Greek Testament, etc., and perhaps Bridge’s Christian Ministry for general purposes—­I mean, for keeping us in mind of our ministerial work.  I do hope we shall go forth in the Spirit; and though straitened in language, may we not be blessed, as Brainerd was, through an interpreter?  May we not be blessed also to save some English, and to stir up missionaries?  My health is only tolerable; I would be better if we were once away.  I am often so troubled as to be made willing to go or stay, to die or to live.  Yet it is encouraging to be used in the Lord’s service again, and in so interesting a manner.  What if we should see the heavenly Jerusalem before the earthly?  I am taking drawing materials, that I may carry away remembrances of the Mount of Olives, Tabor, and the Sea of Galilee.”

The interest that this proposed journey excited in Scotland was very great.  Nor was it merely the somewhat romantic interest attached to the land where the Lord had done most of his mighty works; there were also in it the deeper feelings of a scriptural persuasion that Israel was still “beloved for the fathers’ sake.”  For some time previous, Jerusalem had come into mind, and many godly pastors were alarming as watchmen over its ruined walls (Isa. 62:6), stirring up the Lord’s remembrancers.  Mr. M’Cheyne had been one of these.  His views of the importance of the Jews in the eye of God, and therefore of their importance as a sphere of missionary labor, were very clear and decided.  He agreed in the expectation expressed in one of the Course of Lectures delivered before the deputation set out, that we might anticipate an outpouring of the Spirit when our church should stretch out its hands to the Jew as well as to the Gentile.  In one letter he says, “To seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel is an object very near to my heart, as my people know it has ever been.  Such an enterprise may probably draw down unspeakable blessings on the Church of Scotland, according to the promise, ’They shall prosper who love thee.’” In another, “I now see plainly that all our views about the Jews being the chief object of missionary exertion are plain and sober truths, according to the Scripture.”  Again, “I feel convinced that if we pray that the world may be converted in God’s way, we will seek the good of the Jews; and the more we do so, the happier we will be in our own soul.  You should always keep up a knowledge of the prophecies regarding Israel.”  In his preaching he not unfrequently said on this subject, “We should be like God in his peculiar affections; and the whole Bible shows that God has ever had, and still has, a peculiar love to the Jews.”