OUR readers will be interested in a few selections from the journal of our esteemed friend, Mr. Baron, recording his tour in Austria-Hungary. Mr. Baron is laboring as he feels led by God in bringing the gospel of Christ before the people of his own nation. We hardly realize the hatred toward the Jews that exists in many parts of Germany. Various newspapers are issued in Germany which “are ‘run’ on anti-Semitic ‘lines,’ and at Cologne, on leaving the grand new railway station, the first object that caught his eye was a big, stout man selling newspapers, having emblazoned around his hat, in letters of gold, ‘Arai-Semitic newspaper’!” But more remarkable is the distribution of anti-Jewish literature; for example, mock railway tickets are largely given to Jews, having on one side the words, “To Jerusalem―there, but not back,” and on the other, “Go with one hundred thousand of thy brethren and immerse thyself in the Jordan, but never return.” “Hundreds of thousands of these tickets are given away in the streets. But,” adds Mr. Baron, and we beg our readers to carefully note his words, “almost all the Palestine colonization schemes ... may be said to have had their origin in the anti-Semitic movement.” The lips of nations are bidding the Jews go back to their own land! True, the words are uttered in cruelty and hatred, and too frequently they are accompanied by pillage, burning of houses and slaughter, as is the case in Russia, but the Gentiles (for such unbelievers should not be called Christians) are rising up to send back the scattered nation to its own land, whither they must go, even as the Scriptures foretold.
Such insults and cruelty by those who are called Christians only make the Jews dislike the name of Christ more than before, and, if possible, to weigh them down more deeply into their unbelief. “Millions of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe and in the Orient have never even heard the name of Christ pronounced from the lips of a true Chris, tian, and most of them do not even know of the existence of such a book as the New Testament.” In Vienna, speaking of “the Jewish Sabbath,” he says, “most of the Jewish shops are open. Many of the Jews here have broken loose from the ‘Hope of Israel,’ and are glorying in being liberal and unfettered by the old chains of bigotry.” Rationalism in all its deadness has in its bonds many a son of Israel. “The only God I know,” said a rich merchant, “is nature. Religion is well enough for half-civilized people, but we are now in the nineteenth century.” Mr. Baron asked this gentleman “If the light of civilization had revealed to man anything more definite about his future eternity.” “Eternity!” he answered; “why should I trouble myself about that? Has anyone come back from the dead to tell us about it?” “One at least did come back from the dead—even our Messiah, whom God appointed to be a witness to the people―and He did tell us all about it,” was the reply.
After some close conversation with this rationalistic Jew, he made the following admission: “Sometimes strange thoughts do enter my mind about death and the future. About three weeks ago, I visited a friend of mine and found that he was dying. He was like myself, indifferent, but when he saw me, and knew that he was dying, he asked me to say the prayer for the dying with him, which I did, out of the prayer-book. Since then I have often thought that, when a man comes to die, he does not like to be without God.”
So the infidel Jew and the infidel “Christian” are at the bottom alike―for, when a man comes to die, he does not like to be without God. “Without God, without Christ, without hope in the world,” is the state of all who are not really believers in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
In Austria religious liberty is denied the people. Austria holds out stoutly for the pope, and where he sways religious liberty is impossible. Such being the case, it is most difficult to reach the people. To give away a Bible in the streets of Vienna would be an act punishable with imprisonment, and, strange to say, the best opportunity to discuss religion is to be found in the cafés. On one occasion groups of between seven and ten Jews might be seen noisily discussing among themselves the contents of the books Mr. Baron had distributed at the coffee tables. “Now and then Jews from other parts of the handsome saloon carne for answers to different questions,” one of which was whether it was “true that in England there were no Christians, but only Protestants.” Does our reader follow this question? “In the eyes of many of these Jews, who have all their life been surrounded by a mere caricature of Christianity, only those are Christians who conform to the idolatries of Rome.” In other words, the Jew in such a papal country as Austria regards a Christian as another name for an idolater―a man who worships images, and expects his salvation to be assured through eating his god, the wafer.
On his tour many cheering incidents took place, many Hebrew New Testaments were distributed, and much gospel literature: it was a time of broad-casting the good seed, and eternity alone will tell how that seed has flourished, When on board a steamer, neat Budapest, with that worthy Christian Jew, Rabbi Lichtenstein, who was then with Mr. Baron, an old man, who turned out to be a rabbi of a small town, looked over Rabbi Lichtenstein’s shoulder as he read, and said “Peace be unto you; what are you reading?”
“The New Testament,” was the answer.
“Is that about the Crucified?”
“Yes,” replied Lichtenstein; “He hung upon a tree.”
“But, rabbi, may you live,” responded the old man, “did He not destroy the law and blaspheme Moses?”
“Sit down,” said the Christian Jew, “and I will read to you, and you shall judge for yourself.”
And he turned up a number of passages to show that Christ in Himself fulfilled the law, and he proved that He always appealed to Moses’s writings, for He said, “For had ye believed in Moses, ye would have believed in Me, for he wrote of Me.”
After listening for some time, the old man said, “Rabbi, I have only thirty kreutzer (a small coin) with me, but I will give them to you for this book!” He got the book without the money, and disembarked at the next landing place. But who shall say what God may say to the venerable rabbi by His Holy Spirit as he reads in his own beloved tongue, the Hebrew language, the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?
We conclude these brief notes with these words of Mr. Baron: “We took with us on board a large supply of New Testaments in Hebrew, German and Hungarian, but our stock in the last two languages was exhausted long before we reached Budapest, and I have taken the addresses of Jews in different parts of the country, who begged to possess copies, and promised to send them German New Testaments by post from Vienna.”