The prime mover in this revolt against pure Judaism, and in favor of Christian adaptations, is a layman, Joseph Rabinowitz. He is a lawyer by profession, and for learning, and as a pure and elevated character, he has been long held in the highest repute by his companions in faith throughout Bessarabia. From his very development into manhood he seems to have been interested in the improvement of their condition, and to have conceived the idea that there must be some new and easy solution of their solitude and sorrow. In 1880 he presented a plan, which was more theoretical and fanciful than practical, by which the Jewish priesthood might be thoroughly reorganized, and thereby the whole Jewish system undergo a most salutary rehabilitation. There was, however, no intimation here that any form of Christianity should be superadded to Judaism. But he had his thoughts, and applied himself with redoubled energy to helping his brethren to something better than they had so far possessed, both in faith and material comfort. The Jews have seldom shown any sympathy with agriculture. They are a folk of trade, the world’s shopmen and money changers. But Rabinowitz endeavored to introduce agriculture among the Bessarabian Jews, and to locate them in pleasant and open homes. By and by, in 1882, the violent persecution of the Jews of the whole of southern Russia broke out, and neither life nor property seemed to rest on any approach to a secure base. Rabinowitz now turned his attention to the Holy Land. He felt that Russia was no place for the Jews to live in, that they should go to a country where their fathers had once been great and strong, that now Palestine had only a sparse population, that the Jews would not be disturbed there in any way, and that they should wander hither, become tillers of the soil, and develop once more into a great people. He went there himself, made a careful study of the country, and especially of its history, and came to the startling conclusion that the land itself, from positive internal evidence, gives the fullest and clearest proof possible, to-day, that such a character as Jesus Christ did live in it, that he, and none other, is the promised Messiah, that all further expectation of a Messiah on the part of the Jews is idle, and that the only proper course for them to adopt is to accept him as their Savior and Redeemer. This is concession which lies at the root of all Judaism; once granted, there is positively nothing essential left.