 Reconciled with his Jewish roots, but not his family, he left for England,

He entered an institution for converted Jews in the East End of London and was baptised by Charles Blomfield, the Bishop of London in 1830, sponsored by high-society evangelical Christians, He married Helen Skirving Mowbray, a woman ten years older than himself from Leith whom he met apparently by a chance introduction in London.They had a shared interest in the fashionable Scottish preacher Edward Irving.She had taken a deep interest in Judaism and the restoration of Israel and had already learned Hebrew.