L― S — was born in London, in the year 1818, of Jewish parents; her grandparents being German Jews. She was her father’s only surviving child, her two brothers having died in infancy. Her mother also died while she was yet very young, so that almost the only thing she could remember of her was, that she showed her the family name in the Bible. She was at first a pupil of the Jews’ Free School in B — Lane, until she had entered her ninth year, when she was admitted an inmate of the Jews’ Hospital, Mile End Road. Always fond of reading, when some of the girls would be in the play-ground, she and one or two others would be looking over the book drawer. On one of these occasions she took out a book called the “History of the Jews,” and, while reading about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, the words, “From this time the co-equal Son of God went about doing good,” met her eyes and touched her heart. She hid the book down on the desk, left the schoolroom, and went upstairs into the part of the synagogue used by the females. There alone, with no human eye to see, or ear to hear, she knelt down and asked God if He would please someday to make her a Christian. This remarkable request, made on the impulse of the moment, seems to have been forgotten as soon as made. She went down stairs and thought no more of the matter, and for years afterward, though the Subject of occasional impressions, remained a Jewess. Fond of reading, no book came amiss to her: at one time a novel; at another, “Hervey’s Meditations” or “Pilgrim’s Progress” would fall into her hands, and seem to have been alike acceptable. On one occasion, a schoolfellow had a little book lent her by a young Christian friend; its red cover attracted attention, and several of the Jewish girls were eager to look into it. It proved to be “Watts’s Hymns for Children,” and L— S― and another girl not only read, but learned and sang some of the hymns. That the praises of the Lord Jesus Christ should be openly sung in the midst of a Jewish Institution was, of course, against all rules, and so displeasing to the Jewish officers of the establishment that the girls were formally reported to the House Committee, and compelled to discontinue the practice. Strangely enough, the governess of the Institution was a Gentile, and L— S — would sometimes look into her Testament. There the words, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” met her eye, and became indelibly fixed on her memory; so much so, that when in the synagogue engaged in going through a meaningless form of Hebrew prayers, she would leave off saying the prayers aloud, and try only to think them, supposing that this was worshipping in spirit.
Thus the Lord was working even in her childhood; and while patiently bearing with her heedlessness, He was, unconsciously to herself, gradually removing the prejudices of Judaism, and opening her heart to attend to the things spoken of Jesus. In her sixteenth year she left the Institution, and earned a living among her own people as a lint-maker. Several years passed away, and her early impressions and desires seem to have been utterly forgotten. But in June, 1855, she took lodgings in the house of a Christian in Three Colt Lane, and this proved the turning point in the history of her course. The great difference which she saw between Mr. V — and nominal Christians struck her forcibly; he seems to have been an earnest Christian. In praying with his family, she often overheard him pray for her, and he appears from the first to have sought to bring her to Christ. Sometimes, when opportunity served, he would read a tract to her, while she was at her work, while the consistency of his walk commended the doctrine he taught, and took away all occasion of offense. Being a tract distributor, he supplied her with books, which he appears to have selected with judgment.
Taking courage from the readiness with which she received them, he one day offered her the New Testament; but this was too much for her prejudices as a Jewess, and she refused it, saying, “If you can show me any places in the Old Testament, I will look at them.” Mr. V— immediately pointed her to Isa. 53. and many other portions of the Old Testament, such as Psalms 2, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry;” and particularly Isaiah 9:6, 7,6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:6‑7) “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Father of eternity, The Prince of peace.” This last quotation had great weight with her. One of the fundamental articles of the Jewish faith is, “I believe with a perfect faith that all the words of the prophets are true.” Here, then, according to the prophet Isaiah, was to be a Child born, and yet the mighty God; born in time, yet the Father of eternity. “This,” she says, “puzzled me much.” As a Jewess she could not forget that word, “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one;” yet that the prophets must be right was equally her conviction, and the more she weighed the subject, the greater the difficulty on this point became. Reasoning here was in vain, as it ever must be. “Faith cometh” (not by reasoning, but) “by the Word of God.” The impossibility of understanding how a Child born could be “the mighty God” has proved a stumbling-block to many a son of Israel, and the mistake made by too many Christians of expecting the Jew to receive it on the faith of the New Testament has no doubt turned many away from the subject altogether. That the New Testament is the key to the understanding of the Old is well known to every believer, but to the Jew it is of no authority whatever, and in dealing with him our first care should be to lead him to accept the authority of his own Scriptures, and that in their own purity, quite independently of, and apart from, “the traditions of the elders,” the glosses of the Robbins, which “darken counsel by words without knowledge.” Even in the reading of the Old Testament there is a veil on the heart of the Israelite, but “when it shall turn to Jehovah, the veil shall be taken away.” To the Jew who “turns to Jehovah” from the traditions of men and his own vain reasonings, and takes up the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God, “faith cometh.” The authority of God’s Word overrides everything; reasonings, improbabilities, prejudices become folly or worse, conviction grows, light dawns, and soon all is plain to the once-darkened understanding. So it proved eventually to L—S —. The more she searched the Old Testament Scriptures, the stronger her conviction grew that He whom Israel “despised and rejected,” was indeed their own long-looked-for Messiah. That the tune of His promised advent, foretold in Daniel 9:24,24Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. (Daniel 9:24) was long past was plain enough; that He was to be “born of a virgin” (Isa. 7:1414Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)) in “Bethlehem-Ephratah” (Mic. 5:22But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2)), “whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity;” that lie was to be “cut off and have nothing” (Dan. 9:2626And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26)), and that for the transgressions of the people (Isa. 53:88He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. (Isaiah 53:8)), became, as she “searched the Scriptures,” abundantly clear to her mind, and all that now remained for her was to ascertain whether the history of the facts agreed with the word of prophecy. Her convictions were now so strong that of her own accord she asked Mr. V― for the New Testament, and, comparing the gospel with the prophets, found that, to use her own words, “truly Jesus was the Messiah.” Great distress of mind was the first result of this discovery, as it will be to Israel in the future (Zech. 12:10-1410And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. 11In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. 12And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; 13The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; 14All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. (Zechariah 12:10‑14)). That she had been wrong all her life; that she had allowed the teachings and prejudices of later years to quench the yearnings of her earlier days; that she had rejected light then offered her, and gone on for years a rejector of “the Christ of God,” — was enough to bow down the heart of the Jewess; but He who “raiseth up all those that be bowed, down” manifested His grace to her, as He will do to the bowed remnant of the future.
(To be continued.)