When this book was published, Spiritualism, then recently imported from America, was only beginning to make itself felt, the destructive Higher Criticism, whose dry rot has now spread its subtle influence on all sides, had not landed on our coasts from Germany; the very names of Modernism, New Theology, and its offspring the Liberal Christian League, were non-existent; Christian Science had not then been imported to America from its Eastern home; and several other heresies and imitations (2 Timothy iii. 8), which under the guise of deep spiritual teaching are now crippling true spirituality and doing the Devil’s work, were still unborn. But they are with us now, and they have come to stay. Let us recognize their source and their significance. Jews are permitted to hold magistracies and to perform civic functions; they are also allowed to practice in medicine and in the legal profession. Elementary and secondary schools are established in which only the Hebrew language is used; banks and various institutions are flourishing, and a new Hebrew university is about to be founded. Jewish agricultural and manufacturing colonies in large numbers are at work in different parts of the land, and a recent number of the Jewish World gives a long account of a visit a few weeks ago to these colonies by the newly appointed Governor of Jerusalem. The visit was an official inspection, and the result one of the greatest possible importance to the Jewish nation. Amongst many other things, the Governor (himself an Albanian) stated that he was directed by the authorities in Constantinople to grant to these colonies the right of electing their own councils and appointing their own mayors, fixing rates, retaining some of the Government taxes for their own use, enrolling their own police, whose uniform and ammunition should be supplied by the Turkish Government, granting title deeds for land, permits for building, besides other privileges of considerable importance. I submit that it can no longer be said of the city or of the land that it is “trodden down of the Gentiles.” How startlingly significant are these facts in connection with our Lord’s words regarding His Return! |