The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-09-15 00:00:00

great river? Now, bow remarkable it is, that under these
circumstances the Pasha of Egypt should be protecting the
Israelites on their return to that country—that he should be
allowing them to purchase land in that country—a fact never
before known : they had not so much as the sole of their foot
in tliat land. And we have another prophecy in the book of
the prophecies of Jeremiah, in the 32d chapter. The chapter
and passage are too long to read, but I recommend an atten-
tive perusal of it hereafter. But after God had ordered the
prophet to purchase a piece of land, the chapter goes on :
" Yea, 1 will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will
plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and
my whole soul. For thus salt.: the Lord • Like as I have
brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring
upon them all' the good that I have promised them. And
fields shall be bought in this land, whereof "ye say, It is de-
solate without man or beast ; it is given into the hand of the
Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe
evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of
Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the
cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in
the cities of the south : for 1 will cause their captivity to
return, saith the Lord."
And if it be said that that took place after their return from
the Babylonish captivity, I deny it ; for then the Israelites did
not purchase and libld property. And if you examine the
chapter you will find that God declares, " I will make an
everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away
from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their
hearts that they shall not depart from me." That is not
yet accomplished ; it is about to be accomplished. Writings
are being drawn up; deeds are being sealed, and lands are
again about to be possessed by the Israelites. The first fruit
of the harvest is again gathering in, and fhe glories of the
I harvest are again at the door. cannot but regard this cir-
cunistanceas of the greatest interest, and I rejoice that that
sordid idea which was some time ago mooted by well-mean-
ing men, that we should go and purchase back the land, has
been defeated ; and I think that Baron Rothschild answered
well when he said, " No, we will not purchase, it is ours,
we will wait ;" and thank God the Jewish people are wait-
ing ; they never had but one country—one home : they could
say, whether tossed to and fro, or chased in the wilderness,
or hunted as a partridge on the mountains, they could still
say with the poet—
" Where'er I roam, whatever clime I see,
My heart untravelled still returns to thee."

Yes, true as the sun flower turns to the sun, or the load-
stone to the pole, they still return to their native land; tho'
cast out, not cast out for ever ; and no violence of time can
make them forget it. They still look forward to that period
when the hills of their native land shall be clothed with
beauty and with bloom for them—when her own people shall
hold the inheritance of that land by such a title as no other
people whatever can show, for it is given to them expressly
by God—" a land flowing with milk and honey," and which
is still kept and reserved, not by human might and power—
not by sealed documents of man' but by the living oracles of
God. " Hath he said, and shall he not do it ? Hath he
spoken, and shalrhe mit make ltgood? The zeal &tithe Lord
of Hosts shall do this." (Hear.) I gather from the present
persecution of the Jews signs of good to Israel. I believe
that this very persecution bath been converted into the means
of exciting for them the sympathy, and conciliating for them
the regard, of the noble through the whole earth. The best
way to endear a man to honest hearts is to injure a man,
because there is something in the breast of Britons—in the
breast of fallen man (fallen though he be)—that always.makes
him sympathise with the injured, and indignant at the inju-
rer ; and; therefore, my dear friends, I believe that the Jews
have had a noble demonstration of that kind—of the sympathy
of Protestant Christians. (Great cheering.) I trust they
will begin to make the distinction between Christians which
the New Zealanders begin to make. When they see swear-
ing merchants and drunken sailors, they say they are hea-
then Christians, not real Christians ; and that when they
see the pompous pageant and idolatrous practices—the poor
Christian idolators prostrating themselves on the ground,
when the Jew knows that it is written " thou shalt not bow
down to them," as well as " worship them"—(cheering)—l
trust that they will make the happy distinction of the heathen
convert, and say, " These are not true Christians, but hea-
then Christians," for Popery has paganised Christianity.
Yea, and it is delightful, in this conviction, that they will have
a specimen of catholic christianity—of protestant catholic
christianity—in our own beautiful prayer-book, translated
into the vernacular tongue of Israel—the tongue that flowed
from the pure lips in Paradise—the tongue which it pleased
God best to use—the tongue that we believe, when the con-
fusion of tongues shall be done away with, He will make
the tongue of a ransomed world. But, be that as it may, it
is delightful to think that the Jew can no longer call Christ
by a name which is a caricature; but that our Jewish
ministers can open the prayer-book and say, " Here is our
book of worship ; is there anything of heathen worship—
of bowing down to images here ?" And this prayer-book
will be a witness to them which will tell with a force
and power which it will be difficult to compute, and
which it will be perhaps scarcely possible to exaggerate.
But I cannot but feel deep sorrow at those who origi-
nated this persecution. False witness I would not bear against
the devil. I never bare it against any man. (Tremendous
cheering.) But, Mr. Chairman, I am not bearing false witness
—I am stating a simple fact, a deeply humiliating and distress-
ing fact, that the persecution of the Jews at Damascus,
though carried on with Mahomedan hands, was originated by
papists. The person murdered was a papist ; the:French consul
was a papist, and the whole affair, I believe, from what our
public journals and various other statements say, originated
with them. And alas, it, is but too true, there is no power
that has persecuted the Jews like popery. I took the
liberty, on a recent occasion, to check a friend of mine,
who said that the church had persecuted the 'Jews, and
corrected him by saying that it was not the protestant church
that had persecuted the Jews, but the Roman catholic church,
while she was ridden rough-shod by the man of sin. (Great
cheering.) Look at the expatriation of the whole Jewish
people from England at one period, and at the time when
those five hundred Jews at York resorted to the dreadful al-
ternative of destroying each other, to escape a more dreadful
death; look at the seven_hundred butchered by one of our
monarchs—all dated before the time of the Reformation.
There has not been one persecution since the time of the
Reformation. lam sorry that I know much to be ashamed
of ; there has been persecution of tongues, for which I take
shame to myself as one of that reformed church, but thank
God there is not a drop of blood on the skirts of that
church, that I know of ; but the skirts of the church of
Rome are red with it. (Very great applause.) And I
believe, Sir, when God cometh to make inquisition for
blood, among the foremost that shall suffer for it will be
that dark apostasy. Do I glory in this? God forbid. My
heart's desire and Prayer is for them as for the Jews, that
they may be saved that they may forsake the god-head of
man to worship God alone. For as I was told to-day by a
clergyman who was informed by a poor man—(this is a fact
of which I have good authority)—the poor man speaking of
the authority of the priest over him, said,-" if he was to tell
me to murder that daughter of mine I would do it. much as
I love her, for the priest stands in God's shoes." Is not
that anti-christ? This is a literal fact. I give you it to
show how fearfully superstition had hood-winked that man.
(Considerable sensation.) Therefore I beg to say, that for
the Jews, the great thing is to get rid of the Talmud—the
traditions ; and for the Roman Catholics, the great thing is
to get rid of their Talmud and traditions. And so we march
against the man of sin and the blindness of Judea ; and we
believe that in due time the light of the gospel shall shine
unclouded and unsullied in the pure firmament of the
church, co-extensive with the whole ransomed world. May
God hasten it in His due time ; and till then, may our
prayers be more and more for Israel's conversion and
salvation. To take the beautiful prayer from your own
funeral service—has it not come with balmy influence
over you again and again, " that it may please thee of thy
gracious goodness shortly to accomplish the number of thine
elect, and to hasten thy kingdom : that we, with all those
who have departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may
have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and
soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory." Amen and amen.
The Rev. Hunt{ WNEILE, on rising to second the reso-
lution, was received with enthusiastic applause. It is no
easy matter, the rev. gentleman said, for me now to deter-
mine what to do. The meeting is fairly finished. You have
had what you always have from our dear friend Mr. Stewart,
a devotional speech : then you had a speech of information
concerning the society ; then you had a speech of information
concerning Palestine ; then you had a prophetical speech ; I
still might have found somewhere to tread, but then came a
Protestant speech ; and now, sir, the whole ground has been
fairly travelled over. It is very late, and if I were any one
else but who I am, and this were any other place but what it
is, I should stop, and leave you to go to your beds, but I
protest I will not stop now. (Hear, hear.) It is difficult
after all this to be serious ; yet, unless we are serious on this
question, we shall really lose our object. It is with devout
thankfulness for the past, and animating anticipations for
the future, that we may contemplate our present position.
Our labours during the last twenty years have been merci-
fully crowned with a degree of success beyond our most san-
guine expectations. There was a time when a lively interest
in the Jewish cause—and a time in the remembrance of many
-present—was thought little:less than a combination of heresy
and fanaticism. The politicians of that day despised, or
affected to despise our labours ; but through the blessing of
the Lord God of Israel, our labours have been crowned with
a degree of success ; they have so pervaded the community,
and are, at this very time, making such steady progress, that
the most secular of our politicians are compelled to notice
them, not only with respect, but with deference. One of
the most influential of the organs of the secular politicians
of this country has, within the last few days, printed the
following statement :—" The tokens of this movetnent"—that
is the religious movement ; for, sir, in the midst of a politi-
cal movement which has agitated the country to its centre,
that has been in steady progress, a religious movement—
" The tokens of this movement are visible on every side.
Those great voluntary and popular associations for religious
purposes which are almost peculiar to this country, or which
have sprung up on the Continent chiefly from sympathy or
imitation, are now raising an annual sum of £1,000,000.
sterling. Eighty years back thelr collective receipts were
below £lOO,OOO per annum." Another feature :—" Up to
1816, there were not, on an average, ten new churches built
in England in a year. At the present moment, after having
raised in the last 25 years considerably more than one thous-
and churches, the people are still augmenting their number
by a yearly addition of at least a hundred new ones. It is
impossible to overlook these things ; nor need politicians be
surprised, that one effect of such a change in the national
temper is, to force the legislature to give more of its attention
than formerly to questions connected with religion and reli-
gious ordinances." Sir, this is not the place, at least Ido
not feel it to be exactly the time, to make observations upon
the sort of attention that some of our legislators have been
giving to religious questions, upon the sort of retrogade
movement they have been endeavouring to overlay upon our
forward movement, by their legislative enactments ; but it is
the time to remark that the truth of this statement is in no
instance more striking than as regards this Jewish case.
Whilst one of our friends was addressing the meeting just
now, the secretary of the parent society whispered most sig-
nificantly to me—" Do you not remember the time when you
would have been turned out for saying so much ?" Sir, Ido
not remember when I should have been turned out : that was
never easily done; but I do remember when it would have
caused a great uproar of opposition, as if I was introducing
matters of dispute. Mr. Cartwright remembers perfectly
well the time when a very small reference to prophetic scrip-
ture was deemed a very great offence at Freemason's Hall.
It is not so now. I remember when the question was very
frequently and very insulting,ly asked—What have we to do
with the Jews—that wretched and degraded people, whose
forefathers denied and crucified our blessed Saviour, and who
are themselves under judicial blindness? What connexion
can there be between them and our christian character and
duty ? And why then should they ever form the subject of
christian interest, or the theme of christian discourse ? Sir,
there were various scriptural replies given to this line of ob-
jection. One of them is so far from being obsolete, that un-
less I greatly mistake, it will prove interesting even now, to
every real christian in this vast assembly. We invited
the objectors to consider what Christian character is,—to ask
themselves what it is to be a Christian indeed. We reminded
them that St. John describes it as fellowship with the Father
-and with his Son Jesus Christ,—that St. Paul describes it as
having the mind that was in Christ,—that our Lord himself
describes it as friendship with him, upon the ground of his
free communication of his mind to his friends. "I call you,"
he says, " no longer servants, for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth, but I have called you friends, for all
things delivered to me of my Father I have made known
unto you." Thus it appears that true Christian character
consists in conformity to the divine character, as it is reveal-
ed in Jesus Christ,—that is, in effect, to have the same views
and feelings, the same likings and dislikings, the same de-
signs, and plans, and prospects that Christ himself has. If,
therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ be deeply interested about
the Jews, it follows that no man can have true Christian
character, no man can have conformity to his mind, no man
can have sympathy in his feelings, no man can have fellow-