432
THE CHINESE EMPIRE
persons. A solitary stone bears silent witness to the past, synagogue and temple are gone. The ordinances of their religion are unobserved, and the few families left are fast being lost amid the Gentile population around, one man even holding the office of a Buddhist priest.
On March 13, 1900, a letter was despatched from the Jewish community in Shanghai offering to rebuild the synagogue, and it is possible that the "Orphan Colony" may even yet at the eleventh hour be saved from extinction and assimilation.
