One rabbi requested twenty copies for poor Jews in Roumelia; another, and he the chief rabbi, asked for ninety copies for six destitute places; and another, the rabbi of Orta Keuy, made repeated solicitations for thirty copies for schools in that suburb, and for twenty additional copies to place in reading rooms, where Jews come together in a social manner, on their Sabbath, to read the Bible.
Calls for religious conversation were frequent, but there was painful evidence, that in most cases the object was more selfish than spiritual.

There appeared to be a general dissatisfaction with Judaism, but no proper knowledge of Christianity.

Poverty and distress were the principal occasions of these calls.

A few appeared to be interested in more fundamental truths; and they attentively read McCaul's "Old Paths," a controversial work that exposes the absurdity of rabbinism.

The chief difficulty with all was in respect to the divine nature of the Messiah.
The Spanish Jews, numbering seventy or eighty thousand souls in Constantinople, afforded a field for the faithful sower, rather than the cheerful reaper.