574 Notes of the Month [MAY, 



good men, and, probably, all very sincere men, who sent this fellow as 

 a missionary. But, with the most perfect good- will to the cause, we 

 cannot discover in him a single evidence of the temper, the talents, the 

 grave knowledge, or the decorous spirit, that are essential to make any 

 impression on the minds of men at all in earnest in their opinions. His 

 early experiments seem all to have been abortive. 



His present expedition produced its first fruits to him in a quarrel 

 with the Turkish governor, which ended in a bastinado ; and the last 

 intelligence from this foolish fellow is that he has forced himself into 

 some scrape, from which he is to be rescued only by the intervention 

 of a British sloop of war. And all this occurs in a country where a 

 crowd of British travellers are passing backwards and forwards every 

 day, with scarcely more obstruction than in the tour from Piccadilly 

 to Pimlico, where the pachas are in the habit of civilly receiving the 

 English every day in the year, and where nothing but the most de- 

 termined absurdity could contrive to make a quarrel. If the following 

 paragraph, which we see uncontradicted, be true, we cannot conceive 

 on what principle any missionary society can suffer itself to be repre- 

 sented by this person. Wolf, the converted Jew, who took his wife 

 with him to Jerusalem, to assist in overthrowing the scruples of the 

 Hebrews there and every where else, has been figuring as a prophet, 

 even more authoritatively than the wildest of the modern enthusiasts. 

 On the 2 1st of December he issued, from Cyprus, the following, among 

 other 'important announcements : 



" The Lord Jesus Christ will again appear on earth in the year 1847, 

 to gather together the Jewish nation from all quarters of the world, to 

 bring them back to their land. Wellington the proud will be terribly 

 punished, for having admitted into power the beast I mean the Church 

 of Rome. The Jews . shall rise in divers places, and proclaim salvation 

 by a crucified Saviour. Blessed are those who hear now the name of 

 Joseph Wolf Sultan Mahmoud, thou art a great man, but the war of 

 Russia has prepared thy death I another shall usurp thy place." 



If Wolf ever wrote this nonsense, we know no corner of the earth 

 but one fit to contain such a diplomatist. Sultans are not of such easy 

 tempers as to suffer public proclamations of their dethronement. And as 

 for the theology of the case, it is downright foolery. That the time will 

 come for the conversion of the Jews, is irrevocably declared in the 

 Scriptures in their own possession. But with the declaration there is 

 coupled the most explicit denial that the date is to be ascertained by 

 man, or by powers, perhaps as much superior to man as he is above 

 the worm at his feet. It is this presumption that makes the wise and 

 learned so often shrink from the attempt even to examine the most 

 interesting and important predictions of the inspired volume. We wish 

 that Wolf may escape future floggings or imprisonments ; but we wish, 

 if he must talk nonsense, that he would be content to talk it at Mr. 

 Drummond's holy conversaziones ! 



The marrying families declare this last winter was the worst in their 

 line ever known. Except the Duke of Buccleugh, nothing worth catch- 

 ing was caught, and, in his case, the capture was by an accidental throw 

 in the dulness of that dullest of all dull things, a visit in the country. 

 The blame was laid upon the weather. We had so much frost and snow, 

 that all the ladies' noses much outblushed their cheeks, and so far as 

 lips and elbows went, every woman was a blue. The customary speeches 



