MEMOIR.

HAVING been requested by many of the Subscribers to the following Work, to give some account of the manner in which I was brought up, and also of the way in which it pleased the Father of all mercies, who hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner, to lead me to a knowledge of Him who came to seek and to save those that were lost; I trust that my motives in complying with this request will not be misunderstood.

We read in the New Testament that the great Apostle to the Gentiles, who was also "a Hebrew of the Hebrews," was led several times to give a short sketch of his manner of life from his youth (Acts 26. 4.)—of his education, and also of God's calling him by His grace and revealing His Son in him; especially when he was called upon to give a reason of his faith in the Lord Jesus, when engaged in controversy with his brethren after the flesh, (Acts 22.) in order that the unbelieving Jews might not gainsay the motives of his conversion.

As the object of the following work is to try to convince my Jewish brethren of the truth of Christianity, I shall, therefore, follow the footsteps of Saul of Tarsus, and also comply with the requests of my dear friends, and give here a very brief sketch of my history, showing that I have not renounced the errors of Modern Judaism without mature and prayerful investigation, and a firm conviction of the truth of Christianity, to which I humbly trust I have been brought by the gracious influences of God's Holy Spirit. The Lord, through His infinite mercy, has caused me to pass from death unto life, and from the power of darkness into the marvellous light of Christ Jesus. And I do earnestly pray that sinners may see that the Lord is no respecter of persons, and that He "said not to the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain,” (Is. 45. 19.) I do also earnestly implore my God and my Saviour to keep me by His grace from any selfseeking; for I am daily more and more convinced that Satan, the enemy of our peace with God, is always on the alert for an opportunity to draw our attention from the things above to the things beneath.

In the end of the year 1818 I was born in Poland, in a town called Suwalki, of Jewish parents, and was brought up in all the strict observances of my forefathers. When I was four years old, I was sent to a school, and began to learn to read Hebrew. In the course of two months I was able to read, but did not know the meaning of what I was reading. I may mention one remarkable incident that happened about this time. I

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was one day reading at school the 24th Psalm, and coming to the 8th verse-"Who is the king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty," I was very much struck with the expression Yehovah Ezuz,

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("the Lord strong.") I knew very well that Yehovah signified Lord, but I did not know that Ezuz signified strong; and moreover, Ezuz is the Polish pronunciation for Jesus. On coming home from school, my father generally asked me-" What do you know more to day than yesterday?" I replied-"I found a very strange thing when reading the 24th Psalm; that is, that the Jewish and Gentile Gods stand together :" and pointed out to my father Yehovah Ezuz. My father was terrified at the idea of course he did not blame me for it; he knew that my ignorance made me think so; but he gave me a long lesson on the great danger of defiling my lips and my thoughts with this unholy name; and pointed out to me the numberless images and crucifixes, and told me they were the idols which neither see nor hear, and that the Gentiles called them Ezuz. He moreover told me that by mentioning the name of Jesus (which I feel now in the amplest magnitude of signification to mean my Saviour), I violated the express command of God :—" Make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth." (Exod. 23. 13. Josh. 23. 7.) From that day forward the name Jesus haunted me. I was unhappy whenever this psalm came in my way; I folded the leaf in my Psalter to avoid reading it; but this was of no use, for the effect reminded me of the cause, especially on the day of atonement, when every strict Jew repeats the whole Psalter; in short, the name of Jesus gave no rest to my soul, until I found that "to know Him is life eternal."

After remaining about six months at this school, I had a tutor in my father's house until I was nine years old; and during this time I read the Bible with the different Jewish Commentaries (see pp. 250, 251). I was then sent to Rabbi Jacob's school at Preroshla, ten English miles from my native town. He was a very celebrated man, and at his school I commenced the laborious study of the Talmud. I devoted most of my time to it; in fact, I was made a slave to it. Then it was that I began to rise at half-past four o'clock in the morning, and never went to bed on Thursday night, sitting up and repeating what we had studied during the week. All the students, though very young, were most ambitious to excel one another. I made rapid progress in the study of the Talmud. My father also engaged private teachers to instruct me in the Polish, Russian, and German languages. After I had been a year in the abovementioned school, I was sent to a school at Grodno, of which Rabbi Chayim, a great and celebrated man, was the principal instructor. I

made great progress under his tuition, in the system of deciding and solving Rabbinical problems.

I finished my Rabbinical education, at Kalwaryia, where I had an opportunity of exercising practically the learning I gathered theoretically in the former schools. A very memorable circumstance occurred to me during my stay at that school. When I first came to Kalwaryia, I formed an intimate acquaintance with two young men. They were older than myself; however we became closely united in the bonds of friendship. We met every day after our laborious studies for the purpose of taking a walk into the fields, when we spoke Hebrew exclusively, trying to acquire a complete knowledge of the language, both by conversation and composition; we also composed Hebrew verses, for which the summer fields furnished us with ample matter. One afternoon they came to me, unusually impatient for our walk. When I asked the reason of their great hurry, they replied, "We have with us a new book, which has just appeared, and which we should like to read in the beautiful cornfields." Now we were used to peruse together every new Hebrew work that appeared, but we never went out to the fields to read them; I asked therefore, "Why should we not read this new book here?" They answered, "We must take care to let no one know it." (Each of them had a book and kept it under his coat.) Their fathers had purchased Hebrew Bibles at Könisberg, from the Christian Missionary, who presented each of them with a copy of the Hebrew New Testament ;* and those were the new books they wished me to read with them. But I could not get a view of it till we were removed out of sight from the town. Having made me promise not to betray them, one of them gave me his copy to read. I opened it, and began to read Ibin 90 mi MUDA YI "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ." I asked, "Who is that ' yı Yayshua Hamashiach or Jesus Christ?” They replied, "The God of the Gentiles which you see in every street and highway nailed to a cross, and before which you see Gentiles kneeling and praying." (See p. 36.) I made no further observation, but continued to read, and finished the first chapter. I was pleased with the genealogy on account of its Jewish character; and forgetting everything else, I thought I was reading some Jewish authentic book, and liked it very well,

* A Father could not bring his son a more acceptable present, when he visited Königsberg or Warsaw, than one of the Society's Bibles. (See p. 88.)

+ This was the first time I ever saw a New Testament; for though I studied very much the Chizuk Emunah, or "Defence of Faith," (a work written by the celebrated Rabbi Isaac against Christianity,) which contains many passages from the New Testament, yet I never saw the fountain itself.

until I came to the history of the birth of Jesus, when the words y Yehovah Ezuz came suddenly to my remembrance, and I began to fancy that I was reading a soul-destroying book. I thought assuredly Satan's devices are insurmountable, and I felt so uneasy and guilty for reading that book, that I was almost beside myself. I threw the volume on the ground with horror, crying to my companions, "Satan has succeeded in making you his tools, in order that you may mislead me from God's truth, and fix my attention on the God of the Gentiles, which can neither speak, nor hear, nor see, &c. Away with that book, the destroyer of my peace!" When I returned to my room in the evening, I was not able by any means to get rid of the thought of the New Testament and of Yehovah Ezuz; moreover it was the month Ellul, in which all my nation prepare themselves for the great day of atonement. (See p. 203.) Little did I know then of the everlasting atonement, which was made once for all, in the person of Jehovah Jesus, and fully contained in the doctrine of the New Testament, to which the Spirit of the Lord began at my earliest age to draw my attention. But alas! blinded as I was, I rejected and trampled upon it. Oh! deservedly might I be excluded from ever beholding the sunshine of His salvation, but blessed be His name, His mercy endureth for ever! I was miserable, thinking always that the Lord had given me up entirely to Satan's devices: however, I determined to serve God.

A short time after this occurrence took place I returned home and for a time forgot my trouble, and was much more comfortable. I devoted all my time to study, anxious to get a full stock of all kinds of information. In the course of six months I heard that my two faithful companions had embraced infidel principles, which consisted (as the Jews said) in their reading the New Testament and being sceptical respecting the divine origin of the Oral Law.* This disturbed my mind a little, but I thanked God that in His mercy He had preserved me from being entrapped in the same net. Two years afterwards I paid a visit to a relation of mine at Wladyslawova. One Saturday, being in my room by myself, I found a Hebrew New Testament. I determined to read some of it, in order to see whether the Hebrew in it was pure. I opened it in the middle and read a page; I still remember what part I read. It was the 8th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. It made again a most remarkable impression on my mind. I was all attention to what I was reading; but I soon recollected what I was about, and I was so much out of patience with that besetting temptation, that I cut with a pen-knife the

* Both of them were baptized by the Rev.J. G. Bergfeldt, late Missionary to the Jews at Königsberg, A. D. 1840.