The New Year Baptism at Leeds Our Missionaries Poetry Palestine Re-Peopled CONTENTS. PAGR 5 6 13 14 To the Young People in Christian Families who think about and love Contributions to the British Society for the Propagation of the 14 15 SPECIAL OBJECTS. Our Subscribers and friends are asked to bear in mind that special contributions are constantly needed for the following objects, which involve temporal relief, and are not supported from the general funds : Home for Aged Christian Israelites. This institution was founded at the suggestion of the REV. JOHN WILKINSON, and by contributions given at his request. The Home (34, Ferntower Road, Stoke Newington) opened in February, 1875, and six inmates are enjoying its advantages. House of Call and Jewish Children. The House of Call in Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, is open daily for conversation with the Society's Missionaries, and on Saturday afternoons for meetings. A small number of Jewish children are dependent on the Society for support and Christian education. Temporal Relief Fund. This fund is for the purpose of affording relief to Christian Jews and inquirers in destitution. Many urgent cases come under the notice of the missionaries. Parcels of clothing are also most acceptable. THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL AMONG THE JEWS, 96, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY, LONDON. A Meeting for Prayer and the hearing of Jewish Missionary Intelligence will (D.V.) be held at the Office of the Society, on WEDNESDAY, the 17th JANUARY, at 7 o'clock, and on the third Wednesday of each month. THE JEWISH HERALD. JANUARY, 1877. The New Dear. HERE are three hours in the day from which it has been reckoned to begin-sunrise, sunset, and midnight. In like manner mankind have fixed the commencement of the year in spring-when all nature awakes to new life; or in autumn-when the harvest has been gathered in, and the husbandman's work begins again; or at the winter solstice the midnight of the year, when the longest night has come, and the day begins to lengthen. The Passover in spring was to be the beginning of months to the Israelites, though the Jewish Rosh Hashanah, or New Year's Day, is in autumn; while all European nations have agreed to count their day and year from the time most distant from noon, and midsummer. Thus, too, the nativity of the Lord Jesus, after having been assigned to the spring and the autumn, has come to be celebrated in midwinter, with the common consent of all Christendom. The choice is at any rate typically right. That the shortest day, Christmas and New Year's Day, do not exactly coincide, is a mere inaccuracy of rude astronomy. They are ideally one. It is meet that we should celebrate the birth of the Son of God when the days are darkest, and nights are longest, when the earth has turned itself furthest from the light-giving life-giving sun, when winter is deepest, and work scarcest, and fuel dearest-that then we should give thanks for the Birth, which joins earth to heaven, and man to God. There is, too, a healthy, homely, hopeful manliness, in commencing the year at the season of the shortest day, and looking into the darkness, believing NEW SERIES, No. 49. A 1877. that when things are at the worst, then they begin to mend, dating the dawn of hope from the darkest day. This courage finds its counterpart in the faith that man's extremity is God's opportunity; the faith, which, with typical propriety, fixed on this season for the celebration of Christ's birth. The joy with which we welcome each new year is due to the hope which "springs eternal in the human breast." We are encouraged by making a new start in the race, in which we have so often failed and fallen. This is childish folly if we forget our failures; childlike faith if we take the Lord as our righteousness and our strength. The Word became flesh, not only that He might dwell among us full of grace and truth, but dwell in us, full of power and love. Let us, then, in place of the instinctive hopefulness with which we begin a new year, have a well-grounded confidence in the fulness of Christ. Let us trust in the truth, that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature-old things are passed away; behold all things are become new! By His grace, old unbelief, old prayerlessness, old uselessness shall pass away. We do heartily greet all our readers, all who labour, pray, and give for Israel's salvation-contributors, collectors, secretaries, treasurers, missionaries, and all Christian Israelites,—and earnestly wish for them a happy, holy new year. May it be a time for new confession of sin, asking and receiving forgiveness for the past—especially our sins against Israel, and their sins against Christ. Let us do in spirit what the Jews do in form in the ceremony of the Tashlich on their New Year's day, when repeating the words, "Thou shalt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea," they shake their garments over a river or pool. Let us ask for them the same forgiveness that we ourselves receive through the blood of the Lamb. Let this be a season of new consecration. As the Passover was to be the beginning of the year to Israel, so let us now ask a new sprinkling of the blood of the Lamb-new strength by feeding on Him-new girding of ourselves for the journey-new leaving behind the bondage of sin. Let it be a time of special prayer for Israel to Him who is the hearer of prayer. The Lord seems to have been pleased with some of His people uniting in petitions in the first week of many past years. May we be permitted to beg that our readers will, in addition to the subjects proposed, each day plead some special promise to Israel. May this be a year of new, rich fruitfulness in all our Jewish mission stations. Why should we not hope for it? Is there not plenteous 1877. redemption with Him? If He grant us new consecration to Christ, new sorrow for those who are without Him, more diligence in sowing the seed, more faithfulness in the small details, as well as more sincerity in the great motives of His service, will He not also give us more fruit? Let us labour this year with a new abhorrence of doing anything to be seen of men. The folly of "keeping up appearances" in social matters is proverbial, but in work done professedly for God it must be not merely folly, but a hideous abomination to Him. And if, after a night of toiling, and catching little or nothing, bringing up sometimes a stone instead of a fish, the Master should show us where and how to let down the net, and by His own power fill it with precious souls, let us be like the Disciples, who did not send vainglorious shouts over the lake, but, with silent reverence for the Wonderworker, beckoned to their companions. As the one veil Let this be a year of new, prayerful, hopeful effort to melt the cold apathy of, we fear, the majority of even true Christians towards the Jews. One of the instructive things at this season is the ease with which incalculable quantities of ice and snow, which millions of men could not remove, disappears before the soft breath of a south wind, or the gentle patter of a shower. Cannot the same God, by His Spirit, remove an icy coldness which seems to be insuperable? There is a veil on the heart of Israel when they read the Old Testament, so that they do not see its ends, its aims, and fulfilment in Christ. One wonders whether there is not a veil on the heart of many Christians, so that they do not see the promises to the Jews. shall be taken away when the Jewish heart turns to Christ, the other surely will fall from the eyes of Christians when they draw nearer to Him. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Surely it is not unreasonable to hope that believers of all schools of thought and all systems of interpretation may agree in accepting a minimum of belief concerning the revealed future of the Jews:-1. That all Israel shall be saved; 2. That it is through our mercy, God's mercy to us, that they are to obain mercy; and 3. That their receiving shall be life from the dead to the world. Let us begin this new year with new hope of the certainty of Israel's redemption. Night and winter are caused by the earth, as it were, turning away from the sun. But the Lord made summer and winter for this very purpose, that the sun might be a manifold type of Him who is the brightness of His glory. Israel is in a winter which has lasted for ages. Whence the dreariness of their traditional interpre |