"Here I had opportunity of studying the Word of God, for which I was very thankful. At length a call came for me to enter active service in the vineyard of the Lord at the Bonar Memorial Mission to the Jews of Glasgow. On this work the Lord was pleased to set His seal, sending friends to encourage me, and in other ways blessing me abundantly."
Romann, Nathaniel, was born at Kobylin, Posen, in 1819, and was educated in the rabbinic schools of Lissa and Breslau, attending also at the latter place lectures at the University. From the reformed rabbi, Dr. Geiger, he learned to reject the Talmud, and from the missionaries Teichler, Caro, and Cerf, he learned to accept the Gospel, and to become a whole-hearted Christian. He then became a teacher in a Christian school at Zieginhals. In 1851 he was accepted by the L.J.S. as a candidate for missionary work, and after preparing himself in their college, he was sent to labour in Breslau and Berlin, where he discharged his duties faithfully, becoming a blessing to many Jews, till his death in Berlin in 1871.
Ronkel, Philipp Samuel Van, was born at Groningen, Holland, in 1819. His father was a teacher in a Jewish school, and when Pauli visited him, he shewed him a New Testament, which he often read, but concealed it from his son. Pauli said to him, "You may hide the New Testament from your son, but you cannot thereby frustrate the counsel of God." Philipp was well educated in rabbinic law, but he found no pleasure therein, nor did the services in the synagogue attract him. He was brooding upon something which his parents could not find out. At the age of nineteen he entered the academy of Groningen, and studied classics. A professor there drew his attention to the influence which Jesus exercises upon thinking humanity. From that time the personality of the Saviour occupied his mind, and he began to read with delight the poems of Da Costa. Just then he was requested by the Jewish congregation at Leerdam to deliver a sermon at the dedication of a new synagogue, and he took for his text Haggai ii. 10, and manifested in his sermon that he was inclined towards Christianity. It then happened that a Christian pastor visited a poor sick woman, but she refused to have his services. Ronkel then tried to see what he could do with her, and succeeded in getting an attentive hearing from her to his stories about good women of the Old Testament. She then asked him to read the Bible, but he had not one with him, and her own Bible she had torn to pieces when the pastor visited her. Then she asked him to pray, but he had never offered up an extempore prayer. In this perplexity he thought he could repeat the Lord's prayer in Dutch, which he had learned in Greek. He then repeated it with such fervour that the woman shed tears. This was the turning point in Ronkel's life. He took now the decisive step, and was baptized on Christmas Day, 1856, Da Costa being one of the witnesses. He became a true Christian, according to the testimony of his own father. Later he became one of the most eloquent preachers in Holland, and the Lord prospered the work which He had committed to his hands.
Rosenberg, Rev. L., wrote the following brief sketch of himself shortly before he died:—"My parents were by birth Austrian Jews. By occupation my father was a landed proprietor and my mother carried on a drapery business. There were four children of the marriage, three boys and one girl. I was born on April 5th, 1828. My mother and three children died at a time when I was too young to remember them. My father was baptized into the Christian Church. I received a good secular and religious education, enough to lead me to avoid bad company; not so much to honour God as to honour myself in order to be respected and esteemed so as to mix with the best society.
"Ignorant of and prejudiced against Christianity, how wonderful were the dealings of the Lord with me will be seen from the following record:—About 1841 I visited Constantinople. Here a young Jewish friend persuaded me, after much effort, to go with him to a Mission House, where we heard a godly sermon preached before a gathering of young Israelites, by the Rev. Dr. Schwartz, who, later on, was Pastor of Trinity Chapel, Edgware Road, West London, and also a member of the Committee of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. His Scriptural discourse awakened in me a desire to know more about Christianity, and I often went to hear him preach at the Chapel of the Prussian Embassy on the fore-noons of the Lord's Day.
"Having for a few years been convinced of the truth of Christianity, I studied the Old and New Testament together, praying morning and evening for light.
"About 1844 I again visited Constantinople on my way to Asia Minor for hunting, with a view to becoming a naturalist by profession, collecting wild animals, birds, and insects of all sorts for the museum. It was whilst hunting on the top of Mount Olympus that the glorious scenery and the power of God's Word, created as it were, a voice within me, ordering me to leave all things, and I returned to Constantinople, and was baptized by Mr. Allen, son-in-law of Dr. Duncan, the well-known 'rabbi Duncan' of Edinburgh.
"Again I returned to Broussa, and on my own account I preached the Gospel for a whole year to Jews, Armenians, and Greeks, from among whom many, through Divine grace, were converted.
"Thus encouraged I went to Malta, where for about six years I studied literature and theology in the Protestant College there, and in return I gave lessons to boys in different classes, four hours a day. To complete my preparations for the ministry of the Church I studied both in London and Edinburgh.
"The Jewish Committee of the Established Church of Scotland engaged me for about seven years, during which time I laboured as one of their missionaries at the stations of Salonica and Smyrna, with encouraging results, through the Divine blessing resting upon the Jews, Armenians and Greeks. After this, on my resignation, I returned to Edinburgh and London.