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NOTICES TO OUR READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

Several incidents, whose interest is of a temporary character, and therefore requiring to be noticed at once, have induced us to postpone our monthly instalment of the Historical Tale, THE BANISHED ONES FETCHED HOME, till our next issue.

Books intended for review, must be in the Editor's hands as early as possible in the month preceding the one of publication. Advertisements must be in the printer's hands by the 18th of each month.

AND

L. A.-The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, as its designation tells you, was a three-monthly Magazine; it consisted of six sheets and a half, or, of one hundred and four pages. The price of that Quarterly was Half-a-crown. THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN WITNESS PROPHETIC INVESTIGATOR is a monthly Periodical; it consists of three sheets, or forty-eight pages. The price is only Sixpence per month. You are at liberty to order its delivery to you quarterly, when you will have nine sheets, or one hundred and forty-four pages, instead of one hundred and four, for which you will have to pay Eighteenpence instead of Half-a-crown.

All Communications and Books for Review to be addressed To the Editor of the Hebrew Christian Witness and Prophetic Investigator, Pelham Library, 151, Fulham Road, Brompton, S. W.

The Editor will not, in any case, return rejected communications.

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The Hebrew Christian Witness

AND

PROPHETIC JNVESTIGATOR.

AN ANGLO-JUDÆO CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.

"TY DAN. "Ye are My Witnesses”—Is. xliii. 10.

No. 14.]

FEBRUARY, 1874.

[NEW SERIES.

PROPOSED HEBREW CHRISTIAN WITNESS CHAMBERS AND READING ROOM.

OUR conferences with the better classes of Jews have of late become

more frequent than ever. We have no accommodation for numbers. We are obliged therefore to make appointments for meetings at the different Museums and Reading-Rooms. Meetings in this manner, however, we have found neither desirable nor satisfactory as regards the object which we have in view. We have often been wishing therefore that it would please God to put us in a position to take some chambers, in a central locality, where we might be able to accommodate, for the purpose of Biblical conferences, considerable numbers of respectable Jews, as well as for meetings of Hebrew Christians and Students of Prophecy, for prayer and reading God's word. But the estimated annual expense scared away the wish from our thoughts. Five hundred pounds per annum is far beyond our power of raising.

On the 13th ult., however, we received the following note from one of our subscribers:

"Chertsey, Jan 12, 1874 "Dear Sir,-I am requested by my brother-in-law, Mr. - to send a Donation of £10 towards the Hebrew Christian Witness, &c. &c. Yours very truly,

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This unexpected contribution from an utterly unknown friend,-who "is at present abroad," as our correspondent informs us,-whispered to our desponding spirit, "Courage! God has hearts and hands at His disposal of which you know nothing!" We do take courage. We look upon this timely contribution as a token for good-as an earnest that He whose is the silver and the gold, as well as the hearts of men, will provide the necessary means for the required accommodation for the promotion of His glory. We consider therefore this gift of ten pounds in the light of a "nest-egg" for the organisation of " HEBREW CHRISTIAN WITNESS CHAMBERS AND READING-ROOM." We shall devote to the same object the proceeds of the sale of the volumes for 1873 and 1872. (See advertisement on the second page of wrapper.)

A

A VINDICATION.

DEAR Hebrew Christian Brother, an ordained Minister of God's

Word, who has the whole contents of the sacred volume at his "fingers' ends," and when required at the "tip of his tongue,"-a brother for whom we entertain the highest esteem-has intimated to us that he was of opinion that our quotations from Scriptures are somewhat too lengthy. No doubt they are too lengthy for such of our readers as, like our learned correspondent, are fully conversant with the whole range of the "Scriptures of Truth." Unhappily, however, it frequently transpires that some of our readers are reprehensibly and culpably ignorant of the contents of the Bible. Moreover, that a mere reference to chapter and verse does not induce an ordinary reader to consult the Book itself. So that many of our readers-we speak from facts come to our knowledge from correspondence and viva voce conversation-often miss the point of our Scripture proofs; hence we feel it a necessity laid upon us to give quotations in full, that is, if we wishand we do so wish-to be understood by all our readers.

It has been our sad experience to find melancholy ignorance amongst the so-called " upper ten thousand" and "educated classes," in things pertaining to the volume of Revelation; even amongst such as make a boast and parade of their love and reverence for the WORD OF GOD. As an illustration of some of our experience in this matter, we give the following episode, which only occurred a few weeks ago :-We had occasion to occupy one Sunday morning the pulpit of one of the City Churches. As our wont, we took our text from one of the portions of Scriptures appointed to be read in the course of the service. We preached from the last verse of the fourth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, "Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." After the sermon, the Churchwarden, a highly respectable gentleman, came to the vestry to thank us for the selection of our text, inasmuch as it settled a wager he had with a friend. "A wager!" we naturally exclaimed. "Yes," rejoined the "Churchwarden of twenty years' standing," "the other day this very remark from which you preached was broached by - A question arose as to who was the author of those lines. My friend was positive that Watts was the composer, and I felt almost sure that Pope indited them. So we had a bet on it. You have now settled it that our bet is a drawn one!!!" We might easily fill a volume with episodes of this kind which came under our personal observation.

Our experience must plead in VINDICATION of our PRACTICE to furnish our quotations at full length.

Is

THE PROGRESS OF EXPLORATION IN THE

LAND OF ISRAEL,

S one of the most significant SIGNS OF THE TIMES. We purpose therefore, both as HEBREW CHRISTIAN WITNESSES AND PROPHETIC INVESTIGATORS,—as indeed it behoves every student of and believer in God's word, to watch the researches in that portion of the great Master's field, and point out the evidences which they afford to the immutable character of God's WORD, WRITTEN and INCARNATE. That is, to "the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy."

On taking a comprehensive survey of the explorations now being carried on all along" from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates," in connection with the views propounded in our Magazine,* the term "Palestine Exploration" becomes an unsatisfactory and meagre definition of the extensive excavations now taking place in Scripture Lands. We cannot, we dare not, view the Promised Land but according to the dimensions described in the "Promises made unto the Fathers." Thus viewing it, and observing the different labourers scattered over that vast tract of land,-English, American, German, French, Russian, all working their hardest from the sources of the Nile to the peaks of the mountains of Ararat,—we cannot but think that the time is not far distant when an international coalition shall be formed, and the term PALESTINE EXPLORATION shall be superseded by the appellation of THE EXPLORATION OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL INTERNATIONAL ALLIance, or some such designation. When such an alliance may pave the way for the fulfilment of such glowing predictions as the following:-" And out of thyself shall they build the waste places of old; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in."t The enterprise of such an alliance may prove an earnest of the ushering in the realisation of the promises :-"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God; ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye

your

* See The Future Division of the Land of Israel in our last number, pp. 12-19. † Isaiah lviii. 12.

shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion ; therefore in their land they shall possess the double; everlasting joy shall be unto them." "Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his dwellingplaces; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry; and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before Me, and I will punish all that oppress them. And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto Me; for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto Me? saith the Lord. And ye shall be My people, and I will be your God."†

We wish to be distinctly understood that we only look upon these enterprises as the paving of the way towards the eventual fulfilment of the prophecies which we have just cited; as earnests of what is coming, as shadows which forecast coming events, as the groaning and travailing of creation. In a word, as the most significant signs of the times. However, between the signs and the consummation of things signified by those signs, many predicted and portentous events must yet intervene, as we shall have occasion to demonstrate hereafter. The civilised nations of the earth were periodically admonished by such earnests; some comprehended the import of those earnests, and others regarded them not; but there they are, recorded in the annals of secular History.

The history of the world attests the great importance with which the moral Governor of the world stamped the vicissitudes of the LAND OF ISRAEL. That land is periodically brought before the attention of this world's potentates; always contemporaneously with some great political incident. The annals of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Grecians, the Romans, the Saracens, the Crusaders, the Turks, the heroes of the Reformation,—and, in more modern days, the annals of England, Germany, France, Russia, Persia, and of other lands,-all attest the truth of the fact that when God is about to "shake the nations,"§ the weal of the land of Israel is brought into remembrance. Never was the political atmosphere in so agitated a state every where, and never was there so much attention bestowed every where on the Promised Land as now. Many were the pilgrims and travellers to the land of Israel in former centuries; but never was there so systematic an endeavour to lay bare

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