The Missionary Review of the World — December 1896
Lichtenstein. Rev. C. A. Sch onberger. Rev. David
THREE JEWISH MISSIONARIES. MISSIONARY REVIEW. OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIX. No. 12.-0ld Series.-DEOEMBER.-voL. IX. No. li.-Ne1I1 Seriu.
* THE PERMANENT BASIS OF MISSIONS.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-OHIEF.
In Acts 26 : 12-23 we have the story of Paul's conversion as recited by himself in the presence of Agrippa and Festus. It suggests not only the secrets of Paul's own devotion to missions and of his grand success in his life-work, but also the elements which must permanently enter into all true and lasting missionary enterprise.
In his first· letter to Timothy (1 : 16) Paul says: "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." This word" pattern" possibly has a wide application, and may imply that this converted persecutor and blasphemer was not only an example of a sinner saved by grace, but also the pattern of a disciple and apostle, of a servant of the Church and missionary of the cross. A pattern suggests features, permanently fixed for purposes of reproduction; and Paul seems designedly put before us in the Acts of the'Apostles as a pattern of a typical missionary. Some may ask, What need there is of such a pattern, since the Lord Jesus Himself left us " an example that we should follow His steps~" But we all need also an example on a purely human plane. We think of our blessed Lord as at such an infinite distance from us, and as presenting such an unattainable, ideal pattern of godliness, that it sometimes disheartens us; but when a man like Paul can say, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ," the example is brought down to a human level; and what one man has done and has been any other disciple may do or be by filling out the measure of his opportunity and capacity in humble dependence on the grace of God.
We shall briefly study this passage of Scripture with referenee to the permanent pattern features of a model missionary; and, as all the thoughts • An 'address at the annual meeting of the China Inland Mission, in London. May. 1896. Some thoughts and illustrations will be found here which have appeared in otber editorial articles; bnt for the sake of completeness they are retained in their present setting. -A. T. P.
THE PERMANENT BASIS OF MISSIONS
suggested are drawn from this Scripture, they are the suggestions not of man, but of God.
1. In the first place, there was a Divine call and commission. "I have appeared unto thee," " I send thee. " That is the beginning of all true work with God and for God. The first feature of all genuine mis- sionary service is Divine leadership. When Constantine was laying out the foundations for that great city on the Bosphorus, and his attention was called to the vast scale upon which he was projecting it, his quiet answer was: "I am following One who is leading me." That is the spirit and motto of every Christian disciple: "I am following One who is leading me. " Missions are unique, as the one and only Divine enterprise ever projected by God and communicated to man; in origin, progress, preparation, and equipment, all of God. The Church has many enterprises, and the world many more; but all are more or less human projects and schemes, susceptible of human improvement, and which it would be perfectly legitimate to criticise, amend, or even abandon, if they no longer answer their purpose. But there is one scheme that is not man's scheme; it is God's plan, and He i,:; responsible for it. He originated it ; He has perfected it; and the entire equipment of it is God's. And whoever undertakes work on missionary lines must remember that it is only legitimately done under the leadership of God, and that there is a double promise for our encourageme~t. Christ says, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age," and He adds, "Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you." But both of those promises are inseparably linked to the command, "Go ye into aU the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." It is not too much to say that the twin promises of Christ's presence and of the Holy Ghost's anointing will never be enjoyed by any disciple except in the proportion in which the life is given to the proclamation and testimony of the Gospel. The promise is the crown of the work.
Every true missionary is an apostle, for " apostle" and " missionary" mean the same thing-one who is God-sent. "Missionary" is " apostle" spelled Latin-wise, and "apostle" is "missionary" spelled Greekwise; and every true disciple is a missionary.
. 2. The second feature of this pattern is this: a work for God, just as there is a call from God. The Scripture suggests a double definition of this work: "I have appeared unto thee . . . to make thee a minister aud a witness." The Greek word for" minister" here means an under-rowerreferring to the men who sat at their banks of oars along the sides of the vessel, tier over tier; the ancient galleys being so built and adjusted that the eye of every oarsman could be fixed upon the pilot, who by his beck or glance directed them all in raising or dipping the oars. What a fine conception is this! every disciple in his place, with the oar, held in the hand, rising and falling according to the beck of the Pilot, his eyes always being on the Lord! What a word to describe a true minister! 'tVe use the word " minister" of a dignitary, but it never means a dignitary in the Acts of the Apostles or in the Gospel narratives. It is the equivalent of " servant," the chief minister being therefore the chief servant. Paul con- ceives of the minister as an under·rower, humbly sitting at his place in his little sphere of service, presided over by the Pilot, the eyes of the servant being always unto the hands of the Master. "And a witness;" "a witness, both of these things which thou hast see,~, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee."
What is a witness ~ The word is from the Saxon, " witan," which means" to know." A witness is one who knows, and tells what he knows. And so an experience of grace in our personal history is the indispensable requisite to witnessing for God. A herald is not enough, for he may declare a message, the truth of which he does not know, and sympathy with which he does not possess. God will not have mere heralds. He will not have unconverted people proclaiming His message. He wants a Gospel .with a believer behind it.
" Never did angels taste above Redeeming grace and dying love,"
and so He keeps even the angels back and thrusts the believer forward i and the humblest child of God who can say, " I am a sinner saved by grace," has a right to tell tM story of grace to those who do not know it. And, as experience alone qualifies for witness and gives the right of testimony, so all proclamation of the Gospel, all preaching or teaching, so far as it lacks the experience of grace, lacks power and effectiveness. It is a mere parrot-like repetition, the use of the dialect of the Spirit without that soul of speech which is found in deep conviction, and it is little better than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
Moreover, all testimony that lacks deep experience lacks authority. There is a unique right to bear witness Which is found in having something to bear witness to ; and the indescribable charm of one who speaks from profound conviction and deep spiritual knowledge and experience is something that can no more be described than the aroma of a flower.
Again, notice that Christ says to Paul, " And of those things in the which I will appear unto thee." Witness enlarges in range and scope as experience deepens and broadens. We are told in the l03d Psalm that God "made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel." The people at large saw God's mighty acts, and could not but see them; but Moses knew the ways of God-His plans and secret counsels. Many disciples see God's outward acts, and cannot but acknowledge them; but it is the few that linger in the secret place with God, and follow Him most closely in paths of active obedience, who know something about His ways. Such witnesses become interpreters of His truth and grace to others; they hold the key of knowledge that unlocks wondrous cha.mbers of experimental truth to ordinary disciples. 3. As the call is from God, and the work is for God, so also is the power from God.
Christ said to Paul: "I send thee to the Gentiles • . . to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Surely it is the Divine prerogative, and cannot be delegated to any man, to open blind eyes, and to revolutionize ht;lman life by turning a human soul away from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God! Sllfely no man possesses such a power as this : and how could Christ use such words to Paul 1 Paul had commit.ted to him a Gospel which is at once the wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation. Because it is the wisdom of God it opens men's eyes to see themselves and to see God ; and because it is the power of God it turns men round and revolutionizes their whole experience. The effect of this wisdom of God is the reception of the proffer of pardon ; the effect of this power of God is the becoming heirs of salvation and sanctification.
Here, in a few words, therefore, is the whole plan of salvation outlined; and he who has not the confidence that the Gospel is the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation to everyone t·hat believeth is neither fit to be a missionary nor worthy to be called a disciple. It is a blessed thing to know and feel that, in telling the story of the Gospel to my fellow human beings, one is using a Divine weapon, forged in heaven, and let down to earth to be wielded as the sword of the Spirit. And all effective testimony for God demands full, absolute, and undoubting faith that this Gospel is the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. One of the most dangerous and destructive tendencies of modern times is that which, disguised in the gown of scholarship, is gradually undermining popular confidence in the inspiration and infallibility of the Word of God.
Michael Faraday, who had the intellect of twenty men in one, was asked in his dying hours: "What are your present speculations g" " Speculations g" said he. " I have no speculations. I am not pillowing my dying head upon guess-work. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."
The late Bishop of Durham, one of the grandest men in the Anglican Church, when asked, as he was approaching the hour of his final departure, what book or what new philosophical discussion or essay he was now meditating, replied: "I am not meditating any of these things. My mind is dwelling exclusively upon the three or four simple, primary truths of salvation. They are adapted to the lowest, for there are many who cannot understand. anything higher; but they are adapted to the highest, for from all our excllfsions in the direction of philosophical thought we all have to come back at last to the simple truth, 'Jesus died for me.' "
A poor profligate in Southampton, England, a drunkard and a blasphemer, converted by the precious words, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," for eighteen months lived a most beautiful life in all godliness and honesty. One night the express train cut off both his legs near the thigh ; and when the surgeon said to him, " My dear fellow, I am sorry to say to you that you have not fifteen min- utes to live," he began to sing with a jubilant voice: " Hallelujah! 'tis done; I believe in the Son; I am saved by the blood of the Crucified One I"
He who has not faith in these two great truths: that Jesus Christ can save any sinner that repents and believes, and that" there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," must not go on any mission to dying souls, either at home or abroad. God has no use for such, neither has man use for such as a missionary.
4. Notice another pattern feature of a true servant of God: he not only has a call from God, and does a work for God, and recognizes the power as from God, but he loses his will in God. Paul said to Agrippa : " Whereupon"-aud the force of the Greek is " immediately"-" imme- diately I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." There is no man or woman who has not at some time or other his or her Damascus-a vision of God at some crisis of life. It may not be as bright, wonderful, lustrous as that which smote the Apostle Paul into blindness j but some vision comes to us sometime, and the whole of our future life depends on whether we are immediately obedient to that heavenly vision. If we are, we get other visions, just as Paul did. He tells us, in the twelfth chapter of 2 Corinthians, that he was caught up beyond the heaven of the atmosphere, and beyond the heaven of the stars, to the third heaven, where he saw the hierarchy of angels, of which he alone tells us in his epistles, because he alone had the personal revelation of it j and he saw something as much grander than the stars as angelic principalities and powers and thrones and dominions are greater than mere material worlds. If you come to your Damascus, and you get a vision of God, and you hear the call of God, and are immediately obedient to the heavenly vision, vision , after vision will follow j and the visions will grow brighter, and sweeter, and nobler, and purer, and more uplifting, until you are caught up to the third heaven. But if you neglect the first vision, you may never have another j or, if you have another, it will have less influence, because the sensibilities are duller for its perception and reception. What a blessed thing it was for Paul that immediately he yielded himself to that heavenly vision 1 In these days we hear much about "enthusiasm. " Missionary speakers are asked to go hundreds of miles, "to come and stir up enthusiasm among the people." I have come to be a little afraid of what is thus called "enthusiasm." It feeds on excitement j it seeks incitements j it likes imaginative pictures drawn in highly colored tints j but it fades and faints before discouragement and difficulty. We want something nobler even than such enthusiasm-namely, simply calm, steady obedience, implicit compliance with an explicit command; not a calculating, hesitating policy, but simple, uniform, stedfast, immediate obedience.
It has been proposed to appoint a commission of prominent persons to go round the world and examine into Christian missions and see whether they pay, and whether it is worth while to continue to carry them on ! The Lord deliver us from any such commission on the subject of missions! Look at the impertinence and arrogance of the whole suggestion. God projects one great plan, and communicates and commits it to the Church to be carried on in His name, and forsooth this utilitarian age professes to sit in judgment as to whether God has been wise or foolish, and as to whether it is best to continue to execute God's plan and design! Even this advanced nineteenth century has scarce advocated a more atrocious proposition. The Church exists to prepare the way of the Lord; and, if the Church should deliberately give up missions, God wol1i.d sweep away, or virtually spew it out of His mouth, and raise up another people that would do His will.
Gibbon tells of Abu Taher, at the head of the Carmathians, approaching Bagdad with five hundred men, and thirty thousand mercenary troops to meet him j and he was told, ' , We have broken down the bridges and have cut off your retreat, and we will annihilate your five hundred soldiers in a very short time." His answer was, ' , Your master has not in his thirty thousand men three who will do his bidding as anyone of these five hundred men will do mine." Then he said to one of his soldiers, "Plunge a dagger in your breast;" to another, "Leap off yonder precipice ;" and to another, "Drown yourself in the Tigris," and soon there was a bleeding heart and mangled form on the one side, and a drowning body in the river on the other. "Now tell your master what you have seen, and that before night I will chain his generals with my dogs." And he did. Because he had five hundred men that would go where they were told to go, and would do what they were told to do. What could not Jesus Christ do if, wi1h the forty millions of Protestant church-members in Europe and America, every man and woman were ready simply to go where they were told, and to do what they were told ~ This is the thing that we need, not a fitful, transient enthusiasm, but absolute, unhesitating obedience to the Master's command.
Such obedience will always bring with it a certain holy intrepidity. All true missionaries are fearless. They are carrying out their Lord's command and commission, and know that He is behind them. Dr. Cooke, of Belfast, asked a gunner who at Waterloo found himself between the two lines of battle surrounded by smoke and dust, and unable to distinguish friend or foe, "What did you do?" "Do? There was but one thing to do-stood by my gun and stayed where I was put. " Dr. George L. Mackay, at Formosa, has furnished a signal example of the absolute aban. donment of a disciple to his Lord's will, daling all opposition for His sake. And so of many another, like Livingstone, and kindred heroic souls, some of whom have no written history.
5. A fifth permanent feature of the pattern missionary is identity with the cause of missions.
This idenWy, in Paul's case, was threefold: first, he was one with the suffering Christ (verse 23). In his very expression of his experience be- fore Agrippa this great thought is suggested, and there were three things about Christ that are emphasized: His sufferings, His rising, and His shedding light to the Gentiles. Paul considered that he participated with Christ in all tbree aspects of His career: Crucifixion, Resurrection, Illu- mination of men. He was "crucified with Christ," he was "risen with Christ," and he "held forth the Word of Life," " shining as It light in the world." That was bis continual experience (compare 2 Cor. 5: 15). He says, " My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 4 : 19). We read in Isaiah (53) that Christ" shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied;" and here we find an apostle undergoing travail in birth with Christ for the little children that are to be born into the family of God. How pathetic! And in Col. 1 : 24 he rejoices in his sufferings whereby he " fills up that which is behind of the affiictions of Christ, in his own flesh for His body's sake-the Church." We cannot originate, but we may convey, an electric force; we cannot originate, but may reflect and transmit, light. Like Ignatius, Paul was willing to be "grain of God, grouud between the teeth of lions, to make bread for God's people. "
Paul felt himself identified also with aU men, " small or great," whether in Damascus, or Judell:, or in the wide scope of the Gentile world. 'He regarded man as man, and all men as of one blood (verses 20, 22). In Col. 2 : 5 he writes to his Colossian fellow-disciples, "Tho I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ." And yet he neither founded, nor had he ever visited, the church at Colosse. What noble sympathy with man as man!
He felt himself specially identified with all true fellow-witnesses. Whoever in past ages or present time took part in spreading God's good tidings, was one with Paul. "Moses and the prophets" were his coworkers, and in service there was a sublime copartnership. This is a lesson we much need to learn. Whether we go or stay we must all take part in a world's evangelization.
A friend of mine iu America has suggested a sort of coupon ticket, the main part of which is to be retained by the outgoing missionary, the coupons of which, bearing his name and station, etc., shall be held by those who undertake his support, so that they shall feel identified with him and his work. If they who cannot go would go by proxy, they must consent to share the work by sharing the prayers and self-sacrifices of the missionary. It is unfair to talk of taking part in the world's evangelization while we give a few shillings or pounds or dollars a year, which cost us little if any self-denial, and are sanctified by little prayer.
In 1 Sam. 30: 24, which was the lamented "Hannington's text," David ordained that "as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff; they shall part alike." But manifestly they who were guarding the stuff were regarded as equally taking share in the battIe, for they were doing their part to make the victory sure. (Compare Ps. 68 : 11-14.) 6. The last of these pattern features of a true missionary is persistency. " Having obtained help of God, I continue unto this day," etc. Paul had the rare grace of continuance.
Let us remember that this implies the acceptance of holy service as a habit of soul and life. No occasional, transient, sentimental, spasmodic activity supplies the conditions; we must day by day, by God's help, continue our work and witness.
This is too important a matter to be lightly passed over. If we are ever to have a really advanced movement and permanent increase of missionary interest, cooperation and consecration, four conditions are absolutely necessary, each implying a definite habit on the part of the disciples.
(1) A habit of knowing about missions. Familiarity with the great facts of a world's need and the endeavor to meet it, with missionary history and biography, and constant, watchful interest in every movement in the world-wide campaign is a fundamental need. Facts are like fuel to the fire of true missionary zeal. The map of the world is the map of God's war, and the campaign should be traced and followed as any great conflict of one's own country with the foes of its peace and prosperity would be watched by a true patriot.
(2) A habit of giving. We must get a new conception of stewardship, learn to recognize all we have as God's, because we are His, and our giving must be as habitual as our praying, and as natural and necessary to true, holy living. "Mammon" has been worshiped, and it suggests Divine attributes; omnipotence, by what money can accomplish; omnipresence, by the fact that wherever our conse'?rated gifts go they represent us and multiply our personality in our activities; and eternity, because the good our money does for God long survives us. Money is earthborn, but may be lifted to a Divine level by the holy" altar which sanctifies the gift," and the holy motive and spirit which separate it for God's use.
(3) We need a habit of praying. No motive power in church machinery is so neglected. It slumbers like an unused engine, which has only to be set running and connected with thousands of spindles to keep them all in motion. Prayer has turned every crisis of the kingdom. How long will it take us to learn that the shortest way to reach our fellow. man next door is by way of the throne of grace ~ The whole history of missions is an argument and an illustration of the need and the power of united, believing prayer.
THE JEWISH: QUESTION-NOTES OF A RECENT MISSION TOUR
We need (4) a habit of loving. Unselfish benevolence is a lesson: to be learned only at the cross. To love mcn as Christ loved, not for any beauty in them, but despite all their wickedness and hatred, to love them if so he we may develop in them lovely qualities by bringing them into contact with the God of Love! Ah! that is the soul of missions, and makes all labor light.
Be assured no greater risk threatens missions than the lack of such godliness as makes knowing, praying, giving and loving habits of daily life. Until they are, the transient and transitory excitement of emotion and sensibility will take the place of a zeal that knows no fits of coldness and apathy. We cannot in such a work as this depend on any occasional impulses, we cannot follow the uncertain lead of mere feeling, but must be under the control of principles that' know no variableness nor shadow of turning.· For such a new era of missions let us all unitedly pray.
Paul, because these were his habits, had the grace of continuance. It was a habitual life with him to keep the facts of a world's need before him, and pray, and give, and bear testimony, and cultivate unselfish and disinterested love.
When I was in Florence I went into what IS called" Tribuna Galilei. " There was a massive chamber with a half octagon window, and in the center of it stood a statue of Galileo j then around this were the statues of other men with their faces turned toward him, and then in the panels of the roof all the glories of Galileo's triumphs were blazing as though raining down their splendors upon him. Every believer's heart ought to be the tribuna of Jesus Christ j everything else that is an attraction to him should turn its face Christward, and the very attitude of our whole being should be worshipful, crowning with praise the head of our Lord. When your habit of life is to enshrine and enthrone Christ, so that you can say, " He is my all, I am absolutely given up to Him: He is mine, and I am His," there will be no difficulty about the prosecution of missions, and no lack of lives offered. and of money consecrated, and of what is even better, that habitual prayer which is the one great neglected motor that lies in the Church comparatively unused!
THE JEWISH QUESTION-NOTES OF A RECENT MISSION TOUR.
BY REV. DAVID BARON.
There are many difficult problems grouped around the name" Jew," powerfully effecting the world and the Church, and as, in Europe especially, the issues involved become intensified from year to year, the nations of Christendom, in the midst of whom the mass of the Diaspora has been located since the destruction of the second Temple, are earnestly beginning to find solutions, and it is more and more obvious that" the Jewish question" is fast becoming an international one. To the Bible student, with the key of the future in his hand, it is very interesting to watch somc of the more recent phases in the development ,of this" question," and to observe how the great God is, in His providence, now rapidly preparing the way for its final and only possible solution. Missionaries to the Jews may, perhaps, in a special sense be regarded as watchmen on the walls of Zion, and the Church may address the question to them, "Watchman, what of the night? Is there any sign that the long, dark, and dreary night of Israel's unbelief and consequent wander- ings and suffering is about drawing to a close ~"
In connection with the Temple ritual, the morning sacrifice had to be offered at a point of time between the first indications of dawn and actual sunrise, and during the last hours of the night a party of Levites, known as " watchmen for the morning" (Ps. 130: 6), used to take their stand on one of the higher pinaclcs' of the Temple, literally watching for the first indications of the approaching sun. Meanwhile, at the altar of burnt-offering everything was ready, and the priests stood waiting. At last the signal was given by the watchmen in the words, "The sky is lit as far as Hebron," and immediately that cry was raised the morning sacrifice was slain, and the daily routine of the Temple ritual and worship commenced.
Now we, too, are on our watch-tower" watching for the morn- ing," "looking for that bltissed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ j" straining our eyes to catch the first rays of the Light which is to illumine Israel, and through Israel all the nations of the earth j and if the question be put to us, " Watch- man, what of the night~" we cannot, indeed, say that the night is already past and the morning already come j but we can say the night is almost wholly spent, and the first indications of "the morning without clouds" are already almost to be discerned.
Anti-Semitism, tho no doubt a symptom of the diseased moral, politi- cal, and economic systems of the Continental nations of Europe, for which Jew and Gentile must bear equal blame, is of immense significance, and an unmistakable sign of the times.
It is not my intention, nor is this the place, to enter into the causes, ori- gin, and growth of this monster of the nineteenth century. I only want to touch on its bearing in relation to the evangelization of the Jew. It is remarkable how history repeats itself, especially in the experience of the Jewish people. There was a Jewish question, with its consequent anti- Semitism, arising from very much the same causes, at the very commence- ment of Israel's history, as far back as Egypt. The Jews there were in- creasing wonderfully. and in every way becoming a powerful factor in the I land, and as they did not amalgamate, they were considered as dangerous to the people in whose midst they had been for so long located. At last it was thought imperative by Pharaoh and his councillors to invent some solution of the difficult problem. "Come now," they said, " let us deal wisely with them ;" the result was measures of repression, with a view to ultimate extermination. But God turned the wisdom of the Egyptians into folly; "the more they affiicted them, the more they multiplied and grew, and they were perplexed because of the children of Israel" (Ex. 1). God, however, had His own way of solving the "Jewish question" in Egypt, and that was by the exodus. It was a roundabout way certainly, but all the events in Egypt, preceding and leading up to the exodus, was God's good way of fulfilling the promise given to Abraham more than four hundred years before, that when once the iniquity of the Amorite was full, his seed should take possession and inherit Canaan. Now I firmly be· lieve that the more modern phase of the a_ncient " .Tewish question" will be solved in precisely the same manner. There will be an exodus, and that, not merely as before, out of one country-" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say the Lord liveth who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but the Lord liveth who brought up, and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, "and from all countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land." The" tribe of the wandering foot" must wander back by way of the cross to the land which has been lying desolate and waiting for them during all these centuries. Until they do this there will be no rest, either for them or for the nations among whom they are scattered.
The millions of the poor and less cultured orthodox Talmudic Jews in Russia, Galicia, and Roumania have long ago been convinced that these lands cannot much longer remain their resting-places, and that it is about time for them to " arise and depart" toward that land for which they have never ceased to cherish a yearning desire ; hence, the many colonizing schemes, and the more than thirty Jewish colonies which already exist in Palestine, consisting almost entirely of Russian and Ronmanian Jews. The remarkable thing is that, as the result of the newest phases of the anti-Jewish movement on the Continent, the more cultured, wealthy, and rationalistic Jews are at last digesting the truths that it is not by the so-called" reform" movement which aims at assimilation with the nations that the Jewish question will be solved; for after all their efforts in this direction for more than half a century, and their desperate eagerness to strip themselves of all that is true and false in orthodox Judaism as a kind of peace offering to the mysterious, deep.seated antipathy of the Gentiles, they find that it is just against themselves, more even than against the less cultured of their brethren in Russia and Eastern Europe, that the bitterest animosity is manifested, and that Christendom, tho it is itself for the most part apostate from truth and from the faith of Christ, is even less reconciled to the rationalism and neology of the modern cultivated " Israelite" than it is to the Talmudism of the more consistent orthodox " Jew," who still wears his raftan and peyoth.
vVhat is this but a repetition of the warning words which God in His providence has so often spoken to Israel, "And that which cometh unto. your mind shall not be at all; in that ye say, We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries. "
For the present anti-Semitism has shifted its center to Austria, and in Vienna especially, where there are 125,000 Jews, most of them educated and well-to-do, their lot has become almost unbearable. During my last visit in May and June of this year, I had occasion to observe the consternation manifested in large Jewish circles at the most recent phases of the anti-Jewish campaign; and no wonder, for in spite of the repeated interpositions of the emperor, and everything that could be done to check it, the great municipal war in the Austrian metropolis has ended in the election of a burgomaster and a vast majority of councillors who are avowedly pledged to use every possible means to drive the Jews from the land. The temper of tIle leaders of anti-Semitism in Austria may be judged from some of their public utterances. Thus Dr. Lueger, who is also a prominent man in the Reichsrath, not long ago at a public meeting stated that it was altogether a matter of indifference to him whether the Jews were burned or hanged, so l;ng as they were exterminated from the land; and about the same time the notorious priest Decket, the Roman Catholic vicar of Weinhaus, ended one of a series of sermons delivered with the aim of stirring the cupidity and hatred of the masses against the Jews, with the words, " Verbrennt die Juden zur Ehre Gottes" (" Burn the Jews to the glory of God"). Last June and July one of the anti-Semitic members of the Reichsrath, in moving that the Jews should be deprived of the franchise, said that the Jews ought not to be treated like men, but like reptiles, and ought to be exterminated. Vienna has to be credited with a decided novelty in the anti-Jewish campaign. I refer to the "Frauen demonstl'ationen" (organized processions of women), in which even some women of wealth and station have taken part. Fancy a mob of militant " ladies" of this most highly civilized metropolis marching through the Jewish quarter, damaging and plundering Semitic property, and threatening vengeance to Semitic heads! But this is no longer a thing unknown or unheard of in Austria. This unchristian movement, which is a humiliation to the boasted progress of the nineteenth century, is being overruled by God, and used in His all-wise providence to stir up the rest of the wellto-do, educated Jews, who have striven mightily to settIe down and assimilate with the nations. At last they are beginning to see that it is aU of no avail. "We have honestly striven everywhere," says Dr. Theodore Herzl, a brilliant Vienna journalist, whose position on the Neue Freie Pre88e gives him special authority, and who is but uttering the feeling of multitudes of the Jewish people-" we have honestly striven everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities, and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. It has not been permitted to us. In vain are we loyal patriots, in some places our loyalty running to extremes ; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow-citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers, and often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already made experience of suffering. Yet in spite of all we are loyal subjects-loyal as the Huguenots, who were forced to emigrate. If we could only be left in peace. " The true solution of the question he formulates in his pamphlet, " Der J udenstaat," which is one of the most remarkable voices which have been uttered in the Diaspora since the destruction of the second Temple, the essential idea of which is sum- marized in the following brief paragraph: " I am introducing no new idea; on the contrary, it is a very old one. It is a universal idea-and therein lies its power-old as the people, who never, even in the times of bitterest calamity, ceased to cherish it. This is the restoration of the .lewish State. It is remarkable that we Jews should have dreamt this kingly dream all through the long night of our history. Now day is dawning. We are one people. Our enemies have made us one in our despite, as repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State, and a model State. We possess all human and material resources necessary for the purpose. I will not enumerate those resources here. They are summed up in my pamphlet, which is a sYRtematic refutation of all objections to my scheme that have come to my knowledge. I have laid my scheme before politicians, theologians, scholars, soldiers, artists, scientists, men in various branches of business, and particularly financiers. The whole matter is in its essence perfectly simple, as it must necessarily be if it is to come within the comprehension of all."
How rapidly things are moving in these latter days toward the fulfil- ment of the purpose of God as revealed in Scripture! Even twenty years ago the very suggestion of the re-establishmeut of a Jewish State in Pal.
estine would have provoked laughter on the part of the wise and the prudent of this world, but now it is fast becoming a topic of practical politics. Truly it will not be long before" the sky is lit as far as Hebron."
Partly as the result of the unsettling of their nests, and partly also owing to the spirit of the age, and their awakening from the stupor of rabbinism in which they have been wrapped for centuries, a door has, in God's providence, been thrown open for the evangelization of the Jewish people such as has not been known since the days of the apostles. Almost everywhere it is no longer a question of opportunities, but of the proper men and the right methods for this peculiar work. Withiu my own per- sonal experience of the Jewish mission, which ranges over a: period of about eighteen years, I have noted a remarkable change in this direction, especially in the ancient centers of Talmudic bigotry in Northern and Eastern Europe. It is not that conversions have been so very numerous, for of the mass of the Talmudic Jews the apostle's question is still true, " How shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard 1" How can the Church reap where she has not sown ~ It may be true also that the greater willingness on the part of so many of the dispersion to hear the true story about the Nazarene, and to read the New Testament, may be accounted for by a spirit of mere curiosity, which characterizes almost all peoples at this present tiree. Be it so; whatever the cause, the fac~ remains that there is an opportunity offered to the Church in this genera- tion, if not to convert, at any rate to evangelize Israel on a scale and in a manner which has been impossible hitherto; and it is undoubtedly true that in many cases, if only the right men go among them, curiosity is by the grace of God turned into earnest inquiry, leading to conversion of heart and life to Christ.
It is my purpose to illustrate this with a few extracts from my journal of experiences among the Jews in many lands ; but before doing so I will in a few sentences introduce to my readers the mission which I represent. Altho, as stated above, I have been laboring in the cause of Israel in various parts of the world for more than seventeen years, and the Rev. C. A. Schonberger, my esteemed colleague, has been thirty years in this work, j'The Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel" is but a little over three years old, and originated in the conviction that the times and circumstances required a new work on special lines, and without the hea,'y machinery of the older organization; and the abundant blessing which God has graciously condescended to bestow on our labors has confirmed us in the conviction that we were and are being led of God. I need not say that our feelings to all other missions and workers are nothing but brotherly, and that we wish from our hearts" God-speed" to all who in sincerity and with a pure motive preach Christ to Israel. Our mission house in London is situated in the main East End thoroughfare (114 Whitechapel Road), right in the midst of the large and ever-growing Jewish community, numbering already considerably more than the whole Jewish population of Palestine. We have here a free reading-room, with all sorts of Christian literature, which is open every day, and where a missionary is always present to converse and to answer questions. It liaS often happened that Jews who did not dare to take a New Testament home with them have eagerly read it in our reading-room, and stored up the wonderful truths about Christ and His Gospel in their minds, and as we trust also in their hearts. Every evening there is a Bible class, which has become a distinctive feature in our London work. Around a long table, each with an open Hebrew or German Bible before him, may be seen night after night twenty, thirty, forty, and in the winter as many as fifty Jewish men, representing the Diaspora in miniature, for they come from almost every land, all listening eagerly, and sometimes for the very first time in their lives, to methodical unfoldings of Scripture, the aim of which is to exalt Christ as Israel's Messiah and Son of God, and to show how that He is the very center of all the revelation of God. On Saturday afternoon Scripture addresses from Old and New Testaments are given in the lectureroom, which are usually well attended, and by means of which large numbers of Jews are being permeated by Gospel truth. There is also a good deal of visiting and other work done. This house we only regard as a center, and we keep our eyes open to the needs of the whole Jewish peoples. In all efforts for their evangelization the whole of Israel must be regarded as one people, and no mission to the Jews should fix its attention on one little sport or corner without at the same time keeping its eyes on the whole Jewish field.
Now the Jews are a dispersion, and it is not merely by a " station" here and there that the nation can be evangelized, however useful such stations may be, if they are regarded merely as centers. As a matter of fact, there are still millions of Jews in all parts of the earth who know nothing of Christ but a few filthy legends to be found in the Talmud and later rabbinical literature, and who do not even know of the very existence of the New Testament. As a result of much thought and personal knowledge of the JewIsh field, I have arrived at the conviction that it is only by itinerant missionaries of the right stamp that the scattered people will ever be evangelized on any large scale; and also that it is by directing our chief efforts to the ancient strongholds of Judaism, in Central and Eastern Europe and the Orient, that an impression will be made on the nation as a whole. On this conviction we are endeavoring to act. Since 1885 I have made ten mission journeys, extending over the following countries: Asia Minor, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, Egypt, the German Empire, Holland, North Africa, Palestine, and Turkey in Europe; and in countries like Austria-Hungary and Prussia it has been my privilege to preach Christ to large numbers of Jews in scores of towns and cities.
The following are a few brief extracts from my journal of my last tour in the spring of this year in Holland, Transylvania, and Roumania, when I had for my companions first dear old Rabbi Lichtenstein, of Budapest; then later Mr. Philip Gordon, a most excellent brother, stationed in Budapest by the Swedish Mission to Israel. I might say that our experiences in Holland were somewhat exceptional, inasmuch as having been invited there, we found everything arranged for us.
"April 16th, Amsterdam. A' hallelujah' rises from my heart for the grand beginning God gave us last night. The nne, large building of the Free Church of Scotland, which is capable of seating fifteen hundred people, was packed from floor to ceiling, and it gave me the greatest pleasure to see that a considerable portion of our audience were Jew". Rabbi Lichtenstein spoke first in German, and I followed in English, both addresses being interpreted into Dutch by Mr. Van Os. Rabbi Lichtenstein gave a touching account of his history, and how what had formerly heen to him impenetrable mysteries, became clear as the day when Christ had opened bis eyes. I followed with an address on the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, basing my remarks on Ps. lIS : 2 : 'The stone which the builders rejected is become the headstone of the corner.' The Lord was indeed present in our midst, and the response and sympathetic spirit manifested by the Christian part of our audience was very encouraging to us. The Jews, too, listened with attention and respect, and I feel sure that the Word of God, simply and faithfully spoken, has not been in vain. At the conclusion of the meetmg the whole assembly rose to their feet and invoked the blessing of Jehovah upon us by singing Ps. 134 : 2, 3, 'Lift up your hearts in holiness and bless Jehovah. Jehovah that made heaven and earth, bless Thee out of Zion. ' This, we learn, is only done on very rare occasions, and therefore showed their kind appreciation of our visit. It was about 10.30 before we left the church, but there was quite a little crowd of Jews and Christians waiting outside to see us go."
In our short stay in Holland we visited Amsterdam, Haarlem, Utrecht, The Hague, Leyden, and Rotterdam, in each place addressing meetings, and everywhere well received. At the close of the service m Rotterdam, .among those who came to converse with us were a prominent Jewish advocate and his son. The old man said that he had" studied Christianity," and there was something touching in his remark, that he had more than once asked God to open his eyes and show him whether Christ was indeed the Messiah and Savior. Many deeds of horror committed by Christians in Russia on Jews had come to his certain knowledge, and had hmdered his believing the truth. I was very much struck by one of his remarks before leaving. "I must tell you, gentlemen." he said, "that if Christianity bad always been presented to us in the way you did to-night, I believe all the Jews would have become Christians three hundred years ago."
As the space at my disposal is limited, I will take up my diary again on the Danube steamer for Budapest: " We prefer the river journey to the train, because of the bettcr opportulllties it gives of contact with people. There were quite a number of Jews on board, with whom we conversed. With a Jewish doctor, a very learned man, we had several interesting conversations. Once, referring to Rabbi Lichtenstein's last pamphlet, he said: 'I have almost come to the same convictions myself, and I think there are many others who believe the same, but somehow we lack the courage to stand up and confess that for all these centuries we have been in the wrong. I have sometimes wondered what can be the cause of the controversy between God and us. That there is something wrong, on account of which we are suffering the displeasure of God, no thinking man can deny. . . . The deep-seated prejudice against Jesus Christ, which is ingrained in the Jewish heart, is incomprehensible to me, altho I know it is partly to be explained by the conduct of Christians to the Jews all through the centuries. . .. Altho I am a Jew, I say this, that this hatred to Christ seems to me nothing less than a special curse on our nation. . • .
" May 6th. At 3.30 we joined the Predial express and continued our journey from Tapio-Szele through the interminable Hungarian plain to Grosswardein. We found a little Jewish audience preparlld for us in the railway carriage, two most intelligent Jewish ladies, mother and daughter, and a wealthy Jewish merchant.' A station or two farther on we were joined by another Jew and Jewess, and the four hours we spent together will not be easily forgotten. It is quite impossible to describe on paper One such discussion with a small company of intelligent Jews, or to ~ive .
an adequate idea of the physical and mental exhaustion which it entails. " Your whole being is on the strain the whole time, for apart from seek- ing for the fit word in reply to every question, your heart yearns to put Christ and Bis Gospel in as clear a light as possible, so as to impress not their minds only, but also their hearts, knowing that this is perhaps the only opportuuity they may have in their lives of coming into contact with a true messenger of ChFist, or of hearing the story of Bis redeeming love. The ladies were enthusiastic in their admiration of the character and life of Christ, and we could not help silently lifting up our hearts to God that the true glory of Christ, not only as the 'greatest man,' but as 'the . only begotten Son of the Father,' may hreak in on their souls.
"The Jewish merchant from Grosswardein said to us before parting : 'Gentlemen, this has ,been a wonderful experience to me. I have never before seen or heard two educated Jews like you defending Christ and preaching Bis doctrines. This version of Christianity is quite new to me, but I promise to read th~~pooks and pamphlets you have given me.'
" Grosswardein, May"ith. After lunch we went to a cafe where we were t()ld that Jews are wont to congregate. It was quite a large saloon aDd almost full, aud no sooner did we enter than thirty or more gathered around the small table where we sat, asking us all sorts of questions and begging for books. For a time the saloon presented quite a unique and interesting appearance, for apart from the large group who were more immediately surrounding us, there were smaller groups all over the hall, noisily and with many gesticulations discussing among themselves what they had heard from or about us and the contents of our books.
" At 2.30 Jews began to visit us in our own rooms. First to come were two Talmud students from the Rabbinical College. They were well versed in Talmudical quibbles and rabbinical prescriptions j but they were very ignorant of the Old Testament, and had never even seen the New. As we spoke of Christ and His Gospel, which has freed us from the bondage of rabbinism, they suddenly took fright and abruptly left the room. When they left about a dozen others came, five or six being old men with gray beards, and after answering the many inevitable questions, it was delightful to see them quietly settle down and listen while we unfolded to them simply the claims of our Savior from their own Hebrew Scriptures. One asked, ' Was not Moses before Christ, and does it not say that he was the greatest prophet, and that there was no prophet like him ~ Is it not enough, therefore, if we believe in him ~ , We explained to them that the chief glory of Moses is that he wrote of Christ, and, in his wonderful prophecy of the ~lessiah, where he says: 'Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me,' he ends, like John the Baptist, by pointing away from himself, saying: 'Unto Him ye shall hearken' (Deut. 18: 15). Moses was not only a prophet j instrumentally he was Israel's redeemer out of Egypt, and a ' priest and king in Jeshurun j' and the only one that is like him in these particulars, but in a much more glorious sense, is the Messiah. Now Moses says, 'unto .Him ye shall hearken j' therefore if wc believe not in Christ we do not even obey Moses.
"Klausenburg, Transylvania, May 11th. Within a day or so of my arriving at thIS town I was taken severely ill with a sharp attack of influenza: Mr. Gordon nursed me tenderly, and the strain of doing so, in addition to the constant speaking imposed upon him by our many Jewish visitors, was no light burden on him. In one group which came late one afternoon was a dreadfully loud and angry man. Aftf,r listening quietly for some time, while ~1r. Gordon spoke to them of the wonderful love of God in giving His only begotten Son, he seemed suddenly to become almost mad with passiou, and stood up (as Mr. Gordon told me) literally trembling with rage, pouring out mouthfuls of curses and blasphemies.
" I could hear him in the adjoining room, and on my bed I prayed the Lord to restrain him. As he stood on the threshold just before leaving, he shouted out, 'Vho ever heard such a thing! After we believed it to be all false for nearly two thousand years, they come and say it is all true, and that Christ rose from the dead! And to hear such a thing from JEWS!' I thought, how sad that my poor people should have been deceived to believe a lie so long!
" On our journey from Klausenbnrg to Karlsburg we had some interesting experiences. We had to change train at Tuvis, and wait there a little over an hour. The station was crowded with people of many nationalities-Austrians, Hungarians, Wallachs, Russniaks, and J ews-··.all wait. ing at this junction for their various trains. We singled out some of the Jews, and gave them copies of Rabbi Lichtenstein's new pamphlet. Soon we had an eager group around us, listening and asking questions, and our audience grew every minute, till it resembled an open-air meeting. On its outskirts might be seen three or four officers of high rank in the Austrian army. We preached Christ to them as simply and directly as we could. When I got tired, Mr. Gordon spoke, and when he got tired, I spoke. Vhen we took places in the train for Karlsburg, quite a little congregation followed us into the same carriage, so that we were quile crowded, all being Jewish merchants and travelers, excepting one Roman Catholic lady, with whom we had conversed and who wished to hear more.We spoke to them of the promises t6 our fathers, and showed them from the New Testament how that 'in the fuilness of time God fulfilled the same, in sending His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.' There was present one especially nice Jewish gentleman from Vienna, whose heart seemed opened by the Lord for the message we carry. Turning to our other fellow-passengers, he said: 'Meine Herrn, these are beautiful truths, and truly Jewish. Modern Judaism can do nothing but lay insupportable burdens upon us, which leave our hearts untouched.'
" At Karlsburg, as soon as the report spread of our being in the town, Jews began to call on us to converse and ask for New Testaments. Our hearts' sympathies were very much drawn out to one man. He is a journalist, and has been the means of inaugurating different philanthropic efforts for the benefit of the Jews in Eastern Europe ; but disgusted by the emptiness of modern rabbinism, and repelled by the idolatries and inconsistencies of spurious Christianity all around him, he became first an agnostic and then an atheist, altho not one that boasts in his unbelief. As he himself confessed, he is now most miserable, and would be most happy if the knowledge of a living God broke into his soul. It was pathetic, and it moved us almost to tears to hear him say before he left us: 'Gentlemen, I envy you very much. VVould that I could be blessed with the same faith! vVe have all troubles and temptations in this sad world, but in the dark hour you have a refuge; I have none.' We urged him to allow God and the Bible to rule over his mind anel intellect as well 8S heart, and then the peace of God will come, and we assured him that we would not fail to pray for him. These were busy days, the Jews visiting ns in groups varying in number, sometimes six, sometimes twenty-five,
BANNAH MARSHMAN. FIRST WOMAN MISSIONARY, 1767-1847
and once we were both occupied with companies of them in separate rooms. About 10 P.M. one evening we had a rather remarkable visit. It was from several of the higher commissioned officers of the citadel, only two of whom were Jews. My bedroom presented a rather curious appearance with all these mlhtary gentlemen in uniform. They were, no doubt, drawn by curiOSity, wanting to see the two foreigners of whom so much was being spoken in the cafes and in their homes; but the Lord enabled us to speak to them in a manner which commanded their attention, and changed their behavior from levity to sober earnestness. After listening for some time, one of them said he had a proposition to make, to the effect that we should remain there for a few days longer in order to give a series of addresses, at which they would promise to be present. We were, however, leaving the town early next day, but were glad to give them copies of the German New Testament. They left and others came, altho it was nearly 11 P.M. It was close upon midnight before we could lie down, utterly exhausted, but glad of heart for the opportunities of the day."
These are but extracts taken here and there from the journal of this tour, which took us farther into Roumania and Bulgaria. At Bucharest, by the entreaty of the Jews, two meetings were hel.!. Some two hundred gathered in the hall, and after listening with eager attention to three different addresses, were unwilling to leave, wishing to hear yet more.
When we asked who would wish to have the New Testament, two hundred hands flew up in response. Dr. Baedeker, whom we unexpectedly met in Bucharest, was present at this meeting, and rejoiced to see such an assembly of Jews as he had never seen before, met of their own accord to hear the truth of the Gospel.
HANNAH MARSHMAN, FIRST WOMAN MISSIONARY, 1767-1847.
BY DR. GEORGE SMITH, C.LE., F.R.G.S.
The first missionary to the women of India, and, indeed, the first of all woman missionaries in modern times, was Hannah Marshman. Born in England in 1767, a hundred and thirty years ago, she spent forty-seven years of a happy married life and a short widowhood in the Baptist Brotherhood, formed by her husband, Joshna Marshman, D.D., with Carey and Ward, at Serampore, Bengal. There she died, at the ripe age of eighty years, on March 1st, 1847. Her life has never been sketched even by her distinguished eldest son, John Clark Marshman, Companion of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (C. S. 1.), who, in 1859, published in London" The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward." Tho the mother of twelve children, Mrs. Marshman trained the six who survived for the positions of usefulness and dignity which most of them filled. She spent almost every day of her long life, after she landed in India in the year 1799, in educating the girls and the women of Bengal to know and to serve Jesus Christ. She supplied to the Brotherhood all the domestic comfort and much of the loving harmony without which her hus- band and Carey and their associates could not have accomplished half of what the Spirit of God enabled thcm to do for the highest good of the peoples of India and South Asia. She combined in a rare proportion the three graces of love to Christ, benevolence to all for whom He died, manifested in a temper of perfect sweetness, and prudence directed by a sound judgment, which made her for half a century not less valuable an associate of the great Brotherhood of Serampore than Dr. Joshua Marshman himself. Of her three daughters, the eldest married Mr. Williams, of the Bengal Civil Service; the second became the wife successively of the great Danish botanist, Dr. Voigt, and of the greater German scholar, Sir Dietrich Brandis, chief of the Forestry Department of the Government of India; the third was wedded to the heroiq Christian soldier, Sir Henry Havelock, and was honored by the Queen-Empress of India with the offer of a residence in Hampton Court Palace.
Hannah Shepherd, as her maiden name was, granddaughter of the Rev. John Clark, Baptist pastor of Crockerton, in the English county of Wilts, was married in the year 1791 to Joshua Marshman, then twenty-three years of age. Self-educated, her husband soon became known as a tutor, in Bristol, in Hebrew, Syriac, and the classical languages. One of his pupils, Mr. Grant, he won over from infidelity, so that the youth was accepted as a missionary of the Baptist Society. Carey's" Periodical Accounts'" soon fired the heart of Marshman, and he resolved to join the mission in Bengal. His young wife's prudence and care for their two young children made her hesitate for a little, but soon she too" cordially" surrendered herself to the Divine call. On October 13th, 1799, the missionary party landed at the Danish settlement of Serampore, when, falling on their knees, Mr. Marshman led them in blessing God for the safe voyage and the beginning of their mission to the millions of Hoogly and Calcutta. They had sailed in the Criterion, an American ship of Philadelphia, of which the Presbyterian elder, Captain Wickes, was master and their lifelong friend. Acting on the advice of the Christian director of the East India Company, Charles Grant, they had avoided the British port of Calcutta, and sailed up the river in a boat. They received the hearty protection of Colonel Bie, the Danish Governor of Serampore. The Governor-General, then the Marquis Wellesley, refused to molest them, and soon he also became the friend of such men and of such a woman as Hannah Marshman.
Carey and the Brotherhood, formed at Serampore, started from the first on the only missionary plan known last century-that of self-support, like the Moravian community'S. For seven years Carey had spent his indigo planter's income on the mission. When transferred to Danish protection and reinforced, the Brotherhood consisted of nineteen persons in all, of whom ten were young children. All these must (1) be housed, fed, and clothed, so as to be efficient soldiers in the conflict with idolatry and ungodliness; (2) the children must be educated, and, if God called them, be trained to be the missionaries of the future. The immediate ex- pense was found to be above £600 a year, and that owing to Mrs. Marsh- man's" greatest frugality." First, a.fter solemn prayer and renewed dedi. cation to God, laying it down as a fundamental rule " that no one shall engage in any private trade, but whatever is earned shall go into the com· mon stock," the missionaries divided the work according to the special fitness of each. As Carey had the translation of the Holy Scriptures, and soon was made Professor in Lord Wellesley'S college; as Ward, with two of Carey's sons, had the press, the schools naturally fell to Marshman, and to his wife far more than to him, as the event proved. The pecuniary result of this splendid organization, as it extended during the next forty years, was unique in the history not only of all Christian missions, but of all philanthropy. The one woman and the three men, with their children and assistants, were the means of earning at least £90,000 sterling for the work of God right across Southern Asia from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean. Of this enormous contribution, be- sides the self.support of the workers, Carey gave half, and the woman, Hannah Marshman, alone gave at least one fourth, or more than $100,000.
How was this done ~ All under the direct guidance and help of the good providence of God? First of all an advertisement made it known all over North India that girls and boys would be received as Christian boarders to be educated along with the Serampore missionaries' children. The girls' school especially became so famous that we find the three missionaries reporting to the Baptist Society in England at the end of the year 1801 : "Last year Sister Marshman opened a school for young ladies, which much increases, so that we have been under the further necessity of enlarging our habitation. • .'. The taking of Serampore by the English has produced no alteration in our circumstances. • •• We live in love, and are, perhaps, as happy a family as any in the world." The school had begun in May, 1800, with two boarders, and then contained twentythree, besides day scholars. The terms were £45 a year for each boarder.
To Mrs. Smith, Hounsditch, London, we find Hannah Marshman writing on February 13th, 1801 : "I searched my mind very minutely before I engaged in the school lest it should be irksome to me afterward. However, I was enabled to leave all and cheerfully to give myself up to the work, and through mercy I have never repented, and hope I never may. I am not worthy of being employed in anything belonging to Christ, and often wonder at the dispensations of God in sending me to this land where so much grace is needed; and my daily experience is such that I often fear lest I have none. This, however, I know: I long for the increase of Christ's kingdom upon earth, especially in. this benighted part of it. Respecting our family, I shall only say, I love all, and make it a part of my prayer that I may continue to live in love and peace with all. I wish ever to see my own faults before those of others; and this is one of the blessed things which I have learned in my affliction." It may easily be imagined how the number of her children, their birth, and not infrequent death, affected her amid the threefold toil of her own school, her work among the native women, and her domestic care of all the Brotherhood for a time. Here is one of many extracts which might be made from her hus- band's journal, sent to Dr. Ryland, for 1803 : " September 23d.-My wife was taken WIth a fever yesterday and con- fined instantly to her bed. She took an emetic whiCh operated very powerfully, and through the Lord's goodness she is in her school again to-day. "
The mania of Carey's first wife made her only an additional care to Mrs. Marshman; but in the tender friendship of his second, the noble Danish lady, Emilia Rumohr, she found some solace and companionship from this time.
Four years later, in January, 1805, Hannah Marshman reviews her five years' experience in a letter to Mrs. Clark, Baldwin Street, Bristol, England. The long and vivid narrative should be read in the light of household books which we discovered in the archives of the Serampore College and reviewed in the weekly Friend of India newspaper as a valuable economic contribution to the history of prices. Never was there such a Martha and Mary in one as these documents prove her to have been, always listening to the voice of the Master, yet always doing the many thmgs He entrusted to her without feeling cumbered or irritable or envious. To Mrs. Clark she recounts instances of God's goodness only, especially when the roof of an addition to the school fell in without harming the girls. She adds this unconscious picture of the happy life of the Brotherhood, of which she, in truth, formed the pervasive bond : "On Friday evenings, after worship, }Ve generally meet to sup and chat and hear the ~alcutta news-this being the evening that Brother Carey comes home. • • . As I was returning across to our own house I trod on a serpent, which twisted round my leg and gave my heel a hard smack. I shook it off and felt no harm. I had hold of Mr. Marshman's arm, or probably I might have fallen down. Having a lantern, I saw it make its way into the grass, and went home a little terrified, but much more surprised.
" , Unhurt, on serpents you shall tread, When found in duty's way.'
Will anyone say the Lord is not among us ~ . . . We are enlarging our coast on every side by repairing and building, in expectation" of more boarders and of visitors from America, such as Captain Wickes often introduced to them in his annual voyage. " We are nearly sixty in number, yet we scarcely ever sit more than twenty minutes at breakfast or tea. A chest of tea at eighty rupees" ($45 there) " lasts three months and a fortnight. We use nine quarts of milk in a day; we have twenty quarts fox a rupee. • •• At seven o'clock school begins; at nine at night the children are in bed, after which time is my holiday to read, write, or work. But I am often so overcome with fatigue and the scorching heat of the day that I feel neither will nor power to do anything at all ; and when I sit down to converse with you it is with a weary body, a stupid soul, and dim eyes; but I am sure of having all my faults lightly passed over and all covered with love."
Hannah Marshman's" ladies' school" was an evangelizing agency of the most direct kind, apart from the large sum which it contributed to the extension of the native mission. Its pupils were chiefly Eurasians or East Indians, of the then fast-increasing and utterly neglected community who had sprung originally from white fathers and native mothers. She was the first to care for their daughters, so far as these were not the orphans of military officers or soldiers. This mixed class numbered eighty thousand nominal Christians in the India census of 1891, or half the number of pnre Europeans, inclnding the British troops. For the soldiers' orphans the Government, under the godly chaplain David Brown (Henry Martyn's friend), erected asy lums and schools, followed therein by the splendid munificence of the great Sir Henry Lawrence and his wife. But only Hannah Marshman cared for the rest. From her famous school in a generation there passed out relays of truly Christian young ladies trained and ready to become missionaries to their native sisters. Until such agents were educat.ed and converted, and till the instruction of the native youths had made headway in the boys' schools and in the Serampore College, female education among the Hindns and Mohammedans was impossible. But the Brotherhood watched for it, prayed for it, planned for it, provided the means for it, and lived to see its foundations well laid by Hannah Marshman.
In the famous periodical, first monthly, then quarterly, and then a weekly newspaper, the Friend of India, which flourished from 1817-75, the Serampore Brotherhood essays were of such value that the earlier series were reprinted in London. One of these, which appeared in 1822, on " Female Education in India," should be studied by everyone of the now happily numerous and vigorous organizations of Christian women for evangelizing the female half of the dark races of the world. That essay gave an impulse to the movement at which Hannah Marshman was the first to toil, and for which she had provided the cultured teachers. The writer called on the Governor-General's wife, the good Marchioness of Hastings, to put herself at the head of an association of ladies for the purpose. Miss Cooke, afterward Mrs. Wilson, was sent out from England to carryon the enterprise in Calcutta, in addition to the Baptists. William Ward, when on furlough in England, had pleaded for justice to the women of India in tones which sent a thrill through the churches. "Amid all the children of misery in India," wrote the Brotherhood, H the softer sex have been most fuily the victims of oppression. In India, in which this depraved disposition is neither restrain~d by Christianity nor mollified by the influence of literature or of manly feeling, this spirit of oppression falls on the
EDUCATION IN CIltNA
female sex in all its violence. n The first step was declared to be that of teaching the girls to read their own vernacular, and so to have their daughters taught, while the slower influence of their educated brothers and husbands worked its effect as it has done with marvellous results In the thIrd of a century since.
Meanwhile all through her later lIfe Hannah Marshman was working for the women of the lower classes who could be at once reached. In 1824 her Serampore Native Female EducatIOn Society, formed to make the movement permanent and continuous when she should be removed, conducted fourteen girls' schools with two hundred and sixty pupils. At its other stations of Chittagong, Dacca, Monghyr, Digah, Allahabad, Delhi, and elsewhere, there were about as many more. The Church Missionary and other societies followed the example, under the encouragement of the good Bishop Heber and Lady Amherst, down to the time of the great Marquis of Dalhousie, just before the mutmy of 1857. Since the administrative reforms and the Queen's proclamation of toleration and personal encouragement of native female education and medical aid, which followed the mutiny, Hannah Marshman's pioneering self. sacrifice and wisdom have borne richer and more plentiful fruit than even her faith dared to hope. Since 1847 her dust has lain in the sacred enclosUl.:e of the mission cemetery at Serampore beside that of her husband and Carey and Ward and a child of the J udsons. But the India she knew is being changed, and will be transformed by the principles she was the first to set in motion for the redemption of its daughters, without whose evangelization the East can be neither civilized nor Christian. As she was the first, was not Hannah Marshman also one of the greatest of woman missionaries 1 CHRISTIAN EDUcATION IN CHINA.
BY REV. G. S. MINER, FOOCROW, CHINA.
The advantages of a Christian education are fully realized only by those who have lived where this blessing is unknown. The sights and sounds of a heathen land cause the recent arrival to shudder and recoil. Rev. Yung King Yen, A. M., for twenty years in the Chinese missionary work in Shanghai, said in Exeter Hall, London: "I feel convinced that God bas chosen the English-speaking race as His servants in saving the world. A great change has come over China in the feeling both of the people and the government, and missionaries are now free to go to every part in the empire except one province." I can now add that this province is on the point of being opened up. Oh, what opportunities this affords! One fourth of the people of the globe are welcoming missionaries to their houses and asking to be taught the" new doctrine. " What a thought! Dr. A. B. Leonard, one of our honored missionary secretaries, after his recent visit to this empire, said: "China as a nation has stood for forty centuries and witnessed the birth of every other nation on the surface of the globe. Break down paganism in China, and you break down heathenism in the entire world." Can you, my reader, grasp this sublime truth? Verily, Satan's stronghold is this old, aristocratic, lit- erary, and bigoted empire; but he is losing his grip. Tho the idol pro- cessions and ancestral worship continue, the universal interest therein is waning. The masses frequently manifest disbelief in and often contempt for this form of religion" That a large per cent of these 360,000,000 human beings distrust their idols and are seeking something to satisfy the soul is apparent. Often is the Macedonian cry now heard by the mis- sionary, and it is echoing round the world. If the Church could but hear the pleas that come to us for preachers, teachers, and schools, she would not wonder that our hearts often ache. It is not so much the work he does, as the opportunities he sees lost forever that kills the missionary. Dr. N. Sites and daughter, going to Ming-Chiang district to establish boarding-schools, were met by committees from different cities each urging their claim, and some even offeriug buildings, free for years, if they could only obtain a school. Rev. M. C. Wilcox, of the Ku-cheng .and long-Bing districts, for lack of means, at first hesitated to enlarge his work, but the invitations were so strong and openings so promising, that he went forward, and the Lord is honoring his faith. Rev. W. N. Brewster, of the Bon-Ding and Sieng-In districts, has appointed workers, trusting the Lord for their support, until his supply of men is nearly exhausted. Rev. N. J. Plumb for a time mourned over the needs of Hok-chiang and Hai-Dang districts, but is now rejoicing in a harvest of souls. Dr. J. H. Worley, of the Foochow district, has every available man in the field, and during this summer vacation has sent the theological students to assist the pastors, and a larger ingathering than ever before is being realized. The doctor also has two men traveling with a maglC lantern, who are accomplishing a grand work. One evening, by invitation, I gave an exhibition in a temple near one of my day schools. Standing within six feet of the idols, I threw upon the screen the views of the life and miracles of Christ. Hundreds listened with pleasure and astonishment. The next day three of the leading literary men of the ward called to pat their respects, and invited me to visit their houses so their women might see and learn of the doctrine. This was a special mark of politeness and interest. We are now buying and :Renting temples and ancestral halls for church purposes. Many of our best meetings are being held in heathen temples, the minister standing before idols that have been worshiped for generations.
Educational work in a foreign field does not merely include the work of the school-room, but has a religious feature as well, because many of our converts are unable to read, and their knowledge is so limited that we are obliged to begin with first principles. However, I shall now speak only of school work proper within the Foochow Conference. This conference has an a·rea equal to the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a population of about 17,000,000, or over 300 to the square mIle. Four or five missions are working In this territory, but all make only a drop In the bucket; but the number of pupils in attendance at our various schools is as follows: The Anglo College, 133; the two theological schools, 62; the three girls' boardIng-schools and hIgh class seminary, 166; the six boys' boardmg-schools, 183; the five women's schools, 122; the 122 boys' day schools, 2356 j and the 63 girls' day schools, 926. In many of these schools, especIally those of a higher grade, the larger per cent of the pupils are Christians. Thus yon see we have gathered an army of 3948 students, but might have many more would our accommodatlOns permit. But wait; from the roof of my house I can see the houses of nearly 2,000,000 people. Out of this vast number we have gathered less than 1000 pupils. From the north end of the noted bridge of "ten thousand ages," whICh spans the Min River, I can walk west forty mmutes, east forty mInutes, through sohdly built streets, and among all these multitudes we have not even a place for street preaching. WithIn the city proper, WhICh is eleven miles in circumference. we have but one church with less than forty memberl'!, three day schools, and a Voman's Foreign Missionary Society hospital. Do you wonder that we ask, " Who is sufficient for these things~" Had we the means, in less than eight months we could establish a hundred day schools among this people, with 3000 pupils, and in each school-room we could hold a Sunday-school and have street preaching services. Last year I wrote a few letters, stating that $50 would for one year support a day school, Snnday-school, and weekly preaching services. In response I have received contributions sufficient to open sixteen day schools with flourishing Sunday-schools and preaching services. At the end of the second quarter, 527 pupils in these day schools passed the examinations. I do praise the Lord for this answer to prayer. * * Knowing that the misaionary society (Methodist Episcopal, North) could not grant even enough to support the work already in hand, we tbought best, at our estimate meeting July, 1895, not to ask for money to support these six teen schools, believing tbat as God had raised up friends in the past, so He would in the future. These sehouls are faithfully superintended, examined quarterly by a competent committee, and a detailed record of every pupil kept. Now what shall we do for these 527 boys and girls? What for the hundreds of others who are anxious to secure the advan.
tages of a Christian education? One dollar will support a student for a year. Forty dollars will at the present rate of exchange sl1pport a day .chool, Sunday-school, and weekly preaching ser.
vices one year. Who will contribute? Mr. Cbarles M. Grace, of Pittsburg, Pa., who now sus- tains three schools, writes that he intends to continue their snpport until such time as tbe missionary society can c~re for them or they become oelf-support'n!1;. What a profitahle invest mt:nt for a young man? At present I only ask for pledges of money, one half to be paid January lot, 1896, and half the following June. Any person or persons pledging $40 to be paid. as ahove iudicated. cau name the school, will receive a detailed quarterly report in Chinese and English, and with the third report I will send a photograph of school and teacher, a Chinese letter, with translation, from the teacher, giving a short account of hlB life and Christian experionce and an idol that has been worshiped. For $20 I will send the quarterly report., and a photograph of the school the money helps to support. Smaller sums will be thankfully received and dUlyacknowl- edged. Now please do not draw a long breath "nd throw this aside without a prayer for these heatheu childreu. .. GIve and it shall be given unto you." Seud pledges to me direct, and money to Dr. A B Leonard, 150 Fifth Avenue~ New York, requesting it to be forwarded to me to support a day school. G. S. M.
AN INTERESTING CONVERSION
* AN INTERESTING CONVERSION.
The following story is told by Miss Lowe of one who went into St. James's Hall, London, to look at the roof, and who found everlasting life.
" On April 29th, 1860, a widow lady, aged about thirty, entered St. James's Hall half an hour before the time appointed for the evening meet- ing. Her wish was to look at the roof, which she had heard resembled that of some building in Pisa. Her whole family were Romanists, and she herself desired to attain the highest pitch of sanctity; and for this purpose, according to her own account, accused herself sometimes to her confessor of faults of which she had not been guilty, in order to go through more severe penances, and thereby obtain a higher degree of merit. She never spoke to a Protestant unless from necessity or with a view to their conversion; and by means of presents to the sick, and especially to poor women in their confinements, she had persuaded many to put their names on the priest's lists. After her husband's death she desired to enter a convent, but some delay in the settlement of her property intervened. The confessor gave her liberty to spend a fortnight just as she pleased. The pleasures of this world had long been, she said, as a bunch of withered flowers to her; but she had a strong desire to see the roof of St. James's Hall. She considered herself too strictly bound by conventual rules (altho not yet an inmate of a convent) to enter the building on any night of worldly amusement, therefore she chose the Lord's day evening, hoping to enter and leave the building before the congregation fully assembled. It was about the time when the Lord was answering many prayers for an outpouring of the Spirit, and the eagerness to hear the Word of God was shown by the crowds that filled the hall as soon as the doors were opened. Women with children in their arms bore the fatigue of standing during the whole service; every seat and corner were occupied; and Mrs. W–, finding it impossible to make her way out, most unwillingly sat down, not intending to hear a word.
" Vhile the hymns were sung she gazed on the crowds, and pictured to herself their unhappy souls, with the flames rolling over them; but when. the preacher, Reginald Radcliffe, spoke of the possibility of any poor outcast entering the hall, and that altho sunk in the depths of sin he might, if he believed the Word, leave that hall a child of God, a voice 'Seemed to say within her, 'This is the truth-truth, whether you will believe it or not.' She felt, ' Oh, what a sin it is for me, a Catholic, to listen to those words!' and contrived to push her way out, she knelv not how, and found herself in Piccadilly. Then she felt she must go back again to hear more; and she did, and remained till the preaching was over.
" Many anxious souls remained behind. I cannot call them inquirers, for they were too deeply burdened to speak or lift their heads; 'the slain of the Lord were many.' One who sat next to 1Irs. V– during the service heard her say, ' I never heard anything like this before; and he seems so sure of what he says.' When Mr. Radcliffe spoke to her, she said, ' How did you come to know so much about Jesus as you do q' He said, ' Are you a Unitarian?' She said, ' I am a Catholic, and you have made me miserable; but I must hear more.'
" Mr. Radcliffe called me to come to a Roman Catholic lady in great * From .. Recollections of Reginald Radcliffe," pp. 131-36. distress. I followed him, but she was gone. For the third time she had left the hall, but he had taken her address. Her own confession was , that all she had hitherto trusted had broken down, and left her without hope or resting-place.' The next day Mr. Radcliffe went to see her, accompanied by Mrs. Crocker, a member of Mr. Baptist Noel's congregation. Her home was in the immediate vicinity of the Oratory at Brompton, as she attended every service there. Mr. Radcliffe took her a Bible, and she said she had often wished to possess one, but her confessor had told her that tho it was right for her t() wish for one, it would be a meritorious act of self-denial to consen1; to be without one. She gave up to Mrs. Crocker two little cups that had been bJessed by the Pope. She asked Mr. Radcliffe if he were on his death-bed would he be content to pass away without one prayer to the Virgin and the saints. It seemed to her blasphemy to address the Lord Himself. Hours were spent in answering her questions, and when they left she sent for a carpenter, and took down the crucifix: which had been in her little private oratory, and had it buried in the garden, and her altar removed with all its belongings. On that evening a Sister of Mercy arrived, intending to stay the night; but when she heard of the change that had taken place, she left at once, saying she feared the house would come down. The following day she sent for her confessor, to tell him all that had been brought to pass. He did not attempt to argue with her-he saw the work was too real and thorough ; but he said in deep bitterness, 'Oh, let them gather in their outcasts and their prostitutes, but not such as you.' In repeating this to Lady Rowley, she said, 'Oh, if I can but enter heaven with the publicans and harlots, that is enough for me! I have been all my life building a gigantic self to stand between my soul and Christ.'
"Her confessor told her he would have a service performed in the chapel of the Oratory for the loss of a soul. It has before been mentioned that her house was in the immediate vicinity, and accordingly she was able to see when the chapel was lighted up in the evening, and when in an instant all the lights were suddenly extinguished, to show that her soul was lost in the blackness of darkness forever.
" There were dear friends of hers at Brighton, members of a sisterhood. She longed to tell them her new-found peace and joy in believing, but as soon as she made known to them the object of her visit, they refused to hear, and she entered the train on her return to London feeling much cast down. On opening the precious Bible, her constant companion, her eyes lighted on the words, ' It is written,' spoken by the Lord to the tempter. These words were thenceforth a tower of strength to her. If one could only point out to her concerning any difficulty IT IS WRIT- TEN, she never questioned again. It was Lady Rowley'S privilege thus to lead her to receive the communion in a Protestant place of worship, pointing out to her that the wine in the cup was called, ' the fruit of the vine,' by the Lord Himself.
" A time of trial was now near. Her uncle on the mother's side, one whom her mother had charged her always to respect and obey, came up to town furious at her apostasy, and said he would rat.her see her drowned in the Serpentine or hanged on the highest tree in Kensington Gardens than see her what she was, and that he would have her put in a lunatic asylum. For this object he went to consult Dr. Forbes Winslow, but through the Lord's mercy this well-known physician had just been led to living faith in the Lord, and, of course, declined the case. She said herself that she felt quite indifferent as to where she was placed i that she had her Bible, and that she had learnt for the first time that she might ask for the Holy Spirit to teach her, and she needed no more. .
" Her uncle was now laid by with severe Illness in her house. She nursed him carefnlly, but was sorely harassed by the visits of her confessor, and fearing that her precious Bible might be taken from her, she hid it carefully away, and carried a pocket Testament. But this did not escape; it was taken from her and burnt. Her uncle desired her to fetch some relics on which he placed value, and declared they would help forward his recovery; but this she refused to do. He sent for the abbess of some convent to fulfil his wishes in this respect, and then a carriage was ordered, and Mrs. VV– was asked to accompany her uncle and the abbess for a drive.
" Mr. Radcliffe was at that time again in London, and a very severe attack had been made on him by one of the so-called religious papers. He had come in to tea at Lady Rowley's in Hyde Park Square, on his way to preach at an evening meeting, when suddenly Mrs. W– appeared in much excitement, and said to him, 'Oh, go, preach, preach everywhere the living God.' When he was gone she explained that her uncle and the abbess had taken hcr to a convent chapel, where all was prepared for a solemn service for the restoration of a wandering soul. She had broken away from them, and had fled for comfort to Lady Rowley.
" The language of her confessor had been so violent that she had forbidden him to enter her house. Soon after this he was chosen to take some offerings from Ireland to the Pope. On his return he Srlddenly appeared at her door, and without waiting for permission, entered the room and held out his hand; then asked her if she had given up her damnable heresies. She answered that she would not hear his violent language in her house, but that she did wish to speak to him, and would meet him for conversation in Westminster Abbey. She noticed his wasted and haggard looks, and said to him that he looked as if he had just recovered from typhus fever. He showed her his wrists, which were scarified, and told her his back was in the same state, and his digestion ruined through the penances he had undergone for her sake.
" They met in the Abbey, and followed two parties in their rounds, speaking, as she told me, of every doctrine and practice from which she now shrank in the Church of Rome. Finally she said, 'They are the Lord's own word, "It is finished," and dare you add anythiug to the finished work of Christ ~ , He said, '"lvVoman, will you leave me! Your heresies have shaken my faith.' He was much agitated, and as they approached the door of the Abbey, she said, ' I will have no leave-taking, but these are my last words to you, Pray day and night, " Lord Jesus, give me Thy Holy Spirit, to lead me into all truth !" , and she added, in telling me this, • I could not have spoken more solemnly if I had known that I was not to see him again till the Day of Judgment.'
" A week after she was summoned to the Oratory to see him in his coffin. Reproaches were, of course, showered on her as the cause of his death, and there appeared little hope of her ever knowing the state of his soul in departing.
"Nearly two years afterward Admiral Fishbourne was preaching at Leamington, and mentioned in his address the case of a Roman Catholic lady who had in her own words' gone into St. James's Hall to look at the roof, and found everlasting life.' The next day a stranger called to see him, and said, 'Sir, I was in the hall when you spoke of a Roman
NOTES FROM 'fifE DIARY OF A MEDICAL MISSIONARY
Catholic lady. I know more about her than you do, and I know about her confessor, too, and that he died renouncing every error of the Roman Cat.holic Church.' He went on to say that he had been a Roman Catholtc himself; that he was employed as cook in the convent of the Oratory; that as the confessor's faith in the Church of Rome was so shaken, the other priests were not allowed to come near his death-bed, bnt he (the cook) was appointed to attend on him; and that which he witnessed at his death-bed and that of other priests had led him to come out of the Church of Rome. He expressed great anxiety that the whole story shOUld be printed as an encouragement to others."
NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A MEDICAL MISSIONARY.
BY MARY PIERSON EDDY, M.D., BEIRUT, SYRIA.
The life of a medical missionary presents many varied and interesting phases. The first week of stay in a village is pretty well occnpled with tending to patients, still one can take time to return the salaams of one who comes to pay merely a formal visit. But the next week the patients swarm ill from all the neighboring villages, and If the stay is prolonged over a fortnight, patients travel three, four, and five days' journey for consultation ; they encamp on walls, steps, porch, and roof, so that you are a prisoner in your own house. It is necessary to move on to other places, but it is heart-rending to leave such numbers needing help behind.
One of the last days of my stay in Keffeir, a village on the slope of Mount Hermon, a poor leper came from a distant village, and hearing that I would receive no new patients before leaVing, was in despair. He saw the throng at the door, and knew that waiting would be of no avail. He was the local versifier or poet improvisator of his district, so he went to the teacher in the place and said, "Get pen and ink qnickly." The teacher did so. ,. Now," he said, " paper, for I'm in haste." He then improvised a poem in Arabic, a really remarkable production, in which he first extolled my skill and wisdom, then draws on hiS imagination regarding 3 conversation in which my father tells me in starting out upon my life work to regard the poor, the weakest, the most needy. He then relates his case and describes the long years of his misery, and point by point makes his case to resemble those for whom my father desired me especially to labor. The poem ends with the full name and home address of the poet patient. Armed with this precious document and a long reed, he painfully toils up the hill once more. The tip of the reed is slit, the fluttering document is slipped into it and hoisted to the Window. I was operating at the time. but one of my assistants was attracted by the paper and the hubbub under the casement, and finally the poor fellow was allowcd to enter.
One learns something in such a life of how Christ needed to go apart for rest and prayer. Sometimes after a meal I could not get across the hall to my own room for a few moments' rest before resuming work. I would be obliged to go outside of the house, climb over two roofs, let myself down on to some steps, and enter my room through the wmdow.
The evening gatherings in every place are largely attended, from 60 to 300 persons usually coming together. We choose a large house, but usually have to adjourn first to the front steps, then to the porch, front
THE JEWS RETURNING TO PALESTINE
yard, the village winepress, or the village church, as our numbers nightly increase. One night, when our congregation had been densely packed in the hall, we lifted a corner of the rug to close the door, and saw an immellse scorpion ill hiding there. What a providence' that no one hail been bltt<m! At another meeting, held in the cool evening breeze on Hermon, the graybeard of the village was present, and another of the audience was a baby boy eighteen days old! At another time tIle village priest was making us a call, and a fine young fellow who had bought .24 mules to take down to Egypt to sell came in to receive a parting blessing to ensure quick and profitable sales.
All my other traveling experiences are as nothing compared to crossing unknown rivers at uncertain fords. Usually in August the largest rivers are fordable, but high up in the mountains an earthquake caused a landslide last summer which demolished several houses and killed several villagers. In t he early spring even the smallest streams are swollen with rapidly melted snow, and my assistant, who braves everything on land, often stands appalled at the brink where the flood rolls swiftly before her over the large, smooth, treacherous stones of the brook.
Sometimes I am obliged to hold my clinics in the village church, and it cannot be very reassuring to the patients to recount their ills and ail- . ments whlle the village bier affords them a temporary seat [ During the evening meeting in one of my stopping-places, the bier was the favorite seat of the smallest children, who were lost in the crowds on the crowded church floor.
'fhe fierce, warlike Ansairy people have recently for the first time furnished me patients, and I am hoping on my next trip to visit one of their villages if the country is safe enough. I am leaving home this week for a trip northward, and expect to visit a tribe of 'furcomans who have been encamping in the plain of the Bukaa; they are clothed in sheepskins, men and women.* THE JEWS RETURNING TO PALESTINE. t BY R. SCOTT MONCRIEFF.
One of the signs of the times which seems to me of peculiar significance, tho the wisdom of this world takes no notice of it, is the very remarkable increase which the last few years have seen in the Jewish population of Palestine, and the extent to which they are found in towns " building the old wastes, raising up the former desolations. repairing the waste cities, the desolations of many generations" (Isa. 41 : 4). and in the country "building houses and inhabiting them, planting vineyards, and eating the fruit of them" (Isa. 66 : 21).
Fifteen years ago the Jewish popUlation of that country was believed not to exceed 40,000, of which not more than 20,000 were thought to reside in Jerusalem. Now that of Palestine is reckoned at 80,000 to 100,000, and that of Jerusalem and its suburbs at 35,000 to 40,000 at the very lowest, out of a total population of 60,000.
Fifteen years ago that city was strictly walled, and its gates were shut daily at sunset and never opened until sunrise. Outside the walls there were extensive wastes of unoccupied Jands, the value of which was little * Dr. Eddy's address during the winter will be Beirut, Syria. Anyone desiring fuller mimeograph reports of her medical work among the villages may address her there. t A letter to the London Bapti8t. _ more than nominal, and comparatively very few houses were to be found in the suburbs. Inside the walls also there were many waste places where houses had stood at one time, the ruins of which were to be found everywhere under the surface.
Now most of these waste places within the walls are covered with new houses, and in the suburbs the lands formerly unoccupied are covered in some places with streets, and in others with large buildings, houses, and gardens, to an extent exceeding double the area of the city within the walls, which is less than 300 acres. So great is the demand, moreover, for land suitable for building sites, that it is not to be obtained unless at priees probably unheard of in the past history of the city. In this we have a literal fulfilment of the prophecy of Zachariah (2 : 4), "Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and of cattle," and it is an interesting fact that during the last seven years the gates have been" open continually j they are not shp1 day or night" (Isa. 60: 11).
This material growth and expansion of the cit, dates from 1882, when many hundreds of Jews, driven out of Russia by persecution, ·took refuge in Palestine j and as succeeding years brought them in thousands, and Jerusalem was the goal which all labored to reach in the first place, the demand for accommodation so greatly exceeded the available supply that this led to the suburban extension of the city which I have so briefly described.
Since 1893 the immigration of Jews into Palestine, which had been wholly unrestricted up to that time, has been prohibited by the Turkish Government, but they continue to find their way into the land, I am told, tho in smaller numbers, and houses continue to be built at Jerusalem. But this repeopling of former desolations has not been confined to that city j it has been accomplished to a very great extent at Jaffa (the ancient Joppa), and in a small degree at Hebron, Tiberias, and other small towns.
Nor in towns only j transformations equally noteworthy have been effected at many places in country districts, where large tracts of land, which were wholly waste fifteen years ago, have been reclaimed; and are now under field and garden cultivation with extensive vineyards. This is ot due to the enterprise Baron Edmund Rothschild, who was the first to plant, in 1882, an agricultural colony for Jews in Palestine, and has estab- lished several others since then. His example has been followed by other wealthy Jews, and now there are eighteen such settlements scattered throughout Judea and Galilee. I have details as to the acreage of fifteen of these, with 1he number of houses at each, and the kinds of cultiv&tion practised by the people. In 1892 I visited eight of them, and found at each a large and well-kept village, with its synagogue and school j at five out of seven, known as Rothschild's colonies, I found dispensaries, and at two of them I found duly qualified doctors, each having medical charge of several colonies, and provided by the Baron. (I may here add that he has built a large hospital for Jews at Jerusalem, maintained entirely at his own expense.) None but Jews are permitted to live at such colonies, and the cultivation is carried on by them alone, chiefly in cereal crops, but at some there are large and flourishing vineyards at which a consider- able quantity of wine is made for exportation.
The fact of so many Jewish settlements successfully carried on in ·f- cQuntry districts is the more remarkable and interesting when it is remem- bered that, fifteen years ago, such a thing as a wholly Jewish village was unknown in Palestine, and very few .Tews-if indeed any-were to be found living outside of the towns and engaged in agricultural pursuits.
The total acreage possessed by the fifteen colonies referred to above I find to have been 27,000, but I do not suppose that more than 5000 acres of these were under cultivation in 1892. 1 learned at that time that immense tracts of uncultivated lands in Gilead, east of the Jordan, com- prising many hundreds of thousands of acres, had been purchased, partly by Baron Rothschild, and parUy by the well-known and noble Jewish society called Chovevi Zion (" Lovers of Zion"), with the object of settling Jewish colonies there; but I am informed that as yet no progress whatever has been made in carrying out their views, owing to the prohibition by the Sultan of immigration by Jews into Palestine.
The facts stated above incontestably prove the beginning of a return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the strong desire on the part of very many of the most influential men of their race to promote and facilitate the movement to the utmost of their power, a movement wholly unprece- dented and unknown in the history of their race since their return from the captivity in Babylon two thousand four hundred years ago, as narrated in the Book of Ezra.
At that time, he informs us, "the whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and three score, besides their ser- vants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven" (Ezra 2 : 64), in all nearly fifty thousand souls, and it is probable that fully as many hal'e returned to Palestine within the last fifteen years.
And it ought to be known that it is not from Eastern and Central Europe alone that these people have returned and in their thousands. When I arrived at Jerusalem in 1891, I found a large colony of Jews recently arrivecl from Yemen in Arabia, calling themselves of the tribe of Gad, settled in houses and around a synagogue which they had built for themselves, and that there were many thousands of Jews from Morocco in the city, whose numbers were being continually increased by fresh arrivals of small parties. In 1892 a large troop arrived from Persia, refugees from cruel persecution there, and on my second visit, in 1894, I found a new and large settlement of Jews from Bokhara, in Central Asia, dwelling in substantial houses, which they had built for themselves in the northern suburb of Jerusalem. It seemed as if the command had already been heard iu distant lands: "I will say to the north give up, and to the south keep not back, bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth" (Isa. 43 : 6).
That this is even the beginning of the great return promised in the Word of God I do not say; but I am unable to regard it otherwise than as an advanced guard sent by Him to occupy posts in the land, that land which He has kept for a chosen race whom lie has kept for it, and whom He will certainly bring into it in His own time; and it seems to me as if, in this movement of the people, He is loudly proclaiming to the world, " Hear the Word of the Lord, 0 ye nations, and declare it in the isles that are afar off. I-Ie that scattered Israel will gather him."
If recent years have seen in a remarkable degree a literal fulfilment of promises as to restoration of Jews to their own land, they have also seen t~ an extent wholl~ unknown before, hundreds of them seeking a spiritual ZIOn at the teachmg of the Holy Spirit, in obedience to the entreaty, "Turn, 0 backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you; for I will take you one of a city and two of a family, and I will bring you to. Zion" (Jer. 3 : 14). Never before in their history have so many of theIr race been found as at present, "to ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Corne and let us join ourselves unto the Lord ~n a perpetual covenant" (Jer. 50 : 5).
Surely this question, studied in both of the aspects, referred to above is worthy of the closest attention of thinking men, and especially of be- lievers. But alas! it is not only the wise men of this world who are in- different to it ; they are little more so, it is to be feared, than the vast majority of profesing Christians, and even of those who are believers in our land; and yet who should take a deeper interes~ in the restoration of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh than those who, "as ChrIst's, are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" ~ (Gal. 3 : 29). It is in the hope of stirring up to their duty in this matter those believers who admit their indifference to it, and care not to be aroused out of it, that I write this letter.
Have they any warrant in Scripture for such indifference ~ Surely they cannot suppose that the Lord is indifferent to it. There is a very solemn warning in His Word to men of the world who hold aloof from doing good to Israel. He says, "I am jealous for Jerusalem with a great jealousy, and I am very sore displeased with the heatheu that are at ease, for I WII:S but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction" (Zech. 1 : 15). But more solemn still are these words to His own people, " Woe unto tltern that are at ease in Zion, but are not grieved for tlte ajJlictions of Joseph" (Amos 6 : 9). How very many there al"eamong us who are at ease in their church Zion, but who in their utter indifference to God's chosen race practically say of it, " Am I my brother's keeper~" Was such the spirit of our Lord toward the race of Israel ~ How very many believers there are who daily wait on the Lord in prayer for blessings desired by them, and yet care not for the special blessing promised in the words spoken to Abraham, " I will bless them that bless thee," and in those nttered by the Psalmist, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee" (Ps. 122 : 6).
How very strange, too, that this indifference prevails very largely among believers who are deeply interested, if not actually engaged in, missionary efforts for the salvation of Gentiles at home and abroad, as if their Bibles. did not contain the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the Romans; as if they had never heard these words of the writer of it, concerning Israel, " Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness" (Rom. 11 : 12), and these, " For as in times past ye have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief, even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy" (Rom. 11 : 30, 31 ).-The London Baptist.
THE JEWS IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA.
BY REV. JAMES M. GRAY, D.D., BOSTON.
This article is a modest attempt at a rejoinder to one on the same theme, contributed by Dr. Jessup in the December (1895) number of the REVIEW. Dr. Jessup does not believe that the Jews are ultimately to return to the land of their fathers, and restore their ancient kingdom, and rebuild their temple. He argues against it on the ground of the small number of Jews now in Palestine and Syria (only about 70,000 in all, he says), and the fact that Jewish migration is westward rather than eastward. The re- turn of the Jews is frequently spoken of in Scripture, but this he refers to a spiritual return to Christ. The marvelous prophecy in Ezekiel 40-48, means the future glories of the Church. A literal fulfilment would be, in his judgment, physically impossible without the most stupendous miracle ever performed. If the future of 1he Jew is material, then we are bound to say that the Messiah was an earthly king, and that He has never come.
Our du1y to the Jew is simply to win him to Christ, and to this end he recommends that young ministers and evangelists be trained to familiarity with the Messianic prophecies, that they may thus meet the sincere diffi- culties of the Jews and the specious objections of the caviller.
I would begin my reply with a cordial recognition of the timeliness and wisdom of this last remark, except that I would exlend i1s application not only to young ministers and evangelists, but even to theologians of mature minds and occupying high stations. There is a deplorable lack of acquaintance with the prophetic portions of both the Old and New Testa- ments, throughout the whole Church. My own experience in working among the Jews, for example, is to the effect that both their sincere diffi- culties, and their specious objections, are best met by the very opposite view of prophecy to that entertained by my distinguished brother. And in this I am sustained by the experience and testimony of some of the / most successful and honored workers among the Jews both in this country and Europe, one or two of whom are favorably mentioned by Dr. Jessup in his article.
In the second place, I would respectfully submit to the doctor, and any who may be troubled by the matter, that the present number of Jews in Palestine and Syria, and their migratory trend toward the West, have prac- tically but little bearing on the question. Less than 50,000, returned with Zerubbabel after the Babylonian Captivity, but these were enough to fulfil the prediction of that return and ultimately re-people the whole land.
The migratory trend of the Jews in that day was in other directions than Palestine, but God found a way to bring them there for all that, and it is conceivable that He may do it again. '
In the third place, there is nothing impossible with God, and the literal fulfilment of prophecies yet to take place in the history of the Jews is no more stupendous a miracle than the preservation of that people, dis- tinct from every other, for the past eighteen hundred years. Even the philosopher Hegel, the greatest intellect that ever appeared among men, as some think, could account for everything, and find a place for it in his theory of. the universe, except the Jew. What to do with him he knew not. He was the most supernatural thing that came under the survey of his capacious mind. There is good reason to believe that Hegel would not have expressed the surprise of some accredited students of God's Word, to be told that that people were ultimately to be restored to their own land, to be reigned over by their Messiah, and to be the center of all the governments of the earth. To say that Jesus is to be an earthly king, is only to say what the Scriptures say, and what He himself said. It was thus He came the first time had He been received by His people, and it is thus He will come a second time, when every eye shall see Him and they also which pierced Him.
That the Jews are to be restored to Christ spiritually there Can be no manner of doubt, but the promises which point to this are no more numer-
THE AMERICAN MISSION IN EGYPT
ous or explicit, nor as much so, as those which point to their restoration to the land. The two classes of promises are inseparable, and it would appear to violate accepted principles of biblical interpretation to apply the one literally and the other figuratively, or not at all.
Dr. Jessup is doubtless aware that the sober jOUllnalism of our day is giving serious attention to this subject of the re-peopling of Palestine by the Jews, and this as a means, and perhaps the only means, of settling the Eastern Question. I have no reference in this to Editor Stead's fanciful picture of the coronation'of Lord Rosebery as king in Jerusalem, but we cannot so well afford to overlook the article on "The Solution of "Tar," from the pen of Dr. H. P. Mendes, in the North American Review. The solution of war in the estimation of this essayist involves, among other things, and chiefly, an international court of arbitration. This court must be above suspicion, it must be removed from all bias of a political character, and it must have a moral and, if need be, physical power behind it to enforce its decisions. There is only one power, so he believes, which could fulfil these requirements, and that power is the Hebrew nation restored to Palestine, erected into a neutral State by the Powers, and its boundaries prescribed by the Bible limitations (Gen. 15 : 18-21 ; Deut. 11 : 24). This would remove it from the snare of political intrigue for its own aggrandizement.
The other practical results of this plan would be (1), the removal of jealousies-political, racial, and religious-now raging in Europe around the Jew and the possession of Palestine j (2), the opening up of a vast commerce between the four great continents of which that land is the converging point, and for which the Hebrews are peculiarly qualified by their genius and experience j and (3), the fulfilment of the Bible prophecies that when" out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," then" nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
The limitations of this article forbid the presentation of biblical proof for the foregoing to any great extent, but should it be called for, there would be little difficulty in producing it.
THE AMERICAN MISSION IN EGYPT.* UNDER THE DIREOTION OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA.
Two Egypts present themselves to the eyes of the thoughtful traveler in this land: a dead Egypt, with its noble ruins of the past, and a living Egypt, with its teeming millions of population and its rising civilization.
It is upon this latter, the living Egypt, that the American mission is expending its labors j and it is with the hope that others also may become interested in this grand enterprise of uplifting the people of this country and establishing them upon the firm foundation of Gospel civilization, that the following report of our work is laid before you.
Evangelistic Worlc.-The whole of the evangelistic work is under the care of the native Church of Egypt, which has divided the field into six • An ontline of the condition of the work at the close of the year 1895. divisions, each to be superintended by a committee consisting of three ministers and two elders. These divisions have been subdivided into 47 evangelistic.districts, in addition to the 22 pastorates. To each of these districts, as far as possible, at least one worker has been appointed.
In the Delta, for the past forty years, the seed has heen continuously sown by missionaries and native workers. At present missionaries are stationed in each of the principal cities. The smaller places are regularly visited by the missionaries themselves, by colporteurs and evangelists, and the number of schools in the towns and villages is constantly increasing.
Besides the colporteurs (which are 12 in number) there are now 32 regular native workers there, and their number is increasing each year. There are now 37 stations in the DeJta, as many as there were in all Egypt in 1877, only eighteen years ago. Moreover, in Lower Egypt, including Cairo, there are also 46 schools, with an enrollment of ] 599 pupils.
In the upper country the districts are well supplied with workers, and the work is in a most flourishing condition. However, in the opening up of new fields more or less opposition is always encountered even here.
During the past year, in a town of some 3000 inhabitants, the opponents of the Gospel threatened to kill the evangelist who was conducting the work. The government authorities were call(;'d in for protection, and since then the work has gone on successfnlly. When the missionaries visited the station, the excitement over the preaching of the Gospel was intense, and over 200 men attended the service which they cond,ucted.
In spite of such opposition, however, the work is spreading from place to place, as the following statistics will show : 1885. 1895.
Number of organized congregations .•.•.•..••.• , •••• 23 37 Number of other preaching stations ……………•• 47 153 Ordained missionaries ….. . 9 16 J',n' Staff of f orel·gn workers Medical fmm"isIsSiSoInOanrayrI..e.s•.•• . • •• 1 1 IV Ives 0 • •. 9 15 LUnmarried lady missionaries. 6 9 Number of ordained native pastors……••••.••.•• , . 8 22 Number of other workers under care of presbytery …• 23 41 Average attendance at Sabbath morning services ••••.• 3296 9729 Number of communicants .•..••••…•••.•.•••.•••. 1842 5004 Contributions by native church for religious purposes .. $4993 *$13,552 Sabbath-School Work.-The mission has 125 Sabbath-schools, with an average attendance in the year 1895 of 6622 pupils. Thirty-eight hundred copies of Lesson Leaves in Arabic on the International Sunday-School Lessons were distributed weekly during the year among the pupils of these schools.
Educational Work.-Our educational work is carried on through the agency of 161 schools, 136 of which are for boys, and 25 of which are for girls. The total numb.r of teachers other than missionaries employed in these schools is 254, and the number of pupils enrolled during the year was 10,871, an increase over the previous year of 2896. Of this total enrollment 8292 were boys, 2579 were girls. During the past decade the sehools have more than doubled in number, while the number of pupils has increased over 100 per cent. Mohammedan pupils make up over 20 per cent of the entire number.
• An increase of $2899 over the contributions of the previous year. Chief among the educational institutions stands the Mission Training College at Asyut. In 1865 this school was started amid much opposition, the only room that could be procured being a donkey stable, the donkeys at one end of the room, the boys at the other. To-day the college occu- pies substantial buildings in the suburbs of the city, with an enrollment of 420 students. '
The importance of the Mission Training College to the general work of the native Church of Egypt can scm·cely be overestimated, as a glance at the following fact..<1 may indicate: 1. It is the source of supply for pastors for the native congregations which are every year in increasing numbers being organized under the fostering care of the mission and native church. Out of the present total number of 22 native pastors, 19 have come from ihis college. In addi- tion to these ordained pastors, there are 19 licentiates, all but one of whom have been educated at the Training School.
2. It is the training school for teachers of the boys' schools all over the land, 137 out of the 1,otal number of 196 male teachers having received their education there. These schools are not merely educational in their aim, but nearly everyone of them forms a nucleus from which eventually a congregation grows. The teachers are really" preacher-teachers." Five or six evenings in each week his desk is a pulpit j thl1 Bible, Scripture history, and the Catechism are taught daily in the schools, and on the Sabbath church services and Sabbath-school meet in the school-room, the teacher often presiding over both. It will thus be seen what an impor- tant evangelistic agency these schools are, and what an important work is that of properly training these" preacher.teachers. " Without the Mis- sion Training College, the educational work as well as the pastoral work of the native church would be greatly weakened, if not rendered impos- sible.
3. In addition to the above-mentioned facts, the Mission Training Col- lege is constantly sending out trained Christian young men into the service of their country, both as governmcnt employees and as business men.
The theological seminary is situated in Cairo. By a three years'
course of special training for the Christian ministry built upon the rock foundation laid in the Training College, it alms to complete the education of the student and send him forth thoroughly equipped for his life work.
During the year 1895 nine students were in regular attendance upon its sessions, three of whom were graduated at the close of the term.
Closely allied in importance with the work of training a force of native preachers and educators is that of raising up a generation of educated Christian women, who shall preside over the homes of the future. For this purpose, in addition to the girls' day schools, there are two advanced boarding-schools, with a yearly enrollment of over 250. In these schools the pupils receive not only a religious and secular education, but also special training in household duties. .
Book Department.-Coordinate with the evangelistic and educational departments is the Book Department, which is carried on from eight cen- tral stations, the ~eneral depot being in Cairo. From these central stations the colporteurs, 27 in number, receive their supplies and distribute the books throughout thp.ir respective districts. From Assouan to the Mediterraneau Sea these colporteurs are at work, offering God's Word to all who will receive it, and speaking with all who will hear. They are the real pioneer evangelists in the onward march of Chlistian civilization.
The number of books sold during the year 1895 are as follows: No. of Volumes. Value.
Scriptures..•.•••• " ••.•••…••.•…. 14,079 $2,274 Other religious books. . . • . • • • . •• • . • . . .. 14.141 1,825 Educational books. . . . . • • . • . • • • . . . . . • •• 33,917 5.131 Stationery….•.•.•…..••••.•.•••••• 1,676 Total. …•..•……•.•…….•. 62,137 $10,90{i The above shows an increa:se of 12,740 volumes over the preceding year.
One of the colporteurs reports that during the latter part of the year, as the troubles In Turkey increased, he found a cooler reception than formerly in various parts of the field. A certain high Moslem officlal, who had formerly bought a book or two each month, suddenly changed en· tirely in his demeanor, even refusing to pay for some books previously purchased. Upon being pressed somewhat, he swore by the name of his God, his Prophet. and his own life that he had no money. The colporteur answered: "I release you from your vowing, only I wish that you would tell me, as a true evangelical would do, that you have no money." He replied: "You have no religion and no right to say anything about my swearing if I choose to swear." The colporteur replied: "I have a religion, and it teaches me to speak the truth without swearing by any. one in ordinary matters; but should I vow, not even a judge for a sack of wheat could release me" (a sack of wheat is sometimes given to a judge to release from a vow).
At this the man became very angry and cursed the colporteur before the men present, and rose, saying that he would have him dragged before the judge. The colporteur replied: " You may curse me a thousand times, and I will forgive you as often; and you will not drag me before the judge, for I will willingly walk with you to him." The man only said, " Ya salaam" (an exclamation of astonishment), and sat down. He then drew a sovereign from his pocket and settled his aCC(lunt. A few. weeks later the colporteur sold the same man a reference Bible, a large concordance, and the first three volumes of a commentary on the New Testament.
Many other instances might be mentioned which indicate the great ' work the colporteurs are doing in spreading the truth among the people.
Zenana Work.- The agencies used for spreading the Gospel among the women of Egypt are Bible teachers, special prayer-meetings, medical work, aud house to house visitation. This work is conducted by 49 special workers, who teach the women to read the Bible in their homes. During the year 1895 their regular pupils numbered 1772.· Pastors and missiouaries give what assistance they can to this most important branch of our wori.
Medical Work. -Our medical missionary, located at Asyfit, is doing most effective work. T~e record for the year 1895 is as follows: Number of patients treated in clinic….. . . . . . . . • . • •. 14,068 Nurn ber of surgical operations. . . . . . . . . • • • . • . . . . • . . . 115 Number of visits to homes……………………. 1,667 Tho a large majority of the patients are exceedingly poor and very many are treated gratuitously, nevertheless $2042 were collected during the year in fees.
In connection with the work two Bible readers are employed, who read
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'S CALL TO CIlRISTENDOM
and explain the Bible to patients in the dispensary. It is here, while the sick are confined to their beds for a longer or shorter period, that those Gospel influences are brought to bear upon them which often change their lives and result in the healing of their souls.
Some months ago two Moslems came to th~ office for operations. With one man was his wife, with the other his daughter. They were in the dispensary about two months. Every day the blind Bible reader would take his Bible, go to the room and read and explam the Gospel to them. The fonr listened with great attention, and after the Bible man had read to them an hour would ask for more, declaring that they had never heard such good news. They were taught some simple Bible truths and what Christian prayer meant, and went away cured of their bodily diseases, and let us hope also with the seeds of the new life sown in their souls.
Much more might be done along this same line if larger hospital accommodations were provided. The effort is now being made to secure such, and it is sincerely hoped that the necessary means will soon be forth· coming for the consummation of these plans.
We are happy to say that the people of Egypt are giving most liberally of their means to help carryon these various Gospel agencies, ar.d that their contributions are every year increasing, indicating not only a substantial growth, but a deeper interest in the work; and the future seems bright with the promise of a self-supporting church in Egypt. Nevertheless, much-very much-yet remains to be done before this land shall have been won for Christ; new churches are to be built, new schools established; and the Gospel seed scattered yet more widely, both in the Delta, in the Nile Valley proper, and in the far south. As we look out over the white harvest fields, we are forcibly reminded of our Master's words: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few." In the arduous task that yet remains to be accomplished, we beseech your interest and your prayers.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'S CALL TO CHRISTENDOM.
In the Homiletic Review we find the fact emphasized, already more than once made prominent in these pages, that the close of this year really brings to the beginning of the new century-the twentieth. And the endeavor is to arouse all Christendom to its duty in respect to the work of missions. We quote words especially addressed to the ministry : " The nineteen hundredth anniversary of Christ's birth is not, therefore, several years off, but just upon us-not further away than the close of the present year or the opening months of 1897.* " Does not Christ call us all just now by His Wrord, and by the signs of the times, to cooperate in inaugurating a movement all along t~e line for the immediate evangelization of the world?
" 1. Nineteen centuries have passed since the great commission, and the majority of mankind are still unsaved. Almost a thousand millions of our lost race perish in the life of each generatiou without the Gospel. Does not that commission throw the responsibility for all this upon the Church of Christ, and ~specially upon its leaders, the ministry ~ * See Matthew ii. 1; Josephus, " Antiquities," xvii. 9, 3 ; Andrews, "Life of Christ;" Roll- inson, .. Harmony of the Gospel•." " 2. We llave evidently reached a great crisis in the history of our race, when nothing but the universal spread and triumph of the Gospel can save the Church and the world from dire disaster. The Gospel has wrapped up in it the solution of all the i.ndustrial, financial, political, social, and moral problems of the age with which the philosophers and statesmen and philanthropists are hopelessly struggling. Is not the call a clear one, to those who have the Gospel and understand its regenerating and transforming power, to apply it speedily in making over mankind and transforming human institutions by this Divine agency.
" 3. Christ requires that we should give the Gospel to the world im- mediately. His command is 'Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Thal; is the plainest of commands. It means us personally. It means now, for it is in the present tense, and God has now unquestionably, for the first time in thc centuries, removed out of 1he way every obstacle to the immediate evangelization of the world and given to the Church everything needed for the completion of the work of preach- ing the Gospel to the world. The whole world is open and accessible physically, geographically, politically, to the Gospel messengers, and wait- ing for them. The Church has the means, 1he messengers, and the prom- ise of the Spirit at her command, and seems dangerously near to suffering eclipse of faith and blight of life because of her failure to avail herself of them in fulfilling her great and pressmg mission. Christ is waiting for her to move in obedience to His command. Who among her leaders will risk the responsibility of holding back or of hindering the onward move- ment He demands ~ " 4. The organizations and machinery necessary for the immediate and world-wide forward movement to victory and conquest for Christ are all ready and in working order, and need simply to be directed under the quickening breath of the Spirit of God. The agencies are all organized for reaching every class and condition of mankind. There are our general societies-Bible, tract, etc.-and our special societies in all denomina- tions, for home evangelization. There are the numberless agencies for saving heathendom through the foreign mission work. There are the lay organizations that take in substantially the church-membership of Christen- dom-the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young People's Soci- eties for Christian effort, the Armies of the. Cross, etc. -already mar- shalled for the final conflict. Every agency needed to reach all the world is already in existence. And all these organizations will inevitably de- . teriorate into mere machines and become hindrances rather than helps, cnrses rather than blessings, unless they speedily become Spirit-filled and consecrated to the accomplishment of their intended work. And does not the responsibility for their use fasten itself chiefly upon the ministry . as the leaders of God's hosts ~ "The reasons in favor of the movement are unanswerable and over- whelming.
" A year and more ago the secretaries of the foreign missionary soci- eties of the various religious bodies sent out a paper calling the Church to the" final rally of the century." We understand that they are now plan- ning for an ecumenical council of missions to mark the coming anniversary.
All this may be well; but discussion and resolutions always fall short of saving the world. What is needed is well-directed personal effort for saving men and saving the world, reaching out from one to another in all directions till the tide of sacred influence shall belt the globe. Hence, we ask the personal questions of each one of our readers : " 1. Are you ready to cooperate in this great movement now? " 2. Are you ready to consecrate yourself to and to enter upon this work now?
" 3. Are you ready to cry mightily to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit of power for the work now 1 "4. Wh.at will you .do NOW? " We have only some brief suggestions to make for aid and guidance. Are they more than Christ requires in this great crisis 1 They are as follows: " l. That you set to work in your sphere immediately yourself. " 2. That you stir up the Christians next to you and seek the salvation of the sinners nearest you. " 3. That you seek to rouse every Christian organization with which you are connected-whether church, or young people's or missionary society-to enter immediately upon the work for whIch it was made and for which it exists, the work of giving the Gospel to the world for its speedy salvation. "4. That in all this you do not wait for some one else, or some organization or mass of Christians, to move, but that without delay you yourself rise to present duty by taking advantage of present emergencies and opportunities. " It cannot be denied that the task is gigantic, almost appalling; but the Gospel, as Paul assured the Roman Christians, is ' the power of God unto salvation.' Even in the Old Dispensation the Lord, by the prophet; Malachi, cried to Israel: 'Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove me now therewith, . . . if I will not open lhe windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, thaI, there shall not be room enough to receive it.' What limit then to Gospel grace in this the dIspensatIOn of the Spirit 1 God delights in Pentecostal scenes. We have only to cast ourselves on the Divine grace in a fnll consccration. " In so doing we shall, by the grace of God, make the movement for which Christ calls world-wide and effective, and the twentieth century will dawn with bright prospects for the conquest of the world for Christ. "We ask you to ponder this matter prayerfully and make your own decision regarding your personal duty, as one of the appointed leaders of God' 8 host, and to let the Master know and the world know what you purpose to do as your part and in 'your place. Give us and give the Church the benefit of your prayers, your counsel, and your hearty cooperation. Is it not for the Master's glory?,'
Some of the most interesting pages in history are those which describe the siege of cities. The walls of the beleaguered city are surrounded on all sides by men trying to force an entrance. Some make sudden onsets on the gates. Some batter the walls with rams and engines. Some plant ladders against the walls and fight hand to hand with the defenders. Everywhere there is noise, and tumult, and capture, and death, the shouts of the fighters and the moans of the dying, yet still the city is not taken. But all the while there is, unknown to the defenders, a body of men digging and mining under the very wall of the city. They are undermining the foundations of the city ramparts-the city is doomed.
1 sometimes think that this is the work which our Christian schools and colleges in heathen lands are doing. loVe are sapping the foundations of heathenism. The city is strong and ancient; its walls are thick and ugly and deep. But it is doomed. In onr hands God has put an ax, and we are digging, digging: and in the end through the darkness we shall reach the light.-Rev. John Lendrum.
INTERNATIONAL ];)EPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Charles Sherard Leaoh, M.D. where he labored until his transfer to Sfax in August, 1895, with such sad BY REV. LEIGHTON WILLIAMS, D.D., results.
NEW YORK CITY. Dr. Leach married an English lady who was laboring as a missionary The death of Dr. Leach, who was among the sailors in Marseilles, where recently assassinated at Sfax, Tunis, he met her on his way to Africa. North Africa, ought not to pass with· out notice, nor ought his work and his The account of the murder of Dr. devotion to the cause for. which he has Leach, his wife, and their elder child, fallen a martyr be forgotten. a little boy six years of age, as given in the Daily Telegraph, London, May 9th, Dr. Leach's death would appear to 1896. says they fled from room to room be due solely to Mohammedan fanati· as their assailants advanced, and the cism, in a city seldom visited by Euro- last stand was made in their bed champeans. and is only a further example ber, the door of which had been broken of the exceeding hostility of Moham- down. When the victims were discovmedans to the Christian missionary and ered by the commissary of police and his religion. the British vice-consul, the doctor was found lying dead on the fioor, with ten Dr. Leach was a man of gentle, re- ghastly wounds inflicted by a dagger tiring disposition, reserved in manner, and an axe. His wife had been stabbed and not much of a speaker, but skilful in fGur places, and was also lifeless, and painstaking as a physician, and he while the little lad had sustained a fearhad the respect and affection of the na- ful gash in the neck. Only the baby, tives in his various fields of labor. which was still in its cradle, had been spared. The Telegraph said: "Dr. Charles Sherard Leach. son of Sur- Leach was a mild and amiable man, geon Major Leach of the British Army and was not known to have anyenein India, was born in Burmah in 1860, mies. He was thirty.five years of age. and graduated from the Royal College Besides his mission work, he looked of Surgeons, London. Later he was a after a dispensary for the Arabs." student of the International Medical Missionary Society, and took some The following excerpts from a letter post-graduate course in New York written to Amity Baptist Church, New City. He was induced to go out with York City, will prove of interest to a the Rev. lIIr_ Powell, an independent much wider circle than that to which missionary in Algiers, contrary to my it was immediately addressed. persuasion. I very much doubted the expediency of his going. Mr. Powell, .. Our work in Tunis lies principally in a fit of temporary insanity, took the among the lIIussulman population of life of one of his children, and then his the city and outlying villages. It is own life. Dr. Leach, after this, started estimated that there are in the capital a mission to the Kabyles, but the mis- upward of one hundred thousand Mosion failed for want of support_ He hammedans, and how many missiona· thereupon took up Mr. Powell's work ries do you think there are to point again, and continued to labor alone for these thousands to the cross-to the some time, and later accepted an ap- Lamb of God, who alone is able to take pointment to work for the North Afri- away their sin, as well as the whole can Mission. ITe was removed by that world? Just about ten. and a large society some years since to North Tunis, number of these are only beginners, /i!tudying the language! So you see are to be found several texts of Scripfrom this how badly off they are for ture, lithographed and put together in spiritual instruction, while those at such a way as to give a very clear statehome are suffering from being overfed! ment of the Gospel_ 'These the patients Is it possible that these things can really have returned to them after the prebe so bad as that, and only four days' scription is made up, so that they take journey from England? Yes, and them to their homes and keep them till much worse. It will be worth our while the next time they have tbem renewed. to sit and ponder over these facts, and In connection with this it is interesting then praying, ask God to show each of to note that such a card may be carus what is our relationship to all these ried hundreds of miles across the desmillions of perishing souls wbo have erts, for many of our patients are Bednot as much as even heard the Gospel wins, who travel great distances, formonce in their lives. " ing part of the numerous caravans that go far down south. In this way the The agencies in use to bring these Word of God is being scattered. The poor creatures to Christ were various. results are known to Him. There were classes for Arab boys, gathered chiefly from the porters who carry " Another part of the medical mis- sion work consists in visiting patients at their homes, those who are too ill to ladies' baskets" with provisions home come to us, for example, or who, in the from the market; mothers' meetings, case of women, are forbidden to leave the house. Thus many houses have where sewing is taught; magic lantern been opened up to our lady workers, lectures with visiting in cafls, and itin· and opportunity given of introducing erating tours. Of the medical work, the Gospel where otherwise it would have been impossible. Dr. Leach wrote: "You will, no doubt, wish to know " This is by far the most effective what the result of all this work amounts method. Here we bring large numbers to. God only knows the true estimate; under the sound of the Gospel, and at and altho we cannot show the large the same time show them some of the number of converts that are to be found signs of practical Christianity. They in heatben lands, such as India and are overcome when they receive unex· China, yet, thank God, He has not left pected acts of kindness, and are more us without signs of approval, and fruitwilling to hear and believe than other- age to be found all along the line. wise. We have seen as many as eighty Converts we have, tho few; but when out-patients in a morning, several hav· it is considered that we are laboring ing to leave for want of accommodation among Mohammedans and not heathen, and help. They are admitted at 7.30 we are encouraged even to find one A.M., but numbers of them begin to here and there. Labor among Mohamcongregate at 5 o'clock, or sometimes medans is we'l known to be more earlier, so as to get seeing the doctor difficult than elsewhere, and even in first. In order to avoid quarreling and India, where missionaries have been confusion we give them tickets with laboring for so many yea:s, the results numbers by which they know their are comparatively few. Only fourteen turn to enter· the consulting-room. years ago there were no missionaries at Every day is begun by asking God's all to be found teaching the followers blessing on the work and reading and of Islam the truths of Christianity in explaining the Scriptures. Thus they North Africa I have the simple Gospel brought before "As the firstfruits of our medical them day after day, While tbose who mission, God gave us one from the highcan read carry away Gospels and tracts. est ranks of society, of good birth, and In addition to the preaching at the be· bigoted in his religion, but now wholly ginning, the patients are being spoken given up to the cause of Christ and to while waiting for their turns to see preaching the Gospel to his fellow- the doctor. Thus one may notice little countrymen_ This man has suffered groups of men or women, as the case much persecution from his family and may be, listening attentively to one of friends, and has been imprisoned for the workers, or holding animated dis- Christ's sake, and yet he has remained cussions with another. From the wait. stedtast through all, and is now labor. ing-room each patient enters the con- ing for the Master. sulting-room. Here he has given him " Many, we feel, believe, confess pri- a card, with the prescription written vately, but are afraid to make an open on the plain side, but on the other side declaration… The Salva.tion Army in India. sibly afford. It is not, therefore, mere- ly to the fact that the Salvation Army It is always painful to have to recol'd bas felt itself at liberty to penetrate instances of what dear George Herbert every portion of India, that we call at· described as .. the good with the good tention, for the Church of England, the at cross purposes." For a long while Roman Catholics, and at least the past there have been coming to our tao Methodi~ts besides, have taken the same ble from a variety of sources, public attitude. But there seems to be ground and private, criticisms of some of the of unusual complaint against the Sal- methods of the Salvation Army in vari- vation Army for having unduly inter- ous parts of India. We have declined fered with tbe operations and the Of- to admit this subject to our columns, ganized church life of existing mis- hoping that the entire matter would be sions, and also for a lack of discipline adjusted to the satisfaction of all par· of their agents, and the publication of ties in the premises. The high esti· reports of results which would not bear mate which we have placed upon the imy careful investigation. Making all gcneral work of the Salvation Army due allowance for the character of the makes us loath to refer to it in any but population among which they labor in the most highly commendatory manner. India, it yet does seem as if the central We have known, as a matter of course, authorities in Great Britain ought to that an organization ramifying so afford the Christian public at large fur- widely over the world, with such a ther evidence that tbey have themselves variety of agents selected from such carefully reviewed the circumstances.
diverse sections of society, could not be The sixty.first annual report of the expected to exhibit the same perfection Lodiana Mission (Presbyterian, 1895) in all the details of its work as might contains complaints against the Salva· be justly demanded of other societies, tion Army for entering their com· and have been therefore ready to com· pounds and urging their people to leave mend much of what seems irregular in them, offering increased salaries, pay- its proceedings to the most charitable ing their personal debts, and using consideration. Much of the criticism other measures which amounted to a of its work in India has been of a system of bribery, to induce members character which occurs occasionally of their church to join them. The in regard to other missions. It is not Presbyterians endeavored to persuade the Salvation Army alone which is them to accept a portion of their terri· complained of as lacking in the strict tory, tendering them the best part of observance of denominational and soci· it. It is safer, perhaps, to quote the ety comity. Baptists have been com- exact language of the report. It says: plained of, Methodists have been com· " Men under discipline were taken and plained of, and other societies from put in charge of important posts almost time to time have come into more or at once. A number under the charge less of unpleasant collision by inter· of immorality were at one time among penetration of the work of their respec- the leaders in this place. We warned tive agents. There is even wide diver- the commander, but to no purpose.
sity of view in regard to what geo· With a full knowledge of the facts she graphical boundaries, or whether any, continued to push the work, which should limit the operations of any so- soon presented the fruits of unwisdom.
ciety. Bishop Thoburn holds, for in- Whole villages, not in our mission, stance, as against the traditions, that have been induced to leave their work ethnic bases and providential openings and become beggars, thus transforming furnish a much better demarcation of active, hard·working Christians into duty than any arbitrary geographical wandering vagabonds. After they had distribution of the territory could poe- induced a large number of the poorer classes to join them under the promise there.' They then set up headquarters of higher salary, etc., they, supposing in Fyzabad, and there opened a training that the prey was in their hands, told school. Their men went out through them that they should now preach and Oudh and gathered soldiers for Fyza- beg. Of course, a general dissatisfac- bad. In Hardui Zilla they took over tion reigns among tl;lem. A large num· several of our workers and in all nearly ber have left them. and are begging us forty of our converts, and soon returned to take them in again. Many of the one worker and family to the same poor villagers, having sold all that they place and to the same work that he was have, are practically ruined. They are doing for us, and set him to work for without employment and unable to ob- the Army. Only harm ensued from tain even the ntlcessary comforts of life. this. Near Shahjahanpore an officer It is to be noted that the above were went to the village where we have a Christians. Their work among the church and have had work for thirty heathen. as far as we can determine, years. He got some of the leading men and we do try to judge fairly, has been to joiu him, and then took possession a complete failure. The reports which of the church building and Ii ved in it, go home are misleading in the extreme. and refused to leave until an appeal It is not uncommon for a low-caste man was made to a superior. The appeal to agree with everything that you may was never referred to, but the man left say, and yet he believes nothing. We the church. At our Christian village, could report tens of thousands of such Panahpore, where all the people are converts, which are really not converts, Christians, they secured quite a number did we wish to do this. " Presbyterians of soldiers, and our work in all that have made the same complaint against vicinity was greatly injured. They SalvatioD workers in Guzrat, where gained the people, so the people said, also they affirm that the Army has en- by offering them support. They retered villages where they had old estab- moved to the new headquarters at Balished churches, and have divided their reilly. The War Ory rejoiced over communicants, counting as converts this as tho these were converts from those who joined them. These Pres- the heathen. As at Fyzabad. so at byterian brethren claim that great harm Bareilly, I fear many or most of these was thus dODe to their work, and that will be dropped before six months pass. the harm was greater than the good ac- Of all the converts or soldiers in Fyzacomplished. A veteran Methodist mis- bad and other Zilas referred to, I could sionary, with a third of a century of not learn of one single one from the service behind him, recognized as one heathen. They were either converts or of the most judicious, aggreil81ve, and inquirers from our church. Should charitable missionaries in all India, says they go among our t.housands of con· in a personal communication: "Three verts as they went among those of Har· years ago the Sal vstionists commenced dui and Shahjahanpore, in:lucing·weak to be prominent in native wO,rk in the persons to join them by promise of Northwest Provinces and Oudh. They help, they will accomplish a great work came to Baste ZHa,' adjoining Gonda, of destruction. ,. and had a marvelous work. The War He further says: "They are not con- Ory resounded with shouts of victory, ditioned for successful work among the and we all rejoiced with them. We heathen, because they have no separat· were very glad to have that hard field ing line. They do not require that conquered. Hundreds of converts or caste shall be given up, that persons soldiers were made. Not a year later shall be baptized, nor that there shall I met an officer and asked of that work, be any' coming out' from among the and received the reply, ' Oh, that is all heathen, except in the cases of those gone. We have withdrawn from few whom they take over to train. They do not train their converts in gen- so actively engaged so long." but felt eral. Hundreds of Europeans have "for the sake of the Army itself this been converted through their agency sort of thing should be put an end to, who have not required such special or the whole thing would evaporate training, but the raw heathen thus into statistics and parades. "
gathered will not last without it, for No attempt is made herein to deter- they do not take in the idea, much less mine all the facts in the case. If this the full work of conversion in such a is.ex parte testimony, it at least, so far meeting of an hour. Their work as the missionaries are concerned, comes among Europeans in India has doubt- from men who (1) are accustomed to less been productive of much good, tho tell the truth. (2) who twelve years ago even that seems to lack in elements of welcomed the Army to their districts, permanence. " (3) who testify to the good work it has In the matter of their recruiting from done alJlong Europeans. It is next to the "raw" heathen, as it is termed, if impossible of belief, but that the cen- the statements made on what seems to tral authorities of the Army in Great be very competent authority are true, Britain will correct such gross irregu- it is quite clear that the central authori- larities. They have already given some ties are very careless or very criminal. attention to these charges, tho it is al- Rev. T. M. Hudson, of Bombay. seems leged too much has been glossed over.
to have called the attention of General That, too, can be amended.
Booth to this matter within a year past, A far wider problem remains, What and we may therefore hope that the if any mission is possible to the Army irregularities to which we allude will among outright heathen? If they have be or are in the process of correction. admitted suddenly some tho~sands of ]l;Ir. Hudson declares that he left the heathen to the Army, it may be asked, service of the Army partly owing to have they not follOWEd Baptists and the state of his health 'and partly be- Methodists and Ch urch of England mis- cause he had come to the conclusion sionaries who did the same, substitnting "that by insensible degrees the Army the red jacket for baptism?
work in India has become a great hoI· It is the thonght of this misapprehen- low sham." He stated to General sion that chiefly .justifies this discus- Booth that perhaps not one·tenth of sion. It is not so much the question of the crowds of people which greeted, the mischief done by disregard of com- him as head of the Army in the varions ity or careless or vicious statistics of portions of India in red jackets were success that is the gravamen of this Sal vationists. He gives dates, places, case.
and names. On catechising people The Methodists in North India ad- whom he saw wearIng the red jackets mitted thousands to baptism, but they as to why they secured and wore them, were from non·Christian peoples of the they replied that they were cheap and second generation of those whom they nice. and as the men were selling them had popularly instructed in Christian for eight pice apiece,they bonght them. truths. A hundred thousand devil- This would be less than half what those worshipers were converted in South same red jackets probably cost General India in a brief period, but this followed Booth. Mr. Hudson assumes that Gen- twenty-five years of patient and almost eral Booth could not be aware of the hopeless preparatory toil; and again it extent to which this kind of operation was a quarter of a century after work existed in India. Mr. Hudson rendered was begun at Ongole before the great ten years of useful service as an officer mass movement to an outward profes- in the Army, and solemnly declares to sion of Christianity by baptism of near- General Booth that he had" no desire ly 9000 in ten days occurred. It was to pull down a work in which he was after twenty years of preparatory toil in Tinnevelly that 6000 souls were bap- fact that converts are only of the low· tized in seven months. est castes in a country like India. The It may be said that other peoples have writer of the following lilles. himself a been prepared for the initial 'lork of converted Brahman, ftnd now a profes- the Salvation Army, ready to move in sor in the BareilIy Theological Semi- mass to the profession of Christianity. nary, gives an illustration of the fact It was hoped by all missionaries that that success is not confined to low this might be true; bnt accepting the castes only. The matter is worth returns of 10,000 Army accessions as thoughtful perusaL T. J SCOTT, genuine, where these critics say they BareiZly Theological &minary.
cannot show 100, what then? Is it not affirmed by Bishop Thoburn and others "I have often heard our educated that they could baptize 100,000 a year non-Christian brethren remark in a of these" raw" heathen if they would sneering way that the success of the do so, and that they are obliged to limit spread of Christianity in India is solely the number they will accept to the ap- among the uneducated, down-trodden proximate number to whom they can masses, whereas it utterly fails among afford further instruction after they are the high caste and educated people of initiated by baptism? Otherwise they the country-. They forget that it is an will have baptized ., raw" heathen, old and long-refuted sneer unworthy who will go from them in tens of thou- of the nineteenth century, used by the sands as they came to them. Pharisees nearly nineteen hundred years The Salvation A.rmy can erect no ex- ago, when they said, 'Have any of the ception to this rule. Ar.' they prepared rulers or of the Pharisees believed on to follow up the reception of the thou- Him? But this people who knoweth sands who accept the red jacket for a not the law are cursed' (John 7; 48, farthing or for full value? If not, 'is 49). The Pharisees, however, soon not their entire result vitiated? learned how erroneous were their utter- It is doubtful if the Army has any ances when they found men like Nico- considerable mission at all to the great demus, Joseph of A.rimathrea, Saul of heathen communities until they are fur- Tarsus, and many chief rulers among nished with the apparatus of vernacu- the followers of the Nazarene, and lar training in the rudiments of Chris- their sneer was turned into animosity tian doctrine and practice, after the re- when they found the Jews of several ception of these masses into the Army. cities, such as Antioch, Lystra. Derbc, There are tens of thousands of Euro- etc., casting their lot with the Chris- peans and Eurasians to whom they may tians. It is a pity that our educated have access with the same or greater brethren who make such remarks do value as among similar classes in Great not study the facts which have been Britain, and by indirection thus greatly occurring among them for the last advance the conversion of the native forty or fifty years. Leaving aside the races. This is stoutly believed by all conversions of the highly educated gen- those best able to judge; but that they tlemen from among the respectable can secure permanent results by admis- . families, such as Rev. K. M. Banerjee, sion to the ranks of a nominal Army of D.D., LL.D., C.S.I., Rev. L. B. Day, great multitudes of heathen without Rev. R. C. Bose, :M:.A., Mr. K.. C.
provision for their Christian develop- Banerjee, LL.B., Pandit Nilkantha ment is simply unthinkable. Shastri, and a host of others, let me re- spectfully present a list of the gentle ARE CONVERTS MADE ONLY FROM men of education and high descent Low CASTES IN INDIA.-Those not who have embraced Christianity dur- friendly to mission work often sneer at ing the last fourteen or fifteen months its ill success, as they suppose, in the only, and who have come under the notice o~ the humble writer who has Kumar Vidyaratna, C.S.I., of Calcutta, not very carefully studied all such translator of the Rig Veda, the Manava cases all over India, his chief guide Dharm Shastra, and the Bhagvat Gita being the Indian Chri8tian Herald, the into Bengali, was formally readmitted Epiphany, and the Indian Witnes8, all into the Christian Church on Augnst published in Calcutta. The gentlemen 7th, 1892, after sixteen years' separa- above referred to are the following: tion from it, and his two sons and his " 1. Mr. Sri Ram, a Brahman of AI- faithful servant Ram Lall Rai, a Khe· mora. trya by caste, were baptized on the " 2. Babu Surendra Kumar Datt, same date.
Calcutta. " 21. Babu Bipin Behari Ghose, Cal- ,. 3. A Brahman who is a clerk in one cutta.
of the government offices at Rohtak. " 22. Babu Surendra Nath Ghose, " 4. Maulvi Hafiz Ahmed of Delhi. B.A., Calcutta, with his family.
"5. Mr. Gopal Vinayak Joshi, a re- " 23. Babu Nagendra Nath Sarcar, spectable Brahman of Poona. Krishnagar.
" 6. Moulvi Mirza Abdulla Beg, who ,. 24. Babu Mahendra Nath lIuker- is very learned in Arabic and Persian, jee, district engineer, Pratabgarh, with Poona. his wife and six children.
" 7. Babu Kristo Dhan Banerjee, .. 25. Mr. Lakshmi Krishna Subra- head master, Church Missionary Society manyam Iyer, Madras.
boarding.school, Calcutta, with his " 26. Raja Shiam Singha, of Tajpur, wife and four children. District Bijnour.
"8. An ex-ziladar, Baddo Mall, Sial- "27. The Bnrmese Prince, Puthoor_ kote. "Now this list, altho far from being " 9. A ziladar, Sialkote. exhaustive, decidedly lihows that Chris· " 10. Swami Achari, Tinnevelly. tianity is making good progress among .. 11. Mr. Bharatharaj Pillai, a re- our educated community.
spectable Hindu of high caste. "Farther, if the proportion of the .. 12. Mr. Mathuswami Pellay, an highly educated to the uneducated of undergraduate, Palamcottah. the country be considered, it will not " 13. The head master of the Church be too much to say that Christianity is Missionary Society middle school, making as much progress among the Tenkasy. highly educated as among the low "14. Mr. Raja Ram, B.A., assistant caste and despised people. According professor in government college, Jabal- to the last census 'returns the popUla- pur, with his wife. tion of India is 285,()00,OOO, out of "15. Babu Gyan Chandra Ghose, whom only 11,000,000 can read and honorary magistrate of Residency Cir· write-i,e., the percentage of the latter cle, Simla, Kansaripara, Calcutta, with is only about 4; how much less, then, his wife. must be the percentage of the really "16. A young Brahman, the son of educated I So even the imperfect list the civil surgeon at Bankura. given above is enough to prove the "17. A Brahman of Navadin (Nad- point.
dya), who became an ascetic at the age " Christianity is indeed spreading its of twenty-five, and practised Joga for arms, and is every year embracing and Bome twel ve years, named Satyananda elevating in social, intellectual, moral.
Nath Banerjee, better known as Sada- and religiOUS status thousands and tens nanda Swami. of thousands of the long-despised and " 18. Babu Blmalananda Nag, Dacca. down-trodden children of the soil, " 19. nr. Binal Behari Ghose, assist- whom other religions have kept en- ant surgeon, Azamgarh. chained for ages with cruel customs and "20. The learned Pandit Prasanna unequal laws to fret and die; but which candid minds will be unwilling those beautiful Hindu temples which struck Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni when to admit that this its benevolent course he invaded India." The italics are mine; but the words, let it be borne in is not for its shame, but for its glory. mind, are those of a prominent Hindu .. H. L. MUKERJEE." bistorian. This does not look much Hindu Religious Toleration, like" that wonderful reverence" which BY PROFESSOR DAVID GILMORE, RAN- Vivekananda says t.he Hindus have for "all the religions of the world." The GOON, BURMA. Rajput princes referred to above were Hindus in religion. I have recently been reading a report of a lecture on the Vedantic philosophy, It must be admitted that the Hindus delivered before the Twentieth Century bave often shown themselves tolerant, Club of Boston, by Swami Vivekananda. In this lecture Vivekananda is reo even when they had the power to perported as making some statements which show an amazing ignorance of secute. The record of Hinduism in rethe bistory of bis own country, or a spect to toleration is good. But to say great readiness to impose upon tbe ignorance of bis auditors. He says, for in· that Hindus have never persecuted Gn stance, • In India there never was, by the Hindus, any religious persecution." account of religion is false, This he claims as one of the fruits of the Vedantic philosophy. On the same occasion. Vivekananda made another statement, surprising to But what he says is not a fact. It is matter of historical record that in India one who knows anything of the history there bas been by the Hindus much reo of India. He said: "This Vedantic ligious persecution. In support of this spirit of religious liberality has very statement, I quote from" A Brief His- much affected Mohammedanism. Motory of Ancient and Modern India," by Sir Romesh Chunder Dutt. Sir Romesh hammedanism in India is quite a differis a Hfndu. an official of high pOl!ition ent thing from that in any other coununder the Government of India, a mem- try. It is only when Mohammedans ber of half a dozen learned societies, come from other countries and preach and an historian whose writings have received the bighest praise from the to them about living with men who are English press. not of their faith. that a mob rises lind lIe says, referring to the period of fights." The one reason why the Mo- Indian history which began about 750 hammedans in India do not now inter- A.D.: "This is the political history of the Dark Age of Northern India, and fere with the professors of other religwith this political revolution there was ions is, that the En/dish enforce toleraa religious revolution also. We have tion throughout all India. It is a matseen that Buddhism flourished in India side by side with Hinduism under the ter of historical record that so JOll/!, as successors of Vikramaditza. But this toleration was forgotten in the Dark they had power to persecute, the Mo- Age which followed. Sankaracharya, hammedans in Iudia did persecute. who was born in Southern India in 788, Dutt's history (for I like to quote Hindu was the most famous among the Hindu scholars who attacked Buddhism dur- authority) mentions bitter persecution ing the Dark Age wiLh remarkable suc- of the Sikhs by the Mogul emperors as cess. Circumstances favored the at- late as the first quarter of the eighteenth tacl, ; the Rajput conquerors, who had century; and even then the Mogul Emno sympathetic regard for Buddhism, and who were Ilroud to be styled Hindu pire was tottering to its fall, which took Kshatriyas. acted in cansonance with the views of Hindu priests and scholal's; place in 1761. while Clive was laying and wherever Raj put princes con- the foundation of that English Governquered. Buddhist monasteries and churches disappeared, and Hindu tem- ment which haB given the Hindus the ples rose. And by the close of the tenth century Buddhism was well·nigh fir!!t religious liberty they have enjoyed stamped out of India, and Kanonj and Mathura and other towns boasted of since the beginning of the seventeenth century. Vivekananda declales that "Bud- dhism did not really decline in India."
Dutt's statement, which I have already quoted. is historically true. .. By the close of the tenth century Buddhism was well-nigh stamped out of India."
To be sure, Buddhism has left deep and permanent traces on the religious and sodal life of India. If this is what Vivekananda meant, his statement mar be admitted; but it is not what he 18 quoted as saying, and hardly what his hearers would take him to mean. I have written this to show that Vivekananda is not to be relied on in his statements of facts. and that this unreliability must necessarily vitiate any arguments based on his facts or any vice Among Educated Bengalese," de- inferences drawn from them. scribing the especial work he has been doing among the educated young men A Revised Parliament of Religions. of India, that the influence of the Par· liament of Religions has been one of the BY REV. DANIEL B. GIFFORD, SEOUL, forms of opposition with which he has had to contend; and he mentions cases KOREA. of young men in an inquiring frame of mind who had been hardened therebJ. We have learned with a sense of sadness and unxiety that a second Parlia· On page 40 he tells in the followmg ment of Reli~ions is being projected, to words of an interesting inquirer; "But meet in 1900, in connection with the still he wavered. In a most solemn in- World's Fairin the city of Paris. I use terview with him, he told me that his the editorial" We," because I believe agony of mind had been so great that one there are others who share my senti- night he called out in his sleep to God ments. We believe that the projectors for help, A student heard his cry, and of the Parliament of Religions of 1893 learned in subsequent conversation that were Christian men of a high order, and H. was drawn to Christianity. In order that their motives are not to be im- to divert his thoughts from Christianpugned. And yet in planning for a ity and make him satisfied with Hinsecond similar gathering it does seem duism, this so-called friend handed him a as tho experience ought to teach them certain lessons. cOPl of the 'World's Parliament of RelIgions.' 'This,' said H., • was God's While from a great many points of answer to my cry for help.' He conview the Parliament of Religions of 1893 was undoubtedly most interesting and tinued, ' r see that the leading men in wonderful. from the view-point of the interests of the foreign mission cause, Europe and America poin t out truths in we believe it was an unfortunate mis- Hinduism, and praIse our religion. take. Why should I leave it ?' This young man, having grown up a Hindu, and What we principally object to is the having heard of Hinduism from Hinmanner in which the non-Chri!ltian relig- dus, had no special admiration for it. ions were presented. The picturesque, But the expurgated Hinduism of Max fascinating orators who championed Milller and the sugar-coated Hinduism their cause, unmindful of accuracy in of the Parliament of Religions attracted statement, presented a roseate view of him. In hundreds of personal intertheir religions, which, liKe Sir Edwin views with educated Bengalese I have Arnold's "Light of Asia," was very not founa one heZped by tlte Parliament good poetry. but not true to the facts. of Religions. I have found some who have been distinctly hindered by it." No opportunity being given to correct these impressions, or to answer the at- On page 52 he speaks of some of the tacks that were made upon our mis· hindrances which keep educated young sionaries, we believe that the net result Hindus from becoming Christians: of the Parliament was to discredit the " When Hinduism is left behind, many work of foreign missions in the minde paths open before the Babu. Theosoof a large part of the reading public, phy, agnosticism, atheism, and all forms who have never taken the pains to in- of skepticism open out before him. All form themselves upon the life and relig- these cults come from the West. Beions of Oriental lands; for if these non- fore the Babu accepts Christianity he Christian religions are as fair as they faces Renan, and Rousseau, and Volwere painted, missionary work in such taire, and, it may be, Ingersoll, and, lands must be ~ratuitous. worse than these, he is confronted by new Hinduism. What a temptation to Who can tell to what extent this im- turn back from inquiry to one's ancesparted impression was responsible for tral faith which receives praise from the virulence of the attacks made by a :Max Milller, and which is lauded at the large part of the secular press of Eng- World's Parliament of Religions I . _ . land and America against foreign mis· sions last summer, upon the occasion Why be baptized and cut off from all of the cowardly missionary massacre in that heart holds dear? Why be bap· China. tized and risk the loss of life or reason Nor has the impression conveyed to by being drugged? If the Holy Spirit the English·reading public in heathen were not in Christianity this religion lands been any more fortunate, for Rev. would make no headway among the Robert P. Wilder, of Student Volunteer educated classes." Such is the testifame, has stated in a little book that he mony of the young man so well known has published, entitled" Christian Ser- in all the colleges and theological semi- naries of America. Hindu Sooiety as Seen by a. mndu light of the glorious Gospel of Christ' in India: 'I beg of my Western sis- Lady. [The Gyan Patrika, a native paper of ters,' writes the Pandita, • not to be India, recently contained the following, satisfied with looking on the outside which is reproduced here at the special beauty of the grand philosophies, and solicitation of one of our corresponding not to be charmed with hearing the long editors, himself a learned and veteran and interesting discourses of our eduauthor, who accompanies the request cated men, but to open the trap-doors with the remark that" Since the Parlia- of the great monuments of ancient Hinment of Religions it has been the fash- du intellect, and enter into the dark celion in some quarters to speak too favor- lars, where they will see the real workably of Hinduism as contrasted with ings of the philosophies which they ad· Christianity. Educated representatives mire so much. . . . Let them go round of Hinduism who visited America mis- • • . the strongholds of Hinduism and , led some persons." Pandita Ramabai is seats of sacred learning, where the Maa converted Hindu lady of the Brahman hatmas and Sadhus dwell, and where caste, on whom the University of Brah- the "sublime" philosophies are daily mans, as one might phrase it, conferred taught and devoutly followed. . .. I the highest degree for learning known have . . . seen enough of those learned among them. She established and con- philosophers and possessors of superior ducts a .. widow's home" in India.- Hindu spirituality who' oppress the widows and trample the poor, ignorant, J. T. G.] The Gyan Patrika says: .. From the low-caste people under their heels.' Indian Olwistian Herald we quote part Some • have deprived the widows of of the Pandita's report, in which she their birthright to enjoy pure life and answers those who were' shocked' at lawful happiness.' Some • send out the conversion of twelve of the young hundreds of emissaries to look for widows under her case: • They are young widows, and bring them by hunmourning for these girls, for they think dreds and thousands to the sacred cities they are lost to society aud that the na- to rob them of their money and their tion has been made weak by this loss of virtue.' Some' entice the poor, ignostrength. These good people never rant women to leave their own homes to think of the thousands of young widows live in the Kshettras-i.e., holy places who are yearly led astray, and whose -and then, after robbing them of their lives are wantonly destroyed by men belongings, tempt them to yield to their like themselves. They never think of unholy desires.' Some' shut the young, mourning for them, and for the hun- helpless widows into their large 1¥Iathas dreds of innocent lives that are sacri- (monasteries), sell and hire them out to wicked men so long as they can get ficed upon the unholy altar of caste…. money, and, when the poor, miserable Men who live in open sin, daily violat- slaves are no longer pleasing to their ing the rules of morality, and who are cruel masters, they turn them out in the plagues of society, are received and hon- streets to beg thelr livelihood, to suffer the horrible consequences of sin, to carry ored everywhere in their caste; while the burden of shame, and finally to die a man following his conscience, either the death worse than toot of a starved by marrying a widow or by em- street dog I' But not a philosopher or bracing Christianity, is made an out- Mahatma bas come out boldly to cham· pion their cause and to help them. . . . cast, and persecuted.' And again, Education and philosophies are power- warning' the good men and women of less before the caste rules, ancient custhe West' against the specious repre- toms, and priesteraft. . .. They mourn over a few women who have the boldsentations of Hindu philosophy and re- ness to declare themselves as free womligion which have captivated the imagi- en, and to follow their conscience; but nation of some in America and perhaps they say nothing of the thousands who lessened their zeal for spreading' the die every year or lead shamefullives.'~
OF A HOUSE IN
FmtD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
III.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY DELAVAN L. PIEBSON.
Pa.lestine and Syria,ir The Jews,t Educa.tiona.l WorkJ PALESTINE AND THE JEWS. brew capital is playing an important part in these new enterprises. Taking Palestine is belng more and more all Palestine, there are now about 80,000 opened to the return of the Jewish na- Jews settled as residents-a greater tion, and the movement to repeople the number than at any time since the sec- Holy Land with the sons of Israel is ond century. Taking the rate of ingaining grtlat momentum. crease of the last ten years, a decade hence the Jewish population of the Holy The present Jewish population in Land will exceed a million. Prophecy Palestine has been much questioned. is being fulfilled. In 1874 Dr. Baedeker put the number at between 14,000 and 18,000. In 1894 A Jewish rabbi thus epitomizes the he gave the population in the .chief Jewish creed : towns (Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed together with Joppa) as about .. 1. I believe in God. 60,000. Adding those in the coast .. 2. I believe in reward for good and punishment for evil.
towns, it would make over 80,000 alto- "3. I believe in separating the sacred from the secular. gether. In Jerusalem there are said to .. 4. I believe in a Sabbath for man be about 15,000 Jews within the city and beast. walls, and over 20,000 more living in "5. I believe in filial devotion to parents. the so-called colonies just outside the "6. I believe in right to life and libcity walls. The number is constantly increasin~. They are building new erty. synagogues, schools and hospitals, and "7. I believe in the sanctity of mar- riage. I I 8. I believe in the rights of prop- ~etting possession of real estate in ,and erty. around the city. The new railroad from Joppa is stimulating business ac- "9. I believe in truth and· honesty. tivity. The old city is being modern- .. 10. I believe in the unselfish love of fellow-men."
ized. New streets are being laid out Compare this with the Apostles' within and outside the walls. The Creed, and you get in contrast the water supply is being improved. Fac· fundamental articles of Judaism and tories are being· established. Electric Christianity : lighting and telegraphic and tele· phonic means of communication have "I believe in God the Father AI· been introduced. In the country re- mighty .•• and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. • ., I believe in gions, too, many projects of a public the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic nature have been undertaken, and He- Cfohrugircveh~esthseocfosminms,unthioenreosfursraeicnttiso,nthoef the body, and the life everlasting." * See also pp. 776 (October) ; 911, 914 (pres. ent issue). Recent Articles: ",A Day in .Pale~ tine," Sunday Magazine (Aprll); M"MBWnS tn The Christian believes all that the Jew affirms; but he also believes, on Syria (monthly). . the evidence of Christ and His resurrect See also pp. 57 (January) ; 277, 301 (April) ; 8Sg 911 914 (present issue). .N. e~wIsBtooroykos:f "History of the jews," H. Graetz; the Je,,:- atiodni~iinne the immortality of the soul, in ish Nation," Alfred Edershe!m. Recent Art,- provision for delivering the in- dividual from the sins with which he cles' .. Israel among the Nations," Review of Reviews (January); .• The Modern Jew and the New Judaism,"Fortnightly Review (March aud has entangled himself, in a spiritual April); .. The Emancipation of the Jews," Na- communion with others, based on and tional R.view (May); .. Jewish Missions," The the expression of his spiritual character, Mission World (August): .. The Mission of Indaism," Fortni'1h.tbl Rel'ie'o (October): also and in a direct find immediate converse monthly issnes or B,blical World, Jewish Chroni- twhiethheGarotd~ speaking to and dTwheelliJnug~ain cle Jewish Herald, Jewv" World, Hebrew Ohris- of His children. tia~'nSaeendppT.he1S29eat(tFeerebdruNarayti)o;n2.08 (March); 542 ism of David and Isaiah beheved thIS, but the present-day rabbis make no (July); 829, 841 (November); 90(, 9'~ (present mention of any of it in their creed. 188110), ..
DEl'ARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Outlook. horrors, for which his policy will large- ly be held responsible. The very jour- It must be acknowledged with sad- nals which contained the news of the ness that the outlook generally at the late massacres on the Bosphorus reportclose of this year 1896 is by no means ed the death of this leading Muscovite. encouraging and inspiring. Clouds hover over most of the political and The destruction of 5000 Armenians in even ecclesiastical landscape, and we the very streets of Constantinople was have to seek relief from the gloom in due incidentally to that most daring the sovereignty of God. seizure of the Ottoman Bank by twenty- five Armenian dynamiters. As tho the Near home, Cuba is in a state of re- extermination of the whole Armenian volt. About 150,000 Spanish troops people had been decreed, the women ana occupy the island-said to be the largest children were spared in this butchery; military force ever yet transported to but the carnage of men was such that, such a distance in any war-and yet as Professor W. M. Ramsay phrases it, even this vast force proves unequal to u the scheme was deliberately carried the emergency, tho it costs Spain well out to ensure that no Armenian woman on toward $5,000,000 every month; and the diseases peculiar to tropical climates over a large tract of country should beare proving allies to the insurgent forces in fast 'reducing the number of available come the mother of an Armenian child. " Spanish soldiers. General Weyler's ad- Professor Ramsay has drawn a parallel ministration has awakened much hostile between the massacre sanctioned by Diocriticism; and one of his most absurd cletian and that sanctioned by the Suland tyrannical acts has been to decree tan, conclnsively showing that the latthat Spanish paper money shall be ac- ter is the worse. He refers to a people cepted as the equivalent for gold, which deliberately burned alive by thousands, commands a premium of 12 per cent. killed by famine, nakedness, and cold The new bank bills are without secu- in tens of thousands, and adds-as to rity, and $3,000,000 were in circula- the enormity just referred to, whereby tion in October, and a further issue of the natural multiplication of the Arme- $10,000,000 was decreed. The efl'ect nian family is deliberately prevented- that it is such as never before entered was a paralysis of trade, as retailers into the mind of man to devise. And- he adds, in view of the horrors of wincould not induce wholesalers to sell at ter among such a people, naked and any price if obliged to accept such cur- starving, that if we are not going to inrency in payment-a very significant terpose in their behalf and deliver them lesson just now for the ad vocates of free out of peril, " it is well to kill them outsilver in the United States to consider. right. " Independent of Cuba, Spain has her hands full in the Philippine Islands and Turning to Africa, the sudden decease at Madrid; the seeds of revolution are of Sultan Halim, of Zanzibar, in August, liable at any time to ripen into a reign was the occasion of a usurper's seizing of terror. the palace and proclaIming llimseif Sul- tan. This pretender was KhaJid, a The grave aspect of the Turkish ques- nephew of the dead man; and, Engtion continues to absorb attention. It land being responsible for Zanzibar, is a curious if not significant fact that British guns brought him to terms, and Prince Lobanofl', who held the portfolio Hamoud. the late Sultan's brother, was of the Foreign Office in Russia, should made his successor. die at the very time of the Armenian Meanwhile, the Kongo Free State con· tillll"S to disgrace history by a misman- would be very dangerou~ for us to re· agement and even cruelty of adminis- main in our houses at all. Even as it is, we have to take special precautions, tration seldom paralleled. at night in particular, to be ready for any sudden attack in the dark. In case In Madagascar, A.narchy reigns. Out- of any alarm the soldiers would hasten down to our assistance at once. side of the limits of French rule there H But I am more anxious for the na- has been a series of organized acts of tives than for ourselves, especially for those placed in responsible positions by robbery and violence. Three hundred the Government. The native Governor or four hundred churches have been of Ambohimanga is between two fires.
burned and many church officials put If he does his duty and reports persons to death. A mixed multitude of law- whom he has reason to suspect, he earns the hatred of his own conntryless Malagasy, aboriginal savages, who men. If he refrains from so doing, he blindly hate civilization, and malicious- endangers his head to the French. It ly hate foreigners and missionaries, have is rumored that our resident general i8 to joined disbanded troops of the queen's be removed and a military man sent in his place. He is accused of being too army in these acts of nameless violen!;e. kind to the natives and also to the Eng- They come suddenly upon a Christian lish, and we hear that a representation village and compel the inhabitants to was sent to the President of the Repnb- submit or die, and whichever way they lic, signed by all the Flench citizens in Antananarivo, requesting his with· decide, their property is at the mercy of drawal." these robbers. French occupation has broken up the native police force and Another writes from Antananarivo, military control, but has not yet given the :Malagasy any substitute for former June 1st: " At present we have a very trouble- some time out here. The people are re- fairly good government. belling against the French in several places and murdering many Europeans.
It is not only a rebellion against the A missionary in Madagascar writes French authorities, but also a rising to The Okri8t~'an that he bas" a class for against Christianity.· The old idols are French soldiers, and about twenty-four restored, the churches burned, and mis- out of forty attend, and sometimes the sionaries, as well as their faithful adhe- officer in charge when not prevented rents, persecuted and killed. Churches by other occupation. The class is nomi- and school-houses are burned, Bibles nally for teaching them Malagasy; but and other books destroyed. the chief text-boDk is the Go~pel of " Our mission in the North Detsileo L:rke, of which there are copies both has had a very severe loss. One of our in French and Malagasy. They read best stations has been altogether de- from tile latter, and talk about it in stroyed; and at another, Antsirabe, French. Sometimes one gets a little many valuable houses have been ruined.
talk with one and another of the men, The station that has been ruined is all of whom are quite young fellows. called Toharano. All the churches be- So far they have behaved very well, and longing to these stations (altogether 75), rem'lin in favor with the people. with three or fonr exceptions, have " It is a very sad time for the }<Iala- been burned. At Antsirabe, we had a gasy Christians, especially the country hospital, a sanatorium, and a leper preachers, teachers, and evangelists, home, with 300 lepers in about 60 now. They are the special objects of houses. In the leper village there was hatred and persecution by the insur- also a church and a little hospital. All gents, and many have had to flee for these buildings, as well as the doctor's their lives; one young teacher in this dwelling·house, have been destroyed.
district, a faithful Christian, gave up " By God's great mercy all our mis- his life rather than deny Christ. The sionaries and their families have been ruffian3 first shot and then beheaded saved from a cruel death. But for him, and refused to let his body be three days and two nights, 2 missiona- gi ven to his friends for burial. ries, 16 ladies, and 9 children belonging .. Several evangelists have had their to the mission were in the greatest dan- property looted and their houses burned ger, besieged by many thousands of either by the insurgents or by the sol- cruel men, who thirsted after their diers sent out to quell the rebellion. blood. All these friends were together But for 'he presence of the garrison it in the mission-house at Antsirahe, along with 4 Frenchmen and some native dependent forms of mission enterprise militia. The 4 Frenchmen were the which distinctly espouse the faith prinmeans of saving their lives. In the last ciple, depending on no appeals and moment the resident and the governor· looking direct to God for help, seem to general came and saved them all. Ter. be going straight on. rible destruction has been done. The The fact is that debt paying in mismission has lost propertI worth £5000 sion work is never popular. The to £6000. In those terflble two days, churches give grudgingly and meagerwhen we thought our friends at Ant· ly, The effort made last year by the sir!lbe were burned alive, it was difficult to have faith and hope. But the sym· pathv shown us was a great consola· tion.h Presbyterians secured little more than one third of the Million Dallal' Fund ask- On Sunday, October 11th, the Chris· ed for to free the boards of the Church tian Missionary Alliance marked another of burdens. The Methodist Ohurch advance in gifts for missions. In Au· appointed a debt-paying day at the gust, at Old Orchard, $101,500 was sub· close of the General Conference-Sab.
scribed, the la.rgest amount ever taken bath. Jnly 25th-for general contribu- up at a single meeting. On Sunday tions to the burdened Missionary So- morning pledges were received for ciety, whose indebtedness at the begin- $122,000.. D. L. Moody was present at ning of the fiscal year was $220,000.
the service, but the large gifts were in The special collection brought only rQsponse to the appeal of the Rev. A. B. $32,000, only one church in five appar- Simpson, pastor of the Gospel Taber· ently paying any heed to the day.
nacle, Eighth Avenue near Forty·fourth It becomes increasingly apparent that Street. Last year the Alliance had an something is wrong-perhaps many income of $140,000 and sustained 300 things are wrong in our church life.
miasionaries in the foreign field. Next And with the new year we hope to be- year the income promises to be $250,000, gin a brief series of articles on the great and there will be a corresponding ex- spiritual movements of the latter quar- tension of the work. ter century, both in Britain and the While the denominational boards are United States, which indicate that God half paralyzed by debt. and frantic ap· is leading llS to new emphasis on holiness peals for help seem met with semi-in- and prayer. The fact is, there is no sure difference, this man, calmly resting on basis of permanent mission work except God and trusting in Him, single hand- in a higher standard of piety which ed, and with no denomination behind identifies us with our Lord and makes him, receives a quarter of a million of passion for souls and consecrated giv- dollars to carryon the work, and all ing a natural part of holy living.
from volunteer gifts I We happen to To say that the Christian Church know the cheerful self·denial accepted cannot give more than $12.000,000 a by many of these givers. One poor year to missions is the worst sort of mechanic moved into a flat and reduced lying. The income of the 15,000,000 his family expenses by $1000 in vari· church-members in the United States ous ways that he might give that and Canada is estimated to be at least amount, etc. $2.250,000,000 a year. Yet out of this Almost the only regular" board" of vast sum, only one jour hundredth part which we know as !laving kept out of gets to the mi8sion field! It is so in Brit- debt and beyond need of retrenchment is ain, only tbat the wealth is not so evenly the Church Missionary Society, 63 of distributed; there are fcwer people who whose miisionaries serve it without have a handsome competency, among pay. But the Ohina Inland Mission. those who would not be called very the Missionary Alliance. the George wealthy. Taking the nearly 50,000.000 MUller mission work, and all these in- Protestant Church-members in the whole world, there is no doubt that, not calcu- gether with numerous other Southern lating the vast estates and capital repre- schools and colleges. Ten thousand sented, the income alone of this vast dollars were contributed at the jubilee b)dy averages $300 a year for each in- gathering to decrease the debt, which dividual, which aggregates the immense now amounts to $56,000. sum of fifteen tlwusand millions yearly!
So that the amount actually given to The committee appointed by the miRsions among the heathen is but one Conference of Missionary Secretaries of dollar in twelve hundred and fifty! America to plan for an ecumenical Meanwhile, the Fiji Islanders gave last missionary conference suggests that year $25,000, themselves just emerging the conference be held in New York from cannibalism and heathenism. City, April, 1900. Such a gathering should be heartily supported, and will A friend from Manchester. England- doubtless greatly promote missionary writes: interest and elficiency.
" In presence of the miserably small The latest contribution which has aggregate of British money contribu- reached us for the Armeniansufferers tions to missions, I am persuaded that is $10, collected by a child in Denver, what we need on this side the water is Col., and forwarded by Mr. O. E. rather a stimulus to practical concrete Taussig. obedience of Christ's commands (John 15 : 10; Acts 5: 32 [last clause]; Ps. Rev. Richard Burgess, who has for 19 : 11 [last clause]; Mal. 3: 10-12) some years acted as honorary organizthan exhartations to abstract hoUness ; ing secretary of the International Bible and I incline to think that a series of Reading Association (1. B. R. A.) for a,ldresses in something like the follow- Wales, has sailed for India, and has by ing order would both do great good to this time reached that land of his aspiraindividual Christians and at the same tion. In the recent tour of Wales by the time rally everywhere the chief pro- editor-in-chief, for the purpose of promJters of mission work. moting spiritual life and missionary zeal, Mr. Burgess acted as local secre- " The first one, say, a powcrful de- tary, and was most elficient and helpful. feme of Scripture. Next, an address He is a man of rare devotion to Christ, displaying the glorious blessings we sound in faith and earnest in work. have individually received through He is humble and Imbued with passion these Scripture certainties about Christ for souls. It is safe to predict for him and God, and our consequent resistless a wide service as the successor to the obligation to extend them to others still late Dr. J. L. Phillips. in spiritual slavery. 'Freely ye have received, freely give.' After that, one The tenacity and persistency of lying sholving what missions have done with and misrepresentation are amazing. relatively insignificant resources, and We find in the Detroit Journal of July how many charming fields white unto 20th the following paragraphs: harvest are, morally speaking, rotting fi)r want of laborers to reap them. Last- " Efforts of Christian missionaries to lV, one on ' 'rile Secret of Giving' (con- convert the natives of India are wasted, secration of income and the scriptural according to the testimony of Arthur prirlCiple and method [1 Cor. 16 : 2] of G. Bristow, of A~sam, India, who was storing). " at the Hotel Cadillac yesterday. Mr. Bristow is connected with a large India The American Missionary Associa- tea garden, and says that during his three years' stay at Assam he has never tion. which has recently held its fifti- known of a gennine conversion of a na- tive. The natives, he says, are too eth anniversary in Boston, has done a grand work among the so-called" de- spised races" of the United States-the negroes, Indians, " mountain whites,"
Eskimos, and Chinese. This society, besides many other noble enterprises, has organized Hampton Institute, How- I;trd, Fisk, and Atlanta universities, towell satisfied with their own religion. Indians in 1672-73 ; and others went to Many profess a liking for the Christian religion in order to secure presents of Australia, China, and other parts of the clothing, articles of food, and money. world. But the ti:ue came for organ. " • The missionaries in India have a ized effort, and lately, in the city of pleasant time, • he said. 'They do very little work, and they can and do live Darlington, the first Foreign lfissioneasily on the funds sent them from Eng· land and America. Of course there are ary Conference of this society was held. a few men and women among them who are really in earnest and are zeal- Over four hundred delegates were pres· ous in their work; bnt even these the natives impose upon, get their money, ent, and Sir Theodore Fry 6tated that but do not actually become converts of the Christian religion. Generally, the there were now 75 missionaries in the natives regard the missionaries as fanatics.' tJ field, or about 1 for every 213 of their Mr. Bristow is to us a stranger; but whole membership, and an income of such statements as he makes have been contradicted and shown to be utterly $60,000 is assured. The Society of and maliciously false so often that one is amazed at their repetition ; and we can Friends is particularly interested in the only suppose, in charity, that in this case these misrepresentations are sec- growth of the kingdom of God in Madond-hand, and that Mr. Bristow has spoken without adequate personal in- agascar, from which place many cheervestigation, depending too much on others' reports. How any man can ing reports were presented, altho the spend three years in any part Of India and not see signs of the deep and radi- island is in a very bad state.. cal transformation of native life by the Gospel it is hard to understand. But We ,make a few extracts from the from the days of Carey till now only one thing has been more wonderful than Student Volunteer.- the transformations wrought in nati ve converts; and that greater wonder is " The record of Student Volunteer the stupidity aud blindness of those progress all round t.he world continues.' who, confronted with these miracles of Mr. Donald Fraser's account of the grace, do not see them. A woman, after springing, up of the continental moveeighteen months' stay in the Japan- ments, and the touching testimonies of ese capital, reported that missions were our foreign brothers to the work a failure; that she had resided opposite wrought in them and through them by the mission chapel for a year and a half, means of the Liverpool Conference, and never saw a Japanese enter it. must give us a mighty confidence in And yet, never having entered herself, our God. 8till more thrilling is the she did not know that it was a chapel news received from India of the first for English-speaking residents only! regularly organized Volunteer Move- ment in a mission land. It is in teresting to note the prog· ress of missionary enterprise among the " • Make Jesus King,' the report of the Friends, who have now lJeen active in Liverpool Conference, is now to be obthe mission field for thirty years. The tained at the office, 93 Aldersgate Street, individual effort of Friends in world- London, E. C., England. One or two wide evangelization dates back to the serions errors have crept into the text. time when George Fox spent twenty It should be noted (p. 206) that the area months in preaching to the American of Africa is not 120,000,000 square miles, but 12,000,000, and tile number of mis- sionaries required on Mr. Pilkington's plan is not 120,000, but 12,000. Lower down on the same page, not one, but at least two Europeans are needed to super· intend every 100 native workers; and again, the population of 10,000,000 is not in Uganda, but in an area compris· ing 200 miles radius all round Uganda. In the report of Miss Guinness's address on page 220, in her remarks on Brazil, 116 mi8sionm'ies to a population of 16,- 000,000 should be read instead of 2 mis- siona1'Ws.' , The best known of the late Baron de Hirsch's benefactions are said, by Mr.
Oscar S. Straus, in the }!1Yrum, to amount to nearly $22,000,000. This is an enormous sum for any individual to Weare very glad to publish a corr<~c· give in charity, yet there are several tion from a writer in the May number men or estates in America and Europe of this REVIEW. He says: that could make equally large gifts t. I regret exceedingly that I was led without in the least altering their finan- by deep couviction of the truth of my cial standing or diminishing one iota position in regard to Mr. L. D. Wish- the sums they are able to expend upon ard's book, • A New Plan in Missions,' to accept too readily as corroborating their own personal indulgence or the enjoyment of their families. The most evidence what has now turned out to be not grounded in fact. I refer to my lavish personal expenditures possible by remarks, published in your May num- any individual, provided he does not ber, concerning the Meiji Gakuin, of Tokyo, Japan, which were included in gamble, must fall far below the reve- a criticism of the above bOOk, I have nues of many existing fortunes, despite been informed by Rev. E. P. Miller, the most frantic and reckless extrava- D.D., of Morioka, Japan, concerning gance. Multi· millionaires, and, indeed, the work and status of that institution. He savs: • From the catalogue which I every conscientious Christian, may profitably read the last chapter of 1 Chroni· forward you, you may see that in- stead of but 12 students dnring the last cles in this connection. ten years, there have been 94 gradu- ated. You may further see that of this The general director of the Gospel number (including two who did not finish their full course, but who have Union, Kansas City, sailed for Guaya- since become pastors) there are now quil, Ecuador June 20th, due there 8 pastors, 11 ministers (many of whom about July 5th. With him went :Mr. are acting as pastors, but are not in- J. A. Strain, of Kansas, and Mr. F. U. stalled over churches), 51 evangelists, Farnol, or Michigan, who purpose to 2 professors in Christian girls' schools, give their lives to the work there. It is 1 head of an orphan asylum, and 19 Mr. Fisher's purpose to assist in locat- who are marked" not certain" either ing the mission and then return to this as to their whereabouts or their present country in the fall, at which time occupation, besides 4 who have died Messrs. Strain and Farnol's families are since. graduation. All which may be expecting to go out to them, accom- considered a fair showing for a Chris- panied by a party of several mission- tian missionary institution of no greater aries, looking to God alone for support. maturity than the Meiji Gakuin. In Ecuador has heretofore been closed to reference to graduates who have gone Protestant missionaries. There are over to the Unitarians, as far as we movements now on foot there, how- know Mr. Satori Kato is the only grad· ever., led as they believe by God, look- uate who has joined that body, and, as ing toward religious liberty. In the is well known, he has since returned to late elections the liberal party is report- our body.' ed victorious over the clericals, and a .. Mr. Miller also denies in particular convention was called to meet at Quito, the statement made about the school August 10th, to take measures for the started by • a bright, consecrated· opening up of the country and religious young professor of the Meiji Gakuin,'
liberty. The minister from Ecuador, claiming that it was not started as a at Washingt<>n, has been very kind, protest against the unorthodoxy of the giving Mr. Fisher a letter to the presi. profes~ors in the theological department dent of the republic and in other ways. of the Meiji Gakuin, but rather by • the The work of the Gospel Union in 1Ho- pastors in the city of Tokyo after con- rocco is being blessed of God in a re- sultation with the cooperating missions, markable manner. when certain changes in the curriculum of the theological department of the God's mathematics are not man's. Meiji Gakuin were made, for the special purpose of training men who were U One of 'you shall chase a thousand, somewhat advanced fn life and were and two put-not two thousand but- not prepared to take the full theologi- ten thousand to flight." Again, in dis- cal course in the Meiji Gakuin.' Also tribution of barley loaves, as man sub- Mr. Miller says: • The number of stu- dents graduated from it [the Bible tracted, He added; as man divided, school for evangelists referred to in my He multiplied; and as man decreased article] is as follows: In 1890, 11; by giving, He increased for giving, 1891, 3; 1892, 2; 1893, 1; 1894, 2; 1895, 2. The present number of stu- of the Armenian quarters were perfect· dents is 5.' ly safe, and have escaped untouched; notably that where the Sultan's newly .. I willingly hasten to communicate appointed Armenian patriarchal locum these corrections of the parts of my arti- tenens lives, Mgr. Bartholomew. Bnt cle referred to, and to eltpress my sin- in other regions the storm was so fierce cere regret that I was not more careful that hardly a single man escaped alive. to avoid doing the injustice to the Meiji Notable instances were the towns or Gakuin that I have done. quarters of Psamalia and Hasskeuy, and the shores of the Golden Horn in .. Yours truly, general. Slaughter and pillage there .. E. H. JONES." continued from Wednesday afternoon till Thursday evening at half past eight, SENDAI, JAPAN, June 18, 1896. and then the work stopped as if by magic. The secret of this was discov· Letter from Oonstantinople. ered the neltt day. The six ambassa· dors had met at their summer resi· The following letter, written Septem- dences, and had sent thence a joint tele- gram, couched in very E.trong terms, ber 8th, 1896, has come from a personal direct to the palace of Yildiz, that these affairs must stop at once. No sooner friend of the editor, and is, for obvious bad the telegram reached the Sultan than the whole massacre was at an end. reasons, published without the signa· These various facts-the SUdden stop, the attitude of the soldiers and police, ture of the writer. It conveys impor- the quarters that were spared, and other indications-leave no doubt that the – tant and trustworthy intelligence. massacre was by order of the Sultan and controlled by him. This unanimity .. The events of the past few days of opinion may make unity of action here have doubtless been dealt with at easier. But large bodies move slowly, some length by the American press, but and the action (or, rather, inaction) of I doubt whether the attention they de· the powers thus far does not promise serve has been paid them, for of course much for the future. the political campaign there attracts and holds all attention, so far as con· " As to the number of dead, no accu· cerns the mass of the people. rate figures can be glven, at least for a long time; for some counted as dead .. For some months this city and vicino will be turning up after their time of ity have been quiet but for the little flur- hiding, and others, whose friends now ry caused by the deposition of the Patri· hope they have fied, will never return. arch, Mgr. Ismirlian. But threats had A conservative estimate a few days ago been heard on the part of the Armenian put the number at 2500 or over; this revolutionists that they were going to was soon raised to 4000, while tbe Gerstrike another blow soon, and that in man Embassy, we understand, thinks the capital. For a day or so previous the true figure will be nearer to 6000. to the capture of the Ottoman Bank the It is, of course, impossible for anyone Armenians knew that something was at the distance of America to form any coming. I myself was informed that idea of what that really means, and of very Wednesday morning that bombs how awful the carnage has been. The were to be thrown and the troops at- whole Armenian population is ~Iill in tacked on that day. But we did not feel terror a week after the outbreak, and certain that this was to take place. they will of course be so for many However. at one o'clock that afternoon weeks to come. No business goes on (August 26th) the trouble began. Thfl among them; their shops are still almoRt revolutionists, by a well-planned and entirely closed, and the prospect is vcry rapid attack, got possession of the Ot- drear. What is to be done? So mnny toman Bank Building, while other bands times have words of reassurance served from other points did much the same to bring back the trembling Armenians, thing on a smaller scale; there were sev- only that another massacre may put eral simultaneous sieges and pitched bat- them out of the way, that now who tles with the troops. . " Significant is to restore confidence? Last year's as it may be, in this as in every other massacre killed off 250 men, according instance of a revolutionary plot, the to the best calculation; this one seems leaders have been Hussians. Russia to be 2000 per cent. worse. The quesis the home of nihilism. As these false tion is, What is to prevent another with· patriots eltpected, their dastardly daring excited both government and mob, and in another year as much worse again ? the horrid work began.
.. In most quarters the soldiers merely stood by and watched. keeping foreigners at a safe distance from the mob. Sometimes they pitched in and helped the mob to kill and plunder. Certain "Foreigners and foreign property METLAKAHTLA, ALASKA, were in general left alone last week, as in September 11, 1896.
the previous outbreak, but not so com- Editor of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF pletely. The house of the American THE WORLD.
Board Mission at HaBskeuy was pillaged 1. When I read your books "The of everything. furniture and all, tho for- Acts of the Holy Spirit" and "The tunately the ladies who occupy it were New Acts of the Apostles" I determined away for the summer and escaped death. to ask Mr. Duncan how he came to en- Their servant, however, is missing- ter the missionary work. He said that probably he is dead. And several busi- when he was a young man-twenty- ness offices of British residents were three years of age-he went to his broken into and completely destroyed church one night when the regular ser- in the search for insurgents and arms vice was omitted and a missionary oc- supposed to be hidden there_ This is cupied the time. While listening to not quite the time, perhaps, for demands him he thought, Why could not I go 1 to be made for indemnity, but the Hass- And the thought came to him the next keuy property will come under the same day, and that evening he called on his category with that in Marash and Har- pastor and told him what he had thought poot, for which as yet not even a prom- of. The tears came into the minister's ise of indemnity has been secured by eyes, and he said, ,. William, I was look- the United States. Is our country going ing right at you while that man was to stand such destruction of the prop- speaking and asking the Lord to put it ertv of its citizens and not act vigorous- into into your heart to go." The min- ly 1 Why does France receive indem- ister urged him to at once offer himself nity and not the larger republic 1 to the Church Missionary Suciety of " In some cases the troops and police London, England, and the next day he did good service in restraining the wrote a letter to the secretarv of the so- mob; the only ri.Jason why the Bible ciety, and that night went again to see House was not sacked and its employees his pastor, who approved the letter and all killed wa.s probably, under God, the also wrote himself to the secretary_ presence and vigorous action of a sq uad Next morning, as Mr. Duncan started of cavalry, and later of a guard of sol- down street to his place of business, diers, sent there by request of Mr. Ter- some one hailed him and asked him if rell. Both this building and the Amer- he had heard the news. He asked, ican College for girls, in Scutari, and " What 1" and he replied, " Your pas- Robert College, as well as many other tor died last night." This and other foreign buildings, are at present under circumstances so impressed him that he military guard, and are thus supposed was led to go first for three years, then to be protected from danger. But one for ten, and now he has been here forty cannot but ask the question, What is years!
the source of danger, if not these very 2. The conditions that made possible soldiers 1 And again, our trust is with- the industrial feature of Mr. Duncan's out any other foundation than God and work are somewhat (perhaps) peculiar His goodness. When even the decima- to Alaska-viz., (1) a very large terri- tion of the Armenians at the capital does tory sparsely settled and abounding in not move Europe to action, what is to resources; (2) a people willing to work. prevent another wholesale butchery in While this is, compared with the work other places more remote from their of spreading the Gospel, comparatively eyes 1" unimportant, yet it enters into the thoughts and calculations of many very good people. To illustrate what I mean, I will take a single instance Mr. Duncan, who is at the head of (there are very many more). There is the well-known" Metlakahtla," among an Indian village fifty miles from here (Kassan, near the center of the east side the Indians in Alaska, was requestcd to of Prince of Wales Island) w here there write an article for the REVIEW. He is is a resident population of about one hundred, and a floatln~ population of very much opposed to appearing in about as many more. They have never print and too busy to write anything. had the Gospel or Ii school, or any help But Dr. H. J. Minthorn has written a (at their home) In the way of Christian- letter, which we venture to publish, as ity, educlltion, or other . helpful influ- ences. Yet they have resources that, it contains some things about this work with some help, such as has been given which ought to be widely known. to these people by Mr. Duncan, would He says: enable everything to be self-supporting just as they are here-that is, the church Rev, A. Merensky writes from Ber- lin: and school both supported by the leo· pIe without outside help. The IndIans "The old Berlin Missionary Society who fished for the canneries this sum- (Berlin I.) bas recently published her an· mer averaged nearly $4.00 each. An nual report for 1895. The society has able-bodied young man without much a staff of 82 missionaries of whom 8 if any capital could go to Kassan rent are working in China and '72 in Africa Besides those European workers sbe ha~ an Indian house, start a school: and preach the Gospel, and during the in her .employ 164 native agents, and months of June. July, and August could 463 natIve helpers who receive no pay- fish with the Indians, and make $300 or ment or remuneration whatever. Many $a4n0d0b, earnrdieaslesonosuecguhretodrkieeedpfihsih~ fvaemniisloyn~ of those natives, especially in Africa year. Of course it would be still better have been true supporters of the work for him if he had enough capital to equip and true servants of Christ for a period a small store, and still better if he could of twenty or thirty Ylars or cven more, put up a cannery. as Mr. Duncan has. and have been a very source of blessing It would also be much better for the for their countrymen. And the whole Indians, as it would keep them at home work of the society has been blessed in and save them great expense and ex- the past year abundantly. In 1llis year posure in going thirty or fifty miles to 683 adults were admitted to baptism a cannery or store. There are many and in South Africa there were 1407 such places, and they are being occu- men and women under instruction UH pied by men who are no help to the inquirers and candidates for baptihlll.
Indians, but a curse to them. Still bet- Not less than 5285 children are visiting ter, if it were possible, would it be to the schools every day. The whole d pu.t a missionary and store and cannery the Christians under care of the society (or other industrial establishment) at numbers 27,497 souls in Africa and 818 every aIndcoiaonpevrailtliavgecsyisntemAloafskba~yainngd in China. adopt "The society has occupied two new goods of manufacturers and selling the fields since 1895. It has sent missiona- products of the industrial enterprises to ries from Transvaal to Mashonaland the best ad vantage; also, in the near where they have occupied two stations: future, when Alaska comes into the and find that the Mashonas are prepared Union as a Territory or State, they could everywhere to receive missionaries and cooperate in getting the right kind of a to listen to the preaching of tehveanGgeolsipsetl~ so that the itinerant nati ve constitution providing for education are much encouraged; but the wars and protection from evil influences. have put a stop to the work and the But right now, to-day, a young man missionaries have suffered a good deal and wife (many such) need not fear to from fever. come to Alaska as missionaries so far as " The second new field is in the north their support is coornpcreorsnpeed~teovfenouwtsiitdheout much capital end of Lake Nyassa among the Konde help, and their prospects in life will be p.eople. There are lahoring 9 missiona- as good here as the average in the rIes, of whom 5 are married, on 5 sta- United States. tions. The language of the people is reduced to writing; the gospels of Luke The Cross-Bearers' Missionary Read- and Matthew are translated and in all the stations the Gospel is pre;ched by de- ing Circle gives as its" literature for voted men in the language of the coun- 1896-97" : try. All these Berlin stations are situ- • 1. ~iographical: "Life of John Will- ated in the eathseterwn epsatertrnofpaKrotsndoeflanthd~ whereas in Iams, 75 cents, Rev. James J. Ellis' country the Moravians have 3 stations "Life of John Livingston Nevius ,: and 1 farther north in Utengule the $2, Helen S. Coan Nevius. 2. Medi- capital of Merere, a great potent;te of cal: "Medical Missions," $1.50, John this part of Africa. The course of the Lowe, F.R.C.S.E. D3u. f f ,E"d$u1c.aGt ieoonragl~' Gospel is spreading. Within five years " L,ife of Alexander 9 stations were occupied in this remote SmIth. LL.D. 4. Periodical: THE part of Africa, and a well·organized llIsSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD work is carried on among a people that $E1d.i9t0o,r.nev. Arthur T. Pierson' D.D. ,' was scarcely mentioned in the world be- fore. And it is very gratifying to hear Membership fee, 50 cent!!. that everywhere the people are willing For further information, apply to to/listen, whereas in some places more Rev. M. L. Gray, President C. M. R. C., than that could be observed. There are St. Louis, Mo. some beautiful villages of the chief Muankenga situated on the banks of uates in the ministry, and 2500 other the Bufira River, in the midst of luxu· men who have studied for one or two rious banana groves. There are living years in theological seminaries, and are the natives on a comparatively high now preaching; there are 65 dentists standard of African life, in clean homes and 65 pharmacists. There are 200 among plenty of food a~d African luX;' newspapers and 4 magazines edited by uries. They are poor, Ignorant, destI- colored men. In 1892 the colored peo· tute heathen, but they are eager to pIe contributed $300,000 for educahear. One of the missionaries could tion, and paid taxes on property valued scarcely find rest when he was stopping at $274,000,000. One hundred books there on a journey. His listeners wanted on poetry, biography. religion, science, to hear more, even late in the night, and general literature have been writabout the relation of men to God, and ten by colored men; essays, poems, and when the missionary retired they told him other articles have been published in the he would not have time to sleep long, leading magazines of the country. Four and really they made him rise at a very banks and 37 building and loan associaearly hour because they wanted to tions are also conducted by them. hear how they could become children of Glld. Aud Rev. C. Nauhaus, who The Church should not give oecasion visited the same place in the beginning to such criticism as appeared lately in of this year, writes in the course of one the Forum. A writer, with stinging afternoon some 1000 people heard the sarcasm, teIls us that the American G')spel ; even late in the evening some 600 people w.ere assembled around him iuquiring and listening in a way that inspires us with bright hope for the fu· ture."
The Presbyterian Church of Queens- churches are prolific in novelties; that land is extending her missions to the they have such unheard-of things as Kanakas in the Mackay district, Queens- "the clam-bake sociable, the strawland, and asks for an additional mis· berry sociable, the pink tea, and the sionary, who will attend to the Poly- broom drill." A Baptist Church in nesians on the north side of the Pioneer New Jersey had a successful" poverty River, Mackav-the present mission- sociable," at which, apparently, its ary: the Rev. Mr. lVI'Iutyre, henceforth members appeared in cast-off rags. confining his labors to the south side of The Baptists of another city had a war that river. In this way, it is hoped concert; the Universalists, a lawn fete ; that the whole .population from the the Free-Will Baptists, a chocolate drill ; South Seas in the district will be the Congregationalists, a Jarley waxreached. work show; the Swedenborgians, a May·pole frolic; the Episcopalians, a At the close of the war there were in rofe chantant; and the Zion Church, a the United States only three colored cake walk. "Such follies seem alto- physicians; now there are about 800. gether incredible, and we feel sure that Then there were only two colored law- all lovers of pure and undefiled religion yers ; now there are 300. Then there will regard them with horror and con- were no colored teachers, now there are tempt. Such innovations as these work 2041 in Virginia alone, and of these 1130 incalculable havoc-they disgust the are women, receiving on the average simple-minded, they degrade those who $26.86 per month. It was then against patronize them, they discredit the the law in many of the Southern States Church, and they bring Christianity to teach a colored person how to read; into disrepute. A return to primitive now there are more than 25,000 colored Christianity would make short work of teachers in the South. Since then more these questionable expedients, would than 2,500,000 have learned to read and meail the purging of the temple, and write, and about 1,500,000 are now in that temple would once more become the public schools. There are 57 colored· the synonym of simplicity, beauty, and college presidents, 500 theological grad- purity. "
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED :BY lI:EV. D. L. LEONAlID.
Extracts and Translations from Foreign gate of death as joyous as a bird into a Periodicals. pleasant grove.' His words and de- meanor witnessed before the countless BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, throng, which was present at the mar~ tyrdom, of peace of heart and gladness MASS. of mind. "-IJansk Mi8sions-Blad.
CHINA. -We observe, in the Chronicle, an obituary notice of William Lockhart, -Dr. EDKINS, writing in the Ohi- F.R.C.S" first Protestant medical nlisn88e Recorder for last November, re- sionary to China. He returned to Great marks that the }fohammedans in China Britain in 1867. He had been nearly seem more inclined to make common thirty years in China. cause with the Christians againlst polytheism and idolatry than to oppose' -It appears that in Korea, until latethem. They have also the sense 01 ly, a widow was not permitted to marry community in the fact that they, too; a second husband, except of inferior profess a Western religion. Of course, rank. Classes are sharply divided as Moslems, they are bound to be hor- there, so that this restriction was a serirified at the vile attacks made on Jesus, ous disadvantage. Under the influence whom they acknowledge as the Word of Japan, however, this usage has been and Spirit of God, and the Messiah by abrogated. Women in Korea stand sosome of the literati, by whom, as Dr. cially high, higher apparently than evel! Edkins remarks, they too are scornfully in Japan, much higher than in China_ regarded. A widow is not, as in India, held in disdain.-Mis8ioTttifreund. -" A conspicuous victim of one of the earlier persecutions was the Domini- -A Korean Christian was asked how can F1'ancis Ferdinand de Capellas, who long he had known the Savior. "Three by his zeal and capacity had rendered months," he answered. ., Surely longhimself peculiarly odious to the obsti- er; you have been a Christian two nate heathen. Altho the then reigning years." "Yes; I have known someemperor was thoroughly favorable to thing of the Savior for two years; but Christianity, yet under the orders of Himself I have only known for three the viceroy of the province, who then, months." as now, had almost independent authority, Capellas was arrested and -" If we wish to imagine an ideal brought before a vindictive judge. Confucian character, we must think of When the judge asked him where he a man who is polite and ceremonious in dwelt, and what were his means of life, his manner, but at the same time cold he answered: 'I have no other house and distant. Toward anything superthan the world, no other bed than the natural he is skeptical and scornful. earth, no other means of life than those He is fond of his children, and is scrupuwhich the Divine Providence daily lously devoted to his parents, whether sends me, and no other aim than to la- alive or dead. lIe is just and upright bor and suffer for the honor of Christ in all his dealings, and does many genand for the salvation of them that are erous acts. He is a good man, and for willing to believe on Him.' The judge many reasons claims our respect; hut ordered him to be beaten with clubs a high state of civilization is absolutely and condemned to death. The sen- impossible with a nation of such chartence was executed on January 15th, acters. "-Ohinese Recorder, 1648. The martyr passed' through the
EXTRACTS AND
-Dr. Ernest Faber remarks that the came acquainted with last year, but physical and climatic conditions of then, it is true, very thoroughly."
China are more favorable than those of -Fraulein VORBEIN, of Hong Kong, Germany, and the Chinese are, on the writing of a visit to Japan, in the Galwhole, more frugal than the Germans. wer Missionsblatt, remarks; .. Many China, therefore, being twenty-four contrasts between the two nations drew times as large as Germany, ought, he my attention; above all, the composure judges, to have a popUlation forty times of the Japanese and their extraordinary as large. In fact, it has one only eight courteousness and friendliness. What times as large. This proportion reflects a contrast it forms to the cold contemp. unfavorably on Chinese administration, tuousness of the Chinese, which yet does not restrain them from an impor- -Culture is well defined by Dr. Fa- tunate curiosity I On the whole jour. ber as the making of nature subservient ney in Japan I was not a single time to man. This definition is doubly ap- annoyed by word or look, but found plicable. First, external nature is made everywhere a ready obligingness, even subservient to humanity; second, the where it was difficult to make myself body of man is made subservient to his understood." Miss Vorbein also respirit. The glorification of lust and marks on the great freedom with which lawlessness, which is called realism Japanese women move about in public, (genuine realism being a wholly differ· as compared with the Chinese. Yet ent thing), is a reversion toward sav- the Japanese women seem immeasuraagery.
-Missionary Waidtlow, in the Dansk bly inferior in strength of character and native intelligence to what we are as· Missions-Blad, gives an amusing de· sured of the Chinese. scription of how things go at a Chinese inn, in this case in the far northeast. -Dr. H. Blodget, of the American " The solemn moment comes when we Board, has published an interesting are to eat. First, in the surrounding pamphlet advocating the use, in China, throng are to be found certain dirty of T'ien Chu for God. Then, he says, youngsters. We hear from them very all Christians in China would, as they distinct expressions of utter astonish- do in the world at large, use the same ment when we are seen to use knife or term for God. SMn is equivalent to fork. Meanwhile the teacher and the Spirit. Shang·ti is said to be equiva- cook are overwhelmed with questions: lent to Jupiter. T'ien Chu means Where we come from, what land we .. Lord of Heaven." The Roman are from, how far it is from China, Catholic missionaries had long and ex- whether we are merchants, what our haustive discussions as to these various names are, how old we are, what wages terms, and finally, supported by Rome, our people get, etc. We encounter the have decided for T'ien Chu. The same questions continually. When Greek Church has also approved this they ask what land we are from, and decision. As Dr. Medhurst has said, we answer Dan.gva (gva means land), why should all these thorough discus- they are almost sure to repeat it in a sions and this mature decision go for tone implying extreme astonishment, nothing with the Protestants? That for a new country is added to their would be too much like copying the geographical knowledge, which is idiotic refusal of North Germany to ac· usually limit~d to this, that there are cept the Gregorian calendar before 1700 lands, which are called: In-gva (Eng- and of England before 1752. Of land), Doe-gva (Germany), Fo-gva course, we out of China are not com· (France), Mei-gva (America), Gan-li-gva petent judges, but when we find T'ien (Korea), and lastly, Yrban (Japan), the Chu approved as a basis of union by existence of which last they first be- such authorities as Dr. Edkins, Presi-
MI8SIONARY INTELI.IGENCB
dent Martin, Hon. S. W. Williams, agement, the committee set about the LL.D., Bishop Burdon, Bishop Scheres- work not only ot organization, but ot chewsky, and various other eminent difYusing fuller information and awak-. missionaries, we may well presume in ening interest, under the sense of the its favor. pressing need and urgency of the work abroad. What has been the result? MISCELLANEOUS. The following figures may indicate the marvelous expansion. In twelve years -In Wllrtemberg, where the Sun- the staff of European missionaries has day-schools and continuation schools been mUltiplied threefold-there are are regulated by the State, an ordinance now in round numbers 60 Scottish lawas passed last year that home and for- dies in the fleld, where in 1884 there eign missions should be among the sub- were only 20. The native Christian jects treated in the course of religious agents have similarly increased from instruction. 186 to 410 ; the number of girls in the schools has risen from 5600 to about -" Why, why, pray, cannot Rome 11,000, and the standard of education leave our simple Christian congrega- has greatly advanced. Two medical tions in Java at peace! Toward Mo- missions, at Madras and Nagpur, have hammedans and heathen, who surround been founded and'developed, each with the little Protestant flocks by thon-ands an emcient staff of Europeans and naand thousands, Rome must follow an- tives, a hospital and two dispensaries, other line of policy. We do not under- relieving last year about 14,000 cases. stand how it is possible, in this time of Evangelistic work carried on by women culture and enlightenment, that men among women has also been greatly exand women of Christian belief and tended both In India and Africa. The Christian love can have peace in such normal schools for the training of natransactious, which are utterly at vari- tive Christian teachers and agents have ance with the spirit of Jesus Christ, been largely developed, and an institute which they can learn out of the Gos- for the training of missionaries has been pels just as well as we. How is it pos. established at home. sible that men and women who feel themselves called to do God's work " The significance of this remarkable can take men into service to cause growth will be the more apparent when others to fall away-men as to whose it is added that neither the Church nor walk and conduct it is best to be the committee have led the way in it, silent !"-Maandhericht van het Neller. but have only tardily followed. It is landache Zendelinggenootsehap. the Lord Himself who has opened the dOflrs and thrust the Church into them -The report of the Woman's For- by blessing the labors of His servants eign Missionary Society of the Free in the field. Every new step that has Church of Scotland says: "Year by been taken, every new agent, we may year the work in the field grows, and say, that has gone out, has been, on the so grows that the committee are baffled urgent appeal of the Mission Councils, in their efforts to keep pace with it. composed of the ordainAd missionaries Every year the record is one of exten· and the Society's own agents. Every sion, but how rapid it is can only be department of mission work. not only understood when we look at a period, helps all the others, but is indispensable say, of ten or twelve years. In 1883 to their success, and that holds most of the General Assembly anew gave spe- all in respect of the work among the cial recognition to the Society, and in two sexes. It is impossible to Chrisanswer to a petition authorized its bet- tianize the men while leaving the womter organization through presbyterial en in heathen darkness and bondage, auxiliaries and congregational associa· and accordingly the ordained mission· tions. With that sanction and encour-
ENaLISlJ NOTU
aries, for the sake of their own work as by the Rev. J. Dodds to the Mi38ionarg well as for the sake of the women, have Herald, the new station is described as been the most earnest advocates and a .. fairly large town, of some 600 in- helpers of the Women's Foreign Mis- habitants, and with the prospect of en- sionary Society. largement week by week. Yukusu Is ,. The remarkable progress, then, has situated on the far bend of the river, been initiated and achieved first in the , . . planted on a very high, steep field, and the Church at home has only bank., The mission station is built in inadequately followed it up. This Is the middJe of the town, a convenient manifest when we compare the expan- spot to meet all the folk of the village sion abroad with the means supplied at as they pass to and fro to attend the home. The work, speaking broadly, different markets. • .. Altogether we has grown threefold ; the home income feel that at and around Yukusu we has only doubled. The staff of 60 have a wide field for work."
European missionaries and 410 native Mr. Dodds and his colleague, Mr.
agents receives support from home to White, are looking prayerfully forward the extent of only £11,000, and of this to the time when they can sow the pre- congregational contributions supply cious seed in this their new sphere.
but one half. How is it possible, it Chine8e Converts.-The Rev. Herbert may be asked, to do so much on so lit- Dixon writes the following from ShantIe? The answer is found in the facts, si: .. Chail-hsia-yun is a native of Shanfirst, that the Society has both in India tung. While still a boy at school he and Africa some honorary agents, who heard the Gospel from a Chinese evangive not only themselves but their gelist connected with our Chou Fu means to the work; that valuable help work. It led to his conversion. and on is rendered by some of the missionaries' volunteers being called for to help open wives; and that the schools are to a a work at Shansi, he offered himself and considerable extent aided by govern- was accepted. This was some thirteen ment grants and the fees of the pupils. years ago; . . . he has gained the re- But. withal, not only are the resources spect and goodwill of the people generat the committee's disposal strained to ally. He is my right-hand man, and meet the necessary demands, but a took temporary charge of my work strain is also put on the strength of the during my visit to England in 1893." missionaries, and urgent appeals for After instancing other cases of similar help have to remain without the right enouragement, lVIr. Dixon concludes his response. Yet while this is the position letter with this appeal: "These are of the work through God's blessing on specimens of the power of God's grace it, there are still some hundreds of con- among the Chinese, and if only the gregations in the Church that give no committee will send us the promised help to the Woman's Mission, and many reinforcements, we hope to multiply more even of the wealthier that give such specimens indefinitely. Oh, that most inadequately." the churches at home could see and realize the thousands upon thousands Mutatis mutandi8, this representation around us here who have never heard of the work growing abroad faster than the glad tidings of salvation, I am sure the sustaining interest at home applies they would attempt something more to all churches and all countries, English Notes. serious in the way of self-denial I"
BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M.A. W68Zellan Mi88ionarg Sodetll.-In the current number of the MiBBiona'1'1l No- Baptist Misaionarg SoCf,"etll.-A new tz'cea the present need is most imprell- station has lately been opened at Yuku- si vely stated, not for the purpose of BU, Stanley Falls. In a letter written starting new work, but of carrying on
GENEBAL MISSIONARY IN'l'EJ,LIGENCE
such missions as are already in exist· in full swing, and it is not difficult to ence. To do this, 14 men are required prophesy that erelong we shall have at once. The evangelistic work of the the strong head of a strong Methodist Jaffa Mission is increasing to such an circuit, extent as to need another worker, and "The story of the Redeemer's love similarly work at Hyderabad, Madras, is bringing joy and gladness to hearts Negapatam, and other districts will that were cold, callous, and hard, and suffer unless men come forward. is doing much to shake the destinies of " In presence of these calls, the com- this great country.
mittee has to report that even if the .. The harvest truly is plenteous, but expenditure for 1896 does not exceed the laborers are few."
that for 1895. the ordinary income of 1896 must exceed that of 1895 by not Notes from Kandll, Oelllon.-" Two less than £2000 in order to avoid a de- conversions at Laggala, the first true ficiency. The committee, therefore, Kandyans we have won in that neighrepresents to the conference the special borhood, have given us much joy. I necessity that exists for immediate and was much struck by the intelligence effective relief." and moral earnestness of the answers to my questions iu my first interview Work in the Tra1!8'Daal.-The Rev. with these young men. In answer to Thomas Goodwin, at the end of a year the question, • Why do you wish to beof hard work, shows that in spite of all come a Christian?' each man said, the political disturbances a solid work , To save my soul.' Again,' Why do is begun, and there is every hope for you turn to Christianity to save your the future. Mr. Goodwin's sphere is soul?' one answered, 'Becanse there called "East Rand," and includes an is no Savior in Buddhism,' while the area of about 10 square miles on the other added, 'No, Buddha is dead.' gold reef east of J ohannestmrg. At the When they were baptized, some six: close of the first meeting held, 8 persons months after, one went to work in the expressed a desire to join in Christian fields with his heathen friends and abfellowshlp, and accordingly a Metho- nounced, 'I am no longer a devil's man dist class meeting was immediately -I am Christ's man.' That was four formed. Tnere are now 7 places in the months ago or more, and he and his district of East Rand where services are friend are standing firm to·day…
conducted, and there is good prospect of further additions. Olturc7t Missionary Sodetll.-In an The minister's strength has for the article written by the Rev. E. A.
most part been devoted to Vlakfontein, Douglas. on the Church Missionary So- as the situation was promising as a ciety's mission in Tinnevelly. the past good center for the work; the result and present condition of the mission is has been wonderful. The work was clearly stated, the main note and cb,ar- hindered for a time by the disturbances, acler of the past being individualillm, but after the disarmament of Johannes- and that of the present corporate action.
burg Mr. Goodwin sought to gather the The results accruing from this change broken threads, and after a great deal are all beneficial, and altho it is early of labor-manual and spiritual-a house to speak confidently of actual results, of God was opened for public worship yet one or two seeming benefits may be in April, 1896. pointed out : " Vlakfontein is not alone in its pos- 1. .A greater spi1'it oj liberalityltas been sibilities; it is but an instance of what e'COked. The Tinnevelly native Chris- is being done, and what wants doing. tians have, in spite of famines and priva- All the agencies found in the strong tions, largely increased their contribu- Methodist societies of England are now tions, and are becoming filled with. a. desire to have entirely self.supporting pressed the travelers in the journey churches. were: 2. A larger spirit of independence i8 1. The intense ignorance of the truth being shown. The natives no longer that exists in the district-without merely acquiesce when in council with knowledge, hope, and comfort.
their bishop, but feel in increasing meas· 2 The wide-reaching influence of the ure that the welfare ot the Church is street preaching in large centers.
something they themsel ves should in· 3. The immense importance of ele- terest themselves in. Accordinglyade. mentary schools. The people are quate efforts are being made by the steeped in ignorance, but if a hold people themselves toward self-govern- might be taken of the children this ment. would eventually be altered, and the thought of the people turned from the Easte1'n Equatorial Africa. – Mr. groove in which the minds and lives of Wray writes concerning his work in their ancestors have moved for ages.
this part of Africa: "The present time 4. The absolute necessity of greater may be considered as halcyon days; and more systematic work if any good the Lord hath done great things for us, is to be done. What can be done by for which we have most abundant cause one solitary visit or a visit once a year for most fervent thanksgiving. The among such people?
beginning of the end of Satan's king- dom has begun to appear. The haugh- THE KINGDOM. ty spirit is broken, and a spirit of in- quiry arisen. • " The people will -Five of the larger and older mis- now do almost anything I ask, and sionary societies can be named which some have offered voluntary labor; in the aggregate have nearly 350,000 and further, as a proof of their good- communicants in their churches. Dr.
will, they have given to the society the George Smith estimates the number of hill where they used to meet and hold native Christians at 4,500,000. It is their councils of war, etc., the most more than likely that 12,000,000 or sacred spot in the mountain. They even 15,000,000 have been rescued from come to us with their troubles. the chil- idolatry since Carey's beginning a cen- dren are ours to teach, and some of the tury since; nor is it unreasonable to ex- young men are thirsting for knowledge. pect an ingathering during the cen- Older men question the younger on tury to come of 50,000,000 or even what they have learned from me, and 100,000,000.
urge them to make haste and learn in order that they may teach them. Such, -As the London Ohri8tian suggests : then, is a sketch of our present posi- .. It has been pointed out that whereas, tion. " in the first century of Christian mis- sions, a large portion of the work has Western India.-The missionaries at been done among the lowest tribes, the Poona, the Revs. W. A. Roberts, R. S. Church is now face to face with the Heywood, and H. T. Jacob, made an ancient religions of the East, and has a itineration in February and March in very different and much more difficult the direction of Bombay, visiting some task on hand. It is different in form, no 80 different towns and villages, giving doubt. but whether more difficult in fact simple addresses wherever possible. may be questioned. The conflict has been The journey was attended with much with the animalism of men, but now it profit and blessing to the natives of the will be with the sins of the spirit, with villages through which the missionaries subtle theories as to God and man and passed. nature; yet underneath the one and The most striking facts which 100- the other lies the obstruction In the condition of the heart. The carnal -Not till the word barbarian was heart. and not mere habits of life or struck out of the dictionary of mankind modes of tllought, con8titutes the su- and replaced by brother can we look preme hindrance to the truth in every for even the beginnings of our science.
nation. But even taking the intellec· This cbange was effected by Chris· tual difficulties at their worst, they tianity. The idea of mankind as one need cause no anxiety. At the begin- family, as the children of one God. is ning the Gospel grappled with the most an idea of Christian growth. The sci· rampant sins of the tlesll, and with the ence of mankind Is a science whicll sins of the spirit, and with the ablest without Christianity would never have pagan thinking the worl(i has ever sprung into life.-Max Muller.
known-and conquered. What can -Ursinus Objected to a proposed Benares, or Calcutta. or Pekiu, or To- mission among Greenlanders, Lapps, kio put forward tbatJerusalem, Athens, Tartars, and Japanese, on the ground Corinth, and Antioch did not also op- that the holy things of God sllould not pose to Jesus Christ? Yet they op· be cast before such swine. A Dutch posed in vain." church in Cape Town posted over its -Well may we watch and marvel door the notice: ., Dogs and Hottentots over the multiplication of secular helps not admitted." The Jew used to pray to the spread of the Gospel, like the that he might never see a Samaritan·in Suez Canal, the great steamship lines, heaven. The man who can thus pray and the monster railway systems of the is not likely ever to see anybody in world, which make the ends of the earth heaven. God's evangel is for every so easily accessible. In 1862 the New creature; in His thought there is no York Times pronounced the Pacitic human hog or human dog. Grattan Railroad " thEl grandest proposition yet said of Fox: "You must measure submitted to human effort or to engi- such a mind by parallels of latitude."
neering skill, and if successful, is to be The Divine mind cannot be measured the highest achievement. " That even thus; it knows no boundary scheme, however. contemplated the lines. The purpose of grace is to save laying of only 2500 miles of iron rails. and unify the race in Christ, to sum up But now, behold Russia is altogether again in Him all things now disunited eclipsing all antecedent attempts by by sin.-.Rei1. T. J. Villera.
pushing forward her 7000 miles of -Missionary I Oh, the measure of track, destined to span both Eur.ope the meaning of that word to us and to and Asia, and so to bring the farthest the whole universe of created beings, Orient into the near neighborhood of and to the uncreated One Himself I He the Occident! is the eternal missionary, and all that -Dr. Griffis well reminds us that lit- we know of Him to·day has come to erary criticism is a very potent weapon us through His omnipotent missionary In the overthrow of traditions that are service. From everlasting to everlast- false, corrupt, and cruel. Thus in ing He is God. Love sending, sending.
India the strength of suttee maintained He Is Christ loving, loving, coming, itself largely by references to the sacred coming, sending, sending, " As the Fa- books. But scholarship has in great ther hath sent Me even so send I you."
degree weakened the authority of such Missionary? Aye, in so far as we are references. So the conceit of the Chi- God-like and Christ-like we are mis- nese and Japanese, so far as fostered by sionary. If we are not missionary we extravagant and unverifiable passages ha ve ail yet no pa.rt or parcel with Him, of their literature, is in process of re- and are in need of Ills missionaries- dnction by the methods of historic erlti· heathen still in a Christian land, with· cism. out hope and without God in the world. " If any man has not the spirit half a cent a week for a year-e'l"en if _ of Christ he is none of His. "-Rev. no one gave any more.
W. E. Witter. -Tiger-bone sQuP is used by the -" Only a mIssIonary; yes, but, Koreans as a medicine for cowardice. . omitting all the qualities which are At the worst it must be harmless. So primary and essential, note what varied let us try it thoroughly in all our con· and eminent services he performs out- gregations which hold such numbers side of his great busine,s As one 01 who are sadly deficient in backbone and this genua affirms (with his eyes espe- clear grit.
cially upon Americans), they" are not -The dean of the Boston University what prejudiced people choose to con- School of Theology knows of 50 young sider them, mere religionists or fanatics men in that institution, many of them caught in the toils of other worldliness with .. slenderest financial resources,"
or devotion to narrow propagandism. who .. will not hesitate to wash win- They are no meddlesome zealots. They dows, run errands, take care of side- are students, lingnists, authors, trans- walks and furnaces, post bills, distribute lators, explorers, antiquarians, scien· circulars, or wait on table. Their intel- tists, educators, historianll, medical ligence, business experience, and guar- men, and especially philanthropists. anteed honesty commend them to minor They are pioneers in and promoters of positions of trust as night clerks, col- civilization. Wherever they go com· lectors of bills and of rents. II Let not merce follows them, and industry is the missionary secretaries fail to search introduced." And with his eyes on out and lay hold of all such.
Turkey, he continues: "The country is full of sewing-machines, cabinet or- i:-OUNG PEOPLE. gans, pianos, clocks, stoves, implements of a hundred kinds." -The College Department of the -It has strangely" happened" more Calcutta Y. M. C. A. has come -into than once that missionaries whose death possession of a splendid piece of propwas" untimely," coming while they erty worth $50,000 in the very heart of were yet on the threshold of their work, the city. More than 4000 students are or after a brief term of service, have found within a half- mile, more than nevertheless stirred the hearts and 6000 within a mile, and 10,000 are resimolded the lives of thousands for many dent within two or three miles. These years-such as Brainerd, and Martyn, are the picked men of tlle Bengal Presiand Ion Keith Falconer, and Harriet dency. It is this most important and Newell. most interesting class that Professor W. W. White, late of Mr. Moody's -Alas I alas! It is too true, it ap- Chicago Institute, is for two years to plies to every denomination, and it is a endeavor to win to Christ.
shame. But what shall be done? As -The Y. W. C. A. was born in Engthe Church at Home and .Abroad pro- land in 1855, has attained there to a tests and pleads: "While the Board's membership of 100,000, and has penedebt, in its huge pl'Oportioris, may seem trated into many lands, with India formidable, it must be remembered among them. lIrs. A. M. Reynolds, that our Church has a large member- the World's Secretary, is on a two ship, and is possessed of great wealth- years' tour of the globe, and has already $300,000 for 1.000,000 people is 33 visited 4 continents. cents apiece. The poorest member in all the Church would not think a debt -The Lutheran (General Synod) ot thirty-three centa a very serious mat- young people's societies on the terri· ter. It would be just a little more than tory ot tlle Central and Northern II· Hnois synods have made a splendid rec- thought maybe you would lay it Ollt ord for themaelves. During the sum- this year in Bibles for poor children to mer vacation of 1895 William M. Beck, remember me by." With a heart swell· a student in Carthage College, visited ing with emotion he kissed the cold a number of Endeavor societies and se- brow and replied, " I will. my child." cured pledges to the amount of about and then after a pause added, " I will $600. Last summer he completed t.he do it every year, that you may draw work, and now reports pledges amount- others after you to heaven." ing to $847 annually for a period of five years. This money is to be over and UNITED STATES. above the amount usually contributed by the churches and Sunday-schools. -The following gifts", exceeding one million of dollars each, have been given -An incident as beautiful as it was by individuals to educational instituunique occurred on Commencement tions in A.merica: Stephen Girard, to Day at Iowa College, when, under the Girard College, $8,000,000; John D. lead of President Gates, the sum of Rockefeller, to Chicago University, $500 was raised on the spot for the pur- $7,000,000; George Peabody, to varipose of sending and supporting for one ous foundations, $6,000,000; Leland year a tutor in Anatolia College at Stanford, to Stanford University, Malsovan. The sum thus raised was $5,000,000; Asa Parker, to Lehigh Uniput to immediate use in the sending of versity, $3,500,000; Charles Pratt, to Mr. H. H. Riggs, a native of Turkey, the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, $2,700,- who will at once enter upon work. (100; Paul Tulane, to Tulane Univer- Mr. Riggs graduated last summer at sity, New Orleaus, $2,500,000; Isaac Carleton College, Minnesota, and has Rich, to Boston University, $2,000,000 ; already sailed for Turkey, where his Jonas G. Clark, to Clark University, coming will supply a great need. Worcester, Mass., $2,000,000; the Van- derbilts, to Vanderbilt University, "!"The names chosen by various Cir- $1,775,000; James Lick, to the Unicles of the King's Daughters and Sons versityof California. $1,600,000 ; John are significant of many phases of ser- C, Green, to Princeton, $1.500,000; vice and effort. Among them are Op- William C, De Pauw, to De Pauw Uniportunity, Diligent, Helping Hand, versity, $1,500,000; A.•J. Drexel, to Sunshine, Comforting, Loyal, Mizpah, the Drexel Industrial School, $1,500,- Ministering, Praying, Stedfast, Bur- 000; Leonard Case, to the Cleveland den Bearers, Wayside, Dorcas, Inas- School of Applied Sciences, $1,500,- much, Help a Little, Royal Helpers, 000; Peter Cooper, to Cooper Union, Epaphras, Tongue Guard, and, most $1,200,000; Ezra Cornell and Henry W. common of all, Whatsoever. Sage, to Cornell University. each $1,100,000; $1,000,000 by Pl'esident -Some 75,000 bouquets of flowers Low, to Columbia College. were sent to the Chicago Flower Mission this year by Iowa Christian En- -The Board of Health of New York deavor societies. One jUnIor society City has been waging war upon the alone within four months sent 1200. rear tenements of the city, A.bout 40 of them ha ve been condemned as unfit -A father was weeping at the bed- for human habitation, and their de· side of his little daughter who lay sick struction ordered, The landlords have and near to death, and the strange protested, and have carried the case question came from her lips and was into the courts in order to test the conrepeated until some reply must be made, stitutionality of the law and the legal. How much do I cost you every year? ity of the action. Another point to he After a sum had been named, he said, "Why do you ask 2" "Because, I settled by the courts pertaius to come Lithuanian, Italian, Spanish, Welsh, pensation for the destroyed tenements. Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, and Arabic, which were removed by the Board of and finding eager rcaders for them.
Health under the clause of the act of -Mayor Pingree's famous potato the legislature giving it power to seize patch in Detroit has achieved another tenements that' are unfit for habitation triumph. The report for the present , and incapable of being made fit, and to season shows that with an outlay of pay as damages only the valne of the less than $2300 for seed and preparing old material. Under this clause the the ground there was produced about Board of Health has offered $200 for 45,000 bushels of potatoes ani large tenements for which the owners asked quantities of other vegetables_ The $25,000.-Cl!ristian Advocate. Commission figures the potatoes aloue to be worth $25,000. The average -The New York Police Board has yield to each family was 26 bushels, appointed nearly 800 patrolmen within and 1700 families cultivated patches. the last year. and nearly 800 more. must Families who refused to avail them- be appointed within the next four selves of the opportunity thus to help months. The requirements for the po· themselves are debarred from help by sition are a good bodily development the city. and a fair mental capacity. The salary is at first $1000 a year, and within fi ve -Hampton Institute began its twen· years it rises to $1500. All the higher ty-ninth session October 1st, with 440 positions on the force, numbering over negroes and 1~5 Indian boarlling and 400, are filled by promotion from the 300 primary day scholars. Dr. H. B. ranks, the salaries for these higher po- Frissell, who succeeded General Armsitions ranging up to $6000 a year. At strong as principal, is rapidly developthe end of twenty-five years the officer ing the work. A trade school building, is retired on a pension of half-pay for to cost $40,000, with equipment, is unlife. President Roosevelt, in behalf of der construction, and in it instruction the board, has written to religious pa- will be given in the technical and thepers in New York asking them to call oretical branches of the trades, the stuattention to this opening in the New dent later entering the trade shops York City police force for men of good where they can more practically apply moral character and physical strength_ the principles learned.
-Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, has -The American Volunteers are stead- taken humble rooms in a poor old East ily increasing and doing effective work Side tenement-house, where she will which is telling for good in the enlarge- make her home with the purpose of ment of their operations. At the cen- devoting the rest of her life to the sym- tral offices in the Bible House, New pathetic care and nursing of poor wom- York, there are daily on duty 28 offi- en and girls afflicted with cancer and cers aud 14 employees, 42 persons being unable to get admission to hospitals or regularly engaged in the work of the discharged therefrom after the experi organization. The weekly five·cent or- mental six months' treatment shall have gan of the movement, called the Volun- shown them to be incurable. teers' Gazette, has already attained a -The polyglot quality of Chicago's paid circulation of 20,000 copies weekspeech may be inferred from the fact ly, and 1000 Defenders, most of whom that the City Tract Society reports that are well known in society, have subits colporteurs are distributing tracts scribed $5 each toward the expenses of written in German, French, Dutch, this new organization.
Swedish, Norweghm, Danish, Finnish, -The Volunteers are to undertake a Russi!ln, Polish, Bohemian, Bulgarian, systematic work for convicts after their
GENEML JttsstOliARY INTELLIGENCE
discharge from prison. The work is elgn mi~ions (and did that but once), one to be begun at the penitentiaries in Sing three-thousandth part of our wealth." Sing, Clinton, and Auburn, N. Y. The plans include a home for the tem- -Two years ago the United PreSby. porary shelter of convicts when first re- terians of this country sent out 13 mis- leased, until they can find work; per- sionaries; last year a party of 16 fol- sonal acquaintance with the convicts' lowed, while during 1896 as many more families, both during imprisonment and have already taken their departure for afterward; and in general, al! methods India and Egypt, or are soon to go. that will promote the self-respect of the con vict and start him on the road to -The Roman Catholic Church has honest manhood. about 75,000 colored members in the principal cities, Baltimore leading with -The Salvation Army has opened a 35,000. Natchitoches following with home for ex-convicts in Chicago. The 11000, New Orleans with 8000, New building is four stories high, and not York 8000, Mobile 2000, Natchez 1700, only provides a home, but also work- Philadelphia and Pittsburg 1500 each, shops. The management proposes to etc. Thirty-one priests minister to open the doors to all ex-prisoners who them in 55 church edifices. cannot find employment, and to give . them work and provide for their wants -Father A. R. Doyle, General Secre- until they are able to secure positions. tary of the Ca.tholic Total Abstinence Union, in his report to the recent an- -The 9 missionary societies which nual convention in St. Louis, shows recently held a notable interview w~th that there are 583 societies of men, with Li Hung Chang represented 7,747,209 34,089 members; 197 of cadets, with church-members, and maintain in China 14,624 members, and 115 of women, 733 missionaries, male and female, of with 7271 members. He says: .. Of whom 97 are medical missionaries, up· course, the difficulty of thoroughly per- ward of 400 schools of various grades suading the public (or the hostility of in which there were under instruction the Church to the saloon) has arisen in 1895 about 12,000 puplls, as well as from the fact that too often have Dames some 60 hospitals and dispensaries, in presumed to be Catholic been seen over which were treated in the same year liquor stores, and too frequently have 493,089 patients. people, supposed to belong to the Church, been convicted of drink crimes ; -According to Robert E. Speer, it and commonly people judged by facts much behooves the Presbyterians to be and not by words. But in spite of up and doing. He says: " We have these difficulties, we can to day rejoice taken possession of more of the world in the fact that in public opinion we than any other church, and we do not have got where we belong. First, last, yield our ground. We have 27 mis- and all the time, the Church stands for sions full of brave people. Of Japan's law and order. First, last, and all the 40,000,000, one-fourth is our share. time, the Church stands over against We were first to enter upon the 12,000,- the saloon. The name of Catholic is no 000 of Korea. We have 4 missions in longer allied with intemperance, and Chlna., the whole of Siam, 2,000,000 of some of the virtues which characterize India, 9,000,000 in Persia, and 2,000,- a true-hearted Catholic people are so- 000 in Syria-160,OOO,000 the share of briety and good citizenship." the Presbyterian Church of these United States. To Presbyterians in this country -The Mormon Church has recently belong *3,000,000,000, with annual in- received $300,000 restored by the Gov- crease of $100,000,000. We manage by ernment, and now one of the ablest ,reat effort to raise $1,000,000 for for- men of the Church goes out to establish missions in all the cities of the land.
GlCNEItAL MISS10NA1W IN'l"EJ.LIGENClC
It Is said that the 1200 missionaries now 000 people. If David prayed for grace in the field seeking converts to the sys- to wisely rule his little bailiwick ou the tem are to be re-enforced by several hills of Palestine, there would seem to thousand. who will continue their work exist a still greater necessity for prayer in the South, and in the cities. for continued guidance on the part of the Victoria who when a young queen I:!PANISH A.MERICA. offered fervently this petition: .. God help me to be good I" -The New York Sun says: "In the 22,000 electoral colleges of llexico, the -In 1894 there were 326 Indian sturecent vote for the re-election of Por- dents in England, of whom 157 were Hinfirio Dlaz (anti-Jesuit) to the Presidency dus, 105 Mussul mans, 53 Parsees, and was unanimous. Never in any previ. 11 Burmans. In 1896 there are 284 in ous presidential election in Mexico, or, all, so far, of whom 164 are Hindus, 74 perhaps, in any other republic, was Mussulmans, 37 Parsees, and 9 Burthere a result so remarkable." mans. Of those who are following spe- cial professions, 411 are studying law, -The Ohristian .Advocate gives these 4 are reading for the Indian civil ser· up to-date and Iluthoritative figures re- vice, 4 for the medical profession, bnd lating to mission work in Mexico: 1 for engineering. The 2fl4 include 20 Indian women now being educated in Centers of operation ……………. . 87 England, of whom several are girls in school. Congregatloue………………….. . 615 -The English Presbyterians have en- Ordained missionaries .••.••••….••. 65 tered upon the jubilee year of their China Mission. Forty-nine years ago A8slstant missionaries………….. .. 60 the work was begun by setting apart a solitary laborer, William Burns; while Foreign women teachers………••••• 67 to-day the Church is represented in China by 18 ordained missionaries, 2G Native preachers ordained .. _•••••..• 120 women, and 10 medical missionaries, together with a staff of native pastors Native preachers nnordained……… 175 and evangelists. There are 130 mission stations and 10 hospitals, besides Insti- Native teachers …………….. .. 190 tutions for the training of native work- ers. In addition, the Church has a Other native workers.. .. ……… .. 100 mission in India, and one to the Jews in London and Syria. The total income Total foreign and lIative workerl .. .. 731 last year was £20,606.
Church•• organized…………….. . 450 -The Society of Frien8.s recently met in mission conference. At no pre- Communicants.. .. … . ………… . 18,000 vious gathering has it ever been possi- ble to have so many missionaries from Probable adherents . ……… .. …. 60,000 the field present, nor has the work of Friends' foreign missions ever been in Training and theological schools…. .. 9 so healthy or advanced a state. There are 75 missionaries under the care of Students in lame……………….. _ 90 Friends, or one in every 213 of the membership of the Society, costing over Total schools. .. .. .. .. …. … .. ….. _ 163 £12,000 annually. In Madagascar alone, before the French invasion, there Total scholar. .. ……………….. _ 8,218 were 157 congregations in the Friendst Pllbli$hlng honses. … .. .. … …… … 10 Church bnildlnc8…. …………….. 120 Parsonages …….. " .. . …. .. .. …. .. 80 Value of all mission property……… $1,200,000 -Dr. W. W. Bremner says of Cor· doba, Argentine Republic, that it is .. entirely untouched by Protestant missionary effort. I have lived there for over two years, and had on an average for some months 9 meetings per week, scattering over 50,000 tracts in town and neighborhood, besides selling hundreds of Bibles and Gospels. and in this work have visited every house for a dis· tance of 30 miles around."
EUROPE.
Great Britain.-It Is estimated that Queen Victoria now rules over 367,000,- dist~ict, with 10,000 children in the sionaries from Copenhagen have been schools. India, China, Syria, Bulgaria, touched by their kindly reception, and and Constantinople have all Friends' they propose to work their district on missions, and industrial, ed ucational, the lines which have already been sigmedical, and evangelistic work is caf- nally successful there. ried on in them.-London Ohristian. -The Norwegian Missionary Soci- -In early October, under the aus- ety, which labors in Natal and Madapicesof the Church Missionary Society, gascar, has 43 ordained missionaries, two remarkably interesting meetings 6 unmarried female teachers, 17,000 were held in Exeter Hall in connection church-members, 38,000 school chilwith the departure for the foreign field dren, 44,000 adherents, 16 native pasof 149 missionaries. Of these 71 are re- tors, 900 native teachers, $80,000 conturning to work after furlough, and 78 tributions from Norway and $12,000 are recruits. The returning mission- from America. aries include 2 bishops (Tugwell and Fyson), 26 clergymen, 1 doctor, 7 evan- -While Dr. F. E. Clark was in Swegelists, 12 women, and 23 wives of mis- den he attended a meeting of the sionaries. The recruits include 23 Sveriges Sondagssko}forbunds, which, clergymen, 5 doctors, 12 evangelists, being interpreted, is Sunday-school Union, but, 10, in his honor it was 39 women (of whom 2 are fully quali- transformed into Kristna. Endeavour- foreningarnas, or, as we would say in fied doctors), and 3 wives. More than English, Christian Endeavor Union. two thirds of the clergy are university men, of whom Oxford sends 4 ; Cam- -" To reduce the large foreign misbridge, 9, and Dublin, 3. sion deficiency for 1894," says the Mora· 'Dian, "the amount of $20,000, which -At a recent garden fete and cafl had been set apart from the jubilee ehantant held by invitation of Mr. E. fund for the building of the new Kaffir Edwards at Kidbrooke Lodge, Black· College, an institution greatly needed heath, on behalf of the Lady Dufferin by the mission in Kaffraria. was very Fund, the honorary treasurer, Sir Alex- reluctantly appropriated. Mr. J. T. ander Wilson, said during the ten years Morton's generous gift of $20.000 just of the work £400,000 had been given replaces the amount appropriated for by native princes, 70 hospitals had been the deficiency, and makes the building established, and 3,000,000 of women of the college possible." had been medically treated.
The Continent. -There are 462 Scan- -Next year Portugal is to celebrate dinavian foreign missionaries at work, the four hundredth anniversary of the of whom 145 are Norwegian, 264 Swe- departure of Vasco da Gama on his fadish, 46 Danish, and 10 Finnish. The mous voyage to India 'Via the Cape of Old Norwegian Synod sends 3 mission- Good Hope. aries to the Zulus in Africa and 1 to China, all of whom were educated in ASIA. this country. lslam.-Out in the suburbs of Tehe- -The Lutheran Church in Denmark ran, Persia, Dr. Wishard said to a womhas sent 2 missionaries to Manchuria, an whose son had a cleft lip, " If you hitherto occupied almost exclusively by will bring this boy to our hospital we the Irish Presbyterian and the United will make him well like his brothers." Presbyterian missions. The field is She replied, "Why should I wish him wide, and the Presbyterian missions are giving a cordial welcome to their Dan- made well r He is just as God made ish brethren, and allotting to them a great district as their own. The mis- him."
-In 1881 there were about 180,000 Mohammedan pupils in the schools and colleges of India: in 1895 there were right to insist that his Highness's Gov- 490,000. ernment shall give to all classes of Brit- -So M. Zwemer writes: .. It was a ish subjects the same facilities for trade surprise and a pleasure to meet at Bus- or othcr legitimate purposes as are exrah recently a young captain in the tended to Hyderabad subjects in Brit- Turkish Navy whom I met at Sanaa, ish India, and that this right is in no Yemen, iu 1893. Then I suddenly way affected by the circumstance that came upon a Turk in a coffee shop jurisdiction over European British subreading an English book-' Tupper's jects vests in the Government of India. Proverbial Philosophy' lOur friend- as it does so as a prerogative of the ship was soon made, and he spoke very paramount power and not by virtue of earnestly of his interest in Christianity. express treaty with the Hyderabad Since he has been reading' Sweet First State. Among the essential facilities Fruits' and other books, and seemed which are conceded to Hyderabad subconvinced. He asked for a letter to jects in British India. is the power of one of the missionaries from America acquiring premises for carrying on at Constantinople, where he has been their business or other lawful purposes, transferred, and we hope to hear from and the Governor-General in Council him ag~in. " expects and requires that the Nizam's Government will extend to all British, -Dr. Lyman Abbott asks: .• Do you subjects in Hyderabad a fair measure suppose that He whose ears heard the of liberty and encouragement. In par- cry of the few (Jppressed Israelites, ticular it is necessary that such persons· that He whose eyes looked upon the should be allowed to purcllase or hire massacres of the Roman Empire, that with complete freedom any private He wno beheld with restrained indig- buildings which they may want for the nation the lash and the chain in Ameri· purpose of legitimate trade or occupa- ca-do you suppose that He does not tion, or any private land for the erec- see the thousands that have marched to tiou of such buildings. The Govern- a cruel grave in Armenia? That he ment of India cannot allow any native does not know the silence of Powers State in India to prevent a European that call themselves Christian 1 That British subject from enjoying in any He will have no word of accounting part of the empire so common and nec- with England and Russia and France essary right."
and Germany?" -Attention has been called to the fact that brass images of many of the -" 0, our God, wilt Thou not judge Hindu deities are manufactured in large them 1 For we have no migM against quantities in Birmingham and exported this great company that cometh against to this land, where they are bought and us; neither know we what to do: out worshiped by multitudes. Miss Britour eyes are upon Tkee."-2 Chron.
20: 12. tan, formerly superintendent of the India.-The Pioneer gives the sub· Union Missionary Society'S work in stance of the decision of the Govern- Calcutta, now of Yokohama, Japan, ment of India, insisting upon the right was in Birmingham a few years ago. of all classes of British subjects to the She had a friend holding a responsible same facilities for business and other position in one of the brass foundries, lawful purposes in native States as are and with him she visited the works. enjoyed by subjects of those States in She says she saw thousands oj' brass im- British India: .. The Nizam's Govern- ages of Krishna, Ganesha. Vishna, ment have now been informed that in Parvatti, and other Hindu idols, ready the opinion of the Governor-General in for shipment.
Council the British Government have a -" It would be difficult to describe the pitiful condition of the lower caste -" At a largely attended meeting at people of Travancore.They experi- Amritsar it was resolved that the Goldence the very extreme of poverty, and en Temple should be lighted with elec- I feel sick at heart every time I pass tric light, and machinery and plant inthe wretched huts which are all they troduced at a cost of Re. 30,000, for know of home. Most or the houses which a special appeal is to be made to are only a few feet square, and built of the Sikh gentry of the province. "- mud; no windows, only a low door Madras Christian Patriot. through which you must stoop considerably to enter. Darkness, dirt, and -A recent return gave the informainsect life reign supreme, and in these tion that out of 678 Salvation Army holes-they are hardly worthy of a bet- officers in India, all but 81 are natives ter name-a great part of the young of that empire. life of India is being lived I The houses inhabited by Christians, however, are Chilla.-Medical missions have peusually much superior, and prove how culiar importance and prominence in wonderfully the religion of Christ not this empire. Of the societies at work, only changes and uplifts the lives of the American Baptists, Presbyterians, the people, bu~ improves their sur- Methodists, of the North and South, roundings also. Here you will find the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, more clothing on the bodies, more light, Dutch Reformed, Woman's Union Mismore cleanliness altogether, and this sion, and Canadian churches have esmakes one long to take scores of poor tablished hospitals and dispensaries, heathen children and train them in a together with the English Church MIs- Christian atmosphere. so that they may sionMY Society, London Mlssiopary Sobe a means of blessing not only to their ciety, Presbyterian. United and Irish own generation, but to all generations Presbyterian, and China Inland Misto come. "-A MiaBionary. sion. At Canton a boat, under Rev. A. A. Fulton and a medical assistant, -About the end of last year an old renders great aid by touring. The uni- Hindu died in Bombay in whose house- versal opinion of those in the work hold Christian family worship had been seems to be that the value and efficiency held regularly for forty years. His of their work is in direct proportion to wife and children read the Bible, and the presence or absence of a hospital. the father prayed to Jesus. Many .. Even itinerating work Is of less years before, he had uttered so brave a value." says Dr. Sims. From a thoutestimony for Jesus, as professor in a sand miles away a patient has been government school. that some Parsees known to come, as at lIIoukden, I1Ianand Mohammedans were led to believe churia, whither one patient was attractin Christ, and he was dismissed from ed by a cure of seven years previous. the school. He never was baptized, and thus there was always something -Medical work at Chiningchow, wanting to his confession; tho not so Shantung, last summer exceeded anygreat a want, bv far, as there is in thing in the past. Sometimes 180 inmany a baptized Christian who lives patients were on the mission premises for himself and the world. But these at one time, and, tho it is the station secret Christians are a hopeful sign of principle to give a new missionary an the times. Our traveling preachers in entire year for the language, Dr. Van Malabar find many a house where the Schoick was forced to call upon Dr, New Testament is read, where Jesus is Mary Hill to lend a hand.
worshiped, and where the messengers -In Fuhkien Province, where 8 mis- sionaries were martyred last year, a of the Gospel are made welcome. and spirit of inquiry has since been poured beg~d to come more frequently.- out upon the Chinese and baptisms Bva1l1JeZiacha Mi88i0n8-Mf11IrtZin.
188&.J
have taken place, beyond what has ever by native pastors; and during the put before been witnessed there. An year contributions have been made to American missionary has received 100 the amount of over $1000. The oldest to the church at Ing-hok, and at a re- Presbyterian church, organized in 1887, cent communion at Gak-liang, 63 adults has a membership of 156.
were received. About 30 English mis- -Missionaries in heathen Jande are sionaries, 23 of them women, have compelled to enter upon even the most gone or are about to go into Fuhkien. obvious and necessary reforms with -A whole town of 500 inhabitants great caution, for fear of treading upon on the coast of China, near Foochow, some peculiar native custom. For exhas adopted Christianity. In the sub· ample, missionaries in Nak Tong, in urbs was a mission chapel in charge of Korea, have only recently ventured a native helper, and the town was oc- upon the introduction of two European ca.sionally visited by missionaries of customs in their missionary hospitals.
the Church of England. Last summer One of these is the adoption of Euro- the people became so angry with all pean bedsteads. It is expected that the foreigners on account of the trouble be- natives will rebel, for long centuries of tween France and China, that the mis- habit have rendered it a part of their sionaries were obliged to discontinue lires to sleep on the hot mud floor.
their visits; but the native preacher The second innovation is the use of kept on his work earnestly and faith- female nurses among the male patients.
fully. In midsummer cholera came to This the Koreans will consider a great the village in a virulent form, and death breach of propriety, as they will PElr- followed death in quick succession. mit no women to nU,rae them except The terror-stricken people fled to their their wives.
gods; but the one Christian besought them to come to the true God, who AFRICA.' could hear their prayers and save some. Because of their despair they listened, -In some respects Cairo and not and joined with him in asking God to Mecca is the center of Mohammedan stay the plague; and God honored influence. As witness its 300-400 their faith, imperfect tho it was, and mosques, and its great "Unfversity" tbe plague was stayed that day. The for the training of missionaries.
people then held a conference, and as a -A new map of the Kongo has been town they resolved to accept the new printed in connection with the East religion and worship the God who London Institute, which shows on a helped them, and now have contributed novel plan the enormous extent of termore than $100 to build a chapeI.- ritory washed by the great river. It is Ohinese Rewrder. printed in red over an ordinary map of Korea.-The Protestant Church has Europe, and shows how the Kongo, been in Korea for just ten years. Dur· were it placed in Europe, would draw ing that time it has labored to some its tributaries" from Bergen, John 0' purpose, as the following statistics will Groat's, Nzsala, Helsingfors, and St. show: Petersburg, in the north; from Mos- cow, Odessa, and Smyrna, in the east; Regular congregations……….. 42 and south from Athens, Naples, and Out-stations………………… 20 Sardinia; and would water the whole Communicants. . . • . • .• . . . .. . . . .. 528 of Germany, Italy, France, Austria and Catechumens.. .• . …….. ,…… 567 Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Servia, Bul- Sabbath-schools. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . . . . 9 garia, Roumania, the Netherlands, Sabbath scholars…………….. 455 Denmark, Southern Scandinavia, and Six of the churches are ministered to the western halt of Russia. South and
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. [December
Central Europe could do without rivers Togoland the white popUlation numhud it but this one stream." bers le!(S than a hundred, of whom 22 were missionaries, with the same num- -Rev. Kenred Smith, recently ar- ber of officials. Similarly in the Camrived on the Upper Kongo, writes: eroons the missionaries and the officials ., My traveling experiences, altho differ- are about equal in numbers. Each ing somewhat in detail, were, I sup- missionary gets a government grant of pose, in the main very similar to those £50 II year and a free customs pass for of other African travelers. Even as goods "importeq.. for missionary purothers I have enjoyed the luxuries of poses. " tramping over miles of stony hills in a blazing sun; of marching through for- -Rev. Mark Guy Pearse has been est glades reeking with 'malaria; of visiting the Transvaal, and he writes to wading through, or being carried over, the Methodist Times an account of his bogs of black and miasmatic mud; of treatment as an Englishman traVeling peregrinating through long and tortu- in the country. As the result of all, he ons avenues, in the broad sweeps of says; "I came to South Africa with lanky grass, often from 10 to 18 feet the feeling that if Englishmen entered high. Even as others I have enjoyed the Transvaal they must be content to the delights of jiggers and prickly become subject to the conditions that heat; of tropical storms and tropical the authorities choose to lay down, and insects. A caravan of lazy native car- to use only constitutional methods to riers by day, an army of affectionate secure What they want. I came out of mosquitoes by night, a bed in a shed, the Transvaal with very different feela bath in u bucket. a meal from a tin tngs from those with which I entered plate. Oh, the luxuries of traveling in it. I am not a jingo by any means, but Africa I" I have tried honestly to see things as they are and faithfully to describe what -On September 6th the Edwa1'd I saw. I saw enough to stir my blood Bohlen sailed for the Kongo with 6 Ro- to a fever of indignation that I felt it man Catholic missionaries. .Messrs. difficult to control. To speak Dutch Dierkes, Janssens, lfanders, Segers, was to have the mystic sign put at once Van der Molen Bracq. and one" broth- upon everything. To be English er," M. Overman, besides 8 Sisters of meant an irritating snub." the Ohal'ite de Gand. "These new reo inforcements," writes the Mou'lJement -The American Board missionaries Geogl'aphique, " are necessitated by the en route for Gazaland have been deconstant extension of these valiant mis- tained on the East African coast, first sionaries' efforts on the Kongo. Their on account of the prevalence of the work is rapidly developing, the staff rinderpest, which has made transportanumbering at the present moment 30 tion difficult, and, latterly, by the dismissioQftries de &heut, 3 priests de Gand turbances caused by the uprising of the (at Matadi), a dozen Trappists, 20 Sis· Uatabeles. It has been decided that ters of Mercy de Gand, and 8 Francis- Mrs. Bates and Miss Gilson should reo can Sisters of Mary-a total of 73 mis· main in Nlltal until Mr. Bates can make sionaries." One of tbe last founded satisfactory arrangements for reaching Romish establishments, the mission de Mt. Silinda. Saint-Trudon, situated on the Lubi, 4 miles above Luzambo, numbers. ac- -During the eight months of Bishop cording to the Mou'l!6ment Geographique, Tucker's stay in Uganda he visited abont 300 adherents. every station where missionaries are 10– cated, except R'oki, spending nearly -A Foreign Office Report on the four months in traveling. and confirm. German colonies in Africa reveals some ing no less th~n 2052 candidates. curious facts about their missions. In
The Missionary Review of the World — May 1894
KINDNESS OF "THR CU"GRCH AT HOllE AND ABROAD."
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVII. No. 5.-0ld &rieB.–MAY.–VOL. VII.' No. 5.-New SerIu.
THE TRUE CHARM AND POWER OF MISSIONS.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEl!'.
That which constitutes the value 'and virtue of incense is an invisible, impalpable, and subtle principle, called perfume or odor. A similar charm, supposed to invest acceptable offerings, gave them the name of "sweet savor offerings," and caused such expressions as the "savor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God," to be applied to unselfish service.
Comparison of many passages of Scripture will show that the essence of this acceptable savor is found in unselfishness, self-oblivion, or self loss. The savor of selfishness is offensive to God; and just as certain pungent, aromatic odors were supposed to overcome or annul the offensive smell of burning victims, the odor of a spirit that renounces all self-gain in an absorbing passion for His glory is represented as neutralizing what is distasteful to God, and so becomes the secret of all acceptable, sweet savor offerings.
Here lies, perhaps, the grandest of all arguments for missions-that they both demand and develop the highest self-oblivion. It is a peculiar mark of the incapacity of a worldly mind to appreciate spiritual truth and motive, that the very objections raised to missions, that commercially and selfishly they" do not pay," are in God's eyes the reasons for them. They make no appeal to the carnal, and hence evoke the nobler and more godlike principles within us.
The hope which inspires missionary effort is not the hope of seeing adequate results, such as in the material harvest of human enterprise justifies the sowing; God sometimes grants abundant returns, but not always, nor to the actual individual who has put forth the greatest measure of effort. The supreme hope of the true missionary is that he may witness for Christ to the unsaved so faithfully and fully that his Master at His coming may approve him with His own '~ Well done."
The hope thus set before us is so much above the sphere of time and
THE TRUE CHARM AND POWER OF MISSIONS
sense that it weans us from the world. It tends to make disciples unselfish and spiritual; to loosen the tie by which carnal objects are held, and make all else seem small in comparison with things to come. How can he who consistently studies for his Lord's approval lay up treasure here or plan for an easy life of selfishness? While preparing his soft nest the midnight cry may be heard. If the end of all things is at hand, what have we to do with treasures or pleasures, possessions or pursuits, which Christ's coming could interrupt, condemn, or bring to naught 1 If, step by step, human enterprise, worldly civilization, scholarly cultUl'e, or even churchly progress, can bring on the latter-day glory, we may have a pretext for building as though all we build were to last at least a thousand years ; but if all these things are to be dissolved and our best work brought speedily to the fiery ordeal, if only the gracious fruits of the spirit in our walking and working with God are to survive those trial fires, if all superficial success is then to appear as failure, let us spend our force and faculty upon what cannot be turned to ashes. And because, when this aim to be f.ound approved of the Lord at His coming really dominates the soul, we become uncarnaJ, unworldly, unselfish, it proves and approves itself as an aim inspired of God.
Here, then, is another vital link between spiritual life and the work of soul-saving. No form of service demands, for thorough doing, m'ore unworldly, unselfish devotion than missions. Much so-called "Christian work" is leavened with self-love, and may be prosecuted in the energy of the flesh, and perhaps its real inoontive may be found in the very worldly hope of rich returns and prompt payments in temporal advantage. The railway magnate may give large sums to build schools and churches in new settlements along the lines, and do it on commercial principles; for the church and school form a nucleus for population, and population means travel and transportation, and so revenue to the railway and larger dividends to stockholders. Much that we call "benevolence" is to God's eyes the cloak hiding the shrewd, calculating Shylock who has an eye to business.
The fact is itself an argument and an appeal that, so soon as the Lord's coming ceased to be felt to be imminent, and was projected indefinitely into the distance, the remarkable evangelism of primitive days which fed on this truth, declined and decayed, and has never been revived. It is but the few who flame with zeal for missions; the great body of professed disciples treat the work with apathetic indifference, or contend that it " does not pay!"
Cut to the core of this apathy, and you find simple selfishness. This carrying the Gospel to those in the far-off regions beyond is a work which in its very nature forbids us to expect any returns. These distant, destitute souls cannot recompense us ; we must wait for our recompense at the resurrection of the just, and at no point this side! The most frantic appeals for the perishing millions along the Congo, beneath the shadows of the Himalayas, or in the valleys of Korea, will be unheard and unheeded by those whose hearts are so electro-plated with greed that they have the ring of metal, and answer only to the touch of money. Of course missions do not pay, if "pay" means compensation to avarice, appetite, ambition, or any form of temporal self-interest and self-emolument. Missions are not a mint to coin sovereigns. Missions at home no doubt" pay." To evangelize London's millions applies healing salve to festering ulcers upon the body politic; to raise the condition of any great city guards the safety of our homes, life, liberty, property, temporal peace and prosperity, and pulls up anarchy by the roots. To evangelize the most remote districts of America's" great West" likewise" pays;" the returns are sure, though the harvest may take longer to ripen. Men who care nothing for the cross promote facilities for normal growth and healthy development in the remotest members because it helps the commonwealth; and it needs little thought to see that a thorn in the farthest extremities of the body inflicts such a pang on the whole body that the whole body stoops and bends, bringing every other member into service to pluck it out. And, therefore, city missions and all home work within our own borders appeal, more or less, to commercial enterprise and selfish instincts.
But mark the difference! A plea for South Sea cannibals or African Hottentots; for the half-idiotic Cretins of the Alps or half-brutal Maoris of New Zealand; for the stupid Esquimaux, or the stupefied opium smokers of China; for the chattering human baboons of Patagonia or the aboriginal barbarians of Australia; for the far:off Coreans or the exclusive Lama, worshippers of Thibet-an appeal for money and men to help uplift and save these needy souls has no hold or grip on selfish and unsanctified human nature. To give money for such a purpose is putting it into a bag with holes, never to see it again or any good from it. So, at least, say worldly-minded disciples.
We join no issue here. Missions to the heathen seldom do show adequate results in one generation. It is doubtful whether God means they shall. He puts before us this work as the most unselfish in which we can engage, and nearest in motive and spirit to that which brought our Redeemer to this earth. The spirit of missions is the Spirit of Christ because its essence is unselfishness; it gives to those from whom we cannot hope to receive, and bids to the feast those who cannot bid us again. Whoever by prevailing prayers, consecrated gifts, or personal work sets up the banner of the cross upon Satan's citadel, amid Brahmans and Bu:ddhists, Confucianists and" confusionists," Mohammedans and Jews, Parsees and Papists, fetish-worshippers and devil-worshippers, must, first of all, have the mind of Christ far enough to be emptied of self. He must humble himself and be obedient unto death; the carnal must die if the spiritual is to live,; the miser expires when the missionary is born; he who would save others, himself he cannot save.
It is utterly vain to try to prove to a selfish soul that it pays to give money, children, one's self, to bear the good news to the superstitious, degraded, half-imbecile pagan. Dr. Thomas Laurie's five hundred pages may. blaze with tributes to what missions have done for science-for geography, geology, meteorology, archreology, philology, ethnography; for natural, social, medical, and political science; for literature and culture, mechanic -arts and fine arts, history and poetry, commerce and common schools; nevertheless the more light you pour upon the selfish eye the more it contracts j and the carnal mind does not see that missions to the heathen are the most economical and practical investment for gold or lifeblood. To those who look from no loftier level than this world affords, it is worse than waste for heroic men and seraphic women to sacrifice themselves in such fashion, daring climate, disease, want, and even human brutes, to do their worst. Though a sweet savor of spikenard thus spreads amid the rank and rotten growths of paganism, yet the fair flask of costly alabaster is broken. Henry Martyn was a mistaken martyr. William Carey would better have stayed in Britain. Adoniram Jndson not only threw away in Burma his own precious life, but withdrew from civilization to a premature death three of the noblest women ever nurtured in refined society. Think of Harriet Newell dying on the Isle of France at twentyone, and Mrs. Grant in Persia at twenty-five j of John Williams beaten to death and eaten by Erromangan cannibals; of bishops Patteson and Hannington brutally assassinated; of Samuel J. Mills expiring on the sea in the service of Africa at thirty-five, and Nott broken like a reed in the first year of acclimation; of Levi Parsons' death at Alexandria, within two years, and Pliny Fisk wasting in Syria his splendid scholarship and wealth of languages, and, in two years more, following Parsons; of the young and brilliant astronomer Stoddard star-gazing in Persia, when he might have been the rival of La Place and Le Verrier r What if Morrison did give the Bible to China and Hepburn, t<1 Japan; if Livingstone did explore Africa, and Duff create high schools in India; if Peter Parker did push medical missions into China, and Clough gather the largest church in the world at Ongole ; if Eliza Agnew did become the mother of a thousand daughters at Oodooville, and Fidelia Fiske, at Ooroomiah; if Hogg and Lansing did make the Nile Valley bloom with plants of righteousness, and Cyrus Wheeler dot the Euphrates' banks with self-supporting churches; if William Duncan did bujld a Metlakahtla out of red Indians and Mason and Boardman organize the wild Karens into five hundred self.supporting parishes; if Mackay did celebrate his twelfth anniversary at Formosa with his twelve hundred converts, and Paton found Aniwa in barbarism, and in three years and a half left it a Christian island; what if the missionaries themselves, after a long period of trial, both of their powers and patience, cannot be drawn by any bait or driven by any terror from the work they love r To the worldly disciple the mission field is simply a necropolis, one vast sepulchre of blighted lives and buried hopes. The dust of nearly a thousand missionary martyn! enriches the soil of India alone. Hundreds have died on Africa's pestilential coast in process of acclimation. In the South Seas hundreds of saintly souls have given their bodies to be burned in cannibal ovens. " To what purpose is this waste 1"
Vainly does the selfishness that clutches the bag of temporal advantage wait for an answer. John may read the mystery ~here Judas cannot. The disciple who is not too far below the level of his Master finds enough explanation in his Master's example of uncompensated love and sacrifice. He remembers that it was One who at thirty-three laid down His life a sacrifice, who said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." These are what the Iron Duke called our" marching orders" j and if we fall in the unequal contest, we may at least have written above us a tribute like the famous inscription by which Simonides honored the Spartans who fell at Thermopylre : "Go, stranger, and declare to the Lacedremonians that we died here in obedience to their divine laws."
Because the blessed hope of our Lord's return has so refining an influence on character it is very mould and matrix of missions. Its whole tendency is to make us unselfish, to relax our grasp upon material treasures and carnal pleasures j to fashion us " not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life." It makes all time seem short and the whole' world seem small j' dwarfs the present age. into insignificance and lifts the peaks of the age to come into loftier ~ltitudes, on a nearer horizon, in a clearer view. It so magnifies the approval of the coming Lord as to make present compensation for .service and sacrifice appear trifling.
In the seven Epistles to the Churches, which open the Apocalypse, our Lord uses His advent as a perpetual admonition and inspiration. The Ephesians could well bear, have patience and not faint j the Smyrnese endure the ten days of tribulation j the Pergamoans hold fast His name and not deny the faith j the Thyatirans resist Jezebel's seductions j the Sardians keep up their watch and keep their garments white j the Philadelphians keep the word of His patience, and the Laodiceans, from lukewarmness wax ardent and fervent, for the Lord's coming was always at hand, when all trials would cease and all triumphs be complete.
Mr. Moody well says, "When this truth really takes hold of a man the world loses its grip on him. Gas stocks and water stocks, and stocks in banks and railroads are of very much less consequence to him now. His heart is free when he looks for the blessed appearing and kingdom of the Lord." Our brother hits the nail on the head with the blows of his simple Saxon hammer. Worldwide missions meet in worldly minds two fatal objections: the world is too wide and self is too narrow. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness, of riches, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, choke all growth in the grace of selfoblivion. Work is waste unless it pays in current coin. Charity is mistaken sentiment unless it "begins at home" and stays there. Fields
JAINISM
near by sown with corn and cotton yield better, surer, quicker crops than fields far off, where Gospel seed brings such slow, slim, uncertain har· vests. Marble mansions on the stately avenues of a metropolis are better investments than mission churches, schools, and hospitals, that are chronic beggars, always in a strait betwixt two-whether to give up the ghost themselves or make others give them more money. Strange indeed that even selfish eyes cannot see that it is a living, growing boy that wears out his trousers and outgrows his jacket, and that it is a prosperous work which needs more room and more help! Strange indeed that we have not learned nature's own lesson that it is the most precious seed that takes the best soil, the most costly culture, and the longest season to bring to harvest.
JAINISM.
BY REV. JOHN ROBSON, D.D.
The seventh century before the Christian era seems to have been one of religious ferment, development, and change in India. .The Aryas, who had entered the land from the northwest, had established themselves as the dominant race, and looked down on the original inhabitants as socially and religiously inferior. The nature worship, which they had originally held in common with their kinsmen of Greece and Rome, and w-hich, in the worship of Varuna, * had attained the highest theological and ethical conception attained by any natural religion, had become miserably debased. A system of ritualism and magic had killed out the simple worship that had been paid of old. Those who guided it-the Brahmans or praying ones-had usurped the rights of worship which had originally belonged to all, claimed to be themselves gods, and therefore a race by themselves superior to all other men. This claim they had strengthened by giving religious sanction to divisions of classes inferior to them. Next to them came the Kshatriyas, the royal or warrior caste ; after them the Vaisyas, the mercantile and agricultural caste. These were the twice-born or superior castes, while underneath them the once-born Sudras wereslumped together as a fourth caste. Thus society had come to be divided into four castes, and observance of caste law had been elevated above observance of the moral law.
While this priestly and social tyranny was being developed, philosophic thought was being developed also, and it was seeking to explain the origin and nature of the universe and the condition and destiny of man. The tendency of thought was pantheistic, though it had not assumed so decided a bent as in modern Hinduism. The doctrine of transmigration of souls had established itself as the best solution of the inequalities of human life.
* God of heaven (ovp"….). Karma, or the power in the acts of one birth to determine the condition of future births, was coming to be looked on as the supreme power in life; and deliverance from these repeated births was coming to be looked on as the great aim of human effort. How to attain this was thc problem that was exercising the religious thought of the time. The Brahmans taught that it was to be attained by sacrifice, and by worshipping them and the gods ; but others taught that it was to be attained by right life, anti specially by renouncing thc world and living lives of thc severest absti. nence and self-denial.
Among those who helpcd to give practical definiteness to tllis teaching was Piirswaniith, king of Aswasena. According to tradition, he had lived about two hundred years before the time of which we are writing. He gave up his kingdom, lived a hermit life in the desert or in mountain caves, and took the name of Jina, or conquerer-i.e., conqueror of worldly lusts and ambitions. Large numbers followed him, and were hence called * J ainas or J ains. Much is not known of his teaching. It was from Mahavlra, who lived two hundred years later, in the seventh century B.C., that the religion took its definite form. He was of the same royal house as Parswaniith, and became a follower of his; but in one respect he went beyond his master. Parswanath had carried his asceticism so far as to have no covering but a piece of white cloth; Mahavira carried his to the point of dispensing with all covering whatever. He did not, however, carry all his coreligionists with him in this new departure. Hence two sects sprang up among them, the Swetambaras, or "clothed in white,"
and the Digambaras, or " clothed in space. "t In the form which Jainism finally assumed these two are considered the last of a series of twenty-four saints, or Jinas, who have at various times appeared on earth. The name usually given to them is Tirthankara. With the exception of the two last they seem to be mythical, though in the myths regarding the first of them, Rikhal Deva, there seem some traces of historical truth.
We shall understand the teaching of Jainism better if we compare it with that of Buddhism, which arose about the same time. According to the dates now generally received, Gautama, from whom Buddhism sprang, was a younger contemporary of Mahavrra. The Jains claim that he reo ceived his teaching from their sage, but of that there is no evidence. It is much more likely that they both worked independently on the thoughts that were then exercising men's minds. What they have in common is the ideas of the age and the instincts of human commience. In working these out they are wide as the poles asunder. At the same time it is not • In Sanskrit the modification of the original vowel in a holy being's name by "a" indicates a follower or worshipper. Thus we have l'ai.hnava, a worshipper of Vishna,. Saiva, a worshipper of Siva,. Bauddha, a follower of Buddha: and Jaina, a follower of Jina.
t This theoretical asceticism is not now, as far as I have been able to observe, carried ont by even the religio1}S men of the sect. impossible that Buddha may have reeeived an impulse from the older Jainism that had come from Parswanath. According to tradition, the incident that finally decided his eourse of action was the sight of an ascetic who had conquered the desires of the world and lived in holy meditation.
It is interesting to notice that all these reformers were of the royal, not of the Brahmanieal caste. It seems as though the old warlike spirit were ehafing at the dominance which the latter had attained in religion, and were determined to break its yoke. It is to be noticed that the hatred of the Brahmans is much more strongly and spitefully expressed in the early Jain than in the early Buddhist books, and this seems another indication of an earlier origin. * To institute a full comparison between the two sys&ms would swell this paper beyond all reasonable dimensions. We shall, therefore, confine ourselvelil to a few leading points. Both systems are atheistic in the sense of not admitting any deity above the general system of the universe. Buddhism in its first teaching carried this principle consistently out by making no provision for worship, while J ainism, as we shall see, made such a provision in its very inception.
The final goal of man Buddhism teaches to be annihilation j J ainism, a state of stable ineffable bliss. The Buddhist conception of Nirvana was not originally either annihilation or a state of absorption into the soul of the universe, but a state of deliverance from all desires leading to extinction of being. It has latterly come to mean rather a final state of existence, free from all disturbing influence and free from the conception of some of the earlier Jain books.
It is in the teaching with regard to the attainment of this end, however, that the similarities and divergences of the two systems are most marked. Both teach that it is to be obtained through the observance of the moral code, and this code is given in a negative and positive form.
The negative code of the two systems present little difference. J ainism forbids, first, killing j second, falsehood j third, stealing j fourth, adultery j fifth, worldly-mindedness.
Buddhism forbids, first, killing j second, stealing j third, adultery j fourth, falsehood j fifth, the use of strong drink.
It will be observed that the only important difference is in the fifth command. J ainism seems to take in the Rweep of the tenth command of the Mosaic decalogue j Buddhism seems to have the limit of a religious order rather than of a religion. But we must remember that this part of Buddha's law was only for the laity. It was a step to the higher law, designed specially for those who renounced the world and entered the priesth(»d-as all could who wished-through which alone Nirvana was to be attained.
* so in Europe the :61'st symptom 'of the reform movement was the bitter attacks on the Roman Catholic priests. On the positive side- Jainism enjoins, first, mercy to all animated beings j second, almsgiving; third, venerating the sages (tirthankaras) while living, and wor. shipping their images when dead; fourth, confession of faults j fifth, religious fasting. Buddhism enjoins, first, charity; second, purity; third, patience j fourth, courage j fifth, contemplation j sixth, science. On this side it will at once be seen what a great moral superiority belongs to Buddhism. The first of its commands includes the two first of the Jain table. On all the rest Jainism is silent, and their place is taken by certain rules for religious practices. These last have practically found a place in later Bllddhism, but it has a far broader ethical basis than Jainism, and is calculated to build up a far finer moral character. Having a moral basis, and throwing the celibate open to all ey'ually, Buddhism has thus emancipated itself from caste and local restriction and attained the elements of universality. Jainism, on the other hand, by making the reverencing and worshipping of the tirthankaras a term of its moral law, has limited itself to a narrow sect. It teaches, in fact~ that only those saints and their worshippers who happened to be on earih at the time of their final incarnation have entered the beatific state. The Kalpa Sutra, in giving the narrative of the various tirthankaras, is careful to state the number that entered hliss along with each by virtue of his merits. Thus, according to Jainism, the only hope for final salvation is being again on earth when the next tirthankara shall appear, and worshipping him so as to share his beatitude. It is thUs not surprising that, while .r Buddhism has come to be a world religion, ainism has continued to be one of the narrowest sects of India. But it is this very narrowness which has enabled it to maintain itself in India, while Buddhism has been expelled from that land. Hinduism found in the latter a rival which could not exist alongside of it, which must either expel it or be expelled. Therefore, when thoroughly aroused, it expelled it from the" land of the Aryas." It found Jainism a sect which could exist alongside of it or within it without causing it much danger, and so had no difficulty in tolerating it. Thus it is that Jainism is now the only survival of what we may call the Buddhism movement once so powerful in India, and by its environment it has come to be little more than the name of a caste of Hindus. It is confined, in fact, to some of the Vaisyu, or mercantile castes-Seths, or bankers and wholesale merchants, and Baniyas, or shopkeepers-who represent more than any other the religious vis inertia! of India.
The Jains at present number a little over one million four hundred thousand. They are found chiefly in Rajputana, Guzerat, and Western India. They are mostly enterprising men of business, and a great part of the wealth of the commnnity is in their hands. In some of the native States they have obtained considerable political power through their wealth. In Udaipur, the oldest and most honorable of the Hindu States, the office of prime minister is hereditary in one of their families. Generally under English rule they have a security and prosperity greater than they ever enjoyed before. The English Government tends to protect commerce and to enforce bargains and sales. The mercantile community take advantage of this, drive hard bargains with the agriculturists, an9- so are getting a great part of the land under their power. The English rule is therefore popular with them, but by the Rajputs-the warrior caste, the modern Kshatriyas-and others it is sneered at as a" baniya-raj," a shopkeeper's rule.
If we turn' to the development of religion among them, we see all the corruptions which human nature would naturally bring into Ruch a system as I have sketched above. They adhere strictly to certain minor moralities and neglect the weightier matters of the law. The solitary moral precept in their positive code illustrates the whole spirit of their religion, and, in fact, gives it its distinctive, outward character among the various religions of India. It enjoins mercy to all animated beings. Animated beings include insects as well as men j and in the eye of a Jain the life of a flea is as sacred as the life of a man, and its destruction as great a sin. Some of their sophistical devices to get quit of vermin are rather amusing, but hardly bear repetition. One great act of religious merit is to feed ants and such like. A single handful of rice wiII thus supply the daily wants of hundreds of lives, whereas if given to a man it would not supply a single meal for a single life. Then mercy is restricted to not taking life by violence j it does not require avoiding giving it pain. A Jain has no scruple in mercilessly overloading his bullock 01' his horse and urging it with goad or whip till it falls down from fatigue. When it is too old to be serviceable it is a sin, against the law of mercy, to put it out of pain by shooting it, but it is no want of mercy to withhold its food till it dies, when the owner will weep over its fate. Mercy, too, does not forbid leaving a fellow-being to perish if you do him no positive injury. Almsgiving is, of course, commanded, but that means giving to religious mendicants or devotees. That is an act of religious merit, but to give to a starving, low-caste man is a stupid waste of substance.
With regard to truthfulness, the Jains are much the same as the average Hindu. Lying is considered an essential for the trader, and he will bring any amount of lying to the striking of a bargain j* but when it is struck he wiII loyally adhere to it, and will not falsify his ledger. Their ideas of chastity are also those of the Hindus j but it says a great deal for their regard for women that they are the only caste in Rajputana in which the females are in excess of the males. t • When the English officer in charge of the native state of A1wur during the minority of the late ruler was carrying out some improvements, he directed a row of pipal trees to be planted in a new bazar. Now the pipal tree is considered an abode of the gods, and no Hindu dare tellHes under its shade. At once all the baniyas in the bazar rOBe in rebellion and insisted on the pipal trees bein!( taken away. " How can we trade, " they said, " if we are not allowed to lie 1"
t Among the Hindns and Mohammedans the males were about 12 per cent in excess of the females at last census. Among the Jains the females were 2kl per cent in excess of the males. The need for worship among the Jains finds satisfaction chiefly in the worship of the tirthankaras or of their religious guides. Pilgrimages to the shrines of the former are one of the principal religious acts. This would seem, indeed, to be the foundation of their systcm. Tirthankara means "author of a firth," or place of pilgrimage. It is true the J ains say that their tirth is a moral tirth. None the less are the shrines sacred to the various tirthankaras visited by numbers of pilgrims. That especially of Rikhab Dev, the first of the tirthankaras, in the midst of the wild hill country of the Bhils to the south of Udaipur, draws annually thousands of pilgrims from all parts of India.
There are two classes of priests among the Jains, the Dhundhias and the Jatis. The former, who include females as well as males, are wandering ascetics. They have not much learning; they maintain their sanctity by their great care not to destroy insect life. They have always a cloth over their mouth, lest any insect may be drawn in by the inhaling of the breath. They carry a broom to sweep the ground before they sit down, lest they should crush any animal. As may be supposed, their company is more sought by insects than by men, but they are considered very holy.
The Jatis are somewhat superior to these. They have each their temple and parish, and must be instructed in the Jain holy books. They are celibates, and maintain their order by adoption. They adopt sons from all castes, mostly from Rajputs and Brahmans. I have not met any that were originally J ains. They are supposed to carry out in their own persons the requirements of Jainism, while the laity worship them and bring them gifts, that they may benefit from their merit. The first native of India that I was privileged to receive into the Christian Church belonged to this class. He was originally a Rajput, had been sold by his parents to a Jati in a time of famine, had been educated by him as a disciple, and at his death inherited his money and the diocese in which he was the spiritual head. He had' been trained up to all the tricks of the priesthood, and gave me an insight into some of them, It is one of the rules of Jati life to drink only water that has been boiled, so as to avoid destroying insect life; but they may not boil it themselves or order it to be boiled, as that would be committing the same sin. So when he went to one of his villages he went to the first Jain house, and asked if they had any boiled water. If they had not, he went on to the others; and if he failed to get it anywhere, he came back to the first house. They would by that time have it boiled and cooled and ready for drinking. He had not told them to boil it, but they understood quite well what was expected. They, of course, incurred the sin of destroying the life in the water, but that did not matter for them, as they were laity. Their priest was preserved from sin, and they benefited from his merit.
Certain fasts are enjoined on the Jains, but these, too, are observed by proxy, the Jati fasting while his flock worship him and bring him gifts.
MALAYStA
The fast is observed in public, the Jati sitting on an elevated daiS in presence of his worshippers, so that there may be no doubt as to the reality of the fast, and giving additional potency to the function by reading aloud the sacred books. But a cloth must be over the mouth to prevent insects entering, and this cloth can be conveniently arranged to hang down over the knees while sitting. Under it a good dish of provisions can be concealed, which may be slipped into the mouth without the worshipper's notice. My informant told me that such a fast had been the occasion of a bitter quarrel with a brother J ati. They had agreed that they would each take a certain amount of confectionery during the fast. He found the amount agreed on rather too little, and was faint at the end; when he discovered that his companion had taken double the quantity, and came through the fast quite fresh. This he considered a breach of faith, which made him break with him altogether.
In the midst of all this his conscience was working. He found nothing in the Jain faith to satisfy his religious craving; he felt that the whole system of the priesthood was one of fraud and a hypocrisy. Often when the multitude was worshipping him he felt so wretched that he wished he were a dog, and was sometimes tempted to commit suicide. He sought a satisfaction for his cravings in one of the secret sects of Hinduism, but its moral character disgusted him. He came to hear of Jesus Christ, found in Him all that he wanted, and ended his days a zealous teacher of His faith.
He has had few followers as yet either from among the priesthood or the laity. Christian missions have hitherto made little impression on the J ains; but the moral and religious needs of human nature exist within them, and if Jesus Christ be faithfully preached to them, they will come at last to recognize Him as the only one who can satisfy them, the Holy One who can give salvation to all who believe in Him in every age.
MALAYSIA.
BY REV. W. F. OLDHAM, PITTSBURG, PA.
To the southeast of Asia, stretching from Siam to Australia and from the Indian Ocean to New Guinea, is a vast archipelago, presenting a most inviting study to the geographer and ethnologist and of increasing interest to the Christian missionary. Here are found such considerable islands as Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Gilolo, and continental Borneo.
Through this archipelago runs a line of fire. Up through Sumatra, running the length of the island, throngh Java, Borneo, the Celebes, the Philippines, and then on east through New Guinea and north through Japan. Along this line is a spine of volcanic peaks rising to great heights and liable at any time to active eruptions. On both sides of tuis line of fire the land is wonderfully productive, and large crops are raised of such rich tropical products as pepper, nutmegs, sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice, gutta-percha, etc.
As a whole, the islands are exceedingly fertile and beautiful with a gorgeous beauty unknown outside the mid-tropics. The waters amid which they sit are mostly shallow, and the deep-green tints of the shallow ocean, the perennial verdure of the islands, the opaline tints on the lofty mountain-tops, and the glowing azure of the ofttimes cloudless sky present to the eye of the admiring traveller such a scheme of color as the earth can scarcely duplicate.
On these islands lives an estimated population of thirty-six millions of people. These are for the most part of two races, the Malay and the Papuan. The former, an Indo-Chinese, differentiated from the parent stock by centuries of residence in their island homes. In some respects inferior to their continental progenitors, in others they are superior. In the main truthful, brave, kind to their families, capable of friendship, though subject to terrific gusts of passion, and, when aroused, unreasonable and obstinate, the Malay race, in all its subdivisions, ought certainly attract more general attention from the Christian churches of England and America. A wave of Islamic conquest has swept over these islands during many centuries, and the large bulk of the Malay races own fealty to the Arabian prophet. The chief propagators of Islam have been the Arab traders, who, by marrying with the Malay chiefs' daughtexs and by superior commercial sagacity, obtain ascendancy in Malay communities. The Dutch officials, too, who rule the more populous islands of Malaysia, have too often been the friends and helpers of the Moslem propaganda. As it was in British India years ago, so it has been till recently in the Dutch East Indies. Godless men in the military and civil employ of the Government, disliking the Christian missionary's standard of morals, and preferring the looseness of Mohammedanism, have covertly, if not openly, thrown their influence on the side of the false prophet. As yet, however, of large sections of the Malay peoples it may be said they are but veneered with Mohammedanism. The old nature worship is yet strong with them; and I have seen in parts of Java, nominally Moslem women carrying offerings of flowers just as their heathen ancestors did. There has, however, of late years been a yery large increase in the number of Malay pilgrims to Mecca. The steamboat companies advertise widely, and the honor put upon the returned pilgrim or " Hadji" is such as to induce thousands to brave the perils and discomforts of the journey. The effect of this pilgrimage is, in the main, to deepen Moslem fervor. The pilgrims have suffered for their faith, and it becomes of larger worth. Their devotion brings them great honor in their own community, which is further reason why they should be devout. The Dutch Government begins to perceive that the deepening hold of Mohammedanis~ is likely to breed mischief. Whatever else the "Hadji" mayor may not learn on his pilgrimage, he does learn to hate the "Kafir," the unbelieving dog of a Christian. In the recent past a more active interest has been shown by Government officials at large in ihe efforts of the Christian mis:;:ionaries, while some of them, earnest, godly men themselves, are of great assistance to the Christian cause. The other race found in the archipelago is the "Papuan," from the Malay " papuwah-frizzled," referring to their" mop heads. " These are ocean negritoes, and differ markedly from the Malay in physical and mental characteristics. Physically the Papuan is not equal in prowess to the Malay, who has invariably driven him from the coast and the rivet banks to the interior high lands. Yet the Papuan is taller and more comely, and will ultimately probably leave the Malay behind, for he has more vital energy. Papuan slaves are often men of ability, and are pro. moted to high office. They have greater feeling for art than the Malays, and decorate their canoes, their houses, pots and pans, etc., with elaborate carvings in admirable taste. They have, unfortunately, a decided taste for human flesh j but from this they are being rapidly reclaimed, and they have the great excellence of being almost incapable of untruthfulness. Among these native peoples scattered all through the islands, and destined ultimately to greatly influence the archipelago, are thousands of Chinese. As a miner, as a cultivator, above all, as a petty tradesman, the almond-eyed stranger appears everywhere, and wherever he comes he easily secures a footing, and because of his superior industry and intelligence forges to the front. Any plan of evangelization of these islands which overlooks the Chinaman will be at fault. Law-abiding, orderloving, intelligent, the Chinese settlements throughout the archipelago should be seized as outposts in any wide scheme of Christian conquest.
The Dutch Government politically controls by far the largest part of the archipelago j and Dutch missions are, as we would expect, the most numerous and widely spread among the islands. The Church in Holland, however, has never risen to the height of the magnificent opportunity that God has laid at her doors. Indeed, God-given opportunities always far outrun the readiness of the Christian Church to use them j and the Dutch have been quite as responsive to the needs of the Indies as the British have been to those of the greater India they govern. The principal societies at work are: 1. The Netherlands Missionary Society, which began early in the century through its representatives Messrs. Kam, Buckner, and Supper. Kam, who first settled in Amboyna, was a notable man, and after valuable and heroic service he died in 1833. This society's usefulness lIas been much crippled by its defection from the evangelical faith. Rationalism, however it may commend itself to some of the scholars of the Church in Christian lands, never fails to throttle earnest mission enterprise. Happily a better state of things begins to appear j and men who are not Rcoffers at the "blood-theology" of evangelical Christians are putting new vigor into the society's missions. They number eighteen missionaries, with ten times as many native helpers, and twenty thousand converts. Next in numbers and importance among Dutch missions is : 2. The Dutch Reformed Missionary Society, which now numbers some six thousand converts. The notable thing about this mission is that it has gained its great conquests in the province of Djokjakarta, which was closed against missionaries. An elect lady, Mrs. Phillips, the wife of an official, converted, I was told, by reading an extract from one of Mr. Moody's addresses, threw herself into personal work for Christ among the natives around her j God blessed her testimony, and the result has been a great awakening and ingathering. Some of the dear brethren scarcely enjoy this attestation of the Holy Spirit to woman's effectiveness as a preacher j nevertheless, the Church in this unofficially evangelized province is the green spot in all Java.
3. The Dutch Missionary Society, with seven missionaries and some native helpers, is faithfully working among the Soudanese. Add to these several smaller societies. such as the Ermolo Missionary Society, the Java Comite, etc., and you have the entire force of Dutch missions at work in Malaysia. The show~ng is not reassuring. Vast populations are practically unreached. The activity of the Christian Church is far behind the Moslem propaganda, and Mohammedanism is fastening itself more deeply every year upon the people. The Dutch churches are doing what they can, but infected in part by rationalism, the wave of missionary enthusiasm does not rise very high j and though the Government in these later years is more sympathetic and helpful, there is loud and urgent call for other Christian bodies to go to the help of our Dutch brethren against Islam and nature worship in these populous islands.
Answering in part to this call, there are at work in the Netherlands Indies: l. The Rhenish Missionary Society, of Germany, with missionaries in Borneo (South), Sumatra, and Nias. The missions in the latter two islands are yery successful. Especially among the Battaks, old-time can· nibals, docs the Vord of God prevail.
2. The British Foreign and Bible Society. No words of mine can too highly praise the yigor and thoroughness with which this society, under the efficient direction of Mr. John Haffenden, is sowing these islands with God's Vord. Great revivals will surely come in the future, judging from the eagerness of the people to buy" gospels" and" portions" which, published in cheap and very portable form, tell in their own tongues to the various peoples of the archipelago the "wonderful things of God." The entire archipelago is traversed by these indefatigable colporteurs. Even into the Philippine Islands one of them penetrated, only to be driven away by the intolerant and unspeakably corrupt and evil liviI1g Spaniard Romish priests.
In North Borneo is Sarawak, the romantic kingdom of Rajah Brooke. Here is a splendid mission of the English Episcopal Church, led by the scholarly Bishop Hose. This mission, however, is confined to the Dyaks and Chinese, the king fearing trouble from the Malays should Christ be preached to them-an unworthy fear, from which may timo and the providence of God deliver all concerned! This English mission is found operating also in Labuan and in the Straits Settlements, which is an English colony.
Of all the missions in Malaysia the most successful seems to have been that conducted in the North Celebes region, where tens of thousands of islanders, before they were captured by the Mohammedan faith, came en masse into the Christian camp. They seem to have been received and baptized j but these tender though honest babes in the faith were not sufficiently carefully trained in the new faith, and seem to have taken on only such a veneer of Christianity as many of the Javanese have of Mohammedanism. Left to walk by themselves before they were able, many of them have lapsed. Some have gone to Islam j many live a low type of semi-Christian life. The Roman Catholics, ever on the alert to enter into other people's labors, have begun an active mission. The Netherlands Missionary Society is now endeavoring to repair the waste places. The Government, too, is growing helpful and sympathetic j but a great deal of work must be done over again before Minnehassa, the " pearl of missions," recovers the lustre of its early Christian days.
The American churches have done but little for Malaysia. India on the one side, and Japan r.,nd China on the other, have presented such populous continental areas that hitherto the efforts of American Christians have been but sparsely directed to this southeastern Asiatic archipelago.
While waiting for China to open, the American Board seems to have supported a few mission stations, but on the opening of the treaty ports in China these were abandoned, and the missionaries proceeded to China. Two young men, Henry Lyman and Munson, were sent to the Battaks of Sumatra. These pioneers were killed and eaten by the cannibal savages, and the project was abandoned. It is cheering to know that these same Battaks, since approached from the south by German missionaries, have largely yielded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The comparative spiritual destitution of this section of Asia was so impressed upon one of the churches of America-the Methodist Episcopal (North)-that in 1885 Bishop Hurst, then visiting India, appointed tM writer of this article missionary to Singapore. A mission on a selfsupporting basis was begun among the English-speaking people of Singapore, an island of great strategic and commercial importance. This island commands the Malacca Straits, and is the commercial entrepot of Southeastern Asia. It is one of the commercial navels of the world and floats the British flag. Its polyglot population of Malays, Tamils, Chinese, and Europeans is in close touch with all the surrounding islands, with China, with India, and with Europe. In the beautiful harbor of Singapore ride the ships of all the sea-going nations of the world. Chinese junks and Malay dhows jostle the ocean racers of England and France and Germany. A free port, knowing nothing of customs duties except on a very few articles, here come large cargoes of tobacco, hides, rice, tea, tin, rattan, coffee, india-rubber, and sugar. Commercial activity in foreign ports is usually accompanied by two things, moral laxity and mental alertness. The morals of Singapore are not high. The readiness of its people to receive new ideas is far beyond that usual in the East.
The American Methodist Mission, beginning work among the English.. speaking, founded a self-supporting English-speaking church. This church has never received a penny of support from without. Beginning with seventeen members, it now numbers over one hundred, and has given over a dozen mission workers to the varied enterprises that now cluster around it.
Parallel with the work in English has grown up a mission to the " Baba," or straits-born Chinese. These enlightened and progressive Chinamen, British subjects, seeing that the American missionary really desired to serve them, rallied around him, and were at the expense of providing for him school·houses and furniture at an expense of over $12,000. The English Governor, Sir Cecil Smith, of that class of enlightened rulers who have made the English name famous through Asia, quickly perceived the usefulness of the American educational missionary project ; and a large "Anglo-Chinese" school, numbering' from four to five hundred scholars, entirely self-supporting, is now located at Singapore. Another similar institution is fast growing up in Penang ; and through the prestige and kindly feeling generated by the schools our evangelistic missionaries are finding free access to the peoples around them. A medical mission, a Malay press, an orphanage, a Tamil church and school, and constant itinerant preaching among the Malays are all forms of activity in which the American missionaries are now engaged.
It would greatly help in the extension of God's kingdom among these most interesting races if some other branch of American Christians-say the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) or any other-would select some part of Sumatra, or, with the consent of the Dutch missionaries, some part of Java, or the Celebes, or East Borneo as a mission centre, and from there, in consultation with the Dutch and American brethren already on the field, project a wider and more insistent evangelism among these islanders. They will otherwise year by year be more firmly intrenched in Mohammedanism, with its inordinate conceit and intolerant and fierce bigotry. If anywhere in the mission world the King's business calls for haste it is in the fair and beautiful islands of Malaysia.
A MISSIONARY'S EXPERIENCE IN JAMAICA AND OLD QALABAR
A MISSIONARY'S EXPERIENCE IN JAMAICA AND OLD CALABAR.* BY REV. J. J. FULLER.
This is a jubilee meeting. Fifty years of Christian efforts; fifty years of Christian prayer; fifty years of Christian missions ; and fifty years of contact with young hearts and young minds-these have matured your insti- tution and kept it up until the present day. 'When I was told that this was your Jubilee, my mind went back to the fact that you and those that have gone before have had a hand in bringing about some of the great changes that have taken place in the countries of the world. Among the many nations and peoples with whom you have had to do or whom you have helped, . my nation and people, and my own native country, and Africa itself, have borne some of your good wishes, have seen some of your kindness, and have had some of your earnest prayer for the spread of the kingdom of Jesus Christ among them.
Fifty years shows a great difference in ~y own country, which is one of the British possessions in the West Indies-the island of Jamaica. Fifty years ago that land had, comparatively speaking, an unlettered people, just emerged, as it were, from the bondage of slavery. It was only then that schools were thrown open and that the children of the col- ored people of my home were permitted to take the Bible in their hands. It was not until slavery had been abolished that we were permitted to wor- I!hip God freely. Before then our fathers had to worship God in the dark night. They had to hide themselves in caves. They had to meet their missionaries on the banks of the rivers. They had to hide themselves in all sorts of corners in order to worship God. But by the efforts of mis- sions, and by your sending missionaries to heathen countries to preach the Gospel, you have not only benefited the peoples to whom you sent the Gos- pel, but the blessing has rebounded with tenfold force, and benefited Great Britain herself; because it was not until you sent missionaries that the awful deeds and cruelties of slavery were brought before the English pub- lic. And no sooner did England know what slavery meant and what sor- rows it caused, the families it scattered, the homes it broke up, and the way in which men were degraded and brutalized by it, than she at once put her shoulders to the wheel, and so the curse was removed from off the British standard.
I believe that it was in the year 1834 that Great Britain paid twenty millions of money for the abolition of slavery. The day when that Act was passed in England, the day on which it had the signature of the sovereign, • This remarkable address was delivered at the IlCtieth anniversary of St. Panl's Missionary 8oclety, In connection with the mercantile honse ofHltcheock, Williams & Co., London, England, January, 1893. Mr. Fnller is a native of .Jamaica, W. I., and was born in slavery, and has spent the latter part of hie liCe in Old aalabar. Bnt he wlll tell his own story.-ED. that very day I-then a boy-was one of those that were set at liberty. I was eight years old when England passed the Emancipation Act. I was there. I remember being carried by my mother to the office, so that my name might be registered. But it was in the year 1838 that the great day came j and I shall never forget it. Our parents had to serve a longer time than we did. It was only children of a certain age that were set at liberty when the Emancipation Act was passed in 1834. In the year 1838, on the 31st day of July, our missionaries-among them William Knibb and James Philippo-gathered the fathers and mothers together j and they thought that, if England had done such a great thing for us, we ought to give slavery a very respectable burial j and so we did. We had a firstrate mahogany coffin made j and, as some of our fathers were carpenters and cabinet-makers, they put all the polish they possibly could upon that coffin. It looked very respectable. And they had not only that, but a splendid grave, fit for a gentleman to lie in. We had all the implements of slavery-the whip, the torture iron, the branding iron, the handcuffs, a piece of the treadmill, the coarse frock, the coarse shirt, and the great hat (all things which were used ill slavery)-put into that coffin and screwed down as close as possible. At about half.past eleven o'clock, on the night of July 31st, there were fourteen thousand people and five thousand children gathered, and I was one of them. I remember that, as soon as the half hour came, the appointed signal was given all through the island, so that at that hour, I believe, every colored man that was to be found on the island of Jamaica was on his knees! And, as the clock began to strike the hour of twelve, William Knibb stood over the grave, and, at every stroke of the clock that sounded out the hour, he cried, " The monster is dying / The monster is dying / The monster is dying /" and when the clock struck the last stroke of the twelve, he cried, "THE MONSTER IS DEAD! BURY HIM!" We lowered that coffin into the grave, and that mass of human beings rose on their feet and sang the doxology : " Praise God, from whom all blessings flow."
And I can remember looking into my mother's face and seeing tears rolling down her eyes, while I, as a child, looked up and thought what a happy time it must be. As soon as they had sat down, all of us children rose on our feet, and we sang a piece that had been taught us j and that piece was: .. Send the glad tidings over the sea, The chain is broke, the slave is free; Britannia's justice, wealth and might Have gained the negro's long-lost right."
We sang that song j and I rememher our marching, five hundred of us, to the Governor's house, where Sir Lionel Smith read the proclamation of freedom to all.
Now, it is more than fifty years ago since that happened j but, within that time, during the fifty years that have just passed, let me say that God in His own way has given testimony to the truth of His promise, that where the Gospel goes that Gospel will prove the power of God to salvation. We turn to our own country of Jamaica to-day, and we find that, within this half century, God has not only removed the curse of slavery, but we have become a Christian people with Christian institutions. Folly, superstition, idolatry, and witchcraft, in which our fathers believed, have all passed away j and to-day there is not to be found upon the whole island of Jamaica, taking all the different denominations that are therein, a single missionary church-all have become self-supporting and independent of missionary societies.
One could scarcely expect such a great change j but not only have we become a Christian nation, independent of missionaries societies, but we have been taught by the missionaries who came to our country that freely we have received and freely we ought to give. So, on the island of Jamaica to-day, we have an independent Baptist Missionary Society of our own not at all connected with the society in England, and which sends ilie Gospel to the heathen afar off. This is the result of one half century.
It was supposed, you know, that the black man had not got any brains. They say that our heads are too thick. Phrenologists have looked at our heads and said that there are too many bones there j but missionaries that have gone to our country have felt that it is a very good thing that we have had a thick head, because, if we had not-if we had your soft head -all the brains would go! You know, when you get to our country, the first thing that you want is a " helmet. " God has put our helmet on without giving us the trouble of making one. But our missionaries have found out that the black man lacks only opportunity and privileges. If you give him them, God can develop that man as well as any other.
Our missionaries, I say, have tried it. In the island of Jamaica to-day we have about two hundred and seventy Baptist churches. The Presbyterians have got their churches j the Church of England have got theirs j the Wesleyans have got theirs. Some of the two hundred and seventy Baptist churches seat two thousand people j and seventy of those churches are ministered to by young men, well qualified in our colleges, and who are now preaching the Gospel side by side with their European brethren. So much, friends, for the success of the Gospel in our land. Then we have Suuday-schools, high schools, grammar schools, and colleges of all the different universities. God has honored the men who went to our land and preached the Gospel, and given them encouragement by showing them that Africa, with all her supposed degradation and all her real degradation, is capable of receiving the Gospel j and if we give it to the Africans, He who said, "Go into all the world," has promised that He will be with His disciples.
I just say so much with regard to my own country j but I have myself been engaged in mission work for forty-five years. Some people say, " You do not look that yourself'" but I have had forty-five years' experience in a savage country. When the Baptist Missionary Society started their mission on the West Coast of Africa, my father was one of the first who went out to carry the Gospel to the land of our forefathers. Soon after he left I felt a determination also to join the mission and go out to Africa; and, in the year 1845, I landed on the 'West Coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea and in the Bight of Biafra. When we landed there was no Bible, no written language. None of the people had ever heard the name of Jesus Christ. The natives there were all savages, naked, degraded, and depraved. Everything that repelled the eye and sickened the heart presented itself before us as we landed. We saw human sacrifices. People say that the Africans are cruel. I have not read of any heathen countries where cruelty does not exist; but it is what they are taught. In Africa, when we got there, we found that the people believed in some future. What that future is they knew nothing of. Because of this belief not a king died but so many men and so many women were put into the grave with him. There was not anyone that died in that country without somebody being accused of being responsible for it, and they administered to the person poison for witchcraft. There was not an infant child whose mother died but the child was put alive into the coffin with its dead mother and buried. In one part of the country there was not a twin child born but the poor mother of the twins was flogged to death, and the children were put to death immediately, because the witch doctors said that they were cursed. The people believed this; and they had carried on such horrid customs for centuries. When we got there we found that this was the condition of the people. They were running about perfectly naked. They were without hope and without God in the world. Within a short period of the missions having been established among them the people had their language put into a written form, and they had the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, translated by Alfred Saker and by the Presbyterian missionaries. To-day we have men that have been trained there preaching the Gospel among their own people. We have churches formed, and we have schools that have been established. The people are being taught to read and write.
I remember the scene when we landed in Africa. I had scarcely been there a month before one of the kings of Calabar died. A horrid sight was brought before us in the many people that were put into his grave with him. The grandson of that king that died soon after we landed in Africa, is to-day one of the elders of a Presbyterian church; and if you go into his house you will find that every morning the open Bible is on his table aud he is conducting family worship. The old custom of burying the living with the dead is wiped out and gone. I remember going into t.he Cameroons, and after I had opened my window in the morning, looking across the river, I saw many canoes with people dressed up in all their war dresses, and their .spears and swords were brandished in the sun. They had their war caps upon their heads. I took my glass and looked, and I found that the decoration on the bows of all those canoes was nothing else but human heads. I went up to the chief and said to him, " What do you do this for 1" He looked at me very much astonished that I should ask him such a question. He said, "What 1" Pointing across the river, I said, "Look yonder." "Why 1" he said. " What about that 1" I said, "why do you do such cruel things 1 It is not right. " He said, "You people come into this country, and you live here, and you say that you are good people-and that is true enough-but do you tell me that, when I die, my sons arc to put me into an empty grave alone, and nobody with me 1" When I told him" Yes," he looked at me and said, "You are a fool." Then all his sons came up directly and said, " What is the matter, father 1" And he told them. He said, "This man, who has como to live in this country, says that when i die you boys will put me into an empty grave, alone, with "no one with me." And they looked at me and grinned their savage grin; and they turned away and said, " Father, do not believe him. He is a fool and he is' a foreigner. What does he know 1 Let him alone." I stand here to tell you that that same chief lived on until the old custom of burying people with the dead was completely abolished. In his town, about fifty yards from his own house, stood a little chapel, and the preacher in that chapel was none other than one of his sons, who was preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If God, in such a short time, can produce such a change, surely prayers for missions and for the extension of Christ's kingdom in the world have a proof that they are being answered by God, when we think of the present condition of the people, and think of what was their former condition, when we saw them in their degradation as naked savages. The other day I had a letter from the church in the Cameroons to say that they had built a chapel for themselves that will seat one thousand people, and that the membership of that one church had grown to seven hundred; that the people had collected for themselves among themselves no less than £999, and had established fifteen different stations in different parts of tho country since I left, in order to spread the Gospel among their own neighbors. I say that Africa, with all her degradation, and with all her ignorance, desires to have the Gospel; and if it is given to the people, they, of themselves, in their own country, will spread that Gospel if they only know and hear the truth preached to them. I believe that the time will come, and that the time is not far off, when Africa, with all her degradation and darkness, will rise. We remember. that fifty years ago, up the Congo River, no one had ever heard the Gospel, and we looked upon it as a hard soil to work; but to-day the Scripture is being translated into their own tongue, their young men are being taught to read the Bible, Christian churches are being formed, and some of the cruelties that the missionaries met when they landed first in the Congo are gradually being removed; so that the time will yet come when we shall see a great change in the work of God among the people in Africa. I remember standing at my door and seeing one of the chiefs coming across. As he was coming I looked at him. He was a great man, a man of position in his country; but the only covering that he had was the fibres of the plantain tree combed out and a great cap on his head with parrots' feathers. He had a great bullock horn across his breast, and he walked as stately as ever. Several of the princes were following him behind, all of them being dressed in the same way. I called to this man as he passed my door. I said, " Mikani," and he looked round, but he would not answer. I called again, but he wonld not answer. I called a third time, llnd one of his followers turn~d upon me and said, "What do you want?" "Why," I said, "I only want to speak to him. I want to ask him a question." The man said, "He will not answer you." "Why? What have I done?" He replied, " Why, the man has just been into his superstitions, and he has sworn that for nine days he will not speak to anybody except by signs. At the end of nine days he will go back to the place where he came from, and after that he will converse as of old." I thought it was of no use to trouble him any more, and I let him go. After the nine days were over I went .to his house. I saw him sitting at the door; and just as I got to his house I saw this bullock's horn that he had across his breast hanging across the threshold of his door. I looked at it, and then I looked at him and said, "Do you mean to tell me that. a big man like you, in such a position as you are, believes in such a foolish thing as that?" The man was rather insulted. "'Vhat do you mean?" he said. "Why," I said, " look at that thing. Do you mean to say that that thing has any power in it ?" I said, " Let me take my penknife and open it, and I will show you what is in it. " There was nothing in it but some red clay, parrots' feathers, dogs' teeth, pieces of the skins of animals, some of his own hair, and a little bit of his own toenail. I said, " I know what is in it. Do you mean to tell me that you believe in that stuff ?" He answered, " Believe it ? Yes. " He said, " If I have that thing hanging at my door no witch will dare to come into my house. If she comes, before she crosses the threshold of my door she will be dead." I said, "You do not believe that rubbish, do you ?" " -Well," he said, " I do. And that is why you missionaries all die. You come into this country, and the witches know that you have not anything to keep off the witchcraft, so they kill you ; but they will not come near me, because they know that I have got something to stop them. " Well, I made it my business to visit that man day after day and try to convince him, but it was no good. I could not do anything. Six months after that I was sitting in my little study room, and I heard the drum that tells of death. And I knew what it waS. When a chief dies the sound of that drum tells the tale, and the missionary has to be immediately on the move. I took my hat directly and started up and got to the chief's place. I said, " Mikani, who is dead?" He hung his head down for a minute, and then he said, " One of those princes that were with me on that day." "Why,"
THE REV. JOHN L. NEVIUS, D.D
I said, "you told me that the man that had got that thing would nbt die. Did not that prince wear one of these horns ?', " Yes." "Did he not have a cap~" "Yes. " "Did he not have that same horn~" " Yes." "Then, how is it," I said, "that he is dead?" And the poor fellow hung his head down for a moment. Then, lifting up his head, he looked full into my face for a few moments, and he was silent. Last of all I saw him stretch his hand, and he took hold of the horn as it hung across the door, and removed it from its place, and flung it across the road, and he said, " I will try yours." Where is he to-day, friends? Go to the Cameroons, and you will see a native minister there preaching the Gospel; but on the right hand of that native preacher, who is preaching the Gospel, sits a gray-headed man, and the very look of that man's face tells us of his inward happiness. That is the same man. He has tried and found that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved but the name of Jesus Christ. He is the head deacon of the church, and the membership is now about seven hundred. There is a congregation of perhaps a thousand gathering together there now. I remember that upon my landing in 1845 these people were rank savages and brutal in every act, and not only so, but they were naked savages; and to-day we see them clothed and in their right mind, and thc congregation with their dark faces and their bright eyes are worshipping the same Saviour that we love ; and when I see this I know that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will win its way wherever it goes.
Thus, friends, I think I have told you enough to Rhow you that your prayers have been answered and your efforts been accepted of God. I will only ask you to pray more and do as much as you can for Africa, for she has still got her millions that need the Gospel to-day.
THE REV. JOHN L. NEVIUS, D.D.
BY REV. GILBERT REID, WARSAW, N. Y.
On the death of the well-known and revered missionary, Dr. John L. Nevius, it may be profitable for his fellow-workers to pause for a moment and recount briefly the work which he has done. The worth of his work demands more than a passing reference. Though only in his sixty-seventh year, he was numbered among the veterans for the unusual amount of his mIssiOnary experience. He was drawing nigh to the round number of forty years in the missionary service, when he bowed his head as he sat talking in his study at his home in Chefoo, and yielded up his spirit to God who gave it. A gentle passing away, like a calm breath of a summer's breeze-a falling asleep.
Dr. Nevius is first to be remembered for his work in a literarY line.
DR. NEVIl:S ON A CHINESE ,"VHEELBARROW BEFORE HIS RESIDENCE AT CHEFOO. CHINA."
ltl94.) THE REV. Jo.HN L. NEVIUS, D.D
One o.f the mo.st po.pnlar and co.ncisely co.mprehensive boo.ks o.n China was o.ne which he wro.te early in his career, called" China and the Chinese," first published by the Harpers, and no.w issued by the Presbyterian Board o.f Publicatio.n. In Chinese the leading treatise o.n theology was prepared when he was a yo.ung missio.nary at Ningpo., and lacked o.nly the latter topics of systematic theo.lo.gy-a deficiency which he hoped to meet befo.re he clo.sed his labo.rs. Ano.ther bo.o.k in Chinese o.n "Entrance to. Truth" has been used fo.r many years no.t o.nly by o.ur o.wn Presbyterian Missio.n, but also. by the missio.uaries o.f o.ther societies, in the initiative rudimentary stages of Christian instructio.n. A very valuable pamphlet in English o.n " Metho.ds o.f Missio.n W o.rk" has been carefully studied fo.r its fairminded and bro.ad-minded investigatio.ns, based o.n tho.ro.ugh experience: Already we understand that parts o.f this are to. be reissued by the Bo.ard o.f Fo.reign Missio.ns as a guide, o.r at least a suggestio.n, to. o.ther fields o.f o.ur Church. One o.f the last results o.f his study was a bo.o.k o.n " Demo.niacal Po.ssessio.n," which, we understand, will so.o.n be published j and which, we kno.w, will present the mo.st co.mplete and careful examinatio.n o.f this very difficult pro.blem. Other literary effo.rts attest his ability j and we o.nly regret that he cDuld no.t live to. co.mplete the wo.rk, so dear to. his heart, o.f aiding in the revisio.n o.f the Mandarin version o.f the Scriptures. No. sentence o.f his, either in Chinese o.r English, was penned witho.ut tho.ught, and every tho.ught was actuated by a stro.ng desire to. be fair and .true.
Seco.ndly, let us no.tice his wo.rk as a Christian instructo.r. This he was rather than an educatio.nalist. The Bible was his text-bo.o.k, and no.ne o.f his teaching was secular. If he taught theo.lo.gy-and as such he was witho.ut a peer-it was always a biblical theo.lo.gy. Bo.th in the Ningpo. and Shantung missiDns he was frequently appo.inted to. train men fo.r the ministry j and many o.f o.ur best native pasto.rs rejo.ice to. call him "teacher." When in late years he fo.und himself surro.unded by a gro.wing evangelistic wo.rk, he set apart the summer and winter mo.nths to. special instructio.n, either o.f leading inquirers o.r o.f his cho.sen classleaders. I remember, during my first summer in China, as a guest at his ho.me, the large"number o.f callers fro.m amo.ng the fo.reign residents, so.me o.f who.m were" men Df the wo.rld," who. came to. see his class, and went away to. praise it and so. co.mmend the who.le missio.nary undertaking. This teaching idea he carried into. all o.f his evangelistic effo.rts, and every statio.n o.f Christian co.mmunicants and inquirers was a Sunday-scho.o.l, with every o.ne a teacher and every o.ne a scholar. He emphasized the wo.rds in the – Master's final co.mmissio.n, " teaching them Christ." This idea, clear and simple tho.ugh it be, has been made such by Dr. Nevius more than by any Dther man.
In connectio.n with this we no.te no.w his evangelistic wo.rk. By the pro.vidence o.f Go.d he wa.s led into a section o.f the co.untry fruitful o.f conversio.ns, nearly a week's jo.urney fro.m his ho.me at Chefo.o.. Hence his evangelism took the form of " country itinerations." During this period he was generally absent from home half of the year, more often in the spring and autumn months, but twice, at least, during the cold winter days, stopping at chilly Chinese inns, or riding from station to station of poor country Christians with the thermometer near to zero. It is impossible to outline this work, so carefully unfolded in his " Methods of Mission Work." Its chief feature was the effort to utilize every native, and then establish a church without the support of foreign funds. It was selfdevelopment and self-support, but always under the guidance of the Spirit, and by a study of the Bible. That work was practically transferred to others prior to his last return to the United States, and is now managed by native pastors or other of our missionaries, centred at the station of Wei-hien. Dr. Nevius built on no other man's foundation; and the foundation which he laid was strong and " in Jesus Christ."
One of the openings to this evangelistic work came through the relief rendered in the famine of 1879 and 1880. Not that those relieved became the inquirers, but that such a display of benevolence commended the Christianity which taught it, and broke down centuries of prejudice. In this famine-relief work Dr. Nevius was especially successful in the system adopted, and one which has guided others in similar work during later years. It was a system of common sense, kind to the needy, but guarding against tricks, deception, and confusion. Dr. Nevius was an exegete and a theologian. He was also level-headed, a man of affairs.
In this same practical line was his work of introducing foreign fruits into China. Agriculture was his recreation, but as such it was far other than mere playing. The result indicated the care, the wisdom, the patience, and the toil. Many a person has gone to view his garden in Chefoo who never cared for any other kind of missionary undertaking. In fact, this often annoyed and chagrined him, to have persons ignore all his efforts in evangelistic instruction, and compliment him as a fruit-raiser and horticulturist. Nevetheless, it shows that every faculty and knowledge can be made useful in the missionary work, not only as an amusement to one's self, but a benefit to others.
We will only notice one other feature of his work-viz., his success as an adviser and missionary speaker. We refer especially to his efforts in this country. Very few have excelled him in influendng young men to become missionaries; but never with the assertion, that it was another man's duty to be a foreign missionary. Anyone who desires to appreciate his candor, his breadth, his fairness, his judiciousness, should read his article in the MISSION ARY REVIEW of May, 1893. on " The Student V01unteel' Movement." We quote only one sentence: "I have been in the United States on furlough three times, and paid many visits to theological semin~ries, with a view to gaining recruits for foreign missions, but have never dared to use the least. pressure in urging a student to be a missionary. " As one who was led through him, first to think of the claims of
AFTER TWENTY YEARS. :J47
foreign missions, and then to decide to go as a missionary to China, I can testify 1.0 the truthfulness of this attitude of his. How helpful were his conferences with the students! How sympathetic his suggestions to the perplexed mind! And this same quality remained with him iu China, where all missionaries were glad to consult ]lim. If he had only been stronger physically, no better man could have been found to take the place of Dr. Arthur Mitchell as Secretary of the Board. But, alas! both of them are gone; and all through life we shall miss them, rejoicing only because we are not of those" who have no hope," trying to reverence their names by following more their fine Christian spirit.
AFTER TWENTY YEARS. * THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN 1873, 1883, 1893.
A few notes on the advances made in the last twenty years by the Church Missionary Society may be helpful to friends of missions in every land.
First, as to the number of missionaries. The subjoined table is indeed most significant : 1iJuropean M!'ssi07laries on the Roll: 1873. 1883. 1893.
Clergymen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 203 222 329 Laymen ……………………… 15 34 71 Women ……………………… 11 15 134 Total. ….. , ….. 229 271 534 Even excluding the women, the number has nearly doubled; t and it will be observed that while the increase in the first decade was only 19 clergymen and 19 laymen, the increase in the second decade was 107 clergy- men and 37 laymen. The proportion of university men has also greatly increased. In 1873 they numbered 44 ; in 1883, 65 ; and in 1893, 158.- The number of missionaries reported in May, 1873, as added to the roll in the preceding twelve months, was seven; in 1883, twenty-one; in 1893, eighty-nine. The 1873 Report mentions" 1 graduate from Cambridge accepted during the year;" the 1883 Report mentions 3 graduates accepted; the 1893 Report, 16 graduates.
The native clergy and teachers appear in the statistical tables as follows: 1873. 1883. 1893. Native clergy……………•….. 143 240 284 2,582 4,042 " lay teachers……..•••..•• 1,830 493 892 " female teachers ……….. . 375 Total………….. 2,348 3,315 5,218 * Reprinted from a Church Misslouary Society tract.
t The figures are for May last. The autumn reinforcements have made further large addltious. It will be seen that the increase in the native clergy has been slow of late. This is mainly due to the large number of deaths in the last decade ; but it is. true that the nnmerous ordinations in West Africa and South India in the former decade find no parallel in the latter. But the lay and female teachers have multiplied rapidly; and this little table will show some of our missionary brethren who have fancied that native agency was being neglected in favor of European agency, how little foundation there is for their fears.
The distribution of missionaries at the three periods is very interesting. In the following table we omit women, because we could not estimate the growth in the Indian staff without including the C. E. Z. M. S. aud I. F. N. S. : Distribution of .Hissionaries–Men only-Ordained and Unordained.
1873. 1883. 1893.
West Africa….. __ . …………… 17 10 18 East Africa………………. _… 1 22 37 Palestine, Persia, Egypt, etc.. . . . . . 9 14 23 North India (including Punjab and Sindh)…………………. 66 73 116 Western India………… ……. 12 10 13 South India…………………. 44 28 45 Ceylon………………………. 12 19 20 Mauritius, etc……………….. 6 4 5 China……………………….. 18 24 44 Japan… …………………… 2 9 24 New Zealand…………………. 17 18 15 Northwest America ………….. ,. 12 18 29 North Pacific………………… 2 7 11 TotaL ……………… 218 256 400 Of course the increase is most marked in those missions which were in their infancy in 1873, such as East Africa, Persia, Japan, and North Pacific. Putting them asidc, we find that of the older missions, West Africa and South India, though they have more men than ten years ago, have only returned to where they stood twenty years ago; that Western India, Mauritius, and New Zealand are about the same; and that the real increase has been in North India, Ceylon, China, and Northwest America.
At first sight one would expect that the doubling of the missionary staff would mean a doubling of the expenditure. But this is not the case. We should be very glad if it were. The amount expended per missionary means, a great deal more than the amount each missionary costs. The more efficient a missionary is the more will his work develop on all sides, and the more will money be needed. It is so at home. An active clergyman spends more in his parish than an inert one, because he does more. So in the mission field : the higher the expenditure per head rises, the better. But the reason why ithas not yet so risen in the C. M. S. missions is that the increase in the staff has been so recent and so rapid. Many of the missionaries are still in the language-learning stage, and cost little more than their small personal allowances. As they grow in efficiency the work will cost more, for it will mean native evangelists and Bible-women, schools, rest-houses for itinerating, medical appliances, and a host of other things.
There are, however, two other reasons why the total expenditure has not grown so fast as the staff. First, a good many of the recent additions are at their own charges. We have now 15 men and 53 women who are honorary, and 5 men and 9 women who are partly so, without counting those who are specially supported by individual friends of the society. Secondly, an increase in women costs less than an increase in men. A single woman's allowances are less than those of a single man, and less than half those of a married man.
Still the increase in the expenditure is large. The average of the four years preceding 1873 was £155,644. '" The average of the four years preceding 1883 was £202,200. The average of the four years preceding 1893 was £244,844. These figures include expenditure on special funds. The corresponding amount for last year, ending March 31st, 1893, reckoned in the same way, was £255,917. For the current year it is estimated to be £265,759, including only those special funds which directly aid the General Fund, such as the Extension Fund, the Mid-China Fund, etc. And the estimates lately passed for the year commencing next April amount, after allowing for considerable probable savings in various directions, to £274,955. , Thus we are spending now over £100,000 a year more than we spent twenty years ago. This is the kind of fact that makes one wonder. No one at that time, nor for years after, could have anticipated it. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
Let us next look at the reports, and try and realize a little of the progress in the field in the twenty years.
Take India first. We do not expect to find in old and well-organized missions the startling progress displayed in newer fields. Yet the development of the India work in the twenty years is in many ways striking. In 1873 French had lately started the Lahore divinity school, the first of its kind in the country. Now we have divinity schools also at Calcutta, Allahabad, Poona, and Madras, besides the simpler institutions for training native agents in the southern missions which existed before. In 1873 the society's attention had not been specially drawn to the non-Aryan Hill tribes, although the Santal Mission was already bearing promising fruit. That mission has since been largely developed, and the Gond and Bheel missions have been established and converts been gathered in.
But the Punjab shows the most remarkable growth. In 1873 the society had only one medical missionary-in the Punjab or anywhere else- * Multiply these amounts br five to a.certain the llumber of dollars. indeed, not one when the Report was issued, for Dr. ElmsIie was dead and his successor had not yet gone out. Now the Punjab has 10 medical missionaries. In 1873 the staff for Amritsar consisted of 2 men, the Revs.
R. Clark and a. Hoernle, and Mr. Bateman alone was beginning to itinerate in the district. Now, for the same area of work, there are 15 men; and still more remarkable is the extension of woman's work under the C. E. Z. M. S. That society has now 33 ladies within that area, the oldest of whom had only just gone out in 1873, besides 9 single ladies connected with C. M. S. and all the wives. Batala, Tarn Taran, Ajnala, Jandiala, Fathgar, Narowal, Bahrwal, Clarkabad are all new names within the same district-i.e., the great plains surrounding Amritsar. The two great girls' boarding.schools at Amritsar, the boys' boarding-school at Batala, the splendid book-shop at Lahore-the two latter the result of Mr. Baring's liberality-are among the more conspicuous developments. Another generous benefactor, George Maxwell Gordon, had in 1873 but recently joined the Punjab Mission; and now, we have not only the bright memory of his example, but the Lahore divinity college chapel and the missions at Pind Dadan Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan as the fruit of his munificence ; while, partly owing to his inspiration, Sukkur and even far-off Quetta have been occupied.
South India does not show such developments as these, because it was more fully worked then; but 1873 was the year which saw the native Church in the C. M. S. district.s of Tinnevelly fairly started in selfadministration under Dr. (afterward Bishop) Sargent; and the Telugu Mission has spread in all directions since that year.
Five new dioceses have been established in India in the twenty years; and of the 7 bishops who have been consecrated for them, 4 have been C. M. S. missionaries-viz., French, Speechly, Hodges, Clifford, without counting Sargent, who was an assist.ant-bishop without a diocese.
We never rest our case upon statistical returns of converts and adherents, for they so inadequately represent the real progress achieved; but the fact that the native Christians connected with C. M. S. have risen 70 per cent in the twenty years-viz., from 69,000 to 117,000-is a fact whose significance is indisputable; while the native agents of all kinds have almost doubled in number, from 1600 to 3060.
Next look at China. In South China, in 1873, C. M. S. had 3 missionaries-viz., 1 at Hon Kong and 2 at Fuh·chow ; and there was 1 F. E. S. lady at each of those two cities. Now, several brethren, and sisters too, live in the interior of Fuh-Kien; widespread itineration has been organized in Kwan-tung; and Pakhoi has been occupied in a corner of China untouched by any other mission. C. M. S. has 20 men and 8 women on the South China staff, including 4 medical men; and the splendid band of 28 C. E. Z. M. S. women has developed the Fuh-Kien Mission in a wonderful way, not only since 1873, but since 1883. In 1873 C. M. S. had 26 native age~ts in South China, and less than 300 Christians. Now the agents are 268 and the Christian adherents over 10,000. Mid China does not show a growth equal to this j still, Mr. Hoare's college at Ningpo, Dr. Main's great mission hospital at Hang-chow, and the village work in the Chu-ki and Tai-chow districts are extensions worth notice j in addition to which there is Mr. Horsburgh's Interior Evangelistic Mission in the distant province of Sz-chuen. The development of woman's work also must not be omitted. In 1873, and again in 1883, C. M. S. had one single lady in Mid China j now it has 20. Again, up to just before 1873, China had had but one English Bishop. The consecration of a C. M. S. missionary, Bishop Russell, to the newly formed quasi-diocese of what was then called North China, is an item in the 1873 Report j and since then another C. M. S. man, Bishop Moule, has succeeded him in that portion of his sphere now called Mid China, while a third C. M. S. man, Bishop Burdon, presides over the southern diocese of Victoria, Hong Kong.
Pass over to Northwest America. In 1873 the consecration of Bishop Horden had just marked the first step in that development of the Church which has now carved eight dioceses out of the vast mother diocese of Rupert's Land; and a large part of this work has been distinctly the work of C. M. S., which almost entirely supports 4 of them and helps 3 others. The society's expenditure in those great territories has risen from £6000 to £16,000 ; and it is emphatically true of the many tribes and languages comprised in them-from the Crees and the Sioux right away to the Tukudh and the Eskimo-that " People and realms of every tongue Dwell on His love with sweetest song."
And this is without passing the Rocky Mountains. Cross them, and we come to a mission which then consisted of only Metlakahtla and Kincolith, but which since then has sent the Gospel to tribe after tribe of the interior, has established itself in the islands, has brought into the Christian Church the fiercest of all the races of that coast-the Hydahs of Queen Charlotte's Island-and now, despite many trials, presents, under Bishop Ridley'S wise and devoted leadership, a bright spectacle to all who love true and pure missionary work.
Weare now among the younger missions; and what shall we say of Japan ~ In 1873 the first English missionary in that wonderful land had just come home sick, and the second was alone at Nagasaki. It was in the Report of that year that the sudden burst of new civilization in Japan was recorded. The public edicts against Christianity which had adorned the Government notice·boards for two hundred and fifty years had just been withdrawn; and the expansion of the C. M. S. Mission from one man to five was resolved on. In 1883 the 5 men had increased to 9 men and a woman (as usual, not counting wives) ; and there were 350 converts. Ten years more and the staff had become 24 men and 19 single women; 7 Japanese had been ordained (in the C. M. S. ~Hssion alone, besides others) ; and the Christian adherents are 2450. Moreover, they have combined with the Christians attached to other Anglican missions, and have formed a real native Church with its own canons, etc. j and its total membership exceeds 4000. It was- in 1883 that the archbishop selected a C. M. S. missionary (Poole, of South India) to be the first English bishop in Japan; and in 1893 his successor, Bishop E. Bickersteth, has arranged for the appointment of two additional bishops, specially for portions of the C. M. S. field, and nominated by C. M. S.
Pass from the most radical and forward of non-Christian countries to the most conservative and stationary, and view the Mohammedan lands of the East. Persia, in 1873, was not recognized as a C. M. S. mission field at all j and although Dr. Bruce had been there three or four years, his name stiII remained on the Indian list. Not ti1l1876 was the Persia Mission formally adopted. The year 1883 saw an extension of its work in the occupation of Baghdad j and 1893.sees fresh and important plans formed for further development. Egypt is very far from being a stationary country since the British occupation; but that occupation began in the year reviewed in the 1883 Report, and it was in that very year that the new "Egypt Mission" first appeared on the society's list. Palestine, too, though stationary enough so far as its Moslem rulers are concerned, is now yielding to the forward movements of the day; and nowhere does a C. M. S. mission show more marked development than in that sacred land. In 1873 only Jerusalem and Nazareth were occupied by 2 ordained and 2 lay missionaries. Two years later, Bishop Gobat handed over to the society his stations and work; other extensions have followed; Jaffa, Gaza, Ramallah, Salt, Nablus, Acca, and Haifa were successively occupied; and now the 4 men have become 13 men and 22 single women. All our missions in Mohammedan lands received an impetus from the Mohammedan Conference arranged by General Lake at the C. M. House in 1875. They are striking examples of the society's new development in woman's work. No less than 30 ladies are now employed in them, whereas even in 1883 there was not one. So also with medical work. In 1873 there was no C. M. S. medical missionary in those countries; in 1883 only 1 ; in 1893, 4, and 2 more going out.
And what shall we say of Africa ~ Of West Africa we need not speak. Our recent extensions are not much more than revivals of developments begun at different times in past years, but checked by various difficulties. But East Africa is the most signal instance of unlooked-for progress in the whole period. In 1873 John Rebmann was alone, old and blind, at Rabai. There he was found by Sir Bartle Frere, who, on his return to England, came to C. M. S. in June of that year and urged the establishment of a freed slave settlement, to found which Mr. Salter Price went out in the foUowing year. But 1873 is still more memorable as the date of Livingstone's death, which instantly roused both England
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER CONVENTION A.T DETROIT
and Scotland, and led to many African expeditions, both missionary and otherwise. Then, in 1875, came Mr. Stanley's challenge to Christendom to send a mission to Uganda. What need we say more ?-except that the one C. M. S. missionary of 1873 has multiplied to fifty in 1893.
Mter such a retrospect, the question is, .Are we to stand still! Surely the Divine Word to us is, Go forward,. and the promise, Oertainly I will be with thee.
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER CONVENTION AT DETROIT.
BY D. L. PIERSON.
It is significant that the largest and most representative Student Convention ever held should be also the missionary gathering having the largest number of accredited delegates that ever met in America, or perhaps in the world. Ten years ago such a convention would not have been possible, but now by the Spirit working through men thoroughly on fire with missionary zeal, and by the organization of Volunteers, the flame has spread with marvellous rapidity all over our land, and one of the results is seen in this recent convention.
The history of the movement is too well known to need repetition here. The organization has outlived much unfavorable criticism, survived many perils, overcome many difficulties and much opposition, and continues to increase in numbers and effectiveness. And now, in its eighth year, this is probably the most effective agency for spreading, fostering, and utilizing the missionary spirit that anywhere exists.
The first Volunteer Convention met in Cleveland in 1891, and was one of extraordinary practical and spiritual power. It marked a crisis in the history of the" New Crusade." Before that time the mistakes natural to youth characterized the movement, and even friends regarded it with suspIClOn. Since then, however, its policy has been developed and the organization perfected, so that the Detroit Convention stands unique among missionary gatherings, and indicates a firmly established and undeniably successful enterprise. It was attended by more than double the number of students, from twice as many educational institutions, as at Cleveland. Conceive of twelve hundred young men and women, from nearly three hundred institutions of learning in the United States and Canada, representing the flower of our land, coming together for the purpose of considering the great question of the speedy evangelization of the world, and prayerfully to seek light as to their place in this great work, and preparation for it j and with them, to impart inspiration and guidance, gathered also the leaders of missionary enterprise from all· over the world, including fifty representatives of various missionary agencies, fifty returned foreign missionaries from almost every heathen, papal, and Moslem land, and many other missionary speakers and Christian workers-conceive of all these conditions, and a slight estimate may be formed of the forces pres- ent to make this convention a power in the heart and life of each delegate. Among the principal speakers were Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, Drs. Arthur T. Pierson and A. J. Gordon, Miss Geraldine Guinness, R. E. Speer, L. D. 'Wishard, and Dr. Judson Smith, besides mauy others, representing all varieties of experience and degrees of enthusiasm, from various lands and different departments of the work at home and abroad.
The method pursued in the convention was probably the only one feasi- ble for the presentation of the many phases and spheres of work under consideration. The mornings were given to the consideration of the organi- zation and its methods and the preparation of the volunteer, the afternoons to simultaneous sectional meetings for the discussion of different forms of mission work in various fields; and the evenings to the claims of mis- sions and the spiritual conditions of success. It being impracticable to give in these pages more than a brief and general glance, the reader must be referred for details to the printed verbatim report which ·is soon to be published.
One prominent characteristic of the convention was the spirit offervent prayer which pervaded the proceedings. Prayer opened, closed, and per- meated all the discussions and transactions, consequently it was an in- tensely spiritual convention, and the work of the Holy Spirit in separating and preparing His workmen was, of all things, made most emphatic. An- other featnre, closely allied to this, was the fact that Jesus Christ was ex- alted as Lord and Saviour. In His name were the delegates welcomed, and in His name urged to go forward conquering and to conquer, preach- ing His death and resurrection, living His life, and abiding in Him. Be- cause Christ was the unifying principle which made all hearts one, perfect harmony pre,-ailed throughout, although representatives from nearly forty denominations and missionary agencies, and missionaries young and old, and each having strong personality, were brought together on one common platform. Not a note of discord was heard from beginning to end. It was a magnificent demonstration of the true basis of Christian union, the living unity found in love and allegiance to one Lord, and in the contem- plation of the great work He has commanded.
THE PURPOSE AND WORK OF THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT was clearly defined and forcibly presented in a number of brief addresses, which served to remove the prejudice of ignorance, restore confidence, and commend the principles of the movement to the minds of all interested. The watch-cry of the Volunteers, "The evangelization of the world in this generation," the command of Christ, "Go make disciples of all the nations," and the mot- to of Neesima, " Let us advance upon our knees," were hung up in large letters before the assembly, servlDg to impress the eyes of those present as they have already moved the hearts of all Volunteers, expressing their desire, aim, and spirit.
The purpose of the movement, as stated by Mr. Mott in his masterly report of the Executive Committee, is to lead students to a thorough con- sideration of the claims of foreign missions upon them, to foster this pur- pose, to unite Volunteers in an aggressive movement, to maintain an intel- ligent interest at home, but especially to secure a sufficient number of qualified men and women for the work of evangelization of the world in this generation. The declaration card, reading, "It is my purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary," forms a simple basis for membership and organization. One of the perils of the movement has come from the misuse and misinterpretation of this card. It is not a pledge, but the statement of a purpose toward the accomplishment of which men study and work, looking for God's continned guidance, and only changing their purpose as they more clearly see His will. Without this "declaration" there coulq be no firm basis for the movement. It leads to a definite decision, helps men to remain firm, and enables them to do more for missions during their preparation. Results show that a definite and early decision is best.
The work of the movement has been carried on in the educational schools of the United States and Canada by means of travelling and corresponding secretaries, etc.
Mr. D. W. Lyon gave as reasons why bands should be formed in every institution: (1) To give mutual stimulus to members; (2) to gather information j (3) to discuss reasons for going j (4) to secure power in united prayer. The bands also form a basis for enlisting new men, and hold ,important relations to the college, the movement, and the churches.
The results are seen (1) in the fact that the movement has now 32,000 members in 477 different institutions of the United States and Canada. It has also extended to Great Britain, where there are 700 Volunteers, and to Scandinavia and elsewhere. (2) In all of these places it has exerted a marked/influence in increasing the knowledge of missions, reacting beneficially upon other departments of religious study and work, and increasing the spirit of consecration. (3) It has been the means of increasing the number of those expecting to go abroad. (4) It has doubled contributions to missions in colleges and seminaries in the last three years. As a practical result 686 Volunteers are already in the field, and of the British V01unteers at least 90 per cent have sailed immediately on completing their course of study. More missionaries have sailed from America in the past two and one half years than in the preceding five and one half.
Among the points of policy emphasized by the Executive Committee were (1) efforts to establish the movement in new sections and among new classes of institutions, especially in young women's colleges; (2) more thorough supervision of work already begun; (3) more earnest, prayerful pressing of the claims of the unevangelized upon fellow-students j* (4) a more comprehensive course of study outlined; (5) increase in contributions; (6) keeping in closer touch with Volunteers already on the field, and (7) most of all, absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit for light and life.
The PREPARATION OF VOLUNTEERS was ably discussed and much valuable advice given. Dr. Judson Smith, of the American Board, emphasized thorough intellectual furnishing as essential to any great work. Education gives breadth and ability to use one's powcrs, training every faculty to its true end. The call for cultured as well as consecrated intellects is urgent. The missionaries must be able to master the language, to study the people among whom they labor, to organize churches and train native ministers and teachers, to give instruction in schools, colleges, and seminaries, and to translate the Bible and create a literature. All this demands mental training. Volunteers should not delay, nor unduly hasten to enter the field. Time to prepare is implied in the call. God wants our best. Dr. Geo. W. Knox added that a man who shirks work may be called to cobble shoes in the United States, but he is not called to cobble them in China, and that while God nses among the heathen the" foolishness of preaching," we are nowhere told to give them the preaching of foolish. ness.
The practical preparation was outlined by Rev. H. P. Beach, of Springfield, Mass. The Volunteer is to be " all things to all men." He advised him among other things (1) to become acquainted with the officers, polity and policy of his board; (2) to study his chosen field as to its strategic points, the climate, people, religions, the work accomplished, and the successes and failures as pictured in missionary biographies; (3) to know some· thing about keeping accounts, practical work of gardening. carpentry, etc.; (4,) to study the 1aws of health, dentistry, preparation of the dead for burial etc.; (5) to be able to use the camera, printing-press, and magic lantern, and know how to start industrial, normal, and kindergarten schools; (6) to study to be an organizer and pastor, but, above all, to be skilled in personal work. This last point was frequently urged by the missionariesthat the most effective way of winning souls is hand-to.hand, heart-toheart work, and they added that men should begin at home and not wait to reach the foreign field.
The spiritual preparation for the work was powerfully presented by J. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission. He urged the students not to be dependent for a blessing upon any human agency, bnt to seek the filling which will surely be followed by an overflowing. To know God we must know His Word. Mr. Taylor testified that he had never put his trust in God's word and met with a disappointment. We must seek to be * Keith-Falconer said when about· to start for Arabia: "While vast continents are shrouded in almost ntter darkness, and hundreds of millions sn1!'er the horrors of heathenism and of Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to .how that the circumstances In which God has placed you were meant by Him to keep you out of the foreign field." such men as God can use. Take time for communion with God. Do not wait till your concert is over before you tune the instruments. There was never but one life of perfect development-that of Christ, from the cradle to the cross j but all true Christian life now develops backward: it begins at the cross and moves toward the cradle, growing toward childlike trust, docility, and humility. Be insulated from the world if you would receive and retain God's electrifying power. One can- not go to a heathen land without growing either in grace or sinfulness. " Satan may hedge us about, but he can't roof us over"-cannot pre- vent our looking up. If any cloud comes between us and God, it is our own fault. No one need go to foreign lands to preach theism, ethics, or philosophy-these are already well developed-but we must go to preach Christ and Him crucified, and this we can do only after a personal knowl- edge of the glorified Son of God in our hearts j we must be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us deeper than any from apologetics j it must be from experience. Such were some of the golden thoughts expressed.
The PHASES OF WORK were discussed in sectional meetings by those who have had varied experience in many different lands. The evangelistic work was presented by H. N. Frost, of the China Inland Mission, Rev. Spencer "Walton, of South Africa, Rev. Gilbert Reid, of China, Rev. F. G. Co·an, of Persia, and others. To do this effectively the missionary should be " boiling over with the Spirit, and steeped in the Word." The best evangelists are those most filled with the love of Christ. This is far more necessary than a theological training. The most important work of the missionary is the training of native agents, and they make the best evangelists. For this work there should be a close spiritual contact between the native and the missionary, that the former may receive help in his difficulties and learn to know God's Word and be brought nearer to Him. In most countries itinerating can be done only part of the year. It is a method especially adapted to reach the lower classes and those occupying country districts. The missionary spirit of the past was marked by large expectancy, mobility of station, and absence of anxiety, and these should always mark the work of an evangelist. The true policy is to strike the great centres, and from there reach the outlying districts. Christ exemplified what a true Christian should be-a light-bearer, a life-giver, and an expression of Divine love. His law was diffusion, not concentration.
Educational work was treated of by Rev. Robert A. Hume and Dr. Boggs, of India, Dr. Wainwright, of Japan, Dr. Dennis, of Syria, and othcrs. The one end with all missionaries is to establish the Gospel in heathen hearts. Educational work is but one means to this end. Its object is to impart spiritual life and powe1·. Educational influence extends throughout the life of the pupil, it gives an opportuni~y for appeal to a bigoted and conservative community, forms a basis for occupation, makes a centre for Christian teaching, awakens interest in parents, and quickens a desire for better things in the heart of the pupil. It is a method for the rescue of the children from their degraded homes, and gives them intellectual and religious training. It also reveals the capacity of the pupil for other work, and develops the powers for distinctive service as missionary agents. It gives an opportunity for hand-to-hand contact with pupils regularly, as is impossible even in home work. A diseased and stunted mind is as much an object of sympathy as a diseased and stunted body. Objections to educational work come from the conviction of some that but few workers come from the schools. This is doubtless often due to the fact that the evangelizing idca is not kcpt foremost, and because, as is to be deplored, non-Christian and even heathen professors are in some instances employed in Christian schools. It was, however, stated that in some schools in China education draws men into the ministry, and in the American Board schools at least conversions are more numerous in proportion to the number who come in contact with the message in this way than through any other methods. Besides this, educational work improves the capacity of heathen languages to express God's truth, and it nproots heathen ideas and implants new ones. The problems of the work assume very different aspects in different countries, and the work meets with various successes according to the field, the methods, and the agents.
Medical work was discussed by J. Hndson Taylor, Dr. Dowkontt, and Rev. W. R. Lambuth. The great need for more physicians, both men and women, was shown from the vast populations, destitution of medical aid, prevalence of disease, and barbarous methods of treatment of the ill and the injured. Medical missions are also the great entering wedge of the Gospel in many places. They break down prejudice, and present Christianity in a concrete form. Dr. Dowkontt said: "Christ commands it, sympathy demands it, wisdom dictates it, and experience endorses it. " There is a special need of women physicians with hearts of love to minister to their wretched, degraded, and secluded sisters of China and India.
The WORK ON VARIOUS FIELDS was considered in simultaneous meetings. China was found to be pre-eminent in the mind of most of those present. About twenty missionaries were present from this field, and over half of those present, expecting to go out this year, expressed a wish or design to go there. The claims of this great land were presented by J. Hudson Taylor, Miss Geraldine Guinness, and others. While the population of the Chinese Empire is nearly seven times that of the United States, the number of Christian workers is only one ninetieth of those in this country. Fifty years ago the prayer was that God would open the doors; now it is that He will send more laborers. There are seventy aboriginal tribes who do not speak Chinese; the languages of only three of them have been reduced to writing. There is not one missionary for every five hundred towns in North and 'Western China. The number of opium smokers is variously estimated as from 2,000,000 to 20,000,000. The women especially call for the Gospel. According to Chinese superstitions eighteen hells are open to receive them, but it is only by living five hundred virtuous lives that one of them may be born as a little boy, and after many more trials be enabled t() reach the lowest of the nine heavens. As reasons for going to China Miss Guinness stated (1) that 1,000,000 die each month without God; (2) that 400,000,000 are living without Him, with no peace for the present or hope for the future, and (3) that Christ wants His disciples to take His place there as witnesses. When Christianized, China will be a great -evangelizing agency; the native convert makes a natural evangelist. There is great need for literary men and women to reach the 2,000,000 of the literary class and to educate the common people. The Chinese have a great desire to be educated by Vestern men, and much encouragement is given by those in authority. Vork is carried on by social intercourse among the higher classes and by street preaching, tract distribution, and personal work among other classes. The greatest obstacle is the prevailing superstition, but seed has been scattered in chapel, school, hospital, street, and home, and much has fallen ou good ground. There are now 50,000 converts and 150,000 adherents, with 550 churches, of which over 100 are self·supporting. The language has been greatly enriched in power to express Christian truth, and the number of missionaries has tripled in the last fifteen years. Past achievements are the guarantee for future success.
Missions in the Levant were discussed by Rev. G. A. Ford, of Syria., Rev. F. G. Coan, of Persia, Mr. Sampson, of Greece, and others. Dr. Dennis emphasized the past and present strategic importance of these lands. (1) They represent 100,000,000 souls who need to be won back to the true faith. (2) Moslems have always recognized and despised an apostate church-Jesus must be made beautiful in their eyes. (3) Capture Turkey and you capture the head of Islam. (4) Languages offer a great v(lhicle for the truth. Arabic alone reaches 40,000,000. (5) The Levant is the training ground for missionaries for the whole of the Orient. The political situation in Turkcy is the great obstacle to mission work. The population is heterogeneous and the government alien. Persecution of Christians is prevalent, partly because a change of religion means alienation from the State. The great need is for men of intellectual and spiritual power together with tact and breadth. There is a spirit of nnrest under the ecclesiastical yoke. In Persia, at least, work among the Mohammedans has met with some success. Five hundred villages were reached there last year, and many hundreds of Mohammedans are seeking Christ. Educational work, especially that among the women, is very important and effectual in Syria.
Japan was represented by George V. Knox, D.D., and others. There is a need for men trained in special lines for Japan; not conspicuous leaders or men with preconceived ideas of methods or sceptically inclined -men with ability to do both educational and evangelistic work. An exact knowledge of the language and people, their religious philosophy and characteristics is important. Trained natives are efficient, and must be allowed to lead when qualified. Woman's work is especially important for teaching and visiting in the homes. Women of Japan are very conservative, but the girls are impressible. The present crisis in Japan is due to two political factions-one seeking to make the Emperor responsible to the Diet, and the other desiring to keep the present constitution. The former faction has advocated treaty enforcement, compelling foreigners to reside only in treaty ports, as a means of bringing about treaty revision in favor of new tariff laws. At present the Liberal party (not advocating the enforcement of the treaty) is in the ascendancy.
Korea, as was stated by Rev. F. Ohlinger, is a land practically without a religion. In India religion rages like a fever, in China it is multiplied a~d is a problem of domestic economy, in Japan it is a fad, while in Korea it is an accident and has a holiday. There are only seven temples worthy the name in the country. Itinerating may be carried on nine months of the year.
The need of missions in Papal lanis is unquestioned. Papers were read on this subject by Rev. H. M. Lane, Rev. J. M. Lander, of Brazil, and others. Brazil is to-day about what it was in 1610, when the Jesuits sought to convert the people simply in order to control them. The priests are leaders in everything except morality, in which they and the people are shockingly deficient. Republicanism is the result of thirty years' teaching by missionaries, and its overthrow would mean the demolition of much of their work. The chief difficulties are found in ignorance, unconsciousness of sin, indifference, and dislike to change on the part of the people. Eighty-seven per cent of them can neither read nor write. The Bible has been a closed book to them. They are, as a rule, tender-hearted and bright, but weak, lazy, and untruthful, while the intelligent class are cynical and sceptical or agnostic. The hope of Brazil lies in the interior. Woman's work in the homes is to be emphasized, and there is great need of literary men to create and translate a literature. The best preparation for success among them is a study of the Roman Catholic Church.
Africa calls for evangelists, industrial laborers, and physicians. All the continent is under European control except Morocco. The chief difficulties arise from Moslem and papal influence, and the liquor and slave traffic. Forty-eight out of the two hundred Volunteers present at this conference expressed an intention to labor in the Dark Continent.
India was the subject of discussions led by Rev. Robert A. Hume, Dr. W. B. Boggs, Rev. R. Thackwell, Dr. A. T. Rose, of Burma, and others. The statement made at the Parliament of Religions, that the motto in which the Buddhist glories is, " The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," was pronounced a prodigious mockery. Caste is the greatest enemy of brotherhood, and there is a marked tendency toward scepticism and a turning to the study of the early religions of the country. The best native workers are .from the depressed classes. India's greatest need is for zenana workers and medical missionaries, men and women. Twenty-five denominational conferences were held, also one of college professors for the purpose of discussing the question how to increase the missionary interests and assist the Volunteers in their several institutions. Sixty professors came together from forty colleges.
The EDUCATIONAL" EXHIBIT was prepared by J. E. Adams, of the Executive CommIttee, and was a very complete collection of maps, charts, books, periodicals, and tracts from this and other lands, and arranged topically as to fields, religions, phases of the work, and missionary societies.
Space forbids us to touch, in this paper, upon any of the admirable addresses delivered in the eveni~g sessions of the convention.
The final meeting was a fitting conclusion to a great convention. The question was, What would these twelve hundred Volunteers carry back to the two hundred thousand students whom they represented ~ The points emphasized as the substance of the teachings of the convention were to study, work, pray, give, and begin now. Fifty-two Volunteers declared their intention to enter the foreign field this year, going to China, Africa, India, Japan, Mexico, South America, Turkey, Siam, Korea, Alaska, and Jamaica. Some of the reasons for going were: "Because I can't stay away;" "Because God wants me there;" "Because more are ready to take my place here than there;" "Because I have given my life to Christ to be used where there is the greatest need;" "That I may not build on another man's foundation ;" " Because the need is greater than in my own State (Texas)." A cablegram was read from Messrs. Wilder and White, former secretaries of the Student Volunteers and now in India : "India needs to.day one thousand spirit-filled Volunteers."
Thus the Convention eame to a close-a great convention in numbers, speakers, interest, spirituality, impressiveness, and, we believe, in results. There may have been some mistakes; if so they were few and scarcely noticeable. Dr. Knox, of Japan, justly mentions one or two possible criticisms. "Only China of the great mission fields was fully brought to the attention of the hearers in addresses at the general meetings. The presence of J. Hudson Taylor and Miss Guinness no doubt largely accounts for this. Also there was not a clear and full presentation of the difficulties of the work. One fears great disappointment for many a Volunteer when he comes to learn that, after all, the chief obstacles to evangelization of the world in our generation are not numerical, but intellectual, moral, and spiritual." But the results of the convention must be far-reaching, lasting, and beneficial to the progress of missions, the student world, the Volunteer Movement, and the individuals who attended. At the farewell meeting thirty-one stated that they had come to a decision to enter the mission field, during the Convention. Doubtless there are many other resultR not so tangible, but quite as lasting and important. The Convention has had the effect of increasing general confidence in the Movement, and of creating a larger sympathy with it in the hearts of those in charge of missionary interests at home and abroad. There was a definiteness of purpose and a union of
'rtm BABIS OF PERSIA
hearts in loving allegiance to our Lord and Saviour which increased the spirit of prayer and consecration. There was nothing of fanaticism, no overheated excitement or undue, crude zeal, but deep sanctified earnestness considering questions of the greatest importance. The combination of intellect and spirituality, of experience and energy was calculated to insure the best results. All points to the fact that the missionary spirit is not dying out, but is widening and deepening, and is bringing more men and women face to face with their responsibility for serving their" own generation by the war of God."
THE BABIS OF PERSIA.
BY PROFJ:SSOR M. Y. DE GOEZE.
May 16th, 1892, was a day of much sorrow to many thousands of men in Persia. On that day " God, who had become man in the person of Behfw'allah, left his human body and returned to heaven, but not before he had exhorted the true believers to prepare themselves for a better life, by doing everything in their power to ennoble their fellow-men and make them happy." BeM is the Christ of the Babis, the new sect who believe that their religion is to supplant all others, and who, while they do not deny that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed were great prophets, yet maintain that God has inaugurated a new era with the advent of Ali Mohammed and BeMo'allah. The Babis have their origin in the Persian belief that a new Imam would arise to bring peace to men. In the first half of the present century, a young Persian named Ali Mohammed became impressed with the idea that he was a second John the Baptist. He taught that another, stronger than he, would follow him; and his disciple, Beha, claimed that honor after Ali's death. The new sect has experienced all the horrors of martyrdom in a degree scarcely less violent than the early persecutions against the Christians; and they deserved it just as little. The Bayan, the Babis' Bible, does not interfere with any government; but it attacks beliefs held by all other religions. The Bayan says that there is no hell after death, but that unbelief is hell, and belief, Paradise. The Bayan also says that the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran all had a mission to perform; but, now, human intellect is able to receive a better religion. The ritualism of the Mohammedans has been largely changed. The kibla, or direction in which to turn during prayer, is abolished. A fast is, however, ordered in the last month of the year, exempting only travellers, children, and pregnant women.
One of the most notable reforms of the Babis is the higher status they confer on women. Their women may take part in festivities, and appear in public without their veils. Brotherly love, courtesy to inferiors, and charity, are insisted upon. Begging is strongly prohibited. The Babis hope for the inauguration of the millennium. But while the Western Utopians hope to attain this object through the State, the Bab looks to religious means. The Bayan is also very inimical to an ignorant, superstitious, and overbearing priesthood. Auricular confession is an abomination to the Bab, slavery is against God's will. Outward distinction in dress is not admissible. The most radical dogma of the Bayan is: " We know nothing whatever of our state after death, God alone knows it."- ])e Gids, Amsterdam.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II."-:INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED DY BEV. J. T. GBACEY, D.D.
How Pagan Rome Became Ohristian. gan and Christian Rome," * which casts Dr. George Smith, in his lectures at a great deal of light oil. the miSSionary * Rutgers College, just published, says: processes by which ancient Romc be- " The greatest event in the history of came Christian Rome. the world is the conversion to Christ of First of all, this volume casts new the Roman Empire. The revolution light on the order in which the influoccupied three centuries till it was com- ences of missionary effort affected sopleted – externally by the coup d' etat ciety. It has long been the custom to of Constantine; internally by the Nicene content oursel ves in foreign missionary work with beginning with the lower theology." Baumgarten says the history of the classes, and some people have come to world he.s had its foundations for the think that Christianity furnishes forces last eighteen hundred years on the Acts which must always make the" pot boil of the Apostles. The brief essay which from the bottom. .. We do not underbears the record of their " Acts" has rate this uplifting and humanizing been studied as affording models and power of the religion of Jesus on the precedents for missionary work. But lowly. Nor does Lanciani. He says, it is necessary to get all the incidental "That is certainly a noble picture information possible throwing light on which represents the new faith as the development of the Christian his- searching among the haunts of poverty tory and civilization, of which that and slavery, seeking to inspire faith, book furnishes the germ. Nor is it hope and charity in their occupants; always good to stick too closely to prece- to transform them from things into dents, even when they are apostolic. human beings; to make them believe It is sometimes better to strike out for in the happiness of a future life; to ourselves in a way indicated by our alleviate their present sufferings; to own environment. Macaulay said, redeem their children from shame and H The time has come to pay a decent, servitude; to proclaim them equal to honorable, and manly respect to our their masters." forefathers; not by doing as they did ·But it is doubtful if we have not under other circumstances, but by doing eliminated factors in the original exas they would have done under our cir- ample, which would suggest that from cumstances." It is possible, as we the start Christianity, in any land, think, to over·imitate apostolic pattern might expect to affect all orders of the in some things; and all the more cau- people simultaneously. Without negtion should be exercised because of the lecting the illiterate and humble, may difficulty of finding out just what apos- not missionaries expect to strike at the brain of heathendom first as well as tolic example was. This line of reflection is intensified by last? the flood of new commentary that We have all along known, from the comes with every day from all depart. persons named in Paul's epistles, what ments of human investigation. A prom- Lanciani states, that the" Gospel found inent illustration of it is before us in its way to the mansions of the masters' Rudolfo Lanciani's newest work, "Pa- nay, even to the palace of the Cresars. ,: But we come to find that the" discov- * "The Conversion of India from Pantamus eries lately made on this subject are to the Present Time, A.D. 193-1898." By George Smith, C.I.E., LL.D. New York, Chicago, and • "Pagan and Chri8tian Rome." By Rudolfo Toronto: Fleming B. Revell Company. A Lauclani. Boston and New York: Bonghton, notice of this book will appear hereafter, MUllin & Company, 1893. Profusely illustrated. startling, and constitute a new chapter been associated with perverted notions in the history of imperial Rome." We concerning religion, and others which find evidence of prominent persons con- have been associated at least with reo nected with important families of Rome ligious customs not involving error. It concerning which ecclesiastical records is widely known that at least one very have been silent. Relatives of the Fla. learned and devoted missionary in CI~ina vian emperors, not mentioned by any is of opinion that ancestor worship ecclesiastical writers, are among the may be elevated to teach the immortalconverts to Christianity named in the ity of the soul and preserved as deepenrecords of the Roman historians and ing the honor which the Bible says biographers, notably Flavius Clemens, should be paid to parents. and, thus Petronilla, and two Domitillre. The stripped of its idolatrous features. becase of Acilii Glabriones is mentioned come an ally of Christian morals. In by Suetonius and Tacitus, who say he the transformation of pagan into Chriswas a convert to Christ. That he was tian Rome it seeme that the Church acnot an indifferent person would appear cepted existing lites and customs when from the facts of his career. His fam- not offensive to her principles and moralily attained celebrity as early as B.C. ity. It was the custom, for instance. 191, when AcHius Glabrio conquered to keep the standard weights and measthe }Iacedonians at the battle of Ther- ures in the Roman temples. This inmopylre. When Pertinax was elected stitution of the ponderaria migrated emperor, he declared in the Senate that from the temple to the Church when the Acili Glabriones were" the noblest the temples were closed. A.D. 393. race in. the world." Manius Acilius, Thus, too, the custom of having baths who was consul with Trajan A.D. 91, in connection with the temples was was put to death by Domitian in 95 carried over to the churches. Senators for being a Christian. The names of and municipal magistrates administered many others, the flower of the Ro- justice in the classic Roman Curia, and man nobility, were found to have in 1130-85 they did the same in the been Christians. We have known churches. that heathenism, when pressed, seeks compromise with Christianity. Tiberius There were other customs and sym· sent a message to the Senate. asking bolic features which we would certainly that Christ bc included among the class among doubtful expedients for gods; and Lampridins says in his day imitation in foreign fields. Would we it is now come to be believed that the convert Orpheus wat.ching his flock into temples dedicated by Hadrian in every the Good Shepherd; or represent on the city to the ., unknown God" were de- church pavement, as Pius IX. did. voted to Christ; and that he was pre· Galenus and Hippokrates compounding vented from declaring them to be to medicines at Sienna ; or place Hercules Christ lest "the other temples might in ivory, as in St. Peter's; or set up be deserted and the entire population images of the sibyls, as the early Church turn Christian." All this goes to prove did, because of the popular notion that the influence which Christianity at an they had prophesied the coming of early date exercised over ruling and in- Christ? To us these have been trans· fluential classes of the Roman world; formed into mere mythical art or poetry, and it began to exercise this influence owing to the distance of the removal; at the beginning of its career, and main- and we ourselves in a poetic and artistic tained it steadily till its CUlmination way preserve customs and practices under Constantine. which are a survi val of classic idolatry.. There are customs which have outlived Another important question in mis- the suppression of pag!ln institutions. sionary circles is how far to conserve Italians still call Pentectlst Pasqua rosa, local and national customs which have and the Pope blesses the" golden rose" on Quadragesima Sunday; and in the is little doubt that we can turn into sixth century the Slavs celebrated Pen- tecost with the half-pagan and half-bar- new channels much that is national or barous rousalia. All these are easily traceable to the feast called Rosaria, racial; and we will have enough re- which the ancients celebrated at the sepulchres. There were, therefore, cus- form work to do when we confine our- toms and practices of the classical age so deep rooted that even after sixteen selves to essentials. The missionaries centuries they are noticeable in our modern Christian civilization. in India are making much of already- There is the other lesson of warning established usage in popular assemblies and failure. It has been said that ancient Rome had two populations of and holidays, wresting them out of the equal size, one alive and one of marble. The Roman Church did not abandon hands of the opposition and turning this custom of erecting statues; and hence we have them in so many Roman them to Christian ends. A.t any rate, Catholic churches to-day, with all the ex votos to which the ancient heathen whatever view we adopt there is much had grown accustomed. food for thought in the facts set forth Much else that was objectionable and that remains till now of saint wor_ by L'anciani as to the mild, impercep· ship is distinctly a survival of heathendom. We may well take warning lest tible changes wrought in three centuries the heathen shall make a large impression ou the new Church which we are which made Rome Christian instead of developing from their midst. pagan, or-shall we say it ?-has left But the marvel of the transformation remains as au encouragement amid all it half pagan till now. J. T. G. difficulties of our time. The Gospel that could couquer Rome can conquer Symposium.-J apan. any heathendom the world has seeu or will see. "Rome," according t::> an old REV. H. LOOMIS, ¥OKOHAMA.-The saying, .• contained as many churches condition of things in Japan is not as as there are days in the year," which bright as hitherto. The anti foreign Lanciani says was entirely too modest, agitation resulted in the dissolution of as there were certainly not less than a the Diet by the emperor; and it rethousand. A.nd these were transform- mains to be seen whether the country ed temples. "The experience gained will sustain the Government or not. through twenty-five years of active eKploration in ancient Rome, both above But we are not discouraged; and and below ground," says our author. some departments of the work are quite "enables me to state that every pagan hopeful. We are sure that this state of building which was capable of giving affairs will not be permaner:t, and that shelter to a congregation was trans- God will bless the labors of His servants formed, at one time or another, into a here in the future as He has in the past. church or chapel." REv. JAMES I.SEDER, TOKYo.-Chris- It is a practical question how far we tian work is being vigorously pushed shall conserve customs of the heathen forward. The work of the churches in society out of which we bring the new and about Tokyo, while encountering native Christian Church. With which considerable opposition and difficulties, of them can we make friends? There is nevertheless prospering moderately. From many points the Christian papers bring good tidings of renewed zeal and activity in the churches. Prayer-meet. ings are being more generally attended than for some time back. In most churches united and protracted efforts are being put forth by way ot revival meetings. Nor are these labors in vain in the Lord. One pastor writes of 22 probationers just received. Another reports 7 just baptized. Similar reports come from a number of other places. Only yesterday a missionary returned ferously cried out that, "It is against from a tour in Chiba ken, and tells the the Japanese Constitution and law to writer that he had just p1'eached in a preach Christianity." This caused a Buddhiat temple which is now without f~u:(luS uproar, and presently a 11uma priest. The idols were still in their 1(. f men, whose appearance was by accustomed place, but the people said 0). ~eans assuring, were making their the temple had been built for the wor- way through the crowd toward the ship of God; and as the Christian preachers. Being repeatedly urged by preachers said they would preach about the native pastor to follow him to the the true and living God, they should upper rooms of the house for safety, be heard. Afterward the people could they both made good their escape withchoose whom they would thereafter out injury. Threats of killing continued worship, God or Buddha. A goodly for some little time; but finally the disnumber attended and very respectfully turbers left, the meeting having been listened to the glorious Gospel. May completely broken up. Another misthe Spirit lead them to a right choice I sionary had an experience very similar Now and again we read of a new church only a short time ago, the persecutors. or chapel erected and dedicated to the saying they would not leave the place service of God. Sunday-school work as long as the" foreign enemy remained also is looking more and more hopeful, in the house." with increased attendance and interest_ Nor is the opposition confined to mis- A spirit of greater earnestness seems sionaries alone. Japanese are almost to be spreading among the churches. equally subject to them. In another But on the other side there is also a paper my eye just falls on the followspirit of greater opposition arising ing: "The Doshisha College had a among the Buddhists. Most likely they public meeting at the Gionza in Kyoto, would make no outcry nor bestir them- at which over 2000 persons attended. 'selves were not Christianity making de- After the meeting was closed at 9 A.M., cided inroads upon the religious terri- Otsuka Eitaro, a first-year student, was tory once all their own. InChiba ken a attacked by four men as he was going Swedish missionary, we hear, recently out. They inflicted slight wounds on ,uffered personal violence and inj ury his head, and fled when his companions at their hands. At another place the came to his assistance. The police Japanese pastor had given public notice have caught one of them, who is a Budof a Christian meeting for the evening, dhist priest. " and that a foreign missionary would speak. About 700 people gathered. In Tottori ken a native Christian Stirred up by priests, they began to preacher recently stirred up the people throw stones and other dangerous mis- considerably by declaring that "the siles, and would not allow the meeting will of God is above the law of. any to be held. The police appeared pow- earthly monarch." The incensed citi· erless. 'rhey advised the preacher to zens have appealed to the police. They dismiss the meeting; and as there seemed regard the Emperor of Japan as the no other way out, it was reluctantly "son of heaven;" hence to have done. uttered the foregoing sentence was greatly disrespectful if not disloyal to Less than a week ago & missionary the ruler of this land. For this very went out to Tanashi, a small town some reason the photograph of the emperor 25 miles from Tokyo, to fill a series of is nowhere on sale in the capital, as it appointments. An evening service had is regarded as wo sacred for publi<: been announced by the Japanese helper, gaze. Nor is this view held only by and he also spoke firilt. For about half the so·called lower classes; but to this an hour the large assembly' listened day it obtains among wealthy and eduquietly, until some Buddhist priest voci- cated people, being held either in sin. cere faith in the old superstitions or in understood Hotoke to mean Buddhism; insincerity. Missionaries cannot be too 7 boys attached the word to no reality ; careful how they speak even to Japanese 4 thought it meant the soul of man, Christians on the subject of their em- while 7 could make no reply.
peror. Still the truth may and must " .As to the third question, 25 believed be told, but always in love and to save. that man's soul lives after death, 81 be- Japan has made immense progress in lieved that death ends all, and 12 could.
matters of education during the past not answer. In answer to the fourth three decades. And yet the present question, 24 boys and 3 girls declared ignorance and indifference of the people, their belief in the existence of a soul, 5 so far as religious knowledge is con- of them basing their belief upon per- cerned, is a factor which enters very sonal experiences; but 48 boys and 14 largely into the causes retarding Chris- girls denied the existence of any souL tian progress in this land. The follow- Twenty-five others believed in the ex- ing from a recent paper gives some idea istence of a soul, but not in its immor- of the religious ideas of the children tality_ "
here: :M:ost interesting and important prac- "Mr. Togi, once an officer of the tical conclusions can be drawn from the Department of Education, now Super- above answers. It will be seen that intendent of the Higher School in Akita, nearly all these boys and girls still re- Il.ttempted to ascertain the religious gard their" imperial ancestors" as the ideas of the children of his school by a object of their worship and highest practical experiment. He chose 118 reverence. The large majority do not pupils, 19 of whom were girls, and the believe hi immortality, which has only average age of all about 14 years. To been brought to light through the Gos- these he propounded the following pel. Over half even deny the very ex- four questions: 1. What is Kami istence of the soul. The teachings of (God)? 2. What is Hotoke (a name giv- Buddhism are extremely vague. Most en to Buddha)? 3. What becomes of children (and adults may logically be man after death? 4. Is there a soul ? included) have little conception of a If so, what kind of a thing is it? future life or of future rewards and These questions awakened much seri- punishments for moral conduct in the ous thought; and he tabulates their present life. With such conceptions answers as follows: To the first ques- of liCe and its moral obligations in the tion, 82 boys and 15 girls replied, • By minds of the people, we can only won- Kami is meant our imperial ancestors der that the moral condition is no worse and benefactors reverenced by us.' Six than it really is. It will, moreover, be boys and 3 girls replied, • Kami is a seen that the work is still immeasurably spiritual Being outside of mankind; , great and the field "white unto the 1 girl, a Roman Catholic, added that harvest. " Christianity is here to stay 'He is the Creator of the universe.' and to conquer, and is gloriously march- One boy said that Kami meant • gohei ' ing forward ; but there are still " re- (a kind of paper cut in narrow strips gions beyond." May past success and and hung in temples to represent the Spirit and command of Christ arouse Kami). Three boys replied that there the Church to still greater achievements, is no Kami, while 8 gave unsatisfactory greater faith, greater self-sacrifice and answers. To the second question, 55 persevering prayer I boys and 16 girls replied, • All deceased persons are Hotoke.' Eleven boys and REv. DAVID S. SPENCER, NAGOYA.
1 girl said that by Hotoke they under- It is exceedingly interesting to note stood Shaka, Amida, and other virtuous the comments of the Buddhist press of sages who have influenced the spirits Japan since the conclusion of the of men. Seventeen boys and 1 girl World's Congress of Religions at Chicago. and in view of the rise of the reached its culmination. The movemixed residence question. ment toward Europeanization is sure to start again. With tha~, Christianity Buddhism is much divided. Some is again to go forward. We must be sects are at war within themselves, and on the alert. The nineteenth century others are at war with each other. They is going; what awaits us as the twentiare more completely divided and more eth opens ?" hostile to each other than is the Christian Church, in spite of their occasional The same magazine, in another slurs at Christianity because of its article, confesses that mixed residence numerous sects. They are clearly con- is sure to come. Scholars advise it, scious that the Buddhist forces are not business men need it. The only hope prepared to contend successfully with for Buddhism in such an event lies in Christianity, and various efforts at re- keeping aloof from politics and gi ving form appear. As these expressions of special attention to religious growth. Buddhist opinions to Buddhists must be or interest to all who are watching re- 2. The Dento speaks more hopefully ligious movements in Japan, I quote for Buddhism: "Many fear that with from some of these magazines as trans- mixed residence Buddhism will go unlated into the columns of the Japan der. But truth is conqueror at last. If Mail, making occasional comment: Christianity is truth it will conquer. The truth, however, is not in Chris- 1. The Bukkyo, an independent maga- tianity. Science shows that. Experience zine, has a leading article on "The makes that clear. Yet Christian meth- Necessary Work of Buddhists. " "The ods, some say, make Christianity forcountry is now afflicted with crime and midable, and the foreign religion is procalamities. Buddhists therefore should tected by foreign governments. But if be up and doing to help and to cure. our hundreds of thousands of priests are But more than this. Speculative Bud- faithful, what can the foreign preachers dhism, which has for a long time been in do? And the fOrty millions of the Japthe ascendant, must give way to prac- anese people are practically our defendtical forces. Christianity is beset on ers. The treaties must be revised_ all sides; Buddhism has the popular Let mixed residence come." Yes, we heart. Let it avail itself of this advan- reply, let it come. And with it must tage. Growing before all eyes is the come greatly increased advantages for question of mixed residence. [Allow- Christian work. While Buddhism is ing foreigners to reside in the interior well intrenched in some sections and by of the country. whereas up to this time no means dead, it will be found that it they have been compelled to reside only has already lost its power over the in the foreign concessions connected great masses of the forty millions of with the open ports, unless employed the Japanese, especially over the whole by Japanese.-D. S. S.] That is full younger class. Let the reader note also of momentous consequences. Mixed the coloring of nationalism in the above residence must come, sooner or later. quotation. Now, in our strength, is the time to prepare for this event. When foreigners S. The Nonin Shimpo is not so confiare admitted into all parts of the coun- dent of results as other representatives try. the ministers of Christianity will of the popular faith. It speculates enter with them and work freely. We upon the fate of Buddhism after the should be prepared to meet them. A incoming of foreigners after this mood : Christian reaction is sure to come. The "The first elIect will be Christian agformer extreme Europeanization of the gressiveness. The Japanese are povpeople has been checked. Conservatism erty-stricken as regards religious ideas. has been revived. But the endeavor Nine tenths of the people do not know to preserve national peculiarities has what Buddhism is. [And this after Japan has had about thirteen centuries' experience of Buddhism.-D. S. S.] because of personal immorality, etc.
At the beginning, with mixed residence The world moves I foreigners will prevail over WI. Bud- EVANGELUITIO WORK. dhism will decay and disappear. Of course con1lict is not desirable, but it REV. T. P. POATE, JAPAN.-I landed seems to be inevitable. Christian evan- in Japan in the fall of 1870. At that gelization means poison to the nation. time the work was carried on under Remember the ruin of Poland and of great disadvantages. The drag·net of Hawaii through Christian peoples." the Gospel could not be used; it was 4. The Kokkyo finds much fault with , fishing with the rod and line. But the recent Buddhistic methods. "Ancient period of sowing was now well.nigh ,customs have too much weight with done, and God drew near to His Church Buddhist associations. The habitual in blessing. It was, as is already reading of the ritual and Buddhistic known, during the week of prayer in Scriptures at religious gatherings wea- 1870 that this blessing came. The quick- ries the people. Popular addresses ened ear of faith heard the tinklings of should be substituted. Biographies the golden bells of the great High Priest of Buddha and of the founders of the who dwells unseen, yet not unknown, sects should be presented at the meet- within the veil. Over the meetings in ings. If the people will not come to the oHis sevenfold might brooded the won- temples, gather them if possible into drous Paraclete, and from rent hearts private houses and teach them there." came "that unimaginable groan, the It will be seen that this is simply im. birth.pang of souls born into the king- itating Christian methods. And they dom of light, that yearning known to go farther than this in some sections, all the people of God which finds its establishing Sunday·schools, gathering utterance in the cry, 'Lord, save souls, and teaching the young, and the poor or I die I '" Then the Spirit of God in night schools, organizing Young moved upon the hearts of the heathen Men's Christian Associations with Chris· who were present. and one after an- tianity left out. have popular preaching other confessed Christ. Yet more, for services, and take up a collection, as if the first time in the history of the em- they were really Methodists. This im. pire Japanese knelt in prayer to God itating process has been going on for that He would pour out on them and sometime. their race the Holy Ghost. These 5. The Daido Shimpo enters a strong meetings were carried on for several complaint that" the Buddhists always weeks, and out of them grew the First lag behind in social progress, when they Church of Yokohama, now numbering should be the leaders. A national reo about 800 members.
action is coming. Back of the present From this time the work grew apace.
anti·foreign nationalistic mood a great It was founded on and nourished by pro·foreign feeling is developing. Bud· the Word of God. In accordance with dhists should get their power well in the universal rule of Protestant mis- hand, because national secularization is sionaries, the Scriptures were translated near. " into Japanese. Two translations (in The prophecy of a retum of the pro- some respects 8. regrettable thing) were foreign feeling is not without founda· made-the one a Baptist;the other by a tion. committee. Each had its work. The It only remains to note the organiza- Baptist translation reached a class of tion, in one of the prefectures, of a large people unable to read the mixed charac- association for the purification of the ter of the committee's version, while priesthood. One of the recent acts of this was well suited to the wants of the this association was to decide that 220 great middle and upper classes. Out priests were unworthy of their position of the press poured in ever.increasing volume a stream of Christian literature God, and went north on January 10th, which was carried everywhere by col· 1880. A little church was soon gath· porteurs. The branches of the true ered, and as we lookeu on the blank, Vine shot forth and filled the land, and desolate heathenism of the place our the tender grapes gave a good smell. hearts were led out In prayer to God And the Lord of the vineyard sent forth for a hundred souls. That prayer has more laborers. I had been engaged in been answered well-nigh threefold. Our educational work for a number of Methodist brethren came in, and then years, in the employ of the imperial my dear brother Rev. E. Rothesay Mil· Government, when in 1875 I was led ler ; and though this be literally Rock into direct work for the Lord. The Province (Iwate ken), the power of the claims of that work grew more and more Spirit is making it into a fruitful field.
pressing, and at length, in 1879, I sev· In the spring of that same year I bap- ered my connection with the Govern· tized a man named Seino Tomonoshin ment and gave myself wholly to the at a place called Farukawa. He had preaching of the Word in connection been a hard drinker, a great sinner, but with the American Baptist Missionary on him came the Spirit of God, con- Union. vincing him of sin. He dared not sleep Shortly after there came a call from at night, fearing that he might wake up Morioka, a city 325 miles northeast of . in torment. The message of God's love, Tokyo. At that time the provinces of the of sin laid upon Jesus, of the blood that northeast were in almost utter darkness; cIeanseth from sin, came to him, and he no Protestant missionary was to be received it as a little child. His wife found in all that district, yet a certain saw the change in her husband, and she work had been done by members of the too believed. He wrote to me in Yoko· Greek Church. Among those brought hamil., and asked me to stop in Sendai, to Christ by their means was a young on my next trip, and baptize her. 150 man named KUdo. He was not, how· anxious was he that I should not fail ever, satisfied with this form of Chris· that he even telegraphed to me. Now, tianity. Though the Greek Church Sendai is the largest city of the north.
gives the Bible to its members and I had not thought it possible to open recommends them to study it, still work there, but God opened a wide and prayer for the dead, the invocation of effectual door. When I reached Sendai the saints, and a mass of superstitions Brother Seino at once sought me out; too numerous to mention disfigure the and I shall never forget how the tears faith. He came to Yokohama to study, came from his eyes and the joy that and there met with some of ollr believ· shone in his face. His wife was bap- ers, who taught him the way of God tized, and in the fall another church more perfectly. He learned with joy was organized in Sendai. The work that he needed not the intercession of grew rapidly, and I am afraid that I got the saints nor of the Virgin Mary, but proud. I said to myself, I shall have could come to God through the one the first self·supporting Baptist church; :Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus. Fail· and then there came trouble, division ing health compelled him to return and strife; and how sad that is! It home. He was attacked by consump· seemed as if all was going to pieces: tion and did not live many months, but but then I learned what the Puritans he tol:1 his friends of what he had called" the soul.fattening blessing of learned, and the result was, repeated fasting." We fasted and prayed, and letters to Dr. Brown asking for a teach· the Lord lifted upon us the light of His cr. Till my appointment there had countenance.
been no one to send, for the mission I went one day down to the river practically consisted of two ladies and rather sad at heart, and as I passed by Dr. Brown. I hailed the call as from a Shinto temple I noticed that some "matruri" or festival was going on. five ports were opened to foreign trade The priest was praying, and I caught in China, and nearly that time since ac- what sounded like my name. In J ap- tive Protestant missionary wl)rk was anese my name is Pato. I thought begun in the land. But the widespread that I must be mistaken, but on draw- riots throughout the empire during the ing nearer heard it again. Out rang in last year makes it necessary to consider sonorous tones, " Ama terasu no mi kami whether mission methods do not tequire yo, negawaku wa mi tsurugi wo motte fresh adaptation.
kam Eikokujui Poto to ni mono wo ha- " The genius of the Chinese people is rai tamaije;" which, being interpreted, pre-eminently to listen to their rulers, is, " 0 Goddess that dost illuminate the who are expected to take paternal in- heavens, with thine august sword drive terest in everything that pertains to their out that Englishman Poate. " You smile, welfare. If the rulers oppose Chris- and so did I; for my heart was glad. tianity. suspicions abound on every For whenever Satan rages God is side; if they approve, then all classes work.ing, and I knew of a surety that are stimulated to friendship and inquiry.
Emanuel, the Golden Prince, would " One immense hindrance to mission- come, riding in His chariots of salva- ary work in China is the hostile attitude tion, to the aid of His Church. I re- of the mandarins, the gentry and the turned to Yokohama. and one day a educated classes. For millenniums the telegram came from the church: Chinese have been taught to consider "Go Sei Rei. go kouri ni natta" (" On themselves vastly superior to every na- us hath the Holy Spirit descended"). tion under the sun; and as their educa- And when I visited that church next I tional curriculum to this day is still un- fonnd that it was even so. T hey had changed,there is springing up annually a waited on God in prayer, and lie had fresh crop of scholars in absolute igno- heard them. The spirit of envy and rance of the outside world, and with the hate had been cast out, and in its stead same intense pride and prejudice as of reigned the spirit of peace and love and old. For, centuries, too, the Chinese of a sound mind. Government has systematically opposed all intercourse with foreigners to the ut- most of their power, as they regard it Ohristian Work Among the Higher full of peril. OIasses of Ohins. ., Again, for many years, owing to the Twenty-nine missionaries in China, Taiping rebels having taken up a Chris- representing as many societies, sent out, tian name, the authorities of China in the form of a circular, some time since looked on Christian literature as only an Appeal for the Society for the Diffu- fit for wicked rebels, and therefore bc- sion of Christian Knowledge among the came still more hostile. In the course Chinese as an especial agency for reach· of years this feeling showed itself in all ing the higher classes in that country. the Government dispatches of manda- This society sustains two monthly mag- rins, high and low, where the vilest ru- azines in Chinese, one religious and one mors against Christians, however false general. Missionaries from different and malicious, were duly recorded, sel- parts of the empire contribute to the dom inquiring into their origin, their columns of these, and they are, together truth or their falsehood. Lately these an- with other literature, distributed from ti-foreign and anti-Christian references the civil service examination centres were collected from Government dis- and from other centres, to the number of patches and standard works-into which ten in each province. This committee they had also crept-and republished make the following, among other im- in a cheap form; and new publications,'
portant statements: based on these supposed facts, were ,," It is now exactly fifty years since issued to stir up the whole land against Christianity: thinking thereby to benefit "Meanwhile the natural increase of .the popUlation of China is at the rate their country. Such was the main and of about three millions annually. As scarcely any improved methods arc yet immediate cause of the riots, which last- introduced for the support of these Im- mense numbers, and as the Chinese ed, with some intervals. for more than a have not discovered how to produce means of support faster than the natural year. increase of popUlation, as Christian na- tions have done, they must either perish "During all this time it was useless or become every day more wretchedly poor even than they now are, and this for missionaries to approach the higher dire poverty leads to corruption and crime. In fact, the unemployed abound classes, so they have labored patiently throughout the land, to be swept away in periodic famines, while the vast naton among those that would hear them- ural resources of China remain unde- veloped. We must strive for the estabmostly the poor-and we are glad to lishment of righteousness and salvation in the land. Few of the Chinese know record 40,000 communicants among how this can be accomplished; but God has given us that. knowledge. We these. Had the higher classes been as must help them."
accessible, enlightened, and friendly as From the report just at hand we gather information to the effect that they are in Japan and in other mission they have established depots in Peking, Moukden, Tientsin, Shensi, Nanking, fields, we might reasonably expect pro- and Chefoo. They arranged last year to present to all the great mandarins of portionately a far greater number of the empire a copy of Dr. Faber's ~Teat work on" Civilization," in five Chmese Christians in China than there is, and volumes. They sent 60,000 copies of their pUblications to the ten maritime we should not have had the riots, which provinces. Not all of these were sold. The Chinese are poor, though many are have so greatly imperilled the mission rich. The poor have to pay 36 per cent to pawn-shops, and sometimes 100 per cause and excited fresh opposition where cent, to tide them over temporary dUn- culties. Thousands upon thousands colit had almost died away. lect in mat sheds at every great city H One great lesson of the riots is, that in the winter, in order to attend the free soup.kitchens,and this only means prac· the reformation of one class in a nation tically slow starvation. China thus caunot go on peaceably without simul- presents an amount of suffering which taneous enlightenment of the other class- far surpasses that of any other country. es, otherwise it must inevitably end in Most of this might be easily removed. persecution. riots, or revolution. There- It is the object of this ChristIan Knowlfore something must be done to prevent edge Society to try to help the Chinese further collision and disaster besides ap· to such knowledge as will result in the pealing to force. improved condition of the country. For wantof political insight, China has " True, the most prejudiced are more lost within thirty·five years, in northopposed to us than ever because of our east Manchuria, a country as large as increasing numbers, but many of the France; and in the south she has lost highest authorities are compelled to in- Burmah, and in Annam tributary States quire carefully into the matter, and larger than France. For lack of comthere is au increasing number growing mercial knowledge she has £80,000,000 friendly and anxious to know the whole less foreign trade than India, and even truth about our work. The emperor little Japan has trebled her foreign trade, and the highest authorities are begin- while China has only dOUbled hers. ning to learn that these anti·Christian rumors are false, and that Christians are The Secretary, Rev. Timothy Richgood people whose object is to benefit ards, Shanghai, will gladly furnish in· China and not to stir up rebellion aud formation on t.he prospects and plans strife. The edict and proclamations of this admirable organization. If it which have recently made their appear- shall accomplish a tithe as much as the ance are very satisfactory; though is- similar society has in India. it will be a sued under foreign pressure, they are great blessing. all valnable documents and point ill the right direction.
" The empire being at peace. foreigners are engaged to write books for them on all subjects. Its leading men are studying many questions of reform, and among these religion. It seems hardly possible to overestimate the stupendous importance of the present opportunity, when a fourth of the human race is compelled to meditate a change in its religious policy, with all that that involves! The hand of God is in the matter, showing clearly that past labor has not been in vain.
i894.j
IlI.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Siam and Laos, Malaysia," Unoccupied Fields,t Buddhism.:f: . MISSION WORK AMONG THE LAO!!. not to be intimidated by his bonds. , Most of the obstacles since then have BY REV. DANIElL McGILVARY, D.D. been some petty annoyances to be ex· pected, and such as hav.e acted as a Chieng Mai, Lampoon, Lakawn, Praa, wholesome tonic. Nan, Chieng Hai, and Chieng Saan are the capitals of provinces of the same For long years only two ordained name in the north of the Kingdom of missionaries were in the field. In 1883 Siam, to which they are tributary. Rev. Dr. Peoples and others arrived, They occupy the valleys and plateaus followed ne:l!;t year by Rev. Chalmers of the upper tributaries of the Maa Martin. Since then the growth of the Nam, separated from the lower plain church has been remarkable for its by mountains and rapids. They are steady uniformity. For three years the governed by a line of native rulers who yearly accessions to the communion of receive their appointment and their in· the church was about ninety. For the signia of office from Bangkok. last seven successive years the acces- sions have been 110, 129, 180, 190, 241, Having first obtained consent of the 299, and 303 for 1893. Our present viceroy, permission to establish a mis· adult membership is 1586,. total bap. sion station in Chieng Mai was granted tized 2707. The mother church at by the Siamese Government, and the Chieng Mai has sent out eight colonies, mission was formally opened by the and still has an adult membership of writer and his family April 3d. 1867, 719, and Dr. Dennis in his latest work M.r. Wilson and family following in makes the Presbytery of North Laos 1868. The warm reception that the the banner presbytery in the General missionaries received from all classes, Assembly. Probably a greater promi. the baptism of the first convert, the nence has been given to the evangelistic bright prospects of the mission so soon work than in most missions, and in clouded by the changed attitude of the .this we have largely used the native viceroy and the martyrdom of Noi talent available. From the beginning Sunyah and Nan Chai, the tragic death of the mission the preaching and pas· of the viceroy soon after, the kindness toral work have been magnified. For of his successor, the present viceroy, a long time this was from necessity. counteracted by the hostile acts of his Our small force precluded some depart· brother, the second in command, lead· ments of mission work. What was be· ing to the appeal to Bangkok and the gun from necessity has been continued Royal Proclamation of Religious Toler· from conviction and experience of its ation from the young king in 1878, are success. We have endeavored to reach matters of history and need not be reo the present generation first; and no peated. The death of the brother soon subject has such constraining power after was another of the many Provi· over men who are conscious of their dential interpositions in behalf of the guilt and sin as the Cross of Christ. mission. The only case of persecution The Laos readily admit that there is no since then was the imprisonment for provision for pardon in Buddhism. eight months of a valued assistant un· "I would embrace any religion that der false charges, but really on account offers pardon for sin," said an officer of his religion. From his prison cell from ChiengToong. met on a late tour. he wrote consoling letters to his family From the first, too, it was evident * See pp. 332 and 884 (present. issue). that a large field for medical work was opened. The ordained ministers stood t See p. 877 (present issue). :I: See pp. 326 and 367 (present issue).
FIELD OF MON'l'HI,Y SURVEY
lI,ghast at the demand for foreign medi- Rev: Nan Tah. He is one of the most cine which they had created, but could learned men in Buddhistic literature, not supply. A missionary station is which gives him great influence among not complete without a physician. The hil:l people. In manner and tact he is healing of the body and the remedy for all that could be desired, instant in seathe soul, as in the Saviour's ministry, son and out of season, and is himself a have acted and reacted on each other. bright example of the power of the They are the counterpart and comple- Gospel which he preaches. ment of each other. When there is no physician the miuister has to become a Besides him the annual report for the quack and treat cases for which he is closing year mentions about thirty nanot qualified. When this work is turned tive ruling elders who have devoted over to an accomplished physician he much time to evangelistic work during can devote his energies to his own spe- the year. The report adds, " They go cial work. The consecrated physician before, we follow and reap the harcan easily combine the preaching of the vest." Besides the influence of these, Gospel with. the medical work. The the church is growing by the vitality in reverse is not always possible. Among its native members. Most of the male the IJaos the medical missionary has an members lead in public prayer, and ideal field for influence. The evangel- mauy of the women in their own prayeristic and the medical work combined meetings. Family prayer is generally have laid the broad foundation for all observed, and they do not hesitate to our other work, and given the solid urge the subject of religion on their basis on which it stands. In the pio- people. In all of the sub-stations naneer work in the broad field already tives lead the Sabbath worship. An opened and opening in the east and the officer from Lakawn, sixty-five miles to north, we must look to the consecrated the southeast, became a Christian-a physician to be preacher and healer. church was soon organized, and a call With his medicine and surgical case and made for a mission station, to which his Bible, he is welcome alike to the resi- Dr. and Mrs. Peoples and others since dences of chiefs and governors and to responded. When the station in Lamthe homes of the poor. The extent of poon was opened, one hundred and its inflnence may he seen by a single twenty members were already waiting statement. Dr. McKean, medical mis- to be dismissed to the church then orsionary in Chieng Mai, reports five thou- ganized. The churches in Chieng Saan sand cases treated last year at the sta- aud Chieng IIai and Papow and Chieng tion, and three thousand vaccinations, Dow, all in distant provinces, have thus bringing eight thousand souls un- grown up under native labor, with only der the direct influence of the Gospel. an annual visit from the missionary. In a tour of Iive months last year the They have called in vain for the settlewriter distributed cighty.eight ounces ment of a missionary. of quinine gratuitously, or otherwise, giving us a welcome in some places With the evangelistic and medical where the people would have been in- work as a basis, as soon as we had force different. We would emphasize the to open schools, Christian parents were fact that just now THREE MEDICAL MIS- waiting to put their children in them. SIONARIES are NEEDED for our IMME- The Girls' Boarding School was the DIATE WORK. Shall this appeal be first. It has had a succession of faithmade in vain? ful teachers. Under its present princi- pal, Miss Griffin, assisted by Miss Allie Special mention should be made of McGilvary, it has completed a prORperthe influence of our native Christians ous year. The Boys' Boarding School in advancing the work. First among was commenced later by Mr. Coilins, these is our native ordained minister, who is now assisted by Miss C. H. Mc- GUvary. One hundred and fifteen pupils were enrolled during the year. One of whom, a son-in·law of Nan Intab, of the most encouraging features of the first convert, was ordained. these schools Is that all the girls and nearly all the boys come from Ohris- To all of these schools we look for a tian families-not to learn English, generation of better educated Ohriswhich is not taught, bnt to receive a tians, and, above all, for a strong force Christian education. Most of the pu- of Christian ministers and workers to pils are either communicants or non- evangelize their own and neighboring communing members on entering, and tribes. The first duty of the foreign the communion roll is constantly en- missionary is to lay the foundations, larged from these schools, t~oenty-tl.ree translate t,he Scriptures, and give a having been added during the fall term. Christian litcrature, then to train work- The influence of the pupils reacts on ers and act as bishops in superintending the families and villages from which and directing the work. they come. A prosperous school at Lakawn, under Miss Fleeson and Mr. Our Sahbath-schools have one feature 'l'aylor, was commenced soon after the worthy of universal adoption. They station was established, and now a boys' embrace the old and the young, men school is in operation under Mr. Taylor, and women; in other words, the church who also superintends the Industrial and congregation studying the Scrip- School, leaving Dr. Peoples frec for tures. evangelistic work and the medical work in the absence of Dr. Briggs. Even A font of Laos type prepared by Dr. Utc last station at Lampoon has a good Peoples is a success, and the press in beginning in school work. Chieng l1ai under Mr. Collins is send- ing forth the printed Word of Gi>d. Last "nd not least, before we were The Gospel of Matthew revised, and ready for it, the evangelistic work had Acts translated, by Rev. E. B. McGilfurnished pupils for the Theological vary, have been published, and the Training School. Rev. Nan Tah was Gospel of John is now ready for the prepared for the ministry by the mem- press, while Mr. Wilson has translated bers of the Chieng Mai station in the in- the Psalms. The whole of the Scriptervals of other duties. A strong need tures are accessible to those who read had long been felt for an organized ef- Siamese, as most of Ollr Christians do. fort, and in Mr. Dodd, since joined by Mr. Irwin, the right men were found. Hitherto we have referred to the work Our ruling elders and others, who have in the Siamo-Laos States in the north of proved themselves efficient workers, Siam, which gave it the title of Nortlt have been encouraged to enter the Train- Laos Mission. Rccent explorations in ing School. It ha!! one feature of a the regions north of the Kingdom of model theological school. The teach- Siam have shown tbat the title NORTH ing is practical and biblical as well as Laos Mission is a misnomer. The easttheoretical, the Bible being the princi- ern and northeastern portion of British pal text-book. A portion of each day Burma and a large number of districts is devoted to evangelistic work, and on and towns subject to Yunnan, China, Sabbath the pnpils are sent out two by are inhabited by the Kerns and Lus, two, and the first school hour in the two large and numerous branches of week is devoted to hearing a report of the Laos family, who might be called their work, with criticisms and practical the Burmo and Chino-Laos. This is suggestions from teachers and feIIow- doubtless the original home of the pupils. Ttoenty-five were enrolled last whole Siamese and Laos family. These year, and at the last meeting of pres- tribes have retained more of their origbytery in December jive of the pupils inal characteristics, while the Siamese were licensed to preach the Gospel, one have developed a type of civilization of their own. A tour was taken the first flve months of 1893 by the Rev. Robert Irwin and thc writer, passing through the provinces of British Blll'Dla to the baptism of twenty·two, the first of the Sip Song Panna, a confederation of Lu Moosur race who had embraced the States under the jurisdiction of China. Gospel, was a red·letter dsy in my life. We visited about seventeen districts and Ch Boo Kaw, the first Moosur convert, towns, in all of which the Kern and Lu has since gone to his rest, exhorting his dialects of the Laos are spoken, and the people with his last breath to embrace written character is the same as that the Gospel. Besides the Moosurs, there used in our mission. The extent of the are the Kooies, the Kaws, the Maaos, race to the north, the large area in the Yows, the Ka Hoks, the Ka Lohs, which the Laos language is spoken, and the Lanteens, the Tai Luangs, the Ka the openness of the field were a revela- Moos, and Lemates and other tribes. tion to us. A missionary had never Like the Karens of Burma, but few of been in the region before, and the name these Hill tribes are Buddhists, and we of Christ was unknown. It is stating have reason to believe that many of the fact mildly when we say that we them are waiting for the Gospel. None were well received throughout the of them have written languages, and as whole region. We had a most cordial yet we have had to preach to them welcome from both rulers and people. through an interpreter in the Laos lan- guage, which most of the men under· The length of the tour precluded a stand but imperfectly. Their contiglong stay in each place, but we had uity to China has introduced the opium everywhere eager listeners to the Gos- vice among them, but they are hospitapel mesaage. Chieng Hoong, in north ble and industrious, and those not adlatitude 22°, the chief city of the Sip dicted to the use of opium are, for Song Punna, was the limit of the tour heathen tribes, moral. to the north. This confederation formerly paid tribute to Burma and China, The Presbyterian Mission of Siam and but the present Chow Fa of Chieng Laos together embrace the whole coun- Hoong was placed in authority by Yun- try from the Gulf of Siam to China, nan. The Laos race extended much and the Laos race alone must comprise further north and also east and west of three or four millions of people. How Chieng Hoong. There we crossed the shall that whole region be evangelized? Cambodia River and visited a number We need only the men and the means of towns to the east and south, and re- to occupy the whole field. crossed it at Chieng Lap. In two of the towns which we visited we were At the meeting of the Presbytery of invited to hold worship in the residence North Laos in 1892 a call was made for of the Chow Fa, where we found largv eighteen workers, not including those and attentive audiences. It was sad to needed for Nan and the Laos provinces leave so many places where they were and Hill tribes north of the Siamese disappointed at our short stay, and boundary. The Wood River Church, urged us to come again. Nebraska, has sent usfi'D6 workers, now on their way. Of these Mr. and Mrs. The length of this article, already too Shields will join Dr. and Mrs. Briggs long, allows the mention of only one at Praa, the new station opened by the other important fact. The whole re- famine. The other three, Rev. J. L. gion abounds in numerous Hill tribes Thomas, M.D., and wife, and Miss inhabiting the mountains on both sides Hatch,· and also Miss Wilson, go to of the Cambodia and its tributaries. Lakawn, and Mr. and Mrs. Phraner We have an interesting work already are waiting to establish a station in begun among the Yahoos or Moosurs. Chieng Hai when a physlcian can be Two of the most interesting months of obtained. my thirty.six years of mission life were spent in viaiting on foot the MQOSurs on MO'l'e than eighteen are still needed, of. the hills west of Chlt,ng Hai; and the whom at least three should be physi- cians, to occupy Rahang, a large town on the Southern Laos border and Nan all the men of His time and all other on the east, and the Burmo-Laos and times.
Chino-Laos and the Hill tribes in the Was Buddha His name?
north. For speedy and large returns No. It is the name of a state of for labor and means expended, it is mind.
doubtful whether a more promising Its signification ?
field is anywhere open to the Church. Illuminated ; or He who has perfect, We most earnestly request the prayers wisdom.
of the Church for laborers and success Did Buddha discover the cause of in giving them the Gospel. We would human misery ?
sound the Macedonian cry, " Come over At last He discovered it. As the and help us." Who will hear in it a light of the rising sun scatters the call, "The Lord hath need of thine" ? shades of night and reveals everything " The Lord hath need of THEE" ? to view, so the light of knowledge rose in His mind, and He saw clearly the Siam and Laos. Area 250,000 square causes of human suffering and the miles; population about 6,000,000, con- means of escaping them. sisting of one third Siamese, one third Laosians, and the remainder Chinese Did He have to make great efforts to and Malays. The prevailing religion is attain this knowledge? Buddhism. The Presbyterians (North) •have in the Laos country 10 ordained, 5 Yes; He had to conquer all the de- medical, 6 lady missionaries, and 1 or- fects, the desires, and the appetites dainednative; 8 churches and 1600 com- which deprive us of the sight of the municants ; and in the Siam Mission, 7 truth. ordained, 2 medical, 4 lady missionaries, and 1 native evangelist; 7 churches and What is the light which can disperse 330 communicants. The American Bap- our ignorance and drive away all tist Missionary Union also has a work troubles? in Bangkok chietly for the Chinese. The knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, as Buddha r:aIls them.
What are those truths? (1) That misery always accompanies existence; (2) that all modes of exist- ence result from passion or desire; (3) Unoccupied Pield8 will be the subject that there is no escape from existence of a paper in our June and July issues. except by destruction of desire; (4) the means of obtaining the destruction of desire.
Buddhi8m has been said to be the re- When we are in possession of the Four ligion of one third of the human race. Noble Truths, at what do we arrive?
Probably not over 100,000,000, how- At Nirvana.
ever, are in reality Buddhists. What is Nirvana?
The state of perfect repose, the ab- sence of desire, of illusion, of pain, the The following are some extracts from complete annulment of everything a Buddhist catechism: which constitutes physical man. Before What is a Buddhist? attaining Nirvana, man can be inces-'
He is one who professes to be a fol- santly born again; when he has attained lower of Our Lord Buddha. it he cannot be born again.
Was Buddha a God?
No. Buddhism aims at the destruction of Was He a man? sin as a disea.se and the practical ea;tinc- In form He was a man; but internally tion of the soul; Christianity compasses He was not like other men-that is, in the destruction of the disease and the mental and moral order He surpa~e~ 8alvation of the soul.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
What shall atone for sina of omis8'ion the population; and therefore any stateon the part of editors and compositors! ment of the number is only an CIItimate. In the February issue of this REVIEW, Rev. H. V. Noyes in 1889 published a page 136, second column, third para· paper in the Oltinese Recorder, January graph, the somewhat astounding state- and February numbers, on .. Mohamment is made, that" of the nineteen medans in China." He gives the numprovinces of China proper, only Hunan ber as 20,000,000. Two thirds of these and Kwang·se have permanent mission were stated to be in the Northwest and stations." One little word-" no"-be- Southwest Provinces. The number ing omitted before the words .. mission stated to be in these two provinces is stations" turns the sentence completely greater than the wltole popUlation of the round. It should have read, "Only provinces. After the protracted war Hunan and Kwang-se have no perma- that was there to suppress a Mohammenent mission stations." The next sen- dan rebellion, more than half of the poptence, which gives the needy popula. ulation were found to have perished durtion of these two provinces, shows that ing the twenty years of war. I think the previous sentence must be wrong; 15,000,00() a large estimate for the present but we confess the blunder without Mohammedan population in China. The being able to account for its escaping Chinese are Oonfuciani8t8 as a nation. three proof-readers! Canton, Swatow, When these false religions are vaunted Amoy, Tamsui and Taiwanfol) in For· by anti-Christians, I do not like to see mosa, Foo Chow, Shanghai, Hankow, any undue credit given to them." Ningpo, Cheefoo, Tientsin, Pekin, etc., are well-known permanent mission sta- The MiBBiona7'1J Herald hints that a tions. movement is on foot among Christian Endeavor Societies to hold missionary Dr. Happer, the veteran missionary extension courses, following the lines from China, kindly calls attention to a that IlSve been followed to eKtend the few points in which there is a difference advantages of the universities to the of opinion; also a few typographical public. Study and investigation of the errors in the February REVIEW. As claims of foreign missions, under God's we care for accuracy far more than our blessing, cannot fail to be of vast beneown" consistency," we give Dr. Hap- fit, commensurate to the importance of per's letter: the topic. We have often thought that a plan not unlike that of the" uni- .. On page 136 and second column, versity extension" courses might be second line, the number of missionaries pursued with immense profit. Courses is stated to be 500 instead of 1500. [Dr. of lectures by the prominent authorities Gilbert Reid, in" Peeps into China," on missions might be arranged in varipage 188, gives 490 male missionaries. ous accessible centres. There is no Manifestly an error, as the China Inland reason why such men as Drs. Ellin- Mission alone has 600.-ED.] These I wood, Clark, Baldwin, McCabe, Gorregard as mistakes of the printer. Let don, Mudge, Gracey; Bishops Baldwin me call your attention to two items of and Nicholson; returned missionaries, errors on points that are of special in- such as Drs. Dennis, Happer, Mackay, terest now-viz., as to the number of KnOK, Butler, Boggs, and others tempo- Mohammedans and Buddhists in China. rarily or permanently at home again- You state, on page 136, first column, in a word, every man and woman who the number of the former to be 30,000,- is competent to speak in behalf of mis- 000. This, I think, is too .large an estimate. There is no reliable census of 8ioll&-~hould not be heard, and in cir· dental expenses, the pastors using their cumstances the most favorable. A sin· own discretion in regard to an offering gle address at a distance involves poor Sabbath morning in their own churche9 economy of time; but a series of ad· for their own denominational boards. dresses at contiguous points, and arrang· ed foi at successive times, might bring The Hermit Nation-Thibet. untofd good at a very slight cost of money or energy. Why not have a On Tuesday afternoon, January 7th, bureau of missionary lectures? Not a 1890, during the Week of Prayer, I money·making scheme, but a provision made an address at Mildmay, in Lonfor extending the blessing of informa· don, on "Prayer as a Power in the tion suffused with spiritual power! Opening of Nations to the Gospel." I gave several illustrations, from Turkey. Apropos of this matter, we have be· Siam, Sandwich Islands, etc. I felt fore us a program of the Missionary moved to say to that very devout band Institute in connection with the Illinois of disciples there gathered, that it was Christian Endeavor Union. It may my conviction that there should be help others to give the following items definite, united, believing supplication of information: for the immediate opening of T hibet to the messengers of Christ: whereupon RULES OF THE EXTENSION COURSE. there was a season of prayer for this par· ticular object, and prayer of unusual 1. An application to the Christian power and earnestness. Endeavor State Superintendent of Mis· sions, signed by the presidents of all I have naturally watched with very Christian Endeavor societies in the special interest the subsequent developtown, with the approval of their pas· ments in Thibet. And now not only do tors, and a pledge of the active super- we find that that heroic woman, MIss vision of the course by the Endeavor Annie Taylor, has been penetrating the societies. Thibetan frontier~ from Sikkim, daring poison and assassination, but actually 2. Arrangements for a mass meeting reaching to within three days' journey of the evangelical churches each night of Lassa, the capital, and claiming for selected for the addresses. Sunday God every foot of ground her feet trod evenings are preferred, if possible. on! And now a Thibetan pioneer mis- sion is organized. Miss Taylor appears 3. Missionary sermons to be preached in Britain to secure a dozen men to go by the evangelical pastors each Sunday out to Darjeeling, India, and master the morning prior to the mass meetings. strange speech of the Lama worship· pers, so as to be ready to enter when 4. Arrangements for a Union confer· the two-leaved gates open. ence and prayer service for missionary workers on the afternoons prior to the Just now another link in the chain is mass meetings. supplied. God seems to be using the same means to open Thibet that He 5. Assurance of the active co-opera· used at Philippi's jail to open the door tion. of the missionary societies in the into Europe-the earthquake I We local churches. quote a recent account : 6. Payment of the travelling expenses, "The calamity which has befallen and free entertainment of the speakers. Thibet would seem to afford the oppor- tllnity which Christians have long 7. Ample notice through the local waited for. For years that country press both before and after the meet- haq been most jealously guarded against ings. the intrusion of even transient visit- ors. Only at long intervals, ann after 8. An invitation to all Christian En- great efforts, have travellers succeeded deavor Missionary societies and churches in the district to· send delegates to the meetings.
9. No collection to be made at the mass meetings, except for actual inci· in even passing through the country; Christian truth. FQr despite the pOltie and it has been utterly out of the ques- fancy which invests non·Christian re- ligious systems with an aureole of sanction to establish any missionary enter- tityand beauty, they have been weighed prise in it, though there have been prep- and found wanting in power to meet the deepest wants of mankind. Whatarations made to avail of the least ever their rightful place may have been opening. under Providence in the education of humanity; whatever the virtues they " Now comes the news that a great are calculated to promote among peoples earthquake has destroyed several Bud- in a certain stage of mental'or material dhist monasteries, causing large loss of development; however beautiful the theory, or elevated the ethics, which life, and the Grand Lama himself ap- some of them embody or enjoin-we cannot accept them as a substitute for pears to have perished in the catastro- Christianity or withhold its higher ligh~ from those who sit beneath their phe. This last occurrence can hardly shadow." fail to shake rudely the system of pure There is much curiosity felt to know Buddhism existing in Thibet, and to who the author of this article is.
prepare the way for the preaching of the Gospel.
.. The missiouaries who have long hovered upon the southwestern boun- dary of the country will hardly fail to avail themselves of such a providential opening. For this familiarity with the geography and local peCUliarities of the situation- in Thibet are essenthtl pre- requisites to a successful prosecution of the work, and we expect to hear that it has been entered upon at the earliest moment."
A late number of the London Quar- The monetary crisis imperils all misterly Review pays a remarkably generous sion work. The Presbyterian Board but just tribute to the work of foreign was threatened in March with a debt of missions. The anonymous writer claims $150,000. The Church Missionary Sothat philology, geography and ethnog- ciety was $175,000 behind. Mildmay raphy, comparative religion and cog- and the Y. M. C. A. of London each nate sciences have all been greatly in- $25,000 in debt. debted to those who have gone to bear the Gospel into the depths of continents That was a most notable conversion hitherto untrodden by Europeans, or to the ranks of the Salvation Army in into territories where death threatens the case of Prince Galitzin, of Russia. the intruder. After cordially conced- On a recent tour round the world in ing the material advantages of mission- the interests of the Imperial Geographary work, the writer adds: "It is too ical Society of St. Petersburg, he was late to speak of efforts as futile or fanatic in Washington in October, 1893, and which have literally girdled the globe there he attended a Salvation Army with a chain of missionary stations, and meeting; he was much impressed, and, those who now speak scornfully of mis- returning another evening, became It. sions are simply men behind their age." convert, and has since consecrated him- Then the grand opportunities for world- self and his life to the work of the wide missionary work are emphasized, Army. He prcposes to carryon Salvaand these remarkable words are added: tion Army work in Siberia, and has ., The heathen oracles are dumb, their gone to London to consult with Gentemples are decaying, their philosophies eral Booth with respect to his plans. are undermined, their creeds are honey- He is tall and stately, forty-five years com bed with distrust under the advance old, with refined features and expresof Western civilization, and the one sive eyes. He says, "I have given up supreme question is Whether their place my life to God and the Salvation Army. is to be filled by the adoption of an ag- I am so thankful that I have at last nostic morality or by the acceptance of found a use for myself and my income." Robert Louis Stevenson, writing from On the other hand, the editor has a the South Seas, says that he was preju- letter from a correspondent who in· diced against missions, but that his quires whether the REVIEW is only a prejudices have been annihilated. Pre8byterian organ! And he says that " Those who deblatterate against mis- a Wesleyan friend of his complains sions have only one thing to do, to come that "there is nothing in the REVIEW and see them on the spot." No fair- about the Methodists and their work."
minded man can see for himself the To show how groundless this com- work of the missionaries in foreign plaint is and how ignorantly it is made, lands and not come to the same conclu- we call attention to a letter of our val· sion. uable Methodi8t associate editor, Rev.
J. T. Gracey, D.D., to whom the com- Rev. Dr. F. F. Ellinwood, in a letter plaint was submitted. His reply may to the New York Wo1'ld, nailed to the at least serve to show what a Methodist doorpost the lies of a certain Dr. Ruel thinks of the undenominational charac- B. Karib, concerning the cost and char- ter of the REVIEW. He says: acter of Presbyterian missions in Per- " I have heard no intimation till now sia. He triumphantly exposes these as of any lack in the pan·denominational flagrant falsehoods, and reveals the character of the REVIEW. Methodists whole animus of their author, remind- certainly have no right to complain, ing us of the famous retort: "The nor have I ever had a hint that they allegation8 are fal8e, and the alligator did. I do recall no article ever sent by know8 it." He also says that other in- a Methodist that has not appeared in dependent testimony shows him a fraud. full, while many other contributions A native Persian, licentiate of Pittsburg have not been used on account of length Presbytery, present at the ministerial or for other reasons. Rev. Dr. S. L. gathering where Dr. Karib was "investi- Baldwin and Rev. Dr. Sutherland, gated," testified that for gross immoral- both secretaries of Methodist boards, ity he was driven out of Persia.- And furnished articles last year. Bishop so another assault on missions is traced Thoburn, of India, was a contributor; to an infernal source. so was Dr. C. W. Drees, Superintendent of Methodist Missions in South America. Mr. W. ~ Sherman, of Washington, Dr. O. W. Oushing reviewed Dr. But- Ind., sends to the 'Volunteer fund the ler's book on Mexico, both author and generous sum of $26.10, and accompa- reviewer being Methodists. Rev. O. P. nies it with a letter, in which he says, Hurd and Rev. H. C. Stuntz, both of .. My heart has been greatly gladdened India, are Methodists. My own brother, by the perusal of the January number a Methodist preacher, Consul at Fooof the REVIEW. Your bold and cour_ chow, China, and Mrs. Gracey furnished ageous words against the popular in- articles. The index of authors in the last iquities of these perilous times and in two volumes shows about one eighth behalf of the coming kingdom are es· Methodists. The April number, 1892, pecially exhilarating. I am exceed- International Department, was wholly ingly eager to have this thoroughly by Methodists and about Methodist misevangelical journal in thehands of many sions. Mr. HeU Ohatelain, one of our of the Lord's poor saints. Accordingly most learned contributors, was for a time I send you a draft on New York for connected with Bishop Taylor's West the volunteer fund." Our brother has African work, and Miss L. M. Latimer, our thanks for the donation, but even with Methodist work in Mexico. Rev. more for his helpful words of encour· James Mudge, D.D., served the same agement. This REVIEW aims to be denomination in India for ten years. absolutely faithful to the truth and the Hev. David S. Spencer, of Japan, Rev. kingdom of our Lord. J. E. Robinson, of India, both preRid. ing elders, have contributed to the last two volumes, 8S has Dr. Masters, of San Francisco, and Mr. Meakin, of the famed Budgett Methodist family of Wesleyans in England. Rev. John R. Hykes, Methodist missionary in Central China, now Bible Society's agent at Shanghai, furnished a ten-page article. I have not in this enumeration gone outside of the past two volumes. nor bought a large tract of land of the SuI· exhausted even these, nor referred to tan, near the Jordan, and intends to my own contributions and editorials. found there a large Jewish colony. Life and property in that region have Methodist missions have been kept as been more secure for the last fifteen years owing to the military station eswell to the front as Methodist authors tablished there by the government, elected in their contributions. If these which has also built a bridge over the Jordan to facilitate communication behave not been made strongly denomi·. tween Jerusalem and the valleys beyond the river, Whence the Holy City obtains national, it is doubtless because of t.he most of its cereals.
undenominational character of the mag- A curious relic of British mission azine. But this holds of other authors work exists in Russia, near Patigorsk, as well. Baptists (North, South, Cana- and within sight of the range of the Caucasus – viz., the little colony of dian), Reformed (Dutch), American Karras, an old mission station of the Free Church cf Scotland. At present Board, and other denominations are it is chiefly inhabited by Germans, and freely represented in our pages, not ex- the church services are held in that lanceptionally, but continually. And the guage. There are, however, still left a few children of the mission converts smaller societies have not been neg- who can speak English. Among the lected, nor have "independent" mis- community are persons of Circassian and Tartar blood, whose fathers were sionaries or societies, such as the China the fruit of the old mission. This col- Inland. In whatever else the REVIEW ony is independent of all ecclesiastical superiors, and is ruled in aocordance has succeeded or failed, it certainly has with the ordinances of the Free Church maintained its claim to be ecumenical of Scotland. The mission was origiin its character ; and it has reason to be nally commenced in the reign of Alexgrateful that not only so many denom- ander I., and suppressed in that of his inations have furnished its contributors, successor Nicholas. but also that theso repres~nt so many missionary sooieties in all parts of Amedoa, and several in Europe, while every section of the missionary world has taken part in the authorshIp of its pages. I am not writing a prospectus, but reviewing un fait accompli.
"Meeting, as I do, annually a hundred missionaries a year for a week at the Jnternattonal Missionary Union, f;:om all parts of the world and of all sooieties, and in constant correspondenco with missionaries of all shades of opinion to the ends of the earth, I think I have never heard from anyone of them a tint or suggestion that the REVIEW was not broadly charitable and fair. Whatever critioisms come do not touch the question of denominationalism."
For those who oare for a mathemati- The girls' seminary at Wellington, oal estimate, the following may be in- Capo Colony, has a faculty of twenty teresting : instructors, and numbers on its alumnre more than a thousand descendants of The late Rev. R. Steel, D.D., of Syd- English, Dutch, and French settlers. ney, New South Wales, estimates that, This school was founded some twenty in one hundred years, at a cost of $10,- years ago, is entirely self-supporting, 000,000, some threo hundred and fifty and its pupils have competed successislands have been evangelized, with fully at Cape Town in the university five. hundred thousand now in the and government examinations. Miss churches. This would be at the rate Abby Ferguson is the principal, and it of five thousand convertR a year, and at may be questioned whether a.ny one an expenditure of only $20 for eaoh agency is doing more for Africa's evansoul redeemed. gelization and enlightenment. The graduates of the school are scattered all A report is abroad that Baron Ed- ·over Africa south of the Soudan, as mond de Rothschild, whose presence at wives of missionaries, ministers, or Constantinople has been of material ad- merchants, or themselves teachers of vantage to his colonies in Palestine, has schools. We have always felt the warmest in- ly waited for. This story of faith, prayterest in the great work of the Euphrates er, heroic devotion, suff&ing almost to College at Harpoot, in Turkey in Asia, martyrdom with abounding joy in God, which has exercised so beneficent an in- is just what is needed for this degenerfiuence. ate day. It sounds like the Acts of the Apostles. We propose to make extracts Its field is all of Northeastern Turkey and further references to its contents in Asia to the Persian border and the from time to time. Meanwhile, let southeastern part of Russia; the terri- every man and woman who would. tory in which it is the only higher in- know more of a life hid in God and reetitution of learning, covering 200,000 vealing His power read these pages. square miles, with a population of T.b.ey will be read with tears of joy. 5,000,000, about one fourth of whom are Armenians. Of books which deserve mention, we call especial attention to Murdered Mill· The college seeks to give a compre- iIJ'TUJ, a very condensed and comprehenhensive, practical, Christian education sive plea for medical missions by George to its pupils, and to introduce the Gospel D. Dowkontt, M.D., of New York into the old Armenian Church, which is City. Within sev~nty-six pages here arousing to the importance of an edu- are compressed facts which might be cated and morally upright clergy. spread over volumes. Dr. Cuyler's keen pen furnishes a striking introduc- Rev. J. L. Barton, for eight years a tion. Dr. Dowkontt wastes no time in missionary in Turkey, now succeeds apologies, but enters in. media8 res. He Rev. C. H. Wheeler, D.O., as president. shows that the atrocious and absurd and cruel system of native medical treat- The McAll mission work in America ment in Africa, China, India, Siam, etc., has suffered a very great loss in the is virtual murder, and demands on death of Mrs. Frances Lea Chamber- every humane and Christian principle lain, who for so many years has been our prompt interposition. He shows intimately connected with this work. also the connection of medical work She died on February 16th, in Califor- with missions, and how it is the key to nia, where she had gone with her hus- many a difficult position. E'DfII'1Ibody band in pursuit of health. She was a ought to have this little book, published woman of remarkable character. Her at the office of the Medical Miasionary executive ability, wedded to a feminine Rewrd. 118 East Forty-fifth Street, sympathy and a fervent spirituality, New York. made a rare combination of gifts and graces. Her holy enthusiasm and con- The managing editor acknowledges secration had been the motive power of $5 "from a friend" in Chelsea, Mass.• the machinery of the auxiliary of which which will be devoted as desired, to the she was president; and when she was help of one who is seeking to enter the withdrawn, it seemed as though no one mission field. could take her place. Her husband has furnished a beautiful tribute to her, The Sabbath-school army in the in the shape of an account of her last United States claim 12,000,000 children, hours, and which appears in the McAll and half that number in Great Britain, Rewrd. She died beautifully, as she studying the same Bible lessons. In had lived. India, China, and even in Egypt, are fonnd 2,000,000 more who read the same Part 1. of The Story of the Ohina In- Bible verses weekly. land Missiun, by Miss M. Geraldine Guinness, and an introduction by J. Hudson Taylor, hJ!.S been issued by ~Iorgan & Scott,London ; and Part II. will be eager-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLJGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEONAlID.
Extraots and Translations from Foreign and teachings, but a confession of Periodioals. Christ the Saviour. The man confesses concerning himself that he is a sinner, BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, who feels hill need of a Redeemer; con- MASS. cerning Jesus Christ, that He is the only, all·sufficient Saviour, to whom one NETHERLAl!oo1)S INDIA. commits himself and trusts Him, whom one will serve, Him alone, Him en- -We in Christendom have become so tirely, through a life according to His very wise in the laws of nature that we Gospel. Missions do not aim, may not do not seem to have very much more aim, at the propagation of any particuse for the God of nature. Our God is ular church doctrines, but at the imvery apt to be either a helpless essence plantation in the convert's hearts.of an residing in things, with no power of act- active Christianity brought by Jesus ing with personal energy upon them, or and kept alive by Him."-Maededeelinelse a deistic mechanic who has framed Den '/Jan weDe bret NederlandBche Zendelthe world and stares at it from outside, inggenoot8chap (Reports from the Netherletting it go as it may after being once lands Missionary Association). wound up. But outside of our overdone wisdom, the Father is still wont to " The Bible at the Batavia Exhibition. reward the simplicity of faith with the -After a postponement of twelve days, fruits of faith. Herr CHRISTIANSEN, to prove the truth of the peculiar Indoof Sumatra, writes: "The Lord does Dutch proverb, 'Hast u lang eaam' not leave Himself without witness [Make haste slowly], the Exhibition was among our Christians, of which I could opened on August 12th at 11 A.M. by adduce various examples. One Sunday His Excellency, the Governor·General of I had preached upon James 5 : 14–16. Netherlands India, amid the pomp and Without any solicitation of mille the vanities that generally attend such occa· elders, the same evening, proceeded to sions. the home of a Christian child that was sick unto death. in order to bring the "The day was observed as a Bank message heard into practical applica- Holiday in the majority of the business tion. They moved the parents to con- houses, and everyone took the opporfess their sins, and prayed with them tunity to make the day as jovial as posfor the recovery of their child; and be- sible; but neither on this day nor since hold, in half an hour it was well. Nor have I noticed one man the worse for is this the only case among us, though drink, nor in any way behaving himit is the most striking. in which the self unseemly. The native industry prayer of faith has saved the sick after sheds, well filled with interesting modhope had expired."- Berichte der Rhein· els of their many ingenious inventions iachen MiaBionB- GeaelZschaft. -houses, tools, weapons, cooking uten- sils, clothing, etc.-form an attractive -" Missions form churches formed and interesting resort for foreigners; out of hc;iathens and Mohammedans. and the contents of the foreign indus- Whoever abaudons the heathen worship try sheds are inspected with wonder by received from his fathers, or turns away the natives and Chinese. from the false prophet, is received on confession into the Christian fellowship. " An interesting collection of the Holy Where missions are well understood and Scriptures, in more than forty languages intelligently guided this is no confession and dialects, testifies to the extensive of articles of belief or of distinctive ideas and most important work of the Brit-
EXTltACTS AND T:RANSLATIONB
ish and Foreign Bible Society in emanci- endeavors to argue away the truth of pating the souls of the enthralled mill- the divinity of Christ; the Bengalee ions 1ri these regions. It is the most approaches with bows and flattering important exhibit in the foreign indus· unction offered in broken Englis!J., in- try shed for the welfare of India's mill· spects the Bengalee Gospels, and quietly ions, and yet the most despised and sar- laying them aside, passes on with the castically criticised. promise to return another day; the Baba·Chinaman inspects, questions, " Situated in the midst of a sea of in- beats down the price, reads a chapter toxicating drinks, and facing the central or two, and out of 'kasihan' (compas- open space used as a drinking saloon, the sion) for the seller purchases one or two Bible stand is ' a light in a dark place.' copies; the Chinese immigrant (sin- On one side, facing the drink exhibits, keh) smiles and chatters, and if you are two cases filled with open Bibles in happen to mention the name of' Yaso' different languages, and in the centre a (Jesus), tells you that you speak Chinese missionary map of Netherlands India, very well, waves his hands in the air, with the stations or depots of the Brit· and again smiling, moves on clumsily ; ish and Foreign Bible Society marked the Frenchman. with his pseudo polite- with arrows; above this map, in letters ness, defends himself behind the pale six inches long, is the text, < The Word of Rome ; the psalm-loving Dutchman of the Lord endureth forever,' and un- seeks a psalm-book; the member of the derneath the map the text, ' Wine is a new school (Moderns) seeks the Old mocker, strong drink is raging; and Testament only; the unbeliever dis- , whosoever is deceived thereby is not parages the utility of Bible dissemina- wise,' both texts being in the Dutch tion, and obnoxiously cursing and jeer- language. Fronting the drinking saloon ing, orders a 'bittertje' (gin and bit- are two large book-cases, also filled up ters) from one of the waiters in the with open Bibles; and between these is drinking saloon opposite. a board twelve feet by fi ve covered with the Dutch national colors-orange, red, "Many other nationalities visit. the white and blue-and with the name of Bible stand, and it would tire the reader the society printed consecutively upon to relate all that happens from day to these colors in Dutch, English, German, day. About 30,000 tracts and booklets and French. In front of these are three have been given away at the Bible stand; tables cove:red with open Bibles in many and it is sad that no efforts are made languages, from among which ten to by the Dutch Chris~ians to reach the thirty Bibles, New Testaments, and thousands who attend this show. I can- portions are sold to different individuals not find a single person who is willing every day except Sundays. to help me distribute tracts; the gen- eral opinion that dominates the Chris- "It is very interesting to notice the tiana here is that it injures the European different characters that pass by, and pre8tige. This semi-Christianity has a to hear their peculiar remarks. The chilling influence upon the lives of the calm, grave, business-like Armenian unconverted thousands of Batavia, and comes and asks for the New Ararat consequently empty chairs are conspic- Armenian Bible, and handles every uous in the churches, and the Sunday portion of the Holy Scriptures with is the great feast day of the week and is great reverence; the superstitious, fanat- desecrated by 'corso-carnivals,' horse- ical Mohammedan, with his troubled races, horse and other cattle shows at the features, spits upon the ground, and Exhibition. etc. I do not wish to phari- will not touch the Book of the' Kafirs ; , saically judge our Dutch friends, but I the indifferent, joke-loving, superficial wish the readers of these lines to pray native makes the unanswerable defence, for' Java's million8.' "-A. W. HURST when asked to buy, 'Tidak ada duwit ' Bo:a.ur, in the J£alagBia J£688a(J6 (M. E.). (I have no money) ; the sarcastic Arab
&ENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
-What cowards European officials adulterated Christianity; nay, that in in the East Indies, British or Dutch, are the papacy we cannot fail to recognize apt to be when it comes to honoring a sort of anti-Christianity; that the their Christian profession in the face of modern Catholic missionary work espagans or Moslems I They are thus pecially presents itself as an antagonist earning the contempt of their subjects, of the pure Gospel, and that it is a duty who cannot understand how a man can to assume toward it not merely a defenprofess a religion and yet be ashamed sive but an aggressive attitude. The of it. The MaanillJericltt of the Nether- discussion of this question was of such lands Missionary Society, giving ac- a temper as might well have afforded count of Brother Wijngaarden's baptism the Catholics an example. 'l'here was of his first converts at Deli, remarks: nothing apparent like blind hostility or " To' Brother Wijngaarden's regret, the bitter hate, but a zealous endeavor to Controller, who was his guest. left Deli distinguish even in aduZterated Christhe day before the baptism, in order not tianity the Christianity. and in proselyto set an offieial stamp on the proceed- tizing energy the element of missionary ings by his presence. And yet by his zeal. At the same time it was clearly withdrawal he led the Battaks to sup- recognized that a friendship with Rome pose that something was going on which is impossible; that every compliance is he would Hever not see)' (1 use the interpreted as weakness, and every con- Dutch word here identical with our cession is sure to be abused. Accordfamiliar English word.) "Repeatedly ingly this was the conclusion: (1) public officers, higher and lower, have There must be no refusal to Catholic very cheerfully consented to be pres- missionaries. even when making aggresent at Mohammedan ceremonies! How sions upon a Protestant fiold, of the love much more rapid would be the advance due to all lllen; (2) but all intimacy of Christianity in our East Indies if- with them should be avoided; (3) not a while doing all honor to the religious foot of land should voluntarily be reneutrality which the State must of linquished to tbem; (4) but all permitcourse observe-the European officials ted means should be used to check their were at liberty to exhibit their personal advance; (5) and where possible the sympathy and were not ashamed of ground should be preoccupied. On the their Christian profession." whole, it is clear that here so much, not to say everything depends upon the THm CONTINENT. circumstances and the persons, that the truly evangelical missionary will ;not -At the Bremen Missionary Confer- bind himself to certain inflexible rules, ence, among other points, it was also but in each particular case will solicit discussed What attitude is to be as- wisdom and guidance from above_ sumed toward Roman Catholic mission- Would God we might do all this so aries. The excellent Cal~oer MonatBhliit- completely as to give every singleter remarks: .. There, also, there are minded, even if not every zealous two opposing views. The one begins Roman Catholic the impression that with this position: The Catholics, too, fundamentally there is a more genuinely are Christians; their baptism is recog- Christian and apostolic course of connized by us also; we cannot but rejoice duct pursued in the evangelical misover every heathen who becomes a Cath- sions than in his own !" olic; there are among the Catholic missionaries many sincere and self-sacrific- -The &enska Mi8siomfih'bundet (Swcing men. The conclusion is that we dish Missionary Union), the organ of should assume toward them as friendly the Waldenstrilmian free churches, has and respectful an attitude as possible. 43 missionary agents, almost double The other view emphasizes the position that of 1888. The income for 1892 was that the Roman Church presents an $82,000. The three stations on the
le84.] ENGLISH
Congo have increased to five, with sev· are carried on. Let the Congo sweep eral out-stations. "The stations are away one life after the other, the ranks equipped with a number of stone build- are ever filled afresh-nay, more workers ings; transportation is arranged for; offer than can be used. Multiplied as the training of the natives, younger and are the exertions and privations involved elder, to work has been taken in hand; in the calling, they do not deter; the schools are provided for both sexes, number of the missionaries keeps growchildren and adults. There are 193 ing. Although the missionaries of the school- children, 78 church – members. China Mission, the Holiness League, About a dozen native helpers are labor- and the Alliance Mission are sent out ing; an evangeliot training school has without any assurance of a fixed supbeen established in Diadia. which also port, receiving only so much as suffices gi ves them more general instruction of for the simplest necessities. yet one misa simple character. God's word is zeal· sionary–Carlson, of the Holiness League ously proclaimed at the principal and -whose heart has been pierced by the out·stations as well as in the neighbor. wretched lot of outcast Chinese, out of ing Villages. Translations are proceed. this saves enough to maintain an asying, and a native paper is issued."- lum, into which he transports them on Pastor BERLIN, in Allgemeim Mi88ions· his back. There is here a wealth of con- Zeitachrift· fidence and joy of faith which may well put many to shame. Obedience to the -The Union has also missions in Lord's will even to death, heedfulness Algiers, the Ural :Mountains, Caucasia. of the Lord's intimations and directions China, and is about establishing one in in great things and small. burning zeal Cashgar. It has abandoned its Persian for the salvation of souls, life in and mission, and has transferred that in from the Word of God, unwearied con- Alaska to American Swedes. The two tinuance in prayer and intercession- Swedish missionaries murdered in China here is the strength of these men and were of this society. women. They direct their eyes even to the ends of the earth; no work is too -The Swedish :Mission in China, great for them; no difficulty holds founded in 1887 by Eric Folke, has ad- them back; no danger intimidates vanced rapidly, favored by the peculiar them. Though a good dem of enthuinterest felt in Sweden for China. Its siastic extravagance may be interminincome in 1888 was $1392 ; in 1892 it gled with all this, there is yet abunwas $5832. It works in close union dance of holy fire glowing here ; and, with the China Inland Mission. therefore, we may well confide that these labors and sacrifices will also bring gain -Herr Berlin, after subjecting the for the kingdom of God. In missions, various Free Church missionary move- too, it is seen that God can overrule t.he ments of Sweden, with their slight errors of men, and turn into bl8ssing measure of organization at home and for the world what has been done for abroad and their comparative neglect of he ho nor of His name." preparation, to a temperate but searching criticism, nevertheless adds: "One English Notes. thing must not be overlooked in these forms of missionary activity. :Much as BY JAMES DOUGLAS, BRIXTON, LONDON. there is in them at variance with the plan of missions as hitherto developed (Jentral London Mission.-It is with among Germanic Christians [a term in- special pleasure we record the advance cluding Germans, Dutch, Scandinavi- of this enterprising mission which has ans, and Anglo-Saxons], yet it must be as its object the occupation of the Cenacknowledged with what personal de- tral Soudan. Three of the missionaries votion and enthusiasm, with what zeal are left at Gabes, where a new training and heroism of self-sacrifice these labors
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
):lome has been opened, while six others united because equally baptized in the occupy the training home in Tripoli. .. One Spirit." What led to more than Mr. Hermann Harris, the Moses of the one fervent expression of thanksgiving expedition, left Gabes on January 17th was the cheering fact that from ¥ay for Kano, taking with him Mr. Dick. 1st, 1894, the residence of British sub- This journey is immense, and involves jects will be permitted at Yatung, in the passage across the Desert of Sahara Thibet, in accordance with the commer- to the populous negro kingdom of cial treaty newly passed between the Sokoto. Another detachment of this British-Indian Government and that mission contemplates reaching the cen· country, so long closed against the tre of the Soudan by way of the Niger. foreigner. The public meeting on the Mr. Holt has made the proposition, and evening of the same day was of a most two young men have offered to accom- enthusiastic description. Exeter Hall, pany him. The cost of carrying this if not packed, was almost filled. Miss scheme into effect is estimated at £400. Taylor gave a lengthened account of The intention is to start by way of the Lord's dealings with her, and ex- Lagos, and to pass through Ibadan, plained how the land of Thibet had been Oyo, !lorin, and Rabba, and thus to laid as a heavy burden from the Lord reach Sokoto, the largest of the negro on her heart. The meeting, While kingdoms of the Central Soudan. This deeply touched by the narrative of her mission is closely connected with the adventures in Thibet and the degree to Pentecostal League under the leadership which the element of personal danger of Mr. Reader Harris, the headquarters entered into it, were even more affected of which are Speke Hall, Battersea, by the honoring testimony which she London, S. W. I may add that the bore to the Lord's presence with her Pentecostal League is interdenomina- through all. No danger, or suffering, tional in its spirit and aim. or privation could even for the moment damp her joy or break her peace. In Persia.-It is reported that the work- Thibet, amid the absence of every outers among the Moslems in Persia are ward cOllfort, she carried heaven in her being much cheered; that the young own heart. Christians are showing increased zeal for the spread 0 f the Gospel, while the num- Five of the band-two from Scotland, ber of Mohammedan inquirers in regu- two from England, and one from Norlar attendance at the Persian services on way-gave brief, earnest testimonies, Sundays is sufficient to afford the mis- after which the whole band united in sionaries great thankfulness. singing" Anywhere with Jesus." Be- fore the meeting closed Pontso gave an The Thibetan Pioneer MilJJlion.-This address in the Thibetan tongue, which missionary bark may be said to have Miss Taylor interpreted. been formally launched on Friday, February 16th, 1894. In the afternoon North Africa Mi88ion.-This mission a gathering for prayer was held in the has wonderfully developed and sprcad smaller room of Exeter Hall, which was within a brief space, and much precious largely attended. All the members of seed has been sown for which only a the Thibetan band were there, along small return is apparent as yet. " Bewith Miss Annie R. Taylor and her fore the first missionaries landed in Al- Thibetan attendant Pontso. James giers in 1881 there were no Protestant Mathieson, Esq., presided, and Dr. missionaries or Bible agents to the Mo- Maxwell, a missionary veteran, said a hammedans or heathen from Egypt to few words of stimulating address. The the Atlantic, and from the Meditermeeting, however, mainly consisted of ranean to the Senegal, Lower Niger, a continuous stream of intercession, in and Congo, a district more than one .which brethren and sisters equally hundred times larger than England. Now there are nearly eighty missionaries of the North Africa Mission, besides suffice, though he had but a moderate several who have been initiated by it, force at his disposal, to check the horand who are working independently; rible operations of those slave raiders and several more sent out by societies who had desolated the heart of Central stirred up by hearing of North Africa's Africa during past ages. In the second needs and God's blessing on this mis- place, the possession of Uganda meant sion. Altogether, counting the agents the opening out of the Eastern Soudan. and colporteurs of the Bible Society, Bishop Tucker contested the idea that there are over 100 laborers for God, the Soudan could be penetrated from where, in 1881, there was not one among Suakim from the north-the true door the Moslems. ·The Gospel of John has was, in his view, through Uganda, and been translated into Kabyle, and the it was by this passage that the eighty Gospel of :M:atthew into Riffian by the millions of people living there would Bible Society ; other portions are trans- be reached, civilized, and brought unlated into Kabyle and are being print- der the influence of Christianity. ed. " Large tracts of country, however, in North Africa are still unevangelized_ Bulgaria. -While Bulgaria cannot be The vast Salwra, which has a few scat- described as an unoccupied field, its tered millions of Berber and Arab in- spiritual condition, according to Basil habitants, has no missionary. Egypt Keuseff, a native, now in missionary itself has 540 towns, with a population training in England, is deplorable. He of f~om 2000 to 40,000 each, without describes the Greek Church in Bulgaria any regular Gospel agency. "All that as "dead and indifferent ;" the clergy has been done is as nothing to what re- as "ignorant and immoral;" the inmains to be done before the peoples of telligent class as " sceptics and infidels." North Africa are evangelized." Mr. Keuseff recognizes the work done by American brethren in spreading Mr. Edward H. Glenny, the honor- Gospel truth among the people, and the able secretary of the above mission, has service rendered by the British and recently returned from a tour in Moroc- Foreign Bible Society's translation of co. He says, "The impression formed the Scriptures and by that society's colon my mind by visiting the cities and porteurs. But he feels that the great towns of El Koar, Fez, Mequinez, need demands an accession of help, and Larache, and Arzilla, and by travers- would be glad to hear from anyone ing 300 or 400 miles of country in North who would be willing to join him in Morocco, was to deepen my feeling of evangelizing that land. "The language the utter hopelessness in which the fol- of Bulgaria is phonetic and easy to lowers of the false prophet are sunk; a learn. The climate is one of the healthihopelessness which enters into every de- est in Europe." Besides, there is ., ampartment of life-religious, political, ple scope for all kinds of evangelistic and social; and yet when we compare work." Mr. Keuseff's address is Cliff our experiences with a few years ago, College, Curbar, Sheffield, England. how thankful we ought to be that the country is as open to the Gospel as it Priestly defectionfrom Rome in France. now is I" -We are somewhat startled to learn that at the present time there are, in all Bi8hop Tucker on Uganda.-In the parts of France, priests who have lost course of a recent address on Uganda, all confidence in the papacy, and desire delivered in Durham, Bishop Tucker, to step out into Gospel light and liberin regretting the death of Sir Gerald ty. Professor L. J. Bertrand, who is Portal, spoke of some of the resultant now staying at 21 Upper Woburn Place, advantages of Great Britain's possession London, W. C., is the director of a of Uganda. First of all, it meant free- work the object of which is to extend dom for the slave. The presence of a to all French priests wishing to leave British representative in Uganda would Rome a helping hand. Mr. Bertrand will never ask the Emperor of all the says, " There is at the present time a Russias where it may set its foot." great movement among the priests of France; and I have lettcrs from all -The latest and best estimates put parts, and even from Rome. jesuitically down the population of the world as defying me to gi ve names and addresses. 1,479,700,000. Of this horde 826,000,000 All the same, well-known priests, first live in Asia, 357,000,000 in Europe, canons, abbots, proCessors, and semina- 164,000,000 in Africa, and 122,000.000 in rists write to me, ,. Go on with your North and South America. In the face work. You have chosen the best way of these large figures, the population of for a religious reform, which we all the United States does not seem so imwant iu France. Put fire to the very mense after all. nest. As soon as you succeed you will seA that if we love and adore Christ we -Of the 1,480,000,000 of the earth's hate the Gltu1·c!t. But what can we do? inhabitants, the Emperor of China holds We know nothing of the world; we sway over 400,000,000; the Queen of are fit for nothing in the world; and England rules or protects 380,000,000 ; the Concordat says explicitly that a the Czar of Russia is dictator to 115,- Reman priest cannot be a Protestant 000.000; Francc, in the republic, dc· pastor without his B.A. degree and pendencies and sphercs of influence, four years at the Protestant theological has 70,000,000 subjects; the Emperor seminary! • .. Thousands of French of Germany, 55,000,000; the Sultan Roman priests would leave their Church of Turkey, 40,000,000; the Emperor to-morrow if they were not to be obliged of Japan, 40,000,000; and the King of to beg for their daily bread." With Spain, 27,000,000-two' thirds of the respect to Mr. Bertrand's work, known population of the globe under the govas the (]J}uvre des Pr6t1'es Gonvertis, it ernment of 5 rulers. should be noted that it does not exist for the benefit of unfrocked or disgraced -A Kentuckian who visited Korea priests, but for the guidance and help presented to the king a bottle of whiskey of such as, through compulsion of en- as a sample of the chief product of his lightened conviction, wish to leave the native State. Christian people in Ken- Church of Rome. tucky have since sent to the king a beautiful copy of the Bible to show that THE KINGDOM. the State has something better.
-" The universe is not quite com- -A miserly man, who insi~ted that plete without my work well done." he was a proportionate giver, explained later that he gave in proportion to the – The times are hard, but heathenism amount of religion he possessed. is harder. -General Sickels, speaking of the -Baptist tobacco costs more than disposition to denounce rich men as if Baptist missions.-The Kingdom. they were public enemies, says, "No- where in all the world have men of -Once upon a time, when at Con_ wealth done so much for religion, edustantinople, the Russian Minister Bou- cation, philanthropy, and patriotism tineff remarked with majesty, "Imight as in the United States." as well tell you now, Mr. Schauffier, that the Emperor, my master, will never -Upon the fly-leaf of a Bible was allow Protestantism to set its foot in written the following words: "Lay Turkey," he received this fully ade- any burden upon me, only sustain me ; quate reply, "Your excellency, the send me anywhere, only go with me ; kingdom of Christ, who is ~y Master, sever any tie but that one which binds me to Thy service and to Thy heart. "
– William Dulles, Jr., treasurer of the Presbyterian Board, printed this apt sentiment from Dr. Livingstone on manner, and general appearance were a financial statement recently sent out: true gentlemen." •• I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in rela- -The native account of the last martion to the kingdom of Christ. If any- tyrdom in Madagascar concludes with thing I have will advance the interests these touching words: "Then they of that kingdom, it shall be gi ven, or prayed, '0 Lord, receive our spirits, kept, as by giving or keeping it I shall for Thy love to us hath caused this to most promote the glory of Him to whom come to us ; and lay not this sin to their lowe all my hopes, both for time and charge.' Thus prayed they as long as eternity. May grace be given me to they had any life, and then they diedadhere to this." softly, gently; and there was at the time a rainbow in the heavens, which -In 1881 Dr. Southon, of Scotland, seemed to touch the place of the burnwas sent to Ujiji, Africa. On his way ing." there he passed through Urambo. The king sent for him, and showing a large -Dr, Hamlin, the veteran miBBionary, tumor on his arm, which, by pressing said recently, .. You take a poor, mil>- upon an important nerve, had caused erable beggar, as I have known some him much pain, asked, " Can you do instances-a beggar who has become anything for this?" The doctor re- converted, and apply to him that iron plied, "Yes, I can take it all away." system of tithing which the OrientsI "But will it not hurt a great deal 1" wol'ld loves and always has loved, perasked the king. "No," replied the haps always will love, and make that doctor, "I shall put you to sleep, and beggar, as the one condition of enjoywhen you awake all will be done." ing the privileges of the Gospel, give " Do it at once, then; I have not slept one tenth of what he begs, and as much for a long while." Afterward the king more as you can make him give, and in said, .. You must not leave us ever. a short time he will not be a beggar; Here is land, here is wood, here is every- in a short time he will support himself, thing, only do not leave us." and be in circumstances comparatively comfortable." -Rev. A. J. Wookey, of the London Missionary Society, in making the jour- -The Egyptian washes before he ney to his field at Lake Ngami, Central prays-he washes his feet, even; and Africa, tells how at one camping place every holy place has a provision of " a poor little old fellow turned up at water for the purpose. He washes his the wagon from the forest, from whence hands and his teeth before and after he he had heard the whips. One of his eats. So particular is he in this matter, ears had been cut off close to his head that when he cannot get waler for his by the Batauana. I gave him a bit of ablutions the sand of the desert is held meat of a koodoo which had been killed to be sanctified for the pmpose. The yesterday. He did not roast it as usual ordinary Egyptian child is not allowed at the fire, and when asked why, he said to pray or eat without first dabbling its that his wife was in the forest, and he hands in water. Yet it is allowed to would eat it with her in the evening. live for months without having its head His little woman, he called her. It and face, or its body generally, once did one good to find such thoughtful well washed with soap and water. love even in a poor waif of humanity such as he. " WOMAN'S WORK.
-" The intelligence and refinement of -Helping Hand gives this as an exthe Fijians surprised me," said a recent ample of the inhumanity of heathenism: traveller. "I saw men who in spirit, "Better raise her or not? What do you think?" The questioner was a Chinese farmer: we had been preach- own suffering and healing they got in· ing in his village, and he followed us struction, intnition, insight, inspira- away from the crowd to make this 1m- tion. It made them ministers. "
portant query. Farmers at home are -At least in some respects Africa sometimes in doubt in regard to animals would appear to be the paradise for a trifle deformed whether or not to raise women missionaries. For" nothing is them; but did you ever know a farmer feared from them, and they are allowed in America to go about asking advice to go in and out at their pleasure. Their on a point like this? "I have a female presence more than once has spared child and she has six toes on a foot; valuable lives to the Congo work. The many of the neighbors tell me I better missionaries in Africa count the work not raise her; her feet can never be of one woman worth that of twelve made to ·look well. What do you men, since they can go anywhere, even say?" The" neighbors" were many among the fiercest tribes. Their moof them Buddhists, who were earning tives are never questioned, and they are merit by vegetarianism, thus not caus· listened to with the greatest respect." ing the death of any animal; but their merciful creed had not included girl -Woman has a large sphere In China babies in the list of animals to be as well, for" It may be truthfully said, spared. I noticed a simIlar contrast a in general terms, that the salvation of few days ago. The body of an infant the women in all Oriental countries de·· floated by the boat, and some of the pends on the women of Christian lands. men thought it a huge joke, poked it This arises from the peculiar ideas of with a bamboo pole, and indulged in propriety and modesty prevalent, which heart-sickening merriment. forbid women holding any social inter- course with men who are not members -Mrs. Ballington Booth makes this of their own immediate families. Our declaration concerning the" slum bri- people, accustomed to free American gade" of the Salvation Army: ., These usages, do not realize how strict these girls do not go down among the poor ideas are. On one occasion Dr. Woods, for a few weeks or simply to study of Tsing Kiangpu, was called in a case them. They go for life. They ostra- of extreme need to see a woman with cize themselves from society. They disease of the feet. The first visit he scrub floors, they mind the children, paid, in order that he might make an they wash the dead, they go where the intelligent diagnosis, he was allowed police dare not go except in squads. to see his patient, feel her pulse, and The power of a great supernatural love, ask questions in the presence of the which God has planted in their hearts, family; but on his second visit what sustains them." was his surprise and amusement to see -" With Him the twelve and certain a foot thrust through a doorway, with women which had been healed of evil a curtain hanging down in front."
spirits and infirmities, . • • which min- -Mrs. Elizabeth W. Andrew and Dr.
istered to Him of their substance." Kate Bushnell have again sailed for "Healed to minister I These women India, Burmsh, China, and Japan, being had known they were sick, and came sent out by the Women's Christian with their record of suffering to Him. Temperance Union "to form local They knew they were sinners, and that unions, to strengthen and develop those no sanitary report on the state of their already existing, to set forth the plans hearts could fully describe the deep and purposes of the work by schools of and long-seated evil. They went to methods wherever opportunity offers, Him and were healed of evil spirits and and to preach the unsearchable riches infirmities. A wide area is covered by of Christ to the untaught and the un- that word • infirmities.' Through their saved." This statement appears in a recent drance, for the Moslems fail to dis- paper by Mrs. Kennedy, of the Presby- tinguish between our Christianity and terian Woman's Board, upon woman's theirs."
mission-" Go Tell": .. More than one -Twenty-five years ago the 'women half of the active laborers in the field of the Methodist Church organized for' are women; the exact figures being 214 world-wide work, raising only $4547 ministers; male lay missionaries, 42; during the first twelve months. Ten total, 256; women, 367. These last years later the income had climbed to are found on every field, dismayed by . $66,844; ten years later still to $225,- no danger, deterred by no hardship, 000, and last year to $277,304. The braving the rigors of northern winters totalfortwenty-five years is $3,139,757. or the baleful heat of torrid summers. So, why should not they celebrate, re- They have gone into homes and been joice, thank God, take courage, and welcomed where the feet of Christians push on with tenfold greater zeal? had never before been allowed to enter.
They are crowding to the front in rapidly increasing numbers. What, OUR YOUNG PEOPLE.
think you, is the significance of the fact that of the 56 new missionaries sent to -It would be difficult to find so much the field last year, 16 were wives of Christian common sense packed into so missionaries, and 21 single women? brief a space as is contained in an ad- Surely the' Go tell' of the risen Saviour dress upon ., Necessary Practical Trainis bearing rich fruit in this our day and ing," given at the Detroit Student Vol- unteers Convention by Rev. H. P. generation. " Beach, of the Springfield, Mass., School -The Ladies' Kaffrarian Society is for Christian Workers. Would that an independent ally of the Scottish Free every young man and woman propos- Church foreign mission enterprise in ing to enter the foreign field might read South Africa. It has made the girls andheed I and young women of Kaffraria its special care, and has now 170 receiving -One department of the Epworth Christian training in its school at Em- League has a beautiful name, that of gwali. The society has also provided . " Mercy and help." What it stands for an assistant for Mrs. Forsyth at Upper is set forth by one chapter which " dur- ing the last year made 258 calls upon Xolobe. the sick, aged, and needy. A sewing -Miss Ella O. Kyle, missionary in society was formed, and garments were Egypt, recently received $500 from a made for a family of motherless chil- wealthy lady friend whom she met in dren, and also clothing for a child wishthis country last year, and will use the ing to attend Sunday-school. Watchers money in the mission school, where it were furnished for the sIck. An old will greatly assist the work.-Xenia lady who had no means of support was Gazette. aided by having her house rent paid, -The English Church Society has in eatables carried' to her, and her chores Palestine alone, and not including mis- done. A. pound social, in connection sionaries' wives, 21 women engaged in with Christian Endeavor, was given, its work. All these" encounter special the proceeds for the benefit of the poor."
difficulties, owing to the watchfulness -Hon. Chauncey M. Depew thus and suspicion of the Turkish officials ; tersely defines the functions of two) and the deeply interesting letters which Christian associations: "The Young reach us from time to time are mani- Men's Christian Association is the re- festly safer in manuscript than in type. cruiting station of the churches. The The condition of the women in the Society of Christian Endeavor-doing Eastern churches is also a terrible hin- the work in the interior 'of the church -is the citadel of the Christian camp and for that of 3 orphans in a Chrilltian inside the lines." school in China.
-Flower committees are good al- ways; but during these hard times jIotl'r UNITED STATES. committees are even better_ -The gifts of Endeavor societies to -Captain R. H. Pratt ranks with the the American Board and the Woman's late General Armstrong among the Board during 1893 amounted to $13,535. foremost friends and benefactors of the American Indian, and his Carlisle -The society of the church at Ocon- school, with its more than 600 Indian to, Wis_, has agreed to give at least $100 boys and girls, gathered from 56 tribes, for missions during the present year_ is no mean rival of Hampton. The in- Miss Reinhardt went out from this society to Mosul, Turkey, a few months dustrial feature holds a prominent place ago_ in the course of training ; the discipline -The Presbyterian Young People's partakes of a military character, and Society of Grand Island, Neb_, has the boys are dressed in cadet uniform. pledged $25 for the support of Miss Besides, good homes are found for them Julia Hatch, who went from this church in the region, chiefly upon the farms, to Siam_ The Juniors have also pledged where both sexes can learn English and $10. be taught to work. Last year 376 boys and 245 girls were out, and requests -The Young Ladies'Mission Band came in for twice the number. of Portland, Me., celebrated its decennial February 14th. Its membership is -Say not the negro is lacking in over 300, making it the largest junior intelligence, whcn, at the recent conferauxiliary in connection with th'l Wom- ence at Tuskegee, this declaration was an's Board. The band raised last year adopted: ., We believe education, prop- $601. a gain of nearly $100 over any erty, and practical religion will eventprevious year. During its brief hIs- ually give us every right and privilege tory 3 members have entered the ser- enjoyed by other citizens, and therefore vice of the Woman's Board, 2 (Mary that our interests can best be served by Morrill and Anna Gould) as missionaries bending all our energies to securing to North China, and Alice Kyle as a them rather than by dwelling on the member of the staff of workers at the past or' by fault-finding and complainrooms in Boston. ing. We desire to make the Tuskegee Negro Conference a gauge of our prog- -At Birmingham, England, a num- ress from year to year in these things ber of factory girls (members of the in the Black. Belt." Girls' Letter Guild) recently gave .a tea to 250 poor children, many of whom -The Germans in New York City were shoeless and stockingless. number 583,000; in Chicago, 406,000; in Philadelphia, 188,000 ; in St. Louis, -The Belfast, Ireland, Young Wom- 167,000; in Milwaukee, 135,000; in en's Christian Association Institute re- Cincinnati, 120,000 ; and in Cleveland, cently held its annual meeting, and a 103,000_ The total number of foreignmissionary statement was made; the born Germans in the United States is present position of affairs being 4 mem- 9,250,000.
bers in the foreign field-in China, India -Does Rome really want the whole and Africa-4 engaged in home mission earth and all that is therein? It looks work, 5 in training, and 1 in treaty_ that way; and this is a specimen of Over £215 was raised last year by the her greed: Forty-five of the 61 alder- members (58 of whom hold self-denial men in the Chicago City Council are boxes) which was sent direct for the Roman Catholics, as are also 90 per cent support of missionaries and candidates, of the police force; 80 per cent of the fire department; 67 per cent of the Ing Society within the last forty-two teachers in the public schools, while 80 years has ~ded in 49 States and Terriper cent of the pupils are Protestants. tories 2445 churches, and the amount expended is $1,892,918. For 429 par- -In Mr. Moody's Bible Institute, sonages the amount is $151,563. Chicago, the students enrolled in 1893 were: Women, 195; men, 381; tran- -St. Bartholomew's Church, New sients, 85. Denominations represented: York City, of which Dr. D. H. Greer is Women, 10; men, 35. Thirty-one rector, started a mission that proved to States of the United States, Canada, be successful, and Mr. Cornelius Van- Turkey, India. Japan, Scotland, Ire- derbilt bought thrce lots for $75,000 at land. England, Germany, Sweden, 205-209 East Forty-second Street, on Switzerland, Denmark, Russia, Persia, which a building was erected by his Norway, Bohemia, West Indies, South mother, Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt, Africa, Hawaii, and New Zealand were at a cost of $225,000. Then Mr. Vanrepresented. 'fhe previous work of the derbilt presented a $10,000 pipe organ, attendants was: Pastorate, 24; evan- and the past year built on a lot directly gelistic, 13; licensed local preachers, east, that has been purchased and will exhorters, etc., 13; singers, 4; Young be added. In the basement are a res- Men's Christian Association secretaries, taurant, eight bath-tubs, andalaundry. 20 ; home and city missions, 11 ; foreign On the first floor a rescue mission hall missionary, 1 ; secular occupations, 111. holds over 1000 people under the direc- tion of Colonel H. H. Hadley. There -The New York Society for the Pre- is a medical clinic in connection with vention of Cruelty to Children cele- the parish house, a savings bank, boys' brated recently its anniversary. In his club, girls' club, carpenter shop in the annual report, President Gerry says: basement, cooking school, kindergarten, " Nineteen years have elapsed since the gymnasium, type-writing school, dressrescue of Mary Ellen from her cruel making school, and 3 Bible schools, stepmother caused the interference of 1 Bible club, and a summer garden on that great friend of humanity, Henry the roof of the building for amusement. Bergh, in behalf of an ill-treated little So here is a literal bee-hive containing girl. At his instance sprang up this about 5000 persons. institution. Not only was its influence felt in the Empire State, but east, south -The lIethodist Episcopal Church and west similar societies were formed, reports 221 male missionaries in the until to-day there is an unbroken chain foreign field, 205 assistant missionaries extending across this continent in every (of these 196 being wives of missiondirection, from ocean to ocean." Dur- aries), and 153 women sent and susing the years of its existence the society tained by the Woman's Board. The has investigated complaints involving distinct missions number 24, and 7 of the care and custody of 233,000 chil- them in Protestant Europe. The churchdren, over 27,000 convictions have been members are 69,887, and the probationers secured, and 40,660 children have been 49,400. Of these thousands India suprescued and relieved. plies 17,135 full members and 33,343 probationers; China, 6021 and 4684 ; -The Southern Baptist Convention South America. 1464 and 1158; and is embarrassed by an overabundance of Mexico, 1721 and 1364. Nearly 35,000 applicants for missionary work, and church-members are in Germany and says: "Our committee on new mis- Scandinavjan countries. sionaries has recommended 10 as suitable and worthy to be sent. The num- EUROPE. ber of those who apply is great. We ha'DIJ ceased to count them. " Great Britain.-The London Tele- graph. gives the amounts which have -The Congregational Church Buildbeen left by will to religious and Chltr. Huahine, Raiatea. and the neighboring itable purposes for six years. In 1888, islands, to the Paris Missions Evange- 1889 and 1890 these amounts aggregated liques. The latter now announce that about $5,000,000. In 1891, $6,000" the L. M. S. has made them a free gift 000; 1892 fell below the other years, of all the mission property on those reporting only $4,000,000 ; but in 1893 islands, charging only a small sum for the amount rose to $7,000,000. some furniture, which was the private property of their missionaries. – The National Bible Society employs 110 colporteurs in Japan in the sale of -Dr. McAll, who died in May last, the Scriptures. was the founder, and for many years pastor of London Road Chapel; and -The Shipwrecked Mariners' Society the members felt that a memorial of maintains 1000 stations, relieves annu- some description ought to be placed in ally about 10,000 sailors, fishermen and the chapel. Accordingly a committee their dependants, and since its organiza- was appointed, subscriptions were intion fifty-five years ago has given aid vited, and the sum of about £40 was to nearly 460,000 persons. During the soon collected. It was decided that the terrible gales of a few months since 143 memorial should take the form of a tabvessels, 911 men, and 993 widows and let. This is now in place, and on the orphans were helped at a cost of about centre panel is cut and gilded the in- £4000. scription: "To the honored memory of Robert Whitaker McAll, D.D., -During the year 1893 the S. P. G. F.L.S., first pastor of this church, board of examiners accepted the offers founder, and for twenty-one years diof 5 clergymen and 23 laymen for mis- rector of the Evangelical Mission in sion service. Of these, 13 were from Frauce, created by the French Govern- St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, ment Chevalier of tp-e Legion of Honor. 6 from Cambridge, 4 from Oxford, and Born 1821, died 1893. Co-worker 1 each from Trinity College, Dublin, and with God." the theological colleges at Dorchester, Salisbury, Warminster, and Lincoln. The Continent.-According to re- In addition to clergy accepted at home, cent statistics, the Roman Catholic 70 clergy, including 16 natives, were Church in Belgium has 229 cloisters placed on the list of the S. P. G. abroad; with 4775 monks, and 1546 nunneries 31 were added in Africa, 10 of whom with more than 25,000 sisters. In 1866. were natives. there were 178 cloisters with 2991 monks, and in 1880, 213 cloisters with 4120 -During the year 1893,63 new mis- monks. The number of nunneries in sionaries reached Shanghai, in connec- 1880 was 134:6 with 21,600 inmates; in tion with the China Inland Mission. 1866 it was 1144 with 15,000 nuns. The There arc others on the way, bringing rapid increase down to 1880 is largely the number up to 86, and at least 100 owing to the fact that the members of young men evangelists are still needed. the orders expelled from Germany went to Belgium, whence many returned to -The London City :Mission employs Germany since 1878. With these 30,000 482 missionaries, who visit systemati- monks and nuns, and a host of priests, cally all the year round among the poor etc., besides, this tiny corner of Europe and outcast. Last year 3,667,680 visits ought to blossom with piety and all man· were paid. The work is undenomina- ner of good works. tional. More than 500,000 men are regularly visited by the agents of this mis- -The Evangelical Society of Berne, sion. Switzerland, has just held its annual meeting. From the reports it appears -Some years ago the London Soci- that a good work is being done by a ety, on account of the vicious med- band of 27 ministers and evangelists, dling of the French Government, was obliged to make over its missions in who go about through the hills and with it is found nowadays the centre of mountains carrying the Gospel to those disturbance and peril as touching British who cannot go to church to hear. tule. For ten years a National Congress Eighty-five Young Men's Christian has met annually to discuss (for speech Associations and 80 Young Women's is free in the great peninsula) and to Christian Associations have been started formulate demands. The ·cost of the by the society, and a large number of standing army is much too great, the young men are being trained as evan· number of Indians in high civil offices gelists. is much too small, and proVincial coun- cils ought to be in which natives shall -The feeble Presbyterian churches have greater prominence, etc. And all in Spain were largely supported by a this desire and determination come as Mrs. Peddie, a Scotchwoman who has the fruit of the education in Western recently died. Speaking of what Prot- ideas bestowed by the British rulers. estantism owes to the discovery of the New World, somebody pertinently sug- -In Madras Presidency about 1000 gests: "Spain has been neglected by separate works came forth from the tourists and missionary societies. It press last year, in more than 20 lanwill not do to forget the debt we owe to guages. For the whole of India the Columbus and the land which sent him number was 7125. Of thesc 1580 were forth. The daughter-land and Church upon religious themes, 989 related to should not decline to share her purer language, 928 to poetry, 336 to science, faith and higher prosperity with the 252 to medicine, 225 to law, 203 to phifoster-mother. losophy, and 172 to history and biog. raphy. It should, however, be added -Hall Caine, in the Pall Man Maga- that a vast majority of these publications zine, says Russia's reasons for expelling consist of but a few pages, and are of the Jews are, first, religious; second, trifling value, if not really worse than national; and thirdly, and almostexc1u- worthless. sively, economic; for: 1. He is a voluntary alien-a Jew, not a Russian- -By the death of John Elphinston, separating himself by dress and custom of the Bombay Civil Service, for years from the people among whom he lives. Collector and magistrate of the Ahmad· 2. His personal character is revolting. nagar district, and of Sir Henry Ram- He is dirty, heartless and impure. 3. say, during forty-four years Commis- His religious character is hypocritical. sioner of Kumaon, in North India. we He uses his religion to hoodwink his are reminded of how much Christianity God and to deceive his sovereign. 4. owes to the lives and deeds of hundreds He is grossly ignorant and fanatical, and thousands of the representatives of and has resisted and misused all efforts the paramount government. Both were to educate him. 5. He is a bad soldier. devoted friends and most liberal sup- He fiees from military service. He joins porters of missions, the latter in partichimself to the Nihilists and other ene- ular being the real founder of work in mies of the government. 6. Above all, Almora, as well as for years by far the he is an immoral trader, a cheat, a base largest giver. usurer, a friend of the drink traffic, and he has one morale for his dealings with -Rev. D. S. Rivington tells how in, his Jewish brethren and another for his a remote village of Bombay he found in. dealings with Christians. a temple of Vishnu the tomb of a man who had died ten years previously, and ASIA. on the tomb, as an object oj worship, a large copy of the Bible in Canarese. A India.-Among both Hindus and Mo- stranger theological medley could not hammedans agitation for" home rule" well be conceived-a Christian tomb and is steadily increasing, and in connection a Bible enshrined in a Hindu temple, guarded by an image of Vishnu, and reopening and anniversary of the Tamil slong with the idol receiving the wor- church."
ship of Hindus I The Hindu has gen- -The Church Missionary Society erally so much religious sentiment that has 4 mission circles in South Indiahe is able to dispense with logic and viz., Madras, Ootacamund, Tinnevelly, consistency of faith as well.-Indian allU Telugu country; and these are Witnes8. looked after by 105 European and na- -An Indian magazine states that at tive clergymen. The number of Chris- Dewali, in the Punjab, gambling is re- tians who have been brought into the garded by the Hindus as a" religious fold is 58,000; and there are besides duty," and has been enjoined upon these over 8000 under instruction pre· them by the priests from time imme- paratory to baptism. The society has morial as a theological dogma, the idea in its schools over 22,000 children. The being that the souls of those who do not financial return shows that the native indulge in " jooa" will enter the bodies congregations gave during the year of donkeys. In the Occident the idea Rs. 38,000 to meet their congregational is mostly reversed; but to avoid calam- expenses, and for different religious and ity in the East "the simple-minded charitable objects.
Hindu, the few educated ones excluded, -Eighteen years ago there were but tries to play the destructive game as 2 Bible-women in the Neyoor District, much as possible, so that by accumulat- South Travancore. Later on a few ing the whole benefit derived from such Christian women would go out on Sun- playing he may be able to get rid of the days in couples to the nearer villages, donkey life in the world to come." fearing the scoffs and ridicule they knew -The Independent observes: "The they would meet with. Now there are banner Conference of the Methodist 25 who go forth Bingly day by day, and Episcopal Church in the number of are not only welcomed in the villages, SUll(tay-schools is not in the East. the but regret is expressed if for any reason West, or the South-not in this country they are kept away. Fourteen addiat all. It is the North India Confer- tional villages have been visited during ence. Those who think the Gospel has the past year, making a total of 61, and made little progress in India need to still the cry is, .. Come and teach us." rub their eyes and wake up to the In one house a mother and two daughfacts." The number of Sunday-schools ters said they had quite given up the in this Conference iii 518 ; of Christian worship of idols. In another, an old scholars, 9408; of non-Christian schol- woman, kissing the hand of the visitor ars, 11,921 ; or a total of 21,329. and looking earnestly into her face, re- peated with great fervor, "Jesns God, -The London Society has a woman my life, save me a poor sinner !"
.. who almost rivals the late Mrs. Doro- -This is the showing of the London thea Baker in the length of her service. Rociety for Travancore, from a com- Mrs. Addis and her husband founded parison of 1892 with 1893: Agency: the Coimbatore Mission in 1830. They Increase of 55 native agents, from 750 labored together till 1861, and then re- to 805. Evangelistic and pastoral de- tired to the hills, where he died in 1871. partment : Increase of 642 baptized, Since then she has sold over £10,000 from 23,654 to 24,296 ; increase of 2510 worth of goods sent from England to in entire Christian community, from aid various missions, and has collected 50,637 to 53,147 ; increase of 264 church- more than £1000 for the Bible Society. members, from 6466 to 6730. Educa- Last year, although she had reached the tional department: Increase of 49 great age of eighty-five years, she trav· schools, from 363 to 412; increase of elled down to Coimbatore to attend the 790 boys, from 12,209 to 12,999 i increase of 368 girls, from 4184 to 4552. memory of her father and of his father. Contributions of native Christians: It is a valuable lesson to the Chinese to Increase of Ra. 597, contributions, from tell them that all those buildings are Rs. 18,832 to Rs. 19,429. Medical mis- erected in memory of parents. They sion: Increase of 7031 cases, from 26,- seem to think that foreigners are de void 194 to 33,225. Press: Increase of 1075 of all tilial feelings because they do not pages printed, from 3,307,236 to 3,308,- worship at the graves. 311.
China.-Dr. Ashmore believes that AFRICA . .. the evangelization of the Chinese is more important than that of any other -A Baptist toiler on the Congo race; for as far as all human standards writes thus of trials endured: .. The are concerned they are so far beyond missionaries' houses at this place are any other heathen nation that there is poor, but better ones are in process of no comparison to be made… erection. My own little abode was 20 X 14, with mud walls and a thatched roof -The following proclamation was of grass. Even tlJis was not excluissued aWhile ago in the province of sively my own, for besides my two girls, Honan, China: .. Should anyone be- who lived with me, there were lizards. come bewitched by the foreign doc- centipedes, and other small creatures. trine8, and not be willing to sacrifice One Sunday morning, as I was dresseither to Confucius or to the spirits of ing, a snake fell from the roof down his ancestors, he must be severely dealt beside me, but no -harm was done." with by his clan. His name must be But she heeds not such trifles, for erased from the family regis.ter, and his " this is the scene where the Gospel of whole family driven from the province… our Lord Jesus Christ has triumphed, and in hundreds of huts, which are not -Rev. Arnold Foster recently found worthy of the name of homes, women, the following prayer po~ted on a house strong men, and children are rejoicing in Wuchang: "A young man named in Christ. The 24 schools and 5 churches Cheng Yu, living inside the Gate of Mil- are centres of light to the heathen, 10, itary Conquest, reverently implores the 15, 20, and 30 miles around in different God of Thunder to display his awful directions. Native evangelists and teachmajesty and to forgive the writer's sins ers are constantly winning souls, and of ignorance and to enlighten him as to often we have marvelled at their zeal, what they are ; he will then gladly obey courage, and fearlessness in the midst his parents and elders, and will be very of God's enemies, who persecute them careful of all kinds of grain. He now and plot against their lives." puts out this promise to reform. Will benevolent and right-minded people, -Out of 40 men and women sent to as they pass by, read this confession as Africa by the International Missionary a means to restoring the writer to health ? Alliance during the last flve years, 11 He offers his grateful thanks to all who have died. The tirst year of residence do so. .. It seems that this young man is most fatal. had some affection of the eyes which he believed was caused by some sin on his -Bishop Taylor has 43 white missionpart. He confesses he does not know aries at his .. self-supporting" stations what is the god of thunder whom he in Angola and the Congo Free State, toblindly adores. gether with quite a force of native evan- gelists and teachers. Twelve died at -When Mr. Whiteweight, of the their posts last year. English Baptist Mission, was home last year, he received about $16,000 from a -Lovedale Institution has an attend- Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, for school ance of '782 pupils of all grades. These building, chapel, etc. It was given in represent almost a score of tribes, and not a few come from regions hundreds .. large population roundabout makes it of miles away. This seat of learning a very favorable centre for missionary has a KafIir church, with 800 members, work.
whose pastor, Rev. Pambani J. Mzim- ba, " is a splendid specimen of what the THE ISLaNDS OF THE SEA. grace of God can achieve in the Afri- can race. " The congregation is almost -The Hon. C. R. Bishop has deeded entirely self-supporting, and out of its to the Kamehameha school in Honolulu poverty has undertaken to build a $10,- all his property on the island of Molokai. 000 house of worship, has raised $3000 The property includes 90,000 acres of from the field, and seeks the rest in land, stocked with cattle, horses and Scotland from friends of the Free sheep.. Mr. and Mrs. Bishop had pre- Church. viously given munificently to this insti- -The Rev. J. D. Hepburn, of the tution.
London Society, who died on the last -Not all of the heroes and heroines day of last year of malarial fever, was are of European stock. Mrs. L. Kaaiathe apostle of Khama's people, the wahia, the wife of Rev. S. Kauwealoha, Bamangwato. From 1870 till 1890 he both of them native Hawaiians, went labored uninterruptedly at Shoshong, with her husband in 1843 to the Marand when Khama moved his capital to quesas Islands as missionary under the Palapye, he went also, but retired, bro- Hawaiian Board to those cannibal ken down in health, in 1892. Not only islands, where she remained for forty was the conversion of the tribe largely years without ever returning to her nadue, under God, to him, but the new tive land. Part of the time she lived mission to Lake Ngami.owed its origin almost alone, separated from other misto his enterprise. sionary families. Her hands and her -The waters of Lake Nyassa are heart were occupied with labors for the ploughed by no less than 7 steamers, natives, by whom she was greatly honsome engaged in traffic, but mainly en- ored and loved.
gaged in the service of the King, carry- -In Fiji there is a circuit which has ing glad tidings to the benighted. 16 ministers, 310 local preachers, and -From OentraZ Africa we learn that upward of 7000 members, with 27,000 Baron Von Soden, the new Governor· adherents. Of the ministers, all but General of German East Africa, has one are natives, and the single European decreed •• that all missionary societies is quasi bishop of the populous diocese.
settled within the territories under Ger- New Hebrides.-Rev. J. W. Macken- man protection, without distinction of zie writes from Efate : •• Sabbath before nationality, shall enjoy exemption from last was a grand day here. 'l'he sacra- import duty and from the excise of con- ment of the Lord's Supper was dis- sumption for an amount not exceeding pensed, and 18 church-members sat £120 per annum. " down for the first time. The whole -The Universities Mission has opened number of communicants present was a new station in the Yao country, in 150.
P~rtuguese territory, at II place called -The West Indies include many Unangu, some 50 miles east of Lake islands under British, Dutch,and French Nyassa, and about 200 north of Blan- rule, and the republic of Hayti. The tyre. It is quite a large town, set on a total area is about 100,000 square miles, hill, with thousands of houses, many and the population 5,500,000, while 16 of them large and well built. The sta- societies are at- work with over 120 or- tion is expected, from its situation, to dained missionaries and 500 native help- prove exceptionally healthy, while the ers. The communicants number 75,000.
The Missionary Review of the World — March 1893
THE QUESTION OF ENDOWING MISSION CHURCHES. [Mar<'h
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVI. No. B.-Old &ries.—MAROH. —VOL. VI. No. B.-New &riel.
THE QUESTION OF ENDOWING MISSION CHURCHES.
BY REV. EDWARD JUDSON, D.D., NEW YORK CITY.
The Christian finds himself within the large embrace of three concentric horizons. The outermost is the Spiritual Church, that vague and majestic conception which glimmers here and there in Holy Scripture and reminds us that all souls, whether dwelling on this green earth or in any other world, who turn reverently and obediently to what light they have, belong to one flock and have one Shepherd. It is not to this, of course, that the term church relates, as it occurs in the subject of our discussion. Again, there is a second religious horizon that environs us less remote and more definite. Within the Spiritual Church we find rigid ecclesiastical crystallizations, with one or another of which each one of us has come somehow or other to be identified. We are Romanist, or Anglican, or Wes- 1eyan' or Baptist, or Congregationali.st, or Presbyterian. These social organisms are called denominations or communions, and sometimes in loose and popular phrase, with slight if any vestige of scriptural warrant, churches. It is not to these religious phenomena that we refer when we speak of endowing churches. No one ever thinks, in this country at least, for instance, of endowing the Anglican communion. Our subje~t relates I'ather to what is sometimes called the local church, which constitutes our innermost ecclesiastical horizon. It includes those believers in Christ who habitually meet together for worship. They form a society into which new members are initiated by baptism. It is their custom at stated seasons to take the bread and the chalice in memory of Christ. They remind each other of His teachings, and they praise and adore the Eternal God as foreshortened and revealed to the human consciousness in His personality and character. In these ways they help one another to become like Him. Nor is this all. They endeavor to change for the better the character of the circumjacent community, which they call the world, by bringing into the consciousness of individuals those great truths concerning God and duty and the future life which Christ taught and exemphfied. This they accomplish by preaching, by private conversation, by the symbolism of the sacraments, and especially by their blameless and disinterested r.ehavior, which reflects tt.e image of their Master as the rising sun is mirrored in the glassy surface of a mountain lake. As Whit. . tier writes regarding a departed saint: "The dear Lord's best interpreters Are humble human souls; The gospel of a life like hers Is more than books or scrolls.
.. From scheme and creed the light goes out, The saintly fact survives; The blessed Master none can doubt, Revealed in holy lives."
It is regarding the local Church, then, that we pursue the inquiry whether it is desirable that it should be endowed. . Should large sums of money be bestowed for the purpose of securing to the Church a perennial revenue to be applied to its work and worship ~ It seems to me this depends upon the character of its environment. If a church is imbeddeC' in a community which is predomina.ntly Christian in its spirit, where there exists an underlying consciousness that is responsive and congenial to evangelical truth, then there may be no need of endowment. The ordinary appliances of religion-the worship, the pr.eaching, and the Sunday-schoolwill suffice; and enough decent, church-going people will nat11ralIy flow in to meet the expenses of the establishment. If, however, the Church is situated in a population the inner consciousness of which is heathenish and antagonistic to the Gospel, then will spring up the necessity of an endowment. The best appliances are requisite in the way of preaching, architecture, and music, because the Church is confronted with the difficult task of impressing and attracting those who are essentially indifferent, and even hostile. But it is so poor that it cannot meet the expenses of such appliances. And then the forces that converge against it are so tremendous that, besides paying its ordinary current expenses, it must use at least an equal sum upon its field in aggressive work, or else it will be sure to go to the walL 'Vithout endowment its outlook becomes hopeless.
It seems, then, that there are two different kinds of field open for church work. There are places where the prevailing social influences are favorable to the building up of evangelical churches. If you have a good minister, attractive music, and stately architecture, the church seems to grow itself. Real estate keeps appreciating, decent and respectable ~hurch-going people come streaming into the neighborhood, and they naturally find their way into the sacred edifices that have been prepared for their use. The minister preaches two good sermons on Sunday, delivers his midweek address, performs his round of faithful pastoral visitation, and at the end of a year or two rejoices to see his pews comfortably full. He fancies perhaps that he does it aIL But he is like a boy rowing down stream. The oars are reinforced by the steady, swift current. If he is a shrewd man he will always be careful to select a place where the social currents converge in his favor. He will call it securing a strategic position. He will never know what it is to fail. He knows how to avail himself of a general tendency. But it is as if a workman should use the strongest- tools where there was the easiest work to do, or a general were to train his heaviest guns upon the weakest point in the enemy's line, or a physician were to inject his most potent medicaments into the least dis- eased portions of his patient's body. In pursuance of this policy our evangelical churches have been steadily retreating up Manhattan Island, until it begins to look as if we were to be whipped off the field. We are like a man who in his sleep pulls the bedclothes up around his neck, leav- ing his legs stark and bare. This is not a plea for down-town churches. I am coming to feel that our hardest field is the great middle belt of our city_ If I am not mistaken, all of our churches had better reef themselves up for a long, steady blow. We have made the mistake of huddling our best preachers and our most amply equipped churches in that part of the city where they are least needed; and, on the other hand, just where the population is densest and materialism most strongly entrenched we bring to bear our cheapest and poorest gospel appliances. But the churches cannot escape the great masses which they have left behind. We catch their diseases; they have a saloon on every corner; they outvote us and control our municipal politics; while we, in our Chickering Hall confer- ences, like righteous Lot of old, vex our righteous souls day by day with the filthy conversation of the wicked.
As ancient Rome assumed such an attitude toward the rest of human- ity that she had either to conquer the world or be herself annihilated, so -the Christian Church, in her relation to the huge masses of alien and unevangelical life with which the lower parts of our great cities are being solidly packed, must either penetrate them with her spirit and sub- due them into receptiveness, or confess herself a conspicuous failure. From these ever-widening social swamps there steals upward a dense miasma, which poisons not only our municipal life, but, through that, the State and country at large. Alien forces are gradually engulfing us, as in a case of dropsy the water creeps on and up until the vitals are flooded. The conflict for Christ in the evil neighborhoods of our large cities is simply a Waterloo issue. As Goethe has it : " Thou must rise or fall, Thou must rule and win, Or else serve and lose, Suffer or triumph; Be anvil or hammer."
A church that pulls out of the slums in order to secure a more favorable and congenial environment is like the hard-pres:;ed ostrich, that hides its head in the sand from its pursuers. Such a policy is a violation of the fundamental principles of the Gospel. Such churches cease to be essentially Christian. They are pagan forms of social crystallization, with a thin gilded veneer of Christianity. They have Christ's religion with the bottom fallen out. They spcnd oceans of money in satisfying their own pious sensibilities with fine preaching, exquisite music, and solemn architecture, and yet wonder that they make no converts. They do not touch social sores, and do little or nothing to change for the better the character of the city in which we live. They are splendid illustrations of refined. pious selfishness. The world sees through it all and turns infidel.
The minister or church that pursues this policy may meet with swiftfooted success. At the end of a year or two the pastor will be made glad by seeing beforc him a large audience, and the church officers will have no ugly deficit to wrestle with. But the very swiftness of your success awakens your misgivings. You begin to be suspicious of so speedy a victory. You recall St. John's profound generalization-we know that the whole u)orld lieth in the wicked one-and you wonder that, with this environment, the Church of Christ should advance with such long, easy strides. You begin to ask yourself the question that fell from the lips of the aged patriarch Isaac, when his younger son undertook to palm himself off as the elder, and spread before him the savory but premature dish of venison: "How is it thou hast found it so quickly. my SO'/ll,.2" You proceed to analyze the audience that you have gathered, and you discover tllllt it is made up of individuals who were good church· going people before. You explore the ecclesiastical pedigree of those who fill your pews, and you find that they are ,·egistered. You have only succeeded in getting a handful here and a handful there, from this church and from that. There is no production of new material. It is a mere sleight-of-hand performance. It is as when you turn a kaleidoscope and the same identical pieces of glass shift and only form a new combination. You have really made no impression upon the great non-church-going mass. The acute pleasure you experience in seeing so many people in your church is a good de31 mitigated by the thought that another minister, here and there, is correspondingly depressed by observing their absence from his. Many a so-called successful church is built up at the expense of a score of feebler ecclesiastical growths. Is there in this any real gain to the cause of Christ in the world ~ It is the duty of the Church! then, not to turn itself into a travelling show, but to stick to its field, provided humanity is there, no matter how degraded and unresponsive. Let it change not its place, but its methods, gearing itself anew for the kind of people God sends. Let it cling at least to the edges of our social swamps. The only way in which the ignorant and vicious will ever be improved is by close contact with the intelligent and the pure, who shall come among them in the spirit of the One that laid His glory by and took upon Himself the form of a slave. The Church cannot lift the masses at arm's length. Her methods too often remind us of the grim, heartless joke perpetrated on us in our boyhood when we fell down and were saluted with the cheering words : " Come here, sonny, and r II pick you up."
But the Chutch must not only keep close to the common people, but it must adopt new and aggreSSive methods, educational, philanthropic, and evangelistic. The sermons and addresses and the pastoral work which, in a more congenial field, seemed to accomplish so much, now prove ineffec- tive. Amid the worn-out conditions of our down-town churches, all that the Angel Gabriel could do on the old plan would be merely to retard the process of decay. Some say the simple Gospel is enough. Yes, but how are you going to bring people within the sound of it ~ You are like a per- son ringing a bell in a vacuum. Humanitarian measures are required in order to pull humanity around and direct its sad, averted gaze toward the cross.
'As to the suggestion of definite methods, one becomes instinctively shy and reserved. Fields are so different. What wiII succeed in one place will fail in another. We cannot afford to be dogmatic. We make so many mistakes and must so often noiselessly retrace our footsteps. We have to feel our way along like a ferry-boat entering its slip.
Of one thing, however, we may be sure: it is that the worst need the best. Cheap appliances will fail. We shall never reach the people with our servants' dining-rooms and our cold victuals. They must have the best preaching, the best music, the best architecture. The Salvation Army has made its mistake in this country by trying to palm off on the people a cheap and sensational religion. The persecution which it incurs and glories in is often due to the outraged reverence and sense of decency which you wiII find in the lowest classes. There is truth in Lowell's Yan- kee phrase, " 'T",int a knowin' kind of cattle That is ketched with mouldy corn."
The whole grade of worship and instruction must be kept at its highest level. It is a mistake to suppose that plain people wiII be attracted by cheap and nasty surroundings. They wiII feel happiest and most at home in the finest church edifices, provided, of course, that these are near at hand. The poor enjoy the feeling of ownership and responsibility in a beautiful house of God. I would put the finest churches among the poor and the cheapest among the rich.
But besides the services of the church, which should be frequent, attractive, and inspiring, there should be close at hand social appliances for work among young men-sitting-room, library and reading-room, gymnasium, and other provisions which the Young Men's Christian Association has found so useful. What is more important still, let the churches reach after child-life, especially among foreigners. This can be done by Sunday-schoo18, singing-schools, industrial Ichools, kindergartens, and even primary day-school, as well as day-nurseries. In this way the Church can control the whole educational life of the child, both on Sundays and week-.
'tHE OVKRFLow O]j'
days, from iufancy to the age of ten. This is a much more roundabout and expensive way of changing the character of our city than by legisla- tion; but it is the only way in which the task can be accomplished. And for work of this kind the Church needs endowment. My equation is that a church will need to use on its field each year a sum equal to what it re- quires for its ordinary current expenses. The revenue from its endow- ment should be as rigidly as possible applied not to the· current expenses, but to the aggressive work which it must do in order to breed up and to bring in people who will cheerfully pay the current expenses. If the reve- nue of the endowment be used for the support of the clergy and other ordinary current expenses, the offerings of the people being applied to mission work, the tendency will be >to raise a breed of ecclesiastical paupers and spongers.
The question how to secure an endowment is too wide and varied to be treated in this paper. The thought of endowment may be incorporated in the erection of a church edifice. A part of the ground may be improved with a view to purely ecclesiastical and financially unproductive uses; while the rest may be occupied by a revenue-bearing building. I sometimes think that our churches are very extravagant in their use of property. In a part of the city, for instance, where worldly men are erecting structures from six to sixteen stories above ground, with two or three floors under the earth, and using these buildings during all of the twentyfour hours of every day for business and for residence, you will see the people of God spreading out their edifice with a frontage of one hundred and fifty feet and occupying a single floor, with their church proper and Sunday-school room placed side by side. And this space, which they enclose and shut in from the cheerful habitations of men, they use about ten hours a week. The rest of the time it is occupied by mice, silence, and gloom. It is no wonder that they try to shirk the burden of taxation. A business conducted with such extravagance would be strung up on the reef of bankruptcy within six months. The question arises, Could not a part of this valuable ground be so improved as to secure to the church a permanent endowment for its missionary, philanthropic, and educational needs ~ THE OVERFLOW OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. A. J. GORDON, D.D.
In this closing decade of the nineteenth century the stream of missionary effort seems to be overflowing its banks and making for itself many new channels. The old societies continue their noble work, bllt the rising tide of enthusiasm will no longer confine itself to these. Vast numbers of men and women are being influenced by the Holy Spirit to enter upon the work of foreign missions, and in proportion to the strength of the movement will inevitably be the "differences of administration" and the " diversities of operation" legitimately attending it. In all this the intelligent friends of missions must rejoice and be glad.
The demand for ecclesiastical uniformity which many are now emphasizing is neither according to the teaching of the Spirit nor according to the analogies of nature. The tree does not remain a trunk, but it ramifies and separates its substance into thousands of limbs and branches. ,. The scandal of a divided Christendom," so called, has proved the strength of an evangelizing Christendom in this age of missions. There are scores of agencies now in use for propagating the Gospel among the heathen when there would have been but one if the condition of solid ecclesiastical unity had obtained. Not that we would contend that the division of Christians into sects is the ideal condition-God does not, in this present time, do His greatest work through ideal conditions. Certainly the spectacle of sixty-five missionary societies laboring in India, forty-six in China, and thirty-four in Africa, and all operating by diverse methods, but in substantial good-fellowship with each other, ought to be regarded as a kind of providential compensation for that divided condition of the Christian Church to which we are largely indebted for this number and variety of agencies. So the increasing versatility of method in conducting missions which we are now witnessing augurs. we believe, only good for the great work of giving the Gospel to the world.
This versatility is manifesting itself in the following ways: First, there is a growing tendency for single churches and individual Christians to take up direct missionary work among the heathen. The article on " Decentralization in Missions, '.' which the writer contributed to the June number of the MISSIONARY REVIEW, has called out a large number of responses from Christians of various names. From these it is eYident that the idea is taking root in the minds of lovers of missions, and that it is destined to be more and more widely developed. In the last session of the General Assembly we find the Presbyterians giving considerable attention to this question, and urging its favorable consideration upon their churches. A writer in the Episcopal Recorder for August 4th calls fpr earnest reflection upon this subject, and questions whether this direct participation of the Church in foreign missions might not "work a revolution in the defective and comparatively inefficient schemes which have characterized the method of conducting the work of missions among' the heathen in the past-methods which have failed to reach the heart of the Church, which have obtained hundreds of dollars, where ten thousands should have been gladly furnished from Christian people, whose aggregate incomes run into hundreds of millions." • The idea of direct church-participation in missions is the central one; but this carries many other considerations with it-such as the distribution and consequent increase of missionary responsibility, the development of greater dependence on God, both among the home churches and on'the foreign field, and the resultant strengthening of faith and prayerfulness and consecration among Christians.
The most notable indication of the rising sentiment in these directions which we have seen appears in a prospectus, which now lies before us, of the Baptist Interior Mission. The movers in this enterprise are several men who have won high positions as earnest and successful missionaries in China lInder the Southern Baptist Board. The proposal for a new departure in the work of their denomination in China is not the result of sentiment, but the outcome of practical experience and of deliberate reflection. And remembering that the movers in this undertaking intend to put themselves under their proposed new scheme, their suggestions demand respectful consideration. We make the following quotation from this paper.
After stating their conviction that without a change of method the demands of the field cannot be met, and that under the new plan it is proposed to leave the coast and ports and to plunge into the vast interior, where millions on millions are still waiting to hear the sound of the Gospel, the authors of this prospectus go on to say : 1. We shall receive only a support, not a fixed salary, leaving it for each one to say, when he has come and had time to know what it costs on his field, what the amount shall be. His constituents will rely on his judgment and honor in the matter. We, the missionaries, who identify ourselves with this mission, now or hereafter, may differ in our opinion of the amount needed, and the needs may be different on different fields; but that the churches may have a basis on which to start off, we will say let them arrange to give each missionary annually: For his personal support, $300 (that is, $600 for a married couple), and $100 extra for each child he may have ; but " support" means support in his work; so, for house rent, say $50 ; itinerating, $50 ; and teacher of the language, $50. Total, for a single missionary, $450 (U. S. gold). This is less by $300 at least than is allowed the missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yet it has been tried and proved to be sufficient for a comfortable living. The fact is, that more than jour hundred of China's missionaries are living on less.
2. Our reasons for making this reduction to a support only may be roughly stated to be : (1 ) We appreciate the fact that it is the Lord's money, given to Him mainly by those who are poor. We cannot afford to take this money and indulge ourselves in the comforts of which they denied themselves to give it when it is entirely unnecessary. (2) We wish to be more on an equality with our brethren, the pastors of town and coun- iry churches at home, to whom we look for sympathy and help. (3) Many whom the Lord calls to China seem kept at home for the want of funds. Now, the Lord calls the men and the Lord calls the gifts, and yet they are out of proportion. Are they out of proportion ~ May it not be that the few that go to foreign fields consume too much money on themselves and their work ~ (4) And, especially, because it is a principle of our religion, as was expressed in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His mission to the lost He became poor that they might become rich. Among these poor people it is especially expedient, and we are persuaded that he who would be most successful in winning their souls must, like his Lord, become poor (also compare 1 Cor. 9 ; 12). 3. This support, as is expressly stated, is to come fr~m the churches, the divinely appointed agents of the Lord to carry om His command to evangelize the world. The Holy Ghost may now, as of old to the Church at Antioch, say to a church: "Separate Me–=–so and so-for the work whereunto I have called them." Two churches, or a group of churches, may unite in supporting a missionary; much as some churches have to do in supporting their pastors. These churches become responsible to the missionary for his support in his work-i.e., what they give him he gets, and what they do not give him he does not get-and he, in turn, becomes responsible to them for work done. Let mutual responsibility be felt, and just as sure as the living body throws, at every beat of the heart, its warm life-blood to its remotest member, so sure will the Church, the body of Christ, sympathize with and support its far-off evangelist.
4. That this support be a free gift. God not only loves such a giver, but owns and blesses only such gifts. This reverting to the scriptural method, the giver giving as to God and the receiver receiving as from God, will bring into exercise more faith and trust in God. will be more honoring to the Spirit, and will obviate the nuisance of begging. This allowing the churches their divinely appointed functions will insure against centralization of power, whether at home or on the field. It will render unnecessary so much machinery, and relieve the contributions from the tax of lubricating' and running it. No paid agents will be wanted. The pastor alld other officers of the Church will be quite sufficient.
Those of us who have served many years on missionary boards know how many vital points are touched in these quotations. It would not be becoming for us who are living at home, surrounded by all the comforts of civilized life, to impose such a regime upon our missionary brethren. But when, with a full knowledge of the situation, a thorough experience on the field, and a deep sense of the responsibility involved, certain devoted mis- sionaries propose this new departure for themselves, our heart and voice and deepest conviction respond amen to the suggestion. We have no doubt of the rich success of the enterprise, for it is apostolic, and therefore has the guarantee of the Holy Spirit's furtherance j and it is practical, having the experience of several notable missionary enterprises of this century.
No doubt the teaching of that remarkable object lesson, the China Inland Mission, haf influenced the movers in this enterprise as it has affected many other promoters of foreign missiops j for the method out- lined is very much the same. Whether the experience of the China Inland Mission augurs success or not, let these facts answer. This mission is one of forty-six now operating in that great empire, representing the strong- est and wealthiest Protestant denominations. Yet though one of the youngest, this society has one fourth of all the missionaries on the field j has sent out a hundred missionaries in a single year-a reinforcement which not one of our great Protestant societies, with their large wealth and vast co~stituency, has been able to effect j and is receiving annually, with- out solicitation of any sort, the needed funds for the work.
Thus we believe that the new enterprise proposed by these Southern brethren has the evidence of demonstrated success as well as the sanction of Scripture to support it. A widening of the channel of missionary effort is seen also in the in- creasing employment of lay workers on the foreign field. By lay workers we mean especially men and women without college or theological training. The proposal to commission such as laborers among the heathen has always awakened sharp discussion, from the days of Von Welz to those of Gossner and Harms. But the policy condemned by many is as strongly approved by others, both on the ground of necessity and of utility. The necessity appears in thc fact that of the large number of graduates emerging yearly from the universities, so few comparatively are moved to undertake missionary service; and the utility in the fact of the demonstrated success of these humbler laborers.
Dr. Warneck, of Germany, one of the ablest of living writers on missionary themes, speaks strongly on this point. In the midst of a plea for a " fuller representation of the thoroughly trained element on the foreign field," he says: "It is not to the credit of German Protestantism, which indisputably stands at the head of all Protestant churches by its scientific theology, that it sends precisely the fewest theologians into mission service. Do our theologians haply suppose that they are too good for such service?" This statement is a significant one, and his question is a searching one. The feeling is not confined to Germany that it is a waste of high literary culture to bestow it upon bloody cannibals and degraded barbarians. We have even heard the most fervent friends of missions say of some especially gifted and brilliant university graduate, "that with such pre-eminent talents for home service he ought not to go abroad. "
If in these circumstances men possessed of high consecration, but deyoid of high culture, present themselves for foreign service, shall they be discouraged? Dr. Warneck speaks emphatically upon this point. He says: "Not a few missionaries, indeed, who have gone abroad without scieutific training have proved themselves pre-eminently intelligent even in the literary department, and conversely, it is indisputably true that university training affords no general guarantee for important performances. Moreover, it cannot be denied that a considerable proportion of our missionaries, with their seminary training, suffer from a certain narrowness of view, and that thereby their whole acting and bearing is influenced not to the advantage of the great work to which they are called. I am far from desiring none but scientifically educated men for the mission service. We need all sorts of men for it."
We would put especial emphasis on this last· sentence : " We need all sorts of men. ' , There are dialects to be mastered on the foreign field beside the linguistic-the mother tongue of sympathy and fellow-feeling; the universal speech of suffering and pain. He who can conjugate the8e through all their sorrowful moods and tenses has the highest requisite for successfully preaching the Gospel to the heathen. Such missionaries as Burns and Crossett, in China. have read us a memorable lesson on this point. It is a significant touch, in our Lord's picture of the wounded traveller journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho, that while both priest and Levite passed by on the other side, the good Samaritan "came where he Was.'' The missionary who can come where the sin-bruised and dying heathen are, get down close to them and bind up their wounds, is the one most demanded on the foreign field. And it has been repeatedly found that the uncultured missionary has ability in this direction which the learned do not possess, and find it exceedingly hard to acquire. It has been our fortune to know two or three men who, with only the most ordinary educational qualifications, have yet achieved very remarkable success in their labors among the heathen. In every instance the secret has seemed to be in their ability to come close to the heathen, entering into their homes, and journeying for months together among their villages, and so getting " bap- tized into a sense of all conditions." Like fits like, and it is reasonable to suppose that missionaries taken from among the common people should be especially fitted to reach the common people.
Then it should not be forgotten that it is the Gospel, not the preacher, that is "the power of God unto salvation." It is not the magnitude of the man, but the magnitude of the message, which determines the results of preaching. Hence we believe it true that a small man with a great Gospel will do more execution than a great man with a small Gospel. And here is one of the standing wonders which we do well to ponder-the clearness and force and effectiveness with which many of our humble lay preachers are able to declare the Gospel. It is our privilege to be acquainted with a great number of evangelists. By far the larger part of them have never enjoyed the advantages of academic training. Yet it is a constant surprise to observe the simplicity and power with which many such are able to present the Word of life.
If such men prove excellent evangelists at home, why not abroad 1 Their training and habits of life have fitted them to live far less expen- sively than their more cultivated brethren. And here is a very great desideratum-cheaper missionaries and a far greater number to engage in purely evangelistic work among the heathen.
The work which Dr. A. B. Simpson and his co-laborers in New York are doing deserves the thoughtful consideration of the promoters of foreign mISSIOns. His success in raising such great sums of money through the simple agencies of prayer and faith and a deepened spiritual life, and his ability to send out a larger delegation of foreign missionaries in a single year than anyone of our great missionary societies with their vast con- stituency of men and means, constitute another impressive object lesson for the friends of missions. This work was begun as an individual enterprise by the pastor of a single church, and though now it has been organized into a society called the International Missionary Alliance, its methods are – almost identical with those outlined in the prospectus of the Southern mis- sionaries to which we have just referred. The missionaries whom it is sending out are largely non-college and non-seminary men. From our
MISSIONS, THE SALVATION OF THE CRtlRCH
knowledge of them we judge that they are mostly working men and working women, with little of what is called liberal culture j but they are brought under the instruction of thc Missionary Training School of Dr. Simpson, a school where the great essentials-a knowledge of the Word of God and a definite experience of the Holy Spirit's power in the soul-are much insisted on, and with this fitting they are sent forth to the foreign field.
This society, though only five years old, has now about one hundred and fifty missionaries working in foreign countries. About twenty-five went out to the Congo last May, and two other parties, consisting of sixteen persons, went to India in July and August. The Soudan Mission, which this society is operating, is a truly aggressive undertaking. 'The first missionary to this field sailed two years ago under the leadership of Mr. Kingman. Others have since followed, till the present working force is about twenty. Their base of operations is Freetown, Sierra Leone, and their line of advance is up the Rokelle River, which they have already ascended nearly two hundred miles, planting a continuous line of stations. The leader of this movement is Mr. George S. Fisher, of Kansas, whose aggressive work in this enterprise well illustrates our subject, the "Overflow of Missions." Dr. Simpson has received very large donations for his work, $100,000 having been contributed since last August.
In many respects this is an 'original enterprise. Its bold reliance on God and its apostolic methods mark it as an instructive study. We have heard conservatives question whether the kind of recruits it is sending out are likely to succeed. For ourselves, we have no doubt about it. They who honestly attempt to carry out the great commission are bound to succeed. The only palpable and culpable non-success in missions is that of the theorists and critics who stay at home and devote themselves to discounting and disparaging those whose methods they do not approve. There is no danger that too many shall attempt to obey the great commission ; there is no peril in the present missionary overflow.
MISSIONS, THE SALVATION OF THE CHURCH.
BY JAMES E. MATHIESON, ESQ., LONDON.
" For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath fallen into transgression: but she shall be saved through the childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety" (1 Tim. 2 : 13-15 [R. V.]).
Which things seem to be an allegory concerning Christ and the Church and missions.
"The second man is the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. 15 : 47). The tempter came unto Him and plied Him with manifold temptations j but He was proof against every seduction of the wicked one, and came forth from the ordeal without taint of sin, holy, harmless, undefiled. He remained the unerring servant, " the faithful and true witness," the obedient son, all through His earthly ministry; and to His Church-by the Word and Spirit-He continues the unerring guide, the" witness to the people, the leader and commander of the people" of God.
Eve is a suitable type of the Church. What is Church history? is it not a continuous record of failure, of defeat through the machinations of the adversary, of disobedience to the command of her Lord and Master, of uncertain, hesitating testimony ? We need not fasten upon the awful departures from truth which we see manifested in the apostate Church of Rome, nor upon the corruptions which disfigure the Greek Church; yet how shameful and how sorrowful that the larger part of Christendom to-day should remain sunken in the deplorable idolatries in which Europe thus lies spellbound, unable to shake herself free! Let us come nearer home, and look at Protestantism. Are Satan's deceivings not visible here, too, though in forms less repulsive and with consequences somewhat less disastrous? Our search for a perfect church, faithfully reflecting the image of her heavenly Lord, will prove a vain quest. Lutheranism in Germany and Scandinavia has degenerated into a lifeless sacramental formalism which exerts little influence over the lives of the people in leading them Godward and heavenward; the Reformed churches of France and Switzerland have been infected with rationalism, and icy coldness has crept over them; the Church of England, "rich and increased with goods," is backsliding into priestcraft, the leaven from which she never was thoroughly free. What a portent, that a Bible-loving nation, seeing no mention of priests in the enumeration of her ascended Lord's gifts to His Church (1 Cor. 12 : 28 ; Eph. 4 : 10-12), nor any recognition of priesthood in the pastoral epistles, should not perceive the dishonor to our one great High-Priest by the admission of official priesthood in the Church below! If we turn to British or American nonconformity, can we be satisfied with its lack of reverence in handling Holy Scripture, and the increasing disbelief in the supernatural? or with the infrequent remembrance of our Lord's death at the communion table? for without determining for others how often the holy supper should be observed, the very expression, " as often as ye eat," surely implies frequency; and can we feel complacent with churches which silently ignore the blessed hope of the glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour? What we have just said about nonconformist churches applies with equal force to the Presbyterian communions. To how many of the churches of to-day-to the churches founded by Luther and Calvin and Knox, by the English Puritans, and later by Wesley and Whitfield and Chalmers-might not the great aposUe exclaim, as he did to the Church of Galatia, "Ye were running well, who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" Ah! the hinderer came upon the scene, and with his seductions drew the Church aside and far away from her first love. The history of the Church universal is, in greater or less degree, a record of backsEding and of deterioration, because she has listened to other voices than the voice Divine; has given way to expediency and compromise, to worldliness, to traditions of men, and, above all, to unbelief in the living God.
But, in view of all this defection and unworthiness, how wonderful the longsuffering patience of our God! Instead of utter destruGtion there is a prolongation of the day of grace. Yet here a law of the kingdom pre- vails which we cannot afford to overlook: the Church-any branch of the Church-is" saved through childbearing;" her safety, her continuance in existence as a living Church, depends upon her reproduction of churches. And observe, I do not think we are to look to mere enlargement within her existing borders, the addition of new members in the sphere of her local boundaries, although that is sure to accompany the otlJer increase on which I lay stress-namely, the bringing to the birth of churches beyond her limits, or, to use the apostolic expression, /I in the regions beyond." At the tribunal of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5 : 10), when the Master reckons with His servants, may we be permitted reverently to conceive Him saying, "Who . hath begotten me these ?" and pointing to Africa and the East, the Church of England would answer that she was the mother Church; and for some of those in In.dia and China, American and British Presbyterians would reply; and to those in Madagascar and Mongolia our Congregational brethren would lay claim; and of those in Burma and on the Congo, the Baptists would own the parentage; and for those in Polynesian islands of the sea, our "Vesleyan friends ; and for those in Garenganze and Malaysia, the Plymouth Brethren; and for those in Labrador and Little Thibet and among Jerusalem lepers, the Moravian Church. But oh! the ominous silence of dead and buried churches-dead and buried because the law of their continued existence was set at nought; no daughter churches after their image, in their own likeness, to "rise up and call them blessed." Their name and their memorial has perished with them.
A word concerning the reproduction of mission churches in the likeness of the mother Church. In whose image does any true mother love to see the reflection in the child she has borne? her own or her husband's image ~ 'rhere can be but one answer : the mother delights to see the lineaments of her husband reproduced in her child. Is it so in the Church? Is there not effort everywhere tp perpetuate the special features of the mother Church, rather than a jealous longing to see imparted the impress of the living Lord npon newly born churches in heathendom and elsewhere? Is not precious time oftentimes wasted in the attempt to transmit creeds and catechisms and liturgies which are not essential to the growth and well being of newly gathered companies of believers; or to repeat, under unsuitable conditions. forms and ceremonies which hinder rather than hasten progress toward full stature; and which tend to stereotype, on far-off fields, those differences which-in some aspects at leaRt–are a acandal and a weakness to Christiani.ty ~ It is blessed to think of the obliteration of denominational distinctions in the gloryland, when the completed body of Christ shall acknowledge the one name of her undivided Lord. Were it otherwise, and the question could be put concerning the many-named and much subdivided churches which have witnessed and labored and suffered for and with Christ upon the earth, "Which is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven 1" methinks the Master's reply would be, "The Church of the United Brethren ;" and whatever our various preferences and proclivities may have been as mem- bers of the Church down below, I consider it unlikely that any of us would for a moment dispute this supremacy of the Moravian Brethren as a missionary church. They have shown us a magnificent example j why have we been so slow to follow it 1 The Moravian Missionary Society, begun in 1732, is the oldest Protes- tant enterprise for evangelizing the heathen. A few years since public attention was called to the miserable condition of lepers in India and elsewhere j but the Moravians began to carry the good news to lepers in Africa seventy-four years ago, and to those in Jerusalem twenty-five years ago. Of their income of £70,000, nearly two thirds are raised by evangelized native churches, which contain over 90,000 converts, a total three times as numerous as the members of the home churches, which have sent forth missionaries in the proportion of one for every sixty members, as compared with one for every 5000 members among Protestant churches generally. What significance in this last statement-how honorable to the Moravians, how humbling for Protestants generally!
There is a vast competition in our day and a great array of statistics with reference to the comparative progress in numbers, in buildings, in the annual revenues, and the voluntary gifts of the various churches. In this competition established and free churches and all the denominations vie with each other amid various experiences of success and defeat. It does not seem likely, now that we are drawing near to the close of the second millennium of Christianity, that anything will arise in the conditions of mankind in the leading Protestant lands, or in the phases of theology which largely govern the minds of men in lands ruled by Bible principles, to greatly alter the proportions which now obtain between the various sections of the Ohurch in their numerical Rtrength and social influence and power. Fluctuations there will ever be locally; but over the whole areas held by Protestantism no very marked displacements by one over the other are probable. Partial success of one branch of the Church will but stimulate to greater endeavor in another branch to replace what has been lost. Is it beyond hope that we may one day see a pause in this hitherto endless strife for mastery in seeking to gain the first or second or third place in membership, in edifices, in revenues, which now engages the ceaseless watchfulness and activities of leading men in every denomination? and instead of this feverish race for supremacy in an age which seems governed largely by statistics, a more prayerful pondering of our Lord's parting command, a turning to a more excellent way and to a nobler strife, in a determination to keep in the foremost place the vast neglected work which her Lord has set before His Church, " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." The. competition for the foremost place in over-churched Britain, for example, is becoming a scandal and a snare, and a sorrow of heart to many of God's children; oh, for a blessed rivalry for that first place now held by the Moravian Brethren! Baptists, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, which of you will first abandon this insane grasping after more people at home, whom some one else is pretty sure to evangelize if you fail to do so, and go in with all your might for daughter churches in Africa, Asia, South America, and other virgin soils, where the sowing and husbandry will yield you far richer harvests 1 What a blessed determination it would be if, abandoning the extravagance and selfishness involved in building more home churches, some branch of the Church resolved to fill the mission treasury to overflowing, and called upon her sons and daughters to go forth to the needy fields afar off with promise of prayer and reinforcements? For the sad truth remains that since" where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," the heart's affections, the solicitudes, the prayers of the Church are concentrated on the home work and home interests, and but little heart and little prayer flow out toward the great mission cause. In point of fact, the" great mission cause" is a misnomer; it is a weak, spasmodic, half-starved affair; no hced or little heed is given to the proportions of the fields which claim our regard; we give profusely, we give our substance to home demands; we give grudgingly, we give our superfluity to the vast fields out of sight.
How does our blessed Lord regard His Church's disregard of His commands? I fear the curse of barrenness falls upon home churches because of their disobedience and self-seeking. The history of Israel is repeated in much that we see in the Church to-day. "Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself" (Hos. ~ 0 : 1) ; unto himself, not unto God. "Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little.
Ye looked for much, and, 10, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it" (Haggai 1 : 5, 6, 9). Oh, the meagre results, the few conversions, the sickly spiritual life in Christian communities at home; the Gospel hardening, the growth of unbelief, the increase of ungodliness! Let the Church awake to her true mission in this dark world and yield obedience; and what days of blessing may we not behold once more! ~'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesns" (Phil.
2 : 3-5).
THE LORD'S WORK IN SPAIN
THE LORD'S WORK IN SPAIN.
BY REV. J. P. WIGSTONE, MISSIONARY, LINARES, SPAIN.
Just of late I am up from Andalusia, where my present work is visiting other brethren-two of whom studied in the Pastor's College, London-and scenes of years ago have been recalled by what is occurring here now. For instance, I lately accompanied a brother missionary to a neighboring town to bury a child. The priests and the authorities appeared at the house where the dead lay, and against the father's will forcibly carried the body away and buried it in the Roman Catholic cemetery. Another brother was called to visit one of the converts in a dying state. He had only just reached the house when the priest made his appearance, alleging that he had also been called. He had a number of witnesses. The house filled with people, as is often enough the case here under similar circumstances. The priest raged and stormed and held up his fist in the face of the evangelical pastor. The sick Christian woman, hearing the dispute about who had been called, cried out: "Silence, all ! I wish to make a public confession." (Here the priest smiled, and approached graciously at the last word.) "I am trusting only to Christ for salvation through His death on the cross; and if I die I want to be buried in the evangelical cemetery." The witnesses of the priest told him they were needed no longer, and went out. What did the priest do ~ He went and lodged a complaint with the mayor that he had been called to attend this dying woman, and that the evangelical pastor had threatened him and hindered him in his duty. The priest's witnesses deposed that the woman declared publicly she didn't want the priest but the pastor, and that the priest had threatened the pastor and not the pastor the priest. The mayor took doctors with him and satisfied himself that the witnesses spoke the truth, the dying woman being still able to say she wished nothing to do with Rome.
A third friend has had his meeting-place shut up by order of the Governor of Corunna. The English ambassador has been communicated with. This is a case of trying to show by law that the door of the meeting .place must be kept shut at Santa Eugenia, when no such thing is done in any other part of Spain, nor has been done during the last twenty years! These are matters of the present time, and make the past matters along the northwest coast of Spain new to me ; and I will speak about the commencement of the Gospel in these parts.
The first meeting in Galicia was commenced by the" pastor" before mentioned and myself in the year 1875 in Corunna. After a month's search we got a meeting-place, and went to the governor of the province.
" Yonr Excellency," we said to him, "we are going to begin the preaching of the Gospel at Puerta de Arriba on Sunday night at six o'clock."
" Vho gave you leave to do that 1" replied his Excellency. We explained to him that the law only required that notice should be given to the governor or mayor, and that we thought it best to give the notice in this case to the superior authority, as it was the first meeting of the kind held in all the four northwest provinces.
" Let me tell you," said the governor, " that if you commenced such a meeting the people would tear you in pieces; and I advise you for your own sake not to attempt any meetings here."
" Your Excellency, we have come all the way from Madrid for the purpose" (a journey then of twelve hours by rail and thirty·six by diligence), " and we quite intend to go on with the meetings."
" Then" (here he began to be very angry), " I warn you not; and if you do, I will take you prisoners from the platform. I can't inflict previous punishment, but I will begin when you begin."
" Then, your Excellency, the first meeting takes place on Sunday night 1.t six 0'clock. "
We left him, after he had renewed his threatenings. I must say we did not feel very comfortable. We were a long way from all our friends; we did not know the people of Corunna, but we did know something of Roman Catholic fanaticism. We went, in our extremity, to our God, and cried for help. The day arrived for our first meeting. "Will the governor keep his word? 'Will anybody come to the meeting?" we asked one another, as my friend and I prepared to go down to open the door. As we approached, sure enough, there were four policemen in full uniform. "Are they going to take us 1" was a very natural question. The door was opened; two or three people straggled in. As the first person entered, one policeman cried out" Order I" As another went in, another cry of " Order I" was heard; and so we entered, and they roared out " Order," and that word for the policemen seemed to be the order of the day. "They have not taken us," remarked one of us to the other. " We are not at the platform yet," was the reply. But we did get to the platform, and without interruption from the authorities; preached with all our heart and soul to a small congregation of about fifty the glorious old Gospel of salvation instant and free to the repenting sinner that comes to the Lord Jesus Christ through " Jesus only." These occasions of speaking to those who have never heard the joyful sound before of the great salvation have been among the happiest of our life. Would to God that thousands who can do so would go into all the world and try it I The next Sunday, at about 4.30 P.M., we looked out of our window and saw the square filled with people of every class. "Whatever can be the matter!" we asked as we looked out. The servant said, "Why, they have come for the meeting." Come for the meeting I Yes; an hour and a half before the time there were about two thousand people there. Cornnna was moved with curiosity. Let us begin the meeting at once. One went to open the door while we got hymn-books, etc., ready, and when We went down we couldn't get in-the place was packed with people in a solid mass. We went up to the house, got down into the back yard by a ladder, and with much difficulty got in at the back door. Happily the platform was just at that entrance. What a scene! The people were perched up everywhere, even sitting on the shoulders of those who occupied the seats. Well, we did our best to "make t.he message clear and plain," and then asked the congregation to retire and allow others to come in. They did ; and in the others came. We had another meeting. After it the crowd outside cried: "Come and preach to us from the balcony!" No, we had no voice left j besides, if we had, that was clearly against the law of " No public manifestation," and we thought it well to keep within it.
For weeks people came from the villages near as well as from the town j so that we were obliged to give entrance by ticket. The American viceconsul was exceedingly friendly, and took the tickets at the door as the people entered. When we appeared in the streets the folk stood at their doors and stared j came out at the balconies and stared. Why ? Well, the priests for centuries had been telling them all kinds of queer storip.s about Protestants, such as that we keep murdered children hanging up by the feet in the cellars to be eaten; that we had horns and tails j and it was natural to be curious to have the first glance at such wretches. Nevertheless, it was a good thing that the one subject of interest was the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, for weeks in the whole neighborhood. I may just say that we sold hundreds of Bibles, testaments, and Gospels, and distributed thousands of tracts.
The archbishop drove up from Santiago to annihilate us by a series of declamations against Protestants. The people went to hear him during the day, and us at night. They went out of our meetings saying, "The archbishop tells nothing but lies." Not that we ever went into discussions. No j we kept to the Gospel of free salvation to the chief of sinners by Christ alone, and the hearers drew the inferences.
The Lord blessed the preaching to the salvation of souls. " I am of your opinions," whispered a man tv us as we stood on the street one day. He whispered because newspapers were speaking against us, and we had many enemies. " To be of our opinions will do little for you. You must be born again," we answered. We had a long talk with him about his soul. The next preaching was from" The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. " This man was at it, and next day he came to us and told us it had cleansed him. His wife soon professed conversion. His aunt, a bigoted Romanist, with whom they lived, was in a dreadful way about this. He spoke to her about the Gospels. One evening she was alone about meeting-time, and felt a desire to go which she could not shake off. She went, heard, believed, and brought her husband. He was soon converted. The aunt had $42 (£5 lOs.) worth of images in a glass case. She burned them, and said: " Now, Jesus onJy is my Saviour." Women sold the butcher meat in the market. Four of them were converted to Christ. One, a woman over sjx feet high, haq been a notorious cb,aract(}f
THE INQUISITION IN MEXICO
-smoked, drank, cursed and swore. She was soon known to be changed. As she sold the meat I have seen her speak to her customers about their souls. On one occasion she took up a piece of meat, gave it a chop, then looked at the customer and said: "If you don't go to church for salvation you'll be lost." Another chop at the meat and another chop at the customer, and that finished that particular transaction; and then for another. A man was converted, and his landlord called him from his village, eleven miles from Corunna. "You must either leave the Protestant meeting or my house and land." "I'll leave the meeting," was the reply. "Do as I do," said the landlord. " I read the Bible I got from them privately. " "We will," said the tenant. So the tenant and his wife read the Bible privately, and read one day that Christ would be ashamed of them before His Father and the holy angels who were ashamed of Him. They feared that word and returned to the meetings. The landlord called them. "Yes, we have gone back to the meetings. We are afraid that otherwise Christ would be ashamed of us before His Father and' the holy angels," said the man. " You must leave the house and land," said the landlord. "At once ; if you will allow me anything for the labor bestowed on it, well and good; if not, take it, labor and all." The landlord was astonished, and knew he would find few such honest men as John, and said: "Well, John, you can keep the house and lands; and if anyone molests you about your religion, send him to me." John went home and offered the largest room in the house for the meetings in his village, and shortly after his wife and he gave a room all ready furnished with platform and seats for Gospel meetings; and the meetings have been held in it ever since. Indeed, the work in Corunna and neighborhood has continued till this day; not in our hands; but after we left to preach in other towns and villages of Galicia, the converts continued the meetings till God raised up others to go on with the work.
When we came out to Spain in 1873 we had a conversation with the president of the college, that Greatheart the Second-C. H. Spurgeonwhen he said: "So you are going to Spain and trusting God for support in money matters ~" " Yes." "Would you not rather go under a committee~" "No." "Neither would I," said Mr. Spurgeon. We reckoned that if God wanted us in Spain He would support us there; and though many supporters have gone to heaven, others have been raised up, and we have been helped hitherto.
THE INQUISITION IN MEXICO.
BY MISS LAURA M. LATIMER.
The heavy, massive door of the Inquisition creaked upon its hinges as it opened and' shut me in. I passed up the broad stone stairway, along , th~ wide corridor, under the arches of ..t..h~ e loftr stone columns, to the room my friends had prepared for me. It had been the covercd way to the Inquisition, and was of most astonishing proportions for a bedroom. In the centre of the room was a large brass bedstead. Beautiful lace curtains were gracefully draped around thc brass rods, that reached nearly to the ceiling, and with such an imposing canopy it lookcd as though it might have been the couch of an empress. In the dim light of the tiny lamp the dark, uncanny corners seemed to me to be only hiding places for the shadowy forms of those cruel monks who had been driven from Mexico years ago. I passcd back again down the stone stairway, through the open court to the dining-room. The room had been enlarged. Twelve cartloads of human skeletons my friends found in that mysterious wall four yards thick. The mortar had been made out of the dust of dead men's bones. The horrors of the place oppresscd me, and I was glad when the evening meal was over and my friends led the way to the parlor. The theological students had gathered around the organ with violins, cornets, and flutes, and as I entered the room they commenced playing so gayly the air " Bonnie Annie Laurie," that I soon forgot the ghostly terrors of that gloomy building. But how strange it seemed to me-the Inquisition of Mexico transformed into a theological seminary of the Methodist Episcopal Church! The great, gloomy, sunless stone structure, with its grated windows and brick floors and unwritten histories of untold horrors, erected to crush Protestantism, had become the training school for Mexican missionaries.
The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico had become very rich. The cathedrals were ablaze with gold and jewels. A statue of the Assumption was said to cost $1,089,000. It required two men to lift thc candlesticks of solid gold. The statues of the saints were covered with precious stones. The high altar was the richest in the world. The crosses were studded with amethysts and diamonds. The annual revenue of the clergy from gifts, charities, and parochial dues was more than the entire aggregate revenues of the country, derived from all its customi't and internal taxes.
The wealth of the Church was hundreds of millions of dollars, but the nation was impoverished. The war of Independence had devastated the country. The trcasury was empty, the soldiers were unpaid. The widows and orphans of the noble patriots were suffering for bread. At this time of dire necessity the Government asked of the Catholic Church a loan of $14,000,000, but it was refused.
Congress decided to confiscate the Church property in order to save the country from bankruptcy, and convents, nunneries, and monasteries were offered for sale. And then commenced the struggle between the Roman Catholic Church party and the "Liberals," and there followed a series of revolutions that plunged the country deeper and deeper in misery. A few miles from the city of Oaxaca are the ruins of the wonderful palaces of Mitla, the home of the ancient Zapotec kings. The rocky spur of the Sierra lladre has a wildness of beauty here that is unsurpassed. Near Oaxaca, in the year 1806, Benito Juarez was Dorn. The little Zapotec Indian boy was left an orphan when only three years old, and at / the age of twelve he fled from his cruel master and was sheltered by a good Franciscan lay brother, who taught him to read and write. In the year 1834 he was licensed to practise law, and soon became judge of the Supreme Court. He rose rapidly to distinction j was for several years Gov- ernor of his native State, and in the year 1858 he was President of Mexico.
Juarez was the leader of the" Liberal" party. The Liberals fought for free schools, a free press, and universal religious toleration.
The Catholic Church party appealed to the Pope at Rome for help to overthrow the Republic. An army of French troops were sent to aid them, and Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, was crowned Emperor of Mexico. Juarez was driven to the very boundary line of Mexico, and there he appealed to the United States for help. Our President sent a messenger to Napoleon IlL, demanding the recall of his French troops, for no foreign army would be permitted to remain on American shores. The French army left the country, Maximilian was besieged at Queretaro, tried by a court-martial and condemned to be shot.
The Princess Salm-Salm rode one hundred and sixty miles in a carriage, to San Luis Potosi, to see President Juarez to plead for the life of the Emperor. She said: "It was eight o'clock in the evening when I went-to see Juarez, who received me at once. He looked pale and suffering him_ self. With trembling lips I plead for the life of the Emperor. The President said that he could not grant it; the Emperor must die to-mor- row. I fell on my knees sobbiJJg, and plead with words that came from my heart, but which I I)annot remember. The President tried to raise me. With tears in his ey~s, he answered in a low, sad voice: 'I am grieved, madam, to see Y1)U thus on your knees before me, but if all the kings and queens of E'U'ope were in your place I could not spare his life. It is not I who take it. It is the people, and the law, and if I should not do its will, the people would take his life and mine, too.' The wife of General Miramon came into the room, leading by the hand her two little children. It was a most heartrending scene to hear the poor wife and little ones praying for the life of their father. Senora Miramon fainted and was carried out of the room. These trying scenes were too much for Juarez. For three days he kept his room and could see no one."
Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was the brother of the Emperor of Austria. He was brother-in-law of the King of Belgium, cousin of t.he . Queen of Spain, cousin of the Queen of England and Empress of India. The man who made every throne in Europe tremble when he signed the death-warrant of the Emperor was a Zapotec Indian. This man, kind to a fallen foe, tender to the suffering, was nevertheless formidable. 1Vith black, piercing eyes, a mouth of inflexible decision, the face calm and serene, he had a bearing as royal as those Zapotec kings, among whose deserted palaces he had played in his childhood.
1S93.J 1'RE HEY. A. W. Mt11mAY, OF SAMOA. 18B
Juarez had paid his generals and soldiers in script, to be redeemed by the sale of the confiscated church property, and convents, monasteries, and inquisitions were offered for sale. No Catholic dare buy this sacred property, for the archbishop had forbidden it. With the fall of the Empire the way had been opened for the missionaries. But no Catholic would sell any property to a Protestant, and so it came that many of those costly buildings were purchased at a very low price. The old convents and monasteries purchased by the boards of foreign missions were often of startling proportions, and with an overwhelming air of grandflur about the lofty columns, broad corridors, and spacious courts; and so this is the way it came about that the Inquisition is the property of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Again I visited the theological seminary at Puebla. A large, beautiful garden, in the heart of the city, covering half a block, and which had once belonged to a famous convent, had been purchased for the students. Surrounded by a high wall, nothing of the noise and confusion of the busy city could be heard within those thick, high, gray stone walls. The figtrees were laden with their purple fruit. The vines hung full of luscious grapes. The jessamines and rose- bushes were clinging to the crevices of the walls, just as fragrant and pretty as they were more than a hundred years ago, when gentle nuns trimmed the vines and rested in those rustic seats under those great forest trees. I could see the theological students with their books everywhere in the garden-on the stone seats by the fountain, or under the shady trees, or on the broad corridors or balconies of their new home. The damp, dark cloisters of that sunless, cheerless, gloomy building had been abandoned. The Inquisition was vacant and deserted, but the huge key hung upon the wall, as harmless now as the bloody key of the Bastile, that I saw at Mount Vernon, the present of Lafayette to Washington.
THE REV. A. W. MURRAY, OF SAMOA.
BY THE REV. ROBERT STEEL, D.D., SYDNEY.
One of the few remaining contemporaries of the great apostle of Polynesia, John Williams, passed away from earth at Sydney, New South Wales, on July 8th, 1892. The Rev. A. W. Murray had been identified with the Samoan Mission for more than half a century, and witnessed the commencement and the triumph of Christian missions in several groups of the South Pacific Ocean. His life stretched over the most active half of the century of modern evangelistic enterprise, and gathers around it much of the interest attached to the wonderful success of the cause of Christ in Polynesia. He was born at Jedburgh, in Scotland, in 1811, and was brought up in the Church of Scotland. The wife of the Rev. Robert Lundie, minister of the parish, was the means of his firl"t religious impressions. She took a special interest in Christian work ill the parish, and was afterward well known as the wife of the Rev. Remy Duncan, D.D., minister of the parish of Ruthwell, author of the" Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons," in which his wife bore a part, and the founder of savings. banks. Mrs. Duncan also wrote a book on " America as I Found It," after a visit to that country.
Mr. Murray joined the fellowship of the Church of Scotland at Kelso at the age of seventeen. When he decided for Christ he also devoted himself to His service, and cherished an intense longing to engage in mis- sionary work in the foreign field. For this purpose he offered himself to the directors of the London Missionary Society, and was accepted. He was sent for training first to the Rev. Richard Cecil, M.A., the rector of Tiervey, a well-known evangelical clergyman of the Church of England; and afterward to Homerton College, London. Mr. Murray was thoroughly in earnest, and did his utmost to prepare for his work. He was one of a band specially selected by the directors of the London Missionary Society in response to the appeals of the apostolic John Williams, then on a visit to England, to reinforce the South Sea Mission.' So long as fifty-seven years ago, in 1835, Mr. Murray with his young and devoted wife sailed from London for his far distant sphere. He was one of a band of six missionaries, all except one being accompanied by their wives, who sailed in the Dttnottar Castle, a small craft of one hundred and eighty tons, chartered for the occasion. The route lay by Cape Horn, which was passed in the depth of winter amid intense cold and storms. Provisions were short and poor, accommodation was scanty, and the voyage long and trying; but it came to an end, lind in April, 1836, they anchored at Tahiti, where they witnessed the triumphs of the Gospel. Mr. Murray was appointed to Tutuila, one of the easterly islands of the Samoan group. In June, 1836, they were landed along with Rev. G. Barnden; but before settling a visit was paid to those islands of the group where missionaries had been already settled. In July they were introduced to the chiefs and people of Tutuila, and were left by the brethren to fulfil their mission. The island was about twenty miles in length by five or six in breadth; the surface was high, broken, and of a volcanic appearance. Its harbor of Pangopango was magnificent. The natives were about four thousand, and they were in some degree prepared to welcome the missionaries. 'Vhalers sometimes called at the island, and Captain Morgan, commanding one, was found to be a devoted Christian. He remained three weeks with :Mr. Murray at a time wben sllch a visit was unusually welcome. It was while Captain Morgan was there that he started the idea of a mission sbip, and Mr. Murray suggested that he should offer himself to the directors as captain. He at once did so, and the Samoan missionaries strongly recommended him. On his way horne the vessel which he commanded was wrecked off the Australian coast, but he escaped and reached England just in time to be appointed to the mission vessel, the Camden. For fifteen years he did eminent service to the missionaries, to one of whom he owed his knowledge of the Saviour. In those early days communication with England took long; it was actually three years before Mr. Murray received letters from Britain! Mr. Williams returned with 8 band of new missionaries in 1838, and in 1839 perished at the hands of the heathen on Eromanga while endeavoring to introduce native teachers. It was a great blow to the Samoan Mission ; but in Divine Providence it led to renewed efforts to evangelize the New Hebrides. When the call was made for a brother missionary to take teachers to these islands, the Rev. T. Heath, one of the Samoan brethren, volunteered, on the express condition that if he too perished in the attempt, another brother would take up the fallen colors and follow him! He succeeded, with some difficulty, in locating teachers; but these faithful pioneers had a severe ordeal to pass through among the savage people of Eromanga. It was as much as ever they could do to survive, and that only by the assistance of some of the more friendly natives at the risk of their lives.
Mr. Murray was an earnest evangelist when he mastered the language, and he animated his teachers with a like spirit. His colleague, Mr. Barnden, was drowned while bathing on December 31st, 1838. The whole work of the mission on the island then devolved upon Mr. Murray. There were thirty villages, and the people had become anxious for Christian instruction. As many as three hundred were candidates for baptism. Great times of awakening followed, about the very season of the revival in Scotland, in 1839-40, and many were converted to God. About this period Mr. Murray had the joy of welcoming new missionaries, one of whom was the son of the R~v. R. Lundie, his parish minister at Kelso. Mr. G. A. Lundie, however, died in 1841. During that year Mr. Murray accompanied the mission vessel on a voyage to the New Hebrides and Loyalty Islands to locate teachers in favorable openings. He had the honor of introducing Christian teachers to Futuna and Aneityum ; hut those who had been left on Eromanga on a former voyage, after the death of John Williams, had to be removed, owing to the cruelty of the natives. On arriving at Sydney a new reinforcement of missionaries were found waiting, two of whom, Messrs. Nishet and Turner, with their young wives, were specially designated for Tanna. Their settlement was unpropitious, and as they were in danger from the savage people, they had to escape for their lives.
In another voyage, in 1845, Mr. Murray was on board with Dr. Turner, and introduced native teachers to the island of Efate. On resuming his work at Tutuila, five years after his commencement, he could not fail to mark the contrast in the condition of the people. The churches were crowded with eager worshippers, and the work of conviction and conversion seemed to be even greater than before. There were not wanting trials and disappointments, sometimes from the violent conduct of heathen chiefs and sometimes from the defection of weak converts. In 1847 Rev. John Geddie, his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Archibald arrived from Nova Scotia, desirous of founding a Presbyterian mission in the South Seas. Mr. Geddie had, like the great pilgrim father, Abraham, gone forth, not knowing whither he went. He and Mrs. Geddie stayed with Mr. and MrE'. Murray till the John Williams could take them to the New Hebrides, where a faint hope had appeared for the settlement of a missionary. Mr. Murray accompanied the party, and in 1848 Aneityum was occupied. One of the Samoan missionaries, Mr. Powell, remained for a year with the Geddies. In 1849 Mr. Murray visited the New Hebrides again, and cheered the party in that outpost of Christian work, and removed Mr. Powell to Samoa. Shortly after his return home, Mr. Murray resumed his work; but his wife's health necessitated a change. Before that occurred, a severe hurricane devastated the island. Cocoanut and breadfrnit trees, banana plantations, native houses, and the church were destroyed. Food became scarce, and death followed famine. Only one provisIOn remained of great value in Samoa in such times-a coarse yam grew spontaneously in the bush, deep in the soil, and escaped the effects of the storm. Bananas were nearly all destroyed. There has, however, been found a merciful provision in the latter case. When John Williams was in England, Mr. (afterward Sir) Joseph Paxton. gardener to the Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth, gave him many plants to be tried in the South Sea Islands. Among them was a root of the Chinese banana, which is short in its height and yet singularly fruitful. On reaching Samoa, Mr. Williams thought this root dead and dried, and threw it away. Mr. Mills, one of the missionaries, picked it up and planted it on trial. It grew, and increased so rapidly that it was highly valued. Every teacher took roots of it when he went to pioneer the Gospel into other islands. At the present day the MUGa ChinensiG, or Cavendishii, is found everywhere from Hawaii to New Guinea! Famines of food in many cases of hurricane have been prevented by means of this dwarf banana.
In 1851 Mr. Murray exchanged spheres of labor with the Rev. J. P. Sunderland, and occupied Manono, where he remained for three ye!1.rs. In 1854, when the Rev. W. Mills retired, he was transferred to the important harbor station of Apia, in Dpolu. This beautiful port he calls " the queen of the Pacific." While discharging the duties of this station, he also supplied for a time the place of the Rev. C. Hardie at the institution for training native teachers at Malua. There 'he had for his colleague the Rev. George Turner, LL.D., who rendered very great service to that work for many years, and latterly, along with the Rev. Henry Nisbet, LL.D. Both of these brethren took a leading part in Scripture translation and in the revision of several editioas of the Bible printed in London. Dr. Turner issued the latest one in 1886 after careful revisio~. Some 75,600 copies of the Bible and portions have been circulated. Mr. Murray also rendered some service, though in a less degree, to the work of revising the Samoan translation of the Scriptures. He did eminent service in mission voyaging, and in performing the work of an evangelist. On one of his voyages to the New Hebrides he spent three months with Mr. Geddie, and consulted about the desirableness of getting a mission vessel for that group. Missionaries had by that time been settled on Tanna and Eromanga, and teachers on Aniwa, Futuna, Efate, and other islands to the north. Serious disasters, too, had occurred. The Gordons had been killed in 1861, the missionaries on Tanna threatened and obliged to flee, and native teachers had been in peril. It was felt that more frequent visits of a mission ship were required. This led to Mr. Paton's visit to Australia, and the successful effort to secure the first ])ayspring. Mr. Murray hailed this accession to the missionary fleet, as he had the cause of Christ in the New Hebrides much at heart. He was always forward in the extension of the kingdom of Christ. In 1865 he went with a party of teachers to the Ellice Group ; he repeated the visit and sflttled new pioneers on heathen islands. On some islands candidates for baptism were met, examined, and admitted to the Christian Church. Mission voyaging was a special delight of Mr. Murray, and he had great tact in dealing with the most barbarous islanders while endeavoring to gain their consent to the introduction of native teachers.
Except during visits to Australia, on account of the health of his wife, in 1853 and 1858, Mr. Murray labored at Samoa. A marvellous change had passed over these islands, fourteen in number. Mr. Williams, in a vessel of a most romantic history, as it was entirely of his own construction, sailed for that group in 1830 with a band of native teachers, who were allowed to remain. Two years afterward he visited the scene of their labors, and was overjoyed to find at one place a congregation of fifty Christians, distinguished from the heathen by a band of white cloth on their arms, and who had been enlightened by one whose only Christian instruction had been obtained from a native teacher on another island. There was a great desire for missionaries. When these came, they found a people prepared for the Lord. In ten years the faith of Jesus Christ prevailed. In Samoa, out of 34,265 of the native population, 26,493 are under the instruction of the London Missionary Society'S agents. There are some under the care of Wesleyan missionaries, and others under Roman Catholic priests. A seminary of 72 young men preparing for the ministry had been establiJhed. As much as £1200 had been contributed in a single year to the funds of the society by the Christian converts. Commerce had also come to the group, and the people had ad· vanced in the useful arts.
Mr. Murray adopted Baptist .views during one of his visits to Sydney, and he took charge of a small congregation in one of the suburbs for two years; but his heart was in the mission, and in 1863 he returned to Apia, where he continued for seven years.
His wife's health requiring a change, he proceeded to Lifu, one of the Loyalty Islands, where a large company of the natives had already been gathered into the Church. Mr. Murray had not been long in Lifu when the New Guinea Mission was proposed. A company of native teachers volunteered to act as pioneers in the new field, and Messrs. Macfarlane and Murray started on the important enterprise of settling them in 1871. It was a hazardou!I work, but it was successful. Mr. Murray took a second voyage to New Guinea with his wife in 1872 with eight native teachers from th… Loyalty Islands. Mr. (now Dr.) Wyatt Gill brought six more from the Hervey Islands. These were placed on islands in the Torres Straits and on New Guinea. Mr. Murray spent two years at Cape York watching the difficult mISSIOn. It was an anxious time, for some teachers had sickened, some had died, and some were murdered. The work, however, went on. The ranks were reinforced, and European missionaries were settled. Now a Christian Church is on New Guinea, and the New Testament is printed in the Motu language under the care of that noble missionary, Rev. W.o.. Lawes, who has just brought it from London.
Mr. Murray returned to Sydney in 1875, having spent forty years in active mission work. He then retired from direct service in connection with the society, but not from service to the cause. He visited England in 1875. In 1863 he had published a large and valuable book on " Missions in Western Polynesia." In 1876 he issued a narrative of his" Forty Years' Mission Work in Polynesia." He next prepared" The Martyrs of Polynesia," a striking record of those " who loved not their lives unto the death" for the sake of Christ. Then followed "Eminent Workers for Christ," a series of biographies. And he crowned his labors by publishing in 1888 "The Bible in the Pacific," a most interesting record of all the translations of the Holy Scriptures into Polynesian languages. His pen was never idle. lIe wrote in periodicals throughout all his time of retirement, and he left several MSS. ready for the press. He fr,equently preached during the same period, and always seemed happy in declaring the Gospel of Christ. He was a devout man, of great fervor of spirit, of burning zeal, and of marked catholicity. All who knew him loved him, for he loved all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He died in his eightyfirst year, and his funeral was attended by representatives of all the missionary societies, and by a large company of Christian friends who had loved the man and honored the missionary. That might be said of him which Wesley said of Fletcher: "I was intimately acquainted with him for above thirty years, . . . and in all that time I never heard him speak an improper word or saw him do an improper action. To conclude, many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years, but one equal to him I have not known, one so inwardly and out· wardly devoted to God."
Mrs. Murray was long an invalid, but grew in the divine life. She passed away to her Saviour in 1882. Three years ~fterwarJ Mr. Murray was married again to a widow lady resident near Sydney. In her fello"- ship and ministering attention he lived seven years. He left only one son -an invalid -and five grandchildren.
DAVID BRAINERD
The Samoan Islands, where Mr. Murray labored so long, are all evangelized. Nearly all the young people can read and write. The nentrality of the group has been recognized by a conference of the powers of Great "Britain, Germany, and the United States. The rights of the citizens of these States with respect to trade, residence, and protection are equal. A native king has been elected, and a supreme court has been established, presided over by a judge from Germany. The climate is delightful, and is becoming a resort of such as desire a pleasant residence with an equable temperature. May nothing disturb the blessed work of missions there !
DAVID BRAINERD: HIS CHARACTER, WORK, AND RELATION TO THE MODERN MISSIONARY MOVEMEN'l'.
BY REV. W. D. SEXTON, DETROIT, MICH.
David Brainerd was one of a small but brilliant galaxy of names that appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century. Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley were both born in the same year-1703 j George Whitefield in 1714 and David Brainerd in 1718. These are names that still shine with unfading lustre. Individually and collectively they made profound impressions upon their own time, and bequeathed to subsequent generations a rich legacy of Gospel doctrine and Christian life. Both in England and America they arrested the ebbing tide of spiritual life, and set new bounds to the manifestation of God's power in reclaiming and sanctifying sinful men. It is no exaggeration to assert that they revolutionized the Christian thought and practice of their age.
In this group the names of the two Americans, Jonathan Edwards and David Brainerd, are indissolubly linked together. Jonathan Edwards was the representative character of ~ew England theology j David Brainerd was the representative character of New England piety. The former has been justly called" the apostle of Christian doctrine j" the latter, "the apostle of the Christian life." Each of these men exerted a marked influence upon the other. Neither would have been what he was without the other. Taken together, they mark an era in the development of Christian doctrine and the spirit of evangelism.
David Brainerd was born at Haddam, Conn., April 20th, 1718. He was born on a Sabbath day, a fit prophecy of his holy life. According to his own testimony, he was born again on a Sabbath day, July 12th, 1739. He began his missionary career among the Indians in April, 1743, and died at the home of Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Mass., October 9th, 1747. For so short a life, it was marvellous in its influence upon subsequent generations.
As a boy he was not remarkable for precociousness, except along the line of unusual thoughtfulness upon teligious themes. From a boy he WI8 somewhat sober /lIld J1lUClI inclined to melanchol!, a characteristiq which increased as he grew older and at times became a source of great distress. At the age of seven or eight he became greatly concerned about his soul's salvation, and was specially terrified at the thought of death. His anxiety drove him to the performance of religious duties, but he found no satisfaction in them. He found it a melancholy business, which de. stroyed his eagerness for play. This concern, however, was of short duration, and left him at ease in Zion and without hope in the world. He continued in this state of little concern about his personal salvation till he was about thirteen years of age. At this time a mortal sickness prevailed at Haddam which greatly excited and alarmed him. This turned his attention anew to religious things, and from this time onward he was much engaged in religious duties j but he found little satisfaction, because they were performed, as he himself afterward discovered, from an entirely wrong motive. Just at this time in his life he was greatly distressed and saddened by the death of his mother. His father had previously died, and he was thus left an orphan at the age of fourteen. Naturally inclined to melancholy and to morbid self.introspection, these events deepened and intensified the sombreness of his life.
At the age of twenty he began to apply himself to study, with the design of fitting himself for college. According to the custom of the time, he put himself under the instruction of his pastor, at whose home"in Had· dam he then lived. He withdrew himself entirely from the society of young people, and gave himself exclusively to his studies and religious exer· cises. He read the Bible through .twice in less than a year, and applied himself assiduously to secret devotions. These were years of intense longing after spiritual comfort and rest, of constant struggling with the hardness of his own heart. During this period we find increasing mani. festation of a marked feature of his character. This was his habit of introspection. By it he made the most careful analysis of his own motives, and cultivated the keen discrimination which discerned the difference between true and false religion. So thoroughly and continuously did he analyze his own thought and affection, that he looked upon himself as the very worst of sinners. Sometimes he wondered that God would permit such a wicked person as he to live. The thought of our time is so occupied with the material and the external, so unused to such introspection and self·analysis, that we can scarcely understand the pain of such spiritual vivisection as Brainerd practised upon himself. It is certain that what the theologians call the" law work" was thoroughly and painfully accomplished in him. It is certain also that this process laid the foundations broad and deep for the remarkable piety of his after life. Unquestionably much of the shallowness of spiritual life in our generation arises from a shallow conviction of sin, which precedes the work of Divine grace in the soul. Many are now brought into the kingdom of God by a hot-house process which results in many blossoms of promise, but in little fruit "brought to 'perfectio~," For IUontqs Brahwrd ~oped in darkness, grievously burdened with a sense of sin. 'While not asserting the necessity of such prolonged agony in entering the kingdom, we may assert with confidence that "in a deep sense of sin, more perhaps than in anything else, abides a saving knowledge of God." Gradually Brainerd was led to see that all his religious duties were performed from a motive of selfish. ness, to secure his own happiness, and not from any respect to the glory of God. The realization of his condition greatly saddened and distressed him.
On Sabbath morning, July 12th, 1739, as he was taking his customary walk in a solitary place, a new experience dawned upon his soul. He describes himself as in a mournful and melancholy state. He tried to pray, but found no heart to engage in that or any other duty. He felt that the Spirit of God had quite left him. After trying to pray for nearly half an hour, and while walking in a dark, thick grove, a vision of unspeakable glory opened to the view and apprehension of his soul. This vision was a disclosure of the character and attributes of God such as he had never known. His description of it reminds us of a SImilar disclosure of God to Isaiah when he was called to the prophet~c office. His melancholy was dispelled, and he was so enraptured that he says he was " delighted and captivated with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God." This event marked the beginning of an era in his life. The peace which he then received was not of sustained duration. Gathering clouds soon dimmed its radiance. Still this was a real disclosure of God to Brainerd, and he never forgot the radiance and joy of that day.
In September following this event he entered Yale College. He began his college course with great reluctance, lest he might not be able to lead a life of strict religion. It was while at New Haven that he came in contact with a movement which very largely gave direction to his whole after career. His relation to this movement gave rise to the saddest episode of his life, and at the same time intensified his zeal for the salvation of souls. This movement was rightly called" The Great Awakening." It is difficult for us now to appreciate fully the exigency which gave rise to the movement. Practical religion had fallen into decay. Faith had decayed into formalism. Christianity had become with many a dogma. At least it was no longer a manifest life in many of its professed adherents. Orthodoxy consisted in church-membership and the knowledge of theological shibboleths. The complicated relations of Church and State were then still unsettled. These relations made church-membership a political necessity. The result was a church, many of whose members were utter strangers to the experimental knowledge of religion. It was openly maintained that piety was not a necessary condition of church-membership. It was even claimed and publicly maintained that conversion was not a necessary qualification for the work of the Gospel ministry. With such notiolll> eutertained and defeudeo, it was certainly time for an awakening. The one idea which was emphasized in this movement above all others was the necessity of the new birth. We are gravely assured that this idea had been generally neglected, and in some Christian communities was utterly unknown. It was like the driven ploughshare in new soil. It caused intense religious agitation. It gave a mighty impetus to the cause of practical righteousness. The movement began in Northampton, Mass., under the searching and powerful preaching of Jonathan Edwards. The news of the remarkable revival at Northampton spread and produced a profound impression. The result was that when Whitefield visited New England in 1740, he found the soil everywhere prepared. Great revivals attended and followed his work. It is not surpri!ling, when we consider the situation, that the movement developed imprudences and extravagances. We could scarcely expect that the wheat would be wholly devoid of chaff. Amid much that was excellent there was also much that was unadvi!led in action and utterance.
The movement reached New Haven when Brainerd was in his Sophomore year. His soul was stirred. His was just the nature to be intensely moved by this religious quickening. He entered into the movement with zeal and enthusiasm. He himself afterward declared that he was guilty of imprudences and indecent heats. In his Junior year an imprudent remark, in regard to the piety of one of the authorities in the college, led to a difference between himself and the Faculty which resulted in his leaving college. His sensitive nature was deeply wounded by what he considered the unfair treatment which he received in connection with this event. The scar remained through life. During the year and a half that followed he made several attempts at reconciliation. At the time when his class graduated he presented to the Faculty a written apology, which is a model of Christian forgiveness, courtesy, and fairness. It was a sad day for him when he saw his classmates recei~-e their degrees, while he was destined to carry through life the brand of an outlaw. He harbored no resentment, but this event deepened and intensified the melancholy which was a part of his natural temperament.
The interval of a little more than a year between his departure from college and the beginning of his missionary career was spent in preparation for the Gospel ministry. Two things are pre-eminent in his experience during this year : the first, a morbid desire to die, and the other a passionate longing for the conversion of the heathen. The sense of his own sin and unworthiness, always so vivid, and increased now by the refusal of the college authorities to be reconciled, threw him into great dejection of spirits. He frequently breathed out his intense desire to be freed from the burdens of life. In his longings for the conversion of the heathen are manifest the risings of those characteristics which were destined to stamp his influence forever upon the world's history. At this time he declared that it was no matter to him when nor where nor how Christ should send hilll. '.I'he desire that God would enlarge HIS kingdom was the constant theme of his prayers. He longed to be sent among the heathen, but the way seemed closed, so that in August of 1742 he said he had almost lost his hopes of God's sending him afar among the heathen.
But while God was preparing the workman for the work, He was also preparing the path to the work. While Brainerd was pouring out his ardent prayers for the heathen and longing to be sent among them, God was stirring the hearts of Christian men in Scotland and America to begin a mission among the Indians. In this very year-1742-the Scotch Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge appointed three minis- ters of the Presbytery of New York as their commissioners, and authorized them to send· two missionaries to the Indians. These commissioners selected a Mr. Horton as their first missionary, whom they sent to Long Island. The second whom they selected was David Brainerd. Their proposal to him met a most hearty response. He had been longing for just such an opportunity to glorify God.
His first appointment was at Kaunameek, about half way between Stockbridge, Mass., and Albany, N. Y. Here, in what was then a lonely and melancholy wilderness, he began that career of missionary work which for complete self-abnegation and loyal service has never been surpassed and seldom equalled since apostolic times. The privations of the most distant and solitary foreign missionary at present are not greater than the privations which he endured. For many months his bed consisted of a heap of straw in a floorless log house. His food was hasty pudding, boiled corn, bread baked in the ashes, and sometimes a little meat and butter. Of him it might be said truly that it was his meat to do the will of God. His complete abandon to this work is evidenced by the fact that he sold the little patrimony which he possessed, and planned to use the proceeds in the Lord's work. He burned the bridges behind him.
It was the original intention of the commissioners to open a mission at the Forks of the Delaware, but for prudential reasons the execution of the plan had been dealyed. At the end of Brainerd's first year at Kaunameek the way appeared open to carry out the original design. Just at this time he had several flattering calls to accept the pastorate, but having put his hands to the plough, Brainerd was not the man to look back. He declined these calls, and started for what was then the distant post at the Forks of the Delaware. He now manifested a growing desire to do some special work for God. He himself says about this time, "Last year I longed to be prepared for a world of glory, but of late all my concern is for the conversion of the heathen, and for that end I long to live." It was this passionate longing for the salvation of souls which, growing stronger and stronger, urged him onward in his career of heroic toil. In addition to his work at the mission station, he undertook long journeys westward to the Susquehanna, to carry the Gospel to the Indian settlements upon the banks of that river. These journeys were always accompanied with much privation and sometimes with positive suffering. Through the unbroken wilderness he pushed his way, sometimes overtaken with storms, sometimes prostrated with a burning fever which detained him in the lone and terrible wilderness, and yet through all his sufferings he utte!"ed not a word of complaint, except that he was not living as near to God as hE' ardently desired. When he reached the distant settlements no comfortable lodging place awaited him. The" prophet's chamber" awaiting him was a wretched corn-crib, into which he crawled and passed the night. His thought was never of his own comfort. He saved not himself. His anxiety was that God might be glorified in himself and in the extension of Christ's kingdom. In the midst of his inl'essant labors and fatiguing journeys he was constantly suffering from poor health. Sometimes for several weeks he would be unable to attend to his accustomed duties. At such times he was greatly distressed, not on account of his personal suffering, but because he could do so little for the Master. He longed to do much in a little time, and any cessation of work made him feel that he was living for nothing; but in the midst of all his suffering he was constantly breathing out his longing for more conformity to the image of Christ. He was constantly hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
He spent a little over a year at the Forks of the Delaware together with these journeys to the Susquehanna. At the end of the year he was more dejected and discouraged than usual. Thus far, after two years of prayer and toil, he had not a single convert to encourage him. He had been zealous in work, he had agonized in prayer, but the fruit had not yet appeared. All this time he had preached and taught through an interpreter, and even the interpreter was still a stranger to the saving grace of God. This was an occasion of great anxiety and sorrow to the lonely mISSIOnary. The truth which he spoke with so much earnestness necessarily lost much of its force through the coldness of the interpreter. Is it any wonder that this man, who was by natural temperament inclined to melancholy, should become discouraged ~ He was so disappointed and saddened that he contemplated giving up the work at the end of the year j but the dawn of a brighter day was nearer than he thought. In ways that he least expected God granted to him the desire of his heart.
About eighty miles southeast of the Forks of the Delaware was a small settlement of Indians at a place called Crossweeksung. Brainerd determined to visit this place and present the story of the Gospel. He found them peculiarly susceptible to the truth. They were immediately interested and impressed. The news of Brainerd's presence and preaching spread abroad, and the natives began to flock in from every direction. It was here in the following eighteen months that his ardent desires were at last gratified. With increasing joy, we may say it reverently of him, he saw of the,travail of his soul and was satisfied. The revival which now accompanied his labors was one of the most remarkable in the history of Christian enterprise.
Suddenly there fell upon the whole Indian population what Brainerd called "a most surprising coneern." From all parts of the eountry the people came streaming in, eager to hear the Gospel. They listened in speechless interest to his preaching, and many fell down in frantic distress of soul. The air would sometimes be full of their cries for mercy Multitudes were overwhelmed in distress of soul. This condition was not brought about by the presentation of the terrors of the law. Brainerd did not preach to the Indians such sermons as Jonathan Edwards's famous sermon, " Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." His presentation of truth was rather along the line of what we call the doctrines of Divine grace. He says that under this preaching sometimes the power of God seemed to descend upon the assembly like the rushing of a mighty wind, and with astonishing energy bore down everything before it. He compares it to "the irresistible force of a mighty torrent or swelling deluge, that with its unsupportable weight and pressure bears down and sweeps b~fore it whatever is in its way." This was not a mourning which ended in tears. Many of the wretched savages were rescued from superstition and gross wickedness, and gave ample evidence that they had passed from darkness into the marvellous light of God:s children.
It was painfully evident, however, that Brainerd's work could not be long continued. His physical strength could not endure the strain. During this single summer he travelled more than three thousand miles, often for several weeks preaching nearly every day and faithfully training the converts by means of catechetical classes. He organized the converts into a church, the first church ever organized on this continent solely of Indian Christians. The following summer, as he continued his work, failing health was constantly pressing upon him. Consumption, that grim monster of disease, had fastened its relentless hold upon him. His heroic efforts to continue his work are exceedingly pathetic. He did not give up until absolutely forced by constantly increasing weakness. In the spring of 1747 he reluctantly bade his congregation farewell and turned his face to New England, still hoping even against hope that he might rally and return to his beloved people. He went to the home of Jonathan Edwards, to whose daughter he was engaged in marriage, with the, ardent hope that rest might restore him to health. He there consulted the family physician, who told him frankly that his life was nearing its end. He was not at all disturbed by this announceme!lt. He had too often longed for death to be terrified when told that it was approaching. He rallied sufficiently to make a visit to Boston, where he interested some prominent Christians in the conversion of the Indians. To the very last he was consecrated to his chosen work. The result of this visit to Boston was the raising of money and the sending of two missionaries to the Six Nations. While there he was brought very low, but again lie rallied and was permitted to return to Northampton, Mass., where he died at the home of Jonathan Edwards, surrounded by the tender ministry of friends, October 9th, 1747. .
He had not yet reached the thirtieth mile-stone in life's journey-a
EA!lT AFRICAN MIB~IONI!!
short life, yet imperishable in its influence upon the progress of the Redeemer's kingdom. It was a life of deep humility, intense longing after God, and magnificent heroism. When duty called, he went forward unflinchingly. The lesson which he himself drew from the long and weary path, before he reached the consummation of his desires in the converSion of souls, was" that it is good to follow the path of duty, even in the midst of darkness and discouragement." To the account of his self.devotion, as published in his journal, the modern Church owes more than we can estimate for the spirit of evangelism which has given force to the mis· sionary movement of the present century. The story of Brainerd had something to do in stirring the mind and heart of William Carey, the " father of modern missions." Samuel Mills learned the same story from the lips of his godly mother. Henry Martyn was inspired to similar deeds of heroism in foreign lands. So the circle widens. Who can measure the power of one short life consecrated to the Master's service? If Brainerd's spirit of abandon to the cause and kingdom of Jesus Christ were to possess the whole Church of Christ, the fulfilment of precious promises would be at hand. The story of his life will never lose its power. So long as the Church of Christ eudures it will be told as an evidence of the possibilities of grace in the individual, and the supernatural power of an ever·present Christ to work miracles of grace in the conversion of souls.
EAST AFRICAN MISSIONS.
TRANSLATED BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK.
On our way from Uganda to the East Coast we pass the stations of the C. M. S. in Djaggaland (Moshi on the side of Kilimanjaro, Taveta or Taita, and SangalIa), where at last the first baptisms have taken place. The translation of the Gospel of Matthew is just going through the press.
The well-known Free Church missionary, Dr. Stewart, appears to have undertaken something of great importance for East Africa in the establishment of the missionary settlement in the domain of the chief Kilundu on the Kibwezi River. This is now in prosperous progress northward of Kilimanjaro. This industrial settlement is patterned after Lovedale, in South Africa, and is called New Lovedale. The British East African Company has contributed $48,000 toward it. It was established by a great caravan consisting of two hundred and twenty persons. This en· countered serious difficulties, especially on the two days' march through the waterless Taro waste, but happily reached its goal. Work at once began-tree-felling, house-building, road-making, planting, etc.-and in a few months there stood a little village in the African wilderness, with a pretty church, in which Sunday services are held in Swahili. They have also brought along a little herd of cattle, includillg sixty oxen. They hope by using these to relieve the poor Wakamoa womcn! on whose shoulders alone the field work has hithertq rested. They are contemplating also a second settlement at Machako, some fifteen miles northwestward.
It may not be uninteresting to say a word respecting the founder of this mission, whose future, under God, is so promising. He is now a man of sixty-one years. Born February 14th, 1831, as the son of a Scot· tish farmer, Dr. Stewart studied theology, and after having served for a short time as assistant pastor, and having found that the Free Qhurch yet hesitated to establish a mission in Central Africa, he went independently into Zambesiland. Here he accompanied Mrs. Livingstone to her hus. band, who was then on the'Shire, and was present at her death. On his way home he, at Dr. Duff's suggestion, visited Natal and Transkei, and then made a report to the home church of the prospects of missions in the regions traversed by him. During his stay in Scotland he studied medicine, and then, as a Central African mission seemed yet remote, went, in 1864, to Lovedale, which attained to its present importance under his guidance. The daughter institute of Lovedale-Blythswood, in Fingulandwas also established by him. When in 1874 Livingstone's remains were deposited in Westminster ~~bbey, Dr. Stewart was present, and it was principally his zeal to which it was owing that the two Scottish churches (the Free Church and the Establishment) were induced to take in hand their Nyasa Mission. After having first completed extensive buildings at Lovedale, Dr. Stewart, in 1876, assumed charge of the Livingstonia Mission, which under him has attained to so grand an extension. Accordingly, when the British East African Company meditated establishing a settlement like Lovedale inward from Mombasa, all eyes were turned upon this well-proved man, and after a brief stay in Scotland the youthful veteran, with the consent of his Church, undertook the execution of this difficult enterprise last summer. Just at present, after having brought things well in train, he is again at home.
A little north of Mombasa, in the Wituland, the Neukirchen Mission has its two stations-Lamu, on the island of that name, and Ngao, on the Tana River. The present force is five missionaries. Everything here is in the shell j there is barely a beginning made with a small number of scholars. Lamu, being Mohammedan, is a difficult soil. Whether Golbanti, the neighboring station to Ngao, also on the Tana, has been reestablished by the united English Free Methodists, is not clear.
The Bavarian Lutheran' Mission, whose 'field is very near Kisulutini, has now three stations-;-Djimba, Mbungu, and Ikutha. These are now pretty well established, and a small number of believers begins to be gathered. They have a good deal of trouble about starting schools.
The accounts of the English Mombasa Mission are yet defective, although a new station-Djilore-is mentioned as being opened among the Wakamba. On the other hand, the station at the ternlinus of the projected railroad has been given up. Indeed, we are not sure as to the CODtinuance of the railway itself. We come now to the German" sphere of influence," and here strike first, in Tanga, upon the first station of the German East African Society (Berlin IlL). Northwest of that is the second station-Hohenfriedbergfounded about a year ago. The third station (the first established) is at Dar·es-Salam. There is the hospital over which there has been so much discussion. From this point they are planning for a fourth station among the Wasaramo. As yet there is no intelligence of any results whatever, even at the two earlier stations. Hohenfriedberg appears the most hopeful, where some active young clergymen of regular training are at work. (In Germany university men are an exception among missionaries.) Some rather fantastic crusading plans of these young brethren are doubtless youthful fantasies, soon to pass away. We cannot believe that the committee will encourage any such.
At Panga, a little southwest of Tanga, we come upon the first of the four main districts of the Universities'Mission-namely, Usambara, with its 12 stations, Kologwe being only a year old. The number of scholars at this has risen from 330 in 1890-91 to 722, and a large number of natives are active as teachers. The last opened school, at Mlembuli, was built. entirely by the natives. Special attention is given to schools throughout the district. The second main field of the U. M. is the island of Zanzibar, with three stations, two being devoted entirely to education. They are now about erecting a mission hospital. The Swahili literature has been enriched by several new works. The mission has suffered a heavy loss in the death of Susi, the well-known servant of Livingstone, who for years had been the right hand of Bishop Steere and Bishop Smythies. The third district of the U. M. lies a good way to the south, on the river Rovuma, and now embraces five stations, at which a large number of baptisms have taken place, and the number of scholars has also increased. Fourthly and finally, the Nyasa district, with nine stations, all which, except two island stations, lie close together on the east central shore of the lake, in the Portuguese " sphere of influence." Here also gladdening progress is reported. For instance, at the central station alone, on Likoma Island, the number of the baptized has risen from 66 to 110; of the school children along the shore, from 259 to 421. A new station is planned at Isombe, in the centre of Yaoland ; to the literary treasures have been added a little catechism, a translation of Mark and of an Old Testament book.
Eastward of Bagamoyo, about a third of the way, as well to Victoria Nyanza as to Tanganyika, are found in Ugago the three stations of the Church Missionary Society, lfwapwa, Mamboia, and Kisokwe. A small number of believers has been gathered here, the Sunday services are attended by several hundred persons, and on their preaching tours the missionaries find a friendlier reception than at first.
Within the German "sphere of influence" the London Missionary Society has a station at Urambo, some thirty five miles east of Tanganyika, where a missionary physician renders services widell" sought after. The two oth~r stations of this society are at the south end of Ta~ganyika :"-'F~ambo, and the new station, Niumkurlo, right on the shor~ of the lake. There at last regular missionary work is in course, and first C0nve.rts have been baptized. We say at last, for no other Central Afr;can mission has experimented around so much and, in proportion to the sacrifice .of men and money within fifteen years, accomplished so ~ittle as this. The Report for 1891 gives a review from 1880-90 which is not very heartening. We cannot resist the impression that there has been here a lack of steady and well-advised guidance.
We come now to the Nyasa missions. Northward an'-~ ~northwestward from the lake, in the German "sphere of influence," .le first the two stations fonnded last year-vVangemannsheight, of the ',';erlin Society, and Makapalile, of the Moravians. The Berlin Society is ll:inded to push on its work vigorously, and has just appointed two additionallllen f0r this field.
The Free Church also, having given up Kararamuka, founded a new station at the north end of the lake, beyond the river Songwe, in the German " sphere of influence." It is called Uwnmdale, and was established by Dr. Kerr· Cross. It is a short two days' journey from the Moravian station Makapalile. Dr. Kerr-Cross and his companions are enchanted by the beautiful and fruitful mountain-land, whose height they estimate at from five to seven thousand feet. The Scotch brethren have been received with extreme kindness by the natives, with whom the doctor can converse in Wakonde. The women and children, it is true, are very shy. Unhappily, the missionhouse was burned as soon as built. The latest news is that the Arab slavetraders to the north of the Nyasa are already plying their accursed trade after the old fashion, and there is only too much reason to fear their hostile designs against the new stations.
The Free Church missions all lie on the west shore of the lake, and those of the Universities' Mission on the east. The two missions, so different in their ecclesiastical tone, maintain cordial terms of neighborhood and friendship. The Free Church headquarters are at Bandawe, a fresh and vigorous station, influential far and wide around. Here prevails an active missionary life. E.-ery Sunday, besides the Sunday-school, there are two numerously attended services in the vernacular, and on several days of the week Bible and catechism classes. The missionaries have been very reserved in granting baptism, but have now the joy of administering this holy sacrament to growing numbers, and have also been permitted to admit no small company to the communion. Thus there is growing up a well-established Christian Church, which itself exercises a watchful discipline, and co-operates in spreading abroad the Gospel. Every Sunday native believers, especially trained to this work by the station missionary, go out into the surrounding twenty-five or thirty villages to the distance of fifteen miles, to carry thither the knowledge of the Gospel, and over one hundred natives help in the numerous schools which have been established, and in which more than four thousand children receive Christian instruction. Four native tongues have been thoroughly studied and applied; in Nyanja the whole New Testament is already printed, as well as a number of school books; in the other three there are at least individual gospels, primers, etc. Moreover, there is an active industrial life also at the station-a printing-house, book-bindery and joinery, gardening and tillage, laying out of roads, etc. An especial blessing is the medical mission, with its healing mercies among the people. This has been pec~liarly beneficial in the many intestine wars of the natives themselves, as well as between the Arab slave-hunters and the natives. Happily these are becoming less frequent.
Westward from Bandawe lies Ngoniland, with its savage population. This is occupied by several stations. Here also, notwithstanding the continuous disturbances from war, the Gospel is gaining increasing influence. Services and schools are more largely attended, and candidates are coming forward for baptism. In the south of Ngoniland the wildness of heathenism is the mORt intractable. Wars have within a year raged here which have not only greatly hindered the work of the mission, but have put the lives of the missionaries in danger. The Livelize Valley, at the south end of the lake, was full of wasted fields and villages burned and despoiled. The mighty chief Mponda, whose territory lies along the southern outlet of the lake, availed himself of the war between two Angoni tribes to fall upon both and secure slaves in multitudes, whom he then sofd to the Arabs, which in turn roused the British consul, Johnston, to undertake an expedition against him and the Arabs, in which he himself suffered considerable losses, and appears to have made unhappy mistakes. The missions have.been by no means at one with the course of his policy. Happily the consequences appear to have been by no means so disastrous as the anti-English press of Germany was glad to forebode. At all events, the stave-hunting land wasters have been inspired with a measure of salutary terror. The missionaries, moreover, were forced to witness repeatedly proofs of the yet unbroken might of sorcery. In a single village which they passed they found thirty men lying corpses from the poison ordeal. In southern Ngoniland the Reformed Dutch Church of South Africa also has a station, Mwera. It is in its infancy, but has already candidates under training for baptism. The present chief is not so hostile to the mission as his bloodthirsty father was, but sadly given to drunkenness. Some new missionaries have just been sent out from the Cape to form a second station.
On the way from the Nyasa to the coast we finally reach, in the Shire highland, the extraordinarily flourishing station of the Scottish Establishment, Blantyre. Not only in Blantyre is there a growing church, but such are forming also in Domasi, Chirazulu, and Milanje, while friendly relations are developing with almost all the tribes around the Shire. Three hundred children go to school in Blantyre, the girls' boarding-school
Ml!:XICO'S TWOFOLD CURSE
alone having more than fifty pupils. Thirteen youths are in training as teachers, twelve as printers, nine as carpenters, two as gardeners, eight as masons; the communicant class is so full that a single missionary can scarcely superintend it ; .the great church-a Central African cathedralis filled on Sundays, and the attendants come also from outside, often from afar. For greater freedom of movement the mission will soon have a steamer of its own.
The Catholic missions also are developing a vigorous activity in East Africa. Outside of Uganda they are confined to the German " sphere of influence." The order which has been longest at work (since 1861) is the French Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the Sacred Heart of Mary. The vicariate apostolic assigned to it, North Zanzibar, comprises seven stations, the well-known Bagamoyo being the chief. In 1879 the Lavigerian missionaries of Africa (known as the White Fathers) appeared on the scene, first in Uganda, where their intrusion upon the Protestant mission established almost two years before has wrought such dire confusion. Besides the vicariate apostolic of the Victoria Nyanza, the vicariate apostolic of Tanganyika and the provicariate apostolic of U nyamyenve have been also assigned to them. A part of the former extends (with three stations) from the west shore of the lake into the Congo State, and belongs to the provicariate apostolic of the Upper Congo; the latter lies wholly within the German" sphere of influence," its central station being Tabora. The number of the" White Fathers" at work in these districts is very considerable; on the Tanganyika there stood at their side an armed force commanded and organized by two Belgian captains, primarily, it is true, to suppress the slave trade, but secondarily also to give more emphasis to the missionary activity of the Peres. For these gentlemen are "at once missionaries and soldiers." They gather the natives into villages, which stand under their protection, etc. There exists also a prefecture apostolic of South Zanzibar, which is committed to the St. Benedict M. S. of St. Ottilia in Upper Bavaria. At present Dar-es-Salam is its headquarters. It is intended soon to restore the station Pugu, destroyed in the revolt.-.Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrijt, July, 1892.
MEXICQ'S TWOFOLD CURSE.
BY REV. J. MILTON GItEENE, D.D.
Romanism and infidelity, these are the great obstacles which impede the true elevation and progress of our sister republic. The latter is the natural result and fruit of the former. I am aware that in saying this I am antagonizing not a few among us who cherish the belief that Romanism is a better form of religion for the Mexicans than evangelical Christianity would be. The trouble with all such is that they do not know what Romanism, pure and simple, is. They have in mind the Romish Church modified by its Protestant enviL'onment, such as we see it in our own land, obliged by an enlightened public sentiment and conscience to be externally and to do many things which are in contradiction to its traditional and essential principles and policy. I saw the other day, in Omaha, a specimen of the maguey plant, perhaps three feet high by two feet in diameter. It was an exotic. If I had taken it as a fair sample of the product I should have greatly erred. It had been dwarfed and hindered in its development by its unnatural and unfavorable lmrroundings. I could not but contrast it with the magnificant plants) had seen in Mexico, where soil and climate favor their growth, and where they attain to the height of ten to twelve feet and a similar width. So it is, if I mistake not, with Romanism. What we see in our own favored land is really a modi- fied form of the system. It is not the natural and symmetrical de'velopment of its declared principles. It is not the normal outgrowth of its peculiar genius and spirit. Take the authorized utterances of Romanism and compare them with the Church as we see it, and they do not correspond at all. For example, Rome teaches that the many should be kept in ignorance and that only the few should be educated. But among us it is rare to find a Romish child who is not being taught either in the public or the parochial schools. And Father McGlynn gives us the explanation of this when he says that" if there were no public schools there would be no parochial schools. " In Mexico, where the Romish Church has had uulimited sway for more than three centuries over a people naturally gifted and susceptible of high civilization, she has educated only a very few of her children, so that el'en to this day not more than one in ten of her men and not one in twenty of her women can read, while she has suffered slavery for debt to exist under protection of law over a large part of the country. The canon law of the Romish Church distinctly declares that the Pontiff" as God is far above the reach of all human law and judgment, and that all laws contrary to the canons and decrees of the Roman prelates are of no force." In our own land, Romish citizens, as a rule, are obedient and loyal so far as outwardly appears, and honor the claims of the civil law; but in Mexico the people, following the precepts and example of the priesthood, fought for thirty years the nascent republic, and to-day are found in uncompromising rebellion against the laws of the land relative to public instruction, monastic orders, public religious processions, and the wearing on the streets of priestly vestments. Wherever these and such like laws are respected it is done under protest and only through fear. Away from the great centres there is a systematic and consistent violation of them. One of the provisions of Rome's canon law is that" heretics are to be deprived of aJl civil and paternal rights," and it is added, ' , We do not esteem those homicides to whom it may have happened, in their zeal for their mother Church against the excommunicated, to kill some of them." Now, in the United States converts from Romanism enjoy equal liberty and protection with others. Here there is liberty of speech and thought and conscience, and we do not think of the system as being at all distinct in this particular from any other church. She respects and tolerates even her apostates. But how changed is all this as soon a1l we cross the Rio Grande and pass into Mexico! There the system, unless directly checked by the civil authority, sanctions the principle that in Rome "there can be no toleration. " It is forbidden to employ a Protestant artisan or to consider him as having any rights which others are bound to respect. He may be insulted, robbed, and injured in person or family with impunity. If he has aught to sell, he must accept less than his neighbors j and if he desires to buy anything, he must pay more for it than they. He may literally be spit upon and stoned and buffeted, and can find no redress even in the courts, because in effect Rome wears the ermine. Nay more, Romanism shoots, stabs, butchers those whom she considers as heretics, and so far from considering this as crime, she defends the assassins. Witness the massacres of Aca. puleo, Ahuacuatitlan, and Almoloya, and the martyr roll of sixty which stains the pages of missionary history of Mexico during the last twenty-five years. Many among us will be found to deny the existence in the Romish Church of an authorized tariff wherein every sin, however loathsome, has its price j but we who have seen and read said tariff, consider it only as a principle whose practical outworking is seen in the every-day life of priests and people as we have known them in Mexico. In no other way can we explain the existence of perjury, drunkenness, gambling, and fornication almost universal among the priesthood, and of practical polygamy, lying, stealing, and adultery among the people j yea, and even of murder. Let us not "deceive ourselves. Look at the encyclical of Leo XIII., under date of September 25th, 1891, and read these words: "Naturalization oaths have been demanded in order that the subjects of the true Church might be made to subscribe to the United States Constitution, with its impious laws and nefarious teachings, to compel them to renounce the true authority of the Catholic pontiff." This is in full accord with the canon law of Rome, but not with Rome as unthinking people see and judge her. That law says that" the constitutions of princes are not superior but subordi· nate to ecclesiastical constitutions." How, then, can a consistent Roman Catholic be an American patriot, an obedient and loyal citizen? He can· not j and he will, if intelligent, defend himself by citing one of the canon laws, which says that" no oath is to be kept toward heretics, princes, lords, or others." Now, Romanism as it is, and as thus described, has in Mexico given birth to a twin curse, which is disbelief-an utter lack of faith not only, but an attitude of bitter animosity toward the Bible and all that is called Christianity. The fathers and brothers of the country very gen erally coincide with the sentiment which I recently saw in a representative newspaper, that" the Bible has been the greatest obstacle to the civilization and progress of Mexico." They believe that Roman Catholicism is the legitimate successor to the Church ()f tne apostles j they consider our
A CONVERTS' HOMEo
Bible an adulteration and ourselves as impostors, and believe that they have seen and known Christianity in seeing and knowing the Romish Church. And thus to-day French, German, and American infidelity, including spiritualism, find nowhere a more hearty welcome or a more congenial field than in Mexico. And for this reason I consider missionary work in Mexico, as in all papal countries, more difficult than it is in pagan lands. The Gospel has not to encounter and overcome a :t>ase system of heathenism, but a shameful counterfeit of itself, a public sentiment bitterly prejudiced against it by a system worse than heathenism that has palmed itself upon the people as Christianity.
A CONVERTS' HOME.
A Converts' Home for High-Caste Women has been opened at Masu- lipatam, under the lady missionaries of the Church of England Zenana Mission. It is the first building of the kind north of Madras. A cor- respondent sends us the following particulars regarding it from a letter in the Lut:hera,n Observer: " This home stands forth amid the heathenism around, a refuge to the timid, cruelly treated widow. It invites into its portals the deserted wife, homeless mothers and orphan children, all of whom find a welcome and an incentive to liye useful and honorable lives. The need of such a home may not be known to all my readers. Let me briefly explain:- In our part of India, whenever caste persons become Christians-often if only a leaning toward Christianity is manifested-they are cut off from every privilege of home. Here most emphatically accepting Christ means to the high-caste a forsaking of home and friends. It is so rare that I have never heard of an instance in which a caste woman accepting Christianity wall able to care for herself. The helplessness of Indian women is almost beyond the power of those living in Western homes to understand. Before these women can support themselves and care for themselves they must be under the most careful and wise training for years. When they become Christians they can seldom do more than read a little; in household work they are extravagant, careless, often dirty; in takiug care of their bodies or their children they need constant watching. In order to train them for useful work, for valuable members of the Christian Church, for examples of true womanhood to their heathen sisters, arrangements for as constant guarding as for children, combined with the freedom to develop womanhood, is necessary. Such a building is the Converts' Home at Masulipatam. At present there are about fifteen women and children in the home. It is a soul-inspiring sight to see these women, diligent Oat work, happy during recreation hours, devout at prayers. Some are preparing to help the sick, some are teachers in Mohammedan and Hindu Zenanas and in the girls' schools. The Misses Brandon had to borrow money to build it, and have made themselves responl"ible for the sum borrowed. Something is surely wrong with the Church at home when such a thing is necessary. A money order sent to Miss J. R. Bran. don, Masulipatam, South India, or Rev. A. O'B. Brandon, 206 Amhurst Road, West Hackney, IJondon, would reach her safely. "-English Paper.
INTERNATIONAL DEPA,RTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
BDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. ;So T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Decennial Oonference in India, per cent. The aggregate figures for India, Burma, and Ceylon are as fol- [J. T. G.] lows: Native Christian community at the end of 1890, 559,661, being an in- The custom of holding a general con- crease of 142,289 during the nine years ference of all the missions in each of from 1881 to 1890. The number of' the great foreign mission fields once in communicants is 182,722, being a gain ten years or so is one involving great of 69,397. The number of pupils in labor, considerable expense, and inter- mission schools is 279,716, an advance ruption of work, but it certainly must of 92,064. Of the grand total, about find its compensations in the wisdom 175,000 are boys and 104,000 are girls. got from interchange of view and the These figures exclude the Sundaygeneral attention attracted to the work, schools, the pupils in which number as well as in the mutual stimulation of 135,565, compared with 61,688 in 1881. social and religious intercourse. We Taking the figures by provinces as to have looked with great interest to the communicants, Bengal gives an increase Conference which convened in Bombay, of 32 ; Northwest Provinces, 193 ; Punin the last days of last year and the jab, 210 ; Central India, 111 ; Bombay, early days' of this year. The papers, 88, and Madras, 55 per cent. Scheduled discussions, and addresses will be filter- in relation to denominational societies, ing through tho press for many a day American and British, the Baptists show to come, and we must be content with 53,801 communicants, as against 30,245 a partial reference to it at this time. in 1881; Congregationalist. including the LondoD Missionary Society and the THE STATISTICS. American Board, 13,775, as against 9689 ; Episcopalians, 52,377, instead of We had come to make estimates of 40,990; Presbyterians, 11,128, instead the growth of the missions, based on of 5714; Methodists, 15,782, instead of the previous ratios of increase, so as to 4205; the large proportion-viz., 13,111 anticipate what these returns would -being those of the Methodist Episshow; but we have reckoned wrongly copal Church of America. this time. The figures are not as encouraging as was anticipated. We can- Confining ourselves to the statistics not now say what the cause or causes for India proper, we find that a striking may be. One feature of difference is feature of these returns is the increase that these are made for nine years, of agents. The foreign and Eurasian while the others were made for ten agents went up between 1871 and 1881 years, the change being made to con- from 488 to 586-increase, 98 ; between form hereafter with the date of the 1881 and 1890 the advance wall from government census. So far as ratio of 586 to 808, lin increase of 222, or more incrpase goes, of course it is not so easy than twice as many as the preceding to maintain this on the larger number decade. This shows an increased inas on the smaller; it is much easier to terest in Christian countries in the double ten than it is to double ten thou- evangelization of India, and an increase sand; but the returns do not need any in the opportunities and conditions of apology. They will show an advance foreign work. The next item of interper cent far ahead of the ratio of in- est is the increase of the native ordained crease in the popUlation. Possibly the workers. From 1871 to 1881 the adincrease of the population might be vance was from 225 to 461, an increase conceded to be 10 per cent, while the of 136. Now it is from 461 to 785. an Christians have incfeaaed at least 50 increase of 324: whioh shows an en- superstitions and beliefs are dying couraging growth in the development down. Christian llentiments and be. of a stable organization of the native liefs are taking their place. church. The number of native preachers went up between 1871 and 1881 .. There are evidences of Divine pow. from 1985 to 2488, an increase of 493 ; er and grace, the Holy Spirit at work now they have advanced to 3336, an in- taking of the things of Christ and recrease of 858. When we remember the vealing them to men. What is wanted, theory that no country can be evangel- what should be looked for, wrought ized but by its own native agency, this for, is more of that Divine power." increase in fact and in ratio is very encouraging. There is the other fact, ~ PAPERS. however, to be borne in mind when 'we get too much elated, that. these are al- The papers prepared for this confer. most exclusively paid agents, on the pay. ence were presented in printed form. roll of the societies or of the churches, We refer to only a few of them. Rev. and that these agents have grown faster J. L. Phillips, M.D., the General Secrethan the statistical results. An increase tary of the India Sunday·school Union, of 25 per cent in the agents in the pre- in discussing" The Sunday-school our ceding decade brought 100 per cent in- Opportunity in India," gave the results creBlle of communicants; now an in- of his labor and observations during crease of one third in the agents yields twenty five months of travel throughout an increase of but 28 per cent in com- India. In considering the opportunity, municants. he referred not only to the quarter of a lao in regular attendance upon mis. The various denominations show sionary day-schools, but to the millions varying excellences. The Church of more not reached by any school and England leads in the number of foreign right religious influence, who are acordained missionaries in India proper; cessible to us now, but who were shut the Baptists in the number of commn- to our fathers. Calls are coming from nicants ; the Presbyterians in the num· many Hindu and Moslem homes to ber of pupils in Anglo.vernacular teach their sons and daughters, from schools; the Methodists in the number parents who will never accept the truth of pupils in female boarding.schools, themselves; in fact, who say, "We day schools, zenanas, and orphanages. shall die as we are, hut our children will be Christians." In many cases We have dealt only with the lesson these children will bring their unbe. of the bare statistics, and that only very lieving parents to Christ. He quoted superficially; but there are other items cases in point. His next point WBll the which lie beyond statistics, like those opportunity which the Sunday.school which Rev. Edward Storrow mentions affords for developing the native church. in The Ohristian when he says: " Few comparatively may become pun. dits and preachers, physioians or "The number of secret disciples is translators, or achieve success in any unusually great. Some missionaries of the so-called learned professions, but of large experience and sober judgment the Sunday-school brings them an op· suppose that their number does not portunity for service admirably adapted fall short of the avowed adherents. to all classes." 'Ihe Sunday-sohool af- However this may be, their great num- fords an opportunity for increasing ber attested by various witnesses is an Christian endeavor among Europeans. important evidence of the success of "Everybody knows how much of the missions beyond the avowed lines. ungirt loin and unlit lamp there is in India. Our Sunday-schools are calling " Christianity, in a general but real out idlers into service Within the sense, is undoubtedly advancing. A past two years quite a number of Euroknowledge of Bible truth Dnd doctrine is greatly on the increase. Heathen peans have begun leaming a language I am thankful to say their funds are at for the sake of working among the chilo last exhausted, and they have closed dren." Dr. PhiHipspleaded for organ. their last school. Now I· hope we shall ized effort. Since the organization of be more frtle."
the India Sunday·school Union, in 1876, "The Religious Training of Chilo this line of work has been greatly in. dren" was treated by Miss S. F. Gald creased. There are denominational and ner, of the American Woman's Union.
geographical organizations that should She pleaded for the employment only of be advanced. He looked forward to a believing teachers in the schools. Sh,e uniQn of all the Sunday.school forces said: in India and Ceylon. He urged co· " A missionary from the Oorriya dis· operation, and the improvement of trict said to me: • In some of our viI· their present methods by preparation lages where heathen pandits are em· classes for teachers and Sunday-school ployed I was delighted in my periodical literature, and asked attention to the visits to hear how beautifully the boys India Bunday-Scltool Journal. He urged repeated their Scripture lessons, but a normal training for the older pupils, close questioning one day brought out wanted a Sunday-school in every Chris· the fact that without exception they tian congregation, in bazaars and vil. had been taught that Jesus Christ was lages, in Hindu schools where invited, their Krishna, and in another case com· on tea and coffee estates for cooly chilo ing under my own knowledge, the pan· dren, such as have been recently opened dit frankly confessed that he taught in Ceylon, also for servants and their both his own religion and ours. I children, among patients in the hos· asked another Brahman pandit, Suppose pitals and dispensaries. Dr. Phillips one of the children in your school has travelled thirty thol1sand miles in should be convinced of the truth of the interests of this work since he took these verses that you are obliged to it up some two years ago. make them commit, and should want " Evangelistic Work among the Wom. to become a Christian, would you op- en of India" is a paper by Miss S. L. pose it? 'I most certainly should,'
Mulvany, of the Church of England was his answer. They are not all so Zenana Mission. She pleads 8>lpecial1y frank as this, or there may be some too for Moslem women. Speaking of the indifferent to their own religion to care wave of opposition which passed over to emphasize it."
their mission at Amritsar, she quotes ., The ~ Young Men's Christian Asso- Miss Wauton as writing: ciation as a Missionary Agency" was " I think there was much more prog. discussed by David McConaughy, Secre· ress noticeable in former years than taryof the Indian National Committee, during the last ten years, but perhaps who stated that within a few years the it does not follow that there is really missionary conferences at Tokyo, Mad· lesl!l. We have had some tremendous ras, Calcutta. Colombo, Jaffna, Peking, attacks made upon us, first by the Arya Shanghai, Sao Paulo, and Mexico had Somaj, who nearly emptied our schools, testified to the adaptation of this form and then by an Anjumani Islamformed of work among the young men of these for the purpose of resisting the efforts several fields. The United States and of the Zenana Mission. In short, both Canada have sent two men to Japan, were rival missions; they copied our two to India, one to Brazil, and one to plans, opened schools close to our doors, Mexico, and another is going to China.
swept our scholars into them by dint They gave to this work last year $9588.
of bribes and threats, and following us The English National Council has sent to the houses, tried to get them closed out two secretaries, one for Egypt and against us. This Anjuman has beAn Palestine and one for Bombay PrAsi.
going on for more than three years, but dency. In India there was an associa.- tion formed as long ago as 1873 in Tra- sufferers without the suggestion or even vancore, the earliest association in Asia. the knowledge of missionaries. There are only four of the associations llOW in existence which were known at WORK AMONG THE DEPRESSED CLASSES. the time of the last Decennial Conference. The First National Convention The papers on this subject were very called for India met February, 1891. 'interesting. Dr. S. Martin, of Seal- A national committee was formed to kote, said : "The work among the de. superintend the work throughout India. pressed classes is difficult, but yet the There are now sixty-eight associations most encouraging, and the fact that misenrolled. sion work in India has had its greatest success among the lower classes is a We rEgret that we cannot summarize proof that it is of God, and gives us en. the able paper on " The Social and Legal couragement for the future. A success- Rights of Native Christians," by Rev. ful work among the most ignorant classes H_ E. Perkins. It concludes by recom- will make the evangelization.of the more mending a committee to investigate intelligent masses an easier, task. A what are the precise rights, legal, so- practical exemplification of the power cial, and domestic of the native Chris- of Christianity to elevate the low and tians, and to seek further legislation, degraded will be its best recommendashould such be found necessary to pro- tion to others. As to the best method tect those rights. of conducting work among the lowest classes, this is a question that has not ~'Mission Work among Lepers" was yet received a solution satisfactory to treated by Wellesley C. Bailey. "The all. Where there are large numbers of Moravians were the first in this field, inquirers they cannot be received into and led the van in this as they have the mission compound and instructed. done in so many undertakings of diffi. They must be left in their homes cultyand danger," says the writer. He and instructed at such times as oppor· records their work in South Africa. In tunity offer!!. Mass movements should India there was from comparatively be expected. The apostles helieved early days indiTidual work for lepers. in mass movements, and baptized all In 1847 General Ramsay (C.B., KC.S.I., that wanted to come, three thousand as he afterward became) commenced a in one day. The lowest classes should work with Rev. Mr. Budden in Almora, not be bought. The evil effects of the in the Himalayas. In 1864-65 ninety- system of giving aid is felt in work six of these lepers were received into among the lowest classes, and has been the Christian Church. In 1860 a leper a serious hindrance to progress. The asylum was begun in Calcutta. In 1868 instruction given before baptism should Dr. John Newton, of the American Pres- be elementary; not too much should be byterian Mission, began his work in their expected of those that can neither read behalf at Sabathu. " He was pre-emi- nor write." nently the leper's friend. He tended them as a mother might a child. Con- The paper of Rev. E. W. Parker, temporary names may be heard in his- D.D., of the Methodist Mission of North tory, but his will, I believe, live forever India. was of peculiar interest, as this in the lower Himalaya Mountains." mission has had a great work among Gossner, Lutheran, the Methodists, the these classes. Church Missionary Society, the Free Church of Scotland, the Basle Mission Dr. Parker started out with a definiand others, with the" Mission to Lep- tion of the depressed classes as those ers," are at work in eighteen principal who belong to no one of the regular and nine subordinate places in India. castes of the Hindu. They have been In several instances lepers have done oppressed by all castes. As in their missionary work among their fellow- castes they are not, strictly speaking, Hindu, so in religion they are outside of Hinduism, having gurus of their training schools turned out effective <>wn. They are mainly day laborers. workers for their field9. The work 1'hough set free by English law, tbey grew gradually, as the following will are actually slaves. They have never show: In 1859 there were two native been educated. Few can read or write. preachers, five communicants, four These people are more accessible to Christian boys, and eight girls in the Christian workers for the following schools. In 1868 there were 30 preach. three reasons: (1) Their religion is not ers, 665 communicants, 297 boys, and orthodox Hinduism, but some side issue 168 girls under instruction. One hun. less firmly established and tenacionsly dred and eighty·seven were baptized. held, and so it is not so difficult to In 1888 there were 168 preachers, 7944 change them. (2) They have not the communicants, 2027 Christian boys, pride of caste that raises them in their and 1327 Christian girls in school, and own estimation above all others, and there were 1958 baptisms. Besides the they readily receive Christian teachers school.teachers in the village, with (3) Many have the idea of " moving on." superintending evangelist from a group' They are willing and anxious to rise, of villages, a leader in each congrega. and will take hold of any who may tion is appointed as assistant pastor. seem able to help them. These are, These latter are voluntary, unpaid as· therefore, the" accessible classes." Sir sistants. District conferences are held William Hunter bears testimony to this quarterly. At the religious meetings, point. He says: "I should not be can- not only the paid agent, but many did if I left the impression that I ex- Christians also come. Meetings are pect any large accession from orthodox constantly held for three days, and the Hinduism or Islam to the Christian people receive much spiritual uplift. Church. It is rather from the lower Direct conversions are often traced to castes and so:called aboriginal people these meetings. These conferences, that I believe direct conversion will or Christian melas, have been a very chiel1y come. At this moment there important part of the work. And in are fifty millions of human beings in 1891 the results show the power of the India, sitting abject on the outskirts of Spirit of God. There are 261 native Hinduism or beyond its pale, who within preachers and 381 exhorters of a lower the next fifty years will incorporate grade and 736 Christian teachers, with themselves into one or the other higher 15,000 children under instruction. The faiths. Speaking humanly, it rests with number of communicants is 9487, and Christian missionaries in India whether of baptized probationers, 16,913. Ac· a great proportion of these fifty millions cession by baptism in 1891 was 17,038, shall accept Christianity, or Hinduism, including children, so that the whole or Islam… The work of the Methodist Christian community is over 50,000. Episcopal Church in the North was es- The object has been, not baptism, but tablished after the Mutiny. First a few conversion. people, about twenty miles from Mora- The Rev. A. Campbell, of Manbhum, dabad, came over. The work spread in Bengal, said: "Work among aborigines, the surrounding villages, schools were such as the Santals and Karmalli Kales, established, and the young men were among whom he had labored for a trained up as evangelists or teachers, period of over twenty years, differs In another direction a fakir was con- greatly from that among what are known verted, and brought many of his former as the depressed classes. In the Santal 4isciples over. And so the work spread country they did not meet with anyin several directions, and education and thing at all resembling the depressed evangelistic supervision found the meth. condition of many in Bengal, Southern od of developing the work. In the India, and elsewhere. In the Santal mean time, the theological schools and country the aboriginal element pre· dominates, not that the bulk of the them from all parts of the" civilised,"
population if! aboriginal, pure and aim- Western world. Their contact""tb ple;·bnt that the .majority of those pio- those nations, with the exo&ptioD of felling Hinduism have much in com· the missionary representatives of them, mOn with the .aborigihes indeed; they and now and then others in businesa were often referred to as semi-Hindu- and official circles, only con6rms·th~m izedaborigines. What were known as in their ideas that all religioUIl beliefs the higher castes among Hindus were are but outgrown and inefficient £acton sparingly represented in many parts of in modern civilization. In other word&; theSantalconntry, and the result was they are possessing themselves olbut that religious toleration, to a most sur- the excrescences of a Christian civiliza- prising exteht, was extended to each tion, rather than its realities and bless.
other by all classes of the people. The ings. Luxuries and intellectual cul- Santals Bnd others like them were, as a ture are able to do no more for them rulEl, poor and ignorant. but they have ,than they did for corrupt ancient not in their own country got the same Greece and Italy.
opposition to contend against when Favorable.-Although Satan is thus seeking to raise themselves socially alert and successful in gaining strategio th"t .the castes on the outer fringe of positions in the struggle for the rule Hinduism had to meet when desirous over the hearts of the millions of India, ofl'Sising themselves from the servile yet the Gospel is, notwithlltanding, and depressed state in which the high. making steady and permanent prog.
er castes had so long kept them." ress. The fast spreading appreciation of the benefits, physical and intellect- ual, of educational attainment and Mission Outlook in India. a.nd Burma.. discipline is awakening the spirit of liberal inquiry, and the spiritual needs BY BEV. C. A. NICHOLS, BASSEIN, BURMA. of men are asserting themselves. These UnJavorable.-Infidelity never had so will not rest content with the negations full an access to the people as to-day. of infidelity. There are already about Tbe greater number of the English in- 500,000 consistent Protestant Christians structors in the government colleges scattered throughout the empire, who and lower grade schools are either by their life and their direct teaohing avowed infidels, and breathe into their are not only supplementing the labors pupils their own unbeliefs, sometimes of the considerable force of mission- aggrsssiyely so ; or, if not, they do not aries from our own lands, but are bring- feel free to do anything positive in ing their fellow-countrymen to think, the line of religious character-building, as the missionaries never could do, in from the strict neutrality which the regard to the power of the Gospel in government insists upon in its teaching transforming character. A Christian force. Both of these courses tend in vernacular literature is fast growing, the same direction. Both go .toward and the vast treasures of religious and the production of a generation of promi- biblical literature in the English Ian.
nent men, who, by virtue of their influ- gUlloge are becoming more and more ao· ence c'onsequent upon their high attain- cessible to the millions of India, who ments, will in the future tell tremen- now can use that language with facil- dously upon the opinions and beliefs of ity. Through God's inftnite wisdom a great mass of 'the people of the coun- the greatest transformations in India, try_ The sanctions of their old religion spiritual as well as material, through are gone, and they have no new moral the power of the Gospel, have had their imp.ulsps in their stead. The flood of first great triumphs from precisely those direct· infidel literature flows in upon claslles of the. people whom the higher pta,., cute people had eome to believe were eating the evils against which it wbolly incapable of betterment, and in 1890 the co-operation of publio as- these people are marvellously outstrip. semblies and of orgmized bodiea w.s ping those who had thought themselves sought, and these have been obtained so. greatly their superiors in every walk through the omcers of the International in life. It is 888y to see how great the MiBBionary Union, the Young Men'.
evidential value of this order in the Christian Association, the YouDg Peo- Christianization which God has caused ple's Societies, the Good Templars, Sal.
to i_ue from missionaty effort. Ac. vation Army, Knights of Labor, IIJld cordingly, notwithstanding the opium others.
curse spreading 88 it is, in spite of the At the great meeting of the World'.
many ways that Satan is employing to Women's Christian Temperance Union gt'$f~ upon the pantheistic atheism of in Boston, November, 1891, between the Eut the infidelity of the West, and two and three miles of this petition W88.
in the face of the hindrances of profii. on exhibition. The original signatures gate representatives of nominally Chris· were in three or four parallel columna, tian oountries, the leaven of the king. pasted on muslin one half yard wide dam of light is working, often silently, and bound with red and blue tape, and but is surely undermining the kingdom the document was used tofeatoon Tre- of darknesa in these parts of AIIia. mont Temple on that memorable ooca- sion. Lady HeRry Somerset brought scores of thousands of tbese llignaturea m.t.orr of a Great Petition. wbich had been obtained by Miss Mor. gan, of South Wales, in Great Britain, BY KBB. lIIIlnmVA. B. NORTON. where the interest in the petition ia very grcat. ,.
The first organized elfort in behalf of It is proposed by those having the a world-signed petition for the abolition petition in charge to call it in for eI.
of tbe tramc in alcohol and opium was hibition at the Columbian Exposition in August, 1885, when the general offi- of 1893, and to have connected with It cers of the United States c. National a total abstinence chain of the pledge Union" of the World's Woman's Chris· autographs of the children of the world, tian Temperance Union forwarded to composed of several million links of their miBBionary.at.large, Mrs.. Mary cards in red, white and blue, contain.
Clement Leavitt, then in a foreign land, ing their signatures. It is desired to the" Petition of the World's Woman's double this monster petition before Christian Temperance Union for the May, 1893. [The form of petition oan Protection of the Home, addressed to be had by addressing the writer of this the Govemments or the World." article, .. The Temple," Chicago, m- This was also presented by Mrs. Mary B. Willard, September 12th, 1885, to J. T. G.] the International Temperance Conven- tion then aBBembled in BruB8els, Bel- Western Polyneaia. and Auatralia. gium. It has been circulated round the globe, and its almost two million Bishop Montgomery, of Tasmania, signatures are written in the dialects has paid a Tisit in the steamer &utI&_ and characters of more than forty coun- Cross to all the stations of the Melane· tries and provinces. sian MiBBion, and has been favorably In addition to the signatures of all impreBBed with the work earried on in women of legal age, and the endorse. the Banks, Santa Cruz, and Solomon ment of all men, of whatever creed, na- groups, and in three Dorthem Islands tion, race or color, who a~ee in devre- of the N~w H4Ibti4es. .u:~ NIQ Tlai*ed Norfolk Island, the headquarters of the He had been attending the nightlilcbo01 mission. on Saturday, October 22d, and on going The New Hebrides Mission is losing home was attacked by some savage na- the services of the Rev. J. R. Laurie, tives of Malayta, one of the Solomon who has labored for thirteen years on Islands. He was found covered with Aneityum, where the people are now all blood, and his hymn.book beside him.
outwardly Christian. The health of He had chosen a text for his address on his wife has necessitated his resigna- the next day-" Never man spake like tion. She bas, however, recovered un- this man."
der treatment. The Rev. A. Morton Miss Barnes, Who came out to be the has resigned for a similar cause. He wife of Mr. Hey, the Moravian mission- may go to Korea. The Rev. F. Paton, ary in Northern Queensland, was wel- son of the veteran Dr. J. G. Paton, has comed at Brisbane. She is sister of been appointed to the New Hebrides. Mrs. Ward, whose husband is Mr. Hey's The Rev_ J. W. Mackenzie, who has colleague.
been twenty years on Efate, and the The Baptist aentmary.-Tbis great Rev. James Annand, M.A., who has event, which may well' be called the been nineteen years in the group, are Carey Centenary, or the Centenary of reCll'nlting in New South Wales. Mr. Modern Missions, was celibrated by Mackenzie is carrying a Scripture his. enthusiastic meetings in all the chief tory and hymn-book in Eptese through cities of the Australian colonies. Min- the press. isters of Presbyterian, Wealey.n, and Two lay missionaries, good craftsmen, Congregational churches joined with have just gone to the New Hebrides to Baptists in recognizing the wondrous .assist Dr. Lamb on Ambrym. results of darey's movement in 1792• Mr. Eugene Stock and the Rev. R. W. It was specially felt in Australia, as it Stewart, M.A., have concluded a very was the perusal of Cook's voyages in successful mission tour through the Polynesia that led Carey to conceive Anglican churches of Australia. They his purpose, and which also inlluenced have created much interest in the Dr. Hawies, Dr. Bogue, and otbers in Church Missionary Society, and have forming the London Missionary Soci.
formed auxiliaries. Mr. Stock, who is ety. Indeed, all modem missionary the missionary editor in London, was societies date from that.
allowed to occupy pUlpits both in Syd- The Rev. W. Newby-Fraser and his ney and Melbourne. He is a man of a wife have left Sydney for missionary fervent missionary spirit, and an excel- work in India in connection with the lent evangelical speaker. Ohurch Missionary Society. Mr. New- The Wesleyan Mission in Fiji have by-Fraser has for some time been curate got an Indian catechist to labor among to the Rev. T. B. Tress, of St. Peter's, the coolie's there. Sydney. Much interest has been taken The Wesleyan Mission in New Guinea in his devotion to the Indian field, and is now fairly at work. The governor, valedictory addresses and presents h~ve Sir William Macgregor, gives a good re- been made to him.
port of its influence upon· the natives. The Rev. F. J. Paton, M A., the Mrs. Reid, of Tasmania, has given a youngest son of the veteran mission- boat for the Raluana Mission Station, ary, Dr. J. G. Paton, has been ordained, New Britain. and has gone to the New Hebrides. He AusTRALU.-A Christian Krmaka has is the first of those born in a mission recently been made a martyr to his faith family on the New Hebrides who has in Queensland. He. was a zealous become a missionary there. He is to teacher under the Rev. T. McIntyre. be settled on the island of Mallicollo.
tq~ missionarr in the Macka! district .'{…e. .mit Jlission.-Ten learB ~o the <;,;. ..,. Society of Jesus began a mission among and superintendent of the. oldest mis- the aborigines of Australia,· near Port sion of his oliurchin that country. Be Darwin, in the Northern Territory. sends the following rejoinder to the Two other stations were opened on the critioism of a oorrespondent on the Daly River. These three were olosed II Methodists entering Ohentu in West year ago, 88 they were either too near China: the town of Palmerston or on too poor NEW YOBX, January 14, 1893. a soil. The Government of South Aus- DEAB SIB: There is more absurdity tralia then gave a grant of land on the to the square inoh in the little notioe right bank of the Daly River, about headed" Missionary Oomity," in your sixty miles from its mouth. It includes issue of Deoember, 1892, page 940, than three hundred acres of good land, and I have seen anywhere in a long time. a tract of oountry on the opposite bank It ought to be fuily understood that of one hundred square miles in extent. missions which are at work in any of The government also gives about £50 a the provinoes of Ohina always expeot year. Many difficulties have had to be to have a representation in the c~pital encountered, and the life is very try- of the provinoe, and, therefore, the ing. For a time the missionaries had sending of missionaries by our Society to live in rude" humpies," similar in to Ohentu is no ground of complaint on arohiteoture to those of the blacks, and the part of the Ohina Inland MiSSion, had to endure privations; but they any more than it will be a ground of have now got a proper house erected. oomplaint on the part of either of our They are one hundred and seventy missions that the Oanadian Methodists miles from Palmerston, the nearest have also established themselves in that township, and there is not easy or fre- oity. Bad this sort of theory been es- quent oommunication. The mission_ tablished, the China Inland Mission aries have had to live on kangaroo and would not now be in many places where wild game for months, and they have it is operating suocessfully, as it was also been subjeot to fever. The blacks much benind other missions in Ningpo, have gathered around them, and some Shanghai, and many other places. land has been cleared and cultivated. It is hardly in plaoe for" Speotator" The superior is Father McKillop, who -whoever he may be-to suggest to our is Australian-born. There are three mission that it shall ocoupy some of other priests and seven lay brothers the unoccupied cities throughout the engaged in the mission. They wish province before it establishes itself in the oountry around to be reserved from the oapital. No prinoiple of missionary Ohinese and white settlers, who have comity has been violated by our send- been entering thedistriot as miners, in ing missionaries to the oapital city of a order to make the mission really useful province; on the contrary, we are fol- to the blacks. The language has been lowing in the general line of missionary mastered, and the missionaries are operations in the empire, and with hopeful of suooess. abundant example from the Ohina In- land Mission itself. RO:BERT STEEL. … NORTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, Sincerely yours, November 26th, 1892. ,So L. BALDWIN.
Another Note on ltissionary Oomity. International M'lSsionary Union.-The International Missionary Union sends Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D., the Record. out its announoement of its tenth aning Secretary of the Methodist Epis. nual meeting. to beheld at its permacopal Missionary Society, was hims(,lf a nent place of meeting, Olifton Springs, missionary for twenty years in China, N. Y., J~e 14th-211t. All foreign mis- our disposal to give to the publio in it. sionaries of whatever field or board, present state, and so we oan only say whether temporarily or permanently in tblt if the counoil haviDg the matter in this country, are urged to attend. Cir· oharge do not make any improvement, oulars have been mailed to all Amerioan even on the initial program, it will be missionaries, whether in this country a very rich and varied Congress. It is to embraoe every feature of missionary 0.- any other, whose postal address is work, whether in Christian, oivilized or pagan and other non-Christian lands. known. Should any not reoeive the It will deal with the moral, sooial, and same, they will understand that it is religious problems of our cities and our through some cause the sooiety oannot oivilization in general; denominational control. It is expeoted that a larger unity in the solution of practioal benevnumber than usual will be in attendanoe olent problems; methods of evangeliz. this year, owing to the number of mis- ing the masses ; all forms of home mis· sionaries who may avail themselves of sionary work; Bible work; foreign mis. this centennial year to make a needed sions, their rellex in1luenoe, their agenvisit to this oountry. Over one hun. oies ; Christian governments and human dred were present at last year's session, rights; and a grand concert of prayer and every missionary we wot of desires will probably btl within the plan. Emi· to get the inspiration and information nent men, secretaries, expert workers of a week in conference with mission- in all departments ate to be invited to aries from all the fields of the world. discuss themes and to exchange views To missionaries there is simply no sub- and narrate experiences. stitute for this annual gathering. All misaionaries are requested to send their -We have reoeived the following, the -post address to the Associate Seoretary, lin. Dr. C. C. Thayer, Clifton Springs, 1lrst part of whioh we oannot answer, N. Y., and with or without further no· tice to inform her if they can probably and the second part, as we understand attend the next session. Entertain· ment is extended to all missionaries in it, involves a oontroversy in whioh only attendance, free, by our incomparable host, Dr. Henry FOIIter, the founder of those having the fullest information the Sanitarium. Any information about the Union oan be had of the Seoretary, should take part. The Rev. Dr. Shedd. Rev. W. H. Belden, Clifton Springs, N. Y. This body is not limited in its of Oroomiah, or Dr. Barnum, of Har. membership to American and Canadian missionaries, and those of any other put. might answer for the Amerioan country who have served in non-Chris· tian Aelds who may be in this oountry Ihissionaries, and our oorrespondent are earnestly invited to partioipate in the proceedings and share the hos- probably knows the views of others, pitality extended to the members. who think that the present administra- Other visitors can find acoommodation in the Sanitarium or in exoellent tion of this mission is neither broad nor boardiDg·hou8es in the plaoe. brotherly. J. T. G. The World's Gongrusof M'Ulsions.-We have had • glanoe at the tentative pro- 8m : It is declared that one objeot of gram of the World's Missionary Con. the arohbishop's mission to the Assyrian gress, whioh is to be held in Chioago, Christians is to print the anoient 8yriao September 28th-October 5th inclusive, service books, and that in doing so but we do not understand that it is at " heterodox" expressions are expunged. But oan you or any of your readers oblige with information 1. As to whether adoration and pray- ers to the Virgin and saints are thus ex· punged, and, 2. How does this misRion affeot the work of the Amerioan Protestant mis. sionaries among the same people?
AIlfATJiIEB.
HASTINGS, October 31, 1892. Ill.-DEPARTMENT 'OF CHRISTIAN EN.DEAV.O,R.., CONDUCTED BY PIWFESSOB AMOS B. WBLLB.
Presbyterian Endeavorers have reo them that they may do the Jnostgood. cently held a missionary rally at the Now the Chicago unfon will gatherad~ blissionrooms in New York. The meeting was largely attended, and a perma- dresses of missionaries, hospitals, il.rrby nent organization was formed to push posts, navy-yards, and other plao~8 missionary plans and inspire systematic giving among Presbyterian Endeavor- where such literature can be used to ers.The E~deavorera of the Reformed Churches in and near the metropolis good advantage, an.:! will supplythesb met at about the same time in the New York headquarters of the Reformed addresses to all good.literature commit. Church, and, after an enthusiastic meetin~, formed a similar organization with tees that apply. ', similar purposes. Both of these' new movements are full of life, and are cer- Young Lutherans have already raised tain to accomplish much good for the cause of missions. In a thousand ways $1000 of the $5000 needed for' thai, the Christian Endeavor movement is arousing the missionary activity of the memorial church at San Diego, Cal.; young. Endeavorers of the Disoiples have r8.ise,a City unions are developing specialties in Christian Endeavor work. The as much for their mission church in Philadelphia union aims at becoming national headquarters for correspond. Salt Lake City ; Methodist Protestan,t ence committee work. These Christian Endeavor correspondence commit- Endeavorers are making good progr418S tees, be it remembered, are formed to welcome and look after in a friendly on the funds for their mission church way those Endeavorers that move to strange oities. It is quite impossible at Kansas City ; Reformed Church EIIfor each correspondence committee in the country to keep the address of every deavorers are collecting funds .for their other, but if the Philadelphia union persists in its present determination, second Christian Endeavor memoriat it will constitute a central bureau of addresses. If John Smith is to leave church, and the Endeavorets of the JacksonVille, 0., for Columbus, Cal., the correspondenoe oommittee of his First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City Endeavor society, acting through the Philadelphia union, will notify the are hard at work raising money for, ,a Columbus, Cal., Endeavorers, and they will be all ready to give John Smith a mission chapel. May aU these noble cordial greeting when he oomes. The Chioago union, in similar fashion, aims undertakings find speedy success, and to become national headquarters for good-literature oommittees. These com-' prompt to undertakings greater still. mittees, gathering up the old books and periodicals of the congregation, is Presbyterian Endeavorers, in their often at a loss to know where to send December contributions to the foreign mission board of their church, made,a gain of $687 over the same month of 1891. In their contributions from May to December they made a gain over the previous year of $2346.
One of the most pt"osperous and use.
ful sooieties of Christian Endeavor con- nected with the Reformed Church is found in their Boys' High Scbool at Madanapalle, India. These Indian En- deavorers are active in evangelistio work, and a recent report from them testifies that during the past year they reached with the Gospel 16,000 souls.
The Connecticut State Christian En- deavor Union is the oldest in existence, and some recent changes in its consti- tution are the results of muoh experi- ence. It now formally refuses member- ship to societies in non-evangelical churches, thus following a distinctly understood 'Christian Endeavor pt"ino
DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
It ciple. utilizes the experience of its asked for a few words concerning the history and growth of the Christian former State presidents by constituting Endeavor movement. Then, after a them an advisory board. It requires hearty prayer by one of the Chinese all expenses of the State work to be brethren, Mr. Yeung asked me to give met by voluntary offerings only-no as- them some words of counsel and ad. sessments. It provides a State superin- vice, which I proceeded to do as well as tendent for the new Senior societies, I could for about five minutes, while now springing up among the older Mr. Wisner, of the mission, translated church·members and the Christian En· what I said. I never knew better, howdeavorera who have .. graduated." ever, the meaning of the phrase, 'a few Good points, all of these. feeble remarks;' for it is exceedingly difficult to speak with any force through Here are some extracts from a recent an interpreter. I have no doubt, letter of Dr. Clark's describing a Chris- though, that Mr. Wisner made up in his tian Endeavor meeting in China. It translation for any lack of mine. After was in Canton. " The. girls' society these remarks, Mr. Tao, one of the na· wanted to come, but it was thought tive teachers, was called upon. He said hardly proper for the young ladies to that he regarded my visit as providen. come so far in the evening. When we tial, tecause it might help them to reached tile chapel of the boys' school spread abroad their detestation of the of the Presbyterian mission, where the opium traffic. He said that a commis· meeting was held, all were in their sion had already gone to England to places, about a hundred Chinese men present the claims of poor, opiumand boys. and all rose while the mis. cursed China, and he hoped that I would sionaries and the visitors took their ask the Christian Endeavor societies places. The room was beautifully dec· everywhere to pray that the traffic might orated with floral emblems in Chinese be abolished; and that China might be characters, which meant, as I was told, freed from her galling chains. This 'Peace,' 'Prosperity,' 'Welcome,' etc. I promised to do, and I am glad to take Behind UR, in Chinese characters, were this first opportunity partially to reo two large scrolls, which were afterward deem my promise. After this, Mrs. given to us, and were translated as fol· Clark and I were presented by the so· lows: 'Fa·ti [Flowery Region] Chris- ciety in Fa·ti with two beautiful hand. tian Endeavor Society [literally, Urge- painted fans, on one of which was on·in·the·service·of·salvation's-Lord So- painted, in Chinese characters, Dr. cietyJ respectfully p~esent. May you Rankin's beautiful hymn, "God be take the blessed tidings, and proclaim with you till we meet again," on one them until they fill every region where side, and, on the other, the date, which water and cloud reach: The other reads as follows: 'Western calendar scroll would have shocked our modesty, one thousand eight hundred ninety·seehad we· known what it meant, so com. ond year, which is the same as Bright plimentary was it; but we reminded Achievement [name of reigning emper· ourselves, lest we should get too puffed or] eighteenth year, ninth moon, the up, that these Chinese knew very little last division of ten days' (each moon· of us, since we had been in Canton only is divided into three divisions of ten two days, and that they were apt to days each), aU of which might be reo deal in Howery compliments. Mr. duced to 'November 17th, 1892: An. Yeung, who led the meeting, gave out a other column on this same fan reads as bymn, which was sung very heartily to follows: • Beautiful Nation [the Ameri. the tune of ' Silver Street: Then he can] Clark, teacher, came to the Ex. called upon Rev. Mr. Noyes, of the mis. terior East, Fa·ti [Flowery Region] 10· sion, to tell why we had come together, cal stlciety [of Christian Endeavor]. All and what my mission wus. Then we sung another song, und Mr. Fulton was the believing disciples requested Fak edly ripe for the Christian Endeavor Yam [the given name of Mr. Yeung, idea. I had the impression beforehand who led the meeting] to make a record, that Japan was not ready for our Sooi- it being a joyful matter,' Mr. Fulton ety ; but these few days have quite dis- and the other missionaries say that pelled this notion, so far as the vioinity Christian Endeavor is splendidly adapt- of Tokyo and Yokohama is conoemed.
ed to the Chinese because they are To be sure, I am not so rash as to pre- used to guilds and associations, and dict with certainty the same growth and the idea of the society seems natural to the same staying power for the Society them. .Moreover, they do not feel that here as in America, and I am well aware they have really become Christians un- that there must be adaptations to fit it til they have taken part in meeting, so to Japanese ways; but human nature tbat the prayer-meeting pledge is not everywhere is very much the same, and irksome. These societies in Canton are all the indications point to a rapid and doing capital work. Every portion of steady and healthful growth. I believe this meeting of which I have written that the society is in some ways espe- was planned and carried out by the na- oially adapted to Japanese soil. They tive boys-decorations, scrolls and all. like it because it is a self-governing so- Join me in your prayers, will you not? oiety. They are an independent peo- for these brethren and sisters of ours ple, and do not like to be • bossed' in in Canton and throughout all China, their forms of 'religious servioe any and let us thank God for the wonderful more than in other matters."
success of Christian Endeavor here as Here are some sample bits of Chris- everywhere. " tian Endeavor news, oollected from the Rev. T. Harada, of Japan, has· writ- papers of a single week: Two Endeavor- ten a forty-four page pamphlet, giving, ers of Viotoria, Australia, have raised in Japanese, full instructions in regard $1250 and opened a little Chinese ohap~ to the formation and conduct of Chris- e1. A Colorado society, having prom- tian Endeavor societies. Such a man- ised to raise ,half the salary of a mis- ual has been written in Armenian by sionary, has published a oook-book to Rev. G. H. Krikorian, of Turkey, to aid get the money. Three students in a the cause in that country, but the Turk- single Presbyterian theological semi- ish censors of the press have forbidden nary were led from other oallings into its pUblication. They declare it a dan- the ministry by Christian Endeavor gerous work, dealing with •• brother- work. An Ohio society sends a mem- hood," "endeavor,"" union," and such ber as missionary to China. The Good- proscribed themes, besides being an at- will Mission of South Dakota has an tempt to organil'le a society. Says Rev. Endeavor society of forty active mem- Henry O. Dwight, of Constantinople, bers, mostly Indians. A Texas Society .. In response to our argument that the helps support a Chinese mission Sun- society is for spiritual culture, the reply day-school, a mission school for ohil- is given that the point objected to is dren, and a missionary in China.
organization for any purpose, it being the object of the government to prevent people from learning how to organize."
Native Christian Endeavorers in Turkey Dr. Clark's joumey to the Antipodes run serious risk of imprisonment if dis- is making one thing very clear, and th at covered. . is the adaptability of the Sooiety of In Japan Dr: Clark spent three and a Christian Endeavor to all sorts and con- half weeks, and held forty-six exceed- ditions of men. The Society has no ingly profitable meetings. Concerning " most-favored nation" olause in its oon- Japan and the Christian Endeavor move- stitution, but all olimes and peoples are ment he Rays: " I find Japan unexpect- its own, rV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT~ Home and City Missions, to go to the devil. He remlDded theln that the Church of England was the The whole number of home mission- wealthiest religious society in the world. aries who were connected with the Among its members were thos8' who Board of Home Missions of the Pres- poss888ed hundreds of thousands of byterian Church a year ago were four- pounds-nay, millions. Were those per· teen hundred and seventy.nine. Of sons really awake to the true state of this number nine hundred and four, or affairs in the country? He did not nearly two thirds, were at work in the think they were. He advocated'greater States and Territories west of the Mis· simplicity of life among the wealthier sissippi. The great home mission field classes of society, and remarked that of the country is there, unless. indeed, while £127,000 a year was spent upon the great cities and mining regions of perfumed spirits from abroad. the anthe East are to be taken into_account. nual income of the Church Pastoral Aid Then the question becomes a very ur- Society was only .£49,000. The one gent one, pondered in many minds, true remedy for existing demoralization whether the scattered peoples in the was the taking from house to house alld regions beyond the great rivers do not door to door throughout the land of the absorb much labor which should be Gospel of Jesus Christ. more profitably expended on crowded oities like Chicago, Cincinnati, Pitts- The Rev. T. Y. Darling, formerly burg, Philadelphia, and New York. C. M. S. missionary in the Talegu coun- One such city as Chicago, set as on a try, supplies a graphic sketch of the hill, has as distinct and far.reaching life of P. Venkayya, who was his flrst influence for good or ill as an entire ministerial seal after being engaged in territory in the mountains. itinerant missionary work for eleven years without making a convert. The English Notes. narrative constitutes a notable chapter . [J. Do] in the romance of missions. WhBt hath God wrought? It is not always The .Moral Oondition of England.-The the case, as this narrative shows, that Dean of Norwich, speaking at a meet· ., the Lord never uses a discouraged ing held at Memorial Hall, Islington, servant. " The exceptions to this rule, expressed himself as decidedly of the if it be one, may well hearten those {)pinion that the moral and religious who have lost heart. "I looked upon condition of England was never so bad myself," says Mr. Darling, .. as one as' it is at the present moment. He privileged to sow the good seed, but said the population of this country is not to see in the flesh the issue." The 29,000,000, of whom over 16,000,000 in. Lord, however, ordered it otherwise, habited six counties. This fact was and that on the very day when, after alone sufficient to illustrate how much preaching Jesus and Him crucified to a overcrowding there is. He called atten- large crowd. and percei ving not the tion to the fact that at present £26,000,- faintest sign of encouragement. he re- 000 is expended per annum by the work· turned to his bungalow sadly dishearting classes for strong drink, and that ened and literally in tears." It was 6,000,000 of our people are living in then, in 1859, that P. Venkayya, by the habitual neglect of public worship. powerful impulse of the Spirit, sought, What must be done to stem the current with some 8ssociates from the same of evil? Personally, he and those who village,' the discouraged worker and emsympathized with his views would not, 1:lracod with joy the Christian faith. God helping them, allow this country
EDlTORlAL DEPARTlIIElI'l'
Forthwith there hall been continuous and 10,880 attendants on' publio wor· . reaping. The first convert died Sep. ship. Methodism has not been the tember 20th, 1891, faithful unto deaIA; progressive force in France that it has and now the number of Ohristian ad· been in England; still, small as it is, it hlll"eDts of this mission is 2945. represents a living power in Frenoh Protestantism, which, should Method. The Ninety-eighth Report of the Lon. ism disappear, would have reason to don Missionary Society is to hand. say, "A virtue has gone out of me." The income is unprecedentedly large, The senior minister of this mission is representing an increase on last year of the Rev. James Hoc/nt, born in 1812, fully £35,000, and leaving a balance in and now in the fifty.ninth year of his favor of the Society of £9544 8s. Id. ministry. He has been, and still is, in The total receipts were £193,998 19s. 6d. labors abundant, a watohful pastor and indefatigable evangelist. The troubles in Ohina, while they have seriously inlluenced the work, Wesleyan Methodism in South Oeylon have not caused it to mark time. The has suffered numerically during the Society reports a large amount of work past two years from disciplinary ac· done during the year. In particular tion. It is believed, however, that the the success attending medical missions energetic use of the pruning.knife has is accentuated. made the hold of Ohristianity upon the people stronger, the Ohuroh purer, the A fairly hopeful view is taken of the agents and members better qualified prospects and the results in India. for aggressi ve work than in any other Northern India, – however, is under- period of the history of this mission. manned, and various important stations are in a critical condition. The Cape General Mission is being reinforced by the Rev. Walter Searle, With respect to Madagascar the Re- late Oongreg"tional minister in Birport strikes a jubilant note. A revival, mingho.m, and his talented wife. Mr. whioh began in the capital in May last, Searle becomes joint secretary with Mr. has spread to several outlying districts Spencer Walton of thill young but ener and much fruit has been reaped, espe· getic mission, and the new editor of the oially among the young. Happily many South African Pioneer. By a train of of the people are in possession of the events God has been preparing this ser· vant for the foreign mission field, lead· Scriptures, and have a considerable ac- ing him to aspire after a close walk with God and Divine unction in preach. quaintance with the truths of God's ing. Two oircumstances specially call Word. for mention. The first, a conversation with the Rev. W. Haslam, on the sub- In South Africa the first faint. streaks ject of soul.winning, which led this of light are discernible in Matebeleland; brother definitely to ask of God for an in Oentral Afrioa peace has reigned at addition of a hundred souls to his both centrea of the miSSion, and tokens church in one year. This petition was of blessing have been given, but the literally fulfilled with the overplus insky is somewhat lurid. The fear is cident to beaped.up measure. The sec· that the slave.trading community will ond circumstance was the effect pronot submit without a struggle to the ~uced by the reading of Dr. Pierson's establishment of British rule in -that " Crisis of Missions. .. Feeling the im. region. At New Guinea pioneering and mense disproportion between the work. settling-are going on vigorously. ers at home and those abroad, Mr.
From an able summary in " Wesleyan Missionary NotioE's" of the Methodist Ohuroh in France, we learn that Meth. odism began there exactly one hundred years ago. Now there are 64 ohapels Searle leaves his loving church and cannot and will not give any effect with his wife goes forth to bear the whatever to the votes which a majority gospel embassy to the mixed races of of its members recorded while in oppo- Africa. sition! Is this consistent withany pos- sible view of political morality? Is it English Wesleyan missions report grati- any wonder that the opposition preBS fying progress in the province of Can- taunts the supporters of the Governton. In three centres of that province- ment with their folly in supposing that Canton, Fatshan, and Mong Fu Kong– the fair promises of Liberal statesmen native self-supporting churches have meant anything? And will the nation been established under the control of tolerate such disgraceful tergiversanative pastors, and independent of tion ?" funds from the British Missionary Society. Trained to giving from the start .. The Father that seeth in secret" is of the mission, the churches above the Father that worketh in secret alBo. mentioned have now taken over the en- Whether at home or abroad, it is those tire financial responsibility. whom the, Father prepares who receive the Son. .The case of Ghulam Akbar, To-day there are nearly two thousand formerly mullah of a mosque in Haripur, more Christians in the Canton Province as detailed in this month's India's than there were in all China in 1872. Women, gives rise to thisrellection. No The total cost of Christian missions in Christian inlluence had reached him. aU China in 1872 was £120,000 sterling, He had only casually heard of the zenana and the present cost of missions in the teacher in the bazaars; but it is Canton Province is something less than enongh. the Father's secret work within £40,000, so that for one third of the made him more than ready to seek at money we have more Christians. With her lips the jewel of priceless instrucsuch facts and figures before us we tion. .. Here." said he, .. is the Koran, thank God and take conrage. here is so-and-so and so-and-so," men- tioning various Mohammedan contro- Much of the success of British Wes- versial and theological works; "bnt leyan missions in the Canton Province these do not tell me what I want, to is traoed to the training school at Tsang know. I am such a. sinner; how can Sha. A notable preacher, .Mr. Lau Sing I be saved?" The sequel does not sur- Nam, was trained at this institute. He prise us that one so manifestly dra.wn discourses in various large preaching of the Father should, at the close of halls in Canton five and often six days the second interview, have electrified a week, when he holds spellbound a his instructress by standing upright couple of hundred Chinese for an hour with his hand upon his heart and makor more. For many years his mother ing the solemn confession, ., I believe and brother were his bitterest oppo- that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; nents, but the Lord has heard his pray- and that He is my Saviour. " ers and brought both in penitence to the Saviour. The Rev. R. C. Forsyth, Baptist mis- sionary of Taing-Chu-Fu, Shantung, Great disappointment is felt in this North China, has had a good yesr. country at the attitude of the Liberal Many have been baptized and received Government toward the opium traffic as into the membership of the church. voiced by Lord Kimberley. The Friend He estimates the number of converts of Ohina thus sums up the matter: .. By this year at 120. the voice of their colleague (Lord Kimberley), who is responsible for Indian At the Baptist Mission Rsiu Chou. affairs, the Government declares that it Shansi, headway is being made, though for the time more under than above ground. The Rev. Herbert Dixon advantage of the special rates should writes, <lOur work here has progressed send their lIubscriptions throngh the quietly, without any great visible addi- secretary of the Movement, Bible House, tion to our numbers, though we have New York.
Bome such; but there are many more Contributions to the Fund may be who are willing to listen to what we sent direot to Funk & Wagnalls, 18 and have to say, and not a few who confess 20 Astor Plaee, New York.
that it is the truth, but say they dare We give below a statement of the ac- not face the persecution that open pro- count for the two years just past. It fession entails." will be seen that while the outlay has Cheering news is to hand from the been about the same each year, the in- Congo. The Rev. H. Ross Phillips re- come has almost entirely ceased.
ports at Mbanza Mputu the baptism of Dr. Or.
the chief of the town and four others. 1891. ..$200.40 1891. ..$291.80 The town was quite en fete. The ordi- l . 1892… 193.00 I 1892… 7.00 nance of the Lord's Supper followed $393.40 $298.80 the baptismal service. While curiosity De it balance 94.60 and wonder were predominant in many $393.40 of the spectators, there were signs of a deeper feeling. Scenes from Missionary Life.
Student Volunteer Fund. "The Bishop's Conversion, .. * by The editors :lind it necessary to make Mrs. Ellen B. Maxwell, is a book with another appeal to the friends of mis- a purpose. Ignorance of facts has been Idons, and of the Volunteer Movement the canse of much harsh criticism of in partioular. The offer of the REvmw missionaries 80S to their style of living.
at a prioe less than oost of publishing It is to dispel this ignoranoe and cor- was made in order that many of the rect false impressions that Mrs. Max- young men and young women who well gives to the publio this narrative have signified their intention to spend of every-day life and work in India.
their life in the Master's servioe in the The scenes are well selected and vividly foreign field might be enabled to grow and forcibly pictured; many of them in knowledge ooncerning the work to be being drawn from her own personal ex- done. The offer has been widely ac- perience. As Bishop Thoburn says in oepted, and has oonsequently necessi- his Introduction : "Practical mission- tated a oall for oontributions to make aries have nothing to fear, but much to up the. deficit. The outlay has been hope from a truthful presentation of about four hundred dollars ($400), and their work to the Christian public."
the donations from editors and friends The book will prove valuable in awak- reaoh only three hundred ($300). The ening renewed interest in missionaries amount lacking must go on increasing and conveying accurate knowledge of unless some response is made to this the constant toil and many hardships appeal. The editors and publishers are which they are called upon to undergo.
desirous of continuing their offer un- It cannot fail to convert many besides limited, and have recently extended it the bishop to a belief that missionary to members of the movement in Eng- life is not one of ease and luxury, but land. It is earnestly hoped that a gen- one which shows clearly the unselfish.
erous response in sums large or small ness and true heroism of those engaged will remove the necessity for any cur- in the work of the Master in heathen tailment or restrictions. lands.
Volunteers who are able to do so will '" The Bishop's Conversion. By Mrs. Ellen B. aid the cause by paying the regular sub. Maxwell. New York: Hutton & Eaton, Price scription price, Those desiring to take $1.50.
THE KON'l'HLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
I V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
MEnco,* CENTRAL AMEBICA, WEST INDIES, CITY EVANGELIZATION.t The West Indian Isla.nds and the MOil- than three centuries after their discov- kito Ooast, ery of them could be. sung. better than BY THE BEY. PAUL DE SCHWEINITZ, NAZA· of almost any other part of this sinful BETH, PA. earth, It is certainly most appropriate in .. Where every Pl'Ollpect pleuea, And only man is vUe."
this year of the Columbian Exposition And the saddest part was, that the vUe to tum our attention to that portion of men were not so much the heathen, bow.
this New World which was first dis· ing down to wood and stone, as the covered by Christopher Columbus, and Christian (God save the mark!) Euro.
note what has been accomplished there peans.
for the upbuilding of Christ's kingdom Already in the early' years of the in those fair lands during these four Spanish domination the aborigines were centuries. Strictly speaking, it is only almost totally exterminated. The abo some of the West Indian islands that solutely fiendish cruelty practised upon are known to us four full centuries, and them by their Spanish conquerors, and the very name of the archipelago testi- often in the name of religion, resulted . fies to the first erroneous ideas of the in their annihilation. It is said that original discoverers. 2,000,000 of these mild Indians were This string of islands stretches in an found on the island of Hayti, and after S.shaped line from the peninsula of thirty years not one was left. No trace Florida to the northeastern coast of of the Caribs is now to be found any.
Venezuela, the somewhat deformed S , where in the islands.
lying on its side, and measuring, rough- These islands became the great bone ly speaking, 1500 to 2000 miles in length. of contention between conllicting Euro- The islands on the north and east, with pean nations and changed ownership the peninsula of Yucatan, Central and very frequently; but, no matter what South America on the west and south, flag waved over their unfortunate enclose the Caribbean Sea. which takes shores, the planters, having extermiits name from the aboriginal inhabit- nated the native-born laborers, were alants of these islands. The whole archi- ways clamoring for men to work their pelago lies between the 10th and 25th huge plantations. Hence in thele parallels of north latitude, and all, ex- wretched islands African slavery was cept a few of the Bahama Islands, south first introduced into the New World, of the Tropic of Cancer. Situated thull and for nearly three centuries the West in the most favorable portion of the Coast of Africa was depopulated to sup. tropical zone, the islands naturally ply the awful West Indian demand. present a most luxuriant vegetation, For many years the poor blacks were and are said to produce a greater variety deported thither at the rate of 100,000 and more magnificent palms than any a year. Catholic Spaniards, Lutheran other part of the globe. Oranges, ba- Danes, Reformed Dutchmen, Episco. nanas, cocoanuts, yams grow in great palian Englishmen imported, bought, abundance, while the sugar-cane and sold, branded, whipped, mutilated, coffee plantations have been the chief used for fiendish and IUltful purposes source of their commercial importance. these miserable sons and daughters of These islands were veritable little pars- Afric's sunny plains. Whatever may dises in the western sea, but for more have been the character of slavery else- • pp. 153 (Feb.), 180, 201 (this issue). where, here its barbarity beggars de- s(lJ,iption! and tile 4istillct f&Qe of Pl"Qlatpp. t 113 (Feb.), 161, 218 (tl;tis issue). toes to this day testify to its awful im- Moravian Church and the first mission momlitie1l1 One year, a<!cording to the to the West Indies on August 21st, 1732.
swom testimony of the planters them- The missionaries labored at their selves, sixty thousaud punishments trades by day to support themselves, were inflicted upon these helpless and at night preached the Gospel tc.
wretches in four colonies alone, and the poor blacks. Truly apostolic in- tholle the best ordered. One planter deed! The negroes heard the message caused the death of sixty slaves. gladly. Hitherto their principal knowl- Marriage was forbidden among them, edge of the name of God was derived and any attendance upon the means of from the brutal oaths of their overseers, grace was on the majority of the estates and if they had heard of the Saviour, punished by the lash. The imported they thought He was only the white negroes were kept in their original hea- man's God and Saviour. Now that they tnenism, and to its miseries, .. having heard He was for them, too, these weary no hope and without God in the world," and heavy-laden ones eagerly came unto were added all the horrors of such bar- Him to find rest for their souls.
barous slavery. The blacks, of course, But the masters and overseera at once far outnumbered the whites-even a few raised a storm of opposition. They years ago the whites formed only 17 per did not want their slaves to become cent of the population; and yet no one "better Christians than·· they were, "
of these" Christian" whites cared for and they feared the missionaries would the souls of these poor heathen hordes; interfere with their lustful practices.
and thus it went on for centuries. The slaves were flogged unmereifully Finally, far across the waters, in a lit- for going to the missionaries, and the tle colony of refugees for conscience' latter were finally thrown into prison; sake from Bohemia and Moravia gath- but they prayed and sang aloud, and ered with some eamest souls from vari- crowds gathered outside the prison ous provinces of Germany upon the es- windows to listen to them, and many tate of Count Zinzendorf in Saxony, were converted. At this juncture, "the eye of pity" began to gaze upon which was some six years after the in- these man-persecuted and apparently ception of the undertaking, and also God-forsaken blacks. When the little after various changes had taken place colony of Bohemian, Moravian, and in the force of the missionaries, Zinzen- German Brethren which constituted dorf, without knowing anything of the the but just renewed Brethren's Unity deplorable state of the workers, moved (Moravian Church) in Herrnhut num- by an irresistible impulse came himself bered only six hundred souls all told, with reinforcements to St. Thomas.
the first mission of this Church was be- When about landing he said to the ac- gun; and this mission was to the West companying brethren: "What will we Indies-just sixty years before Carey do if we find the brethren no longer sounded his call for a mi88ion to the there?" "Then we are here," was the East Indies. prompt reply. Whereupon Zinzendorf Touched by the tale of a negro slave uttered the historic exclamation : brought to Europe by a Danish noble- " Gens eterna-these Moravians!" He man, two Brethren, Leonhard Dober secured the prisoners' release, but the (afterward the Chief Elder of the opposition continued.
Church) aud David Netschmann (after- Not only did they have to contend ward the first bishop of the Renewed with evil men, but also with dire fevers.
Brethren's Church), .were dispatched The first fifty years of the mission on without funds and without any pros- St. Thomas alone cost the lives of one pect of financial support to found a mis- hundred and sixty missionaries, or an sion on the island of St. Thomas. average of over three a year on just that Thus began tM first mission of the otle iHland; but the gaps were always filled up and the work went on. Ten at this time, it is easy to see with what'
died on St. Croix in a few months, but difficulties the work is surrounded.
Zinzendorf only sang in German verse : Nevertheless, the Moravian missions ex- " Ten have been sowed as if 101lt, but pect to be constituted an independent upon their bed (seed-bed) stands' This province of the Unity, on the same foot- is the seed. of the Moors,' " while twelve ing with the home provinces, by July, were on their way to take their places. 1899, and are receiving but little sup- Six died in a few weeks on St. Thomas port from Europe lind America now.
in 1817. The same day on which the There are at this time but very few news reached Bethlehem, Pa., eight absolutely heathen negroes on the Brit- volunteered to take their places. ish and Danish islands. Nearly all are Such consecration had to tell, and nominally under the care of some their work spread from island to island ; church; but remnants of African super- but then their stations were often de- stition can be found among many. and vastated by hurricanes, earthquakes, sorcery is still practised by some. Sex- droughts, and famines, but neverthe- ual immorality, the awful legacy of sla- less they kept on. very, is tlteir besetting sin. The actual Gradually the opposition began to church-membership of the Moravian die down. Planters began to see that missions is not large, because of the the Christian negroes were more faith- striot churoh discipline exeroised; but ful and reliable, and that they brought the rules of the Churoh are very rigid better prices in the slave-market (sic I), in this respect.
and, by the by, to this day" Moravian" Another peculiar phase of the work negroes are particularly sought after as at present is the unfortunate caste feel- servants. ing that has grown up between the Thus for over a century the mission- "colored" and the "black" people.
aries labored among the slaves, until The blacks are those of unadulterated finally the Day of Emancipation dawned negro descent; the colored are those -in the British Islands, August 1st, with white blood in their veins. The 1838, in the Danish Islands in 1848. latter, little realizing that their color On the night of July 31st, whatever may testifies to their parents' shame, look have been the disturbances among the down upon and despise their blaok heathen negroes, the Christian negroes brethren. The" colored" people are, gathered in their churches and spent on the whole, more intelligent, but they the solemn night in praise and prayer. are slower to become genuine followers Their watchers were stationed on the of the Lord Jesus.
surrounding hills to report the first On the island of Trinidad, which has rays of the sun that was to rise upon but recently come into renewed promi- the day of freedom, and when their nence, there are a large number of hea- hallelujahs heralded that glorious dawn, then coolies imported from the East the worshipping congregations poured Indies, numbering over sixty thousand.
forth, praising God with loud voices almost slaves, and sadly needing the that the year of jubilee had come. blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Up to that time there had, of course, The Moravians have a large number been no possibility of self.support, and of native helpers and teachers educated in spite of all the help received from in their theological seminary in St.
truly Christian planters, the work was Thomas, and in their nonnal school for beset with numberless difficulties. The male teachers in J aroaica and for female mission made great strides in the fol- teachers in Antigua and Jamaioa.
lowing yeaTS, but the problem of self- The Moravians entered the islands of support is being solved but very grad- St. Thomas and St. John in 1732; fit.
ually. As laborers receive in Bome is~ Croix, 1740 (these three are Danish, all Ilnds only 19 lind 20 cents a day even the rest of the islands on which Moravian missions are situated are British) ; prime.minister, or at least did in very Jamaica, 1754 ; Antigua and Barbadoes, recent times.
1765; St. Kitt's, 1777; Tobago, 1790 ; No attempt to Christianize the inhab.
Trinidad, 1890. On these islands they itants was made by any church for more have 50 stations, with 49 foreign mis- than three centuries after its discovery sionaries, including their wives; 14 or- until, in 1849, the Moravian missiona· dained native missionaries and 777 na- ries entered this field, and they are the tive helpers, exclusiTe of teachers, with only laborers there. The history of 40,468 souls in charge. Furthermore this mission is extremely interesting.
129 day schools with 171 teaohers, all but the space for this month has already native, and 13,749 scholars; and 70 been more than used up, and only a few Sunday-sohools with 938 teaohers and more sentences oan be added.
13,899 pupils. These statistios are for A peculiar feature of the work here the year ending July, 1892. The Mora- is that it must be oarried on largelyoy vians were the first to enter all these means of a ship. The coast is indented islands exoept Trinidad. If it were not with frequent lagoons, which make the for their striot discipline they oould building of roads impossible. Hence number their adherents by hundreds of the India.n hamlets can only be reached thousands. by means of a ship from the sea.
The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyte- In spite of the degraded condition of rians, and Anglican Episcopalians have the Indians, the mission has been won· missions on a great many of the islands derfully successful. The Nicaraguan already mentioned, and also on some Indians, have again and again begged where the Moravians have no stations. the Moravian Brethren to oome to them, We have no reoent statistios at hand of but the Jesuits have so far succeeded their work. On the French islands, in influencing the government to forbid Guadeloupe and Martinique, the only their entrance, although it is relenting.
missions (up to 1890) were those of the and a wide field of influence seems to Roman Catholic Churoh. be openin~ before this mission. The THE MOSKITO COAST. building of the Nicaraguan Canal will have a tremendous influence upon the Four hundred miles southwest from mission, we trust, for good, and it is Jamaica lies the Moskito Coast, which earnestly to be hoped that this canal is the east ooast of Nicaragua, in Cen- may remain under American (i.e .• Unit- tral Amerioa. It is a narrow little strip ed States-Protestant Christian) con- of land about 200 miles long, surrounded trol.
on all sides by the Republio of Nica- This summary must be closed abo ragua, except the east, where the Carib- ruptly with the latest statistics. There bean Sea washes its shores. It takes its are 12 stations with 19 foreign mission- name not from the insect, but from the aries, including their wives; 4 ordained Mosco or Moskito tribe of Indians, who native missionaries and 66 native help.
dwell there. It is about the size of ers, beside the teaohers with 4739 souls Holland, and has from 10,000 to 15,000 in charge. Furthermore, 13 day schools inhabitants-Indians, negroes, mulat. with 13 teachers and 671 scholars, and toes, and whites. It is becoming more 12 Sunday·schools with 44 teachers and and more important from a commercial 776 pupils.
standpoint.
Although disoovered in 15Q2 by Co- N. B.-Since the above article was lumbus, and claimed by various nations written the Nicaraguan government has in turn, it is now, strange to say, a granted permission to the Moravians to semi-independent Indian reserve, with begin mission work among the Indians an Indian chief as ruler, for whom the in Nicaragua adjacent to the Moskito Moravian missionary aots as practical Coast.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
VI.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extracts and Tra.nsla.tions from Foreign Jews in Germany. I have received Periodicals. news from Bavaria that a Dr. B. and all the members 'of his family ha.(re em· BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK. ANDOVER, MASS. braced Christianity; others are IIC- quainting themsjillves with the teachings -" The peoples who are able to main. of Christ, and our venerable missionary. tain their national independence are Mr. Jacobi, in Konigsberg, writes about proceeding to shape their ci viI institu. the great change which is coming over tions after the Christian pattern; the educated Jews. For instance, he has rest are accommodating themselves more been recently invited to the conference and more to the suzerainty of Christian of Jewish religious teachers of East nations. Prussia, held in Konigsberg. Among those who took part were nine school •• The axe is already laid at the .root inspectors and twenty.five teachers. of the trees ; and although the immemo- Rabbi Dr. Bamberger, of Konigsberg, rial, giant oak, planted by a ConfuciUEl presided. Papers were read on differor a Buddha, does not fall in a decade ent subjects by Rabbi Tonn, of Alten. or two, very probably not in a single stein, Rabbi Sturmann, of Osterode, century, yet the first strokes have fallen, Rabbi Dr. Rulf, of Hemmel, Rabbi and the counter·mission, engendered by Scherbel. of Gurnbirmen, Inspector them, proves that men anticipate its Rev. Peritz, of Konigsberg and others. fall. The Crescent also can hardly fail • I need not say that these proceedings Boon to strike its colors. An uneasy had great interest for me,' writes our foreboding says as much to the Moham. friend Mr. Jacobi, 'and the favorable medans themselves. If you could hear opportunity was used to distribute Gertheir private whisperings, you would man tracts.' "-Jewish Intelligence. find them everywhere lamenting: •It is the century of the unbelievers, the AFRICA. Christians' century.' The coming cen· tury also shall be ours; at first, no -" Among the West Coast tribes of doubt, sadly to their displeasure, yet Africa there are no written laws, custom afterward will they be thankful to us and the voice of the elders alone regu. and give glory to God."-L. TlERNERSMA, lating all their jUdiciary affairs. The in De Macedonier. administration of law is much more sim· pIe than in countries of a higher civiliza· -" It is cheering to notice that the tion, less troublesome, and, if anything, Grand Duke of Baden, son·in.law of the more effective. The conscientious stu· late Emperor William I., has taken a dent cannot live among these people firm stand against the anti.Jewish at· any great number of years without in· tacks. He lately celebrated the fortieth creased respect for many of the instituanniversary of his accession to the tions by which they govern themselves. throne. On that occasion he expressed Some of them, when described on paper his sympathy with the Jewish people, from the standpoint of the visitor, who and conferred high decorations on sev· at best can know nothing of the inner eral of their community-rabbis, univer. life. appear extremely grotesque when sity professors, magistrates. He sin- read on the other side of the sea by peogled out for a special distinction his ple who only regard the negro as a cartrusted Finance Minister, Dr. Moritz toon on human nature. Many things Elstatter, who has held this important that seem ridioulous from a distance be. post for twenty.four years. The Gos. pel is making great strides among the
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
come on closer inspection objects of ad- poses upon itself some task requiring miration. T4ese people manage to rule energy and self-sacrifice and patience themselves without all the long com· for the benefit of the world. There plicated system of Europe and the Unit- must be something big of some sort ed States. There are here no jails, no which it has to do, which does not pay policemen, no safes, and no lock,ups, directly, but which, consciously or un- and yet among the natives, pure and consciously, it insists on doing, even to simple, life and property are much safer its own immediate detriment. The than in countries that boast of their Roman work was to stamp the notion wonderful civilization. A brass kettle of law as distinct from will into the may be set down in the midst of the white races, and it did it, and died only town or village and left for an indefi- of weakness when it drew back from nite time and it will not be touched. that great task, and suffered the reign That article is known here as hard of will to overpower almost entirely the money, and is the same as gold in other reign of law. Our work in the world is lands. Try that in the city of New to give its dark races a fair chance of York and see how long it will remain advancing; to maintain among them the undisturbed. Many a time, while trav- wonderful pax Britannica, which makes elling, I have left goods that to a native a continent like India as safe as the would have been wealth, in a town, in Strand; to let them, if they will, civil- a mud hut, with no other protection ize themselves, and assist them in the than a simple mat hung before the door work. This is specially our work ,in to keep out the rain. Often they have relation to negroes-first, because we remained weeks; and would have been hate slavery, the grand negro trouble; absolutely safe for any length of time." secondly, because we alone of the na- -Rev. DAVID A. DAY, in Lutheran Mis- tions can govern negroes without op- sionary Journal. pression; and thirdly, because the -" Everywhere in Christendom,' negroes have chosen us out from the alongside of the great apostasy, which nations as the one they will obey most is extending so appallingly, there is easily. Even the slaves in the Southvisible also a growing love to missions. ern States, with all their terrible wrongs, Christendom, inspired, as it were. to a never rose on the Anglo-Saxon planters breathless emulation of effort, precipi- as the Haytian negroes rose on their tates itself upon the tribes encompassed French and Spanish masters. Dr. Blywith the night of heathenism, above all den, perhaps the ablest negro alive, has in this part of the world, which has testified in the writer's hearing that hitherto been accounted the darkest. wherever he has travelled among his This is visibly of the Lord. He is own people, and he has travelled far, he minded to tear away all hindrances has found universally the same feeling which yet delay His advent. He is -that they would rather submit to the minded to hasten His coming. For this English than to any other white race, end He sets every force in motion. Sci- the conviction being that·, though they ence and romantic love of exploration, are violent and sometimes terrible, they culture, and humanity, colonial and mean well by us!" Under these circommercial development, all is con- cumstances the leadership in East Afristrained to serve Him ; all these things ca, from the Mediterranean to the Cape, are highways for the feet of the messen- has fallen to us; and we conceive that gers that are publishing peace."- it should, at any reasonable sacrifice, be retained. Just look at this single Jahresbericht of the Unitas lfTatrum. case of Uganda. It is conceded that we – " We hold that no people will ever have there no white enemy to dread; keep up its character at its highest level and the facts, therefore, resolve them~ – keep it noble, in fact-unless it im- selves into this. By cutting a road-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
we do not say a railroad-of three hun- we have actually secured to ourselves by dred and fifty miles; establishing a diplomatic effort a recognized though post or two; putting two or three thin kind of sovereignty. It seems to steamers on the Victoria Lake; and us that the House of Commons, if it organizing a minute force-say three votes for such a retreat, does a shamethousandmen-of Ghoorkasand Soudan- ful thing-as shameful a thing as could ese, with three mule batteries of artil. be done, except, indeed, one which, to lery, we can give a country as large and our amazement, is also pressed upon us fertile as England, with a large popula- by semi·official arguments. We can tion, profound quiet, commercial order, keep the protectorate, it is said, it being the opportunity of rising from the Afri. guarded by a European treaty, and yet can to the Asiatic grade of civilization. evacuate Uganda. That is to say, we We can allow Christian teaching, Prot- can keep our rights and do none of our estant and Catholic; we can set every duties; insist on our claims,. and fulfil man and woman free; and we can ren- none of our promises; leave Uganda, der it as safe to practise the simpler arts • the garden of savage Africa,' and -agriculture, weaving, andhouse·build- warn off any rival who might, from ining-as it is in Caithness or Sutherland- terested or other motives, restore a semshire. Englishmen can hardly under· blance of order. It is monstrous counstand what it is for negroes in Africa to sel. If we go, let us go utterly, and conmake even that beginning; but perhaps fess openly that our energy is overtaxed, they may l1nderstand the consequences and leave any white race that will try of our absence. The Arab slave-raid- to perform the duty from which, from ers, already on the verge of sovereignty, mere selfishness-for there is no other will enter Uganda, supported by their motive-we have shrunk."-The Specsavage allies, the Munyuema, and the tator, in Ohurch Missionary lntelligencer. fierce converts they arm with muskets, and turn the whole land into a wilder. -Lord Rosebery, speaking of Uganness whence all villages have disap- da, says to the C. M. S. deputation: peared ; where' no man or woman will "We-at any rate I-view it as a counbe safe from kidnappers for a day; try of great possibilities, as the key, where order will be unknown, except in perhaps, of Central Africa, as commandthe invaders' camps; and where one ing the Nile basin, as a field recently of third of the population will have per. heroic enterprise, as a land that ha.s ished, one third will have been sold been watered by the blood of our saints into slavery-predial slaTery, not do. and martyrs; and I, for one, as a Scotchmestic-and where the remaining third man, can never be indifferent to a land will have been driven out of its fields which witnessed the heroic exploits of into the jungle to live a hunted life on Alexander Mackay, that Christian Bay. roots and fish. In one generation hope ard, whose reputation will always be will have disappeared, Christianity will dear not only in his own immediate have been forgotten, and the people, northern country, but throughout the just emerging from savagery, will have empire at large. Gentlemen, I say that, been thrown back into the condition whereas we view Uganda from all these from which in three thousand years they different aspects, in my opinion you have only escaped at intervals-a con· represent the greatest force of all, be. dition worse, because a little more con· cause you represent what Mr. Bosworth scious, than that of the gorillas. And Smith eloquently called that continuity this not in a land of which we know noth. of moral policy which Great Britain ing, or with which we have no concern, cannot afford, at any time or in any but in a land which we have entered, dispensation, to disregard. That conwhere we have made treaties giving us tinuity of moral policy is a. moral force rights, and therefore duties, and where .by which, in my opinion, this country
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has to be judged. It is the salt which than his own. The preacher at St. savors our history; it is a spirit which Paul's Cathedral yesterday said, with has exalted it; and it is by that when no less truth than eloquence, that one we have passed away that, in my belief, of the Divine marks of Christianity was we shall come to be judged." its suitability to people in all parts of the world. Well, that is perfectly true, MISCELLANEOUS. but we go far to diminish its truth-or at least to make that truth not apparent -Professor Kume, of the Imperial -if we go out with a sort of impression University of Japan, has published an that couples with the mission of preachessay designed to prove that Shintoism, ing Christianity the mission also to inwhich now worships only the emperor troduce, to teach, and enforce all the and the national heroes, was originally conventionalities of the civilization of monotheistic. This view implies a de- the end of the nineteenth century as nial of the divinity of the Mikado's an- seen in a respectable suburb of Loncestry, and has given great offence_ don." Professor Kume has been placed by the government on the retired list. He illustrated this by an amusing story : -" When a chief of the Cherokees was asked why the Cherokees are so " An old friend of mine-not a mismuch in advance of the other tribes, he sionary of this society, I am happy to replied: 'Because we have taken care say-on seeing a great congregation beto educate our women as well as the fore him in a chapel in one oJ. the Pacimen.' "-Home Missionary Monthly (W. H. fic islands, wrote an account of the M. Board, Pres. C.). scene, which subsequently found its way into print. He wrote: • The vast -The Church at Home and Abroad ob- building was crowded to suffocation; jects, with much force, to the expres- the king and the queen were there; the sion " this or that communion." It ad- hymns were sung with a sound like mits that, unhappily, we may require thunder; there was the most intense denominations for a good while to come, interest in the sermon I preached.' but remarks that amongChristians there And do you think the good man went can be but one communion, "the com- on to rejs;lice at the success of the sermunion of saints." mon? Not a bit of it ; no, he went on to say, 'And my heart was sad in me, -At the annual meeting of the So- for in the whole of that vast con~ega ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel, tion I do not think there were half a Sir Arthur Gordon, after remarking that dozen persons in complete European he had seen the society's missionaries costume.' "-Mission Field. in all parts of the world, and had, as he believed, ., never come across a single ""':At the same meeting the Bishop of missionary of it who was not animated Mashonaland remarked: "There seems by the true spirit, and who was not to be an idea that those who know most a self-denying man," proceeded to re- about missions do not support them. mark that" an abstract fitness" in mis- My experience has been the opposite. sionaries was hardly enough, but that Three of the most distinguished soldiers they should have also a fitness for the in connection with Africa, an admiral, particular place to which they were a governor, an administrator, are the sent." A missionary should be able to class of men who support us in Africa. enter into the feelings and spirit of There is a class who must be strongly others; he should not go out with opposed to missions, namely, those who stereotyped, fixed, Western ideas; and bring into these countries which must he should be able to tolerate other waYl:l tend to destroy the poor black children of living and other modes of thought both body and soul. These men must
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
dislike mIssIons with all their heartB ; opened, the peoples are brought near, and it would be well if our active op- to a degree of which only a few decades position to them were even stronger back there was scarcely a presentiment.
than it is. We tamely accept what we The Lord is laying a pressure on us to hear to the disparagement of missions work so long as it is day. Christendom without investigating the truth. More must trade with her talent ere the Lord than a year ago one of the most read of comes. Thank God that many in Chris- the London weekly newspapers pub- tendom have understood this summons.
lished a letter bringing against an Afri- However we may lament the shortcom- can mission, close to the home of the ings of the Church, yet none the less is writer, a certain definite charge. It it true that in obedience to the com- was answered by our offering to pay all mand of the departing Christ, • Go ye expenses in connection with the inquiry, into all the world and preach the Gospel and the value of the time expended, if to every creature,' the messengers of the the writer could prove a single instance Gospel are gone forth into all the world.
of what he had asserted to happen gen- In this work our Lutheran Church has erally. This answer was published in her part, and may she to-day, so far the same paper; but from that day to as represented by us; strengthen her this nothing has been heard of that faith anew, although on the word which man." was given of old, inllame her zeal and – " An example of Mary Mo.ffat's revive in the freshness of an undying love."-The Very Reverend Superinfaith is that during the darkest time, tendent WERNER, in Evangelisch-Lutherwhen not a single man or woman about isches Missionsblatt. them seemed in the least degree touched or even interested in the message of sal- -" The peoples contend with one anvation, a friend in England wrote ask- other, they advance in their might, in ing what presents to her might be of their civilization and culture, and then use. She answered: 'Send us a com- again decay; but through all the conmunion service; we shall want it some fusion and tumult proceeds the still footday.' The parcel was long on the way; fall of One Invisible, and amid the vicisbut just the day before that arranged situdes of nations and kingdoms grows for receiving the first six converts into a single kingdom day and night, the the Church, the box arrived containing kingdom of Him who saith: •All authe communion vessels for which Mary thorityis committed unto Me in heaven had asked hearly three years before."- and in earth.' When His appointed Woman's Work, in Missionary Reporter. time arrives He causes the sun of the -" When we cast our eyes over the Gospel to shine upon the peoples, and lands of the earth, over the shores of His love has then power to melt even the oceans, the broad continents and the ice which has chilled a hundred the island world, southward and north- generations under the bondage of sin, ward, eastward and westward, of many and to shatter the citadels of Satan.
peoples the first-fruits are scarce gath- Yet has He long patience to wait. Not ered in, and the great multitude are still till the long-delayed event may we ador.
waiting for the message of salvation. ingly say, 'It is the Lord.' Even thus The time presses. We know not how does St. Paul review the wonderful ways near the coming of the Lord is, but mul- of God with the nations, and exclaim: tiplying signs remind us of the word, , How unsearchable are His judgments e This Gospel of the kingdom shall be and His ways past finding out. For preached in all the world, for a witness who hath known the mind of the Lord, unto all nations; and then shall the or who hath been His counsellor? . . .
end come.' The ways to the heathen For of Him, and through Him, and to world are set in order, the doors are Him lire all things!' "-Ibid. IN GENERAL. -This is the scientific view of it, and science speaks with authority: "The -To him who, month by month, foreign travellers and residents in the from the whole wide world diligently South Sea Islands who write with such endeavors to gather facts relating to hOliltility of missions there are men who missions and to exclude all fictions, find the missionary to be an obstacle to there is solid comfort in the saying that the accomplishment of their evil pur- " the man who never makes any mis- poses." – Oharles Darwin. takes never makes anything." But all the same, the struggle for accuracy in -There;is a story of a minister who every statement goel! courageously on. plead so earnestly for foreign missions that, when he asked for those who -" Blessed are they who see the day would volunteer to enter upon the work, of glory, but more blessed are they who his own daughter came forward promptcontribute to its approach."-Bishop ly and offered herself. Taken by sur- Secker. prise, the father said: "Oh, daughter, I did not mean you." How easy to talk -Dr. S. J. McPherson, apropos of the with fervor without meaning much! recent decease of a certain millionaire, used these words so painfully and terri- -The tithe as a standard for giving bly true: "A selfish man is a Dead to the Lord will not answer for all. He Sea, and wants all things to be inlets whD gives $1 out of $100,000 gives far without any outlets; but a fine char- less than he who gives the same out of acter, like a sweet-water lake, must have $10,000 or $1000. Dr. Joseph Brown, outlets as well as inlets. His life is an of Glasgow, quaintly says that no man interesting study for likeness to the can overlook this principle of propor- Dead Sea." tionate giving if he understands his arithmetic, and that the practical neg· -In less than 80 Y'Olars 30,000 mis- lect of it can be accounted for only on sionary Baptists in the United States the ground that such people, when they have grown to over 3,000,000; while came to simple proportion, bolted over it 40,000 anti·mission Baptists have grown into vulgar fractions." to only 45,000. "I do not know," says Rev. William Brock, " what there would -A Brahman said to a missionary: have been in the Baptist denomination "We are finding you out. You are not if there had been no Baptist mission. so good as yonf Book. If you were as It was the real source of inspiration to good as 101U' Book, you would conquer the churches." Insert any other de- India for Christ in five years." nominational name and the statement is equally true. –Joel Chandler Harris, of "Uncle Remus" fanie, is the son of a mission- -The great commission of the Master ary. and is about to revisit his birthwho bids His followers" Go ye into all place on the African coast, where his the world, and preach the Gospel to parents were once settled. every creature," is often understood as if it read, .. Stay ye in this part of the -A building that at one time beworld, and preach the Gospel to the few longed to the Inquisition has been purpeople who have already heard it." chased by the Baptists of Bahia, Brazil, Whereas the command is to all, and for mission purposes. "Surely the equally to all. And the many who are wrath of man shall praise Thee." not called to go themselves are bound to send substitutes for the service-sons, -Whoso would conjure wisely with daughters, offerings-and to pray with- figures, first of all must be sure that beout ceasing to the Lord of the harvest. hind his figures are solid facts to match. Yes, go or send substitutes. Of the bulk of the world no census has ever been taken, and so whenever the numbers of human kind are given, it is to the next Assem bly looking toward &.
to be remembered that outside of North more economical expenditure of mis- America, Europe, and India, and a few sion funds. After expressing its con- smaller regions, all conclusions are fidence in the unity of the Church, and based only upon estimates-that is, its belief in co·operation as a practical guesses. Africa used to contain 200,- method of expressing that unity, it ex- 000,000 and upward to even 300,000,- pressed the desire to co.operate with ODD, but now statisticians name 165,- other churches in bringing about this 000,000, or even 130,000,000, as probably. reform in the missionary field of the.
nearer the truth; while a recent writer West.
would leave to the Congo Free State WOMAN'S WORK. bnt 8,000,000 out of the 40,000,000 who have been supposed to dwell therein; Past and Present.-It marked the be-· and, finally, along comes the Chinese ginning of a new and important stage in ambassador and declares that the popu- the growth of Christian missions wpen, lation of his country is grossly overesti- in 1861, and largely through Mrs. Doremated, and instead of 400,000,000 there mus, in Ne'!V York City, was formed the are but 125,OOO,000! Calculations, he Union Missionary Society, the first of says, have been based upon the num- its kind, at least in the United States, ber found to the square mile in the and by the co-operation of women. vicinity of the seaboard, while further from six denominations. The need back, over tbe bulk of the area of the of the new movement was so great, empire, the density of population is and the call was so evidently from on. much less. high, that presently the idea was taken. up and acted upon by others, and now it -Mr. Moody finds young Irishmen has come to this, that any church which from the old country so especially valu- is not supplied with a Woman's Board able, when trained for evangelistic is counted singular and far behind the· toil, that in closing his work in that times.
island recently he offered to depart from Not less than 75 such organizations his usual rule of requiring candidates can now be named, of which 50 are in the to bear a portion of the expense of their United States and Canada, and the rest training, and if 25 young men were sent mainly in Great Britain, with an aggre- from Ireland, he would put them gate income approaching near to $2,000,- through their conrse in the Chicago In- ODD, and upward of 5000 representatives stitute without any charge. in the foreign field, of whom nearly 2000 -Though not a .few Episcopalians have gone ont from Christian lands. have strong convictions against sending These four denominations stand at the " missionaries to Roman Catholic coun- front with respect to the extent of their tries, because they are already under work, though various others, according the jurisdiction of bishops who are in to their numbers and ability, have done the line of the apostolical succession," just as well or even better: the Presbythe Evangelical Ohurchman of Toronto terians, $316,734; the Methodist Epis. does not in the least share such strange copalians, $265,342 ; the Congregationscruples, and makes bold to affirm : "It alists, $218,935; and the Baptists, $213,- is the duty of Protestants to carry the 658. As a manifestation of zeal coupled Gospel to Romanists, who in some coun- with energy and skill, the society first tries-Spain, Mexico, and Brazil, for named reported receipts last year less instance-need it almost as m.ilch as the than those of the entire great Church by heathen." 'only $16.226, a phenomenon strange, if- not serious; and while the Methodist.
-The Presbyterian Synod of Oregon, Church South has been for some years I't its last meeting, adopted an overture struggling with a debt, the women. thereof have maintained a treasury years in the Galesburg, TIl., Congregablessed with a surplus in the bank. tional Church, 12 girls have gone as missionaries to foreign lands. At the The kinds of work undertaken are home of one of these in Tokyo she died." various, with school work most common. In the zenanas of the East women find -How many readers of the MISSIONa boundless :field, one desolate in the ARY REVIEW know that the membership extreme, and have it all to themselves. of the W. C. T. U., including the young Besides, in hospitals and elsewhere, not women's branoh and the ohildren of the far from 100 women are ministering Loyal Temperanoe Legion, has reached abundantly to the bodies and souls of in the United States alone 350,000, their sex. Nearly two thirds of that or that among the great things done it number went from this country. has procured 10,000,000 signatures to petitions for prohibitioll ? It maintains The enginery applied at home is the largest publishing society of women equally peculiar. The money is raised in the world, and is annually issuing by various devices, among which these 130,000,000 pages of printed matter, all are most common : by membership fees, used in pushing its great work of moral with dues paid annually, quarterly, or reform. Then there is also that magni. monthly; by pledges, mite-boxes, col- fioent $1,000,000 " temple" in Chioago, lections at public meetings held for the the quickening centre for all its world. purpose, etc. But perhaps the most wide aotivities ! noteworthy feature is found in the surprising variety and abundance of litera- THE UNITED STATES. ture furnished to diffuse information and kindle interest. Thus there are the -The following figures have been monthly magazines, bearing often names published by the Commissioner of Edu. so happily chosen, and edited with such oation : Number of pupils enrolled last ability and tact; magazines and papers year in the common schools of the oounfor children as well ; mission studies try, 13,203,170, and the average daily running through the months; prayer attendanoe,8,404,228. There were 363,- calendars to give definiteness and point 922 teachers, 122,551 being males and to petitions at the throne of grace, etc. 241,371 females, and the total expendi- In all which surely there is something ture for the support of the publio which the brethren are bound narrowly schools was $148,173,487. The prog. to observe, and also something which ress of education among the oolored they may often wisely imitate. people is presented in the following statistics: Number of pupils, 1,309,251 ; -Mary Allen West, who died not long teachers, male, 13,567 ; female, 10,497. ago in Japan, whither she had gone in behalf of the Woman's Christian Tem- -It may now be taken for granted perance Union, is a woman not soon to that the Utah question, whioh for fifty be forgotten. In the" crusade" against years has been our perplexity and our the saloon of twenty years ago she took shame, may be regarded as settled, a an active part; in the sublime move- thing of the past. After what legisla. ment which soon grew out of it she was tion has accomplished, aided most not long in coming to the front, and for effectually by the vigorous mission years wielded a wide influence as editor work of the churches, it only remains· of the Union Signal. In particular this to continue the teaching and preaching fact is notable : work and hold the region yet longer in territorial condition, and in due season "She graduated from college when polygamy as well as priestly tyranny but seventeen and entered at once upon will live but in memory. The recent her lifework as a teacher. Her influ- amnesty proclamation of the President ence over her pupils was strongly re- was a wille recognition of the existing ligious, and out of a large Sabbath- status. The churches out there numschool class which she taught for many ber 89 with 98 ministers, while there Batavia, TIl., gave to the (colored) theofire 81 schools with 6518 scholars. logical seminary at Atlanta, Ga., now called by his name, the sum of $350,000 -Sooner or later it is the impossible for buildings and endowment, and now, that is certain to happen. Or, in the by the terms of his will, a further sum tooth of the famous historic statement of $750,000 goes to the same institution. to the contrary, the mountain in our These large gifts may well stand with time and land is actually moving toward the Slater fund of $1,000,000, the Hand Mohammed. That is, Rome, after an- fund of $1,500,000, and the Peabody athematizing and fighting our public- fund of $2,000,000, allleEt for the benefit school system time out of mind, has at of the freedmen. length concluded to come to terms with the institution and kindly suffer it to -When a few weeks since Rev. Edsurvive-yes, even to make friends there· win E. Bliss died in Constantinople, with. So the zeitgeist in America is too after forty.nine years of distinguished much even for the Pope. service, a life of far more than ordinary usefuln.ess came to an end. When he -But, speaking of the prophet of entered Turkey in 18!l3 the work was Islam, the telegraph tells us that an just at its beginning, and in all the reo emissary even from far off Manila is markable progress which has since been on his way hither, Koran in hand, and witnessed he bore a prominent part. In in the person of Alexander Russell particular he helped nobly to create a Webb, late United States cOllEul and a Christian literature, and to build up for recent convert to the same, to turn us both sexes a system of schools and col- .all into Mohammedans, since theirs is a leges. HolY fast the fathers are passing loftier faith, and theirs also are purer away! morals. At least 53,000 rupees have been contributed for his .. mission" by -The American Seamen's Friend So· the faithful in Rangoon, Calcutta, and ciety sustained in 1892 sailors' homes, Hyderabad. Bethels, chaplains, missionaries, col- porteurs, and Bible readers (in all 35) -On the 14th of last December the in 32 foreign and domestic seaports. Board of Regents conferred legal au· The whole number of new loan libraries thority upon the International Medical sent to sea by the society, from 1858-·59 Missionary Society to establish in New to April 1st, 1892, was 9761 ; and the York City a misiiionary school of medi- reshipments of the same for the same cine, the first institution of the kind in period were 10,933 ; the total shipments the world. aggregating 20,694. The number of volumes in these libraries was 505,020, -There can scarcely be two opinions and they were accessible, by shipment upon the legislation upon our statute and reshipment, to 369,093 men. Teu books concerning the Chinese. It is an hundred and seven libraries, with 36,409 open violation of treaty pledges, it is an volumes, were placed upon vessels in outrage upon an innocent population, the United States navy, and in naval and was a piece of the merest political hospitals, and were accessible to 115,- demagogism. If retaliation was ever 504 men, and 146 libraries were placed in justifiable, it is now, and from China. stations of the United States Life·Sav- Except that the law seems certain to be ing Service, containing 5467 volumes, an utter failure, and so will but cover accessible to 1168 keepers and surfmen. its originators with confusion. Almost to a man so far the Chinese pay it no -The colored Baptists of the South beed, and to enforce it, to send, them are making an earnest effort to develop all back, would cost some $10,000,000 ! their missionary work in Liberia. Some At any rate, John Chinaman is no fool. six years ago they sent a missionary and his wife to the Congo under au agree- -Some years since Mr. Gammon, of ment of co-operation with the American has a synod in and about Arizona whose Baptist Missionary Union. Within a area is greater than 5 States the size of few months they have been making spe- Pennsylvania. On the roll are 26 mincial effort to arouse interest in their isters, 17 Spanish helpers, and 42 Liberia work, one of their missionaries churches with a membership of 1360. -the Rev. Mr. Johnson-having spoken Several of the churches are Spanish and in many places in this country, and then 1 is Indian. gone to England to secure funds there_ -The Oumberland Presbyterian ex- -The Christian (Disciple) Church claims: "Just think of 170,000 memcontributed for foreign missions last bers and $20,000 given to home misyear $70,321, of which but $1751 were sions last year! Or, in other words, from bequests. In all, 1338 churches we gave eight and one half cents per contributed, from 1468 Sunday-schools member to establish our Lord's cause came offerings to the amount of $21,907, where the Gospel is needed in this land." and from 193 societies of Christian En- And the call goes out for $25,000 in 1893 deaTor, $1830. for foreign missions.
-The fiftieth anniversary of the ar- -From Philadelphia, sent forth by rival of Father Heyer at Guntur, India, the Umted Presbyterian Church on Nowas celebrated in many Lutheran Sun- vember 2d, a party of 7 missionaries day-schools during the year 1892. About sailed en route for Egypt; 2 men with 400 connected with the General Synod their wives and 3 unmarried women. contributed a jubilee offering for foreign Two were returning to their work, and missions amounting to $5,562. To 5 were new to the work. this amount is also to be added several thousand dollars contributed for the -" Liberalism," somehow, does not support of students, numerous helpers appear to be conducive to evangelistic in gospel work, the erection of prayer zeal. For the other day, at a gathering houses, and similar mission work. of Boston Unitarians, by one of their own number it was stated as a,fact that -The M. E. Church, South, began the 15 Congregational churches of the work among the Indians as far back as city of Worcester give more in a year for 1823, and has expended upon them in all missionary purposes than all the 450 upward of $400,000. In the Indian Ter- Unitarian societies in the country. ritory last year they could report 90 missionaries and a membership of over DOMINION OF CANADA. 12,000. This same church has a Mexican mission which embraces three con- -Many years ago there was a refuge ferences, and stretches westward to the for lepers at Tracadia, on an island in Pacific and southward to the State of the mouth of the St. Lawrence. A pa- Michoacan. About 80 native preachers tient who had been confined there made are in service, and Q'Ver 5000 native his escape and sought shelter in a hosmembers are enrolled as communicants. pital in Montreal. Before his death he told one of the sisters the horrible con- -The Presbyterian Church is bestir- dition of this abode. He said they were ring itself to take in hand the matter of fastened up in it, and then left entirely doing its share toward Christianizing to themselves, their food being thrown and Americanizing the millions of Ger- over a high wall, while the ground man immigrants, bearing in mind what within was knee deep with mire and a German once said: "Unless the filth. The Superior applied for leave to Americans take care of the Germans, send some of the sisters to take charge the Germans will take care of the of this place. As soon as she received Americans. " it she called together the sisters under her care, told them the story, and asked -The Presbyterian Church, South, for four volunteers, offering herself to £120,203. The Church of England so. lead them, The entire 30 came forward, cieties raised £539,510 ; joint societies from whom four were chosen, and they of Churchmen and Nonconformists, have changed the abode of horrors into £206,330; Nonconformist societies in a clean, orderly, cheerful Christian England and Wales, £456,348; Scotch home, and have established churches and Irish Presbyterians, £210,306; and and schools, Roman Catholics, £9015.
-The Methodist Church has reIJeived -The Boys' Brigade in the United this ap,Peal from missionaries in China : Kingdom numbers over 1600 officers and " In view of the present settled state of 21,000 boys, making it the largest Christhis great province of Sze.Chuen, with tian organization of boys in the world, its forty to fifty million people, the many Those in charge have practically decid· openings for missionaries, and the im. ed in favor of having an encampment of perative and present need of workers, the brigade at th.e World's Fair, though 25 missionaries are expected, in answer all the details are not as yet settled. to prayE'r, to join us here by the year 1900. This will necessitate the depar. -This gentle reminder from theture from Canada each year of two mar· Propagation Society is always in order ried men and two single men, or one concerning the statement frequently msrried man and three single men, be- made, and which in a sense is also true, ginning with August,1893." And one that the Baptist Society is the oldest of them adds: "Mrs, Hartwell and my. missionary organization in England: self cheerfully offer to receive into our The oldest of all such organizations is home, to board and lodge free, for one the now little known. New England year, two young men, unmarried, who Company, which was founded by act are willing to come to Chen·tu." of the Long Parliament in 1649, and in. corporated by royal charter in 1662. -The Board of French Evangelization The Society for the Propagation of th& of the Presbyterian Church reports for Gospel was fonnded in 1701, and it is 1892 that 36 mission fields with 96 frequently averred that becluse it was preaching stations have been supplied, founded for ", the religious instruction 24 mission schools carried on, and 12 of the king's sul'ljects beyond the seas," colporteurs employed. An ever.increas- it did no missionary work until the ing number of children from Roman early part of the nineteenth century. Catholic homes has been attending the Admitting for the sake of argument that mission schools. In some of these al. to plant the Church in the colonies is most the total attendance is Roman not missionary work, the slightest ac· Catholic. For example, in one ~hool quaintance with the condition of the 14 out of 17 are Roman Catholic ; in .. king's subjects beyond the seas" in another, 15 out of 16; in another, 23 the eighteenth century would prevent out of 28. 'In fact, except in one or two our forgetting that in that category schools, the Roman Catholic attendance were large numbers of heathen for is not less than one third and often more whose conversion the Society labored than one half. from the first. So long ago as 1704 it sent missionaries to the negroes and EUROPE. Indians in what is now the State of New York; in 1712 it extended its work to Great Britain.-Canon Scott Robert. the negroes in the West Indies; in) 749 son has just completed his liwenty-first to Central America, to the Indians on annual summary of British contribu. the Mosquito Coast; in 1752 to the tions to missionary societies for propa- negroes of West Africa ; and in 1778 to gating the Gospel in foreign parts. The the Indians of Canada. total for the year 1891 is £1,421,500, an increase of the sum realized in 1890 of -It was indeed II mysterious providenee when the Roumania was ship- a Protestant church at Madrid has been wrecked off the coast'of Portugal a few consecrated with the consent of Premier weeks since, and several missionaries on Sagasta. The consecration ceremony their journey to take up their sacred had been postponed repeatedly because tasks found a grave in the deep. the approval of the conservative pre- -" I believe in the Salvation Army mier, just succeeded by Sagasta, could because the wealth of wisdom, wit, and not be obtained. "Protests" indeed! work in women has been utilized by Axe we dwelling in the nineteenth cenyour great leaders as never before in the tury or back in the ninth instead?
cause of our Master and Lord. I am a -The Evangelical Church' of Italy Methodist, and my apprenticeship in (Chiesa, Evangelica d'Italia), as the Free the mighty church founded by Susanna Church is now called, in the minutes Wesley's son John, and set to music by of its last biennial convention, held her son Charles, long ago taught me in Florence, reports encouraging prog- that for the hosts of God to go forth ress. Letters addressed to the body without women was like a bird beating by prominent Protestants throughout the air with but a single wing. The Christendom show how this Church has Church has long hobbled on one foot. won universal respect. The relations Your Axmy has succeeded in getting the to the Waldensian Church are cordial, other foot to the' floor and' the swing though the hoped-for union has not of conquest' is the result."-liTances E. been effected. The most serious diffi· Willard. culty is found in the education of can- -Mr. Weir, of Greyfriars, Dumfries, didates for the ministry, for which the in sending to the foreign mission sixteen proper facilities are yet wanting. The shillings, the last earnings of a young last convention was composed of 38 workman who was killed in an accident, delegates, representing 25 churches, and writes: .. The parents said that they 34 groups of circuits and stations.
eould not bear to put the money to any -Herr Frederick Krupp, son and sucordinary use, and that they wished it cessor of the great founder of the Krupp given to missions. It was the money gun, on the occasion of the unveiling found due to him by his employers." of a memorial statue to his late father, -The Free Church calls on the young gave 500,000 marks to a committee to of the 1100 congregations to supply expend in erecting 100 small cottages, £2000 for a hospital at Tiberias upon with gardens, for the use of the most the Sea of Galilee, and so in the very deserving of the workmen in his employ.
region where the Great Heal~ wrought ASIA.
so many wondrous cures ! Turkey.-It is gratifying to learn The Continent.-In France the gov- that Caxton's art is making rapid progernment pays the pastors, not only of ress in Jerusalem. Two weekly news. the Catholic but of the Protestant de- papers, in pure Hebrew-Ha' Or (" The nominations. This rule obtains also in Light") and Hachawazeleth (" The Flowthe colonies, so that even Mohammedan er")-are issued, and both enjoy a good mosques are maintained by the State. circulation. Jerusalem, an annual, held It costs millions of francs. There is a in great repute on the Continent, is also strong disposition to abolish the ar- published there. It is curious to note rangement and have a free Church in a that several of the monasteries in the free State; but Napoleon's concordat Holy Land publish their religious works with the Pope stands in the way. through the Jewish book· pUblishing houses established in Jerusalem, though -In spite of the emphatic protests of s6'veral of the institutions have their the papal nuncio, the Bishop of Madrid own presses and issue Latin and Axabio and thousands of aristocratic Catholics, books for private use.-Jewish World. Persia.-Mizra Abraham is a convert sin," and adds, .. The catechist says from Islam, whose steadfastness and there are not less than 300 others ready Christian zeal in persecution are at publicly to renounce their old faith in present exciting not a little interest in favor of Christianity." All these belong Persia. He was arrested for preaching to the Mangs, one of the lowest of castes Christ. He was beaten and tormented in the city, the basket-makers, the horn- and cast into prison. For three weeks blowers and drum-beaters at marriages, he was in prison in Oroomia, and after- births, and other heathen ceremonies. ward in Tabriz. He persisted in con- fessing Christ. He has won the heart -The Indian Witness reports that the of his jailer, receiving, in consequence, aggregate additions to the Christian liberty to see his friends, read his Bible, community connected with ~he Meth- and speak to his fellow-prisoners. Ten odist Episcopal missions within the out of the 11 criminals in jail he has bounds of the North India Conference won over to Christ. Thousands of Mos- for the year ending October 31st, 1892, lems are having their attention thereby amounted to 14,410 persons, children called to the claims of Christianity. and adults. In this conference there are 42 native pastors who draw their -In Tabriz, when the missionaries support entirely from the people. wanted a school building, the best place they could find was one already occu- -Rev. R. C. Ha;ting8 writes of the pied by a distillery, with ample room churches in the Ceylon Mission that the for more buildings of the same sort. total number is 16, with a membership Mrs. William Thaw, of Pittsburg, gave of over 1500, and that 10 of these pay the money, and they bought it, building all their expenses, including pastor's and all, put up more buildings, turned salary, contributions to benevolent so- the distillery into a dormitory, and that cieties and running expenses. A good is the school to-day! record indeed.
India.-Which is it? Are women so -Adjutant Abdul Aziz, a Mohamme- ridiculously cheap, or are cows so alarm- dan convert to Christianity, now has ingly dear, that Miss Sugden, a returned charge of the social work of the Salva- missionary, can report that" a cow is tion Army at Bombay. worth 100 women"? And, further, she says that men of India claim that only -According to statistical tables pre- three women have ever gone to heaven- pared for the recent Bombay Conference, to wit, our Lord's mother, the mother 53 denominations are carrying on mis- of Mohammed, and oneof the prophet's sionary work in India, besides 5 women's wives. societies of an undenominational char- acter, and 7 isolated missions. In them -The Irish Presbyterian Church re- all are found 808 ordained missionaries, , ports this soUd growth in Kathiawar in 785 ordained natives, 114 foreign and ten years: stations have increased from Eurasian lay preachers, 3336 native lay 15 to 18, ordained missionaries from preachers, 171,214 communicants, and 7 to 12, native agents from 38 to 108, 534,113 adherents (native Christians). communicants from 248 to 389, Chris- The increase in nine years is 123,000 in tian community from 1808 to 2162, and adherents and 62,000 in communicants. the attendance at schools from 1706 to Classified according to ordained and lay 3593. workers, both foreign and native, com- municants and adherents, Madras has -Mr. Wilkie, of the Presbyterian 355; 1319; 99,000 ; 341,000. Bengalhas Church, Canada, reports from Indore 219 ; 781 ; 38,000 ; 108,000. Northwest· that "over 300 people have publicly ern Provinces and Oudh have 92 ; 209; retlOunced Hinduism and profess faith 14,000 ; 30,000. Punjab has 50; 293 ; in Jesus Christ as their Saviour from 6000; 20,000. Bombay has 48; 278·; 9000; 22,000; and Central India has Korea.-The presence of Dr. Allen, 21 ; 170; 2000 ; 9000. of the M. E. Church, in Seoul, in De- China.-There are over 100 medioal cember, 1884, saved the life of Prince missionaries in China, and 56 of them Min Yong Ik; and this resulted in the are women. They reaoh those who establishment of a hospital under Chrisare beyond the reaoh of male missiona. tian auspices and supported by the ries, even though physicians, and touch king. It also prepared the way for the home life as no others oa.n. physicians and teachers as nothing else would have done. The king has pre- -How easy, with suoh a oommon· sented to this hospital a signboard con- sense pla.n, to do much with a little! A taining the name given to it by him, missionary in China says that any which being translated is, " Widespread ohurch society of 60 members, each giv- Relief Hospital, " ing 2 cents per week, could preach yearly, through a native preacher, to 50,000 -A missionary writes that in this persons. He knows of 5 societies who country" woman's work is never done. " have adopted this plan, and working to· " They are expected to keep their husgether provide a floating chapel and dis- bands and sons iu spotless linen, and, pensary, a Christian doctor and 2 native as the men dress completely in white, preachers; and during last November wearing even white leggings, and as and December they preached in 100 Korea abounds in miry clay, the washvillages, and gave medical aid to more ing becomes no mean thing. Moreover, than 1000 persons. when one learns that every article be· fore it is washed must be entirely -" When my soul comes to a body picked to pieces, and after it is ironed on earth again," said the wife of a high remade, the sewing looms into gigantic official one day, " I want to be a dog, proportions. The Korean women have not a woman. A dog can run about as no soap, no tubs, no washboards. The it. chooses. If one has a will as high as clothes are carriod to a mountain the heavens one ca.nnot stir hand or stream and there rubbed on the stones, foot, we are so fettered by our cus- They have no irons, so the pieces of toms." cloth are wound over a sort of rolling.
-In the Fuh-kien province 993 per- pin and patted with a stick-a most sons were baptized last year in the Eng- laborious and tedious process, but one lish Church's missions. Bishop Burdon which gives linen a gloss almost equal confirmed 100 candidates in Hing-hwa, to that of satin. The traveller coming which has never had a resident Euro- into a town far into the night never pean missionary. fails to hear the tick-tack. tick-tack, -In Paotingfu, the capital of Pechili, that announces the woman at her ironthe chief literary man of the province ing."
recently came to one of the missionaries Japan.-The fall term of the Doshisha and gave him about $75 with which to purchase scientific books. So that after at Kyoto opened prosperously with 144 all the hide-bound and conceited Celes- in the preparatory department, 215 in tials do begin to feel the influence of the college department, 56 iu the theothe Western world. logical department, 63 in the scientific, and 16 in the law department, making -The M. E. ChurCh, South, has two 494 in all. Dr. Davis says: "I never main centres of work, the one at Shang- began the school year before with a hai and the other at Soochow, a city of braver or happier heart, or one more at 500,000, the literary focus of the em. rest and peace. "
pire, and to which 20,000 " stUdents" -Mr. John Imai, the first "priest of gather at one time to pass examination the Anglican Church in Japan, in de· for literary degrees. scribing the work done by the various 'Christian bodies, speaks of the Congre- people, and is characterized by a tacigationalists as having the advantage of turn self-reliance which makes him instrong ed"1lcational foundations, the valuable in such enterprises. Presbyterians as successful in winning converts, the Methodists as noticeable ISLANDS OF THE SEA. for forming strong centres and schools, the Roman Catholics for possessing -A few years ago Mrs. Allan, of Glas- 30,000 adherents, and the Greek Church gow, Scotland, a member of the family <the largest body) for its trained native which owns the Allan Line of steamers, clergy. visited Japan, and on her return to Scot. land offered £750 to Rev. R. A. Thom- -Count Inoue, Minister of Home son, a Baptist missionary at Kobe, to Affairs, has given $800 to the Christian begin a mission on the Loochoo Islands. 'university (Doshisha), has erected at Her offer was accepted and the mission Yamaguchi a building for a mission, begun by sending two Japanese evanand has aided several mission schools gelists to Naha, the principal port of for girls. Count Ito, the Prime Minis- Okinawa, the largest of the Loochoo ter, is also a friend and supporter of Islands. Mrs. Allan died last spring, Christian schools. and on the very day of her death the first Loochoo convert was baptized at -Japan also has its Great Northern Naha. Railroad extending some 500 miles from Tokyo to Aomori, a seaport at the north- -It is 20 years since Dr. Mackay, ~rn end of the great island Nippon. missionary of the Canadian Presbyterian Church, began to labor in North For- AFRICA. mosa. The result is in that part of t,he island at this day 2605 baptized Chris- -Bishop Ferguson, of Cape Palmas. tians, 50 native preachers, 2 ordained {lalls especial attention to the fact that pastors, and many other workers. the Cape Palmas tribe of Greboes had raised a sum of money to purchase a This same Dr. Mackay writes that Bible to take the place of their fetiches, "North Formosa has a neat chapel in and remarks: "Such a thing as a memory of China's great evangelist, heathen tribe's giving up its gregrees William C. Burns, and she will soon and taking instead the Bible as a token have one dedicated to the memory of of its acceptance of the Christian re- India's heroic defender, Alexander Duff. ligion. to be henceforth its rule and In June last I received £102 from an guide, has never taken place in this aged Christian lady in Canada. The land before, and it speaks loudly in donor heartily acquiesced in the sugfavor of our work." Comparing 1889 gestion that the latter memorial church with 1892 he finds that the baptisms should be erected, and as she has no dehave increased from 470 to 702, the con- sire for pUblicity her name will not apfirmations from 235 to 281, and the com- pear. " municants from 645 to 896, -Seven Presbyterian churches-Can- -General Dodds, who led the French ada, Free Church, churches of Victoria, forces in Dahomey, is of Irish parent- New South Wales, South Australia, New age, but a native of the French province Zealand, and Tasmania-cumbine to of Senegal, where he has passed the send 18 missionaries to the New Hebgreater part of his life. His first ser- rides. All these are united in a synod vice was in the marine infantry, until in which meets to receive reports, discuss 1890, when he was put in command of matters of business, vow/grants, etc. A all the forces at St. Louis, and organ- meeting w~ not long since held on ized the Dahomey expedition of last Aneityum, at which 41 were present, year, He has great knowledge of the wives and children included.
The Missionary Review of the World — February 1891
THE REGIONS BEYOND
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
YOLo XIV. No. 2.-0Id Series. –FEBRUARY.–YOL. IV. No. 2.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
THE REGIONS BEYOND. * [EDITORIAL. ] The old Greeks were a worldly-wise people. In the Olympio games they showed their sagacity. Three pillars stood in the ancient stadium, respectively at the starting point, midway, and at the goal or turning point. On the first was inscribed a Greek word, whose force was, "Show yourself a man !" "Do your best!" On the last was a word which migh~ be rendered, "Stop here !" "Arrest your steps!" But on that midway pillar was the imperative ::i;'7rEVOE, " Speed you !" "Make haste !"
How much philosophy there was in that! No risk was greater than the· risk of overconfidence when success was but half attained. A racer, who at first outran the others, and at the middle of the course found himself ahead, would be tempted to 'relax his efforts; and so some athlete, who had reserved his strength for the supreme effort at the end of the race, would pass him by and get first to the goal.
Paul was a trained athlete in the spiritual sphere; and the law of his life was, "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Spinoza wisely said that there is no more fatal foe to all progress than selfconceit and the laziness which self-conceit begets. To think and feel that we have already attained or are already perfect, is the narcotio that brings on the sleep of the sluggard and the slothful.
The motto of the great apostle of the Gentiles was, THE REGIONS BEYOND. He would be satisfied with no other man's method of measurement, with no narrow circumference of present attainment. He yearned to evangelize-to preach the Gospel in the Regions Beyond, and not to boast in another man's canon or measure as to territory already embraced in the scheme of labor.
That motto of Paul is the trne watchword of the Church in this new age of missions. After all the work of a century, we have only * The substance of an address at anniversary of China Inland Mission, Mildmay Hall, London, England, May 21,1890, and stenographically reported.- A.T.P. just begun. We are not even at the midway pillar; and God says, " Speed ye! Make haste! Forget the things behind and push for the Regions Beyond." And this will we do, by the grace of God!
This grand motto suggests various important applications: 1. The Regions Beyond, in the literal sense,of territory thus/ar unclaimed and unoccupied for Ghrist. If this great work of evangelizing the world is ever to be done, we must penetrate the deceptive halo of mere enthusiasm and come to the bare, hard facts of a world's destitution and degradation. Zeal is good, but zeal according to knowledge is better. To know the facts is to be oppressed with a great burden, for souls. To judge from what is sometimes said or written on missions, one wonld suppose that the work, not only of evangelization but of conversion, is going on so rapidly that we might wake any morning and find the whole world brought to Christ. Let us get past and behind this rose-colored cloud, and look at those great bald facts that, like those stopy shafts of eternity, the crags of the mountains, lift their awful forms before us-I,500,000,000 of human beings-enough, if they were moving, single file, past a given point, one every second, to consume fifty years, day and night, in passing, yet going down to the grave at the rate of more than one every second! Death, three times every century, sweeping the entire population 'of the globe into eternity, like chaff from a threshing-floor, to make room for a new generation! And this process going on for nineteen centuries, uninterruptedly, so that, since Cllt'ist was born, nearly sixty generations have lived and died, most of whom never heard of Him! What if all that host might be supposed to move in procession at the same rate we have already imagined! It would take over a thousand years! And, while we are talking about evangelizing the world, and some enthusiasts are prophesying its speedy conversion, is it not true that there are to.day more unsaved souls in the human family than there were last elmtury, or even last year? With all our missionary effort is not t 11e world';; population advancing faster than the churches of Christ are gathering converts? Surely it is time the church should fully awake to her responsibility. We act as though we had ages before us in which to preach, and the unsaved had ages before them in which to be reached, whereas our term of service and their term of life must very soon expire. The China Inland Mission found the germ of its being in the fact that, in Inland China alone, were eleven great populous provinces where as yet no missionary had gone to reside; and, in ten of the eleven, missionaries are now permanently working. Let the church not shrink from facing the facts: the destitution still unreached is appalling. What are 700 missionaries in China among 350,000,000 of souls? One missionary to half a million! About the same proportion of missionaries amc,ng the 250,000,000 or 300,000,000· of India, one to about 400,000! In Siam, with from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000, about a score of men and women, laboring among the native Siamese and Laos people, every male missionary having an average parish of a million souls, and cities with a population of 200,000 having not even a Bible-reader or native teacher!
Consider Africa's need! How little is it understood. Even a missionary journal gave currency to the misleading statement that the Dark Continent is " tolerably well supplied wi.th missionaries, as thirty-five missionary societies are now at work there." If you go across Siberia and down the eastern slope of the Kong Mountains, through the three Soudans, of the Niger, Lake Tchad and the Nile, 3,000 miles to the Red Sea, and if 400 miles north and south of your line of travel you could survey the land, you would find 90,000,000 of people with scarce one missionary! And farther south, in the Congo Free State, you might travel from Equatorville east to the Great Lake stations, and there is another territory 1,000 miles long by half as many broad, whose 40,000;000 of people when Stanley passed through Uganda had not yet seen a missionary! Doubtless Africa has to-day at least 200,000,000 of people who never saw a Bible or heard the first proclamation of the good news. And yet Africa is " tolerably well supplied with missionaries! "
Am I not justified in saying that we must get beyond and behind all this illusive glamour of ignorance and imagination? Yes, beyond evanescent touches of sympathy and passage of resolutions, and do something for souls that are dying without Christ.
In all the world we have six: thousand 01' seven thousand missionaries, representing 30,000,000 of church members-one for every five thousand! Whereas, if Protestant churches gave out of their membership one in three hundred, it would Imt 100,000 missionaries in the field, exclusive of the native helpers, who have for the last half century outnumbered four or fivefold the missionaries from Christian lands. These are, doubtless, familiar facts; but Sydney Smith said that for purposes of impression repetition is the only figure of speech worth a farthing. These facts must be beaten in by repeated blows. We must not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking. Never will the people of God take up the work of missions as they ought until they both understand and feel the emergency and extremity of a dying world and their own opportunity and {)bligation with reference to it.
As to opportunity, there was never any such before. We live in ~ays more augustly awful than any in previous history. I would rather live in this year 1891 than to have lived when Christ walked the earth. Grand as would have been the privilege of seeing the Lord in the flesh and being closely associated with Him then, this day of grace offers us opportunities of service and privileges of fellowship which, in their way, are even more transcendent.
The regions beyond, of the whole world, now lie open before the children of God. Fifty years ago the burden of public and united prayer for missions was that God would open the doors of the nations to the preaching of the Gospel. In those days Japan was like a vessel hermetically sealed; China was the walled kingdom, fifteen hundred miles of solid barrier shutting out "the foreign devils;" India was 'in the selfish clutch of the East India Company; the islands of the sea were held by cannibal savages, and Africa was not even explored. A hun- dred years ago it seemed as though there was no chance of reaching the vast bulk of the race with the Gospel. A great wall of idolatry, superstition, prejudice, surrounded the nations, with here and there a solitary breach; now, that whole wall is down, wit.h here and there a. fragment remaining to oppose our advance. Let those who see no God in history tell us how changes so stupendous have been brought about inside one century. No human being, no combination of human elements could ever have done this. But" one day is with the Lord as a thousand years," and there have been single historic" days" in this period, in which He has wrought the work that ordinarily would have taken a millenium.
That one year 1858 may be selected as the annus mirabilis of modern missions. During that one year doors were opened giving access to one thousand millions of the human race. In that year, 1858, Great Britain, after two hundred years of exclusion, made her treaty with Japan. In that same year China, by the treaty of Tientsin, threw open not only her p.orts, but her interior, and provided that any Chinese subject might embrace the Christian faith without molestation or persecution. In that same year India was transferred from the sordid East India Company to the British crown, and Victoria became Empress of the Indies. In that same year the revolutionary changes in Papal Europe laid the basis of Free Italy. In that same year David Livingstone sailed a second time for South Africa to complete his pioneer path for missionaries. In that same year Benito Juarez, in Mexico, overthrew the monastic system, confiscated the estates and revenues of the Papal Church, and opened the way for Protestant missionaries to enter Central America. And in that same year Elizabeth Sale, of Helensburgh, Scotland, successfully penetrated the zenanas of Hindustarr, and led the way in woman's work for woman!
Was there ever such a year as 1858? Within less than a twelvemonth doors of approach were opened to from thirty to forty millions in Japan, three hundred to four hundred millions in China, two hundred and fifty to three hundred millions more in India, including all her millions of women and girls, two hundred and fifty to three hundred millions more in Africa, besides the hosts in Papal Italy and Mexico! When Paul and Barnabas came back to Antioch from their first mission tour, "they gathered the Church together and rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles." But did God ever open doors of access in Apostolic times with such rapidity and on such a scale of grandeur as in your day and mine? Who shall dare say that the days of supernatural working are past, ",hen such miracles qf Providence are performed before our ~ery eyes?
The apathy and lethargy of the Church of Jesus Christ are alarming, for they suggest a deadening of sensibility. We are like those that walk amid a blare and glare and flare, and whose eyes and ears are dazed and dulled by the glory of the scenes in t.he midst of which they are moving.• This year 1858 was not the only wonderful year in modern missionary history. In 1878 there was such a mighty movement of God's grace in India that sixty thousand people turned from idols in Tinnevelly and the Telugu country within six months! And it was in that same year that some twenty persons gave upwards of $4,000,000 to missions, as though God would show what on the one hand His grace could do among the heathen, and, on the other hand, in prompting a higher Christian liberality.
The Regions Beyond, thus marvelously opened to the Church, are a perpetual challenge to us to occupy till He comes. We need to get down on our faces before God for a greater Pentecostal baptism than the Church has ever yet known. All our efforts lack unity and harmony and business methods. On some mission fields a score of different denominations will sometimes be found, working side by side, in a comparatively small district, while in the Regions Beyond millions are without a single missionary. And our home fields are often overstocked in comparison. When in Scotland, on my mission tour, I found in one village, of perhaps 1,200 people, five fine church buildings with as many educated pastors; the entire church-going population could have been accommodated in one of those buildings, and cared for by one of those ministers, while the other four, with the money that their buildings cost, might have been evangelizing the interior of Chin.a, India or Africa, where each man might have a parish of from one million to ten million souls! There is something wrong in the Christian Church when denominational zeal outstrips that nobler zeal for the evangelization of the vast multitudes that are absolutely uncared for. It would seem that something is wrong, even in the basis of our missionary work, when the Church of God can calmly look on eight hundred million of human beings that, eve~ yet, after nineteen centuries, have not so much as heard whether there be a Christ or no ! When Rev: Geo. W. Chamberlain first went to Brazil, he found 10,000,000 of people in a nominally Papal land, who scarcely knew what a Bible was. One old patriarch of four score years, to whom he gave a Portuguese New Testament, and explained salvation by faith, said to him: "Young man, this is what I have long been waiting to hear. But where was your father when my father was alive that he never came to tell my father how to be saved?" Some such question as that we must all answer, if not before we die, at the judgment seat of Christ.
These Regions Beyond-this te;ritory unclaimed and unoccupied for Christ-should at once be possessed. Christ distinctly outlined for His Church her missionary policy: it is not concentration but diffusion. We cannot too often ring out this truth. Some have urged the American Board to concentrate its forces largely upon Turkey, and then, when Turkey is thoroughly evangelizeQ, it will, they say, furnish evangelists for the Regions Beyond. A similar policy has been urged upon the Presbyterian Board in New York as. to Japan, and the Church Missionary Society as to India. The argument is that we should unite our forces upon a limited field till it is thoroughly Christianized, and then make the newly converted people an evangelizing force to push on to the furtJlermost limits of the earth.
This looks well and sounds well at first suggestion; but is it scriptural? Our Master made no such discrimination. " Go ye into all the world," " unto the uttermost parts of the earth," and "'preach the GORpel to every creature." Those are onr marching orders. The policy of concentration more or less limits the area of the work of the Church. To follow such a policy is not to go into the Regions Beyond. We are tempted to choose fields comparatively neal', attractive, promising; fields offering prospect of large and quick harvests; and leave the more distant, destitute, degraded races of mankind to utter neglect. vVhile we are concentrating on Turkey, Japan or India, what is to become of the other millions of mankind that have only one lifetime in which to hear the Gospel?
Again we would peal out in the dull ears of a sluggish Church the signal of opportunity and obligation ! We are to take whatever men and women we can get and whatever money and other means we can gather and do just as OUI' Master bade us-go everywhere and to every creature with the Gospel, and do it at once. And when the Church of God will do her simple duty with faith in her Lord, the miracle of the loaves and fishes will be repeated on a larger scale in human history. 'fhe small provision, which seems nothing amil1 snch a vast multitude of hungry souls, will, when brought to the :Master and used along the lines of His command, again illustrate the miraculous mathematics of God. As we subtract from our supply, He will add to our resources. As we will divide, He will multiply; and He will increase for distribution what we decrease by distribution.
We write it solemnly and with profound conviction and deep emotion: Christ waits to see the travail of faith in the souls of His people before He can see the travail of His own soul in the redemption of the race! Never will that largest and last blessing come to our mission work until we emphasize evangelization. for which we are responsible rather than conversion for which we are not responsible; until we abandon our worldly-wise centralization and concentration and adopt the divine policy of universal extension and diffusion, going with all speed even to the uttermost parts of the earth and bearing among all nations our witness to our I.ord and His cross. From His cradle to His tomb, and from His sermon on the Galilean Mount, to His last commission, perhaps upon the same Mount, we seem to see but one commanding signal: it is a Hand pointing ~ TO THE REGIONS BEYOND. [To be continued. ] EACH religion has an appropriate symbol. The cross has come to represent Evangelical Christianity, as the crucifix does the Papacy, and the Greek cross the Greek Church. The wheel of endless transmigration may well stand for Buddhism, the iron ring of caste for Brahmanism, the crescent for Mohammedanism, the sun-disk for Parseeism, the tablet for Confucianism, the dragon for demon worship, the stone for fetichism, and the axe for a destructive atheism.
" BECAUSE iniquity abounds the love of many shall wax cold." No believer can afford simply to breathe a polluted atmosphere, and if his work for God compels such associations he must frequently go, as Christ did, apart with God, and on the lofty mountain tops breathe a pure air, taking long and deep inspirations of that purifying and strengthening oxygen and ozone. Prof. Bernard used to illustrate our unconscious accommodation to a vicious atmosphere by placing a sparrow under a bell glass receiver, with ail' enough for three hours respiration. Then, at the end of two hours, he put a sccond sparrow under the receivel', and it fell over dead, while the formcr bird was able to sustain the process of respiration for the remainillg hour. So there is a law not only of physical but of spiritual toleration. We learn to live in a polluted atmosphere, to accommodate ourselves to a low level of spiritual life. Could we come suddenly from a pure society into the carnal and worldly and selfish atmosphere often found even in Christian churches, we should be stifled. Let us live much with God, in the closet, and so learn to detect and flee from a contaminated atmosphere. May this law not explain in part the high consecration of true missionaries? They can maintain spiritual life amid snch surronndings only by mueh COil verse with God.
THE MISSION OUTLOOK
THE MISSION OU'l'LOOK.-II.
BY J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A., LL.D., NICE, FRANCE.
We proceed to speak of the foreign field. And first we ask what progress has been made in the evangelizing of the nations generally?
We sometimes hear even the friends of missions assert that the progress is deplorably small. 1Ve ask-small in comparison with what? If the answer be-small in proportion to the effort made, the answer runs clean counter to our deepest convictions. Considering how little man has done or tried to do, the blessing from on high ap- pears to us most graciously, most marvelously large. The seed we sow never perishes; it brings forth fifty, sixty and a hundred fold. Just compare the progress made in modern times with what was witnessed when the Gospel was preached even by apostolic lips. Some thoughtlessly speak as if the miracle of Pentecost had been frequently repeated through the early centuries. It was not so, even during the first. The highest estimate which we can possibly form of the number of professing Christians in the year 100 is not half a million, including childre'n, and some authorities make it considerably less. But, during the last century, more than 3,000,000 have been rescued from heathenism by Protestant missions alone. The Lord is pleaaed to bless our poor, initial efforts far beyond what we had reason to expect-for very feeble and faltering have these efforts been; and His marvelous goodness ought to impel us to run henceforth the way of His commandments.
1Ve are fully aware of the retort which is frequently made: "Yes, you have gained perhaps 3,000,000 from heathenism during the last century; but the heathen population of the world has been increased by a vastly greater number; and there are far more heathen now than there were a hundred years ago." True, but the Christian population of the world has been increasing too. Proportionally it seems to increase twice as fast as the heathen population; and by the end of the present century-that is, ten years hence-the Christian inhabitants will actually increase more rapidly than the heathen inhabitants. Of course, we may be told that merely nominal Christianity is of no value. But that is not true. Just compare the state of Europe with that of the heart of Africa! The last accounts, supplied by Stanley and Mackay, regarding interior Africa, are as horrible as the descriptions which Dante gives of hell. Europe is no paradise; but neither is it a pandemonium.
1Ve are amazed at the erroneous conceptions as to the progress of missions existing in quarters that ought to be well informed. A few years ago a journal of high name asserted that the conversions to Mohammedanism in British India were about a hundred thousand annually. More recently an anonymous writer in one of our most inflnential magazines maintained that the conversions to Islam were every year about 50,000, and that India was steadily becoming Mo- hammedan. It was of no use for missionaries to protest against these assertions; on such subjects they, good men, are supposed to be hopelessly prejudiced, and it is for able editors to put them right. But next comes Sir W. W. Hunter, whose knowledge of Indian sta- tistics is unquestioned, and he informs us that, so far as statistics are available, the general population of India, in nine years, has increased 8 per cent., but the Christian population 30 per cent.; and that, tak- ing Bengal as a sample, while the Mohammedans have increased 11 per cent. the Christians have increased 64 per cent. That particular error, then, is finally disposed of. So much as regards numbers; but what about character? No doubt there are black sheep in the flock. Missionaries are sometimes detleived by inquirers, and the children of {)onverts in heathendom are very like young people in Christendom. Still, there has been generally-we suppose universally-a remark- able elevation of the Christian community in intelligence and cllarac- tel', and, as a consequence, it has risen and is rising in position. In ~ndia, government returns show that crime' exists among native Chris- tians only to one-fifth the degree which obtains among the Hindus. We believe the same thing is tl'Ue of converts in China, Japan and Siam. It is remarkably true throughout the Dutch dominions in the islands of Eastern Asia, as we may have occasion to show a little farther on.
Letus now glance at the chief mission fields separately, beginning at the East: JAPAN.-The progress in this empire during the last twenty years ()r so in which it has been possible to preach the Gospel in public, has " been steady, and, as compared with that in other countries, even Tapid. Recently, among the educated or half e,ducated young men there have been manifestations of a feeling of dislike to foreigners; and probably the cry of " Japan for the Japanese" will wax louder and louder. The strong feeling of nationality will affect the missions and their ecclesiastical arrangements. Quite possibly foreign mis- sionaries will be told, before ten years are come and gone, that their presence is no longer needed; and this not scornfully or bitterly, but from a conviction that Japanese Christians can manage their own affairs and evangelize their countrymen better than foreigners can. For our part, we respect their feeling; and though we desire no abrupt severance of existing ties, we trust to see, ere long, the great spectacle of a national church in Japan-self-supporting, Eelf-gov- erned and self-extending. We say a national chttrch. The mission· aries are laudalby exerting themselves to reduce the number of eccle· siastical divisions among Christians. The Presbyterians have all united; they had almost coalesced with the Congregationalists, when a bar was unhappily interposed-from, America, if we mistake not. The Methodists wish to unite; and so do the Episcopalians and others.
Excellent, so far; but the Japanese Christians long for one grand, national church; and they will have it if foreigners do not interfere.
Em Oriente lux. Very probably the problem of union, at which the chutches of Europe and America are toiling, will receive its solution from the minds and hearts of more far-off Eastern Christians. That ought to humble the haughty West; but all of us, we trust, would heartily rejoice in the result. When we speak thus, we dream that there will be one grand united church holding the principles of the Reformation. The Roman and Greek churches will doubtless remain apart from this, and from each other, in Japan as in other places.
The new constitution of Japan gives full tolerance to Christianity, and the Gospel may now be preached over the length and breadth of the empire. Are the two old religions-Shintoism and Buddhism- likely soon to pass away? Some have answered yes; but we fear not. Shintoism is a vague, colorless creed, and one naturally leaps to the conclusion that it cannot long contend against the Gospel. But it is the old, ancestral faith; nearly all the vaunted glories of Japan are connected with it; and, probably, it will die slowly, as did the religion of Rome, even after Constantine's profession of Christianity.
How difficult to forget the national traditions handed down for more than two thousand years; how difficult to throw off the religious ideas they embody! Buddhism is an alien faith, though in itself more definite than Shintoism; but it may not perhaps survive its rival.
Confucianism has been the creed of many of the higher classes, and its worldly, cold philosophy may content them for a good while longer-all the more readily, because it can easily combine with the ancestral Shinto worship. • KOREA comes next-the'" hermit nation," as it used to be called; "the land of the morning calm," as it calls itself. Korea had very little distinctive religion. Shintoism was little known; Buddhism was proscribed; Confucianism influenced only a few among the higheF classes. Vague, confused superstition was all in all. But Korea happily has an easy alphabet, and multitudes, even of women, are able to read.
The beginnings of Protestant work in Korea are due to the Rcv. John Ros~, missionary of the (Scottish) United Presbyterian Church in Manchuria. He tra~slated various portions of the Scriptures illto Korean, from the year 1873 onwards. These were circulated in Northern Korea, and the result was truly remarkable-indeed, few things in mission history have been more so.* Then came the Ameri- can Mission, in 1884, being begun by Dr. Allen, a medical missionary, • See Report of Foreign Missions of (American) Presbyterian Church for 1890. In a spirit which does them much honor the Americans speak most war..lIy of the labors of the Scottish Mission, which preceded their own. whose professional skill was greatly valued in the highest quarters. An Episcopal Methodist Mission has followed, and recently an Angli- can one. Two laborers from the General Assembly of Victoria, in Australia, co-operate with the Presbyterian Mission. So far a mar- velous blessing has rested on the work. The opening of Korea has . been more sudden, and more complete, even than the opening of Japan.
CHINA.-In connection with China the eye first naturally fixes on the late Missionary Conference held at Shanghai. It was very large, very harmonious, very earnest and very hopeful. Of the arousing call to the Church of Christ to send China a thousand missionaries within the next five years we have already spoken. Especial stress was laid on the work of women. Dr. Williamson, since then, to the great loss of China, deceased, said that the permanent Christianization of China depends on the women, and that the women can be reached only by women. The conference did not take any narrow view of Christian work, and one of its solemn declarations was: "We hear a loud call to the Christian Church to supply Christian educationists for China." Lastly, it came to a most important resolution regarding the translation of the Scriptures into Chinese. Hitherto there have been rival versions, and interminable disputes aA to the rendering of im- pOl·tant words (even the name of God among them), and when the conference met, agreement on long-contested points seemed utterly hopeless. But the" great mountain" became" a plain," and satis- factory means were proposed for the preparation of versions in the high classical language, the colloquial :Mandarin, and an intermediate dialect. In addition to these there is a considerable number of local '. dialects, and arrangements were entered into by which versions into these will be made, or, if already made, harmonized. Had the Shanghai Conference achieved nothing more than this, all the labor and expense connected with long journeyings and a session of more than a fort- night would have been richly repaid.
SIAM.-Buddhism is the established religion in Siam; but here, as elsewhere, the name veils a mass of childish superstitions. The chief mission here has been the American Presbyterian, which began its work in 1840. Its operations are carried on mainly in the northern part-Laos. Some twenty years ago there was a severe persecution of the Christians; but, for some years past, opposition on the part of the government has completely died away. Education and medical work receive decided encouragement from the king and the high officials. All the missionaries seem to be full of hope.
NETHERLANDS, INDIA.-The Dutch possessions in Eastern Asia are so called by the Hollanders, though they have no connection with IIindustan. (They are part of Indict extra Gangem.) Until of late the Dutch authorities discountenanced missions, if they did not actively oppose them. '1'0 this day religion is at a low ebb among the Dutch inhabitants of Eastern Asia, and the clergy are often ,avowedly rationalistic. But the missions have done much faithful work, and the blessing from on high has rested on them. We give some remarkable figures in a note. * We understand that the oppo- sition of the authorities to missions has entirely ceased. They admit that the native Christians are visibly superior to the heathen (incluiing Mohammedans) in industry, cleanliness and morality. The owners of plantations in Java prefer native Christian laborers to all others. Let it be observed that, though the Mohammedans are zealous in proselytizing, yet the conversions from Islam to Christianity have been very numerous, especially of late.
INDIA. t-In this great field the battle between the Gospel and heathenism becomes hotter every day: "All reports of religious affairs are growing in urgency and interest."! 'l'he next Decennial Missionary Conference takes place two years hence, and the proceedings may be expected to be of absorbing interest.
There are vast diversities between different parts of India. Even the languages spoken amount, according to the census report, to 106, and some have reckoned as many as 132. The diversities among the inhabitants are astonishingly great. To use Lord Dufl'erin's words: "At one extremity you have the naked, savage hill-man, with his stone weapons, his head-hunting, his polyandrous habits, and his childish superstitions; and at the other extremity you have the Europeanized native gentleman, with his refinement and polish, his literary culture, his Western philosophy, and his advanced political ideas."
Even a lifetime barely suffices to supply a full, comprehensive idea of India. We are, therefore, continually in danger of drawing too general conclusions from particular facts. And hence come such ,conflicts of opinion as to the state of things in India. Some already tell us they can hear the wailing cry that" great Pan is dead"; § while others declare that, as yet, he has received no serious wound. We, therefore, entreat the friends who pay a cold-weather visit to India, and then rush home to proclaim the conclusions they have reached, to specify the part of the Indian Continent which they have studied and think they understand. On the other hand, we must request the men who knew India ten or fifteen years ago to remem- *Christians in Java (1873)….. …..•….• 5,673 " (1889) …………….. 11,229 in Snmatra (1873). .. .. .. . ….. 2,500 (1889) . .. .. .. .. …. 12,000 in all Dntch India (1873) …… 168,672 (1889) .•.••.250,000 ~ an increase of 66 per cent. nearly.
These figures are given by Inspektor Schreiber, of Barmen.
t Many of the principles we state regarding missions in India will apply to missions ,generally. :j: Last report of British and Foreign Bible Society, p. 184. § Ibid, p. 185. bel' that change now proceeds rapidly, even in what used to be called the" unchanging East."
The accessions to the Church of Christ in India continue to be chiefly drawn, as heretofore, from the races generally called abori-.
ginal-such as the Kols, Santals, Garos, Khasias, etc. (as in Burma from among the Karens). It was high time that missions should exert . themselves in behalf of these tribes; for, ere long, they would cer- tainly have been merged in the general Hindu population; the ab-.
sorption was steadily going on. We lately noticed an assertion by a high Indian official to the effect that Hinduism is gaining rather than losing ground. Quite true, in a sense. Uncivilized races are influenced by the civilized races near them; their vague demon wor- ship gives way before the more definite Hindu mythology, and their marriage and funeral rites fall gradually under the control of the Brahmans. Races that live apart eSyape this influence in a great degree; but those that have intercourse with the Hindus become more or less Hinduized. True, they are not received into the Hindu com- munity-they are not taken into caste; they are, so to speak, tied on to the great mass, not ingrafted into it. Other races, such as the Dhers, of Gujarat, or the Mhars and Mangs, of Maharashtra, no longer live apart from the Hindus; they are attached to the villages-permitted, not indeed to live in them, but around or near them. Among such races the progress of the Gospel is not much slower than among the more sequestered aborigines.
It is cheering to watch the steady elevation of these hitherto down-trodden races. The Brahmans, of course, sneer. Often have we heard them say, "We are too wary to swallow your bait, and so you go to those wretched outcasts." In truth, the missionary goes to all; but the proud Brahmans, as a rule, despise the message; while, in many cases, the poor and despised do not. And the reception of the truth raises and refines; the very expression of the countenance is changed. Then, when the children of converts are carefully taught and trained-and that this should be done is a most pressing, sacred duty-they compete, on no unequal terms, even with the intellectual Brahmans.
Thus the wrongs of ages are gradually becoming redressed; a social fabric, based on a new foundation, is slowly rising; and, by and by, the Christians will be not only the men of light, but the men of leading, too. .
Among the middle and higher classes the visible progress of the Gospel, as shown in the number of baptisms, is much slower than among the races we have just referred to. Hitherto it has been very difficult to reach these classes except through schools and colleges.
This is still true of India generally; but there are already exceptions to the rule, e~pecially in the largest cities. If evangelistic addresses were attentively listened to only when delivered in English, one might fear that the language, more than the meaning, formed the attraction; but earnest appeals in the vernacular, when the speaker wields it with any power, are also becoming acceptable. The change is immensely important. Educational missionaries ascribe it to the influence of Christian education, and we think they are right in doing so.
Attacks on educational missions continue to be made, as they have been for fifty years; but we see no new argument advanced. ""Ve suppose they will be repeated; but the missionaries will patiently toil on-aye, no kind of mission work is so toilsome as theirs, and assuredly it is not from a love of ease they take to it-and while they heartily rejoice in the extension of all kinds of missionary effort, they cannot, in faithfulness, give up their own. Education, both lower and higher, has become a necessity in India. Who is to give it? Government is disposed to withdraw more and more from its higher institutions, and (in a spirit which does it much honor) is expressing its belief that only those in which religious instruction is given can meet the necessities of India. Are Protestant missionaries to abandon the work?
Hoc Ithac1l8 velit, et magna mercentur AtridaJ. Nothing would delight the natives more; nothing would delight the Romanists more. The moulding of the higher thought of India would then be in the hands of these two classes. We hold that too much has been conceded already to the cry of " preaching, not teaching." The Cathedral Mission College, in Calcutta, in connection with the Church Missionary Society, founded by Bishop Cotton, was given up in 1880, under the impression that there were needlessly many colleges in Calcutta; but the demand for higher education has greatly increased since then, and the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society regret the closing, and for this reason, among others, that they now cannot get into touch with the influential student class as they used to do when their college was in existence.
Some people talk of educational missions as if they were merely educational. Is there one such mission in all India? We believe not. People who criticise what they call" Dr. Duff's system" should try to understand what that system was.
The fullest examination of this question with which we are acquainted is contained in the" Revised Special Report of the Foreign Missions Committee of the Church of Scotland on Educational Missions in India." The document comprises 213 pages, and embodies the opinion of eighty-four persons, connected with various churches, who were deemed well qualified to pronounce an opinIon on the important question proposed; and it shows that, after most patient and prolonged inquiry, the General Assembly of the Church resolved to maintain its educational efforts. The report deserves to be studied as a valuahle rer,ertory, not only of opinions, but of facts. We read that wheu the apostle and his companions were tossed up and down ill Adria, they "cast four anchors out of the stern and wished for the day." When some one rejoicingly pointed to the first streaks of dawn on the Eastern horizon, we wonder whether he re- ceived the chilling rebuke: "The dawn is nothing; we are waiting for the sunrise." But so speak many now. They do not believe in pro- cesses and preparations. They expect the sunrise immediately to follow midnight. Each of the higher religions of India covers as large an area as it did before; and many sorrowfully ask what im- pression, then, the Gospel is making on them. 'Ve reply that the Gospel never comes into real contact with heathenism without affect- ing it, and the influence exerted is in direct proportion to the com- pleteness of the cOlltact. The moral teachings of Christianityap- peal to natural reason and conscience; they carry with them their own bright evidence, and are acce})ted without much delay. The deeper mysteries, such as the divinity and atoning sacrifice of Christ, are, it may be for a long time, vehemently opposed by many; nor need we wonder at this, seeing that ., no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost." But when the Gospel is fully and faithfully proclaimed, it is never long proclaimed in vain. The truth is revealed to some; and these profess their faith, and, if need be, are prepared to suffer for it.
Now, in India, the higher religions are being shot through by the arrows of light; that is to say, the moral teachings-and much of the teaching regarding God contained in the Gospel is st.eadily penetrat- 'ing the mind of heathenism. The professors of heathen religions may deny that they borrow from Christianity; they may not be aware that they do borrow, but that does not alter the fact. One of the most noteworthy proofs of what we now affirm is supplied by a statement lately made by the high priest of the chief division of the Bombay Zorastrians, to the effect that the attributes ascribed in the Avesta to Ahuramazda are the same as the Old Testament ascribes to Jehovah. The statement is far from correct; but the high priest honestly believed what he so strongly affirmed. The wish was father to the thought.
We need hardly dwell longer on this. Every student of church history will see in it only a repetition of what occurred during the first three centuries. Heathenism was then compelled by the presence of the Gospel to remodel itself. "Reformed heathenism adopted features borrowed from Christianity, and even grew to be an imitation of it."* It thought to save itself by so doing. But by and by, as the lamented Liddon expressed it: "Conversions came with a rush."
Our readers must have been surprised to hear of the late sugges- * Uhlhorn "Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism," Bk. II., ch.3. tion, made by at least one man of influence, that the Bible be added to the Hindu sacred books. A very natural proposal, in the mouth of one who recognizes the steady onward march of Christianity, and would fain come to terms with it before it is too late. But the pro- gress of the truth is still more fully proved by the alarm that is so widely professed and the vehement efforts to oppose it-Hindu tracts,.
Hindu preachers-these are now sent forth in great numbers; and the Gospel is mercilessly attacked. The large society called the "Arya Samaj," gives in to Christianity so far that it surrenders po- lytheism, idol-worship, caste, and child-marriage, and permits the re-marriage of widows. It falls back on the Vedas as the sole author- itative scriptures, and, by torturing Sanskrit terms, it finds Christian and modern ideas in them. It is ienscpreecaisailnlgy.a f"rIafi d•woef cCohnrt iins tuiea nt oscshl eoeopls, ". Its propagandism is zealous and it cries, " our temples will soon be Christian churches."
But it is in vain that the Arya Samaj has abandoned three-fourths of Hinduism in order to save the remainder. Christianity is, so to speak, in the air.* It affects all the religious thinking of India; and its influence is seen in the remarkable attempts at reform which are happily becOI~ing so frequent. People may call these only social re- forms; but in India what is social is also religious. The Rajputana chiefs, bolder than the British Government, have limited marriage ex- penses and fixed the minimum marriage age for men at 18, and for women at 14. This is a stupendous change; and it involves stupen- dous consequences. The persistent efforts to encourage the re-mar- riage of widows; the refusal of the barbers of Bombay to shave the heads 'of widows; the formation of a social reform association, which held its third annual meeting in December, 1889, where it was noted with interest that several Hindu ladies were present; these and similar movements are, to anyone that knows the people of India, full of interest and promise; and, we repeat, that they are traceable, directly or indirectly, to the influence of Christianity. We spoke above of ideas changing; but there is also, though to a less extent, a change of institutions.
We have been Ilpeaking of Hindus. But the Mohammedans in India are also moving. Their antipathy to vVestern education is con- siderably mitigated. That enlightened man, Sir Synd Ahmad, tells us that his college at Alighar is flonrishing. If so, Moslem bigotry is proportionally declining.t Meantime, the uneducated Mohammed- ans-note especially what has happened in the north at Peshawur- * Since this was written, we find the same expression quoted in the Church Missionary Society Report. p. 172.
t A high Indian official, Sir Auckland Colvin, has said: "An Alighar col- lege man has become synonymous with a man of liberal ideas, advanced edu- cation and independent character." We have seen this college. We have ob-· served that its alumni are Mohammedan in little more than name. are as greatly terrified at the progress of Christianity as is the Arya Samaj among the Hindus. Zenana mission teachers are objects of especial dread to Mohammedans, as well as to Hindus. Let our sisters thankfully and strenuously persevere; their work is telling greatly.
[To be continued.] THE Church of God cripples all her mission boards and mission work by a selfish withholding of money for the Lord's cause, and then wonders at the slow progress of missions in fields where retrenchment makes all advance impossible. This absurd contradiction reminds us of the wars of Arminius (Hermann), Prince of Cherusci (16 B. C.- '16 A. D.) The Germans bored holes in the tongues of the Roman lawyers and judges, and then said, " Now, rattle away /"
ONE of the McAll workers in Paris was very much affected at finding a poor working woman, already in a dying condition, who bad strayed into one of the salles and there for the first time heard of Christ as the Good Shepherd of souls. She was trying to recall and put together in an intelligible shape the few hints she had picked up at that meeting, mere fragments of gospel truth, and when she found one at her bedside who could give her the whole truth about this great Saviour her joy was so great that she forgot even the agonies of dying! And yet there are literally millions of souls in France hungering for just such a Gospel.
MATERIALISU, like other forms of infidelity, has a basis of insincerity. At a meeting in Liverpool an evangelist publicly said: " I do not believe there is an honest man ill the world who really believes that we are all simply matter and go out of existence at death. If there is a real materialist in this audience I would like to see him." A man rose up and shouted: "Well, here is one." "Come up here," .said the evangelist, " I want all these people to see a man whose mother died like a dog, and that was the end of her." "You are a liar," shouted the man, " she was one of the best women that ever lived, and she's in h.eaven to-day /" The fellow was fairly. caught in his' own trap. He quite forgot for the moment his own creed!
THE efforts of churches which are not evangelical and which lack all true missionary spirit to found mission enterprises, simply to appear aggressive and seem abreast of other professed believers-in other words, to save themselves the humiliatio.n of a significant contrast-have always ended in disastrous failure. Often, instead of Christianizing the helthen, they themselves become heathenized. Those impulsive spurts in the direction of missions remind us of a significant phrase in the psalms, in which, referring to the triumphant passage of Israel over the Red Sea, the sacred writer adds, "which the Egyptians, assaying to do, were drowned /"
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN BOARD IN NORTH CHINA
A CONDENSED SKETCH OF THE MISSION OF THE AMER- ICAN BOARD IN NORTH CnINA.
HEXRY BLODGETT, D.D.
The history of the North China Mission is closely connected with that of the Shanghai Mission, and through that with the history of the Canton Mission, the first of the American Board, and of the American churches in China.
Mr. Bridgman, the first American missionary to China, arrived in Canton in the year 1830, twenty-three years after Dr. Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to this empire. In 1847 Mr. Bridgman , went to Shanghai as a delegate of his missionary brethcrn to assist in the translation of the Bible. This resulted in his permanent residence in that city, where he died in the year 1861. The translation made by Messrs. Bridgman and Culbertson into the written language of China is still in use, while the twenty volumes of the Chinese Re- pository, edited by Dr. Bridgm;tn, remain as an invaluable thesaurus of matters relating to China and the far East. .
In the year 1854 Messrs. Aitchison al,ld Blodget were sent out by the Board to join Dr. Bridgman at Shanghai, thus forming the Shanghai Mission. Mr. Macy joined the mission in 1858, making the fourth ordained missionary.
During the years in which the mission was continued at Shanghai, Dr. Bridgman was engaged in translating, also taking the pastoral care of the church connected with the boarding-school of girls, under the charge of Mrs. Bridgman. The three younger members of the mission were engaged in the usual work of teaching and preaching, as they were able, both in the city and the outlying country. 'rhe rule established soon after the opening of the" Five Ports,"
of twenty-fonr hours absence only, from one of the ports, was soon broken at Shanghai, and before long became a dead letter, Mission- aries made frequent tours into the interior. In the autumn of 1858 MassI'S. Aitchison and Burdon (now Bishop Burdon of Hong-Kong), after many journeys in the country together, took up their residence at Ping Hoo, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, seventy miles southwest of Shanghai. Here Mr. Aitchison remained for the winter, but re- turned at length to Shanghai in hope of commencing a mission in the llorth of China.
Such a movement seemed very desirable both to the Board, and to the memhers of the miRsion. Shanghai being the northernmost of the fi ve ports then opened, various European and American Societies had designated their missionaries to this city, so that, before the open- ing of China in 1860, more than thirty lahorers, representing as many as ten or eleven bodies of Christians in different countries were con- gregated there waiting for restrictions to be removed as a signal for advance to all parts of China. The year 1859 was one of sore trial to the Shanghai Mission. Mr. Macy died in April; Mr. Aitchison accepted in June a place offered him in the American Embassy, then about to proceed to Peking, in the hope that it might result in fixing his residence in the Northern Capital. He had only been eight days in Peking when he was taken ill, and after eleven days of suffering, died August 15th en rm£te to the .seaboard. He was buried in the Gulf of Chihli. In the autumn of the same year Mrs. Blodget was compelled by failure of health to re- turn to the United States.
In the following spring, 1860, Mr. Blodget for a like reason was forced to quit Shanghai. He went first to Japan, and, after two months at Kanagawa, embarked on a British transport, bound, for Taku to join the fleet about to rendezvous at that place. The ship ar- rived at her destination August 19th, just one year from the time, when, near the same spot, Mr. Aitchison was lowered to his watery grave.
A few days after her arrival the Taku Forts were taken, and in a short time all North China was open to the missionary and the mer- <lhant. Tientsin became an entrepot of foreign trade, and Peking the place of residence of the ministers of the various treaty powers of the West.
Early in September, of this year, Mr. Blodget landed in Taku, and on the 8th of November took up his residence in the city of Tientsin, being at that time and during the following winter the only Protestant missionary in this newly opened province.
The city was then garrisoned by the allied English and French forces. A lodgment was readily obtained in the barracks of the British soldiers, ana Christian work was commenced at once, both among the soldiers and the thronging multitudes of Chinese, who received with great friendliness the newly arrived missionary.
In April of the following year, 1861, Mr. Blodget had the happiness of welcoming to this field the Rev. J. Innocent, of the English Methodist Mission, and in May the Rev. J. Edkins (now Dr. Edkins), of the London Mission.
A journey to Peking in the month of May showed how entirely the country was open to travel, and to Christian effort; nor was any objection offered to passing about freely within the walls of the capital, even to those in no way connected with the legations.
During this month a chapel and houses for residence were rented within the city of Tientsin, and the Sabbath services were removed from the temple court, in which they had been held, to this place. Blind Chang, the first convert, was baptized in June, 1861. He was a 'veale man in humble life, but there is hope that he died a Christian.
Several journeys were undertaken, in this and the following year, for the exploration of this new field, as also for direct missionary ef- 'ort. These journeys extended to Teh-chen, in Shantung, on the South; to Pao Ting-fu, the capital of Chihli; to Tai Yuan-fn, Ta T'ung- fu, in Shansi; to Chang Chia K'eu (or Kalgan), on the Northwest;. also to T'ung Cheu and other cities east of Peking.
The Rev. J. Doolittle, of Fuhchau, spent the winter of 1862 and 1863 in Tientsin assisting in the work of the mission. Mr. Blodget spent the greater part of the winter in Peking, but returned to Tient- sin in view of the departure of Mr. Doolittle for Fuhchau. The mission was reinforced in 1863 by the arrival of the Rev. C. A. Stanley in March, and the Rev. L. D. Chapin in May. They took up their residence within the city walls, in houses which had been pur- chased the previous autumn through the aid of the late Dr. S.. W. Williams. Subsequently, on the ground of health, the residence of the missionaries was changed to the settlement, southeast of the city.
The principal labors of the missionaries have been in preaching the Gospel, and in the distribution of Christian books, both in the city and in the country. A day-school of boys has generally been maintained, and at times a few boarders have been taken in and cared for. The project of a higher institution of learning at Tientsin, in which the English language should be taught, has often been before the mis8ion, and has met with much favor.
The work of this station received a great impulse in the years foll0'Ying the famine of 1877. At that time the missionaries, furnished with funds to the amount of $10,000, more or less, by the liberality of Christian nations, threw themselves unreservedly into the work of famine relief, in which they were assisted also by members of the station at 'l"ungcheu. Their principal labors were in the region of P'ang Chuang, the central place of their work in Shantung. ~Iultitudes of the starving people were relieved in their distress. In this and the following years the missionaries found open doors and open hearts to the preaching of the Gospel. Several hundreds turned to the Saviour. The church was greatly enlarged, and a new station at P'ang Chuang was the result. The life of MI'. Smith, at one time greatly endangered by famine fever, was spared, and his labors are continued at this new station.
The importarice of Tientsin as the port of entrance, not only for Northern and Western Shantung, but also for Northern Ho Nan, for Shansi, Chihli, and inner Mongolia cannot be overestimated.
The station at Peking was formed in 1864. Though frequent visits had been made to this city by Mr. Blodget since May, 1861, it was not until February, 1864, that he took np his permanent residence here. Through the timely assistance of Dr. Williams, the present mission premises were purchased in March, and a chapel was opened in one of the rear buildings almost immediately for public preaching. This was a new departure for Peking, and one which attracted crowds of curious listeners. The pr~mises had been purchased from the Chinese for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; but that Society, being cramped by its own laws, was unable to take them over, and allowed this advantageous location to pass into the hands of the American Board.
On July 1st, Mrs. Bridgman arrived in Peking, having left New York when only partially recovered from a dangerous accident, and narrowly escaped the Alabama on the way. Mrs. Bridgman at once set herself to establish a girls' boarding-school, which has been continued ever since that time, and is now known as the" Bridgman School." She also gave to the Board the entire sum which had been expended for houses, lands and school buildings, amounting to not less than $5,000. In 1868 she left Peking, broken down in health, and spent the remainder of her days in Shanghai, where she died, in 1871. While in Shanghai, though in feeble health, she laid the foundations of a boarding-school for girls, and a dispensary, which, by her will, have passed into the hands of the Woman's Union Mission of New York.
The mission force in Peking was increased in November, 1864, by the arrival of the Rev. J. T. Gulick and Mrs. Gulick; and again, in August, 1865, by the arrival of the Rev. C. Goodrich and Mrs. Goodrich. A month before their arrival, in the early part of July, Mr. and Mrs. Gulick left Peking for Kalgan, to open a mission station in that city. The next reinforcement was by the coming of Mr. and Mrs. ·P. R. Hunt and Miss M. H. Porter, in 1868.
Miss Porter very soon took charge of the Bridgman School; Miss Chapin joined her in 1872. Under the efficient management of these ladies, and of Miss Haven, who arrived in 1879, t}Jis school has maintained a high character, and has been of the greatest service in training up young women suitable for wives for the native helpers, able also to take some part in Christian work. This school has formed the nucleus for efforts for women, botb in the city and in the country.
Mr. Hunt after twenty-seven years of service in India, came to Peking with the enthusiasm of youth to establish a mission press, and also to take charge of the financial affairs of the Mission. The press he established in 1869. It was at the time, and still remains, the only press of Protestant missions in North China. The money used for this purpose was supplied by the indemnity fund received from the Chinese Government after the burning of the mission press in Canton in 1858, and was originally given to the Board by the Bleecker Street Church, in New York, for the establishment of that press. Mr. Hunt was a skillful printer. vVork done by him was well done, whether in the establishment of the press, or in printing the books which issued from it.
During the nineteen years in which Mr. Hunt and Mr. Noble, who succeeded him, had charge of the press, there were printed on it, for the American Bible Society, the version of the New Testament, in Mandarin, prepared by the Peking Committee, that of the Old Testa- ment, also in the Mandarin, prepared by Bishop Schereschewsky, the Psalms and various portions of the New Testament; for the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, the four Gospels, with notes on the same; for the Church Mission Society, the book of Common Prayer; a series of Sabbath-school lesson papers and other works, for the North China Tract Society; a treatise on theology by Mr. Sheffield; several editions of a hymn book by Messrs. Blodget and Goodrich; a geography by Rev. L. D. Chapin; a smaller work on geography by Rev. L. W. Pilcher; a treatise on physiology by Dr. Porter; tracts and books by Miss M. H. Porter and l-Iiss M. E. Andrews, and, in addition, a con- siderable list of tracts and books not here enumerated. From the first this press has done a select work for local convenience-rather a large work for distant parts of China.
In commencing chapel preaching in Peking Mr. Blodget was assisted by the late Rev. VV. C. Burns, whose memory is still fragrant in the minds of some who heard the Gospel at that time. Subsequently Messrs. Goodrich, Holcombe and Roberts, each during the time of his connection with this station, labored in evangelist.ic work, both in the city and in the country. These are now succeeded by Messrs. Ament and Aiken. A good degree of success has attended these efforts, and frequent accessions in the city and at the country stations indicate a, constant growth in the membership of the church.
The boys' boarding-school in this station was discontinued in 1869. Two day-schools for boys have usually been maintained in the city, and at present there is one day-school in the country. There is also a day-school f~r girls in the city.
Perhaps there is no large city in Europe, or even in the whole world, more open to every sort. of evangelistic and educational labor, and to all the eleemosynary institutions of the Christian church than is Peking at the present time..
'rhe Kalgan station was opened by Rev. and Mrs. J. T. Gulick in the summer of 1865. Great difficulties were encountered in the early days of this station in renting houses and procuring suitable places for mission work. In the end unwearied patience, combined with great skill and prudence and unbounded charity in caring for the sick and needy, secured the desired result.
This station was reinforced in 1867 by the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Williams, in 1868 of lIr. Thompson, in 1870 of Miss Diament, and subsequently, after Mr. and Mrs. Gulick had left for Japan, by .iYlt-. and Mrs. Sprague, and Mr. and l-Irs. Roberts and Miss Dr. Murdock.
Healing the sick and a boys' day-school were from the first carried on jointly with evangelistic work at this station. After the coming of Dr. Murdock, a hospital and a diRpensary, including an opium refuge, were opened. A girls' boarding-school was established by Mrs. "Villiams, which is now under the charge of Miss Diament. The buildings for the school were erected largely by funds contributed by one of the mission families.
The Yu Cheu Valley, seventy miles southwest of Kalgan, has hitherto been the most fruitful part of this field, and in the city of Yu Cheu it is now proposed to estahlish a new station. Kalgan and Yu Cheu are solely in the charge of missionaries of the American Board. Other societies are not likely to enter this field.
Kalgan is located at a pass in the great wall. It has an outlook upon the rolling pasture lands of Mongolia. The roving Mongols are often seen in the streets of the city, and pass through in numbers on their way to Peking, or in their pilgrimages to Wu'l"ai in Shansi. The missionaries have often proposed labor for these sons of the desert, and something has been done among them. One convert to the Christian faith has been baptized in Kalgan. It has been suggested that one missionary should devote himself to this work.
The station at T'ungcho was opened by the Rev. L. D. Chapin in 1867. No serious difficulty was experienced in securing' residences. The people in 'l"ungcho have from the first been friendly to the missionaries. The station was reinforced in 1868 by the arrival of Miss Andrews, and in 1869 of Mr. and Mrs. Sheffield; Miss Evans reached T'ungcho in 1872; Mr. and Mrs. Goodrich, after their return from the United States in 1872 spent a year at Yu Cheu, and thence removed the following year to 'l"nngcho. Dr. Holhrook arrived in 1881, Mr. 1nd ]frs. Beach in 1883, Dr. and lVirs. Ingram in 1887, and Miss Miner in 1888.
The boarding-school for hoys, early established by Mr. Chapin, has been enlarged, and expanded by the efforts of Mr. Sheffield and others, so that it has now become the Mission High School. To this pupils are sent from all the stations of the mission to go through with a thorough course of study, in the hope that many of them will enter the Christian miuistry, and that all will hecome helpful in one way or another to the cause of Christ.
The course of study embraces a thorough knowledge of the Chinese classics, learning to compose in the written language, a familiar acquaintance with the Bible, including the study of Bible history and geography, and the committing to memory of quite a number of the books of the New Testament, also some of the more impo]·tant branches of gClleral knowledge and Western science, such as geography, mental and written arithmetic, algebra, geometry, chemistry, mechanics, phy~iology, geology and astronomy. It is de8iglled to extend the course and introduce higher branches as fast as the needs of the sehool and the circumstances of the mission make it expedient. The high school is to become the college. Connected with this high school is the theological seminary of the mission, designed for those who are prepal'ing to enter the ministry. Here the various departments of exegesis, systematic theology, church history, sacred rhetoric and the pastoral charge are attended to, so far as the attainments of the students and the circumstances of the case will allow. A great and an increasing amount of medical work has been done at this station from the first.
Through the energetic labors of Dr. Holbrook a hospital and dis- pensary were opened, the work in which is now vigorously carried forward by Dr. Ingram. Dispensaries are also opened at two country stations not remote from T'tmgcho. It is proposed that medical instruction shall be given to some of the students at this station.
General evangelization, both in the city and, to some extent, in the country, has been carried forward at thif station, in connection with the work of teaching, with hopeful results.
T'ungcho is the port of Peking, twelve miles distant from that city, with which it is soon to be connected by rail. Its accessibility by water and its abundant accommodations have made it to be chosen as the place for the annual gatherings of the mission.
The station. at Pao Ting fu was opened by Mr. Pierson in 1873. At no other place has so great difficulty been experienced in obtaining suitable residences for mission familieR. For more than a year Mr. Pierson lived in a Chinese inn, and until the present time he has occupied rented houses in a crowded ,part of the city. It is only within two years that the desired plot of ground has been purchased, in the southern suburb, upon which buildings have been erected to accommodate one or two families. Happily there has been no collision with the authorities or with the people. By uniform kindnessand prudent management all causes of offense have been avoided.
Here, as in Kalgan and T'ungcho, medical aid, though administered by unprofessional hands, has from the fhst been a most potent agency in removing prejudice and opening the hearts of the Chinese. After the arrival of Dr. Peck, in 1880, this branch of the work fell to llis care. Large numbers of patients flocked to his hospital and dispensary from the city and the surrounding region of country. Under the care of Dr. Merritt, who arrived in 1886, this useful work is still continued.
A school for boys, and one al.so for girls, in each of which there have been some boarding pupils, have been maintained at this station. "Vork for women has been carried forward b~r Mrs. Pierson and Miss Pierson. Colporteurs under the direction of 111'. Pierson have labored extensively in all that part of the province.
Pao Ting fu, as being the provincial capital, is a place of much political importance. Its situation at the head of river llavigation renders it a commercial emporium for grain, salt and various kinds of merchandise. All missionaries for Shansi pass through Pao Ting fu. This is the highway for officials passing from the capital to the south- western provinces of the empire. The place is well chosen as an im- portant and convenient centre for missionary labor.
The station at P'ang Chuang was the outgrowth of the work ~t Tientsin. Mr. Hou, a man whose name is held in loving remem- brance by the Christians of that region, heard the Gospel in P'ang Chuang from a native helper, and went himself to Tientsin to learn more of this new way. In the Gospel he found the truth for which he had elsewhere sought in vain, and was baptized in 1872.* "Within a few years he became himself a helper, his house the headquarters of the missionaries at every visit, as well as the centre of the famine re- lief work, and his village was afterwards chosen as the residence of missionaries designated to the Shantung station of the American Board. From the year 1872 the work in this region graduallyex- panded until, at the end of 1877, the annual additions brought the membership up to forty-three, representing twelve different villages." 'rhen followed the long to be remembered famine of 1877, and the famine relief, and the subsequent enlargement of the church, in view {)f which the mission resolved, in 1880, to open a new station at P'ang Chuang.
It has been usual in China, in all the missions, to locate mission- aries in large and important towns and cities. P'ang Chuang is al- m08t, if not quite, the only case of a mission station established in a rural district quite away from any city 01' great mart of trade. Yet the missionaries here have a great work on their hands. They are in the midst of a very populous region of country, so that within a radius of six miles there are approximately 150 villages and hamlets, {lontaining 60,000 inhabitants. In more than sixty of these villages they already have church members, and the lines or" their efforts are constantly reaching out into the outlying villages, towns and cities which are not distant from their central station.
The fact is, moreover, to, be remembered, in considering the location of this station, that in China the reverse is true of that which took place in the Roman Empire. There the villagers, or pagani, were the last to embrace the Christian faith. In China they are the first.
The greatest success of Christian missions in China have been thus far among the country people. Not only are they more simpleminded, but they have also less to fear in becoming Christians from loss of wealth or position, 01' of the means of earning their daily bread. The most independent man in China is the small farmer, who owns a few acres of land, and by daily toil earns his daily bread.
After some delay in the purchase of land and erecting houses, and * "Skellches of a CountryPal'ish," by Rev. A. H. Smith. further delay, occasioned by the opposition of a recusant magistrate, happily overcome by the friendly aid of the United States officials, the missionaries took up their abode in P'ang Chuang, in 1882, with a most cordial reception, and lively demonstrations of affection and gratitude on the part of the people. These kindly feelings have con- tinued, for the most part until the present time.
The labors of this station at the present time are the oversight and instruction of the native helpers, the care of the churches and dayschools, teaching the scriptures to men and women, and the wider range of evangelistic work. There is daily preaching to the dispensary patients, and regular preaching both at the central station and at the six outstations.
The medical work begun by Dr. Porter, and now carried forward by Dr. Peck, has been as in other parts of Ch,ina, of the greatest value to the. Christian name. The hospital, established largely through a gift of the late Dr. Williams, bears the name of this early mis8ionary of the Board, and devoted friend of the Chinese. Its fame has extended to regions far and near, and brings to the village of P'ang Chnang patients from all grades of society, some of whom have come hundreds of miles, and even from other provinces, to be healed of their diseases.
A commodious and tasteful chapel has been erected at this central station wholly by the offerings of members of the church, and of other churches in the mission without any assistance from the funds of the Board. Some of the outstations, stimulated by this example, are now moving in the same direction.
The field of labor set before the missionaries at P'ang Chuang is immense. Fifteen miles north is the city of Teh Cheu, with its surrounding towns and villages. The southern part of the province of Chihli, the northwestern part of Shantung, and the northern part of Ho-nan, all densely populated and covered with walled cities, tOWIl8, villages and hamlets, are easily accessihlo from this central station, and all invite the labors of Christian missions.
One step forward into this unoccupied region was taken in 1886, by the occupation of Lin Ching, a Department city forty miles southwest of P'ang Chuang, by the Rev. F. ~I. Chapin. The following' year premises were purchased for mission residences, and, ill 1888, Messrs. Chapin and Perkins removed their families to this new station. A kindly reception to the missionaries has been given by the people. The medical work of MI', Atwoo(l, who labored at this station for a time, and later by ~lr, and :;HI',", Perkin~, has heen, as ellSewhere, rno~t helpful' to the evangelistic work. Should the day evo!' come when the Chinese are as eager for the Gospel as they now are for the medicines of the foreign physician, the conversion of the Chinese will be at hand. The mission in North China is of recent origin, but it has been abundantly blessed of God. After more than thirty years of labor in Canton the American Board had but one station and several tens of converts. This was in the early stages of the China missions. In North China the Lord has given us in twenty-eight years five stations in the most important cities of Chihli, two stations in the western part of Shantung, and in these seven stations more than 1,000 converts. '1'he work laid upon the mission is great. The encouragements- to its performance are also gl·eat. The outlook for the future is full of promise. If the mission and its supporters go forward in humble trust in the ever present Saviour and in patient endurance of labor and trial, they will have the honor of being used by God, with other branches of His Church, to establish the Kingdom of Christ in these populous and powerful regions of China, into which ill His providence they were the first among Protestant missions to enter.
A PRIEST, finding a young Irish lad in his parish in possession of a Bible, att~mpted to take it from him on the plea that it was the prerogative of the spiritual father to feed his spiritual babes with " the sincere milk of the Word." " Your ri verence," replied the lad~ "I would rather kape the cow mYAelf."
A CLERICAL wag says that where denominational and sectarian feeling gets the upper hand in a community, even the church bells become intolerant and get a sectarian twang in the ears of the people. The Presbyterian bell seems to peal out, " Or-tho-doxy-orthodoxyl" the Episcopalian, "Con-fir-ma-tion-confirmation I" the :Methodist, "Come to the al-tar-come to the altar!" the Congregationalist, "Inde-pend-ence-independence I" and the Bapt5st, " '1Vant to be dipped-want to be dipped 1"
THE Island of Sumbawa (Sunda series) has the Tomhoro volcano on the north side. In 1815 was a terrific convulsion lasting over three months. '1'he sound was heard 1,000 miles off at Snmatra; the sky was dark with ashes at Java, and the sea covered with them to a depth of two feet for many miles. Awful whirlwinds swept over the land and sea, and out of 12,000 persons only 26 survived.
And yet, even such distress and desolation imperfectly represents, as in a figure, the awful destruction carried to body and soul by the prevalence of heathenism and paganism. Vice is deified and cruelty enthroned. Read Alexander Mackay's just-published memoirs, and get a glimpse of the atrocious cruelties of heathenism. It reminds us. of Java's Valley of Death, half a mile in circuit, where the prevalence of carbonic acid gas makes impossihle the survival of either animal or plant life. The JlIuseo Borbonico, at N aples, ~uggests that Pompeii lay in such a valley.
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
BUDDHISl{ AND CHRISl'IANIl'Y-A CRUSADE WHICH MUST BE MET.
BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
On the 9th of November The New York Herald published an article of four columns and a half, over the signature of Baron Har- don Hickey, a professed Buddhist and missionary chosen to promul- gate Buddhist doctrines in the United States. To an interviewer of another paper Baron Hickey has expressed the belief that America is a peculiarly favorable field for the spread of Oriental doctrines.
The design of the article referred to, which was plausible and rather ably written, was to prove that the history and doctrines of the early Christianity were largely borrowed from Buddhist sources. A reply which was sent to '['lte Herald was refused admission to its columns, but inasmuch as this crusade is being waged in all parts of the United States where it ought to be met by the defenders of the Christian faith, that reply is herewith given in the columns of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW. "While well-established Christians and friends of miRsions are not to be disturbed by slich assailment~ as those of Baron Hickey, it is to be remembered that there is a vast border- land lying between the Christian church and the infidel associations of the country, and that it embraces millions of people, especially of the young, and' so long as our weapons of defense are so numerous snd so potential, it is not wise to leave this broad, neutral territory to the mercy of the enemy. The fact that many of the most influential and extensively circulated of our secular papers discriminate in favor of skepticism and irreligion, as being more sensational, renders it all the more necessary that the Christian church should be alert, and that through every legitimate avenue, the clear and convincing truth of Christianity should be as widely circulated as are the manifold errors of our time.
The assumption that Christ became a follower of Buddha is not new. There lies before me, a Buddhist Catechism, by Subhadra. which makes the same allegation. It declares that" the fundamental tenets and the personal character of the founder of Christianity are of Buddhist origin"; that "Jesus was an Arahat and attained Nirvana." Hardon Hickey goes farther and calls him the Maitreyeh whom Buddha predicted. There are a few truths mingled with Baron .Hickey's statements which should be distinguished from his erroneous conclusions. It is true that a limited intercourse was established between India and Greece by the conquests of Alexander, 327 B.C. A few references to Indian customs are found in Strabo, Arrian and Pliny, but it is the wildest assumption to claim that an influence which was so faint even in the great commercial marts, reached and moulded the peasant population of a J udean village, or that the influence was distinctively Buddhistic. Again it is true that asceticism prevailed throughout the East; but that th~ fasting of Christ was borrowed from Buddhism is absurd. ·Moses bsted forty days in Sinai centuries before Buddha was born. Besides, Indian asceticism belonged to Brahmanism and not to the Buddha. It was, indeed, practised by the Essenes, as it was also by the ancient Druids, the Peruvians, the },Iexicans, and even the Hottentots. Among the Jews there was an ascetic school of prophets at Gilgal centuries before Buddha's time.
The field of controversy on which Baron Hickey draws his sword has beeu fought over for the last hundred years, and the parallels which he presents have been exploded over and over again. A century ago Lieutenant Wilford espoused the theory that the entire civilization of Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Rome, including Christianity, had come from India. He importuned the pundits to search for manuscripts, and for a consideration they met the demand. He filled the magazines of Europe with his discoveries. But at last he was constrained to confess publicly that he had been the dupe of Brahman fraud.
A Frenchinan by the name of J acolliot has made a similar attempt in our own time, aiming to show that the life of Christ was a plagiarism upon the story of the Hindu Krishna. He, too, collected manuscripts and translated them; but Professor Max Muller has honeycombed his pompous displays of Oriental learning, and remanded him ~o the same category of dupes with Lieutenant Wilford. In volume V. of "Chips from a German Workshop," he says: "Much of the socalled Sanskrit is not Sanskrit at all, and J acolliot's ancient Vedic quotations are not Vedic and not ancient; they simply belong to the last half of the nineteenth century."
Ages ago Porphry adopted the same tactics, alleging that many things in the life of Christ had been anticipated by Pythagoras; and Julia Domna, wife of Severus, prompted Philostratus to work up a life of Apollonius of Tyana, which should match the history of Christ. (Uhlhorn's" Conflict," etc.) The very latest charge of plagiarism against Christianity has recently been made by the Aryas of India, who allege that the Westminster catechism has stolen its doctrinal statements from them.
Baron Hickey leaves us a little in doubt as to whether the copying from 13uddha is charged upon Christ and his immediate disciples or upon the "creed-mongers of Alexandria" at a later day, or whether all were concerned in the fraud. He thinks that there is no doubt that Christ studied Buddhism and became a disciple, and that Buddhist influence widely prevailed in Palestine. This implies that the Gospel history was in the outset strongly colored by the Buddhist narrative, and that Christ Himself adapted the events of His life to the Buddhist story. The emphasis, however, is put upon the plagiarism of the Alexandrine "creed-mongers." In replying as briefly as possible to Baron Hickey, I "hall endeavor to cover all these im- plications : In strong contrast with these cheap assertions of Alexandrine {lorruption and plagia)'ism is the frank admission of such keen critics as Renan, Yeiss, Volkmar, Schenkeland Hitzig, that the Gospel story as we have it was written during a generation in which some of the companions of Jesus still lived. Renan says of Mark's GORpel that "it is full of minute observations, coming, doubtless, from an eye-witness," and he asserts that :Matthew, Mark and I"uke were written "in substantially their present form by the men whose names they bear." These Gospels were the work of men who knew J eSUSj Matthew was one of the twelve; John, in his Epistle, speaks of him- self as an eye-witness. They were written in a historic age and were open to challenge. Thcy were nowhere contradicted in con- temporary history; they tit their environment and their age.
How is it with the authenticity of Buddhist literature? Oldenberg says: "For the when of things men of India have never had a propel' organ;" and Max Muller declares to the same effect that" the idea of a faithful, literal translation seems altogether foreign to Ori- ental minds." He also informs us that there is not a single manuscript relating to Buddhism ~'hich is a thousand years old, and scarcely one that can claim five hundred years. For centuries after Gautama's time nothing was written; all was transmitted by word of mouth. Buddhists themselves say that Pali canonical texts were written about 88 B.C.
Any fair comparison of the two histories should confine itself to the writings which are regarded as canonical and whose dates can be fixed. No more importance should be attached to the later Buddhist legends than to the "Apochryphal Gospels," or to the absurd "Ohristian I"egends," which appeared in the middle ages. The Buddhtst canon was adopted by the council of Patna, 242 B.C. The legends which Baron Hickey compares with the canonical story of Ohrist are not included in that canon, or, at most, very few of them. 'rhoy are drawn from certain poetical books written much later, and holding about the same relation to the Buddhist canon that the" Paradise Lost" and" Paradise Hegained," of Milton, bear to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Who would think of quoting "Paradise Lost" in any sober comparison of Biblical truth with the teachings of other religions?
Even the canonical literature, that which is supposed to contain tlIe true history and teachings of Buddha, is far from authoritative, owing to the acknowledged habit-acknowledged even by the author of the Dhammapada-of adding commentaries, notes, etc., to original teaclIings. Not only was thi8 common among Buddhist writers, but (lven more surprising liberties were taken with the narrative. For example, the legend describing Buddha's leave-taking of his harem is clearly borrowed from an earlier story of Yasa, a wealthy young householder of Benares, who, becoming disgusted with his harem, left his sleeping dancing girls, and fled to the Buddha for instruction. Davids and Oldenberg, in translating this legend from the" 11aha- vagga," say, in a note: "A well-known incident in the life of Buddha has evidently been shaped after the model of this story," and they declare that" nowhere in the Pall Pitakas is this scene of Buddha's leave-taking mentioned."
As another evidence of the way in which fact and fiction have been mixed and manipulated for a purpose, one of the legends, which has of-ten been presented as a parallel to the story of Christ, repre- sents the Buddha as repelling the temptation of :Mara by quoting texts of "scripture," and the scripture referred to was the Dhamma- pada. The blunder here is amusing; first, because the Dhammapada was compiled hundreds of years after Buddha's time, and second, there were no "scriptures" in Buddha's time, for nothing was written till two or three centuries later; and third, Buddha is made to quote his own subsequent teachings, for the Dhammapada clai.ms to consist of the sacred words of the" enlightened one." l10st of the legends of Buddhism were wholly written after the beginning of the Christian era, and it cannot be shown that any were written ill their present form until two or three centuries of that era had elapsed. T. Rhys Davids says of the" Lalita Yistara," which contains a very large proportion ofthem, that" there is no real proof that it existed in its present form before the year 600 A.D." The" Romantic Legend" cannot be traced farther back than the third century A.D. Oldenberg says, "No biography of Buddha has come down to us from ancient times, from the age of the Pali texts, and we can safely say that no such biography was in existence then." Beal declares that the Buddhist legend as found in the various epics of N cpaul, Thibet and China, "is not framed after any Indian model (of any date), but is to be found worked out, so to speak, among Northern peoples, who were ignorant of, or indifferent to, the pedantic stories of the Brahmans. In the Southern and primitive records the terms of the legend are wanting. Buddha is not born of a royal family/ he is not tempted befo1·e his enlightenment/ he works no miracles, and he is not a Universal Saviour."
The chances are decidedly that if any borrowing has been done it was on the side of Buddhism. :Mr. Hickey's assertion that 30,000 Buddhist monks from Alexandria once visited Ceylon (and he giyes this not as a legend but as a historic fact) is absurd on the face of it; hut that a Christian colony settled in 11alabar at a very early day is at tested by the presence of thousands of their followers even to this day. Christianity has always been restrictive and opposed to admixtures with other systems. It repelled the Neo-Platonism of the "creed-mongers" of Alexandria (they borrowed from Plato, not from Buddha), and it fought for two or three centuries against Gnosticism, Manichaeism and similar heresies; and the assumption, in the face of all this, that the Christian Church went out of its way to copy Indian Buddhism, must be due either to gross ignorance or to reckless misrepresentation.
On the other hand, it is in accordance with the very genius of Buddhism to borrow. It has absorbed every indigenous superstition, and entered into partnership with every local religious system from the Devil worship of Burmah and Ceylon to the'raouism of China and the Shintoo of Japan.
In its long-continued contact with Christianity it has changed from the original atheism of Gautama to various forms of theism, and in some of its sects, at least, from a staunch insistence on selfhelp alone to an out-and-out doctrine of salvation by faith. This is true of the Shin and Yodo sects of Japan. :From recognizing no God at all at first, Buddhism had, by the seventh century A.D., a veritable trinity with attributes resembling those of the Triune God of the Christians, and by the tenth century it had five trinities with one Supreme Adi-Buddha over them all. Each reader must judge whether these late interpolations of the system were borrowed from the New Testament Trinity which had been proclaimed through all the East many centuries before.
Buddhism is still absorbing various elements through the aid of its various apologists. Sir Edwin Arnold has greatly added to the force of its legends by the Christian phrases and Christian conceptions which he has read into them. Toward the close of the "I"ight of Asia" he also introduces into the Buddha's sermon at Kapilavostu the teachings of Herbert Spencer and others of our own time.
Even the" analogies" of the Buddhist legends, as a late apologist calls them, are undergoing a rapid development. Professor Seydel was ingenious enough, with the help of fact and fancy, to make out fifty-one" parallels" to the Gospel history; Baron Hickey has up to date" one hundred." Doubtless still more are to follow.
In discussing the specific charge of copying Buddhist legends in ~he Gospel narratives, we are met at the threshold by insurmountable improbabilities. To anyone who nnderstands the spirit of Judaism and its attitude toward heathenism of all kinds, it is simply inconceivable that the Christian disciples, whose aim it was to propagate the faith of their Master in a Jewish community, should have borrowed old Indian legends, which, by the very terms of Baron Hickey's supyosition, must have been widely known as such. And our Buddhist friends must admit that it is a little strange that the Scribes and Pharisees who were intelligent, and 3S alert as they were bitter, should never have exposed this transparent plagiarism. The great concern of the Apostles was to prove to Jews and Gentiles that Jesus was the Christ of Old Testament prophecy. The whole drift of their preaching and their epistles went to show that the Gospel history rested squarely and uncompromisingly on a Jewish basis. Peter and John, Stephen and Paul constantly" reasoned with the Jews out of their own Scriptures." How unspeakably absurd is the notion that they were trying to palm off on those keen Pharisees a Messiah who, though in the outset at Nazareth he publicly traced his commission to Old Testament prophecy, was all the while copying an atheistic philosopher of India.
It is equally inconceivable that the Christian fathers should have copied Buddhism. They resisted Persian mysticism as the work of the devil, and it was in that mysticism, if anywhere, that Buddhist influence existed in the Levant. Whoever has read 'l'ertullian's withering condemnation of Marcion may judge how far the fathers of the Church favored the heresies of the East. Augustine had himself been a Manichean mystic, and when after his conversion he became the great theologian of the Church, he must have known whether the teachings of the Buddha were being palmed off on the Christian world. The great leaders of that age were men of thorough scholarship and of the deepest moral earnestness. Many of them gave up their po!'sessions and devoted their lives to the promotion of the truths which they professed. Scores of them sealed their faith by martyr deaths.
But even if we were to accept the flippant allegation that they were all imposters, yet we should be met by an equally insurmountable difficulty in the utter silence of the able and bitter assailants of Christianity in the first two or three centuries. Celsus prepared himself for his well-known attack on Christianity with the utmost care, searching history, philosophy and every known religion from which he could derive an argument against the Christian faith. Why did he not strike at the very root of the matter by exposing those stupid" creed-mongers" who were attempting to playoff upon the intelligence of the Roman world a clumsy imitation of the far-famed Buddha? It was the very kind of thing that the enemies of Ch:'istianity wanted. vVhy should the adroit Porphyry attempt to wor~.;: up a few mere scraps of resemblance from the life of Pythagoras and why should the wife of a Roman emperor employ a man to trump up precisely such a story as our baronial friend now asks us to believe, when all they had to do was to lay their hands upon familiar legends which afforded an abundance of the very articles in demand?
But altogether the most stupendous improbability lies against the whole assumption that Christ and His followers based their" essential doctrines" on the teachings of the Buddha. The early Buddhism was atheistic. This is the common verdict of Davids, Childers, Sir Monier Williams, Kellogg and many others. The Buddha declared that "without cause and unknown is the life of man in this world," and he recognized no higher being to whom he owed reverence. The "Buddhist Catechism," to which I have already referred, shows that modern Buddhism has no recognition of God.
It says (page 58): "Buddhism teaches the reign of perfect goodness and wisdom without a personal God, continuance of individuality without an immortal soul, eternal happiness without a local heaven, the way of salvation without a vicarious Saviour, redemption worked out by each one himself without any prayers, sacrifices and penances, without the ministry of ordained priests, without the intercession of saints, without divine mercy." And then, by way of authentication, it adds: "These and many othel's which have become the fundamental doctrines of the Buddhist religion were recognized by the Buddha in the night of his enlightenment under the bodhi tree."
And yet we are told that this is the system which Christ and His followers copied! Compare this passage with the Lord's Prayer or with the discourse upon the lilies and its lesson of trusts-I appeal not merely to Christian men, but to any man who has brains and common-sense-was there ever so preposterous an attempt to establish an identity of doctrines? But what is the evidence found in the legends themselves? Several leading Oriental scholars, and men not at all biased in favor of Christianity, have carefully examined the subject, and have decided that there is no connection whatever. Professor Seydel, of Leipsic, who has given the most scientific plea for the so-called coincidences, of which he claims there are fifty-one, has classified them as: (1) Those which have been merely accidental, having arisen from similar causes and not necessarily implying any borrowing on either side. (2) Those which seem to have been borrowed f~om the one narrative or the other, and (3) those which he thinks were clearly copied by the Christian writers. In this last class he names but five out of the fifty-one.
Kuenen, who has little bias in favor of Christianity, and who has made a very thorough examination of Seydel's parallels, has completely refuted these five. (See" National Religion and Universal Religion," page 362.) And, speaking of the whole question, he says: "I think we may safely affirm that we must abstain from assigning to Buddhism the smallest direct influence on the origin of Christianity." He also says of similar theories of De Bunsen, "A single instance is enough to teach ns that inventive fancy plays the chief part in them." (" Hibbert Lectures," 1882.) Rhys Davids, whom Subhadra's "Buddhist Catechism" approves as the chief exponent of Buddhism, says on the same subject: "I {lan find no evidence of any actual or direct communication of those ideas common to Buddhism and Christianity from the East to the West. " Oldenberg denies their early date, and Beal denies them an Indian origin of any date.
Let us now ctmsider Baron Hickey's analogies seriatim: 1. "The genedogies of both Buddha and the Christ are traced from their fathers, not their mothers." This parallel would fit }Iohammed as well as Buddha. The whole argument rests upon the assumption that the mother of Buddha was a virgin, which is con- trary to canonical Buddhist history. The Sacred and Historic Book of Ceylon translated by Edward Upham, tell us that Buddha was born in wedlock. The late King of Siam, in a sketch of the Buddha, says that "he was born of natural generation." Subhadra in his Catechism says that "his parents were King Suddhodana and Queen Maya." Even the wild J ataka legends of Ceylon declare the same. 2. Baron Hickey declares that the conception by the Holy Ghost, announced by Gabriel, corresponds with Maya's dream of the white elephant. But his story of the white dove is manufactured for the purpose; no such myth was ever held by any Christian sect. 3. He compares the coming of the wise men with frankincense with the Brahmans who hastened with congratulations to the palace of Suddhodana. There is no canonical authority for the latter, though it was a common custom, and would have no significance. 4. "As Herod was afraid of the child, so King Bimbasara told his ministers to search the land to find whether any famous child had been born." Herod meant murder; Bimbasara, according to the Jataka legends, merely sent to inquire about the great teacher and his doctrines. 5. "The Simeon of the Bible corresponds with the Brahman Asita, an aged man who came to see the thirty-two marks and the eighty signs of the Buddha." This is a clumsy after-thought. How should anybody be looking for marks of a Buddha on a Hindu baby thirty years before Buddhism had been thought of? 6. "The presentation of Jesus in the temple is similar to a corresponding one in the childhood of the Buddha." This is one of Professor Seydel's" evident cases of borrowing." But such presentations of children were required under both the Jewish and the Hindu systems, and the claim of any particular parallel is weak. 7. "In his twelfth year Jesus was found in the temple, discoursing with the doctors, so, also, the father of Buddha found his son in the wood, surrounded by sages, etc." This does not agree with the Sinhalese legends, which say that the Buddha's youth was given to pleasure, and that his zenana contained 40,000 dancing girls. 8. "The Buddha bathed in the stream N aranjana, and J esu~ was baptized." This bath occurred when Buddha resolved to abandon his Brahmanical asceticism; he no longer regarded dirt as a means of grace. Whoever has seen a Hindu fakir besmeared with wet ashes will realize the significance of Buddha's "j:>ath, and, there- fore, of Baron Hickey's parallel.
9. "The forty days' fast in the wilderness is· common to both teachers." If any borrowing were required it would have been done from the life of Moses, who fasted forty days in Sinai. Buddha. never fasted forty days. The" Mahavagga" tells us that after his "enlightenment" he passed twenty-eight days i'njoyou8 meditation. His "Middle Path" shunned fasting as one extreme. He had begun to eat. He received his enlightenment on a full stomach-the first in six years.
10. There is no real parallel in the temptations of the two, though both are said to have been tempted. Buddha was tempted, according to Southern legends, several times and in respect to differ- ent things, but not at the beginning of his ministry.
11. "The heavens opening and the voice from heaven proclaiming the teacher are to be found in the Buddhist scriptures." Where?'
12. As to Buddha's Sermon on the Mount, high and breezy summits were often resorted to, especially the Vulture's Peak. It· was an incident of a hot climate in both caseS.
13. "The first disciples of Jesus, and even Jesus Himself, were at first followers of John the Baptist. The number of disciples in both accounts was at first five, afterwards sixty. "(?) As a matter of fact, Christ's disciples were not graduates from the school of John, but were called from their fishermen's boats. Instead of being a teacher of Jesus, John felt unworthy to unloose His shoe latchet.
14. "Both performed wonders." Buddha particularly disclaimed miraculous powers: the miracles were subsequent embellishments.
1.5. The incident of Buddha's walking on water needs a more particular statement with time and place and authority.
16. That both he and the Christ had a presentiment of death is very probable.
1 7. It is quite possible, also, that, among the thousands of Buddha's converts, were courtesans; but that the rich and brazen Ambapali who invited the Buddha and his disciples to dine, was the model after whom the Gospel narrative 'formed the picture of the crushed and penitent Magdalene, is far-fetched.
18. As for triumphal entries into cities-if a crowd of followers is meant, both, probably, had many-Christ at Jericho as well as at Jerusalem. Buddha is said to have been followed on one occasion by twelve hundred people, and King Bimbasara is said to have interviewed him with 80,000 of his overseers! 19. (( Both systems were missionary religions from the start." This is true; but how paltry is the notion that a mere motive of imi- tation prompted the wide-spread evangel of Christianity!
20. Weare told that (( Buddha fed the hungry," instead of which he was a mendicant and carried a beggar's bowl, and never performed a miracle.
. 21. As to the question asked of Jesus by the by-standers: (( Did this man sin or Bis parents that he was born blind?" If metempsychosis was in their minds, they could have borrowed it from the Greeks who had held it from the days of Pythagoras.
As to the general question, there seems to be little need of assuming that these shadowy coincidences denote borrowing on either side. Many of them are merely fanciful and are the work of modern apologists. Many others are such natural correspondences as might spring from similar causes. If incidents have in any case been borrowed, the chances are much greater that all-absorbing ever-changing Buddhism has been the copyist.
New York, November 25, 1890.
[The editor is constrained to add that the article which is printed above is, as he thinks, the most painstaking production that Dr. Ellinwood has, perhaps, ever written. It is felt by many who have seen it before it appeared in these pages that it ought to be put in some permanent form. Rev. Dr. Paxton, of Princeton Seminary, has pronounced it "a perfect rejoinder." vVe make a great mistake if we assume that merely ignoring and" pooh-poohing" at the active and aggressive movements of error are going to meet the case. The war is upon us. The old fathers of the early churcn did not confine themselves to pious denunciation. Think of Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Origen, how they fought with the beasts of Ephesus, and how magnificently they conquered the haughty heathenism of Greece and Rome. This paper will undoubtedly be reprinted in tract form.] WE often speak of ourselves as only" instruments in God's hands." It is our privilege to think of ourselves, if we are truly His servants, as agents. An instrument is a dumb, senseless, lifeless thing, which has no active, intelligent power even to co-operate with him who handles and uses it; but an agent (ago) is one who acts)· however, in behalf of, and under control of, another, yet acting intelligently and individually, as Aaron spoke under Moses' dictation. Even the ox and ass yield a voluntary, intelligent obedience, and are far above the plo}V they drag or the goad by which they are urged on. Weare God's agents, and He worketh not only by us, but in us, both to will and to work. (See Greek of Philippians, ii., 13.)
THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF'THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
II. THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH.* BY PROFESSOR HENRY WOODWARD HULBERT.
It would be difficult to point out a scene of more dramatic historic interest than that laid in the upper room of prayer at Jerusalem in the year 30 A.D., between Thursday, May 18th, and Sunday, May 28th. The Master had gone, never to return to quiet again the doubt of a Thomas with a material argument. He had left them unexpectedly, but His parting words contained a promise and a command. The little, trembling church, ~he muscles of whose lips had hardly ceased articulating the question: "Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" was waiting with breathless expectation to be clothed upon with power. There sat restless Peter, the echoes of whose blasphemies had hardly died away. There were John and J ames and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of J ames. There were the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, and his. brethren and others, swelling the number of names to one hundred and twenty-one hundred and twenty poor, weak men and women in the midst of a rich and powerful civilization with as many millions. The minute hand in the great clock of destiny was rapidly nearingthe critical point. The child of many promises, the dream of patriarchs and kings and prophets, the only tangible outcome of the life and death of Jesus the Messiah-the fate of all seemed to hang in the balance. The whole future of the world-its wide-spread lands, its. unnumbered billions (present and to come)-lay in the prayers of a few broken-hearted, yet believing souls. 'Vho could have predicted the result?
Let us notice, in a cursory way, the geographical conditions. which surrounded this little church of six score members on May 28th,. 30 A.D. Putting aside very largely the profounder conditions, moral and intellectual, we ask: What were the natural, political, commercial, linguistic and racial features of the known world which were to compose the environment of the primitive church as it commenced its conquest of the globe? An answer to this question will involve a study of (1) the extent of the known world at that era, (2) the character and extent of the Roman civilization, (3) the commercial and' military relations of this civilization to outlying barbarism, (4) the spread of the Latin and especially the Greek languages, and lastly (5) the wide dispersion of the Jewish race throughout the world.
Take an ordinary school globe and cover up on it all that portion unknown to the geographers, 30 A.D., and we are at once impressed with * For article I. of this series see MISSIONAl!.Y REVIEW OF THE WORLD, Jan- uary, 1890, pp. 26-32. the small extent of the known world. It seems like a mere toy as contrasted with the great bustling earth of to-day. As far as civilization was concerned that was nothing more than a Mediterranean world. A stretch of three thousand miles east and west, and of fifteen hundred miles north and south contained it all. Britain was still unconquered. The fierce Parthian, hardly weaned from his pastoral life in Central Asia, was the greatest organized enemy of Rome. He had learned a little bit of the lesson of civilization from the conquered Persian, but he was still essentially barbaric. India was superficially known by navigators, and far-away China was reached by caravan routes. Travelers occasionally brought in reports of strange lands an.d peoples; captives struggled back to the confines of civilization with marvelous tales of Hyperborean paradises, and one-eyed monsters; but all about this confined areaof terra cognita lay the great, impenetrable cloud-land of terra incognita. The Pentecostal church prayerfully faced the Roman civilization, but what of the vast stretches of sea and land still veiled from their eyes, but included in their }faster's last command? In spite of ignorance, which they shared with the wisest of antiquity, the apostolic leaders were able to grasp the thought" every knee shall bow and every' tongue confess to God." Their faith was wider than the known world. They were assured that there could not be " Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all and in all." Peter's vision on the housetop at Joppa, teaching the impartial love of God to every human soul on earth, was the most comprehensive social lesson the world ever received. The apostles and the earliest evangelists are supposed to have done missionary work far outside the limits of the empire, going as far as India and Sonthern Russia.
But the immediate task before Christianity was the conquest of the centres of civilization-the Roman Empire. Let us notice the geographical characteristics of this Mediterranean world as related to the company of Christian believers in J ernsalem. (1) It was an empire of cities. Rome began with a city, she conquered cities, and from beginning to end her genius was municipal. In the East this was not so strictly true as in the West. The nomad life of the Orient could not be so easily brought and held together; but Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt were honeycombed with thrifty cities. Christianity must needs then handle cities and their thronging population. As the apostles looked out upon the Roman empire they found from four to five thousand cities to be reached. For three or four centuries Christianity was destined to be municipal in its methods, and this gave a determining bent to the whole future of the Church. (2) The tideless }:Iediterranean furnished easy access by water from city to city. It was covered with sails employed ill a thrifty commerce. The Roman fleet swept the pirates from the seas and gave security to the humblest craft. A great number of the cities were situated on or near the sea, and a map of the coast looks like a string of pearls broken only at the Bosphorus and at Gibraltar. (3) Splendid Ro- man roads connected all parts of the empire so that news was carried rapidly and power was quickly concentrated and distributed. From Jerusalem one could walk over these superb roads, a few years later, all the way to Scotland, with only the narrow bodies of water to cross, a distance of 4,080 Roman miles (3,740 English). Along these highways trudged the messenger of the Gospel, from city to city, counting the mile·stones as he went, and wondermg, perhaps, whether the words of the prophet were not fulfilled: "Cast ye up, cast ye up: prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people." (Isaiah Ivii~14.) (4) Over one hundred million people were thus by land and water ways compactly drawn together in a territory containing less than two million square miles. Geographically considered, no portion of the globe furnishe.s so interesting a bat~le·field for religious conquest as the territory of the old Roman empire.
Roman civilization spread itself outside its own regions by two methods-commercial and military-and Christianity must needs follow in the track of merchants and armies. Caravan rontes came streaming in like rivers into the common basin of the Mediterranean, through the trackless Sahara from Central Africa, down the Nile from the Great Lakes, from Yemen along the Red Sea, from the Persian Gulf through the Syrian desert, and from Mesapotamia, where was centred the trade of Central Asia. To this husy mart on the eastern border of the empire, came pouring in the treasures from the Persian Susa, from Hyrcania and from Bactria, which in turn drew npon China through Statio Mercatorum and upon Hindustan and Farther India through Clisobra.
Turning from the land trade to, the sea, the routes are no less numerous or patronized. The whole coast of Southern Asia was familiar to the merchants and regular routes by sea were open, find· ing their natural termini in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Along this extensive seaboard on the Indian Ocean the rude craft crept timi,lly without the compass, but the markets of Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome were well stocked with the dainties of the far East. Another thrifty line of commerce found its way from the great river systems of what is to.day Russia, down through the Bosphorus. Still 3nother line came pouring into the outlet of the Mediterranean from distant Britain, and daring navigators pushed along the coast of the North Sea, and even penetrated the Baltic lands in search of trade. If a little later we find Christianity firmly planted in far-away places let us not be astonished. The door was providentially open and the missionaries of the early church could easily enter. A very large portion of the earliest evangelists were merchants, and the laity from the first have furnished the main agencies for the spread of the Gospel.
Garrisons of Roman soldiers were stationed all along the borders of the empire. These military barracks soon became centres from which Christianity could spread outside the civilized world. The new religion took easily to the Roman camp and these isolated spots along the Rhine, the Danube, the Euxine and the Euphrates became points of light. Tracing the legend of St. George back to the facts of which it is a distortion, we find that he was one of these Roman soldiers. When the armies pushed beyond the boundaries of the empire Christianity was sure to go with them. Christian soldiers captured and enslaved by barbarians were the means of converting whole nations.
Another geographical condition of the greatest importance to Christianity was the wide extent of the territory over which the Greek and the Latin languages were spoken. The administration of civil and military government was through the Latin. The language of business, science and literature was the Greek. At the opening of the Christian era Hellenistic Greek was the lingua Franca of the Roman world. Greek colonies had been established all around the :Mediterranean, and these had determined the language of commerce-there has never been an instance in history where the language of commerce has failed finally to win its way to every station of life. It is a truism that Greek letters and arts conquered Rome more effectually than the legions of the Republic had overcome the Peninsula of Hellas. The New Testament was composed in this universal language, and all through the early centuries Christian churches were Hellenistic. Later on the Latin tongue took the supremacy in the 'Vestern world and still remains the liturgical language of the majority of Christians.
But more important to the Christian Church than any of the conditions mentioned was the geographical distribution of the Hebrew race. Everywhere synagogues were the early preaching-places of the apostles, and the majority of the Christians of the first century were of Jewish extraction. Christianity, as the fulfillment of the Old Testament religion, naturally turned to the be,lievers in that Revelation. Providentially, it seems, these seven millions of people, with their monotheism, their nobler conceptions of God and their purer ethics and life had been scattered broadcast over the Roman world and even beyond its boundaries. The Sibylline oracle says that "every land and every sea" was filled with them. Strabo, writing of the century before Christ, says that the Jewish people had already come into every city and that it was not easy to find a place in the world which had not received this race and was not occupied by them. Josephus, Philo, imperial epistles, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, tell the same story. Forcibly torn from their country, frightened away from Palestine, the battle-ground of the Asiatic world, enticed away by flattering offers from Ptolemy, Seleucidae and Roman governors, lured to the most distant climes by the hope of gain-this race started out on the most singular career history can show us of a nation keeping its nationality without a national terri- tory.
Let" us notice more particularly their whereabouts in the year 30 A.D. There were three centres about which the Jews were gathered in masses-Syria, Egypt and Mesopotamia-although some parts of Asia Minor and Cyrene in Africa might almost be ranked with the three·mentioned. At the time of which we are dealing there were, according to the latest and best authorities, four million Jews in Syria from the Taurus range to the Sinaitic peninsula-a population twice as large as that occupying that same region to-day. Jerusalem, Damascus and Antioch were the centres; but we may suppose that every city and village in Syria had representatives, and that houses of prayer were found everywhere.
In Egypt Philo (an Alexandrian Jew born about 20 B. c.) estimated that there were one million Jews out of a total of nine million inhabitants. The city of Alexandria had several quarters occupied exclusively by this race. Prayer-houses were found all over the city. Jews were scattered overthe Delta and up the Nile we know not how far. The Falashas of Abyssinia to-day indicate a powerful Jewish influence on the upper Nile at an early period. The Jewish sect of the Therapeutre had their chief seat on Lake Maroetis. The influence of the Alexandrian Jews was all out of proportion even to their great numbers.
There were one million Jews in Mesopotamia and Babylonia, on the very b,:mier of the empire. These were the descendants of those members of the ten tribas and of the Kingdom oi Judah, who had been carried away in captivity and had not returned. In fact, after the so-called return from captivity these eastern communities seem continually to have grown by accessivns from all parts. J osephud count:'! these colonies of his people not by thousands but by millions. The Talmudic schools of Babylon were equally influential with the western schools. Elsewhere it is estimated that there were scattered one million Jews, making seven millions in all. They seem to be living everywhere in Asia Minor. Strabo divides the inhabitants of Cyrene into four classes-citizens, agriculturists, metoikoi andJewsshowing that this race, so troublesome to the Roman authorities, was numerous there. We find traces of Jews all along the north coast of Africa. In Thrace, Macedonia and Greece we know from the Book of the Acts that they were plentiful. Agrippa's epistle to Caligula. also gives ample evidence. At Rome and Puteoli there were large colonies of Jews-Cicero, Suetonius, Philo and Josephus are our witnesses for Italy. They were found in Spain and Gaul in all the cities. 'Herod Archilaus was banished to Vienne and Herod Antipas to Lugdunum (I,yons) both in the Rhone Valley. Outside the Roman empire we know there were Jews in Ethiopia, Southern Arabia, Ar-' menia, Iberia, Chalchis, Crimea, II.):rcania, and even in distant China.. In fact, it is difficult to mention a district of the known world at the date 30 A.D., which did not have representatives of the Jewish race.
These, then, were the more important geographical conditions that faced the Pentecostal church of six score members. There was the Roman empire with its roads and harbors and languages. All about this lay unknown lands and tribes with theil' unnumbered millions. Scattered all over the known world were the Jewswho furnished just so many open doors to the religion ,of the Messiah. It will be the object of succeeding papers to show how the little church threw 'itself fearlessly into the conflict, and won province after province for the kingdom of its. Master, and to show how we have entered into their labors.
THE RAPID GROWTH OF ASIATIC POPULATIONS.
. This is written you from one of our inland stations, one of ~ group of a dozen villages right round about. The one thing that always strikes me in a Chinese town or village is the number of small children that are running loose all around. One thing is certain, the population of this already overgrown empire is certain to be kept ur.
More than that, it is growing within the past twenty-five years with increased rapidity. One estimate puts it now at a yearly advance of four millions. We dwell on the growth of our own population at home, but China is advancing nearly three times as fast. Forty millions in ten years is enough to start and stock a new nation.
Japan, too, is growing rapidly in numbers. A few years ago the people were estimated at thirty-seven or thirty-eight millions. Now the government puts them at forty millions. India, too, shows remarkable results. The census is taken there with great care by the British government. The last census was taken in 1881. Since the previous one taken along from 1867 to 1872 in the different provinces, the gain had been 15,010,304. In all these cases the population is by natural increa~e, and not, as in the United States, by immigration.
These are solemn and impressive figures taken in their 'bearing 011 Christian r'nissions. It will not do to wait till the Jerusalem folks are all converted. ""V. ASHMORE. Swatow, Ohina.
ARE WE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST?
ARE WE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST?
[FOR THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.] " 'Vhosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."-Luke xiv: 33.
"One thing thou Iackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow me."-Mark x: 21.
" But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet."-Acts v: 1,2.
Examining ourselves, as individuals and as churches, how many disciples of Christ can we find, according to the criterion He has es- tablished in the explicit rule and the explicit injunction above quoted?
No dodging! Let us not get behind the pretense of a heart forsaking, while our hands tenaciously grasp the bulk of our possessions. Let us at least not mock God and" lie unto the Holy Ghost," by saying, "Yes, Lord, I give all to 'fhee," while we actually give nothing, or a dole, or a tithe; lest we join ourselves with Ananias and Sapphira.
in infamy as well as perdition. " Itwere better not to vow."
But all of us members of evangelical churches have thus vowed.
We have all made the profession, or pretense, of Ananias and Sap- phira. 'Ve have consecrated ourselves and all that we have-our persons, our possessions and our children to the Lord. WHERE then are the proceeds? Are they fully laid at His feet, according to the profession? Or is a " part" of them" kept back"? Is it an honest profession, or a lying pretense like that of those two dreadful monu- ments of the Lord's indignation at hypocrisy in the Church? 'Ve do not know how large a part Ananias and Sapphira kept back. Proba- bly it was a small proportion, such as they thought would not be noticed. How many modern Ananiases and Sapphiras are agreeing together to tempt the Spirit of ~he Lord, while joining in the com- muniun of His supreme self-sacrifice, by keeping back, not a minor proportion, but NEARLY ALL, of that which they have solemnly and Imblicly dedicated.
Far be it from us to judge one another. But let us remember that there is a Judge, and that if we would judge ourselves we shoald not be judged. Let us not flatter ourselves, or each other, with vain hopes in Christ that are explicitly excluded by His own reiterated warnings. Can sinners hope for heaven Who love this world so well ?
And are not the ministers of Christ themselves derelict if they €ncourage, even tacitly, the assumption of discipleship on the part of those who give no evidence of a bonafide assignment of so much as thcir pr-operty to the Lord that bought them?
W. C.
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS. 12::>
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK.
-De Macedonier gives the following statistics for Java: 'Vest Java, 11 missionaries, 21 congregations, 20 helpers, 1,963 souls; Bagalen, 4 missic;maries, 60 congregations, 2helpers, 5,937 souls; Salatega Mission, 5 missionaries, 18 congregations, 6 helpers, 534 souls; East Java, 9 missionaries, 27 congregations, 54 helpers, 6,276 souls. Whole number of souls, 14,710. In 1886, 10,979. Increase, 3,731; yearly rate, 11i per cent.
-De Heidenbode, the organ of the Nederlandsche Gereformeerde Zendingsvereeniging (Netherlands Reformed Missionary Association) says very pertinently: "When the sigh ascends from the churches to heaven: 'Lord, the 1,000,000,000 souls of the unchristian world have no bread,' whatis his answer? The same as in the wilderness to his disciples: 'Give ye them to eat.' He was compassionately willing to feed the hungering multitudes, yet he sent down no bread from heaven, and brought up no fish from the sea. The disciples were to give them what they had, and this He blesses, so that there is enough and to spare. Even so, He does not preach the Gospel to the nations through angels, or send down Bibles from heaven in all the varying tongues of earth. We are to give them what we have, and He will add the blessing. "
-The Journal des Missions for September, 1890, gives account of the baptism at Thaba-Bossiou, in Lessuto, of 90 adults.
-The following letter of welcome from King Lewanika, on the Zambesi, to M. Adolph Jalla, is not a bad letter from a heathen king: "To the new missionary, health! Come soon with the peace of thy God. I thank thee for thy letter. I too would fain see thee and salute thee soon, new missionary! I shall soon rejoice to see thee with my eyes. Health, health, it is I who love thee.-LEwANIKA."
-The Journal des Missions, .speaking of the efforts making by some governments to decoy the missionaries into the service of their particular interests, says: "Woe to the herald of the good news of Christ's free salvation who lets himself be enticed by a worldly master, under the cover of promoting civilization, into the service of colonial interests! Here, as elsewhere, everything goes to show that no man can serve two masters, that the church and the world are two distinct domains, that the salvation of souls and the supposed interests of colonists are the most often mutually incompatible."
-The definitive recognition, by England, of Madagascar as under the protectorate (a polite way of saying under the dominion) of France, has led to well-founded apprehensions concerning the London Society's missions there, which have Christianized the ruling tribe of the Hovas. We remember only too well the declaration of the Protestant Guizot: "France abroad means Catholicism." To be sure, the treaty expressly provides that" in the island of Madagascar the missionaries of the two countries shall enjoy a complete protection, religious tolerance, liberty for all forms of worship and for religious instruction are guaranteed." But who believes that if the Jesuits once more came to govern France they would allow it to keep this treaty except evasively? And England is not now the England of Cromwell, or even of Chatham. However, the Protestant steadfastness of Queen Pomare and the Tahitians will doubtless be emulated by Queen Ranavalona and the Hova churches. It is a matter of great thankfulness that the Protestant mission of our French brethren on the Zambesi is likely to be rescued from the ignoble clutch of Portugal and assigned to the benign guardianship of England. The inroads of the children of Mammon, unhappily, cannot be restrained by any power. " Never," says the Journal, "has the world witnessed a partition so gigantic. Whatever may come of it, He that sitteth in the heavens (says yet) I have set my Ki.ng upon my holy hill of Zion."
It is not to be understood, of course, that all the French colonial officers are hostile to Protestant missions. Some are themselves Protestants, and others are friendly to every elevating influence abroad, Protestant or Catholic. M. de Brazza, the great agent of extending the French authority along the right bank {)f the lower Congo, has himself urged the Societe des Missions to establish its mission on the Congo, and promised it his best support. And, although since the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, the French Protestants are only some 600,000 out of 38,000,000, yet their greater mental freedom, more earnest religion, and higher moral standard, make them an antagonizing power manifold greater than their numbers against both atheism and ultramontanism.
-Dr. Warneck, in the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, in answer to a deprecatory remark of Major Wissmann, that Protestant missions ought not to shrink from criticism, observes very pertinently that Protestants criticise their own missions rather too much than too little. Roman Catholics, possessed as they are with the instinct of infallibility, do not criticise theirs at all.
Major Wissmann puts the Roman Catholic missions in Africa above the Protestant, as putting the labora before the ora (which they would hardlyacknowledge), declaring that the Protestants reverse the order. Dr. Warneck replies that they do neither the one nor the other, but, as commanded by Jesus Christ, teach faith in Him, which then becomes the inner principle of both prayer and labor. Dr. Wissmann, like most of such men, seems to regard the Africans only in one light-their relation to the labor market. But, as Dr. Warneck remarks, the Catholic missionaries have bought children (doubtless with the most benevolent intentions) over whom they have power. The Protestants exhort to industry free people, over whom they have only influence. The immediate industrial results, therefore, are more noticeable on the side of the former. The lasting results will turn more largely to the credit of the latter. Even now Major Wissmann acknowledges that, industrially, the Livingstonia Mission equals the best Catholic misl!ions. The trouble with the Catholic missions is, that however benevolently they treat their converts, in so many cases they do not teach them how to go alone.
Dr. Warneck remarks that, although where the Roman Catholics, as in China, have been laboring for three centuries, they have naturally an absolutely greater number of converts, yet they seldom have relatively so large a number if we compare time, outlay, and number of laborers, and that in fields where they and the Protestants have both labored for nearly the same time, the absolutely greater number of converts is almost everywhere on the Protestant side, excluding the European immigrants whom the Catholic reports count in, and whom the Protestant reports count out. Even in East Africa, to which Major 'Wissmann principally refers,the Catholics (not including Uganda.the statistics of which are undetermined) only claim some 2,000 converts, over against some 4,500 of the Protestant missions.
"The present Protestant missions proceed simply in theway of the apostolic missions, when they put their confidence, not in the forms of outward worship, but in the power of evangelical truth. And to-day, also, we do not find that this confidence puts us to shame, as is shown by the results of our missions, e.g., in the South Sea Islands, as well as in West and East Africa, where we have gathered fully a million of free Christians from among the heathen into well organized, and in part already independent, churches. We may well allow that the outward worship of the Roman Church has a certain share in the results of her mission; but much more are these owing to other outward means, e.g., purchase of children, concession of temporal advantages, employment of the civil power, connivance with heathen irregularities, etc."
-In' view of the sharp national animosities, which have attached them- selves to the relations between the Anglo-American Stanley and the German Emin Pasha, the following judgment of Stanley, founded on his latest book, from the great German missionary magazine, is of much value. The Zeit- schrift, has throughout, while genuinely German, held itself clear of all exag- gerated nationalism, in matters which concern universal.humanity and the kingdom of God: "This book leaves no doubt that in Stanley we have to do not only with one of the most heroic, circumspect, enduring of travelers, but also with a warm friend of mankind, a great student of human nature, a wise dealer with men, and a conscientious performer of the commissions assigned to him. He is not lacking in self-consciousness, and the energy with which he is wont to act sometimes verges on recklessness; but without the inflexible firm- ness, which ever and anon degenerates into harshness, he would never have overcome the absolutely gigantic difficulties which lay in his way, and never have attained his end. But Stanley is by no means merely a valiant man of iron will, he has also a warm heart, is full of motherly carefulness, fidelity and devotion to his friends, white and black, nor is he wanting in humility and a sound feeling of piety." He would hardly be a Welshman if his sense of religion were not strong.
-The Societe Centrale Protestante d'Evangelisation, in its forty-third an- nual report, that of 1889, says: "It has a faith, and it confesses it. In this re- gard it has gone beyond the Synod of 1872. It used to be said, as it still is: Why these doctrines? Is not life enough? Bring near the prophets, remove the doctors; inflame the heart and take no care about the head. Inflame the heart with what? The heart, too, has need of reasons, and the reasons of the heart are the very doctrines which you reject. According as these doctrines are pre$ent or absent, religious fervor increases or declines. History teaches us that in all times moral is closely connected with doctrinal relaxation. Why, then, should we separate the prophets and the doctors, as if they did not belong together? They imply each other, they do not exclude each other. Let me only cite three names: St. Paul, St. Augustine, Luther-three glorious prophets and three illustrious doctors. But for the doctrines which it has adopted and propagated, the Central Society would not have done what it has done, for it would neither have felt nor kindled the same confidence."
-" France is divided into two camps, of equal passion, if not of equal strength. The religious society anathematizes the civil society; the civil society anathematizes the religious society, and ever and anon the one point on which they seem to agree is that it is the duty of each to murder the other. Lost in this tumult of battle, what are we doing, we, French Protestants of every denomination? We maintain religious faith and bless social progress. We show France how she may be at one with herself, and be at the same time Christian and liberal. If, weaned of their bitter and resultless struggles, civil and religious society are minded some. day to make peace, they will make it, not under our name, indeed, but on our territory. The triumph of Protestant principles, whether under Protestant forms or not, is the religious future of our country, and of every country." Free religion, not in the infidel but in the Christian sense, as against the compelled religion of the middle ages.
-The Danish churches raised for missionary purposes in 1888, about $24,000. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN EXTRACTS.
-The Church Missionary Gleaner for October reports as ready to go out six university men, six clergymen from the Islington school, nineteen single ladies and four others. Adding the wives-" whom we must never leave out of account "-and there is a total of ninety-one new missionaries. "But the day is rapidly coming when that will seem quite small."
-It seems that, as with the ark of old, each African tribe has been afraid to keep the bones of Bishop Hannington, being persuaded that the wrath of heaven has attended each attempt to detain them, until at last they are given to an Englishman who comes from the coast "by the route which Hannington" in his last moments, declared that he died to secure!"
-Miss Ridley, lately gone to China, says in the Gleaner: "I do not do much else but study. I am standing, as it were, on the brink of a wonderful ocean –this difficult, interesting and fascinating language-just playing with a few of the drops."
-It is known that the aborigines of Japan are the Ainos, or Ainus, now mostly found in the northern island, Yezo. They are very degraded, but are said to be rather of our type of race than of the Mongolian. It has been questioned whether they have retained any religion. But the Church Missionary Society missionary to them, Rev. J. Batchelor, writes in the Gleaner, that " they firmly believe in a God who is the life giver and benevolent sustainer of all, and they thankfully and dutifully acknowledge His gifts and mercies."
-It is known how highly the Church of Scotland, both Established and Free, values education in India. It is now, in the Established branch, engaged in reviewing this whole question, and corresponding widely with authorities in Indian affairs. Some of the answers deserve reporting: Sir Charles U. Aitchison, late lieutenant-governor of the Punjab, is very sure that if the chasm now yearning in Hindu belief is filled up by an unchristian theism, the church will have all the sapping and mining to do over again. He mentions the American College at Lahore, as one of the types of schools that ought to be multiplied through India, giving university training, together with the steady personal application of Christian truth by cultivated men. "God forbid," he says, "that I should undervalue preaching and evangelizing. I believe India is only waiting for some native St. Paul to turn by thousands to the Lord. But the more active you are in your schools the better you will be prepared for that day when it comes." Even now, he says, the most and the best converts are from the schools. f Sir William Wilson Hunter says that a Christian government cannot give anti-christian, and, in India, cannot give Christian teaching. The result is deplored, deservedly, by the natives of India. Missionary schools alone can make good the lack. Such schools the government feels free to aid. " It would not do," he says, "that just as Hinduism and Mohammedanism are entering the field of education more largely, Scotland should withdraw from it. Alexander Duff and John Lawrence," he remarks, " went to India in one fear. One saved India for England; the other rescued Christianity from sinking again into such a degradation as that into which the uneducated' Portuguese Christians' had brought it."
Sir William Muir, Sir Henry Ramsay and Sir Richard Temple give similar testimony.
The Rev. Robert Clark, of the Church Missionary Society, thinks that there are friendly Hindu and Moslem teachers whose influence is positively better than that of some nominally Christian teachers. He calls them "Hiram's Carpenters. " It is an error to suppose that the Scottish Establishment in India spendo chiefly for schools. £2,492 is spent for them; £5,488 on evangelistic work.
The Rev. D. Mackicham, D.D., of the Free Church, remarks that there are fewer conversions now at such schools than at first. This he attributes (1) to the great modifications of Hinduism, giving a temporary resting-place to many; (2) to the religious indifference of the age; (3) to the stronger political life awakening in India, carrying off much moral force–all temporary causes, but operative at present.
The Rev. A. Clifford, of the Church Missionary Society, says that "Dr. Duff's converts are the backbone of the native church in Bengal." Few, but mighty.
Bishop Caldwell and Mr. Sharrock declare that these higher schools are the unly way of reaching the higher castes. The Roman Catholics, moreover, are waking up to the importance of education, and the question is, into which scale enlightened India shall be thrown.
James Wilson, Esq., twenty-five years missionary in India, says that the condition of India, that is, especially of Hinduism, with iis compact society and overmastering religion, is unique. Individual conversions cannot be there, at present, the main end. India is a mighty rock to be tunneled, and educa- tion is the process of tunneling. The rate of conversion among the aborig- ines, who may be called the soft rock, does not at all give the rate among the Hindus, who are emphatically the hard rock. As yet, no method of labor has gained many conversions from Hinduism proper. That mission schools have not, therefore, is not against them, while for ultimate results we may well re- gard them as an indispensable agency.
The Hindus are beginning to be alarmed at the absence of ethicai teaching from the government schools. One Hindu journal, quite independent of direct missionary influence, calls for the introduction of a little book, called" The Precepts of Jesus," compiled by Rajah Ramahun Roy, the original leader, I believe, of the Brahmo Somaj. Says Mr. Wilson: "I have nothing to say against other methods of spreading the truth; but I, for one, have no regrets that so many years of my life were spent in India in diffusing among the young people of that country knowledge of any and every kind, including that knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation."
Judge Roberts, of the Punjab, brings like testimony to the grievous decline of morality and integrity which has followed the divorce of religion and education. The Rev. S. S. Allnutt, M.A., late of Cambridge, nowof Delhi, says that this system starves the HiNdu conscience, already weak, and leaves the intellectual to struggle with. the animal nature, aggravated by an English propaganda of atheism, "rampant, vaunting, undisguised." The vile Bradlaugh has recently, we remember, visited India, partly to prosecute this apostolate of hell. Even the Mohammedans, it appears (except the heretical Shiites) disdain to acknowledge sin before God, or profess repentance of it. Mr. Allnutt wholly condemns the too usual practice of allowing heathen teachers to give formal instruction in Christain doctrine. _ The Rev. John Paton, formerly chaFllain in Bombay says: "Convert all the aboriginal types and leave the Brahmanical castes untouched, and you have only touched Hindu religion by the fringe. Neglect neither Aryans nor non- Aryans, nor the methods best suited to the genius of either. A mighty citadel (and no citadel of heathenism compares with Hinduism) must be besieged with infinite patience and manful use of every form of appliance." Principal Miller, of Madras, says that the Jesuits have a broad outlook, and the Protestant missions, as yet, a narrow one. Shall educated India, he asks, be Jesuit or Protestant? He strongly condemns the helter-skelter mutual emu- lation of Protestant schools. One-fourth of their revenues, he says, have been spent in paralyzing another fourth.
Mr. Mozumdar, the Brahmo Somaj leader, says that he knows mission school graduates above others by their superior moral principle and greater firmness of character.
A Hindu jurist, callmg for religious education in government schools, de- clares it better that a few should embrace the faith of Christ than that all should become practical atheists.
The Rev. John Monson, B.D., of Calcutta, says that if Protestants do not want Protestant Christianity in India to be absorbed by Roman Catholicism, they must not relax, but intensify, their efforts for the higher education.
The Rev. Johr. Crawford, B.D., says: "Christ has gained, because natives have seen men of all Christian creeds in Britain establishing Christian colleges."
The Rev. Herbert J. Thomas remarks: "The best that the natives of India can say of the English Government is that it is without religion; and they think no better of the English on that account, as their newspapers abundantly show."
On the other hand, various eminent authorities, among them Sir Monier Williams, speak doubtfully as to the results of these schools.
In 1863 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland decided that its higher schools in India should be deeply modified, in the direction of much fuller instruction in religion. Thus modified, it appears to be the mind of the present Missionary Committee, that they ought decidedly to be maintained, as being a needed counteractive to the irreligion of the government schools, and as peculiarly agreeable to the Scottish genius. The General Assembly is yet to take action on the report of the committee.
The Colonial and Continental Church Society, an Anglican institution, formed "to send clergymen, cathechists and schoolma:sters to the colonies of Great Britain and to British residents in other parts of the world," is important among those many semi-missionary societies called into being by the peculiar nature and relations of that dominion" on which the sun never sets." Its total income for 1889-90 was £35,668, of which £17,600 was raised at home, the remainder in the colonies and on the continent. The society takes a part in the Indian missions of British America. It also aims at commending to the French-Canadians a purer form of the Gospel. It appears to represent principally the evangelical school of the Church of England. We observe that the Marquis of Salisbury is one of its subscribers, and that his eminent competitor is not. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel seems to do the same work for the High Church party, although it is an extensive, and in various places rather an interfering, foreign missionary society.
-The Church Missionary Intelligencer for October, 1890, remarks: "The British Empire at the present time is five times larger than that of ancient Persia under Darius; it is four times larger than that of Rome under Augustus; and it is one-eighth larger than all the Russias put together; it is three times the size of the United States, sixteen times that of France, and forty times that of Germany, if we leave out of account her recently acquired territory in Africa. Now, if we admit that God guides the affairs of men, surely there must be some sufficient reason fot placing such. vast popUlations under our control, and when we remember that all these pos~essions have come to us since. the Reformation, it seems as if we had in this fact a hint as to what the reason is!"
-The same number of the Intelligencer, warning against expectations of what may be called a tumultuary movement of conversion in India, says: "In very truth there is no possibility in India of such a thing as a popular movement. There is no public opinion-how could there be in a body of 250,000,000 of people, of divers races, speaking a great number of different languages, and disintegrated by the cleavage of caste, by no means conformable to the strata of society? The conversion of a whole caste would render that of the next above it none the easier, rather all the more difficult. The ocean of Indian thought has been for ages stagnant; there are in it neither tides nor prevailing currents. But the w~ter of life is pouring into it, and creating, at all events, local eddies, which go swirling onwards steadily, spite of their back-waters, towards the throne of Christ."
-The Intelligencer quotes from two organs of·two branches of the Brahmo Somaj the two following declarations: "Christ Jesus. . is as much necessary in this age and in India as He was 1,800 years ago in Judea. As sinful children of men, we, the people of India, are as much in need of the Living Son of the Living God as the people of Judea were in days gone by." "In Christ, humanity, possessing nothing, not even a stone to lay its head upon, declared nothing good but its Father in heaven, surrendered itself wholly to His will, was tortured and killed, and finally was raised to eternal glory and everlasting blessedness. Humanity was reconciled to divinity, and the earth witnessed the rare spectacle of a divine humanity reigning over her." The editor remarks: ,. There is something of a perverse current there, a tendency to philosophize away the realism of Christ's redemption, which is characteristically Indian. But let the Indian mind take its own course-it will be guided at last to the personal acceptance of Christ."
The Rev. Worthington Jukes, of the Afghan Mission of the C. M. S., speaks of a baptized convert of ten years' standing, Hazrat Ali Shah, as being a lineal descendant of Mohammed. He has given up his government appointment to devote himself to mission work.
-The Intelligencer, complaining of the abundance of orthodoxy and the lack of moral feeling in the negro Christianity of West Africa, remarks: "It is not a Luther that is wanted; it is a John the Baptist." Yet it remarks that there is enough of the right spirit to be making a visible impression on the Mohammedans.
-It is known that there is a difference of opinion among missionaries, here and there, as to the use of the native instead of the European dress. There can be no doubt, however, as to the wisdom of Dr. Harford-Battersby's course on the Upper Niger. He says, in the Intelligencer: "For the first time adopted the native dress. Found it very comfortable, and well adapted to the climate. The turban, I believe, is far the best protection from the sun; the tabe, or gown, which is very loose, admits of free ventilation, and at the same time can be modified to suit almost any change of the weather except rain. Below we have the loose trousers and sandals for the feet-very comfortable. It is delightful altogether to have discarded boots and socks." Elsewhere it is remarked how pleased the people are to have the white men condescend to dress like themselves!
-The Intelligencer for October gives from the Matin the following statistics of Roman Catholic missions, mostly French, in Central Africa. The Catholic Missions of Lyons have in the Kingdom of Benin 6 stations, 1 college, 10 schools, 8 orphanages; on the Gold Coast, 6 stations, 3 schools and orphanages; on the Niger, 2 schools and 2 orphanages; in Dahomey, 8 stations,4 schools and 5 orphanages. The Brethren of the Holy Ghost have in Cimbabasie 4 stations, schools and 1seminary; in Gaboon, 6 stations, 3industrial schools; in Senegambia, 15 stations, 1 seminary, 1 printing office, 16 schools, 1 industrial school, 1 orphanage and 1 asylum; at Sierra Leone, 2 stations and schools; in French Congo, 7 stations, 5 schools; in the Lower Congo, 9 stations,l seminary, 5 schools; in Zanzibar, 11 stations, 6 schools, 2 hospitals, 1 industrial school. The White Fathers (Cardinal Lavigerie's missionaries) have in Nyassaland 2 stations, 3 orphanages, 4 schools; in the Sahara, 7 stations; in Kabylia, 1 station; in Nizab, 12 stations, 8 schools, 2 seminaries, 8 orphanages; Upper Congo. 2 stations, 4 schools; in Unyanyembe, 2 stations; at Zanzibar, 1 station; at Tanganyika, 3 stations, schools and orphanages.
-The Intelligencer remarks: "India is becoming more and more visited in the cold season, not only by politicians, and litterateurs, and students, and sportsmen, but by the messengers of Christ. The' missioner' is becoming as distinct a variety of them as the' missionary.'"
-The Bishop of Lahore, at a recent C. M. S. meeting in India, referred to the noble work opening in Kashmir. He said that many converts had recently been gathered in, and all over the district congregations of seventy or eighty met in the simplest of little churches for worship. These churches had not cost more than a rupee per sitting, if he might use that term, for, with the exception of the Bishop, for whom, in consideration of his infirmities, a chair was provided, sittings there were none [laughter]; the people all sat on the ground. The simple service was conducted and joined in with great fervor, and his heart was much touched by a beautiful cUdtom they had of repeating Jai Prabhu Yesu (Victory to the Lord Jesus) as they rose at the conclusion of their service.
STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.
Mr. Max Wood Moorhead writes that: " A Conference of the Student Volunteer Movement is to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, February 26th to March 1st. "The objects are: (1) To bring volunteers and secretaries of foreign mission societies into personal contact; (2) to acquaint the Church with the character, scope and purpose of 'the movement'; (3) to stimulate and arouse to action student volunteers. Christian citizens offer to entertain a thousand guests, and volunteers in hundreds will probably avail themselves of this hospitality. "Such a convention will give secretaries of various boards in the United States and Canada opportunity to confer with candidates, and define the relation which should exist between them; and societies will communicate their spirit and their methods. "The following societies have been invited to send representatires: Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the American Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance, the Canadian Inter-Collegiate Missionary Alliance, the United Society of Christian Endeavor, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Epworth League, etc. From many missionary agencies comes the cry of' Debt!' 'Retrench!' The Church seems largely indifferent to the Master's appeal for laborers. We earnestly hope and pray that this gathering may result in a renewed spirit of obedience to the command of Christ, and, consequelitly, the actual sending forth of many laborers. "Foreign missionaries, now at home on furlough, from' every quarter of the globe, will be present. "Will the readers of THE REVIEW pray that all prepartions may be in conformity to God's will, and that all who participate in the coming Conference may be led by the Holy Spirit?"
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND· CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Editorial Items.-[J. T. G.] mission agents, whether English or It will be gratifying to the friends African, that are, in their jUdgment, "vessels meet for the Master's use." of humanity everywhere, to know Earthen vessels they may be; we do that at the last Holland signed the not look for perfection in human in- agreement of the Brussels Confer- struments or instrumentalities; but .ence, authorizing a tariff for revenue ~ve do deeply feel that true missionary work is the Getting forth of the Lord in the Congo Free State, to raise a Jesus Christ both as Saviour and as special fund for the suppression of the King and that this work must be slave trade. If she had held out in done 'by those who, however feeble in themselves, do know Him as their her refusal to concur, the entire Brus- Saviour and obey Him as their King, sels Conference would have been a and who seek, by the power of the failure, as it required unanimous con- Holy Ghost, to be examp~es ': in w<,>r?, in conversation, in chanty, m spInt, sBeenrtlinofTtrheeatysio~f-na1t8o8r5y, powers to the in faith, in purity." to make it ef- -It would be amusing, if it were fective in this modification of the free not so serious, to note the present con- troversyabout mission comity. Here trade clause of the original constitu- are the Baptists criticising the Method- ists for entering Rangoon, and the tion. Lutherans in turn criticising the Bap- tists in. Guntur because they "im- -It is time the good people of this mersed several of their teachers under discipline for irregular conduct." Then country gave a half-hour to the man- we have the Church of England Mis- sionary Society complained of by the ner in which the United States Gov- Presbyterians in Persia, for interfer- ing with their constituency, and so on, ernment is made to play the part of sometimes with cause, and, possibly, sometimes without cause, for we do procuress in the case of Chinese w0n;ten not claim to pass judgment on any of these cases. And all this comes on us at San Francisco. We are not saymg when the brethren are reading essays and making addresses on missionary a word now in favor of letting the comity. We printed in May last an able paper read before the Calcutta Chinese in, nor about our disreputable Missionary Conference on this subject by Bishop Thoburn. That met with a violation of treaty with China; but rejoinder in the same conference by Rev. Mr. Clifford, and now the subabout those who are let in, and the ject is treated in the December num- ber of The Church Mis.'lionary Intellipurposes for which they are admitted.
No Chinese can be landed without a writ of habeas corpus from the district court of the United States. Eleven thousand of these have been issued in order to land Chinese men and women, and ninety-nine out of every hundred of these women are known to be brought hither for the vilest uses of white men as well as Chinese. The President and his Cabinet ought not to allow the majesty of law to screen slavery and lust after this fashion.
-Here is a model utterance by the gencer. The writer concludes by Church of England Missionary Society saying facetiously: "The American in connection with some administra- missionary, though often a magnifitive difficulties in one of their West cent specimen of a Christian gentle- Africa missions, which might well be man is, nevertheless, to the end an adopted as a manifesto by all mis- American, given to going ahead, and -sionary societies: not absolutely beyond the temptation of filibustering. And the English The Committee are solemnly deter- missionary is apt to be ineradicably a mined in humble dgeivpeentdheenSc~eciuetpyo'ns Divine' strength, to support only to mission agenCies and John Bull, accustomed to dwelling on an island, and with no particularpen- next ten years, and hence it is now chant for being interfered with by two-hundred-fold greater than it others." But during the while in was at the beginning of the present which these various brethren discuss century. and re-discuss the modifications nec- essary in the mission co-operative Mr. Gladstone says we have not only policy of the past, a writer in the Har- multiplied wealth in a ratio that is un- vest Fieldsuggests some modus vivendi precedented in the world's history, that the work be not hindered. but we have multiplied the variety of pleasures which wealth commands, What About Our Surplus Wealth 7 also, in a correspondingly unparalleled degree. The New York World recently pub- lished a list of the richest people ia the Archdeacon Farrar is credited with United States, with a rough estimate the statAment that the working-classes of their wealth. We say rough esti- of Great Britain are saving annually mate because when one of these five hundred millions of dollars, and gentlemen, in a legal proceeding, tes- the British nation fifteen hundred miltified, as is asserted, that he could not lions. tell within ten or twelve millions of dollars what his fortune did amount The Japan Mail some while ago to, he only represented the rest of the said there was wealth enough in a very wealthy persons whose fortunes single block of warehouses, between are in part in more or less fluctuating Cornhill and Regent streets, in London securities. It is not assumed there- to buy up the whole of Yeddo, Japan, fore, by us, that the article referred and possibly five times over. It is disto presents precise knowledge, and tinctly the Christian nations that are in some cases may be grossly incor- adding in geometrical ratio to their rect. surplus wealth.
Nevertheless, the outline stands sub- Allowing all this to stand for the stantially representative of the facts moment, take another factor, as well in the case. Here are the names, then, established as careful and consciof seventy-five individuals whose for- entious computation can make so intunes are estimated at more than five definite a propo~ition. It is stated millions of dollars. It includes three after careful examination that the inmen thought to be worth over one crease in the wealth of the Protestant hundred millions of dollars each, and Christians of the United States equals thirty-five individual fortunes which five hundred millions of dollars anexceed ten millions of dollars each. nually. That amounts to the assertion that every three years Protestant The leading statistician of Great Christendom in this country accumu- Britain is made responsible for the lates an aggregated surplus fortune, statement that the increase of the equal to the total estimated fortunes world's wealth between the years 1800 of a hundred and twenty-five of the and 1870 was greater than that of the wealthiest persons in the land, or that eighteen hundred years preceding each year Protestant Christians in this century; and, still further, that the United States lay by a fortune the increase of the wealth in the equal to the sum total accumulated world between the years 1870 and through many years by the Rockefel- 1880 was equal to that accumulated lers, Astors, Goulds and Vanderbi~ts, between 1800 and 1870. In other as estimated by the World's table. words, the world doubled its wealth in the first seventy years of this cen- Now, we have not a word, at this tury, and added an equal sum in the writing, to say about the special dan- gers to any community, in any coun- try or century, of such vast augmenta- tion of wealth. Mr. Gladstone has done well to point out that it is indi- economies; after-we repeat the sumrectly a fertile source of the negative mary-after it has used all it needed, religious tendency of our day. But given all it would, and wasted most we do not propose to moralize about wantonly, it yet has a reserve of unit in one way or another. What we spent fortune reaching the enormous write to accomplish is this: to press sum of $500,000,000 annually! home on every Christian in the land who has any surplus, who one year And this is not supposed to be thE> with another, or after an interval of "saving" of the irreligious or ignorant, ten years, finds he has accumulated but of the very best type of Christian some" savings," the question: What commonwealth. What ought we to are the special obligations growing do with this surplus? What account from savings? will we render of it at last? Not one- sixtieth of so much as these' , savings" If annually the Protestant Christians is given to save the world outside of of this land are accumulating five our country, adding what men give times the wealth of the few men who while living and leave after death. own a hundred millions of property after a lifetime, or as the accretions of We cast no reflections. We read no more than one generation, what is homilies. We prescribe no action.' this same Protestant Christendom pro- We only put an interrogation point posing to do with these five hundred before one part of the Christian millions of annual surplus? It must Church in the richest and most luxube borne in mind just what the charac- riant land on the globe over against ter of this is. It is not what these the increment of its savings. Christians now want. It is what is left. After our Protestant Christen- J. T. G. dom has supplied all its wants, catered as far as it pleases to all its whims, The Press in Heathen Lands. spent on its viands all it cared to indulge in, wornjust" as good or expen- BY J. T. GRACEY. sive raiment as it has pleased to buy, indulged itself in art and literature The area of the reading population and travel, spent on the education of of the worla has been vastly extended chilUren all it could be induced to within the century, and in heathen spend, made merry the Christmas and lands as a direct result, in large part, of other holidays, indulged ~n all lawful, the modernmission. In India the Hindu possibly some questionable amuse- and Mohammedan readers are increasments, hospitably and socially enter- ing at present at the rate of a million tained friends and neighbors; after it and a half a year. Before the translahas, besides all this, generously spent tion of the Bible scarcely one-thirtieth in charity and benevolences, sustained part of the population of Bengal could all the churches, built all the colleges, read, and at the beginning of this cenand subscribed as liberally as it could turythat vast province and its Bengalibe induced to subscribe for missions speaking millions had no prose literain this and other lands; after it has, ture; now it is extensive and rapidly in a word, been as public-spirited as increasing. it pleased to be in forwarding all humanitarianism and religion while What we say of Bengal is but typiliving, and bequeathed all it would to cal of the rest of India and of other be spent or given away after death parts of the Moslem and heathen -spent, donated, squandered, be- world where the mission has entered. queathed; and after it has wasted untold thousands, being reckless of Not to delay with further illustra- tions in heathen lands, though the literary vaulting of young Japan is a tempting theme, let us take a single illustration from Moslem literature. That we will select, not from Delhi or Lucknow, which furnish most start- publishes newspapers in a dozen oJ' ling and arousing facts of recent liter- morelanguages,would ofitselfindicate ary ventures, but from the dead-line the relation of the mission to literary of the Moslem intellect in the coun- activity. Butthe intent of this present tries lying on the eastern borders of paper is to call attention to the use the Mediterranean. We pass by the which is being made by the press of twenty millions of pages of Arabic some heathen lands in antagonism to literature issued in Beirut in 1889 by Christianity. Illustrations are abun-' the Presbyterians, because it is Chris- dant in Japan and in Moslem lands. tian, and even the great dictionaries, We will, however, limit ourselves to grammars and chrestomatics in Ara- selections from India. bic, of the Roman Catholic press at Beirut, for the same reason. All of the six hundred native news- papers of India, except a half-dozen, The Moslem literary stir is indicated may be set down as inimical to Chris- by the officially reported pUblications tianity. In all the larger Indian cities in Constantinople in three months of there'is a fair proportion of youths 1889, of which 143 were Turkish, 3 who have received an English educa- • Arabic, 2 F re~, and the others tion, many of whom are bitterly hos- in Armenian, Neo-Greek, Bulgarian, tile to Christianity. There is an abun- Servian, French and Italian. dant supply of imported European infidel literature sown broadcast Egypt is not a country to which one among these young men. But not is likely to turn to find the freshest only is the newspaper turned against literature. But the presses of Cairo us, but organizations modeled after are turning out works of vast impor- our Christian tract societies have been tance. The Turkish, dictiona~y, established and are in active operation. "Kamus," and the "Tag-al-aurus," The" Free Thought Depot" in Madras the great dictionary of classical Ara- issues a list of 124 separate works, in- bic, seven volumes-of the total ten- cl_ding 34 publications of Bradlaugh, of which have been issued in rapid suc- 19 of Mrs. Besant, 16 of Ingersoll, and cession, and which will cost, perhaps, others of Paine, Voltaire and other forty dollars, mark anything but a well-known infidel publicists. Inger- Dead Sea or a. low Nile of literary soll's lectures have the largest sale. interest. Some of these have deceptive titles. "A Bible Hand-book for Mission The modern newspaper has become School StUdents and Inquiring Chris- a power in these lands. Beirut pub- tians" and " The Bible Dissector for lishes eight political and four literary the Use of Mission School Students" and religious periodicals. Damascus, are illusive titles. The" Elements of Aleppo, Jerusalem and Bagdad have Social Economy" is said to be a most their newspapers. demoralizing advocacy of free lust, in which marriage is denounced. This We have said the missjon was the tract literature is being circulated by source or occasion of much of this benevolent contributions like those literary culture in all the lands where made to our own tract societies. Edu- it has entered. That might go with- cated natives are paying monthly sub- out the saying, but that we wish to scriptions of ten dollars to disseminate fasten responsibility on the mission to these tracts and books. One rajah in foster and direct, if it cannot control, Bengal is known to have subscribed the agency it has created or awakened ten thousand dollars for this object. into energy. That a single American Others are spending great sums for missionary society should have re- the purpose of printing literature in duced, through its agents, perhaps advocacy or defense of their own twenty languages to writing, and have published approaching three thousand writings in fifty or more dialects, and religions. Some of them are appeals of Jesus, and make a great pretence of humility. But inwardly they are to their own people to arouse them- saying: "Alas, has it come to this, selves because of the aggressions of that we should be beaten by these the Christain forces. people !" The famous poet, Shakspeare, Some of these tracts and booklets has' said: "Good wine needs no push." He means that if a thing really posare rejoillders to Christian books. sesses worth it needs not be puffed. Rev. Dunlap Moore's tract entitled For instance, a spicemonger, when "An Examination of Jainism" is an- his goods are worthless, makes a great swered in "A Reply to an Examina- display of them, and ostentatiously in- vites everybody whom he sees, saying: tion of Jainism, " or, in native words, "These are good spices; come and " a slap on the Christian face." Some buy." Not so the man who has really are curiously mixed. Here is one on good ones. People go to him wherever " A Warning to the Cow Protectors and he may be. Now you see missionaries going about. They say that the Bible, an Answer to Christians," one part de- which is impure and has not a grain fending cow killing, the other part of truth in it, is the word of God, and filled with sneers and taunts at the they shout in every street: "Come, missionaries. A Christian tract, " The brethren. This is an excellent religion, Choice of a Guru," claiming that Jesus a good caste." Why do they thus Christ is a world teacher, is answered shout? Because if they do not, not one person will go to them.
in another tract, "An Examination ***** of Jesus." Christians cast suspicion upon the More curious, however, is the cate- story that Hanuman (the monkey- -chism of the Hindu Tract Society, god) leapt over the sea to Ceylon. But an equal objection lies against the with sixteen questions and answers story of Christ walking on the sea. By bodily from the Westminster Cate- holding hi,. breath a person may leap chism, including the definition of God. an immense distance; but no amount of suppression will prevent a man All this is done because it is "good, and from drowning. To say that it will is Christianity borrowed it from Aryan- a lie. From incidents ,like these it is ism, which is chronologically the pre- clear that the Bible is the work of decessor of Christianity." man and not the word of God, and that But others are bitterly and blas- even Jesus Christ was only a man phemously antagonistic to Christianity like the rest of us. itself, and contain most wanton attacks on the Bible. This is illus- ***** llilissionaries say hat idolatry is child's play. But surely the worship trated in a wildly blasphemous Aryan of the cross is a superstition worthy of tract, published by the Hindu Tract scorn. It is only on a level with the Society, entitled "Jesus Christ a play of children who put up broom- Fool." It is said by the editor of the sticks and call them soldiers. These people put one stick across another Harvest Field to be too shocking to and worship it because Christ died on such a cross. They call our worship be translated for English readers. He, idolatry: we may well call theirs stickhowever, presents two ".mild" para- worship.
graphs, as he styles them, to show Now, there is really in all this the animus of the publication. We nothing to discour~ge, however it,may copy these for the same purpose: shock. We have long been familiar There are many sects in this world, with attacks like these from much and usually each sect contents itself with the practice of its own religion. better brains, and have learned how But it is not so with these Christians. futile they are.
They are bound to increase their num- But othertracts show still a different bers, and so they sent out missionaries, while they themselves remain quietly vein. Here is an extract from one published by the Arya Samaj, transat home. Is this just? These missionaries are ignorant and very covet- lated from the Tamil: ous. 'Vhen they are beaten or abused Missionaries come from Britain at or mocked they quote the commands a great cost and tell us that we are in heathen darkness, and that a bundle ing and virtual destruction that are of fables called the Bible is the true imminent. Hence the organization Vendanta (inspired book) which alone of clubs, the publication of tracts, can enlighten us. They have cast pamphlets, and articles in newspapers, their net over our children by teach- the appointment of learned men ing them in their schools, and they among them as preachers and defend- have already made thousands of Chris- ers of the old faith, the relaxation of tians, and are continuing to do so. caste rules and restrictions, and the They have penetrated into the most various other devices that are now be- out-of-the-way villages, and built ing employed to defeat the purpose of churches there. If we continue to the Lord and His people, and prop up sleep as we have done in the past not an effete and decaying system. And one will be found worshiping in our it is no small tribute to the value of temples in a very short time; why the the agency that we employ that our temples themselves will be converted opponents have taken a leaf out of the into Christian churches! Do you not Christian book, and are, in many know that the number of Christians is places, sedulously imitating our exincreasing and the number of Hindu ample. We engage evangelists and religionists decreasing every day? pay them; so do they; and when the How long will water remain in a well available local talent is not sufficient which continually lets out, but re- they look elsewhere, as is evidenced ceives none in? If our religion is by an advertisement for preachers incessantly drained by Christianity that has recently been appearing in without receiving any accessions, how the Bombay daily papers; the publican it last? When our country is cations of the several tract societies turned into the wilderness of Christi- are sought to be refuted by tracts and anity will the herb of Hinduism grow? leaflets, well written both in English We must not fear the missionaries and the vernacular, published and because they have white faces, or be- circulated under the auspices of a cause they belong to the ruling class. Hindu tract society; and Christianity There is no connection between the and its teachings are steadily maligned government and Christianity, for the and misrepresented with an ability Queen Empress proclaimed neutrality and an earnestness worthy of a better in all religious matters in 1858. We cause. must, therefore, oppose the missionaries with all our might. Whenever In 1786 the youthful Spaulding they stand up to preach, let Hindu preachers stand up and start rival wrote to F. H. Jacobi that he had preaching at a distance of forty feet from them, acd they will soon flee heard Biester say: "We must not reaway! Let caste and sectarian differences be forgotten, and let all the lax our efforts, and then in twenty people join as one man to banish Christianity from our land. All possi- years' time the name of Jesus, in a ble efforts should be made to win back those who have embraced Christianity, religious sense,will be no more heard." and all children should be withdrawn from mission schools. That was in Germany, and since then The Missionary Herald, of the Pres- Germany has furnished a large pro- byterian Church in Ireland, review- portion of the most intelligent and ag- ing the report of the Hindu Gujarat gressive missionary force in the world.
Tract and Book Society, says: But the stern fact remains that we The Hindus ha,e at last realized have created an agency for the adthat there is something in Christianity itself, and in well-directed Christian vancement of Christianity, which the effort, that is not to be repelled by any of the rough-and-ready methods heathen are turning against us; and, hitherto tried; Christianity is to-day felt to be an aggressive power, mov- worse, which we are not using ouring with an ever-increasing force, which must in some way be resisted, selves with anything like the I:;kill or and its influence counteracted, if Hindu society is to be saved, and the in the proportions that we should do. antiquated fabric of Hindu religious and social life is to escape the remouId- We have created a vast reading community of Christians also without giving them anything like an ade- quate supply of their literary needs.
We have not utilized the press at all commensurately with its place, power and opportunities. This is a field where the societies might combine for co-operative work much more largely than they do. There should be a great by that time India would adopt her pan-mission council on the subject reform. A few friends and organizaof missionary literature distinctively tions pledged her $10,000 annually. for non-Christian lands and for Roman Of $25,000 required for a permanent Catholic countries. There might be building, $18,000 have been raised. economic distribution of the material which would help to make much Of her work for the school in Bommore of the funds already contributed. bay, Ramabai writes as follows: It is a subject demanding special consideration by specialists.-J. T. G. "Besides visiting families, I have found it necessary to gather women Pundita Ramabai's Work. together and acquaint them with my The cultured little Hindu lady, work. I have, therefore, now and Ramabai, is carrying on a unique then, to invite ladies of the high castes, work against great odds, and we de- get up entertainments for them, leclight to note her success. A conversa- ture on different subjects, and encourtion which a missionary had with her age and implore them in various ways some time since was thus reported in to take an interest in women's educathe Bombay Guardian: The missionary tion and progress. They will not asked and she answered as follows: listen to me if I begin at once to talk " Are you saved?" to them about my school and its ob- " Yes." jects. They have been taught to dis- " Do you believe in Jesus Christ as like widows and look down upon their your Saviour? " education. So we have very carefully "Yes." to approach them, show them the " Many people believe in Christ in beauties of intellectual pursuits, make their heads and not in their hearts. them realize the superiority of en- Do you believe in Ghrist with your lightened life to one of perpetual heart 7" ignorance, talk to them about the "Yes." blessedness of useful life, and thus "Are your sins forgiven through gradually teach them to look upon Him?" themselves and the widows as beings "Yes." who have more value than cats, dogs, " Praise the dear Lord." or mere puppets in the hands of men. It will be remembered that she More opposition to our work is to be opened the school for Hindu widows met from women than from men in at Bombay in March,1889. We so- certain quarters. Many women of licited from Miss A. P. Granger, the Bombay are now beginning to take secretary of the Ramabai Association, a interest in our school, as they have contribution relating to the work that been several times invited and enterhas since been developed, and we now tained here." have the pleasure of making extracts from Miss Granger's reply. Miss Granger favors us with the fol- In March, 1890, one year from its lowing statements: opening, the school numbered twentyseven pupils, twelve of them being " In view of its ultimate dependence high caste child-widows. Five child- upon Hindu support alone it was dewidows have since been added. In- cided to move the school to Poona, on struction is given in Marathi, English the 1st of November, the objections and Sanskrit, and also in sewing, etc. first made by the Advisory Board to Ramabai asked the assistance of this its establishment there, having been country for ten years only, belieying removed. The larger expenses of an English city like Bombay, and the su- perior advantages of Poona as a stronger hold of Brahmanism, are the two most important reasons for this C'11anJ:0. " Ramabai's first idea of the location the Uriion, in this country, whose ad- of the school for Hindu widows was dress he knew. Poona. On many accounts she felt it would be wiser to place the school The library of the International there. She was, however, overruled by others and the school was opened Missionary Union is as yet an experi- in Bombay. The officers of the asso- ciation do not hesitate to state that it ment. This little sheet is sent out, has been fully as successful as they anticipated. It is not on that account after some unavoidable delays, to all that a change is now being made. A suitable building with ample grounds the members whose present address have been secured for the Sharada Sadan, at a moderate rent and wise can be ascertained, chiefly to test the arrangements made for the conduct of the school and boarding depart- question of the call for such a library. ment. On account of her approach- ing marriage, the teacher who went We have pleasure in presenting a list out from this country has resigned her position but an efficient successor of such books as we have thus far se- had been found. It was expected that all the boarders would go with Rama- cured, with an approximate indication bai to Poona. of the postage on each. Whoever " In view of this change we would ask more earnestly than ever before wishes to take out one of these books for the sympathy, support and prayers of the American people, and will close is requested to send this amount of . with Professor Max Muller'stribute to the character of our head: 'I have postage to the librarian, and after never been in India; but I have known many Indians, both men and women, keeping the book one month to return and I do not exaggerate when I tell you that some of them need fear no it by post, prepaying the amount comparison with the best men and women whom it has been my good necessary. A book may be renewed fortune to know in England, France, or Germany. Whether for unselfish- if desired a second month when not ness or devotion to high ideals, truth- fulness, purityand real, livingreligion, asked for elsewhere. I know no better hero than Keshub Chunder Sen, no heroine greater than Any donations of books or pamph- Ramabai; and I am proud to have been allowed to count both among my lets or money for the library will. be best friends.' " thankfully received; also any sugges; International Missionary Union Notes. tions as to how lt can be made more Circulating Library.-The librarian of the incipient circulating library of useful to the members. the International Missionary Union, is the Rev. James Mudge, East Pep- POSTAGE. perill, Mass. He recently sent the fol- lowing circular to all the members of Our Indian Mission, Gordon………….. 2Oc. London Missionary Conference, 2 vols, .. " 15c. Indian Evangelical 'Review, vols. 2, 3, 4, 5, 1874-1878……………. _………. " .. 14c. Romance of Missions, Miss M. A. 'Vest … 14c. Siam and Laos, Dr. House and others……13c. Decennial Conference, Calcutta ………. 120. Missionary year-Book……………. " .. 12c. Among the Turks, Dr. Hamlin………… 120. On Horseback in Cappadocia, Barrows…. lOc. Two thousand Miles in Mexico, McCarthy. lOc. Letters from India, Bruce……… …… 8c. Great Value of Missions, Liggins…. ….. 7c. India, J. T. Gracey …………………… 7c. Woman's Medical Work, Mrs. Gracey….. 7c. Ann H. Judson………………………. 7c. Sarah B. Judson………. ………… 7c. Memorial Papers of the Marathi Mission .. 30. Natural History of the Marathi Bible.. …. 30. Africa in a Nutshell, Thompson …. ,…… 20. China, J. T. Gracey …………………. lc. Open Doors, J. T. Gracey……… …….. 1c. Moravian Mission in Alaska, Hamilton … lc.
Also THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD for 1888, 1889, 1890 in separate numbers, anyone of which can be ordered as above, postage four cent.s, thus enabling any member to refer to any article or articled. Most of the papers read before the Union in these years are to be found herein. The next meeting of the Interna- when the pressing claims of India, tional Missionary Union will be held at Clifton Springs, New York, June 10th China, and especially of Africa, were to 17th. We give the notice thus early that missionaries in this country may the subject of conversation, resolved be the better enabled to make preparations to attend; and that those abroad to memorialize the Society with refermay know when to send their greetings, their suggestions, or their papers. ence to a great forward movement. Essays and letters are solicited from members now on the foreign field as That memorial seems to have prothey constitute the" Outlook Committee." All such papers or correspond- duced a profound impression upon the ence should be sent to Rev. J. T. Gracey, 161 Pearl Street, Rochester, committee of the Church Missionary N. Y., or to Rev. W. H. Belden, Secretary, Bristol, Conn. Society, and they have caused the -The members of the International memorial to be printed and widely Missionary Union, will note with active interest, we trust, the appeal that circulated with the earnest desire that Rev. Arthur H. Smith and Dr. Henry D.Porter, both members of the Union, they may be guided by the Divine make in the December number of the Missionary Herald for aid for the Spirit in their deliberations on· the Chinese suffering from flood and famine, over not less than 4,000 square matter. It is stated that the Church miles of the Chihli Province. Thousands of families are homeless. The Missionary Society is supported, even Famine Relief Committee in Shanghai, after giving $60,000 for relief of nominally, by less than a third part of the sufferers has closed its books, but the distress still continues. No two the Church of England, and it cermen within our knowledge could more judiciously distribute the few tainly is a courageous thought to add thousand dollars they ask for than to its present staff of European misthose two brethren,and we are quite sionaries one thousand within five or sure, the need will continue for some six years. Yet such is the proposal. while yet. Send money to Mr. L. S. The memorial makes certain sugges- Ward, No 1 Somerset Street, Boston, tions as to these reinforcements, es- Mass pecially the following: 1. That evan- gelists should be sent into the mission One Thousand Additional Mission- fields in groups, each group being as- aries !" sociated under a leader. 2. That the services of lay-workers should be used The English Church Missionary So- much more than hitherto. 3. That ci€'ty presents a scheme for the send- mechanics and working men and ing forth, within the next five or women whose hearts God has touched six years, from the Church Mission- should form parts of these groups. ary Society alone, one thousand ad- The suggestion of such an increase in ditional missionaries. At the Kes- the working forces is startling simply wick Convention, in July last, mem- because it is such a sudden increase bersof the Church Missionary Sodety to the present numbers. That portion gathered at the house of a friend, of the Church of Englantl which operates through the Church Mission- ary Society is amply able to provide the money, to provide the workers and the supplies for such an advance, and the need is imperativ€'. And what is true of Christians in England is true of Christians in America. The forces might be and ought to be doubled and trebled. There are abundant means of support in the hands of those who bear Christ's name. Young men and young women are in training, and a large portion of them have already pledged themselves to this work. Shall not the Christian churches of America, and the Consti- tuency of the American Board espe- cially, anew and at once "attempt great things for God, and expect great thingR from Him?" It is time for a grand forward movement. There are men enough and wealth enough in our churches to respond to the present call for an advance, if there is a will to do so.-The Missionary Herald.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
IH.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
-After much painstaking in proof- of population not later than October, reading, the electrotyping process is 1892.
chargeable with a bad blunder in the -At the recent meeting of the January issue of the REVIEW. The American Board, in Minneapolis, the top line of page 5f belongs on page 5f) "Committee of Nine" reported that If readers will make a marginal note contributions to missions have not kept on the page to this effect, it will avoid pace with those to other benevol.
confusion. ent causes. No explanation was at- -The year 1892, which marks the tempted but they implied that the dis- 400th anniversary of the discovery of cussions and division of feeling as to America, also marks the centenary missionary policy, might account for of the formation of the first great this relative decline of receipts for missionary society of England, whose foreign missionary work.
distinctive purpose was the evange- The meeting presented many at- lization of the world. It was on the tractions and not a few wholesome second day of October, 1792, at Ket- lessons. Dr. N. G. Clark's paper on tering, that William Carey and his "Higher Christian Education as Re- brother Baptists formed the now lated to Foreign Mission Work ;" Dr.
famous Baptist Society, and laid thir- G. K. Alden's discussion of " Mission- teen pounds, two shillings and six ary Motives;" Dr. Judson Smith's pence on God's altar, as the beginning paper on the" Missionary Outlook,"
of the great enterprise of organized and Dr. Storr's address as President, foreign missionary work. were among the most notable features It is our deep conviction that it of that great annivprsary. The papers would be a great mistake if this referred to, must be read to be appre- memorable era were allowed to pass by ciated. Dr. Clark pleads for higher without another great 'Vorld's Con- Christian education in order to pre- vention, such as was held in London, serve and turn to account the religious in 1888. If such a gathering could sentiment of the people among whom begin at Kettering, in Andrew Ful- we labor; and for the sake of a native ler's old' chapel, with a consecration ministry adequate in character and in meeting in the house of Widow Beebe numbers to meet the intellectual and Wallis, which is still standing, and spiritual wants of their countrymen where that society was formally or- and to share with missionaries in the ganized, what an inspiration would responsibilities of establishing such such a beginning afford for an un- Christian institutions as shall secure paralleled series of missionary assem- the success of the missionary enter- blings! The end of a century seems prise. He holds that the " men must an appropriate time for the gathering be reared on the ground." Dr. G. K.
up of the results of missions in all Alden sets forth as motive forces: (1) parts of the world, and the projec- "Profound convictions as to this pres- tion of new lines of enterprise and en- ent sinful and perishing world and its deavor for the century to come. Is great need. (2) Profound convictions it too much to hope that this next as to the superabounding riches of century of missions may not have divine grace in Jesus Christ, the great passed Ulatil the whole world shall provision. (3) Profound convictions of have been acquainted with the Gos- the personal command, the personal pel? 'Ve hope that at an early day trust, and the personal responsibility the leaders of missionary enterprises to bear the good tidings at once to all in all parts of the world will co- men." Dr. Judson Smith says Chrisoperate to call such a world's con- tianity is becoming the dominant revention in some of the great centres ligion of the world; communication between all parts of the world is be- -In the August number for 1890, coming easier; the world, with only the statistics are given for Protest- here and there an exception, is ac- ant missions in China, which are re- cessible to the Gospel; and that mod- peated in the December issue, page ern missions are successful. At home 934, as the strength of the United missionary contributions are being en- Presbyterian force. Of course, the lat- larged; the supply of missionaries is ter is an error. It should read: "As increasing, and the church is com- furnished by the Presbyterians." mitted to mission work as never before. -The late Dr. Alexander William- son, of China, was identified for some -In Scotland the question of dis- 30 years with the London Missionary establishment has produced no little Society, then with the National Bible excitement. It seems almost certain Society of Scotland, and the United to come before the next Parliament. Presbyterian Church. As a translator There is certainly a religious interest and distributor of religious literature among the Scottish churches. The in the Chinese tongue, he filled a attendance upon church services is, we unique position, and to these labors -venture to say, better than in any was singularly devoted. His extensive other country in the world. The travels, researches, grasp of missions, number of praying men, and especially passion for a more economic distribupraying young men, struck us with tion of the working force, made him peculiar force in recent visits to Scot- an authority. His" Journeys in land. We cannot conceal our pro- North China," ranks as a standard found solicitude for the progressive work. His late wife, a most gifted theology which is moving many, we woman, wrote "Old Highways in fear, away from the old landmarks of China." Dr. Williamson died of nethe faith. No doubt there are many phritis, possibly due in part to his arwho are interested in these questions duous toil in thfl recent Shanghai intellectually, whose hearts are per- Conference. His prodigious activity fectly loyal to Christ and the truth, is rivaled by few of the most devoted but we fear the flffect of this ad- workers in the Middle Kingdom. vanced theological opinion upon the younger clergy of Scotland. At the -China owes to Christian missionsame time so deep is the interest in aries a great debt for information on a missions in this land of martyrs and vast range of topics. But a little while missionanes, that the practical work ago, the Chinese were wholly depend. of the churches, both at home and ent on the Peking Gazette; now they abroad, is largelyantidoting the influ- have some twenty-eight publications. ence of this skeptical opinion. The missionaries have supplied an enormous number of translations of We can never more speak or write of European booksonscience, geography, Scotland without the feeling which a history, mathematics, philosophy, etc. son would have for his mother. We They have translated the Bible into add the words of Dr. W. M. Taylor: not less than twelve Chinese dialects, "I say without any hesitation that and are now busy at fifteen more. when interesting foreign missions are Dr. Legge's investigations into the maintained in a church to the normal ancient systems of the Chinese phipoint, all other activities and agencies losophers are embodied in Professor at home will go of themselves and as Max Muller's" Sacred Books of the things, of course, while, if there be a East," and American authors have lack of devotion to that noble enter- given the world the "Middle Kingprise, nothing else will be prosecuted dom," and the" Chinese-English Dicwith either enthusiasm or success." tionary." So writes Mr. Johnston, of These are true words. Bolton.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
lJy J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
China. –.:.. China is a vast field. many centuries they have been in full That is a statement that grows by enjoyment of them, and on every side· every line of comparison we can lay. the evidences of long-established Here is a late attempt by Rev. Dr. wealth and commercial enterprise are· B. D. Gray, in the Foreign Mission observable.
Journal of the Southern Baptists (see " From the great wall to the frontier December number; it is published at of Tong-king, and from Thibet to the Richmond, Va.): . China Sea the country is dotted over "A single province of hers con- with rich and populous cities, which verted would be equal to the conver- are connected one with another by sion of whole nations elsewhere. Con- well-trodden roads or water highways.
vert anyone of her eighteen provinces In these busy centres of industry mer- and you would have more than all chants from all parts of the empire Brazil and Mexico. Anyone of a are to be found, who are as ready to dozen of her provinces would be more deal in the fabrics of the native looms, than the conversion of all Italy. As porcelain, tea and other native pro- goes China, so goes Asia. She is to- ducts, as in cottons, metals and day the citadel of paganism. Secure woolens of Europe.
her to Christ, and you secure all her " The rivers and canals are crowded dependencies, as Thibet, Turkistan, the vessels bearing silks and satins Mongolia, Manchuria and Korea. from Cheh-kiang .and Kiang-su, tea Break down her idols and you de- from Gan-hwuy and Ho-nan, and rice throne the greater part of heathenism from the southern provinces to parts at a stroke! " of the empire which give in exchange CHINESE EMIGRATION. for such gifts the corn and other pro- Dr. R. H. Graves says: ducts which they are able to spare."
"There are 50,000 of these in the. In the matter of the language, Dr.
Philippine Islands; 50,000 in the Eng- Douglas says: lish colony at Singapore, where they " By means of their three classes of own four-fifths of all the real estate; characters, the hieroglyphics, ideo- 50,000 more in the Malay Peninsula; grams and phonetics, the Chinese 1,300,000 in Siam; thousands in Cochin have been able to express and pre– China. and thousands more in Borneo, serve the thoughts and sayings of theit Java and Sumatra. The colonies greatest and wisest writers through a founded by the Spaniards, Dutch, series of centuries which dwarfs int« French and English are being rapidly insignificance all Western ideas of filled up by Chinese. In the Sand- antiquity. For thirty centuries China- wich Islands there are more Chinese men have been accumulating stores of men than men of the native race." literary wealth, which are of them- China is a fertile region. Professor selves sufficiently important to attract Douglas, at University College, thus the attention of scholars and to stir described it: the literary ambition of students, and "From one end of the country to which do so in almost every country.
another the land blossoms as the rose, But by the fresh discoveries of Messrs.
and yields to the diligent and carpfu} De Lacouperie and Ball, not only is a tillage of the natives enough and to new interest added to the language, spare of all that is necessary for 'the but it is brought into close and inti- comfort and well-being of man. Nor mate relation with the tongues spoken have these advantages become the by the great civilizing nations of the.
recent possessions of the people. For world." Great changes are taking place in every form and righteousness too.
China. Rev. Young J. Allen, D.D., The doctrine of mediation is recog- LL.D., read an able paper before the' nized.
Shanghai Conference on this topic, in 4. They have some knowledge of a which he classified these changes as: true and living God, a power on whom (1) Compulsory, or those necessitated cOu.;}try, family and individual pros- by force or treaty obligations. The perity depends.
compulsory occupation by the allies, 5. They possess an implied knowl- in 1860, of the imperial capital was edge of immortality. Their emperors followed by a treaty which gave com- never die, they ascend.
merce and missions the right of un- 6. There is a providential prepara- molested access to the entire land. (2) tion. China is open from end to end.
The semi-compulsory changes, or At the Shanghai Conference this was those initiated with a view to adjust- called in question as to Ho-nan, but ments. The Chinese knew that the Hudson Taylor said it was politically treaty must be fulfilled, and that in open, though persecution and oppos- reorganizing their government they ition were great.
could not do better than copy the OBSTAOLES AND DIFFICuLTIES.
strong points of their late adversaries. 1. To the heathen becoming Chris- Hence, the innovations of foreign tians. No one can state the ca.'le of military camps, arsenals, customs, the Chinese better than the Chinese, schools, coast surveys, etc. (3) Spon- and so we "let a native Chinese taneous-voluntary changes. Inter- Christian minister state the point of national relations become cordial. The the difficulties of the native Chinaman press is callEJd into requisition, news- in learning about Christianity.
papers and books are translated. China Rev. Y. K. Yen, speaking at the has become conscious of her wants, a Shanghai Conference, said: mint, banks, post.offices follow. (4) "We must understand the peculiar Imperial, or those which define the character of the Chinese. (1) They position and policy of the country. have hazy ideas about gods. A Chi- ADVANTAGES AND HELPS. nese who went to the United States Rev. Dr. Williamson pointed out was written to by his father that his some while ago, in Evangelical Chris- sixth mother was well. What can a tendom, that there is a providential man who has six mothers know of a preparation in China for the reception mother's love? (2) The Chinese have and spread of the Gospel. hazy ideas about sin, which they con- 1. There is an educational prepa- found with crirpe, treading on one's ration. They say: "The mind is the toes, being late to dinner-the same man." The competitive examinations character for all. (3) They have hazy have quickened theinteUect of China. ideas about a future life. At a This gave rise to schools. Hence the Chinese death-bed there is never a large percentage of readers. Then word about future happiness, but only there is one written language for the about mourning and money. If they whole empire. There is asocial prepa- did Rot think the gods could affect .
ration. Through the observance of men's bodies the temples would be filial obligation has trained the nation deserted and ancestral worship would to subordination to law and order. decline. They are not to blame. It is There is no communism nor nihilism their misfortune and not their fault.
here. Divine authority can be easily The Chinese cannot see Christianity as taught. we see it."
3. There is a moral preparation. This is jUtlt what Rev. Judson Smith, The heart is recognized as the seat of D.D., has said in other language and on morals. Benevolence is urged in an opposite side of the globe: "It is not simply the greatness of anity yet they can be reached. He the population of China that makes her evangelization difficult. It is said his church in Monkdon included rather the institutions of the Chinese; it is the Chinese character; it is the in its members five or six Mandarins, Chinese history inwrought into insti- tutions; instinct in the life of the men with literary degrees; that many people. Making them a nation of themselves, exclusive, caring not, others of the Mandarins are at heart knowing not, heeding not of aught that goes on in the world outside of Christians, and many more very them; not desiring the arts we are so ready to bring them; not wishing the friendly. institutions that we would gladly see thrive among them; scorning the The mission schools are becoming a faith that we deem their life and their salvation." power for good in China. One would 2. To native Ohristians. The same fancy that there would be great preju- Christian native, already quoted (Rev. Y. K. Yen), said again at the great dice against the teaching of Christimissionary conference last year some very sensible things about the difficul- anity in connection with secular eduties to the mission work growing out of the conservatism of the Chinese. cation, but it is amongst the marvelous He said that "the Chinese Christians are not in the same favorable circum- providences of God that in scarcely stances as Christians in other lands. The former have fifty generations of any heathen country does this long heathenism behind them. They have much to contend with. We should prove an obstruction. not expect the same enterprise, activity and piety as from from foreigners. The teaching of Christianity does Missionaries often speak disparagingly of Chinese Christians. This, consider- not inure to the disadvantage of the ing the circumstances, is unreasonable and unjust. Western civilization is mission schools in China. We can furmarked by diversity. Eastern civilization by uniformity. Chinese are nish no better evidence of this than is not active physically, morally and spiritually. If I were active physi- found in the report to Government in cally I should not have this queue today. If any other Chinese would cut Hong Kong, made in 1889: off his hair and shorten his skirts I would do so too. They have a load Referring now to the 7,101 scholars upon them. All Chinese worship is who attended, during the year 1889, for selfishness. They have no knowl- schools under the· supervision of the edge of God; no recognition of being education department, there were as His sons." many as 4,814 attending voluntary schools, where they received a Chris- All classes are reached in China. tian education, whilst 2,293 scholars Rev. John Ross said at the London attended government schools, receiv- Conference that while the literary ing a secular education. The secular class in China are opposed to Christi- government schools are, as a rule, bet- ter provided for than the voluntary religious schools as regards money matters, house accommodation, school materials, staff, organization, and dis- cipline, and when charging fees, keep their fees far below the rate charged in voluntary schools of a correspond- ing class. Nevertheless, the voluntary schools, which freely teach Christian- ity without the restraint of any con- science clauses Whatever, and are in every respect conducted as denomi- national mission schools, receive from the public double the amount of pat- ronage bestowed on government schools. This clearly shows that parents of children, in Hong Kong, as Europe. prefer, on thewhole, religious to secular education, even when the latter is cheaper.
This was made by Dr. Eistel as in- spector of schools. It only confirms the judgment of Dr. F. Stewart, who was inspector of schools, but who died recently, who said: The advance in education is one of the most gratifying features in the progress of the colony. There is yet twenty-eight, is introduced at court much to be done, and female educa- by Lao-tse, is appointed chief magistion is only in its infancy; but the trate of Chung-too, introduces praclines on which the system is moving tically ajury system; for thirteen years seem to be correct, and time alone is becomes a homeless wanderer, and required to reclaim those portions of henceforth abandons himself to letters the field which remain untouched. and religion, and wanders from court to court to obtain converts to his ideal THE RESULTS ARE ENCOURAGING. government. He died, having prac- tically remained unrecognized us a The statistics at the Shanghai Con- successful reformer. After his death ference last May, showed: Of foreign his teachings became powerful. Every missionaries, men, 589; wives, 390; year 66,000 animals are now offered single women, 316. Total, 1,295. Na- in sacrifice to this sage. Here is the tive helpers, ordained, 209; unor- chorus chanted in the great sacrificial dalned, 1,260; female helpers, 180. ceremony to him: Medical work, hospitals, 61; dispensaries, 43; patients in 1889, 348,439. "Confucius, Confucius I How great is Con- Churches, organized, 520; wholly self- fucius! supporting, 94; half self-supporting, 22; one-fourth self-supporting, 27. Before Confucius there never was a. Confu- Bible distribution, Bibles, etc. Total, cius; 665,987. Communicants, 37,287; pupils in schools, 16,816. Contributions by Since Confucius, there never has been a. Connative churches, $36,884. fucius; MEN AND WOMEN ARE WANTED. Confucius, Confucius I How great is Con- fucius! " Ministers and laymen are called for. The Shanghai Conference asks soberly The emperor himself offers this for 1,000 men in five years. Their ap- prayer to Confucius: "I, the emperor, peal was published ,far and wide. offer a sacrifice to the philosopher Then there have been specific appeals. Confucius, the ancient teacher, the The mISSIOnaries of the Baptist perfect sage, and say, 0, teacher, in churches in America, now in China, virtue equal to heaven and earth, have appealed to the Baptists of whose doctrines embrace the past America alone to send 100 men. time and the present. . . • in reverent observance of the old statutes, with Oonfuoia.nism and Oonfuoius. victims, silks, spirits and fruits, 1 carefully offer sacrifice to thee. Mayst "Great men have short biogra- thou enjoy the sacrifice." (See Duphies," says Carlyle. The rule is not Bois's" Dragon, Image and Demon," broken in the case of Confucius. The p.l24.) outline of his biography can be given in a paragraph. He was born in the " If the Chinese," says an author, State of Tsow, B.C. 551, of noble an- "pay divine honors to any being in cestry whose record reached unbroken heaven, or on earth, or under the for over two thousand years backward earth, it is to Confucius." from his cradle. His father was a soldier of great prowess and of daring CONFUCIUS AS A FOUNDER OF A bravery. He was married at nineteen, rose from keeper of the public stores, RELIGION. to the cnarge of public lands. At twenty-two he taught letters, ethics, Fairbairn says, in his "Studies in devotion of soul and truthfulness. He the Philosophy of Religion and Hisearly became cosmopolitan: "I am tory," that" without Confucius China a man who belongs equally to the had been without a native religion." north and the south and the east and the west." He studies music at Dr. Legge, in his "Religions of China," boldly corrects this erroneous statement. Religion in China does not date from Confucius. His grand- son asserted that Confucius only "handed down" and "displayed" the ancient teachings and took them of etiquette, taking the place of ethics: for his model. Confucius himself said a skeptical denial of any relation be- he was a" transmitter, not a maker" tween man and a living God, taking of the doctrines of the ancients. Cer- the place of religion, while there is tainly the "transmitter" gave color encouraged a sort of worship of human to that which he transmitted. China genius, combined with a set of des- does not owe its national religion to potic political theories. But who Confucius. But if he did not originate can honestly call this a religion? " it, neither did he discountenance it or alter it'in any sensible degree. But Over and over we are told that Con- Confucius did emphasize the moral fucianism is not a religion, only a duties as taught or implied in the system of morality. This needs large religion of the ancients as of first im- modification. So far as the element portance and of much easier compre- of worship enters into the element of hension than the speculative side of religion it is distinctly, pervasively, theology or the religious superstition penetratingly, a religion. about the unseen. Dr. Faber pointed this out with One thing has been plainly pointed emphasis at the late General Conferout as to the effect of Confucius' large ence of Missionaries at Shanghai. "Religion," he says, "pervades every emphasis of practical duties. Dr. movement of official life in China. Matheson (St. Giles Lecturer) says: A glance at the Peking Gazette will convince the most skeptical of the "Since the days of Confucius the truth of this statement. We find there speculative element has declined and mentioned not only worship of ances~ the Chinese mind has sought truth tors, of Confucius, of innumerable almost exclusively in the path of deified worthies, but also of the duality morals." of heaven and earth, of sun, moon, stars, wind, clouds, rain, thunder, the Much has been written about Con- ocean, mountains, rivers, the four fucius in relation to the "Golden regions, the four seasons, the years, Rule." He is credited with being the months and days. Astrology, selection originator of this. But Dr. Legge, of lucky and unlucky days, omens, than whom he has no stouter cham- charms, exorcism and other superstipion, says here he tarnished a doc- tiQlls are sanctioned by imperial trine of the ancients rather than pro- authority." (See The Messenger, Shanghai, June, 1890.) claimed it. Confucius is said to have CONFUCIANISM AS A THEOLOGY. advocated the negative side of the Golden Rule: "Do not unto others This same Dr. Faber, at another time, what you would not that they distinctly pointed out some of the should do unto you." But the ancients aspects of absolute negation in Conwe~t further than that. Lao-tze fucianism as a religon. He says: taught: "Return good for eviL" But Confucius said: "What then will you 1. "Confucianism recognizes no return for good? Recompense injury relation to a living God." with justice, and return good for good." How nearly this shades, how- 2. "It makes no distinction between ever, to the Christian teaching! the human soul and body, nor is there any clear definition of man, either IS CONFUCIANISM A RELIGION? from a physical or psychological point of view." The China Review contained years since an article in which the writer 3. "All men are said to possess the said: disposition and strength necessary for "Confucianism pure and simple is, the attainment of moral perfection, in our opinion, no religion at all. The but the contrast with the actual state essence of Confuciani"m is an anti- remains unexplained." quarian adherence to traditional forms 4. There is wanting in Confucian- have no rights in relation to their ism a decided and serious tone in its parents; subjects are like children; of treatment of the doctrine of sin, for, human rights there are none-first with the exception of the moral retri- and last there are only duties. Po- bution in social life, it mentions no lygamy is sanctioned and presup- punishment for sin. It is devoid of a posed, so is polytheism. Filial piety deep insight into sin and evil. extends even to worship. In ordinary life the son must" manifest his rever- 5. It "knows no mediator, none ence, in his nourishing of his parents, that could restore original nature iJi in his endeavor to give them pleasure; accordance with the ideal which man when they are ill he feels the greatest finds in himself." anxiety; in mourning for them, when dead, he exhibits every demonstration 6. "Prayer and its ethical power of grief; in sacrificing to them he dis- finds no place" in his system. plays the utmost solemnity."
7. There is, with the exception of Confucius taught the supreme value ancestral worship, which is devoid of of personal character. The" charac- true ethical value, no clear conception ter of Alexander of Russia was worth of the dogma'of immorality. a constitution," says Colton. Confu- cius would make every character a 8. "All rewards are expected in constitution and by-laws besides. To this world." be and not to appear is the correctest thing. The wise man will assail his Confucius plainly held that these own vices and not another's: "I am are things beyond the grasp of human not concerned that I have no place; I intelligence. You cannot figure to am concerned how I may fit myself yourself the nature of God. You for one." The substance of three cannot certainly know that there is hundred pieces of the "Book of any point of contrast between His Poetry," says a recent author, may be nature and yours; hence prayers and expressed in: "Have no depraved sacrifices are of doubtful utility. All thoughts." this lies in the region of imagination; it may represent truth; it may not. "The man who, in view of gain, Neither can be demonstrated. Yet he thinks of righteousness, in view of did not forbid worship. "Sacrifice as danger, is prepared to give up his life, and who does not forget an agreement if your sacrifice were a reality; wor- however far back it extends-such a man may be reckoned a complete ship Shin as if Shin were really man. . . . "Man is born for uprightpresent." But meanwhile your chief ness. They who know the truth are concern is with the visible and palpa- not equal to those who love it, and ble nniverse and with the homely they who love it are not equal to those tasks of life. The opposition to Chris- who find delight in it." tian points of theology is entire and fundamental. But the rule of right is not indivi· dual conscience, but rather the uni- CONFUCIANISM AS A MORAL FORCE. versal conscience of mankind. Man must do all this without any help, hu- In what way and sense is Confu- man or divine. He fails, and Confucianism a moral force? There must cianism does not attempt to account be something in it by which it has for the failure. It only stands alongheld sway for these centuries. Espec- side of the failure and says man was ially in the face of sundry marked born to be good. It does not even furdefects in its ethical teaching. It con- nish an example. founds ethics with ceremonies and politics, it asserts that certain musical The sceptre of authority, of all pomelodies influence morals; its system of social life is tyrannous: women are slaves, and may be bought and sold ·as sheep in the shambles; children litical power, hence the centre of all guised as a Thibetan, accompanied by political government is morals. a Sikkim Lama, who was a sub-in- spector of schools employed by the "Withal," Mr. Edkins says, "Confu- British government. cianism has not made the Chinese a moral people. They exhibit a lament- Yet, it is not true that we do not able want of moral strength. The know much about the country and standard of principle among them is the people. The" Cyc10predia Britankept low by the habits of the people. nica" has a quite elaborate article, in They do not appear ashamed when which a great deal of information is they are discovered to have told an condensed, and there are many sources untruth." (See Edkin's "Religion in of information about this land. China.") We summarize from sources,learned Archdeacon Hardwick says: "How and popular, too numerous to name, many are the points in which Con- in the following statements: fucian tenets are opposed to Christianity, it were superfluous to enumer- THE COUNTRY. ate. The opposition in respect of doctrines is entire and fundamental. Thibet, or Tibet-for there seems no It is the opposition of nature and of preference in the spelling-or to use grace, of unregenerate and regenerate the native name, Bodyul " The counprinciples, of sight and faith, of earth- try of the god," or Bhotiya, or lyand of heavenly, And how vast Bhoots, is a section of table lands ten will, therefore, beth~ revolution in the to sixteen thonsand feet above the moral nature of the Chinaman if he sea, stretching from the Upper HimashaH ever learn to practice the un- laya Mountains and those of Yunnan, worldly lessons of the Gospel." (See on to the mountains of China in one " Christ and Other Masters," p. 57.) direction, and to those of Turkistan in another. It is difficult of access in all Confucian conservativism is essen- directions and equally difficult to travtial and inherent. It is the greatest erse. The world owes the Jesuits a obstruction to all progress. debt here as in so many other places for the earliest maps, though here as Thibet. elsewhere those made early in the It is quite the fashion to dismiss eighteenth century were crude and Thibet with the statement that very often misleading. There is no exact little is known of this country and its survey had, except in Western Thibet people. That is only true in a very where, as in Kashmir, it is the most qualified sense. The ordinary student complete. may not have a hand-book, as he has of Bavaria or Switzerland, and the The Britannica is full enough on casual reader may not be easily re- climate, products, industries and ferred to anyone or two volumes many other common matters to have from which to find at a glance what it suffice t-o refer our readers to that he wishes to know of what is known, source. and only now and again has any European been permitted to make any THE PEOPLE. personal investigation by actually traversing the country, as did Alexan- The most probably correct estimate der Csoma de Koros, who made his of the population is from a Russian way from Hungary to Thibet on foot; source which puts it at six millions. or as an enterprising Hindu, Sarat Chandra Das, who, it is alleged, re- The people themselves are worth n.. cently made a tour in Thibet dis- fuller note than a mere reference. The Turanian family of races separate into two great divisions-the Northen~ and the Southern. The Northern com- prehends the Tungus, t,he Mongol, the Tartar, and the Finn branches. The Southern includes the Malay, the Bhotiy,a and the Tamil races: The represent the Chinese government in Indo-Bhotiyas are in the northeast Thibet. These direct exclusively the countries of India, on the Himalayas foreign and military administration and in the valleys of the Brahmaputra. of the country. The civil and relig- The stronglanguage of affinitybetween ious government is left in native these tribes in Burmah and in Thibet hands. The number of Chinese troops is manifest if the chain of gradual rarely equals 4,500 men. modifications from tribe to tribe is followed. But the original Bhotiya The Dalai Lama is the supreme race are Thibetans, and they live in authority in civil government. He Thibet, not alone, but with Mongoli- resides in the famous temple palace of ans who are supposed to have been Potala near Lhasa. He is an incarsettled there since the days of Genghis nation of Buddha, and his soul passes Khan. from him into another body when he dies, in order that there may be a per- The HoI' or Horpa occupy the west- petual incarnation of Buddha at the ern part of Northern Thibet, and ex- head of the Thibetan affairs. They tend into Chinese Tartary or Little do not shout, but they might, with pe- Bokhara. They are nomads, not culiar propriety: "The king is-dead; agriculturists, and more Tartar than long live the king!" for the Dalai Thibetan in their habits. They are Lama never dies. He only disappears mostly Buddhists. But some of them in the form of one man to reappear are Moslems even within Thibet: at the same instant in the form of Turks in blood, Bhots in language. some infant born at the moment of In Ladak both the creed and the liter- the apparent death of the king. They ature are Buddhist, but in blood and search the land to find this childlanguage they are Bhot. Ladak's po- Buddha, place him on the throne, and litical relations are with British India run the Government through a vice. and Kashmir. The Bhot element in roy till he comes to maturity. His its distinct type can not be seen but duties are simply to sit cross-legged in in Chinese Thibet. his temple, and from time to time ex- tend his hand in benediction on his In appearance the Thibetans re- worshipers. semble the Chinese and the Mongols, though, according to Hodgson, many This joint headship of state and of the mountaineers differ entirely church has inhered in the Dalai Lama from the Turanian, and approach the since 1640. There are many other Aryan type. No absolutely white grand lamas, but they are subordinate skins are seen, but often a very pale to the Dalai Lama who is at once brown complexion with red hair and emperor and pope. Below these still gray eyes, and a good deal of bloom are monk-lamas, who act as scribes, on the children's faces. In appearance physicians, sorcerers, etc. It is frethey resemble Chinese and Mongols, quently the case that the correspondnot Hindus, and are more athletic ences of Lamaism with the Roman than either. They are of the same Catholic form of Christianity are overfamily as the Burmese, and their emphasized, at least very incorrect languages are like. Yet Thibetans inferences are made from these. The have no tradition or notion of a pro- Lama ceremonies of baptism, confirgenitor of the human race. There is mation. The ecclesiasticism of pope no caste, yet the social habits are and cardinal, archbishops, priors, Hindu in most r~spects. Polyandra monasteries and nunneries, abbots, prevails, and Polygamy obtains. etc., are all here. But these similar- ities are often strained, and the differ- Since 1720 Thibet has been a depend- ences in them are very great. ency of China, under the Viceroy of Sze-Chuen. Two imperial delegates Lamaism is a compound of Shamanism, Sivaism and Buddhism. The But Thibet was not without a re- Thibetan form of Buddhism is, how- ligion till it imported Buddism and ever, wholly unique. Writers are Sivaism from India. It had an earlier constantly saying this is the strong- creed, though but illy formulated till hold of Buddhism without any ap- Buddhism came. It is known as the parent discrimination. Buddhism in Bon Religion. Eighteen principal ,"ods Burmah is one thing; in Ceylon it is are enumerated. Originally it was a another thing; it is still another sort of nature worship, mixed with thing in Thibet. It is not in its ori- a superstitious element; later on, ginal purity in Thibet. It is strongly adopted from Shamans and the Sivamodified by surrounding religious ites of India, and now further mixed notions. It was born in Thibet contem- with Buddhist ideas. poraneously with the Sikh religion in the Punjab and with the Lutheran CHRISTIANITY IN THmET. Reformation in Europe. In its monasteries in Thibet are preserved heaps The Roman Catholics nave tried to upon heaps of Buddhist literature, the introduce Christianity on the Chinese language Thibetan, but the alphabet border. They began this in 1846, and being Indian, and they may date from made some inroads till 1865, when the second century. They differ in their mission property at Bonga was their language much from the spoken destroyed by fire by the Thibetaus. language of Thibet to-day. Again they endeavored to work, but in 1887 were again driven out, only For much of this class of informa- two of their nine centres being untion one must search ethnological and touched. philological works, like Brace's "Races of the Old World," " Latham's On the west the Moravians have Philology," Hodgson's great works, sought to enter the country, but have and other books like Cunningham's had to stay in British Lahore. They Ladak (the title has gone from us just commenced this mission at the sugnow). gestion of Gutzlaff, in 1853, by send- ing Messrs. Pagell and Hyde, two Max Muller, too, will often let in laymen, who endeavored to reach light, as for instance, in his" Chips," Thibet by way of Russia, but were deetc., where he says: feated in the attempt, and then tried the -India route by way of Simla, in "People have complained of the 1854, to Kyelang in Lahore, and eslength of the sacred books of other tablished a mission house 10,000 feet nations, but there are none that ap- above the sea, and at Poo, in Kunaproach in bulk to the sacred canon of war, in 1865. At this latter place they the Thibetans. It consists of two col- number forty converts. They have lections, commonly called the Kanjur done a large amount of translation of and Tanjur." Scriptures, grammars, etc., into Thibetan, and sent these into Thibet, The Kanjur consists in different where it is said all the lamas can editions of 100, 102 or 108 volumes read, and the lamas, remember, folio. It comprises 1,083 distinct number eighty thousand! works. The Tanjur consists of 225 volumes folio, each weighing from -Father Agostino, a preaching four to five pounds in the Peking edi- friar, has been addressing flocks of tion, which edition was sold for $3,000 people in Rome, and among them by the Emperor Khian-Lung. A copy even skeptical scientists. He is an of the Kanjur was bartered for 7,000 impassioned orator, and has been oxen, and a copy of Kanjur and called the "modem Savonarola." Tanjur together was sold for 1,200 Nevertheless, he is an ignorant Romansilver roubles. (See Vol. XX., ist and worships the Virgin. " Asiatic Researches.")
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
-Mr. H. W. Frost writes that the Missionaries employed, 121; days inundation in the region about Tient- labored, 23,182; stations supplied, 710; sin, in province of Chihli, was caused miles traveled, 200,443; sermons by very heavy rain-falls in the moun- preached, 12,029; Exhortations and tains: The waters spread with unex- other religious addresses, 6,587; total ampled suddenness. Mud villages sermons, 18,616; baptized into mission were completely dissolved, and swept churches, 1,893; received by letter away with their inhabitants; some and restoration by mission churches, who escaped with life lost ~he crops 2,267; total received by mission Dn which they depended for the eight churches, 4,160; professed conversions, months to come. Probably 4,000,000 2,619; churches assisted in organizing, Df people will depend on charity, in 103; prayer meetings assisted in orthis province alone, until May next. ganizing, 405; Sunday-schoolsassisted Active relief committees are at work, in organizing, 250; prayer meetings ascertaining the extent of the calam- led, 3,224; elders or bishops assisted ity, and devising means of help. The in ordaining, 43; deacons assisted in government is repairing the embank- ordaining, 98; pages religious literments, and has issued an imperialre- ature distributed, 522,789; reliigious script ordering Tls.60,000, to be dis- visits, 28,611; church houses built in tributed among sufferers. All this, connection with labor, No. 39, cost, however, is inadequate to raise the $29,965.00; books, Bibles, etc., distrirecipients above the bare preservation buted, No. 2,406, cost, $1,061.03; colof life. Rev. G. W. Clarke, of the lected for State missions, $35,357.77. China Inland Mission, writes, that to keep these people from November 15th -The Dutch Reformed Church of to March 15th, at two cents a day for Cape Colony, which has 175,555 bapadults and one cent for children up to tized white members, is coming, says twelve years, would cost $9,000,QOO. the Rev. Charles Starbuck, under Even now famine is upon the people Scottish and English Stimulus, to who can get but one meal, and that show a much more animated missionvery poor food, every twenty-four ary zeal. "Stellenbosch, with its theohours. Here is a chance not only to logical institute, is very especially a help the starving, but to reach them focus of missionary zeal." Among the with the b.read of life. The judicious others, the Wesleyan Missionary Sohelp given in 1871, 1878, 1888, re- ciety is most prominent. It has (in the moved many prejudices against mis- west) 9 stations, 6 missionaries, 96 na. sionaries and resulted in soul-saving:. tive helpers, 1,476 communicants, 1,467 scholars. The South African If any feel moved to contribute, a Wesleyans are quite independent of draft on London, England, sent to the the British conference. In the whole Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Cor- Colony they have 71 stations, 156 poration, Shanghai, China, or a post- churches and chapels, 55 clergymen, office order or New York draft, sent to 1,198 native helpers, 16,840 communi- Mr. H. W. Frost,No. 30 Sheeter Street, cants, 88,000 baptized adherents, 218 Toronto, Canada,will be forwarded to schools, 310 teachers, 13,803 scholars. the relief of the suffering millions. "But no other British society laboring in South Africa compares with the -Mr. J. B. Cranfill, superintendent Scottish societies as respects' capabilof missions, incloses summary of ity, sobriety and diligence, combined Texas (Baptist) mission work, from with true evangelical piety." The Free September 30,1889, to September 30, Church of Scotland has 9 stations, 10 1890: ordained Europeans, 2 ordained na- cational and industrial training. The tives, 23 native helpers, 4214 commu- United Presbyterians have 11 stations, nicants, 12,113 baptized adherents, 12 missionaries, 60 native helpers, 2,307 3,510 scholars. Their institute at Love- communicants, 8,080 baptized adherdale (largely assisted by the colonial ents, 43 schools, 1,735 scholars.-Illu8government) is a great force for edu- trated Weekly.
Foreign Mission Notes, by Rev. James Johnston, Bolton, England.
The Missionary Death Roll. secrated in Edinburgh on All Soul's Bishop Callaway.-At the close of Day, 1874, he settled at Umtata, March last, in his seventy-third year, around which grew up a small town, passed away the Right Reverend a pro-cathedral, a theological training Henry Callaway, D.D., first bishop of college for natives, schools for native St. John's, South Africa. Born in and European boys and girls, a hospi- Crediton, Devonshire, on the 17th of tal, and other institutions. Through- January, 1817; he early attached him- out his wide diocese he toiled with self to the Society of Friends. He inexhaustible zeal. On the failure of pursued the medical profession with health, in 1886, he formally resigned marked distinction, in London, and returned to his native land. True though his interest in religious ques- to the apostolic spirit, he devoted all tions and pre-eminently his strong his property to Spring Vale when he convictions on missions ultimately in- withdrew, and subsequently gave to duced him to join the Established the Established Church a sum of Church. On the formation of the £2,000 on his retirement. Bishop Cal- See of ~atal, he responded to Bishop laway will rank with Africa's most Colenso's call and was ordained laborious and enlightened missionary at Norwich Cathedral, August, 1854. heralds.
After a voyage of fourteen weeks to Mr. A. M. Mackay.-By the death Port Durban, he was appointed in the of this eminent missionary a lament- capacity of priest, in September, 1855, able blank is created in the Uganda to St. Andrews, Pietermaritzburg, the Mission. Most probably this event oc- first church erected in Natal. He ClIrred at Usambiro, on the southwest speedily became a conspicuous worker of Victoria Nyanza, 750 miles inland.
among the heathen and in the study Mr. Mackay was born at the Rhynie of the Kaffir language. Three years Manse, Aberdeenshire, in 1849, where later he obtained a grant of 3,000 acres his father was a noted Presbyterian of land, a day's journey from Rich- minister. Educated partly at home mond, where he founded the famous and at the Northern University, he Spring Vale Station, a prolific centre later went to Berlin in order to follow of Christianizing influence. He as- the profession of engineering. There sisted in reducing the Kaffir language he won no inconsiderable reputation to written form, and chiefly in trans- for ability and accomplislmIents. Mr.
lating nearly the whole of the Scrip- Stanley's historic letter, inviting mis- tures and Prayer Book. In this sionaries, in 1885, to the dominions of tongue, followed by a literal transla- Mtesa, moved the young engineer in tion in English, he wrote a book en- Germany to offer himself for service titled, "Zulu Nursery Tales." On the as an artisan missionary to the Church Scotch Established Church founding Missionary Society. He was readily in 1873, the Bishopric of Independent accepted, and on the 27th of April, Kaffraria, lying between Natal and 1876, sailed with the first party.
Cape Colony, Dr. Callaway was of- His desire to go forward on landing fered and accepted the. charge. Con- was frustrated by a serious illness. During his months of waiting by the classes. A pamphlet named "Times seaboard he made important surveys of Refreshing in Spain," recently pub- and laid out a useful road as far as lished in Glasgow, contains a bright Mpwapwa. When the news of the narrative of his toils for the better tragic deaths of Lieutenant Shergold school accommodation of the families Smith and Mr. O'Neill on Victoria Ny- connected with the Rio Tinto Com- anza came to hand, he resolved at pany, and increased facilities of wor- every hazard to join the lonely re- ship. He was equally esteemed by maining missionary, the Rev. C. T. the officers and seamen at the ship- Wilson. In December, 1878, he ping port for whom he opened a res- reached Mtesa's capital. Through a taurant and readiug-room, and as ~uccession of hardships, perils and ca- steadfastly sought their spiritual wel- lamities, he displayed the highest de- fare.
votion and splendid fortitude. House Rev. T. German Jones.-By the and boat-building, implement-mak- unexpected decease of this notable ing, teaching agriculture, managing mISSIOnary, the Welsh Calvanistic the printing-press, and proclaiming Methodists are bereft of one who held the message of eternal life, occupied a foremost position in the mission his nights and days among the tribes cause in the East. An overworked of Uganda. Under threat or in cap- system compelled him to sail from tivity he tarried within Uganda Ter- Calcutta, with his wife, on the 17th of ritoryuntil he was driven forth by the last March. The relatives and friends Mohammedan revolt in 1888. At his who repaired to Gravesend to await temporary abode, Usambiro, every the incoming steamer were terribly one knows how faithfully he succored shocked to learn on her arrival that the followers of Stanley and Emin on the home-voyaging missionary died on their coastward march. His decease the previous day, April 14th. In many robs the Church Missionary Society of respects his career was a remarkable its most conspicuous foreign agent,and one. A native of Anglesey, he was the whole missionary world of one of employed for some years as a working the most energetic and successful mis- quarrier. On completing his studies sionary pioneers of modern times. in Bala College he was called to the Rev. James Lundie, M.A.-To ministry of the Welsh Calvanistic the deep sorrow of the English and Church. His foreign labors began at Spaniards at Huelva, Spain, this be- the mission station of the Khasia loved missionary died unexpectedly Hills, India. By an unremitting en- on the 21st of March. At Edinburgh thusiasm he was witness to abun- University, where a few years past he dant spiritual harvests. His services received the Master of Arts degree, to the British government at the time two of his brothers on that occasion of the Indian mutiny were the means had the same honor conferred upon of averting a general rising in the them. One of the latter, Mr. Marsh- neighborhood. All through the awful all Lundie accompanied him to Spain cholera plague in India he labored un- and there ultimately succumbed in flaggingly, e5pecially in bearing the the Master's cause. The third of the stricken to the crowded hospitals.
brothers, the Rev. John Lundie, re- For his devotion on successive famine presents the Scotch United Presby- outbreaks he won the public thanks terians in Kaffraria, in which capacity of the Indian authorities and the he is sustained by a genuine mission- grateful affection of the poorest classes.
ary partner. The subject of this me- With fine literary tastes he combined morial notice was on the eve of com- an extensive and profound Oriental pleting special work for the benefit of scholarship. A large concourse of the English residents and the native mourners and spectators attended the funeral at Smithdown. Cemetery, here. My church, after many years Liverpool, on April 18th. of imancy and adolescence under another, and a part of the time under United States. my ministry, is giving signs of growth. New Orleans, June 30, 1890. EDITORS OF THE MISSIONARY RE- My church is a missionary church, VIEW:-As chairman of the Assembly'S and our young members are being dili- Standing Committee of' Foreign Mis- gently trained as soldiers for the war, sions, at Chattanooga, it was my duty and I hesitate not to declare that the to shape and present the favorable re- Church is so essentially missionary in ,sponse to an overture from the pro- her constitution, that to neglect or to fessors of our colored institution at do slackly this work, is to forfeit the Tuskaloosa, to begin a mission in the charter received from the King. Dark Continent. ,Two missionaries, -one white and the other black, are Yours, in our dear Lord, now on their way to Africa, and our R. Q. MALLARD. Assembly, at its late session in Ash- ville, resolved W reinforce them with Lutherans in all Languages. four additional laborers as soon as the means could be realized. In order to The Lutheran is a church of many deepen the interest of our people in languages. The latest statistics show this new mission, and stimulate that of her baptized membership greater generosity and prayerfulness, throughout the world 32,000,000 speak I sent the article enclosed, entitled, German, 5,300,000 Swedish, 2,500,000 "Wheah's Appeal," to our organ, The Norwegian, 2,300,000 Danish, 2,048,- Southwestern Presbyterian. Possibly 000 Finnish, 1,250,000 English, 1,113,- it might he made of larger service in 000 Hungarian, 624,000 Livonian, 480,- awakening interest in the evangeli- 000 Courlanish, 272,000 Esthnian,70,000 zation of a land long neglected, but French, 70,000 Icelandic, 48,000 Bohetoward which the eyes of the whole mian, and that in every other civilized -civilized as well as Christian world are tongue she is well represented, num- bering in the world 28,406 educated now being turned.* ministers, 38,381 church edifices, and 50,061,280 baptized members. This Your REVIEW, which I have only of church, though taking its origin in late been able to take, is invaluable to Germany, seems to know no fatherme in the preparation of missionary land or mother tongue. She is at sermons, and in the monthly concert home everywhere. of prayer, which I have always observed in my ministry. It is of great Wesleyan Missionary Society.- value in keeping my own soul stirred The society is reported struggling -on the matter which engaged the last against financial difficulties, for the thoughts of our dear Master before He relief of which an earnest call is made. mounted the throne. Your REVIEW Notwithstanding a carefully admin- ~nables the soldier of the Cross to istered expenditure, the current inmount occasionally above the dust and come does not keep pace with. it. smoke of the battle to the serene Possibly for the decrease the embitmountain-top, whence he can, at a tered controversy with Dr. Lunn and glance, survey the entire field of con- Mr. Hughes may be partly accountflict, only to descend with heightened able. The majority of the older courage to his place in the host. British missionary organizations re- gard the obstacles in the way of rais- Allow me to thank you warmly for ing their necessary incomes as multithe help you are giving m~ in my work plying rather than diminishing. The birth of numerous modern societies • We regret that space compels us to omit largely explain this dilemma, for they this strong appeal.-ED. draw upon supporters identified with " Word has been received from the long-established agencies. illustrious Department of Instruction The Salvation Army derives a at Constantinople, addressed to the princely income from the Christian government guarding the interests of public, whereas, General Booth does Syria, to the effect that there has been not aid any other organization, even issued an imperial order in favor of those traveling on corresponding lines Mr. Henry Jessup, a subject of the to his own. honored American republic, based Interest was shown at the Man- upon a statement and petition ad- chester Auxiliary of the Wesleyan dressed by him, permitting him to Society, attended by the Rev. W. H. publish the Weekly Neshra, which Findlay, M.A., of Negapatam,and the had been previously suppressed, this Rev. Professor Patterson, of Madras, permission being granted on the con- in the presence of two old-time Wes- dition that the paper shall not treat of leyan advocates of missions. One of· any political matters, nor of any oc- the veterans, who presided, Mr. Oeo. currences whatsoever which may taktf Cussons, was within a few days of place within the empire or outside its completing his eighty-eighth birthday; borders, but shall treat solely of re- the other patriarch, Mr. John Napier, ligious, scientific and moral questions.
has already entered on his ninetieth But this permission is restricted by the year. The occasion was made deeply condition that nothing shall be printed memorable by the masterly defence in it which directly or indirectly of educational work amid the great opposes any of the religious beliefs centres of population in India. Pro- current in the governments ruled and fessor Patterson held that the policy guarded by the Sultan, and also by the which had been maintained for many condition that a copy of the contents years by the Protestant missionaries of the paper be sent before it is in regard to this phase of activity was printed and published to the govern- wise and justified by its results. ment censor that he may sanction its printing and publication after he has -Liberty of the Press in Turkey. ascertained that in no respect, in The Neshra, an Arabic newspaper single words or in sentences, has there published by the American mission in been any infringement of this condi- Beirut, Syria, was suppressed without tion. The exalted local government cause, months ago, by orders from will inform him of the nature of this Constantinople. Efforts have been concession. "
made, by interviews with the local Turkish soldiers, hemmed in by authorities and by petitions to Con- bayonets and cannon, shout at the stantinople, by the intervention orthe close of their daily reviews, "Long United States consul and of the am- live the Sultan!" American Chris- bassador, to secure permission for its tians interested in the redemption of resumption, but all in vain until the Turkey will wait for further proofs of pre~ent time. the fostering care of the Sultan's gov- An Arabic paper from Beirut, re- ernment before heartily echoing this ceived here recently, publishes the fol- prayer.-Church at Home and Abroad.
lowing notice of the Sultan's gracious edict, from which our readers can Jews.-Baron Hirsch gives $10,000 judge of the nature of the " liberty of a month toward the relief of the Jews the press" in Turkey, and of the re- exiled from Russia and seeking homes strictions to which the missionaries in the United States. The American are subject in their work. This is a Hebrew says: literal translation of the Arabic "A census of the district south of copy:' Houston street and east of Broadway shows Russian and Roumanian Jews were clothed with different clothing; far in excess of one hundred thou- and were of different habits and ways sand, and the average increase by im- of life. Yet I never realized the one migration is about twenty thousand ness of the human family more than I per annum. The committee propose did that day. The poet says, "One using the Hirsch fund in educating touch of nature makes the whole world these people so as to become self-sus- kin." But one touch from the hand taining by entering trades or occupa- of Christ can do far more than that. tions which are new to them, and to It can abolish all differences, makes enable them to amalgamate rapidly us feel that we are the children of a with the people among whom they common Father, saved by a common work or dwell. Classes have been Saviour, heirs of a common inheriopened for teaching children sufficient tance, pilgrims to a common home.- English to prepare them to attend the Samoa, Past and Present, by Rev. public schools; for instructing adults Oharles Phillips. in English, in American history, methods and customs; for fitting girls Monthly Bulletin. for other occupations than tailoring, for making men handy with tools, -A Chinese society of Christian whereby they can more rapidly obtain brethren, organized in East 39th renumerative employment. It has Street, New York City, has, on the first been proposed to teach them various floor, a room for religious meetings, trades, and put some at agriculture, and, on the second, apartments for and so scatter them in different voca- the sick and homeless. It began with tions. With the aid of the employment twenty-six members, who paid $70 bureauofthe United HebrewCharities, per month for the house. positions have been found for a large number of men, the Hirsch fund pay- -A school for the Chinese, opened ing the expense of transporting them at Kelley's, North Carolina, called the to the points where they are to work, " Oriental Academy," began with and in some cases tools have been seven pupils direct from Canton, and given them." is on a farm, and the system is indus- trial. It is designed for Chinamen Samoa. – A South Sea Com- wishing to be educated, but prevented munion. At the close of a service by race prejudice or lack of funds several hundreds remained to com- from entering an American school. memorate our Lord's death. For bread The school is non-sectarian, is under the natives have often only the kernel the auspices of leading Chinamen, of the cocoanut, and for wine only the and will offer opportunities for selfmilk of the cocoanut, the natural support. bread and wine of the country. The scene was very striking. Only four- -In the Sabbath-school of the teen years since the mission ship first Clarendon Baptist Church, in Boston, approached the island. Then they whose pastoris Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon, were only a herd of naked savages. is a class of one hundred of native Now" clothed and in their right Chinese. They support three of their minds," numbers of them gather countrymen as preachers in their own around the table of the Lord. There land. seemed hardly any point of resemblance between preacher and people. -A united prayer-meeting in con- We were of different races; spoke nection with the week of prayer, for different languages; were of different woman's work in the mission-field, coloring; ate different kinds of food; was held in Exeter Hall, Friday, January 9th, at 3 P. M. Representa- tives of various zenana societies were present and took part in the proceed- said that not until the end of the ings. seventeenth century did the popula- tion number more than 60,000,000, If -A converted Chinaman on our so, what remarkable growth has Pacific coast sold himself as a coolie characterized these last two centuries, in New Guinea, for the sake of work- notwithstanding famines, droughts, ing among his own countrymen. pestilences and wars. Within the last Before he died he was the means of two centuries has occurred the two the conversion of two hundred of his notable reigns of Kanghi and Keincompanions. lung, each lasting nearly sixty years, and were characterized by tranquility -The statement is again made that and good laws. The educational Mr. C. F. Studd, one of the China system also stimulates the increase of Inland missionaries, placed his for- population. The cultivation of silk tune of $500,000 in the hands of the engages a large number of persons, trustees, the interest of which is to go from the tending of the mulberry to the mission, while he shares the trees to the last step in the production common lot of missionaries. Whether of the fabric. About one in nine of this statement is true or not we are not the people is a washerman, one in ten able to say. is engaged in the cultivation of the soil, one in 100 is a bricklayer, or a -Laotsze Yaotze Nahtsze, a cele- stonemason, or a carpenter, and one brated philosopher of China, founder in 120 is a tailor, while one in 140 is a of the Tabu Sect, or Sect of Reason, blacksmith. was born 104 years before Christ. His name means" old boy," because -France is now much the largest he is believed to have been eighty land owner in Africa. Her territory years old at birth. will extend from the Mediterranean almost to the Gulf of Guinea. Even -Forty societies are at work in the great Sahara will now be under China, with between eight hundred French control. and nine hundred missionaries and teachers: -From mid-China we have news of a remarkable revival, great numbers -Dr. J. G. Kerr, of the China Mis_ being brought out of the darkness of sion, read a paper at a meeting of the heathenism. The Rev. George Clark Medical Missionary Association, at has preached to audiences numbering Shanghai, on May 20th, last year, his 4,000. Even the intensely cold weather subject being "Medical Missionaries did not prevent the people from in Relation to the Medical Profession." coming night after night. Stanley He lays great stress upon the moral Smith reports two hundred and ten value of the work of those who, to- baptized at one time and as many gether with the healing of the body, more inquirers. offer to the people that religious faith which has produced the best men and -A missionary home and business women, husbands and wives, citizens agency has been established at No. 8 and neighbors, and governments upon Seward Road, Shanghai, of which Mr. the face of the earth. Edward Evans writes: -Canton is a real Chinese city, but "It is designed as a halting-place Hong Kong is simply:a British settle- for all arriving and departing missionment. aries, of which there is now a large travel through Shanghai, which, with -The population of China is be- the exception of Hong Kong, is the port lieved to be, according to the most re- of entry for all China for Europe and liable statistics, 380,000,000. The America. The China Inland Mission people show a marvelous energy in multiplying. They thrive upon what others regard as starvation diet. It is has recently erected a beautiful and you can lift first the children of the commodious place, costing over rising generation. $50,000, for its own missionaries. The American Presbyterian is the only -At a recent session of the SociaL other society, of all who are repre- Scientists in Saratoga, N. Y., Dr. T. sented in China, who have any home W. Couthers advocated a practical for its missionaries in Shanghai. method of treating drunkards. He' All the more need is there for a Chris- would put the inebriate on the plan of tian home to welcome and shelter and the small-pox patient and put him into pass on new arrivals, often suffering quarantine till he recovers. He would after sea-sickness' of a long voyage, take away his personalliberly, declare and bewildered with the new and him both incapable and irresponsible, strange sights and conditions they are and so strike a death blow at' the entering. The missionaries in the saloons with the pauperism and crime interior have need also of some one to that proceed from it. receive and forward supplies sent them from home, and purchase such things -Samoa has recently attracted'. as they require for home use. The much attention. A large proportion agency is designed to meet this need. of the Samoans are Christians, and a The home is not supported by any missionary says that he would be denomination or society, and is a willing to match any twenty men, simple effort of an independent women and children that he might worker. It is to be carried on so as to meet there against any twenty met at just cover its expenses." random in this country as to their knowledge of the Word of God. -Rev. Dennis Osborne (India) baptized over 500 persons last winter, -In Africa the number of missionand hopes for similar success this sea- aries exceeds five hundred and the son. number of converts four hundred thousand, increasing by about twenty- -Count Campello is addressing five thousand a year. During the very large gatherings in Italy, urging past five years Africa has furnished his hearers to renounce Papacy and more than two hundred martyrs. affirm the infallibility of none but Jesus Christ. He presses the Gospel -A Missionary Reading Circle remessage upon the careless and skepti- cently organized at Columbia, Mo. cal, but his preaching is not unmixed It is an endeavor to unite young with politics. people in a systematic course of read- ing upon the subject of missions. The -Rev. John McNeil, who succeeded course will cover about three years, Rev. J. Oswald Dikes at Regent Square and those who engage in it will be Church, London, is to be relieved examined and certified as graduates from his evening service, that he may upon the completion of the course. proclaim the Gospel in destitute The course for the first year covers regions in London and round about. the lives of Judson and Livingstone, Mr. McNeil has very remarkable gifts Dr. Strong's charming book, "The as an evangelist, and it seems as Missionary Review and the Crisis of though he should not be confined Missions." The admission fee is fifty within the limits of anyone church. cents per annum. We would be glad if such reading circles might be estab- -The motto of Dr. Guthrie's whole lished in every part of our country. Ragged School work was " Prevention Information is what is particularly better than Cure." It is impossible to needed to awaken missionary con· raise the lower classes in towns unless science,