After four years' instruction, Mr. Polan came forward for baptism, and it was arranged to take place in Park Church, Highbury. An incident, however, happened which led to its postponement. On the eve of his proposed baptism he had a dream which led him to withdraw, and was the cause of severe and protracted mental struggles. It is said by the rabbins, and believed by the Jews, that in Paradise a dark veil is made to hang before the parent whose child has become an "apostate." In his dream Polan saw his mother in Paradise behind the dark curtain. The effect upon his mind was such that he could not face baptism; nor did he, until nearly a year afterwards. It may have been that the first decision was resting mainly upon mental conviction of the truth. At any rate, there followed more serious consideration and prayerful searching of the Scriptures, with the result that a certain word of the Lord reached his heart and touched it with signal power. The word was: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me."
Under the power of this word this earnest seeker emerged into the light. Ultimately, in 1878, he openly confessed Christ by baptism, the ordinance being administered by Mr. Meyer in Park Church, Highbury.
The inevitable ostracism and persecution, with their attendant sufferings, followed. It was a welcome mitigation to the new convert's trials that his father did not entirely cast him off. And the spirit in which he suffered may be gathered from the reply he sent to his brothers and sisters, when, at his father's death, they hurled over him their anathemas, telling him that his name had been expunged from the family register. "It has caused me great pain," he wrote to a friend, "but though my name is not now in the family tree, it can be found in the Lamb's Book of Life."
In those days Mr. Polan was a member of Park Church, Highbury. The pastor at the time was Dr. Edmond, who, with Mr. Meyer, proved a spiritual father to the young Hebrew Christian. There he was surrounded by strong missionary influences, and through the Fellowship Association which supported two foreign missionaries, a desire in him was awakened to become a messenger of the Cross in the foreign field.
In 1878 Mr. Meyer wanted a helper in his mission to the Jews, and Mr. Polan was invited to take up the work. In this opening he recognised a call of God to give his life to testifying for Christ to his Jewish brethren. For twelve years he served as a valued helper of Mr. Meyer, like a son with a father, busily engaged in district visitation and taking part in the services. Personal studies also occupied his attention, and he found time to his great joy and profit to attend the course of lectures on "Systematic Theology" delivered at Queen's Square by the Rev. Principal Dykes.
On the retirement of Mr. Meyer, Mr. Mark Polan succeeded to the headship of the Mission to the Jews in East London. In 1888 he became an elder in the John Knox Church, Stepney.
Poper, Rev. Heinrich, D.D., was born at Breidenbach, Germany, in 1813. His father died before his birth, and his mother went back to her home at Hildesheim. There he prepared himself to be a teacher, and began to give lessons to Jewish and Christian children at the age of fourteen. Later he came to the conviction that the Talmud was not in accord with the Bible, and after three years inward struggle, he came to England and was baptized by Reichardt in 1839. He was for a time in the Operative Jewish Converts' Institution, and then in the Hebrew Missionary College, and in 1844 he was sent as missionary to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he laboured with great efficiency until his departure in 1870. In 1859 Dr. Poper reported that there probably were from five hundred to a thousand proselytes in the district. (See "At Home and Abroad," by the Rev. W. T. Gidney, 1900.)
Posner, Sigismund August (Löbel), was born in 1804, of wealthy parents at Auras in Silesia who gave their children a strict orthodox education; he was well instructed in the Bible. When studying at Berlin, Mr. Lachs, Director of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, sowed in his heart the seed of the Gospel, which took root and led eventually to his conversion, and he was baptized by Pastor Schultze in 1828. His father was at first grieved, but became afterward friendly to him. He studied theology and became a very earnest preacher of the Gospel, so that only decided Christians liked to hear him. He died in 1849. His biography was published by Professor Tholuck for Sunday reading.
Rabinowitz, Joseph, was born at Resina on the Dniester, September 23, 1837, and died at Kischineff, 1899. He was the son of David ben Ephraim, and belonged to a rabbinic family. On the early death of his mother, her father Nathan Neta took him to be educated at his house. When he was six years of age he could repeat the Song of Solomon by heart. He remained with his grandfather till 1848, when he went to other relations. At the age of thirteen they betrothed him. Being compelled by an imperial ukase to acquire the Russian language, his eyes were opened to a new world of literature, and he began to think for himself. In 1855 Jehiel Hershensohn (Lichtenstein), his future brother-in-law, gave him a L.J.S. New Testament in Hebrew, declaring at the same time that possibly Jesus of Nazareth might be the true Messiah, at which news he was very much surprised. However, the immediate effect was that he left the Chassidim and went back to Orgeyev to his grandfather, and studied the Bible more and Russian law, so that he could act as a solicitor among his people. In 1856, he was married, and was then regarded as an influential citizen of the town, especially when it was seen that he took an active interest in the education of children and that he contributed important articles to the Jewish newspapers, and gave lectures at Kischineff, in which he advocated the principles of reform and progress. In 1878 he wrote an article in the Hebrew paper, "Haboker Or," in which he requested the Rabbis to work for the improvement of the condition of the Russian Jews by teaching them the necessity of becoming gradually an agricultural people, and he showed this by his own example in cultivating his garden himself. Not long afterward persecutions broke out in Russia, and he went to Palestine on a mission of enquiry with a view of establishing a Jewish colony there. But when he arrived in Jerusalem and became acquainted with the sad temporal and spiritual condition of the Jews there, his heart sank within him, and he was about to leave the Holy City in despair, but before doing so he went to the Mount of Olives. There he sat down in deep meditation, and reviewing the sad history of his unfortunate people, the thought came to him as an inspiration: "The key to the Holy Land is in the hands of our brother Jesus." This thought he made then the matter and basis of his future work. Returning to Kischineff, he drew up thirteen theses, the substance of which was that Jesus is the only Saviour of Israel as well as of the whole world. With great courage and enthusiasm he then endeavoured by word and pen to propagate his conviction, and gained in a short time many adherents both at Kischineff and in other towns of Bessarabia. Having in 1885 published his "Symbol of the Israelites of the New Covenant" in seven articles, Professor F. Delitzsch and the Rev. John Wilkinson encouraged him, and in Glasgow an association was formed in 1887 for the support of his movement. Rabinowitz was baptized in Berlin by Professor Mead, of Andover U.S.A., in 1885, and henceforth his mission work took a more decisive but also perhaps a more restrictive character. He was asked by Provost Faltin, pastor of the Lutheran Church at Kischineff, to join that Church, but for good reasons he declined to do so, as neither he nor his adherents who had just come out from the synagogue could worship in a church where there was a crucifix. For still stronger reasons he could not join the Russian Church as he was asked to do by the highest authorities. Consequently he had to build a hall, in which he preached the pure Gospel as long as he lived. The result of this movement was that not only Rabinowitz, and his wife and seven children with his brother and family, and other individual Jews who heard the Gospel from his lips publicly confessed Christ as their Saviour, but also that the attitude of the Jews in general toward the person of our Lord has since then changed for the better.
Ragstatt, Friedrich de Weile, was born at Metz in 1648. His father David was a teacher in several congregations, and naturally gave him a good Jewish education. At the Jewish school, he learned from the Talmud the old tradition that the Messiah was to come after 4,000 years had elapsed since the Creation. This led him to enquire, and eventually he was instructed by Dr. J. Alex. Neuspitzer, pastor of the Reformed Church at Cleves, in 1671. In 1672 he entered the University of Leyden, and in 1677 he became pastor at Assenen; and then in 1680 at Spyk, in South Holland, where he officiated till he died. Ragstatt was the author of the following works:—(1) "Jefeh Maréh" (Amsterdam, 1671), written in Latin, in which he endeavoured to prove, as against the Jewish controversialists, especially Lipman of Mülhausen, the Messianic mission of Jesus. A Dutch translation of this work, which contains also an account of Shabbathai Zebi, was published at Amsterdam, in 1683. (2) "Viytmunden—de Liefde Jesu tot de zeelen," ib. 1678. (3) "Van het gnaden Verbond," ib. 1613. (4) "Two homilies on Gen. xlix. 10, and Mal. iii.," The Hague, 1684. (5) "Noach's prophetie van Bekeering der Heyden," Amsterdam, 1688. (6) "An Address delivered on the occasion of the baptism of the Portuguese Jew, Abraham Gabai Faro," ib. 1688. (7) "Brostwepen des Geloofs," ib. 1689. (8) "Jesus Nazerenus Sions König on Ps. ii. 6," Amsterdam, 1688.