W

A LIGHT IN THE EAST.

HEN there is so much that is dark and hopeless in the East End of London, surely it is a comfort to be able to turn to that which is quite the contrary, and bright and encouraging. "EASTWARD-HO!" at least, must have a paper on what is one of the most wonderful Church Missions of modern times. I have little doubt that nine out of ten readers will have heard little or nothing about the "Parochial Mission to the Jews." For it has an uninteresting name, and we are so accustomed to put the Jews so completely on one side (we Church people, at least), that even if we have heard of it, we have not cared much about it. This Society is doing its work in the heart of the East End, chiefly in the parishes of St. Paul's, Haggerstone, and St. Augustine's, Stepney, and is mainly identified with the Rev. M. Rosenthal, himself a Jewish Rabbi. The results of this mission are so extraordinary and encouraging that it is quite time Church people knew at least some of its details. A great number of Jews live in the East End; in fact, in St. Augustine's parish, that of the Rev. Harry Wilson, there are as many Jews as Gentiles in his overcrowded courts and streets, and the good done among these during the last East London Mission was one of the most remarkable features of that great week's hard work. Mr. Rosenthal's room was crowded with Jews, all eager to hear the news. A few words about the Missioner himself. Mr. Rosenthal, now an earnest priest of the Church of England, was once a Jewish Rabbi of high family (one of those few in fact, who can trace their direct descent from the Jewish kings) of good social position, and with every prospect of a successful career. He was convinced of our Lord's Messiahship by Dr. Ewald, and afterwards led on to deeper knowledge and to Holy Orders by the present Bishop of Truro. After his ordination, becoming Curate to the Rev. S. T. Stone, of St. Paul's, Haggerston, having himself found the truth, and being one of "the ancient people;" he has never rested till he has brought the true Messiah's teaching to his brethren. Having been himself a Jew, and having given up so much money, position, relations, and friends for Christianity, he appeared to them in quite a new light, and many came to hear him at first out of sheer curiosity.

Curiosity naturally led to inquiry-inquiry in many cases

to conviction-and the number of Christian converts as the results of his teaching have been wonderful, and all carefully prepared for baptism. Over 100 adult Jews, and a great number of children have been baptized in Mr. Stone's Church, and in all cases have been confirmed, and have become regular communicants; putting many Christians to shame by their earnestness and devotion, and there has not been one relapse. Another Jew is now an Anglican clergyman, and three more are preparing for Holy Orders. When one remembers that these Jews lose all and gain nothing socially, by becoming Christians, and when one realises the terrible things they have to suffer for the faith-in their families, and among their friends,-the real self-sacrifice they make ought to put half-hearted Christianity to shame.

Many a Jewish baptism has been attended with actual danger, and in several cases the police have been called in to protect the newly baptized. Mr. Rosenthal told me himself that the great attraction to all has been that he was able as an English Churchman to show them the built-up Altar and the continuity of the Priesthood, and the joy with which they have received these facts, as the light broke in upon them has been the most marked feature in their teaching and preparation. "After all, then, the prophets were true, and Messiah has come indeed!" It is very beautiful to hear Mr. Rosenthal speak of our Lord as Messiah, and the mixture in his conversation of old Testament and Christian Church History. His earnestness, his enthusiasm, his humility, and his deep faith, are things to be seen and heard to be understood at all. He is an excellent linguist: many of these East-End Jews are foreigners. On one occasion, when he was preaching after a Jewish baptism, seeing many foreign Jews in the Church, who had come in out of curiosity, he determined not to let them escape, he broke off in his sermon from English into German, and then into Hebrew. The effect on his hearers was quite overwhelming.. Is it not remarkable to realize that the first Church Mission to the Jews should originate in our East End? and what a beautiful thing it will be in the future to be able to point back to this "Light in the East," to the plant growing and bearing such rich fruit in the midst of so much sin, poverty,. and vice.

Everyone must see the analogy, and surely there must be a meaning in it all. Mr. Stone says the effect of this Mission upon the Gentiles is most beneficial; and he knows cases in his own parish of indifferent Christians and almost unbelievers, who have from this influence alone become faithful Christians and churchmen. When they see the despised Jew

giving up so much for the Master they pretend to followthey begin to think, after all, Christianity must be worth living for.

Money is peculiarly wanted for this Church work-because as the converts give up so much they must be more or less helped to earn a livelihood; but my object is not to ask for this, for I am quite sure Church people have only to know of the good work going on to give it their sympathy and alms. And it is curious how quietly and almost in secret so much has been accomplished in the last few years. I would only ask any doubter or sceptic to go and see Mr. Rosenthal for himself, and I am quite sure a conversation with him would convince the greatest unbeliever.

It has been, I think, most beautifully suggested that an offertory in all our churches on Good Friday should go to this Parochial Mission Fund. Why should not such a thing be carried out? It would be very beautiful on the day of His death (who was Himself of the Jews-even their King,and when we specially pray for them, though we do so little) that our alms should be given for the conversion of "His chosen people " through a mission which hitherto God has so signally blessed. This movement of the Jews towards Christianity, from within themselves, must have some deep meaning. Let it never be said of us in that day, "I was a stranger, and ye took me not in."

Let us, on the contrary, help on the work, by making it known, by taking an interest in it, and by showing practical sympathy-till we come, both Jew and Gentile, "to that Jerusalem which is built as a city that is at unity in itself."

IT

THE MISSION SYSTEM.

T is said to be a misfortune to possess decision of character unless the person who has it knows also what to be decided about; it is at any rate dangerous to be always determined to reject the new, even in face of the failure of the old. We hear often (perhaps almost too often) of what is called the Failure of the Parochial System; we see parishes of eight, ten, twelve, or more thousands professedly worked from some obscure little centre of which it may be seen at a glance the great majority of the inhabitants know little and care less; we see vast masses of population professedly overlooked and pastorally provided for by men, admirable, doubtless, in themselves, but with about as much power of work, much less of enthusiasm, left in them after providing for the Sunday's preachings and the week-day services, the countless committees, and the thousand and one things which go to make an East-End incumbent's life either a shame to him if he does not do them or an intolerable burden if he does; not to realize the ceaseless worry and anxiety of finding food and clothing and education for his own almost innumerable progeny, with about as much power after all this to go out to see after the masses of his parish as a tram conductor, after eighteen hours' continuous work. Now we are all familiar with the story of the man who on being challenged to a pugilistic encounter replied that he could not fight himself, but that he had a little friend who could, and pulled out a small poker from his pocket and knocked his assailant down. Such tactics might, with advantage, be imitated by the Church in crowded centres. Given a vicar (not probably youthful or enthusiastic) weighed down and burdened by the inevitable cares of this life, with the awful responsibility of the care of many thousands of immortal souls resting on him, and with the consciousness, if he have sense to notice and honestly to acknowledge that he has about as much chance of reaching those lapsed masses committed to his charge, working only from his church as a centre, as he has of reaching the sun or the moon, and he will at once ask himself whether, though he cannot do much in the fighting line himself, he has not got a number of little friends who can. Most churches have grants attached to them for assistant clergy or lay helpers. Why not utilize them by giving them some definite work to do, instead of insisting on retaining them as satellites

revolving round the central ecclesiastical potentate, who, at any rate to outsiders, too frequently presents the spectacle of neither doing the work himself nor of permitting others to do it. The system of Missions established in different portions of a parish worked almost independently, yet, of course, with a spirit of absolute loyalty to the Mother Church, is about the only method of bringing real parochial efficiency. It is an experiment which has been tried, and proved so satisfactory in one of the largest East-End parishes that it may be advantageous to describe the particulars of the experiment, and its success. A new incumbent, instituted a few years since, to a parish of 16,000, saw at once that the parish church, with its few hundreds of regular and respectable worshippers, could never be effective as a single centre he determined to try the mission system, each mission to be under the charge of a resident clergyman, with one or more paid lay-helpers working under him, and as much voluntary help as he could for himself evolve. The experiment has succeeded even beyond expectation; there are now three missions at work, and a fourth in prospect. Each mission has its own curate in charge, who does his share of duty at the church as well, and who lives on the spot; its own workers, and without a shadow of doubt, its own tangible and visible result. There have been difficulties-they have been overcome; there have been failures-such were inevitable: there have been mistakes, misgivings, questionings-time has removed most of them. Each mission has its own choir (surpliced), its own Sunday schools, mothers' meeting, services, communicants' society, &c.; at one mission a most successful boy's and men's club has been held; at another there is a Bible class on Sunday afternoons for young men over seventeen, said to be the largest in East London; one mission has been noted under its old conductor, and doubtless will be again under its new, for the number of men attached to it: another for the efforts that have been made from it on behalf of the Jews, another for its Bands. And all this has been done on behalf, and in the name of the Church: the work is individual and independent, because no real work is ever otherwise; but it is not and never can be sectarian, or even absolutely personal. One curate in charge succeeds another; one worker goes and another fills his or her place; but the work goes on; the moral atmosphere is a healthy one, independence is not looked on as a crime, success is not viewed with suspicion; the only quality which can not grow in such a place is that luxuriant growth which is so commonly to be met with in all ecclesiastical organizations, laziness. În such a scheme, obstacles are sure to arise the only thing is to