WOLFF, wolf (Ger. calf), Joseph. Anglo German missionary: b. Weilersbach. near Bam berg, Germany, 1795; d. Isle Brewers, Somer set, 2 May 1862. He was the son of a rabbi, but became a Christian, taught Hebrew for a time at Frankfort and HaUe, studied at Munich, Weimar and Vienna, and in 1815 went to Rome. He entered first the Collegio Romano, and in 1817 the College of the Propaganda, intending to become a missionary. Dismissed for heresy in 1818, he went to England, joined the English Church, spent two years at Cambridge, study ing Oriental languages, preparatory to going as a missionary to the Jews in Palestine, and in April 1821 embarked for Gibraltar. After an extensive tour in the East he returned to England in 18n6. In 1827, he married Lady Georgian Walpole, a daughter of the Earl of Orford, and in April of the same year set out on another missionary tour, and at Jerusalem was poisoned by some bigoted Jews and nar rowly escaped death. On his recovery he set out for Bukhara by way of Persia, and on the journey encountered the plague, was repeatedly rot bed, was taken prisoner and sold as a slave, but finally reached Bokhara. He spent some time in Abyssinia, acquired the Amharic Lin and returned to England in 1834. In anuary 1836 he again visited Abyssinia, where was worshipped by the natives as their new aboona or patriarch, visited the Rechabites of Yemen, met a party of Wahabees in the moun tains of Arabia, who horsewhipped him because they could find nothing in the Arabic Bibles he had given them about Mohammed, and in Au gust 1837 came to New York. Here he received
deacon's orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, visited the principal cities, preached be fore Congress and in January 1838 returned to England. He next visited Dublin, received priest's orders, and held several curacies in England. He went again to Bokhara in 1843 in the employ of the English government to obtain the release of Colonel Stoddart and Captain but was imprisoned and saved from death only 11 the effort of the Persian Ambassador. lie then returned to England in 1843, and after this eventful career spent the rut of his hie in charge of the secluded parish of Isle Brewers, Somerset. He published 'Re searches and Missionary Labors among Jew s and Mohammedans' (1833); 'Journal of Missionary Labors' (1639); 'A Narrative of a Nfis•ion to Itoishara' 'Travels and .Nilventuns.' an autobiography (2 vols., London l))