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JEWISH AWAKENING IN SIBERIA

The awakening among God’s ancient people, like the stirring of the dry bones in Ezekiel’s valley of vision, cannot fail to command the attention of thoughtful Christians. It has been rather customary among some religious teachers, wherever they could find a curse in the Bible, to hand it over to the Jews, while, when they came across a blessing there, they would coolly appropriate it to the Gentiles. But the Lord usually has his own way, and fulfills his own word, and as his threatenings have been fulfilled, so no good thing which he has really promised will fail to be accomplished in due time. Hence, while we guard against one-sidedness and prejudice in all directions, we may watch with interest and hail with joy every token of blessing upon the long scattered and afflicted sons of Jacob, “of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all blessed for evermore.”

The Presbyterian Witness says: “News comes from ice-bound Siberia of a gospel movement essentially the same as that of Rabinowitz. The leader is Jacob Scheinmann, a Polish Jew, who twenty years ago, through independent thought, came to the conclusion that the Messiah, the Son of David, was the true Savior. The strict Talmudic Jews got him transported to Siberia, where for fifteen years he labored, almost unheeded, to awaken faith in his fellow-exiles. Among the uncalled-for mail matter which he found at Tomsk, where he was engaged in business, was a pamphlet by Rabinowitz, with whom he at once communicated. He has been busy disseminating his views through pamphlets called ‘The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness.’ Delitzsch’s Hebrew translation of the New Testament is being eagerly read and studied by the Siberian Jews. It is said that fully 36,000 copies have been thus used.”—Armory.

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— April, 1888 —