exchanged many letters on the subject of Christianity ever since I had
embraced it myself, without apparently making much impression on him,
wrote to me now--having heard of the step I had taken--to express his
appreciation of what I had done. 'Whatsoever people may think of your
motives or your actions, there is probably no one that can put them down
at their proper value better than myself,' ran his note. 'I have seen
you during the last ten years steadily climbing the ladder of commercial
success, gaining in experience and reputation, and about to earn the
fruit of much labour, and then to throw it all deliberately over in
order to become a missionary! I cannot help admiring you. You have done
the right and proper thing. Though we differ in our religious opinions,
we do not on the point of principle. You have acted as I should have
expected an honest man, with soul above £ s. d. to act. It is refreshing
to find enthusiasm for ideal goods in our sordid age of materialism.'
"This brother of mine is now, I am grateful to say, himself a worker in
the Lord's vineyard, labouring with marked success as a medical
missionary amongst the Jews of New York, faithfully assisted by his
wife--also a convert from Judaism."
In 1902 the Rev. L. and Mrs. Zeckhausen were transferred from Jerusalem
to Cracow; and in 1908, on the death of his spiritual father, the Rev.
A. C. Adler, he succeeded to the headship of the L.J.S. mission at
Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
ZUCKERKANDLE, Dr., and his wife were converted and baptized in Pesth
through the instrumentality of the Rev. William Wingate. He was
afterwards a missionary of the L.J.S. in Bucharest, and later on he
entered the service of the British Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel among the Jews and conducted a school at Rustschuk in Bulgaria,
where he died in 1874. The widow came then to London, and laboured
amongst the Jewesses in Spitalfields for many years with great blessing
upon her work of love. She was probably the first to organize a Jewish
mothers' meeting.
ZUCKERTORT, G. J., father of the famous chessplayer, was won for Christ
through the preaching of the L.J.S. missionary Wendt, and was baptized
by him in 1831. In 1836 he was appointed assistant missionary at Lublin,
where he preached the Gospel to his own relations, one of whom, a
thriving medical doctor of the same name, confessed Christ and was
baptized with his four children in 1845, and his wife later, in 1849.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Inconsistencies in spelling have been resolved in cases where it was
possible to divine the author's intent with a reasonable degree of
certainty. Otherwise variable spellings (such as Leipzig, Leipsig and
Leipsic) have been retained.
Page 118 There is a discrepancy in date of birth.
Quote: _Bernhardy, Dr. Gottfried, born in Landsburg, 1860, died 1875
... wrote "Syntax of the Greek Language," Berlin, 1829. "Grundriss der
Romischen Literatur," 1830. "Grundlinien der Encyclopaedia der
Philologie," 1832, &c._
Other sources say he was born March 20, 1800.
Page 406 Replaced "when" with "where". "In 1863 he retired to Berlin,
when he died in 1870."