The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-30
THE CHINESE JEWS.

A Synagogue in Kae-Fung- Foo Mys- tery of the Origin of the People. Among the most remote colonies are the Jews of China, who have aroused interesting inquiry and been the theme of many French writers. Early in the seventeenth century, and shortly after the Italian missionaries had come to Picking, one of them, Matthew Ricci, received a morning call. His visitor wore the gorgeous Chinese dress, in cluding the queue, but the figure and and face were not Mongolian, and the smiling countenance was not in keep
 ing with the dignified solemnity of a Chinaman. The genteman's name was Ngai and he had heard of the ar rival of some foreigners who worshipp- ed one Lord of heaven and earth, and who were yet not Mahometans: he be- longed to the same religion, he ex
 planed, and had called to make their acquaintance. Now, Master Ngai made 1t clear that he was an Israelite, a native of Kae-fung foo, the capital of Honan. He had come to Picking to pass an examination for a mandarin degree, and had been led by curiosity and brotherly feeling to call at the mis- sion-house.
 In his native city he said, there were ten or twelve families of Israelites, and a synagogue which they had recently restored at the expense of 10,0J0 crowns, and they had roll of the law four or five hundred years old. The missionary's letters described this syn agogue It occupied a space between three and four hundred feet in length by about a hundred and fifty in breadth, and was divided into four courts. It had borrowed some decora- tive splendor from China. The inscrip- tion in Hebrew, Hear o Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord, blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever" and the Ten Com- mandments were enblazoned in gold. Slken curtains inclosed the "Bethel" which enshrined the sacred books, and which only the rabbi might enter dur ing the time of prayer. Every detail of this place, with it's incense, its fur niture and all it's types of good things yet to come, is interesting. There in the last century the children of Israel at Kae-fung-foo worshipped the God of their fathers with the rites that pointed to the Messiah, of whose advent, as far as it can be ascertained, they never heard until the arrival of the Italian missionaries.
 Learned men have entered into dis cussions as to whether these people were Jews or Israelites, whether they came to China from the Assyrian cap- tivity or the Roman dispersion. They themselves say that their forefathers came from the West; and it is probable that the settlers arrived by way of Khorassan and Samarcand. They must have been numerous in the ninth century, for two Mahometan travellers of that period describe a rebel, named Bae-choo taking Canton by storm in A. D. SIT and slaughtering the 120,000 Jews, Mahometans, Christians and Par sees. More than one Jew of Kae-fung- foo is known to have gained the right to wear the little round button on the top of his cap so dear to the ambition of a Chinaman. The Taiping rebellion dis persed the settlement, and the remnant who remain faithful to the memory of old traditions are chiefly poor and dis l tressed. The Culver.