Biography of the Rev. Henry Aaron Stern, D.D.
For More than Forty Years a Missionary amongst the Jews: Containing an Account of his Labours and Travels in Mesopotamia, Persia, Arabia, Turkey, Abyssinia, and England

This 1866 hagiography of a Christian convert and foreign missionary among Jews remains a valuable source on Victorian Britain's orientalism.

Albert Augustus Isaacs (Author)

9781108053501, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 July 2012

518 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.9 cm, 0.65 kg

Henry Aaron Stern (1820–85), of German Jewish birth, moved to London in 1839, converted to Christianity and became a lifelong missionary for the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. With his wife he preached in Palestine, Babylon, Constantinople, Baghdad, Persia, and to the Karaite Jews of the Crimea. Famously, in 1863, he was caught in a diplomatic dispute in Ethiopia that led to his imprisonment and eventual rescue, five years later, by a British military force. Stern was made a doctor of divinity in 1881. He wrote three memoirs, which were drawn on by Albert Augustus Isaacs (1826–1903), a vicar at Leicester who knew Stern personally. Isaacs's biography, first published in 1886, is hagiographic and written with religiosity. Nonetheless, it includes informative accounts of missionary work among Jewish communities, and remains a valuable source on the orientalism of Victorian Britain.

1. Introduction
2. Early life
3. Operative Jewish converts' institution and Hebrew college
4. Jerusalem
5. From Damascus to Bagdad
6. The mission to Bagdad
7. Babylon and Bussorah
8. The Persian Gulf
9. Missionary journeys in Persia
10. Persepolis, Julfa, and Ispahan
11. Hamdan
12. Teheran, Mosul, and Nestoria
13. Constantinople
14. The Crimean War
15. The Crimea
16. Turkey in Europe
17. Arabia-Felix
18. Sanaa
19. Abyssinia
20. The Nile, Khartoum, Wochnee, and Tschelga
21. Theodorus of Abyssinia
22. The Aboona, the Abyssinian church, Genda
23. The Falashas
24. Missionary efforts
25. Lake Tzana
26. The Gumarah
27. Abyssinian superstitions
28. Return from Abyssinia
29. Abyssinia revisited
30. The time of tribulation
31. Aggravated sufferings
32. The conspirators
33. The prospect of death
34. The waves and billows
35. England's sorrow and supplications
36. Magdala
37. English sympathy and English effort
38. Sickness and death
39. The British Embassy
40. Royal sympathy
41. The tidings of salvation in Amba Magdala
42. The British expedition
43. The day of deliverance
44. The retrospect
45. The present and the future
46. London and the home mission
47. The wanderers' home
48. The preacher
49. Testimonials of respect and affection
50. The Victoria Institute
51. The close of day.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2]