The Missionary Review of the World — May 1890
JAPAN; REVIEW OF THE YEAR 1889
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIII. No.5.-0Id Series.—MAY.—voL. III. No. 5.-New Series.
I.-LI TERATURE OF MISSIONS.
JAPAN: REVIEW OF THE YEAR 1889.
BY GEORGE W~f. KNOX, D.D., TOKYO, JAPAN.
The events of the year 1889 have been of high importance. No year since 1867, the year of the restoration, has shown such rapid changes, or been so full of surprises. The hidden forces of popular feeling have manifested themselves with unexpected violence, and the warmest friends of Japan are, for the moment, uncertain of the future.
Nature has been in sympathy with society. Nowhere is nature more luxuriantly beautiful, and nowhere are ins forces more ready to display their overwhelming powers. It has been a year of earthquakes, typhoons, terrific rains, bursting rivers and engulfing waves. The calm and beauty that attract every beholder contrast sharply with the elemental fury, and one never knows when the pent up forces may explode. The relatively low estimate placed upon human life in the East and West has been clearly illustrated. The flood at J ohnstown horrified two continents, and was the occasion for a manifestation of sympathy and benevolence almost unparalleled. The disasters in Japan have exceeded the horrors of Johnstown, and have been thought worthy of an occasional telegram and newspaper paragraph. Here in Japan, funds have been collected for the distressed, but they can have met but the merest fraction of the terrible need. Months after the disasters, we are still without exact and complete details of the losses of life and property, and the great newspapers of the capital make but passing reference to the calamity, in their reviews of the year.
The .flew Constitution.-In its opening, the year was bright with promise. On the 11th of February, the new Constitution of the empire was promulgated amid the rejoicings of the nation. The Constitution promises liberty of religion, of the press, of speech, of public assembly and of petition. It makes a man's house his castle, to be invaded only with due forms of law. It carefully preserves the rights and liberties of the subject. It guards the independence of the judiciary. It transforms the emperor into a constitutional monarch with limited and well defined powers. It establishes an Imperial Diet, that shall assemble first in 1890. Thus Japan peacefully accomplished its reformation and forsook Asia for the companionship of progressive Europe and America. It was the completion of the first period of constitutional development, and only statesmen of clear dis- cernment, comprehensive plans and high executive ability could so su(;cessfully have surmounted the innumerable difficulties and dis- couragements. Foreigners, resident in Japan, warmly united with the Japanese in the rejoicings. • 1ft Tile Treaties.-The successful negotiation of a new treaty with the United States followed almost immediately. Again, foreigners united with Japanese in mutual congratulations. Japan seemed at ,once to place herself fairly in the company of the most advanced nations. Dif- ficulties with which ber statesmen had struggled for years, disappeared as if through the intervention of a higher power. The American minister was everywhere thanked by the people and the press. Upon his retirement to the United States, consequent upon the change in administration at Washington, he was honored, as perhaps no foreign minister before had been. The new treaty was extolled as another evidence of the fairness and frie~dship of the government of the United States. GermaJlY and Russia soon negotiated identical treaties.
It only remained for ratifications to be exchanged, and the new treat- ies were to be put in force on the 11th of February, 1890. Not a voice was raised" against tbe treaties, not an objection was made to their terms. On -the contrary, Great Britain was soundly berated be- cause her minister did not at once follow the same course. Certain young Samurai, of the baser sort, went so far as to threaten English- men with personal violence if their government should longer hesitate.
The new treaties abolished extra-territorial jurisdiction, and placed Americans under Japanese law. When Japan was first opened to foreign residence, the nation was neither ready nor desirous of juris- diction over foreigners. The Japanese desired to confine the intrud- • ers within the narrowest limits possible, and to have as little to do as practicable with them. Their presence was accepted as a temporary and most unwelcome necessity. On the other hand, Europeans and Americans could not be expected to submit to the laws of a land that made the profession of the Christian religion a capital offense; that openly used torture in its judicial process, and that possessed no modern civil or criminal laws. Japan was opened by force, and the treaties were made with the full knowledge that residence was possible only on the condition that foreigners have the protectio!l of their own laws.
For years the system continued with the full consent of the Japa- nese. Even after the restoration <;if the emperor, popular attention was not directed to the anomalous fact that sixteen different Powers were exercising judicial powers in the ports and the very capital of the empire. Indeed, for a time the old anti-foreign policy was intensified, as the watchword of the restoration had been "Expel the foreigners." By 1872, however, the new rulers of Japan had fully determined upon the policy of friendship and progress that has been consistently followed. Besides this extra-territorial clause, the old treaties bound Japan with commercial clauses that forced a policy of virtual free trade. The Government of Japan began to demand the revision of the treaties. At first, it asked freedom to revise its tariff. The United States consented, the other Powers unanimously refused, and their refusal rendered nugatory our consent. The foreign Powers formed a league and faced Japan as one. After this failure the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs resigned, and was succeeded by Count Inoue. He at once renewed the negotiations for revision, but now asked first for the revision of the extra-territoriality clauses. The ail' was full of revision. The press joined in the demand, and the nation seemed determined to assert its influence. But the foreign Powers stood resolutely together. "No, we cannot consent. Your laws are, it is true, being revised, but you cannot expect IlS to submit until they are complete." The codes were at last almost completed. Still the answer was: "No, your judges are without experience, and we cannot place ourselves under their jurisdiction." The difficulty was removed by the promised appointment of foreigners as judges. The negptiations dragged along, one demand being followed by another. It was impossible to satisfy this foreign league, and yet preserve the rights of Japan. Count Inoue yielded point after point, until, at last, the nation reached its limit of patience, and the negotiations came to a close. Count Inoue resigned, and the treaty revision seemed indefinitely postponed. Count Okuma took up the negotiations. Minister Hubbard of the United States was ready to meet him, and broke loose from the alliance of the Powers. These two men soon concluded a treaty satisfactory to both. Extra-territoriality was abolished. Americans were placed under Japanese courts and laws; and, on the other hand, all the empire was opened for residence and travel. In a diplomatic note, it was provided that five foreigners should be employed as judges for a space of twelve years. That was a concession to the prevalent foreign opinion, that Japanese judges are still too inexperienced, and the new codes too strange for foreigners to place confidence in the courts. It w.as a small concession, made for the sake of resuming soverign control. The tariff, too, WaS revised on terms favorable to Japan. Count Okuma was everywhere congratulated. Germany and Russia at once followed the United States. England and France were more deliberate, but at last were ready to act when a popular agitation began that rendered action useless.
The Soshi.-As the months went by the Soshi began an agitation. The .rapid transformation of Japan had been felt most acutely by the Samurai. These men have been at 'once the leaders and the sufferers. Patriots to the depths of their being, they have supported progress,. and have been ready for the greatest personal sacrifices. The over-· throw of the feudal system, accomplished by themselves, deprived them of their hereditary rights and privileges, and mingled them in- discriminately with the mass of the people. A certain number found employment in the government, for the police and the officers of the naval, military and civil services are, almost without exception, Samurai. But, after all, only a small fraction could be thus employed~ and the great majority were left to make their own way. As the legacy of feudalism, they retained a high sense of their own dignity and position, a lofty patriotism, an infinite desire for education, and. total ignorance of the arts of money making and of practical life. In most trying circumstances they have succeeded nobly. They arestill the dependence of Japan. As editors, lawyers, politicians, and, we may add, clergymen, they maintain their old position as the leaders of the people. But, in such a transformation, in so keen a struggle for existence, only the fittest survive. Some of the Samurai have disappeared in the mass of the commons. They are cooks, petty merchants, farmers, and pullers of jin-riki-sha. Another fraction still struggle against increasing odds. Their money is almost gone-of practical ability they show little. They are without guides, political or moral. The Confucian ethics that sufficed for their fathers have lost all power, and there is nothing in their stead. The old loyalty that had its well-understood code, is gone, and the new patriotism has not yet found its moral foundation. The old, narrow education is replaced with a smattering of misunderstood western learning. In Tokyo are scores of schools, with thousands of young men in attendance, that are a constant source of danger. The schools are for the sake of providing their proprietors with an income. The course of study is meagre; the teaching of the poorest; discipline is conspicuous by its absence. Here young men congregate, get a smattering of Spencer and :Mill, talk politics, and impress each other with their mutual importance. From these immature politicians come the Soshi. The Soshi are violent young men, for the most part extreme radicals, who openly advocate the use of physical force in the maintenance of their political views. They assault their opponents, break up public meetings, advocate assassination, and are ready to go to all extremes. Such men compelled the disbanding of the great liberal party some years ago, since they would not submit to the leaders, but by their violence brought discredit on the whole movement. There have been many such men in the years past, but only in 1889 did they make themselves felt as an open faction. The Soshi profess differing political opinions, but are in all cases the advocates of the free use of physical force.
The Agitation.-As noted above, they first interfered in the question of the treaties by threatening the English with violence if "they did not follow the good example of the United States." During the summer, however, they changed their tone and began an agitation against the revised treaties. Their points of attack were two: the .ownership of land by foreigners, and the employment of any foreign- -ers as judges. Their movement was not anti-foreign, but anti-Count Okuma. For weeks the agitation was as insignificant as it was violent. Meetings were held, and one or two third-rate newspapers advocated these views. But the leading newspap-ers, and the leading men, without exception, upheld the treaties, and gave their approval to the disputed provisions. Public sentiment emphatically approved Count Okuma's action, and applauded the action of the United States. 'The agitation was looked upon as unworthy of serious attention. Such arguments as the Soshi advanced were answered over and over again. The weight of reason was on the side of the Government. But the Soshi refused to be silenced, and found constantly new reasons, as the old ones were shown to be valueless. To the surprise ·of all, the agitation showed unexpected vitality, and gained in strength with the passing weeks. Gradually well-informed men began to say: "If this continues, the Government will find difficulty in maintaining its position." By mid-autumn they said: "The treaties will not be ratified by Japan." It became apparent that there was a ,serious political crisis in the Cabinet. Rumors of dissensions among the statesmen who ruled Japan began to leak out. The agitation waxed more furious, some of the influential newspapers changed their tone. Prominent politicians added their advocacy. Tokyo became excited, and the common people took up the talk of their superiors. The country had not been so agitated since the months preceding the .overthrow of the Shogunate. Then came the end.
The Assassination of Count Okurna.-Two men stood in the way .of success, Count Kuroda, the head of the ministry, and, above all, Count Okuma, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The former is a man with no great reputation for statesmanship, but is of great firmness .and ready to stand ever by his friends. Count Okuma was his friend. Count Okuma stands among the first two or three men in the empire. He is wise, progressive and firm. So long as these two men remained in the ministry, the treaties would not be thrown aside. A f~natical :Samurai waited one day for Count Okuma, and, with careful aim, threw a dynamite bomb into his carriage. Through the skill of the -coachman, the carriage was so hurried forward that the Count lost only his leg, and not his life. The would-be assassin committed suicide on the spot. Count Okuma for weeks was unable to give any attention to public affairs, but was kept in the strictest seclusion. The news excited the city and nation. But Japan has not yet forgotten its feudal manners. A man who kills himself in the name of patriotism, the assassin who willingly throws away his own life, is a hero to million:l of the people. The assassin who struck down Minis- ter Mori on February 11, 1889, though his avowed reason was petty, and was shown at once to be without foundation in fact, was honored with ostentatious funerals, and poems in the newspapers. And this would-be murderer of Okuma, too, earned the plaudits of the unthink- ing of his fellow-countrymen. The act sent no thrill of horror 01' of indignation through the land. In talking with the people, admiration of the coolness and skill of the assassin was heard more often than indignation at the deed.
The Oabinet Orisis.-Almost immediately, to the astonishment of foreigners, Count Ito resigned, and his example was followed by the whole ministry, excepting Okuma, who was too ill to be informed. What the Soshi failed to accomplish, Ito finished in a day, and he chose the time when Okuma was lingering between life and death. Ito and Inoue are the most powerful statesmen in Japan. They have controlled t.be destinies of the empire for years. TheY'have been the advocates of every progressive movement. Inoue staked his political career upon the success of his revision of the treaties. Ito was the author of the revised new Constitution. No doubt they were not over friendly to Count Okuma. Kuroda had made a combination cabinet, in- cluding men of different opinions. Inoue had dissented from that policy, but had consented to remain for a while. He and Ito carried out their plans and withdrew just at the moment when such action would complete the work of the bomb. A confused political crisis ensued that is hardly.ended yet. Kuroda resigned, and his combination policy ended. Ito and Inoue withdrew finally, and are watching affairs from a safe distance. When Okuma recovered he found himself without Kuroda's aid, and obliged to resign. The new cabinet is constructed in the hope that it may last until the Diet meets next autumn.
The Situation.-The new treaties are dead. Accepted by the whole ministry before they were negotiated, accepted by the sentiment of the nation for months after they were negotiated, conferring great benefits upon Japan in the restoration of complete sovereignty and the revision of the tariff, they are slain by the Soshi, the wouldbe assassin of Okuma, and the resignation of Ito. No statesman would dare attempt their ratification. Neither his position nor his life would be worth a week's purchase. Japan is back in the old position by her own act. And yet not in the old position. Surely no minister of the United States will invite a repetition of this experience. The United States are laughed at for simplicity, while England is applauded for clear-sighted perception. Men are saying : "We told you so: England is too wise to trust her interests to Japan." Then, too, the old situation was morally unjustifiable on our side. Inoue was all reaSODableness, and the refusal to conclude tIle treaties was a grevious wrong in the sight of many foreigners. Now, Japan has rejected treaties made on her own terms, approved by her ministry and by unanimons public opinion. The anomalous jurisdiction of foreign powers, and the seclusion of foreigners in "settlements" and within "treaty limits," is Japan's own choice. Who will undertake ·the re- opening of this question, no one can say. The Government really has no policy beyond postponement. What the action of the Diet may be, it is impossible to foresee. The wisest statesman would hesitate to foretell what a year will bring forth Political Partie8.~The agitation against the treaties was of no importance until it became a question of political parties. Count Okuma has been the head of the Kai-shin-to Progressives. His enemies of every opinion, radicals and conservatives, combined against him, with the treaties as their rallying cry. There are anti-foreign conservatives in Japan who say, "Japan for the Japanese," and interpret that very propel' cry in the very narrowest spirit.. These men use Buddhism and Shinto as political instruments. Their following is small. Then there are the Liberals, with Count Itagaki as leader, and the Grand Association, with Count Goto as leader, and the Progressives, with Count Okuma as leader. Count Inoue is credited with the largest personal following in Japan. Then almost everyone of these "parties" has factions that refuse to follow in party lines. It is impossible, too, to understand on what "principles" these parties are formed. The conservatives have a policy, but no man can formulate the :party platforms of the other. The truth is, these are not partiel:l at all, but clubs and groups, factions of more or less strength attached to particular statesmen and leaders. But the leaders cannot control their own followers. There are Soshi in all, and the Soshi assert themselves in div·ers manners, and with disastrous effect. From last autumn's campaign, it is evident that these gl'OUpS can momentarily unite in opposition, but when the temporary aim is accomplished, the combination instantly breaks into its original fractions.
The Outlook.-Japan has reached its political crisis. It has successfully surmounted difficulties in the past. Prophets of evil have repeatedly declared that the end is at hand, only to find themselves speedily mistaken. Let us trust that this crisis, too, may be safely passed. It is not to be denied, however, that there are serious elements of danger. First, the statesmen who have guided Japan through the perils of the past are in retirement. Their future policy is a matter of speculation. Ito especially discredited himself. He is rumored to have been the power behind the whole agitation. Many think him unwilling that Okuma should succeed. The newspapers have reported interviews with him, which, if true, confirm these rumors. Second, it is apparent that the Diet is to be the scene of severe struggles between ill-defined factions. It is gravely doubted whether any faction will be strong enough to carry out a consistent )lolicy. It is evident that personal ambition is more powerful than political principles. Third. The mob has shown its power. The Soshi began its agitation against a ministry that combined more firstrate men than had before been gathered in one government. Whatever reasons were below the surface, the outward and apparent fact is, that these agitators carried their point. Their voice has not been heard for the last time. Their bomb was too successful to permit the hope that dynamite will not readily be used again. They have shown their strength. It may be doubted whether statesmen in the Diet who incur popular displeasure will be safer than Cabinet ministers. It may also be doubted whether a faction triumphant in the Diet will dare maintain itself in the face of opposition from these student agitators.
The friends of Japan wait the events of t.he next two years with anxious hope. We trust that the splendid achievements of the past will be repeated. We cannot believe that Japan's great experiment is to end in ignominious failure. Such a result would be a calamity, not for this empire alone, but for Asia-for humanity.
Religious Progress.-In mission work the year has been one of quiet progress. There has been little excitement, and the work has occupied less than usual of the attention of the public. Wellinformed missionaries have spoken of the year as one of small results. The statistics are not yet complete, but, so far as we can judge, the Church has made as much progress as in other years. The kingdom has come without observation, but the Lord has blessed abundantly the work of his servants.
The Revival in Tokyo.-In the beginning of the year there was marked interest in some of the Tokyo churches. Tsukiya Bashi church, Rev. N. Tamura pastor, held meetings every night for weeks. The interest was for the most part among professing Christians, and manifested itself in a deepened experience, in mutual confessions, and a stronger desire for the salvation of souls. In spite of the judicious teaching and example of the pastor, there was some excitement, threatening the good name and order of the church. But, so far as we can learn, the results have been only good. The whole church in Japan needs pre-eminently the outpouring of God's spirit upon the hearts of believers.
The Work of the Y. M. 0. A.-The Y. M. C. A. has found a wide and effectual door in Japan. Young men in astonishing numbers are found in all the churches. In all activity they are at the head.
Our pastors and elders are young. The activity, the prominence and leadership of young men in all departments of life is one of the most characteristic features of modern Japan. With all the church work, it would seem that there was no need for further organization. But the Y. M. C. A. is not superfluous; it has already made a field for itself. In the schools of Tokyo are tens of thousands of young men. Among these students are Christians in surprising numbers. Without .organization, they have remained strangers to each other. Again and .again, students have thought themselves alone in great schools with hundreds of pupils. Then the Y. M. C. A. became organized, and to the great delight and surprise of each student, many have come forward and enrolled themselves as Christians. Active associations have been formed in the Imperial University, in the leading colleges and schools ·of the Government, and in many private schools and academies. 'The associations maintain Bible classes, courses of lectures on Christian topics, and organize the Christians for aggressive work among their companions. This work is still at its beginning. Rightly managed, it will accomplish a great work for the Master.
The Stemmer School.-Mr. Wishard energetically visited the .schools in all parts of Japan during the first half of the year. He was everywhere welcomed, and large congregations of young men gave him respectful attention. The Christians were encouraged and .strengthened, and to the unbelievers the gospel was preached. His work culminated in the Summer school which was held with the Congregational college, the Doshi-sha, in Kyoto during ten days .of the last week in June and the first week in July. Over four hundred students, representing twenty-five different institutions, were present. Most of the prominent schools in the Empire had delegates present. It was a time of prayer and the study of G<1d's Word. The proceedings have been printed and form an attractive volume. The theme of every meeting was "Consecration to the Service of the Lord." The theological schools have already received students who ascribe their wish to enter the ministry to impulses received at the Summer school.
The Buddhist Missionary.-Buddhism continues to try missionary -experiments. It is quick to adopt our methods. But with all these activities and brand new methods, it is unable to resume its influence over the national life. Its day is gone forever. Col. Olcott worked according to his light and ability, but his mission was a complete failure. Large audiences assembled to hear him, but nothing permanent was accomplished. His presence in the country was soon forgotten by the public and his departure caused no regret.
Church Union.-The much wished for union between the Congregational churches and the United Church of Chirst failed of accomplishment. It is a very great disappointment. It was a noble effort, nobly planned and bravely attempted, but for the time it has failed. At the first it was hoped that the seeming failure was only temporary, but as time goes by we seem as far away from it as ever-far away with this history of failure behind us. It is not worth while to repeat the story. The fact remains that we are once more settled on strictly denominational lines, with the most hopeful in doubt as to the utility of further experiment. Everything favored success. There was' personal friendship among the leaders on both sides. There was past association in united work. There was harmony of tastes. There was a strong perception of the folly and wastefulness of present methods and the imperative need for union in the face of overwhelming unbelief. There were no strong inherited traditions and prejudices to be cast aside. There was general agreement in outline as to the terms of union. There was the repeated acceptance of the plan for union in its details by the strongest men, Japanese and American, on both sides. It did not seem possible that there should be a failure. But as the treaties have failed at the last moment through contingencies wholly unexpected, so was it with the union. And the history of the two failures have many striking points of resemblance. The union of Presbyterian and Reformed bodies is now complete. The churches and missionaries of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church mission have entered the United Church of Christ. Seven missions are now co-operating with this church. The union projected between the Methodist Episcopal Church mission and the Canadian Methodist Church mission has advanced 'a step. The difficulties are fully as great as those ~hich existed between Presbyterians and Congregationalists, but we trust that they may be overcome. 'Were the question left to the missionaries, there would be no question as to the result, but the"Consent of the churches in America must be obtained.
Perhaps this union of Presbyterians with Presbyterians, and of Methodists with Methodists, is all that we can expect for the present. Sectarianism is not yet dead. The last year has demonstrated that fact. Certain associations in the United States, and one Presbytery, were moved to protest against union. There were even threats of withholding contributions from the American Board if denominational peculiarities were yielded for the sake of union. Certain Congregational ministers and newspapers used their influence to hinder this movement. There are thus ministers in the United States who deliberately set themselves against union even on the foreign field. So, too, there are a few missionaries who value sectarianism above Christian unity. With our small force and with the tremendous pressure of an unconverted empire, they are still ready to insist upon the petty details of inherited polity. Such men are a small minority, but they must not be forgotten in plans for union. Then, finally, it must be remembered that the Christians themselves cannot wholly and at once put aside party spirit. We cannot edncate men for a: decade on strict denominational lines, and expect that all will prove ready for union when the day has come. It was party feeling among the Japanese that finally prevented union last year. Let us see to it
THE MISSION TOUR OF BRITAIN
that we do not establish our divided Protestantism so surely that we shall have in every land a multitude of petty sects. The multiplica- tion of denominations continue. With all their evils, divided councils continue. Were I to repeat the story of the evil of our divisions and schisms, I should lengthen this paper beyond all bounds. The evils exist. Union on missionary ground is not the easy and imme- diate solution of the trouble that it has seemed. Once more, may we not appeal to the Christian public at home to form their plans in common and to cease to perpetuate the sin of schism through Christ's . work of preaching the gospel to the nations.
THE MISSION TOUR OF BRITAIN-No. III.
BY ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.
Dear IJoctor Sherwood: The month of January was given to England, taking London as a.
centre, and going out from thence to the great cities, Birmingham, Leicester, Bristol, Leeds, etc. Every Sunday was given to Westminster Chapel, where the savor of Samuel Martin still lingers, and where, next to Spurgeon's Tabernacle, there is the largest accommodation for the multitudes. A month in London gave opportunity for a partial acquaintance with London missions, which are of every vat:iety.
In no city of the world is there so large a population living in abject poverty and misery, and practically out of the reach of the churches. That startling tract," The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," published a few years since, but now almost out of print, revealed a condition of want and woe to which most of the inhabitants. of the great metropolis were strangers. It unveiled the iniquity, intemperance, improvidence of the vast multitude of poor and outcast classes; it called attention to their forlorn condition, their unhealthy dwellings and unwholesome habits, their meagre diet, their half nakedness, their indecent crowding into inadequate tenements, and their utter destitution of the gospel. That tract is still so true and so valuable, that it is proposed to reprint it in substance in these pages for the information of those who are studying just now the grave question of the crisis of cities.
Latterly a movement, known as " The Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Movement," has been undertaken in hopes to reach the non-church goers, There are many who are quite sanguine as to its success. It originated with Mr. John Blackham, of West Bromwich,who thought he saw that sermons were too long and services of worship too tame and bald to hold the masses of the people. At Westminster Chapel these " Afternoons" were introduced while I was preaching there, and are now in progress. The following programme may indicate the plan ·of Mr. Blackham, very successfully carried out in the Midland .counties: Chorus (St. Paul)-" How Lovely are the Messengers." Hymn-" The Son of God Goes Forth to War." Trio (Elijah)-" Lift thine Eyes."
(Miss Cherry, Miss King, Miss Layton.) Prayer-With Lord's Prayer. Anthem-" Ye Shall Dwell in the Land." Lesson-Psalm xix. Read alternately. Quartette (Elijah)-" 0 Come Everyone that Thirsteth." Hymn-" I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say." Solo-" 0 Ye that Love the Lord." Address-Mr. John Blackham.
Subject: "What's That !" Hymn-" Forward, Be Our Watchword." Benediction, Hallelujah Chorus.
It will be seen that this is simply a sort of free sacred concert, with an address thrown in. The singing and organ playing are of a high order, but the devotional element is manifestly lacking. It is calculated to draw crowds, but the question is, whether such attrac· tions do not after all displace the gospel, and cultivate a morbid ap- petite for a sort of artificial and resthetic diet that is substituted for plain gospel food.
In connection with this measure a peculiar and somewhat unique plan is adopted to secure a large attendance. A card is issued, ad- mitting the bearer to the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Meeting, and stating time and place. At the bottom of the card is a blank space, to be filled by the name of the person inviting; and on the back of the card the party accepting and using the invitation signs a declara- tion: "I am over 18 years of age, and desire to be enrolled a mem- ber of the Sunday Afternoon Class," etc. This card, delivered on en- trance, serves to enroll members, and at the same time to record the number of successful invitations issued by any person who exerts himself or herself to secure attendants. Prizes are given to those who thus become instrumental in the enrollment of the largest num· bel' of perml}nent members.· The prizes exhibited are a fine family Bible and complete works of Bunyan, etc. One man in the Midland counties was the means of enrolling 176 members.
Now, there is no doubt that in this way people may be induced both to come, and to induce others to come. But the whole move- ment is exciting comment not always favorable. For instance, on one of these occasions an organist, leader, and choir of forty per- formers were brought by railway on Sunday afternoon from a long distance; the railway stations were all ablaze with large posters ad· vertising the Sunday Afternoon meetings, with all the attractions of the same, exactly as any ordinary concert would be advertised; and "
after the Sunday Afternoon meetings are inaugurated elsewhere, there is the same machinery for cre&ting a counter attraction to draw away to the most elaborate and artistic of the performances. The serious.
question is, whether the whole movement is not calcul31ted, under the name of inducing neglectors of worship to attend church, to promote desecration of the Lord's Day, and substitute for the simple worship of God and the bread of life, a concert programme, with elaborate iFl- strumental and vocal art. 'l'he question is worth a consideration.
The" Sabbath Committee" in London have already issued a remon- strance upon the subject, contending that it promotes needless travel on the Lord's day, etc.
For ourselves, it has long been our unalterable conviction that any and every departure from the simplicity of worship and of preaching means an ultimate reaction which promotes the very evil which such departure is designed to remedy. The appetite for novelty, for resthetics, for amusement, for entertaniment, for sensuous and poetic attractions, is essentially a worldly craving. It grows by indulgence; it grows more imperious and insatiate, until it will no longer be con- tent without this sort of diet. In our Lord's personal ministry and: that of the apostles, simplicity is the prominent and dominant charm.
The early church knew nothing of gothic architecture, of elaborate ritual, of operatic choirs and orchestral organs; of embroidered robes and multi-<lolored vestments, of imposing processions and poetic sym- boIs; of altars and reredos, of banners and cantillations, of solo singers and eloquent orators. Yet the apostolic age was marked by the miracles of Holy Ghost power such as are now unknown in the church. We find the gap between the common people and the churches already widened into a great gulf which will soon be un- bridgeable; frantic efforts are making by song and orchestra, essay and oration, elaborate structures and exquisite ceremonial, with the aid of flaming poster and flashing advertisement, to bring back to the churches the" lapsed masses." Our observation is that the more such methods are tried, the more they prove their total inadequacy.
The simple fact is that the masses in the slums can never be brought up to the churches until the churches are brought down to the masses, e., i. there must be a real love for souls that carries the gospel to them wherever they are; contact, habitual and sympathetic, must remove misconception and prejudice and awaken love and create fellowship; then these neglectors of churches will come to them with assurance of a warm, genial, helpful atmosphere. In London there is every effort made to draw the people, but without success. And by far the largest, most constant and most devout congregation I have seen is that in Spurgeon's tabernacle, where not an adornment or attraction can be found but simple praise, prayer and preaching; and as Mr.
Spurgeon grows older even the irrepressible humor of early days is moderated into deeper sobriety and solemnity. Every step and stage of this missionary tour demonstrates more fully the need of spreading information before the people. The vast majority, even of intelligent disciples, know very little of the facts of missions, either as to the need or the success of missionary effort. A lady in Edinburgh apologized to a Cambridge graduate, who was a public man and a Doctor of Laws, for her inability to take part in a certain meeting because she had her" Zenana mission" to attend to; and he very innocently inquired, " Where is Zenana? I have often heard of it, but I confess I do not know its locality!" This was almost as bad as the old lady in Dundee, who, when applied to for a subscrip- tion for "Old Calabar," asked if that "auld m(tn was yet livin',for she had gien to Mm forty years agone."
This may seem a mere travesty, but there are many signs of pre- vailing ignorance of missionary history and biography. These lauda- tions of Buddhism and Brahminism, of Mohammedanism and Confucianism, would make but little impression if the common mind were saturated with the knowledge of the real condition of peoples where the Buddhist" wheel," the Brahministic "caste wall," the Moslem" crescent," and the Confucian" tablet" prevail. With all Edwin Arnold's poetic glorification of the "Light of Asia," it has somehow failed to illumine the nations where it has shone! In these very lands, darkness and the death shade abound, and the habitations of cruelty are everywhere reared under the very shadows of idol fanes.
The extent to which the worship of evil spirits or demons prevails in heathen countries, is not generally appreciated. For example, on the coast of Malabar they have for centuries been worshipped by all classes of Hindus except Brahmins. To the lowest caste-that of slaves-is attributed power to cause the Evi.l Spirit to enter a man, or, as it is termed, to "let loose" the evil demon upon him; and when such evil spirit is supposed to possess one, exorcists are employed, using drums, with sundry charms and incantations, to effect the release of the party from the malign influence. Malabar was ceded to Britain in 1792 by Tippoo Sultan, and half a century passed before any attempt was made by British occupants to dispel this moral mid- night. In the district of Canara alone were 4041 temples to Evil Spirits, beside 3682 other idolatrous fanes.
Dr. Buchanan knew of his approach to Juggernaut, when more than fifty miles off, by the human bones that paved his pat~way, the re- mains of volunteer devotees who had been sacrificed to the cruel rites of this hideous monster. This was in 1806, and he called the place "The Valley of Death," and compared it to the vale of Hin- nom, and Juggernaut he called the modern Moloch.' The temples of this god are adorned with the representative symbols of that vice which is the essence of his worship, the walls and gates being covered with indecent and shocking emblems of sensuality, in massive and enduring sculptUl'e, as in Pompeii. Two other kindred idols, Boloram and Shudubra, accompany Juggernaut, held to be his brother and sister. Two words, obscenity and cruelty, represent and characterize Juggernaut festivals. All over his altars and temples Lust and Blood deserve to be written; for they are covered with the green slime of moral leprosy and th.e scarlet stains of religious mur- der and massacre. The extent to which all J uggernautworship is a tribute to the obscene, may be inferred from the fact that, when the great idol-car was drawn; it was believed that its vast weight would move easily on its wheels only when the god was especially pleased with the sensual songs chanted by the priests, and accompanied with the lascivious attitudes and gestures of the devotees. Yet so great were the crowds a quarter century ago that it used. to be said proverbi- ally that" one hundred thousand worshippers would not be missed."
How little would Canon Taylor's and Mr. Caine's criticism of missions affect minds that were familiar with the great facts of mis- sionary biography and history! For example, when Captain Cook touched at Tahiti, he wrote: "This island can neither serve public interests nor private ambition, and will probably never be much known." About the close of the 18th century, William Carey and his fellows so aroused the dormant missionary spirit in the churches, that the London Missionary Society sent missionaries to this island. There was a long" night of toil." Sixteen years went by withont a sign of blessing. One day a missionary, with a group of savages about him, read from a manuscript copy of the gospel according to John, the third chapter. As he came to the 16th verse, which Luther called" the gospel in miniature," a rude warrior iu the group asked him to read that verse again and again. Then he said, " This, if it be true, is for you only, not for such as me." But the missionary repeated that wonderful word, "Whosoever," and dwelt upon its meaning. "Then," said the warrior, "your God shall be my God; for we have never heard such a message as this; our gods do not love us so."
It is not yet 75 years since that first convert, who was also the first fruits of all Polynesia, was brought from darkness to light; yet now in Polynesia there are 750,000 converts; and the work has spread till it reached New Guinea. A band of not less than 160 young men and women going from Tahiti and the neighboring islands, as evangelists, seek to carry the life-giving gospel to other benighted tribes; and of all these native workers, not one has ever proved recreant or faithless. Yet these are the people who, at the beginning of this century, had lost all idea of God, save that, somewhere afar off some strange being dwelt, who exercised sovereignty as a tyrannical despot; and at the graves of their ancestors, they were wont to go and beseech them to plead with this unapproachable Deity !
SS6 FOREIGN MISSIONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
FOREIGN MISSIONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
(Continued/rom page 266.) Anglo Saxons have taken the lead in this noblest and most Christ like of all enterprises during the whole of this century, but far more was attempted by them during the 17th and 18th than is usually supposed. Evangelistic designs were by no means absent from the purposes of the men who laid the foundations of our magnificent colonial empire, in the days of Elizabeth and the Stuarts. To discover and possess new regions, and to wrest some already known from the hated Spaniards and Portuguese, were their most powerful incentives; but the zeal which characterized the latter, for the spread of Catholicism, was not absent from their powerful rivals in behalf of Protestantism. Nor are indications wanting, that this zeal was not entirely political, but largely imbued with religious and benevolent aims. The instructions, for instance, which Sebastian Cabot was authorized to prepare by Edward VI., for the moral and religious discipline of the fleet sent under Sir Hugh Willoughby to discover a northeast passage to China, are ample evidence of this. No swearing, ribaldry, or ungodly talk was to be suffered in the company of any ship. Dice and cards were prohibited. Prayers, with the devout reading of the Scriptures, were to be offered every day, morning and evening, on board each ship; and all had to be done "not only for duty and conscience sake toward God," but as an example to those they might meet with "in far countries," that, by this means, "friendship might be established among all men, and everyone seek to gratify all."
Christian aims were not absent from Sir Walter Raleigh's grand,. though ill-managed, enterprises. Two instances of this may be given. At his special request, there went with the fleet which sailed from England for Virginia, in 1585, his friend and preceptor, the eminent and devout Hariot. Speaking of his intercourse with the natives, he says: " Many times, and in every town where I came, according as I was able, I made declaration of the contents of the Bible, that therein was set forth the true and only God and his mighty works; that therein was contained the true doctrine of salvation through Christ, with many particulars of miracles and chief points of religion, as I was able then to utter and thought fltfor the time."
N or was his gentleness and devoutness without effect: " The Wiroans (or chief), with whom we dwelt, called Wingina, and many of his people would be glad many times to be with us at our prayers, and many times call upon us, both in his own town, as also in others, whither he sometimes accompanied us, to pray and sing psalms, hoping thereby to be partakers of the same effects which we by that means also expected. Twice this Wiorans was so grievously sick, that he was like to die and sent for us to pray, and be a means to our God that it would please him either that he might live, or after death dwell with him in bliss; so, likewise, were the requests of many others in the like case." Raleigh finally transferred all the rights to found a colony he had received from Elizabeth to a company in 1589, but he accompanied the act with a gift of £100 "in especial regard and zeal of planting the Christian religion in these dark countries." * Nor were such desires confined to a few persons, for when James I. granted Letters Patent for the plantation of Virginia in 1606, the duty of a nation to communicate, through its colonies and beyond them, the Christian faith was distinctly recognized. The Patent says: "So noble a work may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God, and may, in time, bring the infidels and savages (living in those parts) to human civility, and to a settled and quiet government."
That this was no mere formal statement, was proved by the numerous endeavors that were made, both by public bodies and private individuals, to reach the Pagan populations of the various colonies and dependencies which came under British sway. Some only of these can be mentioned.
Three years after the Charter just named, a new one was granted, and the first sermon probably ever preached by a minister of the Church of England, before those about to carry her name and principles to America, was delivered by William Crashaw, preacher at the Temple, before the Virginia Council, a few months before the departure of the expedition. It was a noble sermon, as the only two sentences space allows us to cite will indicate. "Remember," said he, "the end of this voyage is the destruction of the devil's kingdom, and the propagation of the gospel. Are not these ends worthy of thy prayers?" Addressing the newly appointed Captain-General, Lord De La Ware, and his subordinates, he said: "Look not at the gain, the wealth, the honor, the advancement of thy house that may follow and fall npon thee, but look at those high and better ends that concern the Kingdom of God. Remember, thou art a General of Christian men; therefore, principally look to religion. You go to commend it to the heathen; then practice it yourselves, make the name of Christ honor- a·ble, not hateful unto them." t Another sermon, a few weeks afterwards, preached by Dr. Symonds before a great audience of "adventurers, planters and others," contained many expressions like the following: "What blessing any nation had by Christ must be communicated to all nations." Among those to whom the Charter was granted were four eminent bishops, and John and Nicholas Ferrar, the latter the friend of George Herbert, whose declining years were spent so remarkably and devoutly * Anderson's "History of the Colonial Church," Vol. I., Chap. 3.
t Anderson's "History of the Colonial Church," Vol. I., p. 196. with his family at Gidden Hall, in ceaseless worship. It used to be said that the servants and officers of the East India Company on their way out, left their religion at the Cape of Good Hope, and resumed it on their return home. Some of the men just named were not so indifferent to their own piety, and therefore were sure to seek the htension of the kingdom of God, in any enterprise in which they embarked. One of the first measures accordingly of the new council, was to erect a college at Henrico" for the training and educating the children of the nations in the knowledge of the true God," as well as for the English settlers. Nicholas Ferrar, senior, bequeathed a legacy of £300 to it, to be applied to that purpose as soon as ten Indian Christians were received into the college.
There is a most interesting letter extant, written by James I. to the archbishops, authorizing them to invite the members of the churches throughout the kingdom, to assist in the prosecution of this and kindred works of piety. His Majesty reminds them of what had been done "as well for the enlarging of our dominions, as for the propagation of the gospel among infidels, wherein there is good progress made, and hope of further increase, so as the undertakers of that plantation -Virginia-are now in hand, with the erecting of some churches and schools for the education of the children of those barbarians which cannot but be to them a very great charge, and above the expence which the civil plantation doth come to them," and commends them to urge through the bishops, on the clergy and laity, the duty of "giving all assistance and furtherance to so good a work, in as liberal a manner as they may," and "that these collections be made in all the particular parishes four several times, within these two years next coming," the money "to be employed for the godly purposes intended, and no other." No less a sum than £4,000 was thus collected. This is the first public document of the kind ever issued in England for the religious benefit of its foreign possessions, ·and clearly recognizes the obligation of Christian people to uphold and spread abroad the faith they possess.
In the following reign, Charles gave directions in the Charter he granted to the Colony of Massachusetts, in 1628, that the people from England" may be so religiously, peacefully and civilly governed, as their good life and orderly conversation may win and invite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith."
Such sentiments were not confined to one great religious party. The Puritans were more intensely and uniformly religious than their antagonists, and we find therefore, in the time of Cromwell, manifestations of evangelistic zeal of an unusual order, not only on the part of individuals, but systematic and public. It was in 1646 that John Eliot commenced his labors among the red Indians of New England, which continued until his death in 1690, and led to such remarkable results. He was the truest Protestant missionary England had pro- duced since the Reformation, and he did more to develop the mis- sionary spirit in England and America than any other person.
But at the time Eliot commenced his mission in Massachusetts Mr. Thomas Mayhew was preparing to engage in similar service among the Indians of Rhode Island. The Mayhews, for five genera- tions, until the beginning of this century, labored here with singular devotion and marked success. Inspired by the example of Eliot and Thomas Mayhew, Mr. Richard Bourne established a mission at no great distance from the two just mentioned. His labors soon extended to some twenty places, where the Indians resided, and enlisting the sympathy of others, the work extended,until, in New Plymouth Colony, there were, in 1685, no fewer than 1,439 praying Indians, exclusive of children.
The following century had a similar group of laborers. In 1734 Mr. Sargeant began on more systematic lines than any of his predecessors, at Stocksbridge, Massachusetts, and was followed by the renowned .Jonathan Edwards. Thirty years after, Mr. Birtland commenced to labor amopg the Oneidas, and in many instances with marked results. But of all such laborers David Brainerd is the best known after Eliot, and, though his term of service was brief, extending only from 1743 to 1747, yet, his -personal holiness, the entireness of his consecration, the remarkable power of his ministry on some Indians, and, perhaps, his early death, produced a profound impression in the religious circles of America and England. Brainerd was the agent of a society in Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge, and labored first in the province of New York and then in Pennsylvania. The work he so nobly and efficiently commenced was carried on, though not with equal results, by his younger brother.
The same principles which led to Eliot's noble endeavors in America caused the formation of the first missionary society in England. During Cromwell's Protectorate an ordinance was passed in 1649, authorizing the erection of a corporation to be called by the name of the" President and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England," and a general collection was ordered to be made in its behalf in all the parishes of England and Wales. This Charter was renewed and enlarged at the Restoration, and styled "The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the parts adjacent jn America," and its object was defined to be "not only to seek the outward welfare and prosperity of these colonies, but more especially to endeavor the good and salvation of their immortal souls, and the publishing the most glorious gospel of Christ among them." The revenue of the corporation never exceeded £600 a year, but with this they assisted from twelve to sixteen English and Indian missionaries with salaries varying from £10 to £30, and also erected schools. and supplied them with books. Eliot derived substantial aid from its funds, especially to enable him to complete his translation of the Bible, for at one time he received £400, and at another £460, for this. purpose.
In his "Advertisement touching on Holy War," Lord Bacon, in 1623, complains that "the Christian princes and potentates are they that are wanting to the propagation of the faith by their arms," and suggests that some Protestant order of knighthood might do great service in this direction. Bacon's conception was political and Romanist, rather than Christian, but Cromwell had far truer understanding of the genius of Christianity and the means by which it should be spread. He is credited, on the authority of Stoupe and Bishop Burnet, with the noble design of forming a council for theavowed purpose of extending and upholding Protestantism throughout the world. "It was to consist of seven councellors and four secretaries, for different provinces. These were: the first, France, Switzerland and the valleys; the Palatin~te and the other Calvinists were the second; Germany, the north, and Turkey were the third, and the- East and West Indies were the fourth. The secretaries were to have £500 salary a piece, and to keep a correspondence everywhere, toknow the – state of religion all over the world, that so all good designs might be by their means protected and assisted. They were to have a fund of £10,000 a year at their disposal for ordinary emergencies, but to be further supplied as occasions should require it. Chelsea College was to be made up for them, which was then an old, de- cayed building." * We see no reason for questioning the substantial accuracy of this report. It comes to us from reliable sources, and it harmonizes with the character, the principles and the policy of Cromwell. Nothingequal to it for boldness, completeness and mature largeness of concep– tion had hitherto been suggested, or was heard of for some time afterward. There was great need of some more vigorous and well-sustained methods for Christianizing the colonies and reaching the lapsed masses of the heathen than yet had been adopted. The Patents granted to various colonies and companies, by the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, professed to care for the religious edification alike of settlers and aborigines, and this undoubtedly was one of their aims, but practically little was done, and that little was imperfect. The only colonies which in any adequate manner strove to be Christian, and to convert the pagans near them, were those of New England, and this they did in spite of enormous difficulties. No others had in them as large a_ proportion of avowedly religious persons, nor elsewhere were there thosewho were as devout, as earnest, or as self~reliant. Clergymen were sent * "Anderson's HlstQry, " Vol. II., p. 2Z7. "Burnet's History of His Own Times,"VoJ. I., p. 141.
PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS IN BRAZIL
{}ut, though not in adequate numbers, and it was usually a part of their instructions to teach the Indians and slaves, as well as minister to the colonists, but the double duty required far more ability and zeal than usually they possessed. Their services to their own countrymen were lacking in evangelical fervor, the native~ were despised and neglected. They were men usually requiring supervision and discipline, and this they had not. They were not amicable as Congregationalists and Presbyterians were to their congregations and fellow ministers. The instances were numerous in which they were ,at strife with the governors and councils of the colonies. Nor was there any ecclesiastical authority near enough and sufficiently strong to enforce duty and discipline. It was not until 1787 that any colonial bishop was appointed. The clergy equally in America, Africa and Asia were under thedistant authority of the Bishop of London, and the consequences of such a remote supervision may be imagined.
Through these causes and the want of such co-operation and continuous effort as missionary societies now give, less was accomplished than might have been. Even noble workers, such as Eliot, Brainerd, and the Dutch and Moravian missionaries, were either afraid or indifferent respecting the value of a native ministry, and when they were Jlersonally successful, the work .languished when their presence was withdrawn. The true missionary sentiment was of slow growth, and ·so were the methods by which it was to become effective. The end of the 17th century inaugurated a distinct advance in both sentiment and methods, but it was 100 years more before there was another marked advance, and now, after almost another century, we seem to be on the eve of a yet nobler, freer, and more extended development of missionary energy and power.
(Oontinued in our next.) PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS IN BRAZIL.
BY CHARLES E. KNOX, D.D., BLOOMFIELD, N. J.
We went to Brazil-Dr. J. Aspinwall Hodge and myself-at a critical time. We were spectators in the Chamber of Deputies when a public act took place significant of the rapid progress of free {}pinion. Within fifteen months from that day the Republic was proclaimed. It was the day before the Independence Day of the nation, in 1888, the celebration of which was a formal and tame affair. The Emperor, revered for his character, was already recognized, by the leaders, as having passed into an incurable decline. The Princess Royal was known to be under the guidance of the Jesuits. It was intimated that the Emperor might abdicate. Abdication or death would at once determine the end of the empire, and a declaration of principles in favor of large civil and religious liberty.
Our errand was to the missions of the Presbyterian Church. We were commissioners from our own General Assembly to the organiza- tion of a Synod in Brazil-the foundation of a National Preebytetian Church, by the union of the Northern and Southern Presbyterians in that country. We made rapid progress along the coast, looked in upon Para, Maranhao, Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Santos, saw the missionaries of our own and of other churches, and gathered on our steamer a goodly company of our own missionaries on the way to the council at J erusalem. We mounted the Serra, from Santos t.o the heights of Sao Paulo, visited the church and schools in that important centre, and returned with another com- pany of inland missionaries by the Dom Pedro railroad, over the high table-land, past the thimble-shaped ant hills and the picturesque coffee orchards, through a half-score of pretty winding valleys, a score of mountain tunnels and a score of mountain zig-zags, down to the capital city again. We saw not a little of Bishop Granberry of the Southern Methodist Church, and his missionaries and fine' school property at Rio, and gathered information in respect to the missions of Bishop Taylor and of the Baptists. In a swift circuit, we were thirty-three days in close contact, on steamer and railroad, in church and home, with the mission work of the land, and returned with greatly enlarged conceptions of missionary possibilities in Brazil.
1. First of all, we were greatly surprised at the condition of civil affairs. The Liberty of Worship Bill, removing restrictions on Protestants, had passed the Senate in Brazil before we left New York.
Our inquiries at every port were whether the " stone" on the Bill in the Chamber of Deputies would be rolled off. The Jesuits were arrayed against it; the missionaries had little hope of its speedy passage; and we learned, on reaching Rio, that a petition signed by 14,000 women against its passage had been presented to the Chamber.
At the Chamber of Deputies we were informed by a member who bad been prominent in the passage of the Emancipation Act, that the Government was that day on the edge of a ministerial crisis, and that the bill would be declared" urgent" the next day, September 6th.
The information which we had received prepared us for a forwarcl movement, but not for the scene which we witnessed. The mission- aries had said that republican sentiments were extending in the South -openly and aggressively advocated. The American editor of the Rio News (English) had told us of the same growth of opinion.
The ex-President of Sao Paulo province-since President of the province at the time of the overthrow of the empire-a leading liberal, in answer to our question, "Will the I.iberal party go on?" had replied, "It will, or the empire will go off." "The Emperor is greatly afraid of the Jesuits. The Princess will protect the Jesuits, and then reaction." "Some of the Liberals are opposed to publishing our principIes, but I maintain free discussion is the first principle of our party."
In answer to other questions he had said: "There is no such thing as a libel in Brazil. At a meeting of 3,000 people the other day, it was said, 'This Princess is a fanatic, a lunatic, and not honest,' which is not true." "The bill for liberty of worship is certain to pass in the end, even if the Liberals do not come into power." "I am not a republican; republicanism is growing too fast~"
At Rio, Bocayuba, then editor of 0 Paiz (The Nation), perhaps the best Portuguese pen in Brazil, and now Secretary of State in the Provisional Republic, had said to us, on the evening after we had come from the Chamber: "The Indemnity Bill, which came near bi'inging on the crisis to-day, was a party trick to embarrass the ministry." "Not only will liberty of worship be granted, but dis- establishment is in the programme of the republicans-not of the radicals." "The growth of republicanism is genuine The ex-slave owners have come into the movement in a momentary passion, but'
they are not going back. They will be educated to the party."
Nabuco, one of the foremost men in the Chamber, had said to us that day: "Cotegipe, the leader of the opposition, did not wish t.o take the responsibility of bringing forward the declaration of the want of confidence. The crisis did not take place." "I am a mon- archist. Ultramontanism cannot stand. The Princess is an Ultra- montanist. That is not to be said, because she could not stand."
"The petition of the 14,000 women is of no influence. The Bishop of Para has written a letter, able and logical from his point of view, but it is vague, etc. You will probably find the bill declared urgent at the opening of the session to-morrow." But the scene the next day gave us a different and more important spectacle.
The chamber itself was a square room, with curved lines of seats, a platform four steps high, a long, high table and dais, behind which were the President and two assistants or secretaries on each side of him. A broad curtain in green, the national color, hung from the edge of the table to the floor, and a green-plaited tapestry sloped from back of the President, over his head, mounted with' a gold coat of arms. Three little tables stood on the floor in front of the President's table; and, endwise to the three, two smaller tables stood between the three and the delegates' seats. The seats had a rail in front, which opened at each seat and made for each member a desk. A public gallery was on each side. Facing the President or the members were six private galleries, which could be screened by green curtains.
Senl>or Nabuco had placed us in one of these private boxes. The President directed the votes and action by three electric bells of dif- ferent tone; one large one over the clock across the chamber, opposite his seat, and one small bell on each side of the clock-and not as the president of the senate chamber, who rung, by the handle, a large (silver?) dinner bell, when he called the senate to vote, with all the action and dignity of an old-time landlord of a country inn.
We were in our gallery about half an hour after the session be- gan. When we entered, the whole Chamber was in commotion. Senhor Maciel was speaking in quick, decisive accents, as we supposed, for liberty of worship. Ninety members were present, six or eight of them priests: six or seven bronze, the rest white. Four or five were standing, alert for action. The Portuguese was soft and musical; the action of the speakers, in posture and gesture, quick and graceful; the sentences short and pointed; the whole body intent, excited, but wholly self-possessed. Opposite us, in a private gallery, were Pastpr and Mrs. Kyle and their little daughter; Pastor Smith of Pernambuco, and others from the Presbyteries. Both public galleries were packed: Bishop Granberry and Missionary Tillie squeezed into one corner of one of them-the reporters in their gallery underneath.
It soon proved that a newly elected deputy-well-known as a zeal- ous advocate of a republic-had just arrived from the province of Minas Geraes, and had entered to take his seat. On the President re- q uiring him to take the oath, he refused. The oath involved the sup- port of the monarchy and of the Roman Catholic Church, neither of which he would swear to maintain. The President requested him to retire, while the matter 'Was considered! On thiR matter of admission, Maciel was speaking, the chamber crying, "Appoiado! Appoiado!" (Approved!) High, excited talk and retort bristled everywhere. A priest, replying from his seat in the interest of the Church, was answered that this was "not a theological question." Monso, a young man, with florid complexion, a moustache and side whiskers, followed Maciel. Cries of approval and disapproval rose into clamor. Monso's voice grew hoarse, the clamor at times drowning his words.
Gomez de Castro, a dignified and influential member from Maranhao, took the floor. He declared in favor of the fullest freedom. He said: "You all know that when I took the oath, I took it pro forma." "If a Republican maintains that the monarchy has lost its reason for existence, he has just as good a right to a seat here as anyone else." "I am just as far from threatening anyone, as I am from being threa~ ened." "The delegate, once elected, he has a right to his seat, oath or no oath." He spoke with dignity and force, as a strong man with matured convictions, whose character and opinions bore weight. He impressed the Chamber. Maciel challenged the President to put it to vote, if he should choose, and to see how many of the Chamber were Roman Catholic. Sentences and little speeches flew from side to side. The priests sat still or shot not more than an arrow. At length, Pembo, a grey-beard and bald forehead, made a motion that the subject be referred to the Committee on Rules ("Appoiado!"), and that· the Chamber take a recess for the committee to frame a minute. ("Appoiado! Appoiado!") N abuco came up to our gallery and explained the situation, so that the tangle of clamor and of Portuguese was made straight to us. Ma- ciel's motion was, that "no member's political or religious opinions shall decide his seat." Nearly all the members, the President and sec- retaries had gone out. Two groups were talking on the floor, and five -or six members were remaining in their seats.
After a half hour, the President returned, struck the electric bells, the members came in, and the chairman of the committee appeared at the side of the President. The chairman proposed, amidst silence, the following remarkable minute for consideration: "Every deputy elected to this Chamber, shall, on taking his seat, be required to take the oath to the government and to the established religion, e;ccept in -case of conscience!" ("Appoiado! Appoiado!") This astonishing report was then made the first order of the day, on the next business day. The next day was Independence Day, the following day a .saint's day, the next day Sunday, so that the order could not be reached before Monday. On Saturday we sailed for home, but we learned afterwards that the minute was approved, and the advocate -of a republic was received into the Chamber of the Monarchy with- -out an oath of allegiance. We accepted the act as foretokening what the same act in our own House of Representatives would foretoken- that a Chamber which not only does not require fidelity to its gov- ernment, but receives those who advocate the overthrow of the Con- stitution, is ripe for revolution. The republic was only waiting the fit occasion to assert its existence.
We went straight from the chamber with the missionaries, for a sail in the harbor, under the eyes of the Sugar Loaf and the Hunch Back, to Fort ViIlegaguon, where the Hugenots first landed, and where civil and religious liberty were first overthrown; and the same evening we were present at the organization of the Synod of Brazil.
2. The next thing which impressed us was the loss of power in the Roman Catholic Church. Here was a church founded more than a half century before the Pilgrims set sail from Delft Haven, or the London Colony had landed at Jamestown. Here was a land where the old civilization followed Columbus sooner than it did in North America-a land whose ports and provinces and towns a!1d rivers and churches are inscribed with the names of the saints of the Bible, and the saints of Rome, and where every device of the Popes and of the Jesuit propaganda have had the fullest opportunity for development. Here was a land swept clean by decisive stroke from French Huguenots and Dutch Protestants, and in whose oldest monastery Luther and Calvin are still dragged, in fresco, atl the chariot -wheels of the Pope and the Virgin. An empire of fertile and wealthy territory lies in the heart of a mighty continent. The rivers and the mountains inspire the sentiment of the sublime. Tropical exuberance and tropical productiveness invite the enterprise and the ambition of man. Countless forests of trees exude a peculiar sap, drop peculiar- nuts, which serve the comfort and pleasure of civilized nations. A shrub in fit soil and climate, capable of endless multiplication, produces a peculiar berry which supplies their home-table with whole- some beverage. Wealth in fine-veined woods, and in pure metals, minister to the luxuries of mankind. And yet the country has made slow progress. The Indians and the negroes have hardly felt the touch of an elevating power. The Portuguese have not maintained ahigh level of intelligence or of virtue, among the masses. The Church, whose seat is in classic Rome, and which professes to draw its life from the Divine SOUl;ce, has had no spiritual magnetism todraw the people's hearts upwards from the sordid and the sensuaL Her edifices have, in many places, gone to decay; her priests have become notoriously corrupt; the mental force of social and political leaders has broken from her lax virtue and depleted authority; thecivil power is ready to break from an institution which has betrayed her opportunity and her mission; and the people are filled with deep desire to know some better religion.
The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil has forfeited her place in the historical development of the nation. To all appearance, thfr national authorities have accepted the forfeiture. It is becoming more and more evident that she has also forfeited her power with the people, for they are quite ready to listen to the preaching of a pure gospel.
The central cause of this loss of confidence is the character of the priesthood. The priests have not simply betrayed their office: they have betrayed it in the most shameless manner, and they have perpetuated and diffused the shame. A stranger can hardly give an honest description of these Christian leaders without seeming to transgress propriety. The people kIww the priests to be dissolute. They know them to be deceptive, and a ,growing popular intelligence discerns more and more the shallowness and frivolity of the deception. Three forms of representation depict the base character of the clergy-the representation of Protestant missionaries, of travelers, and of their leaders.
While it is notorious among the people that the priests live in concubinage, the fact can not always be proved. On our voyage, a missionary told us that his acquaintance with a' priest led to calls upon him, then to an acceptance of an invitation to remain to tea. On entering the dining-room, he was introduced to the lady of the house, in this form: "Our Church does not permit us to marry, hut this is my housekeeper." By common consent, the missionaries declared this to be representative of the priestly life-a virtual denial of their professed obligation to celibacy, and an undenied violation of the higher law of chastity. Even loyalty to the essential principles of the Church is thus broken down, and only a formal and forced loyalty retained. Forty years ago Fletcher wrote what all our ministers· would now endorse: "In every part of Brazil that I have visited, I have heard from the mouths of the ignorant as well as from the lips. of the educated, the same sad tale; and what is worse, in many places. the priests openly avow their shame."
It is not, however, Protestant missionaries only who support thecharge. The boob descriptive of Brazil agree in the same representation. Wherever the traveler or the resident touches the moral character of the priesthood, it is to repeat this common testimony in one of twoforms: either to cite the general dissoluteness of these leaders of the Church, or to emphasize the moral character of a bishop or of a priest who is an exception. Dr. Gardner, the naturalist, who lived in Brazil from 1836 to 1841,much of the'time in the interior, says: "I say it, well considering the nature of the assertion, that the present clergy of Brazil are more debased and immoral than any other class of men.,t Even Agassiz, in "A Journey to Brazil," says: "Every friend of Brazil must wish to see its present priesthood replaced by a more vigorous,. intelligent and laborious clergy."
A historical testimony comes from their own leaders. There was published, in 1828, a treatise which became noted. It was entitled,. "A Demonstration of the Necessity of the Abolition of Clerical Celibacy," and was addressed to the General Assembly of Brazil. It was written by Deputy Feijo, who became soon afterwards Regent of the Empire, during the minority of Dom Pedro II. He was held in the highest esteem. After his Regency, he became Minister of State and Senator for life. He was nominated by the:: government to be bishop in the church, but declined the offer. He was a man of great. learning and of large reading in civil and ecclesiastical law. This treatise contained such topics as these: " The Necessity of the Abolition of this Impediment to the Clerical Order;" "The Impediment tothe Order is Unjust; " "The Impediment to the Order is the Source of Immorality in the Clergy;" " The Immorality of the Clergy influences, in a Special Manner, Public Immorality;" "The Law of Celibacy is Not Useful;" "The Abolition of Celibacy is the Choice of Wise Men;" " The Celibacy of the Priests is Not a Divine Institution;" '" The Celibacyof the Priests is Not an Apostolical Institution." It traces also the history of celibacy in the Church.
Citing the historical difference between the Eastern and Western Churches, it contends that the discipline of the Latin Church,. exercised towards clerical celibacy, is not wise. As the result of his studies aud observatious, Feijo recommends a separation of the Brazilian Church from the Romau Church in respect to the offence-that is, the abolition of celibacy in Brazil.
Although Feijo's beneficent recommendation was not adopted, his reasons were not answered. The reply made was such a total sup- pression of his treatise, that for sixty years it has been almost un- known. Recently a missionary in the interior discovered a copy of the treatise in the possession of a planter. When the missionary re- quested a copy of the long-lost document, the planter refused. But when he learned that it was desired for publication, he said: "Oh, if you wish it for publication, take it. It ought to be published." It came out therefore in an accurate Portuguese edition, just when we were at Rio, and has since been translated into English. It bears to its readers its own authenticity in its own pages. The prominent leaders of the Chur('~, as hi'ih prelates or as common clergy, would in vain deny the representatiC'ds of the document or the testimony of the man. Who;,ver may wish to read a description of the immorality of the Brazilian priesthood as it was sixty years ago, as it now is, and as it has been during these three score years, has only to read this treatise.
Written by a learned man, himself a priest, in high position as a .statesman, held to be more worthy of the episcopate than many others, it stands both as a historical document and as a description of the clerical succession whose reformation he vainly recommended. It is a testimony of a Brazilian leader out of its inmost life, supported by the consent of Brazilian leaders in Church and State. And to this testimony might readily be added the allusions in official messages of ministers of justice and prominent presidents, the articles of news- papers, and the unreserved expressions of public men.
Such have been the appointed religious leaders of the virtue and intelligence of that great empire. By them indolence and superstition have been comme~ded to the people; under their direction common -education has held, as its steady aim, servile, emotional obedience; under them, higher training has been pervaded with sensuous feeling, a.nd independent minds have swung off into materialism and positiv- ism. While th.e thirteen colonies of North America, beginning at a later date, and on a more sterile soil, developed into systems of gov- ernment and education which are producing a profound impression ()n the whole world, the United States of Brazil must begin'its moral history anew. While Protestant North America maintains a high standard of virtue and of spiritual life, the vast empire of the south- ern continent drowsily clings to a semi-pagan morality, and is un- able to read in the New Testament the law of its peace and joy.
The difference between the two continents is not wholly a difference in temperature, in physical configuration, nor in Latin and Teutonic blood.
(Concluded in our next.)
SHADOWINGS OF MESSIAH IN HEATHEN SYSTEMS. 349'
SHADOWINGS OF MESSIAH IN HEATHEN SYSTEMS.
BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK.
The history of the religions of men, even beyond the confines of Christian revelation, is full of hints and adumbrations of the great principles of a divine redemption. Sometimes they take one form, sometimes another. It may be a dim reminiscence of lost prophecies, or half-forgotten rites, once known to mankind, reappearing in a gen- eral but vague expectation, or there may be the traceable out-working of a felt want of humanity-a cry in the dark, which can only be met by divine deliverers and redeemers. Not only Christian scholars, like Archbishop Trench and Bishop Horsford, have observed these things, but the enemies of the truth have seized upon them. The one class have hailed them as witnesses from afar, bringing their strange frankincense and myhrr as offerings to Christ: the others have paraded them as proofs that the Gospel story and the whole conception of Christianity are founded on pagan myths. There is, therefore, a two-fold motive for investigation, and whoever carefully and candidly examines the subject will be surprised at the manifold indicationsoften dim and vague-that Christ is verily' 'the Desire of the nations."
Traces of Vicarious Sacrijice.-A very remarkable conception appears in the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, composed, at least, 1200, B. c., which represents the gods as sacrificing Purusha, the "primeval male" supposed to be coeval with the Creator. Again, in the Tandya Brahmana, is the declaration that" the Lord of creatures offered himself a sacrifice for the gods." Also, in the Satapatha Brahmana we read: "He who knowing this, sacrifices with the Purusha medha (sacrifice of the primeval male), becomes everything." Here is substitution.
Sir Monier Williams, in speaking of these passages, says: "Surely in these mystical allusions to the sacrifice of a representative man, we may perceive traces of the original institution of sacrifice as,a divinely appointed ordinance, typical of the one great voluntary sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of the world." The late Professor Bauerjea of Calcutta, in his Aryan Witness, writing on the same subject, says: "These vedic sacrifices had this peculiar significance, that the sacrifices were identified with the victim as the vicarious ransom for his sin." And he says further: "It is not easy to account for the genesis of these ideas in the Veda, of 'one born in the beginning, Lord of the creation,' offering himself a sacrifice for the benefit of deified mortals, except upon the assumption of some primitive tradition of the Lamb slain from the fo'undation of the world."
There are in other faiths of ancient times certain references to the same idea of divine and sympathetic suffering for the good of men; very dim, and more or less shaded off into pantheism, they may be, and yet they are not without significance. Such was the ancient Egyptian doctrine that Osiris, after having been wounded by the god Set, sympathized with every wound of humanity, and himself felt it anew. There was also a dim trace of the idea that deity bore the sins of men for their healing. Thus we find something resembling this vicarious substitution when we read in the "Book of the Dead" that "when the Lord of truth cleanses away defilement, evil is joined to the deity, that the truth may expel the evil element. The God who wounds becomes a God who more abundantly comforts." (Ancient World and Christianity, p. S7.) Rev. R. W. Morgan, author of "St. Paul in Britain," thinks that he finds traces of the same general truth in the faith of the ancient Druids. He quotes from " Cresar's Commentaries" a statement that "the Druids teach that by no other way than the ransoming of man's life by the life of man, is reconciliation with the divine justice of the immortal gods possible." And he adds: "The doctrine of vicarious atonement could not be ex- pressed in clearer terms."
In Schoolcraft's notes upon the American Indian, we find a beautifullegend of the Iroquois, in which a divine or semi-divine sacrifice of spotless innocence is made to hallow the famous League of the Five Nations. There had appeared among the tribes the celestial visitant Hiawatha, who taught the Indians useful arts; and dwelt among them as their friend and sympathizer-their god-man. In their distresses from the invasion of other tribes, they called a council on the shores Qf Onondaga Lake, at which he was expected to preside. At the appointed time representatives of the Five Nations had convened, but their celestial protector and guide was waited for. He came, at length, in agony of spirit, attended by his innocent and beautiful daughter. He foresaw that there awaited him a cup of sacrifice for the good of the people, and just as he approached the council-fire, a swift messenger from heaven smote his daughter to the earth, and her soul was borne away to the Great Spirit. While all minds were solemnized by this strange event, Hiawatha proposed the solemn League by which the tribes, united as one man in plighted faith, should conquer all their foes and make themselves a power throughout the land. When the solemn pledges were ratified, and Hiawatha had pronounced a blessing on each tribe, as did Jacob upon the families of his sons, he entered his celestial canoe, and glided away into the heavens, the clouds receiving him out of their sight.
A counterpart to Hiawatha is found in the legends of ancient Mexico. The Toltecs, and after them the Aztecs, looked for the return of the mysterious and deified Quetzalcoatl, who had reigned as a mild and beneficent prince in Anahuac, who had taught agriculture and the arts of peace, whohad opposed all forms of violence and had abolished human sacrifice by drawing blood from his own 'Veins and offering it as a substitute. This glorious prince had been driven away by prevailing wicked- ness, but had promised to return and restore righteousness and truth. The credulous J'Iontezuma was too ready to believe the prophecy ful- JiHed in the advent of Cortez.
Expectations of a .Deliverer.-Besides the various traces of vicari- -ous sacrifice, there are even more abundant indications of a common .expectation among mankind, that a divine deliverer would descend to ·overcome prevailing sin and suffering, and to establish a kingdom of ;righteousness. Clearest and most distinct of all was that promise .and expectation which pervaded the history and literature of the people of Israel. But among surrounding heathen races also, there were traces of "the Desire of the nations." There was a promise in ,the Persian V eudidad, that at the end of time a son of Zarathustra .should appear, mysteriously conceived and born, who should over- ,come the prince of evil (Ahriman), and free the world from death :and decay; then the dead should rise and immortality commence. (Darmestetter's Intro., p. 79.) It is altogether probable that the Magi who followed the leadings ,of the Star of Bethlehem to the cradle of the Infant Messiah, had been influenced directly or indirectly by the prophecies of the Septua- gint Old Testament, but their own Iranian faith also had fostered a vague expectation of a divine deliverer.
But more explicit and lesl'l mystical is the Hindu prediction, that Vishnu having had nine incarnations upon the earth, shall have a tenth. In those which have preceded he has wrought physical deliverances ,or won by martial valor; in the tenth 'he shall conquer by moral power. He shall come at a time when the world is sunken in I great wicked- ness and corruption, and shall establish a kingdom of righteousness and peace. This significant prediction has been turned to good account in a very remarkable way. Some years ago Rev. J ohn Newton, D. D., Presbyterian Missionary at Lahore, wrote a tract designed to show that the great deliverer and Prince of Peace had already come in the person of Jesus Christ. Like Paul at Athens, he virtually declared to the Hindus, "Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." This little tract found its way into the hands of .a native officer of the Government, who was led to Christ, and found great comfort on his dying bed. But before he died he Bent for a friend, to whom he bequeathed the book as a priceless legacy. This man (Hakem Singh) was so attracted to the new light which had broken upon his soul, that he devoted the remainder of his life to teaching others,-though with more or less mixture of Hindu conceptions,-the glorious advent of this in- .carnate Vishnu as the Saviour of the world. Several hundred followers have been gathered, who are known as the Nish Kalanks. As the gospel in which they have learned to trust is Dr. Newton's presentation of the Christ, who shall say that they have not received saving truth?
Among the ancient Greeks there was developed, in the worship of Apollo, a. singular phase of belief, which, as Professor Tiele and others inform~ us, had been largely influenced by the introduction of Semitic influence. The supreme Zeus had long been worshipped under a distant and vague conception, often sinking into a mere na- ture worship. But after this mingling of new elements, borrowed from the East, a great change appeared. "Then it was," says Tiele, "that the knightly people of the Lycians, kinsmen of the Greeks, and their forerunners in civilization, after coming under the influence of the- Semitic spirit, wrought out the noble figure of Apollo, the god of light, the son and prophet of the most high Zeus, saviour, purifier and re- deemer, whose eultus, lifted high above all nature worship, spread th~nce over all the lands of Greece, and exerted on the religious, moral, and social life of their inhabitants so profound and salutary an influ- ence."
The Delphic Oracle of Apollo came to be the virtual court of appeal among all branches of the Greek race. Social and religious life, statesmanship, war and conquest were all regulated by its decisions. What was this regenerating influence which came from the East and raised the Greek myth of sun-worship to this mysterious and all embracing conception of deity? The Apollo cult reached its supreme power between the eighth and the fifth centuries before Christ, or from about the reign of Zachariah to the times of Esther. The kingdom of David and Solomon had- extended its splendors over the East and had sunken into decline, and the captivity of Israel had extended the knowledge of their faith throughout the Medo-Persian empire. Isaiah had heralded the coming of the Messiah as "the wonderful counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the Prince of Peace." All the fullness of his Messiannic character had been portrayed as a healer and saviour and revealer; as a deliverer proclaiming liberty to the captives, a light to the gentiles, a King of righteousness before whom all nations should bow down. How much of all this "Semitic influence" had entered into the cultus of the Grecian Apollo worship, none can say, but it is significant that he should have held to the supreme and incomprehensible Zeus the relation of revealer and son, at the same time that he was presented as the perfect man, the sympathizer and helper and redeemer of the human race. That great and versatile British statesman, Mr. Gladstone, in his work on "Homer and the Homeric Age," has pointed out the lineaments of the Messiah with which this idealized deity of the Greeks was invested.
There is always danger that such analogies may be overwrought, but it is certainly worthy of notice that this very noblest figure of classical mythology should, in his divine and human character, and in his capacity of revealer and meditator, so far foreshadow the coming Christ.
A still more striking prediction of a coming deliverer and regenerator is found in the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, and very significantly it was proclaimed less than a half century before the Christian Era. Virgil declares it to have been an inspired utterance of the Sybil of Cumae. It is as follows: "The last era, the subject of the Sybil song of Cumae, is arrived, the great series of ages begins anew. The Virgin returns, returns the reign of Saturn. The new Progeny from heaven now descends. Be thou propitious to the Infant Boy, by whom first the Iron Age shall expire and the Golden Age over the whole world commence. Whilst thou, 0 Pollio, art consul, this glory of our age shall be made manifest, and the celestial months begin their revolutions. Under thy auspices whatever vestiges of our guilt remain, shall, by being atoned for, redeem the earth from fear for ever. He shall partake the life of the gods."
I cannot quite share the confidence of Rev. Dr. Morgan, who regards this as virtually a Messianic prediction, but its coincidences are certainly remarkable.
Gropings After a Mediator and a Salvation by Faith.-Equally striking is the history of great changes which have occurred in certain systems which began in works but have ended in faith.
There came a time when the Hindu mind sought for something more human and sympathetic than the cold and distant gods of the 'rrimurti-when the mere bargaining of the old Brahmanic sacrifices and the endless toil of merit-making gave way to a desire for incarnations, divine helpers in human form and for a doctrine of faith (Bakti). And accordingly the worship of the genial Krishna, a successful hero in the wars and finally alleged to be an incarnation of Vishnu, became the most popular god of India. He was clothed with so many attributes of a saviour, that infidelity has seized upon him as a prototype of the Christ. The really significant fact is that Hinduism, in answer to a felt-want of humanity, changed its whole front, forsook the boundless resources of meritorious sanctity and sacrificial bargaining, and trusted in the free compassion of a god-man.
Still more marked are the transformations of Buddhism in the same direction. The original system of Gautama was uncompromisingly atheistic. No reliance was placed upon any other, god or man. The human intellect and human will were all sufficient. Every man was to be his own saviour, and as for the Buddha, when his earthly course was run, he became, according to his own teaching, entirely extinct. There was, therefore, no hearer of prayer-no divine helper.
But this did not satisfy the wants of men, and accordingly changes appeared from age to age in different Buddhist lands. Trinities of
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDICAL MISSIONS
living Bodisats (Buddhas to come) were devised in Nepaul and Thibet. The mysterious Avalokitesvara became incarnate in the Thibetan Grand I"ama, and his female counterpart, Quanyin (goddess of mercy), became the chief resource in China, while in Japan appears a veritable doctrine of salvation by faith in the eternal merits of Amitaba. Buddhism has come to the very threshold of Christianity, and scarcely a vestige of the old system is left.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDICAL MISSIONS.
[We give the substance of an address by our associate at the annual meeting of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, December 5th, last, in Free Assembly Hall, Edinburgh. The President of the Society, Rev. Principal Cairns, D.D., on introducing Dr. Pierson, "assured him of the hearty affec- tion which the directors and friends of the Society entertained for him, the deep interest they took in the errand on which he had come to Scotland, and the great gratification they felt at his presence with them that day."-J. M. S.] '.rhe amazing importance which Medical Missions are assuming in these days is not, after all, any mystery. The body interposes, in a double sense, between the missionary and the soul he seeks to save. It is like a threshold, which must be crossed before we enter even an open door. The wants and woes of the body are even more prominent and pressing than those of the soul. They stand out boldly; the grosser senses take cognizance of them, even when the finer senses, which discern good and evil, not being exercised, become hopelessly dulled and blunted. Many a man who has no sensibility as to his own sin and guilt and lost condition, is keenly alive to his bodily pains and the penalties of violated organic laws. Helice Christ gave heed to the bodily needs and ills of men; He fed the hungry, healed the si'ck, relieved the suffering, and it was all with an ulterior purpose, and on the way to its accomplishment, namely, the healing of a sin-sick soul. He had, no doubt, the keenest sympathy with even the physical ills of humanity, and He sought to reduce the measure of bodily suffering. But beyond this was a higher, grander service-to give holiness, which is, after all, only wholeness to the spiritual nature of men.
It is curious to observe how closely allied are physical and spiritual ills and ailments. In heaven" the inhabitants shall not say' I am sick,' " for sickness and sin are so inseparable that where no sin is no sickness can be found. Our Lord hints at the kinship between diseases of the body and of the soul when He says, "They that are whole have no need of the physician; but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." St. Ambrose calls the eighth chapter of Matthew" scriptura miraculosa j" it follows the great Sermon on the Mount, which was the utterance of words such as never man spake, by a record of works such as never man did, as though to indicate and vindicate Messiah's claim to speak with authority, original and underived. Surely it is by no accident that, in that one chapter, Matthew groups together four representative cases of disease, viz., leprosy, palsy, fever and demoniacal possession, and, in connection with their healing, quotes Isaiah, "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." It is a well-known fact that to the Jew, these and other diseases were typical in character. The Hebrew mind regarded leprosy as the walking parable of sin, guilt, and judgment. Palsy was an object lesson on the impotence of the sinner-lost power for good, a crippled will, an inert conscience. Fever stood for the unnatural heat of inflamed passion, lust, carnal desire…..2with the delirium or virtual insanity by the morbid excitement of evil desire and unholy angel'; and one possessed by a demon naturally suggested a soul entirely enslaved and controlled by Satan. Our Lord distinctly declared on one occasion that His exercise of healing power was designed to be evidential-a proof of His love, power and authority in a higher sphere : "But that ye may know that the Son ofMan hath power on earth to forgive sin "-then saith He to the sick of the palsy-" arise, take up thy bed," etc. And what a vindication and illustration that was, of such power, when he cured and healed men of divers diseases and torments! He who could cure leprosy and palsy and fever, and restore the maimed, and exorcise demons-could He not purge the guilt, remove the impotence, subdue the rage of sin, and even give back lost spiritual power, and cast Satan from his throne in the soul!
The resemblance between sin and sickness is a curious study, and suggests almost an analogy. Life is a tripod and stands on three legs-the brain, the heart, the lungs. If death comes by the brain, it is comaj if by the heart, syncopej if by the lungs, asphyxia. How closely spiritual disorders are akin to these! . How large a part of sin and alienation from God may be traced to, or manifested in, a disordered mind, whose thoughts and conceptions of divine things are beclouded, cOJ;lfused, abnormal, wicked! How much more may be connected with affections that are hopelessly astray, love turned into hatred, rebellion displacing obedience, and treason loyalty. And how often does the very power to inspire the atmosphere of holy things, and live thereby, seem gone-prayer is no longer the instinctive utterance of the child crying to a Father in the hour of need !
Oh for some medicine to give clearness to the soul's brain, to strengthen and regulate the action of the spiritual heart, to quicken and energize the respiration of the spiritual lungs, and to give a normal digestion to the food on which all higher life depends for nutrition!
It is very noticeable that Medical Missions have proved the last, and not the least important and valuable, of the keys by which God has unlocked, and is now unlocking, the doors of Hermit nations. Prominent among the marks of the curse that rests upon heathenism and paganism is this, that the most absurd, pernicious, and even cruel notions obtain as to the nature and consequent treatment of disease. Bodily ailments are held to be the result of malignant spiritual agencies, witchcraft, etc. Hence the medicine man, with his absurd methods of detecting the source of the malign influence, and remov- ing 01' antidoting it. In Africa the suspected witch must swallow tne poison draught. If it operates on the one hand as an emetic, or on the other as a cathartic, it is a sign of innocence or of guilt, as the case may be; and as the medicine man knows that the result of its administration depends on the strength and quantity of the dose, he can dispose of the suspected party as he pleases. There is an amus- ing story told in a book on the Congo, of a hydraulic press introduced into the country for manufacturing purposes, which the natives su~ pected of being endowed with supernatural powers, and which they . wished to test by the tangena draught; but, as it had neither stomach nor bowels, it was difficult to see how either vomiting 01' purging could be secured, and the test had to be abandoned.
This may amuse. But the whole subject is fraught with painful interest. The sufferings of the people in the Lao's country from the native" physicians" and their methods of treatment, cannot be be- lieved except upon the most reliable testimony. When I heard the first statement from a Medical Missionary of what he had. seen him- self, I said such facts should be "written in blood and registered in hell." Decoctions of the most repulsive sort, operations the most cruel and torturing, remedies the most absurdly unnatural, all calcu- lated to increase, if not engender disease, abound even among tribes that might be supposed to be comparatively intelligent and civilized. And where there might be no spiritual results to be hoped for, as a. mere matter of humanity it would be worth while to undertake to introduce a rational and scientific treatment by medicine and surgery, if only to diminish in some measure the temporal suffering of poor, deluded human beings.
But, as I have hinted, greater results are attained. God puts scientific medicine into our hands as the key to unlock closed doors to the unevangelized nations. Now, many a man has gone into a hitherto closed village or community by the simple process of vaccination, or by a successful interposition in cases of epidemic diseases, like scarlet fever, measles, etc. We have known a simple operation for the removal of a cataract to open up a whole town to the influence of a Christian surgeon. The fact is now universally known that Korea was unlocked and its hermit seclusion broken by Dr. Allen's successful treatment of wounds received in the civil war of Seoul. The nephew of the reigning monarch, Ming Yong Ik, chanced to be among the wounded. Dr. Allen found the native " surgeons" trying to staunch the flowing blood by pouring in melted wax. He at once interposed, caught up and tied the arteries and sewed up the wounds, using all the best appliances of bandage and balm ana lotion and antiseptic wash, and such was the success of his treatm3nt that the Emperor said we must have such medicine and surgery in our cwn dominions. Hence came the Royal Hospital, with Dr. Allen at its head, and the introduction not only of rational and scientific medical and surgical practice, but of the Gospel of the Occident within the long closed gates of Korea. Thus, in many instances, God has put Medical Missions into our hands as the potent key to unlock long barred portals opening into the territory of heathenism and paganism.
Dr. Burns Thomson tells an amusing story of one of his earlier encounters with a very pronounced specimen of physical womanhood, who approached him with her red arms akimbo, ready for a muscular demonstration of her disapproval of his house to house visits. He was then but a student, seeking to do good among the destitute, degraded classes of the city populat.ion; and this broad-shouldered, deep-chested giantess, flushed with anger at his intrusion upon her premises, seemed to threaten her somewhat frail visitor with annihilation. Looking into her face, he ventured to remark that he thought she looked like one who was scarcely well, and thus evoked a confession that jhe was suffering from some physical disorder, a torpid liver, etc. He put on an air of confidence, and said he thought he could administer a simple remedy that would relieve her, and by a penny's worth of castor oil purchased both her good will and everlasting gratitude. The young man was wise enough to conclude that if. such a simple prescription, from a novice unacquainted with the mysteries of medicine, could open the door to a human heart, a wider familiarity with the healing art might introduce him to many a heart and home among the unsaved heathen. And hence his career as a Medical Missionary.
Upon the matter contained in the Report I have not thought necessary to touch, inasmuch as the Report itself is in all your hands, and, like the mouth of a famous orator of America, Henry Clay, it "speaks for itself." But I may advert, briefly, to the pathetic fact that it is given to Edinburgh, and its Medical Missionary Society, to send Medical Missionaries to Damascus, where Saul the persecutor had the scales fall from his eyes and began to preach the healing Gospel; and to Nazareth, that despised city of Galilee, from which the ,,. Carpenter's Son" went forth to heal human bodies and to cure human souls by His all-powerful touch and word.
We have been reminded that the Jubilee year of this organization is near at hand. Would it not be well to hasten that Jubilee-and without waiting for a twelvemonth or more, enable them to sonnd the trumpet of their Jubilee, by delivering them from their present inadequate and narrow quarters, and by giving them enlarged premises and facilities for their noble work? A Society, so blessed of God, the pioneer in such heroic Christian service, should have the noblest support which we can give it, and I affectionately commend it to your sympathy, your prayers, and your alms. May God crown all the labors of this Society with His richest blessing, and make its Missions a benediction to all lands!
THE RAMONA MISSION.
BY REV. PAUL DE SCHWEINITZ, NORTHFIELD, MINN.
In the March issue of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD, there ap- peared an admirable article, by the Rev. Mr. Leonard, on the" Moravian Mis- sions Among the American Indians." The mission activity of the Moravians among the American Indians has extended over a period of 156 years, but up to 1889 all that remained of this grand and untiring work, owing to the disas- trous vicissitudes fully explained in the article mentioned above, was one station among the Delawares in Canada (where a powerful revi~al was experienced in 1887); one station among the Delawares in Kansas (which mission is subject to constant petty persecutions, and is gradually dying out); two stations among the Cherokees in the Indian Territory-in all, four stations, with 381 souls, under the care of the missionaries. But in that year, 1889, a new mission was begun among the so-called" Mission" Indians of Southern California, thus called from the former nominal connection of these tribes with the ancient Romish missions in that country. This mission was christened the " Ramona Mission," because Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's " Ra~" was the principal agent in drawing the attention of the country to them.
In the REVIEW for February, 1890, in the article on the" Moravian Mission on the Kuskokwim," the Rev. William H. Weinland was mentioned as one of the pioneer missionaries to the Alaskan Eskimos. He was forced to return to the States on account of ill health, but in June of 1889 he gladly- responded to the call of the Executive Board of the Moravian Church to undertake this new mission among the spiritually neglected Indians of Southern California. It should be stated, that all the expenses of this mission are borne by the Woman's National Indian Association, and all that the Moravian Church has done thus far officially has been the supplying of the missionary.
Missionary Weinland first directed his efforts to the Indians on the Coahuila Reservation. (Coahuila: pronounced Cow-ee-ah.) After the degradation of the Alaskan Eskimos, these Indians, living in their well-built adobe houses, seemed to be quite civilized. Here, in the reservation schoolhouse, the Government school-teacher, Mrs.Ticknor, a Presbyterian, had, up to the time of her death, devotedlyendeavored to bring the Indians to the knowledge of Christ. Itseemed a very favorable point to begin a mission. But when a council was called, to the consternation of the missionary, and the utter surprise of the Indian agent, the Indians utterly refused to allow the missionaries to settle on their reservatiOI~. It was subsequently learned, that this sudden hostility on the part of the Indians was due to Romish Catholic influence, which had been and is opposing the new mission wherever possible.
Sadly, therefore, Mr. Weinland turned away and made his headquarters in San Jacinto, San Diego County, resolved to do itinerant missionary work among aU the" Mission" Indians. These number about 3,000 souls, living in twenty villages, scattered over San Diego and San Bernardino counties. It
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES
soon became apparent that this was impossible, and so he and his wife, up to the pI'esent time, have confined their work principally to Saboba and Potraro. .At the latter place the spiritual ground had already been broken. The Government school-teacher, Miss Sarah Morris, had, with great devotion, in addition to her regular work, opened a Sunday-school, and has since assisted the missionaries faithfully.
The greatest difficulty has been experienced in securing the right to erect mission buildings. The titles to property are very insecure and uncertain, and the Indians are exceedingly suspicious of all papers, having learned by sad experience that the signing of papers with white men has often'resulted disastrously to them. Finally, however, in December, 1889, the necessary land was secured, and, at last accounts, the logs for the missionary home were being hauled.
But in the meantime the missionary was not idle. The three languages used are the native Indian, the English, and especially the Spanish. Preaching as best he could, either directly or by means of an interpreter, he strove to bring home to these Indians the glad tidings of a Redeemer. And wonderfully has the Lord blessed the message of his servant. On October 24, 1889, he was permitted to baptize twenty-seven children and young persons, many of whom had been scholars in Miss Morris' Sunday-school. At subsequent meetings adults began to rise and ask to be brought to Christ. The missionary writes: "We tried to use our utmost discretion in selecting these candidates for baptism, and, as'later experiences have proved, the baptism of these persons was the best step which we could possibly have taken at that critical time, for it gave us a hold upon the people, which others (presumably Romish Catholics) were unable to wrest from us, though effort was made in that direction. "Ve at once formed all the young people of suitable age into a cl'ass for special catechetical instruction (preparatory to confirmation), and have since been adding a number of older people who desire to join our (Moravian) communion, so that by the coming (April 6, 1890,) Easter Festival we hope to have about thirty communicant members as a working force and nucleus."
Surely this is an age when the Word of the Lord at once enters the hearts of the once stolid heathen. The time of dreary waitings seems to be passing away. No sooner is the message proclaimed than eager hearts accept the glad tidings.
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
" In the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of Russia interest in missions had experienced a 4elightful increase, and a sort of Missionary House for the German colonies of Southern Russia was in course of establishment,when suddenly, by command of the sovereign, the Lutheran pastors were forbidden to hold any further missionary festivals, or to collect or send out money for missions. But what has been the result of this prohibition? This: that in many congregations where hitherto nothing has been done for missions, the people now begin to ask, What then are these missionary festivals that are not to be held? 'We have never celebrated such a one yet! That thus the indifferent are awakened. Furthermore, that' many friends of missions now feel themselves impelled to give yet more than hitherto, and, finally, that the clergy as a body have distinctly declared that missions are a command of the Lord Jesus, which is obligatory for every church and for every Christian, and which no human command can annul. They do, it is true, submit meanwhile to thewill of their Czar, but at the same time they urgently petition for a revocation of the edict, and thereby attest their conviction that missions are l).Il indefeasible duty-something which a few decades back it would have come into none of their minds to set forth."-Calwer Monatsbliitter, January, 1890.
-The Journal des Missions Evangeliques for January, 1890, in its editorial article entitled" French-speaking Protestantism and Missions," remarks: " If the nineteenth century has been the century of missions, the end of this century might be called the hour of missions. Never, in fact, since apostolic times, have the signs of the times so clearly recalled to the Church her duty toward pagan mankind. On the one hand discovery and exploration have opened new ways to every influence; on the other, European commerce and colonization, throwing themselves emulously, in all parts of the world, upon the archipelagoes or the territories lately independent, do not allow Christians to remain aoneinactive in this conquest of the heathen world; it is for the Church the hour signified by God to arise, and to take possession of the desolate heritages of the Lord. "
The Journal refers to their coming into the succession of the English work in the. Loyalty Islands. It says nothing of the odious injustice of the French Government in expelling the English missionaries, especially the Rev. Mr. Jones. The German Protestants, subjects of an almost autocratic empire, criticise with courageous freedom the attempts of their Government to push out from its territories missionaries of other nationalities. But to expect French citizens of a 80i disant republic to show either such impartiality,Or such courage, would be too much. After all they are Frenchmen still, admirable, peculiarly admirable, Christians in every other particular, but with annoyance and aggressiveness toward men of Teutonic speech, Germanor English, in their very blood.
-" Observing the attention and interest just now touching all that respects Africa, we cannot but see the hand of Providence in the events which have led us to concentrate on this continent the greater part of our efforts, and to occupy, in the whole body of evangelical labors whose object is to subdue it to Christ, several points of especial importance. Livingstone designated the great rivers which traverse this continent as the routes destined, in the mind of God, to introduce into it civilization and Christianity. Is it not a circumstance worthy of remark that among our African mission-fields there are three precisely so placed as to utilize three of these great avenues of access: the Senegal, the Congo, the Zambesi.
" Thanks to God, the work on the Zambesi, after the slow and painful beginnings familiar to all, is now entering on a phase of development very well suited to encourage our faith. The influence acquired by our missionaries over the principal chiefs, the softening effect noticeable in the customs of the Barotsis, the increasing number of pupils in the schools of our two stations of Sefula and Shesheke, and finally the conversion of a young man, first-fruits of the Zambesia Mission, all these first results of the labor of our missionaries give us sufficient assurance that in following the inner drawing which led him to the Zambesi, our brother Coillard did not deceive himself, and that God was reserving to our French-speaking churches a great work in this region.
"Our mission of the Lessuto country" [among the Basutos], "with its 17 stations, its 20 missionaries, its 111 out-stations, its 190 native helpers, its 6,543 communicants, and its 3,332 catechumens, remains as a type of that which our churches can accomplish, in the domain of missions, by the blessing of God. Weare profoundly grateful to him for the encou~agement which he does not cease to give us by means of this work, in which, however, there is no lack of embarrassments. Drawing inspiration from the great apostle who desired to bring his spiritual children to ripeness of age, and aimed only to render himself superfluous, we have been laboring for some years to endow our churches with a native pastorate which will make it practicable for our missionaries gradually to withdraw. But this apprenticeship to self-government cannot be accomplished in a day, and our native churches are the more in need of our support and direction as being so impoverished, and as being subject to the Catholic competition, which, profiting by our numerical weakness in upper Lessuto, is making serious efforts to dispute the ground with us."-J. d. M. E.
-M. Dieterlen, writing after a series of meetings in Lessuto, adverts amus- ingly to what is a very thoroughly Airican, and especially a thoroughly Basuto trait: "Anyone could speak who would, and those who would are never rare in this land of religious fluency. Apropos of this, I have heard to-day a very characteristic remark. I said to an old man: ; I am surprised that you have said nothing in all these meetings.' 'That is because M. Matille did not give me a chance,' he answered. 'Therefore I am hungry-I am not satiated.' He had been hearing no end of addresses and sermons. A European would have thought himself over head and ears in them. But no, not having himself spoken, he was hungry-he was not satisfied. That is Lessuto all over, where talking is such an enjoyment that a Basuto said in full religious assembly, 'It is so good to hear one's self talk! ' "
-The Protestant churches of French Switzerland, besides their operations in the Transvaal Republic and in the Portuguese possessions adjoining Delagoa Bay, are extending their work into the neighboring independent tribes. We give from their Bulletin Missionnaire a somewhat detailed account of the Khassa tribe, since it portrays very well the lights a~d shadows of the heathen character among these tribes of southeastern Africa, belonging, not to the negroes proper, but to the vast negroid family of the Basitus, whose various and widely diverging tribes occupy most of Africa south of the equator, although limited by the Hottentot family in the extreme south, and crossed here and there by the strange pigmy tribes, and doubtless by others. The best known hitherto of the Basitu tribes have been such as the Zulus, Basutos, Becheranas, but new tribes are all the time opening up to knowledge, belonging to the same wide family. This Khassa country has a considerable population which is interesting in many respects. Among the Gwambas of our mission, it is they who have best maintained their national character and their language. They have not yet accepted the Portuguese flag and have been the allies rather than the subjects of the redoubtable Gungunyane. By virtue of having thus alone =aintained their independence, they have a very strong organization, of which we have to take account. The king, the supreme chief of the country, has the right of life and death over his subjects. The· soil belongs to him, and no one can dispose of it without his consent. No stranger can settle in the country without having previously obtained the king's permission. But the latter never takes an important decision without having consulted his council, composed of certain ministers who dwell near him, and of provincial governors, who, bearing the official title of" Sons of the Lords," are dispersed throughout the country, where they are, according to the expression of one of them, "the king's eyes." The supreme power is now in the hands of a regent named Mavabaze, during the minority of Shangele, son and heir of Magude. Mavabaze has his villages very near our evangelist Yozefa, while Shangele resides with his mother, Nwashibugroane, a league off, not far from Lake Shoktoiya. The council of ministers has just given him a tutor in the person of his uncle, his mother's brother, who will take the charge of his education. In the same village and in some others near by live those widows of Magude who did not return to their various countries after the king's death.
The Khassas are a hospitable people, and very agreeable in their relations with strangers. The chiefs willingly accord an asylum and protection to people of the neighboring tribes who take refuge with them when in danger of death. But, on the other hand, the pagan superstitions are still very vigorous among them, and bear all their terrible fruits. Thus the belief in occult influences is uncontested, and the same Mavabaze who, while we were there, saved the lives of refugee Zulus from their pursuers, has lately massacred two of his own subjects who were accused of having cast maleficent lots. The accusation of being devoted to occult practices is a Damocles sword constantly suspended over the head of every member of the tribe, for it is enough to be ac– cused of it by an enemy to insure anyone's immediate condemnation to death. Whom does this advantage? First, the sorcerers, for people make haste toconsult them as soon as they believe ''themselves to be under these spells; and next, the king, to whom the cattle of every man put to death for witchcraft, escheat. These national customs, so profoundly rooted in the people, will constitute the essential'difficulty of the missionary work. On the other hand, I have observed with pleasure that drunkenness is much more rare there than here, and that liquors imported from Europe are generally regarded as a, bad thing. 'A good many drink, it is true, especially women; but we have seen a man and his five wives, after having indulged in intemperate habits for a good while, completely giving over the use of brandy, because theyexperienced that it did them harm. However, the maize-buyers begin to flood thecountry with liquor in payment for grain, and we observe with concern that the queen-mother is beginning to drink. Prompt and energetic action might yet stop all this, and preserve to the country its undiminished vitality.
.. It is in the midst of this interesting population that our excellent Yoze!a has been laboringfor several years. Statistics would reckon the result of his labors at zero; but we have only to. traverse the countryfor a few days in his company to be convincedthat this estimate is erroneous. He has known how to make himself loved of all, and to render himself acceptable to high and low. He is ,received with equal joy by the king and by his' humblest subject. He is on a footing' of good-fellowship with the leaders of the land, who visit him and whose visits he returns. At the moment when we arrived at Antioka with him, he had been absent about two months, and_ we could judge of the joy which all testified at his return. And yet, if he is so highlyappreciated, it is not that he compromises with their vices. Far from it; he has no sooner engaged in_ conversation with any person whatever. king, councillor or private person, but he brings it upon religious subjects; he speaks of the wrong doings of his interlocutors with an admirable courage. I have heard him in particular sharply reprimand the king for his belief in witchcraft" and make a pressing appeal to his conscience, to which the king has had no answer to make. Certain religious notions begin to have some influence everywhere-that of the last judgment, for example. Thus, one day that we were examining the country, we were accosted by thi-ee young people, who began to inquire into our business. .As Yozefa was speaking to them of my intention of settling among them, the face of one of them all at once lighted up, and he exclaimed: 'Then we shall not be burned; we shall have a misSionary!' This idea of the eternal fire pursues Mavabaze also, for during Yozefa'sabsence he again and again asked the wife of the latter if he should be bUl'11ed also.
"On arriving home Yozefa has had the joy of being able to show a palpable result of his work. During his absence nine women have been converted at Cossine, a day's journey down the riverfrom Antioka. These, with another woman converted some time ago in the same village, form the first fruits of the harvest of Khassa. "- M. Grandjean writes from another region: "Our evangelizing tours would be easy if we had solid ground to walk on, but the sand is very fatiguing. On arriving at a village, we begin by demanding of the chief of the district permission to speak of the things of God. It is generally granted if the people are sober, but very often they have been drinking and will not listen to what we have to say to them. On some Sundays our people have been repulsed from two places before they were allowed to speak. One da.y, when I was with them, we were received in this manner in a village. I wanted to persist, but the men of the village assumed so menacing an attitude that we had to leave the enclosure. ,Ve then stopped under the burning sun, on the other side of the thorn hedge surrounding the village, and began to sing one of our hymns. A large number of women and of young people came aJ;ld grouped themselves around us, and the work of God went on, while, inside the village, Satan reigned full master.
"Butif we are sometimes ill received, most commouly it is otherwise. Permission obtained, we establish ourselves in the shade of an oukoukhlou, a dense evergreen tree, of which there is one in the centre of almost every village. The people gather around us, and we evangelize them as much by our hymns as by our words, for they love much to hear us sing. It is always a critical moment when, after an address, 'there is a transition to prayer, especially if the one in charge requires them to kneel. They then begin to nudge one another, to make ridiculous remarks; little by little, they are seized with an inextinguishable fit of silly laughter, and it is a chance if they do not literally roll on the ground.
"I have once beheld such a scene of hilarity preceded by a general stampede of all the urchins, who foreboded something mysterious. I have more than once heard an individual exclaim, with a sigh of relief, after prayer, 'Ri sele,' i.e., 'Fair weather again.' It is not after a first nor a second visit to a village that we can expect conversions. We ought to have a more considerable nucleus of Christians than we have here, and to be able to divide them into groups, in such a way as that some villages might have gospel preaching Sunday after Sunday. For the moment our evangelization is still far too sporadic to afford hope of satisfying results. But we hope that the seed is dropping into some hearts, and pray God that he will do by His spirit what we cannot do by our word.
" If one from Switzerland should come to visit our native churches, he would be, I doubt not, not a little surprised to find how far our Christians are from answering the idea entertained in Europe. In some places at home people imagine that the Christian negroes are angels-that theyadoJ:e their missionaries. But they forget what are the works of the fiesh in a young church composed of members that have come out of heathenism and the deepest degradation.
" Our most sincere and faithful Christians have to sustain, in order to persevere in the good way, a daily and desperate strife against the pagan infiuence of their environment and of their own hearts. Then a great number accept the gospel simply as a doctrine and as a system of outward usages. But, despite the evil which is found in our churches, we are happy to note the powerful action of the gospel, and we can not but admire the love and the patience of God in this work of elevation whose steps of progress are so slow."
-The Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missions Blatt for January, 1890, begins with these New Year's thoughts: "Immanuel; God be with us! This is our New Year's greeting to our beloved readers. In the midstream of the fleeting ages stands this immovable rock, ' God with us,' as our sure refuge. If He, the source of all goods and gifts, conjoins himself with our poverty, what'a fullness of blessing then streams down upon us; his eternity gives to our brief duration of life an eternal worth, his righteousness covers our sin, his strength helps our weakness to stand, his life consumes our death-Immanuel! How consoling, at the portal of the new year, is the wealth of meaning in this name for all whose heart is in missiolls! Indeed, he has appended this name as his signature ben~ath his Great Commission; for what is the premise, 'Behold, I am with yent all the days, even unto the end of the world,' except an amplified explication of the name Immanuel? God with us and our work! What lleed we have of this comfort! The longer one works in missions, the greater appears to him the task imposed upon them, and the higher the towering difficulties of this work seem often to rise. Doubtless, in the last decade, in the various missions, a considerable number of heathen has been converted. But this increase is counted by thou- sands, while the great mass of heathen peoples is yearly increasing by millions.
Undoubtedly in this last decade Christian missions have, in the lands of the heathen, made victorious progress, but just in these last years has the reinforced opposition of Mohammedanism in Africa and the united opposition of the heathen in India, risen to withstand them; nay, even Buddhism in Japan and Ceylon appears minded to gather its strength for new conflict. And when, even out of the midst of the elder Christendom, many anxious apprehensions find a voice concerning the decrease of Christian faith and life, this decline cannot fail to lame the missionary activity of the church. Looking at these facts and at ourselves, we have no guarantee of success. Where do we find it? ill the name and Amen (Namen und Amen) of Immanuel. Is He with us in our work?
Then it mUilt succeed. On his banner Victory never fails to perch."
GENli:.RAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
n.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Student Volunteer Movement for Poreign Miss}ons.
The time is drawing near when men unteer Movement. He not only took who are in our colleges and seminaries exception to the method of its use, but will be making plans for the summer. expressed the opinion that he could Many, perchance, who hope to be in :find no sufficient reason for its exist- active work in a few years are asking ence. En passant, Mr. Dechont is not themselves the question, How can I a volunteer. The spirited discussion aid the world's evangelization now? which followed the reading of this Last summer Messrs. Bond and McCall paper showed a division of opinion reported as a result of fifty-two meet- among the delegates on the pledge ings, held principally in New York question. Before adjournment, the State, $6,000 pledged, and thirteen house called on Mr. Robert P. Wilder, volunteers secured. Mr. A. N. O'Brien, of Union Theological Seminary, toex- in the summer of '88, devoted four press his opinion on the subject of the weeks in visiting colleges, and secured pledge. This gentleman gave con- sixty-seven volunteers. The latter vincing proof for its raison d'etre. In gentleman, when asked what he con- his line of argument he began with an sidered requisites for this phase of the appeal to the individual, urging that work, replied: First, an earnest con- men ought to take a stand during the viction of the needs of the field; sec- college course, or early in the seminary Qnd, a knowledge of what the Scrip- course, in order that adequate prepar- tures reveal of God's will in regard to ation be made for effective work in the evangelization of the world; third, the foreign fields. "The pledge," Mr.
personal need of humility and the Wilbur said, "indicated that a decis- presence of God. What has been ac- ion had been made, and it showed to complished in the instances given is one's fellow-men that the man had sufficient indication of what may be taken a definite stand; secondly, in done in the same line of effort this working for recruits, a pledged man coming vacation. There are good can say, Come, whereas a non-pledged fields open for the efforts of many man can only say, Go." Hethengave who will work in dead earnest, whose a brief account of the marvellous hearts the Lord has touched. missionary interest awakened in the Volunteers, who were privileged to universities in England and in Scot- attend the Central District Inter- land in 1885, and stated how that Seminary Missionary Alliance at movement had not been conserved, Chester, Pa., Feb. 27-28, will remem- for the reason that men had not com- ber the occasion with gratitude and mitted themselves to writing, and thanksgiving. About fifty delegates, without names it had been impossible representing nine theological semi- to follow up and utilize the interest naries from the four States, New York, already awakened. "The very exist- New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Dela- ence of' The Student Volunteer Move- ware, were present. The meetings ment,''' continued the speaker, "is were held in the First Baptist Church, due to the pledge which has been the of Chester. bond binding us together, and without After the address of welcome a it there could have been no move- paper was read by Mr. A. S. Dechont, ment."
of the Reformed Theological Semi- The Rev. H. Grattan Guinness, nary, Lancaster, Pa. His theme was F. R. S., of London, Eng., who estab- " Scope and Purposes of our Annual lished and is at the head of Harley Convention." The gentleman took House, the most successful missionary occasion to state his views regarding training school in the world, held on the pledge used by The Student Vol- Friday morning a question drawer. Questions answered covered a wide personal, and moved the men present range of inquiry. Many of them con- -more that that, he gave tone to much cerned Mrica, in which field Mr. that was said afterwards. The dis- Guinness has especial interest. To the cussion which immediately followed question, Is there any greater need in this address clearly indicated that· Mrica than in Mexico for missionary men had been stirred. No word of effort? he replied, "There is a glimmer adverse criticism was offered, but.
of light in Mexico; in the heart of the remarks made conveyed appreci- Mrica there is absolute darkness." ation of the address and gratitude "Can a minister who has not a good for the personal influence of the excuse for staying at home, ask an- speaker.
other to go?" queried some one, and A marked feature of this conference the reply was a most emphatic "No." was its true devotional character. In Space does not admit of a full state- almost all of the discussions there was.
ment of the significance of the Sec- a noticeable absence of the polemical ond Probation theory in its bearing on spirit. The meeting for volunteers foreign missions, but a few sentences will be remembered by many for all will show the drift of the speaker's time. Several present were about to views: "I am not prepared to say depart for foreign lands, and the that the Divine Spirit may not work prayers offered from that little circle without human instrumentality. In were most deeply- heart-felt. In Oriental countries, missionaries have things spiritual we cannot estimate found men so near' the Kingdom of results as in matters temporal. We God,' that the Gospel message has hardly dare even to gauge influences, found almost immediate response. • for "eye hath not seen nor ear heard."
But, as a matter of fact, we find sin We know by the working of the Holy almost as universal as conscience." Spirit that there is much good in the The most notable address of the secret of His presence which He alone conference was delivered on Friday sees. Two men decided to go into the afternoon by Mr. Robert P. Wilder, foreign field the last day of the con- and was entitled "Missionary Enthu- ference. The testimonies which were siasm, How Obtained and Preserved." made at the final meeting were brief, A request has already been made that direct and honest, and they manifested this address be printed and put in the a desire and a determination on the hands of every volunteer. Mr.Wilder part of many to live in the future spoke in his usual earnest, persuasive lives nearer to the Master.
and convincing way. His appeal was MAX WOOD MOORHEAD.
Notes on Afrioa., by our Oorrespondent, Rev. James Johnston, England.
-The English Wesleyans and the commissioners, the publicity of the Indian Missionaries. The Wesleyan inquiry, and the limitation of the dis- Foreign Missions Committee met re- cussion to the points originally raised cently to re-open the question of Dr. in his paper. The committee decided Lunn's charges against their represen- to request the attendance of a deputatatives in India. The Rev. H. P. tion in April next from the Indian Hughes, editor of the Methodist Times, field, and also Dr. Lunn and Mr. expressed by letter his regret that so Hughes, to confer upon the question much persOnal bitterness had been in council with their own members. shown in the controversy and of his The entire Methodist fraternity, many unsuccessful endeavors to pacify the of whom are weary of the strife, Indian brethren. To effect an amic- earnestly anticipate a satisfactory able settlement, he recommended the settlement of a dispute which has had appointment of an impartial body of no little disturbing influence on Wesleyan Methodism at home and abroad. happy state ot things is passing away Meanwhile two of the foremost Indian under the influence ofWestern civiliza- Wesleyan missionaries, Professor Pat- tion. The leading work of the year is terson, of the Madras Christian College, based on this idea. It describes the and Professor Findlay, of the Nega- fate of a family, the young men of patam College, have sailed for Eng- which begin to doubt the wisdom of land to represent their fellow workers. the head and to think for themselves ; -Current Literature and Education disputes and divisions follow; they in India. A recent Calcutta telegram lose their good name; and finally, by states that the movement to establish an awful fate, the family dies out al- societies to diffuse cheap ,and useful together.
literature throughout India, which was -The Church Missionary Society is commenced in Calcutta last January, currently engaged in reviewing the has spread to Madras. A large repre- claims of higher education in India, sentative meeting was held in Madras and earnestly solicits funds to be de- in February, which the Rev. James voted to this cause. It is observed Johnston (a namesake of the writer that the spread of infidelity among the and gifted contributor to the MISSION- educated Hindus is alarming. The ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD) addressed admirable educational training, by at length. He has gone to India to which they are almost inevitably de- advocate this enterprise. He referred prived of belief in the gods of their to the advantages resulting from the forefathers, exposes. them to the circulation of healthy knowledge in charms of a false science, and to skep- English and vernacular works, and tical assaults. To cope with this emer- urged the Government to give aid to gency, it is proposed to disseminate the undertaking. It was resolved by ·literature saturated with the power of the audience to form a society to pro- Gospel revelation, and the institution mote the object desired. A strong of a staff of teachers who will ex- committee, including several leading pound scriptual doctrine in the high citizens, was appointed. schools and colleges in every part of -From the last report of the Di- India. Touching this question, it has rector of Public Instruction in Bengal, been noted that the Church Missionary discouraging intelligence is given of Society which, some years back, aban- the literary spirit in that vast Presi- doned its Calcutta school, has latterly dency. He expresses the opinion that made overtures to the Presbyterians English education has little impressed with a view to co-operating with them the Bengali, having chiefly stimulated in this department. It is not long the production of Keys, and other since a venerable Indian missionary helps to students. "Philosophy," he told a freshly arrived worker that he adds, "keeps in the old groove, and himself in his youth was vehemently medicine seems trying to return to it. opposed to education by missionaries, One looks in vain for a Bengali New- whereas he was now as enthusiastic in ton, or a Bengali Faraday." its support, although not set apart to Fiction and poetry both tlouri"h in it. Says an Indian missionary: "Edu- Bengal, and works in each have largely cational work demands more real se1£- increased. Some doubt is expressed denial, courage and patience than al- whether the substance or form of In- most any other kind of missionary dian fiction has been improved by the enterprise. It is the educational mis- English occupation of the country. A sionaries who have literally to bear great change, it is remarked, has come the heat and burden of the day in over native writers in Bengal. The India, and it is very much to be re- younger generation of writers of fic- gretted that the Church which sendS'
tion is permeated with the idea that a them out to the work, and in whose service they are spending their ing a journey to Karonga, if com- strength, should show them so little· pelled. This friendly Arab has assured ;sympathy." them of his continued protection, and -Lake Tanganyika Missions. affirms that Tippoo Tib had requested Through the courtesy of the French him to defend 'the Mission, even if Livingstonian traveler, Captain Tri- fighting were inevitable.
vier, who has crossed .Africa from My friend, Captain Hore, of the Loango to Quillimane without an Tanganyika Mission, who leaves Eng- ·escort, the London Missionary Society land for Australia in April, in the in- has received news of its missionaries terest of the London Missionary S0- .at the south end of Tanganyika and ciety, purposes returnjng to Great Fwambo down to Sept. 24. The Rev. Britain early in 1891, via San Fran- D. P. Jones and Mr. Hemans write cisco and New York. While in the from Fwambo, and Messrs. A. J. United States, he desires, if practi- .Swann, A. Carson and Dr. Mather cable, to address audiences on Central from the Niumkorlo station. In the African Missions. The writer will .summer' of 1889 the outlook was so give every assistance and information perplexing that it was difficult to re- to churches and societies wishing to solve whether the Mission could be re- have the privilege of listening to this tained or its agents have to withdraw. noble pioneer and effective advocate When the August letter was penned, of missions to every color and clime.
the situation was more cheering. -The Uganda Missions. The latest "There seems," it says, "to be no native letters, received at Zanzibar reason now for anxiety on our ac- from the Victoria Nyanza, report count; we are all in capital health and that Mwanga, aid!!d by the Europeans, spirits, and in no real danger at pres- has regained the throne of Uganda.
€nt. We have all the necessaries of There was severe fighting, in which life, and every prospect of doing sub- King Kalema and his Arab allies stantial work at our new station were defeated, very few Arabs sur- (Niumkorlo)." The return of the Arab, viving the massacre which followed.
Katunda, who destroyed many natives During the fight a dhow on the lake, at Lieudwe, at the time of the build- conveying a number of leading Arabs ing of the Good News (steamer) some and a quantity of ammunition, was years ago, was under altered circum- blown up and all on board killed.
stances, a guarantee of brighter days. Uganda is now in the hands of Mwan- He admitted that the Lake Nyassa ga and the Europeans. If Mwanga's conflicts were ruining him, and hence professed zeal for Christianity is sin- he desired peace. His Arab compan- cere he Iuight, as the re-instated mon- ions he believed were anxious for arch of the finest of Central .African terms, and he begged one of the mis- . aboriginal races, assist in the suppres- sionaries to go with him to Nyassa to sion of slavery and promote the ad- negotiate an agreement. The mission- vance of civilization south and west aries despaired receiving supplies for across vast areas which Mr. Stanley a time from Zanzibar, though the Af- well describes in the title of his new rican Lakes Company anticipated that work, "The Darkest Africa." The on the completion of their new vessel East Central African party belonging (Nyassa), five months hence, they to the Church Missionary Society, would be able to dispatch relief to the headed by Mr. Douglas Hooper, and missionaries. Mr. Swann in the mean- consisting of three Cambridge gradu- time had procured a little more cloth ates, viz., Mr. G. L. Pilkington, Mr.
from Mohammed – tin – Khalfan, at G. K. Baskerville, and Mr. J. D. M.
Ujiji; which prepared them either for Cotter, sailed in February for the East staying over another season, or mak- .African coast. -West African Missions. The the Bishop's latest epistle deals with heart of the veteran Crowther would be gladdened by the embarkation in the farce of the late Sultan's proclama-· the Lagos (s.s.) Feb. 15, at Liverpool, of the iron church which is to ~c tion, granting liberty to slaves and place an old wooden one at Bonny, which had become unsafe for worship. slave-born according to defined stipu- This new edifice which, like its predecessor, will be named St. Clement's, lations. On this he says: is intended mainly for the use of the "Last year we were rejoiced to hear that a· English-speaking merchants and their workpeople in the Bonny River. The great advance was to be made towards the total cost pf the building, including abolition of slavery in Zanzibar dominions. freight, is £430. Among the mission- Proclamations were to be issued thatall slaves ary heroes of the 19th century the imported after November 1 of last year were colored Bishop of Sierra Leone and the to be free, and that all children born within Lower Niger will fill a shining place. the Sultan's dominions after January 1 of this year would be born free. The first proclama- -Bishop Smythies and Slavery at tion was issued, but only remained posted up Zanzibar. Grief, and griefonly, must in Zanzibar a very short time. The second be felt by the admirers of chivalrous proclamation has not been issued at all. devotion in the mission fields on learn- Practically no action has been taken upon ing that Bishop Smythies, of the Uni· either, and we have every reason to fear, t<> versities'Mission, sailed from Zanzibar our bitter disappointment, that these prom- ises are entirely illusory, and are likely to· F, ::>. 26 for Aden, en route for Britain. remain a dead letter, in spite of urgent rep- resentations on the part of the English Gov- The imrp,pid Bish~ has been seized ernment and its representatives in Zanzibar. " with persistent fever, and it is feared he may not be able to return for If the good impressions which the some time, if at all, to this trying sphere of missionary operations. With new Sultan of Zanzibar has made by his accustomed straightforwardness releasing untried prisoners and taking counsel in matters of importance be continued, it will inspire hope that the humane edicts will be promul- gated. It is matter for rejoicing that· her Majesty's Consul General isColonel Euan-Smith, and Sir John Kirk the Sultan's Envoy at the Congress now'
in session at Brussels.
Aftica.-Kaffraria. Letters have interest that many of the people have taken in these meetings." Under date· been received by the Foreign Mission of Oct. 4, he says: "I have again the pleasure of informing you that several Secretary from the Rev. Alexander more individuals were admitted to the candidates' class this week. Not only Welsh, Emgwali, stating that a re- is there a large number of young peo- ple among the converts, but there are markable work of grace has appeared several elderly people, who seemed to be hardened against the gospel; they among the people at that station. The also have been arrested, and brought to the feet of Jesus." And on the people trace the awakening to the 11th: "I have again the pleasure of informing you that ten individuals week of prayer observed in February. were admitted to the candidates' class this week, on professing conversion. Under date Sept. 27, Mr. Welsh There are about 150 in the class now."
writes: "I have much pleasure in in- -We are always gratified by the forming you that over 100 persons have been admitted to the candidates' public recognition of woman's ability, dass here within the last three months on profession of conversion to God. and the following, in regard to a medi-· The great majority of these are young men and young women. For several cal woman and a former missionary, years we have labored, and looked for the conversion of the young people is especially appreciated: in the district, and now God has granted us a reaping time, and the joy Miss JaneWaterston, M. D., a Scotch. that accompanies it. Special meetings have been held in the ch,urch and the lady, has had quite an experience. girls' school, as well as at all the villages throughout the district. It has The daughter of a prominent citizE'll,. been very pleasing to see the hearty in disregard of the opinions then prev- rest upon the assembly and guide and alent among persons of the social bless all their deliberations. '
rank of her family, and against the There hasbeennoprevious timeinthe wishes of friends, devoted herself to history of missions in China when such missionary work. She went to the a conference could be held so oppor- Lovedale Institution in South Africa, tunely. There is a wide and general and conducted the girls' department preparedness for conference on great with great success. Desiring to be a and important interests connected physician, she returned home, and with the progress of the Redeemer's passed the preliminary examinations. Kingdom among this people. There is Scottish universities were then closed a large amount of experience in the against lady physicians, but in London methods and plans and purposes of she received her degree, and went to mission work which should be pre- Brussels, and passed "avec grande" sented for consideration and tabulated distinction. She immediately offered and utilized. The preparation of herself to the Livingstonia Mission, and papers in which the review of the did medical and educational work on work already done will be presented, the shores of Lake Nyassa. Her health and the survey of the work yet to be giving out, she returned to Lovedale performed will be sketched, is com- and engaged in private medical prac- mitted to a large number of capable tice, but her work so increased she hands, and will be efficiently done.
removed to a wider field in Cape The programme of subjects, as will Town. be seen from the following summary -The Cape Town News of Sept. 14, of them, covers the whole field of reporting the ceremonial of conferring Christian work in all its departments degrees by the University, the Vice- and ramifications. The first day will Chancellor presiding, said: "Dr. Jane be occupied with the sermon and the E. Waterston, Doctor of Medicine in organization of the conference. The the University of Brussels, allow me second day will be given to the Bible to say that your long services to the work as connected with the perfecting cause of education, especially in the the translations of the Scriptures, education of native girls at Lovedale, and their sale and circulation. On the in connection with my department, third daywill be considered the quali- and your services as medical officer of ficationsand preparations of Inission- the Free Church Mission at Lake Ny- aries and the methods and means of assa, have fully entitled you to any reaching the people. The fourth day privilege this University can bestow." will be given to the consideration of While Miss Waterston is devoted to women's work in its several methods her practice, yet she has never lost her of schools, visitation from house to interest in the missionary work. house, and the training of Bible J. T. GRACEY, D.D. women. On the fifth day the confer- China.-The readers of the RE- ence will consider the plans and re- VIEW will be interested in knowing of sults of medical missionary work, and the General Missionary Conference of institutions for the blind, deaf and which is to be held in Shanghai, dumb, and of refuges for the opium China, in May, 1890. The sessions of victims. On the sixth, the method of the conference commence on the 7th instructing inquirers; fellowship and of May, and continue for ten succes- methods of discipline of members; sive days~ All friends of missions cultivating piety and aggressive work should bear this meeting of the Chris- on the part of native Christians; self- tian workers in this large empire in support of churches and voluntary ef- mind, and make it a subject of special forts for the salvation of their fellow prayer, that the Spirit of the Lord may men. The seventh day will be given to the consideration of educational ili- ing that the secretaries of the principal missionary societies in London anstitutions, and raising up trained and nounce that their respective Board,; have unanimouslydetermined to maineducated native workers and assist- tain, with slight modification, existing methods of finance, government, and ants in all departments of Christian general policy.-Our Correspondent.
work. On the eighth day literature A Notable Testimony to a Missionary.
will engage the attention of the mem- [The following address was presented to Rev_ lIIr. Anderson on the completion of the bers connected with the preparation fiftieth year of his service as a missionary. He is still full of missionary fire and fervor, of school and text books, scientific and longs to be young, to give another life to the service.-A. T. P.] terminology, Christian literature, DEAR MR. ANDERSON-Fifty years Christian newspapers – and current having elapsed since you first left this country for work in the Mission field, Chinese literature. The ninth day will the Foreign Mission Board desire to congratulate you, and to express our be given to the important subject of thankfulness to God that you have been spared to labor so many years. comity in Mission work, and its rela- We recall with no ordinary interest and satisfaction the work that you tion to the Chinese government. The have been privileged to do, first in Jamaica, alld then in Calabar, not tenth and last day will be fully occu- only with your living voice, but also with your pen. You can look back pied in hearing the statistics of the upon the time when the darkness was unbroken in Calabar, and the people work for the thirteen years since the were sunk in idolatry and its abomina- tions. You now see the people enlast conference, and the openings and lightened, education advancing, and many gathered into the fellowship facilities for work among aboriginal of the church; and you have the un- speakable happiness of being able to tribes and bord&' lands. say that your labors have been owned of God as one of the agencies in bring- The request of the Committee of ing about the blessed change. We recall also how much you have done Arrangements will be favorably con- on the occasion of your visits to the homeland in the way of keeping alive sidered and acted upon by all who the interest of the Church in the Cala- -bar Mission field, and calling forth read these lines: "The Committee in- the gifts and prayers of the people on its behalf. vite all who are interested in the We rejoice that, even after so long progress of Christianity in China to and trying a service, you are still favored with a remarkable measure engage in frequent and earnest of health and strength, and we earn- estly trust that, though no longer laprayer that this gathering of Chris- boring in the field itself, you may be spared for a season to plead the claims tian workers, coming together in the of the people among whom you have lived so long, and who are so dear to name of the Master and seeking His benediction, may receive rich spiritual blessings and give an impulse that will be wide and lasting to every form of Christian _effort in this mighty Em- pire." A. P. HAPPER.
Eng-land.-Foreign Missionary Incomes. The incessant fire of criti- cism to which foreign missions have been subjected of late has not lessened their revenues. In the neweditionof the Directory of the Metropolitan Charities ()f London, Mr. Howe estimates the an- nual income for 1889 of the 23 foreign missions established in London, at £982,334, besides' £207,482, the prob- able return of 13 "Home and Foreign"
missions. This indicates an increase ()f £139,227 over the revenue of 1888.
On the other hand, the receipts of the 54 exclusively home missions have fallen from £649,851 to £617,361. With so gratifying a report in reference to the" sinews of war," it is not surprisyou by many tender ties, so that you meetings are attended by well-dressed, may have the satisfaction of knowing intelligent men and women,thegreater that you are still working on their be- number being young men. This is a half, and securing for them a still remarkable sign of the times, and larger share of the sympathy and aid one that cannot be over-estimated. At of the Church. We trust that your Marseilles, at Lyons, and in other mantle may fall on the younger men cities, the same interest is found. who are now in the field, and that you In one of the suburbs of Lyons, for may be cheered during your declining example, is a Fraternal Society of 130 years by tidings reaching you from yoUIig men, who meet weekly in the time to time of multitudes of the dark lIcAll station for instruction in {)hildren of Africa being brought to a Christian doctrine and practice. knowledge of the truth, and of those already gathered iJ;lto the Church de- The adaptability of the McAll Misvoting themselves to the service of the sion to meet every need as it presents Master, and seeking still further to itself, is one of the most striking feaextend the Gospel among their be- tures of this unique work. nighted fellow countrymen. Vnited 8tates.-In the RE- In name of the Foreign Mission VIEW for February reference is made .Board. by Dr. Ellinwood to the Moravian mission work among the Buddhists of DUNCAN MCLAREN, Chairman. Thibet. Although the mission is now JAMES BUCHANAN, Secretary. 34 years old, only 42 souls are in France. – The MeAll Mission. charge of the missionaries. The This mission to the working people of principal work must here consist in Paris and of France, which has been distributing the Scriptures and tracts, continually enlarging its field ever and these are now being studied by since it was founded by Mr. McAll the Lamas themselves in their monasamong the Communists of Belleville teries. The Lord must eventually immediately after the suppression of bless this work. the Co=une, has proved by its flexibility and its wonderful power of fit- The Moravians also have charge ting means to ends, to be admirably of a hospital there, in which large adapted to meet that reaction toward numbers of patients are treated. Their religious belief which is at present so main hope lay, however, in their marked a feature in French thought. schools, because many were. willing While even the secular press is notic- to come in order to learn English. ing the decline in materialism and But these met· with great opposition, skepticism, the new interest in religion and the work was exceedingly dis- -any religion, be it Buddhism, or couraging. Suddenly a change has Islamism, or Christianity-which is taken place, and it seems as if the felt .in intelligent and intellectual means were at hand to at last bring circles, we find those stations of the the Gospel more directly to the people. McAll Mission which are in the centre The hand of the Lord certainly seems of Paris crowded by a different class to be in this move on the part of the of peoplefrom those who first attended rulers of the people. We append the these meetings, and who still frequent latest news from this station as conthe halls in the faubourgs. In the tained in the last letter from Mission- Latin quarter a good number of stu- ary Karl Marx, under date of Nov. 1, dents attend the meetings, and in the 1889, printed in substance in The large Salle New York on the Rue Moravian of Jan. 15, 1890: Rivoli, a hall entirely supported in all its varied activities by the ladies of the "The latest intelligence from Leh in the New York McAll Auxiliary, the daily Himalaya Mission is of an encouraging nature. The ruler of the Province of Ladak, called the 'Vizier, has lately discovered, to his chagrin, that the inhabitants of the district in which
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
Leh is situated are much behind those of other people and explained matters to them, this· districts tn education. In order to remedy feeling of suspicion gradually wore away, and this defect he promulgated a decree that from when the ruler sent out policemen to look up every family tn Leh and the neighborhood, the children, they began to attend, so that by where there is more than one child, at least last accounts they had a very large number of one child must be sent to school, and betng day scholars at that station. The routine of satisfied that the Moravian lI1ission School is instruction embraces the Thibetan, Urdu, and the best tn the town, he decided upon having English languages, and a portion of the time them sent there. When this decree was first each day is devoted to religious and Biblical published all sorts of rumors circulated lessons. The missionaries have wisely left among the people. Some parents thought it attendance at' the religious instrnction was a plan to kidnap their children, that they optional. At first many absented themselves might be sent to England, and there com· during this hour, but gradually the number' pelled to become Christians ; others suggested who attend tncreases. By last accounts there that the latent object was to tratn them for are sixty present daily. Truly our brethren porters, to cross the mountatns and carry and sisters in the Home Churches should bear' packages from one part of country to another, this mark on their hearts before the Lord or at least, some surreptitious plan by which beseeching Him to open the hearts of this they might be induced to become Christians. stolid people to receive the Word of the In consequence of these rumors the decree of Gospel, that it may prove itself the power of' the Vizier was, at first, silently ignored, or God unto the salvation of many souls there." disobeyed; but as the missionaries visited the -(Rev.) Paul de Schweinitz.
I1I.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
China. showers and favoring breezes. The annual going forth of these tnfiuences is coincident THE WORSHIP OF HEAVEN BY THE EMPEROR. with the commencement of the return of the snn from its southern decltnation. at the time [Though long, this descriptive letter from of the winter solstice, on the 21st of our our correspondent, Dr. Happer, will be read December. This betng, according to their with interest.-Ens.] system of nature, the commencement of the' going forth of the power ofprod,!ction of the Canton, Dec. 21, 1889. male principle tn nature, of which heaven is. DEAR EnITORs:-This date, designated the the head, this day is chosen for the time of the winter solstice, is noticed in some way in all special worship of heaven by the Emperor of lands. It is the shortest day of the year. It China. It is appotnted as an observance of the marks the time when the sun, having reached state religion of China; all the ceremonies, the farthest point in its southern decltnation, offerings, worship, prayers, hymns and sacribegins to return towards the north. . But in no fices connected with it are prescribed in a nation has this natural phenomenon such a ritual which forms a part of the statutes of significance, and so important an observance, the Empire. as in China. It is the time of one of the most imposing religious services tn the world. It is The worship is performed at the altar the day on which the Emperor of China, asthe erected by the Government for this special high priest of the people, worships heaven as worship. It is situated tn a park, which is the patron god of Chtna. This observance of located tn the southeastern part of the city of the day is connected with the state religion of Pektng, and which comprises some 500 acres Of China, which is a system of nature worship, ground. The altar is made of marble. This. or a worship of the objects of nature as the park is surrounded by a brick wall, and it is sonrce of the blessings which men derive divided tnto three divisions by brick walls, from them. Heaven, as the greatest object in running north and south. The southern part the world of matter, is regarded with the of the eastern division is the site of the altar highest reverence, and as the object from at which the worship is offered at the wtnter' which a great portion of the blessings of life solstice. In the northern part of this eastern comes, heaven is the object of special worship. division was built the imposing buildtng which This day, betng selected as the time for was burnt by lightning in September, 1889, at special worship by the Emperor, is connected which prayer is offered tn the spring for a with the system of natural philosophy which fruitful season. is believed among this people. It is held by them that there is a male and female principle The altar is a structure of a peculiar' in nature, by which all natural thtngs are character. There is, so far as I know, no other produced and in1luenced. Heaven is regarded one like it. It is circular in shape, and consistsas the head representative of the male of three successive platforms, the higher one principle, while earth is regarded as the head placed on the lower one. The first platform is, of the female principle. From heaven all 210 feet tn diameter, and is niue.feet above tha productive infinences proceed, as heat, fruitful .ground. The second one, placed on the top of the secondary objects of worship. On the the lowest one, is 150 feet in diameter, and the east side are placed the tablets of the sun, third platform, erected on the second one- stars and planets; on the west side of the nine feet higher than the second one-is 80 feet altar are tablets of the moon, clouds, rain, in diameter and Z7 feet above the ground. thunder and wind, in their respective tents. Each platform is surrounded by a marble There is also, on the middle terrace, a tent of open work railing, except where the stairways yellow silk, which is the imperial robing tent. are placed. Of these there are four, one from each point of the compass, and they continue In front of the Tablet of Heaven are placed in three successive flights of steps to the top an incense urn, two candelabra, and two vases of the altar. The altar is enclosed by two for flowers; and near the southern side of the -concentric railings of open marble work, altar is placed the table at which the ritual Bach railing having four gateways opposite prayer is read. the steps, which are for the ascent of the altar to its successive platforms. 'When the hour of service arrives. the Em· peror proceeds from his robing tent, arrayed To the south of the altar there is a furnace in robes of sky blue silk, to the place of wor- large enough for the whole carcass of an ox ship before the tablets on the highest plat- to be placed on the wood to be consumed as a form. The attendant worshipers are ar- burnt offering at the hour of worship. On the ranged in their respective pllWes, according to -outside of the railings are high poles on which their rank, on the middle and lower platforms, lanterns are suspended. Tbe time for the and on the adjoining grounds on the south- worship is at four o'clock in the morning. east and west sides of the altar to the number The Emperor goes to the park on the day of nearly two thousand. The sacrificial fire Is before. He is drawn in a carriage from the lighted to barn the whole burnt offering; the ·entrance to his palace by an elephant. On his grounds are lighted all around by lanterns; .arrival at the place he makes a tour of inspec- incense is burning in many places; the music tion to all places to see that the preparations is playing according to a programme enjoined for the grand ceremony of the morning are in in the official ritual. At the call of the master readiness. Among the places thus inspected of ceremonies. the Emperor takes his place for are the musicians' lodge, the stables in which worship, and bows three successive times the sacrificial animals are kept, the hall in before each of the nine tablets, knocking his which the sacred tablets are deposited, and head three times during each successive the buildings in which all the sacred utensils kneeling. In this worship he is accompanied are deposited. He then goes to the Hall of by the whole crowd of attendants, at the cry Fasting, where he spends the time in medita- ofthe master or-ceremonies, in their prescribed tion and fasting till he is called by the master order. The ritual prayer is read and then of ceremonies the next morning in time for burnt, that it may thus be wafted heavenward, the worship. The Emperor, when he goes to and the rolls of silk and other objects are the park, is attended by a large number of burnt in the numerous cast-iron urns that are high officials in their official dress, who find scattered about for that purpose. The differlWcommodation in various buildings in the ent parts of service are interspersed with park till the morning, when they all assemble music from the orchestra performing the preat the altar and take their respective places scribed pieces. among the worshipers. When the various ceremonies are a1l per- On the highest platform there are nine formed the Emperor retires to his robing tBnt, tents of blue silk, prepared to receive the tab- and, after resuming his usual imperial dress, lets which are to be worshiped. The principal returns first to the hall of fasting, and from one is the Tablet to Heaven, which is made of thence, in the imperial carriage, to his palace, wood, carved and gilded. It is about two and having, as the high priest of the people and as a half feet high by eight inches wide. On the the heaven-appointed ruler of China, renfront face four characters are carved: dered the appointed worship to the chief god "Imperial Heaven, Supreme Ruler." There of China. are pllWed also the tablets of eight of the ancestors of the reigning dynasty, four on one This is one of the most imposing religious side and four on the other side of the tablet to ceremonies in the world. It perhaps more heaven, according to their rank in the list of nearly resembles the ceremonies at the dediancestors. They are considered in the ritual cation of the temple by King Solomon than as the joint and equal receivers of the worship any other with which we are familiar. rendered. There are special offerings of silk, meats on trenchers, five kinds of grains, wine, A similar worship is paid to earth, as the fruits, fish, etc., spread before each tablet. A head of the female principle in nature, at the very special object placed before the tablet of summer solstice, on the 21st of June, at the heaven is a round azure gem, which, by its altar to earth, in a park on the north of Pecolor and shape, is to represent the object of l;ing, by the Emperor. When the sun bas worship. On the second platform are placed reached its farthest northern limit and begins to return south. it is supposed that the female principle in nature commences its sway. The "'ork of earth is to produce and ripen the grains and fruits which are to nourish man- the Lord and Ruler of China and all men. For kind. Hence, the summer solstice is fixed this great result we labor and pray. Will not upon as the time for the worship of earth as all readers of this statement pray yet more the co-ordinate power with heaven. earnestly that God may hasten it in its time ~ As some readers mIlS" be surprised that I Kingdoms wide that sit in darkness, should speak of earth being honored with the Grant them, Lord, the glorious light; same worship as heaven, I will quote some And from eastern coast to western, passages from Chinese authors as expressing May the morning chase the night."
their views. In the Book of Rites, which is Scotland. one of the Chinese Classics, it is said, "There- fore the Emperor sacrifices to heaven and LETTER FRoM: DR. MILLAR.
earth." A commentator on tliis passage says, Edinburgh, Jan. 22, 1890.
"Heaven has the merit of overshadowing all DR. A. T. PIERSON: things: Earth has the merit of containing all REv. AND DEAR SIR-I have just concluded a.
things. The Emperor, with heaven and earth, perusal of your article in the January number is a Trio; there/m'e, the Emperor sacrifices to of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD heaven at the round hillock, and t9. earth at entitled, "Is there to be a New Departure i~ the square pool." The" round hillock" and Missions. " I cordialIy approve of al] the sug- "square pool" are the terms by which the gestions therein made, especiaUy those bearing- altars to heaven are designated in the ritual. on the establishment of a more direct tie I quote a passage from the Chinese Classic- between the churches and the miSSionaries.
the Book of History-to show how the Classics This emboldens me to submit, for yonr s~ak of heaven as the patron god of China. approval, an idea which I 'have long enter- At page 418 of the Translation it reads thus: tained, that instead of the churches in Scotland "Great Heaven, having given this Middle being directed in their missionary operations Kingdom to the former kings, do you, our by one central board in each denomination, present sovereign, employ your virtue, effect- there should be a Mission Board in eac!.
ing a gentle harmony among the deluded peo- Presbytery, who should see that the churches.
ple, leading and urging them on. So also will in each Presbytery are doing their duty you please the former kings who received the towards extending the Gospel both at home appointment from heaven." Of another Em- and abroad.
peror it is said, "Great Heaven having re- I am a United Presbyterian, and was for garded yon with its favoring decree, suddenly fifteen years a member of the Foreign lIiission you obtained all within the four seas, and be- Board of the church. The board is composed came sovereign of the Empire, " p. 54. of one member from each Presbytery, who This worship of heaven is a part of nature sits for four years. That member is just worship which has come down from remote beginning to learn the work of the board, antiquity. All the objects in nature, as when his time expires, and, unless he is chosen heaven and earth, sun, moon and stars, moun- by some other Presbytery, he ceases to be a.
tains and seas, hills and rivers, and the member.
powers of nature, as clouds, rain, wind and Now, were there a Mission Board in every thunder, the fertility of the soil and of the Presbytery, every member of the Presbytery grains, are aU numbered amongst the objects (clerical and lay) would take his share of the of worship. While, therefore, the ceremonies work of the board, and could not fail t(} occurring on the 21st of December at Peking imbibe a missionary spirit, which he would in are a very imposing worship, yet it is a most turn communicate to the congregation he sad subject of consideration-that the ruler of represents. I have no hesitation in saying this numerous people is giving to a mere that this would lead to a greatly increased object of nature .that worship and homage interest in missions, and I believe this increased which is due to God only. "The Lord made interest would lead to Increased contributions the heavens and all things therein." They are in al] the congregations. A special hour· the work of His hands. The blessings which would be fixed in every monthly meeting of come to mankind through them, which are the Presbyteryfor the missions being taken up, many and great, really come from God, who and the churches would submit the work and created them for this very purpose. It is en- requirements of the past month.
tirely right and proper to be thankful for the I believe the Presbyteries of Edinburgh and blessings received, but the thanks should be Glasgow could easily maintain the whole given to the Creator and Preserver of these present/areign missions 0/ the United Presl>y- things which were created and which are con- . terian Church, and the other Presbyteries tinued in existence by Him for the use of man. would be free to take up other missions, or What a glorious sight it would be to see the to raise means to send out additional mission- Emperor of this numerous people stand up in aries.
his character of ruler and acknowledge the I write you thus frankly, and have to ask living and true God, the maker of heaven and you to think out and· mature the idea. If, on earth, and all the things that are in them, as considering it, you come to the conclusion·
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
that the suggestion is a sound one, I hope you put it mildly, a dislike for foreigners. Perhaps will elaborate it, and press it on the considera- not one in a hundred of them, through the tion of the whole church. interior, bas ever seen a foreigner. If their prejudices allow them to listen at all to our We want not centralization, but diffusion, message, it is, at the best, with a divided in the working out of the science of missions. attention. A missionary may be congratu- lating himself on the close attention of his Yours faithfully, audience, only to find before he gets through, J. V. WHITE MILLAR. from some remark or other, that the attention was given to some peculiarity of his personal United States. appearance or of his speech, rather than to the truth that he was uttering. Again, these WHAT IS IT TO EVANGELIZE •. PEOPLE? people have never heard one word of this gospel. In how many cases could you expect, Minneapolis, Feb. 22, 1890. in one hour's time-a longer average than Mr. DEAR EDITORS-Allow me to call attention Taylor's plan would allow-to get them t<> to what seems to be a misconception in Rev. J. grasp enough of the truth to become believers Hudson Taylor's article, "To Every Creature," in Christ? Is not the history of all mission which appeared in the February number of the work, especially in its earlier stages, a suffi· MISSIONARY REVIEW. Mr. Taylor shows how cient answer to this question? one thousand evangelists, preaching to an average of fifty families a day. could in three A truer conception, as I think, of what it is years' time reach every creature in China. to evangelize a people, is presente.d in the But to anyone who is at all acquainted with enclosed article from the Standard of January the practical work of preaching the gospel in 23 (published in Chicago), an article written a heathen land, the question at once occurs: by one who has been a missionary to the .. What is meant by •reaching every creatnre' !" Is it to tell over to them, one group Chinese for nearly forty years.* after another, the gospel story, regardless of whether they understand it and take it into I have felt the more impelled to write, their minds or not; and when you have finished because, as I most gladly acknowledge, Mr. wi:h one group, pass on to the next, and say Taylor has been honored of God in accomthat t,he work is done? This method has plishing much in the work of the gospel in been tried in some cases, and if this is all China. What he writes is, widely read and that is meant, it might, perhaps, be ad- carries great weight. The more reason then mitted that Mr. Taylor's proposition is not to gnard against misconception in a matter of quite beyond the bounds of possibility. But so great importance. is this what our Saviour meant when he commanded us to preach the gospel to every In closing, let me say that I greatly enjoy creature? Or did he not rather mean that we the MISSIONARY REVIEW, which is doing such should give to men a sufficiently intelligible good service in extending and deepening the idea of the way of salvation through Him, to interest in the supremely important work of enable them to believe on Him as their world-wide evangelization. Saviour? If this latter be true, as I think no one who reflects for a moment will hesitate Sincerely yours, to admit, then Mr. Taylor's plan would hardly WM. ASHMORE, JR. do, We m'lst remember that we are preaching * This article is too long to quote h~re.. ~t to heathen audiences. Most of them have, to treats the subject with firmness and dis~~ml' nation. Possibly we may find space for It III a future number.-Ens.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Missionary COinity. * also have to be conceded, and if any- thing can be done to lessen these differ- BY BISHOP J. M. THOBURN, D.D., BOM' ences, and to promote f~aternal good feeling, and as far as pOSSIble, frat.ernal BAY, INDIA. co-operation, by all means let It be That it is desirable to maintain tried. But we must not forget, what friendly and fraternal relations among most persons who discuss this subjec.t do seem to forget, that the questions missionaries of all churches and so- inyol'ed are by no means new, and that a general line of policy has been cieties, will be conceded by everyone. followed in all the great mission fields That u~fq~ate d~ff~rences som~ times arIse III the mISSIOn field, WIll of the world, without, however, secur- ing the era of fraternal harmony which –;;;-;rhis article was prepared by request of t :lC many think possible, if not absolutely Calcutta Missionary Conference, but was not necessary to success. At rare intervals read owing to a postponement of the time ap· a new proposal may have been made, pointed. IiI the meantime, the manuscri~t had been promised for publication, and mentIOn of biIt in the main the discussion is carthe fact having been widely made in the papers and many inquiries having been made about It, the writer has not felt at liberty to withhold it longer from the public. J. M. T. ried on along the same old lines, and work, some of which may be briefly repeated and conspicuous failures only stated. seem to create a renewed cry for a policy which has been found weak 1. These boundary lines are very apt from the beginning. to create the difficulty which they are intended to guard against. So far from The traditional doctrine which, in keeping the missionaries apart, and outline at least, has been generallyac- thus preventing causes of disagreecepted on this subject, may be sub- ment, the very line itself becomes a stantially stated as follows: Let each fruitful source of contention. At the non-Christian country be divided into recent Missionary Conference in Lonseparate districts, and each society don, one brother, with admirable canconfine its operations to one or more of dor, admitted that his mission had sufthese, keeping rigidly within the geo- fered more trouble from disputes about graphical boundary line which en- boundary lines than from any other closes its field. This, it is thought, question. A boundary line is often a will make collisions impossible, and at very shifting quantity, and it is nearly the same time secure a division of the impossible to prevent contentions great work to be done in such a way when dealing with vast regions in as to hasten its accomplishment. In which there is no actual occupancy, the next place, let a code of inter-mis- while there is nearly always a strange sional rules be adopted, and made bind- and not verv reasonable eagerness to ing upon all missionaries, forbidding grasp as wide a territory as possible. all such lines of action as are unfra- It is by no means certain that the good ternal, and enjoining all such duties as effects which are often claimed for this Christian love and courtesy demand. policy, are at all owing to it. The in- These two propositions cover, substan- stances often cited are merely examples tially, the whole ground, although in of the wisdom and good sense of the detail, a few points might be added to parties concerned. They would almost them, but none that would affect the certainly have made the arrangements principle involved. Missionaryauthor- they did if no such rule had ever been ities in Europe and America have enacted, whereas the advocates of the generally approved both propositions, policy omit to notice that tile contenin theory at least, and both have tions over which they mourn are too usually passed unchallenged at the Dften caused, not by actual injury, but great missionary conferences held both by a trespass upon ~n imagi?ary at home and abroad. But in recent boundary line. For Instance, If a years the great mission fields of the brotherin China hears that an agent of world have been rapidly filling up, ex- another society has settled a hundred perience has been teaching many valu- miles north of him, he will naturally able lessons, missionaries have had think nothing of it, except to thank opportunities for careful and wide ob- God that another missionary has come servation, and the result is that not a to China. But if his society has drawn few thoughtful workers in all lands a line two or three hundred miles nOI th begin to doubt the wisdom of the policy and told him that aU the territory inin which so many have put their closed by that line is within his juris- diction, he at once feels that he id an trust. injured man, and protests against the The policy of assigning a separate advent of the man, for whose coming he would otherwise have felt thankful. field to each society is perfectly defensible if the object sought is solely that 2. These territorial allotments are of making a proper division of labor, unfair to those who come latest to the and at the same time occupying as mission field. We must remember that much territory as possible. In the missionary societies are constantly earlier stages of the work, and in coun- multiplying, that every few years a tries of vast extent, like Central Africa new society appears in such a field as at the present day, it is eminently wise India, and that its agents will naturalfor workers to agree upon such divis- ly look around for the most suitable ions where practicable, but the case is sphere of labor within their reach. It different when it is laid down as a fixed must puzzle them not a little to be told principle that missionaries must avoid when they reach Bombay, that ,ery one another in the interests of peace, little of India is open to them, that all and that these messengers of love must the centres of influence have been ocnot aspire to a better standard of cupied and are practically closed neighborly living than was known in against them, and that they must seek the dim twilight of the far-off era of some field which thus far has been neg- Abraham and Lot. Many practical lected by their more fortunate brethobjections to such a policy have been ren. who came earlier upon the scene. hrol1s-ht to light in the progress of the 'It will be said, no doubt, that they are painfully familiar, that good men should nevertheless go to some remote often object most strenuously to the district where no missionary is found, advent of missionaries of other sobut those who proffer this advice would cieties into regions where they them- possibly be slow to accept it if they selves are not able to give the gospel themselves were the parties concerned. to the people. One case, of many, will A man has a right to work where he illustrate what I mean. A good man can do the most good, where he be- proposed to plant a missionaryamon'Y lieves himself to be most needed, and a tribe of people who were utterly there may be reasons, perfectly clear neglected, to whom no one had' gone, and satisfactory to him, why he should and to whom no one was proposing to not go to a vacant place which is point- go, but was forbidden by some mis- ed out to him by others. The distribu- sionaries who lived at a great distance tion of workers can never be success- from the place in question, on the fully accomplished by mechanical pro- ground that their society had taken up cesses. If, for instance, another Al- the whole province in which the tribe exander Duff were to land in Calcutta, was included. The enterprise was ac- representing a new society, it would cordingly given up. The poor people be absurd to insist tha,t he must betake are still living in their darkness, and himself to some unoccupied district of the men who kept the gospel from some remote province, upon which no them, will, in all probability, be in missionary or missionary society has heaven many years, possibly genera- any claim. A strict and rigid applica- tions, before any other messenger of tion of this policy would work, not the gospel will attempt to reach those only unfairly, but almost disastrously precious souls. Let no one say that to any vigorous society which wished this is an extreme instance. It is one to enter the Indian field in strong of many, and beyond all doubt this force. rule is operating to keep the gospel 3 The custom has been for the agents from millions of people to-day. In of each society to decide for themselves fact, it is so impracticable in a country the extent of the field which they are like India, and in the nature of the to occupy. Some of them have made case must work so directly against the their selection with wisdom, while free progress of the gospel, that I do o~hers have chosen fields which they not hesitate to say that a rigid enforce- had no reasonable prospect of fullyoc- ment of the rule would put back the cupying for years, if not centuries to evangelization of India a thousand come. Experience has proved that it years.
is nearly impossible to persuade such 5. The word " occupy" is used in so men that they are grasping at more flexible a way that it often misrepre- than they can possibly reach, and sents the facts. For instance, a good hence we have inequalities of the most man, a very good man, once wrote to singular kind among what are called me that he had occupied a district con- the separate mission districts of India. taining nearly a million of people and In one small province we find seven hoped I would not enter it. The occu- societies represented, working at no pation consisted in sending a native great distance from one another, and, preacher to live in a small town, and I may add, without any serious col- preach in its bazars and the surround- lision with one another, while near at ing villages. Had there been any plan hand may be found a district four or for extension, or any resources to make five times as large, feebly occupied by extension possible, this might have one society, and jealously guarded been called an occupation in part, but against what are called the encroach- many years have since passed without ments of other missionaries. A very any vigorous attempt being made to slight study of missionary maps will occupy the field. A district is not oc- show how marked these inequalities cupied because a missionary station has are, and this evidence ought to con- been established within its borders.
vince any candid observer that the Missionaries who have lived in their policy is a practical failure in its ap- station for years have been startled to plication to India. find people living within a few miles 4. In its practical application this of their doors who had never heard the rule has tended to shut out the gospel name of Jesus Christ. What, then, from vast regions where it would shall we say of the million, or perhaps otherwise have penetrated. It will two millions, who live in other parts seem incredible to those in England of the so-called " occupied" district?
and America who so earnestly advo- I am indebted to my friend Mr.
cate this policy, and yet it is a simple Rouse for a definition of the word fact with which many of us in India "occupy," which, I think, covers the case. A blockade of a coast is never and that one society may not be able.
respected so long as it remains a paper or may not choose, to do all the work blockade. Unless war vessels are to be done. For instance, Santhals and stationed along the coast, no one pays Bengali people may live side by side. any attention to it. So with a procla- One missionary may wish to work for mation of missionary occupation. The the one people, and another for the district must be actually occupied, not other. If the s.ociety in occupancy will merely at one point, or even thrQe or do all the work well and good: let no four points, but practically through- one interfere with its agents. But if a out. That is, every man in the district tribe or a caste, or a separatepeople of ought to be able to reach a gospel mes- any kind, are wholly neglected, outside senger without walking more than ten people should certainly be permitted to miles. If there is a place twenty, come to these neglected people with the thirty, or perhaps fifty or sixty miles gospel. This is a practical question at from the mission station, which does the present time. Some are giving their not receive a visit from a gospel mes- exclusive attention to the aboriginal senger more than once a year, it tribes, some are working among low ought to be considered open to anyone caste people, while others avoid the who can actually give the gospel to the lowest castes altogether; and in the na- people. ture of the case, vast multitudes of 6. This policy annoys and harasses people in India must be overlooked, if men who love unity and concord, and this rule is rigidly enforced, or if it is seek peace and pursue it, and yet who applied as many missionaries in the are constantly put in the wrong byac- country interpret.
cusations of interference with the work 8. The rule ignores the freedom of of others. A single instance will illus- converts. As generally interpreted, it trate this point. Less than ten years assumes that all natives who become ago, an agent of a new society came to Christians within a given area, shall India, and wrote to me asking advice be assigned to the missionary working about the selection of a field for his mis- within the area in question. It is sion. He was particular in saying that taken for granted that the converts he wanted a field in which there was will do as they are told, but as a mat- no missionary. He was full of the ter of fact they are by no means al- traditional idea of not building upon ways willing to obey such directions.
other men's foundations, and anxious Anyone who has observed the course to go where Christ had not been of events in other countries ought to be named. I had some correspondence wiser than to expect that such a policy with him, and this wish seemed upper- could be enforced in a country like most in his mind all the time. After a India. In ninety-nine cases out of a year's delay, he at last fixed upon a dis- hundred, sincere converts will wish to trict in a remote part of India, contain- follow those who first bring them ing a million of people, and without any to Christ, and in ninety-nine cases Christian agency of any kind within its out of a hundred they will do better borders. He took his family and re- under the care of these persons than moved to the field of his choice, but under any others. It is said, I know, had hardly crossed the border line be- that Mr. Moody sends his converts to fore he was warned off by a mission- all the churches represented in his, ary from a distance, who assured him meetings, but Mr. Moody would not, that his society had pre-empted the and certainly could not, send his con- field in question, and in due time in- verts to churches out of sympathy tended to occupy it. The new mission- with himself. He could not, for in- ary had his eyes opened, and began to stance, send them to parties who view the policy of non-interference in would teach them as their first lesson, a new light. All over India instances that what Mr. Moody considered con- of this kind can be fouud. Men who version was a delusion, and yet, if he are loving Christians, who love peace were a missionary in Inda, and tried to and hate discord, who love all Christ's apply his evangelistic policy, he would servants and would delight to live in meet with this very difficulty. Again peace with all men, are made to ap- I must beg to protest that I am not pear transgressors, and the complaints drawing upon my imagination. Less, alleged against them are often made than twenty years ago I knew a Scotch by parties who themselves decline to minister, anxious to avoid every ap- recognize the very rule to which they pearance of what he incorrectly called appeal. sectarianism, to send the names of 7. This rule ignores the fact that forty converts of a union meeting to a '
within a given field there may be dif- clergyman in Bengal. Not the slight- ferent races, or castes, or languages, est notice was taken of the letter, and I believe that nearly everyone of the does not lead, but follows such a move- forty was utterly neglected, and in ment as this. He is told of inquirers due time drifted back into carelessness in such and such a place, goes over to' and indifference. A lesson which them, baptizes them, and organizes missionaries in all foreigncountries are them into a church. If India is ever very slow to learn is, that the humblest to be a Christian empire, similar move- converts have rights. It is for them ments will be witnessed all over this to say what their ecclesiastical affilia- vast country. But all such move- tions shall be, and if, for instance, they ments will ignore the artificial bound- chance to live within the limits of a ary lines which have been laid down field in which the missionaries tolerate by men who could not anticipate the caste, no low caste convert should be developments of the coming years. I compelled to join such a mission. It have been much perplexed by some of was recently said in print, that at this these movements myself, but some present hour there is a whole village years ago became convinced that the of inquirers inSouthern India, willing only way open to one who wished to and anxious to be baptized, but who follow where God led, was carefully are denied their right because they and conscientiously and tenderly to chance to live a very short distance nourish and,eherish every such develbeyond a boundary line which was opment of normal Christian growth. laid down long years ago by parties Missionaries everywhere should hail long since dead. These poor people, every such appearance with joy, and for reasons which they have a perfect pray that what is the exception may right to entertain, refused to go to the quickly become universal. missionaries to whom they were sent, and hence are kept in nominal heath- 10. This policy ignores the special enism, contrary to the spirit of the call which the Holy Spirit so often New Testament, and contrary to the gives to the Christian preacher. Paul spirit of Christian justice. and Silas were Spirit-led, and they planted permanent churches where· 9. This policy interferes with the they preached. If India is ever normal progress of the gospel. We brought to Christ, many successors to ought to look forward to the time when these men will yet appear. Could Christianity will free itself from the such men work in India as Paul narrow limits of the mission house and worked? It is constantly said that mission agencies, and begin to ad- Paul never built on other men's founvance over the country from heart to dations, but this policy forbids a man heart and from village to village, by to dig for his own foundation. If a steady process of normal growth. when Paul reached Philippi he had Whenever it becomes a living, indigenous Christianity, it will advance in been met by a deputation of brethren, this way. In some places we see indica- telling him that they had a monopoly tions of such advance for which we of all the foundation-Iayin~ in Greece ought to be devoutly thankful. I was and Macedonia, and directmg him to told recently that the well-known go elsewhere, he would have instantly movement among the Telugus in replied, " Not for an hour!" It is not Southern India is steadily creeping probable that India will ever see northward. It is becoming more and another Paul, but that she will see more a normal outgrowth, and it will hundreds of men of like spirit is ceradvance from heart to heart and from tain, and we should open a way for village to village on lines which no them rather than close It against them. human wisdom can either mark out or obliterate. We may as well try to Let us in the next place glance legislate against the advance of white briefly at the proposed code of interants as against the advance of a move- missional rules. Such a code, if agreed ment which is simply a normal out- upon with practical unanimity by all growth of vital Christianity. In west- the societies interested, would, no ern Rohilkhund, on perhaps a smaller doubt, be of value asa guide to young scale, a similar advance has been missionaries, and it would also greatly noted. The people have relatives or influence public opinion, which in the fellow caste men, and becoming earn- long run will be found the chief factor in settling points in controversy. But est Christians, they speak to these it is nearly certain that any attempt friends of Christ, who m turn becom- to give such rules the force of laws ing interested, wish to be Christians, will end in failure, and probably agand in this way Christianity has cross- gravate the evils which they are ined the Ganges at many points and is tended to prevent. A somewhat elabormoving westward. The missionary, or" ate code of this kind was actually the native preacher, as the case may be, adopted in the Panjab about a quarter of a century ago, but it proved a dead letter, or nearly so, from the first, and ridiculous light by being made the fre- at present seems to be unknown. A quent recipient of undignified com- code of laws cannot be effective with- plaints.
out a judiciary to expound them, and If then we are to have no code of an administrative department to en- rules and no mission boundaries, can force them. We have only to fancy a nothing at all be done to promote a civil code in India, with every plaintiff proper spirit of comity among mission- and every defendant assuming the aries? Beyond all doubt something function of advocate, judge and jury, can be done, but not on the old lines. in order to see how aLsurd it is to pro- First of all, there should be a radi- pose a code of laws which can neither cal change of policy. We should for- be officially interpreted nor enforced. eyer discard the notion that mission- This explains 'why it is that nearly all aries cannot dwell together in love attempts in this direction seem to fo- and harmony. Instead of saying. ment discord rather than allay it. How good and how pleasant it is for How could it be otherwise when both brethren to dwell apart in comity, let plaintiff and defendant attempt to us boldly and firmly maintain the pass judgment on the case in dispute? ground that it is a good and pleasant A close and faithful study of human thing for brethren to dwell and work nature will greatly assist us in con- together in amity. As a matter of sidering this question. Missionaries fact we all haye reason to know that are very much like other people, and brethren of different societies who will continue to be like other people. live and work side by side have fewer vThen any two human beings differ differences than those who live far warmly oyer any question, it is amaz- apart. We ought to be ashamed to ing how clearly each one can see his proclaim to the world that we cannot {)wn side of it and how blind he is to work side by side. In October last I the merits of the other side. As a saw Christians of the London and the matter of fact, has not the average Methodist Episcopal Societies in a com- missionary this infirmity in common mon assembly day after day, taking with other men? And if so, what council together, and waiting on God possible use is there in laying down a together, and it was impossible to dis- law for him which he will be sure to tinguish between them. How much interpret in the light of his own in- better this than to keep them separated terests? For instance, a missionary as if they belonged to separate castes! is asked to intervene in a neighbor's We need not plant our stations in the ~]uarrel, and allows his feelings to lead same towns for the mere sake of ex- him into the dispute. He is reminded hibiting our fraternal loye, but let us of a rule forbidding such meddling, no longer shun one another's presence, but at once replies, " This is a case of and thus almost ostentatiously progross injustice. I am merely helping claim to the world that we cannot live the weak," etc. Or, a discarded helper together. comes to him for service. He accepts 2. As far as possible both mission- him, and when reminded of the rule aries and converts should co-operate against such procedure, replies, "Yes, in their common work, especially in but this case does not come under that meetings for the promotion of their rule. This man is in the right," etc. spiritual life. Instead of having a It has been suggested that a com- committee of reference for the settle- mittee of reference might be appoint- ment of disputes, two or more societies ed, and that all disputed questions might have a joint committee for the might be referred to this body, but this promotion of their mutual interests.
would only be adding to the difficul- In former years the London and the ties of the case. Could such a com- Methodist 'Episcopal missionaries in mittee enforce its decisions'i' And Kumaon had such a committee. and would all missionaries be willing to the plan worked admirably. It is in- submit their cases to such a body? finitely safer for us to attempt to legis- VVould not a certain class of men al- late in the direction of practical amity, ways be ready to show special reasons than to attempt deliberately to make 'why each one's own particular case provision for the demands of future should not be sent up to such a com- discord. mittee? In important cases a refer- 3. For the correction of unfraternal €nce to such a committee might "eem conduct, and of all conduct which may fitting enough, but it is extremely be hurtful to our common cause, 'we probable that many trifling differences must, depend chiefly on the power of would be magnified by such a refer- public opinion, with now and then a €nce, and in this way a dignified com- reference to the home authorities. vVe mittee would be made t,) figure in a ""may as ,"veIl assume, once for all, that offences of some kind will come. It non-essential point of doctrine, he is has been so since the beginning, and not quite a gentlemal1, and much lesswill no doubt continue so. Some of a Christian.
these will be trival enough, but others (e) Per contra, he will not attempt will be grevious. In recent years, in to bind his helpers down to a low salary – India at least, every missionary is a for life, refusing to give them certifipublic man. Missionary opinion is a cates of character if they wishto leave, distinct and potent factor in the em- and thus virtually making them his pire, and when a man is tempted to bondmen. The Christian gentleman is do a brother a wrong, or to do himself bound to respect the rights of his a wrong, nothing will restrain him so native brethren.
much as the recollection that what he (f) He will not accept as true every does will be made public. Every mis- evil story brought to him about his sionary of moderate experience knows brethren, nor will he lend a sympa- that there is an unwritten code by thetic ear to those who speak disparag- which the missionary public will judge ingly of other missionaries. The mis- every case which comes before it, and sionary who is willing to listen to such respect for this code will powerfully talk will never fail to hear false or restrain those who might otherwise be distorted stories about his brethren.
inconsiderate. As a matter of fact the (g) He will not engage in undigni- force of this opinion has been distinctly fied disputes about trifling matters recognized of late years, and in my which are unworthy of his attention.
opinion it has done much to promote (h) He will not make himself un– good feeling among missionaries, and happy because others do not work ac– to prevent what, under other circum- cording to his ideas or methods, re- stances, might have been serious, or membering that each worker standeth even disastrous differences. or falleth to his own Master.
4. But after all, the question of peace (i.) He will not assume rights or and concord must depend very largely privileges, either of action or judg- upon the character of individual mis- ment, which he does not freely con- sionaries. Not long since a mission- cede to every other worker in the field.
ary was giving me a history of a sad This list might be extended, but it is dispute in a local church, in the course needless. It only remains to be said of which he said, "IfMr.P– had not that after all precautions have been been a Christian gentleman, he could taken we mayexpect to find ample op- have carried off most of the people and portunities for the exercise of our- have broken up the church. But he Christian forbearance. Weare not was a gentleman, and refused to inter- much better than our fathers, or much fere in any way, and in time the diffi- farther advanced than our brethren in culty was settled." If we must have Christian lands. We may expect to a code, let it contain but one rule, and see thoughtless brethren transgress at· let that rule be: Every missionary shall times, and we may expect to see sen- be a Christian gentleman. A Christian sitive brethren bring unjust accusa- gentleman will not offend in any of the tions against those who have done following particulars: them no harm, but in either case it (a) He will not meddle in a neigh- ought not to be a very serious matter bor's dispute. If asked he will act as for Christian men to bear and forbear, a peace-maker, but in no other char- and go on with their work in quietness acter. He will not even think of try- and love. Life is too short and eternity ing to profit by such a dispute byas- too near for Christian missionaries. of suming charge of one of the parties to all living men, to waste their time and it. destroy their peace by disputes about (b) He will not receive an excom- matters which in nineteen cases out of municated Christian, unless it be after twenty have no value whatever.
very satisfactory repentance and refor- A Word from Syria about the American.
mation.
(c) He will not enter a field where Bible Society.
another missionary is successfully The Syria Mission at Beirut appointworking, and try either to appropriate ed Rev. W. W. Eddy to write on their his harvest, or seize his opportunities. behalf to the Secretaries of the Ameri- In other words, he will not in any way meddle with another's work. can Bible Society. We are favored (11) He will not, however indirectly, with a copy of the letter, sent in ac- cordance with that action. The inentice another's helpers by offering debtedness of the Syria Mission to the them increased pay. If he does this under the pretense of obeying a reli- gious conviction, especially on some American Bible Society,acknowledged in this letter, but illustrates the indebt- second of April next, and to offer some appro- edness of well nigh every other Ameri- priate testimonial to him in view of his eminent can foreign mission to this same noble services to literature and science. The Sultan agency. The letter is dated January has signified his regard by presenting one of 2, 1890, at Beirut, Syria, and was read his highest decorations to honor the occasion. at the meeting of the Board of Man- Doubtless Dr. Van Dyck looks with more com- placence upon the work done by him for the .agers, March 6th, and at that very ses- American Bible Society than upon all his other sion the Board made grants of books labors, and certainly it is this work which the and funds amounting to $72,880, in- King of kings will most honor. cluding appropriations to the Presby- .. We have to thank the Society for the interterian Board of Foreign Missions, for esting and· profitable messenger which comes Bible work in the Lodiana Mission; to to us from them each month, in the shape of the American Board, for its Austria the Society's Record.
Mission; to the Missionary Society of "We thank the Soci9ty that for so many the Methodist Episcopal Church, for its years they gave us the frequent companion- ship and profitable fellowship of their repre- Sweden Mission; to the Bible Society sentative in the Levant,'the loved and lamentof France; to the Russian Bible Society, ed Dr. I. G. Bliss, to help us forward in our and to the Society's agencies in Mexico, work.
Cuba, and the Levant. .. We can but wish that in some way the The issues from the Bible House bonds which unite the Bible Society and the Syria Mission were closer and more perceptiduring the month of February were ble. We recall with pleasure the visit of Dr. 109,179volumes; issues since April 1st, Gilman, and esteemed it most conducive to this 1889,922,493 volumes. end; but such visits ought to be repeated at least once in a decade, or they fail of due in- The Syria letter reads as follows: fiuence.
"Our obligations to your Society are great .. Surely the Society should be congratuand constant. Itis the arsenal whence we draw lated, as well as thanked, for the magnificent the weapons for our spiritual confiict with the work they are permitted to do in this land of hosts of error and superstition on these old the Bible-in giving to it this past year alone battle-fields, memorable in the world's history. more than twelve million pages of the Arabic You give each warrior for Christ a sword which Scriptures-that thus they may re-sow these will not fail him in direst combat. With it we •holy fields' with the pure seed of the word, fear not to meet Moslem or nominal Christian where for centuries has flourished Satan's crop armed with weapons forged in Mecca or Rome. of tares unchecked and disastrous. Nay, more, you send us winged messengers, which we can let fiy over walls which we can- "We might tell you much to cheer you in not scale and capture citadels which we cannot your labor of love: how the colporteur who enter. visits the khans on the highways of travel, re- .. We have to thank you for the varied forms turning, has told us of groups of wayfarers in which the Arabic Bible is printed, adapted to all circumstances and wants, and for the listening nightly to the reading of the Scripexactness of its conformity to the original and tures, who then carry in their memories to the purity of its style~ so attractive to the Arab their homes treasures more precious than taste. Wben I came to Syria we had ouly a those laden upon their beasts of burden. translation made from the Vulgate, unfaithful to the original and full of grammatical errors. "We might tell you of a Bedawee youth wh() Now we have one to which we can refer when learned of Christ in a school in this city, and we wish to test the correctness of the revised visited lately his tribe in the desert east of English version. Horns, spending some time with them and de- lighting the people of his tribe by reading to .. I am writing this in a house separated by a them the stories of the Old Testament and the narrow street from the building in which Dr. poetry of the Psalms. Oh I how reluctantly Eli Smith lived, who labored so long and so they parted with him, returning to further successfully in your service, commencing the pursue his studies. immortal work of giving to theArabic-speaking races, in their own tongue, the pure word of "We might tell you how we hear of homes God. Dr. Van Dyck, whom God has honored In this city of Beirut whose inmates dare not by permitting him to carryforward and com- admit a missionary within their doors, nor plete this work, now stands at the threshold of even acknowledge his salutation before others the fiftieth year of his arrival in this land. when they meet him in the street, where the His numerous friends here, of all sects, propose Bible is read, yea, prized and believed in as the to celebrate this jubilee, which occurs on the only truth; but this will suffice.
"Ye who stretch your hands so far, and so full of blessings to your fellow-men, cease not also to stretch your hands upward to God in supplication that he may open more widely the doors for the entrance of the gospel into homes
1890.J THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS•
.and hearts in Syria, and that he may give Press, copies of the Scriptures are also multi· liberty of conscience and Qf profession of faith plying by thousands, so by the influence of the to all; that, as through the influence of the Holy Spirit may be multiplied the numbers of many schools in the land, readers are multIply- those who believe in the truth to the saving of ing by thousands from all sects, and as, by the their souls. "
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D• .Buddhism and Christianity in Burmah Father, no helper in this world, no and Siam. Saviour for the world to come. Exist- There are three great religious forces ence is an evil to be gotten rid of.
now contending for supremacy in All desire, the purest as well as the Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam. These lowest, is to be supp~essed. The are Animism, or Devil Worship, Budd- ideal life is that which withdraws hism, and Christianity. The above from mankind and suppresses all symnamed are all known as Buddhist pathy and shrivels and destroys the countries. There is no such mingling noblest impulses of life. Buddha en- of religions as in China or Japan, and joined upon his "mendicants" to the type of Buddhism which they "wander apart like a rhinoceros," present corresponds most nearly to and to abide in silence "as a broken the original teachings of Gautama. gong;" thus theyshot4d attain Nirvana. The old Atheism is retained. No This ancient system has certainly personal God is recognized, and there is no such thing as a human soul; enjoyed fair opportunities in all the countries above named. Itwas intro- there is only a succession of thoughts duced into Ceylon at least two cenand conscious emotions. Continuity turies before Christ under the auspices of the ego after death is treated as an of royal authority. A son and a illusion; only karma, or character, re- daughter of the Indian king Ashoka mains, and that becomes the inherit- were its first missionaries. It was ance of an entirely different being. never crushed out there asin India by Southern Buddhism is a purely an overpowering Brahmanism, nor confronted by elaborate philosophies ethical system; it regards the Buddha such as it encountered in China. It as dead-his conscious existence ex- tinct. He is not a source of strength was transplanted into Burmah in the and help except by his example, his fifth century, A. D., and into Siam sacred Law, and the Sangha or Mon- and Cambodia in the seventh century. astic Order which he established. It became the state religion in Siam There is, therefore, no trust in super- and Burmah: It has for ages dominatural powers, and consequently no real prayer; there are only liturgical nated all educational ideas, such as formularies, or the expressions of they were, and regulated the national customs. t aspiration and desire. There is no Every youth in Siam is supposed to doctrine of sin in the proper sense; spend a certain time in a. monastery instead of sin there is only an untor- under priestly instruction. Princes tunate entanglement of soul with mat- have sometimes given years to mo.
tel', an inheritance of "consequences" nastic life, and notably the lathel which have come down from former of the present king. In Burmah, existences. There is throughout the children of the better class are sent universe a fatal disorder for which to the monasteries for day-school nobody in particular is respo:.!lible, instruction. In one sense Buddhism and. gods and men and beasts are impresses itself upon all things, upon simply victims of misfortune. There customs and the national thought, and is, of course, no doctrine of Provi- even upon the scenery. The archi- dence, no conception of a divine tectural curves of the pagodas seem as much a part of the country as the kindly and beneficent; even its atheism was better than the worship of malig- sweeping fronds of the fan-shaped nant spirits. It cultivated kindness. toward everything that lives; it palm, and the gentle tinkling of the mitigated the oppression of woman, stimulated intellectual activity, and temple bells is mingled with the sighs taught the equality of mankind as alike capable of enlightenment and and moans of the evening breeze. honor. It discouraged warfare and encouraged the arts of peace. But as The enormous wealth which ha.s it gave little instrnction and no spiritual help, it left the lower masses been expended upon the system in the to their fetichism; and to that they resort to the present day. Five or six distant past is indicated by many years ago the young king of Siam was compelled to rebuke, by public procla- splendid structures, which, though mation, certain superstitious customs which were working great public now in ruins and in some cases over- injury. A single example will illus- trate the cruelty of some of the usages grown by the forests, surprise the be- which widely prevailed in Siam and holder by their extent and elaborate- Laos. Any disease which leads to delirium ness. The following description, given or mental aberration is supposed to be by Bishop Titcombe, will illustrate the the work of malignant spirits who have entered into the patient at the magnificence of some of the pagodas instigation of some enemy living in the neighborhood. A" devil priest" which still remain: is therefore summoned, who, with some blunt instrument, like the point ., The Great Shway Dagone Pagoda of an elephant's tusk, prods the uncon- of Rangoon has a golden spire and scious sufferer in different parts of the jewelled top, which glitters in the sun body until a cry of pain reveals the from every point of the compass. location of the evil spirit. The next Even the terrace or platform on which question is, what relative or neighbor the pagoda is built rises over 160 feet has caused the mischief? This is, from the level roads beneath it, and is arbitrarily decided by the priest, who 960 feet long by 685 feet wide. The pronounces sentence on whom he will. ascent to this platform is by four From that moment human hope flights of steps, one opposite the cen- departs from the poor victim of his tre of each face. The pagoda itself, accusation. He is driven from his built on the centre of this immense home and possessions, to be thenceterrace or platform, has a ground cir- forth an outcast. No man is allowed cumference of 1,335 feet, and rises to to give him food or shelter, or show a height of 370 feet, which is about him any kindness; he is driven to the that of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. jungle, to subsist as best he may, or It is gilded from top tobottom, and its fall a prey to disease, or to wild beast.s. golden spire (or htee, as it is called) His family share his fate. contains at least $250,000 worth of jewels, with silver bells that are for- That devil worship prevails to an ever tinkling in the breeze. Chapels equal extent in Ceylon, is shown by a and shrines, also, of various sizes, are declaration made by Rev. S. R. Wilkins, built around this pagoda, on the plat- at the Missionary Council, in London, form of which thousands of wor- in 1888: "It is commonly reported by shipers pace during the days of high festival. Within these, hundreds of images of Gautama may be seen, of all sizes, sitting, standing and reclining, before which are continually burning tapers and &ndles. This building claims to be, and very probably is, more than two thousand years old; it is enriched by thfl supposed relics of eight hairs from the head of Gautama, besides the bathing garment, the water-dipper and walkingstaff of the three preceding Buddhas."
But how far has Buddhism over- come the spirit worship of these countries?
When first brought into contact with the old pagan superstitions, it no doubt :wrought great improvements, though it did not deliver from their bondage. In its earlier history it was those who believe in 'The Light of they are in distress th~y go to a Confu- Asia,' that the people of Ceylon are cian, or a Buddhist, or a Tauist temple, Buddhists. I say they are not. I do whichever may be most convenient, not know much of book Buddhism, or most strongly recommended, just as but I do know a very great deal of the men try a variety of nostrums for 13uddhism of the people as it is bodily ailments. The most common practiced, and I can say this, that of resort in every-day life is to the god the so-called Buddhists of Ceylon, of wealth, or to jugglers, who control ninety per cent. are demon wor- the fungshuay, or the influences of shipers. The creed of Buddha says good luck. There is no greater sham there is no God to worship, therefore in our day than the assumption that the people turn to demons, as they the masses of the people in a country have done in Ceylon. To-day the so- like China, or Siam, or Ceylon, are in called Buddhists of Ceylon are demon any intelligent sense Buddhists. The worshipers, and this is the case, not system never claimed to be an all- only with the people, but also with embracing church. It institutes a the priests. Two or three months ago holy order of monks, and they may I went out distributing tracts, and properly be called Buddhists; they· called at the house of a demon priest. profess that religion, and live by it.
I asked him, ' What is your religion?' There are general rules of life for the 'Buddhism,' he replied. I said, 'Why, laity, but they are under no organiza- you know it is quite contrary to the tion or systematic teaching; they are creed of Buddha for you to practice under no vows, or even enrollment.
those demon ceremonies.' , Yes,' he If we can imagine a Roman Catholic said, , I know it is.' , What about the country with no churches, but only Buddhiet priests,' I asked, 'do they monasteries and nunneries, with no ever preach against demon worship?' systematic instruction, or ordinances 'No,' he said, 'we go to them, too, and sacraments, not even baptism, when they are sick.' " we shall have a counterpart to a There are so many apologists of Buddhist country, in which the people Buddhism in our time who insist that receive more or less general influence at least one-third of the human race from the monks, but are left to follow are under its sway, that it seems their own popular superstitions. The necessary to present such clear state- proportions of devil worship and ments as the above from those who serpent worship are probably greater have lived in the East, and have been now than in former days, for every- careful observers of the facts. Rev. where modern Buddhism is in a state Dr. Happel', of Canton, has estimated of decline and decay.
that the Buddhists of the Chinese Bishop Bigandet of Burmah declares Empire, instead of numbering three or that: "Ignorance prevails to an ex- four hundred millions, do not exceed tent which can scarcely be imagined, seventy-five millions. Rev. Dr. Nev- and often the priests are less intelligent ius, of North China, in answer to the than the laity."
question, "What proportion of the Mr. Gilmour in his "Among the people are Buddhists?" replies that Mongols," says: " The grewt sinners in there are comparatively few, aside Mongolia are the Lamas (monks); the from the monks, who would call great centres of wickedness are the themselves by that name, if, indeed, temples."
they even knew what was meant by A Japanese Buddhist, in an address the question. The great mass are of welcome given to the Theosophist, nothing at all by self-designation; they Col. Olcott, on his arrival in Japan some have no religion whatever, except as months ago, declared that the religion occasion seems to require. When of his country is iI). a sad decline. Mr. Fukasawa, the eminent journalist It tells me by voices ever repeated, of TOKYo, has often represented the that I shall be subject to sorrow, im- system as effete. A published tract of permanence and unreality, so long as the Shin sect in Japan, says of the I exist, and yet that I cannot cease to monks: "They delude men, they de- exist for countless ages to come, as I ceive themselves; they forsake the can only attain Nirvana in the time of world, and are more worldly than a supreme Buddha. In my distress 'I. ever." ask for the sympathy of an all-wise and all-powerful friend. . • . But I Mr. Louis Liesching, an officer of am mocked instead by being told to Government in Ceylon, said at the look to Buddha, who has ceased to ex- London Missionary Conference of 1888: ist; to the Dhamma, that never was "I have never met with a Buddhist an existence; and to the Sangha, the priest who did anything for the benefit members of which are, like myself, of his fellow-creatures. Theyare men partakers of sorrow and sin." whose only care is to live in sloth and indolence, and to spend their days in Turning from the delusions of Buddgetting what they can from the people, hism and the prevailing devil worship and giving them nothing in return. we ask, what has Christianity done By the fruits of religion, religion for Burmah and Siam ? must be judged. I have been a judicial officer and a revenue officer in The history of the American Baptist Ceylon, and I can say that though Missions in Burmah constitutes one of the Buddhist professes to have such a the most thrilling romances of modregard for life that he strains even the ern times. The peculiar circumstances water he drinks, yet among no people which led Dr. Judson to Burmah, inis human life held at a lower estimate stead of India; the sufferings which than among Buddhists. Why? With were endured by him and his wife in Buddhists life is life, whether it be in the early days; the wonderful door of the form of a mosquito ora human be- entrance presented to Mr. and Mrs. ing; and to kill one is as bad as killing Boardman and others among the another. I have known a young man Karens-all these things are as housedash out the brains of his own sister, hold words among those who know in order that he might charge another even the alphabet of modern missions. who was his enemy with the crime." Even Gautama himself never ex- hibited a heroism like that of these But as there are many who, while devoted men and women. From the admitting the decline of the system beginning of his preaching as the (and Christianity, they say, has also Buddha, he was honored even by frequently declined and become cor princes. He spent his whole ministry in rupt), still maintain that the original peace among his own people and died system was ennobling, we add the an object of virtual worship. These testimony of Rev. Spence Hardy, of missionaries had forsaken country and Ceylon, as to the blighting character friends to bear an unwelcome mesof Buddhism in the very nature of its sage to the needy, to submit to privadoctrines and in its best estate. He tion and imprisonment, and disea.'!e says: ," The system of Buddha is hu- and death-not like him for their own miliating, cheerless, man-marring, glory, but for the glory of another. soul-erushing. It tells me that I am not a reality, I have no soul. It tells Whoever candidly compares the me that there is no unalloyed happi- living truths which they taught with ness, no plenitude of enjoyment, no the dismal negations of Buddhism, or perfect, unbroken peace in the pos- their lives with the lives of the monks, session pf any being whatever, from as above described, will not wonder at the highest to the lowest, in any world. the transformations which they and their successors have wrought. The
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
.Burmah mlSSIOns are among those been done mainly by the missions which are accounted the most fruit- of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. ful, those at the contemplation of For many years great discouragements which all friends of Chnst's Kingdom were encountered, and among the thank God and take courage. Laos about twenty years ago a vio- lent persecution was suffered at the Witness the last annual report: hands of the king. But the last ten years have witnessed very encourag- Communicants. . . • .' . . . . . 29,952 ing success. Baptized during the year. • . • . . 1,912 Number of Churches . . • . . . . 521 The Government has uniformly Self-supporting Churches. . . . . . 377 been favorable. The young king of Total Number of Native Preachers.. 524 Siam has repeatedly uttered words of Churches and Chapels. . . . . . . 404 welcome, and even of commendation, Amount of Contributions . . . . . $46,067 and. both he and his governors of provinces have contributed material This certainly indicates a noble suc- aid toward schools and hospitals. Miscess, even statistically. But could any sionaries have been called to the highjust measurement be applied to the est positions as educators and superinmoral elevation of these Christian tendents of hospitals, and for the people as compared with the super- medical ,work especially valuable stitious masses around them, the re- properties have been given. In the sult would seem vastly greater. small Laos Mi~sion the last year has been one of great prosperity. Ovef a A prosperous work is carried on in thousand communicants are reported various parts of Burmah by the So- and about 700 pupils in schools. ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Roman Catholics also claim large results.
The work in Siam and Laos has VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Nicaragua and Oosta Rica. less specially favor the planting of The brief article we published in our missions both in Nicaragua and Costa March issue on Nicaragua as a prospective missionary field of the first Rica. importance, has, as we anticipated, attracted wide attention, and awakened Among the responses we have reno little interest and inquiry. We believe there was never a more prom- ceived is the following from" the isingopening for our great missionary societies to study and prepare for in only Protestant missionary in Costa the near future. The writer of that paper urged the great Presbyterian Rica," which we are sure will deeply Church to go up and possess the land, and she will disregard a loud Provi- interest our readers: dential call if she does not. But the call is to the whole American "The March number of THE MISchurch, and why should not the great SIONARY REVIEW contained an article Methodist Episcopal Missionary So- on Nicaragua, also referring to Costa ciety, and the great Baptist Mission- Rica. Having visited Nicaragua, and ary Union-both of which have some residing in Costa Rica, it occurred to special facilities and opportunities for me that a littleinformation respecting it-take hold of this enterprise? The the present condition of these repub- Hon. Warner Miller, an earnest and lics might be interesting to all Chriswarm-hearted Methodist brother, who tians, especially those interested in is President of the Nicaragua Canal aggressive Christian work. Should a ,conStruction Company, would doubt- waterway ever be made through Nicaragua, all that the writer predicts would doubtless come to pass. But whether the canal be made or not, one thing is certain: Christian mission work must be taken up in real earnest without further delay. As a result of a missionary tour to several islands and certain ports on the main land, the Jamaica Baptist Missionary So- ciety decided to commence mission work in Costa Rica. Two years have passed since we commenced the work and money for the much needed work in Port Limon, where we reside, and in these countries." which place is at rresent the centre of our operations. We hope to com- The statements of this letter abun- mence building our church very soon, although we have not enough money dantly confirm oUr previous paper. as yet to complete it. We conduct services four tImes weekly, including It cannot be that the powerful United the Sunday-school, in the largest building available. On the new rail- States, whose missionaries are going road in course of construction to San Jose, the chief city of this country, forth into .Africa, China, Burmah, we frequently hold services with the men in their camps; also among the India, Turkey and the Isles of the Sea, little settlements of people on the existing railroad. will utterly neglect these sister repub- " The condition of the people, mor- lics lying so near to us, and with whom ally considered, is of an appalling character. Drunkenness, immorality, we are seeking more intimate and. gambling, cutting and shooting, are common occurrences. .As the writer extensive commercial relations. is the only Protestant missio~ary in the Republic, you may conceive his In the Gospel in All Lands, for hands are more than full. To visit those people means a great deal of .April, the Hon. N. F; Graves has a, traveling. Bibles in English and Spanish, tracts, books and booklets, paper on "Costa Rica," which we are sold and circulated; thus the seed is being sown. While I am up coun- would like to reproduce here, but can. try my wife conducts services in the town. Our work at present is chiefly only refer to and cite a few points: with the English-speaking, of which there are many. There is a splendid Costa Rica is the most southerlyopening for Protestant preaching in republic of Central .America. It is a San Jose and towns near. .A mission- small country, containing only 26,040 ary speaking the Spanish language, square miles, and having a population possessing a clear head, a good knowl- of 210,000; but the population is now edge of human nature, a bright, genial rapidly increasing. _ disposition, a heart filled with the love of Jesus Christ, and compassion In all parts of the country except for men's souls, would soon get a good the sea-coast the climate is mild and foothold and make rapid progress. temperate. The thermometer seldom rises above eighty degrees or falls " .As far as I know there is only one below sixty-five degrees. The climate Protestant missionary in Nicaragua, of the coast is hot, but on the tableat Greytown. He is a good, faithful lands in the interior, with an elevation brother; he has recently rebuilt the of about 4,000 feet, there is an agreelittle Protestant church there, and God able climate, with moderate warm, is blessing his labors. Greytown is dry, and cool nights. Nine-tenths of an open port, enjoying religious lib- all the people live on the table-lands. erty. But outside that place there is Nearly all the people belong to the' scarcely toleration. It is gratifying to white race. It is quite different from know that the majority of the youn&" most of the other Central .American influential men of Nicaragua are agI- States. Here there is a very little of tating for, and will soon secure, the the Indian mixture and none of theboon of religious liberty. But at the negro. In the city of San Jose it is present time, one acting judiciously said that nearly nine-tenths of the could preach the gospel in private population are of pure Caucasian houses, scatter the Word of God, and blood, and you meet as many beautiful thus work on until the brighter day ladies, and as well dressed, as you do comes. The Jamaica Baptist Mission- in the Northern cities. The people of ary Society would gladly send more San Jose reside in elegant residences missionaries into these countries, but replete with not only every convenat present cannot for want of funds. ience, but every luxury. The mer- Possibly by giving these particulars chants and professional men of Costa publicly in your REVIEW, the means Rica stand high in manners as well as may be forthcoming for securing men in capacity for doing business. They appear like .Americans. Education is not so universal as in our country, but all leading families are highly edu- cated. The government is vested in a president elected for four years. The Senate is chosen, two from each province, and the representatives are elected, four from each district of ten thousand people, and alI persons who are of age and can support themselves. are voters. The schools are free, and compulsory to all children between will be" the highway of the nations," the ages of eight and fourteen. The the " gate of the world." Through it government university is at the capi- will pass, when it is completed, the tal, under the care of Dr. Juan Ferros, ships of all nations, and the peoples of who is said to be a learned man and every land and race. Not only will practical educator. He has able pro- the ships and steamers of all the ports fessors to aid him. There is a system on both sides of the American conti- of graded schools under the direction nent, from Labrador to Terra del -of the minister of education. There Fuego, and from the Straits of Magel- has been a constitutional amendment lan to Alaska, pass through this high- ;adopted which separates the Church way, but the ships of Russia, Scandi- from the State. Under that law the navia, Great Britain, Germany, monks and nuns were expelled from Austria, France, Spain, Portugal and the State, and the monasteries and Italy; of all the African and Medi- nunneries were confiscated and taken terranean ports, of all Asiatic ports, for school-houses and other public India, Burmah, China, Japan; all uses, and the power and perquisites of Australasian, Malaysian, Melanesian, the priests sUbstantially taken away. Micronesian and Polynesian ports, Still the Roman Catholic religion is the must find their way thither, for the State religion; but the constitution exchange of the world's commodities; and laws guarantee religious liberty and, either by the distribution of tracts, and toleration. pamphlets, and especially portions of the Word of God in all the languages There are no missionaries in Costa spolren by these peoples, or by the Rica. There are some Protestants in employment of colporteurs, or native the towns, and in the capital there is missionaries, to embark on all the a small chapel where services are read larger of these ships and steamers, and and hymns are sung, and I;lometimes a preach Christ to them, must these sermon is read by a layman, but there various nationalities be reached. is seldom a minister present to take part in the exercises. The English 2. It is indispensable that this move- .societies have talked of establishing a ment should be one in which all missionary station at the capital and evangelical Ohristian churches shall -<>ther places, but have not yet done have a part. The denominational so. The time has arrived when there missionary societies have accomplished should be missionary stations, and it very much towards the evangelization is believed there is a great blessing in of the world, and have been wonder- store for those who will raise the fully blessed in their labors; but here' standard of the Gospel in this land. is a point, where, by their united action, the time may be hastened, at [Since the above was written and in least by a half century, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the printer's hands, we have received the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ; and yet where no one of the the following bugle-blast from that churches may say to another, "Stand veteran and accomplished student and back, this is my field; 1 alone will writer in the missionary world, Dr. L. occupy it. " No! the sacramental host of God's elect must march forward P. Brockett, and we give it place here under the leadership of the Captain of their Salvation, for the conquest of -as a valuable and powerful indorse' not only our own great continent, but the conquest of the world for Ohrist. ment of the views expressed in the Let the advancing columns bear on their gonfalons the legend, " America article referred to.-J. M. S.] America for Christ.
DEAR DR. SHERWOOD: I was very much interested-as who that loves the cause of missions was not-in the <:ommurucation, in the March MISSION- ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD, entitled .. Nicaragua as a Missionary Field."
The importance of occupying some accessible point on the Nicaragua Inter-Oceanic Canal as a universal missionary station cannot be over- estimated. In a higher sense than any other point on the globe, that canal for Christ!" and, as their conquests struction Company. Nothing would become greater and greater, let them, delight him more, we are confident, at a later time, inscribe upon their than to aid in this blessed work of the banners, "The Whole World for world's evangelization. Christ I" If this work be vigorously prosecuted, while the missionary work But by whatever agencies it shall be in the various countries is pushed for- wrought out, let not this great and ward with a constantly-increasing glorious opportunity of aiding in the zeal, I, for one, do not despair of seeing subjection of the world to Christ slip the prediction of your noble colleague out of the hands of the Protestant fulfilled, namely, that in the lifetime Christians of America and Europe. of the present generation the whole Rome, desirous of retaining its hold world shall be evangelized. upon the Hispano-American races of Mexico, Central and South America, 3. Who will take the lead in this will contend against us desperately, great enterprise-the greatest ever at- but her power is waning, and she will tempted by man? If the Evangelical fight a losing battle. Infidelity will Alliance could be inspired with such seek, as in India and Japan, to overa burning zeal, as to take the com- throw us; but, with God on our side, mand of this holy crusade, they could we shall win, and then on the head of accomplish the work better than any the Captain of our Salvation shall there other organization, but I fear that be many crowns of victory. their zeal might not reach or be maintained at a white heat. Like Gideon's Dr. Pierson's Visit Abroad. army, before they were tested and sifted, they are too many, and the number While a sense of delicacy has reof the fearful, timid, boasting, and strained us from saying much in these self-indulgent in their ranks are too pages concerning the mission of our numerous. associate to Great Britain, and the impression and effect of his visit and If our dear Dr. Pierson could be labors in the cause of missions, leaving multiplied by five others, we should his letters mainly to tell the story, yet need no better human leaders; or if now that his work is done, and he has Dwight Moody collJd be spared from left for France and Italy, where he his present beneficent work, he might will remain till the last of May, we lead our armies forth to the conquest. cannot withhold the following testi- mony, alike honorable to him and to Failing these, why should not THE the grand old historic church which MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD, presented it to him through their Forundenominational as it is, and with a eign Mission Committee.-J. M. S. zeal which is born of its Christly purpose, raise its banner of "America for "At Edinburgh, the 4th day of Christ," and seek to rouse Christians March, 1890, the Foreign Mission Comof every name to undertake this great mittee of the Church of Scotland met and glorious work? "They that be and was constituted. wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn " On the motion of Dr. Pagan, the many to righteousness. as the stars for following resolution was unanimously ever and ever." agreed to: The Foreign Mission Com- mittee desire to record intheir Minutes, It seems to be providential, that at and to convey to Dr. Pierson their this very time the HONORABLEWARNER most grateful appreciation of the MILLER, a man of great energy and service which he has rendered to the executive ability, of the strictest integ- cause of missions during the time he rity, and an earnest Christian, has has been in Scotland. His powerful been called to the Presidency of this addresses and unwearying labors all Nicaragua Interoceanic Canal Con- over the land, prompted by the single desire to deepen interest in the exten- tions, and address them on the subject sion of the kingdom of Christ, have of foreign missions. And it is no ex- made an impression upon the members aggeration to say that for such a mis- of the Scottish churches, which, by the sion he has no superior. He has a blessing of God, will bear valuable knowledge of missions, wide and fruit. The Committee resolve to re- yet specific, unsurpassed by any misquest Dr. Pierson to allow them to ask sionary secretary. He has stUdied the the General Assembly that he give an problem of modern missions, as few address on missions when their annual men have, in its underlying princireport is given in. They feel assured ples, as well as in its methods and histhat if he can comply with this request, torical developments. He has grace, his presence will be most cordially fluency and readiness in speech, which welcomed, and the cause which is so any man might envy. And there is dear to him will be more effectively an earnestness, a spiritual baptism, a helped than by any other arrangement sweep and vigor of thought and a which it is in the power of the repre- power of impression in all his adsentatives of the Church of Scotland to dresses, which thrill and sway and make. captivate the immense audiences which gather to hear him wherever "Extracted/rom the Minutes 0/ the he goes. So that his peculiar fitness for this kind of work, and the mani- Committee by fest tokens of Divine favor attending "J. MACLAGAU, Secretary." it, at home and abroad, clearly indi- cate that he ought to continue it. We While on this subject, on our per- believe that if a few liberal friends of sonal responsibility, in response to missioni were to provide a support for many inquiries from individuals and him for a few years, and let him go from societies and associations, as to forth continually among the churches Dr. Pierson's public work after his re- of all denominations, it would lead to turn to the United States early in June, grand results. we feel at liberty to say this much: And still we know that Dr. Pier- While in London, during the month son has very strong leanings to the of January, he occupied the pulpit, for pastorate. As a preacher, he is no less four consecutive Sabbaths, of the interesting and superior than as Westminster Church, which has a a missionary lecturer. Our ideal seating capacity of 3,000, and is close choice for him, on the whole, if by Buckingham Palace. He subse- we were allowed to chose, would be quently received a unanimous call to this: Let some comparatively small the pastorate of this church. We be- church in some central locality call lieve as yet he has not given a formal him to be their pastor, with liberty to answer to it. We think, for family carryon to a considerable extent the reasons and for the sake of his work general work in which he is now enin his native land, he will decline the gaged. ·With his long experience and tempting offer. He is. in heart and accumulated resources, he could meet purpose, committed with us to the the ordinary demands cf such a passustaining of this organ of world-wide torate, and still find time and strength missions, believing it can be made a to respond to the most important calls powerful instrument in rousing the from the general field. Dr. Pierson church at large to feel a deeper in- has the most work in him (brain and terest in missions, and to prosecute physical) of any man we have ever them with greater zeal and determined known, and that without fatigue. We purpose. Besides, we know that he ourselves know, and have known for feels that he has a special ca11 from more than fifty years, what hard work God to go among the churches and co11eges, and seminaries and convenis and a plenty of it, and yet we have praise Him, and bringing good out of never before known such an instance evil. The " two great curses of Africa of endurance. are pitted," in His providence, "against After the above was in type we each other," and what the Christian learned that Dr. Pierson's friends in powers might not be able to do to Scotland have crowned all their acts of abate the rum ruin, the Arab slavers appreciation of him and of his eminent may accomplish. Strong ~ords were services, by appointing him to the heard in the Congress, and the action "Duff Lectureship." This Lecture- taken " to surround the entire coast of ship was founded in memory of Dr. Africa with a cordon of armed dhows, AlexanderDuff, and has been filled by and confiscate every European vessel such eminent men as Dr. William containing liquors, and sell the crews Fleming Stevenson, and Sir Monier into slavery," looks like business, and Williams. In conveying to him the business of a vigorous sort. A few fact of this appointment, the venerable such captures and confiscations would Dr. Thomson of Edinburgh says: "I strike a wholesome terror among the suppose you will have heard that the European and American traders in Duff Trustees have appointed you as this infernal traffic. We could almost their next lecturer. Nothing could be be reconciled to see the "crews sold more cordial than the appointment; into slavery" by these worse than and I may add no appointment could piratical traders. J. 11. S.
be more gratifying to myself. I hope no obstacle will be found to stand in Mission to the Chinese Blind. A the way of your acceptance of the ap- note from Miss C. F. Gordon-Cum- pointment. You have proved that, of ming, the noted traveler, and a warm all the men of the age, you are most friend of missions, calls our attention qualified to do the subject justice." to the Third Annual Report of the J. M. S. Mission to the Chinese Blind, 1889.
The Khartoum Congress has been The report consists mainly of the de- mentioned before in these columns in tails of Mr. W. H. Murray's work in connection with the Congress of Brus- China, written out by Miss Gordon sels. It is not a little remarkable, that herself. We have given heretofore while the great Christian powers are some account of Mr. Murray's system convened by their representatives to of teaching the blind, by which they deliberate and to devise means to check successfully have been able to learn to and finally overthrow the horrible read with great facility. Mr: Murray, slave traffie in Africa, the slave traders previous to this, was a colporteur of the should also assemble to the number of Scotch National Bible Society at Pe- 200 delegates to devise measures to king, and sold more than 100,000 copies suppress the traffic in liquors, which is and portions of the Bible in the Chinese sweeping Africa with the besom of and Tartar languages. He now em- destruction. While the motive of these ploys the blind in stereotyping and Mohammedan slave dealers is a purely printing the scriptures and other books.
selfish one-the terrible ravages of the The books are produced at a remark- rum trade among the native races of ably low rate. His school at Peking the country greatly diminishing the has now an average of about fourteen number of their victims, and the conse- boys, who make great proficiency.
quent profit of their own trade in IlU- Miss Gordon-Cumming makes a strong man flesh-yet the Christian world can appeal for aid, both for this boys' school but rejoice in this feature of the Khar- and a separate one for girls. The toum Congress and bid it God speed. treasurer of the Mission states that the It is another instance of a d.i.vine special appeal made in 1889 for funds power overruling the wrath of man to to start this separate school for blind
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS
.girls, has met with a very small re- various evangelical denominations sponse, amj. it is earnestly hoped that those who recognize how excellent a have given lectures or regular instructraining school for mission workers this may prove, will not rest satisfied tion to the students since it was opened, with giving only one donation, but re- free of all charge. Two of the teachers are members of the senior class, who solve to become regular annual sub- came from the London Institute, at scribers. Subscriptions and donations the suggestion of Rev. Dr. Guinness, will be gladly received by Messrs. Honeyman & Drummond, 58 Bath who is at the head of it. One of the Street, Glasgow. lady teachers is a student who expects [In the brief mention of "Missionary to return to India, where she was a Training Schools," in our April issue missionary for some time. Another (p. 300-2,) the one at Minneapolis was lady teacher is a teacher in the city overlooked. We cheerfully supply the omission by giving the following state- high school. Three of the instructors ment from Rev. D. E. Wells, Secretary of the Board of Managers.-J. M. S.] are physicians; some of the pupils go out as medical missionaries. The Missionary Training Institute of Minneapolis. Fifteen ministers of The prospect of a large accession of students from all parts of the country is created by the correspondence with the president. Thefirst Tuesdayof each month is observed as a day offasting and prayer at the Institute. A public service in the evening is conducted .
mainly by the students in some one of the churches in the city.
VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
Friends Foreign Missionary Association. Statistics of Korean Mission, Jan., 1890• . Secretary: CHARLES LINNEY, Hitchin, Herts, ~ .; -d " "" ., g ~j ~ ~ England. MISSION BOARDS. ..<:l·C ~ ."~ 52 REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING MAY 19, 1889. ~g ~ "'..<:l 'E Receipts………………… .••• £10,717 18 1 I-lA ~~E-< 0 Expenditures……. .. ……… 9,371 8 7 – – – – – -I-l – The Society has in Madagascar 3 stations: American Methodist Settled Board…………. 2 in Seoul 1 2 2 4 0 Antananarivo, Mandridano and Arivoninra- AmericanPresbyterian rao, with 6 male and 9 female missionaries, Board………….. 3 " 1 Australian Presbyte- 3 0 and a medical branch with 3 male and 1 female 0 212 missionary. rian Board .. : …… 1" 001 0 0 Toronto University, o country 100 0 0 In India 2 stations: Hoshangabad and Lo· Y. M. C. A……… hagpur, 5 male and 7 female missionaries. Toronto Korean Union In China, 1station: Hanchung, with 1 male Mission……… Government School 0 " 100 00 and 2 female missionaries. Teachers………… 0 Seoul 0 0 0 2 2 There are other out-stations, and the work, especially in Madagascar, is large and flour- — — ishiug, but it is impossible to gather the full 6 34592 statistics from the reports. If our friends would kindly be a little 'more complete in 1 ordained man and 1 lady teacher included their statistical department, they would con- who are to arrive this month. fer a great favor on those who watch the work with interest.. 5 of the above fresh arrivals. Missionaries returned home or quit field in Bible Ohristian Home and Foreign Mis- 1889: 1 doctor, 2 missionaries, 2 lady teachers, sionary Society. 1 missionary's wife. Total, 6.
.' Secretary: REV. I. B. VANSTONE, 73 Herbert SCHOOL-HOUSES, ETC. Road, Plumstead, Kent, England. REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING JULY, 1889. Boys' Orphan Home, Presbyterian…….. . Girls' ~~~, ~' ……… . Receipts…. .. . … ……… . • . . . . . £7,091 15 7 Expenditures. " " " Methodist ………. ,_ Missionary School " ………… Home…….. £3,667 1 0 Australia. . . . . 2,723 2 1 Government " ……•.•…………….. New Zealand. 320 11 8 China.. ……. 490 0 O. " Hospital (Dr. Heron), Presby- Balance. ….. 707 14 6—- £7.918 9 3 terian Board …… _ … .. ……….. .
The Society has in China 2 stations: Yun- Missionary Hospital, Methodist…. … .. ••. nan Fu and Chao-Tung-Fu, 4 missionaries, 4 preaching places, 7 members, of whom 5 were Population of Korea, from 12 to 15 millions; .. admitted during the year. population of Seoul and suburbs, within a 3· mile belt, one million. Belt around Seoul permissible of travel without passport, 30 miles. Ports open to residence of missionaries yet unoccupied, 3-Chemulpo, Fusau, Geutau. By REv. H. LOOlrllS, No. 42 B1BLIIl HOUSE, YOKOHAMA. [Obliged to omit several columns.-Eos.] ] il il E .e~ · ,,'" a~ j ~~ ~ ~ ~ t ~ £j :ga! g .~ " ~ . ~ §.li3rh8~ § ~ ~ J,..~ f~ to ..~., '/il ~'" ~ ~ .!!! ~~ w. 0 2 z=;", ~ OS ~ .9 ~ ~ ~ § as ~ S ~bc …:I ~ 0 ~ ] ~ 'Cl~£ ~ rn'~ ~ '" ",';."..,..M~ ~~ I~ ~g ! 1 " '5 = " " " " " " " t"1 t"1 NAME OF MISSION. "gfli ~<tl ~"·,Oglj ~~ Il-<.S <!l.,; ~ 0 A w. $1. ~ ~ z,·,:!~l §!a "'1: .<l ~" .£::.~ ~ iS~ ].~ ",&l :o§ '0 .S ~ ,'"; ,to; .S 's5, 's, .S i~.s'S.sO~. :8 ~ …. S'Ol .~ .<l'" is :~ ~ w. ~~ E."o,s:E0!:i '0 §'ie0II 0.a.s. ~aS i: . '§'~ ~'" ~,.;'~" r~ is': 0 – 0 ~'.".. ~ ~ ~·Ol ~.~ a,s; ]"P~o -0 :;l :;l .~ ~ 11 ~ iOllJ i>.,; ~- aSgJ – s-w.as ,,~ -0 ~~ '" 'O0l .~ psO·£la:s: p M… – Po – as -0 -0 aPso>" .<l 1il 0'; Po §o &.9 ~ 1l -A ~aS8 —- -~ – -&:- -w. w. – – -Z – 0 -~ Presbyterian Church in the U. S •……….. 1859 21 2 24 68 61 — Reformed Church in America ……………. 1859 10 1 6 27 4 Union Presbyterian Church of Scotland…… 1874 3…….. 6 1 United Church of Christ in Japan…… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … 94 68 . . . . . ;. 1,348 90 .. … . …
Thlformed Church in the United States ……. 1879 3 …. 2 8 1 …… …. …… .. …………………. Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (South) … 1885 4 4 3 15 3 … …… .. .. ………………… . Women's Union Mission'ySocietyof America 1871 …….. 5 5 1 115 …………………….. .. Cumberland Presbyterian Church………… 1877 4 …. 6 14 4 .. …i "6.2…. .. . American Protestant Episcopal Church …… 1859 11 2 9 33 3 41) 248 77"… … …. 23…. . 25'" 597 1 .. in .. .. 2,372'43 Church Missionary SOCiety………………. 1869 12 4 7 35 9 0,20 242 99 59 218…. 46…… 19 411 1 25 3 22.. 2,274 18 ~~Jir~f!et~~p:O;::~ti~~·~fth~·G~;,:p~i(~). 1873 "'6 '''9 "io "3i '''5'ia 49 3 46 …. 90 ..25 .::: :::: :::: :::: .~:::: '''8 ';"4OO'i "io ~ ~~ ::"';;800'00 Wyckliffe Colle~e Mission (Canada) ….. " … 1888 1 1… 3 1…. …… …. …. … …… ….. …. 1 . 402 American BaptIst Missionary Union ……… 1860 12 2 13 39 7 39 11…. 11 163 …. …. 4 22 10 953 19 676 1 11 4 28.. 819 23 English Baptist Church(4) ……………….. 1879 1…….. 2 1 19 2 …. 2 40…. 1 2 9 3 a 200 1 67 2…. 1 4.. 153 53 Disciples of Christ……………………… 1883 3 1 2 9 3 4 1…. 11 49 …. .. 20 12 2 151 9 500 .. 2. 15 00 Christian Church of America ……………. 1887 2 …. …. 4 1 3 3.. 3 35…. 17 20 6 1 93 7 135 1 2 6 .. 78 80 ::t::.S:fu~::::~::::;~~;.. ~;~~..(~;:: ::: ~ ~… ..~~ 8: 1: .~~ ..~~ ..~ 14 .~:~~~ ~~~ ….. :::: .~~ ~~ '~',~~~"~ .~:~.~ ~.. 30 66 …. ~~:~~.~ Independent Native·Churches……………. …. …. …. 2 2 1… 2 2 …. 41 13 1 2 1 206 4 266 .. …. 1 1 1 542 16 Berk1ey Temple Mission, Boston…………. 1888 1… 2 1. … … … …. …. …. … ……… … ……………… … _ .. …. .C~fl American Methopist Episcopal Church(l) … 1873 18 1 23 60 9 36 53 7 46 _ 590 120… ……. 39 4,121 71 4,113 2 33 26 40.. 6,372 45 o>-~3 4 6 18 3 15 309 85 15 38 43 23 1,538 11 1,001 1 9 7 24.. 4,100 00 Canada Methodist Church(3) …………….. 1873 7 1 9 24 Evangelical Association of North America … 1876 5…….. 10 135 5 93 21 33 3 10 8 371 13 465 1 13 8 13.. 550 00 … Methodist Protestant Church…………….. 1880 5 …. 4 14 2 1 2…. 2 29 5… 2 …. 4 192 2 280 1 3…. 3 .. 188 60 Am. Methodist Episcopal Chnrch (South)….. 1886 6 4 3 19 4 7 5… 5 109 13 17 36 11 3 241 18 417 1 8 1 12.. 352 69 rp General Evangebcal Prot. (German Swiss)… 1885 1 1 …. 3 1 1 2 …. 2 …… …. …. 1 2 151 1 54 1 4 …. 1 .. 200 00 Socetr of Friends, America……………… 1885 2 .. – 1 5 1 1 1.. .. 1 4 …. …. …. .. _ …. 3.3 3 100……. . .. 3 .. 10 00 Christian Alhance……………….. _……. … 1…. 1 3 1……………………………….. ……………………………………. ..
Total, 1889………………… ,………. .. . 16~ 34 171 527 84 448 . 274 153i 151 5,007 535 365 544 286 351 31,181 350 21,597 ~ 275 135 409 ~ 53,503 13 Total, 1888……… " ………………… .:..:::. _150 ~ 124 443 ~ 3241 249 ~, 157 6,959 728 442 365 352 ~ 25,514 295 16,634 ~ 287 142 257 8 64,454 70(5) Increase. 1889….. …….. … …. .. . 16 7 47 84 12 1241 25 611…………….. 179…. 190 5,667 55 4,963 3 . . . . . . . . 152 . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
NOTE.-It is impossible to get exact reports from all the Churches up to Dec. 31st. It is probable that complete statistics wonld have increased the total membership about ten per cent.-H. L. (a) Approximate. (1) Statistics to July 31st, 1889. (2) This mission makes up complete statistics to March 31st. A part of those given above ~&~:r°e ia'p9p.ro~xli~me:aatesoinnlcyl.ude(3d) StatiStiCS. made up to April 1st, 1889. (4) No Report for 1889. The figures given are mostly the same as 1888. (5) In the Report of contribu- ~..-. a donatio!) of 30,000 yen towards the Doshisha. at Kyoto. Tile o!'dinary cOlltlibutjons of 1889 exceed those of tile previous year to the amonnt Established Ohurch of Scotland. Leipsig Evangelical Lutheran Mission.
secretary: J. T. MAcLAGAN, 6: N. St. David's Secretary: DR. J. HARDELAND, Leipsig, Ger· Street, Edinburgh, Scotland. many. REPORT FOR 1888. REPORT OF COMMITTEE FOR THE PROPAGATION Receipts……………….. , … Marks, 313,862' OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS, FOR Expenditures. .. …… …… .. .. . " 280,449 YEAR ENDING DEC. 31, 1888. The Society's.work is in India,where it has 24 Stations. Among them: Tranquebar, Poreias; Receipts (at home) ……………… £22,740 Trichinopoli, Madura, Madras and Rangoon. Expenditures. …. .. • .. •• …….. …. 34,421 There are also 141 preaching places, with These are the fignres furnished us by Mr. 6,947 communicants, including 240 additions. MacLagan for the tables published in the De· cember number of the REVIEW. The Church The missionaries (ordained) number 25. and' of Scotland Mission Record for May, 1889 gives there are 14 native ordained pastors, and 476 the total contributions (which we suppose in· other helpers, catechists, teachers, etc. cludes those above) at £28,485 5s Sd. The published Report, pages 138-9, gives the total The schools number 166, with 4,394 scholars. charge as £26,507 8s 1<1, aside from the balance Dec. 31, 1888, of £4,854 78 3d. We suppose that United Methodist Free Ohurches, Home the discrepancies are due to the,combination of and Foreign Missions. special funds with the general funds. So with regard to the expenditures, which, on page 141 Secretary for Foreign Missions: Rev. J. TRUS' of the general report, are given as £31,36115s 4d, inclusive of the balance of £2,250 15s 5d, COTT, Burslem, England. . leaving as actual expenditure then reported, £29,110 19s 11d, made up as follows: REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING JUNE, 1889.
Expenses of missionary establish· Receipts. ments…… …… ……. ….. £26,543 16 3 Ordinary…………………. .. £8,71810 2 Other expenses connected with Miscellaneous and Special.••••… , 529 142 missionaries.. …………….. . 842 Communicants' Fund .•••••••••••• 324 00 Travel·expenses, Mission Record, printing, etc……………… .. 320 Foreign Local Receipts….. …… 10,857 14 0'
Office management and miscel· Total ……………………. £20,429 18 4 Ianeous ………………….. . 990 17 11 Expenditures.
Extra for law expenses……… .. 414 3 7 Home Expenditure •••••••••••••••£ 2,555 1 3· Foreign Expenditure…. ………. 6,162145 Total…………………… £29,110 19 11 Foreign Local Expenditure… …. 10,857 14 O' Balance in hand …. .. …. ……. 854 8 8 The additional is probably made up from special fund expenses. Total …. '" ………….. £20,429 18 4 STATISTICS. STA.TISTICS OF FOREIGN WORK.
.; ,;, ii"'':"": ,~g .. " il .; ,;, M rn " '" ,;, .d.0 ;a ~ '0 '" ~ " .~ .~.. S " c '" " j '" " 0:: ~ ~ ,;, ~… .S .d .e: ~ .'s" 0:: " ~"" """ t '" ~'"1: ~ "'il .d .d -<j 0 0 -rn . _rn – Z 0 – – – '– – 1. Australia. Victoria and Tasmania… 29 67 1,684 123 57 47 54 3,181 2. Australia, New South Wales and – – – Queensland. 9 37 659 73 14 14 20 .1_,48-2 — – – – – – – – – Colonial ….. 38104 61 – 74 .4_,66-3 — Calcutta .. . 14 .. ,$ 153712477 2,343 196 71 31i.m~", ~ ~ P~A 1~ ~~ — 1i . g Madras .. .. .. 3. China…… 3 12 365 39 5 12 4 43 4 4 59 5 181 34 2,136 4. East Africa 4 9 223 36 5 6 226 Bombay … 5. WestAfrica 4 84 2,809 80 15 1 10 1,386 is Panjab .. .. Darjceling. 2 1 .. ~ ~ .. 26 15329 '5 29 1,091 UnPersities 6. Jamaica … 8 44 3,470 94 26 20 33 2,176 lIIission .~ 1 ~ 7. New Zea· £l (Indepen't – – – land…….. 12 37 898 21 23 11 22 2,216 — – ._- Sikkiml…. 11 .. ] 1 1225 S a 48 — East Africa 3 23 .7.,,-/,".. 3 16 3 425 Foreign …… 31 186 7,765 270 -74-44-7-5 6,047 China …… 1 " " . . 1 1 14 1 16 – —– — Total …… 69290 10,108 466145105149110,710 ———— TotaL … 16 17 11 38 8102 32 805 7218315,393 In the society's report the work in Australia is included in the foreign work. We have
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
.separated it, but given the totals as in the re- besides, the African Fuud, the receipts of port. The stations in China are Ningpo and which were £4,009 3s Sd, and expenditure Wenchow; in East Africa, Ribe, Jomon and £3.267 3s lld. Golbanti, in the Galla country, on the coast north of Zanzibar; in West Africa, Freetown, The statiDns .of the Society are at Fernando Waterloo, York, Bananas, Sencho.o, and Penta- PD, Santa Isabel and San CarlDs Bay, West .foo in Sierre Leone. Africa; A1iwal in SDuth Africa, and .on theZam- besi, the last two being quite recently estab. Reformed Presbyterian (Oovenanter) lished. They repDrt in Africa 7 missionaries, Ohurch of Scotland. 7 native assistants, 467 native members.
:Secretaries: Rev. RDBERT DUNLOP, Paisley, Basle Misirlonary Society. SCDtland; Rev. J. D. HDUSTDN, B. A., CDle- raine, Ireland. Secretary: HERR TH. OHLER, Basle, Switzer. REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING MAY, 1889. land. REPORT FOR YEAR ENnING 1888. .Annual expenditures•. __ ………. _. __ •••. £600 The mission field occupied by this sDciety is Receipts…………………..Francs, 1,021,074 Expenditures. …. . .. . . .• . • .• • " 1,046,610 Antioch, Syria. The missiDnary fDrce CDngists .of on" missiDnary, with his wife, and .one India has 152 stations and out-statiDns, .66 lady teacher, five native teachers, .one cDlpor- male missiDnaries, 49 female missiDnaries, 15 teur and tWD Bible WQmen. There is .one native .ordained preachers, 398 native other church, with fDrty members. The SCDtch and helpers, 5,027 communicants, 884 additions. Irish SynDds unite in the SUPPDrt .of this China has 41 stations and out-stations, 17 male mission. missionaries, 12 female missionaries, 6 native ordained preachers, 85 native other helpers, Primitive Methodist Missionary Society. 2,029 cDmmunicants, 196 additions. Gold Coast, Africa, has 107 StatiDnS and out-statiDns, 'Secretary: REV. JDHN ATKINSDN, 71 FreegrDve 33 male missionaries, 22 female missionaries, Road, HQlloway, London, N. 18 native ordained preachers, 149 native .other helpers, 3,235 CDmmunicants, 698 additiDns. , REPDRT FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1889. CamerDDn has 11 stations and out-statiDns, 8 'Total income for HDme and male missionaries, 1 female missiDnary, 1 native .ordained preacher, 9 native other FDreign Missions ……. ' .•••.. £17,88280 helpers, 153 commmiicants, 10 additiDns. Expenditures. _.. .•••••••••..•.•• 13,626 8 0 These are taken from the published tables It is impossible accurately to separate the in the report of July, 1889. In furnishing a HDme frDm the Foreign expenditures in the statement fDr the tables in the December general accDunt. AbDut £6,000 are evidently nmnber, the number of missiDnaries was given fDr HDme MiSSiDuS in England. About £2,000 by Secretary Ohler as, male, 162; female are for what might be termed Colonial work, (including missionaries' wives), 110. These especially in Australia, aud about £1,500 for probably included all in commission. .strictly foreigu mission expenses. There is VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Af"rlca.-Recent telegraphic despatches ings in Africa, The li'ree Church Monthly for -show a determination on the part of Portugal March has the following: "In the Missions to enforce her IDng standing but unsubstantial Catholiques of Lyons, we learn no secret was ·claims to territDry along the East A.irican made of the fact that Cardinal Lavigerie had ·coast. A correspondent of Central Africa made arrangements with the King .of Portugal says: "In the Nyassa country the Portuguese to .occupy what were called' the PDrtuguese are pressing fDrward with the utmDst haste to provinces of the Shire and Nyassa.' Under secure all the advantage they may from the these arrangements Romish missionaries expeditiDn of Cardoza, and probably before would have been armed with powers and .another month has elapsed some arrangement privileges, partly from Rome and partly frDm "ill have been made between .our rulers as to LisbDn, and the result would have been interwhat portion of that part of Africa is to be ference of the most intolerable kind with given over to Portuguese influence; we cannot PrDtestant work in the whole regiDn." call it rule. This meaRS the extensiDn of the drink traffic and the maintenance of slavery. -A telegram from Zanzibar confirms the It is possible that all that part of Nyassaland rumDr that Mwanga had succeeded in re-estabto which this mission was originally sent may Iishing himself as king of Uganda. Itis stated that he has prDclaimed himself a Christian, becDme nominally PDrtuguese territDry. More and that the pDwerof the Arabs is cDmpletely we cannot say, .but this is enough to cause the overthrown, Christian men, either Protestants greatest amdety." or Roman Catholics, being nDW in authority.
-On the recent action of the English Gov- Mwanga's Christianity is dDUbtless altogether .ernment in the matter of PDrtuguese proceed- of the nDminal sort, yet he has had convincing evidence of the selfishness and wickedness of intercourse, the government cannot open a. the Arabs, and of the faithfulness of the railway from the port of Teintsin to the capi- Christians, and it is but reasonable that he tal, a distance of eighty miles, as the people should trust the latter rather than the former. have risen up in opposition. The central gov- The fact that MI'. Mackay is there as counselor, ernment has had to ask the advice of the gov- a man of unusual energy and clear head, ernors of the provinces. Some of the most inspires the hope that the government in noted memorials of these governors have' Uganda will be conducted in a fairly Christian lately been published, but none of them yet way. see that the defect lies in obstinately neglect- ing to prepare practical text books for their -The Baptist denomination in Liberia is schools. As they resist light, they cannot, the only self-supporting religious body in that complain if they reap the fruits of darkness. country. There are thirty-one churches, with 3,000 members. They have a mission among -The Empress. A Chinese paper has the the aborigines. following, which we translate: "At Peking' there is a pions lady, the wife of a foreign mer- -The extent of European territorial an- chant, who spends her time in doing good. One' nexation of Africa, provisional, protective day she went on a visit to the home ofa Manchu and positive, is quite surprising. The London lady of high rank. She took copies of the' Times says, that of the 11,000,000 of square Holy Scriptures. A young lady was present miles in Africa, six and a half millions are at- who took great interest in the conversation. tached to some European power, and of the She heard the old story of the gospel of Jesus, four and a half millions unattached, half lies who died for a world of sinners. The young' within the desert of Sahara.-African News. lady bent forward to catch every word, and when the Christian visitor had concluded, she -British West Africa. The Niger coun- said: •I am glad you have c~me to tell me try, that is south of the desert and north of this. Some day I will have a place built where the Congo State, extending far east from the people can meet to worship this God and hear' Atlantic, is gradually brought under British this gospel preached.' This young lady is now civilizing influences. The French have sought the Empress of China."-Our Mission. to hem the British in bykeeping them near the coast, and claiming for themselves a large -Napoleon said, "When China is moved,. country north of the Lower Congo. They still it will change the face of the globe." The fact hold much territory here, which England has to be noticed now is that China, having oneconceded, ~ut for some time they have felt the quarter of the population of the earth, ;S' encroachments of British influence on the moving. north and east, and were getting quite uneasy. Meanwhile England has been making her EDgIRnd~Missionaries wanted. The' claims and power more tangible and definite Missionary Bureau invites applications from by special treaties with the natives. Thus the earnest devoted Christian men and women for whole Yoruba country has been attached, and responsible positions now vacant in the foreign free access attained to and beyond the Kong mission field. Some of these posts could be mountains. This includes the cessions of "The held only by men of superior education and Royal Niger Company," and embraces a very ability, capable of superintendingthe work of large territory-some say more than all North others, while for other vacancies ladies with a America.-Afl'ican News. professional training in teaching are required. Two or three men are also wanted to work ChlnR.-The Hong Kong Daily Press among seamen in large shipping centres, and states that Dr. Mary Fulton, of the Presbyteri- there is an immediate need for several men an Mission, Canton, had returned from Poling, possessed of private means, to carry on missixty miles from Swatow, where she had been sion work in South Africa, setting the present, successfully treating two ladies of General workers free for more aggressive efforts. Fong's household. The G/'lneral's family entertained her in foreign style and with great The Secretary will be glad to communicate, courtesy. She also received two gold medals also with any earnest worker who feels led of in testimony of her skill. God to offer for the foreign field. For all who are chosen and set apart by the Holy Ghost. -The text books in China are the same as whatever their educational attainments may they were 2,000 years ago. The consequence be, there is ample room and urgent need. The is that the nation is kept in ignorance of the prayers of those who may be unable to go are marvellous progress of the world since then, earnestly desired, and the consecrated gifts of still thinking that China is celestial as com- any who may feel led to help in sending mispared with all other nations. The mission- sionaries out will be thankfully received and aries and the Christians are the only foreign wisely administered. class whose aim is to bring all sorts of blessings into China by means of churches, schoolS, The Missionary Bureau is entirely an unsecliterature, etc. But hitherto the authorities terian agency, and on its committee are wellgenerally have opposed their enlightenment known representatives of every evangelical up to the limit of violating the treaties. The branch of the Christian Church. All comresult is that after forty-five years' foreign munications should be addressed, " The Missionary Bureau, 186 Aldersgate street, Lon- -Opium smoking. Donald Matheson, Esq., don, E. C." Chairman of the Society for the Snppression of the Opium Trade, states on official author- -In a lecture recently delivered at the ity. that there are now about 10,000 licensed London Institution by lIIr. Scott Keltie, the opium shops in the British territories of India Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, andBurmah. it was stated that the Empire of England now covers over 10,000,000 square miles, or nearly .Japan.-There are 6~ children In the three times the size of Europe. The population Protestant Orphan Asylum at Okayama. Mr. -of the empire Is estimated at 350,000,000. What Ishiis, its founder, is an ardent disciple of a mighty responsibility does this great expan- George lIIillier, and believes implicitly in the sion of dominibn put upon England in the prayer of faith. The home has had several direction of missionary effort I remarkable experiences during the past few months in answer to prayer. It uses at pres- India. – The following confession of ent an old Buddhist temple, renting ali but Keshub Chunder Sen, a half heathen, half one room, in which idols and tablets, beads and -Christian rhetorician of India, which was sacred books, are stored. recently quoted in a sermon by the Bishop of Huron, is worth repeating, as a remarkable -One of the leading daily papers of the testimony to the reality and success of Chris- empire reports that the Kyoto police are to tian missions in our Indian Empire: "The inquire into the morals of Buddhist priests, -spirit of Christianity," he says, "has already their reputation is so low. pervaded the whole atmosphere of Indian -society, and we breathe, think, feel and move in -In February a Convention of delegates a Christian atmosphere. Our hearts are from 12 Y.lII. C. A's, representing 800 mem- touched, conquered. overcome, by a higher bers, was held at Osaka, and "The United power, and this power is Christ. Christ, not Y. 1II. C. A. of Western Japan" organization the British Government, rules India. No one decided upon. The organization is to be com- but Christ has deserved the precious diadem pleted on April 3, at Kobe. The United Society -of the Indian crown, and He wlll have it." will adopt as their organ the magazine now published by the Osaka Y. M. C. A., and will -In connection with this subject, our read- work especially for the abolition of licensing ers may be reminded how two years ago Sir prostitution, the great moral question which W. W. Hunter, an eminent Indian adminis- is being agitated at present all over Japan. trator of 25 years' experience, has spoken of the whole fabric of native society being pro- -Yo M. B. A. have been organized in various foundlyaffected by the influence of Western Japanese cities. The B. stands for Buddhist. ideas. In a magazine article he also bore em- phatic witness to the eminent success which -The American Board has recently opened was attending the labors of missionaries in a new station at Tottori, a city of 30,000, on India. He has further stated his impression the west coast of Japan. lIIisses Talcott and that there will presently be a great religious lIIcLennan have spent the winter there, living revival in that country. It cannot, then, be in a Japanese house. Rev. G.lII. Rowlar:d and too often or too urgently pleaded, that it is family, and lIIisses 1II. Holbrook, 1II. D., and for Christian England, whose possession of Cora Stone, move therc this spring for per- India involves a very grave responsibility in manent occupation. The Eliot Church of religious no less than in civil and imperial mat- Newton, lIIass., made this possible by a special ters, to see that such a revival shall be in the gift of $5,000. ·direction of Christianity, which, in Sir W. W. Hunter's words, "comes to the Indian races -The trustees of the Doshisha College at in an age of new activity and hopefulness, as Kyoto have elected the blind Yamamoto, a a fully equipped religion of effort Itnd of former official of local fame, temporary presi- hope." It may also be borne in mind that dent of the school in place of the lamented there are millions on the fringe or beyond the Neesima. Rev. P. M. Kanamori, the college pale of Hinduism, to win whom to Christ is a pastor, serves under him as the actual head of vast and urgent task which faces the Christian the institution. -churches. -The annual statistics of missions in Japan -The great movement in the American have just been published. The number of Baptist mission among the Telugus in India, churches is now 274. Of this number 153 are in which 30,000 converts have been gathered in reported as self-supporting. The accessions twelve years, still continues, and is spreading last year were 5,542. and the total membership into the interior of the country. In the 31,181. The contributions amount to $40,662 Nalgunda district fifty-two were recently bap- (U. S. currency), and the increase during the tized in one week. year was $6,876. The whole number of mis- sionaries in the field, including the wives, is -More than 300 students in nine German 527. universities have joined a special school for training missiOllaries for the Jews, of which Norway.-Missionary Skrefsrud's anl'rof. Delitsch is the head. nual report of the Norwegian Lutheran lIIis- sion in Santalistan states that during the past year 415 heathens and 82 children of Christian parents received the sacrament of holy baptism. The membership is 5,272, and the num- Taylor's mission, sends us the following cheer- ber of stations, 14; these are supplied by Norwegian missionaries and native teachers and ing statement: , <!atechists_ After ten years of close observation of Hussla.-The Emperor of Russia is likely to relax the stringent restrictions on Bishop Wm. Taylor's Self-supporting Missions dissenters, as he has sent away the minister of public worship who established them. in Chili and Brazil, South America, I feel so 8yrla.-Revival in Aintab. "Theitemof impressed with the good results that I do not supreme interest in missionary circles is the revival in Aiutab. It is a source of great en- hesitate to state that it deserves the attention couragement to all who have a share in the missionary work in this country. At the last and support of our Church and all Christian accounts the religious interests continued, but the daily meetings had been suspended. Some people. It is no longer an experiment. It is 540 persons have already been received by the three churches-a gain of sixty per cent. upon a marvelous success. the previous membership. The Bythinia Synod has just observed its twenty-fifth anni- During the past ten years about $120,000, versary, and its late meeting is said to have been the best in its history. The revival at gold, has been invested in building colleges, Aintab helped to direct the current of the meeting. All hearts join in the prayer that schools and churches, and furnishing them. the whole land may be speedily blessed by a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit."-Dr. During these ten years over 20 missionaries H. N. Barnum, in New York Observer. have been constantly at work, and there are -The Annual Report of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions gives the following now 28 or 29 in the field. All have had self 'statistics of the Press in Syria: The issues of the Beirut Press are found wherever there is support, and some of the stations have had any call for Arabic literature in the Eastern world. Arabic literature has been enriched in $20,000 surplus over self support, all of which the year 1888 by nearly 2ll,000,000 pages, issued by the Mission Press. Of this vast number, has been invested in the work. 18,045,000 have been pages of Scripture. The number of volumes published is 106,900, of Hundreds have heen converted. Several of which 58,000 are copies of theWord of God. The issues of the complete Bible are proportionally the converts are now missionary teachers in very large, forming about two-thirds of the work of the year. The number of volumes of the mission schools. Thousands are under the Scriptures sent out from the Press in 1888 was '26,848,which is larger by about 3,300 than the is- influence of the missionaries. All the $120,000 sue of any previous year in the history of the Mission. As all missions to Arabic speaking invested could be withdrawn if the property races draw their supply of Scriptures from Beirut, this issue represents not the work of one were now sold. The college at Santiago is the mission in the item of Bible distribution, but the combined result of all societies laboring in finest of its kind in the world. the Arabic langnage. The mission of the United Presbyterian Church in Egypt is co.nspicuous The mission workers are an heroic band. I for its large orders for Bibles from Beirut. The American Bible Society has its depot for the would recommend those who wish to invest sale of Arabic Scriptures in the Press building at Beirut, and the printing of this kind done by their money so as to produce the greatest our Press is in 1llling orders of the Bible Society agency, which, in turn, supplies the orders results for time and eternity, to put it in selffrom the various missions. The call for reading 111atter throughout the East is increasing supporting missions in South America. enormously. Ourown Press is becoming more exclusively a fountain of evangelical truth and There are five stations now in Chili and two religious culture to educated minds, and is a mighty power in guiding aright the religious in Brazil. The need for Christian workers of thought and the intellectual development of many eager searchers after truth. the deepest piety and high grade of scholastic United states.-Self-supporting Mis- attainments is great. Any wishing to enter sions. Vice-president Fowler, of Bishop the work, or those who wish to contribute to this work, may correspond with Richard Grant, 181 Hudson street, New York.
The latest information from all the stations is that the opportunities for extending the work have never been so good as now. Fifty more missionaries could be employed, all of whom could secure ample self support when provided with'churches, schools and homes in which to do this mission work.
I consider that 'an investment of $250,000 would establish fifty missionaries, whose work would go on and on indefinitely until the country is saved. And even then the money invested could be realized if the propertywere sold.
-Missions at the Far North. The Govern- ment has offered to contract with the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church tor the establishment' of mission schools among the Arctic Eskimo, at Point Barrow and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. Point Barrow is the most northern, and Cape Prince of Wales the most western point of land on the main Continent of North America. A similar proposition has been made to the Protestant Episcopal Mission Society in behalf of Point Hope, Arctic Alaska. The Episcopalians have formally accepted the offer at Point Hope, and it is understood that the Presbyterians will ac- cept the stations offered them.
INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE MAY NUMBER. [May-
INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE MAY NUMBER.
At the request of many friends we make Trial of this as an experiment.
PAGE CHINA.-Shanghai Missionary Conference, L-LrrEUTURE OF MISSIONS .•.••• 321-363 369; The Worship of Heaven by the Emperor, n.-GENERAIL MIssIONARY INTELLI- 372; Mission to the Chinese Blind, Miss Gordon- GENCE ………………….. 364-372 Cum~ing, 392; Dr. Mary Fulton, 397; Text m.-MISSIONARY CoRRESPONDENCE •• 37~75 IV.:-lNTERNA·~IONAL DEPAR~MENT… 375–383 Books in China, 397; The Empress, 397.
I V.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS 383–j387 COSTA RICA.-Letter from the only VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT Protestant Missionary there, 388; Hon. N. F. TOPICS………………….. 387-393 Graves on Costa Rica, 388. vn.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS………….. 393-396 FRANCE.-The McAli Mission, 371.
VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTH- GREAT BRITAIN.-Dr. Pierson's Mis– LY BULLETIN……………. 396–899 sion Tour, 331; Anglo-Saxon Missions in the 17th and 18th Centuries, 336; Dr. Pierson'sAd· dress Before the Edinburgh Medical Mission- ary Society, 354; Foreign Missionary Incomes, 370; Notable Testimony to Rev. Mr. Anderson, Authors. 370; Dr. Millar's Letter to Dr. Pierson, 374; Dr.
EDITORS.-A. T. Pierson, Mission Tour of Pierson's Visit Abroad, 390 ; Missionaries· Britain. 331; Medical Missions, 354; Editorial Notes; J. M. Sherwood, Editorial Notes, 387. Wanted, 397; Extent of England's Empire, 397; Report and Statistics of Established Churches of Scotland, 395; United Methodist Ashmore, Wm., Jr., Corresponaence, 375. Free Churches, 395; Reformed Presbyterian Ellinwood, Dr. F. F., ShadowiDgs of Messiah (Covenanter) Church of Scotland, 395; Primi- in Heathen Systems, 354; Buddhism and tive Methodist Missionary Society, 396.
Christianity in Burmah and Siam, 383. INDIA.-English Wesleyansand the Indian Gracey, J. T., D.D., 875. Missionaries, 365; Current Literature and Happer, Dr. A. P., Letter from China, 372; Education, 366; Church Missionary Society Shanghai Missionary Conference, 369. and the Higher Education, 366; Confession of Johnston, Rev. James, Notes on India, 365. Keshub Chunder Sen, 398; SirW. W. Hunter's.
Knox, Chas. E., D.D., Personal Observations Testimony, 398; The Telugus, 398; Opium in Brazil, 341. ~ Smoking, 398.
Knox, G. W., D.D. (Japan), Review of the JAPAN.-Dr. Geo. W. Knox's Review of'
Year 1889 (political changes and present the Events of 1889, 321; Orphan Asylum at· outlook in Japan), 321. Okayama, 398; Y. M. C. A. Convention at.
Morrow, Rev. Edward, Missipns in 17th and Osaka, 398; A New Station at Tottori, 398.
18th Centuries, 336. ~a:t0um Cong;ess, The…………….. ~2 Moorhead, Max Wood, Student Volunteer MISSIOnary ComIty …………….. 3.1; Movement, 364. Missionary Training Institute at Minneap- Starbuck, Rev. Charles C., Translations, 359. olis ……….. : …………………….. 393· Schweinitz, Rev. Paul de, The Ramona Mission, NICARAGUA AND COSTA RICA, 387; 358. Rousing letter from Dr. Brockett on the same Thoburn, Bishop, Missionary Comity, 375. subject, 389.
Countries and Subjects. RUSSIA.-EvangeJicul Lutheran Church, AFRICA.-Lake Tanganyika Mission, 367; 359. The Uganda Mission, 367; West African. Missions, 368; Bishop Smythies and Slavery. at SYRIA.-Work of American Bible Society, Zanzibar, 368; A Revlvalin Kaffraria, 368; The Work, and the Honor Conferred Upon Miss 381; Revival in Aintab,399; Annual Report. Waterston, M. D., 369; Work on the Zambesi, 360; Work of the Protestant Churches of Presbyterian Board, 399. French Switzerland, 361; The Khassas People, 361; "Immanuel," God he with us, 363; Eng- THIBET.-Moravlan Mission Work, 371. land and Portugal, 396; Mwanga Re-established, 396; European Territory, 397; The UNITED STATES.~BishopTaylor's Self- Niger Country, 397. supporting Missions, 399; Missions in Alaska,. BRAZIL.-Dr. Knox's PersonalObserva. tions in, 341. 399; Evangelization, What is it ? 375. Buddhism and Christianity.. . • . . . . . .. . .••. 389 Statistics. BURMAH AND SIAJ)I.-Buddhism and Christianity in, 383. Annual Statistics of Japan Mission for 1889,. table, 394.
Basle Missionary Society.. …. .. …. .. …. 396' Bible Christian Home and Foreign lIlis- sionary Society.. …… .. …. … …. . 393 Friends Foreign Missionary Association .. 393 Korea: Statistics of Missions, 1889….. 393- Leipsig Evangelical Lutheran Mission … 3950
The Missionary Review of the World — July 1888
A ROMANOE OF MODERN MISSIONS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XI. No. 7.-0ld Series.–]ULY._-VOL. I. No. 7.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
A ROMANOE OF MODERN MISSIONS.* BY REV. J. W. BASHFORD, PH.D., BUFFALO, N. Y.
ONE day in the winter of 1832-3, four Flathead Indians appeared upon the streets of St. Louis with a request which no white man had ever heard before. They came, they said, from the land of the setting sun. 'rhey had heard of the white man's God and they wanted thtl white man's Book of Heaven.
General Olarke, then commanding the military post at St. Louis, was a Roman Oatholic. The Roman Oatholic missionaries have per- formed heroic service for the Indians. Unfortunately, however, they have tried to give the Indians Ohristianity without :civilizatiOi,Q So . while the four Flatheads were received with the greatest hospitality, and were shown the Roman Oatholic church, the pictures of the saints, etc., yet they were steadily denied their oft repeated request for a Bible. Two of the Indians died in St. Louis from the fatigue of their long journey from Oregon. The other two, homesick and disappointed, prepared to return. Gen. Clarke made a banquet for them and bade them God speed on their journey. One of the Indians was called upon to respond. His response deserves to rank with Lincoln's Gettysburg speech as a model of eloquence and with Washington's Farewell Ad- dress in the influence it subsequently exercised. We can give no just idea of the circumstances, or of the impression it produced. We can only give the English version of the speech which, like all translations, loses much of the force of the original: "I came to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers who have all gone the long way. I came with an eye partly opened for more light for my people who sit in darkness. 1 go back with both eyes closed. How can 1 go back blind to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms, through many ene- mies and strange lands, that 1 might carry back much to them. 1 go back with both arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with us. They were the braves of many winters and wars. We leave them asleep here by your *Barrows' Oregon, Gray's History of Oregon, Reed's Missions of the Met.hodist Episcopal Church, Gov. Simpson's Narrative, Parkman's Oregon Trail, and per- sonal correspondence with Rev. Daniel Lee. great water and wigwam. They were tired in many moons and their mocca- sins wore out. My people sent me to get the white man's Book of Heaven. You took me where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the Book was not there. You took me where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, and the Book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long, sad trail, to my people of the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moc- casins will grow old in carrying them, yet the Book is not among them. When I tell my poor, blind people after one more snow in the big Council, that I did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by . our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to other hunt- ing grounds. No white man will go with them and no white man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words."
A young man was so impressed with the address that he wrote to friends in the East some account of this strange visit and of the pa- thetic plea of the Indians for a Bible. The letter was published in The Christian Advocate in March, 1833. When President Fisk, of Wilbraham, read the thrilling story, it was like fire shut up in his bones. He issued through The Advocate a trumpet-blast, entitling it, "Hear! Rear! Who will respond to the call from beyond the Rocky Mountains?" The church was aroused. Contributions began to flow in. President Fisk at once wrote Rev. Jason Lee, who had been at the Academy in 1828, and was then waiting to engage in mis- sion work among the Indians of Canada. Jason Lee was six feet two inches high, physically strong, intellectually clear, and morally with- out a blemish. He is pronounced by the Oyclopedia oj Methodism "the peer of any man who adorns the role of modern workers in the Church of Christ." Jason Lee selected his nephew, Rev. Daniel Lee, now living at Caldwell, Kansas, to accompany him. Three laymen, Cyrus Sheppard, T. S. Edwards and P. L. Edwards, volunteered to share the danger and the labor with the ministers. These five men, under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Board, joined Captain N. J. Wyeth of Cambridge, Mass., who had been West asa fur-trader, had built Fort Hall in south-eastern Idaho, and was returning West. After a journey of many months the party reached Oregon, and Jason Lee preached the first Protestant sermon on the Pacific coast at Vj:tn- couver, September 28, 1834.
Meanwhile, what had become of the two remaining Indians, and where was the tribe from which they came? After leaving St. Louis for the West in the spring of '33 the two Flatheads fell in with George Catlin, the famous Indian artist. They traveled with him for days. But with Indian reserve and stoicism they did not mention the object of their visit or their desire for the white man's Book. Upon Mr. Catlin's return to Pittsburg months afterward he saw the letter written froin St. Louis, and said it must be false. He wrote to General Olarke to learn the facts. General Clarke wrote back, "It is true. That was the only object of their visit, and it failed." It will interest you and add to the romance to learn that Catlin, without knowing that these two Indians were to be historic, yet enriched his gallery with their portraits, which are numbered 207 and 208 in his Collection. After leaving Catlin one more of the Indians died on the journey home, and only one returned to announce to the great Council the death of his companions and that the white man refused them the Book. The tribe was embittered and gave up all hope of help from the white man's God. So when our missionaries at last found these Indians, they received no welcome from them. Worse still, the tribe was small and their location poor. So that if their invincible prejudices could be overcome they offered a very limited field for missionary labor. At first the Lees were discouraged. The whole movement seemed a miserable, methodistic fiasco, in which zeal had outrun knowledge.
Did you ever think that the Bible says nothing about Paul finding in Macedonia the same man who appeared to him in his vision? But Paul found Macedonian heathen in abundance, and thus concluded that he had a mission. So Jason Lee found Indian heathen in abundance in the Willamette valley and some members of the Hudson Bay Company who had never heard the gospel. So, nothing daunted, he concluded he was sent of God, and prepared to stay. He established a Manual Labor School for the Indian children and began to teach the Indians Christianity and civilization. Now see how God was in this movement-how He aimed at and accomplished through these missionaries a far greater work than they had ever dreamed of! It was really the battle between the school-house and the Bible on the one side and the steel-trap and the rifle on the other, between American self-government and British domination, between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism upon the western coast, that these missionaries were sent to Oregon to help fight out. Nay, it was even the battle between freedom and slavery in our Republic which they providentially helped to settle. You remember that by an agreement between the United States and Great Britain, made in 1818 and renewed in 1827, the western boundary between Canada and our Republic was left undetermined. The territory remained open to settlers from both nations. Under this arrangement the Hudson Bay Fur Company, which outnumbered by far all other whites upon the coast, laid claim, under an English charter, to the territory. It broke down in succession eleven fur companies which the Americans organized; it drove from the country a man of the indomitable zeal and enterprise of John Jacob Astor; and its Governor, Sir George Simpson, practicallyexercised control over the whole territory north of California and west of the Rocky Mountains. But the Hudson Bay Company found motives loftier than money making and perseverance surpassing that of the indomitable Astor in the Methodist missionaries; and a contest between these two parties now began. When under the Methodists some of the Indians were converted and civilized, the company refused to sell them hoes and spades and ploughs. It sent to Oanada at its own ex- pense for Jesuit missionaries to teach the Indians Ohristianity without civilization, and thus at once appeal to the native indolence of the Indians and keep the country from cultivation. On the refnsal of the company to sell the Americans cattle, Lee organized an American Oompany, went to Oalifornia, and bought 600 head of cattle of the Mexicans. Four more Methodist missionaries, including two women, arrived in 1835; and in 1836 eight more, including Jason Lee's wife, sailed from Boston for Oregon. The Methodist missionaries saw at this early date that the allegiance of the country would be determined by the predominance of English or American settlers; and in the inter- ests of Ohristianity, of Protestantism, and of freedom they determined to save the land to the United States. In 1838 J ason I~ee started to the States with two Indian boys. A messenger overtook him with the sad intelligence that his wife and child had succumbed to the hardships of the frontier and were both dead. These were the first martyrs to the cause in Oregon. Broken-hearted and lonely Jason Lee pressed on and induced thirty-six persons to emigrate to Oregon in '38, and about seventy more in '39, and one hundred and twenty more under the guidance of another Methodist missionary in '42. The letters written home from Oregon began to have an influence, and other settlers fol- lowed in the next few years. On the arrival of Jason Lee in Oregon the British outnumbered the American whites ten to one. After 1840, . chiefly under Lee's management, the American population outnum- bered the British ·population, and had chosen the permanent industry . of farming while the English had chosen the temporary occupation of hunting and trapping.
But the struggle for the possession of this joint territory was not over; and it might not have ended favorably had not the missionaries of the American Board come to the assistance of the Methodists. The Board of Missions fQr the Oongregational Ohurch had been stirred by the appearance of the Flathead Indians, and planned to send two missionaries in company with the methodists to Oregon in 1834, but could not secure the men in time. So this Board sent out in 1835 Dr. Marcus Whitman and Mr. Parker who were to explore the country and return. Dr. Whitman returned and reported favorably, and in 1836 Dr. Whitman and his bride and Rev. H. H. Spaulding and his bride were sent to found a mission in Oregon. Methodist women had gone to Oregon in 1835 by ship; but these were the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains-six years be- fore General Fremont the noted pathfinder disoovered the pass through which they entered Oregon. There was a marked di:8'erence between Mr. Whitman and Mr. Spaulding. Mr. Spaulding was a man of some literary tastes, but was certainly not one of wild nature's fa.- vorites. On the trip out he was shaken by the ague, kicked by a mule, pushed off a ferryboat by a cow and saved himself from drowning by clinging to her caudal appendage; while an incipient western cyclone carried off his tent and stripped him of his blankets. We do not wonder that he concluded he was not adapted to western life# and that he would have turned back had not his brave wife persisted in going forward. But Dr. Whitman was one of nature's noblemen. He was not tall but was compactly built, was a physician as well as a missionary, was keen, independent, self-willed, had the lofty courage of Sheridan and the unconquerable tenacity of General Grant.
Despite the protestations of the British agent at Fort Hall Dr. Whitman insisted upon taking his wagon through and actually took it as far as Fort Boise before he abandoned it in 1836. Later he had it brought on to Oregon and thus proved against the persistent statements of the Hudson Bay Company that a wagon road from the United States to Oregon was practicable.
In October 1842 Dr. Whitman was called to visit a sick man of,the Hudson Bay Co. at old Fort Walla Walla. While there the express rider from Canada dashed up with the mail. Dr. Whitman now learned for the first time that Governor Simpson had gone to Canada some months before, and had dispatched a body of one hundred and fifty emigrants to Oregon, to bring the English numbers above those of the American settlers; that these emigrants were only ten days behind the express-rider, and that Governor Simpson had gone on to Washington to try to arrange for the yielding of our claim to Oregon. On receiving the news the traders and the priests cheered for England and Oregon, and cried: "America is too late; the land is ours!" Dr. Whitman saw at once that the country would be lost without a most daring effort to save it. He rode back twenty-four miles to the American missions that afternoon, announced his determination to try to reach Washington, and asked for a companion. General Lovejoy of the Methodist Mission offered to go with him, and October 3d, with a guide and two pack mules, the two men set out on horseback for the United States. These two brave riders saw before them a journey of four thousand miles. The first three thousand would be across trackless wilds, and the first one thousand through mountains which were almost impassable in the summer-time. They knew they would be exposed to wild beasts. The Blackfeet Indians had been aroused to savage ferocity by the advance of the whites across the Mississippi, and their fierceness had infected many other tribes. Worst of all, these travelers saw the winter coming on. From the human standpoint it did not seem probable that a journey of three thousand miles could be made over mountains and across trackless plains in the depth of winter, with scarcely a house to shelter them. But they felt that God would help them. They were struggling for the civil and religious institutions of a region of large extent and boundless fertility, and the cause was worth their lives. To avoid the Blackfeet Indians and the cold on the northern plains, they resolved to bear southeast from their starting point- Waiilatpu, Oregon, to Fort Hall, thence almost South to Taos and Santa Fe, in New Mexico, thence east to Bent's Fort in Indian Territory, on the Arkansas River, and thence northeast across Missouri to St. Louis.
General Lovejoy's brief notes of the trip show that the winter overtook them soon after they left Fort Hall. 'l'heir progress became very slow because of heavy snows. The snow covered the familiar landmarks so that the guide became uncertain of the way. In one instance they rode a week, supposing they were going east, and came back to the camp they had left seven days before. Again they started forward, and succeeded in reaching Grand river, 600 yards wide, and frozen on either side about 200 yards, but with a swift, dangerous current in the center. The weather was biting cold, and the guide declared the stream impassable. Dr. Whitman, however, determined to risk his life; and Gen. Lovejoy and the guide pushed the horse forward with poles until the ice broke, and both horse and rider disappeared in the rapid current. They rose far below, and Dr. Whitman guided his horse to the other shore~ broke the ice with a pole for a distance, then dismounted and helped his horse out. Then the others took the fearful plunge. Their clothing was frozen before they could build a fire. Again, a few days later, they encountered a western blizzard. For ten days they were imprisoned in a canon by the storm. They kept the horses alive on the bark of cottonwood trees, while they ate the faithful dog that had followed them. It was fast becoming, not a question of reaching Washington, but a question of life or death with the heroic travelers. On the eleventh day Dr. Whitman resolved to break the barricade of the storm, and they attempted to cross the mountains. But the storm blinded men and beasts; and after riding for hours they resolved to turn back to the canon they had left in the morning. But alas! after riding back a short distance, they found that the storm had obliterated their tracks. At last the horses came to a standstill, and all were becoming rapidly chilled with cold and hunger. Dr. Whitman now gave up in despair. He dismounted, and, kneeling in the snow, commended themselves and the loved ones in Oregon and their beloved land to Almighty God. Just then the mule on which the guide sat began to prick up his ears. The guide gave him the rein. The mule started, then hesitated, and at last, by a strange instinct, started again and led the party back to the morning camp. The guide now refused to go farther east. One of the men must go back with him to the nearest friendly tribe and procure, if possible, another guide. As Gen. Lovejoy was beginning to fail, he was advised by Dr. Whit-
THE GREAT COMMISSION: FACTS AND THEm PHILOSOPHY
man to rest and recruit his strength(?), out of doors in a fearful storm in the winter, while the doctor went back after a guide. Dr. Whitman's imperious will overcame the returning guide's representation of certain death, and another guide was induced to undertake the dangerous trip.
The Doctor and the new guide reached Gen. Lovejoy seven days after Whitman had left him in the cafion. They started on and at last reached Taos, and soon after Santa Fe. Despite Gen. Lovejoy's exhaustion, he accompanied Dr. Whitman to Fort Bent, on the Arkansas. The dangerous part of the journey was now past. Dr. Whitman crossed the State of Missouri alone, and reached St. Louis Jan. 3d, just three months after they set out from Oregon; and pushed rapidly on to Washington.
[Ooncluded in next number.] THE GREAT COMMISSION : FACTS AND THEIR PHILO- SOPHY.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] THE Duke of Wellington, in the familiar phrase of war, called the last command of our Lord the "marching orders" of the Church: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." That was indeed a short but suggestive and impressive valedictory. The Son of Man, about to leave the scenes and companions of his earthly life for his heavenly throne and crown, himself in person delivers the first great missionary commission and command to the first missionary band. From the grand universal center he was to survey and supervise the whole field, while they were to disperse from the earthly center, carrying on a world-wide campaign.
These marching orders are remarkable, first of all, for their comp1'ehensiveness: "all the 10orld": "every creature." What world-wide breadth! What sublime universality! This must have sounded strangely in the ears of a Jew. The Hebrew church was not a missionary church: its policy was exclusive. The idea was inbred, if not inborn, that Israel was God's peculiar people, and all other nations had for centuries been regarded as simply so many obstacles or hindrances to the progress of the one church and the true faith, for whose speedy removal or annihilation the believer ought to pray and work. The thought of the conversion of the world to God probably never entered the Jew's mind. How sudden and startling even to those first followers must have been that grand flinging open of the doors of the church of Christ. Eyes yet blinded by Jewish prejudices, ears yet dulled by spiritual apathy as to the world's condition, could not at once take in the sublime significance of these words: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Here was the enunciation and annunciation of the peculiar law of the new church of Christ. Her gates were to stand forever open as a perpetual invitation to all to come in and share her blessings, and her walls. were to stand four-square, facing the cardinal points of the compass, as though to tell us in symbol that her bounds shall ultimately be nothing less than the North and South, the East and West, and that from every quarter believing souls shall approach and entel'.
" Into all the ~lJorld" they were to go. Not alone to classic Athens, royal Rome, elegant Ephesus; not to balmy Sicily, queenly Crete, fragrant Cyprus; not to the lovely cities and lonely isles of the Mediterranean, the coasts of Italy or Greece or Syria, but into all the world. East to the farthest Orient, the golden Indies; West to the unsailed seas which laved the sands of Britain and of France. North to the fir forests of Scandinavia, South to the confines of Cush and the Arabian Sea; wherever man had gone Christ bade them go, bearing the news of salvation. There is no possibility of honestly mistaking the breadth of the great commission. It is the first thing we are to learn, as of the love of God-its" breadth "-that it reaches even to us and to the farthest off and most hopelessly alienated from God.
"To every creature;" as though even to the dumb beast would accrue some part of the blessing attending upon the spread of the gospel, in the better treatment which might be expected from the prevalence of humane and Christian feeling. The phrase evidently means the whole family of man. Not to the rich, refined and learned only, to the Areopagus or Amphyctionic Council, the Sanhedrim of Judea or the Senate of Rome; but to every man, whatever his class, color, caste or condition, rank or residence, amid the snows of Siberia or the sands of Africa, the stormy waves of the far west or the serener seas of the remote east. They were to pass no human being by without a word of warning,. witness and invitation.
The first and fundamental truth which is the broad basis of missions is this: the Gospel is an economy of grace for a ruined race. Man was created in God's image. When the representative man fell, with him fell the whole family of man which he represented. The Hebrew name, Adham, means manj Adam's fall was man's fall. By reason of its organic unity, humanity went down in that first sin, as the oak is crushed in the acorn; and Redemption is the rescue of that fallen race.
In two senses the fall is universal. First, as a clean thing cometh not forth from an unclean one, as like begets like, a corrupt nature passed from sire to son, exposing to suffering even those who bore no actual part in the first sin; and secondly, as each human being, coming to the age of conscious moral choice and action, falls anew for himself by a voluntary course of sin, he adds to the fall of the race his own personal fall by willful transgression. The whole race is thus doubly ruined, and redemption appeals to the whole race. Had none of us ever sinned; save through the representative head, redemption would no doubt have been purely representative, and we should have been saved absolutely through Ohrist. But as we all choose to sin, the entrance of choice-that imperial endowment of a will-into our fall, makes it necessary that we entet into redemption also by voluntary choice; choice implies appeal to motive, and hence the necessity of a proclamation of redemption. Here lies the power of Paul's argument in Romans X. 14,15, where interrogation becomes the boldest form of affirmation: how, then, shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, believe without hearing, hear without a preacher?
The necessity for a world-wide preaching of the gospel must become obvious upon the bare statement of these four facts: 1. The whole race is fallen. 2. Redemption is provided for every creature. 3. Ohoice is the condition of salvation. 4. Proclamation is necessary to choice. Fix in mind these four facts, and it becomes plain why Ohrist's last command was: "Go ye into all the world," etc. The rescue provided must be co-extensive with the ruin, and preaching is God's way to bring that rescue face to face with that ruin. The more we study the philosophy of the gospel the more do its simplicity and necessity flash upon us, as beneath a clear and sudden revelation of light, which makes us wonder we have not sooner seen the truth and felt its power. The fall is a fact, and it is not worth while to stop and discuss its philOllophy; but being a fact, the gospel is its companion and collateral fact.
Redemption is for all, though all may not be redeemed because all will not accept what is adequate for all. God's electing purpose can, in no case, impair the freedom of man's electing choice! This, however, has nothing to do with your duty and mine. We cannot foresee who will accept and who will reject, to whom the gospel will be a savor of life and to whom of death, aud so the proclamation is to be absolutely universal, and without discrimination. We are to do our whole duty, and leave results with God.
'fo the eye of God all souls are precious. If there be any discrimination, it is doubtless in favor of those whom we are prone to pass by in neglect, perhaps in contempt. He has always chosen, in a special sense, those whom man would not have chosen. The only Ohrist-like evangelism is that which loves every human soul for Jesus' sake.
The comprehensiveness of this command found illustration in the history of the New Ohurch. For fifty days after Ohrist's crucifixion, for ten days after his resurrection, the disciples remained at Jerusalem. Then Pentecost, with its reversion of the miracle at Babel, opened the door of the church to the world. At that time and place representatives of every nation under heaven were gathered, and heard, in their own tongues, the wonderful works of God. Then came the death of Stephen, and a persecution which scattered the brotherhood of believers to spread the good news. Then came Peter's vision and call to the Gentiles, and the unfolding to the church of the lesson so long and plainly taught, yet so ~lowly learned, that "God had also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." Finally, Paul's missionary journeys actually bore the message of redemption to every nation under heaven, and it is supposed to Gaul and Britain. To us, in these latter days, new worlds have been thrown open by the disco'veries of the explorer and the enterprise of the merchant. The area of civilization is doubled, trebled, quadrupled, and all this vast territory is crowded with the race iuvolved in the same ruin, interested in the same rescue. If to Paul and Peter Ohrist's last words came with mighty force, how shall we measure the momentum which that command has acquired in the sweep of eighteen centuries of invention, discovery and human progress? Behold the area of O1tr "world I" the extent of the race in our day 1 How shall we ever overtake the march of the centuries unless we bestir ourselves and begirt ourselves for giant strides?
This great commission also contains a Charge for every believer. Examination will show that these marching orders are not more universal as to the unbelievers theycomprehend than to the believers they commISSIOn. Ohrist appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and said unto them: "Go YE." This commission was special, but not exclusive. The whole world was dying; the grace was world-embracing; the message short and plain. It was natural and needful that every believer should have part in spreading the good neWfJ. The infant church, like an army of raw recruits, must, however, have organizers and leaders; and the eleven, commissioned directly by Ohrist, constituted those leaders; but only leaders. The rank and file were to do the work.
They were commanded and commissioned to " go" and"preach." A positive duty and responsibility was laid upon disciples, as such. To stay at Jerusalem, build a grand mother church of the world like St. Peter's at Rome-" Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum, mater et caput," though they might indeed let the gentiles in when they sought entrance, would not do. Ohrist made all believers heralds of grace, bidding them go forth and tell the good news, and compel the nations, whom they had despised as barbarians, to come in. They were to seek others and not wait for others to seek them, giving the gospel even to the unasking and unwilling 1 To lose sight of this aggress~'ve feature of evangelism is to leave out its most emphatic and distinctive characteristic. The world will never come to the church, save to corrupt it and conform it to itseJf; the church must go to the world and constrain even reluctant ears to hear. The attitude of rejection makes the word of witness no less our duty. And as in the apostolic days, so now; no class of ordained preachers can ever meet this world-wide emergency. While the church waits for such alone to do the work of preaching this gospel to the world, or for the training of a regular ministry for its official pro- clamation, whole generations perish. Christ foresaw this, and so a wider commission was given and actually made the basis of spreading this good news; and the commission was: "Let him that heareth say come! "
The divine scheme was to reach every human soul by the shortest road. Hence, (1) an oral proclamation was chosen as the method, and (2) every believer as a means. -': First, an oral proclamation. God chose to send the gospel to lost men, not by means of miracles or the agency of angels, but through natural channels and by means of those who had part in the ruin and rescue. Man could use two methods: books for the eye, the voice for the ear. Christ chose the voice! He said, "Preach." The word means, as Homer uses it, to be a public crier, herald. Oral proclama- tion then was God's chosen method. Why? Books were then written laboriously and expensively upon huge, heavy parchment' scrolls by scribes. The world could not wait to get the knowledge of salvation from books. Even had the press, which dates from the fifteenth cen- tury, been then ready as a mute but mighty messenger of grace, still no doubt the commission would still have been, Go, ye, preach / For had Bibles been so plenty as to be sown like seed broadcast over the world's field, reaching every man in his own tongue, how few among the masses could have read them! To a very late day even in enlight- ened England, the famous "privilege of clergy" indexed the ignorance of the common people even of the simplest rudiments of reading and writing; and the Magna Charta was signed June 15, 1215, by nobles who could only make their mark for a signature!
Beside this, when Christ said, Go, preach, there was no New Testa- ment. The gospel according to Matthew, the pioneer book, cannot date earlier than A. D. 38, and John did not add the fourth and last of the gospels till close to the birthhour of the second Christian century.
But had a complete New Testament been ready, how tedious and tardy the process of translation and republication; and how few could have availed themselves of it, even in their own tongue!
The grand reason, however, for an oral proclamation was the peculiar force andfltness of the voice. It has a strange magnetism, when through it thrill a true earnestness and enthusiasm, which no book has. More- over, a man can fit his methods and measures to new times, places, men and needs, as no book can; and the voice has a flexibility and fa- miliarity, compared with which the formality and stateliness of a vol- ume is a disadvantage. And so from lip to ear flew the good news, every hearer a herald; and so while a Bible society would have been translating, publishing and circulating one version, the gospel actually wheeled its first circuit round the known world! The duty and privilege of preaching was thus from the first, universal. All who had an ear, a voice, must say, Oome. To have excluded any from this simple part in heralding salvation would have been to shut up an inward fire, and the voice of a pent-up flame would have burst forth in utterance saying: "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
Whatever marks of distinction may rightly exist between the ministry and membership of the church, they should never become lines of division in the work of saving souls. Those who are set a.part for the special office of leadership, are to project the advance movement, plan the campaign, and conduct the hosts: but who must do the fighting, but the bannered hosts who come after with the whole armor of God?
And so there is a sense in which every believer is a preacher, and every hearer a herald. The whole' world is the audience, and not a soul is to be passed by; the whole church are the witnesses, and not a believer is ~o be tongue-tied with a ruined race about him, God's grace within him and a voice wherewith to make himself heard! To all, of every age and nation, pardon is to be proclaimed with its simple conditions: repentance toward God and faith in the Lord J eaus Ohrist. By the words of our Lord the missionary office is laid upon the whole church till the whole world is evangelized. Not a man or woman or child can escape or evade this responsibility. Let this be really apprehended, and wherever God locates our sphere of service, we shall be found leading essentially the life of a missionary.
Out of 1,500,000,000 who crowd the earth to-day, 1,000,000,000 have not heard the good news. Generations are sinking into an abyss or hopeless ruin, one after another. Yet forevermore ring in our ears those words of responsibility and indirect rebuke: "Go ye," etc. You and I are charged with this duty, only more imperative because neglected. Weare to help tell the good news to every creature under heaven; if we can go, in person, here is the call of God, and the condition of a lost world calls if possible more loudly. He who cannot go to the heathen in person must go by proxy. But how shall they preach except they be sent! Send the Bible with a man behind it, a man to bear it, to add to its pure precepts, its glorious messages, the inspiration and magnetism of the living voice / If you must stay here at home, still go you and preach! to your children, companions, neighbors, friends, and by your prayers and purse, help others to preach to the millions over whose very souls hangs a funeral pall! And yet we stand still, while we have one minister for every 700 of our population, and Ohina one for 2,000,000.
There is no reason, or even pretext, for the present apathy of the Ohurch of Ohrist. We can gird the globe with a zone of light in twenty years if we have men and money, both of which the church is perfectly able to furnish to-day in abundance. The awful extent of
MISSION PROBLEMS AND WORK IN
the field need not disoourage us. We can reach this thousand millions with the gospel and we can do it with surprising rapidity, if we have the will to do it in God's way. He has gone before us. He has flung the doors wide open, actually ohallenging the church to enter and take possession. He has wrought results within a half century that have constrained even unbelievers to Baf, 'This is the finger of God.' There is muoh said in these days about the amazing progress of soience and invention. Within a quarter of a century the most stupendous aohievements of the human mind seem to have reached their climax. Think of the telegraph and telephone; the photometer and audiphone; the speotrosoope and microscope; the wonders of optics and anresthetics of photograph and phonograph, of steam-printing and typewriting; and these are a part of man's ways in scientific research and ingenuity. But God always keeps pace with man. However rapid man's strides have been in letters and art, in discovery and invention, God has moved yet more rapidly in his providence and grace. The study of history shows that in the march of humanity God has always led. Even the van is always but the rear of a vaster procession. Acoordingly God has accomplished within half a century what we should have supposed it would require half a millenium to effeot. Talk of "waiting upon God?" God has been long waiting for his people. He is a thousand leagues ahead of the foremost of his missionary hosts. Japan could fully occupy ten thousand missionaries to-day. Ohina could fill the hands of ten times that number. Africa has only been explored; the first chain of stations is yet to stretch from Zanzibar to the Oongo's mouth. What are we doing? 0 for a kindling of apostolic fires on the smouldering altars of the church! We have scarcely made a beginning and we talk as though the work were almost done. Ten millions of dollars is all the entire Ohurch of God can raise to prosecute the missions of the world; while one city spends far more than that on a city hall and two others, on a suspension bridge, and there is buried in jewelry, gold and silver plate and useless ornamentation, within Ohristian homes, enough to build a fleet of fifty thousand vessels, ballast them with bibles and crowd them with missionaries, build a church in every destitute hamlet and supply every living soul with the gospel within a soore of years! only let God's fire come down and take possession of our hearts and tongues, and the gospel would wing its way like the beams of the morning and illumine the world's darkness!
MISSION PROBLEMS AND WORK IN ABYSSINIA. By PROF. GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., OOLUMBUS, O.
PROBA:BLY nowhere in the wide world has this great mission cell~ury to deal with a more unique and in some respeots more diffioult problem than in the Ethiopia of history-the Abyssinia of recent centuries. All the remnants of Oriental Ohristendom, found scattered chiefly among the Moslem conquerors, the Armenians, the Syrian or Northern Nesto- rian Ohristians in the Persian Empire, the Thomas or Southern Nesto- rian Ohristians iIi India, the Oopts of Egygt, and their ecclesiastical monophysitic allies of Abyssinia, all to a greater or less extent present a more or less solid petrifaction of certain phases of Ohristian doctrinal development. Their divisions and schisms are near]yall due to the great theological and christological controversies that, from the fourth century for more than three hundred years, agitated the whole Greek Ohurch. Their individual existence over against the rest of Ohristen- dom generally originated in their maintenance of certain doctrines, which were condemned as heretical by the great Ohurch Oouncils, be- ginning with that at Nice in 325. In this way sprang up the Nesto- rian, the Monophysitic, and other branches of Eastern Ohristianity.
The source of their individual existence, namely, their peculiar doctri- nal position, was also the source of their vitality. They lived for the one object of defending their peculiar standpoint. The great charac- teristic of Oriental nations is their intense conservatism and adherence to the traditions of the fathers. These factors combined to cause these Eastern Ohristian sects gradually to solidify their idiosyncracies.
Thoroughly incrusted in the traditions of centuries and defended with their life's blood, not only over against the rest of Ohristianity, but also against the fire and the sword of the Moslem conquerors, these systems have gradually become nothing but a petrifaction of dogmas, liturgies and worship. The spir,i.tual element has long since been lost and its place has been taken by a cold and mechanical formalism. Ohristianity is not a life nor a living power, but only certain ancient dogmas and forms; , These singular factors, which make the regeneration of the stagnant Oriental churches and the infusion of the principle of evangelical Ohristianity a matter of extreme difficulty, have all existed and do yet exist in aggravated forms in Abyssinia. '1'he historical surroundings of the· introduction and early development of Ohristianity in Ethiopia were such, in connection with the natural disposition of the people, to produce that extreme case of a soulless ecclesiasticism, which has for more than twelve centuries reigned supreme in Abyssinia. Of all the strictly national Ohristian churches on the globe that of Abyssiania is the oldest. It was established already in the fourth century. Its first bishop, or abuna, received his ordination from the hands of Athenasius.
It played an important part in the dogmatic controversies that followed, being organically connected with the church of Egypt, as an import- ant element in the Oriental church at large. With the Egyptian, the Abyljlinian church adopted monophysitic doctrines concerning the person of Ohrist; and when, in 451, the Synod of Ohalcedon con- demned this doctrine, the monophysitic portion cut loose from the church general and formed a new sect. In this way the living connection between the Abyssinian church and the church universal continued for only about one century, and that was a century of intense dogmatical controversies, in which the ideals of Christianity were more and more regarded as consisting in the acceptance of certain metaphysical formulas, however true these in themselves doubtless were, to the detriment of the feeling of spiritual connection between the church or individual with Christ, as the essential requisite of true Christianity. In the interests of one phase of this general tendency of tbe times the Abyssinian, with the Egyptian church, took a standpoint hostile to the church at large, and thus voluntarily withdrew from the influence of that progressive element that controlled the development of the church, and it recognized as the object of its existence the maintenance of its doctrinal position over against any change or modification. That such forces controlling the spiritual life of a nation or a church must inevitably lead to the despiritualization and encrustation of its doctrinal teachings, is easily understood from psychological reasons, In the education of a nation such factors could lead only to such results.
What made matters in themselves bad even worse, was that the Abyssinians were called upon to defend their national and religious existence over against the Mohammedans, who, by taking Egypt and all northern Africa, completely isolated the Abyssinians from the rest of Christendom. Indeed, it is the glory of the Abyssinians that they were the only Ohristian nation of Asia or Africa that was not overwhelmed by the hordes of the false prophet of Mecca. Partly because of the character of their country, which is a high plateau accessible only through narrow defiles easily defended against invaders, but also because of the bravery and prowess of the Abyssinians, they were enabled to hurl back every attack of their Moslem foe. This complete isolation and entire separation from all people who might have had an influence in developing the national and religious chl',racteristics of the people, made the Abyssinians, who, as a Semitic people, were naturally as unprogressive as the Arabs and the Hebrews, live only for the faith and the worship of the past. Having defended the nation and the church against such enemies as heresy from within and a false religion from without, their conservative instincts led them to guard with jealous care what had been handed down as the most sacred inheritance from earlier generations.
For over one thousand years, namely, from the time when the Moslem conqueror of Egypt isolated Abyssinia, down to the end of the last century, almost the very existence of a Christian nation on the Black Continent was unknown to Western Christianity. It is indeed true that in the sixteenth century the Portuguese formed an alliance with the Abys¥– ians, and the Jesuit missionaries attempted to win the venerable Abys- sin, ian Church for the pope; but these were only passing incidents, and, if anything, only hardened this church in its traditionalism. ThE!
Jesuitic measures of the fathers won over the great king Susmejos, and he attempted to compel his people to submit to the yoke of Rome. An insurrection followed, attended with extremely bloody scenes; and finally the national party, headed by the clergy, succeeded in driving out the hated "Franks." Under the next king, Bosilides, the old faith and worship were re-established more firmly than ever.
The first attempts to revive and instill a new evangelical life into the different members of this ancient church that were made with a full appreciation of the difficult problem involved, aud with an aim rather to win them back to a genuine Christianity, and not to an ecclesiastical hierarchy merely, date from the beginning of the present century.
They belong to the first fruits of that spirit which has made the present the greatest missionary century since the apostolic era. They aimed first, indeed, at the regeneration of this old Christianity, but also at making Abyssinia the base of operations from which to operate further into the heart of Africa with the mission of the gospel and of civiliza- tion. This idea was all the more attractive because there are remnants of older Christian nations also south of Abyssinia, and at least one of the missionaries, Krapf, endeavored to penetrate further and found these at Cambat and Wolamo. The leader of this missionary band was Gobat, who first reached Abyssinia in 1829, and who died several years ago as the Bishop of the Anglo-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem. He was sent out by the British Society, as were also several of his coadju~ tors, while the Basel Society later also sent out some men. With these the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews co-operated, because in Abyssinia are found a most peculiar class of people-the so-called Falashas, or Black Jews. How they ever got there no man knows; even their traditions are silent on the subject. They have the Old Tes- tament and observe the Mosaic ritual. They know nothing, however, of Talmudic Judaism and the latter Pharisaic phase of their religion as this is developed in the Talmuds and Midrashim and is practiced by the extreme orthodox Jews of southeastern Europe. The probabilities are that they are a portion of the great Jewish Dispersion, the" Dias- pora," but whether they found their way to Abyssinia before the days of the New Testament, or after the destruction of Jerusalem, is uncer- tain. The fact that ethnologically they could be classed as Abyssinians does not speak against their Jewish origin, since the Abyssinians them- selves are a Semitic people, and hence belong to the same family of na- tions of which the Hebrews are such prominent members. Then the hostility of centuries that has existed between them and the Christians of Abyssinia would speak for a difference of nationality. They usually live in separate villages, mostly in the province of Goodar, and are often persecuted by the ruling race. Among these peculiar people mission work was also done, and with good success. The Rev. H. Stern, a German sent out by the London Society, did some service, but was not as careful as he should have been, and contributed not a little to arouse the anger of the great king Theodorus in the sixties, which finally induced that monarch to imprison and threaten the lives of all the foreigners, especially the missionaries laboring in Abyssinia. They were only liberated through the expedition of Lord Napier in 1868. At the .same time Krapf was laboring with great success among the Falashas, and to the present day; while living on the retired list as a missionary veteran in Germany, keeps up a correspondence with the eight hundred who have been won for Ohrist, and who have braved all the dangers that have threatened to deprive them of their faith. Although for a number of years no missionaries have been allowed in Abyssinia, except from time to time, one or two in the most southern province of Shoa, and, of course, least of all among the hated and despised Falashas, these dusky children of Abraham have yet, amid all persecutions, maintained their faith and confession.
The mission work among the Ohristians of Abyssinia has been a remarkable record of successes and failures, and at present is at a standstill. Such men as Gobat, Isenberg, Krapf, Stern, Flod, and a number of others, have labored hard and long to re-evangelize Abyssinia. What the full fruits of their labor are or will be no man could presume to say. Statistically but a discouraging report could be given. But there can be no doubt that in Abyssinia, as is the case in that wonderful Ohristward movement among the Jews of southeastern Europe, there are many in whom the seed of the word is silently bearing good fruit, but whose outward profession may not be loud "for fear of the Jews." Like Nicodemus, they come to Ohrist by night. But on the subject of missionary method and a clear understanding and appreciation of the intricate problem involved much has been gained. Again and again have the missionaries been expelled from Abyssinia. Gobat and his friends were compelled to withdraw on account of the anarchy that prevailed in the land. When that talented and, in his early days, excellent prince, Theodorus, managed to secure the crown of all Ethiopia, hope revived, and a number of men were sent from Europe and were welcomed by the king. They went not merely as preachers of the gospel, but also as teachcrs, who prepared books for the instruction of the people, and translated the Bible into the dialect of the people. They took with them mechanics who aided the people in learning useful arts and learning useful trades. But a number of untoward circumstances again blasted these hopes. Theodorus became involved in wars with his lieutenants who commanded the provinces; his good genius, namely, his first wife, died, and his second wife was wilful and tyrannical; he took to drink, and rum converted him into a typical Oriental barbarian, whose cruelty delighted in cutting off his enemies' hands and feet. With his subjection by Lord Napier in 1868, and his suicide when his capital was taken, ended the flourishing period of Abyssinian mis- '
sions. .
Since then attempts have been made again and again to build up these waste places, but with poor success. The present Emperor, John, is hostile to western ideas, and is seeking a reunion with the Oriental Church, particularly: with that of Russia. The golden opportunity for Christianity and for modern civilization in historic Ethiopia would have been in 1868. If England had then, instead of leaving the conquered land upon which she had taken her vengeance to its miserable fate, to anarchy and internecine destruction, assumed so much of a protector- ate as to secure freedom and liberty for the gospel messengers, a new and encouraging era for Ethiopia's Christianity would have been inaugurated. The complications with Italy are not promising as far as the cause of the gospel in Abyssinia is concerned.
But whatever the fate of Abyssinia may be, and of Christian work in Abyssinia, certain it is that this work there will always be one of peculiar difficulties. The Abyssinian being a church with a highly developed ecclesiastical organization of bishop, priests, deacons, monks and nuns, with a fixed dogmatic system and settled and stereotyped forms and ideals of worship, it will always be a vexed problem as to the position to' be taken over against the native clergy and the native church. Are the Christian missions to co-operate with the native church, to revive the church from within, or to establish new commun- ions of renewed Christians as opposition organizations to the existing church? Heretofore the first has been the only method pursued, not .
so much from choice as from necessity. The missionaries could labor only as long as the king permitted it, and no greater danger to the king's authority could be imagined than the opposition of the native clergy, who control the minds of the people almost absolutely. For this reason none of the missionaries established new churches or entered into open opposition to priests or monks. In the case of the conversion of the Falashas these were baptized by the native clergy and made mem- bers of the national church of the land. The little bands of converted Christians were thus an eccle,~iola in ecclesia, and it was thought that they as a leaven could eventually leaven the whole lump. Whether they would have done so if the missionaries had been able to con- tinue their work, only a prophet or a prophet's sou could say. But as long as the new gospel spirit could find its way only into 'the hearts of the people, and not into the hearts of the spiritual leaders, the success of this method would seem to be doubtful. Sooner or later the con- flict would be inevitable; indeed it at some places already had com- menced when Theodorus turned against the mission enterprise. Future mission work in Abyssinia must be guided by the light of the experi- ence acquired by gospel workers in the last sixty years. The task is not hopeless, nor have all hopes bean given up. On the contrary, socia-
THE RELATIV1!: PROGRESS OF CHRISTlA.NlTY
ties and men are only waiting for a favorable opportunity to reorganize the work in Abyssinia. If this can be done, and if a firm foothold can be gained there for a living and aggressive Christianity, then one of the greatest problems in the Christianization of Africa has been solved. It is a task of peculiar difficulties, but it is one whose consummation and success will be attended with peculiar blessings.
THE RELATIVE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.
BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D., BUFFALO, N. Y.
[Continued from page 411.] INCREASE OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.
Turning to Africa,where Islam is alleged to be spreading rapidly,. we touch a region again where the indefiniteness of the information preeludes more than qualified judgment, but accounts reach us that indicate an encroachment of Moslem power and some Moslem missionary advance.
Journal des Missions EvangeUques states perhaps most of the truth about this feature of Moslem advance in Northern and Central Africa when it says: "Among some of the negro tribes a missionary work, properly so called, is being carried on by the Khouan, or members of a religious order that originated in a very remarkable reformation. It was an attempted return to primitive Islam. The man who founded its powerful association was Si- Mohammed-ben-Si-Ali-ben Snoussi, born at Mostaganem, in Algeria, about 1792. He traveled much, lived a long time in Mecca, and in 1843 took up his abode in the Tripolitan district. A few years after the Djebel-el-Akhdar, where he lived, abounded hi Zaiouya, or establishments for instruction in the Koran. To all his disciples he imparted his Puritan doctrines, his gloomy and silent character. The Snoussiyas or disciples of the Sheik Snoussi are very numerous, and are going in every direction, trying to win over to their pan-Islamite notions the Mussulman Arabs and the negrpes, who know little more as yet than the prophet's name."
The Journal also thinks they are preparing the materials for one of those sudden and gigantic explosions of Islamite fanaticism, the result of which it is impossible to predict.
Dr. Blyden is a full-blooded Christian negro, born in the Danish West Indies,. now long resident in Liberia, at one time Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Liberia to the Court of St. James, and Secretary of State for the republic in 1864. He made a journey to the East in 1866, "visiting Egypt and Syria, chiefly with the view of studying the Arabic language in order to its introduction to the curriculum of the College" of Liberia, in which he was for some time a professor. He has had large opportunities for personal knowledge along the west coast of Africa and for perhaps two hundred miles in the interior, and of learning from Moslem pilgrims and merchants what they had to say about the remoter interior. Dr. Blyden has contributed articles to Fraser's and other magazines and quarterlies during twenty years or more, and has recently collected and published these in a book entitled " Ohristianity, Islam, and the Negro Race." He says, "From Senegal to Lagos, over 2,000 miles, there is scarcely an important town where there are not at least one mosque and active representatives of Islam" ; and he speaks within touch of the facts. He further says, "A man might now travel across the continent from Sierra Leone to Oairo, or in another direction from Lagos to Tripoli, sleeping in a village every night except in the Sahara, and in every village he would find a Moslem school." The writer will perhaps never forget the thrill of emotion that passed over him when, in company with Dr. Blyden, sailing up the St. Paul River, Liberia, the distinguished author-guide pointed to some steps cut in the bank of the river and a little footpath soon lost in the forest, he said, "Do you see that path? That leads straight to Egypt."
The Methodist Recorder of London says of the character of these African conquests to Islam: " At least in Northwest Africa the Moslem missionaries win their way without assistance from any earthly power. Their advance is due both to the truth and the errors which their creed contains. The pure monotheism of their religion is an undoubted advance upon the gross idolatry of savage tribes. The semi-civilization introduced is an undoubted improvement. It is no small matter to teach these degraded tribes a measure of self-control, decency, reverence, and such virtues as Christians are glad to know Moslems both teach and practice. But it is comparatively easy to whitewash a number of tribes with a superficial religion which never changes the heart, though it may outwardly improve some habits of the life. If the Christian missionary of to-day were content with a form of baptism and a simple item or two' of his·creed, while permitting polygamy, granting social equality, and promising the certain blessings of a material Paradise, how many tens of thousands might be 'converted' in a year."
The writer of the above is too candid to desire to belittle the aggressive work of Islam in Africa, but he probably states what is about the truth over very extended districts, The extension of Islam in Africa must be conceded, and the full force of the rebuke should b~ felt that the Ohristian church so long neglected the swarmiug multitudes of this continent. Yet within the century we have planted missions all round the coast, have occupied outlying Madagascar as a base of operations, and have at least taken up the line of march" from salt sea to salt sea," and from the mouth of the Zambesi to the delta of the Nile, and a good deal of reconnoitering has been done.
We have s'aid nothing of the character of the civilization which Islam 'superimposes on that of the ruder African, because it does not come within the scope of this article. Weare not, however, ofthose who hold that it will be materially more difficult to convert these people from the rude form of Islam, which is all they have to any con- , siderable extent adopted, than from the fetish, with its most aeaden- ing and blighting superstitions. They may turn intelligently from Islam to that which is higher and better, and if they can be saved from the persecution of Moslem fanaticism, they may at once throw off its shackles; but the dreadful overshadowing superstitions represented by the fetish are ever and anon wont to burst upon the Ohristian convert in after years in the presence of calamity, and to carryall before thein. It will be another thousand years before Islam can bring the African to the cultured and lettered prejudices of Moslem, civilization, snch as bind its snbjects at Oairo, Ispahan and Delhi; and the Ohristian church has no need to be discouraged from attempting vigorous evangelism of the African Islam by just such methods as she has pur- sued in Fiji, Benares and Yokohama; and she should address herself to the duty which is now in so marked a degree providentially imposed upon her.
CAN :MOSLEMS BE REACHED?
The question whether Christianity can make inroads on Islam is quite another and very interesting one. The common assumption has been that it was much more difficult to make converts from Islam than from any other quarter, but it must be borne in mind that in no quarter of the globe has there been any attempt to convert them corre- sponding with the efforts made to reach other classes. Rev. Mr.
Wherry, American Presbyterian of North India, writing to the Missionary Intelligencer (Jan. '88), says: "The Muhammadans of India are a hopeful class for missionary ea;ort compared with the three high castes of Hinduism. I venture to assert that, so far as North India is concerned, and in proportion to the labor bestowed, five Muslims have been converted to Christianity for every Hindu convert." And at the Decennial Conference in Calcutta he saId: 'Almost every mission in North India numbers among its preachers, lay and ordained, those who were once followers of Islam. I recognize among the names of ordained missionaries and evangelists contained in Mr. Badley's Directory fifteen converts from Islam; the number of catechists and lay preachers who were convel'ts from Islam would increase this to at least fifty.' "
The "Church" missionaries say that most of their converts at both Peshawar and Krishnagar are of Muslims. The Indian Witness, noticing Canon Taylor's statement that out of 841 converts to Christian- ity last year in Central and Northern India only 17 were Moslems, says: "We know of one mission in North India where thel'e were 1,183 conversions and 1,114 baptisms last year, to 892 conversions and 584 baptisms the preceding year. Thirty of last year's converts were from Islam."
The ablest, calmest and fairest discussion of this entire subject of the missionary activity of Islam in India, the character of its converts, its accessibility to Christian effort, and the nature of its antagonism to the same, will be found in the proceedings of the Missionary Conferences held in Allahabad in 1872-73, and in Calcutta 1882-83. It requires self~restraint to refrain from making numerous quotations from tb:ese able papers and addresses. They were not spoken in the heat of the present controversy, but afford testimony the most definite and reliable on perhaps every point now raised. In a broad survey of the relative progress of Ohristianity it would be neooBSairy to deal with a vast num- ber of subjects not yet ,alluded to, but which want of space precludes our entertaining.
THE OUTLOOK.
The vast array of preparatory agencies which Mr. Johnston so ably summarizes. might easily be augmented by a "great variety of other facts. Not only, as Mr. Johnston says, does the "vital force of the native church increase in geometrical ratio; " not only have we twenty times as many languages subject to our use as were spoken on the day of Pentecost; not only have the 120 of the apostolic" upper chamber"
become 120 millions of Protestant Ohristians; not only has the Ohris- tian community of the world been augmented by double the three thousand accessions of the day of Pentecost, for each day of the past hundred years; not only have the great systems Buddhism, Brahman- ism and others been so materially modified by Ohristian influence that even if there were more Buddhists there is less Buddhism, or more Brahmans there is less Brahmanism; not only have we learned the methods of a.pproach on the inside, where these systems are weakest; but the forces of Ohristian attack are strategically distributed over the globe as are those of no other one system, and the measure of our out- posts is that of the measure of the geographical extension of our century. It is not only that there are 30,000 Ohristian communicants in Ohina, but that these are distributed at important points. Twenty-five years ago there were only five churches in Ohina, now there are enough to make one for every 25 miles along the coast, and a traveller might sleep, as Dr. BIyden would say, under a Ohristian roof each night while traversing the entire coast line of that vast country. Then, too, the spirit of evangelism is infused into these mission communities.
Fiji and other islands were not Ohristianized by Europeans, but by Ohristian natives from Tonga, and this spirit is being developed in all mission fields.
But besides all, it must ever be borne in mind that in dealing with Ohristianity we are dealing with the supernatural, and in the divine economy there is provision for far more than merely steady advance even in geometrical ratios. There is provision for leaps, for vast up- heavals, for sudden uprisings. Do we forget the six weeks in 1878 when in Nellore 8,691 heathen were baptized, and the 34,564 registered applicants for baptism the same year in Tinnevelly? Are we blind to the fact that forces are already at work which will probably, ere many decades, result in the collapse of the great systems of heathen religions?
There are epochs and revolutions, as well as reformations, in the divine economy.
lVBY DOES THB COST INOREASE'1
WHY DOES THE OOST INCREASE P By REV. JAMES F. RIGGS, BERGEN POINT, N. J.
WHAT is the reason of this constant advance in expense? Why is it that each mission is more and more costly from year to year? Ought we not to set a fixed limit to the appropriations in advance and adhere to our own rule?
A mission grows just as a healthy child grows. It has the same vital organs from year to year, but it needs more food. Growth is the evi- . dence of life. If any particular mission did not grow that would be a just cause for alarm, but the demand for a larger appropriation is a clear proof that the sums expended already have been well spent. This general law of depth and width applies to a mission just as it applies to a schoolboy. More books, and those of greater depth, better grade. A wider range of facilities and a more expensive system of defense. For in these days there is a double process in our foreign work, like that in Jerusalem in the days of Nehemiah. It is not trowel only, or sword only, but both sword and trowel, and both must be paid for. It is perilous to sleep after we have aroused the enemy. The cost is the certain result of pushing on such a warfare. It is daily more absorbing and the demands more inexorable.
Mission work is generally conducted in departments, like the branches of a large business enterprise. In each of these we shall see the reasons that belong to that particular part of the work. These departments are six: viz., the evangelistic, educational, publication, medical, churchbuilding, and Sunday-school.
FIRST.-Evangelistio: The missionary is sent to preach the gospel to the poor. He makes a "tour" in the territory assigned to him. traveling at the smallest possible expense, and preaching in the villages. Such a tour is planned according to the work that must be done. It may be completed in less than a week, or it may require all the summer months. In each village the missionary talks with old friends, and draws about him some new friends. But when the trip is ended he hastens home, because much work of other kinds yet awaits him in his own place of residence. Notice how the system works. When the missionary sets out on the same tour again, three months or six months later, he is compelled to make it a little longer. Why? Because earnest entreaties are sent to him from villages not yet visited asking that he come to them also and preach. In each case he weighs the reasons, and is often obliged to decline. Time is precious, and he must hasten on. But yonder is a village only an hour's ride off his track, .and four men have come down beseeching him to give a day to their place. The fire is already kindled, and he deems it his duty to go. He is more than pleased, delighted, to find a real work of divJne grace going on in that village, and he stays two days instead of one, preaching to crowds in the coffee-shops and under the trees. But at length he leaves them, promising to come again, and such a promise must be kept. Thus each tour becomes a longer one than that preceding it, and the vital force of the missionary is taxed to the very limit of safety. In many cases he comes home after a month's tour so hoarse that it is a difficult matter for him to discharge common daily duties. In the meantime, as these trips to the villages become longer and more exacting, the other work of that station is neglected, so that matters get into confusion, and the next thing reported to headquarters will be that a new man is absolutely necessary if work is to be carried on at all. Thus the cost of the journeys is increased, and at the same time the local expense of each station is increased by reason of the absence of the man who makes the tour: For there are accounts to be kept, and books to be sold, and schools to be superintended, and candidates to be watched.
SECOND.-Educational: After work has been begun in any place, 'the kindling of a new flame is certain. A Protestant school must be started. And although the object is to keep expenses as low as possible, yet there will be some points of outlay in every instance. Even if the school should be from the beginning self-supporting in respect to tuition, there is the cost of sending a teacher to the place. And in some schools, as the high-schools for girls, and the theological schools for young men, a considerable part of the expense must always be borne by the mission. An increasing number of candidates for the ministry means increasing expense at every point-for instruction, for books, for postage, and innumerable miscellaneous items. If there be in any particular mission a bill rendered annually for the freight paid on books used, and if the number of pupils in those schools be increased ten per cent., will not that freight bill be somewhat larger?
The growth of a mission is like that of a child, not sudden, but certain: it will not be surprising, but it must be met.
THIRD.-Publication: No part of the work is more essential than this. If a soul has been saved, the work of Ohristian culture must begin, and a pure literature is absolutely a vital need. Standard religious works, such as "Pilgrim's Progress," are translated and sold (not given away), but the cost of the first publication is a large item, and every subsequent reprint involves some fresh outlay. For the book trade is not advanced in the Asiatic world to such a position that we can leave it to take care of itself. It must be fostered, and if a depot for Bibles be opened in any village, the rent of a little shop must be provided for. No money is wasted in experiments, but that which has been tried and found the very best is employed, and this arm of the service hail been greatly blessed. A modest weekly religious paper is of very great value for the cultivation of a living practical piety.
MIRA.CLES OF
FOURTH.-Medical,' If each medical missionary were sent out simply to practice medicine, as he would at home, he would then earn far, more than his salary, and so be a source of revenue to the board, instead of being an expense. But as a rule this would be a mistake in policy. For it would shut off the great mass of the popUlation from any advantage. It would be easy for an educated missionary physician to confine his labors to the wealthy portion of any people, and the men of rank are' willing to pay large fees for genuine skill. But in that case a serious loss of moral opportunities would ensue. The example of Christ himself is a better guide than modern financial policy. To go about like him "doing good" is the true wisdom of a physician on heathen ground. Much medicine is given free; many cases are treated without charge. Small hospitals are established, and sometimes the missionary in charge is able to earn enough to support his own hospital. . But as a whole, the medical branch of the work is an additional expense. And the reports of such an institution as the hospital at Aintab, Turkey, will abundantly justify both the hopes and the outlay that will be identified with such an undertaking.
It will require no argument to show in like manner that any progress in the fifth and the sixth of these departments must involve heavy cost. No church can be built at first by an unassisted native community. No large measure of success can be attained in Sunday-school work without some expense for the books circulated and the lesson helps provided.
If we believe that the expense of ploughing and of sowing is to be justified, then surely by all means we ought to provide for the expense of harvesting. If the church of God persevered in cherishing a lofty faith in His promise, when the doors of the kingdoms were ahut, shall we permit that faith to fail us in these days, when the angel' of God is leading us, and the heavy iron gates that lead to the cities are opening before us of their own accord?
MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-NO. V.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] THE ISLES OF THE SEA. NEW ZEALAND.
IN the South Pacific, east of Tasmania, nearly midway between the capes, Good Hope and Horn, is a curious inverted boot that from end to end would measure nearly 1,000 miles, and is cut in two just above the ancle. It is New Zealand. The physicalfeatures are very interesting: the 4,000 miles of sea coast, with some of the finest harbors in the world; the highlands, with the Pumice Hills, the volcano Tongariro, 6,000 feet high, and Mount Ruapahu, 3,000 feet higher, and others rising to a height of 14,000 feet; the 'forests so dense that beasts of prey
JOBA.OLES OJ!'
are not found and sound does not penetrate; the fine rivers and boiling lake of Rota Mahana.
But we wish to trace the early triumphs of the gospel among the Maoris or aborigines of these islands of the sea. Let us get an idea of the condition of the Maoris in the days when Europe first made their acquaintance and down to a comparatively recent date.
They li~ed in very contracted dwellings, not high enough to permit a man to stand upright in them and were unfurnished, showing no orderly arrangement. Their cooking utensils, a few stones. Polygamy had no limits but the ability of a man to procure wives; every household was a. little hell, with daily strifes and deadly hatred. Extreme barbarism prevailed, in fact the lowest type of savage life. New-born babes were left in neglect to cry themselves to death. When five days old, infants were sprinkled or dipped at a stream and named, while a priest mumbled a prayer to an unknown spirit, "May this child become brave and warlike," or perhaps, "cruel, adulterous, murderous." Stones were forced down the throat to make the heart hard and pitiless.
Tabu prevailed. It set apart men from all common approachno one dared visit or converse with a tabued person; death was the penalty for being found in a canoe on a tabued day, or for a woman to eat certain articles of food, even accidentally. Tattooing with chisels or fish bones, dipped in indelible dye, was quite universal, slow, painful and prostrating. Superstitions too absurd to be soberly recorded ruled the people. A pain in the back was treated by jumping and treading on the patient. Dreams and omens were regarded infallible. The issue of a war was determined in advance by setting up sticks to represent contestants and watching which were blown down. Jugglers were their oracles, and witchcraft was the dreaded foe, to defeat whose malign designs any innocent person was liable to the most cruel death.
The Maoris were the worst cannibals. They drank the blood of enemies as it flowed on the battle-field, and then feasted on their roasted remains. Their virtues were so few, and their vices so many and appalling, that not a few Christians doubted whether there was anything left worth saving, or possible to use as a basis for the gospel. They could scarce be called idolators, for they were so low sunk in barbarism that they had not even the invention to construct a god, and had no gods nor any objects of worship. Thunder they attributed to Atua, a great spirit whom they feared as author of all calamities. They believed him to come as a lizard and prey on the vitals of the sick, and hence incantations were used, and they threatened to burn or kill and eat the demon unless he should depart. They also believed in Wiro, the Satan of the Maoris. They were virtually atheists, or, at beat,
MIRACLES OF
devil-worshippers. They had a vague belief in a future state, but, of course, it was robed in gross and sensual conceptions. When a chief died, slaves were killed to wait on him, and widows sometimes put themselves to death to rejoin their husbands.
When, at Samuel Marsden's request, the Church Missionary Society sent out three laborers in 1814, they were met at first with curiosity, then distrust and hate. The task of acquiring the language was great, but it was next to impossible even then to get a hearing. The few who came, almost nude, or in fantastic dress, would rudely leave in the midst of the service, saying aloud: "That's a lie; let's go." .
When, in 1821, Samuel Leigh and other Wesleyan missionaries went to Wangaroa, the chief Jarra bade them welcome; but Mr. Leigh and his colleagues had some hints beforehand of J arra's treacherous nature. The sailors called him "George," and he had a notorious history. He was one of those who, twelve years before, had left Port Jackson for England with a few other Maoris. Oapt. Thompson found" George" mutinous; he rebelled, refused to work, claiming to be a chief's son, and was reduced to submission only by being whipped and half starved. He brooded over his punishment, and hatched a terrible revenge. He pretended to be penitent, and so gained the captain's confidence that he put up for repairs at Wangaroa-. Once ashore, George moved his father to vengeance. With great subtlety he induced the captain and crew to land, drew them into the woods, under pretence of selecting timber, then murdered them, and, in their clothes, went to the ship, assaulted all he could find, and plundered the vessel. But a sudden retribution ·was awaiting these murderers and plunderers. George's father set a powder keg on the lower deck, and amused himself trying the muskets, a large number of New Zealanders being on board. An accidental spark caused an explosion, which blew up the npper works of the ship and killed every Maori on board. Then the natives on shore set fire to the vessel and ate every survivor.
With such a record, Jarra was not likely to be trusted; and about six weeks after they landed he began to show his tiger teeth. He threatened to burn Mr. Turner's house and eat the missionary and his wife, simply to extort a present. Other like-minded chiefs harassed the missionaries by similar threats and outrages, but were kept at bay by the remarkable Ohristian coolness and fortitude of these brave souls.
The cannibalism of the Maoris has never been exceeded in atrocity. Mr. Turner found several chiefs rollicking by a fire. On turning toward the fire he saw a human being roasting between the logs. Sick at heart, he tried to warn them of the wrath of God, to preach to them the new law of love; but to what an audience I An English missionary, while on a cruise, touched at New Zealand for fresh food, fruit and vegetables. Of these he obtained a fresh supply, and was about leaving, when a chief asked him if he would like some flesh food. Says the missionary: "Thinking that doubtless they had hogs, I said yes. He gave a quick glance around him, as if he were looking for a messenger, and singled out and, called to a fine young lad, apparently about eighteen years of age. The boy came and stood before him; and before I knew what he was about to do, and having my back turned to him, looking at the fruit, etc., I heard the sound of a heavy blow, and looking quickly around, found the still quivering body of the boy laid at my feet, with the words: 'Hevi ano te kai ? ' (Is that blood sufficient for you ?) Horror-stricken, I denounced most bitterly the deed, and, leaving all the provisions behind on the ground, returned sorrowfully on board."
The natives were very indolent. The missionaries could get no help in building mission premises, and not until 1824 were the buildings completed. But where idleness prevailed, curiosity, its kindred vice, also existed, and this led the natives to send their children to learn to read, and so many of the young Maoris were taught the catechism and learned to pray and sing; and the same curiosity led the adults to go and hear what the missionaries had to say.
'1'he work looked hopeful; but despair came. A civil war became the occasion for acts of violence; the mission houses were burned, and it was a long time before quiet was restored and houses and fences rebuilt. Ohief" George" was taken very ill. The death of a Maori chief rings the tocsin of vengeance-the quarrels and grudges of his life are then settled. The natives insulted the missionaries, stole their goods, broke down their fences, and replied to expostulation only with new threats of worse violence. George gave ominous signs that if he should die the missionaries would be held accountable for the fatal explosion on board the Boyd, when so many Maoris were killed, as the God of the OhriOitians had caused that spark to leap from the gunlock to the powder keg. Of course, with such unreasoning and insane passions no argument was possible.
The women and children were sent away to a distance, and the missionaries lived for weeks in constant apprehension. George died, charging his followers to exact vengeance for 'his wrongs. The poultry of the missionaries was stolen, and some of it offered as a sacrifice to George's father. In January, 1827, the whole party of Wesleyan laborers were compelled to embark for New South Wales, after under- going numerous exposures and barely escaping with their lives from these treacherous and cruel savages.
To one of the New Zealand chiefs, however, their departure was a matter of great regret. He, Patuone by name, had" rubbed noses" with the missionaries, and was known to be very friendly to Europeans. From him, in October, 1827, came an invitation for the exiles to return. It was an irresistible Macedonian cry; and the whole, band, in the early part of the next year, landed on the north island and settled in Patuone's province.
Two years of fruitless labor passed by. Few would hear the message. The very chief whose letter had recalled them neither attended their place of worship nor gave them any encouragement. With the strange faith, seen nowhere so richly as among missionaries, they toiled and prayed, believing "that prayers and tears in Christ Jesus can accomplish anything." In 1830 there were manifestly more attendance and attention given to the truth. But the most powerful witness was that of the lives of these godly men and women. " Ye are the light of the world." Bunsen said to his English wife, when dying, "My dear, in thy face I have seen the eternal!" And these Maoris could not but see a tremendous contrast between themselves and the heroic and unselfish souls who were risking life itself for their sakes.
The first conversions startled the whole community. Tawai and Miti, two of their greatest warriors, openly declared their allegiance to the new captain of their salvation. God's Spirit was at work. Some came forty miles in canoes to hear the gospel, and, as in one day, multitudes turned to God. The natives overflowed the chapel, and the forests and hills became sanctuaries, where the Word was preached to attentive listeners. The missionaries could now travel far and wide only to find multitudes ready both to hear and heed the gospel.
When Mr. Leigh first came to Wangaroa there was no book written or printed. The missionaries no sooner learned to talk than they began to teach spelling and reading. They sent to England and had types cut, and books were printed in the Wangaroan dialect. 1840 was the golden year, when a new religious literature was introduced into New Zealand. Within two years the press printed 5,000 scripture lessons, 3,000 spellers and readers, 6,900 catechisms, etc. ; 13 regular stations were established, 4,000 boys and girls in schools, 3,300 church members were gathered into the fold. The demand for native New Testaments greatly exceeded the supply, though 15,000 copies had been printed.
It will be remembered that in 1809 the ship Boyd had been plundered and burned .by these cannibals, who devoured every survivor of the crew. Behold the contrast, and let who will dispute the miracles of missions! A shipwreck at Kaipara Heads cast over 200 persons naked and destitute on the shore. How were they received? With humane and Christian kindness. Not to be clubbed and roasted, but snugly housed and fed in Okaro, and not one farthing would these Maoris accept in return for their hospitality. On the shores of Christian England a nobler reception could not have been awaiting shipwrecked sailors!
Most wonderful of all, these New Zealanders felt that they must send the gospel, which had brought them such blessing, to the destitute about
EGYPT SMITTEN AND HEALED
them. A grand missionary meeting was called by the Okaroans. It was a three days' meeting. One whole day was consumed in addresses on missions, fifteen or sixteen of which were made by converted natives. No wonder if all eyes wept as these regenerated cannibals told of him who had saved them, and of their passion to tell of Jesus to the lost. Poor as they were they made an offering of sixty-five dollars-an average of about thirty cents for each attending native Ohristian !
The subsequent history of New Zealand was one of large and frequent outpourings of the Spirit. They sought to water others and were watered themselves. Hundreds were converted, new churches were organized, and new buildings erected in all peopled districts; native young men were trained and sent forth as evangelists, and the isles resounded with praise to God!
We have designed only to give the early history of the New Zealand missions; but in 1860 the Wesleyan Ohurch numbered 5,000, with 200 Sunday-schools, where 7~000 children were taught. Over 12,000 were regular attendants at worship. About one generation's life time, thirtythree years, had been spent by the Wesleyans in securing such results. No Ohristian land can present any parallel in the same space of time. Even skeptics stand in mute astonishment at the results wrought by Ohristian missions, constrained with Mr. Hume to acknowledge that these are things which their infidel philosophy cannot explain in the 'Christian life.
Mr. Darwin was not regarded as a Ohristian, but he had the greatest respect for good in Ohristianity, and was great enough to acknowledge it. This is the way in which he answered some shallow critics of foreign missionaries: "They forget or will not remember that human sacrifice and the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a consequence of that system; bloody wars, where the conquerors spared neither women nor children-that all these thing-s have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is a base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far."
What a fulfilment of prophecy! "The isles afar off that have not heard my fame neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the gentiles! "
EGYPT SMITTEN AND HEALED.
By ORAS. S. ROBINSON, D.D., NEW YORK.
[The Rev. Chas. S. Robinson, D.D., of this city, recently delivered a course of Sunday evening lectures to his people on Egypt, which attracted wide attention and were received with marked interest. Few persons have studied the subject more closely, or are better prepared to discourse or write upon it than he. Egypt figures prominently in the sacred writings, as well as in profane history. Egypt occupies a conspicuous place in prophecy. Egypt has indeed been" smitten" of the Lord as scarcely any other land has been; but Dr. Robinson brings out the particular prophecies which relate to her splendid future, and weaves into his familiar but finished lectures not a little of history, incidents of travel, and matters of missionary interest. These lectures have not been published, and we have arranged with him to give those bearing on the scope of this REVIEw-about six of them-in consecutive numbers. Our readers, we are confident, will be profited by them.-EDs.] The Persians have this proverb: "God's club makes no noise; when it strikes there is no cure for the blow." This is no Christian sentiment; it is heathen and hopeless. God does sometimes smite, but never with a club. His rule of dealing with his creatures he announces: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a . moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer."
So well known to spiritual believers is this fashion of his discipline that no one is surprised by the declaration contained in that passage concerning Egypt, which is familiar to all students of Isaiah's prophecies-the predictions and the history combined as they must be: "The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof. And the Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it : and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them." Egypt is to have a time of sorrow and smiting, so the prophet declares in this verse, but that is to be succeeded by the outpouring of blessing, and a new glory is coming upon the land. Has this in any measure become true? Certainly the discipline commenced years and years ago.
For one thing, the national integrity is vanishing. Oppressions are killing the soil and the people. Every traveler sees this the moment he becomes domesticated in anyone of the cities and looks about. Two visits, with five seasons between them, make manifest great changes which have occurred in the meantime. True oriental scenes can never be found now outside of Constantinople, or even distant Persia.
The experiences of our first day in Cairo were all so novel that my memory is hardly firm enough to range them in order here. I cannot give a connected description. of them. Grim and shadowy do all eastern outlines of things appear. Yet th~re is a decided sense of familiarity with the objects, and acquaintance with the people, which one feels he has carried over from his reminiscences of text-books in his childhood at school. You remember the pictures in the earliest geographies you ever studied, and here they are suddenly come out into reality and fact. The Nile river has erected banks for itself on either side; its level lies higher under the current than the district it runs through, .after each annual overflow; thus it rolls lazily along, muddy and solemn, pretty much as a canal might be expected to run, if at any time a freshet should render it excitable or antic. The edges of the embankment are of a dirty brown color, without any vegetation to speak of or even verdure upon their ridges. Bare and unattractive as these appear to a tourist, they are, nevertheless, in the absence of hills and forests, the only background for one entering a settled precinct, against which afar off shine the graceful minarets and towers of the city.
The train paused at the station, and immediately on alighting we seemed to be in a world of fantasy. The oddest and most picturesquely bewildering of the sights was the train itself-especially the third-class cars. These were crowded to suffocation with the aborigines belonging to the region, in all their motley costumes. The sides of the rather rough and box-like enclosures are high and close, and hence the small windows are placed on the level of the passengers' heads; thus a row of turbans alone appeared as the inmates sat while we tried to become acquainted with them from the platform. It looked like a collection of heads without shoulders, really, head-dresses without visible heads. And these were of hues so positively innumerable and of so amazingly brilliant and flaring display, as the colors of red, crimson, white, yel- low, and green, shook in the sunshine, and mingled with each other, that the entire thing seemed to me more like a crate, a gardener's market-wagon, or an animate conservatory of poppies and tulips on its travels, than like anything else my western eyes ever admired.
As we took our way to the hotel, the scene grew wilder still. A winding course with mysterious turnings carried us along thoroughfares narrow, crowded and offensive, filled with men and women gazing vacantly at the new-comers. One would imagine the inhabitants to be on a masquerade; for the habiliments are so showy, so gaudy in bold contrasts of dye, that it strikes one- as being impossible that he sees the living people in their ordinary dresses. Many of the females studi- ously conceal their faces; it was according to the ancient regime of modesty that all should do so; but this, I am prepared to say, is just an affectation now; the fear or shame of exposure hardly exists. For ladies of rank and fashion use only white gauze of the most preposter- ously transparent gossamer, which pretends to hide their features, but which, as they are very well aware, only sets-them off more finely, if one chooses to invoke their attention with an admiring stare. And the common women employ black muslin, which they twist most uncom- fortably across their countenances, but take any occasion comfortably to drop.
It is said by those who have been resident in the city that many of the customs are yielding more and more every year to the demands of the French, the Italians and the English, who frequent the place. An interesting account has just been published by an American mission- 11 ary: "Where ten years ago you saw one European costume you to-day see a hundred. Formerly, if a man heard another speak in a foreign tongue in Cairo, that tongue would be French; to-day it is English. In every street signs attract your attention to British goods, whether , dry' or 'wet.' I am sad to find so many bar-rooms; but I must say that I have seen but one intoxicated soldier among those thousands who have passed before my eyes in five weeks. Every afternoon, in Ismail Pasha's day, I saw chariots filled with the white-veiled ladies of the Khedival harem, and such vehicles were preceded by the swift-footed, picturesque-looking syces or heralds. To-day you might see English ladies driving in their pony phaetons, or riding out with their husbands, brothers, or friends, as quietly as if they were at Brighton or Saint Leonard's-by-the-sea." It is thus that the national integrity, the whole fabric of Egyptian individuality as a people, is yielding to outside pressure at every point, and ere long the oriental characteristics ' will disappear. The likelihood now is that a permanent protectorate, so-called, but in reality a constant absorbent force of occupation will be established; if so, the mastery of some European governments must greatly increase.
But note besides this disintegration of the nation by the arriving of new forces of disruption from without, there is also the unfortunate scourge of the climate, which has just begun to manifest changes most unexpected and peculiar. For ages those mummies, lately given to the world in the cave at Deir-el-Bahari, were preserved because the rains did not fall on the rocks beneath which they lay. Egypt was almost literally a land without showers. Now the skies have begun to arouse fears to which the Egyptian world has been an utter stranger. A wide illustration might be offered just here, but it serves my present purpose better to quote in full what the public prints are saying in a warning letter addressed to such as are seeking the Nile for health in the winter season. Some information may prove very valuable to all.
Under the sanction of high medical authority it is said that the prevalence of typhoid and other fQrms of malarial fever at Cairo within the last few years tends to complete the ruin. of the reputation of the Egyptian capital as a winter resort for invalids. The climate has been undergoing extensive and disadvantageous changes. Whereas, until 1878 at least, such a thing as rain was entirely unknown in that city, there is nowadays one perpetual and almost tropical downpour, commencing in November and lasting until March. Not only this, but two years ago there was actually a snowfall at Suez, on the shores of the Red Sea itself, which astounded and frightened the natives like a scourge.
Archooologists have reported that nowhere among the pictures already" copied in the illustrated volumes has there ever been found anything like an umbrella or portable shelter from showers, nor is any open gutter or eave-trough to be noticed in the ruins of ancient buildings. Evidently there was no expectation of rain, nOr any protection from it, in the plans of the architects of those olden times.
The atmospheric phenomena, which are often attributed to the existence of the Suez Canal, and of the Sweet Water Canal, are naturally causing a complete revolution in the construction of dwellings and the mode of life. The entire roofs have had to be rendered water-tight, as they are in the rest of the world. Fireplaces and stoves have already begun to make their appearance in the rooms, instead of the old-time open braziers. Even the unfortunate fellaheen are on the lookout for a material capable of resisting the weather better than the dried mud it has been hitherto traditional to use in putting up their pitiful huts.
Nor is this the worst; a much more serious result is found in an unmistakable increase of the unhealthiness of the larger towns. Cairo, as it now exists, is builded on the ruins of a dozen defunct cities, an older, and then an older town, belonging to the remote past, lying deeply sepulchred beneath the cellars and the streets. The present buildings are perched upon the summit of a sort of plateau, formed by some sixty feet of detritus of all kinds, and all unwholesome, as might be imagined. Potsherds, wicker-work cinders, scraps of metal, bits of tile, and no man can conjecture what else besides, constitute the substrata that underlie the city. And the roadways appear never to have had a sewer or a gutter for deliverance from the reek of men and beasts for ages.
As long as there was no regular fall of rain, no ill efi'eets had to be apprehended. The annual inundations of the Nile did not come up so high as the elevated towns. The waters were poured only on the depressed and arable plains. But now the heavy rain which drops day after day during the winter months eventually soaks through the terrible mass, and in fact renders it (so it is declared) nothing more nor less than a heap of wet garbage. Hence, in the warm nights, a dense mistiness of gray fog may be observed rising up from the ground, enveloping the city-this city, to which invalids are strangely sent for health!
Moreover, the moisture in conjunction with the detritus produces a sort of chemical liquor and acid vapor which saps and literally eats away the fouudations of the old buildings. In a few years the beautiful tombs of the Caliphs and Mamelukes, with all their delicate tracery and emblems of the most glorious period of Saracenie art, will have disappeared. It was high time for the wonderful providence of God now to interpose, and gather the inscriptions and the mummies for his use.
Thus is the Lord smiting Egypt; but he is going to heal Egypt in the better days to come. Signs of his turning are already to be found in thll>t desolate lll>nd ; they will come under our consideration next.
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES. By REV. CHAS. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER. MASS.
M. COILLARD, of the French Protestant Mission in South Africa, writes of the work in Africa: " Now at· never is the time for vigorous and sus- tained action. Let us be on our guard against a spasmodic zeal, subject to all the mutations of the passing caprice, as novelty may suggest. For you who give and pray, as well as for us who are at the breach, the work which is confided to us is eminently a work of patience, of perseverance and of faith j let us be ready to carry it forward through dangers however serious, disap- pointments however keen, as well as through sacrifices ho~evercostly. Let us recoil before nothing. The disasters of Dr. Holub's expedition, the mar- tyrdom of Bishop Hannington, that of a Wesleyan missionary and his wife on the west coast, the massacre of Count Porro and of M. and Madame Bar- ral, and other similar facts, clearly apprise us that it is not with impunity . that science, civilization and Christianity attack the Dark Continent, one of the principal fortresses of Satan." ___ M. COILLARD, who has gone to establish a mission on the Zambesi, writes: "The Zambesians do not know how to speak in public, nor to discuss affairs with the decorum of the Bassoutos j they love pleasantry, and among them no'One is safe from the stinging darts of mockery and sarcasm. It is hard to understand how people of so volatile a disposition can be so cruel. Alas! we cannot so much as take a walk without stumbling over some shattered skull, or some caleined fragments of human bones. Leivanika" [the king] "I'jhowed us the remnants of the fuel which but a little while since, only ten paces from here, had served to burn some sorcerers. Verily,' the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.' "
IN the Dan8k Mi88ions-Blad for April, Missionary Kofoed, of Southern India, writes: " I have often wondered that many at home suppose that these souls, gathered in from the lies and excesses of heathenism, are to be better Christians than people at home, reared in an atmosphere of civiliza- tion and domestic love, with good examples before them. No, this is not to be looked for j the higher fruits will only come with future generations. Even when baptized and weaned from devil worship, and all their other ear- lier follies of heathenism, yet their families, their friends and their fellow- laborers are so infinitely ignorant and degraded that we may be well content if, from one year to another, we are conscious of a step or two of moral advancement."
NOTWITHSTANDING the intense Protestantism of Denmark it appears that some Danish Christians grudge missionaries the joys of a family. Herr Kofoed writes: "Everything in this world must accommodate itself to facts. The notion of unmarried missionaries would never go down among the MalayaIee, for among them no man, be he white 01' black, dare speak to a woman, be she young or old, unless he is a married man."
THE Dansk Mi8sion8-Blad for April fills ten pages with a biographical sketch of Royal Gould Wilder. In it Denmark the land of sailors, and America, the land of mighty wielders of the axe, are thus incidentally con- trasted: "He who does not know how to pray should go to sea," says the proverb. The experience of Royal Wilder might have taught him to say, "He who does not know how to pray, should go into the woods;" for it was in the woods that he learned the art of praying.
THE Blad has lately given a statement of the missionary contributions of various countries proportionately to population and wealth. Denmark stands very low, but it mentions one" happy exception." This is the little town of Soeby, in upper Jutland, a place of about 1,550 inhabitants. In the Epiphany collection for foreign missions the people contributed in 1883, 181 crowns; in 1884, 384 crowns: in 1885, 452 crowns; in 1886, 571 crowns; in 1887, 81J2 crowns; and at the Epiphany offering for 1888, 1,370 crowns; besides many and liberal gifts on other occasions. The amounts are modest, answering to the probable wealth of the place, the last being $367.16. But the rapid growth shows how the cause has taken hold of hearts.
HERR JENSEN, writing in the Blad about hiring a house, incidentally mentions one of the thousand ways in which an influence radiates from a mission upon. heathenism: "The landlord was glad to secure a European family as tenants. As I am also a missionary, he knew that he should have no trouble about the regular receipt of his rent."
THE mild summer climate and many quiet beauties of Denmal'k make the change from that to the terrible heat of Southern India a self-denial greater than we, accustomed to fiercer extremes than our kinsmen of the Olde:;t England, can altogether appreciate, though for all of us it would be sufficiently felt. I have made the following extract from Mr. Jensen's letter or considerable length, as giving us an insight into the unappeasable longing with which those who go from such a home to the torrid fierceness of Lower Hindustan have to contend: ,. Though only May, we have it in the house night and day, 86°. Our little son, four years old, will often throw himself despairingly on the floor, exclaiming, '0 mother, this country is too warm, too warm; can't we go into the great ship again and sail home to Denmark?' In the morning we find no application of our Danish hymn, 'Renewed in strength by nightly rest.' The power of the hot, scorching wind is the same day and night. The water-caraffe is our constant resort. Yet we are thankfulfor general health. But we cannot help thinking how, when nature is the most withering upon us, she is opening into her fullest loveliness in Denmark. This very day letters were received from home, and all spoke of the spring, of the beeches that were ready to leave out, of wood anemones and violets, of gardens filled with Easter lilies, crocuses, hyacinths, and all the other delicate and gracious flowers which are now covering the Danish land. Nor did the letters merely speak of them; for in one there were violets, in another tender beech leaves, blue and white violets. We are fresh from seeing all this; how living it all becomes on the receipt of such letters. Involuntarily we exclaim: , The Pentecostal feast does natnre keep In robes of flowery magnificence.'
Ah I how lovely is Denmark I "
THE Missions-Blad, in answer to the contemptuous disparagement of mIssions which seems to be much more common in Denmark than it now is with us, though common enough here, subjoins: "But after all, we must not make out that worldly men are wholly in the wrong. 2,000,000 converted heathen I how few compared with 1,000,000,000 unconverted heathen! 2,700 missionaries for this thousand millions, how few! It is as if five clergymen set out to Christianize our Denmark. 27,000,000 crowns annually, how little, when Germany alone, every year, exports some 15,000,000 crowns' worth of brandy and powder to Africa. Ofithese 27,000,000, England alone gives 18,000,000. America, Germany, Holland, France, and our Scandinavia give the rest, and how little after all! And even England's missionary munificence is less than she spends in three days for wine, ale and brandy. And yet let us not lift ourselves up against her. The missionary contributions from our native country amount at most to $21,440, two-thirds of what we spend in one day for intoxicating drinks."
THE comparison of various countries as to their contributions of money and men to the foreign missionary work, published in the Blad, is as follows: Missionaries (male and female) to every 100,000 of the population: England, 48/ 10 ; France, 4'/,., Switzerland, 2"/10; the Netherlands, 2'/10; Germany, 18/ 10 ; Norway and North America, 1'/10; Sweden,~8/,o; Denmark, 6/10' This estimate includeil, we see, both Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries, of which France furnishes the most and the best.
Money, contributed pel' head of the whole population: England, 60 ore; France, 39; Switzerland, 19; the Netherlands, 179/ 10 ; North America, 15'/10; The ore is a money Norway, 9'/10; Germany, 9; Denmark, 4; Sweden, 19 10, / of account, worth 0.268 of a cent. We must remember that most of the work of church-building IS regarded in Burope as complete, and that of our vast home missionary work at the West they have nothing. The exactness of this estimate it is difficult to test completely.
THREE hundred years ago some Roman Catholic missionaries made a flying visit to the Caroline Islands. On the strength of this the" Missionsblaetter" (quoted in the Allgemeine Missionszeitschrijt) makes the following statement: "No other nation than the Spanish has brought the light of the gospel to the Caroline Islands, and what we know of the natives and their ways is derived only from the 'Catholic'missionaries." This is putting a good front upon it. But the conclusion is still more astounding: "It is, therefore, evident that the right of Spain is beyond dispute." The writer goes on to declare that of all rights to the sovereignty of a barbarous country none can be compared in cogency with the right inuring from having been the first to send the gospel to them. Of course, then, since Rome first sent the gospel to England, not only does the spiritual, but the immediate and plenary temporal sovereignty over England, and over America, as descended from her, appertain to the Pope. No doubt this course of reasoning would be quite satisfactory at Rome. The Zeitschrijt pertinently inquires; to what Roman Catholic nation Rome attributes the sovereignty of China, and to what one the sovereignty of Japan. Or are these two nations exempted as not being barbarous? One protest must be lodged before Leo XIII. is installed in Windsor Castle, namely, that the archiepiscopal province of York was converted by the Irish, and ought, therefore, to be governed from Dublin, not from Rome, which two powers at present seem not quite coincident.
The Zeitschrijt concludes its comments on this astounding doctrine thus: , "In brief: it is a most flagrant outrage against Christian Missions, aD;d against the peoples, among whom they are carried on, to deduce from the diffusion of the gospel a 'right' to the assumption of colonial sovereignty. This is in a measure intelligible as done by politicians; but it is doubly, nay, tenfold, to be deplored, when done by the man before whom the jubilee rites of apotheosis have burned incense as the' light from heaven,' as the 'kingly highpriest of mankind.' " MR. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON has disparaged Christian missions as being, from his point of view. merely an endeavor "to render the condition of barbarians a little more comfortable." It is true that his point of view would never have evoked foreign missions. Yet even from his point of view it seems to be an exaggerated disparagement which so describes, for instance, the Zenana mission. This is one of the thousap.d cruelties which it is gradually helping to abolish. "A female missionary physician is summoned to a Zenana patient down with the smallpox. The young woman lay in a little chamber into which no ray of light and no breath of air could penetrate. It was in the very middle of the hot season in Upper India, and yet there stood a dish with burning wood coals right under the bed of the patient, who lay in a burning fever, tormented with devouring thirst! But not a drop of water had anyone been allowed to give her. She died, and her clothes were -given to her attendant, a woman of lower caste, who took them home. At once the disease was propagated throughout this part of the city, where it raged fatally for weeks."
IN South Africa there is among the whites a great deal of contemptuous hatred of the Caffirs, and disposition to believe them incapable of either intellectual or moral improvement. Various travelers take occasion of this to discredit the missionary work. In answer to such opinions Mr. Charles Brownlee, who lately, on retiring from the office of Minister for the Aborigines, was granted by the Cape Parliament his whole salary as retiring pension, entirely without precedent, as a mark of esteem, says: "I once asked a heathen who complained that some goats of his were concealed in a mission station by the Christian natives, whether in fifty years he, a great man and privy cOUnCillOl", had ever known a Christian Caffir convicted of theft. He owned he had not. Had he ever known cattle-tracks traced to a mission station?" No." That is saying a good deal for a people among whom cattle-stealing seems to be the principal crime. Again:" In one of the wars 3,000 Christian militia-men camped for two years on Brownlee's station, and during this whole time it was never needful to station a single policeman there." Particular umbrage is taken that the Goverment makes grants to the mission academy of Lovedale. It is declared that the scholars, once dismissed, forthwith revert to heathenism, grease and red ochre. Mr. Brownlee says: "Baron von Hubner makes much of it that out of 2,058 scholars 15 are lmown to have reverted to heathenism. Fifteen I" "The question, says he, has been proposed: Where are the young people trained in Lovedale, and what is now their occupation? Again I refer to 'Lovedale past and present' from which I find that four have gone as missionaries to Livingstonia, of whom two have died. We find them str€wn over Natal to the farthest 'end of the Transvaal Republic, in Mashona, Bechuana, Basuto and PondoJand, and over the whole of the Cape Colony, employed as pastors, evangelists, teachers, mechanics, as policemen, justices, interpreters and clerks in the service of the Government, and of merchants and lawyers, while the greater part stay at home honestly earning their living. The most of them-excepting the fifteen returned to heathenism-exercise a wholesome influence among their countrymen, requiting the Government double and treble for the support which it has contributed out of the public funds toward their instruction."
THE Journat des Missions Evangeliques for April reports a. remarkable awakening among the pagans in the district of Thaba-Bossiore, in the Bassuto country. At the main station 110 have lately been en-
THE ADVANCE GUARD OF MISSIONS
rolled as catechumens, making the full number 210. At an out station 15 have been enrolled. At Morija 373 have been enrolled during 1887. Seven hundred at Morija have been enrolled as "desiring conversion," but not yet admitted as. catechumens. The remark is made that the churches as yet remain strangely cold, compared with the rising fervor outside. M. Jacotiet says: "Most of the converts received by me showed an .individual physiognomy of conversion, which, as all my colleagues will assure you, is by no means the most usual fact." One old woman baptized was over a hundred. At Morija "we had," says M. Mabille, "a communion service, peaceable and solemn, in the open air. Nearly or quite 600 persons approached the Lord's table."
"But all is not beautiful and satisfying. In the midst of our joys we have had the deep sorrow of learning of the shameful fall of one of our evangelists not yet a year in the service. Here, as of old, there is no lack of Pagan enemies of the Lord to blaspheme."
THE ADVANCE. GUARD OF MISSIONS.
By JOSEPH COOK.
"BECAUSE I do not believe in a Probation for men after death, therefore do I believe in sending the Gospel to all men before death I" Like a pillar of fire should we be guided by that definitive declaration that we shall be judged" according to the deeds done in the body." We know nothing about another opportunity for men in an "intermediate state," therefore will we send missionaries to them in our present state. In Pagan, as in Christian lands, now and always, our peace with God depends upon our similarity to God, hating what he hates, loving what he loves, and, everywhere and always, is there a deadly dissimilarity to God; and a dissimilarity which tends to permanence of character. Over all the world is it equally true of every man and woman that to be happy there must be salvation from that sin which is true, alas, of everyone. If I possess a Christ who alone can save from sin, and from the inevitable, invariable consequence of sin, my responsibility toward other men is simply immeasurable. Science teaches this. Nature prompts to it. Common sense ratifies it. Three hundred millions of women hold the Buddhist belief, as it is held of them, that they will reappear on earth after death as bugs and all manner of vermin; unless, indeed, they are extraordinarily good, in which case they will be born again, this time as men. The money we give to send the Gospel to these, our yearly contributions to missions, will not pay the liquor bills of the United States for three days; will not pay for the spirits drunk in the British Islands during two days I Protestants give ten millions of dollars annually to evangelize the heathen. What is ten millions in comparison to what we could do? Some one has said that this nineteenth century will seem to those coming after us an amusing century, and nothing in it will amuse our posterity more than our absurd conceit that we are doing great things for the world. It is because we have so slight a conception of the visible need of the heathen. Out of the sixty-three millions of Bengal, ten millions so utterly depend upon the current harvest that for it to fail is for them to perish; thirteen millions more do not know, except while the mangoes are ripe, what it is, the year around, to have a full stomach. In China sixty dollars a year is wealth beyond the reach of myriads. In India many a million of men has to support life, each man on less than *15 a year, multitudes of widows supporting existence on a dollar a month.
WHAT IS SUCCESS?
Their bodily poverty is but a type of their spiritual penury. If they live as upon the extreme edge in temporal, how much more in spiritual things! The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is decidedly in the lead of every other missionary association. In this, for instance, that they require their mission churches to be self-sustaining, laying it down as law that every convert should give a tenth of his income to the Lord, in which they differ from other boards. If they are charged at home with being extravagant of expenditure, everywhere in heathendom the reproach is that they are too close-fisted. The missionaries of other boards are rich in comparison to theirs, have better accommodations for guests, larger, handsomer, better adapted church buildings and school-houses. Bombay is the second most populous city in the British dominions, and at a large gathering there of missionaries it was voted, seven out of ten, that the policy of the A. B. C. F. M. in devolving the churches upon native support, is right; and everywhere in my travels around the globe I found this to be the conviction of native converts themselves-a converted Brahmin urging this view with great force upon the Bombay people. There is this difference, that Christianity is being embraced by people of the middle classes in Japan, while in China and India its suocesses are rather with the lower classes, as was true of the world at large when the gospel was first preached. There is not now one ordained missionary for a million heathen; surely there should be atleast one for every fifty thousand. Remember that the population of the world is increasing at a more rapid rate than the increase of missionary effort. It oug~t to be the law of every Christian in the world: "For every five dollars I expend upon myself I will give one dollar to the spread of the gospel." Because, bear in mind if we send the heathen the gospel, we are sending them also an English, German, American Infidelity. which is more bitterly hostile to Christ than is heathenism. What with hereditary and imported belief there, it is essential we should send as missionaries our ablest men. The longer we delay, the harder the work to be done. The more penurious we are now, the heavier will oe our expenses in Pagan lands hereafter. In the last lines written by Longfellow he expresses this sentiment: "The day is breaking everywhere, and God deliver us from dawdling at the dawn of such a day!"
WHAT IS SUCCESS?
SINCE writing the brief article on George Bowen for the June number of this REVIEW, I have been made acquainted with his own thoughts in regard to his lack of direct success in winning souls, during his long missionary ministry. It was a great sorrow to him. It weighed heavily upon his heaq all through his life in India. In a letter written not long before his death and shortly after the fall which fractured his thigh, alluding to this apparent failure, he said: "Compared to the great trial which has followed me for forty years, this physical disability is a very small thing to bear."
This is certainly suggestive. The Lord measures success in a different way from man. The greatest of the prophets threw himself under the juniper tree, bewailing the utter failure of his life, and requesting for himself only that he might die. How pathetic was the career of Jeremiah. When a mere youth called to confront the desperate depravity of a whole generation, king, priest and people against him, with never a ray of hope thrown upon the future of his ministry. Dying in Egypt without a convert! Yet the influence of these two old heroes will never die out of the world. Many
MISSIONS FOR MILLIONS
a man is never so influential as after he is dead; dying prematurely, perhaps, like Abel, but like him, though dead, still speaking.
Foreign missions afford many illustrations of such ways of God. Samuel J. Mills was buried in the ocean when his work for the heathen was only in anticipation. Harriett Newell, at nineteen years of age, died when her lips had hardly been taught a heathen syllable. Yet their brief lives are still great living forces in the work of foreign missions. David Brainerd's brief and marvelous work among the Indians won perhaps seventy heathen souls to Christ. Of the subsequent lives of these converted Indians, or their de- scendants, who can speak? But the short life of Brainerd is among the richest treasures of the Church. When he was dead he became at once a greater power than when he was alive. So he continues to be, and so he will be so long as his memoirs live in missionary annals. Good and great men and women are usually greater powers after dea.th than during life. They wait for the last of earth before the men of the earth know how great and good they were; then they begin really to live.
Among such as these, undoubtedly, Bowen will have his place. Filled with the Holy Spirit, dwelling in the mount with God, while yet among men, exerting a widening influence for Christ and holiness through India, his name will not die out of mission records; and he, too, will henceforth be greater after death than he was during life.
MADISON, N. J. ROBERT AIKMAN.
MISSIONS FOR MILLIONS.* By REV. IRA G. Ross, NEW YORK.
Air-" Marching Thruugh Georgia," arranged.
1. HARK, the sound of bugle calls from Zion's mission bands, Raise a song triumphantly o'er earth's sin-darkened lands; Legions now are speeding forth to do their Lord's commands, Planting the missions for millions. CHORUS. Hosanna! Hosanna ! We'll bring the jubilee! Hosanna! Hosanna! The Lord hath made us free! So we'll sing redemption songs o'er ev'ry land and sea, Planting the missions for millions.
2. See the gleaming signals are now flashing from on high, Watch the fiery pillar's light appearing in the sky; Forward march with fearless mien though hosts of Hell defy, Planting the missions for millions.
3. Rally at the battle cry, ye soldiers of our King, Let each church her quota full of men and money bring; Deeds of love and courage high in endless chorus sing, Planting the missions for millions.
4. Doors of hermit nations now unhinged are tumbling fast, Towering wall and buttress fall at blare of trumpet blast; Vain is heathen rage or boast, we'll crown our King at last, Planting the missions for millions.
5. Quick! the crisis-hour has come: then forward all the line, Dare not flinch or falter now, a failure would be crime; Jeweled crowns for victors wait that shall the stars outshine, Planting the missions for millions.
* Missionary Song Leaflet No.1. Copyrighted by Funk & Wagnalls.
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK
H.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK.
Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian at NewcastIe-on-Tyne, 1888, shows Ohurch of England.. progress. The mission of this church holds a prominent, place among the THE work of this Society is carried various missionary bodies in China. on in China and India. The report for 1887, presented to the Synod STATISTICS OF THE MISSION FOR THE YEAR 1887.
,; '.". ~…., .~….'S~co…" ~…. ,; ~ C;; ~~l .; .. ….';"="l .1l aa","Q", 8 ,; CI A'" .S '8 .S :'"."a… g~ ,Q …;.. A'" ,:'Q.'a"" i'."", '" B ,~Q" aa" '""''i""""il' s.~~ 1sol O'"J ~ '".'".".. ,Q ~ CENTEBS. .., "g ~~ 0 r"n ~ "'"" ~.; ".: ~'" ·'s" ,Q !3 ",,,, OJ .."s ~ "" "at: ,Q~ ·!"a"a..:0.I..cw.0..o… '."… -$a~':"""a '" '"~ .~.p:.s .~ .s 0 s~ .''..""0.. '; 0" 0"" ~ C) Eo< 0 ~ ~","Q'.''~' ~ ~ ~"" 0 …. ~.~ 0 :=;! 0 Eo< – — – – – – — — — Amoy …………………… 822 56 15 21 3 5 5 14 893 69 587 36 1,516 – Swatow…………………. 942 54 7 2 8 31 4 962 47 371 80 1,413 Hak·ka …………………. 211 16 3 2 2 6 2 1 225 12 86 36 347 – Formosa· ………………. 1,317 79 – 1 11 27 33 1,348 87 937 119 2,404 – Singapore ………………. 105 9 – 20 4 7 19 100 7 43 7 150 – — — – – – – — — — Totals ………………. 3,397 214 25 44 18 50 78 33 3,528 222 2,024 278 5,830 .. * In revIsmg the Formosa r.olls, a mIstake has been discovered in the statistics for 1887 and for Bome previous years, and conseqnently there is a discrepancy between the number returned then and now. JrceiPts of the year from all source~ …………………………………………… £13,769 17 4 xpenses.. .. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. .. .. . .. . .. . . .. .. .. • .. .. • .. ………. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. …. 13,473 19 2 B~ance in bank.. . .. .. .. .. .. .. • .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. • .. .. .. … …………………… £295 18 2 WOMEN'S MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
JrceiPta for 1887………………………………………………………………. £2,777142 xpenses.. • .. .. .. .. . .. .. . . .. . . • . .. .. • . . . • . …. .. .. .. .. . .. .. . .. .. .. .. . . .. • … .. ……. … 2,009 18 1 Baptist Missionary Society (English), support – these and kindred facts surely give promise and pledge of THE ninety-sixth annual report, far wider conquest, and of the combearing date May 1, 1888, furnishes ing of that glad time when the evidence that this venerable society Saviour shall subdue all things unto is prosecuting its great work with himself, and the kingdoms of this ever-increasing zeal and vigor. Its world shall become the kingdoms of missions are planted in almost every our God and of his Christ." part of the broad mission field. The Committee report" continuous pro- "The balance sheet for the year gress, a larger number of conversions just closed exhibits a debt of £5,859 than for many years past, a wide- 9s. 7d. It is, however, matter for spread spirit of inquiry, a growing thankfulness that this deficiency is desire for copies of the Scriptures not due to any falling off in receipts, and Christian books, and the develop- but to a considerable increase of exment of the native Christian church penditure. The total ordinary rein aggressive earnestness and self- ceipts for the year just closed show an increase of £2,938 5s. Sd. upon Ba.ptist Sta.te Oonvention of North Oarothose of the year previous, the actual lina. figures being: THEFifty~seventh Annual Meeting 1887-8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . … £61,341 5 1 was held in Durham, N. C., Nov. 16- 1886-7…………… …….. 58,402 19 5 20, 1887. The report was highly en- couraging. Increase 1887-8………. £2,988 5 8 FOREIGN MISSIONS. "In addition to this increase of £2,938 5s. 8d., £2,385 2s. 8d. has been We give the following summary: contributed for the extinction of the debt of 1886-7. Brazil-Missiouaries (native and foreign), 14; "The contributions for general churches and stations, 6; baptisms, 30; mempurposes, as compared with the year before, show an advance of £863 bers,I75. ' 9s. lld., the figures being: Mexico-Missionaries, 17; churches and sta- 1887-8………………… '" £43,625 18 1 tions, 21 ; baptisms, 100 ; members, 350; contri- – – – – – – 1886-7.. . . … .. .. . . .. . . .. . .. •.. 42,762 6 2 butions, $823. Increase 1887-8…. . . .. . . £863 11 11 Italy-Missionaries, 15 ; churches and stations, " The special gifts for the Congo Mission also exhibit an increase of 14; members, 306; baptisms, 26. £9884s. 7d., and the Calcutta Press profits and gain on exchange are also Mrica-Missionaries, 16; baptisms, 26 ; memin advance of . the year before by £1,08419s. 4d. bers, 138.
"While, however, the receipts have China-Missionaries, 54; churches and stakept in advance, the expenditure exhibits a much larger increase, the tions, 24; baptisms, 46; members, 677; COnfigures being: tributions, $699; besides a chapel built at 1887-8…………………… £67,208 14 8 1886-7…. ……. …………. 62,576 4 6 Shanghai by Deacon Wong, costing about $1,000.
Our Foreign Missionaries are 58; of whom 2{ are ministers and 34 ladies. The baptisms for one year were 238, and the contributions In mission fields, $3.012.61.
The receipts of the Foreign Mission Board were 187,830.53, the largest in its history. Of this amount North Carolina contributed $7,942.- 34. The amount contributed in this Convention during the year ending November 10, 1887, is $6,428.53.
Increase 1887-8………. £4,624 10 2 Wesleya.n Mission. in the Mysore Prov- mee. "The large deficiency is mainly due to the Congo Mission, the Forty – ninth report for the year amount charged to the account of 1887. 1886-7 having been only £5,820 8s. 3d., and for 1887-8 £9,955 9s. 5d.-an ap- " The past year has been distinctly parent increase of £4,135 Is. 2d.; one of encouragement. There has although as explained before, the been no great spasmodic outburst of real increase is only £2,192 Os. 5d., power, but there have been everythe balance in hand of the Congo where 'signs following.' In the re- Fire Fu.od(£1,943 Os. 9d.) having been ports of the various departments we credited to the previous year's ac- find reason for praise and hope. To count, as fully set forth in the bal- the country generally the year has ance sheet for 1886-7. brought prosperity. The rains were ample and timely; the crops have "With regard to the debt of been sufficient; no severe epidemic £5,859 5s. 7d., the Committee are has visited us, and the people have thankful to report that they have been comfortable. and contented. received intimation of certain lega- This state of things has found its pacies which, by the special direction rallel in the Mission. Our workers of the legators, are not to be added have, almost without exception, been to the Legacy Reserve Fund, but de- able to sustain thsir industry uninvoted to expenditure, which will terrupted; our members have been probably be sufficient to extinguish generally freed from pressinganxiety, the present burden." and in God's mercy all outward circumstances have been fairly favor- NOTE.-In this account are not included the able to the progress of our work." salaries of the missionaries, as these are paid directly to them by the treasurer of the Execu- In connection with the English churches in tive Committee. Bangalore, there has been gracious spiritual quickening aud accessions. Sixty-nine mem- Expenditnres in America, October 18, 1886 to bers were added to the nativechurches making August 26, 1887: 844 in all. There has been great advance finan- Drafts (salaries of missionaries). ….. $4,273 33 cially. English schools are growing in importance and influence. The need of additional " (general expenses).. . . .•. . . .. . . . 3,900 00 fnnds is keenly felt. Interest on loan…………………. 116 00 Mrs. L. V. Artman, on account. . •. . . . 50 00 TA"BULAB. VIEW OF MISSIONS IN THIS Salary of agent. . . . . . . ••. . •••. . .. . . . . . 75 00 Three copies of Missionary Review DISTRICT. Number of cbapels, 19; number of other and Mission Zeitschrijt ……… . 1410 preaching places, 21 ; catechists, 33; day-school Printing Cent Collection Books . …..•. 12 00 teachers, 327 ; Sabbath-school teachers, 91 ; lo- Type for printing office in India……• 2400 cal preachers, 39; number of full church mem- The Artman Memorial. ………….. . 29000 bers, 990; on probation, 101; number of Sab- Error …………………………. . 3780 bath-schools, 26 ; number of scholars, 982; number of day-schools, 117; number of scholars, Total expenditures. . . . . •. . . . . . . .. $8,792 23 7,929; total number. deducting those who at- Leaving a pretty heavy indebtedness. tend both Sabbath and week-day schools, 8,038; attendants on public worship, 2,983. Oounoil of the United Missions in Japan. Total amount of receipts, 27,819 reals. Eleventh annual report, presented Geueral Oounoil of the Evangelioal at the annual meeting, January 21, Lutheran Ohuroh, 1888 : Annual report at its meeting, Sep- CHURCH STA.TISTICS. tember 8, 1887 : Eight churches have been added to our list All our missionaries have been at work in the since the last report, making a total of fifty-eight field during the past year. churches connected with the United Church of Receipts in India from July I, 1886, Christ in Japan. During the year 1,688 adults and 199 children have been baptized. The total to June 80, 1887. . . . . . . . . . . •. •. . .. $4,903 23 church membership is 6,859. The contributions Total expenditures in India.. •. ••••••• 4,918 8l for Christian work amount to 18,553,832 yen, the equivalent of about $14,250 U. S. gold.
STATISTICAL TABLE.
e;. '" PBESBYTERIES !:l~ BAPTISMS IN MEMBERSHIP, ~ .; CZi!>il~• A>: AliD 18117. OCTOBER, 1887. Ol .; 'z" 0'" 11<"" ~ Ii! .; "… …,. .. CHUBClIES. IQ Ol 0<'lri' >:> p>.:>. ~'~" Z E< ~ E< <Xl:oIOl ~ ~ ~ '" "" ~ Oll'l fo1 A;~'" ~ ,~g c:i c:i c:i f9 -<l – 1 – – – – – – – – – – – —- — – SUMMABY.Ol:>1~-""'-l E< 0 .; S" :::I ~ II< ,.;l o – Z i~!l -~<l=0l <'l ,.;lO 0 E< ~'" 0-'" E-< ~ ~ IQE< >:> :01 ~O -:>1- ~ ~ 0 >:> 0 E-< 0 ~:>1 Z ,E-< Daiichi, To"kyo.. …. 21 2,882 704 77 781 1,491 1,089 371 2,951 9,115.385 12 2 5 Daini, 17 1,526 228 20 248 939 651 257 1,847 5,437.373 10 3 7 Chinzei. .••…… 7 449 80 18 98 223 180 132 535 523.590 4 1 7 8.4. 463 428 337 1.3. 3 898 1,286.314 205 297 439 189 628 2,191.170 Naniwa ………. 7 464 379 6- 2 5 Miyaga……….. S 331 297 – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – – 1199 Grand Totals .. 58 5,152 1,688 1,887 3,520 2,446 893 6,859 18,553.832 4834 8 29 AustraliaIl Wesleyan Missionary Sooiety. ers 2,659; local preachers 2,100; class leaders 3,761; full members 39,546; on trial 4,647 ; cate- The expenses of the Society for 1885 was £11,- chumens 11,888; communicants 20; deaths 1,156; 479 4s. 5d. Deficiency for the year, £593, 168. 1d. Sabbath-schools 1,584; Sabbath-school teachers Receipts for 1886, £11, 632 7s. 10d. Total expen- 2,812; scholars 44,840 ; day schools 1,887 ; scholditure, £12,,403 Os. 8d. Deficiency, £770 12s. lCd. ars 43,900; attendants on public worship 110,242. The deficiency in both years was paid out of the special grant fund. The work of the society is carried on in five districts: Samoa, Fiji, New SUMMABY OF GENERAL EETlffiNS. Britain, Chinese Mission in Victoria, Nnmber of churches 973; other preaching and Chinese Mission in New South places 432'1 missionaries 17; native ministers Wales. 62; catechists 66 ; teachers 1.079; school-teach- Bethlehem Hospital. station where missionaries can tarry and learn languages. Here they have 155 head We are indebted to Dr. George H. of horned cattle as mission property. (. Savage of London for his succinct Pungo Andongo is 39 miles farther on a· and valuable report as Medical Super- mountain elevation. 5. Malange is 60 miles intendent of Bethlehem Hospital. further along the same path. .. On each side There have been 560 cases treated the of this path is a continuous grave-yard 150 past year, and the number of in- miles long. The hundreds of thousands of mates at the close of 1887 was 246. slaves sold in Loanda for two hundred years There were 32 discharged improved trod this weary way amid tears and blood… and 139 recovered. Over thirty came as voluntary boarders, recognizing The objective point of this line of stations their peril on the borders of lunacy. is the Tushilange country some 1,200 miles Women are willing to sew, read and from the coast. It may be reached along paint, but men are not disposed to do Pogge and Weismann's route, and Dr. Summuch. There are 49 paying patients. mers, one of Bishop Taylor's missionaries, Heredity, anxiety and parturition has already arrived there. But it may also lead in causes. There are more be reached by going up the Congo river and unmarried than married, and the thence by the Kasai river. average a,ge of admission is 36. Most of the patients are of good education. Bishop Taylor started to reach the Tushi- Clerks and governesses form a large lange country by this Congo-Kasai routeand number. has established several stations on the Congo, and has a steam yacht in process of This hospital has a history of more transportation around Stanley Falls, for use than six centuries. Hogarth's "Rake's on the Upper Congo and Kasal. The Bishop Progress" and Shaksspeare's "King makes a very interesting statement of Afri- Lear" picture the condition of thfl can hospitality as bearing on Moslem propalunatics of Bedlam. An order of gandism, and which is equally available for monks, named "Star of Bethlehem," self-supporting Christian evangelism. He had care of the insane in olden time, says: and wore a star on their mantles as a badge. .. The king, chief or head man of each town, assisted by his wives, clears and sows Bishop William Taylor's Report. or plants a field each year for strangers. All Bishop Taylor made his Quadren- the products of that field are kept for strangers, except what may be used for the nial Report to the General Confer- chief'S head wife who has charge of it. When a stranger enters the town he goes ence of the Methodist Episcopal directly to the king, chief or head man and Church on May 12th. He says: shows himself and tells what he came for. If the king or head man is satisfied he replies, .. The productive iuterests of Liberia are 'I receive you.' Soon he will be shown into fairly prosperous. Within ten miles of Mon- one of the best houses in the town, to use as rovia, up St. Paul's River, there are ten his own indefinitely, and he not only gets his steam sugar-cane crushing mills, and during daily rations from the supply for strangers, the past year more than 600,000 pounds of but it is daily prepared for him and brought coffee have been exported from Monrovia. to him. In opening stations on the West The Bishop had superintended the regular Coast of Africa among native savage tribes work in the Liberia Conference and estab- they thus provided for me and those who lished self-supporting missions on the Ca- were with me the best houses they had, and valla River. brought thrice per day boiled rice, palm but- ter, fried chicken, good kid soup, etc. They He has made a beginning in the Congore- are good cooks, and can make more out of a gion, and Angola south of the Congo river; little than the cooks of any other country. in all 36 new stations have been opened by In every place we found it difficult to get him. with 32 mission houses, built at a cost away from their hospitality, and such peoof £20,000 and all are free from debt. The ple never begged us for a cent; but when stations in Angola are, 1. St. Paul de Lo- our people went to take possession of the anda, with a self-supporting school. 2. houses built for them, and took with them Dando, 240 miles distant from Loanda, with needed supplies-boat-Ioads of trunks, boxes, a self-supporting school also. 3. Nhangue- bales, etc., such a profusion of stores the pepo, ~ 51 miles farther inland, a receiving- natives never saw before. Their meager supplies were kept out of sight, their cupid- ity was excited, and quickly a large propor- tion of them were perverted from benefac- tors to beggars."
The Bishop says the Moslem teachers avail
CORRESPONDENOE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. [JULY
themselves of this hospitality, and their As to his organizing a missionary society heralds have consequently overrun the separate from that of the regular missionary northern half and a large part of eastern society of his church, the Bishop says it Africa. .. From the days of Moses," the was necessary, because his methods were so Bishop says, .. or earlier, the provision for diverse from their's that to try to manage the reception and support of strangers has the two from one office would be like trying kept an open door In Africa, and supplies all to run a cdal-yard and a milliner's shop in in wait~ to be utilized by God's ambassa- one office. He cannot consent to be on the dors." Still the Bishop says they must have advance picket line as a leader and be compermanent stations and training schools, as manded by men nine thOUlana miles in the well as industrial schools. rear/ lII.-CORRESPONDENCE and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
Java. and its Missions. and every kampong or town section its punden or holy place, where is oft'ered to the spirit of [WE give with pleasure the follow- him who was the lirst man to cultivate that ingvaluable statement from the Rev. grouud. In a word, the religion of the Javanese W. Schuurmans, of Holland, concern- is a mixture or conglomeration of heterogeneing the missions on the island of ous elements of Mohammedauism and heathen- Java.-EDS.] ism, mingled together, but not united as to be- Java is one of the lsrgeet: and most fertile come one, the various parts or ingredients ever iSlsnda of the Dutch possessions in the East In- dian Arcbipeisgo. Except the two small States seen separately. Therefore it can truly be said Jogjokarta and 8oerakarta, that have their own of this people that it dwells "in tenebrIs," princes, called Sultan and 8usuhunam (though aud is in great need of the glorions" hun wholly dependent on the Dutch Government), Mundi." the island is divided into several provinces, called Residences, because administered by resi- Though in former times some ell'orts were dents. Its population at present numbers more made in order to propagate the gospel among the than eighteen millionli, besides the Dutch, the Chi- Javanese, miSSionary work, properly said, benese, the Arabians and some other Eastern people gan at work about the year 1848. At present that have taken np their abode on Java. The the following Missionary Societies or Mission natives, called Javanese on the Eastern and mid- Unions of Holland have their stations and agents dle parts of the isisnd, and Sundanese on the on the isle of Java. Western part of it, profess the Mohammedan religion, at least outwardly, for at home they 1. The Dutch Missionary Society, with stations are heathen. A Javanese, with respect to his at Semarang, Kediri, Swaru, Modjowarna, and relipon, may be compared with somebody who 5 missionaries. wears an upper garment and an under ,coat. With his upper garment, i. e., the Mohamme- 2. The Mennonite Mission-Union, with a stadan faith, he is seen in public, and he is proud of tion (better said a native Christian colony) 'at It, thongh this habit does not suit him. When Margaredjo, and 2 missiouaries. he returns home, he puts it off, and is at his ease 3. The Ermelo Mission, with stations at SaIin his undercoat, t. ~., he thinks and acts like a atiga, Wonoredjo, Klampok, Kalidjeret and Fjemeh, and 5 missionaries. heathen. For, though he confesses, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his apos- 4. The "Java-Comite," with statious at Batatie," thongh he practices circumcision, abstains via and Sumber-Pakem, and 2 missionaries. from eating swine's tIe.h, and some of the Javanese, namely the alim, ia e., "pious people," 5. The Dutch Mission-Union, with stations at say prayers, spend alms, keep fasting or are going Meester-Cornelis, Cheribon, Indramaju, Madjafnpilgrimage to Mecca according to Mohamme- lengka, Sumedang, Sukabumi, Fjiandjur, Pangdan rites, the greatest part ofthe natives adores harepan and Buitenzorg, and 7 missionaries. any object that has something extraordinary in it, because it is belleved such objects are ani- 6. The Mission-Uuion of the Dutch Reformed, mated with good or evil spirits; for instsnce, a with stations at Pnrweredjo and Pnrbolinggo, well, a river, a tree, a Itone; also animale, as a and 3 missionaries. tiler, a crocodile, a snake, etc. Nay, even the priests and santris, or they that have received 7. The Mission of the Christian Reformed rellgious teaching in the priest-schools by the Church, with stations at Batavia and Surabaya, Mohammedan Gurus (teacher of rellgious and 2 missionaries. truths), in man, cases tollow the heathen customs or habitA. Moreover, the 25 stations and 26 missionaries .Besides the superstitions above mentioned, on J aVI! that had been mentioued above, there ~er, village has its Dahnjang, or titular deity, are.many outposts or native Christian communi- ties and several native helpers, evangelists and schoolmasters. At Depok, on the western part of the isle, is aIso a large native Christian com- munity under the care of an European Assistant preacher, snstained or paid by the Dutch Gov- ernment. Iu the neighborhood of this commnn- ity is a training-school for native evangelists or helpers with a missionary as Director, assisted by an appointed European schoolmaster. The number of native Christians on Java quite unknown. Sometimes a few boats with amounts to 12,000. heathen Eskimos trom these parts would come round the Cape Farewell to buy various articles IlA.ABLBK, M.6.Y 11, 1888. at Jnlianshaab, the southernmost colony; but every attempt to reach them having failed, the [We have received the following eastern coast was considered as inaccessible, interesting letter from Rev. V. until one of the Moravians, Mr. Brodbeck, some Holmes, Secretary of the Danish 1ears ago, made his way through Ice and other Evangelical Missionary Society, Co- impediments, I do not know how far to the north on that side of the country. In 1884 a penhagen. We gladly correct the Danish expedition, led by a lieutenant of the royal navy, succeeded in proceeding to the 66° statement made in the item to which N. Lat., and found some 600 heathen living on the coast. A mission to them is planned by the he refers, which we copied from an ·ecclesiastical government, and a young man, who has been a sharer in an explor1ug expedition exchange.-EDs.l in Greenland and during a year's stay there has learned to love the people, has offered to go GLADSAXE (NEAR COPENHAGEN), thither. He is now studying In Copenhagen, March 10, 1888. and will, when he has passed his exa.mination, be ordained and sent out to begin a mission REv. J. M. SHERWOOD, D.D. Dear Brother. among these people. -In possession of your memoraudum of Feb. 25. I bave ordered our missiouary paper Letter from Miss Grace Wilder: (DaTl8k Mi88ionsblad) to be sent to your address, and I shall not omit to give you what iu- KOLAPOOB, INDIA, Feb. 23, 1888. formatiou I cau relative to Danish missiou DBAR EDITORS: work. The January REVIEW, so rich in facts and soul- As a beginning, I beg leave to make a few re- stirring words, reached here a little before us. I marks in regard to au item on Greenland iu the rejoice that you are striving to make the RBVIIIW February number of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW one of such personal interest to missionaries. 011' THE WORLD (p. 144), as some of the state- The great thonght in enlisting missionary letments given there are iucorrect. ters is their effect on home readers ; but if old missionaries are willing to express their honest Rev. Hans Egede did not begin the missiou convictions, thoughts which are the result of of the Moravlans in 1728. He was a minister in years of experience-the RBVIEW will be a power Norway, belonging to the Danish-Norwegian among its missionary readers. You cannot Lutheran Church, and as a true member of that realize what an inspiration it is to us here to get church he began the mission in the said year. magazines from home which assure us that the This work has since that time been carried on churches are watching us and are eager to hesr by the Dauish State Church. The Moravians a word from the lIeld. went out to Greenland in 1733. I long to say a word for Kolapoor, which The Danish Mission has always been the prin- might help the young people of America to feel cipal. According to the last census, in 1880, the a per8fJnal interest iu this kingdom and mission. popnlation was 9,767. Of these 8,250 belonged The natural advantages and beautiful scenery of to the Lutheran Church, 1,517 to the Moravian. the Kolapoor State snrpass my brightest recol- From this It will be evident that nilssion service lections. The name Kolapoor is applied to a proper is not carried on in Greenland. All the plateau of some 2400 square miles, with a popinhabitants belong to either of the two bodies nlation of 800,000. Besides six chief rivers that are at home there. this region is well supplied with spring water. The hills are a chief feature, and when near I have not the last report of the Moravians at streams these hillsides are carefnlly tilled by the hand, so that I cannot compare the statements in poor hard-working farmers. THE REVIEW with those of the report, but I do not think that the extracts are quite correct. The capital, Kolapoor, is the largest city in It 1s qnlte impossible that 115 adnlts can have the Southern Marathi country. It Is nearly 1800 been baptized, as the Moravians are not Baptists. feet above the sea and Including the suburbs has I dare say that the brethren would scarcely be a circumference of 4% miles. Though we are able to find one adult who was not baptized. sixty miles east of the coast we have a strong The number of Moravian Greenlanders being sea breeze. Koiapoor is supposed to be one of some 1,500, it is quite impossible that they, in the oldest cities in India. Buddhist coins have the course of a year, should baptize 475 children been found in the city, which are believed to -so many babies cannot be found in a popnla- belong to the first century before Christ. The tion of 1,500. finding of shrines at a depth of over 15 feet; also the discovery of the bed of the chief riTer, On account of vacancies which cannot be the Panchganga (five Ganges) 70 feet above the filled up now, there are at present only six or- level of its present bed, lead to the conclusion dained ministers in the Lutheran Church of Greenland, three of whom are natives, three Danes (called missionaries). The number of catechists and teachers in 1880 was 88.
What I have stated here refers to the Danish colonies on the Western coa~t of the land. The Eastern coast has, up to our day, been almost that in the 8th century an earthquake over- ris. There is here a church of 18 members. turned many temples and buildings. During Mr. Ferris has built a chapel, a church in the the last of the 18th century, under the MarathaB, town, and is just completing a dispensary. I Kolapoor rose in importance, aud at this time its cannot understand how our mission has waited stone wall 30 feet high and 10 to 26 feet thick so long for a medical missionary. In a single was built. Outside of this was a deep wide day 60 people have come to Mr. Ferris for medicine. It makes my heart ache to look at ditch. these poor suffering creatures. This is hard, but Kolapoor is now a great religious, as well as a what can I say of the feeling that comes over me as I look out from these old towers upon trade center. Of some 250 temples in the city scoreS of villages and know that among them six are noted. The most noted and very old there is not a single Christian home? The views temple of Ambabai is visited by large numbers of pilgrims, many coming long distances. Ac- cording to tradition the cost of this temple from here remind me of the Connecticut, as seen equalled the weight of the stones in gold. Be- from the top of Mount Holyoke. The small sides contributions from pilgrims, which amount patches. under careful cultivation, turn these val- to some $2,000, the temple receives a yearly al- leys into beautiful gardens, and in some ways the lowance of £500. country is even more beautiful than our lovely Among all these temples there stands but a Connecticut. Why should this land be so differ- single Christian chapel. This stands on one of ent spiritually? Why ten and twenty church the most valuable lots in the whole city, just spires in a New England town and here in many in front is the grea.t city Bazaar, where thou- a city not one Christian to tell the people that a sands of people assemble on Sunday-the great Saviour lived I In the vaIIey east of us there market day. At half-past eight Sunday morning are some ten native Christians, but north we we have Sunday-school here. The songs of our touch no mission station until we reach Ratna- native Christians attract many, but the vague geri, some sixty miles distant, and there the wit- faraway looks of these people say plainly, .. We nesses for Jesus are a church building, a mission don't understand." Many have come from dis- bungalow, and a schoolhouse and homes for tant villages. and some have never heard the Christians-all deserted now, siuce Mr. Tedford name Jesus. A few Sundays past I was stand- has gone to Sangli. Though Ratnageri has a ing near an elderly woman. While our heads population of some 10,000, the claims of Sangli were bowed in prayer she said in a {oud earnest seem even greater. Mr. Graham tells me that voice, .. What is this?" I cannot say that the within a radius of 15 miles from SangIi there are people here are eager for the truth. They do 125 towns and viIIages. One of these, the trad- not say that they want the bread and the water ing town of Miraj, has a population of over of life, but they look it. Just now there is a 20,000. This is 30 miles northeast of Kolapoor.
very special crisis in Iudia. Government schools Some 27 miles east is another large town, Nerla.
are rapidly increasing. Kolapoor has not only a The surrounding country is densely popu- college but the Rajaram High School, attended lated with people that seem favorable to the by 375 pupils, six vernacular schools, with some gospel. Mr. Seiler has toured in this district, 760 boys, and four girls' schools with about 150 and says that some of the Nerla people lingered girls. Christianity is not allowed. The Eng- until eleven at night to talk with him. Mrs.
lish ,officials seem to guard these educational Ferris said this morning that when the band of institutions as zealously as the Canatical Mos- missionaries just about to sail shan have left, lem does the Mosque of Omar. Even the within a single year 16 missionaries and 15 mis- British president of our college says that the sionary children wiII have retired from our India present system of education, while destroying field I The railroad brings us now right into faith in HindUism, is giving nothing to take its the heart of this Southern Marathi country.
place. My pundit, a finely-educated man, Said Five weeks brought us from New York to Born to me one morniug in Marathi: "The present bay, and 18 or 20 hours more on the railroad condition of our people is fearful. They don't hrought us to Miraj, 30 miles from Kolapoor.
believe in their own religion, and they don't he- I wish the nearness of India to New York lieve in any religion." At another time he said: might lead every young man and woman to " Our people are a religiOUS people. They want think and pray very earnestly before deciding to to find God, but they don't know how. Feeling remain in America. If the dear young gIrls of their own inSufficiency in religious things, they America could walk through th~ 1,079 viIIages go to a Sudu priest." of this single State; if they could look into the The other day a young Brahmin borrowed the hungry, and stolid, and painful, and, in some January number of THE REVIEW. It is returned cases, beautiful faces of these poor women and with marks along the article" Christian and children, it seems to me there is but one ground Non-Christian Religions." I do wish that I had ou which they could hesitate to carry them the brought out with me some short pamphlets on joyful news of the gospel, and that is, the fear the central truths of Christianity. There are that they are not fit to he messeugers. I do many opportunities of lendiug a book or a realize more than ever the need of our being flned with the Holy Spirit, so that God can use us leaflet. Just now we are on the hill fort of Panhalla, for soul work. But God is wiIIing to do this.
spending the hot season with Mr. and Mrs. Fer- He even promises a daily filling. This week I have fonnd one of these preclons assurances in three months' study, and then three months in Isaiah I, 4. preaching and itinerating work. .A. member of one of our churches in the interior lately died, The facts and figures and sights and sounds all 89 years of age. He has been a devoted Chrisspeak so loudly of the needs of this land, that 1 tian about fifteen years. His triumphant death long to tell my friends about them. Yet I do has left a happy impression not only on his famhope and pray that nothing but deep, trne ily, but on all the church members. God has love Cor Jesus and souls will lead anyone to proved faithfnl to all his promises to our people india. In talks with dear father, 1 have been here again and again. helped to see that a lack of true missionary spirit is no excnse Cor us. God Is certainly will- I have, for the money you kindly sent about a ing to give us what he asks us to keep, and he year al:o, secured the services of a worthy says: "Let this mind be in yon which was in brother for six monilis to labor in a district Christ Jesns." about 200 miles in the interior, where as yet the gospel has not been fully preached, ,In some We are now pleading for three more mission- places the preacher has been kindly received aries. Can you not send twenty 1 If Gene- and he is greatly enconraged. A nnmber are ral Assembly could convene on Panhala Fort reading Christian books and a few have asked next May, it seems as if little else could be dis- to be taught to pray and what they are to do in cussed and prayed about except Jesus' last com- order to become followers of Christ. One old mand. Letters are coming assuring us that this man who heard the gospel.a. number of times Kolapoor field is being remembered by name in and professed to believe, lately died. To the family circles, and by individuals. last he said he believed Cbrlst would save him. He regretted that he had not been more diligent Letter from Rev. Hunter .Corbett in learning the trnth, and delayed a public pro- fession of faith in Chlist until too late. of China. You may be interested in knowing that one of CHEEFOO, March 9, 1888. our theological stndents who will soon have lin- ished the full course was, for several years sup- DEAR DR. PIERSON: 1 send enclosed a copy ported by the Sunday-school connected with Bethany church. He is well educated and in Chimse of the letter sent by the General As- gives promise of being an able and faithful preacher. He has been invaluable as a teacher sembly of 1886, to our Chinese Cbristians. It in our training school here, for two years after he left college. He has been my companion durhas greatly cheered our people. Some of them ing eeveral itinerating journeys and rendered efficient service both in preaching to the heathen have read it again and again, and are seeking to and in conducting services with the Christians. He understands music and has been able to live so as to be worthy oC the conftdence of God's teach our people to sing. Surely if it was known that the sum of $40 per year wonld enable a people in A.merica. young man to devote his whole time to stndy, there would be many in our home churchee who Since 1 saw you in April last, when leaving would gladly undertake the education of one or more worthy youths in China. for China, I have made a journey of three It gives us joy to welcome Rev. Mr. Goforth months, visiting our country stations, assisted in and wife from the Presbyterian Mission in Can- ada, who are to be followed by others to begin teaching our class of theological students one work in the Honon prOvince, where as yet the gospel Is scarcely known. term, and since then have had a class of 23 men Brazil Mission, Under the Superintendstudying the Scriptnres. One of the class is a enoe of Rev. Emanuel Vanorden.
man of 64 years w110 heard the truth for the " In the providence of God the province of Sao Paulo has become the headqnarters of Protestfirst time only a few months ago. He teUs me antism. Already four denominations are at work there. In the city of Sao Paulo the South that day by day he sees new beauties in the Scrip- American Missionary Society has a fine church building and a devoted chaplain; the Methodists tures and feels his heart drawn out in love to have a very flourishing school for boys and girls in Piracicaba; and the Presbyterians have a Jesus. One young man of great promise won- newly-erected chnrch, capable of holding 600 persons, a girls' and a boys' b01lrding-school, a ders how he should ever have been so blind and stndents' boarding-hall, and a day-schOOl, at- tended by a goodly number of scholars. They stupid as to have worshiped idols. His father, have taken the preliminary steps of organizing, 86, bitterly opposed his son's studying the Scrip- tures, until a few weeks ago he said he wished to be taught, and hear how Christ .could save the soul.
To-day I had a conversation with an old man.
He said he must soon die and that would be the end of all things with him. He seemed to have no ears to hear as I tried to tell him the way of salvation through Christ. He left me saying if the Heavenly Father would give him food, he wanted nothing more. I pleaded then with some young men, as we stood on the street at the market place, to live with reference to the next world. They seemed to feel that this world is all they need to be concerned with. How help- less we are without the power of the Holy Spirit I We have a very interesting class of nine theo- lOgical students near the end of their stndies.
Most of them are men of good edncatlon and of much promise. Onr plan is to have a term of in August next, the Synod of the Presbyterian will furnish a dwelling, SChool-rooms, an office, Church in Brazil, to be composed of 3 Presbyte- and in short all the room we will want for a ries, 50 churches and 32 ministers, of whom 12 long time. It is worth half as much as the are natives. The missionaries of the Presbyte- Zacatecas property, that we bought cheap at rian Churches in the United States, North and $25,000, but they do not ask 810,000, but only South, will unite in effecting this organization. $3,000, and the ground would cost us that were we to build. If we get it we will save twelve .. Thousands of emigrants continually pass per cent. on the investmeut at once in the saving throngh the capital. Already 70,000 Italians are of rent. And we can get the property at ten per scattered In the province, of whom 13,000 are in cent. of wbat it is wortb. The mission has never the city of Sao Panlo, besides thousands of Ger- had such an opportunity. May I not ask that man and Portuguese emigrants who continually you use your infiuence to help us get the prop· arrive. The Italians bring their priests with erty Y Very sincerely yours, M. E. BEALL. them, and the Germans are steadily increasing the number of their priests and sisters of charity [Will not some of our liberal givers by fresh importations. cheer the heart of this noble mission- " The priests are more afraid of our smali pam· phlets than of the Bible; for it is these silent ary and her devoted husband by a preachers which are directing the people to God's Holy Word. Many a member of the con- generous response to this reasonable gregation I have been permitted to gather in Rio call?-EDs.] Graude has been called tbrough tracts given us by the Religions Tract Society; one of them is FIGUERAS, SPAIN, April 17,1888. now supplying the pulpit during my absence. DEAR EDITORS.-LaSt autumn you kindlyin- serted in MISSIONARY REVIEW OJ!' THE WORLD .. We need help to establish printing and book- an account of the work in Vilabertran, one of binding workshops in the city of Sao Paulo. The our seven mission etations. We have since subcost Is estimated at £1,500, but they will be en- scribed and read it regularly with much interest, tirely self-supporting if not a source of income. being a link between us and fellow-workers in Our converts will thus have an opportunity to the mission field all over the world. Some time learu a useful trade, aud those who lose their em- ago we sent you a report of this mission; with ployment because they refuse to work on Sundays, yeady balance sheet. I now beg yonr kind inwUl have an opportunity of earning their living. terest in enclosed letter, with plan of Figueras, and the pressing need of a gospel hall in tbe .. General Couto Magalhres, an eminent Brazilian center of this town. Just now tbere is a bit of scholar, the day I left Sao Paulo for England, land for sale in an erocellenl; situation where 813: gave me nearly $1,000 towards opening these 8treeta meet. We are 11W8t anxious to secure it. workshops, and said, •I give you tbis money The importance of tbe step may be judged by the towards opening a Christian printing office be- following incident: Tbe other day a conference canse we most urgently need it ; tell your frieuds of priests was held in Gerona, presided over by abroad that we appreciate your labors and those the bishop. A friend of the pastor was admitted of your associates, that we need many more of in a business way, being a lawyer, and he has them, and that the workshops will be a means told us that one of the subjects discussed was of teaching our people those habits of industry tbat of the plot of gronnd in Figueras. Tbe and application in which they are so much de- resolution was passed that" something must be ficient.' He Is as yet not converted, but prayed done to prevent the Protestants making the with and prayed for; he has also given £900 to- purchase." The price is £400. Toward that wards educational work in Sao Paulo. sum we now have £132-2-6, and £100 promised. The lease of Our present han expired in Febru- .. EMANUEL VANORDEN." ary, and our landlord may turu us out at any moment. The fact that in all tbis prOvince there [We print this brief appeal, hoping is not one permanent gospel hall is a sufficient plea. Are the Romanists to trinmph by secur- that some whom the Lord has ing that plot of land for lack of £167-17-6 Y The Jesuits, those indefatigable enemies of God's blessed may find it in their hearts to troth, have ample means at tMir disposal. Surely tbe Lord's people wUl not allow the gos- respond.-EDS. ] pel to sn1fer for want of so small a sum. No wonder Romanism gains ground when Cbris- SAN LUIS POTOSI, MEXIOO, March 15, 1888. tians do so little to stop its progress, and Pro- DEAR EnITORs.-Our mission has no property testant missionaries are crippled in their efforts in San LUis PotOSi, though established here in by lack of means. .. Who will come to the help l872, and otber missions tbat have come in since of the Lord, to the help of tbe Lord against the have secured important properties. Our present mighty Y" If you will kindly aid by inserting congregation is now too large for the .. hired thIS note in your valaable REVIEW we shall be house" in which we worship, and there is no grateful. With kind regards from the paRtor prospect of getting a better in this fanatical and myself. Yours very truly, place. And now just as we are wanting some- thing better, there is offered to us a Catholic MADAlItE ElIILY LoPEZ RoDRIGUEZ. church and the part of an old convent, that is just what we need. The church is a very fine one, will seat at least four hundred people, is of dressed stone, and the rooms .that ~o with it A New Development. three to five active men, who shall have charge of detailed work. , [THE University Students' move- 2. The annual meeting of this State Committee ment is assuming every day larger and of its Executive Committee should be held at a time and place of the State Convention ot proportions. The following address the Y. M. C. A. This assumes that all the mem- bers of this Committee will be delegates from recently issued to the Colleges is so their college to the Convention. Other meet- ings of the Executive Committee may be held as Important in its possible near and the work may require.
remote results that we give it in full. S. The special work of the State Committee at its annual meeting should be to consider the -EDS.] Colleges individually, and on the two-fold basis of the nnmber of students and their approxi- The wonderful wave of missionary zeal which mate individual expenses at college, it should has swept through our American colleges dur- suggest to each college its proportiouate share ing the last eighteen months has moved about of money to be raised. 1,800 young men and 600 young women to offer their lives in service to Christ as for_ 4. The Y. M. C. A. of each college should take eign missionaries. If all these could be up the estimate suggested by the State Commitsent out and supported in the field as tee, and after public consideration the Associarapidly as their education may be completed, tion should decide npon the adoption by a vote the next ten years would witness a missionary of its members. If a favorable vote is given, advance and success such as has never been they should then pledge themselves to raise the known. The finauces of the Missionary Boards amount, pushing the cauvass to a successful in this country are already too heavily taxed to close as rapidly as possible. carry on this additional and extensive work alone. The feeling has already found expression 5. The State Executive Committee should be in a number of colleges and seminaries that they composed of young men of special ability and should not ouly furnish men, but share in the energy as well as of marked missionary enthusiduty of providing money as well. Princeton asm, selected from colleges in different sections College has raised $1,600 for this object, Rutgers of the State. It will be the dnty of each mem- $780, Hampden Sidney $6~5, University College ber of this Committee to aronse missionary in- $250 ($500 expected), Knox College $1,425, and terest in his own and in neighboring colleges by Queens about $800, (the last three are Canadian.) pnblic meetings, to be present and advocate the Knox College took the initiative in this move- report of the State Committee when presented ment. The seminaries have also made a good at these colleges. and, if necessary, help them in beginning, Princeton Seminary having raised pushing the canvass. $850, Alexandria (with about 45 students) $750, Allegheny U. P. (annually for ten years) $530, 6. An effort should be made by the State Com- Xenia (with 26 subscribers) $325 and Union $700, mittee to secure from friends of the move- (total amount in the latter for missionary pur- ment outside of the colleges a fund suffiposes $1,130). $800 is the average amount cient to cover the necessary railroad exneeded to support a missionary in the field. This penses of the Executive Committee, so that feeling that tbe colleges should support one or this extra burden may not fall upon the more of their alumni missionaries is without colleges. This money should not be nsed, howdoubt unexpressed in many of our colleges, and ever, to pay the expenses of the Committee as with proper effort could be awakened into ac- delegates to the Y. M. C. A. Convention, this tion. The few dollars which each Christian' being provided for in the usual way. student would need to give annually to effect this in his college would be but a paltry item in 7. There should also be in each college a spehis annual expenses, of which no part surely cial Missionary Committee (or if one already ex- would be better invested. Now, an organized ists the work may be placed in their hands), effort among the colleges and seminaries would whose duty it shall be to canvass for and secnre accomplish vastly more than mere scattered and pledges for the full amount at the beginning of local action. The following plan which seems each college year, make the collections, select practical is snggested, which we trust may meet the candidate to be seut ont, and whatever yonr hearty interest and approval. other matters demand attention, all their action being brought before the Association for adop- PLAN POR CO-OPERATIVE ACTION AMONG COL- tion. This Committee should consist of two men each from the senior and junior classes, and oue LEGES AND SEMINARIES POR THE SUP- each from the sophomore and freshman. In case of special departments in any college, as the Pre- PORT OP ALUlIINI MISSIONARIES. paratory for instance, such department should also be represented by a man. In the case of 1. Each State should have a State Missionary seminaries it may be lidded that the plan of hav- Committee, composed of one member from ev- ery school of learning in the State which has a ing two members from each of the three classes Y. M. C. A., (or in Seminaries some other form has been found satisfactory at Union Seminary. of organized Christian work), and which agrees to raise money for the support of a home or for- 8. Each college should of course raise its eign missionary, or a foreign Y. M. C. A. Sec- money and send out its missionary under the retary. This State Committee shonld elect from their number an Executive Committee of from auspices of the Missionary Board of the denomi- Street, New York City, at the low rate of $1.10 nation which controls the college_ The candi- a thousand.
date selected by the college as missionary will 12. Special questions, as for instance whether be snbject to the approval of this Board. In the the faculty should be asked to contribute to the case of colleges too small to support a mission- fund, or in co-educational colleges, what share ary, two schools of the same denomination in the young women should take in the movement, any State or neighboring States could unite in may be left to the discretion of the colleges.
providiug for one. When this is impracticable the money can be put Into tlte hands of the De- GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. nominational Board to be used in helping to pay the expenses of some missionary whom they are Africa.-[Mr. G. Wilmot Brooke, about to send out. who has gone up the Congo on an in- 9. If possible, the missionary to be sent out by dependent mission, sends home the any college should be a graduate of the college following dark picture of Central who is finishing a seminary or medical course. Africa. EDS.] When none such is available, the support of a graduate already in the mission field is advised. " I am now at the furthest post on the Congo, 10. The system of support should be on the ' with a vast sea of heathenism around; amaz- basis of at least four years, each student upon ingly shameless immorality, habitual lying, and entering the Freshman class pledging himself to the utmost ferocity now to be found on the give not less than a certain amount yearly while globe, shut out"the faintest hope that their con- he Is in college, The following pledge adapted sciences will excuse them in 'that day.'
from the one used in Union Seminary is sug- " Away a hundred miles or so to the south a gested. .. We the undersigned students of small island, so to speak, some four square . , ……….College, feeling that the honor of our miles, has had the gospel preached for a testi- college, the sphere of Its infiuence, and our ac- mony for a few months-I may almost say tive interest in the work of Christ in foreign weeks. Away to the east nothing but the vast lands would be greatly increased by binding our- sea of towns and villages, town. and villages, selves together for the support and encourage- • doiug evil with both hauds earnestly,' till over ment of a man who will be our special charge, 1,000 miles away to the southwest we come to a and will be known as the, …•. , .•.•• CoUege little spot of light, where Arnot is working. Mi88ionary, do pledge for his snpport not less Again the darkness is broken by some scattered than the sum of, …•. , , , …cents each week for points of light in the lake district, but 1,000 the forty college weeks, this pledge holding good miles of utter darkness is between us and for the four years of the college conrse. This them. pledge shall not be binding until amounts aggre- " Then comes another )!rilliant spot, sending gating $800 annually (or whatever the amount suggested by the State Committee may be) has light round the world, the Christians of Uganda, been subscribed." but nearly 1,000 miles of almost fiendish ferocity Is between us and them, and then the last gleam 11. Payments of subscriptions can' best be of light ends. made weekly by the systematic plan of giving. .. If I look northwest, nothing but 1,700 miles Each student upon filling a pledge to give a certain amount each week is presented with forty of utter darkness, the huts garnished with huenvelopes (one for each college week), each of man sknlls, human limbs boiling in cauldrons, these envelopes having the same special number man-hunting, and droves of wretChed women which dlstingnishes that student from the oth- and children in chains, and the desert strewn ers in the record book of the treasurer of the with human bones till we come to the Red Sea. Missionary Committee. Each student having a ditl'erent number obviates the necessity of writ- .. Away to the north the same, or rather worse in, names and amounts upon the envelopes. -crowded villages, with the fiercest cannibals; On a certain day of each week, a locked box is large vill.geA, with great walled towns, and put in some public place. into which the students drop their envelopes. If any student crowded markets and schools, and all in darktails Into arrears the treasurer sends him a note ness-away over the Sahara, with its fierce robonce in ten weeks informing him of the fact. ber tribes, 2,000 miles to the Mediterranean, but and stating the amount. In colleges of less than not a ray of light. 200 students, 135 can raise $800 annually, without anyone being too heavily burdened, If 30 "Northwest, again the same, till 2,200 miles ,will each give twenty-five cents weekly, 40 give away we see the scattered points oflight rapidly ftfteen cents and 65 give ten cents. A college spreading from the North African Mission, and which would find it qnite impossible to raise then comes bright light from the Niger and the that amount in one or four instalments will be Cameroons, but from the latter we are separated sure to find this system an easy and a practicable by 500 miles of the very fiercest and most deone. Sultable envelopes already numbered can graded cannibals. belt.d from Goodenough &Woglom, 122 Nassau " I wish the churches at home would pray over these facts. I think that some of them would have their eyes opened to see new things."
-Church Miss. Gkaner.
-Writing from Lake Nyassa, in the northeastern portion of Southern Upper Burma.h, within sight of the Africa, a correspondent of the Man- prison pens of Ava and Oung-penla. chester (England) Guardian gives a very interesting account of one of the China. – Urgent Appeal. In view of the grea.t need for more missioncauses, and probably the main cause, aries in the province of Shantung, of the revival of that Mohammedan or Sha.ntung Presbytery has made an Arab influence in Central Africa, of urgent appea.l to the Presbyteria.n which so much has recently been Boa.rd of Foraign Missions for an adsa.id in England a.)'ld in this country. dition to the working force of ten ordained ministers, two physicians Until 1883 the blockade of the eastern coast of and three unmarried ladies. Dr. Africa by English cruisers was so efficient as to Nevius writes to the New York Obmake the slave trade unprofitable. ThiS, and server from Chefoo : the immigration of Europeans into the lake regious, seemed to make it probable that the "This province, containing abont 21,000,000 forces of a European civilization would be al- inhabitants, was entered by our missionaries in lowed to operate efficiently in that country. The short-sighted withdrawal'of the cruisers in 1883 1861. There was not a single convert and the seemed to the vigilant slave-trader au indication language had to be learned before direct mission of a return to the old slave-trading era, and as work could be begun. We have now seventeen the Congo Free State was closed against them, ordained missionaries; fourteen wives of misthey begau to drift acrOSS the country northward to Lake-Tanganyika. ,There, taking prompt ad- sionaries; five nnmarried female missionaries; vantage of an opportunity given tbem by a quarrel with one of the native races, which they one ordained native minister; twenty-nine unpromptly subjugated, they have continued to ordained helpers; 2,203 communicants, and 871 grow stronger and more audacious, and are put.. tlng forth all their efforts in a very successfUl pupils in Christian schools, and in the interior way for au early conquest of the whole country. more than one hundred stations and sub-ststions, Their success presents to us the important question whether Mohammedan or Christian in- including fifteen organized churches. Four fluence is to be dominant for many years in central Africa. boarding·schools (one the high school or college at Tung Chowfu, having about seventy students), -The Livingstonia Mission on the East Ceutral African lakes is a memorial or Dr. liv- absorb a considerable proportion of our working ingstone, founded by admirers of this great man. force. Some of the younger missionaries are as It is not strictly a denominational enterprise, though it is a mission of the Free Church of yet only prepariug for work by the study of the Scotland and receives support from the United language, and others will soon be obliged to Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It was plan- leave in consequence of impaired health or other ned and has been prosecuted as an evangelistic miSSion, linked with an industrial settlement causes. Our country stations are snJl'ering for for the introdnction of Christian oivilization by want of sulllcient supervision. In the capitsl of commerce and indnstrial arts. "The African Lake's Company" was organized as an ally of this prOvince, Chinanfu, where there is an unthe Livingstonia. The African Times says it usually hopefnl opening for chapel preaching and was intended "partly to supply mission material needs, but mainly to introduce legitimate tralllc for work in the country in every direction, we with the natives. The company was founded on broad commercial principles, but with the im have at present ouly three ordained missionaries portant provisO, thoroughly carried ont, of supplyiug no intoxicants to the natives. The (iucluding one principally occupied in the study financial basis of the company remains with of the language) and one physician. This torce the wealthy Glasgow capitalists, who rather for philanthropy than gain began the undertak- is wholly inadequate to attend effectively to the ing and who alone still direct and control it." work required in that city alone." Burmah.-The one hundredth an- niversary of the birth of Adoniram [AMONG the delegates to the great Methodist Conference now in liIession Judson occurs August 9, 1888. In in this city is the Rev. Sia Sek Ong, commemoration of this event it is from China. We give the substance of a brief address he made at a mis- proposed to erect a Judson memorial sionary meeting on the evening of Ma.y 9.-EDs.] church in Mandalay, the capital of "Fathers, brothers and sisters in the gospel, with deepest gratitude and highest respect I come here to greet yon.
"In speaking of the miisionary work in China, I would ask you to look back into the condition of China in the past, and then glance at the present.
"For generations China had little dealings with other nations. No other country was regarded her equal. From the emperor on the throne, down through all classes of society, they re- garded China, with her sages and her clasSics, as com.plete within hel'Slll'f. When western na- tions wanted to come in, they objected, and re- sisted with violence. .. These old custoDlS and sentiments were Dot productive of moral or mental growth to the na- bigoted a Hindu as can be found in tion. They were like the great forests in Amer- Northern India. The name Newal ica that shut out the sunlight and dews of Kishon is derived from the Sanskrit, and Mohammedans do not go to that heaven, and the earth produces no fruit.
.. But now there is a change. The Government language fo'r their words, much leSS of China is seeking friendly relations with West- for their family names. The first ern nations, and coming in contact with these word, Newal, means weasel or ferret, nations, we realize more and more the deficien- and the second, Kishon, youth or cies in our own civilization. son, so the shrewd old publisher might "Now China is erecting various grades of be the "son of a weasel." Any com- schools and colleges, seeking to acquire your mon cooly in the streets of Lucknow arts and sciences and language. Schools of or anywhere else in India could have medicine and mining after Western systems, told the "nodding" bishop that the railroads and telegraphs, have been introduced. name was that of a Hindu and not of "It is a remarkable fact that while for ages a Mohammedan.
past the study of the Confucian classics was the -British rule in India has not reonly preparation for the competitive examina sulted in the removal of the hateful tions, now the stndy of mathematics and some customs which prevail in reference ot your Western sciences are admitted. Look- to marriage. Parents continue to ing at the past and the present, is it not like that forest now cleared away and the fertile soil contract marriages for their children.
appearing f One bad feature of such marriages is illustrated by the story of two sisters " Do you ask, what has this to do with preach- In a zenana school at Serapore.
ing the gospel r Very much indeed. Forty years ago your missionary toilers entered China, morally a dark forest. Much of their time was These girls resemble each other, but spent in felling the trees and clearing the one has ugly scars on her face, which ground before sowing the seed. Now the soil disfigure her. It is said that the lies open to the sun and the dews of heaven, and father intends to repeat Laban's the seed they have sown brings forth this won- fraud on Jacob. The expectant bridederful change. groom will be told by his parents " Where once there was opposition, and every that the bride is all he can desire eWort to introduce the gospel was rejected, now (they will have seen the scarless we hear the people say, The' Jesus doctrine' sister) ; but when the marriage is very good, and followers of the Jesus doctrine actually takes place the disfigured are good men.' " girl, duly veiled, will be seated at India.- Bishop Hurst wrote an the lad's side, and not till too late to • article in Harper's Magazine on "A draw back will he see her face. Of Mohammedan Publisher in India," course, as Leah was hated, so will this Hindu girl be when she becomes Manshi Newal Kishon. He says of a wife. No government, however him: "He is a Mohammedan and paternal, can succeed in insuring makes no secret of it. But with the happy marriages, but the wrong we publisher's instinct he keeps his reli- have instanced ought not to have gionin thebackground. Heneverputs the semblance of the sanction of his faith on the top of hisbillheads. He British law.
is a broad man-broad in everything -A Hindu Husband's Creed.-The Hindu idea of marriage is curious. except Christianity, and it is noLlikely A man both day and night must keep that the gospel has a more vigorous hater in the whole Gangetic valley than this wily man. He is no big-ot- his wife so much in subjection that ed professional. Bitter hater as he is she by no means be mistress of her of Hinduism and of all the numerous own actions. If the wife have her non-Mohammedan faiths, he seems own free will, notwithstanding she is as ready to publish books for the J?ro- motion of Brahmanism and its rlval of superior caste, she will go amiss.
faith Buddhism as to issue apologies A woman shall never go out of her and text-books in behalf of Islam." house without the consent of her hus- This, to use the mildest words, is band, and shall pay proper respect to a strange and unaccountable blunder her husband's father, the spiritual for a man in Bishop Hurst's position guide and her guests, and shall not to make in such a prominent maga- eat until she has first served them zine. In the first place the man is a with victuals (If it is medicine, she Hindu of the Hindus, and has a num- may take it before they eat); a wo- ber of priests to do pooja or idol-wor- man shall never go to a stranger's ship several times a day, and is as house, and shall not stand at the door, and must never look out of the useful as a native preacher; while window. If a woman, following her the first native minister ordained by own inclinations, goes whithersoever the Church Missionary Society-a. she chooses and does not regard the convert of Henry Martyn's-was in- words of her master, such a woman strumental in getting some sixty shall be turned away. If a man goes soulE! into the fold of Christ.-Mison a journey, his wife shall not di- sionary Outlook. vert herself by play, nor see any public show, nor laugh, nor dress herself -THE work done for India. by mis- with jewels or fine clothes, nor see sionaries, as viewed by Sir W. Hundancing, nor hear music, nor sit at ter, is matter for amazement and the window, nor ride, nor behold any- gratitude. He speaks of two distinct thing rarE' or choice, but shall fasten periods of missionary work-private well the house-door and remain pri- effort and organized effort. The vate; and shall not eat any dainty private effort, conducted by those victuals, and shall not view herself solitary workers who first came and in a mirror; she shall not exercise had to seek refuge from English op. herself in any agreeable employment position behind the Danish fort walls during the absence of her husband. of Serampur, was wonderful: -In the eloquent words of Dr. "They created a prose vernacular Hterature Stevenson: for Bengal; they set up lhe lIrst steam-engine in India; with its help tbey introduced the modern " It is just three centuries ago since English manufacture of paper on a large scale; in ten adventurers, traveling in pursuit of commerce, years they translated and printed the Bible, or bronght back from India such reports of the parts thereof, into 81 languages. Altbough they splendor of Its princes and the solidity and mag- received help from their Baptist friends in Engnillcence of its government, that they llred the land, yet the mail.. part of their fuuds they heart of England, and became the unconscious earned by their own heads aud hands. They founders of the English rule. built a college which still ranks among tbe most splendid educational edifices in India. As one "Is It unlikely that travelers of no remote contemplates its maguidcent pillared facade date will bring DB back from the same East overlooking the broad Hooghli river, or mounts tales of another and greater splendor, not, as its costly staircase of cut brass (the gift of the they might to-day, of an Indian ruled by Cbris- King of Denmark), one is lost in admiration at tian men, but of a Hindu population that from the faith of three poor men who dared to build the Himalaya to Cape Comorin has accepted on so noble a scale."-Indian Witneu. Christ' " -Sacrifice.-The heathen sacrifice To-day the Christian church is more than money. Miss Grace Wilder asked at a Woman's Meeting in India working in India as the people worked in days gone by at those how many had given up friends for superb palaces a)ld tombs which, al- Christ. Many arose, and the story though in ruins, still dominate the of their sacrifices was pathetic. This towns and cities of the Mohammedan one's mother had not recognized her conquest. Far down into the foun- since her conversion; anothel" one's dations they sunk-with what infi- sister had refused to speak to her; while still another had been cast off nite patience we may imagine-vast by her whole family as a " despised masses of dull red sand-stone, and Christian." Miss Wilder says, "how built it up in mighty walls that only hard it is to preach sacrifice to people lose their gloom when glowing in who live it." the setting sun; but on the summit they placed, as if to last forever, -Says the Indian Witness: some structure of fair, white, pierced and fretted stone, so fitting and beau- " The high court of the native State oflndore tiful, so airy and delicate, that it has decided that child-marriage is not always to seems like a marble dream. be confirmed." The Hindu judge declared: "That the appellant should not be compelled to go and Let us be patient and persevering, live with her husband, and that the framers of pouring into the foundations of this the section of the code never intended or meant that it should be used as an engine of torture to Christian India true hearts and noble compel young innocent wives into submission to lives, the named and the nameless together, until there shall arise on those foundations-once the dream, but then the fair and stately fact-of a Christian India, a fragment, yet complete in itself, of that great city, the Holy Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from God, and where the nations of the saved walk in the light of His glory.
-CAREY'S first Hindu convert built· a chapel at Serampore entirely at his own expense, and ws:s himself very husbauds who were deformed or uoobletomain- home and to those laboring in other tain them, although it has been their misfortune fields. to be mamed in their infancy when their wishes -Rev. Mr. Fyson, in an address could not have been consnlted or paid attention to by their parents." before the British and Foreign Bible -The" Harvest Field," published Society,refers to the willing reception in South India, says it could mention of the Scriptures by the people of twenty or thirty places in which Japan, and says tha,t they are ready to pay for the copies which are Brahmans have formed themselves brought them. He says: "I once found the Scriptures being sold where into societies for the sole purpose of I never should have expected it. I came across a little book stall near studying the Bible. No missionaries one of the Buddhist temples in the heart of the country. This stall was are admitted to their meetings; but standing on the temple grounds, and I noticed Scriptures and other Christhey occasionally submit questions to tian books on the stall. I was sur- prised, and said to the stall keeper, missionaries by messenger, and the 'Do the priests allow you to sell these books?' The man replied, 'They buy am,wers are reported back to the them themselves; they are some of my best customet·s.' I went into the meetings of the societies. A writer temple and talked with the priest. He was quite willing to hear what I says, "Even in the monasteries of had to say, and to buy some books of me." this land, and by some of the high- -The Japanese Gazette rt'grets priests of Hinduism, the Sanskrit " to say that Buddhism cannot long hold its ground, and that Christianity Bible is to-day a book anxiously stud- must finally prevail throughout all Japan. Japanese Buddhism and ied." Western sciences cannot stand to- gether. They are inconsistent the Japan.-The type of Christianity one with the other." The Buddhists coniinue to make a most vigorous now growing up in Japan is intensely effort to counteraCt the spread of Christianity in Japan, and the HomIsSIOnary. In almost every indi- ganji sect was never so busy., One school in Kioto alone is to be rebuilt vidual church the members combine at a cost of twelve thousand dollars, and other Buddhistic seminaries and to carry the gospel to their uncon- colleges are being started in various parts of the country. verted friends and neighbors. Many -A Chinese official recently disof the churches have regular preach- covered in Japan a copy of Hwang ing places in the localities lying out- Kan's "Confucian ARalects," over side their own congregational limits. 1,200 years old, with all the ancient Already numerous home missionary commentator notes. This work has boards and societies have been organized and are in full operation. This disappeared in China for 700 or 800 missionary spirit must soon make itself felt abroad. Indeetl, attempts years, and, as the whole history of have been made already to organize foreign missionary socicties, but the present copy is known, the Chithey have failed because of the great pressure upon the church from the nese Government has directed its necessities of the work at home; and no doubt this will be the caS6l for minister in Japan to borrow it, in many years to come. The Japanese church will be so much occupied with order that a carefully corrected copy the work at home that it cannot give much attention to foreign work. It may be taken. i1l probably true also that, in case Japanese missionaries should be sent -That the Jews largely despair of to China, their influence would not be so great as that of missionaries finding the Messiah in the future and coming from countries that have been Christian for a lop.g time, but it can- begin to look for him in the past is evinot be doubted that, if Japan should become thoroughly Christianized, the dent from the present success of misfact would have a great influence in favor of Christianity in China. The sions among them, and from the fact mere fact that a great nation like Japan. s.hould ~ecome practically a that 100,000 Jews have been baptized ChrIstian natIon as a result of missionary effort would prove a great stimulus both to the churches at 1888.] CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 587 by Protestants during the present ising, and a great movement toward the Christian faith on the part of century. The oldest society organ- Russian Israelites seemed just at hand. Shall it be hindered by the ized for Jewish missionary work is the interference of anti-Christian rulers?
London Society for Promoting Mis- Madagascar.-Canon Farrar, in sionary Work Among the Jews,which writing of the liquor traffic in East- was organized in 1808 and has ex- ern Africa, says: tended its work over all Europe and .. Turning to Eastern Africa, we are faced by the tragic story of Madagascar-a story which parts of Asia and Africa, and notably the Rev. H. W. Little, once a missionary on the island, calls 'without parallel for pathos and in Jerusalem and Abyssinia. When consuming interest in the history of the world.' this society began its work there In 1800 the Malagasy were a nation of idolaters; now, thanks in great measure to the London werE' only about fifty baptized Jews Missionary Society, they are a nation of Chrisin England. There are now more tians. They loved, they almost adored, the than 3,000. This society has 35 sta- English, who had done so mnch for them. Untions and 145 agents, and for more happily, however, Mauritius became a sugarthan seventy years it has sustained in producing colony, and rnm was made from the London a church for Jewish converts, refuse of the sngar mills. What was to be done a workshop for teaching themtrades, with it f It was not good enough for Enropean a school for the education of their markets, and Madagascar' was made the recepchildren, and a Hebrew college for tacle for the damaged spirit of the colony.' They the education of missionaries to the received the curse in their simplicity, and it pro- Hebrews. A dozen or more societies dnced frightful havoc. 'The crime Q/ the iBland of various denominations are doing rOle in one &lwrt year by leaps and liounds to a excellent work in Europe. The work height too fearful to record.' The native govern l of the German Lutheran Societies in ment was seized with consternation, and the Southern Russia, under the control of able and courageous king, Radama I., paid the Prof. Delitzsch, is perhaps the most dnty, and ordered every cask of rnm to be promising of them all. staved in on the shore, except those that went to the governni ent stores. -The Longevity of Jews.-Dr. Ben- "The merchants of Manritins complained, the jamin Richardson, the leading sani- Engli8h officials interfered, and from that day the ' cursed 8tuJ!' has had free course, and t1iltary authority of England, delivered uged the land with miBery and C'l'ime."
a lecture recently before the Jews of -The government ofM adagascar lately London upon the "Vitality of the passed a law declaring that any Malagasy women Jews and the Mosaic Sanitary Code." who lived in concnbinage with a foreigner shonld After giving some interesting statIs- forfeit all property held by rights peculiar to the tics as to the large proportion of native of the conntry. This law having come Jews who reach old age, Dr. Richard- into operation last month, many foreigners have son took up the causes of this lon- appeared before the Home Minister for foreign gevity, chief among which was the affairs, and expressed their willingness to conobservance of the laws of Moses. Its form to the new law by marrying the native woprovisions, he said, form a marvelous men with whom they lived. :British subjects collection of sanitary rules. The rest who took this line were referred to Her Majupon the seventh day is a most im- esty's Vice·Consul. According to the Madagasportant provision for health, which, car Times, Mr. Pickersgill said to them: "I if strictly obeyed, would insurE'! to any cannot marry the woman to you without, at the nation an extra term of life. The same time, marrying yon to the woman, and if cleansing of the house, vessels and you are married here, yon cannot unloose the persons which is enjoined, aud the bonds again." The great majority of the appliabstaining from the flesh of animals cants shrank from the responsibility of placing which feed upon garbage, are great themselves under the marriage laws of England. checks upon the spread of disease. In order to secure the enjoyment of the lands or In addition to these are the control of other property which their native concnbines the passions and the special care of possessed, they were willing to recognize them the aged enforced in the Command- as wives under the Malagasy law, and to allow ments.-Hebrew Christian. them to be registered as such in the government -Joseph Rabinowitz, the Christian booka ; but they would not, if they could help it, bring the contract within the jnrisdiction of reformer among the Jews, has re- the British courts. The British Counsellor aucently been warned by the Russian thorities in Madagascar have made it known government to cease from his mis- sionary labors among his brethren in the south and west of Russia. The work he had begun was most prom- 538 INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. [JULY"
that they do not Intend to be parties to the eva- and prince, which was very bitter at the comaion of the Malagasy marriage laws in order to mencement of the mission, and also In the opporenable British subjecta to coutrol the lands or tunity which it affords the doctor and his helpers the slaves of native womeu. to refer to the needs of the sonl while attending to those of the body, and giving access to places Siam. Friends' Syrian Mission.- otherwise closed against mission effort. A new This mission is situated at Brumana, meeting-house has recently been erected to hold on the heights of Mount Lebanon, 300 persons, and the message of life and salvaoverlooking Beyrout, and is under tion throngh the Lord Jesus Christ Is faithfully the joint management of the Society preached to an attentive congregation, which of Friends in Great Britain, Ireland usually fills the building. There are twenty-six and the United States. There is a persons working in connection with the mission, training home for boys, with thirty seven of whom are Europeans. inmates, and for girls, with twenty, and a well-ordered hospital with fif- At Ramallah, near J ernsalem, the Friends teen beds, besides a dispensary, open have another mission, which is dOing a good five days a week. The mission has work among the inhabitants of that dark region. the charge of various day-schools for both sexes in several surrounding vil- -Miss M. L. Cort writes from lages, in which more than 300 chil- Petchaburee, Siam, for the Herald dren are under instruction; it also and Presbyter: employs a colporteur and several Bible-women. There are also two " A Japanese prince has been in Bangkok this mothers' meetings, which in earlier month, and some Siamese ladies were invited to days had sometimes to be short- one of the dinner parties given In hiB honor, and ened because of fights among the they actually sat down and ate with their royal women, but which now are com- husbands for the first time in the history of this posed of large numbers who delight little kingdom. to learn texts of Scripture, and be read to, rather than give vent to evil pas- " The old foreign minister dined with us lately. sion. Althongh he is not a Christian, he Is great friend to us and our work, and he told one of us that he All these agencies have been prodnctlve of prayed every day to the Creator that the condimuch good In the district, and even over a wider tion of his poor people might be improved, slavarea. Many of the pupils of the training homes ery abolished, and opium,. liquor and gambling have gone to their various villages imbued with be prohibited by law. He says, •Siam need true Christian principles, and several boys have never expect to be recognized among civilized taken In1I.nential positions. In the medical de- nations till she throws away her Idols and Budpartment also the work has been much blessed, ftrstly in largely disarming oppositiou from priest dhism.' " The Siamese newspaper lately started pub- lished a very good article abont Japan, and a splendid one on the abolition of slavery which, if carried into effect, will set free thousands of these wretched, debt-bound boys and girls, who were sold by their parents before they had sense enough to object, and whUe they were too young to know",hat slavery meant."
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MIS- SIONARY UNION."
The NeoeB8ity and Rule for the Oome- successes of the gospel in heathen, Mohammedan and papal lands. oration of Property to Ohnst.* Many illustrations have been related of the removal by the Almighty hand BY REV. WILLIAM SPEER, D.D., WASH- of the obstacles which for ages had seemed to be insuperable to the ad- INGTON, PA. vancement of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been Dear orethren and sisters in lifted up to higher faith and courage Christ: We have come to the last by proofs of the awakening through hour of this most refreshing and in- the Holy Spirit of some classes of structive series of meetings. Many those who possess the knowledge of wonderful testimonies have been borne in them, of the power and the *Address before International Missionary Union, 1887.
INTERNATIONAL
the truth to the dl,lties which these religious blessings such as no otliel" things impose upon them; such, es- land on earth possesses; blessings in pecially, as the enlistment of women so many forms, blessings in such and children in distinct efforts in be- boundless profusion. Second, that half of the heathen, and as the spon- He has heaped upon this natioll taneous uprising of thousands of the wealth, agricultural wealth, mineral young men and women in our col- wealth, commercial wealth, the stat- leges and schools, and their avowal istics of which are appalling; wealth of their willingness to go forth to so distributed, wealth so within the teach the gospel to the nations in reach of the toiling and poor classes, darkness, if only the churches are that, as many of us can testify, the willing to send and maintain them. rich in Asiatic and some European Now our minds turn to the momen- countries do not enjoy the comforts tous inquiry: What more is needed and luxuries of the common laborers in order that salvation may be pub- here. The horrible want and suffer- lished to the perishing millions in ut. ings, and degradation and helpless- tel' ignorance of it? To answer this ness of the poor in those lands, peo- should be the consummating aim of ple brought up here do not know and these meetings. It should be the could not conceive. And third, that consummate end of the prayers and these incalculable and overflowing thoughts and efforts of the entire riches are mostly spent in self-indul- Church at this time. gence, in uses of vanity, or in acts and employments which create and Is it not evident that the Church foster crime or are made necessary to has come to the borders of the great the repression and punishment of final movement in behalf of the king- crime. Itis ounces of holy and wise dom of her Lord? Does she not now prevention; tons of ineffectual cure. confront the crowning duty, the last It is grains and straws for the glory and most difficult requirement, of of God and the welfare of mankind; her long and desperate. warfare with huge mountains of outlay and waste sin in the world? Is it not that of for the world, the flesh and the engaging the whole body of his fol- devil. lowers in the provision of the pecuniary means which the employment See how we fling down thousands of earthly instrumentalities, accord- of millions of dollars for war I how ing to God's sovereign plan, makes we cover land and sea with thousands an indispensable necessity? of millions of dollars' worth of the agencies of trade I We pour out in The greatest of all practical ques- every passing year hundreds of milltions now before Christendom is: ions of dollars for liquid poisons; Or How shall the prOfessed believer in for articles craved to pamper the ap- Jesus Christ be aroused to consecrate petite and uselessly adorn the body; to his service the money and prop- or for palatial houses and luxurious erty without which sin and evil can- churches. But oh I how we toil and not be overcome, without which the groan to wring out of some great degifts purchased by his blood cannot nomination, numbering hundreds of by any possibility be conveyed to thousands of assumed followers of men dying of hunger and thirst, the Christ, and several millions of adherhunger and thirst of the immortal ents and worshipers, possibly one palsoul? try million of dollars a year for any oneof.its general organs to employ in The paramount need now is, plain distributing through the nation or and earnest instruction in duty. through the famishing world a few crumbs of the benefits which fall from These are awful facts in the sight of heaven and hell: First, that God has loaded Christian America with
DBPARTlIBNT
these peoples' tables and are swept acceptance· by the Judge on the from about their feet! throne, will be the reward of him who has been faithful in this heaven- The existence of such facts as these ly stewardship. " Ye have done it means judgment. Judgment upon unto Me," shall the King of glory the nation. Weare warned by the himself say. "Ye have done it unto wrath which has turned countries Me!" "He shall walk with Me in that formerly rejected the warnings white." " To hIm will I give to eat of God into barren wildernesses, and of the tree of life, which is in the which left not in Jerusalem one stone midst of the Paradise of God." upon another; which removed their candlestick from Antioch and Alexan- Oh, how vast is the range and varidriaandEphesus, and Constantinople ety of subjects which the glorious and Rome; which has given up theme of "the kingdom of Christ" Greec~ and Spain and France to idol- opens before the mind-the revelaatry and unbelief, spiritual blindness, tions of the Scriptures,the providences a blight upon all their former honor of God-the condition of the church, and power, a decay withering all or of the nation, or of the world-the their prosperity, outbursts of crime, opportunities in the different contirivers of blood. And such beyond nents and nations-the operations of question will be the doom in its turn the various agencies of good-the hisof our nation, if it repent not, and do tory of the past, the prospects of the works meet for repentance. Judg- future-the duties of men, and of ment upon every man and family women, and of children at this juncthat shares in God's spiritual and ture-the recompences and the pentemporal benefits to it and in its un- alties, for time and for eternity! If paralleled opportunities; everlasting only looked into, and thought upon, punishment to unbelieving and sloth- and plainly and earnestly presented, ful professors; a sword of wrath to accompanied with the prayers of minmany a slumbering watchman, who isters and people forthe influences of has not warned them of their evil the Holy Spirit, how would they kinways, and let them die in their in- dle in young and old, in male and feiquity. We dare not shut our eyes to male; yea, in all classes of people, the plain declarations of the eternal in the few who could give millions Word in respect to the account to be and in the multitude who can give given for all these things. mites, aglow of interest which would lead them to consecrate life, and time, "He that withholdeth corn, the and means of every kind, to the adpeople shall curse him; but blessing vancement of the cause of their Reshall be upon the l)ead of him that deemer and Lord with a zeal which seneth it." Upon him that with- would work wonders in themselves, holdeth the bread of life, the true and in the churches, and in the bread from heaven, the bread which spread of the knowledge of Christ givethlife unto the world, the bread throughout the world. which if a man eat he shall live forever, from immortal souls, the The parallel momentous need of curses of nations, the curses of the the present time is, that the ministry assembled universe, the curse of God shall teach professing Christians their forever, the wrath of the Lamb whose obligations to obey God's word, and agonies and blood of atonement to follow God's rule, in respect to matsave haye been made ineffectual ters of money and property. through his wickedness and sloth, will in the last day be poured without It appears self-evident that those measure. But blessing, glory, riches, whom Christ has set to be teachers honor, the rejoicings of angels, the of his people should instruct them that they are to be guided by the
INTJmNATIONAL DBPARTMBNT
principles and inculcations of God's Consider the rule: "UPON THB word in this as in other duties, and FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK LET EVERY that they should follow in thE.'ir em- ONE OF YOU LAY BY HIM IN STORE AS ployment of their material means in GOD HATH PROSPERED HIM."
his service the definite, practical and This is an inspired "order." It is all sufficient rule which God, by his given in Omniscient wisdom; to Holy Spirit, has given. And yet how further the Divinepurposes of mercy little are the lessons which stand out to mankind through Christ. It so massively in the commands and teaches us the Christian use of money admonitions and history and typical and property.
appointments of the Old Testament, I. Universal responsibility. "Every and in the teachings and promises one" must give. All are created by and warnings of the Lord Jesus and God, dependent upon God, can only his Apostles, pointed out in our pul- be saved through Christ, must give pits. How wonderful in itself, and account in the judgment; those of in its relations and influence is this every age, sex, condition.
divine rule I-brief as one of the ten II. From Ohristian motives. Re- commandments; the complement, lated to "the first day of the week."
we might almost say, of the peti- From love to the risen Lord. For the tions of the Lord's prayer; vital to advancement of his cause among the fiscal success of the kingdom that men. In harmony with the aims is to come; the neglect of which has and efforts of his church. With been the woe of the Church, and the prayer and thanksgiving. Looking ruin of her children, and the means chiefly to the recompenses of the of withholding the bread of life, final day.
Christian truth, Christian agencies III. As a personal transaction with of mercy, Christian forces of civiliza- God. "Laying by him in store. "
tion, from the hundreds of millions With private prayer, intelligent in- of our brethren and sisters of the hu- quiry, business calculation. Employ- man family now living, and from the ing care and with sense of responsi- thousands, oh, the thousands and bility for what belongs to God. A thousands, of millions in the genera- part to add effect to personal labors, tions which have passed beyond the charitable and religious. A part to dread bourne of such opportunities. be distributed to general claims as How astonishing, before earth, and they are providentially presented.
heaven and hell, that this rule is not IV. In definite measure, and in ceaselessly and commensurately with the ratio of increasing ability. A its importance to the King's revenue, lower proportion when poorer, a .explained and urged in sermons, larger proportion as means in- taught to the young, inculcated in crease. Bestowing thank-offerings families, enforced by personal ex- for special and unexpected beneflts.
ample, represented in inscriptions Guided by the standards of holy con- and pictures, commented upon and secration exhibited in the ancient illustrated in nlany ways by religious saints; but recognizing the higher periodicals, insisted upon in ecclesi- light and privileges, aims and prom- astical proceedings, as must be done ises, and duties and opportunities, of to accomplish a reformation in Chris- this dispensation and above all of tianity, to effect the promised open- these "last days."
ing of the windows of heaven and the Here is a rule which is perfect as a outpouring of its celestial blessings, financial measure. Its divinity grows and to introduce a new era, the res- upon one with the contemplation of toration of more than its first para- it, and with his efforts to apply it in dise, to our sinful world. practice. It is evaded by many; human "plans" are·substituted for it home· was at Norway-House, 400 in church work. Those who heed miles north of Winnipeg, and on the little Christ's command to ., preagh the gospel to every creature," will lake of that name. His circuit was be indifferent to the method by which he instructs his followers to 350 by 550 miles, the temperature fallregulate their earnings and their gifts. His precept should be taught ing sometimes as low as 550 below especially to the rising generation, zero. Mr. Young told the following story: and to the young men and women .. At Norway-House, on a certain occasion, a who are to be its ministry and guides. number of Indians came into my room, noise- When its principles shall have been lessly, after their fashion, so that the room was put widely into operation, according filled with them before I knew it. When I be- came aware of their presence I asked whence to its full scope and design, the king- they were. 'From a journey of fourteen nights,' they replied ; for they reckon distance by the dom of heaven will be advanced with number of nights they are delayed to sleep. 'We majestic strides and the arm of the have got the Keesenaychen [the Great Book], Lord will awake to wonders of sal- but we don't understand it, although we can vation. read it.' I thought they were joking, for the In- dians cannot read unless some one has· taught The Voluntary Demand for the Gospel them, and I knew from their account that they Among Hea.then. must live far away from any missionary; but I asked them: ' From what missionary did you ONE of the most interesting hours learn l' 'We nevel'saw a missionary nor a of the International Missionary Union teacher I ' I took down from my shelf our meetings in 1887 was the one devoted Bible, printed In the beautiful syllabic character to testimony from personal experi- for the Cree Janguage, and opened to Genesis; ence of the call directly and spontan- they read It with ease and correctness. I turned eously from heathen, both individ- the pages and they read in many places. I uals and communities, for the Gospel. was amazed, and asked them again where they Rev. W. H. Belden to.ok notes of the lived. They described It to me ; it was far away conversations and narratives, and north of Hudson's Bay, hundreds of mUes from collated from other sources subse- any mIssIonary. Their hunting-grounds, it quently, more testimony of the same seems, adjoin those of some Christian Indians- kind. He published selections from they cover great distances in hunting-and, con- these for use in the November Sim- tinued my visitors, 'We visited your Indians ultaneous Meetings, held in New Jer- and fonnd that they had the KeeBerta'Vchen. We sey, last year. It has been our pur- got them to read it and then to teach it to us ; pose for some time to yield to the de- and we wel:e so pleased with It that we all learn- mand for the publication of some ed to read it during the winter.' Every soul In of these recitals in the more perma- a village of three hundred popnlation had thus nent form of this REvmw. We can actually learned to read the Bible without ever now only give a few samples. The having seen any white teacher; and having Editor of this Department will be providentially come Into possession of Bome grateful for further illustrations of copies that happened to be in the hands of the this" feeling after God" among non- Hndson's Bay Company's agent, these heathen Christian peoples. Let missionaries Indians had journeyed throngh the snows four-' on all fields favor us with such nar- teen nights' distance that to them might be ratives and we will promise to make given instruction In the Book they had thus the best possible use of them. learned to love.
At the Thousand Island meeting, Another response came from J. L. the first to speak was the Rev. Eger- ton R. Young of Canada, for nine Phillips, M.D., D.D., at present act- years a missionary amongst the In- ing as chaplain of State institutions dians Qf the far North-land. His at Howard, R. I., while waiting to return to his (Free Baptist) Mission in India. He said: "A little mission station two mUes trom us had, almost every week, companies of men coming in from the jnngle, some of them travel- Ing many mUes to reach a native evangelist. Among the Santhala aronnd me, one day a native helper came to say: A man ont here has just asked me, 'Are there any Christians here? for I have Been a black Christian and a neighbor of received some benefit, but hia great gain was to mine once saw a white one; tell your Christians his soul. A deep impression was made on him that tbere are some of ns who want Christianity.' by the worship and the kindness in thehospltaJ. So we went away to where this stranger lived. After he returned to his home he went about An old man came and prostrated himseU on the from "Village to "Village telling what he had grass before us. He brought out a little book earned and pleading with all to accept Christ as printed by the English Baptists at Cuttack, Oris- their Saviour. Many scoffed, but some believed, sa [India]. It was not even a chapter of the and these sent a request to the missionaries to Bible; it was some Scripture truth metrically send some one to teach them more fully. A written, and these people had been singing it teacher was sent, and the missionary subsewith their lips not only, but with their hearts. quently baptized thirty inquirers." • A man,' said one of them, • went to a Sunday market and would not let some whites who were Miss Mary L. Cort, of the Presbythere preach; but they lert some books. One terian Mission in Siam, author of day I heard my neighbor reading in one of these and I aaked him, as I found he cared nothing for " Siam, the Heart of Farther India," it, to give it to me; and I brought it home. I wrote: believe it, and my wife; the priest and his wife, and my son and his wife.' So [continued Dr. .. In April last, while making a mission tour to Phillips] we found eight souls, now ready for Ratburee, I met an old nobleman from KRnbuwhalevcr Christianity should require of them." ree, a large city fifty miles further up the river who begged us to visit his city, for, he said, he Among those who wrote to Mr. had never before heard of a • Jiving' God and of forgiveness of sin I " Belden was Rev. J. B. Porter of Kan- Rev. J. L. Nevius, D.D., of Chefoo, azawa, Japan, who said: China, wrote: .. It has become 80 common in this part of Japan for heathen to make known voluntarily .. In the Spring oflB85, while itinerating In a their own desire to have the gospel brought to them or to their people, that at this station we region about 260 miles from here, previously uthave adopted the following for our' out-station' work: WMreaa, the invitations are 80 numer- visited, I was by providenti~l circumstances OU8 from towns and villages to give them the drawn aside from the road I was traveling, and gospel, and preachers are so scarce, Resolved, a person whom I should not bave met in the that we, 8S far as possible, will open new preach- proposed course of my journey, waa providening stations only at those towns and villages tially drawn from his home to meet me. While where people have expressad a desire to have the crowds with whom I met in the marketthem; and we call upon those persons who send town where I was stopping sought me out and invitations to become responsible for at least the listened to me from mere curiosity, this manexpense of the preaching place from the begin- listened with intense interest to all I said. Arter ning." listening for some time he introduced himself and addressed me as follows: •This is what I Rev. T. C. Winn, of the same sta- have been waiting for, for twenty years. I have been earnestly seeking for light and guidance, tion in Japan, says: but without success. This is the very truth I want.' This man-his name is Yang-yiu·shin- .. On a visit to the city. of Tayama, in 1881, we received and embraced the truth at once, as a were visited by an old gentleman, in our hotel, person prepared and called. He has been an who said, • I have long held an important posi- earnest and successfol student of the Bible ever tion in one of the temples here; but I have lost since, and he has been God's instrnment in es- faith in the religions of Japan. I am an old man tablishing three churches in and about his home. and must soon die. But my religion gives me I have met with no similar caae in my experi- no hope for the future. I find no consolation in ence." it. For some time I have been thinking that there must be some other and true religion. The Church Missionary Society of From what yon have said I believe that you have England has published numerous ac- at last brought it to me. Please teach me all about this true religion.' This man became a counts similar to the foregoing; we Christian. " give one as a sample: In sympathy also with these letters, .. One who had been a heathen red mau," says Bishop Whipple of the American Episcopalians, the Rev. Dr. Hunter Corbett wrote whose missionary labors in the diocese of Min- nesota have made him illustrious on both sides from Chefoo, China: the Atlantic, .. came 60S miles to visit me. As he came into the door he knelt at my feet, say- .. Our hearts are constantly made sad by the ing: •I kneel to tell you of my gratitude, that supreme indift"erence of the masses to the claims yon pitied the red man.' He then told this sim- of the gospel, but occasionally the clouds lift ple, artless story: •I was a wild man living be- and light appears to cheer our weak faith. A man yond the Tnrtle Mountains. I knew that my from a certain district in Manchuria, where the people were perishing; I never looked in the United Presbyterians of Scotland are engaged, face Of mf child tbllt my heart was not sick. went to a millsionary Jlhfsician for llls efes. He My lathers told me there was a Great Spirit, and its educational course, the first of its I hllve often gone to the woods and tried to ask Him for help, and I only got the sound of my kind in the country, having under voice.' And then he looked in my face in that instruction over a hundred girls. artless way and said, 'You do not know what I mel'n. You never stood in the dark lind reached In one of the mission schools in out your hand and took hold of nothing. One this city one of the civil officers (a day an Indian came to my wigwam. He said to Mahommedan) said to the missionary, me he had heard you tell a wonderful story at Red Lake: that you said the Great Spirit's Son "You can teach your Bible as much had come down to earth to save all the people as you like, only give just a little th~t needed help; that the reason that the white while to the Koran." man was so much more blessed than the red man, was because he had the true religion of One writing from another part of ' the Son of the Great Spirit; and I said I must India says ': see that man. They told me you would be at the Red Lake crossing. I came 200 miles. I " The work among the Mahommedans is inasked for you and they said you were sick, and creasing very mUCh, and I am asked constantly then I said, 'Where can I see a Missionary 1' to go and preach to them. In trying to explain I came 150 miles more, and I found the Mission- to some that Christ died for all, one asked, 'Did ary was a red man like myself. My father, I he die for the Mahommedans, too 1' And when have been with him three moons. I have the I replied, ' Him that cometh to me, I wiJI in nostory in my heart. It is no longer dark. It wise cast out,' they said, 'Then we can come, laughs all the while.' And he turned to me and too.' " said,' WiJI you notigive me a Missionary l' " A lady writing from another point Oan Moslems be Reached? says: BY MRS. J. T. GRACEY, BUFFALO, N. Y. "A Mahommedan moulvie has opened his house to us. He said to me, 'You know it is FROM the discussions which have considered a disgrace amongst us to let our' recently attracted the attention of women and girls learn, but I now think that nothe Christian public, one might sup- tion foolish, and I want mine taught.' He is the pose Christianity had in Islam an first one here who has had the courage to send unconquerable foe. But even the his daughter to us." Mahommedans cannot accept what Canon Taylor said. His Wolver- .another writes,: hampton address was printed by them in Constantinople, in Damascus and .. There is an increasing desire among the :Mein Beyrout. One Moslem editor calls hommedans to read the Scripture. They often upon the faithful to hear what the ask for the gospels, and sometimes buy the "English Monk" says about them. whole Bible. Where the Canon describes Islam as a brotherhood, the editor says, •• An intelligent Mahommedan girl, very bigot_ " Would to God it were so !" ed, was reading the story of Christ's entry Into Jerusalem. She asked: But there are facts showing that many of these followers of the false … Why did Jesus ride on an ass 1' prophet are seeking for light. In " 'Because in old times among the Jews king'. the province of Mysore, India, which sons and judges rode on them.' contains half a ~illion of Mahom-, " , But he was not a king's son.' medans, there is no distinctiveLy mis- " , Oh, yes; he is the Son of the KIng of kings. sion work among them. Yet, in the He Is God's Son.' city of Bangalore, one of the largest " She then said, thoughtfully: •It says In our in the province, there is a great awak- Koran that Jesus rode on an ass, and' I never ening among the Mahommedan popu- knew what it meant, but I understand It now.' .. lation, and particularly are they stirred on the sub~ect of female edu- Another writes: cation. They have here a "female educational institution," with its " A special bleSSing seems to rest just now on committee of native gentlemen, and work amongst Mahommedans. In one mission alone eight of them are nnder instruction for baptism."
The Mahommedan Educational Congress held in Lucknow, not long since, decided, by a vote of 200 to 20, that weak and inefficient schools were better than no schools at all; that missionary schools, where the Bible was taught, were better than schools where nothing religious was incul- cated, and that the Koran was not taught as much as formerly, and this fact was eonsidered as a national dis- 'I am a Slav [Slahv], but I am a captain II: the Tnrkish army. I want to ask you when Enggrace. land is going to give us liberty . • • r Be- These facts are all suggestive. cause, if there was any freedom, I should become a Christian, and here in these provinces (Euro- There are many of this class, not pean,Turkey) out ofour 4,000,000 Mahommedans, only In India but elsewhere, who one-fourth would embrace Christianity.' I reare earnestly seeking for" the way, plied: 'What are your reasons for such an opin- ion l' He said: 'Don't you know that tbere are the truth, the life." a great many of us who are not really Turks at The following incident is only one all t And to this day, when a Mahommedan fatber has a son born to him, it often happens illustration of many: that he takes him into a dark room and puts The son of a very influential and water on him and says certain words-tbat Is a remnant of Christianity. A Turk will never do famous Afghan has been baptized in that 1 And I said to my colonel: 'I wish there Amritsur. The young man is him- was liberty to profess Christianity l' 'Tush,' self a moulvie (teacher). He says: said my colonel, 'don't say that, for I feel just so, and you know what the consequences would .. From my earliest years I have been care- be." fully taught in the Mahommedan faith. Three years ago I began to have great doubts, which Archdeacon Farlar is stationed at wonld not Jet me rest. The consciousness of Magila, East Africa, engaged in the sin crushed me, but I could see no salvation Universities Mission. He says: anywhere. I wanted to get,the Bible, to see if it could help me, but I did not_kr.ow where to .. I cannot speak for tribes, as no tribe in East get it. The weariness ,and misery of my heart Central Africa has ever accepted Islam; but I God alone knew. At last, one day, I heard a can speak from personal experience as to the Christian was in our village. I found it was a fact that many Mahommedans relapse into lady preaching about Christ. I got a Testament paganism, and that many Mahommedans become from her, and very soon Christ gave me rest." Christians. Last week a Mahommedan Mualim was baptized by our bishop in one of the sub- The lad suffered persecution, and stations. Yesterday I baptized a young man, finally had to leave home, hoping to tbe dying son of a Mahommedan, at his father's be baptized. His father offered $100 earnest request. I am now preparing for bap- tism another Mahommedan Mualim and two reward to anyone who would bring Mabommedan master tradesmen. I have this him his son's head. A number of Ma- day received into our school a young Arab, or hommedans asked him why he for- Mussulman Hindi lad, born in Zanzibar, who sook th~ religion of his fathers, and made his way to Magila, wishing to be taught. his answer was as simple as it was Three of our most promising teachers, two of whom are preparing for holy orders, are Mahombeautiful, "Because there is no soul- medan converts.
rest in it." .. I am speaking uow only of the results of our work in one tribe; there are many other in- At the International Union Mis- stances of couversions from Islam; but as these sionary meeting, August, 1887, the are just taking place as I write, I mention them especially. Rev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, founder and first president of Robert College, Con- .. In a number of villages in the neighborhood stantinople, Turkey, arose and said: of this station, where I remember seeing a mosque a few years ago, there is now a school .. There is certainly a suppressed demand chapel, while the mosqnes have fallen down, for the gospel among Mohammedans in the and no one rebuilds them. Many a young man Turkish empire. They do not hate Cbrist; that I used to see at his ablutions, preparing for they honor him; it is Christianity that they the Sala-ya-Gioni at sunset, is now a worshiper hate, from the false examples of it seen around in the Christian church." them in the corrupt Oriental churches. Among the great Mahommedan population in the three Notes. empires of Turkey, Persia and India (150,000.000 to 200,000,000 of souls) there is a suppressed de- -Three monthly periodicals of one mand for the word of God and for freedom to hear of Christ. Years ago, before the founding missionary society of England had of the present mission (American Board's) to the Bulgarians, I was in Philippopolis (350 miles a circulation in 1886 of over 900,000 west of Constantinople), now the capital of Eastern Roumelia, or, as it is just now called, copies. Many of these were distrib- Southern Bulgaria. A military man called upon me, who I at once saw belonged to the Slavic uted gratuitously, but the public race, of which the Bulgarians are a part. I said to him: 'You are not a Turk?' 'No,' said he, bought over $13,000 worth of them. -Murray's Magazine for August, 1887, has an article on "The Church of the British Empire" which treats and these Christian Japanese conlargely of foreign missionary work. tributed $160 toward starting the The National Review, for June, 1887, Hawaiian Mission. has a lengthy article on" The Foreign Missions of the Church of England." -A number of Dundee gentlemen The Nineteenth Oentury for Novem- have purchased a barque to be sent ber, 1887, had a long article on "Brit- on a commercial and missionary exish Missions in Africa." pedition next July into the Arctic seas about Pond's Bay to Christian- -Books of travel through non- izE' the natives. If thE' report is favor- Christian countries almost all now- able from this expedition a Polar adays treat favorably or unfavora- mission will be carried out. bly of Christian missions in those lands; vide "Journal of A. R. Mar- -" Moslem prayers are rarely supgary," p. 71; Mr. Charles Darwin's plications for blessings. It has been "Journal of Researches" in Tahiti stated that among the 10,000 verses and New Zealand, 2d edition, pp. 414, of the Quran, there are not as many 425, 428, 505; "At Home in Fiji," by petitions as are in the Lord's Prayer." Miss Gordon Cumming; "Wande)'- ings South and East," Mr. Walter -The Bengal Methodist Episcopal. Coote, in Fiji, Loyalty and Sandwich Conference, reports last year's pap- Islands. Almost every author of tisms as being, from Hinduism 46, travels treats missions as one of the from Muhammedanism 21. This foremost topics of popular interest. large proportion of Moslem baptisms is significant. The inflexibility of the -Governments take cognizance of Moslem too often means that no SPE'- missions in our times in official re- cial effort has been made by Chrisports and in Parliamentary and Con- tians to reach him. gressional debates: e. g. " Report of the Secretary of State and Council -In a history of the London Misof India for 1871-72," ordered printed sionary Society in South Africa, pubby the House of Commons April lished in London, Mr. John McKen- 1873; "Report of Madras Census for zie, for twenty-five years missionary 1874;" Report of the Indian Education in Bechuanaland, discourses of the Commission, 1884, p. 535; Reports of prevalent impression that the introseveral Secretaries of State for India. duction of Christian civilization has a tendency to seal the doom of native -Eminent men are connpcted of- races. Mr. Mackenzie cites the case ficially with the conduct of mission- of the Gariepine people at the Cape, ary boards. Before us lies a list of Hottentots, Bushmen, Korannas, those of the Chnrch Missionary So- who were once so degraded as to be ciety, alone having one duke, ten hardly accepted as human, and who earls, 6everal lords, one major-gen- at the commencement of the century eral, three generals, three colonels, were "fast dying out.'· Not only one admiral, five members of Parlia- has decrease in their numbers been ment, and eight men knighted for arrested, but a steady increase has valor or worth. been going on, so that the 15,000 Hot- tentots increased to 98,561 in 1875 -Rei Kanichi Miyama, a Japanese and the race there are now all prowith his wife, left San Francisco on fessing Christianity. March 8 to commence a self-supporting mission among Japanese in the -"Missions are so characteristic a Sandwich Islands. He had previous- feature of our church, so essentially ly made a visit of inspection to the a part of her functions, that, even locality. He has been connected had they not yet sprung into existwith the Methodist Episcopal mis- ence, their commencement could not . sion to Japanese in San Francisco, but be daily expected."-Baron Von Schrautenbach, Moravian Historian.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. M7
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
[THE month of July we have given to the At the request of the chief, he Islands of the Sea and the Indians, Chinese and chose Raratea as his first center. It Japanese in America, together with Utah and was the largest of the Society group, Alaska. We shall devote our space to such se- politically supreme, and the stronglections and snggestions as may cover these hold of idolatry-the "Ephesus of various interesting themes.-EDs.] that portion of Polynesia." Thence he bore the gospel in succession to I. THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA. the Hervey and the Samoan clusters, and to over 300,000 souls. The story of the gospel in the South Sea Islands reads like a ro- He found that a ship, at his own mance. John Williams was the disposal, was indispensable to the pioneer messenger to so many of prosecution of his work; without it, those jewels of the deep, and his "what prison-wall had been so strong "narrative of missionary enter- as that white and wailing fringe of prises" seems almost incredible, but sea?" And he set about making one every word can be verified by the with his own hands, with some help testimony of successive visitors to from the wondering natives. Marthose beautiful islands. His work of velous is the account of the making marvelous adventure, transcendent of his own machinery and the buildsuccess and sudden martyrdom should ing of his ship at Raratonga, where be studied by every lover of missions. he spent a year. He had to sacrifice three out of his four goats to secure John Williams was born near Lon- leather for a pair of bellows, and, to don in 1796, and murdered by the na- his dismay, when they were comtives at Dillon's Bay, in Eromango pleted, ready, as he hoped, to blow Island, New Hebrides, in 1839, at the the fire that should melt his iron, age of 43. Yet what usefulness was every particle of goat-skin was eaten crowded into that short life! off them in a single night by the hordes of rats. Seventy-five years ago this ironmonger's apprentice stood at the cor- Discouraged by no hindrances or ner of a street in London one Sunday difficulties, in less than four months evening, waiting for some wild com- the Messenger of Peace was companions. That was the man with pleted, and bore him four thouwhom the destinies of thousands of sands of miles to hundreds of thousavage South Sea Islanders were sands of heathens, whom he found mysteriously linked. His master's sunk in idolatry, superstition and wife, going to worship, observed the nameless pollution, practising polad, and, with difficulty, persuaded lygamyand infanticide, sluggish in him t.o go to church with her, where intellect, and, when not at war, living he heard the words by which he was in indolence. It would be difficult to saved. find a people over whom a feeble faith or a mere human philanthropy His early love for practical and would have been more ready to bend mechanical work developed, in after in mingled pity, disgust and despair. years, into skill so many-sided as to greatly increase his influence over Believing that Christianity not the simple-hearted natives that only emancipates man from his vices, crowded around him in wondering but most effectually awakens the admiration. torpid intellect, he looked to God for His blessing on the ministry of the In 1817 he sailed, with his wife, Word, preached the gospel faithfor the Pacific, and in exactly one fully, and used all prudent secuyear cast anchor in the beautiful lagoon of Eimeo. Ten mvnths later he was preaching to the people in their own tongue. lar measures. He built himself a 1821, and left there two native preach- .tasteful house, with due regard to ers. He found the natives very noisy ventilation, neatness and comfort. and wild savages; some tattooed Outside were vine-shaded verandas, from head to foot, others fantasticalgardens and poultry-yards. Soon ly painted or smeared with charcoal, the natives began to rear houses after dancing, shouting and madly gesticuthe same models; then a house of lating. They were cannibals, killing worship, holding three thousand, and eating one another. Eighteen with an ornamented pulpit and ten· months after, he again visited the chandeliers of turned wood, holding island; and as he approached, canoes cocoanut shells for lamps. Gradually, met his boat with Christian salutathe wliole aspect of the people was tions: "Good is the word of the changed; all the idols were cast Lord! it is now well at Aituaki! away; multitudes became Christians The good Word r.as taken root !' in heart and life. A code of written laws was formed, and trial by jury On landing he found chief and peoestablished, so that within three ple had embraced the Gospel, and years, Raratea became a Christian had built a church 180 feet x 30, in island, its sea-beach studded with which he preached to about 2,000 white cottages, with their own people from J no. iii, 16. One such an schooner lying at anchor. example is an irrefragable proof of the Divine sanction upon foreign· Williams' mechanical gifts, his missions. rare ingenuity and fertility of resources, made him a missionary of a FIJI GROUP. thousand. God had brought about a wonderful juncture in the history IN 1874 Sir Arthur Hamilton Gorof missions, and had raised up the don was sent out by the British Govman to meet it. Even his joyful, ernment as the first Governor of Fiji. hoping spirit, contributed largely to The Fiji Island group, consisting of his success. "Like the sunny islands about 250 islands, of which eighty or among which he sailed, his soul lived ninety are inhabited, and two of in a perpetual summer." He used to which are about t!e size of Long say, "There are two words in our Island, was voluntarily placed under language that I always admire, the sceptre of Queen Victoria by Trust and Try. You know not what King Thokambau and his chiefs. you can or cannot effect until you The reason for this step given by try, and if you meet your trials in the Thokambau, who had been converted exercise of trust in God, mountains of some years before by Wesleyan misimaginary difficulties will vanish as sionaries, was that foreign advenyou approach them, and facilities will turers had become so troublesome in arise which you never anticipated." their unprincipled efforts to instigate This was the golden motto of his war between the chiefs, that he whole missionary life. feared the total extinction of the tribes, and the destruction of every- His short, bright, beautiful career, thing that was good on the islands. closed in mid-splendor of his usefulness. Faith could only be silent It was a singular spectacle which when the bitter tidings arrived- these chiefs, headed by their king, that John Williams had received presented, when the great war-club, from the hand of his God the double the emblem of Fijian power, was crown of missionary and martyr. handed over to the representativlls of the British throne, and an island em- His whole career furnishes another pire was made over without bloodspecimen of' Gospel power, John shed or any other means of conquest Williams went to Aituaki island in than those which had been used by a handful of faithful missionaries. It was to them that this wonderful way they do. You may now PIISS from isle to transformation was due; it was by isle, certain everywhere to find the same cordial their influence that the auspices of reception hy kindly men and women. Every village on the eighty inhabited isles has built British rule had been estimated and for itself a tidy church, and a good house for its teacher or native minister, for whom the village coveted. also provides food and clothing. Can yO'U real- ize that there are 900 Wesleyan churches in Fiji, at everyone of which the frequent services are crowded by devout congregations; that the A niece of Governor Gordon, Miss schools are well attended, and that the first sound which greets your ear at dawn and the C. S. Gordon Cummings, went to last at night is that of hymn singing, alld most Fiji as a member of his household. fervent worship rising from each dwelling at the In a well-written book entitled" At hour of family prayer? '
Home in Fiji," she has much to say .. Strange indeed is the change that has come of the wonderful transformations over these isles since first Messrs. Cargill and wrought by Wesleyan missions Cross,Wesleyan miSSionaries, landed here in the among a people known to have been year 1835, resolved at the hazard of their lives to bring the light of Christianity to these ferocious the worst of all known cannibal tribes cannibals. Imagine the faith and courage of the two white men, without any visible protecupon the globe. Living for eight tion, landing in the midst of these bloodthirsty years in the country, not as a mission- hordes, whose unknown language they had in ary nor in the missionary circle, nor the first instance to master; and day after day witnessing such scenes as chill one's blood even even belonging to the same body of to hear about. Many such have be,en described to me hy eye witnesses. Christians as the missionaries, she may be considered an entirely disin- .. Slow and disheartening was their labor for many years, yet so well has that little leaven terested witness. She speaks as fol- worked that, with the exception of the Rai lows: Shobes, the wild highlanders who still hold ont in their mountain fastnesses, the eighty inhah- H I often wish that some of the cavillers who ited isles have all abjured cannibalism and other are forever sneering at Christian missions could frightful cnstoms, and have lotered (embraced see something of their results in these isles. Christianity) in such good earnest as may well But first they would have to recall the Fiji of put to shame many more civilized nations." ten years ago when every man's hand was against his neighbor, and the land had no rest n.-N. A. INDIANS. 'from barbarous intertribal wars, in which the REV. DR. TIMOTHY HILL, in his last foe, without respect of age or sex, were looked upon only in the light of so much beef, the pris- report, said of the Indian Territory: oners deliberately fattened for the slaughter, dead bodies dug up that had been buried ten or .. There are something over thirty tribes and twelve days, and could only be cooked in the portions of tribes, varying in the widest exform of puddings, limbs cut off from living men tremes from each other. There are remnants and women, and cooked and eaten in the pres- from the far East, descendants of men who ence of the victim, who had previously been heard David Brainerd preach. There are Mocompelled to dig the oven and cut the firewood docs from the lava heds of the Pacific coast; for the purpose; and this not omy L time of others from far North, and from Mexico and war, when such atrocity might be deemed less Texas on the South. They differ as widely as inexcusable, bnt in time of peace, to gratify the possible; on the one hand a painted savage, caprice or appetite of the moment. a blanket Indian, dependent on government rations, the extremity of human ignorance, " Think of the sick buried alive; the array of degradation and general worthlessness; on the widows who were deliherately strangled on the other we may see an Allen Wright, the gradu- ,death of any great man; the living victims who ate of Union College and our own Union were buried beside every post of a chief's new Seminary-the governor of his tribe by official house, and must needs stand clasping it, while election, the pastor of large churches, the earth was gradually heaped over their devoted heads; or those who were hound hand .. There are five civilized tribes who have a reg- and foot and laid on the ground to act as rollers ularly organized government of their own. They when a chief launched a new canoe, and thus are the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws. doomed to a death of excruciating Mony; a Creeks and Seminoles. time when there was not the slightest security for life or property, and no man knew how .. These five tribes may be justly called civi- quickly his own hour of doom might come; lized. A considerable portion of them speak when whole villages were depopulated simply to and read and write the English language. Each supply their neighbors with fresh meat. of these tribes is, within narrow limits, a nation, H Just think of all this and of the change that has been wrought, and then just imagine white men who can sneer at missionary work in the electing its own officers, making and executing Episcopalians have' 856 communicants in eight / their own laws. They have a regnlar system of mission5. The American Missionary Association schools, which are taught in English. has in Dakota and Nebraska four churches with 274 members. We do not undertake to verifX "In religion these tribes have ceased to be the entire 30,000, for we suppose it wonld be pagans; they all profess some form of Christian necessary to embrace the reports from Roman faith. But the standard of morals among these Catholic missions. civilized rndians is low. There are still 4.0,000 wild Indians in this " Other tribes and bands occupy more than country, 12,000 in government and mission half of the conntry. What shall be done for schools, 28,000 to whom no school opens, no their moral elevation and religiOUS welfare? missionary comes; 60 whole tribes npon whose The first thing we need there is a large increase darkness no ray of gospel light has ever fallen, as of educated men.for the ministry. There are to- pagan and as savage as were their ancestors when day in the new synod, living in the Territory, the tlrst white man landed upon these shores. twenty-eight ordained ministers and four licentiates. Earnest efforts should be made to carry THE annual report of the Indian the gospel to all these people as quickly and as Bureau shows the past year one of fully as we can. distinct advancement, on the part of the Indians, in education, industry "There is a favorable opening for us among and other lines of civilization. The the Indians of the five tribes, ariSing from the good effects of the severalty act are great r~spect that is felt for the old missionaries. already apparent. Under this act The names of Worcester, Butler, Kingsbnry, many of the Indians have acquired Byington, Wright and others, are spoken of their own lands and homes, and with great respect. An old missionary is al- started upon the way to independways remembered with respect, and we are ent citizenship. According to the considered as coming in their places; and report about thirty-three pel' cent. as they were benefactors, so they expect us to of the Indians on the reservations be. The field is white for the harvest for ns wear the clothes of civilization; there, and wherever faithful labor has been about 2a,OOO speak English intelliseen, large results have followed. gibly; 10,000 of their children are in schools. More than 31,000 families .. They clamor for schools; it comes to them are engaged in industrial pursuits. cheap; bnt with us all the schools must be but There are cultivated more than 238,- the scaffolding by which we may build the sanc- 000 acres of land, on which have tuary of the Church of God. been raised 750,000 bushels of wheat, 950,000 bushels of corn, 402,000 bush- .. It is plain that we cannot nndertake to edu- els of oats, 68,000 bushels of barley cate the whole population, nor would it be wise and rye, 514,000 bushels of vegetables, to attempt it with our limited means. Bnt we and 83,000 pounds of butter. They can have a few schools of a high character, have built houses, fences and sawed where the Bible shall be a daily stndy, where lumber. They own cattle, horses prayer and a deep religions inbnence can be a and other stock, their sheep reachpresent thing which silently bnt effectually ing the number of 1,120,000. shapes all who come under its influence. The schools should be religiOUS first 9f all ; the end III.-CHINESE IN NORTH AMERICA. held in view above all others shonld be bringing the gospel before the pupils in all its beauty and THE absurdity of the outcry against power. There shonld be no teacher employed the "Mongolian Invasion,"-as the who is not considered a Christian; the teacher .arrival of a few thousand Chinese in shonld always be a missionary. California was called-is more ap- parent every day. In 37 counties of "What is to be done must be done quickly; that State, not including San Franthe race is passing away, bnt a remnant can be cisco, there were, according to the saved." late census, 350,000 people, of whom only 26,000, or less than 8 per cent., The present religious statistics published by are Chinese, while of the population the Government give the following: "Number in these counties fully one-third is of missionaries-male, 77; female, 27; total, composed of foreigners. 104 ; number of Indian church members-male, 14,550; female, 15,994; total, 30,544; number of church buildings, 155." Where are these 30,000 church members? The Southern Baptists have an association in the Indian Territory, embracing 81 churches. "that may be nnderstood as composed of aboriginal members," and these number 4,263. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has a conference in the same territory with 5,394 Indian members. The Cumberland Presbyterians have there two Presbyteries, including nine native ministers and 37 congregations. In the diocese of South Dakota alone the The celebration of the Chinese welcomed at their shrines. A brief New Year took place in San Fran- acquaintance with these deluded recisco with great rejoicing. The ligionists is sufficient to at'ouse the principal ceremonies were on Satur- missionary zeal of all who know the day, Feb. 11, and the pageantry was superiority of a pure monotheistic continued in a less degree for several faith. days. The festival in " Chinatown" was ushered in with fire-crackers SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. and noisy discords, which form the prevailing strains in Oriental music. Universal evangelization. – The The Chinese stores, restaurants and matter is primarily one of simple theatres were gaily decorated, and obedience to ollr Lord's Jast comall the celestials were in their best mand. Here are our marching attire. At the several joss houses orders. A true soldier does not hesithe priests of Buddha adorned their tate, parley, or even delay to ask a hideous idols with robes of costly question. brocaded silk. The number of incense sticks was doubled, and in front Secondly. It is a matter of love to of the i ma~es were placed offerings of man as well as loyalty to Christ. rice and other articles of food. Sup- Every motive of humanity and piety pliants with written petitions, at- unite to constrain us to give the gostached to little bamboo sticks, pros- pel to the world. Huber, the blind trated themselves before the sense- naturalist, observed that a wasp will less deities. H"ere, as in Christian not stop to eat a precious morsel by churches, the majority of the wor- himself. He goes to the nest and shippers were women, and the value leads others forth to the feast. He of their votive gifts was proportion- that withholdeth corn, the people ately large. The need of Christian "shall curse him. No monopoly is so ladies as missionaries in this West- inexcusable and monstrous as that el"n metropolis is painfully apparent. in the Bread of Life.
An impetus was given to the hea- There is nothingeither impossibleor then ceremonies this year, by the impracticable in the immediate evanopening of a new and gorgeous joss gelization of the world. We need. house at No.9 Brooklyn Place, near the most thickly settled portion of 1. To accept the principle of Evanthe Chinese quader. This temple gelism-that every believer is a herof degraded Buddhism is under the ald, responsible for his proportion of auspices of the Hong Yen Gi, and the unsaved world; bound to do the idols were recently imported from directly his share of bearing the good China by the Lung Gong Gung Com- tidings. The curse of the church is pany. The uncouth images are the dependence on proxies. known as the supreme god, the god of wealth, the god of agriculture. the 2. We need a spirit of Enterprise. god of medicine, and the god of war. Men of the world, simply to serve In the centre of the group is the chief worldly interests, have made it posdeity, resplendent with lavish orna- sible to go round the world in three ments. On his right is the god of months, to reach by the mails the wealth, monopolizing a large share remotest quarters inside of six weeks, of worship. Next in Oriental esti- and by telegram all great centers mation is the god of medicine, regard- inside of an hour. What might not ed as the impersonation of wisdom. a little enterprise do for God!
The Pagan priests are very polite, 3. We need a holy Earnestness, an and American visitors are cordially enthusiasm for God. This is the inspiring soul of all Christian effort. It makes one man chase a thousand, etc. ; it makes him a hammer to break the hardest; a fire to burn and melt away; a sword to pierce.
PROGRE!'lS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
4. We need the divine Enduement, 2. The disciples going into all the The power that converts cannot be described any more than the frag- world. rance or tinting of-a rose; but it may be fQlt. Faith and prayer are the 3. Particulady into the byways, conditions of this enduement. The means will always be inadequate. hedges, etc. Our salvation lies in being in straits. The work cannot be done on a 4. Encouraged by the promise, "La mathematical basis. We must attempt great things for God, while I am with you alway," etc. expecting great things from God; and then the victory will come. The proof that God is with us : TEXTS AND THEMES. 1. The providential opening of WHEN Bishop Hannington preached doors. his farewell sermon at Hurst, before departing for Central Africa, his text 2. The gracious transformations of was 1 Samuel xxx. 24: "As his share is that goeth down to the battle, so individuals Rnd of society by the shall his share be that tarrieth by the stuff; they shall share alike." gospel.
God's plan is : 3. The exalted character of the 1. The gospel preached everywhere as a witness. consecrated laborers.
Weare debtors!
Thrice, thrice are we the debtors of the heathen world. Debtors-for we possess what they have not.
Debtors-for we have kept back for centuries what should have been given them with generous hand.
Debtors-for instead of a loaf we have given a stone; instead of a fish a serpent. • VI.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa.-To-day 34 Missionary So- tance of fifty miles for the building of cieties aloe at work in Africa, and all a chapel. Most of the men have its 200,000,000 souls are practically made the journey three, and some within the reach of Christian mis- four times. bringing loads on their sions. Thirty-three societies have heads. To do this requires a walk of begun work in China, and all its 350,- three or four hundred miles, and it 000,000 souls may be visited with the is well asked, "How many hypocrites would do that?" The women have message of the gospel. More than hired carriers, and thus have done fifty societies have entered India, and their part. The boys, too, have the light is dawning upon its 250,- brought half loads. This disposition 000,000. Turkey and Persia and Japan to labor for Christ is the best sign are filling with misi;ion churches and that the Christian professions of the people are sincere. mission schools. Practically, the whole world is open, and the grand- -At a recent meeting of the Presest day of opportunity for the king- bytery of New York, a committee dom of God that the earth has ever seen has fully dawned. was appointed to prepare an overture -The Mission of the American Bap- to the General Assembly with regard tists sends further reports of the re- to the rum traffic in the Free Congo vival at Banza Manteke. About 200 State. The whole business is a shame to our civilization, to say not a word have been baptized and enrolled as relative to its character, as carried on church members. More are asking from seaports whence Christian misfor baptism. There is much persecution in some parts, and in December sionaries go out and come in! three persons were killed for profess- -The Romish Church is pushing ing to be Christians. In the towns about Banza Manteke there are peo- for the open regions of the upper ple who are anxious to hear the gos- Congo. Two Portugese steamers repel. An interesting incident is given cently carried from twenty to thirty Jesuit priests and nuns to labor in showing the zeal of the converts in Africa for the propagation of their transporting timber and iron a dis- faith. -It is stated that a nephew of the ing in numbers and improving in late King Cetewayo, after six years moral and religious life. The 15,000 in Sweden in theological and other hottentots of that region have grown studies, has gone back to carryon to 98,561 in 1875. The gospel has put mission work in his native land. physical and mental vigor into them as well as moral. Central Soudan.-The last letters Alaska. – From Alaska come tidand journals received from .~fr. Gra- ings of progress. Sitka, which is the central and most important mission, ham Brooke are from Equator Sta- has been freed from the outside op- pressions of last year, and has made tion, on the Upper Congo, where he rapid progress in good work and fa- vor with all who see and know it. stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Banks and The workers are much the same- Rev. Mr. Austin as minister, Mr. Mr. Murphy. He writes from the Kelly as superintendent, and Mrs. Austin, Mrs. Winan and the Misses Equator Station, December 5, 1887 : KelRey, Rodgers, Palde and others. Mrs. McFarland has the Hydah mis- " The diJference is very striking np here be- sion and labors with Mr. and Mrs. Gould. New building-s have been tween the natives of this country and those erected, and a boarding-school of 20 scholars begun. Mr. and Mrs. Wildown river. Those are degraded, sqnalid and lard are at present laboring among the Chilkats and other tribes who puny; these are warlike, proud-looking and center at Juneau to get employment at the mills. Mr. and Mrs. J. W. prompt in action." "December S.-Time slip- McFarland are at Hoonyah, laboring 'ping by, and nothing heard from the chief. He at some disadvantage because of the cannot get the men, I suppose. The great Arab migratory habits of the tribe; but ~ettlement of Ali Kobo is the most southern they still report a large school and hopeful worJi:. Rev. S. Hall Young known, and that is what they at present hope to is at Fort Wrangell, where a church of 54 members is reported, some of reach, and then begin itinerating work. Of whom are bright examples of the power of the Christian faith. course, there are the two dangers of passing SUMMARY. through savages and being ill-received by the Ministers. . . . . . . . . . . 1886. 1887. Arabs. v?e ought to hear from them once more 30 31 Native ……….. _.. 8 17 from Equatorville before plunging into the in- Churches. . . . . . . . . . . 48 59 Church members… 2,001 terior."-Reg.ions Beyond. Teachers. . . . . . . . . … 63 2,306 Schools ………… , 20 95 Western Africa.-New version of 26 the Scriptures. Mr. Heli Chatelain, Scholars………… 1,134 till recently a member of Bishop 1,607 Taylor's American Episcopal Methodist Mission, on· the West Coast of Britisb America.-A recent num- Africa, has labored at Malange, in- ber of the Gleaner contains an hisland from Loanda, among people of the same race as those described by torical sketch of the work of the Livingstone, and he is visiting England and America to obtain the means Church Missionary Society among for providing the Scriptures for "those studious, industrious and the Indians in BritIsh America. The progressive natives." He reports that in Angola there are plenty of following extract shows how remarknative scholars able and willing to be of use to the man who sets to work able has been the growth of the translating the Scriptures into the principal dialects, only they cannot work: afford to give their services without payment. The Committee of the "In 1887, from an area of 'thirty-five miles on British and Foreign Bible Society each side Qf the river,' the '.York has spread over have expressed to Mr. Chatelain their most of 2,373,490 square miles, from Rupert's readiness to undertake the work he House and Fort George on the eastern shores of desires, as soon as they have sufficient .ames bay, away to the Rocky mountains, and preliminary evidence that the trans- over them to Queen Charlotte's islands in the lations will be correct and satisfac- North PaCific oceau, and from Fort Francis in tory.-Bible Society Reporter. about 48° north latitude, to Rampart House on -The Gariepine people, at the Cape the Porcupine river, more than 2,000 miles -Hottentots, Bushmen, Korannas- north from Red river. There are nine huge sunk to the deepest degradation, were dioceses, six on the eastern, and three on the fast becoming extin~t at the begin- western side of the Rocky mountains. In the ning of the present century. Mr. five dioceses of Mool'lOnee, Rupert's Land, Sas_ John Mackenzie, laboring in connec- katchewan, Athabasca and Mackenzie, and in. tion with the London Missionary that of Caledonia, are 14,687 Christian adher- Socie~y for 25 years in South Africa, states that, instead of dying out, these native races are now multiplyof ents connected with the Church Missionary So- westerly province bordering on Bur- mah, there are two Mission stations. ciety. The Bishops Moosonee, Athabasca, It is hoped that a highway will soon Mackenzie river and Caledonia are all mission- be opened between Burmah and this province. From Kwei-chau there arics of our society. There are about 80,000 are cheering accounts. Itinerating work has been carried on in Hunan, red men with whom our work has to do." though there is no station 'at present. Burmah.-Rev. G. Holbeck writes from Burmah that thero is a gl'eat In Hu-peh the work among the movement Christianwards in Man- women is particularly encouraging. dalay and district; many persons In Gan-hwey there are more openhave been baptized. He concludes ings than cau be filled. This provhis letter by a statement that the ince has been selected to found the people are ripe for religious teach- training home for young men before ing, and an appeal for help. going into the far interior; while the -The Church of England has a mis- training home for young women is sion in U ppel' Burmah under the lead of six priests, two English, one Tamil in the province I,)f Kiang-su. In and three Karen. Fifty villages are Shan-tung are thl'ee stations. At reached; there are 1,237 communi- Chefoo thirteen persons were bapcants and 597 scholars. tized in the summer. The name of Jesus is widely known in Cheh- -The Burmah Baptist Missionary Convention held its 13th annual kiang. Showers of blessing from on meeting at Moulmein, November 5-7. high are wanted to quicken the seed The convention represents about sown by the workers of the Mission. 500 churches and more than 26,000 communicants. Its meetings were -In China there are among the difharmonious and profitable. The dis- ferent Protestant denominations 79 turbed condition of the country has prevented its missionary work from persons who devote themselves chiefly being as extensive as usual. Itsfields to medical work. Twenty-seven are of labor are the Karens of Northern Siam, the Red Karens and the Chins. women. There has been issued by The reports from the different fields their Medical Missionary Association showed a goodly numberof baptisms. The convention is the Foreign Mis- the first number of a medical journal, sionary Society of the Churches in whose columns contain valuable pa- Burmah. None of its money is used pers from native and foreign physiin the old fields, where each associa- cians of high standing. 1.'he articles tion is supposed to care for home mission work, of which much is done by the Chinese doctors, 1.hemselves by the associations. Christians, in the Chinese language, will have a wide influence among China.-Progress has been made their countrymen in removing the III the work of the China Inland prejudice against foreign physiciaml. Mission during the year 1887. The -Presbyterian Journal. greatest success has been in Shan-si where in April 200 converts were -The Ningpo Presbytery recently baptized, largely through Native met in the city of Hangchow. There agency. Opium refuges, which are are 9 pastors, 26 elders, 9 deacuns. almost self-supporting, have been 7 evangelists, 6 licentiates, and 6 greatly used. There has been a con- theological students. The additions siderable development of women's to the several churches during the work. Three distinct stations in year were 68; children baptized, 21; Shan-si are occupied by two foreign deaths, 31; expelled, 5; the whole ladies each. The same plan is pursued in Kiang-si. Honan has been number of communicants, 719; coneventful, not only from the inunda- tributions, $991. . Of this $73 was for tion of the YeHow river. but from the formation of a Native church in education, $60 for home missions, connection with the Mission. In $20 for foreign missions, $712 for Shensi there has been development pastors' salaries, the remainder for and consolidation. At Hang Chung, sundry expenses in connection with the Natives take entire charge of the church work, and for the care of the service!!. In Kan-suh four impor- poor. tant centers are occupied; and in Si-ch'uen there has been decided im- -Recent statistics show a total of provement. In Yun-nan, the most about 500 church members within the walls of Peking, connected with the five Protestant missions in that city.
-Mr. Stanley Smith, of the China Inland Mission, reports 210 baptisms in Central China, at one time. An- other missionary states that he has been preaching to immense audiences, sometimes numbering as many year $165 towards the extension of as 4,000. Some of the most influen- Christ's kingdom. The total amount tial men in the Empire have em- paid last year by natives for all purbraced Christianity. poses, church schools, books, Sab- bath-schools and zenana work, was -Chinese in America.-The New $29,188, an average of $14 for each York Chinese mission has between professing Christian. Dr. Lansing 4,000 and 5,000 Celestials in its reports that 53 of the congregational Sunday-schools. About sixty have schools are entirely supported by the joined the various churches. The natives, as well as over two-thirds of the salaries of the nine natiye pastors first Sunday-school for these people being paid by the people whom they was founded in New York 18 years serve. ago. England.-More than twenty can- Columbia.-There is an established didates have offered themselves for agency at Bogota, the capital of work under the Universities' Mission Columbia, for the burning of Bibles and are awaiting Bishop Smithies' and Protestant books. Columbia is answer. It is feared that lack of probably more undel' the power of funds wiil keep many of them back. the priesthood than any Roman Cath- To bring the income of the Mission for general purposes up to £10,000. it olic country in the world. is proposed to appoint correspondents in each rural deanery, The increase Ciscuucasiu.-The first portion of in the figures of the Mission are thus the word of God ever printed in given: 1n.1874 the income for genethe language of the Kumuks is now ral purposes was 2,9921. ; other funds, on the eve of publication. The peo- 448l. ; gross income, 3,440; European ple live on the western shore of the missionaries, 5. In 1887, General Fund, 8,713l.; other funds, 6,9001.; Caspian sea, northeast of the Cauca- total, 15,600l. ; missionaries, 63. sus Range, near Kisliar and the rivel' Terek. The Gospel of St. Matthew Fiji Islands.-Of the 17,743 Fijians inhabiting the Fiji Islands more has been translated for them by than nine-tenths attend church Khasan Bey, a young MoHah, and with fair regularity; where, fifty his work has been carefully revised. years since, there was not a single The printing has been done in Ger- Christian, to-day there is not a single many. The difficulties to be sur- avowed heathen; all the Fiji chilmounted in securing a reliable ver- dren are in the schools; the schools sion have been great, and the labor and churches have wholly displaced has extended over some six or seven the heathen temples.
years. [From a speech by Rev. A. G. Egypt.-A most remarkable his- Webb at Melbourne in November tory attaches itself to the mission work in Egypt, since its very begin- last, we give the following account of ning. Along the valley of the Nile, from Alexandria to the first cataract, his work in Fiji.-EDS.]: are 79 regularly established mission … Now, the great work that has been done stations and 70 Sabbath – schools, numbering 4,017 scholars. The 65 in Fiji has been touched upon by others, and day and boarding – schools number over 5,200 scholars. A recent Amer- manystories have been told of the terrible doings ican traveler, after looking into the faces of the 327 native students of of the Fijians when heathens. But I am not Asyoot Training School, said: "This going to tell you those stories to-night; I prefer is the grandest sight I have seen in all the East!" The steady growth to tell you a story that is a Christian story. I in the evangelistic and educational departments is almost without prece- think that Christian people ought to be far more dent. The opportunity for such work is to-day greater than ever before, interested in that than in the doings of a race and never in the history of Egypt of wild cannibals. All traces of their ancient has there been such a demand for the Bible. . During the past year heathenish practices have been cleared away, 9,651 copies of Scriptures, 8,993 vol- and visitors now cannot imagine tbat this people, umes of religious books, and 19,179 v()lumes of educational books were with their almost Parisian manners and their sold by colporteurs and shopmen. Four women's missionary societies meliftuous speech, were the cannibals of ancient have been organized among the na- times. tives, with a membership of 217. These fOUl' societies contributed last .. I have the latest Government returns, show- ing the present state of the people, bnt they only partially represent it. The true character of the work cannot be estimated by figures, bnt by the inner lives of the people. There are at present in Fiji-Fijians, 111,743; Europeans, 3,567; half-castes, 796; AsiatiCS, 4,230; Polynesians, 5,664 ; Rotumans,4,214-total, 128,414. Of these India.-Sir William Hunter gives 111,743 Fijians, 100,154 are attendants atonr own very encouraging figures as to the pnblic worship-a very large proportion indeed. progress of Christianity. In the nine years preceding 1881, while the gen- " I may say, that where fifty years ago there eral population of Bengal increased was not a single Christian, to-day there Is not an 10.89 per cent., the Mohammedan avowed heathen. There may be heathens, but population at the rate of lQ.96 per If so, they don't stand up and say so. When I cent., and the Hindu population at went to Fiji there were thousands of them. In less than 13.64 per cent., the Chrismy first circuit of Rewa there were more heath- tians of all races, the natives exens than in any other-men who would stand up cluded, increased at the rate of 40.71 :lDd avow It proudly, too. I well remember one per cent., and the native Christians 'Wild young fellow of an immense size (some at the rate of 64.07 per cent. Fijians are very fine looking men), and with a head of hair standing out on all sides, which -" They have in Bombay a special fund of added to the wildness of his appearance, coming right in front of me, and looking me boldly in 16,000 rupees for the support of new converts to the face, saying, 'I'm a heathen, and I'm going to be.. heathen,' as if it were something to be Islam; a house bought for 6,000 rupees, whose prond of. Bnt there is none of that now. Instead of it, we have as many people worshiping in rent aids in supporting such converts; and in Fiji as you have in Victoria; we have as many people whose names are on the class-books in Lahore, about fifty rupees are collected each Fiji as yon have in Victoria, and those whose names are on the class-books are not conspicu- month for the support of open-air preachers of ons by their absence. Islam. These Mohammedans have their eyes .. We have at present 53 native ministers, 44 open to all that is goin~ on around them. They catechists, 1,877 local preachers, 3.192 class leaders, 27,421 members of the church, 4,121 on trial, preach against Christianity in the bazars of 2,795 catechumens, 1,019 teachers, as well as day and Sabbath-schools with their teachers, for all nearly every important city and town in India; the children of Fiji are educated in the mission schools. It is diJllcuit to believe that in a place they reply promptly to nearly everything of imwhich fifty years ago was studded with heathen temples-where the first parsonage was a canoe portance written against Mohammedanism; and honse, open at both ends, in which the Rev. David Cargill and his noble wife were glad to they have five papers, all of which are ably take shelter-there is not to-day a single heathen temple; in 1,255 places of worship God's Word edited, and are devoted to the defense of the was preached yesterday (Sunday), and will be preached again next Sunday."- ltZUB. Miss. claims of Islam. 'In addition to all this they New8. publish works claiming to point out serious dis- Home Missions. – The American Baptist Home Mission Society received the past year crepancies In the Christian Scriptures; a work $551,596, of which $145,603 was received by contributions for general purposes, $41,579 for in which they are greatly aided by European schools and buildings, and $39,629 for church extension. The receipts from legacies were Unitarians and infidels." $245,485. "It is also a singular fact that, since the The annual report of the Board of Home Missions of the United Presbyterian Church gives bloody mutiny of 1857, the adherents of Islam the total receipts of the year as $53,ll96.61; total expenditures, $51.696.09. have written no single book against Hinduism, Foreign Missions.-The Presbyterian Board and that the five special organs of the former did not get the $1,000,000, but it had $901,180.89 when its books closed May 3. say nothing of any importance against the latter, The receipts of the M.E. Church for last year and do not urge Hindus to embrace Islam. In for missionary work were upwards of $1,000,000. fact the efforts of Islam seem at present to be Total receipts of the American Baptist MissloRary Union for the year ending March 31, almost entirely directed in India to securing 1838, were $411,385.39. converts from Europeans and native Christians, The annual report of the American Tract Society shows that the receipts for the year were and to meet with a very limited success in both $459,858, and the expenses $448,504. One hundred and ninety-four colporteurs have been em- directions. " ployed in the United States during the past year. -The Presbyterian women of India raised last year, in their missionary societies and Boards, in cash and missionary boxes, nearly $8,000 for home missions.
Japan.-Mrs. Rhees, an American missionary at Kobe, Japan, writes: "There is so much written about Japan and the desire of the young people to study English that I need not write about it. But there was a convention of Japanese physi- cians held in Yokohama a few months ago. that to me seems of great importance. The object of the meeting was to consider what could be done to prevent the diseases that cause so much weakness and suffering among the people. The decision reached by the meeting was that they recommend the placing of the daughters of the people in Christian schools. It seems to me a great gain when really educated physicians ac- knowledge sin to be the cause of many of their diseases and Christianity the remedy. All the boarding-schools among the mission- aries are enlarging their accommodations to meet the constantly-increasing demand." -Spirit oj Missions.
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S HISSIONS
VII.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
JEWISH MISSION STATISTICS. SCOTLAND. 122,910 State Church Mission …..•. 23 Ii 117,000 [These valuable statistics were Free Church Mission ……. 43 8 Scottish Home Mission ….. 2 2 6,720 translated and arrangad for us by Edinbur~h Emig't Mission .. 1 1 6,000 United resbyt. Mission …. 2 1 Prof. Chas. H. Schodde, Ph. D. EDS. Total ………………….. 71 17 252,630 IT is not generally known that our 72,680 own day and generation has witness- IRELAND. ed a growth of mission interest in the welfare of the once chosen people of Irish Presbyt. Mission …… 27 9 God, which can compare favorably with the miracle of missionary activ- Totalfor the British Isles. 312 81 1,513,180 ity that we see before our eyes in heathen lands. In the " Supple- GERMANY. 20,440 ment," which Dr. Dalman has been 1,840 publishing for the past two years Edzard Endowment……… – 2,310 to the quarterly called Saat auf BerlinSociety… ………… 3 1,710 Hoffnung, edited by that zealous Berlin Proselyte Society… – 11,000 and veteran friend of Israel, the Saxon Society…………… – 3,200 translator of the classical Hebrew Bavarian Society……….. – version of the New Testament, Pro- Central Society (at Leipzig) Ii 1 21,600 fessor Franz Delitzsch, of Leipzig, Wurthemberl§ Society….. 1 1 1,410 in the interests of Jewish missions, Mecklenburg ociety……. -_ the former has collected the statistics Rhenish Society.. . . . . . . . . .. 4 3 260 of Christian work in this field, which Lubeck Friends of Israel. .. — are doubtless the most complete ever StrassburgFriends ofIsrael – published. As a result of extensive correspondence and reading, Dalman Tota!. ………………… 13 6 63,780 has learned that there are 47 Protest- ant Mission Societies devoted exclu- SWITZERLAND. 10,350 sively to this work, laboring at 135 Basel Friends of Israel. …. 1 3,260 stations with 377 men and expending 11,090 each year 1,800,000 marks (1 mark NETHERLANDS. 3,400 equal to 24 cents). In 1881 C. F. He- Netherland Aid Society…. – 17,750 man had published similar statistics, NetherlaDd Israel Society.. 2 1 1,200 but reported only 20 societies with Christian Reformed Society 1 1 270 laborers and an anIJUal income of I 1,400,000 marks. In other words, in Total for the Netherlands 3 2 scarcely half a dozen years the activ- FRANCE. ity in this arduous field has literally been doubled. And this does not in- Mission of Pasteur Krueger – clude the other societies who engagtl in the work in addition to other mis- SCANDINAVIA. sion enterprises, such as the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Amm'i- Norwegian Central Society – 22,810 ean Tract Society, and others. Swedish Israel Society….. 4 2 31,220 Evangel. Fatherland Assoc. – 2,020 Swedish Mission Associat'n 2 2 1,570 Danish Israel Society……. – Totalfor Scandinavia…. 6 4 57,626 e., RUSSIA (i. the non-orthodox churches).
St. Petersburg Mission….. 2 1 3,800 Baltic Mission………….. 2 1 5,000 Pastvr Faltin's Mission…. 3 2 20,000 J. Rabinow;tch's Mission… 1 1 Dalman's summary of this work Total for Russia………. 8 5 28,800 is given in the following table, and 113,000 NORTH AMERICA. the whole is translated for THE MIS- Episcopal. ……………… 2.5 25 6lO SIONARY REVIEW of THE WORLD. Hebrew Christian work…. 3 2 Missouri Lutberan ………. 1 1 ~i~ns SOci<cty:" …………. 2 2 Chlcago Mlsslon ………. , . 1 1 J1ethodist Mission………. 1 1 Wesleyan Society………. 1 1 ENGLAND. Total for North America. 34 33 113,610 Of these, the oldest is the Edzard endow- Mission.. Sta- Income ment (in Hamburg), established in 1667. aries. t'ns. (in M'ks.) This had no imitators until in 1808, when the great London Society was organized. Other London Society…. . . . . . . .. 135 29 733,280 societies were established in 1822 (two), 1830, British Society…….. ….. 31 20 206,880 1835, 1836, l841 (two), 1842 (two), 1843, 1844 Mildmay Mission.. ……… 31 1 189,690 (three),1849, 1860,1861,1870, 1871 (two), (1874 London Cit.y Mission……. 6 1 (two), 1875, 1876 (two), 1878, 1879 (two), 1880, Parochial Mission… …… 6 1 18,630 1882,1883 (two),1884, 1885 (five), 1886 (three) . English Presbyt. Mission.. 3 2 23,500 •Jewish Emig't Aid Soe'ty.. – 5,860 The missionaries labor wherever BarbicanMission…. ……. 2 10,030 the chief centers of Jewish popula- Total …………………. 216 55 1,187,870 tion are found. In London there are fied that these figures are substantial- 58 at work, in Budapest 14, in Con- ly correct. Of course this includes stantinople 33, in Damascus 31, in also those who have been won by the Jerusalem 28. In other places from agents of the Roman Catholic and 1 to 5 men labor in this cause. The the Greek Orthodox churches, both total number of Jews on the earth is of which are also active in this work, about 6,400,000. Accordingly, there but not as much so as are the Protesis one missionary for every 16,976 tant Societies, especially those of New England. Dalman's articles, of Jews. Concerning the success of the which we give here only a bare skelework, no complete statistics can be ton, are full of interesting details collected. However, as good an au- concerning this important though thority as the Jewish convert and little known, and, unfortunately, ofmissionary de la Roi says that at least 100,000 Jews have been con- ten little loved field of Christian misverted since the beginning of the sion activity. present century, and Dalman is satis- Foreign Missionary Sooieties of Germany, they covel' nothing more recent than the reports of the years 1883 and DR. R. GRUNDEMANN published in 1884. In response to a request for . several numbers of the Allgemeine information, Dr. Grundemann now kindly sends us in manuscript a sta- Mi88ion8 – Zeit8chrijt for 1885 elabo- tistioal table of German societiescov- rate statistical reports of evangelical ering the year 1887, and we gladly missions throughout the world. Those tables were remarkably complete, but give the table here: STATISTICS OF GERMAN EVANGELICAL MISSIONARY SOCIETIES FOR THE YEARI887.
SOCIETIES.
———-,— — ——— — —-. — Moravian …………………………. 107 147 83,052 29,283 590 208 17,407 $101,261 Basel, Evangelicallllission…… .. . . . .. .. 42 120 19,187 9,497 1,057 208 7,486 199,507 Berlin, Evangelical lIIis8ion…………. 48 60 17,764 8,400 1,225 53* 3,377 71,611 Rhenish Mission (Barmen)…………. 53 66 29,125 9,666 1,100 66* 5,370 E8,440' North German, (Bremen)…… ….. ….. 4 8 556 325 114 5 199 20,389 Gossner Mission…………………… 13 19 34 000 11,868 1,775 80t 1,685 42,431 Evangelical Lutheran, Leipzig.. ,……. 23 22 14,014 4,500* 7g6 129 3,993 67.5g6 Herrmannsburg .. ………………. … 61 71 11,196 5.000* …….. 63· 2.000* 63,713 St. Chrischona tOo………. ………… 1 15 4CO J ernsalems-Verein.. .. .. .. …. .. .. .. .. .. 3 2 150 20 5 1* 120 8.132 40* …. .. . . 4* 200 6.585 Brecklum (Schleswig-Holstein)………. 4 8……… ….. .. …. ,. 21 * * 43 14.914 Berlin Woman's Mission for China.. .. .. 1 40 3.778 1 81.. .. . .. . 17 New Church Mission………………. 5 5 305 80* 77 3* 74 2,523 East African Verein <Berlin).. ………. 1 2 …….. …….. …….. ….. …….. 3,239 Bavarian Verein for East Africa… ….. 11 2………. …. .. …….. …… …….. 3,000 ms50 Oen'! Prot. Miss. Verein (for Japan.)… 1 220* …….. …….. …… 2 3,COO , Totals ……… ' .. . …………… ~ '3681550 ~ 6.756 823- 4l.994 $700,1i4 *Estimated. t2Statistics ofSyrian Orphan Home only.-MI8sionary Herald.
The M. E. Ohuroh in India.
The statistics of this Church for 1887, as compiled from the Annual Minutes of the Conferences, show a marvelous growth in the past twenty years.
North India, South India. Bengal. Total. For 1867. 28 32 86 18 Foreign Missionaries………… 26 4 4 46 5 Native Do………… ,….. 38 28 Zenana Do.. .. . .. .. .. .. …. . 3 5 338 20 4.450 Members………….. … ……. 3.121 563 766 3,523 212 151 473 10.180 500 Probationers……….. ………. 2.899 6.484 400 Native Christians.. .. .. .. .. … . . 9.226 163 771 62 133 531 515 2.563 Da.. Communicants……….. 5.!l2O 4 23 16.515 62 Schools………. …………….. 488 752 Scholars…. ………………… 15.298 212 1.005 689 15 36 39 23.146 20 Sunday Schools.. .. .. . …. . …. .. 594 2.204 2.029 Scholars……………………. 23.913 109 Churches…………………… 19 14 54 76 9 5 Parsonages………………… , iO • Protestant Missions in Africa.
(THE following report was made January 7,1888, by Mr. Wm. Coppinger, Secretary of the American Colonization Society for Africa.) The British and American Missionary Societies operating in Africa, with the statistics of their work, are given in the following table: MISSIONARIES. i j 8 – – – – – – – – – – – -8 – BRITISH SOOIETIES.
Chnrch :….., .. :. …………………………… 17 12 4 277 4,164 UniverSitIes MIssions……………………… 26 23 14 218 … 5;00." 12 Society for Propagation of the Gospel. . . . . . . . . . . . 122 London ………. …. … ……… ….. …….. … 48 1 6,052 United Free Methodist.. . .. .. .. .. . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . 10 Primitive Methodist.. . . . . . . …. . . .. . . .. .. . . .. . . . . 2 233 14 3,035 Church of Scotland…….. ….. ……. ………. 2 5 1 Free Chnrch 0, Scotland………………….. 15 …. laij" 181 15 n Baptists. .. . . .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. . .. 20 5 Wesleyan Methodists…….. . … .. . … .. .. .. .. . 33 2 30 "'i,427'" 8,280 United Presbyterian Church of Scotland…….. 17 9 Moravians……………………………….. 58 …. ·7 .. 69 "i:,,',io7"
336 2,073 Friends…………………………………. . …2.0…. ………. 2,828 Bible Society.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . . 6 3,509 AlIIERlOAN SOCIETIES.
American Board. . .. .. .. .. .. . .. …………….. 17 1 25 11 866 Baptist Missionary Union……….. …………. 12 7 429 2 12 22 Presbyterian.. .. . …. ……………………… 9 868 ~ 5 8 125 Sonthern Baptist …………………………. '. 5 3 United Brethren………………………….. . i 53 3,929 Protestant Episcopal.. .. …… .. .. .. ……… . . . . 42 640 African Methodist………………………… . Methodist Episcopal……………………….. .. ..ii… iii'" 76 … 2;400"
Bishop Taylor Mission…………………….. . l 22 1 1 .0.0. Lntheran.. ……………………………….. i Free Methodist…………………………… . 4 16 _._…_.2.1._ 9..-.-'-._…..i_;.S..4_.3.". United Presbyterian………. …. .. .. … . .. .. .. . Western Colored Baptist……………….._._,,_._.' -_ _1 – -_ _ _- '-_ _ _'
Foreign Sunday-School Association, Countries. S. Schools. Teacher•• Scholar•• DURING the twenty-flve years' work Italy. .. .. …. .. . .. .. . 200 850 12,560 of this society it has introduced Sun- France …………… 1,100 4,500 115,000 day-schools, as a specialty, into Ger- Belgium…. ……… 57 many, and aided in their establish- Switzerland ……… 1,590 160 2,350 ment, until now there are in that Spain……………. 100 6,522 97,890 country over 3,000 schools, with 30,- Portugal………… 30 8,009 !l00 teachers and 300,000 scholars. Holland!…………. 1,291 400 1.000 "The work is now spread all over Bohemia.. . . . . . . . . . . . 90 100 141,640 Germany," writes Mr. Brockelmann, Moravia.. .. .. ….. .. 38 3,800 2,875 its great Sunday-school worker, Sweden.. …. …….. 500 260 1,423 "and all clergymen who are not Denmark………… 300 60 200,000 rationalists have Sunday-schools." Russia (among the 18,000 25-;lO,000 The association has also aided and 2,000 established Sunday-schools in Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, German popuiat'n) 23 428 6,017 Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Swe- Brazil…… ………. 21 35 518 den, Russia, Hungary, Bohemia,Mo- Chili…………….. 255 ravia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Turkey, In- Uraguay…….. ….. 11 40-45 dia, China, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, 700-900 San Domingo, Guatemala, U. S. of Colnmbia, Venezuela, Brazil, Chili, American Sunday·School Union.-The last Uraguay and Southern Africa. three annual reports of the American Sun- day-School Union show that since 1884 it has The following table gives the fig- brought 185,034 ohildren into 4,947 new Sunures, as nearly as can be ascertained day-schools, a number equal to 5,000 more at the present time: than one-half of all the increase reported as having been secured by this and all other a~enoies during these three years. The Union aided 4,825 other schools, which have 46,774 teachers and 515,714 scholars, so that in these three years it reached 9.872 com- munities and Sunday-schools and 700,748 chil- dren and youth, and then re-aided and re- visited these sc.hools 11,245 times, hesides making 92,584 visits to families, supplying 45,019 destitute persons with the ScrIptures, and holding 27,247 religious meetings. . Sunda.y-School Sta.tistios-1881~87. [The subjoined statistioal table is given by Rev. B. H. Badley, D.D. of Lucknow, in the Indian Evangelical Review (April). It was prepared'ror the recent Sunday-school Convention held at Cawnpore, India.-EDS.] FOR lE81. FOB 1~87. ~ .; .Sg NAME OF CHUBCH. .; …;. Date. ~-§ ~ "0 rl ..C:: '"0 ''c0" ~ ,,<11 os S ..:: "0 -"- "" -""- – – -"" – – – – ————— r.J:J Q '"r.J:J " <.> ~"
-<11- <11 – – – – – r.J:J I Baptist Miss'y Socy ………………. . 26 730 15 942 Oct. 1, 1886 1,966 Burma 2 London do. do.. ……………… . 17~ 6,670 44 2,206 May 1, 18b6 23,311 is in- 3 American Bd., Marathi Miss. If ' 76 2,339 Jan. 1, 1887 Do. Madura do. …… . 105 3,999 2,523 eluded 123 3,337 u " 5,019 in these 4 Church of England……………….. . 640 11,299 640 11,299 Jllly 1, 1887 47,089 stati"- 5 Socy. for Propagation of Gospel. …… . 126 2,447 126 2,447 (1881) 21,329 tics. 6 Wesleyan Miss'y Socy ……………. . 50 2,113 124 5,983 Jan. 1, 1887 10,772 7 General Baptist do ……………… . 676 Mar. 1, 1887 531 7 347 (f) 8 Church of Scotland ………………. . 12 821) 12 825 (1881) 6,507 9 Free do do L..u.d.i.a.n.a..I. . … . . … . 55 3,172 55 3,172 (1881) 11,156 10 Am. Pres. Church. Do. 24 2,437IJan. 1, 1886 6,637 Rothapur ( ……… . 16 2,523 8 584 Jan. 1, 1885 578 Do. Farruckahad ) (?) 1,095 Nov. 1, 1886 1,990 11 Basel Miss'y Socy ………………… . 7 330 7 409 Jan. 1. 1887 4,696 12 Am. Bapt. Miss'y Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 4385 131 5,348 Jan. 1, 1885 16,549 13 Am. Free Baptist Mission …………. . 3i 1:532 (1) 2,672 Apr. 1, 1887 3,628 14 Gossner's Lutheran do……………. . 1 20 1 20 (lH81) 2,045 15 Leipzig Miss'y Socy ………………. . 16 Irish Pres. Mission ……………… . •• I (1881) 2,788 17 Welsh Cal. Meth. do ……………… . 8 '3141 5 235 Jan. 1, 1887 8,042 56 2,682 (1) 4,290" 8,141 H 18 Am. Evan. Lutheran Miss ………… . 65 3,145 65 3,145 (1881) 2,087 19 Am Reformed Church……………. . 36 1,074 (?) 1,074 Jan. 1, 1887 2,~ 20.Episoopal Moravian Mission. '" ……. . "11 940 .. (1881) 8,260 15,298 I 21~Am. Un. Pres. Church… ……. …… (f) 1,473 Jan. 1, 1887 591 23,913 Nov. 1, 188~ 2~ Meth. Epis. Ch. North India B~: ~~~~~fndia . . . . . . . . 226 13,566 34 1,973" u (?) 39 2,029" " (f) 23 Un. Pres. Church of Scotland."……… 27 1,313 27 1,313 (1881) 3,726 24 Danish Ev. Luth. Mission …………. . (1881) 10 12 25lpres. Church of England………….. . 10 (1881) 282 26 Hermannsburg Mission …………… . .. t1881) 160 27IFriends do. .. …………. . ] 36 1 3" (1881) 56 28iIndian Home do. . …………. [ 8 280 8 2801 (1881) 745 329OIA,Cman. aGdI;eann. EvaI?-' do. . ………… . 2 70 1 8.'5 Jan. 1, 1887 171 Baptist do. . ………….. . 7 177 7 177 (1881) 603 31,Scotch Epis. Church …………….. .. ..' 32,Orig. Secession Church of Scotland … . 1 30 1 80 ., (i881) 208 33 canadian Pres. Mission. . . . . . .. . ….. . 3 120 3 120 (1881) 348 (1881) 34 Swedish Evan. do.. .' .. " …….. . 1 69 1 69 124 35 Am. Free Methodist Mission………. . I 36 do. . …. . 37 tDOitshceirpsl.e.s. . … . . ….. .. .. 5 500 NOV. 1, 1887 (1) … . …… 2,690 _1~ 2,690 _ (1881) . .. . . . . . . . . . . . ~ 11,498 Total… … . . .. .. .. . ….. …. . . . … 1,992 65,728 2,337 89,2331_.:.:_'_._ 216,447 I .. 345 23,505 .. Increase………… , .. .. … .. .. . .. . . .. ..
Sunday.Schools of 111. E. Chnrch.-The nn- nates who have gone out as missionaries, to merical statistical summaries presented in the end of 1887. Of these,Ill went for C.M.S. i the Quadrennial Report of the corresponding secretary are as follows: 48 as chaplains, or for S.P.G., or for the DelhI Mission (this includes Henry Martyn and Number of Sunday-schools, 24,225. other East India chaplains, but the list is Number of officers and teachers, 268,391. incomplete); five for the Universities' Mis- Number of Sunday-school scholars, 2,006,- sion to Central Africa.; five· for the China 328. Inland Mission; three for the London Mis- These show a net increase during the sionarySociety. In the C.M.S.lIst 14 stand quadrennium of 2,272 Sunday-schools, 38,826 for the year 1887; only one other year (1860) officers and teachers, and 312,708 Sunday- had as many as six. Even taking all socieschool scholars. ties together, no year came up to the C.M.S. The conversions in the Sundays during 1887 list alone. The best was 1885, when the the four years reach a total of 410,224. This is an increase over the number reported five China Inland men went, with five C.M.S. during the preceding quadrennium of 112,421. and two S.P.G. Eleven on the C.M.S. list were Ridley Hall men. The report expresses Uuiversity lIIissions.-The last report of the the hope that the increase last year" is but Cambridge University Church Missionary the earnest of a still larger increase, and Union gives a list of 172 Cambridge grad- that the number mav never fall again to its former low standard'."