THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
In Kishinef Faltin developed a successful missionary activity after 1859, and Joseph Rabinowitz in 1882-99. In Melbourne, Australia, there is the Friends of Israel Association, of which the proselyte Abramowitz is the head.
In the United States there are eleven church missions: the Church Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews (Protestant Epis- 5. Missions copal) established in 1842 in New York, in the with stations at New York and Phila- United delphia and five missionaries, and pub- States, lishing The Gospel of the Circumcision; the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of North America, established in 1871 in New York, working at Urumia, Teheran, Hamadan, and Sidon, and publishing The Assembly Herald; the Reformed Presbyterian Mission to the Jews, established in 1894 in Philadelphia, with three laborers; and the Messiah Mission of Chicago, established in 1896 and continued since 1899 as the Mission of the Women's Association of the United Presbyterian Church of North America. Specifically Lutheran are the four following missions: the Norwegian Zionsforeningen for Israelsmissionen blandt norske Lutheranere i Amerika, established 1878 at Minneapolis, with three laborers in Minsk and Odessa in Russia and New York; the Jewish Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, established in 1885 in New York; the Jewish Mission of the Joint Synod of Ohio, established in 1892; and the Mission of the German Lutheran Synod of the Jews in Chicago, established in 1894 in Chicago. The Methodists have the New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society, established in 1892; the Baptists, the Missionary Society of the Seventh Day Baptists, established in 1887; and the Quakers the Friends' Mission at Ramallah in Palestine, established in 1870 by English Quakers, and continued in 1887 by American Quakers as the Eli and Sibyl Jones Mission. Besides these, there are twenty-one independent missions, the most important of which are: the New York City Mission, the oldest of all American missions, established in 1828; the Chicago Hebrew Mission, founded in 1887 and publishing The Jewish Era; the Gospel Mission of the Jews, formerly the Hope of Israel Mission, established in 1892 in New York; the Brooklyn Christian Mission to the Jews, established 1892 in New York and publishing Our Hope and the Yiddish " Hope of Israel "; the World's Gospel Union, established in 1892 at Kansas City, Mo., with eight missionaries, one in Morocco; the American Mission to the Jews, established in 1895 by the proselyte Warschaviak; and the Immanuel Mission to the Jews in Cleveland, established in 1898, and publishing Immanuel's Witness. The American missions to the Jews engage 150 laborers in all.
IV. Methods and Practical Considerations: A distinction must be drawn between missions among those Jews who live scattered in a Christian country, and those who live in a compact mass and have their own language and customs, and those in Mohammedan and heathen countries. Missions to the Jews living within the pale of Christian churches can have no other purpose but to incorporate
them in the churches. This is especially the case with the Jews of western Europe. For more than a century they have been in a process of assimilation with Christian nations. Self-preservai. Meth- tion, if no other motive, must compel ods in the Christian Church to carry on mis- Christian sionary work among the Jews; for it Lands. would be extremely dangerous if so many thousands of Jews in the midst of Christians were equal or even superior to them in political, social, moral, and economical respects, and yet opposed in religion. It is the duty of the Church to educate suitable catechetes and evangelists for this work among the Jews. All missionary activity should start from the Church. Among the Evangelical churches only the English and Scotch and some smaller free churches promote these missions as a branch of their churchly activity. It is not the duty of the Church, however, to provide for the material assistance of proselytes; this belongs rather to private charity and independent associations. The proper persons to be employed in converting the Jews are Christian clergymen; although it is much more difficult to prepare born Christians for work of that kind than born Jews, who can more easily adapt themselves to the mode of thinking of their brethren. But it would be entirely wrong to gather the Jews into a separate Judseo-Christian Church, since that would lead only to a new sect; and, on the other hand, extreme caution must be observed that baptism may not be granted too hastily or to unworthy recipients. Methods of missionary work differ according to the various conditions of the Jews. While the Jews lived almost without any legal rights among the Christians, the State and the Church could force them to hear the preaching of the Gospel in their own synagogues or in churches. Since the emancipation of the Jews, this method has become impossible, and they have accordingly been visited in their homes, and the Gospel has been announced to them by the distribution of tracts and books. But as such visits may be considered by the Jews an invasion of their homes, nothing is left but occasional meetings in public places. Public lectures, reading-rooms, and free schools have also contributed to the success of missions. The instruction of catechumens must be adapted to their religious condition and spiritual training. Special consideration must be devoted to those difficult doctrines which for the Jew are not only offensive, but even detestable, such as the doctrines of the Trinity, of the divinity of Christ, and of the atonement.
Missionary activity must assume a different attitude in non-Evangelical countries, where Jews live in a compact mass. This is the case 2. Meth- principally in eastern Europe, espeods in cially in the western provinces of Rus- Non-Evan- sia that formerly belonged to Poland. gelical The number of Russian Jews is esti- Countries. mated at from 4,500,000 to 6,000,000. Thousands of Jews are also crowded together in Galicia and Rumania. In countries like Russia missionaries encounter special difficulties, owing to deep-rooted Jewish fanaticism, hatred of the Christians, Jewish narrowness, and great eru-