and what is more remarkable still, despite of this entire subversion of our state, our nation has not ceased to exist. Whatever interdicting our worship, slaughtering, burning and torturing_could accomplish, has been tried by Heathens, Nazarenes, and Mahomedans; but yet all their toiling has been of no avail; for we have been promised, that even in the land of our enemies we should not be utterly forsaken, as even there the Lord would still continue to be our Protector and our Father! To this promised supreme protection, not to any inherent obstinacy of our race, must be attributed the fact, that we hitherto continued a nation, undivided and unbroken, although dispersed over all lands, before the Lord. If then any one ask for a verification of Scriptural promises, we can point out our past history, and to our present experience, and if even we cannot convince the unbeliever of the absolute certainty of our hope, we believing Israelites have enough to uphold us in our faith under whatever sufferings it may please the Almighty to afflict us with.-Having premised thus much, we will now consider the promised future as absolutely certain and inevitable, as it is the decree and emanation of the same unending Being who before has promised, and fulfilled to the letter the promises He had made. The future then, to which we confidently look, because it has been predicted, is the change which prophets have announced as to come over the nature of things in the social organization of mankind. A time will come, when the Lord will raise up a Branch from the root of Jesse, who shall be the ruler of the Israelites, and in whose days universal peace and universal knowledge shall reign. This prince, so raised up by the special interposition of God's providence, shall be endowed with the spirit of prophecy, and be as good as he shall be wise. To him justice shall be as it were a girdle, and truth a belt ;' that is to say, strict and impartial justice shall be administered by him, since the wisdom which shall rest upon him is to be the special gift of heaven, and therefore he will be incapable of erring. Besides this, peace shall be every where prevailing, and no nation will practise any longer the destructive arts of war, because the desire for aggrandizement and oppression, as well as the power of executing injustice, shall be removed. Independently of all this, the outward and temporal tranquillity will be more than overbalanced by the spiritual renovation which is to take place. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,' says the prophet; the law of the Most High will then indeed become the beacon-light to all nations; and thus many nations shall say: 'Let us go to the house of the God of Jacob, and he shall teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.' And the people of Israel, who have so long and so patiently endured all the contumely and the oppression for the sake of the holy and venerated law, they shall be gathered from amidst all the nations where they have been dispersed, and they shall be brought back to the land which God promised to

Abraham when he made with him the covenant to give to him and to his descendants the land comprised between the Euphrates and the river of Egypt, a land which shall then be fruitful in the extreme, where famine shall be unknown, and where no wild beast nor poisonous reptile shall injure or destroy! And the temple at Jerusalem it shall be rebuilt in more than its former splendour, and the walls then reared shall endure uninjured and unapproached by any foreign invader, for the Lord will be around them like a wall of fire!-Envy, moreover, shall be banished, and the divisions and quarrels which caused twice our banishment, shall be no more heard of; for the reason that oppression both internal and external must have ceased, when the anointed King, the Messiah of the Lord, shall reign on earth!"

The fourth movement is, the establishment of a "College for the Training of a Jewish Ministry." This subject is taken up very warmly with every prospect of success. In future the Jews intend to avail themselves fully of the advantages of the pulpit. "A preacher is about to be appointed to the great synagogue, and the vestry of that synagogue have finally declared the following to be the requisites of his qualification:-Testimonials of moral and religious aptitude-Hebrew acquirements-Talmudic research-a familiar acquaintance with English literature, and suitable oratorical capabilities. An examination under any of these heads, if deemed essential, is to be submitted to. It is generally believed that a certain popular provincial preacher will receive this appointment."

The fifth movement is, "The Jewish Educational Association." It proposes the establishment of an Institution in the City of London, at which the youth of our faith can receive a sound and liberal education on religious principles, while at the same time they remain subject to that moral influence "which is the neverfailing attendant on vigilant superintendence.”

And the sixth movement is, the establishment and opening of a "Jews' Infant-school" in Houndsditch. This took place on the 14th of September. A long and interesting account of this event is given in "The Voice of Jacob" for the 15th of October. There are now 160 children in this Infant-school. Already an Eveningschool for Jewish adult females has arisen out of it, and the elder sisters, and even the mothers of some of the infants, are in regular attendance. They pay one penny per lesson and an extra farthing towards the firing. The instruction given is in English, reading and writing, Hebrew, arithmetic, and the Jewish religion.

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The importance of these movements cannot be overrated. hope that the disciples of Christ of every denomination will look upon them with interest and in a spirit of prayer. The strongest prejudices of the Jews originate in the unkindness and in the cruel persecutions they have so long received at the hands of professing

Christians. The doctrines of Christ, however peaceful and just, they turn away from, believing that Christ's followers must be copying and acting out what he approves. The following remark on this subject occurs in "The Voice of Jacob" of Nov. 12:

"The acts animadverted on, and others of quite as oppressive a character, to which the Jews in various parts of Germany are still obnoxious, deserve undoubtedly any measure of disapprobation; but, granting this writer's principle that Christian people ought, in obedience to prophecy, to make the Jews' an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword,'-where shall we find an act of tyranny so foul that the plea of subserviency to the prophetic judgment of God shall not be an available apology for its perpetration! We can happily afford to dispense with protection and intercession of so questionable a character: we have a safe conduct of far more authoritative value to show. We do hold a charter, older than any other locked up in walled archives; it is written in characters of heavenly brilliancy-even by the finger of God; sealed with a stamp of genuine and acknowledged worth-the word of God's prophets; and on its page we read the glowing words visible from the rising unto the setting of the sun: He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.' (Zech. ii. 8.)

"This is our surety! and Until they can rail this seal from off our bond, they do but offend their lungs,' who utter threats against us."

There is also an article in the number for October 29, headed, "Syria and Conversion;" occasioned by the Meeting recently held at the Thatched-house Tavern, over which the Hon. W. Cowper, M.P., presided. The feelings of the Jews on the subject of that Meeting are there honestly expressed, and will not be uninteresting to those who attended it.

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The Committee of the London City Mission will observe the progress of Jewish events in the metropolis with assiduity and prayer. They will render every assistance in their power. converted Jew, of respectable family connexions, whose Christian character has been tried for some years, is now under examination, and, if approved by the examiners, will be immediately appointed to visit the Jews in their own houses in different parts of London. His labours will be entirely confined to the Jews.

A SCENE IN THE CENTRE OF THE METROPOLIS.

STANDING near the bottom of Holborn-hill, there is a narrow turning on the north side of the hill called Field-lane, leading to Saffron-hill, and to masses of human beings, sunk in poverty, ignorance, wretchedness, and, many of them, in crime, only to be estimated and believed by actual visitation. The lane is an appropriate vestibule to the places to which it leads. On the Sabbath

day most of the shops in it are open, and at some of them are exposed the spoils of juvenile plunder-handkerchiefs with the initials carefully picked out, and having been kept back long enough to prevent detection.

A Missionary has recently been appointed to the "Field-lane District;" and on the first Sabbath in November, with the assistance of two other Missionaries, he collected promiscuously fortyfive children in a back-room of a humble dwelling, and out of these children, varying from seven to fifteen years of age, only five could read.

When the question was put to the tallest boy, aged fifteen, "Can you read in the Testament?" he replied, "I can read in my A B, ab, Sir;" and when the question was put to others, they were found in a similar state of ignorance.

The Missionary was immediately instructed to take the educational statistics of two or three courts, which he has done; and the following are the results :

:

In Red Lion-court, Blue-court, and Caroline-court, he found no less than 103 families, consisting of 391 persons. Out of this number there are from the age of six and upwards no less than 280 who cannot read. Of these 119 are above twenty years of age, and 161 between the ages of six and twenty. There are no less than 107 persons heads of families who cannot read. Is this in the centre of London, in the month of November A.D. 1841? Is it possible? We can only say, that the Missionary will take any lady or gentleman who may be sceptical and introduce them not only to the general scene of wretchedness, but to the individual families in this deplorable condition. What is to be done? Are our gaols to be filled continually from these neighbourhoods? Are the people to be allowed to continue in this state, while we are sending schoolmasters to, and founding schools on distant shores? We shall not soon forget a visit we paid to an old woman upon Field-lane District, aged eighty-five years. Her one room was a scene of desolation; her rent one shilling and sixpence per week, and her allowance from the parish just paid it. Fortunately for the old woman, no demand for rent has been made for a few weeks, in consequence of the houses being condemned to be pulled down for the new street about to be erected. She gets her living by gathering a few bones, by collecting the tea-leaves and coffee-grounds from one or two families, and buys a pennyworth of bread at a time. The scenes of distress and privation among many of the poor here are heart-rending. In the course of conversation she told us that she could not read, that her children could not, that her grand-children could not, and that her great grand-children could not! It is not the work of the Mission to conduct schools, although its Missionaries have in several cases been the instruments of founding "ragged" schools for the benefit of children who would be shut out from other schools. Who will

come forward and take up the educational necessities of this neighbourhood?

The attention of J. S. Reynolds, Esq., the Hon. Secretary of the Home and Colonial Infant School Society has been directed to the fact we published last month, that out of 973 prisoners, exclusive of children, then confined in the House of Correction, 717 had no education at all, or so little as not to deserve the name. Mr. Reynolds has requested us to insert an extract from the Report of the Society of which he is the Secretary on the subject of new schools, which we do with much pleasure; and we appeal to the Committee of that excellent Society immediately to take the necessary steps to establish one or more schools in the neighbourhood of Field-lane and Cow-cross. Let the streets, courts, and lanes be thoroughly canvassed, and the facts made public, and we know that there will be a generous and Christian sympathy substantially expressed in behalf of these uncivilized inhabitants of the centre of the metropolis. We have two Missionaries constantly employed on Cow-cross District and on Field-lane District, but the state of the population is such in localities contiguous to these districts that several more Missionaries might be most efficiently engaged. And what Christian can say, Nay, or refuse to help, that these neglected but immortal beings may be visited and blessed with the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?

ATTENTION TO CLASSES OF PERSONS.

LONDON affords the opportunity of carrying on Missionary work among many distinct classes of people. As to birth, we have the Irishman, the Welshman, the German, the Italian; and the Jew, both British and foreign, in great numbers, and all of these want Missionaries. They have come to us, they live near our habitations, they are easily accessible, and would not be insensible to the kindness prompting benevolent efforts in their behalf.

As to employment, there are many classes greatly neglected which either want missionaries or the special and direct attention of the clergy and of other ministers of the Gospel. There are two police forces of about 4,000 men: there are also omnibus drivers and conductors, coach and cabmen, and cattle drovers. There are also soldiers at various barracks, whose spiritual advantages are very few, and whose spiritual state is sadly neglected; and there are firemen who, from their peculiar duties, seldom know the enjoyment of a Sabbath. The Missionaries of the London City Mission have more or less attended to all these classes, and their

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