consider a record of the life and doctrines of a godly Jew and his disciples, and they manifest no objection dispassionately to discuss the question of his Messiahship.

From observation, and from intercourse with Christian Jews, who have laboured amongst their brethren, I am persuaded that the conversion of the Jews has been greatly hindered by the following cir

cumstances.

1. Both Jews and Gentiles have fostered the notion, that a Jew must necessarily forego his nationality on embracing Christianity. It may be true, that they who are like Abraham are the children of Abraham; but he who is a lineal descendant of that patriarch never can cease to be such by abandoning the "vain conversation received by tradition from the fathers." The apostle of the Gentiles, in common with the other apostles,-and, I may add, in common with their Master, was a Christian Jew.

2. Jews have seldom an opportunity of witnessing the effects of Christianity in converting the soul. They, consequently, form their opinion of Christianity from the conduct of men who are only nominally Christian. If they have never seen the beauty of holiness manifested by Christians, and if all that they do see and hear tends to confirm their belief that Christians are utterly devoid of true religion, their prejudices against Christianity must become very strong. We accordingly find them frequently employing the term Christian as synonymous with blackguard. They need, therefore, "living epistles" to teach them, "without the word," that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

3. Their usual criterion of learning is acquaintance with the Talmud. In this Christians are deficient, and they are consequently despised. As in the days of our Lord so now, they make the commandment of God of none effect by their tradition. To the Jews it was commanded, "When ye reap the harvest of your land, ye shall not wholly reap the corners of thy field; thou shalt leave them for the poor of thy people." Upon this command, there are raised such questions as these ;-How much must be left, if the field be four-square? How much, if it be triangular? How much, and in what form, if it be semicircular? How much, in what form, and where, if it be circular?

In listening to a Jew expatiating on such subjects, one is forcibly reminded of the saying of our Lord,-"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and ye neglect the weightier matters of the law,-judgment, mercy, and faith." Such are the questions discussed in the Talmud, and the first desire of an ambitious youth amongst the Jews is to study the Talmud. An acquaintance with several of the sciences is necessary to success; and in general the student devotes himself to the study of these with the closest application, that he may afterwards overcome the difficulties to be encountered in his subsequent progress.

They appear to have a passion for such pursuits; even boys at school challenge each other to a trial of skill in expounding the Talmud. In such cases they go to the rabbi, and inform him of their design; he then appoints them a passage, and they seat themselves at the extremities of the room, or in different apartments, to perform their task. In a given time they each produce a written exposition of the passage prescribed. These are submitted to the rabbi, and the contest is determined by his decision on their respective merit.

It occasionally happens, when the children of wealthy Jews marry, that the father of the bridegroom challenges the father of the bride to support the newly-married pair and their family for twenty years, or some other term of years, on condition of his doing the same. If the challenge be accepted, contracts are executed, and the young man generally devotes himself with close application to the study of the Talmud. If his success be considerable, his friends boast of his achievements, and congratulate themselves, saying, "Ay, he'll be a rabbi yet!"

To attain this dignity, it is necessary in some provinces to go through a protracted course of severe study. It is rarely the case that this can be completed before the student has reached his thirtieth year. If it be accomplished at an earlier age, the hair of the student, prematurely grey, generally testifies to his mental effort.

It does not appear to be avarice, or ambition, or the desire of usefulness, which alone prompts to the laborious and self-denying life of a student of the Talmud. Combined with one or more of these motives, is the hope of having made some attainment whereof they may glory before God. "They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."

It seems, then, to be most desirable that some, at least, of those who devote themselves to labour amongst the Jews, should be prepared to cope with the most learned in the discussion of the most subtile of Talmudical speculations, otherwise contempt for the intellectual attainments of the missionary may prevent an attentive consideration being given to the doctrines which he teaches in the name of Jesus.

How much have they who are interested in the conversion of the Jews to animate and to encourage them! Whilst labouring, men ought always to pray, and not to faint. "Pray, then, for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good."

Cape Town.

J. C. B.

MEMORABLE DAYS IN MAY.

May 1, 1545. Francis Junius born.

2, 1550. Joan Bocher (the maid of Kent) burnt for peculiar opinions respecting the incarnation of the Word.

2, 1572. Zegedine, the Hungarian Reformer, died.

4, 1804. Napoleon Buonaparte elected emperor of the French.

5, 1525, Frederic, elector of Saxony, and Luther's first patron, died.

5, 1556. Thomas Drowry, a blind youth, burnt at Gloucester.

5, 1643. The "Book of Sports" ordered to be burnt by the common hangman.

5, 1700. Edward Bury (ejected from Great Bolas in Shropshire in 1662) died.

5, 1821. Napoleon Buonaparte died at St. Helena, in the sixth year of his exile, and the fifty-second of his age.

6, 1678. Jansenius, "Bishop" of Ypres, in Flanders, and founder of the Jansenists, died.

8, 1814. Napoleon Buonaparte landed in Elba, after his first abdication.

9, 1760. Count Zinzendorf, “Bishop" of the United Brethren, died.

9, 1799. The Religious Tract Society founded.

9, 1828. The Test and Corporation Acts repealed.

9, 1796. Vaccination first introduced by Dr. Jenner.

,, 19, 1536. Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII., and mother of

Queen Elizabeth, beheaded.

,, 21, 1607. Dr. John Reynolds the Puritan, and regius professor of divinity at Oxford, died.

,, 22, 1727. The United Brethren's nightly watch established.

22, 1377. Gregory XI. issued three bulls against Wycliffe.

22, 1522. John Jewel, "Bishop" of Salisbury, and author of the Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, &c., born.

,, 23, 1498. Jerome Savonarola executed for heresy.

,, 24, 1551. Von Paris burnt for denying the divinity of Christ.

,, 24, 1618. King James's "Book of Sports," first published.

99

24, 1689. The Act of Toleration passed.

24, 1707. Thomas Doolittle (ejected from St. Alphage, London Wall, in 1662,)

died.

25. 1531. Star Chamber order against Tyndale's writings.

,, 26, 1416. Jerome of Prague defends himself before the Council of Constance,

and avows his attachment to the evangelical doctrine.

,, 26, 1663. Joseph Alleine, author of the Alarm to the Unconverted, apprehended, and sentenced to be imprisoned in Ilchester gaol.

,, 27, 1564. John Calvin died.

30, 1792. Dr. Wm. Carey's discourse at Nottingham on Isa. liv. 2, 3.

31. 1533. The coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn.

OUR readers, as their eyes have glanced over the list here presented to them, cannot fail to have had their attention arrested by the notices relating to Napoleon Buonaparte. These, and the notices relating to Queen Anne Boleyn, are strikingly adapted to impress upon the mind

the salutary lesson of the instability of human fortune. "God hath spoken once twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God." Psalm lxii. 11.

The interference of the civil power with the rights of conscience and the obligations of religion, appears in several different forms in the notices of this month. We have cause to be thankful that ejectments, apprehensions, imprisonments, and executions for conscience' sake,that royal declarations, Star Chamber orders, acts of parliament, and magistrates' warrants, no longer fetter our Christian liberties. The "Act of Toleration," and the repeal of "the Test and Corporation Acts," were indeed legislative interferences in favour of religious liberty, but they favoured it only by removing legislative restrictions. The legislature in these acts only undid their own wrong, and undid it partially, niggardly, and contumeliously. The word "toleration," as applied to religious convictions, is itself a scandal to a professedly Christian legislature. And though we have great reason for gratitude to God that many disabilities under which our forefathers laboured are now removed, much is yet owing to the holy cause of Christian liberty and conscience from the government and legislature of Great Britain; whose present movements, with a show of liberality, manifest as real an ignorance of the true duties of the civil power, as did the persecutions of past times.

The terms in which the order of the court of Star Chamber respecting Tyndale's writings was expressed, were, that "all the books containing such heresies as had been complained of, with the translation also of Scripture corrupted by William Tyndale, as well in the Old Testament as the New, should utterly be expelled, rejected, and put away out of his [the king's] people, and not be suffered to go abroad among his subjects." This order was made at a court held by the king, with the assistance of some principal divines and deputies from the universities. But unless what was said by the king was mere collusion, it would appear that the divines were far more hostile to the light than their royal master; for the latter, as Hall says in his chronicle, "in pursuance of his own settled judgment, that a great deal of good might come of the people's reading the New Testament with reverence, and following of it, commanded the bishops to call to them the best learned of the two universities, and to cause a new translation to be made, that the people should not be ignorant of the law of God; but that, notwithstanding this injunction of the king, the bishops did nothing at all to set forth a new translation, which caused the people still to read and study that of Tyndale, by reason whereof many things came to light."

On the 24th of May, 1618, the celebrated Book of Sports was dated. This was "a declaration to encourage recreation and sports on the Lord's-day," and was published with the view of checking, and

ultimately suppressing, Puritanism. It was drawn up by Bishop Morton, and declared his majesty's pleasure, that after divine service his "good people should not be disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreations; such as dancing, either of men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmless recreations; nor having of May games, Whitsun ales, or morrice-dances, or setting up of may-poles, or other sports therewith used, so as the same may be had in due and convenient times, without impediment or let of Divine service." After Laud's translation to the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury, these sports, which had in some places been suppressed by the judges of the land, at the request of the justices of the peace, were enforced again, with various motley revels instituted, -dedication feasts, church ales, clerk ales, and bid ales, for a description of which we must refer to Neal's History of the Puritans. As Neal observes, however, these measures, and not less some publications impugning the authority of the Lord's-day, which were issued by Drs. Pocklington and Heylin, and other high-church clergymen, were deeply offensive to all sober minds. "Instead of convincing the sober part of the nation," says he, "it struck them with a kind of horror to see themselves invited by the authority of the king and church to that which looked so little a command of the word of God." Hence, when the parliament was in a situation to act with effect, arose the order, which our list also notices, that the declarations of James and Charles should be burnt by the hands of the common hangman in Cheapside and other usual places; and that all persons having any copies in their hands, should deliver them to one of the sheriffs to be burnt.

In evidence of the strong feeling of revulsion which King James's declaration produced, not only among the sober-minded, but among others who were by no means of that character, we may mention a curious incident belonging to the history of a family which has from then till now preserved an unbroken line of Puritans and Nonconformists. It relates to Mr. Richard Conder, an ancestor of Dr. John Conder, of Homerton, and consequently of his grandson, Josiah Conder, Esq. We extract it from a brief, but very valuable, memoir of Dr. Conder, which appeared in the Evangelical Magazine for October, 1795.

"Concerning Richard Conder, sen., the following interesting anecdote is preserved, which was related to Dr. Conder in the early part of his life, by an old gentleman, who remembered when a boy to have heard it from Mr. R. Conder himself. 'I used,' said he, when young, to accompany my father to Royston market, which Mr. Conder also frequented. The custom of the good men in those days was, when they had done their marketing, to meet together and spend their penny together in a private room, where, without interruption, they might talk freely about the things of God, how they had heard on the Sabbath-day, and how they had gone on the week past, &c. I was admitted to sit in a corner of the room.