Masonic Notes And Queries.

month of May and maw-worms and the carnival on Epsom Downs , who will love Joseph Wolff none the more for this . But Dr . Wolff was neA'er a conventional religionist . He felt he could not be a Jew . His father hurled at him anathemas , his cousin's Avife a heavy poker ; and then the world will say that Joseph Wolff became a Roman CatholicJoseph

. Wolff only so far became a Romanist as to believe that the Pope Avas not necessarily a devil . But he did not care for the Pope ' s toe . He never , at any time , acknowledged the infallibility of the Pope , and never joined in the adoration of the Virgin Mary . Bat then it was not necessary that he should ally '

himself to the other extremes . He did not think of the Pope or of the Virgin Mary as Exeter Hall thinks of both one and the other . He saw too much to be a sectarian . Few men had a greater feeling against many of the obnoxious dogmas of Rome than Joseph Wolff ; and these experiences he honestl ives us

y g when he says that Rome and Exeter Hall have both been exercised for good and bad upon the history of Christianity . We do not know that he can be well accused of any leaning to the Papacy when he tells us that where Rome has done ill , Eseter Hall has done worseBut it would seem that the

in-. fluences of corruption and cant are not so exclusively in favour of the former as the world appears to think and desires to believe . Wolff , both at the Romano and the Propaganda , was remarkable for his repudiation of the chief articles of the heretical faith of the Romish Church .

And again , Wolff was at issue with the college of Rome itself , when it gave a course of lectures upon the " History of the Reformation . " Ostini was the demonstrator of the series , and Wolff lay in wait for the time to come when the history of Luther should be the subject-matter of the lecture . But Ostini

knew better , and avoided Luther , upon Avhich Wolff asked him openly in the college , " Why do you not go on ? " This is but one of the evidences that Joseph Wolff was never for a moment possessed by the vital errors of the Romish system . NOT can there well he anything more clearly demonstrative of this than the

desire of the ultra-dogmatics to be rid of him at the earliest opportunity . It was by insisting against common sense that Rome lost the greatest missionary that the Anglican church has ever honoured . It may be true that Joseph Wolff , because he dared to differAvas taken out of Rome bniht

, y g in a coach ; but there Avas that in Wolff , even in those early days , that could never have kept him bound to Rome . He Avas rebuked and removed by a postilion , an escort , and a pair of horses , because he rejected , before the chair of a dogmatic , the infallibility of the Pope and the adoration of the Virgin That

Mary . section of Protestants which recognises Exeter Hall as its temple , shudders in heaps because he did not heliere the Pope to be fit only for the common hangman , and the Virgin Mary the very least amongst women .

Dr . Wolff ' s career at Cambridge was certainly remarkable , and it Avas there he became master of many of those languages Avith which in after years , amidst pyramids of sand , he brought his mission home to thousands . His subsequent journey to Gibraltar , Alexandria , Cairo , and Mount Sinai is no common travel ; and in

his experience of Jerusalem , his testimony of the present condition of the Jew possesses a value which cannot Avell be exaggerated . Joseph Wolff , amongst the Jews Avith his whole soul—and it Avas not a soul which Avas ever unequal—is a picture that missionary zeal has hardly eA er paralleled . It is not difficult to see that had his energies been enlisted on the side of some astonishing little scrip , the Jews would have clamoured to entertain him . But the whole life of

Joseph Wolff was the assertion of principles which if they have led others to Christ , have never led him to coin . There will be those who will not be surprised to hear that Dr . Wolff's recollections of Lady Hester Stanhope do not recall anything actually feminine . Indeed , she seems to have gone something out of her way to insult himand to have assaulted his

, servant grievously in the hinder part . The narrativethen leads us to the great earthquake at Aleppo , from the midst of which Wolff comes back to the world as a witness of its magnificent grandeur and sublimecatastrophe .

I The mission of this extraordinary man seems , from the perils he challenged and escaped , to be nearing thefictitious ; but the truthfulness of every incident is so irresistible , that nothing but life is seen in the marvellous reality . His journey through Mesopotamia ,. IJr of the Chaldees , Padan-aran , his adventures with

Kurdish robbers , Jacobite Christians , and Devil-worshippers , carries with it a sustained interest that missionary travels can only exceptionally command . One day it is Ispahan , another Teheran , then Tifiis , Armenia , the Crimea , and Constantinople ; taking us Avith him , by pleasant recollections of Sir Charles

Napier , to the Ionian Islands , through the desert to the Holy Land ; again to Jerusalem , Avhere he preaches-Christ , only to get very badly poisoned . It is difficult to realise that this is the work of any one man ,, and of a poor man , a man who casts himself into this mihty labourthe while asking nothing for his purse ..

g , A wife had tlren drawn near him . Children were calling him father . These were ties to make a home ; but the dream that he dreamt at seven years of agestill leads him on . A mighty love Avas Joseph Wolff ' sfor the cause he served so well : a bundle of Bibles

Avas all he asked as his protection through his fearful perils . And he was not always well clothed or well fed . Sometimes he Avas athirst—athirst with the hot sand upon his burning tongue ; and sometimes Joseph Wolff , not even [ left a shirt , Avas cast out nude on his soul-saving Avay . From that moment until Bokhara comes in viewthe interest of his surpassing

, history seems to grow . Dr . Wolff , it will he remembered , entered on that journey as an unaccredited : agent ; the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews , thinking it well to discredit hisaid . Nov did Dr . Wolff deal harshly with the society on this account . He lived long enough to know that ;

societies often do a great deal of good of which they are innocent , and a great deal of harm which they never intend . They have imposing directions ; their oflices are in superb suburbs ; their officials have superior manners ; they balance their accounts ; they congratulate themselves in large and well-aired rooms

over green baize tables ; they get more funds in a regular and orthodox Avay than they do souls ; they have a great assortment of very excellent general rules very neatly printed , but they haA'e their divisions-