And what shall be said of the terrible perversion of such a plain and beautiful Scripture as Matt. x. 5, 6? In the introduction to that chapter (Matt. ix. 36-38) we read how our Lord Jesus, beholding the multitudes which were pressing around Him, was moved with compassion for them because they fainted (or rather, according to the now accepted reading, "were harassed," "plagued"), "and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd." Then, after saying to His disciples that the harvest truly is plenteous but the labourers are few, and commanding them to pray the Lord of the harvest that He may send, or thrust forth, labourers into His harvest, He calls the twelve individual Jewish disciples, and commissions and empowers them to go forth on the definite mission of mercy to their countrymen, warning them not to go beyond the bounds of the land "into the way of the Gentiles," nor even within the bounds of Palestine to visit "the cities of the Samaritans," but to confine themselves exclusively "to the lost sheep of the House of Israel"--that is, to their own Jewish people, who (as we shall see) are throughout the New Testament called alternately "Jews" and "Israel." This is all plain and obvious; and we know, as a matter of fact and history, that the ministry of John the Baptist, and of our Lord Jesus, and of the Twelve Apostles, until after His ascension, was confined to the "Jews" in Palestine. Anglo-Israelism, however, is able by some fiction to transform the Twelve Disciples into the tribe of Benjamin, and "the lost sheep of the House of Israel" into a medley of Gentile nations located "in Central Asia," and other specified regions, who, though unknown to themselves to be Israelites in origin, and mistaken by the Apostles in their subsequent missionary journeys for "Gentiles," were really the "lost Ten Tribes," alias "the Saxons," and progenitors of the English! And these are only a few typical samples of the so-called "historical proofs" and Bible interpretations on which the whole theory rests. I must now pass on to another part of the subject, but let me, before doing so, earnestly commend to you whenever you come across Anglo-Israel literature to keep in mind the good advice of a well-known Bishop to his clergy--"_Always verify your references_"--and I would add, "study the context"--and you will find that the Scriptures quoted in them are either misapplications or perversions of the true meaning of the text. In fact, there is not a Scripture, however sublime and glorious its import, and however plain and obvious its meaning, which does not become distorted and perverted in Anglo-Israel hands.[12] Here are one or two samples. Anglo-Israelism is based for the most part on the false supposition of a separate calling and destiny of the Ten Tribes from that of Judah:--