"Your most esteemed letter, conveying to me your felicitations on the occasion of my entering, by the blessing of God, upon my hundredth year of life, has reached me on the eighth of Heshván, and I feel great pleasure in expressing to you my warmest acknowledgments for the kind sentiments you were pleased to evince therein towards me.
"In appreciation of the honour you conferred on me by your communication, I have placed the same among the important documents I keep in Judith, Lady Montefiore's Theological College, with a view of making known to those who attend there for the study of our Holy Law and the Hebrew literature, the kindness which prompted you to address me on the auspicious event.
"Most fervently do I pray to Him, who has ever been, and ever will be, the Guardian of Israel, to cause His choice blessing to alight upon yourself and your respected family, so that you may be permitted to continue in your praiseworthy work of benevolence for many years to come in full enjoyment of every happiness.—With reiterated thanks, I am, &c."
Up to the last day of December, letters, books, poems, and costly presents continued to arrive. In Austria, Galicia, Roumania, Russia, Russian Poland, Italy, and many towns in America and Australia, charitable institutions were established bearing his name, and reports of the same, accompanied by photographs of the buildings and of the principal officers, were sent to him.
Even in 1884, when he had attained his hundredth year, Sir Moses would not give himself the rest he deserved. He continued to take the liveliest interest in charitable and educational institutions, and even signed documents sent to him by his favourite companies—the Alliance, and the Imperial Continental Gas Association.
Sometimes in the course of conversation with his friends he would say, "Can I believe that I am a hundred years old?"
What interested him most this year was the movement at Warsaw by the promoters of agriculture in the Holy Land. They formed themselves into a society, adopting the name of "Chovavey Zion" (the friends or lovers of Zion), and had an excellent likeness made of him by a distinguished artist, which they sold in Russia, Holland, and Germany, the amount realised being intended for the benefit of Jewish colonists in the Holy Land. Many thousands of copies were sold, and the names of the purchasers and the amounts received were published in the Hebrew and German papers. Most of the purchasers gave considerably more than the stipulated price, in order to manifest their high appreciation of Sir Moses' character, and of the object the society had in view. It was a source of very great happiness to him to hear of the progress made by the Jewish agriculturists in the Land of Promise, where there were now seven colonies.
That for which he had been longing full sixty years of his life he now saw being realised by the strenuous efforts of the society "Chovavey Zion," by the agricultural Hebrew associations in Roumania and elsewhere, and by private gentlemen, who individually exerted themselves for the good and great cause. Foremost among them stands the great friend of colonisation, Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Paris.
Sir Moses had the satisfaction of being enabled to send his contributions on his ninety-ninth birthday to six colonies, viz.:— Ge-oni, near Safed; Rishon le-Zion, two and a half hours from Jaffa; Beney Bilu; Sámárin, near Haifa; Yahood, two and a half hours from Jaffa; Pe-kee-in, near Safed, the Bokea.
He also had the satisfaction of receiving Mr David Gordon, a delegate from twenty-three congregations in Russia, who presented him with an album, containing fervent wishes and prayers for the prolongation of his life, with the signatures of 1562 representatives of fifty societies bearing the name of "The Friends of Zion," all branches of the above-named society at Warsaw.
They celebrated his centenary by holding a general meeting of the members in the town of Kattowitz, in Upper Silesia, a place chosen by them on account of its vicinity to the frontiers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of arranging all the particulars referring to a "Sir Moses Montefiore Institution," having for its object the cultivation of land in Palestine.