The Missionary Review of the World — December 1892
THE TRUE "FORWARD MOVEMENT."
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No. 12.-0ld Series.–DECEMBER.–VoL. V. No. 12.-New Series.
THE TRUE" FORWARD MOVEMENT;" OR, A HIGHER STAN- DARD OF CONSECRATION.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
The most prominent watchword which has thus far been suggested for the new century of missions which is just opening, is the phrase, " Forward Movement." This motto is taken up with no little enthusiasm by the various missionary boards and societies, and has awakened a hearty response, especially in the great public gatherings incident to this centenary year. The forward movement contemplated has reference especially to the following particulars: First, a decided advance in gifts to missions and a permanent increase of donations and subscriptions to the treasury; secondly, a decided increase in the force of laborers at work in the field i and, thirdly, the furnishing of larger and ampler facilities for the prosecution of the educational, medical and other work so inseparably connected with missions.
We have thought a true forward movement will include much more than this. First of all the occupation of hitherto unoccupied fields in the regions beyond-nothing is more imperative than that there should be no part of the world-field absolutely lying in neglect; and, secondly, a true forward movement will include the rapid and world-wide proclamation of the tidings of redemption, evangelization in distinction from conversion, and the various machinery of an organized Church of Christ. The first need of the race is to hear the Gospel message, and when this has once reached every creature, then the way is open for a more thorough work of conversion, organizat,ion and education. And, thirdly, a true forward movement will include systematic and united prayer on the part of the constituency at home for definite results on the individual fields of missions.
But the object of this article is to call attention to what may be referred to as a much deeper need than even those of which we have spoken. It requires but a superficial knowledge of medical science to know that there are three great sources of disease : First, disorders of the nervous system i second, a defective chem.istry-for instance, in the blood; and, third, a defective vitality of tissue. We are not to judge disease simply by external symptoms, but we are to trace it to constitutional defects and difficulties; and it is so in the Church of Jesus Christ. All efforts t9 perfect external organization and superficial methods will prove not only ineffective, but even disastrous, unless the spiritual vitality is quickened. There must no longer be disorders at the very nerve centres of Christian life j there must no longer be a defective chemistry in the very constitution, or a defective vitality in spiritual tissue. No problem is of more consequence than this: How shall a higher standard of piety, of prayer, and of power be secured in the Church of the living God ~ This is the true forward movement which secures advance in every direction. How can the Church unitedly move all along the different lines of missions g-that is the supreme question of this centenary year. It will never be adequately answered by great popular meetings full of the eclat and enthusiasm of an excited throng that responds with hurrahs of loud applause to the voice of popular eloquence. Popular meetings have their purpose, and they serve that purpose, especially in the dissemination of information and the arousing of interest in the great SUbject, but oftentimes in their permanent results they are delusive and illusive. There are thousands who on these occasions give vent to their aroused emotions in cheers and encomiums, who go away to forget their obligations to a dying world, and smother the claims of the cause upon their active sympathy and effort until another annual meeting comes round.
What, then, are the supreme needs of the Church of Christ in this critical hour of the age ~ First of all we need the spirit of obedience to our Lord's great command. We call ourselves disciples, but a disciple is a follower. He is a disciple who calls Jesus S.aviour and Lord, who looks to Him not only for salvation, but for sovereignty, who accepts Him not only as his redeemer from sin, but as his leader in his whole life course. We call ourselves soldiers, but nothing is more characteristic of a soldier than immediate and implicit obedience to the marching orders of his general-in-chief.
" • Forward!' the captain's cry ; Theirs not to make reply, Theirs but to do and die."
If in song we thus celebrate the heroism of those who, in obedience to an order which was really a blunder, rode into the" valley of death," can we do less than emulate such obedience when the orders of the Captain of our salvation come to us and nobody has " blundered" ~ Francis Bacon says that it is not worth while to argue with any man if you cannot agree with him on first principles, and we assume that those whom these words address are confessed disciples and soldiers of Jesus Christ, and that they' therefore accept His last command and commission, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," as settling forever beyond question the duty and obligation of the Church of Christ. 1£ there be any among our readers who dispute or doubt as to this obligation, these words are not – meant for such. vYe can expect from them no active co-operation in the work of foreign missions, for they themselves are practically heathen, and present in themselves a field for foreign missionary labor, for they need to have the Gospel of faith and obedience preached first of all to them.
But assuming as beyond dispute that this is the bounden duty of the Church, to bear. the Word of Life to every nation and every creature, even within the bounds of the present generation, we again affirm that the supreme need of the Church is immediate and implicit obedience to the Lord's command. If Abu Taher with five hundred rebel Carmathians could repulse the thirty thousand soldiers of the caliph because every one of his five hundred would instantly sacrifice life at the command of their imam, what could our Lord Jesus Christ do with a few thousand men and women whose will was so absolutely merged in His that they had no purpose bnt to complete His purpose ~ With five thousand such men and women the flag of the Cross could be borne to the summit of our Satanic strongholds. The fact is that the Church, as a whole, has never yet undertaken to obey her Lord's commands. Two thirds of the human race are yet without the knowledge of God. There are vast districts on the surface of the earth, thousands of miles in extent, where no missionary has ever yet borne the good tidings j millions of souls congregated in thickly settled districts have yet to look upon the face of the first missionary of the cross. The destitution and desolation are appalling, but not more appalling than the practical indifference of forty millions of Protestant church-members who calmly look on such a scene of spiritual want and woe and still immerse themselves in selfish indulgences. We must by repetition inculcate and impress upon all disciples of Christ that this individual obligation to obedience cannot be relegated to any board or society or organization, that it still fastens itself upon every individual believer with a tenacious hold that cannot be relaxed ; it demands that every man and woman who believes shall look the question in the face as a personal question, shall look upon every human being as one who is his brother and of whom he is the keeper. If one can go, he ought to go ; if one cannot go, he ought to send, and the self-sacrifice in sending should be not one whit less than the self-surrender in going. If we cannot throw off this responsibility upon any band of men, so that we shall be delivered from the obligation of going, neither can the payment of some small pittance of money relieve us from both the obligation to go and the obligation to send. The time is coming, we cannot but believe, when men will dispose of whole estates, as Robert Haldane did of Airthrey, that they may give the entire proceeds to the erection of new mission stations and the sending forth of new missionary laborers; when men shall dare great things for God, as they do even now for the perishable things of this world, when families will be trained as much to consider that foreign missions represent a service due from every believer, as they are now trained in the most consecrated homes to look upon faith as an essential condition of salvation.'" That word" obedience" should be sounded round the whole horizon of our Church life with the loud voice of a thunder peal. The faith which begets obedience is the true faith, and the obedience begotten of faith is the sign and seal of the genuineness of the faith. If acceptance of Christ is the essential of justification, obedience is the essentIal of that higher salvation which is the complete COllilllmmation of the work begun in justification.
Secondly, we need the spirit of enterprise. No word is more indefinable, and yet no word is more generally understood. " Enterprise" implies a daring, dashing spirit; it ventures something, it ventures everything, for the accomplishment of results. We must dare something for our Master and His call. When Thomas McDonough was appointed to the command of the navy on Lake Champlain there was not, as he quaintly said, " a tub afloat," but he started up and exclaimed, " I will make my own navy!" and with one hundred men he went to the woods, cut the timbers, and in forty days launched the first boat. It was no wonder that such a squadron, under such a commander, could not well be defeated!
" The men of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." It is so, but it ought not to be so. The men of the world dare everything for the sake of appetite, avarice, ambition, self-emolument Ilnd glory, fame, honor, reputation, a place on the historic scroll, or for the advancement of science and art, of commerce and of civilization. Why should men pierce malarious forests and dangerous jungles and confront all perils to life and limb for ivory tusks and ostrich plumes and diamonds and gold while we who belong to Christ hesitate when souls are the treasures to be discovered and borne in triumph to the feet of our Master 1 If to-day some new discovery or invention could be announced to the race, which enfolds within it the promise of a higher material prosperity or social advancement in temporal and material interests, with what incredible swiftness would its agents belt the globe with their systematic efforts to acquaint men everywhere with the new facilities for progress! Steam, tram-cars, electric lights, and palatial hotels may Le found to-day on the islands of the South Sea, which half a century ago were given over to the control of savages. From present appearances the Congo Free State will be crossed by a network of railways and telegraphs before the Gospel herald has borne the good news to its forty millions of people. We find no fault with the enterprise of men in behalf of what is called "social advancement," but we earnestly contend that this spirit IIhould be emulated and imitated by the children of light.
In 1 Cor. 15 : 34 Paul says, "For some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame." The passage is emphatic-for Iilome haTe yet ignorance (agnosia) of God; to your shame I say it; (entropen), means a turning back upon one's self, a kind of self-defeat, chagrin; and we may boldly ask, is it not a shame to disciples that in the year 1892 some of the human race are yet agnostics as to God, and that not so much from wilful scepticism as from the darkness of superstitious ignorance? Is there assignable or reasonable excuse for our allowing such unwilling ignorance longer to exist ~ For a generation Japan, China, India, Burmah have been opened to Christian missions, and for fifteen years Africa has invited the heralds of the Cross. Modern progress is the giant with seven-league boots. It almost seems as though. there were an unconscious prophecy hidden in that myth of yore. An ordinary stride may measure twenty-one inches, but human invention makes and marks at one stride seven leagues, or twenty-one miles-that is to say, we can move three thousand times as fast in these days as men could in the remote days of antiquity. Ahasuerus sent out his entire proclamations throughout the entire empire from the Bosphorus to the Indus inside of seyen months, and he did this three times in succession, because he considered the matter urgent; but we, with all the aids that more than two thousand years have brought us since Ahasuerus, have never yet overtaken more than one third of the habitable earth with our proclamation of Gospel tidings. There is guilt on our garments, and there ought to be the blush of shame on our faces and in our hearts, for such neglect of man is both dishonor and disobedience toward God.
Thirdly, we need the spirit of heroism in the prOlilecution of missions. What is heroism but the child of a holy enthusiasm. and the parent of holy self-sacrifice! Froude tells us that the Knight Templars enlisted three hundred of the very flower of human society in the vain attempt to rescue the Mepulchre of Christ from profanation, and these three hundred never came back from Palestine, but left their bones in its sacred soil; yet nobody raised remonstrance against such waste of life, though life were wasted on vanity. We must stop counting lives and counting converts, putting sovereigns over against souls, and estimating the benefits of missions on a financial basis. When Abraham Lincoln was condoled with on an apparent defeat in his struggles in behalf of the emancipation of American slaves, the noble reply prompted by his loyalty to truth and to political duty was, "Defeat! If it were not one, but a hundred defeats, I should still pursue the same unchanging course." And it was that same heroic man who, when some timid visitor expressed his hope that in the War of the Rebellion the Lord might prove to be on the side of the North, replied, " About that I am not at all concerned, but only that we should be on the Lord's side." What is life good for, and by what standards is it to be estimated? Who has the noblest soul but he who is wedded to the noblest, greatest, and most unselfish purpose, and who to work out that purpose would, like Jerome of Prague, offer up his soul in flame; like Luther, face devils, though they were as plentiful as tiles on the houses; or, like Ignatius, welcome the lion's teeth by which as grain of God he was crushed and ground to make bread for God's peopie.
Such heroism transforms duty into delight, and a bed of living coals into a bed of roses. "The Cross of Christ," says Samuel Rutherford, " js the sweetest blJ,rden that ever I bore. It is such a blJ,rden as win~s are to a bird, or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my desired haven." Lieutenant "Villoughby, in the great Mutiny of the Punjab, blew up a magazine and himself with it to keep it from falling into the hands of the rebels. Noone can contemplate such an act without admiring such heroism. Why should we not seek more of such a spirit in the work and service of our Master, who counted not His own life dear to Himself, but died as a young man at thirty-three years of age, after three and a half years of public life, that He might set us an example, and that He might Ilhow us that that life is long which answers life's great end!
The difficulty that besets us in the work of foreign missions will never be either reached or properly recognized until we have learned the neces- @ity of the reformation and transformation of our whole inner spiritual life. There are four forms of intoxication which have always characterized the human race-the intoxication of the nervous centres, the sensual impulse, the imaginative faculty, and the acquisitive impulse, and to these four forms of intoxication, which are nourished and cherished in the corresponding forms of human idolatry, all the remissness and even rebellion of men may be traced ultimately. Take, for instance, the acquisitive impulse: is there anything which has, even on the average Christian disciple, a more terrible hold than the greed of gain g There are some men that, by their devotion to money. seem to become metallic men, changed into a coin, and they drop into their coffin with a chink. They make us think of that late so-called triumph of science, by which Frenchmen have actually plated a dead child, producing a faithful statue, truer to life than any sculptor could have hoped to have achieved. The metallic shell ean withstand a shock, the skin being prepared by a bath of nitrate of silver, and the silver reduced upon it by the vapor of phosphorus and then electro-plated by copper, aluminium, or gold; but Satan has been doing the same work for ages. Unrecognized, he has plated with gold the dead form of a nominal piety, and given us statuesque disciples that have the form without the power of godliness. ., I recently saw in the home of the late Mr. Spurgeon, at " Westwood," a curious specimen of the Sphoreia Robertsii from New Zealand. It is a caterpillar transformed into wood-fibre. A spore or seed is swallowed or becomes lodged in the folds of the neck of the caterpillar; when it burrows in the ground that seed or spore- begins to grow, absorbs the entire – substance of the insect, and actually fills out the caterpillar's skin with solid woody fibre, while the plant grows from the folds in the neck. How many nominal disciples there are that in the sphere of spiritual natural history present very much such specimens! The acquisitive impulse has absorbed· them, taken up their tIssues so that there is nothing left but the skin of a Christian profession co'ering the woody fibre of this abnormal growth. I knew one man who, in the year 1868, expended for a corner lot, on which to build a house, more money than was spent that year by the entire denomination to which he velonged, in the work of foreign missions; and
1892.J THE PLACE OF SCHOOLS IN MISSION WORK. S87
1:. knew another who in the same year expended more money for a private dwelling than the American Board and the Presbyterian goard and the Methodist Board unitedly spent for the evangelization of the world. It is not for us to say what expenditures are justifiable, for men and women must decide this question with God; but it is perfectly obvious that no self-denial has yet been exercised on the part of the Church of Jesus Christ that is either adequate to the standard of the New Testament or the emergency of a perishing race; and we sometimes fear that the leaven of scepticism with regard to the reality of the lost condition of the heathen and the imminency of their peril has permeated the whole lump, and that this leaven accounts for the apathy and the lethargy exhibited in these days.
How shall a higher consecration to the cause of Christ be secured V As we intimated at the opening of this article, it can never be secured in great, gigantic, enthusiastic public meetings. They answer their purpose, but this is not their ultimate end. Consecration is an individual work and result. It is peculiar to the secret place where the EOul meets God in silence, solitude, and secrecy. It belongs to the Holy of Holies. If the impulse is received in larger gatherings, it becomes rooted and strengthened and matured in privacy with God. When in the Divine presence the sense of eternal things grows upon the soul, the reality of the last condition of men, the sufficiency of the Divine remedy for all human ills, and the sense of personal obligation to bear the Gospel to the dying; when these things become divinely impressed on the consciousness and on the conscience, when mind and heart are quickened under the light of the Shekinah, when the voice of God is heard, the still, small voice, not vox pop1J,li, but vox Dei, and the whole being is subdued, so that, like Elijah coming out and standing at the entering in of the cave and wrapping his face in his mantle, one stands in the presence of God, then such consecration to duty and to God becomes possible, and we must look to a new baptism o prayer for a new triumph of missions.
THE PLACE OF SCHOOLS IN MISSION WORK.
BY F. D. PHINNEY, RANGOON, BURMA.
" Much to Mrs. – – – ' s presAnt regret, though I have not the slightest doubt that she will be glad for it hereafter, I have forbidden the reopening of her school for heathen children alone. "
A young missionary who, in single blessedness had spent, say, five years in Lower Burma, in study of the language and in mission work, marries a missionary lady then somewhat lately out from home, and in a few months goes to open a mission station in a stronghold of Buddhism in Upper Burma as soon as its occupation by the English soldiery had made it safe to take his wife thither. With all the usual interruptions incident to such proceedings in a city where law and order are just taking the place of what was but little better than anarchy and confusion, land is acquired and a house is built having accommodations for school and chapel and residence. Then the husband with his native helpers goes off on preaching tours, while the wife with her native helper opens a school. Meanwhile, a few earnest English soldiers come and ask the aid and counsel of the missionary and his wife, and as the husband is absent so much, this part of the work falls to the wife, who becomes, in fact, a pastor to the soldiers, working and praying with them month after month until the two or three earnest Christians have become a large company. We take it for granted that the same Christian earnestness was manifested in the school for native children; and yet, because there were no children of Christian parents in the school when the term closed in the spring of 1892, it must not be reopened, according to the statement quoted above.
We think we do no injustice to the missionary if, from his own statement, we draw these two principles: (a) The duty of the missionary is to preach the Gospel to the heathen, and not to educate heathen children.
(b) Money given for mission purposes is to be used for preaching the Gospel, and not for the education of heathen children.
From the wording of the statement quoted we infer, in addition, that if the school had been attended (wholly or partly) by Christian pupils, or by the children of Christians, it would have been allowed to reopen; the principles underlying which action must be : (c) It is a duty of missionaries to educate Christian children or the children of converts.
(d) Money given for missions may be used for the education of Christian children or the children of converts.
This instance has been taken simply to show the ideas held by some regarding the question of educational work in missions. The statement of principles is not satisfactory. It does not go to the bottom of the matter; and it is our endeavor in this article to get down to something which shall be a foundation principle, and thus to determine the place of schools in mission work.
The foundation principle of all mission work is found in the two great commandments as given by Jesus Christ: first, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; " second, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." In accordance with this second commandment it is the duty of the Christianized, civilized, educated nations of the West to help the heathenized, rudely civilized, and illy-educated peoples of the East to attain to an equally enlightened Christian civilization with their own. Thus it is a duty to establish Christian schools for heathen children; but it does not fix it as the especial duty of a Christian missionary to maintain such schools, devoting to them his own time and the money given to the society under which he works. But there is a specific command defining a Rpecial duty within the broad command to love our neighbors as ourselves. This we call the Great Commission, and, as given in Matt. 28 : 19, 20, is: "Go ye, therefore, and teach [margin, make disciples of] all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father~ and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Let us note at once that this Great Commission is one command, not three; the " baptizing" and the " teaching" are but two steps in the work of " making disciples." And that little word" all" indicates completeness in the work of making disciples-the would-be disciples are not to be left to themselves until they shall have been taught all that is necessary to enable them to obey all the commands of Christ, even this last one, to become themselves preachers and teachers to all the world still in need of the Saviour. In other words, the missionary has not done his full duty until he has done everything to secure converts, and then so to train them that they shall be able to apprehend a knowledge of the truth, and not to be " carried about with every wind of doctrine," and to organize them into churches which shall become centres of Christian influence. And so we claim, as the principle which shall guide our mission policy, that every work which tends to the destruction of heathenism and to the securing of converts to Christianity, and the building up of a sturdy, intelligent, active church-membership, is in perfect harmony with the Great Commission, and therefore a legitimate work for the Christian missionary and a legitimate charge upon mission funds.
If we are satisfied with this statement of the fundamental principles and objects of mission work, it will be comparatively easy to decide to what extent educational work properly belongs to mission work. The harvest must determine the value of the seed-sowing and the tilling; and yet we must not disparage either by looking for fruit before its due season. For two generations at least the Government of India has maintained schools of all grades, in which there has been no religious teaching, Christian or non-Christian, and it must be admitted with great regret that this kind of educational work is of but the slightest aid to the missionary in his first desire-that of securing converts. A reason for such meagre results may possibly be found in the fact that so many of the instructors in these schools are outspoken infidels, and so few are outspoken Christians. And yet the results of schools established and maintained by Christian men, but in which the Bible is not taught lest it drive away some pupils, in the hope that education will banish the absurdities of heathenism and lead the pupils to accept Christianity, do not appear such as to warrant the existence of such schools as a part of mission work and their support from mission funds, although they are efficient helpers in that grand work, second only to mission work, the work of civilizing the uncivilized. We therefore feel compelled to decide that schools in which the Bible is not taught by a Christian teacher form neither a legitimate part of mission work nOr II legitimate charge upon mission funds. We leave them to those whose philanthropy does not look beyond the present life.
We turn now to another kind of school, of which there are many Elcores to be found in heathen lands, schools which are taught either by missionaries or by Christian native teachers, supported partly or wholly from mission funds, and in which the Bible is the subject of daily study. We shall find three classes of pupils in such schools: unconverted children of heathen parents; unconverted children of Christian parents; and con- verted pupils, children of either heathen or Christian parentage. Let us first eliminate this question of parentage, for there is nothing whatever in the Great Commission that bids us educate the child because the parent has become a believer any more than it bids us educate the parent when the child becomes a believer. There is no reason why we should place a premium on Christianity by offering a liberal education, or anything less, to the children of any who will embrace Christianity. If there is any- thing in our principle which bids us educate the children, it must be be- cause of the children themselves, not for the sake of the parents, be they what they may. We have, therefore, but two classes of pupils to .con- sider, the converted and the unconverted; and we wish to know whether we are justified or not in devoting mission time and mission money to giv- ing a mixed secular and Christian education to such children in heathen lands. The result must determine. Do such schools, or do they not, tend both to destroy heathenism and to build up Christianity ~ If they do, they are justified j if they do not, they are not justified. If they do, then their measure of success will determine the proportion of missionary effort which may be devoted to such work.
Ten years of missionary life leads me to share with many others in the belief that in a heathen land the gathering of children into schools where the Bible is daily taught with the other studies is a most efficient way of securing converts from heathenism, and of training up a truer, stronger body of Christian workers than these converts could possibly be if left to grow old in heathenism before leaving it for Christia.nity.
To the great majority of missionaries, who observe carefully the results of work for a series of yea.rs upon the young and the old in heathen lands, the question needs no further argument. There are individual ex- ceptions, of course; but, as a rule, those who received their education in Christian schools and were converted to Christianity in their youth, form a body of Christians truer, stronger, better working, less superstitious, and less likely to be drawn aside from their faith, than an equal number who .were educated in schools where they learned a mass of heathen superstition with the rudiments of a secular education. This is to be expected from results noticed elsewhere. Every rea.son why the Catholics are so eager in getting Protestant children to attend their parochial schools and convents points in the same direction.. Every reason why the various denominations of Christians in America maintain denomillationlll schools and colleges, although few of them teach denominational tenets, may be taken as a reason with tenfold force why Christian schools should be maintained in heathen lands for the education of those who are accounted Christians and for the possible conversion of those who are not.
Take that old familiar story of the father whose son had acquired the habit of reading only trashy novels. The father sent the son to fill up a new, clean basket with dirty refuse, and" then told him to put in a lot of nice clean apples. "But the basket is full," said the son; "and even if it were emptied, it is so dirty that it will spoil the apples." Nothing but the grace and power of God can ever empty and cleanse at all a neathen " basket;" but how much better if it had never been permitted to become so foul! A skilful gardener can do much to improve the appearance and the fruit-bearing qualities of an old tree; but when he wishes to secure a perfect tree he begins with a young one. A general must fight with his enemy, no matter how well intrenched he may be when "he finds him; but that general would be called a fool who, having a fair chance to attack his enemy in the open, should deliberately wait for him to become intrenched and to get his big guns in position before commencing bis attack. We must preach to those 01 full age when we can and where we can; but it is difficult almost to impossibility to get any number of adults together where sllch an influence can be exerted over them as is possible to the Christian school-teacher, who, while teaching the A, B, C's, tIInd 1, 2, 3's, can at the same time, better than at any other time, impart a knowledge of the true God, of His Word, and of His Son, to minds not already hardened in sin and full of Satan's deceits.
But some may ask whether we cannot accomplish the same end without the expense and work of maintaining schools. No, we cannot. The children cannot be got together every day for Bible study alone, and if not got into week-day schools, the children of heathen parents cannot be got, to any great extent, to attend Sunday-schools; and even if they could be got to attend the latter, it is still impossible to do in one day all that might be done in seven. The measure of success in this work will depend upon the consecration of the missionary and the native helpers, and the ability of each to combine religious truth with secular knowledge. Then, too, to some the results are immediately apparent in the conversion of pupils, while to others the results are not seen until years later, when some other missionary or native preacher may reap a harvest from the soil prepared by an equally faithful Christian whose gift of service lay only in school teaching.
More than ten thousand portions of the Scriptures were sold during the past year in Siam. Type in the Laos characters was cast in 1890, and will soon be III use. The Siamo-Laos edition of Matthew is in use in the ill-teri/n,
THE AMERICAN MISSION IN EGYP1.'
THE AMERICAN MISSION IN EGYPT.
BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, OBERLIN, O.
Many circumstances combine to make the Egyptian Mission of the American United Presbyterians one of the most interesting and significant to be found in the entire range of effort for the world's evangelization. For example, its location is in one of the most ancient and famous of lands, in a country for twenty-five centuries so closely connected with Bible history, the rise and spread of the kingdom of heaven upon earth; of whose remarkable civilization such stupendous monuments still survive, and which, after being long Christian, for twelve hundred years has groaned beneath the tyranny of the Moslem. Further, in the modern effort to restore it to the rule of the cross we have one of the finest examples of Christian comity, since by common consent practically the entire work is left to be performed by .a single denomination. Finally, so well IS the undertaking supplied with instrumentalities various and vigorously wielded, that in almost every particular the gains have been steady and encouragingly large.
The land of the Nile is altogether unique among terrestrial regions, is easily one of the very strangest under the sun. Its river for the last 1300 miles of its course receives not a tributary stream, and but for the annual inundations, so mysterious to the ancients, though their cause is to us well understood, Egypt, the paragon of fertility and fruitfulness, would be all empty and desolate as Sahara itself. No other country is at once so long and so narrow, since it extends from the Mediterranean southward some 700 miles to the First Cataract, but for the bulk of the distance never reaches a width of more than twelve miles, while the average is not more than six or eight. The Delta is a triangular space with base upon the sea and apex at Cairo, about 100 miles from Alexandria. Beyond that point the river valley is everywhere shut in by a double line of precipitous cliffs varying in height from 200 to 1200 feet, and back of them lies the dismal expanse of the Libyan and Arabian deserts. The only break in the sides of this trough.like chasm, which was worn down by the river in days primeval, is found on the western side, and not far to the south of Cairo, in a depression known as the Fayoum, separated from the valley by a ridge of limestone, but also joined to it by a canal long ago cut to carry in the lifegiving water. This limited tract constitutes the Egypt of history as well as the real Egypt of to-day, and therefore the name stands not for any 400,000 square miles (that" fiction of the geographers") lying between the Red Sea and some imaginary line somewhere out on the waste of the Sahara, but for not more than 12,000 square miles of arable soil-a tract about the size of Sicily, or Belgium, or New Hampshire, or of Massachusetts with Rhode Island added.
In order to recall the connection of Egypt with Old Testament history, i~ is euough to suggest that it was the place of refuge from famine for Abraham, and again for Jacob; was thc scene of Joseph's romantic career and of the early life of Moses, as well as for generations the abode and training-place of the chosen people. All through Hebrew history a near neighbor, its influence was profoundly felt, sometimes as an ally and sometimes as a foe. In later times Alexandria, the capital city, was a sort of second Jerusalem as a rendezvous for wealthy and learned Jews, and supplied a birthplace for the Septuagint. Then, as standing for its connection with New Testament events, when the infant Jesus was in mortal peril from the jealousy of Herod, it was hither that He was hurried; among the polyglot multitude, certain Egyptians shared in the marvels and ecstasies of Pentecost; and a few years later Apollos, an Alexandrian Christian Jew, so eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, appears upon the scene. In a word, so much had the Pharaohs and the civilization of the Nile Valley to do with patriarchs, prophets, and kings, and with the momentous unfolding of truth and righteousness under the old covenant, that next to Palestine Egypt takes rank as a holy land.
When or by whom the Gospel was introduced into Egypt we cannot say, nor do we know aught of its early history there; only it is certain that large conquests were made before the end of the first century, and steady gains followed until Constantine's day, when the mastery over heathenism was achieved. It is evident, also, that the ruling type of Christianity contained from the first and all along serious admixtures of idolatry and superstition. For centuries theological strifes were almost constant and exceedingly bitter, and vast numbers of the best fled to monasteries and the deserts to escape from the general corruption and chaos. Some names from that period will ever live as notable,and others as notorious; such as Origen an,l Clement, Athanasius, Arius and Cyril made a profound impression upon their own time not only, but ever since have moulded the opinions and character of multitudes. In those days of acrimonious debate, through the influence of certain leaders the Egyptian Church was led to accept certain doctrines then and ever since accounted heretical; and so furious and uncompromising had their contention with the orthodox Greek Church long been that when the Persians entered the land as invaders they were met by the Christians with open arms, as were also the Arabs, when in 640 A.D. they came to conquer Egypt for the prophet. By this time the Church had taken the name Coptic, which ever since it has borne. For a season the Christians fared well enough, but later set in a long period of oppression and pitiless persecution, especially from the Turks; and as a result the millions gradually dwindled, until at the beginning of this century but a few thousands remained And these, like their brethren in the other corrupt Oriental churches, had scarcely more than a name to live, their profession of godliness amounting to little more than a prejudice, a form, a superstition. And it is in behalf of this same ancient but apostate Coptic Church that the American Mission bestows the bulk of its labors. EgYl't contains a population of about '7,000,000, of which more than 6,000,000 lire Mohammedans. The Copts number not far from 400,000, and the other nominal Christians are divided between the Greeks, Syrians, and Roman Catholics. The ruling language of the country is Arabic. Alexandria is a city of 300,000 inhabitants, while Cairo approaches to 500,000, is much the largest city in Africa, and next to Constantinople the largest in the Turkish Empire. Here is the seat of the chief Mohammedan university, with its more than 300 teachers and 10,000 to 12,000 students, attracted thither from well nigh every country of the East.
The first efforts to redeem Egypt to Christ were made by the Moravian Church, and began as far back as 1752; but, on account of various obstacles, connected especially with the political situation, no lasting impression WIlS made, and after about thirty years the missionaries were recalled. Next, in 1824 the Church Missionary Society sent its representatives to undertake the evangelization of the Nile Valley. As the fashion then was, they proposed to reform the Coptic Church by fraternizing with the higher clergy, and securing their countenance and co-operation. But the plan failed; life from the dead was not to be wrought by such methods, and by 1860 the effort had ceased. It was about this time that Miss Whately, daughter of the famed Archbishop of Dublin, began in Cairo her devoted school work, especially for Mohammedan boys and girls, and which she continued to carryon at great cost to herself until her lamented death only three years since.
But 1854 is the true Christian ~ra for modern Egypt, for it was in that year that the American Mission was founded by the entrance into Cairo of Rev. Thomas McCague and Rev. James Barnett, sent out by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, which four years later, by organic union with another branch of the same ecclesiastical tree, became the United Presbyterian Church. In 1857 Dr. Lansing, transferred from Damascus, fixed himself in Alexandria, to be joined in 1860 by the Rev. John Hogg. These last names will always be held in honor as representing the distinguished wisdom and energy and persistence which, beginning to display themselves in the trying day of small things, have ever since continued. As soon as possible schools were opened for boys and others for girls, religious services were held, though for years with a meagre attendance, and tours through the villages were commenced for the sale of Bibles and religious books. No direct notice was taken of the Coptic Church as an organization, for the effort now and from henceforth was not to seek to resuscitate or reform that, but rather to compass the regeneration of individual souls. But the difficulties were many and great, and of necessity progress was slow. Among the discouragements was this, that on account of the fail. ure of health, several of the missionaries were compelled to retire.
Dr. Lansing was able to preach in Arabic almost at once, He also found mission schools already started by the zeal of certain Scottish disciples, and these were soon turned over to his care and direction, though for several years they continued to receive large financial support from the originators. In 1860 seven adults were received to communion, of whom five were Syrian Christians and two were Copts, while one of them, who had been a monk, was destined to become the pastor of a congregation. In Cairo, also, by this time encouraging signs had been vouchsafed; for as early as 1859 four had openly joined the mission, and in 1861 a church was organized with 13 members. And further, it was in those days that Said Pasha, the liberal.minded ruler then in power, and largely through the influence of Mr. Thayer, the representative of the United States, presented to the mission a very valuable piece of property, finely located in the Coptic quarter, and which presently furnished a site for schools, and religious services, and dwellings for the missionaries. And when in after times his successor, Ismail Pasha, would gain p08Bes- sion of this real estate, it was exchanged with him for other lots and $33,880 in gold. Fixed in such commodious quarters, the mission at once began to grow. The audiences doubled j the boys' school leaped from an attendance of 50 to 200, and 24 new members were re- ceived to the Church. By the end of the first decade the number of com- municants had reached 58, and during the last three years by the colpor- teurs 7152 copies of the Scriptures, worth $2000, had been sold.
Another incident belonging to this early period may well be mentioned, both because it contains a touch of the romantic, and because of various important bearings. Among the first of th~ girls in the Cairo mission school to be effectually wrought upon by the truth was one who became the wife of a wealthy Hindu prince, the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, son of the redoubtable Ranjeet Singh, monarch of the Punjab, and heir to the throne; but who, after the third Sikh war, exchanged his throne for a pension of £30,000 annually, a title, and a palatial residence in England. In due season he presented £1000 " as a token of his grateful interest in the American Mission," and for sixteen years repeated the munificent act on the anniversary of his marriage. Last year the amount was doubled ($10,000), making a total of benefactions amouuting to $90,000. And further, while in Egypt he gave the free use of his boat, the Ibis, for all manner of missionary purposes; on his return to England left it in missionary keeping, and finally made a transfer of ownership without charge to the mis- ,sion. Verily, it is not often that from the hand-uf princes such distinguished and repeated benefits have been bestowed upon Christian enterprises of this kind. And, aside from the favor of Him by whom prinees rule, these substantial tokens of confidence and esteem were the result in no small degree of work so well performed, so evidently good, as to easily commend itself to all inteIltgent and candid lookers-on.
Thus passed the first decade in tedious exploring, experimenting, and laying of foundations, and with the opening of the second began a period of enlargement. The way had already been prepared by frequent trips up and down the Nile by the missionaries, and also by the Earl of Aberdeen. who, though an invalid, in Egypt for his health, with his wife and a converted Coptic priest, in 1854 and again in 1860 had made extended journeys for the distribution of Bibles and religious books. In 1865 Mr. Hogg and family, and Miss McKown, ascended the river 270 miles from Cairo to Assioot, a city of 30,000, situated in the centre of a large Coptic population, and fixed there their residence with a definite plan in mind looking to the thorough occupation of the whole region (Upper Egypt) with churches and schools of every grade. The year following the Fayoum was entered, and about the same time a beginning was made at Koos, 215 miles above Assioot, and in the vicinity of Thebes. Luxor became a station in 1873, Esneh in 1876, and, stilI advancing southward, Edfoo in 1884, and finally in 1887 Assouan (Syene), hard by the First Cataract, on the border of Nubia, and at present the limit of the mission in that direction. And, in the mean time, between and all about these principal stations, numerous out-stations had been opened one after another, until now in the eight districts or provinces of which the Mission is composed evangelistic work is done at not less than 145 points.
Of course, such vigorous and widespread aggressive operations could not be carried on without exciting alarm and opposition from the Coptic Church, against which they were especially directed. So disturbed and apprehenlilive of serious damage to his ecclesiastical and theological realm was the Patriarch, the government also sympathizing and abetting, that on several occasions he dealt out expostulations, warnings, threats, and bulls of anathema, to break up the congregations, to frighten the children from the schools, in various ways to undermine the influence of the American preachers and teachers, llnd hoping even to drive them from the country•. On one occasion in early days three leading Christians of Koos were arrested by the soldiers and condemned" to be sent up the White Nile, " a current euphemism for death by violence. Under guard they were started southward, and their lives were saved only by the determined protests of the chief representatives of the United States and Great Britain, and made both at Cairo and Constantinople. When the tempest was over it was found, so steadfast were the Protestants in their new faith, that only four who had thoroughly identified themselves with the work, through fear. had made their peace with the Church rulers by apostasy, and even these presently returned. No permanent harm resulted from these savage assaults; even in the midst of them the infant churches more than held their ground, while through the reaction certain to follow the gains were even increased.
The civil authorities, on the whole, though Mohammedans, have been fairly reasonable, and, as we have seen, sometimes quite liberal. The chief trouble from the government has come in connection with its attitude toward Moslems who have become Christians. The number of thes~ is now well on toward a hundred, some of whom have been compelled to endure fines and imprisonment, as well as bitter persecution. The government also strictly forbids street preaching, persistently refuses permission to publish a religious paper, and has often prevented t.he purchase of land and the erection of buildings for mission purposes. But, on the other hand, the P.rotestants have secured legal recognition as a distinct and authorized body.
The plan was early adopted of opening at every station, and as soon as pos!<ible, schools of primary and secondary grade, to be under the control of the people and be by them supported, and the instruction also to be imparted by native teachers; and these schools have steadily increased, until now they number 98 (of which 88 are entirely self-supporting), with 118 teachers, who are church-members for the most part, and 4423 pupils, of whom 785 are girls and 424 are the children of Moslems. Then, in addition, and largely in order to secure and maintain a corps of competent teachers, other schools of higher grade have been established at all the central stations, some of them being boarding-schools under the direct control of the mission, and taught in the main by American instructors, with the training college at Assioot and the theological seminary at Cairo as the fitting climax and crown. Of these there are 12, with 43 teachers and 7 assistants, and in them are found 2340 pupils, among whom are 1352 girls and 560 Mohammedan children. Therefore, on the educational side, the work: of the American Mission is represented by 110 schools, 161 teachers and 7 assistants, and 6763 pupils, including 2137 girls and 984 Moslems. The amount paid last year by the people for tuition was $9148, and the sum expended by them for all school purposes was $13,298.
But, according to the conception which dominates in this mission, schools, intellectual training, are only a valuable, an indispensable means to ends which are distinctively religious. The aim is nothing less than. Christian intelligence. And as a further help in this direction, from the beginning the circulation of the Scriptures has been pushed with vigor, and as well of religious literature. A mission pre!;s is maintained in Alexandria, and a general book depot, while seven depositories are found at convenient points. Large favors are constantly received from the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society. The shopmen are carefully selected, and have as their business not only to make sales, but also to read to their customers, and hold conversations on Christian themes. And, besides, a force of 31 colporteurs is kept constantly in the field visiting the numerous villages of the Nile Valley. Two books in particular have thus had an extensive circulation. The one was written by an Oriental Christian upon the unscriptural practices of the Eastern churches, as shown by citations from the Old and New TQstaments. The Copts reading this are then c~nstrained to purchase Bibles to test its accuracy. The other is addressed to Mohammedans, and contains the testimony of the Koran to the authority and excellence of the Bible. Last year 13,281 volumes of the Scriptures, or portions, were sold, 7427 volumes of religious books, 18,118 of educational works, and $1701 of stationery. The total number of volumes was 38,826, whose cash value was $8516. And as far back: as 1888-that is, within a period of thirty-four years-133,416 copies of the Scriptures had thus been put into circulation in 16 languages, as well as 292,500 volumes of religious lind educational works, and for which $96,429 were expended.
Of course, with all this, continual and boundless prayer and toil are bestowed upon religious services of every kind. With the frequent assist- ance of generous donations from Great Britain and America comfortable houses of worship have been secured at 44 stations, while at others rooms have been rented. In these are held an average of some 3000 meetings each month, at which 10,000 to 12,000 regularly hear the Word. For thirty years the Ibis has made frequent trips up and down the Nile from Damietta to Assouan, bearing the printed Word and the heralds of the cross, and far surpassing in usefulness any other pulpit in the land. The Mission contains 13 ordained missionaries, 10 of them with wives, 7 other women, and 1 physician, a total of 31 from America. With these are joined 14 ordained natives, 7 licentiates, and 19 theological students, as well a8 10 other employes of Presbytery, 33 zenana workers, etc., with teachers, shopmen, and colporteurs enough to make a total of 282 native helpers, or a grand total of 313 toilerl!l.
As a portion of the fruit of labors in such variety bestowed upon a field so extensive may be named 30 organized congregations containing 3571 church-members, of whom 461 were added last year. These were gath- ered chiefly from the Coptic Church, though among them are found quite a large number who came out from the Greek, the Syrian, and the Arme- nian communions. The membership of SOme of the congregations is quite large. Thus in Nakhaleh, at the close of 1891, there were 189 members; in Assioot, 253 ; in Koos, 121 ; in Sinnoris, 106 ; and in several others as . many as 100 ; and not a few stations have done nobly in striving to at- tain to self-support. " For," says the last annual report of the mission, H Assioot has always paid its pastor's salary. The salary of the pastor at Nakhaleh is $30 per month. The congregation pays all but $9. The salary at Roos is $35 per month; the people pay all but $10. The salary at !;Hnnoris is $28 per month; the church pays all but $6. The salary of the pastorate of Moteah congregations is $17.50 per month; the congre- gations pay all but $6. Each of the 14 pa~torates is at least half self.sup- porting. " And as a further test of the earnestness and self-sacrificing spirit of these poor Egyptian saints, the amount of their contributions for church purposes last year was $7378. If we add this to the sum already given as paid for schools, books, etc., and to the offerings from missionary societies, $209, aud from SundaY-ilchools, $299, we have the really aston- ishing total of $29,811 expended in a single year-an average of $8.35 for each church-member!
The following official table of figures, so thoroughly gratifying in the facts which it presents to the eye, may well conclude the more formal set- ting forth of the work accomplished through the blessing of the great Head
18112.] 'rIll -'-MEltleAN KIllION IN J:8YPT
of the Church upon the American Mission in Egypt. In particular, the steady, regular growth of the work in all departments will be noted. " Nearly all the items have more than doubled in every ten years, and some of them have doubled in every five years."
Established in 1854. 1861. 1866. 1871. 1876. 1881. 1886. 1891.
—— ——–J– ———— Ordained missionaries on field…. . ……………. 5 7 7 8 9 9 13 Unmarried female missionaries on field………… 3 3 4 6 6 10 7 ~:~:~~R:~ti:te~.:.:::::::::::::::::·:::::'::::::: ::::: ::::: ~ ~ ~ ~ 1~ Organized con~egations……. .. …….. ~……. ….. 1 5 6 13 23 30 Stations occuPIed, inclnding congregations…. …. 2 6 9 29 m54 79 144 784 1,~ '~:~ Communicants……………………. { ~~:ie,} 19 110 370 Average Sabbath attendance………………….. 111 176 693 1,1701 1,989 4,449 6,451 Contributions of churches …………….. …… .•••• $40 $1,444 $2,212 $5,629 $5,043 $7,378 Pupils in Sabbath·schools………….. ………. . ….. ….. 339 1,154 …1,~5.7. 4I 4,0171 5,447 Contributions of Sabbath·schools………. .. .. …. ….. ….. …… ……. $181 $320 "'1 Pupils in schools.. …………………. …….. 271 501 889 1,475 2.410 5,263 6,763 4 TUItions and other fees paid by people….. …. …. ….. ….. $619 $1,033 $6,261 $14,823 $13,298 Women's Missionary Societies………………………………………. 8 Memberships of Women's Missionary Societies…. ….. ….. …… ……. .. …. 217 271 Contributions…. .. " . . .. .. …. '" …… ……. ……. $165 $209 Youns: People's Societies…………………… : ……………. ……. … …. …… 3 Contributions at Assioot… .. .. .. …. . .. .. . .. … .. ….. .. . …. . ……. …… . .. . . .. $90 Books distributed, vols ……………………………….. 5,756 11,015 27,150, 37,823 38,826 Proceeds from sales of vols …………………………… $1,479 $2,638 $6,243' $8,616, $8,516 Total paid by natives for all purpose! …………………. $3,542 $5,883 $18,133 $28,828 $29,811 1 1 Although, as it thus plainly appears, to this mission has been granted large measures of prosperity, various discouragements and hindrances have befallen in addition to such as have already been mentioned. Thus, during the scenes of excitement and violence attending the rebellion of 1882, there was not only ground for deep solicitude, but the lives of the Protestants were in peril. Besides, it is continually found that, after years of careful training in the higher schools of the mission, the brightest and most promising of the young men are tempted by the offer of large salaries to turn away from the Gospel ministry and enter the service of the government. Not strangely, some yield to the solicitation; but others also refuse, and prefer lifelong sacrifice of creature comforts, position, and honor among men for the kingdom of heaven's sake. And now and then it happens that converts from whom much was hoped fall away and return to their old estate. It was only last year that Habeeb Abdel Maseeh (Habeeb, the servant of Christ), who since 1882 had walked worthily and had shown such ability and zeal that he had been employed as keeper of the bookshop in Zagazig and as general evangelist, after months of evident decline in piety finaIly openly renounced Christianity, went back to his old name, Mohammed Habeeb, and to the faith of his fathers.
On the other hand, the mission has been greatly helped in recent years by the stable government and unwonted material prosperity resulting from the protectorate of Great Britain. Political chaos and widespread lawlessness have been exchanged for quiet and good order. Slavery has been abolished, and forced contributions of labor and taxes are made definite and equitable. The army, too, has been thorouihly reorianized, and
THE AMERICAN MISSION IN EGYPT
is now well paid. And besides, extensive and invalnable public works, looking to irrigation and drainage have been constructed, at great cost, indeed, bnt the source also of great wealth to the people. As a result, the value of the cotton crop alone has been increased by $4,000,000 a year; and from a condition next to bankruptcy, and an annual deficit in 1883 amounting to £70£,397, the income has steadily risen of late, until in 1891 a surplus was found of £1,100,000 r But one of the mORt cheering features of the outlook is found in the changes evidently in progress inside the Coptic Church, and forced upon it by the evident superiority of the teachmg and practice which centre in the American Mission. As one example, a letter written in March of this year conveys the surprising intelligence that for more than three years nightly meetings have been held in the cathedral at Assioot, and in other places in Upper Egypt, and that the confessional has been abolished, and the pictures of the Virgin and the saints have been removed. And all this has been done under the leadership of reformed Coptic priests. And, strangest of aH, at Assioot also, since their priesthood is so ignorant as to be unfit to give religious lllstruction, the leaders of the Coptic Chnrch have asked the American Mission for one of its licentiates to teach them truth and duty, promising to provide for his support, and to allow him full freedom of utterance! Can these dry bones Iive ~ Yes, when the Spirit of God blows upon them.
In the two chief cities of Egypt somewhat of mission work is performed by the Church of England, and the Free Church of Scotland and others, but largely for the foreign portion of the population; and during the current year the North Africa Missionary Society has entered the Delta. But it is devoutly to he hoped, it may reasonably be expected, that at least the Nile Valley, the chief scene of its toils and triumphs, will be left for long years to come to be tilled exclusively by the American Mission. As for the other legions of the Lord's host, let them stand off and observe, give hearty sympathy and congratulations, and rejoice in their joy. Let all Christians of every name continue in fervent supplication that the efforts of that long line of laborers may be so richly blessed that not only shall the thousands in the Coptic Church be won to a pure Gospel, but also that through them the millions of the Mohammedans shall be led to accept Him who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
The North African Mission has opened work in Lower Egypt by sending there recently five missionaries, two of whom are males. In this part of the land there is a population of 4,500,000, mostly Mohammedans, and almost wholly without the gospel. There are about forty towns with from 7000 to 40,000 inhabitants, and five hundred towns with from 2000 to 7000 inhabitants.
THE INDUSTRIAL HOME FOR BOYS
THE INDUSTRIAL HOME FOR BOYS.
BY A FRIEND OF THE WORK.
Among the many interesting sights in the city of Venice is that of the doves in St. Mark's Square; and those who have the pleasure of seeing them must hear with interest also of the kind lady who provided for their feeding. But comparatively few know of the provision that has been made for those worthier than dovel-thp, boys. '
In Casa Scandiani, San Felice, resides Mrs. A. R. Hammond, the widow of that illustrious English captain who fell in the Crimean War. Eleven years ago she founded in Venice what is now known as " the Industrial Home for Boys," and it was started in a very peculiar manner.
She went to that beautiful island city with a friend in the fall of 1880, expecting to spend but a few weeks there. But in the providence of God her friend fell ill, and it was found necessary to pass the entire winter in Venice. With this long period stretching before her, Mrs. Hammond made it a subject of prayer that God would show her if He had any work for her to do in that city.
On the following Sunday she attended the service of the free Italian church; but finding she had come too early, she took a back seat in the " little Sunday-school, which was still in session. It was conducted by the pastor, Rev. S. Beruatto, and at the close of the lesson he made a prayer which he had never before offered in public.
" He prayed for the many poor, neglected boys who were growing up in ignorance, vice, and misery; that God would open a way by which some of them might be reached, taught to gain an honest livelihood, and, above all, be led into the fold of the Good Shepherd."
This petition seemed to Mrs. Hammond to be an answer to her own prayer, "a direct message from God" to her; and, like Paul in his Macedonian mission, as soon as she had heard the .call, ., immediately" she" endeavored" to answer it.
This was in October of 1880 ; in March of the following spring the work was begun. It was started in a small dark room which Signor Beruatto had arranged that she might have, rent free, in the building where he held his services. Twelve poor boys, aged from eight to fourteen, were at that time gathered together. The colporteur of the free Italian church offered his services gratuitously for two hours every morning to teach read· ing and writing; and a shoemaker was engaged to give instructions in thaI. handicraft.
But after a little while it was found that it would not do to make all the boys shoemakers; so a carpenter was hired, and some of the boys " took to the use of the saw and plane with much animation."
The work, however, was found to be without solid good unless a house could be obtained in which the boys might be lodged over night, and so kept from the influence of bad companions.
INDUIT1U.L IOllE FOIt :aOYfi
Signor Beroatto, who taught these little ragged urchins the simplest troths of the Gospel, taught them also the efficacy of prayer by leading them to ask for what they really wished; and among other things for a suitable, permanent home. This prayer has eventually been answered. In the winter of 1887 the present home was secured after two changes of resi- dence, and on March 10th thirty-six: boys celebrated their sixth anniversary in the new, appropriate quarters.
These boys are all Italian, though not all Venetian. Several come from distant parts of Italy, being recommended by the evangelical minister of the place in which they live. But the majority have been brought to the home by their widowed mothers, who, being left with several children, have applied for help in vain to the priests and the congregation of charity.
Now and then the priests, or some relation, have taken a boy away from the Protestant influence of the Instituto Evangelico, but as a general rule those placed within the shelter of the home remain there until they are able to earn theu own livelihood. And formerly, if a boy chose a professional career, he was enabled to enter the Marco Polo College; but that plan, fraught with various disadvantages, has recently been abandoned, and a professor engaged at the home itself expressly for the student boys.
This new teacher is a converted priest, who, at much personal sacrifice, bas lately come out from the Church of Rome, and whose sincere desire is to prepare the boys to become ministers of the Gospel. As he held a high office in the Romish Church, and was also a professor in a Roman Catholic seminary, he is very well fitted for his new work; and the boys themselves are delighted with the arrangement. It secures for them as good instruction and more individual attention than they formerly received at the Marco Polo Ginnasio, and the state educational regulations allow them to go up at the end of the scholastic year for the college examinations.
One of the very first boys who came to that small, dark room, and who was rescued from the very worst surroundings. is now an officer in the custom house. Another of those very early pupils who" took to the use of the saw and plane" is at present employed in one of the first shops of Venice,and has lately "developed a decided talent for sculpturing." Still others are earning good livings as printers, which trade wail started not long after the carpenter work was begun. Surely, the little seed, planted in faith and watered by prayer, bas taken root and sprouted and grown.
In the eleventh report, just issued, Mrs. Hammond states that there are now fifty-eight boys in the home; and she closes her account of the past year's work in these words: "After eleven years' experience, my conviction is deeply rooted that the boys' home in Venice is the Lord's work; that it was He who planted it, and who has thus far maintained it. And, therefore, notwithstanding financial discouragement, I desire to ' cast all my care on Him,' in the confident hope that He will in some way supply the need for it. continuance and progress accordin,g to His good pleamre.' ,
189i.j THE GOSPEL AMONG THE JE~S
THE GOSPEL AMONG THE JEWS.
BY M. A. B. HOWARD, LE ROY, N. Y.
Some time ago a celebration was held in Germany of an unique kind. It was the fiftieth anniversary of Professor Delitzsch's Hebrew translation of the New Testament. Those who are accustomed to think of the Hebrew as a dead language way wonder that such a celebration should take place j but the wonder ceases with a knowledge of the remarkable history of this volume.
The Jewish population of the world is estimated at between six and a half and seven millions, and of this number over five millions are found in Russia, the Black Sea region, and Southwestern Asia. For all these Oriental Jews the Hebrew is not only the literary language, but in a more or less perverted form is also spoken by them j and in order to find readers among this people a book must be printed in Hebrew. It is interesting to note the following books as among those which have thus appeared in Hebrew Garb: "Pilgrim's Progress," "Paradise Lost," "Faust," the Koran, ' portions of Shakespeare, and Eber's " J ollhua."
In the Jewish schools of Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine Hebrew is the language used. Both scientific and religious periodicals are published in this language. In Jerusalem two papers are regularly issued. In view of these facts it is evident that the New Testament in Hebrew must be one of the most efficient means for the evangelization of the Jews. There are two translations, one by Professor Delitzsch, already alluded to, and the other by Dr. Salkinson. "These have had a circulation exceeding the most noted work of fiction."
The tenth edition of Delitzsch's version has been published, and over 200,000 copies of Salkinson's have appeared. "One hundred thousand copies were paid for by a wealthy Scotchman, to be used for missionary purposes." These are mainly used in Northern Africa, while of Delitzsch's translation, between 60,000 and 70,000 have gone to the Jews of Southeastern Europe. This volume has also found readers from Stockholm to the extreme eastern border of Siberia. Since 1887 hundreds of copies have been placed in the hands of emigrants in Liverpool and in New York, and !!till the supply is not equal to the demand.
It has been said that the work of removing obstructions and doing preparatory work is greater in Jewish than in any other mission enterprise, owing to the fact that the Jews for centuries have drawn their spiritual food from their traditional literature. Experience has proved not only that in order to reach this people one must be thoroughly versed in that vast amount of J ewieh literature known as the traditional, but that the work must be done through the Hebrew language. Hence Delitzsch's New Testament standlil firilt among the efficient means for Gospel work among them j but there are otber agenciel also at work. In the year 1864 Proles&tJlr IMit~ began publishing • ~ly eallod SHd Sow'RI an. Hope. During the last few years of his life he revived the" Institutem Judaicum," originally founded by Callenberg about 1728. "These insti- 'tutes are associations of evangelical students formed at the various university centres of Northern Europe for the purpose of studying the literature of the Jews, and the practical purpose of prosecuting the difficult work of sproading the Gospel among them." These institutes are flourishing at nine German and severtll Scandinavian universities.
The subject of missions among the Jews was a live question in the Netherlands as early as 1676, when the synods of Delft, Leyden, and Dordrecht considered methods for converting the Jews of their own country. The name of Johann Callenberg should be remembered not only as one of the founders of Protestant missions, but as a devoted laborer among the children of Israel. Many of the students of the missionary school which he founded in 1728 labored not only among the Jews of Europe, but of Asia and Africa. At his own expense he established a printingoffice where works in Hebrew were published for missionary purposes. In 1764 the Moravians took up the work. As the fruit of these efforts, many hundreds of Jews were led to accept Jesus as the Messiah; but the wave of rationalism that swept over Europe in the latter part of the century put an end to the work for years.
It is a strange fact that thus far it has been impossible to rouse the interest of the Church in general for mission work among the Jews, and this is left almost entirely to the efforts of individuals and local societies. Yet notwithstanding this, there is more money spent and more laborers at work among the Jews in proportion to their numbers than among any other people. Dr. Dalman, of Leipzig, an authority on the subject, published a few years ago a very complete record of the work and statistics of Jewish missions. He states there are more than 47 Protestant missionary societies devoted exclusively to evangelistic work among the Jews. These 47 societies employ 377 laborers at 135 stations, and have an annual income of $500,000. To show the rapid increase in this work, we have only to compare the report of Heman, published in 1881, who stated 20 societies, 270 laborers, and au annual income of $250,000. Returning to Dr. Dalman's report, he gives one laborer for every 16,976 Israelites. Among other nationalities the estimate has been made, one laborer for every 21,000 persons.
Of the 47 societies, the oldest is the famous London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. During its existence of eighty-two years its work has spread all over Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. It has 35 stations, 141 workers, and an annual income of $250,000. Early in its history it established a church in London for converted Jews. In 1840 a Hebrew college was founded for the education of missionaries. Many of those that have gone forth from among its students are converted Israelites.
It would be impossible in this article to give even a brief account of all
FOREltUNNEltB OF CAREY
the societies, but it may be of interest to mention where some of them are located, and where their laborers are at work. There are 8 English, '1 Scotch, and 12 German societies; while Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Scandinavia, and the non-orthodox Church of Russia are all represented by one or more. Of the missionaries, 58 are laboring in London, 40 in Germany, 22 in Austria, and 33 in Constantinople, where the Scottish Free Church have large buildings and several hundred pupils in their school. There are 31 missionaries in Damascus, 28 in Jerusalem, and 25 in Northern Africa. Recent reports show that a good work has been done among the Falashas of Abyssinia. Coming to our own country, we find in North America 12. In New York City a Jewish convert named Landsmann is laboring, also Dr. Jacob Freshman, who works under a joint committee of various denominations. In Baltimore the Norwegian con· ference has a missionary. "The missionaries preach, distribute the New Testament, and in their work aim chiefly to show that the historical Christ is the fulfilment of the law and the prophets."
A Hebrew paper has been published in London for some years, and has proved of great help in the work. In 1808 there were said to be 50 converted Jews in England; they are estimated now as over 3000. The missionary, De la Roi, of Breslau, states that during the present century 100,000 Jews have been baptized. When we consider the number of earnest laborers in the field, and the work already accomplished, the outlook for the future seems very hopeful.
FORERUNNERS OF CAREY.-II.
BY A. J. GORDON, D.D.
1292, 1492, 1792, 1892-each of these dates marks an epoch in the history of mi~sions. The first is associated with the name of one who was the most literal prototype of Carey of any with whom we are acquainted.
In the year 12!J2 Raymund Lull landed in Tunis to begin his enterprise of preaching the Gospel among the Moslems of Africa. Low sinners not infrequently become high saints when the great divine change has been wrought in them. "Some people say," observes John Bunyan, "that when grace and good nature meet you have a great Christian; but I tell you that when grace and a great sinner meet, you have the best Christian." Such a meeting took place in. the conversion of this young Spanish nobleman, who was born in Palma, the capital of Majorca, 1236. His early life had been as scandalous and sensual as that of Augustine. Like that eminent Church father, he penned a book of confessions after his conversion, in which he laid bare the depravity of his unregenerated life. "I see, 0 Lord," he says in his" Contemplations," "that trees bring forth every year flowers and fruit, each after their kind, whence mankind derive pleas- ure and profit. But thus it was not with, me, sinful man that I am ; for thirty years I brought forth no fruit in this world; I cumbered the ground, nay, was noxious and hurtful to my friends and neighbors." But at the end of these three decades of worse than wasted life, the Spirit came mightily upon him with conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. The scene of Augustine's conversion under the Numidian fig-tree was literally re-enacted. While sitting on his couch writing a lascivious song, Christ was revealed to him hanging on the cross. The crucifixion nails entered into his soul; despair succeeded to conviction; for days and nights the blackness of darkness shrouded his spirit. Then the thought came to him: "Christ is meek and full of compassion and tender mercy. He invites all to come to Him, and whosoever cometh to Him He will in nowise cast out. Sinful as thou art, peradventure He will accept thee if thou wilt come to Him." He came and entered into great peace, and into a consecration to his crucified Lord as fervent as had been his devotion to the god of this world.
The needle turns to the pole of its own sweet will when released from its constraints j no less instinctively and fixedly did the heart of Raymund Lull, set free from" serving divers lusts and pleasures," and magnetized by divine love, turn to the work which is dearest to our risen Lord, that of giving the Gospel to those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death.
First came this solemn covenant of self-renunciation, which, though it seems almost extravagant to Christians of lukewarm faith, was kept unto the end. " To Thee, 0 Lord God, I offer myself, my wife, my children, and all that I possess. May it please Thee, who didst so humble Thyself to the death of the cross, to condescend to accept all that I give and offer to Thee, that I, my wife, and my children may be Thy lowly servants." There was a pentecostal baptism, which he vividly describes in connection with this covenant; and it was followed by a pentecostal consecration j for he sold all he had, and after providing for his family only, laid all his fortune at the feet of Jesus for the work of making known His Gospel. He was a philosopher as well as nobleman. He would devote his learning to the great end of persuading men of the truth of revealed religion by a method of reasoning not unlike that of Butler's" Analogy," He gave himself diligently to lingUistic studies. William Carey and his pundit at Serampore were literally foreshadowed by Raymund Lull and" His Saracen," with whom he studied Arabic and cognate languages for nine years. Only for the lack of the sympathy and seconding of the Church did he fail to extend this work from himself to a large company of translators j for his fervent prayer was" for monks of holy lives and great wisdom to form institutions III order to learn various languages and to be able to preach to unbelievers." He was amazed, however, that so many holy men were ready to retire to convents for Christ's sake, and so few burned with zeal to go to the ends of the earth to make known Christ crucified. Hear his fervent exclamation: "0 Lord of glory, if that blessed day should ever be ia which I uaipt iIQIi Thy holy monks 80 inb•.d hf aeal too glorify Thee as to go into foreign lands in order to testify of Thy holy mystery, of Thy blessed incarnation, and of Thy bitter sufferings, that would be a glorious day, a day in which that glow of devotion would return with which the holy apostles met death for their Lord Jesus Christ."
As he thus pointed out a better way of self-denial than asceticism, so he longed to see put into operation a better way of conquering the heathen than that of warlike crusades, moving with sword and spear against non- Christian countries and people. To this end he wrote a treatise urging devout Christians to consider: "How they may be able by the force of argument, through the help and power of God, to lead unbelievers into the way of truth, so that the blessed name of the Lord Jesus, which is still unknown in most parts of the world and among most nations, may be manifested and obtain universal adoration. This way of converting unbelievers is easier than all others. For it must appear hard to unbelievers to forsake their own faith for a foreign one; bllt who is there that will not feel himself compelled to surrender falsehood for truth, the selI-contradictory for the necessary ~ Of all methods of converting unbelievers and reconquering the Holy Land this is the easiest and speediest, which is most congenial to love, and is so much mightier than all other kinds and methods, in the proportion that spiritual weapons are more effective than carnal ones. This treatise was finished at Rome in the year 1296 on the holy evening before the feast of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ. May he pray our Lord that as he himself was the herald of light, and pointed with his finger to Him who is the true Light, and as in his time the dispensation of grace began, it may please the Lord Jesus to spread a new light over the world, that unbelievers may walk in the brightness of this light and be converted to join with us in meeting Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory forever I"
Writers of high authority have assigned to Raymund Lull a position unique if not pre-eminent among the pioneers of modern missions. In this they have not erred. His persistent purpose, his magnificent enthusiasm, his broad missionary statesmanship, mark him as a man of such consecrated genius that one wonders what he would not have accomplished if he had had a church to second his proposals or a band of coadjutors to assist him in canying out his plans. He not only proposed and outlined a noble scheme of missions, but, like Carey, he gave himself to be the pioneer of his new enterprise. He chose for his field of operations a country and people where to make a proselyte to Christianity meant death to the missionary effecting such conversion. He landed in Africa in 1292, and began preaching in the Mohammedan city of Tunis. His· message stirred up instant perflecution, and he was seized and cast into prison until an opportunity should be afforded to send him out of the country. He was driven away. but immediately began to meditate plans for returning. He appealed to Naples and Rome for help, but in vain. Meantime he occupied himlilelf with preaching th~ GO~l;ll to ike Jawtl aDd WohammedaDB
FORERUNNERS OF CAREY
in his own island. Notwithstanding the threat that hung over him of certain death if he should appear again in North Africa, he returned in 1307. lIe began immediately to preach in the market-place, boldly denouncing Mohammed as a false prophet. In spite of the entreaties of prudent friends among the Mohammedans themselves, he persisted in his purpose, till, like Stephen, he met his death by stoning. Dr. George Smith's appreciative review of his life ends with this worthy encomium: "His name appears in no mere calendar of saints, in no historic roll. Raymund Lull was known to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries rather as an ingenious schoolman, and to modern times as an independent inventor of the mariner's compass. But no church, papal or reformed, has produced a missionary so original in plan, so ardent and persevering in execution, so varied in gifts, so inspired by the love of Christ, as the saint of seventynine, whom Mohammedans stoned to death on June 30th, 1315. In an age of violence and faithlessness he was the apostle of heavenly love. Let this motto from his own book be adopted by all his true successors: 'He who loves not lives not j he who lives by the Life cannot die.''' (" Short History of Christian Missions," p. 108.) The year 1492, I need not say, marks one of the most memorable dates in the history of the world j and our country, recognizing this, is making sumptuous preparations for celebrating the fourth centennial anniversary of its discovery. To place Christopher Columbus in the list of eminent missionary pioneers may seem surpnslng. That his discovery of America has proved a most· important factor in the enterprise of the world's evangelization no one assuredly doubts. But did he anticipate this 1 Had he in his explorations any purpose of promoting the work of Christian missions ~ There can be no doubt of this fact. The great voyager sailed not merely by compass and North Star, but by that" more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." Hear the confession of Columbus as to his inspiring motive: "In the execution of my enterprise to the Indies, human reason, mathematics, and maps of the world have served me nothing. It has accomplished simply that which the prophet Isaiah had predicted; that before the end of the world all the prophecies should have their fulfilment. " He was not only a student of the prophetic Scriptures, but the writer of a biblical exposition of such mark that Humboldt, to whom we are indebted for our quotations on this subject, says that this treatise" recalls involuntarily the great discussion of the immortal Sir Isaac Newton on the same theme." (Humboldt's" Critical Examination," Vol. I., pp. 15-19, etc.) Columbus seems to have been a believer in the" six millennia]" doctrine of the world's duration, as held by many of the early fathers of the Church. To Ferdinand and Isabella he writes: "St. Augustine informs us that the end of the world will be in the seventh thousand year after the creation. . The world has already endured 6845 years. There remains, consequently, but 155 years to the time when the world may be destroyed."
In reaching this conclusion, he evidently followed a chronology which is now generally rejected; and the wise of our day will no doubt smile at his simplicity in presuming to forecast so minutely the times and the sea- sons. But we may forgive him, considering the influence which his con- viction seems to have had upon his conduct. There is a Scripture which says, "The eud of all things is at hand; let us, therefore, watch and be sober." The great explorer seems to have obeyed this injunction. A man of sincere piety, so far as we can judge, saving in the intolerance which he unhappily shared with the churchmen of his age, he sought to act upon his belief; and reading that the Gospel must be preached in all the world before the end can come, he sought to do all in his power to open the yet undiscovered portions of the globe to the heralds of the cross.
That this motive entered largely into his aspirations and endeavors is ad· mitted by those who have studied his life most carefully. The following summary of the matter by Washington Irving probably does not exaggerate.
He says: "He looked upon himself as standing in the hand of heaven, chosen from among men for the accomplishment of his high purpose. He read, as he supposed, his contemplated discovery ,foretold in holy writ and shadowed forth darkly in the mystic revelations of the prophets. The ends of the esrth were to be brought together, and all nations and tongues and,langu'ages united under the banners of the Redeemer. This was to be the triumphant consummation of his enterprise, bringing together the remote and unknown regions of the earth into communion with Christian Europe ; carrying the light of the true faith into benighted and pagan lands, and gathering countless nations under the holy dominion of the Church. (" History of Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,"
1., p. 37.) .
To find a divine motive under what has been regarded as a purely human movement is always deeply interesting. While Carey was in travail with his missionary idea, there was a restlessness in his heart leading to a persistent importunity, which annoyed his friends and made him It subject of ridicule by his enemies. But later. Dr. Ryland, who had opposed him at the first, was compelled to say: "I believe God Himself infused into the mind of Carey that solicitude for the salvation of the heathen which cannot be fitly traced to any other source." In the heart of Columbus there was that same unrest as of one in pain with an irrepressible idea. He teased kings and annoyed nobles and wore out the patience of his friends by his importunate agitation. But looking backward now, and considering the share which the Western world is bearing in evangelizing the nations, who does not exclaim: "It must have been God who moved Columbus to this great enterprise !"
God's providencE'S never move in a straight line or by a steady progress, but rather through perpetual advances and recessions, like the inflow-
TmI: IT.A.Tll'1 01' KOILIiK WelBlT. [Dee_ber
ing and refluent waves, till the tide at last reaches the high-water mark. So in the great missionary movement. The enterprise of Raymund Lull failed; that of Baron Von Weltz later, met the same fate; but the advancing tide attained its height, and overflowed in the epoch of William Carey, making the nineteenth century to be worthily called the century of missions.
The year 1792 was the birth-year of modern missions. Then the man who has been called "the greatest gift to the Church since Martin Luther" saw his long-cherished desire realized in the beginning of an organized movement for evangelizing the world. ,; There is nothing," says Fleming Stevenson, "more brilliant or heroic in our modern Church than that passage of her history; and how nobly it rang out the old and rang in the new, as last century was changing into this, the crowded missions of today will testify."
In the year 1892 what do we see 1 Instead of one William Carey, I!lore than seven thousand living missionaries, whose hearts and lives are devoted to this divine enterprise. Instead of the £13 2s. 6d. cast into the treasury one hundred years ago, in the house of Widow Wallis, in Kettering, the Protestant churches of Christendom are now contributing more than $11,000,000 annually for giving the Gospel to the heathen. The Baptist Missionary Society, begun October 2d, 1792, has been followed by successor after successor, till now there are more than one hundred foreign missionary <:>rganizations preaching the Gospel among every nation.
If we glance over these epoch-marking" 92's" of the past centuries, we are filled with wonder and gratitude at what God has wrought. With what hope, with what enthusiasm, with what aspirations, with what prayers may we peer out into the future, trying to measure the triumphs of the Gospel which will be witnessed in the year 1992 !
THE STATUS OF MOSLEM WOMEN ACCORDING TO THE TEACHINGS OF THE QURAN. * BY REV. E. M. WHERRY, D.D., CHICAGO, ILL.
Some time since two articles of more than ordinary interest appeared in the Nineteenth Century, which were reprinted in the Magazine of Christian Literature for October, 1891. The firRt of these articles was from the pen of Mrs. Annie Reichardt, entitled " Mohammedan Women." In this article the author, who had spent some considerable time in the land of the Ottoman, gave a description of the degradation of woman under Moslem rule, which was by no means flattering to the sons of Islam, nor commendatory of their religion. Indeed, throughout her article the writer was plainly intent upon fixing a stigma of dark cruelty and low degradation of womankind upon the religion of the Moslem•.
"Read before the International Missionary Union, 1892.
110'.] TIll IT.4.TUI OF lLOI!!LEM lrOM1BN. .11
It was not, therefore, surprising that a defender of the faith of Islam should be found ready to champion the cause of his religion. Accordingly, three months later, another article appeared in the Nineteenth Century en- titled" The Real Status of Women in Islam," by the Hon. Justice Ameer Ali, of Calcutta. In this article the honorable justice, who is the author of a learned work entitled" Personal Law of the Muhammadans," claims to have refuted the assertions of the Christian lady by declaring in terms that Islam is no more to blame for the evils complained of than Christianity is to blame for the cruelties practised by its brutal husbands, or for the im- purity and seething corruption of the brothel. Turning to the low and degraded position of women in some Christian countries-notably in Mexico -he intimates that, were he to indulge in " tu quoques," he might make an onslaught upon Christianity not unlike that made upon Islam by his Christian antagonist. He points ont that some of the things charged against Islam might with equal propriety be laid against the Old Testament teaching concerning the status of women. "The IIebrew maiden," says he, "even in her father's honse, stood in the position of a servant; her father could sell her, if a minor. In case of his deatq, the sons could dis- pose of her at their will and pleasure. The daughter inherited nothing except when there were no male heirs. Marriages were invariably arranged by the parents, and wives were bought upon a recognized method of valuation. The Mosaic law set down the price at a uniform rate of fifty shekels -nearly £4 sterling of English money-but it nevertheless varied in practice, according to the station in the life of the bride and bridegroom. U nrestrained polygamy was practised among all classes. Child-marriage was frequent, as it still is, among the Jews of Palestine. There was no limitation to the power of the husband to divorce the wife. It was sufficient' to write a bill of divorcement' and dismiss the wife for no cause whatsoever; the wife having no power to divorce the husband nor to apply even to the judge to release her from an irksome bondage." While admitting that Jesus treated women with humanity and taught the inviolability of the marriage tie, he nevertheless charges upon Christians of all ages practices in relation to woman which are a disgrace to Christianity.
This reply of the learned Sayyid is characteristic of Moslem controversy. It is, after all, a declaration of tu quoque. To present an array of facts which cannot be traced to the teaching of the Bible as the source from which they have pr~ceeded proves nothing. The attempt to fix upon Christianity the practices relating to the treatment of women by ignorant and wicked men is to be guilty of the very fault he would criticise. Mrs. Reichardt claims that the teaching of the Qunin and the Traditions is responsible for the low position held by Moslem women. Fairness would require that in a "reply" the whole teaching of the Quran should have been shown to be incoJsistent with the aspersions of Christian writers, and especially of Mrs. Reichardt. "Two blacks never make a white."
Setting aside, then, the evils that grow out of " a godless materialism, covered with a thin veneer of religion, be it Christianity, lJe it Mohamme- danism, or any other form of creed," and the cruelties plainly attributable to ignorance, fauaticism or barbarism, let us look at the teaching of the books.
Of Jesus the Sayyid says that" Jesus had treated women with human- ity." As to His famous declaration, " What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," the honorable justice thinks he perceives an eva- sive answer and an impractical law requiring modification in any but" an embryonic community." Nevertheless, it would be folly for him to assert that such modification is to be found in the teaching of the New Testament Scriptures; the one only sufficient cause for divorce being en- tirely consistent with that Divine law of marriage which was announced in Eden and attested by the Lord and confirmed by His apostle: "Hus- bands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Him- self for it. • . . For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." Of the Mosaic law, permitting the writing of a bill of divorcement, Jesus said: " For the hardness of your hearts he did it," and, "In the beginning it was not so." This teaching elevates woman to her place in Eden. She is " a helpmeet for man." She shares his love. There is no other with whom she may divide it. Shielded by love, she may rejoice every day all along the journey of life. In the household she is queen. And wherever men are impressed by this holy teaching, there woman is elevated to a position of equality with man.
How is it with the teaching of Islam? Now, in discussing this ques- tion we desire to avoid the error of fastening upon the religion of Islam any evils which may be fairly credited to human depravity and savage igno- ranoe. We freely admit that every religion is open to adverse criticism and even denunciation if all the practices of its followers are to be debited against it. It may then be freely admitted that – many of the cruelties practised in Moslem harems are entirely foreign to the teaching of the founder of Islam. It should also be freely conceded that the teaching of the Qnran has done much to abolish nameless heathen practices, and so far to better the condition of woman. On the other hand, it would be unfair to credit to Islam that liberty accorded to woman in some Moslem countries, where national or tribal customs have been retained which are at variance with the precepts of the Quran. Hughes, in his" Dictionary of Islam" (p. 680), says that" the strict legislation regarding women, as ex- ,pressed in Mohammedan law, does not affect their position among wild and uncivilized tribes. Among them she is as free as the wild goats on the mountain tops. Among the Afreedees in the Afghan hills, for example, women roam without protectioD from hill to hill, and are engaged in tending cattle and other agricultural pursuits. If ill-treated by their husbands, they either demand divorce or run away to some neighboring tribe. Not a few of the tribal feuds arise from such circumstances." " Among the Bedouins, " Mr. Palgrave tells us, " their armies are led by a maiden of good family, who, mounted amid the fore ranks on a oamel, shames the timid and excites the brave by satiristic or encomiastic recitations."
"The influence which Afghan women have exercised upon Central Asian politics has been very great; and, as we have already remarked, the Mohammedan State of Bhopal, in Central India, has for several generations past been governed by female sovereigns."
It appears, therefore, that the freedom enjoyed by such Moslem women is not due to the religion of Mohammed, but in spite of it, just as the degradation of woman in Mexico and South America, or any other Christian country, is ill spite of the religion of the Lord Jesus.
Before inquiring. in regard to the teaching of the Quran, as to the status of woman, let us note the attitude of Islam toward the re,elation of previous diipensations. This is important, inasmuch al!! in any comparison of the religion of Mohammed and that of Jesus we are justified in expecting to find in Islam an advance upon Christianity. Each dispensation, according to Moslem teaching, has advanced upon its predecessor. Hence, in respect to the status of women, it is not sufficient for a Moslem to show that women are in no worse condition under Islam than they are under Christianity, but he should be able to show that their condition is decidedly better. Accordingly we find the Hon. Justice Ameer Ali declaring not only that woman secures many substantial rights under Islam, but he goes on to say: "All the privileges that belong to her as a woman and a wife are secured to her, not by the' courtesies' which' come and go,' but by the actual text of the law. Taken as a whole, the legal status of a Mohammedan woman is not more unfavorable than that of many a European woman, while in many respects she occupies a decidedly better position."
On the other hand, again, we do not want to be understood as maintaining that the religion of Islam has not bestowed upon woman any kind of blessing. We readily admit that the founder of Islam was a reformer who wrought reformation. Many evil customs were abolished or greatly improved. Wherever Islam gained ascendency over a grossly idolatrous people-as in Africa, for instance-it certainly raised womanhood, as it also raised manhood, to a higher position than she ever could have held among fetich worshippers. It has accomplished a similar work among the lower classes of society in India, and we are not surprised to find the Sayyid indulging in a kind of pride akin to self-gratulation. It must, however, be confessed that hiiltory fails to reveal to us any high order of advancement of woman in Moslem countries. It avails to raise her up to a certain level, and ~hat at best a rather low level, and there it leaves her. Thus it has done and thus it will continue to do 110 long as the Quran holds sway ove;r the thought and action of Moslems. The improvement of the status of woman under Islam depends upon men like the honorable judge of Calcutta, who have departed from the ranks of the orthodox Moslems, and who, by a rationalistic interpretation of the Quran, have learned to explain away'those passages of Scripture relied upon in all ages for the cruelties practised against womankind. Weare not, therefore, prepared to concede to Islam all that is claimed for it by this writer. We are by no means prepared to admit that Mohammed " practically forbade polygamy and concubinage, and placed woman upon a pedestal hardly approached up to that time." On the contrary, nothing could be clearer than the Scripture authorizing the practice of both these evils. 'rake the passage from chapter iv. (" Surat-un-Nisa") 3, which our "enlightened" Moslem friends are fond of quoting to prove that Mohammed" practically forbade polyg- .amy and concubinage"-a passage quoted to this end by Mr. Justice Ameer Ali in the article already referred to. The passage is thus translated by8ale : "Take in marriage of such (other) women as please you, two or three or four (and no more). But if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably (toward so many, marry) one (only), or the slaves which ye shall ha'e acquired." Now, the very claim to make this passage inculcate the doctrine of monogamy is evidence of the desperate straits of the "enlightened" Moslem~ In the light of the example of the prophet himself it is simply ridiculous. It is more than ever absurd when the whole verse is quoted. The teaching of the last clause plainly permits the one Moslem in a myriad, who may "fear that he could not act equitably". toward "two," "three," or " four" lawful wives, to decline to marry even one, and to content himself with" the slaves which he shall have acquired." These slave girls he may treat as he pleases, without even the form of a marriage ceremony. With this clause staring him in the face, not to mention the example of the prophet, how can a man venture to say that Mohammed " practically forbade polgyamy" ~ Other passages might be quoted from the Qunin sustaining our contention. The passage given, as well as many others, justifies the Moslem in taking as many slaves as he may desire besides his lawful wives. The passages quoted by Mr. Ameer Ali to show that Mohammed " forbade" the custom of slave concubinage do not either abrogate or modify the above regulations as to marriage. The first passage quoted fromch. iv. 24 has reference to the case of a poor M08lem who has not wherewith to pay the dowry or to support a free woman. He is advised to marry some other Moslem's slave girl, provided she be a true believer, if marry he must, but is rather diseouraged from seeking such alliances. " Whoso among you hath not means sufficient that he may marry free women, who are believers, let him marry with sllch of your maid-servants whom your right hands possess or are true believers, for God well knoweth your faith. Ye are the one from the other; therefore marry them with the c(msent of their masters. • . , This is allowed unto him among you who feareth to sin (by marrying free women) j but if ye abstain (from marrying slaves) it will be better for you."
The other passage quoted from ch. v. 6 does not forbid concubinage, but merely stipUlates that when a Moslem desires to have in his harem a J ewess or a Christian woman he may do so, provided he marry her i he may not have her for a concubine. " This day are ye allowed free women that are believers and also free women of those who have received the Scriptures before you, when ye shall have assigned them their dower"
living chastely with them, neither committing fornication nor taking them for concubines." Even a cursory reading of these passages, as quoted by our Moslem apologists, impresses upon our minds the thought that they are hardlyfair in their method of dealing with their Scriptures.
Polygamy is without doubt one of the darkest blots on the moral and social teaching of Islam. It is admitted that Mohammed found it very generally practised among the tribes of Arabia and among surrounding nations-the Christians in general excepted. Jesus found it universally practised in His day, and whatever of improvement there was in the world in this respect in the days of Mohammed was due to the declaration: " A man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." The influence of this teaching has gone on throughout the centuries, so that to-day the laws of all Christian nations condemn polygamy in every form j not only so, but through its testimony even our" advanced" Moslem neighbors have recognized it as " opposed to the general progress of civilized society and true culture," and are in consequence making sturdy attempts to show that it is also opposed to the teachings of Mohammed. Even if, however, the trend of the teachings of Mohammed were against polygamy, as is claimed, the influence of his example was not, so that we have both in the precepts already quoted from the Quran, and in the example of the prophet, a sufficient rea!lon for the fact that Moslems have made no progress toward a pure monogamy since the days of the Hegira. If it be said that polygamy is not generally practised by Moslems, it is sufficient to say that it is practised to its utmost possibility of extent. As many as ninety-five per cent of the Moslems of India are monogamous only by the dire necessity resulting from poverty and a paucity of women. Were Christians to become polygamists to-mor- row, only two or three per cent of the population could actually put it into practice. The evil of the system does not lie in its prevalence, but in the fact that it subjects every Moslem woman to the possible chance of having a rival introduced into her home who should hold a larger share of her hus- band's affections than she. Does she protest ~ Does she plead the claims of "progress in civilized life" ~ Does she argue for the cause of " true culture" 9 The Moslem husband points her to the QUflln and to the prophet himself! Dara she rebel against her religion? No j she must submit.
Is she not" one who submits"-a Musulmani? This is the only pious course for her to pursue. Her father and mother will join with the Mullah and the Mallivie in urging her to submission. It is the will of Allah. 'I< A natural corollary to polygamy is the seclusion of women. This partly results from the necessity of providiug separate apartments for the various * "It is not for a true believer of either sex, when God and His Apostle have decreed a thing, that they should have the liberty of choosing a different matter of their own" (chap. xxxiiL 36). wives and their children, and partly from the moral degradation which accompanies the system.
The purpose of these rules was to secure greater purity of life, and under a system of social life which at once introduced into the houses of the wealthy a number of wives, concubines and slave girls, these rules seemed to be absolutely required. The prophet's own experience with Zainab, the daughter of his adopted son, together with the scandal which threatened to ruin the character of his favoritc Ayesha, must have impressed upon him the need of thus secluding the wives of the faithful from the temptations and perils of promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. However that may be, the law of the Quran requires that women live in seclusion.
This seclusion of women results in a degradation of both sexes. The Moslem men know little or nothing of the refinement which is born of the influence of pure womanhood. They see in woman only a being whose presence suggests to their minds the weaknesses and follies of the sex and the duty of turning away from temptation. On the other hand, women are early taught to hold the morality of men in low esteem. None may be trusted but fathers and brothers and sons. Is it any wonder that under such a system the moral status of the Moslem world should be low ~ A missionary who has lived among the Moslems of Turkey for twenty-five years says: "The burning denunciations of the Apostle Paul in the first chapter of Romans are applicable to tens of thousands in Mohammedan lands to·day." A missionary of similar experience in India says: "However the phenomenon may be accounted for, we, after mixing with Hindus and Musulmans for nineteen years, have no he8itatiun: in saying that the latter are, as a whole, some degrees lower in the social and moral scale than the former." In the matter of marriage this seclusion of the women renders it necessary to negotiate the contract through a third party. Mr. Ameer ~A.li makes a great deal out of the law that no woman may be married without her consent. He does not, however, tell us by what methods and under what influences this consent is secured. Manifestly consent in a Moslem harem is !l. very different thing from consent in a Christian home. There the consent is obtained by third parties, who may be likened to agents in a business concern. Samples are shown, the order given, and in due course the goods are consigned to the purchaser. In the marriage " deal" the parties often see each other for the first time after the contract has been closed. The writer once attended a Moslem wedding, where the first opportunity the bride and bridegroom had of seeing each other's faces after the marriage ceremony was beneath an ample sheet covering both their heads as they, with the aid of a candle, saw each other in a looking-glass! When a girl has been educated from childhood with a view to marriage, when marriage is held up as the great end of a woman's existence, aNd when single life is held to be a disgrace for any woman, the matter of consent is easily managed. Should a Moslem woman possess spirit enough to investigate for herself, and with the aid of some aged female friend arrange to marry a man of her own choice, she would be denounced as a wicked aud abandoned woman. So much for the free woman of Islam; but what of the slave girls whom the" right hands" possess ~ They give their consent to the will of their masters, just as the sheep brought to the slaughter give their conse!).t.
Let us now look at the position which a wife holds in a Moslem harem. We will just take any ordinary case, and see what the law of the Quran pro- vides for her. She is wife No. 1. She is exhorted to be faithful and obedient to her husband. As we have already discovered, she must remain in seclusion-i.e., she must avoid being looked upon by men other than near relatives, and she must not look upon them. Her duties are in the household. She must not neglect her devotions, for while women are not excluded from the mosque by any command of the Quran, it is universally regarded as a propriety for them to observe their devotions in private, and this practice is surely in accord with the harem system. If a woman have a husband of good temper and affectionate disposition. her home may be measurably happy, though her chances of intellectual development are few indeed. If, on the contrary, she have a heartless and cruel husband, her life becomes insufferably miserable. She has but little recourse in such a case unless she have influential relatives, wealth, or beauty-circumstances which may enable her to defend herself with a threat of seeking a divorce. Her husband may divorce her at any time for no other reason than that he does not like her or that he is angry with her, but this liberty accorded him by the Quran is modified by many collateral circumstances, so that he is less likely to pronounce the fatal words than to solace himself with a .~econd wife, and thus at once please and avenge himself.
If he be of a violent temper, he may avail himself of the permission of the Quran, .and administer corporeal punishment. "Those (women) whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of, rebuke; and remove them into separate apartments and chastise them." It is true that this permission was not given to enable a man to tyrannize over his wife, yet the fact that the power is placed in his hands, he is ever ready to use it unlawfully. Arbitration is frequently resorted to so as to avoid the extreme measure of either corporeal punishment or divorce. With all these discouragements to divorce, added to the law preventing a man remarrying a thrice-divorced wife until she have been married and divorced by another, divorce is nevertheless cruelly frequent. Whenever it occurs, and however cruel it be, it is always in accord with the teaching of the Quran. It is exceedingly common to find men who have had a dozen wives married and divorced in succession. Such divorced wives, bereft of their chirdren and excluded from their homes, usually have nothing better before them than to seek a new alliance, with the possibility of being divorced again. Thus we see how that polygamy may, through the divorce laws of the Quran, lead up to what Sayyid Ameer Ali calls" unlicensed polyandry" in the Moslem East as well as in the Christian West. Under laws and customs like these, where the power to secure a divorce is nearly if not always predicated of the man; laws which at once secure the freedom of the man on the payment of the dowry, which he may fail to do on one pretext or another, while the woman is held in bonds for a period varying frum three months to two years; laws which make it possible for a man at any moment to introduce other wives and conGubines into his home; laws which make divorce mean to the wife separation from her children; laws, in fine, which seclude the weaker sex and place them at the mercy of any brutal husband-under laws such as these, bearing the imprimatur of a religion purporting to .be the religion of the true God, the position of woman is one of degradation.
This degradation is none the less because the victim may not realize its extent. It is none the less because she may be in a way content with her condition. Slavery is no less hateful because the sable bondsman may seem to enjoy a great deal of ease and happiness. Such phenomena only illustrate the endurance of poor human nature and demonstrate the fertility of man's ingenuity in devising ways and means to secure enjoyment. The very fact that the slave learns quietly and patiently to endure the sharp blow of the lash only serves to give emphasis to the degradation of his condition. So it is with the Moslem woman. She may be content with her condition. She may even refuse to heed the voice of those who would bring her the Gospel of a better condition. . Such conduct may only reveal the greater depth of her degradation. Her true condition can only be understood when it is compared with that of her sisters in truly Christian homes. Look at these two classEs and compare them from almost any standpoint excepting that of native aptitude, and we can discover what Christianity has done for the one and what Islam has done for the other. The Christian woman may not occupy every sphere open to a man simply because she is a woman; but, on the other hand, she is able to do a work which men cannot do or cannot do so well. In our schools she studies the same subjects and recites in the same classes. Be- yond the school room she engage!! in many of the same professions. She is honored in the home, in the school and college, in the Church and State, in social life. On the stage, the rostrum, and even in the pulpit she is recognized as the leader and educator and instructor of men as well as women. All this because of the Divine Gospel of liberty taught by the friend of Martba and Mary. Explain the phenomenon as you will, woman secures her true position lost by the fall in Eden by faith in Jesus Christ.
With the Moslem woman bow different! Estimated in the book of her religion as inferior to man, she ranks as scarcely more than half a man. Two women must appear in court to combat the testimony of one man, and a woman may only inherit half the amount allowed to ber brotber. Secluded from free intercourse with the world, she cannot as a child or as a mother gain that practical acquaintance with the affairs of this world that would enable her to undertake any duty outside the harem. Not only so, but were sbe to ilecure the qualifications necessary for 3ucb a work, she
1892.J A MOSLEM "BACK-FIRE."
would by her religiou be debarred from the exercise of her talents_ What with the harem and the dark shadow of the flystem of polygamy and divorce the ambition of woman is crushed ere it begins to rise. The very exceptions which are paraded by our Moslem writers to show what Moslem women have been able to do supply me with my best proofs. These few are conspicuous for their rarity. These women have been what they have been by virtue of having had courage to act independently of the teaching of the Quran and the Ulama or Moslem Hierarchy.
We maintain, therefore, that the position of woman under Islam is one of comparative degradation, and that her hope of advancement to a higher pos'tion is not in the Quran or the traditions of Islam, but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
A MOSLEM "BACK-FIRE."
BY REV. J. K. WILSON, TAUNTON, MASS.
Just now there is an exceedingly interesting problem in defensive tactics being worked out by the Mohammedan authorities in Syria. The chief missionary agencies in that region are the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the United States and the British Syrian Missions. The former, with its magnificent American College at Beyrout as a centre, is making itself felt in many ways throughont the land. It has always devoted much attention to education, and its mission schools are to be found in almost every town or village of considerable size. The latter was founded' by Mrs. Thompson distinctively for the work of female education in Syria, and has spent most of its energy in this direction, giving to the girls what was denied them under Mohammedanism. The schools of both these societies-the one for boys and the other for girls-have existed side by side in the same villages j and the superior intelligence and enlightenment which the traveller in Syria must note is due in no small degree to these.
But within a short time their prosperity has been checked, and checked in a strange way. When the prairies are on fire the settlers often protect their possessions by building what they call a " back·fire, " setting fire to the grass and stubble just about them, and thus making a burned space over which the great waves of the on-rushing sea of flames cannot pass. So Mohammedanism has set its "back-fire." It proposes to fight the teachers and missionaries with their own weapons. It will withstand the school by the school. One pertinent illustration of this determination is herewith given. Two or three years ago a new governor came to the district of the Bekaa, which includes the eastern slope of the Lebanon and the western slopes of the anti-Lebanon ranges, with the beautiful and fertile valley lying between them. This man seems to be a kind of Yankee-Moslem, or Moslem-Yankee. He is not content to sit still and levy his taxes and get rich. He has a .habit of looking about him to see what ill going on. Among other things, the work of the mission schools attracted his at- tention. He saw that the boys and girls attending them were surpassing other boys and girls in knowledge and intelligence. And he found, too, that a great many of them were forsaking Mohammed for Christ, and that. most of those who remained Moslems were 80 only nominally, for con- venience and self-interest rather than from conviction. Being quick-witted, it didn't take him long to reason back from effect to cause; these Christian schools are undermining Mohammedanism. Therefore they must go. Bu~ how? Doubtless it would have been to his mind altogether the easiest and most satisfactory solution of the problem to introduce the time-honored methods of the sword and bow-string; but, unfortunately for him and his wishes, the old times are not these times, and he dare not resort to the argument of force. But what he cannot do by force he will do by guile.. Accordingly he has established throughout his district a system of Moslem schools, setting apart for its support a certain portion of the taxes of the district. Moslem parents are forbidden to send their children to the Chris- tian schools, and are required to send them to the Moslem schools. Once in awhile the governor goes through the villages on a tour of inspection. He visits the mission school. "Any Moslem children here ?" is his ques- tion. Woe to the luckless chap who is pointed out to his excellency as a son of " the faithful." Forth he must come, and out he must go, counting himself exceedingly fortunate if he escapes a whack from the gubernatorial walking-stick as he goes. Under such persuasive and convincing methods, it can easily be believed that the Moslem constituency of the mission schools is. rapidly lessened. In Baalbek, where these facts came most directly under my observation, the boys' school had numbered upward of one hundred pupils, while the girls' school had an enrolment of about two hundred. These numbers have been reduced to about thirty or forty for each school, most of those now attending being children of Christian parents, or, at least, of those who are but indifferent adherents to the prophet.
All this seems to be a great set-back to the cause of education in Syria, and doubtless it is. There is, however, this other side to the matter. In order to compete at all with the Christian school, the standard of the Moslem school must be and is being raised. The typical Mohammedan school is a curious thing. It is held in a room bare of all furniture, even of seats, but having a raised platform across one end. Here sits the master, crosslegged, with the Koran before him, and with rod in hand. Before him on the floor sit the boys, also cross-legged. The text-book is the Koran, or Mohammedan Bible. The master reads a sentence from its pages, and the pupils repeat it after him in shrill and piercing tones. Again and again, and yet again, through the livelong day. Brightest scholar he with strongest lungs and shrillest voice. In some places more is a1ltempted ; but in the main this is the Mohammedan idea of education.
But when brought into contrast with the teachings of the mission schools, this is found sadly deficient. Common-sense rejects it as a substi- tute for that which is denied. In order to be at all successful in his plan, the governor must make his schools come somewhere near the standards raised by the mission schools. And he is trying to do this. The Koran is no longer the only text-book. The pupils are taught at least the rudi- . ments of what we understand by a "common school education." And while it is true that this teaching is far less thorough and satisfactory than that which is given by the missionaries, it is also true that, !lince there are many in these new schools whom the missionaries could not reach, there are more children in Syria to-day enjoying what may be called in a very loose way " a liberal education" than there ever were before.
And this is true not merely respecting the boys. There has come to pass that until now unheard-of thing among Mohammedans-schools are opened for the girls, and they are being taught like their brothers. Mter centuries of denial that woman has a soul, or that she can be taught any- thing more than a dog or a horse might learn, Mohammedanism has been compelled to change its base, and not only to concede the possibility of her intellectual development, but also to provide facilities for that develop- ment. Poor, bungling, imperfect these are, doubtless, at their best j but they are almost infinitely better than none at alL And their real signifi- cance lies in the tendency they suggest, and the end to which they point. The poet's line is true in quite another sense than that in which he intended it : " A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ;"
dangerous to ignorance and superstition, and to whatever grows therefrom or is built thereon; for the little knowledge has a curious trick of growing into greater knowledge, and the one first question of a dawning intelligence is apt to be the herald and prophet of scores and hundreds more following closely after. The door of the Moslem school-house, swinging open at a woman's touch, is the door out of the monotonous seclusion, the degraded and debased conditions, the almost animal-like existence in which the women of Eastern lands have so long been held, out into the open world of sunlight, and liberty, and truth. That door once opened can never be shut again. It is one thing, as we learned long ago in the familiar story in the" Arabian Nights," to let your geni out of the bottle j it is quite another thing to get him back into it.
It really looks, therefore, as though the Moslem governor had been the least bit" too smart" in this scheme of his j as though he had overreached himself. In the end this" parochial school" back-fire of Mohammedanism may prove a blaze to ~onsume that which it was set to protect.
•
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICAl,S
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER. MASS.
INDIA.
– " The Brahmos have done a good work in their protests against the evils of caste, and in every public question of morals they are generally on the right side. But as their teaching on sin and atonement is much the same as the Unitarians', they have failed to impress on their followers any sense of the sinfulness of sin. They have never reached the poor and uneducated, and at the present time their influence is steadily decreasing." -Ohurch Missionary lntelligencer.
-" The Northwest Provinces lie between the Punjab on the northwest and Bengal (or the Lower Provinces) on the southeast. Through the whole of their extent, from end to end, they are traversed by the two great sacred rivers, the Ganges and the Jumna. The Ganges, b'lfsting in from the Himalayas on the plains at the peculiarly sacred place of Hurdwar (Haridwar, gate of Hari or Vishnu), holds the more northerly course, and flows past many large towns (Cawnpore among the number) to Allahabad, where the Jumna meets it, and the two great rivers flow in one stream past Benares into Bengal. The Jumna flows past the very sacred place of Muttra, past Agora and other large towns, and loses itself in the Ganges at Allahabad. The province is in an especial way the true home of the noble old Aryan race. Mr. Sherring, in his' History of Protestant Missions in India,' speaking of the people of the Northwest Provinces, says: 'In place of the stunted, dark races of Bengal, of great vivacity, and of considerable keenness of intellect, you have a fine. stalwart people, tall, strong-limbed, often powerful, of noble presence, ready to fight, independent, of solid rather than sharp understanding. The Bengali is proud, but it is because he is subtle and quick-witted, and thinks he is capable of overreaching you. The Hindustani is proud, -but it is because of his trust in his strong arm, because of his long pedigree, hecause of his well-cultivated, manly habits.' He further says: 'Hinduism is in the fulness and maturity of its strength in these Upper Provinces, where it has acquired a strong compactness of an almost impenetrable character. Hence the greater difficulty of the progress of Christianity in the northwest than in Bengal, and, indeed, than elsewhere in India.' It was in these provinces that the chief scenes of the Mutiny of 1857 were enacted, and the names of many of its towns-Meerut, Cawnpore, Agra, etc.-are invested with a sad significance to many in this country to this day. The great masses of the rural population (the backbone, as they have properly been called, of the populations of India) have been, to a large extent, almost untouched." -Ohurch Missionary Intelligencer.
MISCELLANEOUS.
– " How busy death has been in our missionary ranks! We never remember publishing such a list of departures in our obituary. Sixteen who have borne the extreme heat or cold and the burden of the day in one or another of our fields have been lately called away. Eleven of these had retired from active service, and include such veterans as Brother Wunsche, aged eighty-eight, and Sister Wedemann, eighty-six. The former, like several on this list of departures, served in Surinam; the latter in the West Indies and South Africa, where she and her husband ministered to lepers on Robben Island. Brother Ribbach was for thirty-one years in Labrador, and Sister Bentien, lately a member of our Dublin congregation. had labored with her husband in Barbadoes and the Danish West Indies."- Periodical Accounts (Moravian).
– " For some reason which we cannot explain, dispatches are occasionally sent from San Francisco to the papers on this side of the Rocky Mountains indicating some terrible state of affairs at the Sandwich Islands, and so we have had of late reports of the sickness and death of the queen and of various insurrections. These dispatches have not only been without foundation, but they seem to be prompterl by malice. Affairs in the Hawaiian Islands are moving forward peacefully and prosperously, the queen is in good health and is ruling well, meeting the approbation of the better class of citizens. Our friends will do well to accept with great caution any dispatches emanating from San Francisco which have an unfavorable bearing upon the Hawaiian Is~ands."-Missionary Herald.
– " It is far from unusual that a European comes among a so-called uncivilized people with the notion that among so rude a race mere unregulated caprice is the spring of its whole behavior. How astonished he is when he discovers that every action, public and private, is rigorously governed by settled usage, to which the most solicitous obedience is rendered! This, for the missionary, is a discovery of the highest moment. It is snch usage on which he must mainly depend to maintain a remnant of ethical consciousness, on which he can found his endeavors. The heathen religions are so far from affording such a basis that they are in great measure the cause of demoralization among the heathen peoples. They are the source of all manner of pagan abominations.
"So Roon, now, as it is seen that missions are to aim, not merely at converting individual souls, but at gaining over. whole people!J, it results from this that they must address themselves to the problem of converting heathen usages into Christian. What that meanA, and with what extraordinary difficulties it has to contend, is worth some slight consideration.
" If the missionary, as he ought, is to intervene with decisive authority in this field of ethical usage, he must, first of all, be well informed on more than one side. On one hand he must be possessed of right apprehensions of Christian ethical usage, amid which he has grown up, and which he brings with him. He must be clearly conscious how vast a part of this is of no essential significance for Christianity, of merely easua) and local character, how much that to us appears a necessary part of good usage was wholly unknown to the apostles, and, indeed, to the reformers. Of course, then, he should understand that it would be purely arbitrary to require of the heathen that in all these particulars they should regulate themseh'es according to the standard of use prevailing in Christian Europe.
" On the other hand, the missionary, before proceeding to decisive action, must assure himself that he thoroughly understands the import of the prevailing usages which he finds among the heathen. This will be exceedingly difficult to ascertain, for, in general, all the answer he will receive to his inquiries will be that so it is, and so it always has been. The first and great que8tion is : Which of the usages of the people, now that they have become Christian, may be retained, and which must be abolished? From what we have said already, it follows that the social use of Christian Europe is by no means al ways to be applied as a standard. Many missionaries have insisted on doing this, and have afterward come to see that they had committed injurious errors."-Mission.~-Berichte (Rhenish Missionary Society). – " Rationalism is eating its way into the very heart of Judaism. But this disintegration must sooner or later be followed by reconstruction; for the Jew, with his marvellous history and traditional associations, cannot . live without God, and so many are being led, in the weary search for the God whom their forefathers knew, to embrace ChristIanity, or, if not Christianity, then some form of Unitarianism, which is usually only a tem- porary halting-place previous to their acknowledgment of Christ as their Messiah. Mr. Israel Zanguill tells us that' the deserters from Judaism are daily becoming more numerous, and the plutocracy ennobled goes over to Christianity.' Certaiuly evangelistic efforts of recent years have been vastly more fruitful, and it is not too much to say that an absolutely unique opportunity is presented to the Church of God.
"But it may be 8aid that these sceptical influences are only felt by a certain section of the Jews. This is in part true, but it is also true that even among the so.called orthodox there is a spirit of restless dissatisfac- tion. Many feel that Judaism, so far from realizing the hopes of the Old Testament, has resulted in failure, and they are becoming increasingly aware that the only solution of their difficulties is the acceptance of Chris- tianity ; and though they hesitate to take the step, the drift toward Chris- tianity is very marked. They imitate Christian methods, come to services and sermons in our churches, read the New Testament, and recognize the noble qualities in the life of Jesus of Nazareth; and when the revised translation of the New Testament appeared they spoke of it in the highest terms as a Book of which the Jewish race might be justly proud. M. Debre, Rabbi of Neuilly, near Paris, writes in the Jewish Quarterly that now new-born children are brought to the synagogue to receive the ble~s ing of the rabbi, just as Christian children arc brought to baptism. There is also a ceremony of initiation for boys and girls of twelve and thirteen years, at which the boys appear in black and the girls in white, very much like our confirmation, and for which they are carefully prepared by the rabbis. The rabbi is now summoned to the bedside of the sick and dying; the coffin is strewn with flowers as among Christians; the Hebrew prayers are replaced by others in the vernacular; the organ and choir have foupd a place in the synagogue ; sermons are frequent, and an afternoon service is provided for the ladies j the rabbis dress very much as the ordinary clergyman. All this shows that the relations between Judaism and Christianity are no longer those of hostility, but of growing appreciation; and in this drawing toward the Christian Church may we not see some preparation for that national acceptance of Christianity of which the prophets and the apostle speak 1 But be this as it may, the Church of God has a great opportunity for evangelistic effort, of which she ought most earnestly to avail herself.
" With regard to the Jews in Oriental lands, who, if we include Russia, constitute probably two thirds of the nation, they still retain the same fixity of religion as of old. But the persecutions to which they have been exposed have led many to ask, ' Why are we thus persecuted ~' and in the endeavor to find an an~wer to thIS question a considerable number have embraced Christianity. The circulation of the Word of God and the untiring efforts of the missionary are gradually Jeavening the masses with an increasing knowledge of Christ; and the history of Jacob Rabbinovitz in Bessarabia, of Rabbi Leichenstein in Budapest, and the awakening which has lately taken place at Saratov, in Russia, where in a few days two hundred and fifty Jews embraced Christianity, show that the seed sown is already germinating. And may' it not be that in the near future, under the fertilizing dews of the Spirit of God, it will yield the great national harvest of which the apostle speaks, and' so all Israel shall be saved' ~ And when this blessed consummation does arrive, it is abundantly evident that the Jews by their linguistic abilities, and by their ready adaptation to the most diverse national surroundings, will make heralds of the Gospel absolutely unique in their effective qualifications. Their restoration to the Divine favor will be an invaluable addition to the Church of God, bringing fresh vigor to her ancient life, and realizing the completeness of her predestined ideal, and so the future conception of the apostle will, in God's own time and way, be accomplished, and the world, awake from the death-sleep of ages and through the acceptance of life and Christ, become the universal possession of humanity. "-Jewish Intelligence.
-The Rev A. W. Lewis, of Schreiber, Canada, says in the Presby- terian Record: "A Roman Catholic chapel and three Protestant churches protest against sin. The Episcopalian, Methodist, and Presbyterian min- isters live within gunshot ot each other. (They endeavor to use their guns on the enemy.) The Episcopal antl Presbyterian churches are separated only by the street, and this is unseen on Sabbath, for one week all go to the Episcopal, the next all come to ours. Their pastors take Sabbath about to preach 'along the line.' The greatest harmony exists to their mutual edification."
AFRICA.
-" The Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Lisbon prints a letter from one of the Roman Catholic missionaries in the Ganguella country, beyond Bihe, in West Central Africa. This territory stretches inland to the Zambesi. The writer reports these natives as docile, timid, imitative, and eager to learn; appreciating kindness, and having a feeling for the beautiful. Thev are dextrons workers in wood and iron, and do not , oppose to civilization the cold resistance of those who do not wish to know anything more than what they have learned from their ancestors. Around the Catholic mission station native families have settled, and are cultivating successfully not only the native products, but those of Europe; among them wheat, which yields sixtyfold on land relatively poor. The mission- aries, aided by their school-children, have dug a canal for irrigating pur- poses. The governor of Benguella, who has visited Carsenga, examined the school in reading, writiug, arithmetic, spelling, and the Portuguese language. 'It is even necessary to moderate the zeal of the little blacks for study.' "-Missionary Herald.
-It gi,es an idea of difficulties in ~-,-frica, when Bishop Smythies, of Zanzibar and Nyassaland, says that if part of his diocese lay in London, it would be easier for him to superintend it than to have charge of Nyassa- land. He can go to London in twenty days or less, but for a visit to Nyassaland and return he must allow six months! How would it do to appoint him Bishop of Zanzibar and London (with several auxiliaries), and to transfer the Bishop of London to the Lakes ~ Then the complaint could not be made that no home dignitary has ever recognized a call to the mission fields. Such exchanges may some day not appear so ludicrous as they do now. Why should not a Boniface, in his old age laying aside a great primacy that he might receive the crown of martyrdom among the heathen, be as possible now as eleven hundred years ago ~ -It is known that the Universities Mission brethren belong to the High Church party of the Church of England. Their converts are strIct in observing the fasts of the Church, but the food which they save they bring to the church to be sold for the poor.
-Herr Merensky, of the Berlin Mission on Lake Nyassa, says of the Konde tribe, among whom it is to work: "You can hardly imagine, for Africa,. anything more idyllic than a Konde village. First, well tilled fields announce that it is near j then we often see a widely extending banana gro'e, which is inseparably involved in the very existence of the village. In the banana wood things are cleanly, the streets are swept, and soon you see here and there neat cottages of bamboo and unburnt brick, sometimes also longer, quadrangular houses for the youth. 'The eye is particularly struck by the seemly cow stables, of which the chiefs have built the largest. We saw at Makendza one 120 feet long, and at Mabynsa one was going up which could hardly have been less than '200 or 250 feet in length. The dwelling houses are often so neat and clean that they would draw attention even in Europe. Their form is round, the under part being of bambOO and unburnt brick, and the upper part being like the familiar Basuto houses.
"When I add that stock-raising receives such attention among the Kondes as that the cattle are regularly smoked to clear them of the dangerous bush-lice, and often washed to keep them thoroughly clean, this people appears as one of the most advanced in Africa. It is especially significant that its culture appears to be indigenous. There are many indications that the Kondes have been settled for centuries at the northern end of the lake, and have gradually learned how to develop the resources of their country in this effective way. The people are of a strong and muscular build. Even the well-known African flatfoot is by no means universal among them; where it does show itself, it is less coarsely developed. The color is dark, especially in the proper nucleus of the tribe, who live by the lake. You notice among the men many whose features speak of reflection. It struck me with surprise that the elder people often have pleasing faces, whereas the Caffre proper, if a heathen, is almost sure to grow ugly with age. The reason may be that the Kondes appear to be a very sober race. Even the common sorts of African intoxicants are not much brewed among them. They do not practise circumcision, and thus two walls, which in South Africa resist the advance of Christianity, are not found here. The religion of the people is ancestor worship. They have words for Spirit, God, for sacrifice and prayer. Thus far I have discovered no trace of magic. There appears, therefore, to be here such a soil for the diffusion of the Gospel as is seldom found in heathen lands. The people, moreover, appear to have many praiseworthy traits of character and usage. Thus far we have scarcely lost anything by theft or by mendicancy ; chiefs who came into my tent behaved themselves in a serious and seemly manner. They handled nothing, still less did they laugh at what they did not understand, but sat modestly on the camp-stools that were handed them, listening with serious repose of manner to the topic of conversation. Before us lay this noble mission-field, into which we had entered on leaving Kasonga, and our hearts swelled more and more with joy at the thought that our society, that we have been called to cultivate this field; but a look at the coast lagoons, through which our way led us, and at the three hammocks with their fever-stricken occupants, reminded us that the fruits of this field can only be gathered through pacrifice; yea, perchance through heavy sacrifices." -BerUner Missions-Berichte.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GlIACEY, D.D.
The Attitude of the Educated Classes ere the consummation so devoutly to be of India toward Ohristianity. wished crowns the great missionary en· terprise of the Church of God in India. BY REV. J. E. ROBINSON. BOMBAY, INDIA. Two closely-related facts should have It is the deliberate judgment of those the effect upon the Church of strength- in a position to form correct opinions ening her faith, stimulating her hope, on the subject, that at no period iIi the and awakening her profound gratitude, history of Indian missions have the on the one hand; and of developing status and prospects of Christianity in her patience, increasing her ze!l, and the Indian Empire afforded such solid kindling larger enthusiasm, on the ground for encouragement on every other. These are, first, Christianity hand as at the present hour. Those has secured a magnificent strategic po- who know India best and are most fa. sition and most excellent vantage- miliar with the march of movements in ground from which to prosecute and that great empire. unanimously confirm carryon her work of conquest and ae· this judgment; and among them will similation; and, second, there remains be found some of the very highest State yet very much land to be possessed.
officials-viceroys, governors, members Never before have converts from hea- of council, and also distinguished schol- thenism all along the line been so nu- ars ; men who have no personal inter- merous. Where twos and threes, or at ests to serve by taking a prejudiced most tens and twenties, were added to view of the situation, but whose official the Church a few years ago, hundreds position and duties have made it neces- and even thousands are now gathered; sary for them to thoroughly familiarize and these results are effected under themselves with the figures and facts such circumstances. as to abundantly as they actually exist. warrant the belief that great" breaks"
But while the position of Christianity may be expected very soon among these 'in India is so well assured, and its out· gregarious peoples. A notable fact in look more hopeful and satisfactory than connection with the movement toward ever before, it must not hastily be as- Christianity of large numbers of the sumed that the crisis of missions in lowest classes of the people, within the India has been fully passed, that the past year or two, is that it is not con- outer works have been utterly demol- fined to one province or part of the ished, and that all that remains to be country. From several sections the done is that the victorious army should tidings come that the common people rush through the breach and proudly are manifesting an unusual interest in plant the flag of conquest on the cita- Christianity, and becoming remarkably del. It is desirable, for many and ob- responsive to evangelistic efforts. In vious reasons, that the Church should some places accessions have been more understand that this is far, very far in- numerous during the past twelve deed, from being the case. To all hu. months than in as many previous years.
man appearancell-notwithstanding the There can be no doubt that the hearts indisputable fact that the Christian of the disadvantaged multitudes are community is increasing at a far more being moved by the Divine Spirit, and rapid rate than the general popUlation that this providential movement is –many a campaign must needs yet be bound to gather increased momentum fought, many a " million for missions" with the passing years.
cast into the Lord's treasury, and many But while this is true and rightly "life laid upon the altar of sacrifice, awakens our gratitude and thankfulness, it should be remembered-not by ward Christianity? To the first ques· any means despondently-that up to tion it may be briefly replied that, gen.
the preHent time missionary successes erally speaking, the higher classes do have been achieved almost exclusively not seem to be aware that anything among the lowest classes and from the transpiring around them in the form of non.Aryan races chiefly. The higher a religious movement demands serious castes of pure Hindus have hardly been attention at their hands. They so touched; and it is claimed-with some thoroughly despise the low castes that degree of truth, I believe-that the movements of IIny kind among these number of converts from the higher are matters of little concern. In the educated classes is proportionately less minds of those who have come to know now than it was twenty, thirty, or even that Christianity is making headway in fifty years ago. This may be satisfac- some directions, the predominant feel.
torily accounted for, perhaps, by the ing is either one of settled conviction fact that the efforts of the missionaries that these baser classes are wholly in· of the past generation were much more capable of permanent social and moral largely directed toward the educated elevation.; or, a complacent concession classes and higher castes than at pres· that Christianity is welcome to all it ent. The policy in this respect has can get or make out of such contempti.
been considerably modified, and not ble and unpromising material.
unwisely, in the view of the writer. In attempting an analysis of the atti.
Let the Church, then, thank God for tude of the educated classes toward the past and take courage regarding Christianity, we first of all perceive the future. Let her rejoice, as well she that it is of a very complex, self·incon.
may, over what has been accomplished; sistent, and paradoxical character. To and, possessing her great soul in pa. anyone acquainted with India and its tience, gird herself anew for the com· philosophical systems this will not be pletion of the stupendous work she has surprising; for, as one has justly said: undertaken. It is due to the Church " The Hindu mind has long surpassed that she should know all the facts and all other minds in the ability to hold, clearly apprehend the situation; it is or believe itself to hold, at the same due to those whom she has sent to the time, two or more opinions which ap.
front, that she should neither be too pear to be wholly irreconcilable. In· sanguine of immediate victory nor too deed, an acknowledged note of the impatient because it draws not near Hindu mind is ' eclElcticism issuing in with the desired rapidity. That the confusion,' which has been said to be progress made has been far greater than 'the very method of Hindu thought.' ..
was ever anticipated by the projectors 1; The first element in the attitude and pioneers of missions in the last cen· of the educated classes toward Chris.
tury is undeniable. Let not the Church tianity, which may be noticed, is dis· now stultify herself by waxing restive quietude.
because the final victory tarrios. The There can be no doubt that a wide- victory is coming; it will fully come spread feeling of anxiety and foreboding when the Church shall have done what exists in regard to the spread and ulti· she-ought to do to secure it, and when mate triumph of the religion of Jesus she is prepared for it. Christ. As a proselyting religious sys- To all who desire the most effective tem and assimilating spiritual force and speedy evangelization of India, it Christianity is no longer despised and cannot be otherwise than deeply inter. held in contempt as it once was. Every.
esting to inquire how the higher classes where in India, among enlightened ad· are affected by the present evangelistic herents of all religions, there unques· successes among the lower? What is tionably prevails a deep·seated, unwel· the attitude of the educated classes to· come, and troublesome conviction that the final result of the conflict between (a) The little progreEs which Chris- Christianity and these religions is tianity has as yet made among the more merely a question of time. As educa- enlightened of the community. It is tion becomes more general and thor- easy to perceive that from their stand- ough, the past triumphs of Christianity point this fact has considerable weight.
and the meaning of its present restless, Hindus look with complacency upon world-wide aggressiveness and calm our missionary efforts, pointing to the confidence of ultimate victory are more absolutely untouched castes around us, clearly apprehended than ever before; priding themselves on their impregna- and this better acquaintance begets a bility, and viewing with ill-concealed corresponding anxiety on their part as contempt the ingathering of the low- to the fate of their largely-discredited caste and non-caste by the few hun- systems. •• This absorbing, assimilat- dreds or thousands per annum.
ing power," they reason, .. which so (b) Again, the attitude of the nomi- confidently aims at nothing less than nally Christian European officials tow- the moral subjugation of the whole ard evangelical Christianity is perceived world, and has come to India with the to be in the main, as it has ever been, evident purpose of remaining until its unsympathetic, unfriendly, and even, at cherished object is fully accomplished times, contemptuous and hostile toward -this mighty force, under the banner vital godliness and experimental relig- of which earth's foremost nations are ion. There have been and are noble marshalled, and under whose fostering exceptions; but the higher official care the noblest civilization the world classes are well known to bEl largely has ever known has been developed- pervaded by a thoroughly sceptical surely such a force is not to be despised spirit. which, while for various reasons or lightly esteemed!" They reason it does not always assert itself so rightly. To many reflective minds the strongly and practically as to create an issue itself is not doubtful; but while open breach between those who possess some congratulate themselves that the it and organize!} ecclesiastical Chris- dreaded crisis is hardly likely to occur tianity, is nevertheless strong enough in their time, and therefore they may to make its influence powerfully felt in calmly pursue the even tenor of their various directions. The effect of all way, content if the evil day be staved this upon thoughtful educated men can off until they-and perhaps their chil- easily be imagined. It is not to be dren and grandchildren-have passed marvelled at that they should be per_ off the stage; others are unhappy in con- plexed and confounded by phenomena templation of the dire probability, and of this kind, and that they should con.
give vent to their feelings by the ex· elude that a system of religion from hibition at times of a bitter spirit or which apparently its own cultured ad- hatred and opposition. herents are breaking away through 2. Paradoxical as it may seem, side stress of scientific and philosophic ne- by side with this feeling of uneasiness cessity. can hardly possess a valid claim and foreboding, which has just been to acceptance or even consideration at referred to, there may also be found to their hands. They argue, and not un- exist a sense of security that makes itself reasonably, that when Christianity readily apparent. Hitherto Hinduism demonstrates its ability to command has held its own against all comers- the full confidence and retain the un- Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Brahmo- wavering allegiance of its own. children, ism: why not against Christianity? who have been nourished at its bosom But there are other well-defined factors and brought up under its fostering which co·operate to nourish a sense of care, it will be time enough for Hindus safety in the ~inds of the educated and others to serions1v consider what clal>ses. For example; their duty in regard to it may be. (c) There is also the potent influence unjust: ., Though compelled occasion. of Western literature to be taken into ally to pay tribute to the missionaries' account, in so far as it tends to mould usefulness in promoting the enlighteneducated native opinion Magazines, ment of the people, yet it does so with reviews, and all sorts of cheap books, ill-concealed unwillingness. . . . Some saturated with agnosticism, rationalism, influential journals have taken in hand and other isms, are widely and eagerly to praise various forms of Hinduism, read by those who rarely come in con- especially caste, and to disparage Christact with the sound results of Christian tianity. Some adopt by turns a spirit scholarship. Thb literature on which of deism, positivism, and eclecticism. educated natives feed is for the most Others express a languid faith in Chrispart undisguisedly hostile to Revela- tian truth, and are quite content to tion. Works of this character are dili- leave the world in error." Anglo-Indian gently sought after. How unspeakably journalism can in no sense be regarded sad it is to reflect that the strongest as a help to the evangelization of India, pleas against Christianity, advanced by but the contrary. It sets up a false educated natives, are those furnished standard, it discounts and discredits by scholars of Christian Eritain, Ger- revealed truth, it furnishes excuses for many, and America 1 No longer shame- opposition to the religion of Christ, and faced enough to advocate the superior_ fortifies those who refuse allegiance to ity of their own self-condemned, anti- God by providing them with what are scientific and· discredited religions, deemed sufficient reasons for doing so, Hindus and others now fall back upon and eagerly parade the sceptical objec- S. Another element of the attitude untions of the West-objections which der analysis is a spirit of concession and they themselves would never have been compromise. As one consequence of the abie to originate or discover; and feeling of solicitude that exists in the though they feel debarred, in the face minds of many, and apparently by way of day, f;om justifying their adherence of a compromise all round-hoping to their own religions on the ground of thereby to arrest the further encroach. any moral worth these may be supposed ments of Christianity-we find a surto possess, they readily justify their re- prising readiness in some quarters to jection of Christianity on the grounds accord the religion of Jesus a very high mentioned. The international ex- and honorable place among the great change of error and falsehood, which religions that exist in India, and even Dr. Duff lamented as existing in his to acknowledge its possession of many day, has not yet cellsed. It is still true praiseworthy features and elements of that "the pantheistic philosophy of power peculiar to itself. Further than India is malignantly affecting the edu- this they are not prepared to go. In cated in Europe and America; while return for their courtesy in acknowl. the infidelity of Europe and America is edging that Christianity has some truth, malignantly affecting the educated in some elements of good, some Divine au- India." thority and capacity, they expect that similar acknowledgment will gracefully (d) Very little of a favorable charac- be made by Christians as to the truth ter, moreover, can be said for the Anglo- and good alleged to be found in Hindu- Indian press. Speaking generally, it is ism, Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism, decidedly unfriendly to missions, and etc. Equality of a certain kind and to takes very little interest in their prog- a limited extent they feel compelled to ress or prosperity. Much of the capital concede-and this is a victory in itself ; invested in English newspapers in India but the universal superiority of Chrishas been furnished by natives, a fact tianity-never ! while they can help it. the significance of which is at once ap. Their idea of equality is, that as Chrisparent. The following estimate is not tianity is undoubtedly goojl for Christians, so Hinduism is equally good for cipleship; and, what is more serious Hindus, Buddhism for Buddhists, etc. and perplexing, a feeling 'in the minds But Christianity for Hindus is alto- of many that this reluctance is not only gether an anomaly, and Christianity not blameworthy, but even justifiable!
shows how unfit it is to live by advanc- To overcome and remove this reluctance ing such a proposition! is one of the serious problems before Frequently, in the course of conversa- Christ's missionarie&. It becomes more tion or discussion with missionaries, formidable with every passing year, for leading Hindus and Mohammedans the -number of educated persons in- say: "Affirm if you will that Christ is creases with marvellous rapidity in a Saviour, or even a great Saviour, and these days of multiplied colleges and we have no quarrel with Christianity; universities.
but that he is the only, the exclusive Among the factors that help to pro- Saviour, we will not admit." Here is duce and intensify this reluctance to where the shoe pinches, and here lies break away from that which satisfies the secret of occasional manifestations, not, and to identify themselves with in certain quarters, of educated bitter- that which commends itself to their ness against Christianity. Convinced best judgment" may be noted: a na- of its moral superiority, and filled with tional pride which naturally forbids a more or less profound apprehension their acceptance of a religion at the of the doom of extinction that awaits hand of foreigners, and these the their systems at its hands, they grudg- haughty conquerors of their land and ingly make the concessions referred to. nation; the undisguised and pro- But here they cry a halt for the present, nounced contempt exhibited by Euro- holding their ground doggedly, and pean officials of all grades for native seeking defence of their position and converts to Christianity ; the low moral welcoming assistance from all quarters. and spiritual status of a large section 4. Again, the attitude of educated of the native Christian community-I Hind us may be characterized as one of refer chiefly to the Roman Catholics; pairiful and perplexing indecision. The the misunderstood interest which West- extent to which the educated mind of ern savants take in the sacred literature India is slaking its thirst for moral and religious cults of India; the lack teaching and religious instruction at the of moral backbone, owing to the ab- fountain of Ohristian truth cannot sence of anything like a sensitive con- easily be estimated. There can be no science among the people in general- doubt that large and continually in. these, in conjunction with the opera- creasing numbers are in studious, help- tions of the ruthless, ubiquitous tyrant, ful contact with the Scriptures, which caste, restrain multitudes who stand on they find satisfy their moral instincts the very threshold of the kingdom of and meet their aspirations after a stan- God from taking the decisive step and dard of purity and devotion as nothing entering in.
else possibly can. With this we find 5. Lastly, there is the element of aspira- in considerable measure a profound tion and imitation. These terms are used recognition of the pre.eminence of for lack o~ more definite ones. Nothing Jesus as a spiritual Teacher and Exem- in the modern history of India is more plar, which often expresses itself in the remarkable than the marvellous devel- most sincere, devout, and laudatory opment of the spirit of philanthropy terms; and to many He is the only and social rllform among non·Ohris- Being whose claims as a universal Sa- tians, finding scope and expression in viour deserve consideration. Notwith- the promotion of female education; standing this, we are confronted every- providing medical aid for women; where by a painful reluctance to deci- founding hospitals, asylums, dispen- sively aSSUme and publicly avow dis- saries, and kindred illstitutions. There can be no doubt that this spirit was quering Spirit of God vigoro~sly' take first kindled at Christian altars, and at hold of this work-one, not a whit less the outset deri ved its chief nourishment urgent, and in some respects more im- almost exclusively from Christian mis- portant, than any which calls for her sionary sources; bu't it is now running enterprise and zeal in that great and its brilliant career on independent. needy empire, which we devoutly be- lines, studiously avoiding. as far as pos- lieve is destined to be one of the bright- sible, all formal connection with mis- est jewels in the diadem of our Lord sionary efforts of a kindred character. Christ.
While this may involve apparent pres- ent loss and temporary disadvantage to Rev. Gulian Lansing D.D. the Church of Christ, she will reap the richer benefit hereaft·er, when the weal_ Egypt is in many ways a most inter- thy educated classes begin to gravitate esting country to the Christian observ- toward and embrace Christianity in er_ Of its seven millions of people, 50 large numbers, in having at her disposal per cent live in towns. The two great these benevolent .. forces of the Gen- cities of Cairo and Alexandria have tiles," and in being in command of the been the theatre of most of the evangel- consecrated services of multitudes who izing effort which has been done. The shall not need to be instructed in the American United Presbyterians have first principles of philanthropy. been established in the country for sever- In conclusion let me express my deep al years. They have eighty or more cen- conviction that, while the work among tres of work, with sixty or more Chris- the uneducated lower classes should tian congregations. The whole valley continue to be prosecuted with the ut- of the Nile, from the Mediterranean most possible aggressiveness, and while Sea to Assouan on the south, is em- all diligence must be used in developing braced in the field of this mission. It and elevating the Christian community has had remarkable success. It is fresh formed out of these classes, it behoves in our minds, that they told us the the Church of Christ to take hold with other day, that in ten years the results special earnestness of the work among had doubled in most cases, and nearly the educated classes, and. with the Di- trebled in some. The population had vine blessing, avert their inevitable and increased 25 per cent, bnt the evangeli- irrevocable lapse into open and avowed cal growth :Jf the mission was in the infidelity. In all the large cities of same decade 100 per cent. The com- India, where there are thousands and municants, Sabbath attendance of pu- tens of thousan(1s of cultivated men and pils in Sunday-schools are items that students thoroughly familiar with our increased threefold, the pastors fourfold_ English tongue, special systematic ef- -The chief missionary figure, the old- fort should be made to evangelize them est, and one of the most revered and by means and methods particularly useful of all the missionary force which adapted to their circumstances and has brought about this marvel of mis- needs. British and American univer- sionary result, Rev. Gulian Lansing, sities and seminaries should be repre- D.D., died September 12th, 1892. He sented in these great centres by highly- went to the East nearly forty years ago, cultured and wholly.consecrated work- entering on his work at Damascus, in ers. Experiments on a small scale in Syria, but soon leaving for Egypt, where these directions demonstrate that there 'he labored till his death. His great is an open door of the largest usefulness proficiency as a scholar in Hebrew and before the Church. May she wisely and Arabic placed him in the front rank of aggressively seize the golden opportu- Orientalists as a linguist, and his per- nity, and with an enthusiasm generated sonal worth was as widely and pro- at the Cross of Christ by the all-con- foundly felt as his learI~ing. Rev. Dr, J. B. Dales, Secretary of the Society " He gave himself first of all to the which Dr. Lansing honored and served, enthusiastic study of the language Arabic, which he grew to love and ad: sends us the following note from" one mire as a very prince of tongues, and in of the most devoted" of their mission· which his recognized proficiency be- aries in Egypt, Bev. J. Kruidenier : came so great, that competent judges " Monday morning, September 12th, have declared that if he were the second 1892, just as the shadows of night were Arabic scholar of those not born Arabs, beginning to pass away preparatory to he was second only to Dr. Van Dyke. dawn, the weary soul of one of God's But he threw himself, body and soul, own, Rev. Gulian Lansing, D.D., left into all missionary work, whether it us and entered into the joy of his Lord. were to peddle a basket of books, or to • Oh, how glorious! ' were the words oft sit for hours in a vermin.infested hut repeated a short time before he left us, to capture the heart of one peasant, or and we wonderingly inquired and looked to preach all night to a crowd,of curious if perchance some of the glory might and possibly earnest inquirers, or to be espied by us sorrowing ones. A pro- hold disputations with Coptic priests tracted illness had kept him waiting or Moslem doctors, or to write tracts, for fully two months ere the promised and books, and treatises on didactic or rest was enjoyed. At the home of his son, J. M. Lansing, M.D., loving hands polemic theology – to teach in the had nursed him and anxious hearts had schools, to train theological students, awaited results, but neither their care to travel wearily up the Nile or across nor an able physician's skill could pre· the desert, or to represent the Mission to the government and to stand before vent his release. He has gone to be forever with his Lord. kings. At last, and for many years, this became his peculiar province-not ,. We miss him,; he was a father in to the exclusion of any or all other mis- sionary work-to be the representative our mission, and a leader of our little and advocate of the mission to the band. His suggestions, his advice, his Egyptian authorities, and it is doubtful experience, were always helpful, and whether any other foreigner was better oftentimes decided perplexing ques- known or more highly respected than tions for us. he in the courts of the last three Khe- " He was one of the very first to en- dives." ter this field, coming here as early as 1856, bearing the brunt of pioneer ef- fort, ever advancing the outposts. Filled with a yearning desire to bring souls Slavery by Oontract. to Christ, zealous for the Master, thor- ough in his work, persevering in his The Australian papers have for a long endeavors, and, above all, his heart aglow with a living, conquering faith, while teemed with revelations about he was permitted to do much for Christ. the contract labor slavery of the South "His, too. was the joyous 'privilege of casting hIS honors at the feet of Jesus, Sea Islands, or what goes by the name for though a born linguist, a successful of the" Kanaka-Labor-Traffic." The student, and a very acceptable speaker, Gilbert and some other islands are vis~ yea one whom three institutions at Hed for the purpose of securing natives home delighted to honor with the title of D.D., and whose friendship, more- for Fiji, Australia, and Guatemala, who over, was pleasing and valued by many sign a contract for five years' labor in at home and abroad, yet he willingly the countries to which they are to be gave up these that Christ through him deported. Once there they are Bold to might be glorified in a far.off field. planters for the term of years. It is doubtful if many of them understand "About five years he labored as a mispionary in Syria, and thirty-six of the sixty-six years of his life he gave to our reckoning of time, and they are led Egypt, and these have borne rich fruit- to " sign" the contracts by deceit, and age, as the work here and his brethr.m c~uelly seized and constrained by little could testifv. less than outright force, and the re- .. CAIRO, EGYPT."
sults, as in Guatemala, show great mor- The following paragraph is from an tality among them; a small part only article in the Christian lntelligencer, by live out the five years, and fewer ever a life-long and intimate friend bf Dr. return to their homes. This traffic has ~IU~siJl.g, :Rav. J. A. De Bauo, D.D.: carried off a third of the population of the New Hebrides; and the Queensland insisted "that the allotment of lands governors have received application be persistently and judiciously continfrom over 400 would-be agents to bring ued," recommended compulsory educaout these " black-birds." tion, urged that the Indian be protected from" robbery through deceit and ex- It appears that a "bamp" steamer tortion," and that the "principles of named Montserrat has been engaged in the civil service law" should be practhis business carrying these victims to tically applied to the Indian service, Guatemala, having just now landed and condemned "the appointment or some four hundred. It is in testimony removal of these officers for partisan reathat of two years ago four hundred sons." Nearly $2000 was subscribed others were sold in Guatemala, of whom on the spot for the creation of a fund only one hundred and eighty now sur- for the higher education of such Indvive-the small-pox, malaria, and other ians as shall prove themselves worthy pestilences which seize these foreign- of such help. They were clearly of the ers having carried off the rest. A few view that the churches should assume months ago the brig Tahiti was cap- the support of the schools under their sized with three hundred of these con- charge, and refuse to receive Governtract slaves aboard, all of whom per- ment money in aid thereof; a view, by ished. the way, already expressed by the Prot- estant bodies, the General Assembly of The hope is expressed that as Eng- the Presbyterian Church, the General land has taken possession of the Gil- Conference of the Methodist Episcopal bert Islands, this inveigling of men into Church, and later on by the representaperil and practical slavery may be tive Council of the Protestant Episcostopped in that quarter, but as British pal Church in its session in Baltimore. sentiment has not been strongly enough A . view which the Roman Catholic against it in Australia and Fiji to stop Church, of course, does not accept, see- . the business at that end of the line, it ing that it makes bitter cry for more of is well not to be over-confident about this Government money, though it al. her course in the Gilbert group. An ready receives more than half of the international compact is being sought total sum appropriated by the Governto stop this whole nefarious business, ment for these denominational schools. and to bring these South Sea Islanders under the same protection from Chris- THE EVACUATlON OF UGANDA.-At the tian-God save the mark-rum and fire- hour of our writing it is intimated that arms. Heaven speed the effort. Let the British will probably evacuate the United States Government not take Uganda. Mr. Gladstone will take grave the back place in this humanitarianism, responsibility if he should abandon which for somewhat plausible reasons Uganda as he did poor Gordon in the she did in the Brussels Treaty for the Soudan. We strongly suspect the Brit- Congo. Let our people make the Gov- ish Government will do no such thing, ernment know that the humanitarian- but it will probably be " encored" if it ism of this country demands prompt winds up the blundering East African action in the premises. The Pan-Pres- Company. If it had kept that company byterian Council at Toronto wisely ap- at hume, foreign missionary interests pointed a deputation to go to Wash- would not have had the anxiety they now ington to urge action of our Govern- have for the continuance of British influment in this matter, and also to restrain e:lce in that "sphere." Missionaries the traffic in fire-arms and liquors with went there in 1877, the first residents Western Pacific natives. from abroad. Chiefs and many of the people were won to Christianity, and tho THE MOHONK INDIAN MISSION CONFER- Jj:NcE.-Thia Conference in October last New Testament was translated for the Prayer League for Native Workers in people. These missionaries in times of Ohina. danger have never asked the protection of the East African Company, yet were A Prayer Union has been organized aided by the moral influence of the British Government's agents at Zanzi_ in China with the definite object of bar; but when the Anglo-German agree. ment of 1890 brought Uganda under praying for the raising up of native British influence it seemed right that they should maintain order there. The evangelists. The Prayer Union sends battle of the Romanist and Protestant missions was a political one rather out an appeal in part as follows: than a religious one. It was a question whether a Roman Catholic or Protes- To tbe Missionaries in Vbina tant power should hold Uganda. The withdrawal of' the British from Uganda and to Christians everywhere. means the loss of prestige over the whole African sphere of British influ- Greetings: The necessity for native ence. It is a gra~e question whether fellow.workers in a field so extended as the government does not owe it to mis- that which lies before us in the far sions in Uganda to establish bonafide East, is acknowledged by every intellilaw and order. Had they let the land gent and interested observer. It is reaalone the missionaries might have been sonable to hope that IImong the churches far and away' ahead of where they are and the numerous converts now to be now; but they have created conditions found in China, there are ruen and which involve the missionary evacua- women possessing Christian character, tion of Uganda, if there shall be politi- experience, and a considexable knowlcal evacuation now. We have deplored edge of the Holy Scriptures, upon whom the return of the British Government the Spirit of God may work in calling to the old India policy of government and eqtlipping those whom He shall by commercial companies. That should choose for special service in His kingbe relegated to the limbo of political dom…• After consultation among blunders. This century should find a brethren, and moved by a profound better way. We dare not predict what sense, both of the need of, and the opthe British Government will do, for it portunity for, a great forward movedeals with tax-payers, but we are grieved ment, we send out the proposal to form that its egregious blunders in Uganda a Prayer Union, the object of which so seriously involve missionary inter- shall be to pray God to raise up many ests. native workers" full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." The conditions of join- -Wonderful stories come of a lost ing this Union are simply to send oui city lately discovered in Mashonaland, the pledge card, of which a specimen is and believed to have.been built in an- given on another page of this circular, cient days by Arabs drawn to the rtl- affixing the signat.ures to the same and gion by its gold-mines. In particular returning it to the Secretary. This a circular ruin is described which meas- should be considered, not the observures 300 feet by 250 feet, and with ance of a mere forru, but a sincere granite walls some 16 feet thick and 30 promise to take up unitedly, regularly. feet high. One writer estimates that and urgently the instruction of the the city contained from 50,000 to 100,- Master. " Pray ye, therefore. the Lord 000 inhabitants. of the harvest that He send forth labor- ers," and apply it in the direction of native help, for this is the greatest field known to modern missionary enter- prise: assured that China for Christ means Asia for Christ, and Asia for Christ means the world speedily won to Him.
Rev. J. W. STEVENSON, President, Rev. Y. K. YEN, U.A., Vice-President, Rev. ELLIOT H. THOMSON. Secretary, OtJicers of the Union_ N. B.-A response to the appeal of the Union, sent to either of the officers, addressed Shanghai, China, is suffi- cient.
We pre.!lent herewith the jform of the pledge.
DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
III.-DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR.
CONDUCTED :BY PROFESSOR AMOS B. WELLS.
Three denominations at least are set- tion obtained, by a wide correspond- ting their Endeavorers to work in a ence, the names and addresses of aU practical way.. The young people among who intended to attend this year the the Disciples of Christ are gathering University of California. This union contributions to build a memorial will endeavor in every way to throw church in Salt Lake City. The En- about these young people at once a deavorers among the Methodist Prot- warm and helpful religious welcome. estants are collecting funds for a sim· ilar church in Kansas City. And now Not a few ardent Christian Endeavor- come the Lutheran young folks with a ers are commercial travellers. "On the plan, which they will carry out, for a road" most of the time, it is impossible memorial church in San Diego, Cal. for them to work for their local church Surely the Endeavorers are blessed in as other Endeavorers, and in their shifthaving such noble objects to work for, ing life their Christian faithfulness is and their denominations are blessed in put to severe tests. It is urged that for having such noble young people to work these a travelling men's membership be for them. established, with conditions and provi- sions suitable to their circumstances, Very often a valuable new Christian the outward token to be a bar bearing Endeavor method comes from workers the word" Traveller's" across the ordiin Canada. Their latest contribution nary" C. E." monogram badge. It is deserves wide currency. Endeavorers to be hoped that this idea will be carried up there are organizing" hospitality out, for such a membership would keep circles" among the ladies of their many a young commercial traveller churches. The members of these cir- from temptation, and introduce him at cles agree to invite and entertain at sight to the local Endeavorers, who their homes, at least once a month, would welcome him. homeless young men and women. Endeavorers are not satisfied with work- Christian Endeavorers are not to be ing themselves; they must set their left out of the World's Fair. Theyhave elders to work. their noble "Hotel Endeavor" for a rendezvous, and already they are talk- More and more every month the En· ing, in several States, about State Chrisdeavorers are awakening to their duties tian Endeavor days at Chicago. Massawith regard to the young people who chusetts has already selected July 18 for leave home and go where they are its day of reunion. strangers. Very many unions, espe· cially those in large cities, now have Rev. J. F. Cowan, the newly chosen " correspondence committees," to which trustee of the United Society from the local societies send the names of young Methodist Protestant denomination, is folks, whether Endeavorers or not, who eagerly seeking to stir up Methodist are soon to move within the field Protestant Endeavorers to all sorts of of these correspondence committees. good works. He has prepared a beauti- When the strangers arrive they are ful bannar, to be given to that Methsought out, welcomed, introduced to odist Protestant conference union whose Christian young people, and induced work along certain lines is most sucto connect themselves with the society cessful. and church of their preference. The latest advance in this line of work has Alaska, so far as is known, has only been made by the Endeavor union of two societies of Ohristian Endeavor. Berkeley, Oal., which during the vaca.. One of these is at the little Quaker mis- sion on Douglass Island, and it is an earuest, active society. Oue of its me~. bers attended and spoke at the NeW' societies of the State. Their plans were York Convention. approved heartily by the magnificent Up to a few weeks ago the United So- State convention, and Connecticut ciety officials knew of no Christian En- young people have set out to make deavor societies in Madagascar; now this an evangelistic year. Some unions they know of thirty. A few weeks ago will obtain the services of eminent evan- Secretary Baer knew of no societies in gelists. Many will form plans for per- France. Now word has come that the sonal work for the saving of souls. Let good seed has quietly grown there, and us pray that the apostolic fervor will has sprung up in several Parisian ., so· spread from State to State. The young cieMs d' Activite Cretienne," as well as for the young, and for Christ!
societies at St. Quentin, Les Ternes, Rev. L. F. John, a pastor of the Unit- and elsewhere. All Protestant work ed Brethren Church, made a maxim has slow growth in France, and yet that deserves to live, when he said: there is reason to think the Christian " Every denomination that has adopted Endeavor form of work peculiarly adapt- the Endeavor plan has found it easy to ed to the conditions there. May it pros. adapt it."
per richly! For a pleasing variety in Christian The Christian Endeavor movement is Endeavor meetings this, which has been gaining a foothold among the blacks in successfully tried in a few places, may South Africa, mainly through the influ- find favor. The Endeavorers are asked ence of an earnest m,issionary, Mr. to choose for themselves Bible texts be- Charles N. Ransom, who is planting ginning with the initials of their own societies in connection with his work in names. At the appointed meeting these Natal. He finds the Christian En• are repeated, and the members tell why .;!eavor principles and methods just they selected those particular texts for suited to his work with the natives. their own. These reasons are often Probably in no denomination have very touching and helpful.
Christian Endeavor societies found a It has been urged, and urged with warmer welcome than in the Presbyte- much wisdom, that the corresponding rian. A characteristic example is the secretary should not be the only perma- Indianapolis Presbytery, twenty.two of nent officer of the society. There should whose thirty-four churches, as Dr. Rond- be also, in addition to the regular treas- thaler reports in the Herald and Pres- urer elected for a time, a pprmanent byter, have young people's societies, and mission treasurer. Such an officer could all but one of these are Christian En- make and supervise long plans, and deavor societies, loyal and helpful to would furnish a permanent medium of their own churohes. communication with the officers of the The EQ.deavorers among the Disciples denominational boards.
of Christ in Ohio are very thoroughly Christian Endeavorers, why not, all organized, and are also thoroughly in- of you, prepare a meeting like that suc- terested in the work. The proof of cessfuIly carried out by the Endeavorers both is the fact that as societies-not of the Methodist Church in Urbana, Ill. ?
counting individual offerings-they gave They made ready a historical entertain- last year to their churches and the mis· ment, in which was exhibited as fully sions of their denomination the sum of as possible all the facts concerning the $6,528.24. All States and all societies growth of the Methodist Church in that will do as well erelong. city. Young people are often ignorant For several months seven prominent of the struggles and triumphs of their Connecticut clergymen, all Christian own church home. This is a good Endeavorers, have been maturing plans way of reviewing them, to their own for an active evangelistic movement profit, and the great pleasure of their "Ulong and by the aid of the Endeavor __elfters.
DE]>ARTMlllNT 011' C'ltRIS'l'tAN ENDEAVO'R. 9a9
Mr. Moody offered this year, as last were aware of it," said the pastor, Mr. Dise. The young folks should be taught year, special inducements to Christian how much'an acquaintance with all the Psalms will help them toward ease and Endeavor societies who wished to send force and helpfulness in public prayer.
one of their number for a term to the We were told the other day of a beau- Northfield Training School for Chris. tiful Kansas girl, an ardent Endeavorer, whose death occurred suddenly, On tian Workers. The terms, already mar· the very next Sabbath evening she was to have led her Endeavor society, the vellously low, are almost cut in two for theme of the meeting being" How a Christian can Die." the benefit of these young workers. Missionary committees of Endeavor The Endeavorers of Australia are in- fusing a decidedly evangelistic spirit societies can hardly find a better motto into their Christian Endeavor work. We hear of a party of ten Endeavorers for their work than this :Sentence by in South Australia who fervently prayed that God would bless their labors to the Mr. A. S. Wilson, the secretary of the conversion of ten souls. They held a service in an out-district, and ten were South Australia Union: "As indio converted. We hear of another society viduals, we were won to win; as so· which has started meetings on Sunday nights to care for the railroad men; of cieties, we are formed to form." another which cares for the sailors; and many similar reports come which should Over ten thousand applications for stir our American societies to more ear- nest effort. rooms while attending the International In response to a request, nearly a Christian Endeavor Convention next thousand letters have been received at the Boston Ohristian Endeavor headyear have already been received by the quarters, concerning the advisableness of continuing the topics for the Ohris- Montreal committee. At this rate the tian Endeavor meeting in line with the Convention of '93 will excel in numbers Sunday-school lessons. Nearly two hun- dred of these letters represented the even the monster gathel'ing in New votes of societies, so that the total ex- pression of opinion was from 10,341 En- York. Before long Endeavorers will be deavorers. Moreover, seventeen deoompelled to hold their annual meeting nominations were represented, and possibly many more, as comparativeat the North Pole, to avoid excessive at_ ly few named their denomination; and the letters came from every State and tendance. Tflrritory in the Union save five, from Endeavor societies all over the United all parts of Canada, and from England. The vote, therefore, was quite a repre- States have taken a great interest in the sentative one. Of these, 7812 Endeavor- era preferred the present plan, and 2529 meeting of the World's Fair commis- preferred that the Endeavor topics should be different from those of the sioners, at which the questions of Sun- Sunday-school. Very many excellent suggllstions were made, which will be day opening and liquor selling are to be weighed carefully. The decision of this decided. At the suggestion of Mr. matter rests with the committee of the Board of Trustees of the United Society R. V. Hunter, Chairman of the Chris- that has to do with the selection of tian Endeavor Committee on Sunday topics. This is a wise and representa- tive committee, consisting of Rev. Way- Closing, Endeavor societies everywhere land Hoyt, D. D. (Baptist); Rev. Teu- nis S. Hamlin, D.D. (Presbyterian); have been pouring in fresh and urgent Rev. J. F. Cowan (Methodist Protes- tant); Rev. William Patterson (Oanapetitions. Societies not a few have dian Presbyterian) ; and William Shaw (Oongregationalist). ThL committee added a declaration that they will not will doubtless discover some interattend the fair unless it observes the mediate course that will be satisfac- Sabbath and is free from alcohol. A hymn service is awakening interest tory to all, in many societies. Its plan is an· nounced a week beforehand, and the members come each prepared to Dame his favorite hymn, and tell why it is precious to him. Many of these hymns will be sung during the meeting, making a very beautiful service.
From a Lutheran society of Christian Endeavor comes a wise plan, intended to lead the more baokward members into the habit of public prayer. The memo bers were asked to kneel, open their Bibles, and each read reverently, taking his. turn, a verse of the twenty-fifth l'salm. "All prayed, some ere they
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
IV.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Prospectus. The subjects which receive especial attention both in the Literature of Mis- The plans for the year 1893 are now sions and in the Monthly Concert derapidly maturing, and contemplate con- partments are as follows: stant and somewhat costly improvements in the REVIEW. Several impor- January-General Outlook, the World. tant modifications are to be made in its February-China, Thibet, Confucianconduct to avoid repetitions, and to ism. secure the largest and freshest contact March-Mexico, Central America, with the whole world field. Dr. J. G. West Indies, City Evangelization. Paton, of New Hebrides fame, becomes April-India, Java, Ceylon, Brahmanan editorial correspondent. The best ism. writers will be secured for these pages. May-Burma, Siam, Laos, Buddhism. We hope for communications from Rev. June-Africa, Freedmen in America. Dr. F. E. Clark on his world tour in the July-Islands of the Sea, Greenland, interests of the Society of Christian Mormons, Indians, Chinese and Japan- Endeavor. We propose a series of pa- ese in America. pers from leading missionaries and August-Papal Europe. others on kindred questions covering a September-Japan, Korea, Medical wide territory of investigation, and the Missions. securing of a comparison and consensus October-Turkey, Arabia, Persia, of views on the problems of missions. Greek Church, Mohammedanism. The editor-in-chief will be absent for November-South America, Cuba, some months in Great Britain, in ful- Papacy, Home Missions, Y. M. C. A., filment of his duties as "Alexander Y. P. S. C. E. Duff Lecturer on Missions," but while December-Syria, the Jews, Educaabroad he will act as English editor, tional Work. and his son, Delavan L. Pierson, Princeton, N. J., will aid the editorial Missionary Comity. staff and act as his substitute and as managing editor, in receiving and pub- An esteemed correspondent asks us lishing communications for these col- to insert the following. He calls atumns, and in supervising final proofs tention to an announcement to be and conducting correspondence. found on page 146 (col. 2, par. 3) of the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Re- We hope to arrange also, as soon as view for March, 1891, and presents the possible, for maps and other illustra- following facts: tions, and especially for a new map of the world showing comparative facts "1. Chen·tu is the capital of the about populations, religions, and evan_ province of Ssu·chuan. gelization. The experience of several years in the actual conduct of such a " 2. Including Chen-tu tbere are in review has revealed the defe()ts and Sau.chuan one hundred and fifty-two needs of this magazine of missions, and walled cities, twelve of these being serves to indicate the remedy. With- cities of the first class. out counting the cost, either in labor or outlay, we shall, according to the meas· " 3. The China Inland Mission carries ure of our knowledge and ability, make on work in eleven of these cities; of these pages indispensable to all who these eleven, seven are cities of the first love the cause of missions and seek to class. co·operate in the speedy evangelization of the world.-A. T, p, "4. In one of these eleven cities, Chung-ching three other missionary societies are at work: the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, the Lon- don Mission, and the Friends' Foreign Missionary Association. These were all preceded by the China Inland Mis- sion, which began settled work there in 1877. To another of these eleven tel' of 1889–90, I had Rccess to a v:ery cities, Su.chou.fu, or Sui-fu, where the China Inland Mission began work in ful! collection of works on the missions 1888, the American Baptist Mission has recently sent its agents. in Madagascar; some of them from " 5. In Chen-tu, according to recent later sources than Dr. Mears's very good reports, the members of the China In. land Mission have baptized over one little book. I quote from that article hundred converts, of whom seventy are still in fellowship. the following sentences, which embody, "I would respectfully and in all I believe, the facts bearing on this Christian love inquire of Mr. Spencer Lewis and the brethren of the American point :-' After stating that an English Methodist Episcopal Mission, why they have passed by the one hundred and church had been formed at the capital forty-one unoccupied cities, five of them of the first claRs, to throw their before Radama's death, and that nearly force into a city where an efficient evangelical work has been carried on for five thousand Hova boys had been reyears since 1881? The missionary body in China has recently asked for a ceived into the mission schools, and large reinforcement: would it not be v;'eU to show to the churches at home that in the autumn of 1827 permission that they are using their present avail. able force with all reasonable economy? bad been received from the king, allow.
" SPECTATOR." ing any to be baptized who desired to Madagascar Notes, receive that rite; but though none came Attention having been called to a dis- (probably because the missionaries de· agreement in the articles on Madagas. sired to test further their sincerity) car, from the pens of the editor and of there was evidence in abundance that Dr. Brockett, respectively, our accom- many had abandoned their idols,' etc.
plished friend from Brooklyn writes: I say, • No native church had been " f!.. blunder crept into my article on formed and no Malagasy had been bap.
Madagascar in the May, 1889, number tized until 1831 ; bnt on May 22d of that of the MISSIONARY REVIEW. The statis. tics, I find, on referring to my notes, year the queen (Ranavalona I.) issued a were those of 1838, as given by Dr. Mullens, and by some printer's blunder message granting permission for the were transferred to 1828. Dr. Mullens, I have since learned, was not very reli- baptism of converts. Regarding this able authority on statistics. I have very serious doubts whether there were as the direct answer to prayer, the mis. any such number of converts in 1838. The amount was a mere guess, and a sionaries proceeded to avail themselves pretty wild one at that, There were no data for it. In 1836 two thousand offi· of it. There were many converts, and cials, mostly of the army, and nearly two thousand more, holding no office, on May 29th, 1831, Mr. Griffiths bap. under the stringent orders of Ranavalona I., confessed themselves Christians, tized twenty, and the first native church and most of these were punished in some way. Probably there were as was formed. Baptisms were almost many more who did not confess, but not more than half of these were bap- constant, other churches were formed. tized. I wonder that Dr. Cousins in his criticisms failed to notice tbis error. and in a few months there were between • "Your statement in your article in the number for November, 1890, page one and two thousand members of 810, quoted by Mr. Pollock, is true, but it is not the whole truth. Before writ- these churches. At the end of six ing my article on Madagascar in the , Encyclopoodia of Missions,' in the win- months the permission to baptize was withdrawn, in the case of those who werein the government service, and a month or two earlier the use of wine at the communion was prohibited to the same cla~s. In January, 1832, these prohibitions were extended to all the people.' The missionaries were ex- pelled in 1836, but native preachers car· ried on the work throughout the cen· tral provinces, and at the queen's death, in 1861, it was estimated that there were about forty thousand converts, about one hali of whom had been bap.
tized, while nearly two thousand had been put to dllath or perished from the cruelties inflicted upon them.
" These statements Mr. Pollock may rely upon, as they are collected from the most authentic sources. They were a brave and noble set of men, those early Malagasy Christians; no martyrs of modern or ancient times have surpassed them. L. P. BROCKETT."
ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR, November 14, 1891.
DEAR SIR: In the September, 1891, issue of the MIgSION.UW REVIJ;;W I re&d a n')te mentioning the work of the Nor. 1886, and where 255 indoor patients wegian Mission in this country, and were received and treated, and 4571 outyou have not been correctly informed. door patients were seen and adminis- You might be glad to hear a little more tered medicine to last year (1890). This about it from some one belonging to the year there is a still larger number. My mission. husband, who is an M.D. from the Uni- The note mentioned (page 687) is this: versity of Christiania, and his colleague, The Norwegian missionaries, it appears, Dr. Thesen, an M.D. from the same are also actively at work among the university, teach at the Medical Mis- Rekimisarakas of the southeast, and sionary Academy, educating Malagasy the fierce Sukalavas of the west. doctors, and started in 1886 by Drs. Allen, Rouhgrevink, Guldberg (Nor- Among the Retsimisarakas the Nor. wegian), and Fox. At our hospital wegian missionaries have no work at there also is a training school for Malaall ; that field is worked by the Angli. gasy midwives. In 1871 a theological can missionaries. As to the west coast. seminary was started here in the capital the work among the wild Sakalavas has by the Rev,Dahle, but this has since been been carried on by our missionaries now removed to the Retsileo. A day school for nearly seventeen years in great suf. for boys and one for girls have been ferings and sacrifices, during constant working since 1871. Since 1886 our meddanger to life and property; but the ical students, all from our Retsileo conlove of Christ has sustained our mis. gregations, board in the school buildsionaries and strengthens them to keep ing at Amhatovinaky, and since 1890 their watch faithfully, till the Lord's this boarding.school is increased by 50 time for letting them reap the fruits of more Retsileo lads, who frequent the their labor in Him and for Him comes. upper classes of the boys' school. In the Betsileo we have. besides the theo- Our first mission field in Madagascar, logical seminary, two training schools however, was the North Retsileo (Vakin. for teachers (not working at present, as Ankaratra), where our missionaries have the teachers of both these institutions been working now since 1867. Next are in Norway on furlough). At Sirahe, year will be the twenty-fifth year of our one of the central stations, we have a mission's work in that country; and lepers' home, partly sustained by the from 1878 our missionaries have worked benevolence of an English gentleman, in the Manandriana and South Retsileo. with more than 100 lepers, superin- Since 1888 we have a mission on the tended by a trained deaconess from the southeast coast (in Vangaindrano, Ma. Deaconess House at Christiania. As to nombandra, and Fort Dauphin), and in results and progress of the work I do the same year mission work began not intend to go into detailR. I shall among the Rams. Our first missionary, only give the extract of the statistics a young and active man, burning in for last year, 1890: Church-members, love to his poor heathen brethren, fell 25,181; communicants, 20,148; catea victim to the deadly malaria, but an- chumens, 2442 ; native teachers, 1110 ; other brother took up his work, and at scholars, 37,625 ; number of those that present we have two missionaries work- are able to read, as well church-meming among the Raras. Among the Tan. bers as those that have not yet joiued osy tribe one missionary began work in the church, 38,772 ; native pastors, 20 ; May this year. This young fellow- congregations, 454. All these numbers worker, as well as the missionary at refer to our mission in the inland and Fort Dauphin, is a Norwegian American, born in Norway, but bred and educated on the southeast coast; the Sakalava in America, at Augsburg Seminary, Mission is under another superintend- Minneapolis. In the capital, where ent. my husband, the present superintend. ent of our mission in this country and I forgot to mention a girls' boarding. I have our work, we have only a repre- school for training young girls for insentative church, as we do not like to dustrial purposes (weaving, spinning, interfere with the work of the L. M. S. Mission, with whom we are on friendly sewing, etc.) in the Retsileo ; but as the terms. It is necessary for the progress lady teacher has been home on furlough of the mission in the country to have a representative church in the capital. for two years, it does not work at pres- Here we also have our printing-office, a ent.
girls' boarding-school, started by my Perhaps it would be of interest to husband and myself in 1872, at present hear the number of our European workers in Madagascar as well. On the containing 88 children, with two Euro- west coast 3 married missionaries, 1 uri· pean ladies as teachers; further, a boys' married, 1 lady teacher. In the inland, boarding-school, with 35 boys, started including the Rara and the Tanosy, 24 missionaries, of which 3 unmarried, 11 1873. a hospital and dispensary, started unmarried ladies employed as teachers, Bible women, and nurses. On the east and was only captured after some of the most desperate fighting that marked coast we have at present only two Euro- that sanguinary period. It is thus most advisable that the consequences of a pean missionaries, as one was obliged French Madagascar should be fully con- sidered ; and as the island lies direct in to leave this year on account of broken the track of the true route to three con- tinents, that efforts should be made to health. All in all, our European work- secure its independence.
ers in this country are 43. I do not in G. UNDERWOOD HAnny. ANTANANARIVO, July. 1892. this number include us married ladies.
As there is no duty to work laid upon us, we just do what little we may be able to. Next year we expect at least ten more missionaries. Rev. Neilsen Lund has completed three more trav- els in the Bara and Tanosy country, . and proceeded as far as to the west coast. J. BOURGREVINK.
Another correspondent sends us the A Work for God in Japan. following communication: MISSIONARY HOME, SRANGHAI, CRmA, Madagascar's Strategical Importance to August 22, 1891. Great Britain and Grea.ter Britain. Some fifteen years ago a church was The Madagascar question is being dis- formed in Kobe, Japan, on Congreganiissed as of no concern to England. tional principles, but quite- indepen- British commercial interests with this dently of all foreign missionary conneccountry being comparatively small, and tion. The native members and pastor the development of tardy growth, the erected a church building at their own conclusion has been formed by most charges entirely, and it has gone on British statesmen that Madagascar can flourishingly ever since. be sacrificed for the benefit of British policy elsewhere. The value of Mada- In July, 1888, some few of its memgascar to England has been judged from bers, feeling deeply the need of the her commercial statistics and seeming children of the poor, determined upon prospects. The strategical importance opening an evening school. A comof this island continent has not been mittee of six, with a capital of $7.80 and considered. It has not been observed a few slates and pencils, gathered into that a French Madagascar would, in the a factory some eighty children from six event of war between – England and to sixteen years of age, who from the France, be a French sentinel barring the first peep of dawn to 7 P.M. worked in gateway of the Indian Ocean. With the factories around, .. tea-firing" or France in possession of the harbor-in- making matches, earning four to five dented west coast of this island, the ex- cents a day. For two hours each evenistence of British trade with the East ing they taught them the" iro-ha" (alwould be as seriously threatened in war phabet), reading, writing, etc., and the time as it was in the Anglo-French girls sewing. Once a week they had struggle in the early part of this century evening Sunday-school. by the Cape being in possession of the Dutch and Mauritius in the hands of The attendance after a short time the French. The result in those days alarmingly diminished. On inquiry it of the Cape route to India being domi· was found that the children were being nated by Holland and France, was that waylaid by haters of Christianity and their cruisers inflicted such immense dissuaded from attendance. Thus" endamage-for those times-upon the Brit- couraged" the school has prospered, ish mercantile marine that the British an average of sixty scholars has been Government determined to capture the maintained, and in the three years an Cape and Mauritius at any cost. The expenditure of $2] 7 incurred for sup- Cape fell easily into our hands, but plies of slates, books, etc. The school Ma.uritius made /.I gallant resistance, pays DO rent and no salaries. Its teach- ers are native Christians who follow their vocations all day and gratuitously teach in the evenings.
Recently the governor of the province sent for Mr. Karramichi (who is a rail- road clerk), the superintendent of the school, and informed him the school would not be permitted to continue longer as .. a mutual improvement so- ciety;" its pretensions were untenable, he said; six-year-old children could not reciprocate knowledlJe with the adults. He would only permit it to 1 continue as a public school under gov. ernment regulations. This involves GENTLEMEN: The undersigned citi- engaging a staff of salaried teachers zens of the United States engaged in who have graduated from the normal mission and educational work in—, training schools or who ha.ve passed respectfully request you to provide that examinations. The church fortunately the Exposition in your charge shall not has Bmong its members four such teach- be opened on the Sabbath, and that no ers, one of whom is a professor at the labors shall be performed on that day nor)Ilal school. These are prepared to in the preparation of the buildings and undertake the school sufficiently to sat. the grounds, and that the use and sale isfy government requirements, but the of intoxicating liquors be prohibited on school will have to employ one or two the grounds: (at least) certificated teachers to conduct the school in connection with the vol- 1. Because we believe it is the will unteers who sustain the work gratui- of the Oreator that one day out of seven tously. of man's time be devoted to rest and worship. Mr. Karramichi appeals for funds to enable them to meet this increased reo 2. Because the Oolumbus Exposition sponsibility. Hig address is No. 16 should represent American institutions, Railroad Station, Kobe. Rev. ~'fr. and be true to the life and character of Osada, pastor of the Tamwo church, the American people, and an exposition and Rev. J. L. Atkinson, missionary of the American Board, endorse very . with open doors on the Sabbath would heartily the w.ork and the appeal. be false. Such a modest yet useful work can 3. Because of the injury that would only be appreciated by those who know what a condition these poor children be done by the opening of the Exposiare found in, physically, morally, and tion on the Sabbath to all of our insti. spiritually; and when it is remembered tutions, socially, morally. and relig. that those who labor thus nobly for iously. them have but a few years been brought out of the darkness of gross heathenism 4. Because of the inherent right of themselves, it is certainly a cry of need every man to Sabbath rest, which would that will find a response in every Ohris· be denied to many if the Exposition be tian heart the world around. opened on the Sabbath.
EDWARD EVANS. 5. Because of the injurious effect the opening of this great American exposi- MEMORIAL TO THE NATIONAL COMMISSION- ERS OF THE COLUMBUS EXPOSITION. tion on the Sabbath, and the use and sale of intoxicating liquors on the Rev. Henry Eusson, of the Reformed grounds, would have upon the great Presbyterian Mission, Latakia, Syria, mission and educational work of Ameribelieving that the opening of the 00. can Ohristians in all lands. lumbian ~xposition on the Sabbath and the sale or use of intoxicating liquors Trusting that these and similar rea· on the grounds would injure the mis. sons will prevail.in your counsels, we sion and educational work of Americans subscribe ourselves, etc. in all lands, circulated a memorial in Syria and Egypt, and forwarded the -It appears that at length the troubles memorial, with signatures attached, to in the Philippine Islands are in a fair the commissioners. The great success way to be adjusted. General Grubb, the measure had in Syria and Egypt ex-Ministe~ to Spain, who has had the moves him to present the memorial matter in charge, states as his opinion through the REVIEW to missionaries "that the Spanish Government never and all engaged in educational work in intended to do less than justice. It has all lands, hoping that many will sign now agreed to pay whatever damages this or a similar memorial and send are arbitrated, and the missionaries without delay either direct or through will resume their labors on the islands. the secretaries of their respective boards This settlement is not generally known, to the commissioners. bu.t it is fllir to all parties."
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. H. H. JESSUP, D.D., BEIRUT, SYRIA.
Eduoa.tiona.l Missions. intelligent faith, which implies intelli. gence as well as faith.
No rigid law of uniformity can be The Romish priests in Western Africa laid down for the conduct of Christian centuries since thought the pagan tribes missions. The command, "Go, teach thoroughly Christianized when they all nations," does not confine the had decked them with charms and cru- Church to anyone mode of teaching. cifixes and baptized them by thousands, Weare to preach the Gospel to every but in the nineteenth century all traces '
creature. Some can be reached in one of that kind of Christianity had disap- way, some in another. peared. The Christian fetich had given There are two kinds of farming in place to the original pagan type.
Syria. On the great plains of Esdrae. The first American missionaries to Ion and Hamath the seed is sown on Western Asia found the people in al- the deep, rich Boil, the shallow plough. most absolute illiteracy. A few of the share turns it under, and the sun and Muslims could read the Koran, but the the rains bring an abundant harvest. mass of them could neither read nor But in Lebanon, on the precipitous write, while among the other sects a rocky slopes, where a goat can hardly reader was as rare as snow in summer.
stand, the rocks are blasted and dug Previous to 1830 thousands of Arabic out, rolled into terrace walls, the debris Bibles of the old Romish Propaganda Rnd soil piled against them, and after version had been distributed gratui- this weary and expensive process of tously throughout Syria and Palestine, preparation, olive, mulberry, and fig. by agents of the British and Foreign trees and vines are planted, which, after Bible Society, but they lay unread and years of patient waiting, reward the lao neglected, or were used for wrapping bors of the peasantry. paper and the covers for the soles of So there are two ways of conducting shoes; and in 1832 the first work as- missions. signed to Rev. (now Dr.) W. M. Thorn.
Among some peoples, like the Sand. son was to make a tour of the land and wich Islanders in 1820, a work of Provi. collect all the Arabic Bibles to be found, dential preparation has preceded the and ship them back to the depot in missionary, and the voice of the living Malta. Bible distribution at such a preacher may lead men, even whole time was a simple waste of time and tribes, to a saving knowledge of the money. Books called for readers, and truth. Among others the ordinary sim- there were no readers.
ple means seem less efficacious. A The first step, then, was to prepare -;>reparatory work must be done. Uni- text-books and found primary schools; versal illiteracy requires instruction in the next, training or normal schools ; reading and writing before Bibles, then theological classes to train native tracts, and leaflets can be of any use, helpers and pastors; and, finally, as the and antiquated systems of false religion, country progressed, higher institutions rigid and organized, bristling with the for youth of both sexes, in order to give armory of defence and offence, require Christianity the lead among the el]u- slow and patient toil to bring the truth cated classes of the community.
into contact with the minds and hearts This has been in brief the ell:perience of men. of the American and English missions Protestant Christianity rests, not on in Western Asia. Yet it would Dot be blind submission to authority, but on just to call the Syria Mission of the American Presbyterian Church a purely Heidelberg or a Cambridge, a Harvard educational mission. Far from it. Ed- or a Sheffield, but n9t by a missionary ucation is but one branch of its work. society laboring for purely spiritual With 26 organized churches, 1800 ends.
church-members, 89 Sunday-schools The Syria Mission has had wide ex- with 5433 pupils, 4 ordained pastors, perience in the matter of education.
and 41 licensed native preachers, and a Its missionaries have had a larger pro- community of Protestant adherents of portion of literary and educational work nearly 5000, contributing about $8400 thrown upon them than is common in annually to religious and educational Asiatic and African missions.
objects, 'Vld with a printing-press which The Syrian people differ from the prints about 25,000,000 pages in Arabic. " nature" tribes of Africa and the set.
annually, and distributes throu~h the tIed communities of Central and East- American Bible Society about 30,000 ern Asia, in having been engaged for copies of the Scriptures in Arabic, and centuries in the conflict between cor- with 13 American preaching mission- rupt forms of Christianity, the religion aries and the constant publication of of Islam, and the sects of semi.pagan- religious tracts, books, and journals, it ism. There being no political parties can hardly be said to be a purely edu- in the empire, the inborn love of politi- cational mission. It has given much of cal dissent finds its vent in the religious time and strength to mission schools, sects. A man's religion is his politics but not to the neglect of other depart· -that is, his sect takes the place occu- ments of the work. pied in other countries by the political Schools have been looked upon as party. To separate any Syrian from vital to missionary success, and yet as his religious sect throws him out of only a means to an end, not as the end his endeared political party with all its itself. Years ago village schools were traditions and prejudices.
called "entering wedges," and such A Christian missionary must steer they really were, introducing the Gos· clear of all these racial and sectarian pel in many districts where otherwise, political jealousies and try to teach loy.
as far as could be seen, neither Bible alty to the" powers that be," the com- nor missionary would have been al- mon brotherhood of man, and offer to lowed to enter. all a common Saviour.
Education is only a means to an end The Holy Spirit is, indeed, omnipo- in Christian missions, and that end is tent, and can make men of these hostile to lead men to Christ and train them to sects one in Christ, "by the Word of become Chtistian peoples and nations. His power," just as. He can place a When it goes beyond this, and claims Tammany ward politician side by side to be in itself an end; that mere intel- with a negro Republican at the Lord's lectual and scientific eminence are ob- table.
jects worthy of the Christian mission- But as human naturQ is, it generally ary; that it is worth while for conse- requires early Christian training to crated missionaries and missionary so· break down these ancient sectarian an- cieties to aim to have the best astrono- tipathies. Men and women, converted mers, geologists, botanists, surgeons, in adult years from various sects, find and physicians in the realm, for the it hard to forget their former differ- sake of the scientific prestige and the ences, and on slight occasions the old world.wide reputation; then we do not political lines define themselves with hesitate to say that such a mission has perilous vividness. It is different with stepped out of the Christian and mis. youth of different sects when educated sionary sphere into one purely secular, together, and the brightest examples of scientific,. and worldly. Such a work mutual love and confidence have been might be done by the corporation of a found among the young men and women trained together in Syria for years in truly godly men and women, their Christian schools. prayers and example give a strong re- The present educational work of the ligious influence to their teaching, and Syrian Mission has been a gradual in the high schools daily religious in- growth. The 119 common schools struction is given in the most thorough were, as a rule, located in places where manner.
previously there were no schools. In III. Sometimes a school has been not a few cases rival schools have been maintained for years in a village with.
opened in the same towns by native out any apparent spiritual result, either sects, who, as experience shows, would among the children or their parents, close their schools at once were the and yet there are numerous instances evangelical schools withdrawn. in which the school has been the means In 1891-92 the mission schools in of the establishment of a church aud a Syria were as follows : College, 1 ; the- decided religious reformation.
ological seminary, 1; medical college, IV. The mission schools in Turkey 1; boys' boarding. schools, 2; girls' have had one important effect, and that boarding.schools, 3; high schools, 18 ; is, that the Protestant community haa, common schools, 119 ; total, 145. for its size, less illiteracy than any other In this list we have 143 schools sup. community in the empire, more readers ported by the Presbyterian Board and than any other, and is, as a consequence, 2 by the trustees of the Syrian Protes- more intelligent. V. In the towns and citi~s where the tant College.
In the 8chools of the mission are 213 higher schools are situated the majority native teachers and helpers and 12 of the additions to the churches come American teachers. from the childr.en and youth trained in In the college are 14 American pro· the 8chools.
fessors and instructors and 6 Syrian in- VI. It is the unanimous testimony of structors. The total number of pupils intelligent natives of all sects, that the in 1891 was 7117. If we add to this at intellectual awakening of modem Syria least an equal number in the schools of is due, in the first instance, to the other Protestant missions in Syria and schools of the American mission. They Palestine, we have a total of about 15,- were the first, and have continued in 000 children under evangelical instruc. operation for sixty years, and the most tion in the land. of the institutions of learning now in This is a work of large extent and in· existence in Syria, native and foreign, fluence, and it is of the first importance have grown out of them or been indi- to know whether these schools are help- rectly occasioned by them.
ing in the work of evangelization. To VII. If the question be raised as to aid in a correct estimate on this point the comparative cost of eduoational and we should remember that non-educational missions, it is doubt- I. The Bible is a text·book in all of less true that the eduoational are the them. These thousands of children are most costly.
taught the Old and New Testaments, -The Syrian Protestant College is an " Line upon Line," "Life of St. Paul," endowed institution separate from the the Catechisms, and the advanced pupils Presbyterian Board of Missions, and the •• Bible Hand.Book," Scripture his· its expensive edifices, which are an tory, and geography. The Bible rests honor to American Christianity and an at the foundation of them all. ornament to the city, were erected with- II. As far as possible none but Chris- out cost to the Board of Missions. It tian teachers, communicants in the is a Christian institution, in full har- churches, are employed in these schools. mony with the missionary principles The common schools are thus Bible and plans of its founders. The great schools, and where the teachers are majority of its Board of Managers are missionaries. The Bible is a regular perience," that unless the English and text.book. All students are required to attend college prayers, and all boarding French languages were taught in some in the institution must attend its Bible classes and preaching services. Protestant high school, all the leading VIII. In 1854 Dr. R. Anderson, of Protestant youth of Syria would go for the A. B. C. F. M., objected to the teaching of English in the mission their education to the papal LazarisL schools in India, Syria, and Asia Minor, on the ground that English.speaking and Jesuit high schools. This was in pupils were in such demand for politi- cal and commercial positions, that they 1862. For seven years the mission had were lost to the missionary work. He therefore induced the Prudential Com- adhered strictly to the vernacular stan mittee of that Board to prohibit abso- lutely the teaching of English in the dard, and saw its brightest youth slip- schools of all these missions, confining them to the vernacular languages. ping away to the schools of Rome. The I well remember the sorrow and in- American Board would not allow its dignation expressed to me by the la- mented Dr. Henry A. De Forest (M.D.), funds to be spent in teaching English. at the meeting of the Board in Hart- ford, in 1854, in view of this decision. Dr. Daniel Bliss was sent to the United He had been conducting a girls board- ing-school in Beirut for ten years, and States to consult with the Board as to had returned home broken in' health. He claimed that a knowledge of the raising a sum of $20,000 to found an English language was indispensable to a thorough Christian education in Syria, academy independent of the Board, by and he did not wish to resume his work unless he could teach English. A fatal which this crisis could be met without malady from which he had long been suffering soon ended his precious life. interfering with the funds or policy of His school was carried on by others as a vernacular school for years, and out the Board. of it have grown three American female seminaries and six or eight English and The plan was approved, and through Scotch girls' boarding-schools, in all of which (with possibly one exception) the the far-seeing wisdom of Hon. William English language is now taught. E. Dodge, William A. Booth, Abner At the meeting of the American Board in Utica, in 1855, Dr. Anderson stated Kingman, Alfred C. Post, and others that the Board's mission schools were now confined to the vernacular lan- this modest academy scheme has grown guages " through the pressure of experi- ence." Dr. D. W. Poor, then of New- to a university, well endowed, splen- ark, and son of the venerable Indian missionary, replied that it was not so didly housed in enduring edifices, and much" the pressure of experience" as "an experience of pressure" from the manned by an able, scholarly, and con- Board at home. secrated body of instructors. The Syrian Protestant College was _founded through the "pressure of ex- Since coming uniler the Presbyterian Board of Missions, in 1870, the mission has introduced the English language in addition to the Arabic into its boys'
and girls' boarding-schools, and many of its day schools. The English and Scotch schools all teach the English language. In this way thousands of Syrian youth have learned English, and the Romish and ,Greek schools are also teaching it in addition to French and Arabic.
The question now arises, cui bono?
Has twenty-five years' experience in teaching English justified the hopes and expectations of the American mis- sionaries? We r~ply, that it has, amI that beyond all question. The limited scope of Arabic literature, though greatly extended in the past thirty years by the Christian press, makes it impossible for one to attain a thorough education without the use of a foreign language. c; One needs but to turn the pages of the catalogue of the Syrian Protestant thousands have already gone to North College and of the Protestant girls' and South America, Mexico. and Ausboarding-schools, to see the names of tralia ; and they are still going. men and women who are now the leaders in every good and elevating enter- At present the Chicago Fair has prise, authors, editors, physicians, fanned the emigration fever to a flame. preachers, teachers, and business men It has taken hold of all classes, and who owe their success and influence to farmers, planters, mechanics, mertheir broad and thorough education. chants, doctors, teachers, preachers, They are scattered throughout Syria, young meD and women, boys and girls, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa. even old men and women, are setting out in crowds for the great Eldorado of The advocates of a purely "Vernacular the West. A company of plain peasants system sometimes point to another will pay high wages for an English' side of the question, which is plain to speaking boy or girl to go with them as every candid observer-namely, that interpreter. There is thus a premium the English-speaking youth of both on the English language. The English sexes are leaving the country and emi- occupation of Egypt and Cyprus has grating to Egypt and America. Thill is acted in the same direction by opening true, and to such an extent as to be Dew avenues of employment. phenomenal. 'rhe Christian youth of Syria-Protestant, Catholic, Greek, and On the other hand, ignorance of Eng· Armenian-are emigrating by thou· lish does not deter the people from emisands. The promised land is not now grating. It is a deep-seated, pop.ular east and west of the Jordan, but east impul3e, widespread and irresistible, and west of the Mississippi and the Rio and it is equally strong in Eastern Turde la Plata; and the same passion for key, where little has been done in emigration prevails in Asia Minor, teaching the English language. Eastern Turkey, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. It is a striking, if not a The land is too narrow for its people, startling Providential fact. The Chris- at least under the present regime. The tian element in Turkey is seeking a Muslims cannot get away owing to the freer and fairer field for its develop- conscription laws, and few of them have ment. The ruling power is Muslim. gone. Its motto has become, as announced by some of the public men, "This is a It cannot be claimed that the teach. Muslim land, and Muslims must rule ing of English alone has produced this it." Heretofore thousands of Chris- great movement, for the masses of emitians, Armenians, Greeks, Maronites, grants do Dot know a word of English. and Catholics, have been employed in The reason is a desire to better their all parts of the civil service of the condition, "to buy and sell' and get empire, because they were better edu- gain," aDd in some cases a longing to cated. live under a Christian government. Whether the Syrians, like the Chinese, In 1869 the Turks founded a system will return finally to their own land, is of schools, but only during the past a problem as yet unsolved. fifteen years has the system been in effective operation, and now the Chris- The residence of Americans here for tian employers are being rapidly re- sixty years, the vast Dumbers of Amerimoved and replaced by Muslims. With can tourists who yearly pass through the government, military, and civil Syria and Palestine, the teaching of offices largely shut against them, and geography in the schools, the general no prospect of improvement in the spread of light, the news published in agricwltural districts, Christian youth the Arabic journals, and the increase Daturally look elsewhere, and tens of of population, with no corresponding openings for earning a living, these and many other causes have now culminated in this emigration movement which is sending 8 Semjtic wave across seas and end is the salvation of souls and the continents. Let us hope and pray that glory of God.
those who do at length return to the East will return better and broader and more useful men and women than David Baron, the converted Jew, if they had never left their native whose addresses at Northfield, Mild- land. may, and many other places' have made It must be that there 1s a Divine plan so profound an impression, was born and me'aning in it all, and that the reo on the Baltic frontier, and till eighteen sult will be a great moral gain to Western years of age never saw a New Testa- Asia in the future. ment. He was dissatisfied, especially The suspension of the mission with the observance of the great Day of schools in Syria would be a disaster. Atonement. He could find no rest and These thousands of children would be peace; and while training for a Rabbi left untaught, or at least deprived of felt the awful deficiency of the Jewish Bible instruction. faith. He came to the North of Eng- We do not see cause for modifying land when about eighteen years of age, our system of Christian education. Its and one evening two people came to gl"eat mission is yet to be performed. Hull and spoke about .. the Crucified."
These schools in which the Bible is His fellow Jews wanted him to argue taught are doing a gradual, leavening with believers, but he found that all work among thousands who thus far do he had known of Christianity was that not accept the Word of God. Christians worshippe~ images and per- There will yet be a new Phoonicia, a secuted the Jews! Even his knowledge new Syria, better cultivated, better gov- was ignorance and misapprehension.
erned, with a wider diffusion of Chris- He now came into contact with true believers, Wilkinson and Adler, the lattian truth, a nobler sphere for woman, ter of whom produced paslillges in Ger- happier homes for the people, and that man from the Old and New Testament.
contentment which grows out of faith Baron found his mouth stopped as he in God and man. heard of redemption and atonement as The schools will help on this con- the central key-notes of Christianity. His unrest increased ; he went to Mansummation. The press will hasten it. chester and there got a. Hebrew New The Christian pulpit will prepare the Testament, and came to the words in way for it. The churches and congre- Matt. 4, ., Thou shalt worship Jehovah, and Him only." His eyes were fastgations now existing and yet to be ened upon these words, and he read on formed will lay the foundations for it, for nearly twelve months, and then and the distribution of the Bible will cried out to Jesus, .. My Lord, my Sa- viour !" He now says, .. All the world confirm it aJld make it enduring. of unbelief would not shake my faith." We believe in Christian mission Eleven years later he was disowned, schools. With all the drawbacks in ex- disinherited; the shock to his mother, pense and toil, and at times the semi- from her son's apostasy, was such that , she never got over it. Ten years passed, secularization of the missionary laborer, and a wish was expressed by his father they are a blessing to any land. They to see his son. They met outside of let in the light. They teach the Bible the town, and there the son told the to the children. They conciliate the father about true Christianity. About a year and a half later he exchanged parents, remove prejudice, root up old worlds. David Baron is, to our mind, superstitions, brighten and cheer the the most powerful expositor of the hid- hearts of the little ones and the homes den meaning of the Old Testament of their parents, and lead many to a now to be found since Adolf Saphir's death, of whom he strongly reminds us. true knowledge of salvation through Mr. Baron's unfolding of the Prinity, as faith in Christ. shadowed forth in the Old Testament, They are a means to an end, and that is especially marvellous.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLlGEliICE
VI.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Oberlin, O.
-During the last year the American Thwing, D.D., and his wife have given Board commissioned 35 persons as mis. to missions l>efore, both of worldly sionaries. In September the Baptist goods, and that more precious gift, Missionary Union despatched 30 men their children; now they accompany and women to India, Burmah, and As- their daughter, Miss Gertrude, and sam. In October, in Exeter Hall, the their son, Rev. E. W. Thwing, and his London Society said good.by to more wife, to their field of labor."
than 30 destined to the South Seas, -Verily, there be missions and mis- Africa, India, and China. The Scottish sions. Thus Dr. Cust, in his recent Free Church has received voluntary book, " Africa Rediviva," tells us some· pledges from 64 students to go wherever thing about the French ., armed brethsent. ren of the Sahara," whose business it is -The day of missionary centennials to protect missionaries; and he quotes has fairly dawned, the English Baptists as follows from an orthodox Roman leading the way. Next in order, in Catholic source concerning ideas and 1895, will follow the London Society, practices which prevail in the Lake the Netherlands Society in 1897, the Tanganyika region: ,. The missiolary Church Society in 1899, and five years stations are built like forts, and are very later the great British and Foreign Bible strong, and are loopholed all around.
Society. We in the United States must At Karema, Colonel Joubert, il. soldier in wait yet eighteen years, the Germans the papal army, has come out to do the until 1921, and the French Protestants fighting department. His work is to de.
until the year following; but after that fend the stations. The plan of opera.
scarcely a twelvemonth will be without tions of the missionaries is to buy from its hundredth missionary anniversary. Arabs, chiefs, parents, or relations several -Why camlot such things be in hundred boys and girls from three to America? The number is quite large five years old. Every child is taught and increasing, especially in connection to work, and is brought up strictly as a with the English Church Missionary Roman Catholic."
Society, of those who devote their lives -Rev. Joseph Wolff, a converted to the foreign field and go out at their Jew, was a famous missionary in the own charges. Not a few officers of the early decades of the century. Of him Society and prominent clergymen are it is related that when in Jerllsalem a thus represented. Within a few months Jew inqllired why he came. "To half a score of such have been appoint. preach the Gospel of peace," replied ed. The son of a vice·president is in Wolff. .. Peace," retorted the Jew; Japan, whither be conducted a whole " look there at Calvary, where your dif· band of fellow-missionaries at his own ferent sects of Christians would fight expense. Not that this form of conse· for an empty sepulchre if the sword of cration is unknown on this side of the the Musslliman did not restrain you.
Atlantic, but that it is too seldom seen. When the true Messiah comes He will With what a thrill one reads an item banish war." He also narrates: .. I like this: once gave a Turk the Gospel to read, " An unusual family party started for and pointed him to the fifth chapter of China from Brooklyn this month, whose Matthew as showing the beauty of its five members are to join the mission of doctrine. • But,' said he, 'you Chris· the American Board there. Rev. E. p. tians are the greatest hypocrites in the world.' • How so?' • Why, here it is copies of the Bible, in whole or in part, said, .. Blessed are the peacemakers," were issued every working day. and yet you, more than any others, teach us to make war, and are your- -There are said to be 3000 spoken selves the greatest warriors on earth! languages. The Bible has been trans- How can you be so shameless?'" And lated into about 200 of 'them, but is acan unbelieving Hindoo recently alleged cessible to fully two thirds of the huwith too much truth: .. Christendom man race. The Mandarin Chinese af" has a fine moral code, but she shows fords communication to 200,000,000 her real principles in her Armstrong souls; the English to 120,000,000 ; the guns and whiskey distilleries, her Hindustani to 82,000,000; the German opium ships and dishonesty." to 54,000,000 ; the Arabic to 50,000,000. The English-speaking people have trans- -The independent held a fine sympo- lated most of the versions that now exsium of missionaries a few weeks since ist. to inform its readers of what moral and spiritual stuff native Christians are -Dr. Downie, of the Telugu Mission, made; and all were agreed, that while has presented to Brown University a most of the converts were true-hearted copy of the Mahabaratha, the most saand worthy of confidence, some were cred book of the Hindoos, next to the of uncertain character, and a few were Veda. The copy is written by the stilus prompted by sordid motives. In other on palm leaf, in eight volumes, and is words, they are possessed of human na- complete excepting the seventh volume. ture, and closely resemble saints in It is probably several centuries old; it Christian lands. They are yet in spir- has been worshipped times without itual infancy, at least in childhood. number-in fact every time it was read. Considering their past and their sur- The language is Sanscrit, but written roundings, they run wonderfully well. in Telugu characters.
-Shades of the fathers! How utterly -It is estimated that the Presbyteun-Pauline it all is, and without prece- rian churches of the world have 4,093,- dent in the ministry of the Master. We 000 members, of whom 1,709,000 are read these strange things about some of found in North America, 1,436,000 in our missionaries: .. Mr. Ashe accom- Great Britain, and 753,000 on the Conplished most of a recent journey to tinent; and. therefore. the Presbyterian Uganda on a bicycle." "Mr. Holton, population, or adherents, cannot be in the Madura region, has dropped the much less than 20,000,000. time-honored ox-bandy, and on his wheel travels to the out-stations ;" and -The number of public kindergareven a young woman in India, being tens in this country is over 500, with .. an accomplished bicyclist," is to 35,000 pupils, and of private kindermake it minister to the Gospel. Stm gartens 2500, with 29,000 pUI?i!s. A further. Rev. William Chamberlain tells total, then, of 3000, with 64,000 little ones.
the" old, old story" through the lenses -In the St. James' Mission in New of the magic lantern; and, finally, from York, a choir of 16 little girls represents this time forward. Jerusalem is to be 8 nationalities: the Polish, Swedish, profaned daily by the shriek of the lo- Danish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Gercomotive! ! man, French, and English.
-In the last year the American Bible -Chicago has a Pacific Garden Mis- Society printed and issued 913,678 sion, of which a daily paper affirms that copies of the Bible, or parts, which is it" ranks with the Jerry McAuley Mis· more than 2 books for every minute of sion in New York and the McAl! Misthe 313 working days, while by the sions in France, and is one of the most British and Foreign Bible Society 13,000 remarkable religious works ever conducted in this country. Its auditorium converted to a belief in missions. Reis open 365 nights in the year, and its cently in its editorial columns appeared congregations, composed for the most an appreciative article upon the work part of the forlorn, wretched, and of Moffat, Livingstone, and their ~sso vicious, average 300 during the week and ciates in South Africa, in which it was 600 on Sunday. The weekly average affirmed that "we owe it to our misof persons who profess to have begun sionaries that the whole region has been a new life is 100." opened up. Apart from their special service as preachers, they have done -All the sisters, including the mother important work as pioneers of civiliza· superior, of a Roman Catholic convent tion, as geographers, as contributors to in North Dakota are Indians, and the philological research. The progress of spiritual director is a priest of Mohawk South Africa has been mainly due to descent. men of Moffat's stamp."
-This is the record of the Baptist And, after numbering some of their Missionary Union; In the last three achievements in India, the conclusion years churches organized, 243, or 47 per is; "After such unique testimony as year. Increased membership, 29,468, this we need not attempt to show any or 9822 per year. Work of last year; more of the progress of the .Divine drama 417 missionaries haptized 18,549 per. oj missionary work in India. This is a sons, or 44 each; and the 163,881 memo state of things simply inconceivable in bers gave for all purposes $244,359, or an Indian presidency half a century $1.49 each. ago. The faithful preaching of the Gospel is slowly but surely effecting a -The American Board received duro complete transformation in the life of ing 1891-92 $794.875, as against $690,. humanity there." 922 the year before. The gain in dona· tions amounted to $60,634, and a single -Great Britain with 35,000,000 peo. bequest added $39,000 to the treasury. pIe spends as much for iutoxicating beverages as the United States with 65,. -The Presbyterian Church South 000,000. But her bequests for religious, sends forth 17 new missionaries this educational, and charitable purposes, year ; during the last ten years has exclusive of Baron Hirsch's benefacmore than doubled the number of its tions, reached $15,500,000 as against representatives abroad, having now 112 $7,000,000 in the United States. Much in the field; and has more than trebled of this difference is to be accounted for the contributions, giving $130,000 last by the large amounts given in that year. country during the life of the benefac- tor. EUROPE. -The various missionary societies Great Britain.-Two" missionaries" sustained by members of the Church from heathen lands are now in England, of England make use of versions of the the one an educated Hindoo Christian Scriptures in 107 languages, and by far woman, Miss Soonderbai Powar, and the larger portion are supplied, often the other a Chinese of intelligence and free of charge, alwa.ys beljw cost price, able to speak English well, Mr. Cheok by the British and Foreign Bible So· Hong Cheong, and both come to assist ciety. in the anti.opium campaign, speaking from personal observation of the terri- -A single Christian community in ble evils caused to millions of bodies India not long since sent to the Londou and souls, and imploring the govern· Society-Rs. 161. 5. 9. (nearly $50), two ment to suppress the trade in the dead· gold earrings, and one finger.ring, " the ly drug. proceeds of a self-denial week, and -It is a significant fact that the London Times appears to be thoroughly token of gratitude for benefits re- Russian to give up being orthodox; it ceived." is even a crime for a Protestant congre- gation to allow an orthodox Russian to The Continent.-The thirteenth an- be present. "When I left Russia," nual report of the Methodist mission says Mr. Bigelow, in Harper's Magazine, work in France, carried on under the .. in the fall of 1891, 80 Protestant direction of Rev. William Gibson, states clergymen were under sentence to Sibethat the past yearhas been one of the best ria, having been declared panies to the in the work of French evangelization. crime of preaching the Gospel… There are now 14 separate stations, and the number of church-members has -If all the plans of the projected reconsiderably increased. At Rue Roque- moval of the Jews from Russia are carpine, the chief chapel belonging to ried out according to the scheme re- Methodism in Paris, the meetings have cently laid before the Czar by Baron been well attended, while at Rouen Hirsch, the exodus of the Hebrews will 19,000 English seamen have been be larger than that of the time of Rareached in the year. meses under the leadership of Moses, and greater than that which took place -The Propaganda Society at Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem by reports that during the year 1891 it re- Titns. ceived 6,694,458 lire. During the preceding twelve months the receipts had -The Sultan of Turkey is reported to been 7,072,811 lire. There has thus be sending out a mission to Arabia with been a decrease of 378,354 lire. The the object of distributing to the Arab sources of last year's gifts were: Eu- chiefs a revised version of the Koran. rope, 6,031,978; Asia, 7196; Africa, The mollahs in Constantinople are ex- 33,568; America, 609,717; Oceanica, pressing their dissatisfaction with the 12,050. France gave 4,084,475 lire, but amended book, which is said not to Italy only 360,000. The lira (Latin contain some vital passages of the origlibra, a pound) is equal to a franc, or inal text such as these: "God doth not about 19 cents. love oppressors;" "He that avengeth a wrong shall not be punished, but only -The Norwegian Missionary Society he who doeth violence unrignteously.'· (Det Norske Missionsselskabs), in its birthplace, Stavanger, celebrated its -The American College for Girls at jubilee July 19th-23d, and with great Constantinople was founded in 1871, enthusiasm. The income in 1891 was and by funds collected by the Woman's £25,295, anl for the entire fifty years Board. During the last year 141 stu- £341,477 (the entire population of Nor- dents were enrolled, of the following way is less than 2,000,000). This so- nationalities: Armenian, Turkish, Isciety has a mission in Natal, with 11 raelite, Greek, Bulgarian, French, Germissionaries and about 500 communi- man, English, and American. Special cants, and one in Madagascar, with 30 courses are given in ancient and modmissionaries, to whom 8 or 10 more will ern Armenian and Greek, in Slavic and be soon added, and 32,000 church-mem- Bulgarian. The alumnre already numbers. ber 86, and are scattered from the Eu- phrates to the Danube. -The wealth of the Russian State Church is said to be so great that it ASIA. could pay the national debt, some $3,000,000,000, and with no perceptible India.-The census of 1890 reveals approach to impoverishment. the fact that in the government and mission schools 13,000,000 have been -It is a crime in Russia for a Protes- taught to read, and this is mainly the tant to read the Bible to a member of work of forty years.
a the Greek Church; it is crime for a -In some respects Great Britain does provided for than Gossner's Evangelical magnificently in looking after the mate- Lutheran Mission amoug the Kols in rial well-being of her Indian subjects. Chota Nagpore. Caste, 80 formidable The largest masonry dam in the world an obstacle to the spread of Christianity has just been completed, and is meant elsewhere, forms no particularly great to I!upply water for Bombay. It is lo- hindrance here, and hence it happens cated 70 miles north of that city, its that the field of the Kols is ripe for the length is 2 miles, its thickness at the harvest; they embrace Christianity in bottom is 100 feet, tapering to 16 feet families, in groups of families, in whole at the top, while ~ts greatest height is village communities. Already 18,173 118 feet_ The entire contents of the communicants have been gathered, and masonry of which it is composed are adherents to the number of 38,000.
32,000,000 cubic feet. From 10,000 to And from among these same Kols the 12,000 men were employed for three and Propagation Society has gained 13,288 a half years. The basin formed by the adherents and 6229 communicants.
dam' will contain 100,000,000,000 gal- -The Bethel Santal Mission reports lons. for the year 1891 Christians in 50 vil- -Not long since we were informed lages, 24 churches, 7 missionaries, 24 of the discovery in Africa of the ruins native preachers, 8 school-teachers.
of a~ ancient but long-lost city, and Patients from 200 different villages now we are told that buried within the were attended at the dispensaries, and depths of the forest, in the heart of the 86 converts were baptized. Including island of Ceylon, are remains of a city 210 children of Christian parents, there which was 4 miles more in circumfer- are 628 communicants.
ence than great Babylon of old. Its Japan.-Bishop Edward Bickersteth walls were 16 miles each way, enclosing has sent to England an urgent appeal an area of 244 square miles. It in- for at least 50 more workers. He says cludes a lake of 6 miles in circumfer- that it is impossible for missionaries in ence, with an embankment of stones, Tokio and Osaka to give more than the higher than the surrounding forest trees, fringe of their time to direct evangelizaand a spill-water almost as perfect as tion, their working days being ta~en up when first chiselled in the fifth century with questions of management, while before Christ. The jungle now over- in many country districts evangelization spreads the sites of royal palaces, and is retarded by the distance of the catesculptured monuments lie scattered on chists and congregations from the every side, or are buried a little way clergymen. beneath the sand.
-Missionaries familiar with native -There are 17 newspapers or magafamilies testify more and more strongly zines now published in the vernacular, to the appalling destrnction of children 15 of which are exponents of Bible by opium, it being given to them by Christianity, 6 being Congregational, even native Christian parents con- 2 Episcopal, 2 Rationalistic or Unitastantly. A notice of the English Gov- rian. 2 Presbyterian, 2 Methodist, and ernment posted about Bombay reads 1 Friends. They are generally well thus: " The right of selling children's edited and some are illustrated. [opium] pills has been given to the Bombay Opium Contractors, and such -Life and Light for October has an pills can be bought of all the Govern- article on Christian schools for girls in ment Opium Shops in Bombay!" this empire. Only 16 years ago the first one was established, in Kobe, but now -Dr. Grnndeman states that of all there are 12 in as many cities, and unthe missions he has seen in India, none der the care of 24 Christian women. is more hopeful nor less adequately Although most of them are of very recent Qrigin, and 3 were started so re- bracelets that it makes walking difficult. cently as to make graduation as yet im- Nearly every child in Central Africa is possible, the alumnre already ·number born a slave. When quite young they 221. The Kobe school offers an ad- are marked with 'tribal cuts,' just as vanced course of three years, and others we brand sheep." have post-gradnate classes. A training school for kindergartners' has also been ISLANDS OF THE SEA. opened, as well as one for nurses. -It is twenty years since Dr. Mackay, AFRICA. missionary of the Canadian Presbyterian Church, began to labor in North For· -Captain Jaques, of the Belgian mosa. The result is in that part of the Anti-Slavery Expedition, tells sickening island at this day 2605 baptized Chris· tales of the doings of the Arab slave- tians, 50 native preachers, 2 ordained traders in the Lake Tanganyika region. pastors, and many other workers. In about four months more than 10,000 Wabembes were carried off to Ujiji to -An English missionary in Singapore be sold. -" The whole region has been was surprised to find the church freshly converted into a desert, and thousands whitewashed inside and out. Going of corpses are poisoning the air." in he found a Chinaman (a converted prisoner, a printer by trade), who had -Lake Nyassa is now one of the most done this work at his own expense. prominent and promising of mission His natural explanation was, " I did it centres in Africa. There are 5 missions to thank God." actively at work, with more than 30 stations ; there are on the lake 4 vessels -The whole New Testament in one belonging to the Universities' Mission, of the dialects of N6w Guinea has now and 2 steamers and a sailing-vessel be- been put through the press by the Lon. longing to the African Lakes Company. don Missionary Society. Steam-launches are in preparation for the Scotch missions at Bandawe and -From Tahiti and adjacent islands a Blantyre. band of not less than 160 evangelists have gone forth, carrying the message -" The native Congo costume is soon of salvation to other benighted tribes, described," writes a missionary, " as it and yet less than a century ago the anconsists only of a waist-cloth, palm.oil, cestors of th6se evangelists were living and a kind of red powder smeared over in the grossest darkness and superstithe body, giving it a bright vermilion tion. color. This, of course, easily comes off, of which I once had an amnsing British Foreign Missions. By Rev. James proof. I had just painted our mission. Johnston, Bolton, England. house very prettily in white picked out with green, and a number of men, Uganda.-While Captain Lugard's women, boys, and girls came clustering despatches completely vindicate his round, bright in their inexpensive cos- honor as a British soldier in regard to tume of paint and palm-oil, and leaned the charges made by the French bishop against the doors and walls, leaving and priests, they call attention to the everywhere a patch of red. The na- differences that have arisen between tives dress their hair in an extraordinary himself and the Protestants. Of the way, giving it the appearance of two complaints which Bishop Tucker has hornR projecting from the head. The sent to England on the part of the Protladies wear brass collars round their estants, more will probably be heard on necks, which are irremovable. Their the arrival of the Rev. R. H. Walker, wrists and ankles are so weighted with who is supposed to have left Uganda for the coast accompanied by two na· tive Christians. The complaints have with 640 on trial ; 176 ministers, with 21 relation to a difference of opinion which on probation, and 34 supernumeraries. sprang up between the missionaries and Foreign missioDs, 36,395 members, with the Company on details of administra- 6208 on trial; 235 ministers, with 106 tion. Meanwhile the question is being on probation, and 14 supernumeraries. asked, What will the missionaries do French Conference, 1473 members, with when the Company evacuates Uganda 117 on trial ; 33 ministers. South Afriat the end of the present year? Cap- can Conference, 33.523 members, with tain Lugard says they will come away 12,231 on trial; 183 ministers. West too; but at present there is a strong Indian Conference, 47,817 members, feeling against the adoption of a policy with 3284 on trial; 104 ministers. Toof .. scuttle." Before the Company ap- tals, 569,720 members, with 50,020 on peared on the scene the missionaries trial; 2222 ministers, with 384 on proheld their own, and why can they not bation, and 371 supernumeraries. do so again? It is remarked, however, that, consciously or unconsciously, the The New Bishop of Lucknow.- Missionary Society, after Bishop Tuck- The Rev. Alfred Clifford, first bishop of er's appeal, has become identified with the new see of Lucknow, was ordained the Company in the eyes of a good in 1872, and in 1874 joined the missionmany people both in England and ary staff in Calcutta, where he toiled Uganda. some five years, and afterward six or seven years at Krishnagar aDd else- Bishop Smythies in England.- where. He was appointed, in 1885, the Since his partial recovery this vigorous Church Missionary Society's secretary leader of the Universities' Mission has for the diocese of Calcutta, and in 1886 awakened much interest in Great Bri- the Bishop of Calcutta appointed him tain on behalf of East Central African one of his chaplains. Just turned forty mission work. Described as a man of years of age, he is full of hope for the peculiar charm, energy, and wisdom in future of Hindostan. Due in England the good cause, it may not generally be at an early date, he has written home known that he has been consulted by that he is "-able to say with confithe Emperor of Germany, Lord Salis- dence," that during the years he has bury and others, his voice carrying been connected with Calcutta there weight as a missionary and a states- has never been a time like the present man. The bishop has stirred English for men and women coming to the misaudiences with the vivid accounts of sionaries with earnest inquiries about his 400-mile walks, of the splendid the Christian religion; and, further, powers of the African n,atives-so often ,. one, in his experience, in which more looked down upon-of their talent for are actually offering themselves for baplanguages, and what faithful clergymen tism, and this does not apply to one the rescued slaves have become. He class only, but to all classes." He speaks of carpenters, stonemasons, etc., holds that ,. the long sowing of the seed who are missionaries and of churches has not been without result, and that built by natives with only one European the time of upspringing is approachto direct. ing." Bishop Clifford, elect, will have the whole of the Northwest Provinces Wesleyan Methodism at Home and under his charge, an area exceeding Abroad.-The following general view 100,000 square miles. The Church embraces the present numerical strength Missionary Society is supposed to ocof this influential organization: Great cupy 15 out of the 49 civil districts of Britain, 424,959 members, with 27,540 these provinces, but in 7 out of the 15, on trial; 1581 ministers, with ·193 on contailling among them ten millions of probation,and 297 supernumeraries. Ire- souls, has only one European missionland and Irish missions, 25,553 members, 81y and a few native teachers; and no fanatical spirit of the Arabs, and might other society is represented at all in lead to a religious war, with serious oone these districts! sequences to the Niger Company and The" Joyful News" Mission.-Its also to France, whose interests in and headquarters at Rochdale, in Lanca- about the Soudan are so great. The shire, this admirable auxiliary is by no missionary prestige of Cardinal Lavimeans losing its hold on the sympathies gerie is being quoted, and his opinion of British Methodists. Sinoe its initia- in deprecation of oonverting the Arabs tion eight years ago, no less than £29,- by the usual missionary methods. But 000 have been oontributed to the funds. the faot is· that the organization in ques- An earnest appeal is now being made tion is not a mere missionary auxiliary, for 200 evangelists, chiefly for the for- but is rather a scientific undertaking eign field, and toward this movement established to encourage the study of the Rev. Thomas Champness, the the Hausa language and people. Unfounder, devotes £600. Mrs. Argent, doubtedly the translation of the Scripwhose son, an agent of the Joyful Ne:ws tures will aid the work of the Church Mission, was murdered in the fanatioal Mi~sionary Sooiety; but with such outbreak among the Chinese of Wusueh, names as Lord Aberdare, Sir George has reoeived from the Chinese Govern- Taubman-Goldie, Major Darwin, M.P., ment the sum of £925 as compensl'tion, Mr. Francis Galton, and Dr. Parke on and has handed over the entire amount the oommittee, there is an adequate to the mission for the promotion of the guarantee that no countenanoe will be Gospel in China. given to anything oalculated to arouse Arab fanaticism in the wide.reaohing The report of the Wesleyan Mission Central Soudan. in the Wuchang district, China, just issued, shows that in twenty-five years the missionaries have increased from 3 Monthly Bulletin. to 10, native catechists now number 13, local preachers 4, church-members 521, -The reoent meeting, in Chicago, of attendants at publio worship 737, and the American Board of Commissioners day scholars 289. The teachers are na- for Forei~n Missions brings onoe more tive Christians, superintended by the to mind and emphasizes the faot, that missionaries. With the opening up of this, the oldest of missionary sooieties South Central Africa, the Society some in the New World, is also one of the months ago sent one of its most experi- most important in Christendom, and enced men to establish a mission in whether we regard its inoome ($841,- Mashonaland, and soon several native 569), the number of its representatives ministeis will follow. abroad (534 sent from the United States, and 2600 native laborers), or the quality The Hausa Association.-A mis- and .maguitude of the results· aohieved apprehension of the objects of this (40,333 in its ohurohes, and 3516 added movement has been followed by hostile during the last year, and 47,330 in its criticism in France, because it was schools). Its toilers are found in four founded in memory of a noble mission- missions in the Turkish Empire, where ary, the Rev. J. A. Robinson, and the almost one third of its funds are ex- fact that two archbishops and several pended and one third of its fruits are bishops are on the committee. An 'at- gathered ; in three missions in China ; tempt is· being made to prove that the in Japan; in three missions in India; main purpose of the Association is the in three missions in Africa; in three conversion of the Hausa countries on missions in papal lands, Austria, Spain, the Middle Niger, and it is alleged that and Mexico; and in Micronesia. It is any systematic and widespread en- estimated that 120,000,000 of needy deavor of this kind would rouse the souls are oommitted to the oare of the denomination which sustains this So. the people to leave a place of worship ciety, a population equal to that of the they had erected for themselves.
Roman Empire in its palmiest days! Europe.-According to the Guild Life The worst of the troubles through and Work of the Church of Scotland which the Board has been passing in the guild movement is bearing fruit recent years seems to be passed, and it which will gratify the friends of misis to be hoped that the" shock" re- sions. Its two latest members to enter ceived on the missionary field are Mr. Charles Scott, who will be missionary engineer .. Is of the wave, and not the rock."
About the only ground for solicitude is (in connection with the Blantyre Mis- found in the unseemly fact that so large sion) of the new steamer about to be a fraction of the income ($249,778) is placed on the Shire River, with whom derived from legacies. Mr. John M'Killop, secretary of the -TWs is linking the old with the Govan branch, will probably be assonew in a way most impressive. It is ciated. said that a descendant of Columbus is to start the machinery at the World's -The Methodists have come into Fair. The aged man cannot undertake possession of a fine site in the city of so long a journey, but, touching an Rome, on the same etreet as the King's electric button which connects with Palace and the Government buildings, one of the ocean cables, and that again and hope soon to have there a lar~e and with the immense enginery in the fair commodious building, containing a buildings at Chicago, the wheels wills 'church, a college, a theological semibe set in motion. nary. residences for the faculty, and a printing department. One man, the -The wife of the Korean amba'Ssador Rev. G. A. Reeder, of Ohio, will give to the United States has lately become $10,000. a convert to Christianity, and has joined the Southern Presbyterian -Russia haa finally decided to per. Church. mit the importation of the Bible free of duty, when printed in any other lan- -At the Ninth Annual Convention guage than Russian; but no translation of the Christian Alliance, held in New of the Scriptures in that language lllay York, $30,000 were collected for its be circulated within the confines of the work. Within three months $100,000 empire and its dependencies unless have been received, and over 100 mis- printed by the authority of the Holy sionaries have been sent from the train- Synod. ing college during the past year to al- .most all the lands beyond the seas. Asia.-Rev.S. M. Zwemer, one of its missionaries, says that the new Ameri• can Mission now working Ambia is -The mission band of the Lutheran likely soon to locate a station at Mus· Church of Pottsville, Pa., has contrib- cat. This place, on the eastern coast uted $20 for a prayer house in India. of Arabia, is the main centre from This makes the fifth prayer house pro- . which the Zanzibar Arabs have come, vided for by this band and it has often been a matter of ear- -Eleven French Canadian Roman nest desire with the friends of African Catholics have recently been received missions that the Gospel should be carinto the Protestant faith, at Maski- ried to the original home of those who nonge, Quebec, by the Rev. A. L. Ther· have done and are still doing such in. rien, and formed by him into a Baptist finite damage in East Africa.
congregation. This exodus from Ro- -Dr. Pentecost is authority for the manism is owing to the tyrannical con- statement that in India 2500 J,lersons duct of a priest, wha wished to compel are baptized every month, -A Bengalese young woman, Miss large as they were a hundred years ago.
Dass, having been converted to Chris- They show all the symptoms of decay.
tianity through the instrumentality of The more enterprising and energetic the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist mis- individuals are found now in the sea- sionaries, has decided to go to England ports, that offer a marked contrast to to take a course of medical training, the more conservative and literary com.
after which she intends returning to munities of the interior.
India to labor among her people. -The Rev. W. A. Wills writes as fol.
-Adjutant Abdul Aziz, a convert from lows from Chouping, Shantung: Mohammedanism, is now in charge of " Last Sunday I had the great joy of the social work of the Salvation Army baptizing 30 at Shen.ma·chuang, in the at Bombay. Two native female officers county of Chih-chuan, 6 women, 3 boys have started under him a work for from our school there, aged eleven, four· women. teen, and sixteen years respectively, the -Seven poor men from four different others ranging from twenty-one years congregations belonging to the Ameri- to seventy.six. These converts have can MadurA. Mission, all related to one been busy several weeks preparing the another, united 1vith their pastor in baptistery, and enlarging and renovatspending eight days together in a re- ing the chapel in their spare time. In treat in order to study the Bible and fit the afternoon we commemorated the themselves for telling to their people Lord's Supper, when 11 of the number, the story of the Cross. And all the ex- living some eight miles from this vil. penses of this retreat were borne by lage, were formed into a little church. "
themselves. Africa.-The Khedive of Egypt has -How vast the field, and how few given $150 to the British and Foreign the laborers! Take a single example. Sailors' Society.
The Marathi Mission covers an area -Since 1885 the Congo Free State has with I' population of over 3,286,000, enjoyed the most SUbstantial benefits distributed in 30 towns and 3570 vil- of the PostaiUnion. That is, for five lages. The entire number of mission- cents per half ounce the inhabitants aries, men and women, engaged in ef- thereof may communicate with the fort in their behalf, is 33, residing at 8 whole civilized world; and they appredifferent stations, While the number of ciate the privilege, for the number of native agents of all classes amounts to pieces of mail despatched to and from 351, residing at the mission stations and the Congo in 1886 was 33,140 ; the num- at 118 out-stations. ber in 1890 was 74,988.
-In the Pgho Karen School, at Bas- -Rev. P. Frederickson writes from sein, Burmah, a "do without" band Kinjila station, Congo Mission: .. We has been organized, and 100 of the pu. have now 22 baptized, all young men pils have joined it. All the members from eleven to twenty years of age, and pledge themselves to do without some· none of them are ashamed to tell that thing each month. The savings are to Jesus has saved them and that they love be devoted to some religious object. Him. I hope they will all be evangel. In the month of July, rupees 36 were ists. " thus realized. The efforts to fix Chris· tian responsibility in the hearts of Bur. -Bishop Taylor evidently counts not mese disciples are meeting with encour- himself to have apprehended, but eon· aging success. tinues to reach forth and press on. Not content with laying foundations in -All authorities say that Peking, the India, in South America, and on the present capital of China, and Nanking, Congo, he DOW sounds a ringing call for the ancient capital, are hardly half so an advance into Mashonaland,
The Missionary Review of the World — May 1891
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– – ""OTt TtU" 5IM'.&.Aft. FC~Tu RE S BUODI/ISM ROMANISM (tth;m deVlhsh.) (Ubi(S d.efectiye) MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIV. No. 5.-0ld &ries.–MAY.–VOL. IV. No. 5.-New Series.
LET US EVANGELIZE THE WORLD IN THIS GENERATION.
[EDITORIAL, .A. T. P.] The supreme question of the hour is the immediate preaching of the Gospel to every creature. When Francis Xavier stood before the 'Walled Kingdom and felt the power of its adamantine exclusiveness and proud se1£- sufficiency, he exclaimed, "0 rock! rock! when wilt thou open to my Master r'
Could that heroic Jesuit of Navarre, whose grave was made at Goa in 1552, after these nearly three hundred and forty yellrs, see that" rock" opened to his Master, and the whole world now flinging wide the long-shut doors; and then see the comparative idleness and indifference of the Church, so slow to enter and possess the land, he would turn to the Church itself and cry again, "0 rock! rock! when wilt thou open to my Master ?"
The great question of the hour is, How can the immediate proclamation of the Gospel to every creature be made a fact? Other preliminary questions have been answered by the very movements of God's providence and the developments of human history. We need no longer to ask how we shall get access to the nations, for the barriers are down; nor need we inquire how we are to reach these uttermost parts of the earth, for the steamship and steam-car will bear us to the limits of the globe in less than two months ; nor need we search for the implements and instruments for the work of evangelization, for the printing-press offers to make the eye the handmaid of the ear in the rapid dispersion of the Gospel message, and science offers to be the powerful ally of faith in the conquest of the world for Christ. Nor is it a question of adequate force for the field, for the evangelical churches could furnish four hundred thousand missionaries, or one for every two thousa~d of the unevangelized population, and yet have one hundred at home to support every foreign missionary. It is not even a question of adequate m,eans to support a great army of missionaries, for the aggregate wealth which is at the disposal of disciples is so great that onetenth of it would amply suffice to sustain half a million workmen in the foreign field and supply all the needed adjuncts and accessories for mission work.
LET UI!! EVANGELIZE THE WORLD IN Tms GENERATION
What, then, is the hindrance f We answer unhesitatingly that the Church of God is trifling with human souls and with her own duty. The time has come for plainness of speech. It is no time to put a veil over the face, or a gag into the mouth. Christian missions have never yet been taken up by the Reformed Church as an enterprise to be dared and done for God, like any othel' enterprise, with promptness and resoluteness. Two texts of Scripture should be the motto of the present age : "Where the word of a king is, there is power" (Eccles. 8 : 4), and, " the king's business requireth haste" (1 Sam. 21 : 8). The command of the King of kings is before us; that implies divine authority back of our commission, and hence guarantees divine ability to fulfil.it. And whatever is the King's business it demands implicit and immediate attention. To submit to His authority, to believe in the ability divinely assured, to attempt great things for God, and expect great things from God, would insure an era of missions so far eclipsing all hitherto done or attempted, that the present activity of the Church would be seen to be like the winking of an eye, or the movement of the little finger, in comparison to the energetic action of the whole body in a ra~e for a prize.
The question is asked, How can the eY"angelization of the world in our generation be made a fact?
God has certainly supplied a material basis for this stupendous achievement. Three things amaze and overwhelm the thoughtful observer: First, this is the age of world-wide openings. From Japan, at the sunrise, acrol!lS the whole track of the monarch of day to his sunset pavilion on Pacific shores, he looks down on scarcely one land that still shuts out the Gospel. 8econd, God has given us world-wide facilities. What implements and instruments! The Marquis of Worcester called the sixteenth century the century of inventions, and Dryden named the year 1666 the annus mirabilis. But the nineteenth century might crowd the aehievements of the sixteenth into a decade, and the years 1858 and 1878 were years that were in themselves as wonderful as almost any century previous to the sixteenth. Imagination can scarce paint any means of travel, transportation, communication and contact, which are not now supplied; end another quarter of a century may see the human race navigating the air as they now do the waters, and telegraphing WIthout wires, and driving mail matter through pneumatic tnbes. Again, this is the age of world-w.ide enterprises. Everything moves with a rapid foot, and time and space are annihilated. With a swiftness, credible only when witnessed, men push to the confines of the globe to find treasures, or to bear inventions. The Church of God alone moves slowly! Kerosene lamps and sewing-machines, parlor organs and glass beads are carried ahead of the Bread of Life.
Now, what is the natural basis of a world's evangelization? What, humanly speaking, constitutes man's responsibility in this work? We answer again: Three factors enter into the problem-men, money, and methods. The Gospel needs a voice-a book will not do. Behind the Bible must be a believer, behind the Gospel a gospeller, or herald. God wants witnesses who speak what they know. These the Church must sup- ply. At present the exact number of missionaries is stated as 5994. But for the native laborers, who outnumber ours almost seven times (35,343), our work would almost come to a standstill, with one missionary, on the average, to 166,000 unevangelized. Again, I say, the Church should robe herself in sackcloth at the remembrance of the fact that, in the nineteenth • century, it takes nearly six thousand Protestant church-members to supply one missionary! At the same rate of supply we should have had but a force of 8000 to 10,000 to bring into the field in the late War of the Rebel- lion!
There is the factor of money-for there is a financial basis of evangeliza- tion. The whole church-membership in Protestant churches of America and Europe raise $11,429,588 a year-less than thirty cents a member-less than one-tenth of a cent a day! These are no new facts, but they need to be beaten in by repeated blows.
Our superfluities and luxuries, absolutely unnecessary, save as made so by a luxurious and extravagant taste, reach an aggregate which is believed to be not less than $4.000,000,000. Suppose that only one-tenth of these was sacrificed. We should have $400,000,000 at once for the Lord's work!
Our comforts and conveniences aggregate fully as much more. Suppose we should give one-twentieth of them to the Lord, we should have an aggregate of $200,000,000 more, a total of $600,000,000. Ana yet we have not supposed our self-sacrifice to touch Qur necessities, which might yield no small percentage, in view of the extremities of the poor and the lost.
Consider what a power would accrue to missions if to-day self-sacrifice, without touching out actual needs. should simply begin by a tithe of our luxuries, and a half tithe of our conveniences! Let us have a new " Order of the Iron Cross !"
Then there is the factor of method. We need a careful and systematic method for districting the field and distributing the force. There is so much ground to be covered, and there is so much material of men and money to meet the need. Well, then, let us so map out the world-field and so divide and distribute all available workmen and contributions, that no part of the world shall be unsupplied. If the workmen are scattered, better one than none; and better to supply the whole field inadequately than leave whole districts absolutely destitute.
But I wish to emphasize that supernatural basis of missions, wherein it is my abiding confidence that the solution of this problem really lies. This work is God's work, and we are simply co-operating with the Father. going into all the world as ambassadors; co-operating with the Son, in the cross-bearing of self-sacrifice for souls; co-operating with the Spirit in w~tnessing to His power to save and sanctify. God'il work may demand haste, but never hurry and worry. And because it is His work it can be done if done in His way and in His strength. If I did not believe this I would give up all effort henceforth. The Church will never do this work until, from reliance on men, money, and methods we rise to dependence on the providence of God, prayer in Jesus' name, and the power of the Spirit.
1. The supernatural basis of missions is the divine command. The Word of the Kmg is the assurance of authority and ability: " Whatsoever He saith unto you do it.' , We have not bread enough for so great a multitude j but, He says, " Give ye them to eat," and our means are permitted to be inadequate because He intends to work a Ilew "miracle of the loaves. " We have not men enough to go into all the world j but He says, "Preach the Gospel to every creature," and He allows the supply to be inadequate that in answer to prayer He may "thrust forth laborers into His harvest. " We have but to go and do as He bids us, and we shall find God i'l with us, supplying all lack both of men and money. Our very deficiencies are a challenge to faith.
2. Again the supernatural basis is found in the promised power of Christ. In missions we bear our cross-not crosses-after Christ. We join Him in self-abnegation. We consent to die that others may live-to be buried that others may be garnered, a harvest for the kingdom. Now Christ is both the Captain of the Lord's host on the battlefield, guiding tlle movements of His army, and on the throne, King of kings, administering government. Hence come two grand confidences : First, that the battle is bound to issue in victory, and second, that Omnipotence is on our side. To open shut doors we need only to appeal to Him-to meet all threatening dangers we have only to rest on His power.
3. Once more the supernatural basis is found in the co-witness of the Holy Ghost. In the mouth of this divine, confirming witness, every word shall be established. The conditions of blessing are plainly indicated in the Word of God: (a) ADointed disciples: "Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you." It is " not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. " Something more than human words and witness brings men to Christ. (b) Scattered vessels. We are the chosen vessels, vehicles of conveyance.
There is here a truth which few seem to have grasped. The Holy Ghost is represented as coming to dwell in and work through disciples, but never as sustaining either of these relations to ungodly souls, who cannot perceive, receive or know the Holy Ghost. It is God's plan that believers shall be everywhere scattered in order to provide avenues of spiritual communication. The Holy Spirit has never yet been known to come down upon and work in a community where there were no believers. In the entire history of missions the intervention of some one or more believing disciples has been the condition of His outpouring. Hence, as water can be conveyed only in vessels or channels, the believer must. become the means of communication, impression, and salvation. Therefore, Christ waits to see
A VOICE lI'ROM THE FmLD
of the travail of his soul, and the Spirit waits to pour out blessing, until the believing Church scatters everywhere the witnesse!! of the cross.
The grand duty of the hour is, to my mind, as plain as an t:nc1ouded Bun at its zenith. Faith in the duty and so the possibility of doing it ; energy of action, courageously and promptly doing the King's business, and prayer for power from above. Give us these, and before the generation passes away the world shall hear the Gospel.
God makes specIal appeal to young men! With many of us life's Bun has passed the zenith and is moving toward its setting, and with not a few the sunset already reddens the sky. You, young men and women, have life before you. Your sun has yet to mount from dawn to zenith. In the age, on ages telling, when into every year is compressed the eventfulness of a century, you are to live. God is marching on ; the signal guns are sounding, the battle grows hot, and the hour is critical and pivotal. Who of you will fall into the ranks and take up the grand march ~ [NOTE.-The above is the substance of an address delivered at Cleveland, 0., before the late Students' Volunteers' Convention, Feb. 27,1891. The following letter, from Dr. McGilvary, will confirm the view here pre- sented.-A. T. P.] A VOICE FROM THE FIELD.
BY REV. n. McGILVARY.
CmENGMAI, N. LAOS MIssION, Oct. 22, 1890.
To The Missionary Review of the World: DEAR EDITOR: You might be interested to hear another voice from the field in response to the standard raised pre-eminently by your REVIEW for a crusade to evangelize the whole world during the present century. The idea is a grand one. Possibly, the faith of but few has reached the standard of Christianizing the whole world during the next decade. We all know it is not beyond the divine power to effect it. It may be doubtful whether it is the revealed will of God that all of any age shall experience the saving power of the Gospel. The number of the saved belongs to the secret things which belong to ,God. There can be no doubt, however, thai it is the revealed wiJI of the great Head of the Church that the Gospel is to be preached to every creature. That command forms the proper foundation of the Church's duty. That it is able, with a tithe of the zeal that nations manifest when their country is in danger, or that the world puts forth in amassing wealth, to carry the Gospel message to every living soul, admits of no doubt. There is latent power in fire and water to move a million-fold the present amount of machinery, but it must be converted into steam. So the great problem is to generate the latent power of the Church into red-hot heat to make i~ effectual. But what trumpet voice is to awaken the slumbering power of the whole Church ~ A pentecostal baptism would do it. That baptism would. surely be given in answer to a universal cry of prayer; but what shall move the Church to prayer ~ What more effectual appeal than the cry of a perishing world open to the Gospel q China's moderate call for five hundred laborers has been echoed by your REVIEW. Japan is a standing appeal and a standing argument to enforce it. Africa has uttered its voice till it is the centre of attraction in Europe. To all of these we heartily respond. Will your readers listen to an appeal for a race that can claim only two or three millions ~ We would appeal esp~cial1y to the Presbyterian Church, some of whom may not see its own excellent organ.
We may assume a general idea of the work in Chiengmai and Lakawn. In these we may regard the Gospel as firmly established. ·When the forces on the way, and those under appointment, reach us, we may hope not to have to draw soon for more foreign laborers for these. With a baptized membership of fifteen hundred, one native ordained minister, a number of valuable assistants and ruling elders, we doubt not that the work would go on were all the foreign laborers removed, while with their aid, which is yet needed, if not absolutely indispensable, we look for great results.
But to perfect the unity and symmetry of our work and design of reaching the whole race, at least two other stations should be occupied, and one of them immediately. In February, March, and April an eV'lngelistic tour of three months was taken by the writer to all the Laos states and cities except Hluang-Prabang, in the extreme northeast. Besides its immediate object, it was designed to take a resurvey of the whole field with 'a view of selecting the next station. Two points called for special attention. One is M-Nan, in one sense the flower of the Laos states. Its territory is as large and populous as Chiengmai, but its rulers are somewhat more conservative. It is open, but not yet so like a ripe apple falling into our hands as afourth one to which I would call the attention of the Church. One hundred miles to the north of Chiengmai is Chieng-Rai, or Kieng-Rai. Fifty miles farther north is Chieng-Saan (or Kieng~Tsan), the northernmost province or state in the kingdom, and to the east is Chieng Kong, both the latter being situated on the great Cambodia River. The rulers in all these are favorable to our work. The Governor of Chieng-Rai was disappointed that we could not occupy a lot previously given this year. There is an organized church of about eighty baptized members mainly the result of God's blessing on native labor. In Chieng-Saan there is another of over forty members. Chieng-Kong is the largest department of the M-Nan state, which closely borders on Chieng-Rai, while to the south is Papaw, with a membership that can soon be organized into a church. With a fair idea of the whole field from previous isolated towns, and an extensive acquaintance and inquiry for twenty years, I was hardly prepared to realize the possibility of reaching the whole Laos race in the next decade by a station to be formed immediately in those three places, with Chieng-Rai as the centre, and a subsequent one in the latter half of the decade in M-Nan. A more promising neld for evangel~stic work could not be chosen for the present than the . former. Providence has opened the door, removed all. obstacles, and planted churches in advance.
Before reaching home a plan was formed of going up to Chieng-Rai in Decem,ber, leaving my family and spending six months, and returning to Chiengmai the latter half of the year. With these bright visions of work, imagine my disappointment on learning that the debt of the Board required retrenchment and not expansion. But still the two stations of Chiengmai and Lakawn have appealed to the Board for its sanction. The last letter from the Board expressed a doubt as to its favorable decision. The only difficulty in the way is the funds. How many churches, how many indi- viduals in the church, could assume the expense of a station for one, three, or five years! Mr. James Lenox gave $3000 the first year to start the Chiengmai Mission. The call seems imperative. Not to adyance is to risk the loss of the best portion of our field. Hluang-Prabang, lower down on the Cambodia, contiguous to French territory, is already occupied by a Catholic mission. If we fail to advance, they probably will. The Govern- ment and the people would greatly prefer our occupying it. It would give a scope to our native workers, and develop as nothing else would the mis- sionary spirit in the native churches. It would furnish a wider field for our literature. There is no obstacle in the way but the want offunds. In nearly every place visited, the complaint was that our stay was too short.
The wife of the Governor of Chieng-Kong could hardly be reconciled, and .begged _for one month to be taught to read our Scriptures by Miss Mc- Gilvary. Three weeks after we had left we were overtaken by three men, who had not heard of our arrival, and who were anxious to study our re- ligion. A head priest in M-Ngow, whom I had formerly met, had read our books, and partially promised to leave the priesthood and come to Chiengmai to ~tudy more. The venerable Viceroy of M-Nan, eighty-four years of age, voiced a common sentiment in regard to Buddhism. When our religion was explained, at our audience, as well as it could be to one so deaf, he replied, "That is all very good. You may preach it to my people; but as for me, it is too late. I have built my temples, fed the priests, made my offerings, and performed my devotions in the only re- ligion I knew. I must rely on my merit for the future." To the sug- gestion that the road to Nirvana is practically endless, he replied: "You say truly. It can only be attained after myriads of transmigrations, but it is too late to enter a new one. You must teach the rising generation."
After myriads of transmigrations. If such appeals from princes, priests, and people touch no chord in the hearts of those who believe that they have themselves been saved by the Gospel, and make no call to prayer, offer no motive to self-denial and effort, what more can be said ~ Only one other voice is stronger, and that comes from the Mount of Olives, from the lips of the ascending Saviour, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and 10, I am with YOIl alway, unto the end of the world.
Amen." Yours fraternally, D. MCGUVARY.
MODERN MISSIONARY MARVELS
MODERN MISSIONARY MARVELS.
THE BASSEIN-ARAKAN MISSION AMONG THE SGAU AND PWO KAREli8.
BY L. P. BROCKETT, M.D., BROOKLYN, N. Y.
Among the forty-two nationalities inhabiting Burmah about twenty be.. long to the Karen family, and are distributed over its entire territory, as well as that of Siam, and are supposed to number nearly 2,500,000 souls. So far as known, none of them are Buddhists or, idolaters; most of them believe in a Supreme Being, who is far away, and takes but little interest in human affairs j they also believe jn Nots, demons, or evil spirits, taking a malicious pleasure in annoying and troubling men, to whom they offer sacrifices of food, to placate them. They have no priests or medicine men. They are brave, honest, and reliable. The northern tribes are great fighters, while the southern tribes are peacllable and quiet. They are generally agriculturists, fishermen, or laborers, and very industrious. Their languages differ greatly, but philologists assert that they have a common root. They differ also greatly in cmtoms, habits, and manners.
Of the .tribes of Southern Burmah the largest are the Sgaus and Pwos, inhabiting the Tenasserim and Pegu provinces, between the eastern and western Yoma ranges of mountains, and extending from the twelfth to the eighteenth degree of north latitude. This includes all the delta branches of the Irawadi and a part of the main river, as well as the lower portion of the Salwen (Sol-ween) and Sitang (See-tong) rivers. In this territory the Tenasserim region was separated from that around the delta branches of the Irawadi by a wide expanse of jungle from one to two hundred miles in breadth.
The Gospel was first offered to the Karens of the Tenasserim provinces- Tavoy, Mergui and, not long after, to those in Amherst, Maulmain (Mohool-mah.een), and Maubee (Mah-oo-bee)-by Rev. George D. Boardman and Rev. Francis Mason, and the faithful assistant (Ko-thah-byu, the Karen apostle and first Karen convert), in 1828, and the following years. Unlike the Burmans, they readily accepted it, and very many were baptized. Many converts were gathered also in Rangoon, and the language was reduced"to writing by Rev. Dr. Wade, then of Maulmain, and some text- Looks and tracts" printed in it in 1831 and 1832. The New Testament was translated into the Sgau Karen dialect, and portions of it printed between 1833 and 1836. But though Ko-thah-byu and some of the other assistants had been very active and successful in carrying the Gospel to their eountrymen in the Tenasserim provinces and the region east of Rangoon, no effort had been made to reach the far more numerous Karens of the Bassein district, the southwestern section of Burmah, occupying the region drained by the delta branches of the Irawadi, and extending for some distance northward between the main river and the western Yoma range of mountains. This district had an area of 7047 square miles (about as large as Massa- chusetts) and, in 1881, a population of 381,419, of whom nearly 100,000 were Sgau and Pwo Karens. The Karen population has largely increased since 1881. The district is fertile, producing rice and fruits in great abundance and large quantities of fish in the rivers. Bassein, its capital, was a port of entry with a large commerce. The Burmans, who were the ruling class, oppressed the Karens most cruelly and had reductld most of them to a condition of peonage.
Light was brought to this people, then sitting in darkness, in a very singular way. In April, 1835, Rev. Thomas Simons, a Baptist missionary to the Burmans in Rangoon, who bad been on a visit to friends in Arakan, then a British province, determined to return to Rangoon overland through Bassein, crossing through a pass in the western Yomas to some of the branches of the Irawadi. His journey by boat and on foot occupied ~everal days. Mr. Simons did not understand the Karen language, but he carried with him many Burmese tracts, some of them written by Dr. Judson. In the villages at which he stopped he distributed these to the Burmans and Karens who came around him, and not knowing that the Burmans had prohibited the Karens from reading or hearing read any foreign books, he told them to ask some of the Burmans to read them to them. Mr. Simons made his way to Rangoon, and the bread which he had cast upon the waters seemed to have been wasted. But it was not.
Two years later Rev. Elisha L. Abbott, designated as a missionary to the Karens in Burmah, after spending a year in Maulmain and Tavoy in acquiring the language, came to Rangoon to commence his labors there. He met with great success and baptized nearly two hundred, mostly in the vicinity of Maubee, thirty miles north of Rangoon. In December, 1837, he left Rangoon to make his first visit to Bassein, in which no missionary had yet preached. He crossed the Irawadi, December 16th, and entered the little village of Sekkau. In the first house he entered he found several Christians, some of whom had visited Rangoon. Very soon an old man came in, and going up to Mr. Abbott said: " Teacher, I want to be bap- tized." On inquiring, Mr. Abbott found that two years before a Burman had come to the old man and offered to sell him two little b(loks in the Burmese language, which proved to be the" Golden Balance" and" The Ship of Grace," which Mr. Simons had given to him. As the old man could read Burmese, he bought them for two large bunches of plantains. He read them over and over again. They told him of an Eternal God and a Divine Redeemer. He was not satisfied, but wanted to know more, and hearing that the Karens in Maubee had received a new religion; he made his way thither through the dense jungle, infested with robbers and wild beasts, a distance of nearly a hundred miles, obtained light and instruction, embraced the Gospel with all his heart, told the story of the cross to his neighbors, some of whom were converted, and for a year had served God . with all his house. Three days later, at a large village on the eastern bank of the Irawadi, he found that a whole village of Karens, nearly a hundred souls, had been leq to embrace Christianity by reading some of these Bur- mese tracts distributed by Mr. Simons, and finding their way to Maubee had learned to read in Karen, and received instruction which enabled them to become very efficient missionaries to their countrymen. These people were not within the technical bounds of the Bassein district. Mr. Abbott ex- amined the~ carefully, baptized thirty-four of them, and organized them into a church, and went his way into Bassein proper. At the large village of Kyootoo, on the west bank of the Irawadi, he preached in Karen, and , among his hearers was a young Karen chief, Shway Weing, a man of re- markable abilities and great influence, but at that time, Mr. Abbott said, " a most ungovernable, wicked, and reckless heathen." Under that ser- mon he was converted, learned to read the Karen language, and began to labor most earnestly for the conversion of his people. Mr. Abbott, as soon as possible' after his return to Rangoon, decided to commence Ii school for young Christian Karens where they might be instructed and trained to be- come assistants in the missionary work. On the 8th of June, Shway Weing sen't him a number of young men to be instructed and baptized, and wrote a most interesting letter pleading that he would come to Bass~in if possible, and bring a great many of the precious books with him. The people of five Karen ~'illages, which he named, he said, "all worship God, every one; but we have no books, oh teacher, that we may fully understand the word of the Eternal God and keep it, and be enabled to distinguish between right and wrong. Weare very anxious that you come again."
On the 10th of June, 1838, Mr. Abbott began his training school with fourteen young men, mostly from Bassein, all Christians, but none of them as yet baptized. On the 20th Shway Weing arrived, with nine other young men, converted under his labors and those of Mau Yay and Moung Shway, two other young converts like-minded with himself. He desired for him- self and his associates that they should be baptized (he could not, he said, return to his village unless he was baptized), and receive a fresh supply of books to instruct those who were coming to him to learn the way of salva- tion. Eight of the young men were received into the school and, after a very careful examination, which convinced Mr. Abbott of the genuineness of his conversion, he was baptized, provided with books, and returned home rejoicing.
Presently there broke upon the missionary, his students, and the new con- verts, both in Rangoon and BaAsein, a storm of the most violent persecu- tion. Personally, Mr. Abbott was safe from violence, but his house was watched, Karens were prohibited from going thither, and any Karen found holding intercourse with him, or having in his possession any of the" white books" was beaten, imprisoned, put in the stocks, tortared, made to work on the pagoda-grounds, loaded with several pairs of heavy iron fetters and, on a repetition of the offence, threatened with death either by beheading or crucifixion. Mau Yay, Htou Byu, and another student, and Shway 1891.] MODEM MtsS10NAll.1' :M:Alt"VEtS. 881 Weing himself, suffered these cruel punishments, but they held firmly to their faith, though as yet none of them, except the young chief, had been baptized. All witnessed a good confession. They were at last released, but only by the decided action of the British Resident. After his release, Shway Weing wished to take more books to his people. "No," said Mr. Abbott, "you have just escaped with your life. If you I,Ire found with books in your possession now, you would certainly lose your head." " Should so much sooner get to heaven," was his reply.
The Burman Government was evidently in earnest to put down Christianity. Burmese Christians were persecuted as well- as Karens, and, as was their nature, the Burman officials gloated in inflicting the most atrocious cruelties. Yet the Karens could not be prevented from coming to the missionaries and pleading for books and instruction in the way of life, and if arrested and imprisoned they boldly avowed their Christianity. The missionaries found it necessary, for the sake of these poor converts, to remove to Maulmain, which was British territory, but their hearts ached for these poor Karens among whom the Gospel was spreading so rapidly through the efforts of these partially instructed assistants. By the first of January,. 1839, it was reported that more than a thousand of them had become obedient to the faith, and the good work was still progressing. Mr. Abbott was greatly distressed at the very small amount of knowledge which the new converts, and even the assistants, whose training had been so scanty, possessed j but he knew that they accepted Christ in simple faith as their Divine Redeemer. Yet, how to reach these humble disciples, to instruct, examine, and baptize them, and organize them into churches, and train up pastors for them, was a very difficult problem. It was out of the question to accomplish this from Maulmain j the journey by water was too long and dangerous, and that by land through the terrible jungle too perilous j and the Burman officials would prevent them from attempting either route, slaughtering them if necessary. The lower Tenasserim region, Tavoy, Mergui, etc., would be eve'll more inaccessible. For a time in the summer of 1839 there was a lull in the persecution, and the Burman Viceroy at Rangoon thought it would be good policy to favor the Americans, and invited Messrs. Kincaid and Abbott to visit Rangoon, return thither, and commence anew their missionary work in that city. They accepted his invitation, remained there forty days, during which they saw many of the Bassein oon- _ verts. They were satisfied of his friendly intentions and went back to Maulmain, intending to remove with their families to Rangoon in October. But the cruel and bloodthirsty royal tyrant, Tharawadi, was determined to crush Christianity out of Burmah, and almost immediately after the missionaries left Rangoon he summoned the viceroy to Ava, stripped him of all his honors, loaded him with chains, and consigned him to the death prison. In his place he appointed one of the most ignorant and brutal of his officers, with instructions to persecute all ChristIans, Burmans, Talaings, and Karens more violently than ever. All the missiunaries were obliged to escape to Maulmain, and the native churches were scattered.
There was now no alternative for Messrs. Abbott and Kincaid. The Bassein disciples could only be reached from Arakan, a narrow sandy strip of land on the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal, extending to the western slope of the Yoma range of mountains, and having several good seaports. The land was sterile, the climate sickly, but it was British territory. From Sandoway, Ong Khy-oung, Sinmah, and Gwa harbors, on the Arakan coast, it was possible to cross the Yoma Mountains (here from 8000 to 12,- 000 feet in altitude) by three or four rather difficult passes. The mountains, and even the passes, were covered with a dense jungle inhabited by tigers, leopards, hyenas, rhinoceroses, and elephants, and enormous pythons, cobras, and other vcnomous serpents. Many bands of robbers had their haunts here. The plan decided upon was that Mr. Abbott and his family should remove to Sandoway and thence open communication through the mountain passes with the Bassein converts, who could come to Sandoway for baptism, and the most promising yOung men could be received at his house for study and training as native preachers and assistants. Messrs. Abbott and Kincaid and their families, with several Karen assistants, and the venerable Ko-that-byu, sailed for Arakan in February, 1840; Mr. Abbott and his company landed at Sandoway, March 17th, 1840, while the Kincaids went on to Akyab.
In January, 1840, there were in Bassein more than two thousand Christian Sgau Karens, none of whom had yet been baptized (brought to Christ by the zealous labors of Shway Weing, Mau Yay, Myat Keh, and others), who had avowed themselves Christians for the last one or two years, had led exemplary and pure lives, free from any taint" of heathenism or any sinful practices, and who were anxious to be baptized and organized into churches. Behind these were quite as many more who had abandoned all heathen customs and practices, and were disposed, so far as they knew, to become Christians, and accept Jesus as their Saviour and Redeemer. Of these 4000 or more, probably not more than three or four hundred had e'er heard a Gospel sermon, or seen a missionary; all they knew of the way of salvation had been acquired from the books and tracts which had been read to them, and the teachings of the assistants, whose instruction had been very meagre. They were very ignorant, but they had heard of Jesus, and they were willing to trust in Him and, if need be, to die for Him.
Immediately on reaching Sandoway Mr. Abbott despatched his two assistants over the mountains, to invite the young men to come to him for instruction, and other disciples to come for examination and baptism. Within a month 135 Karens had come in, between thirty and forty of them young men who had come to study for assistants. They continued to come in great numbers, though some lost their way and perished in the jungles. Mr. Abbot.t examined all the candidates carefully, and baptized several hundreds, who were organized into churches. Some of them remammg in Arakan, while others, with the best instructed assistants, after organization, returned over the mountains to Bassein, to establish Christian villages there. He was indefatigable in training native preachers, and they generally proved apt 8cholars. There was much sickness, jungle fever, and cholera, both in his own family and among the students, but the teaching work went on. He also interested the British Commissioner, Mr. (afterward Sir) Arthur P. Phayre, in his Karens, and procured grants of land for villages for them, timber for building, and seed rice for planting, the first year. The persecution was so severe in Bassein, the imprisonment so cruel, and the fines and plundering so crushing, that the poor Karens, in sheer despair, were compelled to fly to Arakan. More than a thousand thus emigrated in 1841-42. They had cleared the jungle and built up pleasant villages, with good chapels and comfortable dwellings when, in 1842, a terrible epidemic of cholera swept over both Arakan and Bassein, and more than a thousand of the converts fell victims to it and to the hardships they were called to endure. Many of the colonists in Arakan werl) so terrified by the pestilence, that they attempted to return to Bassein and perished in the jungle. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott were indefatigable in their attendance upon the sick and dying, and they taught the assistants to be active in these ministrations of mercy. The next year the Bassein disciples came over in great numbers, and the villages which had been deserted were made to blossom as the rose. In order to carry out his plan of instructing the preachers and people as rapidly as possible, and retain an oversight of the churches, Mr. Abbott every winter called the pastors (native preachers and assistants) and as many of the deacons and members of the churches as could come, to meet him at one of the frontier towns in Arakan for a conference of three or four weeks, at which he heard reports from each of the churches, advised them in regard to discipline, and instructed them in the doctrines of the Gospel. On these occasions many were baptized. At the conference of 1843, finding that his labors were to,o great for his strength, he decided to ordain two of the native assistants, in whom, from long acquaintance and thorough examination, he had full confidence. These were Myat Kyau and Tway Po. These were the first ordained preachers among the Sgau Karens of Bas~ein. They proved to be most excellent men, and for ten years they served the churches with great fidelity and success. Within about a year after their ordination, Myat Kyau reported 1550 baptisms and Tway Po nearly 600. Both acted as pastors as well as evangelists. Early in 1845 Mrs. Abbott and two of her children died, and Mr. Abbott was attacked with pulmonary consumption and compelled to sail for England and America. He was absent for two yeaIs, and returned with health still seriously impaired. An associate, Rev. J. S. Beecher, was sent to Sandoway by the Missionary Union. The Bassein-Arakan churches had been under the care of the two native evangelists during his absence.
Mr. Abbott and his associate entered upon their work with great zeal, visiting the association, counselling, instructing, and stimulating the churches to higher endeavor, directing their attention to the heathen around them, and in Northern Burmah, and encouraging them to establish the Karen Home Missionary Society, to sustain their own native preachers as missionaries to the heathen tribes. The tyrant Tharawadi was deposed and dead, and as the new king did not like to lose so many of his taxpaying subjects to the English by emigration, orders were given that the persecution should be relaxed. Under this lull in its fury, Messrs. Abbott and Beecher urged upon the churches that they should support their own native pastors i most of them willingly did this, and only about six hundred rupees ($270) was sent from America for that purpose.' An effort was made to establish elementary schools to teach both children and adults to read the Scriptures in the Sgau Karen language. The Pwo Karens, who had bee. neglected because the missiouaries did not understand their language, were now clamoring for books and teachers-a lack which the Roman Catholics were attempting to supply-and a missionary, Rev. H. L. Van Meter and some native preachers were assigned to them. Mr. Abbott made two very strenuous efforts to enter and settle in Bassein, but was thwarted by treacherous Burmese officials in both. His health again failing, he was compelled to remove temporarily to Tavoy and Maulmain, but labored there in the preparation and printing of Karen tracts and text-books. When the long-threatened second Anglo-Burmese war at last commenced, in 1852, he was on the alert (though very ill) to enter Bassein as soon as it was captured, and though unable to be borne on shore for ten days after his arrival, he spent nearly three months in the city of Bassein (August-October, 1852), receiving, counselling, and directing the native pastors and preachers, as well as the members of the churches. At the beginning of the war, January, 1852, there were over five thousand members in the Sgau Karen churches, and nearly four thousand more professed converts not yet baptized j 55 churches and 54 native preachers, of whom five were ordained. When Mr. Abbott was compelled by the pressure of disease to turn his face homeward, in October, 1852, his parting with the Karens was very distressing. They gathered about his couch weeping and anxious to' minister to him, but overwhelmed with grief that they should see his face no more. He arrived in America !Jarly in 1853, and. though unable to labor, except to some extent with his pen, dwelt in the land of Beulah till the day of his release, in December, 1854. Hp. was but forty-five years of age. Thf; Karens had been driven to take up arms against their oppressors, and the Burmese were full of rage against them. For more than a year after the declaration of peace the Burman dacoits, or guerillas, ravaged every Karen Christian village, burning the chapels and dwellings, plundering the inhabitants of all their grain and other property, torturing, outraging and butchering old men, women, and children, crucifying some of the native pastors, till they were captured and slain by the English troops and their Karen allies. Yet the churches reported at the association in February, 1853, 50 congregations, about forty pastors, and 5000 members.
The year 1854 was one of sad visitations of pestilence and famine, three pastors, including the first two ordained-Myat Kyau and Tway Po– had fallen victims to cholera, and 250 of the members had died. About forty had been excluded-mostly those who, in the stress of suffering and starvation, had robbed or maltreated others-but 519 had been baptized, the greater part new converts, and many Burmans had been led by the Christian lives and fortitude of the Karens to become Cbristians. Mr. Beecher had entered upon tbe work the sainted Abbott had laid down, but his health failed from overwork, his wife had died on her way to America, and an unfortunate misunderstanding with the Missionary Board, or rather the deputation it had sent out in 1852-53, rendered it necessary for him to return to America in February, 1855. He returned in 185'7 with a second wife, a noble and excellent woman j but he came back as a missionary of the American Baptist Free Mission Society, and not of the Missionary Union. Messrs. Yan Meter (the missionary to the Pwos) and Douglas (missionary to the Burmans of Bassein) had given their counsel and assistance to the native pastors during his absence, and the mission had not seriously suffered. The Missionary Union had sent other missionaries to take Mr. Beecher's place, but the Karens would only have their old teacher, and from September, 184'7 to 1866, he devoted all his powers to their service. While maintaining discipline and correcting errors and abuses which had sprung up in his absence, and endeavoring to promote a higher spiritual life, Mr. Beecher recognized as the great duty before him the necessity of promoting a higher education and a greater social and industrial progress than the Karens had yet made. They were now free from the Burman yoke, and while in their villages and churches they should be first of all Christians, he deemed it necessary that they should be also intelligent Christians and should make such progress in social life and industries that they might be qualified to hold their own with the Burmans who had hitherto affected to despise them. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher selected a site for their new mission compound near the city and overlooking it; the British commissioner granted them ten acres, and friends sixteen more, and here, besides the necessary dwellings, Mr. Beecher proceeded to erect the " Sgau Karen Normal and Industrial Institute," in which there should be a vernacular high school, an advanced English school, in which native teachers and assistants should be educated, and an industrial department, in which the pupils should spend three or four hours each secular day in the practice of some of the more useful arts and trades. He had previously greatly en" couraged and increased the attendance upon the elementary schools, which now numbered over eleven hundred scholars, had caused the establishment of four academies, advanced, or, as we should say, grammar schools, in the vernacular tongue, and these, as well as his Normal and Industrial Institute, were erected and supported by the Karens themselves. The cost of the buildings was 4000 rupees, and the contribution!> from the Karen churches had risen from 9586 rupees, in 1860, to 20,666 rupees in 1866. In the same time the Sgau Karen membership had increased from 5501 to 6289, the number of churches from 56 to 70, and the preachers to 109, of whom 18 were ordained. There were 22 evangelists or missi(maries in the various fields. Mr. Beecher's labors in the eight and a half years (1847- 66) which followed were herculean. No three men could have performed them aud have lived. He plead most earnestly with the Free Mission Society (as he had done previously with the A. B. M. U.) for an associate in the educational work, but none was sent till the autumn of 1865, when Dr. ·W. M. Scott arrived without knowledge of the language. It was too late. Mr. Beecher had established the elementary schools and furnished teachers for them; had founded several large academies; had built and organized his threefold Normal and Indust~ial Institute, and superintended all the teaching and training; had maintained his school for native pastors; had ordained 14 native evangelists; had impressed his own lofty character for piety and spirituality upon the 70 native churches; he had done all this and more with only the help of his devoteq wife, but the end had come. About April 1st, 1866, he was smitten down with liver disease, and his physicians gave him but a week to prepare for a homeward voyage. His wife, almost an invalid, and his four little children embarked for England, which they reached September 12th and, after lingering about five weeks at Plymouth, England, he was not, for God took him. He had not quite completed his forty-seventh year.
But though the leaders fall the work must go on. Dr. Scott took charge of the Institute and, in a general way, of the schools. The native evangelists and pastors went on with the churches and the native missionary work till February, 1867, when Rev. B. C. Thomas, an excellent missionary from Hentzada, took Mr. Beecher's place; but for him the work proved too great. He was compelled to sail for America in January, 1868, and, in June, three days after arriving at New York, died, having just passed his forty-eighth birthday.
The old difficulty between the Missionary Union and the Free Mission Society was healed, and the property of the society had been purchased by the Union. Mr. Douglas, who had been in charge after Mr. Thomas left, died of bilious fever in July, 1868, at the age of about forty-six and a half years. Mr. Van Meter, the faithful and efficient missionary to the Pwos, after a lingering illness reached America only to die in August, 1870, not having completed his forty-sixth year, and a year later his wife followed him.
The Karens were thus deprived of all their counsellors and teachers in the past, all of them dying in the prime of life, and at a time when they so much needed the helpful influence and superintendence of an able and accomplished missionary. They had known something of Rev. C. H. Carpenter, then a professor in the Karen Theological Seminary, at R.an~oon" who had visited Bassein and was thoroughly conversant with the Karen language, and they had· applied to the Missionary Union to send him, and had also written in September, ] 868, to Mr. Carpenter himself, asking him to come and be their teacher. The Board of Managers, in November, 1868, cabled to Bassein the message (the first they had ever Bent to Burmsh), " Carpenter transferred to Bassein, Smith to Rangoon."
Mr. Carpenter removed immediately to his new field. lIe was about thirty-three years of age, an accomplished scholar, of wonderful tact and executive ability, and the work he accomplished for Bassein in the next twelve years has never been equalled by any missionary in the world. lIe began by visiting nearly everyone of the Karen churches in Bassein and southern Arakan, and ascertaining all the facts respecting their pastors, their spiritual condition, discipline, educational progress, and social attainments. Of course there were many abuses and errors to be corrected; three or four of the pastors (one of them an ordained man) had fallen: others (a few only) were ignorant and inefficient; the discipline was not thorough, the spiritual condition was generally good, though in some instances there ,was a lack of earnestness j a majority of the mem bers of the churches could neither read nor write j only one in thirty had either the Old or New Testament Scriptures, and many of the schools were not well taught. The social condition, though much higher than among the heathen, was stm too low. With the aid of the leading pastors, some of the best men to be found anywhere, Mr. Carpenter set himself to reform these evils, and to bring the churches up to a high standard of holy Christian living; and he was, in the main, successful; but two of the churches clung to their fallen leaders and went to destruction. There was a genuine revival, and many hundreds of new converts were received into the churches. The schools were greatly improved, the academies made great advancement, and the Bassein Institute founded by Mr. Beecher was again crowded with pupils. But the buildings of the Institute, constructed of cheap jungle wood, and covered with thatch, were sadly dilapidated by their eleven years' wear in that climate, and were in imminent danger of destruction from fire. They must be rebuilt and greatly enlarged, and the buildings, to be nearly fire-proof, must be of teak, with iron-wood posts. Mr. Carpenter had already made his plans for an entire reconstruction of the compound, which was to be graded and laid out anew, with the buildings arranged around a park of fruit and flowering trees in the centre, the erection of school buildings, teachers' houses, and dormitories around this park. With this. plan prepared he addressed the pastors whom he had called in consultation and, after stating the need of the school, asked them to pledge their churches to raise the amount needed (about 6000 rupees) in three years. They were evidently taken aback by this proposition. They had raised considerable sums under Mr. Beecher's leadership, but nothing like this j moreover, they were supporting their pastors, their ~chools, and their missionaries. Why could not the American churches help them in this? Mr. Carpenter met all their objections with infinite tact, and at last persuaded them, though with some hesitation, to make the pledges. The. students in the Institute did the grading, laying out and planting of the trees. These pledges were fulfilled and exceeded. Instead of 6000 rupees they had contributed more than eight thousand before the expiration of the three years, and were ready to go on with a new girls' school building. In 1870 Mr. Carpenter urged upon the pastors and teachers the duty of liberal and systematic giving, and a few days later all the pastors and the teachers in the Institute voluntarily signed au agreement to give to the cause of the Lord not less than one-tenth of their income. This pledge has been maintained ever since. More of the pastors were now ordained, till the whole number was twenty-two. But the work was too exhausting and the pace too rapid for Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, and at the end of three and a half years they were compelled to return to America for rest and the restoration of their health. They sailed in January, 1872, and returned in 1874, after an absence of about two years. Mr. (now Dr.) Jameson had come as a missionary to the Burmans in 1870, and could not be induced to change to the Karens, but he rendered some assistance, and Mr. Hopkinson; sent out as Mr. Carpenter's associate, came to Bassein in January, 1872. Mr. and Mrs. Van Meter were both dead, and Mr. Goodell had just come as' a missionary to t11e Pwos. There were, therefore, three missionaries who could render some assistance during Mr. Carpenter's absence. On his return, in April, 1874, the Board had appointed him President of the Rangoon Baptist College, but his heart was in Bassein and, convinced that he could ~e more useful and accomplish more for the cause of God there than in Rangoon, he resigned, and in March, 1875, returned to his beloved Karens. At his return he embarked with new zeal on his educational plans. Within two weeks after his arrival the association voted unanimously to raise 20,000 rupees in four years for a large and substantial chapel and boys' school building. The girls' school building, which had cost between 6000 and 7000 rupees (about half of the amount being contributed by the Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society), was completed in October j the baptism of the first Karen convert in Burmah (Ko-thah-byu, a native of Bassein) having occurred May 16th, 1828, the Karens resolved to call their new and great building, which was to be devoted to the education and Chtistianization of the Karens, Ko-thah-byu Memorial Hall, and to dedicate it, free from debt, on May 16th, 1878, the fiftieth anniversary of his baptism. It was a great undertaking for a people so lately rescued from heathenism and semi-barbarism, and among whom there was not one rich or even moderately wealthy man, and where the giving implied great sacrifices; but it was accomplished, I.4nd in three years instead of four the 20,000 rupees of the building fund had become 42,342 rupees in May, 1878, and the other charges and expenses had all been met, including the support of the pastors, the missionaries to other tribes, and the schools, and the heavy expense of the support of these boarding schools, and beyond this these Karens had, in 1874, sent 1000 rupees to their famine-stricken brethren in Toungoo j and, in 1877, while threatened with famine themselves, another 1000 rupees to the perishing Telugus across the Bay of Bengal, who, though of another race, were their brethren in Christ.
They had raised in the ten years, 1868-78, for the erection of permanent buildings for their Industrial Institute and its partial endowment, 82,512 rupees, equal to $36,565. The Institute, as completed, had cost about 150,000 rupees, the difference, except the 3300 rupees of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, being made up by friends of the missionaries in Burmah, England, and America. The whole property was made over to the Baptist Missionary Union in trust for the mission.
The whole contributions of the Sgau Karens for mission and educational purposes, from December, 1868, to December,· 1879, eleven years, slightly exceeded 365,000 rupees ($164,250), a sum which, under the circum- stances, was unprecedented in any mission of like extent in the world.
None of the objects they had undertaken to sustain had been suffered to lack j their pastors had been supported, their missionaries among the heathen tribes paid promptly, their chapels rebuilt and kept in good order, the teachers Of the elementary schools, the academies, and the great schools at Bassein, had been supported, and the sustenance for 2.50 boarding schol- ars provided. These schools all received grants-in-aid from the British Government for their excellent teaching, and the blessing of God rested on their faithful work for Him; notwithstanding the defection of two churches, and the dismissal of four others to the Rangoon Association, and the dis- mission of more than five hundrea other members to churches of the same association, the number of churches had increased from 52 to 80 ; of mem- bers from less than 6000 to nearly 8000 (the Pwo churches not being in- cluded as forming an association of their own), and these very largely by conversion and baptism; their preachers and pastors were better educated and were sound in the faith.
To crown their work the Karen pastors proposed to raise an endowment of 50,000 rupees for the Normal and Industrial Institute within seven years, and as usual they exceeded their pledge, raising more than 60,000 rupees in the first three years, and were to make up the amount to 100,000 • rupees by 1890. It can hardly be matter of surp·rise that Mr. and Mrs.
Carpenter were again compelled to leave Bassein, in November, 1880, or that after three or four years of ineffectllal effort to regain their health, he should have gone to a new field in Japan, where, after a year of labor he passed away at the age of about fifty years.
His successor, Rev. C. A. Nichols, is a man like minded with Mr. Car- penter. He has now completed his tenth year of service, and with tho efficient aid of Mrs. Nichols, and four ladies, who are mainly engaged in the ~assein schools, he reports progress along the whole line. Mr. and Mrs. Nichols were compelled to return home on account of ill health, but n in a year and & h1l1f retIJrneq withn~w vigor. hll& been p~ccssar, to enlarge the Ko-thah-byu Memorial Hall and the school-rooms j 400 pupils are in attendance j those who pass the examination for admission have tuition and board free. The village schools have increased to 78, with about 2400 pupils j the churches to 88, with a membership of 8589. (These figures do not include the Pwos, who have 22 churches 'and 1367 members.) There are 79 preachers, of whom 29 are ordained. All the churches, schools, etc., are self-supporting. The contributions of 1889 were *23,000-nearly 60,000 rupees at present rates. The number of baptisms was 404. Of the 100 Sgau Karen villages 83 are Christian villages, with churches and chapels in each. Socially and intellectually, as well as morally, the Sgau Karens are making rapid advances, and are attain· ing to positions of honor and trust. The Government finds them more capable and trustworthy than the Burmans. Such have been some of the results of fifty years of patient and faithful missionary labor. Have we done better here at home Y Canon Scott Robertson has published his annual summary of the funds voluntarily given or bequeathed in the British Isles for the work of Foreign Missions for the year 1889. The calculation shows that the total so given was £1,301,306. Of this sum Canon Scott Robertson estimates that about £670,000, or rather more than one.half, came from members of the Church of England. Although the total for 1889-£1,301,306-is below that for 1888, it is greater than any similar total previous to 1888. The channels of contribution were: Churc!> of England Societies, £523,226 j Joint Societies of Churchmen and Nonconformists, £21'7,963 ; English and Welsh Nonconformist Societies, £364,652 j Scotch and Irish Presbyterian Societies, £185,646 j Roman Catholic SOCleties, £9,819.
The late Henry Thornton, who did not drive from him people who sought subscriptions for mission work as if they were mendicants, as some rich persons are in the habit of doing, in response to an appeal from a visitor, once wrote out a check for £5. Before the ink was dry a telegram was brought to him. He tore open the envelope, read the contents, and turned ' ashy white. He said to his visitor-a clergyman-" I have received some dreadful news. I have lost hundreds of pounds-give me back that check." It was not pleasant to give back the check, and I dare say nine persons out of ten would have cancelled it j but Mr. Thornton, on receiving it back, . altered the" £5" to " £50," saying, " God has just taught me that I may not much longer possess my property, and therefore I must use it well." Did Henry Thornton lose anything by that ~ Did he die a bankrupt 1 No; he continued one of the most prosperous merchants of his day, and consecrated his wealth, his influence, and his time to the Lord Jesm! Christ.- $outh 4mericg,n J(ilflliQnary Ma[lazine. PROTESTANT MISSIONS BEFORE CAREY.
BY REV. DELAVAN L. LEONARD, BELLEVUE, OHIO.
Whatever the reason may have been, certain it is that the great Reformers of the sixteenth century, with all their lofty enthusiasm and holy zeal, were possessed of no pervading and consuming desire to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. In the multitude of their perfervid thoughts we find no reference to the sublime privilege, the bounden duty, or the possibility even of making Christ and His salvation known to every creature. This was in part on account of the tremendous pressure of such external hindrances as were named in a former article. It came about also in part because of the fact that their zeal was so largely not evangelistic, but polemic instead-anti-catholic, theological, ecclesiastical. Thus, as we have seen, the range of their intellectual and spiritual vision extended only to the boundaries of Christendom. The Mohammedans-" Turks," as the dreadful word was-were thought of only to be feared and hated, while, as for the heathen, they had no dealings with them, or knowledge of them. In addition, it appears to be well established that miC1sionary fervor was smothered by certain eschatological misconceptions. As many earnest souls read the Scriptures and the signs of the times, not only was the world " very evil," but" the times were waxing late." The Gospel had already reached its extreme limit in terrestrial space and the end of all things was at hand. The world was not to be converted, but was soon to be destroyed. And it has even been suggested, though perhaps without sufficient evidence, that in the fact that from 1540 onward, the papacy, through the Jesuits and other similar orders, was propagating itself with such tremendous vigodn all the new-found regions, the Reformers and their successors, in their intense anti-papal prejudice, discovered a sufficient reason why they should undertake nothing of the sort.
The story of wj:J.at was attempted for the salvation of mankind is so brief as to be most painful and humiliating. In 1555, at the request of the great Coligny, Calvin despatched fourteen pious men to Brazil, of whom, however, only two were clergymen; they went out more as settlers than as heralds of good news, and besides the" mission" met with speedy and utter failure. In 1559 Gustavus Vosa (not the Swedish Church or the Swedish Christians) was moved to send the Gospel to the Lapps, and his successors carried on what he had begun. Churches were built, schools were opened, and in later years relIgious books were translated into the vernacular, but only the slightest spiritual results ensued. And the reason becomes evident when 'we are told that all servir.es were held in Swedish, which the people did not understand, and that in the winter months the population was gathered by royal edict to pay tribute and to be indoctrinated into the faith. For those were the days of universal State and Church. And these few lines contain in outline the entire narrative of Protestant missions undertaken during the first century after the Reformation. And it is well-nigh as brief a8 that famous chapter upon" snakes in Iceland."
l':ROTES'1'ANT MISSIONs BEFORE CAdY
And the record of the seventeenth century is not much better, except as in it we discover the promise, the potency, and the preparation for vastly brighter days to come. And what we find of good omens is almost wholly upon the secular side of human atlairs. Tremendous revolutions, both political and commercial, were at hand, destined in due season to open a door for the introduction of a pure Gospel into remotest continents and islands. For a full hundred years after the immortal achie'ements of Columbus and Magellan and De Gama, Spain and Portugal, both wholly devoted to the pope, had enjoyed an absolute monopoly of discovery, colonization, and trade in all the vast and new-found regions. No other nation had been daring or venturesome enough to trespass upon the boundless spaces of the Pacific, or scarcely to land for purpo'les of traffic upon the Eastern shores of the New World. But finally, through the intoleraole tyranny of Philip II., three Protestant nations, aJ.ld almost at the same time, were stirred to rebellion. And the change which resulted is one of the most momentous in the whole range of human history, greater far in its effects than the sending of Solomon's ships to Ophir, or the voyages and settlements of the ancient Phrenicians, a~d in its relation to the spread of the Gospel every way worthy to be compared with Alexander's conquests in remotest Persia and India, and the countless campaigns of the invincible Roman legions. The. first result was in its nature only military, political, commercial. Supreme power simply passed from Catholic to Protestant hands. But the real divine meaning was world-widespread of Protestant ideas, or later and more especially the dominion of God's most highly honored missionary agency, the Anglo-Saxon race.
The Dutch were the first to poach upon the Portuguese preserves in the East Indies. They had maintained their independence against the utmosthat Philip could do, and having united in his own person the sovereignty of the two kingdoms beyond the Pyrenees, and in order'to punish these doughty Netherlanders whom he could not conquer, he forbade their ships to enter the port of Lisbon, then both entrepot and depot for the spices and all other products both of the East and West. The Hollanders had long been ocean carriers for all Europe, and thus were threatened with ruin utter and without remedy. Nor were they long in concluding that if not allowed to purchase what commodities they wanted nearer home, they would procure these in their native clime, and also at first hand. The annihilation of the Spanish Armada in 1588 supplied the golden opportunity. After three unsuccessful attempts to find a northeast passage by way of Nova Zembla, in 1596, the same year in which Van Linschoten, after fifteen years' acquaintance with the Portuguese and their commerce in Lisbon and the far East, had published a book full of information, containing many maps and charts, giving routes, laying down currents, rocks, harbors, etc., the Houtmann brothers doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and a few months later appeared in Sumatra waters. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was organized under a charter which ,slJe£fied as one object to be sought the caITying of the Reformed faith to the heathen. In 1605 Van der Hagen, while en ronte, made a lodgment on the Malabar coast in the vicinity of Goa, the Portuguese headquarters in India, and then sailed on to Am- boyna, one of the Moluccas, and captured it. And now followed almost a century of conquest. Batavia was founded in 1619. By 1635 Formosa had become subject to the States, Malacca by 1640, while in 1651 fell the last Portuguese stronghold in Ceylon, and in 1664 the entire Malabar coast had passed into Dutch hands. Also in 1650 a colony had been planted at the Cape of Good Hope as a sort of halfway house on the road to the East.
But alas! we search almost in vain for any display of zeal in proclaiming Christ to the heathen. The Company was purely political and commercial in its designs, and its desires were fastened on something other than missionaries and converts, on spices, to wit, and like treasures, which would bring large financial returns. Ministers, not a few, were sent out, especially in the early years, and some of them were godly men in earnest to do good. The Gospel was preached to the heathen resident in the vicinity of the colonies and factories. The Scriptures were translated into Malay, and also into Cingalese, and printed at the expense of the company. Pagan temples were closed, and Catholic churches were turned to Protestant uses, while an end was put to the celebration of both Buddhist and Romish rites. And, let what occurred in Ceylon and Java stand for the dominant methods of Dutch evangelization. It was given out by the highest civil authority that no favors whatever could be expected from the Government by any who did not accept the Helvetic Confession and receive baptism. But then, as an easy preparation for this sacrament, it was only required that the neophyte should master the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, and undertake to pray morning and evening, and say grace before and after meals! And behold, eager crowds prcssed into the churches. By the year 1700 there were 300,000 " converts" in Ceylon, which number had increased to 425,000 in 1725. In Java 100,000 received baptism under a similar impulse and upon the same terms, while the process and the spiritual'results were similar in Formosa, Celebes, the Moluccas, etc. And the advance was but slight beyond what the Jesuits had done.
But the best outcome was to follow later. The Dutch conquests in the East made vast populations known to the Protestant world, and eventually' made them accessible to the heralds of a pure faith. Nor in India and the Spice Islands alone, but in the New World as well. For the Dutch West India Company was formed in 1607 ; two years later the Netherlanders made their advent into New York Bay and upon Manhattan Island i early in the same century settlements were planted in Surinam, and in 1621 in Brazil. At l~ast in the country last·named some missionary work was done, for in 1636 an earnest request for eight clergymen was sent home.
In the mean time English sailors also had learned the watery road to the far East and, after long trying in vain to discover a northwest passage, they turned southward, following Magellan and De Gama. In 1577-79 Drake made the circuit of the globe via Cape Horn, traversing the East Indian Archipelago and the Indian Ocean; Stephens penetrated the region of the Spice Islands, 1579-82 by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and Cavendish followed in 1586. The British East India Company was formed in 1598- 1603 under a charter given by King William IlL, and at once sent out the first of a long succession of fleets to trade and to fight, as well as to found colonies. Almost a century followed of warfare with the Dutch for a share of the islands and of the traffic in cloves, cinnamon, and pepper. In 1612 a lodgment was made in India at Surat, whose significance for British do- minion and for the spread of the Gospel did not in the least appear until generations had passed. During all these years English Christians did noth- ing whatever for the introduction of the Gospel into Southern Allia, and even though in the charter of their great Company it was expressly re- quirM that a plentiful supply of chaplains be maintained at all the stations, and it was made obligatory upon these to learn the language, and to give religious instruction to at least such of the natives as were in the Company's employ.
And, in truth, the churches were kept busy at home with vital struggles over kingcraft and episcopacy, or in behalf of sacred liberty both civil and religious. And what slight stock of evangelizing fervor they possessed was expended upon the colonies in the New World.
In the history of modern missions Jamestown and Plymouth will always remain words to conjure with, and the dates 1607 and 1620 will rank with the few which mark the beginning of eras, since they stand for the momen- tous founding of this great Christian nation. In all the early voyages to America under the lead of Raleigh and others, the conversion of the abo- rigines received a mention. Upon the seal of the Massachusetts colony was represented an Indian with extended arms, and the motto, " Come over and help us." As early as 1636 Plymouth took legislaiive action look- ing to the salvation of the pagans living near by. In 1644 the General Court at Boston ordered the county courts "to have the resident Indians in- structed in the knowledge and worship of God," and thus became, in the phrase of a competent historian, " the first missionary society of Protestant Christendom." In 1642 the Mayhews began their apostolic labors upon Martha's Vineyard and neighboring islands, and in 1646 Eliot preached his first sermon to the red men in their own tongue, and by 1663 he had pub- lished his Indian Bible. By the end of the century several thousands had be90me Christian in name, and thirty churches had been gathered. It was in order to aid the New England colonists in these labors of love that twelve ministers petitioned Parliament, and as a result, in 1649, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England was chartered, and for years substantial financial succor was bestowed. There were a few Englishmen of eminence, in that generation, of the spirit and deeds of Robert Boyle, . who for thirty years was pre4!ident of this society, and contributed £300 to its funds, nearly £1000 for various translations of the Bible, and at his death left £5400 "for the propagation of Christianity in infidel and unenlightened nations." It was in this period, too, that Cromwell devised his scheme, which though futile, was yet grand, for uniting all Protestant peoples in an effort to evangelize the entire race, parcelling out the heathen and Mohammedan world among. them.
Two or three almost fruitless attempts on the part of individuals will complete the missionary history of this century. In one of the earlier decades, inspired by Grotius, seven young men of Liibeck were moved to endeavor to rekindle the light of New Testament truth in the midst of the corrupt Oriental churches. One set forth for Jerusalem, but lost his faith while on the journey; another pushed his way into Turkey and seems to have met death by violence, while a third, Peter Heyling, after several failures, is heard of in Abyssinia in 1634, and for years lifted up his voice in witnessing for Christ. Then, in 1664, Von Welz, an Austrian baron, of Ratisbon, his heart burning within him, published two impassioned pamphlets in which he called upon Christians to rise and make haste to seek to save the lost, and proposed"to form the Society of the Love of Jesus. But he excited only ridicule and opposition in Germany, and so took his departure for Holland, gave up his title, was ordained, and sailed for Surinam as a missionary, where he soon died.
And thus two hundred years of Protestant history passed with only these attempts, so few, so feeble and sporadic, to carry the glad tidings abroad. The missionary dawn was yet almost a century away, but presently a few cheering tokens of the morning were to appear. Just now, and for forty years to come, Denmark is the centre of missionary activity, and with its King Frederick IV. to lead. Ai seems probable, it was' by his chaplain Liitkens that this monarch was moved to send one message of salvation to various dependencies of the Crown. Searching for fit persons, when none could be found at home, recourse was fortunately had to those godly men Francke, at Halle, and Spener, at Berlin, and at length two young men were found willing to go. Great opposition was met with in Germany on the ground that missions were neither necessary nor proper, and so difficult was it to establish their orthodoxy before a court of Danish theologians, that the candidates were ordained only at the imperative command of the king. But finally, and after a tempestuous voyage of forty w~eks, in July of 1706, these pioneers of the Gospel among the millions of Hindostan, Ziegenbalg and Plutscho, began their arduous labors at Tranquebar. Incredible difficulties awaited them, and not only from the nations, but even more from godless Europeans, and from the local authorities, by whom they were thrown into prison. But in spite of all they held on, mastered the language, preached without ceasing, and translated the Bible into Tamil. King Frederick never failed them, but sent an annual allowance of £300, which later was increased to £450. In 1709 came a reinforcement of three more from Halle, and the London Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge sent a printing-press as well as a liberal donation of money, the first gift of a long series. Before the death of Ziegenbalg, in 1719, Schultz had come to India, another man of God as gifted and devoted, to take up his work, and in 1750 Schwartz made his advent, who possessed not only gifts and graces truly apostolic, but the powers also of an accomplished scholar and statesman. By him and his helpers the work was enlarged upon every side, and it is estimated that by the end of a century not less than 50,000 converts had been made.
In 1714 this same Danish king established a college of mi!!sions. Two years later he opened a mission is Lapland. And it was during these same years that in northern Norway the soul of Hans Egede was pondering a great question night and day. For thirteen years the Macedonian cry had sounded in his ears j he longed to undertake something in behalf of the perishing in Greenland, and sought eagerly for means to betake himself thither. He petitioned Frederick for aid, and in 1717 resigned his pas- torate is Waagen and made his way to Copenhagen. And finally, by sheer persistence having conquered every obstacle, he set forth in 1721 and en- tered upon a fifteen years' course of spiritual and physical suffering, with but slight measures of success attending.
And now the Christian world was to behold yet another notable step forward in the sublime march of missionary progress. And this al~o was closely connected with Denmark, King Frederick, and Francke. The Renewed Moravian Church had been in existence at Herrnhut only ten years, and numbered but some six hundred souls, when Zinzendorf, who had felt profoundly the influence of the pietistic movement which centred in Halle and Berlin, paid a visit to Copenhagen at the coronation of Christian VI. While there he heard that the settlements which had been maintained in Greenland, being financially unprofitable, were to be broken up and the missionaries called home, and. he also saw two Eskimo converts whom Egede had baptized. Moreover, it came to his knowledge that the sister of a negro whom he met was a slave in St. Thomas, and with other wretched beings was famishing for the Bread of Life. This tiny mustardseed had fallen into soil most fruitful, and was destined to bear a plentiful harvest. The story was repeated. in' Herrnhut, and in a few months five heroic messengers of peace were ready and eager to endure all and risk all for Christ, whether at the frozen north or under the tropics, and in the latter case expecting success only at the cost of suffering themselves to be sold into life-long slavery, and ready to die if only able to save a single soul! And such was the inspiring and most remarkable genesis of Moravian missions. Nor has the spirit changed, nor hass halt been called from that day to this. This little church went on in faith and love to start" more missions in twenty years than all the Protestant churches together had in two hundred." Dr. Warneck justly deems Francke and ·Zinzendorf " the fathers of the modern mission to the heathen." And further, he declares of the latter that" He is the first in modern times on whose heart lay day and night the desire that all the ends of the earth might see the salvation of God."
We come now to a great gap extending from Zinzendorf to Carey. For full sixty years not a single new missionary undertaking was set on foot. A few societies were formed in Britain which were evangelistic or semi-evangelistic in their character. Among them is found the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, dating from 1698, and which for a century and more supplied .Ziegenbalg and his successors with the sinews of war. And the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, chartered by King William in 1701, which afterward sent out John Wesley to Georgia. The first year its income was but £1535, and a full century afterward had risen only to £6407! The Scottish Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge followed in 1709, one of whose mission- aries, David Brainerd, in later years became. A few honored names can be mentioned of those who undertook to carry forward the work which Eliot and the Mayhews had begun during the century preceding. Such as Horton, who labored among the Indians upon Long Island. And Sergeant, who, in 1734, gave up a tutorship in Yale College and removed to Stockbridge to gather the scattered Mohegans and preach to them the Gospel, and whose successor Jonathan Edwards became in 1750-56. Brainerd was in labors abundant, 1744-47 in New Jersey and Eastern New York, as well as Kirkland among the Oneidas from 1764 onward. When, in 1766, Whittaker and Occum visited England in behalf of an Indian school at Lebanon, Conn., they easily raised £12,000 among the churches.
A few words will suffice to tell of the territorial growth during the eighteenth century of Great Britain through her colonies and her commerce, and that both in the West and the East. The Seven Years' War was of slight significance to the powers of Europe, but was of import unspeakable to the Christian world. For it ga,'e to PItt the peerless QPportunity to end for- ever, at Quebec, in 1759, the dominion of Catholic France in the New World, and in the East Indies as well by the battle of Plassey and the fall of Pondicperry. The Dutch, too, were largely expelled from their Eastern possessions, finally retiring from Ceylon in 1795. In the mean time, 1769-79, Cook's voyages of discovery had been made, so big with results to Christian missions.
Along with all this much-needed material preparation had gone forward for fifty years the marvellous revival work under the WesJeys and Whitefield, and their coadjutors, by which all Britain had been profoundly stirred and, as well; all countries adjacent. And the overwhelming and most blessed effects of that greatest effusion of the Spirit since Pentecost, scarcely less important to Christendom than the Reformation it~elf, had even crossed the Atlantic, and was renewing the religious life of the colonies from Georgia to Maine. In the momentous campaign about to begin against heathenism in all the world, not German or Scandinavian, but Anglo-Saxon Protestantism was to lead, and in Carey's bones the holy fire Lad already begun to burn.
ONE '1'tlOtJSAND MORE MISSIONAnt'ES Iron clItNA
ONE THOUSAND MORE MISSIONARIES FOR CHINA.
BY REV. A. P. HAPPER, D.D.
The churches should not forget the call sent forth by the General Mis- sionary Conference at Shanghai, in May, 1890, for 1000 missionaries for China within the next five years. For definiteness these five years may be understood to mean the years 1891-95. This implies 200 missionaries for each of these five years. Many of the friends of missions are ready to inquire, Why does the Conference call for so many for China when there are so many other countries needing missionaries ~ In this paper I wish to present some of the reasons for calling for 1000 missionaries for this great empire, and also give some of the reasons for the urgency of the call.
The first and most obvious reason for asking for so many is because the population of China is so numerous. There is no reliable census of the in- dividual population of this empire. The enumeration which is made by the Government is made with reference to taxation, and has reference to the households. When the number of the households is known, then the estimated number of the population will depend upon the number which may be fixed upon as the average of each household. Some compilers of statistics fix upon one number and some upon another. This is one reason that the estimates of the population of China differ so widely. Some esti- mate the population to number 250,000,000, some 300,000,000, some 350,000,000, and some as high as 400,000,000. If we take 334,000,- 000 to be the population of China, then it contains one-third of the non- Christian populations of the world, which is estimated to be 1,000,000,000. It is well known by all the friends of missionary work that not nearly one- third of the number of Christian workers in heathen lands is in China. In round numbers, and for the sake of definite statements at this present time, there is' only one missionary-taking the number of missionaries to be 1295, including men and women-to every 250,000 people. There is only one male missionary to every 283,000 of the male population, and one female missionary to every 239,000 of the female population. 'There is oulyone medical missionary for every 3,340,000 of the population. The . number of missionaries now in China is, therefore, utterly insufficient for the conversion of China to Christ. The number of missionaries now in China is less in proportion to the number of the people than the number of the other non-Christian lands. Hence the cull of the missionaries now in the field to the churches in Clnistian lands for this' reinforcement of Christian workers in this populous field.
A second reason for this call for 1000 missionaries for China is thi~. When the foundations have been laid, and the work in the various departmen1~ of work ha~ been commenced, doubling the number of the work!'r~ in- creases the results in some things threefold, in some things 8CV(,lIfold, alHl in some things seventeen-fold. The Rev. N. G. Clarke, D.D., Secretary of the American Board, in the annual survey of the operations and results of the year 1890, summarizes some of the results of the twenty-five years during which he has acted as secretary. During these twenty.five years the number of missionaries has increased from 223 to 533, which is twofold and thirty-nine hundredths more. But with this increase of missionaries the stations have increased in the same time from 342 to 1058, which is nearly threefold. The native pastors have increased from 60 to 173, or nearly threefold. The number of students in high schools and seminaries has increased from 437 to 7780, which is more than seventeen-fold. The number of these high schools and seminaries has increased from 18 to 122, which is an increase of sevenfold. The number of church-members has increased from 5247 to 36,256, which is nearly sevenfold. And the contributions of church-members have increased from $10,000 to $117,000, which is more than elevenfold. If the churches desire to see results of Christian work on the foreign field multiplied, the most direct way to effect that object is to increase the number of missionaries on the fields when the work is already commenced and the foundations laid.
A third reason for asking this addition to the missionary force is this: In every properly planned and conducted mission the work naturally en- . larges and expands, and requires an additional number of persons to follow it up and utilize these opportunities. If this is not done there is an obvious waste and a failure to improve the facilities of increase and enlargement which the labor already bestowed has secured. Hence, if the churches would properly secure the full results of Jabor already performed, they must increase the number of workers so as to properly improve every facility and opportunity secured by the labor of the laborers already in the field.
But besides the reasons already stated there are some considerations that should be specially regarded as reasons for increasing the missionary force in China. In this land there is a regularly organized government, which affords protection to life, and property, and residence in the midst of this multitudinous people. There are safe and convenient modes of travel to all parts of the country. It is true that the conveyances to the most distant places are not steamboats or railroads. But the native boats are safe and comfortable, though they are slow. The wheelbarrows and carts are not liable to accidents or overturnings. There are also safe and reliable facilities for sending 1ll0ney and other supplies to the most distant stations inland. There are everywhere houses that can be rented and used for residences, school-rooms, opium refuges, and preaching halls. Clothing, when using the native costume, can everywhere readily be obtained. Every yariety of food is abundant and comparatively cheap, and the fuel ,and facilities of cooking it always at hand. The climate is everywherp. comfortable and healthful, so that missionaries everywhere enjoy a fair degree of health and energy, and many live to an advanced age. The protection pf thc :Britjsh, German, /lnd tmericlln GoyeJ1lments is enj'oyed by their I respective citizens when laboring as missionaries in every part of this ex- tended country. The most cursory consideration of these statements show what special facilities are enjoyed for the prosecution of missionary laborers in China, as compared with Africa, the interior of Asia, or the Pacific Islands. These arc providential orderings that the churches should thankfully avail themselves of.
There are still other and yet more important facilities, that indicate that the Lord has prepared a highway for the introduction and spread of the Gospel among this people. This vast multitude read and understand one and the same written and printed language. The Bible, the whole Bible, is translated and published in this language, which is thus read among these 334,000,000 of people. There are also facilities for printing the sacred Scriptures in the Chinese language to any desirable extent. Ten millions of copies can be printed every year if the churches furnish the money to print them and the missionaries to distribute them. But not only is the written language the same all over the country, but the same spoken language is understood throughout two-thirds of the whole land. The missionaries who acquire the knowledge of this spoken language can travel through whole provinces, with 10,000,000 of inhabitants, preach- ing the glad news of the Kingdom. In the other third of the land there are. some ten different dialects; but each of these dialects is spoken by some 10,000,000 of people. The missionary, therefore, who acquires the s knowledge of anyone of them has 10,000,000 of people amon whom he can labor; and he will find ample scope for his most untiring labors, with every needed assistance. The whole Bible has been translated and pub- lished in all these several dialects, as well as in the general language of the whole country. But not only has the whole Bible been thus translated and published in the language of the whole country and of the several dialects, but compends of theology, religious books, commentaries on many of the books of the sacred Scriptures, religious tracts, school-books in geography, arithmetic, and other branches, and scientific, medical, and historical works have been prepared and published. High schools, academies, colleges, dispensaries, hospitals, and theological seminaries have been commenced and buildings erected. Common schools, Sunday-schools, church organizations, ecclesi- astical courts, and native associations for Christian work and co-operation in evangelistic work are in operation. Books for assisting in the study of the language, ~s grammars, phrase.books, dictionaries, conversation-books of great excellence and usefulness have been prepared and published.
Printing and publishing establishments, with all the various requirements for casting matrices, type-cutting, electrotyping, stereotyping, etc., are all provided, suitably housed, and have native workmen trained for all the various kinds of work.
With all these facilities and preparations on hand, the addition of mis- ~ionaries provides for extensiOIl and enlargement in every part of lllis&ionary work; for all these different departments of work admit of easy and indefinite enlargement and expansion, just in proportion to the number of missionaries sent. In the interest, therefore, of a wise economy, healthy growth, and rapid advancement, the Conference have asked for these 1000 missionaries within five years. Two hundred additional workers are very urgently needed each successive year for the work already commenced. And for the portions of China yet unreached and where work has never yet been commenced, yet a greater number is needed in order to hasten the conversion of China to Christ. We Christians pray that China may be converted to Christ. Our actions should correspond to our prayers. We may not expect the Lord to convert China by any miraculous means. We must, therefore, employ means adequate, by the Divine blessing to effect the prayed-for result.
r will only refer to two other considerations in conclusion. The Saviour's command is to " Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." Here are tens of millions of onr fellow men who have never heard the glad news of salvation. The door is wide open, the opportunities and facilities for obeying the command of our Lord are very great. Every consideration of loyalty to our Divine Master, and every incentive of love and ~on&ecration to our gracious and adorable Redeemer, who has redeemed us with His own precious blood, bind us, and should impel us to carry out this last command of our risen and ascended Saviour.
The other consideration is this: Weare responsible for this present generation who are living at the same time with ourselves. They are dying at the rate of 12,000,000 every year, or 33,000 every hour. We cannot, with our most energetic efforts, reach them all. But let us seek to reach as many of them as we possibly can during our lifetime. Let each and everyone do what he can. Let each one" do with his might what his hand findeth to do." Let us make the golden rule our rule of action in this matter, " Whatsoever ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them." It is very easy for us to arrive at the matter of duty. If we were in their condition, without the knowledge of the way of salvation through Jesus Christ, what would we wish those to do to us, who have that precious blessing 1 There is only one answer to such a question. vVe would wish them to impart it to us. Let us then strive with all our might to do this to those who have it not.
CANTON, January 6, 189l. It is said, upon the – au-t~ ho~r- it- y~o~ f -h-is– m-a- na-ger, Major Pond, that Mr; Stanley has decided to give the many articles presented to him by European authorities to General Booth, in furtherance of the latter's scheme for the benefit of East London. Should the rumor prove correct, the action of the distinguished explorer will go far to prove the strength and reality of the impressions made upon him vrhen in African wilds beyond human help; and to set an example of the sacrifice of our superfluities, in view of the necessities and extremities of the poor.
STUDENT VOLUNTEERS' CONVENTION
STUDENT VOLUNTEERS' CONVENTION.
BY MAX WOOD MOORHEAD, ESQ.
The first Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was held at Cleveland, 0., February 26th to March 1st. It was a unique conference. In the history of missions no such gathering ever assembled in our land or any other land. Its ultimate aim was to promote the cause of foreign missions. Upward of five hundred young men and young women, representing 159 educational institutions in the United States and Canada, were present. Nearly every heathen land where the cross has been uplifted had its advocate in the person of a returned foreign missionary. Secretaries' from various denominational boards and societies gave counsel in private, and participated in discussions in public. "It was to be expected," some one said, " such an occasion would give rise to extravagance in speech and action." But, on the contrary, the occasion was marked by rare moderation, but moderation compatible with zeal and glowing enthusiasm. Mr. John R. Mott presided with great tact and skill at all the meetings.
PERSONNEL.
The following are among those present who made aJdresses or engaged in discussions: Rev. H. N. Cobb, D.D., ReforJIled Church in America: George D. Dowkontt, M.D., International Medical Missionary Society; Rev. F. F. Ellinwood, D.D., Board of Foreign Missions of Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.; Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D., International Missionary Union; Rev. J. N. Murdock, D.D., American Baptist Missionary Union; R. R. McBurney, Chairman Foreign Missionary Committee of International Committee Y. M. C. A. j Rev. D. C. Rankin, Foreign Mission of Presbyterian Church in United States; Mrs. N. M. Waterbury, Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society; Professor H. H. Harris, Southern Baptist Convention; Rev. Judson Smith, D.D., American Board; Rev. Alexander Sutherland, D.D., Methodist Church in Canada; Rev. George D. Scholl, D.D., Evangelical Lutheran Board; Rev.J. O. Peck, D.D., Missionary Society Methodist Episcopal Church; Mrs. S.B. Capron, Woman's Board of Interior, Congregational; Miss Abbie B. Child, Woman's Board of Missions, Congregational. Turkey, Rev. Frank Gates. Africa, C. J. Laffin, the Congo field. Rev. George A. Wilder, the Zulu field. China, Rev. John L. Nevius, D. D., Rev. and Mrs. F. A. Steven. India, Rev. F. P. Graham, Rev. Henry Forman. Japan, Rev. Kajinosuke Ibuka, Rev. W. R. Lambeth, D.D. South America, Rev. J. M. Allis, Chili; Rev. George W. Chamberlain, D.D., Brazil. Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D.; S. M. Sayford, Esq.; Mr. R. C. Morse, General Secretary International Committee of Y. M. C. A.
But what; some one asks, is this Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign M.issions 1 What do~&it stand for? Whl-1t did it '~t~rt from 1 ITS ORIGIN.
Come with me to Princeton College back in 1883, and there we find a society the object of which was the cultivation of a missionary spirit among the students of the college, and the informing of its members in all subjects of missionary interest, especially tho leading of men to consecrate themselves to foreign mission work. The pledge, " We the undersigned declare ourselves willing and desirons, God permitting, to go to the unevangelized portions of the world," was embodied in our constitution. Mr. Robelt P. Wilder said at the Convention: "I can remember all if it were but yesterday the fellows sitting in a semi-circle facing the foldingdoors upon which was extended the map of the world. My father would point to his thirty years' experience as a foreign missionary and press home the biblical argument for missions, the need for workers, and the privilege of personally enlisting in the service. After hi~ appeals the old missionary would withdraw and we would kneel in prayer. In an adjoining room, unknown to any but myself, there was another praying; when the service was finished we two would slip off together and talk it all over. God alone knows how much those meetings in our parlor owed their success to the prayers of my sister, now engaged in missionary work in India; and well do I remember her saying just before I started for Mount Hermon, in July, 1886 : 'I will pray for a missionary revival among the college students where you are going.' "
As the days passed at Mount Hermon the conviction grew on Mr. Wilder that God would call, from that large gathering of college men a few, at least, who would consecrate themselves to the foreign mission service.
On the evening 'of July 16th a special mass meeting was held, at which Dr. Arthur T. Pierson gave a thrilling address on missions. He supported by the most convincing arguments the proposition that" all should go, and go to alL' 'This was the keynote which set many men to thinking and praying.
Several days before t}le conference closed a meeting was held which may occupy as significant a place in the history of the Christian Church as the famous Haystack Prayer-meeting, at Williams, so many years ago.
It is known as the " meeting of the ten nations." It was addressed by sons of missionaries in China, India, and Persia, and by seven young men of different nationalities-an Armenian, a Japanese, a Siamese, a German, a Dane, a Norwegian, and an American Indian. The J'lddresses were not more than three minutes in length, and consisted of appeals for more workers. Near the close, each sreaker repeated in the language of his country the words, "God is Love." Then came a season of silent and audible prayer, which will never be forgotten by those present. The burning appeal!! of this meeting came with peculiar force to all.
From that night on, the missionary interest deepened. One by one the men, alone in their rooms, and in the woods with their Bibles and God, fonght out the battle with self and were led to decide to carry the Gospel "unto the uttermost part of the earth." Before the meeting closed, exactly one hundred signified their desire to become foreign missionaries.
The enthusiasm, enkindled at Mount Hermon five years ago, has communicated itself to students all over the United States and Canada j and to-day" the movement numb'ers ~200 men and women on its rolls. Well may ex-President McCosh, of Princeton University, ask: "Has Imy such offering of living young men and women been presented in our age, in our country, in any age 'or in any country since the day of Pentecost r' In days whcn the Church of God is charged, and justly charged, with ignoring or dilltorting the teaching of Jesus about the power of the Holy Ghost for service, it is a noteworthy fact that the theme of Dr. A. J. Gordon's address, "The Holy Spirit in Missions," was the subject emphasized as most important by nearly all present. Said Dr. Gordon: "Here is something given as a direct duty. 'Bc ye filled with the Spirit.' How can I ~ some one asks. The answer is often made, You must empty yourself before you can be filled with the Holy Ghost. But who is sufficicnt to empty himself ~ I believe God's way is the expulsive power of a new affection, throwing off and casting away the old which we cannot rid ourselves of. There are two ways of emptying a tumblerful of water j you can turn it upside down, or you may drop quicksilver into it, drop by drop, until all the water will have gone out." . •. " I believe that just as certain as wind is the power that drives ships, just as certain as water is the power that moves the ponderous wheels of the Merrimac and Connecticut rivers, just as surely as steam is the power that makes the mighty steamship plough the great deep, so explicitly, by Divine appointment, the Holy Ghost is the power that moves the Church." • . • One who studied under Fletcher, of Madeley, says: "Fletcher was an admirable teacher. We had our Greek, and our Hebrew, and our theology. Then he would close his book and say, 'Young men, Hebrew, Greek, theology are very important. We have attended fully to these things for two hours. Now those of you who want to seek the power of the Holy Ghost, follow me.' And he would lead Ol1t that whole class into another room where," says this pupil, " we would often stay for three hours wrestling in prayer for the Holy Ghost, being told that all other learning was powerless without this." Referring to the promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost, he said, in closing, " Let us go back to tho experience of that admirable writer (David Brainerd) whom I quoted in the beginning. He says, 'This promise is for us j it is right that we should claim it. It is proper that we should plead it now. It is right that we should look for the fulfilment of it immediately.' "
From the frank criticism that was invited by the Student Voll1nteer Movement for Foreign Missions-criticism of its methods and agencies employed in the propagation of itR work-it must have been evident to the intelligent observer that the volunteers had not a'lsembled in order to con-' gratulate one another, or with the expectation of hearing laudatory things said by outsiders.
PROBLEMS OF THE MOVEMENT.
On " Volunteer Life in Individual Institutions," Mr. Robert E. Speer, of Princeton Theological Seminary, expressed his opinion that every volun- , tecr should be, above everything else, the best Christian in his or her insti- tution. He or she should be the best personal worker, the bellt Bible stu- dent, so far as possible, the best student in every way that can be found in that place. But apart. from that, that individual life should b~rn also with a zeal" that cannot be quenched, with an intelligent zeal for spreading the Gospel in all the world.
On " Classification of Volunteers," ~Ir. Walter J. Clark, Corresponding Secretary, made the following statement regarding the distribution of volunteers: (1) In institutions of learning, 2600 : Academies, 500 ; normal schools, 175 ; theological seminaries, 500; colleges, 1200; medical colleges, 125; training schools, 100. (2) Out of institutions (owing to state of health, insufficient means, etc.), 700. (3) 'Graduates (post-graduates, special students, etc.), 600. (4) Ready to go, 100. (5) Appointed (not including class of 1891), 20. (6) Hindered, 250~ (7) Unknown (large majority of these lost trace of before the movement ,vas organized), 450. (8) Rejected by boards, 50. (9) Renounced, 450. (10) Deceased, 60. (11) Not students when enrolled, 600. In addition, at least 320 out of the 6000 volunteers have already gone to the foreign fields under the various missionary agencies.
[A noted foreign missionary recently said that not more than two per cent of those who volunteered in a missionary revival ever sailed. But already over five per cent of the members of this movement have sailed; and fully ten per cent of the Canadian contingent.] The importance of " Immediate Sailing" found a warm supporter in the person of Mr. William H. Cossum. He said he believed if these people (referring to the heathen) need help at all they need help immediately. " Don't stay in this country theorizing when a hundred thousand heathens a day are dying without hope because we are not there teaching the Gospel to them." Furthermore he said that the one thing which will secure the immediate sailing of the man who is a volunteer is the heart interest of that volunteer in the ·field to which he is going.
Robert P. Wilder, on the ".Volunteer Pledge," said: " , Man, of all luggage, is the hardest to move.' To ~how a man his sinfulness is comparatively easy; to move him to act is the most difficult part of evangelistic work. The head heeds the admonition ; the heart postpones assent. The princi.ple of decision is operative in successful work among Christians. One speaker impresses upon his audience the importance of Bible study, but presents no plan, and pleads for no decisions ; the other secures pledges and organizes a class. 'When the nail of conviction is driven in, he clinches it with a practical twist.' Should not the same plan be pursued in missionary meetings to secure prayer, money, and men ~ General appeals for prayer do good. But is not more accomplished by organizing prayer groups, whose members are pledged to pray for definite obje'!ts ~ Why not employ the same method in securing men for missionary stationR ~ The pledge of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions means more than a willingness to go anywhere; it signifies a purpose to enter foreign service. On the other hand, meu, by signing it, do not take their lives into their own control; the signers are still under God's direction; they will not become foreign missionaries unless He permit. The pledge means, We are fully determined to become foreign missionaries unless God block the way."
Mr. Wilder argued for the retention of the pledge as it now reads, on the ground that it adequately meets the requirements of the case, and that any alteration would seriously imperil the unity of " the movement." He demonstrated so ably that the existing pledge is the best possible one, that all his objectors were silenced, and convinced also, we trust. The old pledge was retained.
Stretched along one of the galleries in the auditorium of the Young Men's Christian Association Building, where the meetings were held, was a canvas on which was printed the watch· cry of the movement, " The Evan- gelization of the World in the Present Generation. "
" This does not mean," said Mr. Speer, in his address of Friday even- ing, "the conversion of the world; it does not mean the Christianization of the world. It does mean that every volunteer believes that in this gen- eration the Gosp~1 can be so presented to the world that the responsibility for the salvation of the inhabitants of the world will rest on the inhabitanttl themselves. " Mr. Speer said that the evangelization of the world in this generation is possible, because, 1st, the Church has the agencies; 2d, she has'the means; 3d, she has the men.
" A young doctor, not a Christian, said to me the other day, 'How is it that the Church wastes so much energy on the work abroad, when there is so much to be done in this land of ours r I asked him what he would consider a fair proportion of workers to keep in this land, and a fair pro- portion to send abroad. He said : 'I suppose two-thirds here and onc- third abroad would be treating ourselves fairly.' If we sent one-third of our workl'fs abroad and kept the other two-thirds at home, we would more than . tenfold multiply the ordained missionaries in the heathen fields from all the Christian nations in thc world, and it would be sending 400,000 lay workers out into the foreign world. If we did what an unbelieving doctor . said would be only a fair proportion to do with reference to this work, would it not he possible if 400,000 missionaries went out in the next twenty. five years, each having, out of the thousand million people in this world only 2500 to reach, speaking to only one a day in eight years, to evangelize the world before we die ~" ' Mr. Speer spoke in a way which gained a powerful hold on the minds and the hearts of his auditors. He showed himself to be a man of unusual gifts; but his power is not in close reasoning, nor in exquisite diction, nor in the music of a pleasing voice. He has, as one man said, " an unction from the Holy One."
The appearance of the well-known figure, Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, ' D.D., was the signal for applause from the students. His theme was ., The Evangelization of the World in this Gcneration-How Made a Fact." He gave" Men, Money, and Methods as the three great elements of the natural basis of the evangelization of the world, and the command of God and the presence of Jesus Christ as the two things which enter into the supernatural basis." To illustrate how the world might be evangelized if people would contribute only a small part of the money used for luxuries, the speaker held up a marquise ring set with seven diamonds, which had been brought to him by a young lady after hearing his sermon on the text, " If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." Why should not we show a spirit of enterpri~e in the Church such as the world shows in all business schemes 1 What is the matter with the Church, that in this nineteenth century she has scarcely one of those great master agencies which men use to carry their inventions to the ends of the earth 1 Why should we not have a great Church exploration society, and go forward and pioneer the way into destitute fields 1 Why should we not have a great transportation society to carry missionaries to other fields without cost g 'What is the reason that you will find the sewing-machine, the parlor organ, the kerosene lamp, and the circlet of glass beads in districts where as yet the Gospel of Jesus Christ has never been carried by its heralds 1 "I solemnly believe, and I say it with the emphasis of a dying man, that if the Church of to-day would resolve that the year 1891 should not go by until she had sent at leaRt one representative of Christ and Ris Gospel into every destitute district on the face of the earth, so that there should be no district a hundred miles square that should not be represented by one witness for Christ, before the year 1891 passed by there would be an outpouring of the Holy Ghost to which even Pentecost was simply the first drops of a coming latter rain."
REQUIREMENTS OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.
Rev. J. N. Murdock, of the American Baptist Missionary Union, said that the first thing we must have in a missionary candidate is good health. We want the man of sound nerves, of reasonable muscles, of good stomach. We also want men of good common sense-not simply mental ability, but we want the roundaboutness of common sense. We want the men who are sonnd in faith and possessed of missionary convictions.
Rev. Dr. McLean, Secretary of the Missionary Board of the Church of the Disciples, said that what was wanted was not so many cultivated men, or uncultiYated men. but men of common sense, thoroughly consecrated to the work, and not only that, but men who were adapted to it. Rev. F. A. Steven, Secretary of the China Inland Mission, Toronto, said that he deemed thorough college education of the highest importance next to piety -education always stands first because it carries in its wake confidence and admiration. and a trained mind is always the most capable. Rev. H. N. Cobb, l).D., Secretary of the Reformed Church in America, said: "If anyone had ever felt that he was called by God to the work, no amount of impediment or non-8uccess should in any wise dishearten him." Rev. Dr. Peck, Secretary of the Methodist Missionary Board, on the subject" Mode of Application," said that in order to be successful each applicant should f(>el a clll so urgent that he would be determined to go somewhere, whether he was sent by the board or not. The" Volunteer's Preparation" was presented by Rev. F. F. Ellinwood, D.D. Said he: "A missionary must be thoroughly acquainted with every part of his work. We must study the heathen system, and in studying it do it to find 0.1t just where the weak points are that they may be replaced by the Word of God. We must remember that this is an intellectual age, and many bright minds and pithy questions will have to be met with and answered. ,.
At the opening of one of the evening services Mr. S. M. Sayford announced that $700 had been voluntarily contributed to the expenses of the movement. He stated that all expenses up to the present time have been exclusive of salaries, as no salaries have been paid to officers of the movement. After prayer a collection was taken and it was found that the offering had increased to $1200. Besides pledges, coin, and bills, were passed in a gold watch-chain and a gold ring which the inscription said had been given to some boy by his mother.
" The Work (If the Young Men's Christian Association in Foreign Lands" was the subject of Mr. R. R. McBurney's address. He gave an account of the growth of Young Men's Christian Association work in Tokyo, Japan, where between sixty and seventy thousand students are gathered each year. He stated that the National Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association were empowered to establish such associations and place such secretaries in the foreign mission field as in its judgment may be proper. "We are receiving," said he, "urgent appeals from cities in India to aid in this work, and what we want is money j the men are ready to go."
Mr. Allis, of Santiago, Chili, gave the following advice to young missionaries: "First, cultivate your own piety j second, learn your own denominational methods j third, master the language; fourth, be selfreliant; fifth, go out married; sixth, select a wife who will be suited with her lot j seventh, take care of your health."
SERVICES OF THE CLOSING DAY.
The spirit of devotion deepened _very perceptibly as the sessions of the conference drew to a close. The Sunday morning meeting will be remem- bered for all time as one of great preciousness. Each person prayed for himself or herself, and words of humble confession alternated with utter- ance of joyous praise. The leader spoke of the Christian's ambition 1. To preach the Gospel where Christ is not already named. Romans 15 : 20.
2. Study to be quiet. 1 Thess. 4 : 11. 3. Study to be well pleasing in His sight. 2 Tim. 2 : 15. Mr. Robert P. Wilder, on Sunday evening, spoke on " The Perils and Privileges of the Student Volunteer Movement." Identified as he is with the history of the movement more completely than any other man, and known and loved by so many hundreds of volunte~rs, he was singularly adapted to speak on this difficult subject. "The three perils," Mr. Wild- er said, "were: first, lack of funds; second, opposition from friends; third, selfishness within the volunteer's heart." Concerning opposition from friends he said: "The most serious peril is that presented by homo ties. The windt! of oppo~ition from father and mother have changed tho course of many a man who has weathered the gales of fierce 0ppoilition.
You say, are we not told, ' Children, obey your parents r Yes, but com- plete the verse. It reads, 'Obey your parents in the Lord.' Are we obeying them in the Lord, if they interfere with our doing the Lord'8 work J"
He touched with delicacy and firmness upon the duty of one in regard to missionary service whose fiancee is not missionary-hearted. "Many sad complications would be avoided did volunteers live up to their pledge. One said to me not long since that his fiancee refused to accompany him. With my whole soul do I pity that man, but the fault is largely his own. Had he made it evident to her and to her friends that it was his unflinching purpose to go, he would have avoided this complication. Write such a letter to her as Adoniram Judson wrote to his fiancee. If she is t'horoughly consecrated, it will nerve her to new self-devotion. If she be unwilling to go, find out the fact as soon as possible, leave her, and thank God for your escape from a union which would defeat His purpose in your life." He emphasized the great privilege of securing recruits, and of arousing the home church to a greater interest· in missions. "It is in our power to stir Canada and the States, from Toronto to Texas, and from Nova Scotia to the Pacific. Think what God did through that one man, Wesley. What can he not accomplish through five hundred men and women if we let Him use us! Think of tbe churches and institutions which we represent. The way in which Jerusalem was kept clean was by having each man sweep before his own door. Let each of us sweep ~way from his own church and institution whatever ignorance and indifference there is in this the greatest work of the nineteenth century."
Following Mr. Wilder were a number of five-minute addresses. Mr. J. Campbell Vhite spoke of " Missionary Interests in the Southern States.".
Miss Nettie Dunn had a message for women volunteers. "There nre," she said, " fifty thousand Christian women in our colleges to-day, and only a handful of them going to the great, needy foreign field. Let us plan to multiply ourselves, tach oue of us, a hundred-fold within the next year."
Rev. Kajinosuke lbuka, of Japan, said: "The greatest need of Japan is Christ. We ask for one hundred young men full of the Spirit of Christ. And with those one hundred young nlen, with the force already on the ground, the whole Empire of Japan, with its 40,000,000 people, can easily be evangelized, God helping us, in this genoration."
Mr. Helms, of Kansas, in the very few minutes allotted to him, pictured in a vivid way the needs of " Darkest Africa," and in tones which thrilled one through and through, drew the sympathies of his audit'ors to the one place blacker than any other-to Africa, whose body and soul the social sin had eaten. He told orthe great marches in the world's history-of Xerxes, . of Napoleon, of Sherman, and of a swifter, mightier, more terrible march of millions of Africans, in rags and blth and disease, marching straight to hell. " We have written and sung and talked about Africa long enough j and if the Lord stood here to-night He would say, ' Let somebody go. ' "
Mr. Mott, the Chairman, then called upon men to give, in a single sen- tence, their dominant impression of the conference, or their dominant pur- pose forme,}. The following are typical testimonies: "My chief impres- sion has been my own insignificance." " I know what the power of the Holy Ghost is." "I believe the motto of ' the movement,' the' Evan- gelization of the W orId in this Generation,' can be realized.' , " I want to surrender myself wholly to Christ." " Woe .is me if I preach not the Gospel. "
At ten 0' clock the time approached to separate. Mr. Speer responded to the spirit of the closing scene in words fitting and beautiful: "Fellow students, may we learn among other things this year the language of the Lord's tender love. May it be this coming year that as our hearts form a wish it may be quickly laid at Ilis feet j that as quickly as our hearts gain a motive, it maj be handed over to Him j that as quickly as we see anything that our brother needs, it may be that we pray for him. And perhaps the best thing we can do to-night is just in the silence, and the stillness, and the sweetness of that holy place in our lives where you and I live alone with Jesus Christ, to commend unto God and the '"ord of His grace every volunteer who, with life devoted to Jesus Christ, shall sooner or later have the rare joy of holding up the life, and the death, and the blood of his Lord before the world."
[So important did it seem that this admirable report of this significant convention should be printed at once and undivided, that, at the risk of erowding out valuable matter already in type, the Editor has concluded to give the above report its full space in this number.-A. T. P.]
1891J EXTRACTS .AND TRANSLATtONS PROM FonEtGN PElUODICALS. 3(11
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The important Darjeeling Mission of India has four divisions: (1) Darjeeling, 2 ordained missionaries, 14 preaching stations, 13 schools, 21 teachers, 726 pupils j (2) Kalinpong (Church of Scotland Young Men's Guild Mission), 1 ordained misRionary, 4 preaching stations, 12 schools, 12 teachers, 341 pupils; (3) Sikkim, 1 ordained missionary, 7 schools, 7 teachers, 188 pupils j (4) Darjeeling Zenana Mission, 3 European ladies.
-" The time is gone by," says the Allgemeine Missionszeitscltrift, " in which missions were looked upon, or rather overlooked, as a thing by the way. They have come out of the corner and. become a public matter, even with us in Germany. We here leave unnoticed the question whether this change brings more good or harm.We only emphasize the fact, and the world of science and of economics, the literature of the day, the parlia- ments and the dip].omatic congresses, the statesmen, and above all the colonial politicians are interested in missiuns. "
Dr. Warneck notes two things: First the ignorant self-conceit of the German secular writers who, kuowing as good as nothing about missions, haughtily cut short all attempts of real knowers of missions to set them in the right light j second, the determined purpose to extol all Roman Catholic, and to decry all Protestant, missionary activity. "A Romish wind breathes through the world j it is the fashion to cocker Rome j and the daily press, like a lady that would rather be out of the world than out of the fashion, swings the Romish censer lustily with the rest." "Is it antipathy to cvang-elical faith, innn affinity with Roman secularity, colonial prejudice, lack of independc·nt judgment over against the authority of an imperial commissary, or mt're IHllve ignorance r'
"Like all knowledge, missionary knowledge must be tlte fruit of labor,. he that has nothing can give nothing, and he that labors not has nothing."
-The Zeitscltrift remarks: "There is a mighty quickening in the Brethren's Church, which, besides the youthful mission in Alaska and the Homona Mission in Sonthem California, is also advancing to an extension of the work in the Surinam bushland, as also in Australia, and an entirely new mission in German East Africa (at the north-eastern end of the Nyassa), a fresh and joyfully believing advance, which gives the testimony of fact that the old mission spirit is still awake in this missionary Church par excellence, an example to quicken a wholesome shame in our great state cb urches. "
-The Rhenish Missionary Society in 1890 founded 7 new stations: 5 in Sumatra, 1 on Dampierre Island, near New Guinea, 1 on Nias, near Rumatra, and is expecting to extend its work among the Hereroes in southwest Africa.
-In Holland the Inner Mission hag lately taken an upward movement rather at the cxpcnse of foreign missions. The extreme comminution of Dutch missionary force (eighteen societies for this small conntry) is also disadvantageous.
– The Zeitschrfit, speaking of Emin and Stanley, says that they are too profoundly unlike to understand one another j each has his bright side and. each his dark, and that German depreciation of Stanley and English depre- ciation of Emin are both unjust. Emin, however, it decidedly characterized as warm in heart but (yeak in will.
-The Kaukab i Hind (Star of India), of December 26th, 1890, says: " Word has just come from Calcutta that Dr.- Pentecost's addresses are making a profound impression on the higher classes of the European com- munity, and a great many are being led to devote themselves to God's service. "
-It may have been known, but it has been little heeded, that the Moravians have for nearly seventy years carried on a work among the lepers of the Cape of Good Hope. The following sentence from Bishop La Trobe's account of it pictul'es to us at once the extremity of human misery, and lo'e and faith working triumphantly through all : "Go into the wards of the hospital; on one couch lies a leper whose hands are gone, and before him an open Bible; he has reached the bottom of the page, but cannot turn it over; he looks around, and one who can walk, but is also without hands, takes another who has lost his feet, on his back, and carries him to the fir~t to turn over the leaf."
In 1865 the Baron and Baroness Keffenbrinck-Ascheraden having established a leper home at Jerusalem, the Moravian brethren were placed in charge of it. The first-fruits of honor in this form of the works of love in modern times, therefore, are theirs.
-A littlo blunder, reported in the Woman's Worlc of Shanghai, is one cf a thousand things which show how hard it is to work at first-hand in a foreign country. A Chinese womfm having been addressed by a foreign lady with the inquiry whether, as a sinner, she did not wish to be forgiven, took great offence, and angrily denied that she was a sinner. Of course the foreign lady set this down to the account of self· righteousness until, to her dismay, she found that she had addressed the woman as a " jail bird." Nothing can easily take the place of the native helper. To train them up may well be the great thought of those from abroad. "0 Lord," said a good deacon in Madura, " our missionaries, we doubt not, are at home in Greek and Hebrew, but what work they do make of Tamil I" It is the ultimate praise of vernacular familiarity given to Dr. Van Dyck in Syria, that" he knows even women's Arabic."
-"The English schoolmaster, John Horden, who in 1872 was consecrated first Bishop of Moosonee. comprising the whole coast-line of Hudson's Bay-a diocese of 1200 by 800 miles–is now," says the Ch1lrch Mis- sionary Gleaner, "in his fortieth year of service-a service consisting largely of incessant travelling over his vast sphere of work." The few thousand Indians and whites require five Bibles-English, Bree, Ojibeway, Chipewyan, and Eskimo. There are 4000 baptized Christians and 700 communicants.
-The Hindu, a Madras paper, edited by " a Hin,du of the Hindus, " is quoted in the Church Missionary Intelligencer as follows: "The progress of education among the girls of the native Christian community, and the absence of caste restrictions among them, will eventually give them an ad"antage which no amount of intellectual precocity can compensate the Brahmins for. We recently approved of the statement of a Bombay writer that the social eminence which the Parsees so deservedly enjoy at . the present moment was due to these two causes, namely, their women are well educated, and they are bound by no restrictions of caste. These two advantages slowly make themselves felt among our native Christian brethren, and it is probable they will soon be the Parsees <1f Southern India; they will furnish the most distinguished public servants, barristers, merchants, and citizens among the various classes of the nativec@mmunity."
-The Allgemeine Missionszeitschrijt for January, 1891, remarks that the Protestants of Germany in missionary achievement are as yet decidedly behind both the duties providentially laid upon them and their numerical strength. They are almost a fourth of the Protestant world, yet of 3000 ordained Protestant missionaries they only supply 561-less than onefifth, and of lay missionaries, male and female, less than one-fiftieth. Of 40,000,000 marks raised in Protestant Christendom for foreign missiuns, the Germans (including German Switzerland) contribute 3,000,000. Proportionately it ought to be 10,000,000.
-The Witness quotes approvingly Cardinal Manning, who declares, with Sir Bartle Frere, that England only holds India by "the divine right of good government," and that one of the things implied in this is the deliverance of female India from the curse of child marriages, compulsery betrot}:tals, and enforced widowhood.
-The Journal des Missions Evangeliques for October, 1890, giving an account of the hard conditions of life among the mountain Waldenses. says: "One might easily suppose that under circumstances so toilsome, the struggle against material difficulties must needs absorb all other thoughts. Far from it, however. Blessed with the ministry of devoted pastors who are daunted by no effort, Vaudois piety finds a place in heart and life for the things of the kingdom of heaven. As a result, from these houses, where superfluity is unknown, where even necessity often has to be strictly construed, there has descended a veritable army of evangelists, schoolmasters, professors, some of whom, raised by diligence to the heights of culture, are now the venerated chiefs of the Vaudois Church."
A young M. Pascal, a child of these valleys, has just been ordained at La Tour as a missionary for Lessuto. " May he help to make of the Basutos a people of evangelists for all South Africa as the Waldenses are coming to be for Italy."
-The brethren of the Zambesi are gradually finding their isolation somewhat relieved by more frequent intercourse with the colonial world, and with the world at large. But the same growth of publicity menaces them with the invasion of gain-seekers and all the desolations coming in the train of Mammon. Let us pray for them.
-Of tbe 520 organized Protestant churches of China, 94, remarks the Journal des Missions, provide entirely for their own spiritual and material wants.
Treating of the precariousness of the foreign protection accorded to the Chinese churches, the Journal inquires why they might not come nearer the requirements of Chinese society by organizing themselves; after the model of the Chinese clans, just as the churches of the Roman Empire gained long intervals of toleration by assum'ing the forms of beneficial, religious, and social collegia or guilds.
-The Harvest Field of Madras, for December, 1890, has an interesting articl' e on. the" Portuguese Inquisition lit Goa," in western India, showing ….-.-….. -.- how this hindered the spread of Roman Catholic Christianity. The Church of Rome teaching that it is unlawful to compel anyone to accept baptism, but lawful to punish him for defection after being baptized, the Goa . inquisition allowed Jews, Moslems, and Hindus to live unmolested, but claimed the right to punish them (though not with death) for publicly exercising their religion. Multitudes, therefore, who might otherwise have been won, refnsl'd to be baptized for fear of the ultimate penalties. And as the lesser penalties were severe enough, multitudes of the non-Christians fIe-d into other parts of India, which largely explains the collapse of the Portuguese power.
It must not be Rupposed that the Inquisition was always the protectress of error. Unhappily it was equally cruel when it defended the truth. Thus a Frenchman at. Goa, after months of imprisonment, was condemned to five years in the galleys (remitted, however, by the Crown of Portu- gal), principally fur having declared that no one can possibly be saved without extemal baptism. Here the Inquisition was plainly in the right and the Frenchman in the wrong. What a warning to us all not to excuse a persecuting zeal on the ground that it is zeal for the truth I • -The Harvest Field speaks a good word for the brave and faithful Ger- man brethren of Gossner's Mission among the Kols. It says: "There is no mission in the country more actively alive than Gossner's in Chutia- Nilgpur. The men who are controlling the work take a comprehensive view of their duty, and interest themseh'es in those political and social questions which so seriously affect the well-being of these Kols, who have come under their influence. They have battle on all sides of them. The Jesuits poach unconscionably on the one hand, and the S. P. G. harass them on the other; this in addition to the ignorance, evil habits, distress- ing connections and social disabilities of the Kols themselves. Yet they succeed, not merely encouragingly, but gloriously. Their last twelve months' census shows that 1073 have been baptized, and 2796 besides have broken caste and placed themselves under Christian instruction. A Ilew mission station is being takf'n up, to be called Buchselpur j and there are already 1000 Christians in the neighborhood as a nucleus. Two new churches have been built for native pastors j a native church endowment fund has been started, which promises to grow into importance. There are now 167 churches in the misRion, aggregating 11,552 full members, or a total Christian community of 35, I 03. The leper asylum has been specially fruitful lately in conversions."
-Gleanings in the Harvest Fields, York, England, organ of tbl' Metho- dist New Connection, says: ,. The best missionary periodical is TIn;: MIS- SIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD. edited by Dr. A. T. Pierson. It is fresh, vigorous, varied, and.cheap."
-An article in the Gleanings, from Miss M. J. Waller, refers to an oeinion expressed by Sir John Pope Hennessy. that China is the ffeest country in the world. Miss Waller thinks that he has left the female half of mankind out of account. A wife who has lately fled from the cruelties of her husband's home, is sentenced to a rising scale of beatings, and if still refusing to return, to be officially sold. Miss Waller adds: "The severe discipline to which girls in China are subJected so thoroughly destroys all that is spiritual in their nature that it is humanly impossible to raise them from the state of cunning and deceit to which they hav(, been brought. They are just prepared to become moth!lrs-in-law in their tulU I believe the phlegmatic and crafty characteristics of the Chinese race, of which so many missionaries complain, are greatly owing to this moral death imposed on their women."
-The Jewilh Intelligence describes the Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion. Dr. Alexander, the first Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, it will be remembered, was a Jew. His tomb bears the inscription, in four languages: "Whose Christian love won the good-will of his brethren of Israel. "
-M. W olkenberg, writing in the Jewish Intelligence, declares that some Jewish leaders are now, in desperation, aiming at "a substitution of Hebraic literature for religion, and thE exaltation of the race in the place of its Creed-its only preservative. Sooner will the rivers roll back to thcir source than Jews, once emancipated, will go back to the dead and deadening level of Talmndic trivialities. There is but one alternative-Christianity or total alienation from religious belief. And while many sink intothe latter abyss, we may thank God that the Church is at last visibly and indisputably exerting a potent influence upon many of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. "
-The Ohristian for January 20th, 1891, gives a portrait and biographical sketch of M. Eugene Casal is, the eminent French missionary to the Basutos. It is interesting to know that he is of a Huguenot ancestry which, in the time of persecution, resolutely remained, saying: ".The seed of the true Church of Christ must not depart entirely from the soil of France; it is in the Lord's power to bring us better times."
–North Africa, devoted to the Kabyle and Berber missions, thus describes a citadel of Tangier in Morocco: "The Kasbah is full of strange contrasts. The streets narrow and dirty; the priso)Js in semi-darkness, with an evil odor ever proceeding from them, and filled with prisoners chained, starved, and diseased. Yet the opening of a door in one of the windowless walls and a few steps 'down some winding passages lead into sunlight, beauty, and romance; for a palace of a past age is here, with neglected gardens and a lovely court, in the centre of which a fountain is playing in a marble basin, surrounded by marble Corinthian pillars, and rooms with floor, wall, and ceiling displaying the finest specimens of Moorish art in tessellated work and wood-carving, the latter glittering with gold and soft colors, though the modern Moor delights in brilliant painting. The lace-like delicacy of the designs, both in wood and stucco, is indescribable." Christianity in various forms is once more setting its foot on that North African shore so great in Christian mp.mories. At a farewell meeting in Exeter Hall these quiet beginnings were aptly compared to the handful of marines that have brought one great region after another under the sway of the British crown.
-Says the Indian Witness: "The Rangoon Gazette does a good work in vindicating American missionaries in Burmah from the sneers and charges of Sir Lepel Griffin-that foe of missionaries"-and of Americans. He assert~d that these godly men had surreptitiously helped the Karens to arms and ammunitIon, and in so far, at least, encouraged them in wrong-doing. The Gazette declares the charges utterly " malicious and false," and says, " if the American missionaries often show much business shrewdness in mundane matters, they have also shown that the Christianity they produce in their converts is of a good practical sort, which statesmen should welcome instead of sneering at and maligning." Sir Lepel Griffin declares that the Burmans are the most interesting race in the world, because they count life its own sufficient object and reward. To this precious specimen of the English Antichrist, the moment a people begins to think of eternity, that moment it loses its interesting- ness. He dishonors even the Buddhism which he professes to admire- for that has a deep though hopeless earnestness. It searches through eternity, though it comes back like the wanderer of Jean Paul's dream, exclaiming despairingly: " There is no God !"
-The Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church in Scot- land for Jannary, 1891, has iateresting articles on their late eminent mis- sionary in North China, the Rev. Dr. Williamson. The Protestant missionaries of Tientsin, in their resolutions of sympathy, remark: "This long period of service in North China, extending over thirty years, and the many departments of Christian enterprise with which he identified himself, have familiarized and endeared his name to many, not only among his brother missionaries and the native Christians, but also among those who have ordinarily little sympathy with our work. His singleness of aim and earnest desire to promote the material, social, and spiritual welfare of China were apparent to all. By his early itinerations in the cause of Bible distribution, he did not a little to open the large regions to the Gospel message. By the preparation of books upon political, scientific, and theological subjects, he Rtrove to promote the much. needed education 'Of the people. His sympathy with all movements tending to further union and co-operation among the various branches of the Christian Church in China was well known, and his own effOlts in this direction had much to do with the success of the Missionary Conferences of 1877 and 1890."
To say that Dr. Williamson worked for Christian union is little more than another way of saying that he was a United Presbyterian missionary of Scotland. He that cannot work with a United Presbyterian brother cannot work with anybody.
-It is known that Protestant missions are extending from China proper into the northern regions of Mongolia and Manchuria, from which latter country came the prcsent imperial family. Dr. James A. Greig, nnw ,medical missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church, though, as he says, still "a Scotchman and a United Presbyterian." writes to the Missionary Record concerning hi'S work. Speaking of one patient, suffering under a malignant tumor, he remarks: "I asked, ' Have you ever heard of Jesus ¥' , Never.' 'Have you ever heard of heaven?' 'Never.' • Of hell~' , Never.' Yet here he stood, as thousands in this dark land, on the brink 'Of eternity; the future dark and unknown, the present hopeless. After sim,plyexplaining to him the way of salvation, and urging upon him its acceptance, he left ns, bearing with him John iii. 16 as an epitome of all we had said. He left, but his Never remained. It sounded and reresounded through our ears and in our brain. ,. , -The Free Ohurch of Scotland Monthly remarks that their Budapest mission among the Hungarian JAWS has had an important incidental result in knitting various closer ties of brotherhood 'tfith the Hungarian churches. Scottish liberality has provided bursaries at the New College, Edinburgh, for Bohemian and Hungarian divinity students. A now financially independent German Reformed Church in Budapest has mainly resulted from Scottish labors. The leading Hungarian pastors express a warm sense of this catholic co-operation.
'I,. "The missionary campaign," says the Monthly, " opened enthusiastically in Glasgow, November 24th, with two great meetings of more than 3000 people, and had been continued throughout Scotland among grown people and children. In some of the country places, owing to the stormy weather, the attendance 'Yas small. But even in these cases a deep impression was invariably produced, and it was felt by the missionaries and others how great a mistake it would be to give populous centres a preference over quiet rural districts in the arranging of such meetings. The largest meeting was at Greenock, with 1600 children and 400 adults present. There were also crowded meetings in Ayr, Kilmarnock, and other places." It was felt important to engage interest, especially among children, in 8pecific missionary objects.
-Inasmuch as Muscat, in south-eastern Arabia, is the seat of Arab influence and power in Africa, Bishop French urges the establishment of a mission there to attack the evil in its source.
-The Church Missionary lntell(qencer for January, 1891, contains an article on Henry Martyn's Urdu translation of the New Testament. The Urdu, the basis of which is the fine Hindi language, greatly enriched and modified by Arabic and Persian, has been classed as one of the twelve ot thirteen conquering languages of the world. Martyn's Arabic translation was faulty, and soon abandoned by him. The Persian he cntirely recast. But his Urdu version went into use at onl:e, and for many years suffered no change. The following fine passage describes the inmost quality of the man: "There was in Martyn's rcligion the element of awe. There are depths in his mind. Deep calls unto deep. The deep of reverence calls to the deep of confession; the deep of realized forgiveness calls to the deep of charity. His critical ear detects in an instant a word or expression that sinks below the level at which the message of God ought to be expressed. And this sense of fitness affeCts his whole work. He is minutely careful of small things, but never small himself. Pettiness is not in him, nor pedantry, which is scholastic pettiness. Vulgarity is odious to him. Vulgarity he cannot away with. All his instincts are refined. He breathes freely only when the atmosphere is pure. He' prays over his thoughts as well as over his words. His citizenship is. in heaven, and there is dignity in all that he says. There are depths in his mind, and because there are depths there is elevation too. He humbles himself and is exalted."
-Bishop Westcott, of Durham, of whom we have not yet unlearned to think of as Canon Westcott, says, as reported in the Intelligencer: "The Rajah of Travancore-that state at the south-western extremity of India, one-fifth of whose people are Christians, Syrian, Roman Catholic, or Protestant-answering the missionaries who had thanked him for the protection afforded theU!, said: 'One cannot be sufficiently thankful for the introduction of this civilizing element and its steady development. Your labors have been increasing year after year the number of a loyal, lawabiding, and civilized population-the very foundation of good government. ' Again I ask, is that the language of a man who feels that he has in his ancestral faith a solid basis of an enduring empire ~"
The bishop quotes, with the like inquiry, the recent declaration of a non-Christian lawyer, that mission schools are the quinine for India's fever.
-The Bombav Guardian of November 22d, 1890, remarks; 'One of our correspondents recently started ·the question, 'Is Hinduism declining or advancing in this country~' To hear of the great Hindu religious congress just held at Delhi, attended by Hindu nobles, pandits, and Brahmins from all the sacred cities, orgallized and carried through with enthusiasm, it would appear that it was decidedly advancing; but, on the other hand, we are not without signs that tell a different tale. ""hen spring is on the way the edges of snow-drifts and ice-floes begin to melt, and though it may be long before the increasing warmth of the sun penetrates into the heart of these frozen masses, all who see them rejoice in the prospect of a general break-up."
– We observe in the Mildmay Service for the King the statement that 1 of eyery 60 Moravians becomes a missionary, and that the converts outnumber the parent Church by very nearly 3 to 1. Why are they any more obliged to this than we? And as it is fruitless to ask til< III to lower their stand"ard, there seems to be nothing for it but that we should exalt ours.
-The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Church of England in Canada, according to its organ, the Canadian Church. Magazine and Mission News, has sent out a missionary of her own to J apanthe Rev. J. G. 'Yallt'r.
-In the Chronicle for January, 1891, the Rev. G. H. Macfarlane discusses the work of gathering in the non-castes of the Cuddapah district, in the Madras Presidency, a country larger than Wales, and with a popula· tion of about 1,150,000, nearly all speaking Telugu-the second in importance, we judge, of the four affiliated Dravidian languages of which the Tamil is the principal. Mr. Macfarlane gives his decided judgment that these non-cm.tes, or out-casteR (about 150,000 in the district) owe their abjectness of character to no mental inferiority, but purely to the pressure from above, and to the lack of stimulus to self-development. It requires, he says, two generations of education at most, to bring them to an equality with the Brahmins. This again shows that these nummons conversions from the classes which are only lowest because they have been held down, are preparing a silent revolution which will some day compel the Brahmins to come to terms. Even Hinduism, as Sir William Hunter has shown, is slowly elevating the aboriginal tribes, which it is rapidly incorporating, until some of them have even attained to the !<acred thread of the" twice-born." Christianity. therefore, as he suggests, instead of being: ashamed of these, ought to throw herself first of all upon them, and thus secure these 50,000,000 from being thoroughly absorbed by Hinduism. It is one of Canon Taylor's choicest blunders that he has turned these 50,000,000 into half a million!
As to the motives of accession to Christianity on the part of these noncastes or Malas, as they are called, Mr. Macfarlane says, very discriminatingly, and exactly in a line with Bishop Caldwell in speaking of both these and of the lower castes: ,. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has long been preached to these people, and many have placed themselves under instruction to learn something of its saving truths. It is not to be supposed that deep conviction of sin has led them to such a step. They have not so much spiritual enlightenment as to feel sin to be a burden and to be anxious to get free from it. What impressions these people have are more of the head than of the heart. They see something better in Christianity than in what their ancestors and neighbors believe. Indeed, many h(athen scolf at their own practices while continuing them. They conceive, in a bli.l)< sort of way, that the religion of Jesus is the true path of righteousness and salvation. They are anxious also for social improvement for themselves and education for their children. Many of their relations llave become Christians and are receiving instruction, and they donot wish to be cutoff from them and be unable to intermarry. These and other reasons influence them, and so they would like to put themselves under Christian teaching and get whatever advantages, temporal as well as spiritual, connection with the new religion involves. The purest and highest motives do not move them. But amid what is worldly and selfish some distinct perceptions of the truth and superiority. of the religion of Jesus Christ do weigh with them. And, in truth, they themselves, or their children, do attain to higher perceptions, but the spiritual faculty in them has first to be awakened. Again, although as a community they are not ruled by purdy spiritual motives, individuals of them lire, just as it happens among other classes that only single hearts are touched, 'The wind bloweth where it listeth.' 'One is taken and another left.' But in the case of these people we have the whole community willing to put itself under influences for good, so that the chances are that a large percentage of individuals will be awakened t(l life and godliness. Higher castes are as yet only in rare instances open to influence as communities. Only single converts are being made from them. " Again: "Conversions to Christianity from other castes only occur in individual cases. •A Sudra is not able to persuade family and friends to become Christians. A Brahman, far from inB.uencing them, is disowned and excommunicated by them. His means of support–unless he fills a public post-are cut off. The mission he has joined has to maintain him and find him employment. He is himself a distinct gain to the Christian Church j but Hindu society remains unaffected. It closes on the space he left void. He is only a sapling broken off a tree, which scarcely shows the wound. But the Mala becomes a Christian with his wife, children, and all connections. A great branch is torn away from the tree, and the rent left apparent. An entire layer of Hindu society is gained for Christ. It is, indeed, the lowest j but it can form a foun,dation on which a Christian Church for the whole of India can be built. India is called' the country of villages.' If the Christian Church is to lay hold of them and not leave them pagan to the last, it cannot be accomplished by the conversion of solitary individuals, taking them out of their families and society, and finding them employment within the bounds of the mission. Christianity must establish itself by fonnding its churches in every village, and let.ting converts maintain themselves by their own occupations. There are no evidences at present that this work can be done by large conver- I!ions from caste TIindus, but the way seems open for it through securing and instructing the Mala community."
We would Buggest, under editorial favor, that Mr. Macfarlane would do a great service if he would write for THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD an article explaining whether any large part of these out-castes are also outcasts, the descendants of those that have in various' ages been expelled from their respective castes, and precisely how those lower races that are attached to Hinduism without having been admitted to the rank of a caste, differ, in point of religious and social rights, from the members of the lower castes. Most of us have but a confused idea of this distinction, which we nevertheless see to be so important in India. Indeed, the whole subject of Caste needs a revised elucidation for the benefit of those that are interested in missionar7 work among the Hindus. -The warning given by the editor of the Allgemeine Mislionszeitschrijt against too great a precipitancy on the part of Japanese Christians to set up for them.elves, is re-echoed by the Rev. W. Muirhead, of Shanghai, who writes, in the January Chronicle: "It may be well to mention to you the latest news from Japan from a missionary point of view, that, in general, it is a cause for much anxiety. The Christians there are largely in a very independent frame of mind regarding the forms in which Christianity has been presented to them as not suited to their requirements, and they are resolved to form a system of their own, dispensing with their foreign teachers 8S much as possible, and doing things as they think best." If we 'were to describe as faults of the Japanese character exaggerated self-confidence and exaggerated patriotism, we should be saying too much. Yet they would. hardly deny that their dangers lie on that side rather than on the other. As President Garfield is said to have declared that he was "for protection, with a view to ultimate free-trade," 80, perhaps, our Japanese brethren would not be the worse of taking as their motto: " Frank deference to the elder Christendom, with a steady progress toward spiritual independence for ourselves."
-It appears, from the Chronicle, that the French authorities on the Island of Mare have finally become tired of forcing the people in the matter of religion, and that now, although there is a good deal of petty persecution, the only act of persecution on a grand sca,le that has lately occurred is the impending exile of a pastor, two deacons, and three private members for having mutually given and accepted a call to resume the care of the pastor's old church, without bethinking themselves of first obtaining formal permission.
-We observe the publication, by Bertelsmann, at that metropolis of 'missionary interest, Giitersloh, of a pamphlet, the contents of which were first published in the Allgemeine Missionszeitschrijt, entitled " Wie ist da8 Maluriafieber in den Tropell mit besserem Erlolg als bisher zu behandeln? " " How can malarial fever in the tropics be treated with better success than hitherto 1" The author, Herr Zippel, contends strenuously against the use of quinine and of drugs in general as remedies for this fever, and.in favor of the water cure. We have read his treatise carefully in its original form, and mU9t say that it bristles with a very staggering array of facts in disparagement of quinine and in commendation of water. The pamphlet of forty-six pages seems worthy of being translated. The present writer, who has some experience of pernicious tropical fevers, must own that, so far as this goes, it inclines him to think highly of water and not very highly of drugs.
-We see from China's Millions that our Swedish brethren in this country are sending out helpers to the China Inland Mission. " The first -Mr. Matson-reached Shanghai on October 28th, and Mr. and Mrs.
Wallen have since arrived."
The Emperor has ordered all the distilleries in the flQoded province of China to be closed for a year, in order to save the grain. Good out of evil! .
China's Million8 quotes from The 'Christian part of an address of Dr.
D. McEwen, at Manchester, in which he says: "The special work of the Christian Church Jo-day is the immediate evangelization of the whole world. Conversion, whether of the few or the many, is the work of God Himself; but it is committed to the Church to take the Gospel message to every creature j and the time has come, in the providence of God, when this ought to be done, nDt in a halting, tentative way, but by sweeping measures. Through the march of discovery, the progress of international commerce, and the translation of the Scriptures, the speedy evangelization of the human race has come within the region of practical Christian politics."
An epidemic of influenza, as well as one of fever, appears to have been very rife throughout China, of which the missionaries are having their share.
-The Rhenish Missionary Society ill joyful and thankful at having been able to report for the last year double the number of baptisms from among the heathen that there were four years previously. In 1886 there were 1070; 1887, 1277 ; 1888, 1628 ; 1889, 2289.
-The Church of Scotland Mission Record for January 1st, 1891, says: " As w~ go to press we have received the distressing news, wired from Mozambique on December 13th, 'Cleland died, fever, Blantyre.' This is the second death sustained by our mission staff since Blantyre was founded in 1877, and now we have lost an enthusiastic missionary, who had Africa written upon his heart, who felt her woes most keenly, and who has labored for her in painfulness and weariness and loneliness through nearly four anxious years. "
-The Mission Record laments the loss of Dr. Brown, late editor of the Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church: "In the Church of Scotland he had many attached friends, and the General Assembly seldom passed without his genial face being seen within our assembly hall. He was a man whose losll to our Scot~ish Presbyterianism is to be lamented at the present time, when in the growing desire for reunion, the help of generous, broad-minded men, of whatever Church, is greatly in demand." Happy Scotland, that has unity even in her divisions, and not, as some say of a great national church not far removed, division even in her unity.
It will be remembered that Disraeli. in one of his earlier romances, describes the Queen of Great Britain 'retreating before a too-powerful invader, as taking refuge in her fleet and establishing herself in the capital of her Indian Empire, from which, advancing westward, she sweeps Western Asia and all Europe under her sceptre, and reoccupies London. The subsequent achievement of the transplanted Asiatic, in placing the Indian diadem in all form on his mistress's brow, challenges a half-amused, half-serious attention, in these days of unsettled expectancy of nations, even to this fantastically gorgeous dream, and to the fine description of Calcutta quoted by the Mission Record from Sir William Hunter: "Calcutta still goes on growing with the growth of a vigorous maturity. Its unrivalled position at the mouth of the combined river systems of Northern and North-eastern India gives it a great advantage in regard to the older and bulkier staples of Bengal-rice, jute, and oil seeds-although even these have to a very large extent deserted the slower water-routes for the rail ways. The enterprise of its merchants and capitalists has called into existence new industries on a vast scale–'-tea-planting, coal-mining, engineering foundries, and steam factories of many sorts. The new railway to the west will bring to it an increasing share of the wheat trade; and it only awaits the better adaptation of the European smelting processes to the Indian coals and ores to become the financial centre of a great iron industry in Bengal. Meanwhile Calcutta sits calm and strong on its ancient river bank and watches the produce of the richest provinces of the world float down to it by many waters, or pour into it by an ever-extending network of railwa;ys. $edet aJternumq.ue Iwtf/bit," H ije~d,& 9q~ t4lt the two- ed~ed. sword of the Son of God should cut a~under the chains of Brahminical bondage, and India may perhaps spring forth into a magnificence of development passing the imaginations of antiquity concerning her uncounteJ. wealth.
The following passage from the Record is worthy of being pondered by American Christians: "The State may persecute, as the Roman State did, because anti-Christian; but it is hard to see why the people of a State preponderatingly Christian should persecute themselves, since they know that their faith makes not for the overtb.row but for the consolidation of national life. Or the State may try to ignore religion on the false theory of exaggerated individualism, which forgets that national life is the aggregate of the life of families, and that family life is based on the religious conception of marriage. The attempt to ignore the mightiest factor in the formation of national life can never succeed." Says the old Scottish Second Book of Discipline, magistrates "are callit in the Scripture nourishers of the Kirk, for sameikle as be them it is, or at least aucht to be, mantenit, fosterit, uphalden, and defendit against alt that wuld procure the hurt thereof." Whatever may be our theories respeCting the relations of Church and State, it seems as if Christians must allow that a modu8 vivendi between Christ and Antichrist was never in the mind of our Lord Jesus.
-The following, from a discourse of George Muller, delivered in his native tongue, in the Mission House of Basel, and appearing in the Neukirchener Heidenbote, ctlmes with especial authority from the lips of one whose faith God has so often changed to palpable fact. It assuredly belongs to the missionary work at a time when dignitaries of the Church raise the scoffing cry, " What do these feeble Jews r' "If we wish to have faith, we have purely to do with the promise as it is given in God's Word. We have not to question our thoughts and feelings j we have not to wait for special impressions, not to look to probability and outer circumstances, but purely and only to the Word of God, to believe what that says. Faith can act without feelings and probability j faith needs nothing but God's promise. If we wish anything more, this is no longer faith in the Word of God. " Faith is not concerned primarily with this or that fragment, but with all the promises, with the whole revelation of God in His Holy Word, with all the promises that have been made to the people of God. This, it appears to me, suffices for a definition of faith in the Word of God. "
-The Guardian commends to the public, as ft very valuable mine of information respecting India, on all its sides, Mr. S. W. Caine's new book, "Picturesque India." It regrets, however, the last chapter, "the tendency of which will be to strengthen the foolish belief that India is in danger,' near or remote, of a Russian invasion; and by pandering to this folly to condone the extravagant and wasteful military expenditures which absorbs so much of the revenue of India.' , -The Indian Witness, remarking on the lavish subscriptions in India for statues to departing governors, laments that thus far the Bowen Memorial Fund has barely touched 10,000 rupees. "George Bowen did a mightier. work for India, especially for Western India, than any half dozen bestatued governers." As George Bowen's former teacher, Dr. T. E. Skinner, said of him, " his face shone with the light of incipient trans- figuration w4ile he was sttn ~ student in VniOll Seminary-."
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
:EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Fourteen Years of Earth-Hunger in Thus reads a dooument lately issued by Africa. the new French Committee on African affairs. It is, a long story already and [J. T. G.] not a very amusing one, this of the so- called Partition of Africa; yet it is, the " We are at present assisting at a London Times says, "so far an Rccom· unique spectacle in hi.story-the actual division of a continent scaroely known plislied faot that it is possible to take by the civilized nations of Europe." stook of the share which has fallen to
rn'1'EliN.A!t'10NAL lYliJPAltTMlllNT
the lot of each with some approach to Portuguese limitations, the English accuracy. " sphere•• , now and then," is suggestive. The MlJUvement Geographique, some short while gince, worked out the prob. British Africa, 1876: West Coast Col- lem of the European geographical exten_ ilion in Africa in a series of tables which onies, 15,640 square miles; Atlantic are the clearest presentation of this prog- ress which has fallen under ou.. eye. Islands, 125 ; Cape Colony and depend- It is astounding to note this projection of Europe on Africa within fourteen encies, 241,500 ; Natal, 21,000; Mauriyears, or since 1876, the year of the Brussels Conference, from which the tius and dependencies, 900. Total, scramble may be said to date. 279,165 square miles. So far as area goes, France has got more in this general looting than any British Africa, 1890 : West Coast Colother nation. In 1876 France had African possessions as follows: onies, 45,000 square miles ; Royal Niger French Africa, 1876 : Algeria, 123,000 Company, 400,000; Atlantic Islands, square miles; Senegambia, 154,400; Gaboon, 4830 ; Reunion, 964 ; Mayotte, 125; Walfish Bay, 460; Cape Colony, Nossi-Be, and Ste. Marie, 256. Total, 283,450 square miles. Her present pos- with dependenoies-Basutoland, Zulusessions stand in marked contrast with that, as witness the figures, which are land, Bechuanaland, etc., 500,000; not, of course, precise. Natal, 21,000; British South Africa French Africa, 1890 : Algeria, 184,480 square miles; Tunis, 44,790; Senegal Company and Nyassaland, 500,000; and dependencies, 580,000 ; Sahara and Western Soudan, 965,000 ; Gold Coast, Mauritius and dependencies, 900; 19,300; Gaboon and French Congo, 270,000; Madagascar and neighboring Zanzibar and Femba, 760 ; British East islands, 232,600 ; Reunion, 964 ; Comoro Islands, 798; Obock, 2316. Total, Africa (including sphere of influence), 2,300,248 square miles. 400,000 ; Somali Coast region, 38,000 ; In 1876 Germany had no claim to a mile of territory in Africa. At present Socotra, 3000. Total, 1,909,445 square her empire in the "Dark Continent" is great. miles.
German Africa, 1890 : Togoland, 7720 But Britain has no northern limit to square miles; Cameroons, 193,000; Southwest Africa, 385,000 ; East Africa, its sphere, and the" thin red line" is 450,000. Total, 1,035,720 square miles. at Cairo and Suakim. This may not seem vast compared with some, but the ratio' must be reck- It is doubtful if Portugal had more oned from nothing; and it must be borne in mind that this was all virtually than 80,000 square miles of territory in obtained within a few months, in 1884- 85 ; all else has been mere adjustment Africa in 1876, but the following may of boundaries. be accepted as substantially correct: .. Has Britain finished 1" is the signifi. cant question of the Mouvement Geo- Portuguese Africa, 1876 : Madeira, 314 graphiq'lle, in referring to the British sphere of influence. Taking the Anglo- English square miles; Cape Verd Isl- ands, 1486; Islands of Sao Thome and Principe, 417; Angola, 300,000; Mo- zambique, 300,000. Total, 612,217 Eng.
lish square miles.
Portuguese Africa, 1890: Madeira, 314 square miles; Cape Verd Islands, 1486; Guinea and Bissagos Islands, 2316 ; Sao Thome and Principe, 417 ; Cabinda, 460 ; Angola, 470,000 ; Mozam- bique, 300,000. Total, 774,993 square miles. • For the smaller states we can only give totals. In 1876 f:$pain had not more than 80,000 square miles. If all her claims were now admitted she would have 220,000. In 1876 Italy had nothing, …
officially, in Africa; she now claims, and no power contests it, 360,000 square miles. Turkey's claim to Tripoli is un· disputed ; and if her rule in Egypt is to be counted-though England rules it far more-she has, in a loose way,
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
enough beyond Tripoli to make perhaps Laying Siege to the 'Stronghold of the 1,000,000 square miles. Dalai Lama-The Moravian Mission among the Western Himalayas. SU1lOrLUlY. BY MV. ;T. T. lLUIILTON;, BETlILEHlCM:, l'A. The following is the summary of the above ciphering. Perhaps we would Among the flora of the Himalayas not better state in advance, for the benefit the least inteiesting is the juniperus of sticklers, that this is only an approx- excelsa, the" pencil cedar," a tree held imate putting of the facts: sacred by the Tibetans, who use it for their sacrificial fires. Clinging to the Portugal, in 1876, 612,217; in 1890, merest crevices, thriving on almost pre. 774,993 square miles. Spain, in 1876, cipitouB declivities, it roots itself with 3500; in 1890, 210,000. France, in a firmness that acknowledges alone the 1876,283,450; in 1890,2,300,248. Ger- superior power of the avalanche. Evermany, in 1890, 1,035,720. Congo Free green in life and when felled furnish- State, in 1890, 1,000,000. Italy, in ing most valuable timber, it is of amaz- 1890, 360,000. Great Britain, in 1876, ingly slow growth. A century may 279,165 ; in 1890, 1,909,445. Total, in elapse before a seedling from it deserves 1876, 1,178,332; in 1890, 7,590,406 the name of tree. Yet it can and does square miles. attain noble proportions, its trunk some- times measuring from nine to twelve If to this we add the areas of Egypt yards in circumference. To the juniand the Egyptian Soudan, of Tripoli, per of the Himalayas the mission of the Morocco, the independent Central Sou- Moravian Church among those moundan States, the Transvaal and Orange tains has been compared. Planted in Free States, and patches elsewhere not an almost inaccessible region and in the yet ensphered, it will probably be found face of gravest difficulties, its progress that, of the 11,900,000 square miles of has been slow. Yet faith foresees a day Africa, not more than 2,500,000 remain when the hardy evergreen shall flourish to be scrambled for. like a cedar of Lebanon. Possibly, as by the botanist, the juniperus excelsa·is We have left ourselves no room to regarded with peculiar interest, so also moralize on all this, as to its inherent for the friend of Protestant missions justice, its inspiration, its probable fu- the story of this undertaking, which inture, its bearing on the evangelization volves a residence for Europeans at an of the peoples; or on-what tempts our elevation a couple of thousand feet pen just now more than other points- higher than the famous St. Bernard the overstrained claim for benevolence Pass, and journeys through mountain in seeking the good of Africa. It is, at defiles far above the level of the sumleast, quite noticeable that this mag- mit of Mount Blanc, may in like mannanimous regard for the betterment and ner possess attractions. civilization of these, ofthe .. submerged tenth"-not of England, but of the Invited, in 1850, by the well-known whole human family-should date con· apostle to the Chinese, K. F. A. Gutztemporaneously with the fever for co- laff, to send missionaries to the western lonial expansion. Whether the govern· portion of that great empire, the Mis_ ments know it or not, the people are not sion Board of the Moravian Church deceived by this pious cant. It may called for two volunteers. Thirty reseem to serve their purpose, just because sponded. Two of these, Edward Pagell back of all this reckless rush for gain and A. W. Heyde, both laymen, having there really is a great percentage of earn- been selected and sent to Berlin for a est philanthropy which, while it is not course in medicine, in the summer of humbugged by this political hypocrisy 1853 proceeded to India. The original of motive, has the good sense to avail plan had been to seek Mongolia via Rus· itself of the opportunity thus afforded; but it would do this just as well without this rubbish of asserted magnanimity of motive. sia, but the Czar's fidelity to the tradi- about a hundred miles northeast of tions of the Orthodox Greek Church negatived a request for permission to Simla, and therefore on the very con· take this most direct route. At Kolghur, a statiol1, of the Anglican Church, on the fines of Tibet. Yet endeavors to in- Sutlej, north of Simla, the reside,nt missionary rendered them every assist- vade the land from this point also failed, ance in his power, and a beginning was made in the study of Hindustani and even though the people were willing Tibetan. When somewhat familiar with the latter an attempt was made to enter enough to send for the missionary to in- Tibet. But the boycott was most effectually employed to defeat this. Hardly oculate multitudes against the smallwas Pagell a few days' journey within the Province of Tsotso when he realized pox in a time of distress from that that starvation faced him. Not even could parched barley-meal be bought. scourge. The very lamas and nuns Water was to be obtained only on condition of a withdrawal from the coun- anxiously availed themselves of vaccinatry, and even after a promise to this effect had been given not more than tion, and honors were shown to the misone day's allowance of barley-meal could be procured by the missionary's attend- sionary such as only men of high rank ants. receive; but the work of vaccination Lama-ridden Tibet being thus barred shut, the best that could be done was to over, he was significantly reminded that seek Mongolia by way of Ladak, a former Tibetan province, now tributary to he belonged the other side of the bor~ Kashmir. Here also jealousy of Europeans drew forth a peremptory order to der. Nay, at a later time, so recently return across the border. as 1888, when another trial waa made, Satisfied that for the present an advance was impoRsible, the missionaries friendly officials gave assurance that it then found a permanent home in Kyelang, a village of Lahoul, within the lim- would cost them their heads if they perits of .British sovereignty. Here, a hundred and fifty miles from Simla, and mitted a European to pass. the same distaDce ,from Leh, the capital of Ladak, .at.a height of 10,000 feet Nevertheless, one barrier has since above 1Ie6,level,. in tb,e midst of a population prevailingly Tibetan and Buddh- thenl?roken down. The jealous suspiillt, they began their labors in 1856. cions of the Maharajah of· Kashmir have Before long. they were joined by the Re,.., H,. A. Jaschke. a.scholar pre-emi- yielded. In 1885 Leh became a third nent' in Jingu}J,tic abilities, who had resigned' his ~o-directorship of the classi· station of the mission, and is now ascal· college of the Moravian Church in Germany . that. he might share their suming the characteristics of its headlabors .. . In 1865, still keeping in view their quarters, as is natural, since it is an imultimattl purpo.se ofearryi1g the Gospel into Chinese territOlfY. they founded portant city, an entrepot of trade from a Bacond 4itation ·at.l'oo,.onihe .Sutlej, Lhassa, Yarkand, Bokara, Cabul, the Punjab, and Srinagar. Moreover, even though it lies at an elevation of 11,500 feet, it affords an excellent starting- point for evangelistic tours among Ti_ betan-speaking Buddhist populations.
Hindustani is the language of its bazar, and Islam is predominant. Here the hospital established by the British Gov- ernment has been made over to the mis- sionaries, and here, especially, they have an important school, a school the farther-reaching in its influence because the sub-ruler of the Province of Ladak last year promulgated a decree" that from every .family in Leh and the neigh- bo.rhood, where there ill more than one child, at least one child must be Bent to the mission school." True, the attend- anco at the portion of the curriculum which touches on ~eIigion is left .oP- tional, but at last accounts. there were about sixty present daily.
sioWnairtihe'sit(smatlh~reaensdtatfieounias!,.eel}e.avnsdll mis- Olll, about fifty native communicants, the ing my tent, I was obliged to take refugo growth of this mission has been juniper- under a large block of stone which promlike in its slowness. Yet the intricate ised some protection from the weather. network of rootlets thrown out in the It snowed heavily in the night and I evangelistic tours and in the scattering longed for the morning.' , of printed portions of God's Word and religious tracts in the Tibetan, may be Again, the missionaries here confront believed to have fastened it so firmly in a powerful and well organized system its unfavorable situation that, please of false faith. The lamas, clothed in God, it will defy the storms and endure their red robes and yellow peaked caps, evergreen for generations to come, at claim and receive divine honors. The length reachil{g a glorious symmetry and sense of sin has been deadened by the majestic size, " its leaves for the healing doctrine of the transmigration of souls. of the nations." Of repentance the people appear to have no innate conception. Gross supersti- Peculiar obstacles have been in the tions have debased even their Buddh. way of the progress of this mission. It ism. With complacent indifference has been found no child's play to lay they let the lamas do the thinking for siege to the stronghold of the Dalai them. With a liberalism that would Lama. First of all, the physical features delight the most thoroughgoing agnosof the field are unique. From April to tic, they meet the approaches of those October the two earlier stations, Kye· who would point out the way of salvalang and Poo, are absolutely isolated tion by affirming that" doubtless there from the rest of the world by the vast are many roads which reach one final masses of snow that block every pass. goal. " The prayer-mill mechanically The very battle for existence is severe, grinus out their devoticns. Pol'yandry there being so little arable land, and corrupts their morals. Holiness is supfalls of snow being unknown in no posed to be acquired by paying a lama month of the year. What is entailed in to read pages of the sacred books in an travelling may be learned from the unknown tongue. Lucky and unlucky following extracts from missionaries' days and divination, playas important a letters: "Passing through rivers, or part in their daily Iives as in those of over them, on swaying bridges made of the ancient Egyptian. Deception and boughs, crossing glaciers with danger- fraud are considered' far less culpable ous ice hanging from steep, rocky preci- than the killing of some noxious insect. pices, where one truly carried one's life Idolatry is so universal that when a in one's hands; traversing partly Tibetan has received a religious book snowed-up passes 14,000, 16,000, 17,- from the missionary he has been known 000 and 18,000 feet in height-there to keep a lamp burning and offer sacri. were so many gracious preservations fices before it in his house. from danger that the recollections of this journey are truly a page of memory Again, to profess the Christian rewhich my wife would not on any account ligion involves for the convert the being be deprived of. …" "Next morning completely disowned by his people. He we set off very early and soon hau noth- is boycotted. There have been ining but ice beneath and around us. stances when his life was endangered, Twice my horse fell with me through a or when he has died under suspicious thin coat of snow into deep fissures, but circumstances pointing to foul play. both times I was mercifnlly preserved. The jealousy of native chiefs and the "I spent a trying night in deep hatred of the more influential the vicinity of the monastery ; not being lamas have been manifested in the bringable to find shelter in the miserable huts ing of vexatious lawsuits against the erpcted by the side of the wall of rock, ' missionaries on various pretexts. ~tm Jess to discover a fit spot for pitch- And in addition to all this the barrier of language has often been great. Evenafter the Tibetan proper has been mas- ormation, a catechism, and a summary tered, it has appeared t-o be a dead of Christian doctrine, besides tracts and language to the mass of the people of a school-books in Tibetan, mustal.so be district, and especially to the women. numbered among the literary labors of Some peculiar dialect, like the Bunan the missionaries. Highly important, or the Trinan, has been all that they un- too, are Jlischke's Thibetan-English nerstood. Grammar (Kyelang, 1865; LondoD, 1883), and Thibetan-English Dictionary Under these circumstances it is not (London, 1881), which have called forth surprising that the missionary efforts high commendation from Professor Max have not as yet shown large measures of MUller. visible results. The Gospel, in these regions especially, must be addressed to .. All things come to him who waits," individuals as such, but they have so says a well-tried proverb. Its truth is little personal independence and force especially applicable in the case of him of character, that it is almost impossible who waits on the Lord. Full success for them to face public opinion and risk must attend the work among the all for Christ's sake. Yet the leaven of Himalayas sooner or later, and a breach the Gospel is working slowly and sure- be made in the wall that surrounds the ly. The lamas are indicating their can. stronghold of the Dalai-Lama. Mean· victioD that a contlict is UpOD them whil~, the missionaries are asking that fraught for them with the most serious the siege guns of prayer bombard the issues. Thus, for example, they have bastions of Lamaism. "Could you not, recently imported from Chinese Thibet in missionary circles at home, form a a famous Buddhist work in a hundred union which should make it a duty, not volumes, a load for twelve horses, at a occasionally, but regularly, to remember cost of $500, for the defence of their re- prayerfully the Himalayan mission?" ligion. They feel that the ground is was the request that came last spring beginning to slip from beneath their from the missionary at Poo. It has feet. Among the converts is to be reck- been ·answered by a number, who agree oned a learned lama, Sodpa. Gjalzan, whose father was an official at Lhassa, 1. To pray definitely at least one day the home of the. Dalai-Lama, the in the week for this mission, and for an Buddhist pope. . outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon its missionaries. Direct preaching, evangelistic tours, schools, and the work of medical mis. 2. To read regularly what is published siona.ries have been among the methods about this field, as material for suppliof attack employed here as elsewhere. cation and thanksgiving, and But particularly important has been the printing and distribution of the Scrip- 3. To plead for the opening of the tures and tracts. Many a Christian vol. door into Chinese Tibet, the great ume in Tlbetan has t.hus found its way stronghold of Buddhism, and one of the to Lhassa itself. Ever since the fall of few countries still closed to the Gospel. 18580. lithographic press has been busily employed, and the entire New Testa- The intercessions of the readers of ment, translated by Jlischke and Red. this magazine are likewise requested. slob and the converted lama, was printed at Berlin in 1883 and 1884 at the ex. " Working and Waiting for Tibet" is pense of the British and Foreign Bible the title of a book just issued by Mor. Society. The greater part of the gan &, Scott, London, containing a time· Pentateuch, Joshua, the Psalms, and ly and admirable description of this isaiah have also been issued from the mission work in the Western Himalayas, lithographic press at Kyelang. A his- the country and people, with chapters tory of the Christian Church to the Ref- on Duddhism and the Lamas. It is based on a German work by Hermann Gustav Schneider. It is illustrated, and if! to be sold at a low price. J. T. G.
1891·1
Editorial Notes. missionary lands. Besides, as there is ;T. T. G. nothing a Chinaman dreads more than singularity, this review will have the We cannot forbear adding a personal effect of inspiring a new and more agtestimony to the noble work of the Unity gressive interest in the work which is Brethren. in the Western Himalayas, enlisting the activity and labors of about which Secretary Hamilton writes. Christian communities in all lands. In 18137 the writer received from them Both the periodicals are issued under at his own request a dozen copies of the the auspices of a local society for the Gospels in Tibetan, then just issued "diffusion of Christian and general from their press, and found a way to knowledge," which is thereby solving send them by messenger through the the problem of enlisting in the cause of Nepal Passes into Tibet. It is with missions the interest and co-operation interest that after all these years the following letter is at hand: J. T. G.
KYELANG, Nov. 6, li67. of a large and influential lay element res- Rev. J. T. Gracey: ident in China. This society is com- posed of leading men of all nationali- DEAn BROTHER: Your letter, dated ties, consuls, Chinese customs officers, October 5th, reached me only the day merchants, bankers, and lawyers who, before yesterday. I am glad to learn with some of the older and more experithat you find no difficulties in dis- enoed missionaries, have' in this way tributing the Tibetan Gospels, and united to give the Chinese the benefits of our higher civilization and enlight- I am very happy to send you by thill enment.. Thus, the cause of missions post another supply of them. We are is being mightily sustained and promotall here very thankful that you assist ed by a' large and influential class of uur work in this way, and we shall be foreigners resident in China who, but always happy to hear that they find the for such an opportnnity-one whioh way into Tibet. they heartily approve of and believe in -would be almost entirely lost to mis- Allow me to send you also by book- sionary enterprise. post our Tibetan grammar and our dictionary. Please accept this as a broth- A correspondent from China, writerly gift. I take also the liberty to send, ing about the great Shanghai Conference together with the books, a few copies last May, calls it a .. glorious success," of grammars and dictionaries, in case and says the spirit of it still abides that there would be gentlemen who would like to buy them. 'rhe price of adictionary is rupees 2, and the gram. mar, 12 annas.
The Lord be with you in your wor~. In Him I salute you as your Brother, TH. RECHLER.
among the churches. .. Over one hun.
We have pleasure in acknowledging dred new missionaries," he says, .. have the receipt of the first number of a new arrived since our call for the 1000 was missionary literary venture, Ohung si issued !" The executive committees Kiao HwuiPao (The Missionary Review), appointed' by the Conference to provide edited by Rev. Dr. Y. J. Allen, also the . for the revision of the Bible have nearly Wan Krooh Kung Pao (The Review of the completed their labors by the election Times), under the same editorial care. of competent translators. There are to The latter is designed to reach the offi- be three versions, one in High Wen-Ii, cials and literary classell, who chiefly one in Easy Wen-Ii, and one in Man- , patronize it, while the former is devoted darin, and it is hoped that the entire to the native churches. The Chinese work will be done by the Dext General are given to imitation, and it is thought Conference, say ten years hence.
that this new periodical may avail itself of this peculiarity by laying be- Rev. Dr. Happer was compelled to fore them the history, objects, and meth- resign his muoh loved work in the col- ods of missions, as condncted in all lege at Canton, China, owing to the state fields, or, at least, in all foreign and of his health, which his physicians said
INTE:RNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
forbade all work involving either severe ton Springs, N. Y., June 10th to 17th. mental or physical strain, especially that May God bless and restore our dear which causes anxiety; and the college Brother Belden ! had reached a stage which required great care and responsibility as well as hard "A suggestive symptom," says the work. In a letter written to us, January Asiatic Quarterly Review, about China, 12th, he says he hopes to get away early "is the decree just issued that, on ill April. He hopes to resume his their next New Year's day the ambassastudies in this oountry, and is bringing dors of the Western nations," such as all his books for this purpose. His ob- ministers of Great Britain, France, Russervations and experiences on the field sia, the United States, and Holland, are during forty-seven years will enable to receive an audience of the Emperor, him to present most valuable addresses followed by a banquet, and this cereon foreign missions before the churches mont is to be continued every year. and young men in the colleges and sem- The question of audience has been uninaries. He hopes to be at the next der discussion for centuries. So far meeting of the International Missionary back as 1816 Lord Amherst flatly reo Union, at Clifton Springs, N. Y., June fused to kowtow-that is, to knock his 10th to 17th. head against the ground in presence of the Emperor. Thus, the British sailor It is with the deepest sorrow that paved the way for the American miniswe are obliged to say to the members of ter to dispense with the whole of this the Internation!11 Missionary Union that ceremony in order to ' protect those dutheir most faithful and efficient secre- ties which every Western nation owes tary, Rev. William H. Belden, of Bris- to its own dignity,' and to introduce, tol, Conn., has been stricken from the through the present Emperor, the brothlist of nctive workers, at least for" time. erhood of monarchies even among the On February 28th, at his own home and Celestials. " in the midst of his family, he was stricken with paralysis in a severe form, and The resignation of Rev. Dr. Lowrie, lay unconscious for some days. At as Secretary of the Presbyterian Mission. this writing, which is necessarily weeks ary Board, follows hard on that of Dr. away from the reading of it, his life Murdock, of the Baptist Union. "Ad. still hangs in the balance, but is not de- vancing years and providential circum. spaired of. This is not the time nor stances" compel these changes. The. plaee to say what Mr. Belden was and, Presbyterian Board requests Dr. Lowrie we hope, is to be again to the Union, to to accept the position of Emeritus Sechis large parish, and to other prominent retary, with a salary as heretofore, and enterprises. We cllnnot bring our- express their appreciation of his ability, selves to do more now than to ask the fidelity, and diligence in his general prayers of the members of the Union in superintendence through so many years. particular in his behalf, and to announce that his heroic lind devoted wife, even Miss M. Burt, of Springfield, 0., has in the midst of her troubles, elects to just issued a pan-denominational map take up his duties as Secretary of the I. of China, with the mission stations of M. U., as she is familiar with the con- all boards clearly and accurately loca~. dition of the work; and at this hour ed. The map is 34 by 45 inches. It is the work could scarcely be handed over offered at the very low figure of one dolto any other. The Union will feel un- lar. Around the margin of the map is der great obligation to her for this ser- an amount of interesting and instrucvice, and will render all the aid possi- tive matter such as is of general useful. ble in reaching all missionaries with no- ness. tice of the eighth annual meeting, at Clif.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
III.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Bound up with this number is 0. chart, Sarah Rhea, Melinda Rankin, and hosts prepared by 0. very intelligent student of women besides. of Buddhism and Romanism, by which he seeks to present to the eye the strik- There are at present some four mething similarity between the two systems. ods of conducting these lectureships, It has often been remarked by mis· and where one plan is not feasible sionaries in Buddhistic communities, another may be. that Romanism finds it difficult to make much headway because the Buddhists 1. The Occasional Lectureship, or claim that already they have in their such as may be provided for from time faith and worship so many anticipations to time, for 0. single season or term of of the new" Western religion" urged years. It is sometimes practicable for on their acceptance. The comparisons an institution to secure from individuals suggested in this chart confirm the fact, 0. donation for this purpose, or to apalready hinted by Church historians, propriate from current funds 0. suffithat many of the prominent features of cient sum to provide for an occasional Romanism are borrowed from paganism, course. as many of the statues of saints at Rome are really the gods and heroes of pagan 2. The Professional, Lectureship, Rome christened with new names. where, in the erection and endowment of a professor's chair, lectures on mis- Missionary Leotureships, sions are embraced as a part of the func- tion of the teacher. A chair of " Chris- These are deservedly growing in favor, tian Evidences and Missions" has thus for they secure careful and competent been provided for of late at that very preparation of matter on the part of progressive McOormick Seminary, at specialists in the department of mis- Chicago, as similar chairs have been sions, and they bring the great facts and established in other institutions. appeals of the world-wide field into contact with young men at the most im- 3. The Annual Leotureship. Suoh is pressible period of life, when the con- usually provided for by a fund whose victions and resolves are taking perma- interest is applied to this purpose. A nent shape and the sphere of life work generous donation or legacy is given or is being determined. We sincerely bequeathed to an institution, and by hope that this practicable and desirable the provisions of the gifL is restricted method of reaching students in life's to this use. The famous Bampton transition period will come to be uni- FoundatioIl' in Great Britain, and the versal in our colleges and theological Ely Foundation in this country, may schools, and particularly do we urge the furnish examples. The former is now establishment and delivery of such lec- in its second century, and has furnished ture courses where hitherto, we regret to the world some of the ablest oourses to add, they have been very strangely of lectures ever delivered. neglected-in our young ladies' colleges and seminaries. It must be remem- At Rutgers Theological Seminary, bered that some of the noblest pioneers New Brunswick, N. J., the editor-inin mission work, and some of the most chief has just concluded (February 23d) remarkable examples of apostolic con- 0. course of seven leotures on" Chrissecration, have been found among wom- tian Missions as a Divine Enterprise." en, like tbe wives of Adoniram Judson, Mrs. Dr. Grant, Fidelia Fiske, Mr. N. F. Graves, of Syracuse, has Harriet Newell. Rosine Krapf, Eliza put 0. certain sum year by year at the Asnew, Mfa, Sarah B, Capron, Mrs, disposal of the Seminary for such pur- pose. The first year six lectures were delivered by as many different men; last year, Rev. Dr. John Hall gave the en- tire oourse. Here, without any perma- Ill)p.t fund, the le<lt1:Il'eship is aunual, and we understand that Rev. Dr. A. J. and pllices as the trustees may deter· Gordon, of Boston, ill already appointed mine, between January and April of the Graves Lecturer for 1892. We congrat. second year of the lecturer's term. ulato the seminary on this appointment, 4. That the lecturer shall publish not • and sincerely hope that this generous less than one hundred copies of his lec· Syracusan may be led to provide for tures within one year following their the permanence of this Rutgers course. delivery, to be distributed according to 4. The Qu'ldrennial Lectureship. Of a list furnished by the trustees; and this the famous" Duff Foundation," in beyond these the published lectures be· Scotland, is perhaps the only example. come his own property. There are some features about it that Me unique and very desirable. We'give 5. Out of the income of this trust somewhat extended reference to it, as fund the trustees first defray all neces- it commends itself for imitation in cer· sary costs not falling to the lecturer to tain advantages in which it stands alone, defray; then, on delivery of the course, not to say unrivalled. the net proceeds of two yeMs go to This" Duff Lectureship" was founded the lecturer; and upon the publication in 1879 by William Pirie Duff, Esq" in of the lectures he is entitled to the in- pursuance of the will of his father, Rev. come of the remaining two years. Alexander Duff, D.D., " for the estab· lishment and endowment of a quadren- All other matters connected with the nial course of lectures on some depart. lectureship are left at discretion of this ment of foreign missions or cognate sub· Board of Trustees, who become final judges in every matter pertaini ng thereto r jects. A Board of Trustees was created, under these provisions. Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D., Dr. Duff's colleague in Cal. consisting of eight leading men, viz., cutta, became the first lecturer, Rev. Baron Polwarth, Rev. William Lindsay William Fleming Stevenson, D.D., the Alexander, Principal of the Theological second, Sir Monier Monier Williams, the Hall of the Oongregational Union of third, and the editor·in·chief of this Scotland; 'William Pirie Duff, Esq., REVIEW, the fourth. Hev. Robert Gordon,. of the Free Ohurch ; Rev. J. Marshall Lang, D.D., The special features of this lecture. of the Established Ohurch of Scotland; ship, which seem to us to be unique in Hugh M. Matheson, Esq., Duncan Mac· their desirableness, are these: . Neill, Esq., Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D., United Presbyterian, and their 1. It is practically impossible that successors, as provided for. Here it this trust fund should ever be perverted, will be seen that some of the foremost abused, or wasted. men of the leading evangelical bodies are put in charge of this fund, with Mrs. 2. Though undenominational and Rebecca J. Duff Watson as consulting catholic in character, the evangelical member. standing and teaching of the lecturers is assured. It is further provided, 1. That the lecturer shall be a minis· 3. Ample time is secured for the ter, professor, or godly layman of any preparation and delivery of the course. evangelical church, and shall hold the The lecturer has at least two years from said lectureship for four years. the date of his appointment to get his 2. That the lecturer shall choose his course ready, and one year more to com· own theme, subject to the approval of plete its issue in printed form. this Board of Trustees, one year before time of delivery. 4. Ample provision is made for the 3; That the lectures, at least six in expense incidental to such preparation number, shall be delivered in Edinburgh and publication. But one series of lee· tures is called fur, but the lecturer holds PIld Glasgow, and Ilt 11llCP other tixulls his incumbency for a four years' term, during which the net income from the investment inures to his benefit. He is ~bus eD!ltbled to purchRRe any books, or bear any other needful expense of time are Roman Catholics, should read that, and st~ength incidental to preparation. out of a popUlation of about 2,000,000 5. The repeated deli very in the great centres of population insures a large and there are that number of Roman Catho- representative hearing, and brings the course before both the educated uni· lics." Until about thirty years ago, versity students and the popular assem- blies. only Lutheranism was tolerated in Nor- 6. The infrequency' of the course way. allows an opportunity to the trustees to act with deliberation. It would not In justice to Dr. McAlI and his work- always be easy to secure for each cur· rent year a lecturer who had made the ers, the REVIEW gives place to the fol- subject of missions a specific study, nor would it be always practicable even for lowing statement by the Rev. Dr. Mc- such persons to prepare a special course at short notice. All, approved by the Committee of Di- If any other lectureship of missions rection of the McAll Mission, at their has been established whose provisions are equally sagacious, and foresighted. meeting held on January 20th, 1891, re- and generous, the writer knows not of such; and the details of this Scottish specting certain re!lections recently plan are presented somewhat fully, in hope that the essential features may be made upon the position and constitu- largely and extensively copied in other parts of the Christian world. tion of the mission: That little paper which Chaplain Mc- The Committee of Direction of the Cabe is now distributing among the ,. Mission Populaire Evang~lique de host of the Methodists is a wide-awake France" would gladly pass over in silence and trumpet-tongued messenger of the an article in the American Baptist Mis- Gospel of Peace. It is well called World- sionary Magazine for January, 1891, and wide Missions, and we should gladly wel- briefer ones in L'Echo de la Verite (organ come it to a world-wide circulation. He of the French Baptists), and Evangelical hopes for a million and a quarter read- Christendom (organ of the British Evan- ers this year-and a million and a quar- gelical Alliance), in which our relations ter dollars for missions. Here is an with the French chur,ches are more or illustrated monthly, with nine pages of less pointedly referred to. Since, how- reading matter exclusive of advertise- ever, those statements convey the im- ments, and all for twenty-five cents a pression that the mission" is allying it- year in advance! It is published at 150 self more and more with churches per- Fifth Avenue, New York, and 144 Mon- meated with rationalism and formal- roe Street, Chicago. Chaplain McCabe ism." it becomes necessary to make has proven himself an efficient leader public an outline of facts bearing on the '. among the Lord's hosts as well as in the case. For it is obvious that, if such a , armies of his country• We bid him God- compromise existed, the work must for- speed! feit its claim to the confidence and sup- port of all faithful evangelical Chris- Dr. J. H. W. Stuckenberg writes from tians. We venture to affirm that the Berlin, March 3d. 1891: "The state- original basis of the mission, which is ment made in a recent number of the precisely that of the Evangelical Alli- REVIEW that, out of a population of ance, has been in no degree departed 6,000,000 ill Norway only about 100Q from. Our invariable rule of action is to accept only association with those who, so far as known to us, are strictly evangelical,' but without making any distinction respecting the denomination to which they belong.
It is quite true that we have come gradually into closer relations with the various French evangelical pastors and congregations. But this is surely occa- sion for rejoicing. It is not that the mission has changed, in any degree, its principles or attitude, but simply that these esteemed brethren have felt more and more drawn to ioin with us in the effort to spread the Gospel in their coun- try, and this increasing intimacy of as- sociation has been with those belonging to the Eglise Libre (Union of Free Churches), and with the Baptists" and Wesleyans, q,uite as markedly as witll those of the Reformed and Lutheran originated and sustained by a voluntary Churches. committee of faithful pastors and mem- bers in that congregation, with the Into the question of relations to the avowed aim of combating the tenden- State or form of Church organization cies referred to by the pure teachings we are precluded from entering, by our of the Gospel. Evangelical Alliance basis. That basis forbids us to make ecclesiastical ques- To comprehend accurately our positions a ground of separation. To do so tion, it is necessary to take into account would, in fact, involve a breach of faith the fact that these two contrasted tenwith all those who have contributed, dencies in the Reformed Lutheran whether by pecuniary gifts or personal churches form a strongly-defined line of service, to form and sustain the mission, demarcation, so that the more closely we the undenominational platform having associate ourselves with L:.~Ee faithful been from the beginning avowed and French brethren whom we honor and maintained. love (who constitute the evangelical sec- tion, and happily the large majority of The point at issue is this. "Ought these two communities), the more emthe mission henceforward to refuse co- phatic in effect is our protest against operation with the purely evangelical formalism and worldliness, and all that elements (and happily they are a large is unevangelical or indefinite in doc_ majol'ity) in those churches, because pastors and congregations exist within trine. the pale of those communities marked While thus affirming our resolve to by rationalistic or formalist tenden- co-operate with the faithful portions of cies ?" these two denominations, we are, and have evidenced ourselves equally ready M. Saillens, the writer of the article to join hands with the other faithful communities-Eglise Libre, Baptist and in the American Baptist Missionary Mag- Wesleyan. We have gladly set ourazine, has himself, for a series of years, selves to work with and aid them wherreturned and acted with us on the an- ever possible, and are still prepared to swer, " We ought to associate with those do so. esteemed brethren, and seek to strengthen their hands against the opposed ten- The Committee of the Mission is, natdency." Now he has changed his esti- urally, composed of members holding mate, but we have not changed, and can- each one his own views on church ornot change, ours. In fact, our entire ganization and government. We take co-working has been, and is an earnest our places on that committee, not as reppretest against the rationalIstic and resenting this or that denomination, formalist elements, because we have, on but simply as associated workers in the principle, refused co-operation with the representatives of those elements in common cause of evangelization. To every instance in which we have been accept co-working with our brethren, aware of their existence. This course whether holding our own views of of action has, on several occasions, re- church polity and organization or not, quired no little determination, and cost is obviously the sole principle on which us no little pain in withdrawing from a non-denominational (or as it has been those otherwise entitled to much esteem, justly defined, aU-denominational) miswhen the fact of their non-adhesion to sion can go forward. To depart from strictly evangelical ideas has become it would be to quit the ground of the known to us. Strong pressure has even Evangelical Alliance. We have studied been put upon us, repeatedly, to relax most carefully to adhere to that ground, this rule of action; but it has been rig- and shall do so still. idly adhered to in all cases. It has been stated that we have sought The fact of our having granted the use to favor the two larger churches more of the station of Boulevard Bonne Nou- than the others. Is it so? Take-e.g., velle, Paris, for worship instituted by a the Baptist denomination, which, as committee connected with the central yet, h~s only a few congregations in (Oratoire) parish of the Reformed France. We ha~e never yet refused, Church at an hour when our evangelis- when in our power, to aid any evangelistic meetings were not held, has been tic work connected with that communcited more than once, as if involving a ity. And in Paris we have incurred a compromise of the above principle, be- large outlay in order to enable M. Sailcause in that great parish, Unitarian or lens to have an open Baptist place of rationalistic elements exist. On the worship in the large Mission Hall of contrary, this was a fine opportunity for publicly evidencing our resolve to do Rue St. Denis. We joined with him our utmost to strengthen the evangeli- and the American Baptist Association in hiring that hall for the double purcal party, becaul!e the movement Wall pose of QUr evangelistic meetings and the formation of that church, and gladiy would indicate no favoritism whatever saw the most promising of our converts shown to the larger communities. Our from various stations gathered there. Wesleyan friends have their own evan- That this, Olle of the first·planted of our gelistic mission on the model of ours ; mission churches, should, by the seces- hence the small number of our stations sion of its pastor from ollr ranks and in which they have undertaken to work from united working with the churches, along with us. o.ur Baptist brethren take a separatist character, is, to us, the have received as cordial a welcome from cause of great regret. It is a step fitted us as those of any other body, and we to retard the movement for bringing our have held and still hold ourselves ready COilverts into fellowship, by presenting for enlarged co-working with them, as the aspect of liability to cause them to with all the congregations faithful to drift into sectarianism and separation. the foundation. truth of the Gospel, so long as that co-operation involves no It is true that, shortly before his lIud- elements inconsistent with the fraterna: den retirement from the mission, M. basis of the Evangelical Alliance as re- Saillens m"de overtures to our commit- gards Evangelical Christians in other tee respecting the opening of additional Christian communities. halls in Paris, which would be, like that of Rue St. Denis, centres of Baptist R. W. McALL, Hon. President. working. We did not then consider that the right moment had come, and, A friend writes us : indeed, our financial position abso· "On page 237 of the March number, I lut.ely forbade the added outlay. At find statistics of the American Mission the same time, we testified to M. Sail- in Egypt. They make a good showing. lead our readiness to aid him when the It would be as well to speak of the time seemed ripe for such extension and American Mission in China, or India, or our means enabled us to carry it out. Persia, or Syria; but the denomination doing the work gets credit for it by It is obvious, however, that an evan- being named. Why not name the gelistic work which welcomes co·opera- United Presbyterian Church of America, tion without denominational distinc- when speaking of her work done, as weH tions, and is prepared to open its sta- as naming other churches? This has tions in every district to the representa. been done not once only, but several tives of whatever faithful Christian timell during the past two years. body may be prepared to undertake the " We are not ashamed of our work effort, in order that the converts may be either in Egypt or in India, and it seems grouped in Christian fellowship, is that fair treatment would be to speak of likely, without the least favoritism, to our church in connection with her mishave a larger or smaller number of its sion work, as well as to mention others mission.halls linked with the several de- in connection with theirs. nominations, somewhat in proportion to the larger or smaller number of M. M. GILCRRIST. churches existing in connection with IRETON, JAVA.. each. Thus, taking the congregations of the Reformed Church (Eglise Re- Ohina Inland Mission, Shanghai. formee) throughout France as 700 or 750; after deducting a percentage for February 13th, 1891. the minority which are not professedly To the Ei,itor of The ,Missionary Review: evangelical, a figure of 500 or more remains. The Lutheran congregations in DEAR SIR: My attention has been France number about 100; a similar drawn to an article, which has appeared deduction must be made from their in more than one religious periodical in total. (These deductions, however, America, headed, "Chinese Dresll in happily do not apply to Paris, all the the Shanghai Conference. " pastors in charge in Paris in both of them being adherents of the Evangelical In that article the esteemed writer Alliance, with the exception of the di· gives publicity to reports which appear vided elements in the parish of the Ora- to refer to the China Inland Mission. toire, already referred to.) The Eglise namely: (1) "That one-half of thORO Libre (Union of Free Churches) counts, who enter China under its auspicell, rt)- say, 50 or 55 ; the Wesleyans, between 30 and 40, besides out-stations; the Baptists about 12 or 14. Comparing these figures with the extent to which our mission stations have become allied with these communities rellpectively.
we venture to affirm that the result turn within two years, either to their lies before them a much longer period of work. For, as I need scarcely indihomeland on e(2a)rth"T•ohr atto the home c~te, this low average of seven years' above;" and the average service is the inevitable result of the rapid increase of our numbers during reterm of service for the whole body is cent years. Taking the older members of the Mission only, the first 50 have only three and a half years." I am sure already completed an average of over seventeen years, and 16 of them have both the writer and your readers will be averaged twenty.four and three-quarter years. glad to hear that these rumors are en- On the whole, we are led to conclude tirely unwarranted. that our mission is, by God's blessing, one of the healthiest in China. 1. Looking into our statistics, I find Yours truly, that 539 personlil have been connected J. HUDSON TAYLOB.
with the China Inland Mission-either Mr. Frederick J. Stanley writes from Blauvelt, N. Y.: "Make your own misin Burmah or in China-during the last sionary maps and charts." The REVIEW, Volume II., page 129, contained a plan twenty-six years. If the above state- by Mr. Larken for constructing such. The objection is that his plan is too inment were correct, 270 should have left tricate and painstaking for a busy pas- tor or layman. China during the first two years of ser- Dr. Barrows, of Chicago, says: " Misvice. The actual number, however, sions make such rapid and marvellous changes, such advances, that no one who did so is lelia than one-llixth of can keep fully abreast with the knowl- edge of progress though he devoted his this; in point of fact only 44, of whom whole time to it." For that reason alone our maps and charts must be made 2 retain their connection with the mis- for present use only. This month's map will not do next month on any given sion, and may return to China. country or place of work, much less this year's map for next year. Hence make Of this number 21 were removed by them as cheaply and quickly as possi- ble, never sacrificing accuracy. My plan death, 5 were invalided home, including for years has been as follows : the 2 still in connection with the mis- .. Take some common thickmanilB (buff colored) paper. Fasten sheets together sion. ' Of the remaining 18, 4 resigned, 5 by mucilage or otherwise, till desired width and length are obtained. Then, were requested to withdraw, and 9 left with a match, or larger stick sharpened, draw tl1e map and letter it distinctly, the mission on account of marriage or using common fnk or writing fluid. Place on the map only the names of family claims. rivers and places necessary to give the audience the ideas and facts of the work These facts refer to our missionaries of God in that conntry. Make a chart of statistics on another paper to hang by during their first two years of service, the side of the map. A blackboard is a good substitute for the chart; but I find for which period they are considered probationers. There are now 122 pro- bationers in the mission, who have come out during lS89 and 1890.
2. We have had from the commence· ment 373 full members; 22 of them have died after an average service of more than eight and one half years ; 12 have been invalided home after an average service of six years and a half ; 4 have been transferred to the home de- partment of the work, while 21 have reo tired, 9 have been requested to resign, ..nd 18 have had to leave us on account of marriage or family claimll. Taking these 86 as a whole, the average period of service was six years and one month, not three and a half years.
There still remain 287 full members of the mission to be accounted for. In a few weeks these will have completed an average service of seven years. If the Master tarry, we may reasonably expect from past experience that there need for the board in addition to the his labors as Bishop Taylor and Dr. ohart, for there are so many facts to bring Summerville We1e in the same field. before the eye. Further on Dr. Pentecost said: " From month to month in my pas- "From them we will proceed to evan_ torates I have used these inexpensive gelize the English.speaking Hindus. and easily made helps-frequently pre· After them, we will evangelize the halfpared by some of the congregation-and breeds." The "half-breeds" regard found them inestimably valua.ble. En- themselves as Europeans, and will be in gage the young men and women in this attendance at church along with" the work." English." Many native Christians will be there also. These classes will be reached While publishing Mr. Stanley's letter, first of all, and should prove the ohief the editor .is not wholly in accord with helpers of the work of the evangelist. the idea thBt it does not pay to make a Further on he said: .. We have ohosen map for permanent use. Geographical the high castes, because no work of evanfeatures do not change. All other gelization has ever been done among changes may be marked by additional them." The missionaries to Calcutta labor, as new stations, etc., require only will be amused to see this statement. additions to a map already made. We Ever since the days of Dr. Duff the high make all our maps for permanent use, oastes have been the special subjects of and add new features as new develop- evangelization. For them schools and ments demand. colleges have been established, lectures delivered, special services held, books Mr. E. M. Wherry writes from Chi- written, and papers and magazines edoago, Ill., correcting certain inaccurate ited. The hope of Dr. Pentecost's laremarks of Rev. Dr. G. F. Pentecost, bors resulting in conversions rests upon and as we seek exactness of statement we the extensive sowing and watering of give Mr. Wherry's friendly strictures for the past half century on this high caste what they are worth. soil. We hope the evangelist will find himself,pleasantly surprised to find how He says: " Dr. Pentecost remarked, in much has been done in the line of his his address at Dr. Meredith's church, own plans. Brooklyn, " We need to be careful not to exag- 1. "There are 5,000,000 Hindus, younll gerate, to guard against a misapprehenmen, who speak English." sion of facts, and to present more and mare the work already accomplished by There may be 3,000,000 natives of In- the men in the field. It is bad policy, dia who understand something of the as well as bad morality, to minify the English language, but of th.ese Dr. Pen- results of missionary work in order to tecost will not find over 200,000 who can magnify the plans and methods of some appreciate an English sermon. The doc. new evangelistic project. Dr. Pentecost tor then goes on to say : has before him a grand work. His suc- cess, however, will mainly rest for its 2. ., We will go 11rst to Calcutta, result, upon the faithful labors of scores where we will open an evangelistic mis- of devoted missionaries and teMhers sion and begin on the English them- toiling for the same end and in the same selves. " field. "
On arrival Dr. Pentecost will have Rev. William H. Hannum, of Kplhafounp. about sixty missionaries, besides pur, S. M. C., India, writes under date many chaplains, many of whom have of January 15th, 1891 : been faithfully proclaiming the Gospel to these English people. He will find .. The annual meeting of the Kolhapur as many devout and godly men among Mission (Presbyterian) closed last week. them as he would find in any city possessing an equal number of people. There is, however, need of revival work" and we trust he may be as successful in It was held on the breezy hilltop of the consecration of the home Ohurch Panhala, and opened on Sunday, De- might rise high enough t.o bring us all cember 29th. Fourteen missionaries these! Mr. Irwin and I are the only were present, and their reports showed ordained missionaries that have come encouraging progress. More evangelis- within the last ten years. We must retic touring had been done than in any ~ember, too, that the Kolhapur Mission preceding year. Most of that work is only one of hundreds. How great is h,ad been done by the Indian Chris- the harvest, and how few are the labortians, and the native churches were be- ers! Volunteers, come! ginning to pay the travelling expenses of their preachers. This is promising, "At Panhala I saw a man 1::aptized because it shows that these Christians who had been kept waiting a long time are beginning to realize their duty to against his wishes. A candidate's give the Gospel to their countrymen. knowledge and sincerity must first be Besides this, the work of the high school, tested for awhile. An aged Brahman of the two boarding-schools, and of the widow has lately asked to be received, dozen day and Sabbath-schools, the and is now negotiating the sale of her zenana visiting, and the regular preach- land to free herself from heathen ening in the churches and bazars have tanglements. That will be a good test been prosperously maintained. The of her earnestness. A week ago I witmeeting took a recess of four days for nessed a marriage of two Christians. It the Christian Convention, or • Merla,' showed that Christians do better than which is held annually for the discus- the heathen in waiting till mature age sion of religious subjects, and for the to marry. meeting of the Presbytery of Kolhapur. This coincidence of the meetings gave " The Marathi language is, of course, us newly arrived missionaries the best new and strange to me yet, but I fed possible opportunity to learn the meth- safe in saying that though it will require ods and plans of the workers, and to hard and persevering labor, any student make the acquaintance of the Indian of average ability can certainly acquire brethren. The excellence of the native a good working knowledge of it. Mrs. preachers, in spite of their poor educa- Hannum, Miss Sherman and I have been tional advantages, impressed me with designated to Ratnagiri Station, which the correctness and importance of the has been unoccupied for some years policy already established in the mis- and which offers opportunities as well as sion, that through the coming years the difficulties. We are to settle there mission must decrease, and the Indian about February 1st." Church must increase, in relative importance. A great part of the work of As to Missions Among the Karens. ordained missionaries must be the training of the ministry and the guiding of Rev. H. Morrow writes from Tavoy, the infant Church. Burmah (December 16th, 1890), calling attention to certain inaccurate state- "Ihavenowhere else seen such prom- ments in regard to the Karens of Burinent, showy, and clamorous idolatry as mah. He says: "A marvellous change at Panhala, but this is only the expres- has been wrought in little more than sion of the general feelings of the Hin- h~lf a century-a short time in the hisdus. This only emphasizes the dire tory of a people-transforming a wild, need of this field. The mission voted barbarous race to one that is on the way to ask this year for seven ordained mis- to civilization, at least. sionaries, one missionary to teach the high school, one to teach an industrial "Dr. Brockett, in the November numschool, three lady teachers, and one ber of the REVIEW, on "education lady physician. Oh, that our faith and and evangelization in mission fields," appears to attribute the comparatively small Buccess among the Burmans to a lack of direct preaching and too much dependence on schools. The very op- anything these people may do. Our posite, however, is true. Burmese mis- friends at home would feel the same if sionaries have done but little school permitted to visit them in their native work, except calling together at certain jungle, living in huts in the dense forest, seasons a class of native helpers for in- often far separated from each other, struction in the Bible. If ever direct neither hearing nor lIeeing anything to preaching, from day to day and year to awaken thought or reflection. From year, by missionaries and native assist- year to year they live on in that condiants, has had a fair trial, it has been tion, growing old without seeing a sunamong the Blumans. At the same time, set. The wonder is that enough manwell prepared tracts have been sold or hood remains to make an impression on. given away by thousands-enough, it has been said, to whiten the ground. " But as to the methods pursued by And yet, although God has not left His Karen missionaries, we rely very largeservants without encouragement, no lyon what may be called education- Pentecostal season has cheered these al work. How do we obtain a footworkers. No doubt the number of mis- ing in a heathen viIlage? We get persionaries has Ilways been inadequate, mission to begin a school to teach their but many consecrated lives have been children to read, or a request may come given to this service. In this matter from some one or more of the people there is an inaccuracy in the letter re- to send them a teacher. If a suitable ferred to. At present there are twelve young man is available, one is sent, who male missionaries in the Burman de- teaches the children during the week, partment, and to the best of the writer's and on the Sabbath talks to all whom knowledge and belief this is the largest he can call together for a little time number there ever has been. During about God, and sin, and salvation. his term of fourteen years in the coun- After having learned to read, some amtry he has known the number to be as bitious boys and girls find their way to low as three. There are also ten wives the town schools, referred to by the of missionaries and eighteen widows writer as " academies," I presume, but and young ladies. by no means of so high a grade as schools so designated at home, These •• The honor of bringing the first Karen are schools where most missionaries and convert to Christ was not given to Jud- their wiYes, assisted in some cases by son, but to Boardman, by whom he was one or more young ladies, do their hardbaptized, May 16th, 1828, here in Tavoy, est and most important work. Here and within a few rods of the writer's boys and girls having learned to read residence. This Karen, Ko-thah-Byu, and write their own langnage, and in and others who very soon afterward em- some cases a little more, come to conbraced the new faith, went everywhere tinue their studies. Among these the preaching the Word, and large numbers Scriptures and Christian civilization were baptized. We who now labor with form an important part. In these this people have much reason to doubt schools such heathen children as above the genuineness of that so-called revival. referred to come in contact with the The Karens hailed the English offi- missionaries and the religious influence cials as their deliverers from Burman of the school, and are led to Christ. oppression, and American missionaries They return during vacation to tell their as those who could represent their parents and friends the wonderful grievances. The work at that time, as things they have been taught, and these it is indeed to.day, was largely in the children prepare the way at least for the hands of native preachers, whose weak- preacher's message. ness and inexperience led them to enroll converts too rapidly. Nor do we " In reference to the amount of benevwonder at this, nor, indeed, at almost olence and of Christian living found among these people, we are thankful that so much has been done, but we some fifty pages, and was at that time constantly have 'occasion to admonish remarkably complete. To that we must them and entreat that they abound more refer all inquirers. At the same time and more. The teachers in the village we have from time to time mentioned schools are now, almost wahout excep. here leading books on missions as they tion, paid by Government, their allow. appear. And we specially commend ances graded according to the certifi· certain cheap books recently issued, cates they have been able to gain. The' such as the" Lives" of James Calvert, pastors get their meagre support from John Williams, Robert Morrison, David the churches, as a rule, so meagre in Livingstone, Robert Moffat, William many cases that too much of their time Carey, Thomas J. Comber, Griffith John, is given to hunting, or fishing, or some James Chalmers, Samuel Crowther, petty trading, to feed and clothe their Bishops Patterson and Hannington, families. We are laboring to teach John G. Paton, John Hunt, etc.
th(lm a more excellent way. From year to year better educated men are enter- ing the ministry, but the number of A Word to Those Who Invite Speakers.
men who would be called educated at The editor-in.chief, in his own behalf, home is small indeed. So far it has not and that of many of his brethren, begs been the writer's privilege to know or to say to all who invite addresses upon hear of & Karen preacher that can be missions and other topics : compared to our ministers at home, 1. Busy men cannot afford time and even those not blessed with the best strength to go any considerable distance gifts. Many know the way to Christ, to deliver a single address, except on and can lead others therein, and for rare occasions.
this we are exceedingly grateful. 2. It is unfair ever to ask such men to II There have never been so many go and speak at their own charges, or workers in the Karen department as even for the payment of their empenses.
'to.day, and they are a8 follows: seven· Some one must be found to do their teen men, two of whom teach, in the work when they leave it. There are theological seminary; sixteen wives, many costs besides those of travel and of whom five are now in America, and hotels. And besides, the sacrifice is twelve widows of missionaries and unequal, where the whole outlay falls young ladies." on the speaker and none on the audi- ence.
Dr. John Pagan, of Bothwell, Scot· 3. Give a speaker plenty of tim" to land, who has just kept the quarter cen· make an impression. Begin a meeting tury anniversary of his settlement there, promptly, shorten preliminaries, and is illustrating by lantern slides the for- while the audhmce is fresh introduce eign mission work of the Church of Scot- the speaker. The writer recently went land. He has sent a list of 176 such 500 miles to deliver an address to which slides. Why would not snoh methods an hour should have been given. By be available here, in inciting to new and sheer mismanagement, he had barely a more intelligent mission work? half hour in which to speak and start for his return trip. Be gave ihree days The editor is frequently asked to send for one half·hour speech, and received to correspondents lists of good books on the costs of travel in return. It is very missions, and to publish such lists in plain that life is too short to throwaway . this REVIEW. This we cannot under- time and strength in such fashion.
take to do. In the report of the great If correspondents will heed these world's conference on missions in Lon. hints, it will make unnecessary much don, in 1888, the editor has added a letter·writing, and save much valuable bibliography of the subject. It covers I:, life-forc~ ,"" I:
TRE MONTHLY CoNCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY BEV. J. ~. GBA-OBY, D.D.
BUBMAH. The Society for the Propagation of the Within thepast&eventy.five years the Gospel entered Burmah in 1859, and political map of south·eastern Asia has Independent Burmah in 1868. The See materially changed. In 1820 the Emper. of Rangoon has had the honor of main.
or of Burmah claimed dominion over all taining all the missions of the Church the tribes of Burmah proper, 8S well 8S of England in Burmah from the first.
over Chittagong, Arakan, and the Tenas· What is known as tb,e Mission to Lepers Ilerim provinces, including a large part has aided the" Church" Missionary So.
of the Malayan Peninsula. On Novem· ciety, in its specific line in Burmah.
ber 30th, 1885, Theebaw, the last Em· The Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mis.
peror of Burmah, was a prisoner in the sionary Society include Burmahin their hands of the English army. He was India mission. A Lutheran mission sent to England, and a few weeks later was begun to the Karens of Burmah in the Empire of Burmah was annexed to 1884 by two friends, Hans Poulsen and British India, and the Burmese rule H. J. Jensen, who opened a station at ceased. At present, and for missionary Yaddu, near Taung-ngu; but wishing purposes, Burmah may be considered as to get to a people not yet evangelized, composed of Upper and Lower Burmah, they sought access to the Red Karens, comprising the late kingdom or empire and began their work at Pobja, the resi.
of Burmah, and Lower Burmah, all that denoe of the chief. We know of but portion of the country below the twenti· one unmarried lady who represents eth degree of latitude, as well as the them at present on the field. The Ameri· Tenasserim provinces and the present can Baptists have been 'the chief repre.
missioll stations in Arakan, and Shan- sentative of the Christian world in this land, in the east. land, and their success has been the oc· Burmah is about equal in area to New casion of great rejoicing far beyond England, the Middle States, Ohio, In. their own ranks. Bishop Cotton de.
diana, and illinois combined. Its pop· clared that there were three great mis- ulation is variously estimated at from sionary successes in India: 1. The 8,000,000 to 15,000,000. Except in what work of the" Church" in Tinnevelly; was until lately known as British Bur. 2. The work of the Lutherans in the mah, no census has ever been taken. "peasant Church" of Chutia Nagpur ; The population of British Burmah has 3. The work of the American Baptista been so largely increased of late years in Burmah. They now register 113 by immigration, that some estimates now missionaries in this country, with place the population all high as 10. 28,009 members in 528 churohes, in 000,000 for Burmah proper. There are the service of which are 540 native said to be forty·two different races in preachers; the pupils in schools num.
Burmah, divisible into four genelal ber 11,146. During the past year the classes-the Burmans, the Taligus or Karen Mission has been extending, el· Peguans, the Shans, and the Karens. pecially in the direction of Karenni.
The Peguans were once the lords of the The interests of the Gospel among the country; the Shans are a nomadic race Burmans has made 0. marked advance.
found ineastern Burmah, northern Siam, The first station in the Shan states has and south.western China. These first been established, and is now occupied three races are Buddhista. Of the Ka· by Rev. M. B. Kirkpatrick, M.D. The rens there are more than thirty tribes. Chin Mission in the western part of – The Sgau and Pwo tribes have been Burmah has made encouraging progress.
I largely converted to Christianity, and of,Tile work among the natiTe! of Indio., whom there are now more than half have formed many Christian Villages. a million in Burmah, is attracting in- millions or more. Siam means a brown creasing attention, and the rapid de- race. It is often called .. The Land of velopment of the country, now that it the White Elephant." The fiag of the has come ';holly under British rule, is country is a red ground with a white offering manifold opportunities and elephant upon it. The white elephant enlarged facilities for extending the when found is escorted to the city by missionary work to every part of the the king and his court, given a title of province. nobility, and if sick is attended by the court physician. The Methodist Episcc:>}lnl Mission was begun in Rangoon in 1872, and is now Until 1885 Siam had two kings, but conducted among the English, the in that year the office of one of them Tamil immigrants from India, and, in a was abolished. The present king is small way, among the Burmans. It thirty-seven years old, and is the first numbers 200 communicants in all. sovereign of Siam who ever went abroad. He is intelligent and progressive, as will WITHIN THIRTY YEABS-Two PIC- be seen from statements to follow re- TUBEs.-liirst Picture: King Theebaw garding the advance movements of was inaugurated as King of Upper Bur- Siam. In 1873 the custom of prostramah, at Mandalay, about thirty years tion on elbows and knees in the presago. He was an incarnation of cruelty. ence of his majesty was abolished. In Several hundreds of the nobility and of 1883 he showed his public spiritedhis own family were massacred to cel- ness in giving $4800 to aid the sufferers ebrate the event. To undertake mis- from earthquake in Java, while the sionary work in Upper Burmah meant queen gave half as much more to the death or captivity to the individual at- same object. Trade with foreign parts tempting it. When the city of Mandalay increases, and their fancy for European was built, the eight gates surrounding hats and caps resulted in the importathe city were supposed to have been tion in one year into Bangkok, the capmade secure against all invaders by the ital, of $18,000 worth of hats and caps. sacrifice of fifty-six young girls! In 1883 Siam first erected telegraph lines to connect it with the world· wide &cond Picture: In October, 1890, the lines of the cable companies. The Baptist Missionary Conference was held royal palace is lighted by electricity, in thifl same city of Mandalay. The horse-cars are on the streets of the cap- Judson Memorial Church was dedicated ital, and steam ferryboats are seen on during the Conference. Eight thousand the rivers. King's College is 8 noble rupees of the money needed were given edifice, with 250 students learning the by Christians in Burmah; the Karen English language and literature and choir furnished excellent music, and on Western science. It is equipped with the evening of the closing day there was philosophical and chemical apparatus held a. communion service 'at which there ordered from the United States. Prizes, were present Tamils, Telug11s, Burmans the highest in value £100, were disand Karens, Shans and Tounghus, Eng. tributed by the young Crown Prince at lish and Eurasians, Chinese and Amer- the last examination. The college has icans, representing 500 churches and recently been transferred to the spa- 30,000 members in Burmah, all .. one cious and beautiful edifice erected by in Christ Jesus," about the table of the the king in memory of his late queen, Lord. who was drowned. This is in striking contrast with the conduct of his prode- SIAM. ceRBor who, on the death of his wife, built a Buddhist temple and monastery. Siam is in ·Farther India, between Another illustration of the new order of Burmah on the west and Anam or things is the Home for Orphans, with Cochin China on the east. It is four times as large as the State of New York, with about the same population-six thirty. five orphans, erected in memory her rival's hands as Cambodia did. of a young prince deceased. Under Nor will France let England acquire former reigns the wats, or monasteries, more of Farther India than she now pos- were the only places where boys were sesses; and Siam is too shrewd, too taught their mother·tongue ; now na· wide-awake to give either of her powerti ve schools have been opened, and also ful neighbors any pretext to get a persc1l.o01s for the study of English and manentfoothold within her boundaries, the higher branches, one at least be- or to have any excuse for interfering in sides the King's College already alluded her policy. So, though pressingly beto. The progressive Government of set by English capitalists to let them invest in a grand system of railways they Siam are now planning to put np a had planned and surveyed, for travers- ing the whole length of the Menam medical college near the largest hospi- valley to connect with a line of their tal. The King's intention has been an· own from Rangoon to the west frontier nounced of sending six chosen Siamese of China, Siam has r(lsolutely refused boys to this country to receive a to allow them to build her railroads and thorough American education. They has decided at last to build them herare to come in the charge of a returning self. missionary. That also is a significant fact. The Government has known the Thus f(lr she has kept free from a navalue of missionaries to the land and tional debt, and is not likely to put herrecognized it in various ways. Rev. self, as Egypt and Turkey have, at the Dr. S. G. McFarland has for many years mercy of English creditors. In the New been the Principal of King's College. York Engineering New.~ for December, Dr. Hays has been appointed by the 1890, is an official advertisement by the lOng Director-General of all the Gov- Minister of Public Works in Sialll inernment hospitals, and that without viting tenders from American contracany restriction upon his teaching the tors for the construction of a Royal religion he professes to those under his Siamese State Railway from Bangkok, care. the capital, to Korat, an important town one hundred and sixty.six miles to the Politically Siam is likely to retain a northeast, over the mountains, on the position of prominent interest in the watershed of the great Cambodia River. world. She bids fair to maintain her Korat is the capital of the district from position as an independent kingdom. which the raw silk of Siam is derived. This is greatly to her credit in these Rice is very abundant there. Dr. days when the great powers are over- House, writing to us about that district, shadowing and absorbing the weaker says that when he was there in 1854, the ones, without so much as saying" by first time it was ever visited by a white your leave." Siam is still a kingdom. man, he found rice selling at half a cent A friend writes in this connection say- a pound, there being no market for it, ing : .. In these days, in consequende of and no transportation save in packs on annexations, protectorates, absorptions, the backs of bullocks several days' and turning into republics, it really travel through a dense and dangerous looks as if the Seventh Angel would jungle. have few' kingdoms' anywhere left to announce as having become • our .Missions: Foreign missionary work Lord's.' .. was begun in Siam by the American Baptists, under Rev. William Dean, But England and France both need D.D., as early as 1833. The American Siam to act as a buffer between their pos- Board followed in 1834. The Baptists sessions in the East, to prevent colli- now confine their work to the Chinese. sion, though each nation doubtless looks with a covetous eye on that fertile The Presbyterians commenced work land. in Siam in 1840. Rev. William P. Buell England will not let Siam slip into and wife began the work, but were there kok alone there are ten thousand priests three and a half years only. They who are dependent on the people for were followed in 1847 by Rev. Stephen daily food. Nowhere are the living Mattoon and wife, and S. R. House, force and the deadening influence of M.D. Both of these honored brethren Buddhism more felt than in Siam.
are still among the churches, Dr. Mat· We have little disposition and less toon,being now in Siam, and Dr. House, space to attempt a presentation of with his excellent and devoted mission· Buddhism as a system of belief; but as ary wife, is now in America. In the it is the latest" fad" among a class of first eighteen months of Dr. Rouse's' persons who dislike Christianity, be.
labor as a missionary physician he pre. cause of its rigorous demands upon scribed for 3117 patients. These first them, to prate about" beautiful Buddh· m,issionaries labored for twelve years ism," we beg to remind our readers of before seeing their first convert. All its practical output. It may have the work is now in a prosperous condi· tamed barbarians and helped to main.
tion, the mission schools are doing es· tain order and discipline among some pecially well, the Christian high school peoples, but it has not supported is a great success. The wholo country any people in their efforts to recupe· is open to evangelical work, and numer· rate after disaster nor in their en· ous converts are yearly added to the deavors after progress. The mission of churches. . . Buddhism is not to root out what it The principal stations are one in holds to be deadly errors, nor to pro- Bangkok, and one in Petchaburee, and claim truths, nor to build up a righteous one in Ratburee. Siam has 13 mission· kingdom. It seeks not to convert but aries, 10 married, and 5 single, ladies. to rescue from delusion and desire ; the LAOS. moral life is not the end but a means; morality is sheer mechanisID ; the end, The Laos are a hardy and industrious the aim is not to be good for the sake of race who inhabit five or six small king. goodness, nor righteous for the sake of doms north of Siam. They number be· righteousness. It aims at no ideal excel.
tween one and two millions. Mission lence for the sake of the excellence. .The work was begun among them in "1867, realization of the moral idea is a blank at Chiengmai, 500 miles from Bangkok. which Buddhism cannot fill. Its con· This and Lakawn are the principal sta· ception of the kingdom of God is radio tions; there are twelve out·stations. cally other than holiness, or ultimately The Laos Mission has 852 communi. holiness itself. Buddhism knows no cants, fOllr schools, with 229 pupils, 10 sin, hence it can know no punishment missionaries, with 8 married, and 4 sin. of sin and, of course, it can know no gle, ladies. pardon; nor can it know any prayer, The Bible has not yet been translated nor sacrifice, nor thanksgiving. It has into the Laos language, but one of the no parable of the prodigal son, or story missionaries was in this country last of " the dying .thief," because it has no year having a complete font of type God, no soul, no Saviour. .
made, at a cost of about $1000, and it is Sir Edward Arnold, author of "The anticipated that the Gospel will soon be Light of Asia," who has been esteemed given the Laos in their own tongue. a foremost champion of the beauties of BUDDHISM. the Buddhist legends, and as exalting Buddhism at the expense of Christian.
Buddhism is not the religion of any ity, in a conversation with Rev. Dr.
independent power on the earth at this Ashmore, on the Belgic, between San hour except Siam, but it is prevalent Francisco and Yokohama, said: in all the countries whiclt have come "I have been criticised for an im. under review in this study., In Bang. ~lied ;comparison between Buddhism and Christianity in regard to doctrines nothing ever disturbs the repose of derived from them and principles con- Buddha, or turns his heart with quick tained in them respectively. No such throbs of love and pity. He cannot object was in mind. For me Christian- stretch out his hand to save Question ity, rightly viewed, is the crowned a Buddhist as to his future state, and queen of religion, immensely superior he says, •It is all dark !' • I have stu- to every other, and though I am so great died many religions,' said one to a mis· an admirer of much til-at is great in siona»y, • and I have found no god that Hindu philosophy and religion, I loves as your God loves.' Buddhism would not give one verse of the Sermon will fade in the presence ~f a purer and on the Mount away for twenty epic holier faith."
poems like the • Mahabharata,' nor ex- change the Golden Rule for twenty· The •• Baptist Missionary Hand·Book"
• Upanishads.' " ' says: .. Rangoon, the capital of Lower It i8 needless to make reference at Burma, is on the Rangoon River, the this time to the moral result of Buddh- eastern delta.branch of the Irrawaddy, ism over Asia in general, but the testi- twenty miles from the sea. It is acces- mony of those who have had large ex- sible to large ships, and has a large and perience of it, and great opportunities of rapidly in~reasing foreign trade, and an observation in the Jands which we are important traffic by river. The city is now studying, is fairly in place. well built, and has a population of 134,- Bishop Titcomb, who had large ex- 176, an increase of a5 per cent since perience in Burmah, says of it, .. That 1872.
while the same old reverence exists for " Maulmain, the chief town of the Ten.
Buddhist law and religion which ~x asserim province, is situated at the junc- isted in its best days, yet dead worldli- tion of the Salwen, Attaran, and Gyne ness almost universally pervades daily rivers. It has a. good port, and a large life. Religious rites are observed, but trade in teak, rice, and ivory. The they are mostly of a formal character. scenery about the city is strikingly Large numbers of worthless and most beautiful, and its location healthful.
ignorant men are admitted into the Population, 93,187, an increase of 14 monasteries. Not one householder in a per cent since 1872.
thousand makes any serious effort to " Mandalay, the most important place obtain what is called the Path which of Upper Burma, and now the oapital leads to Nirvana; popular religion is a of the whole country, is a large city on life of easy·going conformity to outward the east side of the Irrawaddy River. It observances, accompanied by practical is connected with Toungoo and Rangoon self.indulgence. Idolatrous practices by a railroad.
are followed which in the law of primi. .. Prome is on the east bank of the Irra.
ti ve Buddhism were unknown. Images waddy River, eighty.five miles west of of Buddha are enshrined everywhere Toungoo, and one hundred and sixty- with a hideous prodigality, in stone, and six miles northwest from Rangoon, with wood, and metal." He says : .. The ap- which it is connected by a railway. It plication of any strong corrective prin. is the seat of a la.rge trade and manu- ciple has been lost." factures. PopUlation, 28,813, a loss of A missionary in Siam says: "The 7 per cent since 1872. "Bhamo (Bah.mau)is on the Irrawad· further we penet.rate in this system for . dy River, one hundred and eighty miles good fruits, for. justice, mercy, love, and above Mandalay, and only forty miles , purity of h~art and life, the more are from the Chinese province of Yunnan.
I we convinced of the utter rottenness It was formerly capital of a Shan prin- and deadness of the whole strncture. cipality, and has 8 considerable trade There is no living intercessor. Suffer. with China by means of caravans. By the rj ver it isabout eight hundred miles ing humanity may cry for help, but • from' Rangoon. "
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
BY MBS. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Woman's Union Missionary and Madanapalle. in India; Cairo, in Society of America for Heathen Egypt; McCall Mission, Paris. Lands.-Organized 1860. Corresponding Secretary, Miss S. D. Doremus, Amount of money raised in 1889, office, 41 Bible House, New York.• $43,267.34. Report for 1890 not out.
This was the p'ioneer society (Ameri- The Missionary Link is the organ of can) in zenana work in Ir.dia. this society. During the past year it has been changed from a bi-monthly to The society has work in three large a monthly issue. and important stations in India, viz., Calcutta, Cawnpore, and Allahabad. Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety or the Presbyterian Church.- In Calcutta there aro 16 missionaries, Organized 1870. Mrs. C. N. Thorpe, 55 native- teachers, and in the city and Foreign Corresponding Secretary, 1334 suburbs 64 schools with 1000 zenana Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. pupils. A girls' orphanage with 140 children, also an institution for the This society has work in Africa, higher (lducation of native Christian China, among the Chinese in California, girls. Medical work has been reopened, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, North a medical training class organized, and American Indians, Persia, Siam and a dispensary opened during the year. Laos, Syria, and South America. This is known as the Doremus Mission. The home work is represented by 48 Presbyterian societies, more than 1100 Allahabad.-Hf'lre there are 16 mis· each of auxiliaries and bands. Amount sionaries, 6 native assistants, 47 day of money raised from April 20th, 1889, schools with 1000 pupils, and 320 to April 20th, 1890, $144,617. zenanas with 398 pupils, in all 1398 persons under instruction. The Woman's Work for Woman, the organ of the Presbyterian Church, has Cawnpore.-In this city there are 13 16,300 subscribers. Children's Work missionaries, 5 native assistants, 968 far Children has a large circulation; figpupils, 37 day schools with 623 pupils, ures not given in report. This society 184 zenanas with 345 pupils. sends out quantities of missionary lea11ets. In Shanghai, China, 2 lady physicians are in charge of the Margaret William- The foreign work is represented by son Hospital, with 2 assistants and 5 139 missionaries, 16 of whom are at hospital helpers. A home for medical home and 10 of whom were sent out the workers has been donated during the past year, 5 of them self-supporting; year. A boarding-school with 40 girls, 10 missionary teachers and visitors, 84 and 4 native schools with a large Sunday- native helpers and Bible wo~en, 33 school, represents the work. boarding-schools, 153 day schools.
In Yokohama, Japan, a girls' boarding- Woman's Board of Foreign Mis. school has 140 pupils. Evangelistic sions of the Presbyterian Church.- and medical work are efficiently carried (Formerly Ladies' Board of Missions.) on. Six native teachers are employed, Headquarters, 53 Fifth Avenue, New 6 native medical assistants, 21 Bible York. women, 3 of whom are self-supporting, and 200 Sunday-school scholars. This board is composed of 25 Presby. terian societies in the New England To mission work in denominational States, New York, lind Kentucky. stations aid has been given by the society in the following places: Bassein, Its home work is represented by 504 in Bnrmah ; Dehra, Kohlapur, Bellore, auxiliary societies, 121 young people's and il58 children's bands and Sunday- schools. The amount of money raised from April, 1889 to April, 1890, $58,305. This board supports 23 missionaries, It has a Bureau of Exchange for the sup- 9 of whom are foreign and 14 home. ply of missionary letters and literature. Two have been sent the past year. It Periodicals, Woman's Work for Woman oontributes to work in Persia, Japan, and Ohildren's Workfor Ohildren. India, Siam, China, and South America. Amount of money raised during year, It contributes to the support of work $15,000. in India, Siam, Africa, Japan, Persia, South America, Syria, China, Mexico, Woman's OccidentaJ Board of Guatemala, and NorthAmerican Indians. Foreign Missions of the Presbyte- It has under its care 61 missionaries, rian Church of the Pacific Coast.- 11 of whom are at home. Summary of Offioe, 933 Sacramento Street, San Fran- foreign work not given in reports. oisco, Cal.
Woman's Presbyterian Board of This board supports 8 missions on Missions of the Northwest.-Head- the foreign field and has work in Japan, quarters, Room 48, McCormick Block, China, Siam and 'Laos, a medioal mis- Chicago, Ill. . sionary in India, also work in Persia and Syria abroad, and work for Chinese This society is represented by 10 women in San Francisco, Sacramento, Synodical societies, 66 Presbyterian so- San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego. cieties, and 1661 auxiliaries. Included Total receipts for year, $10,600. in this are Sunday-school sooieties and young people's societies and bands. Woman's North Pacific Presbyte- rian Board of Missions.-Organized Amount of money raised during the 1889. .Headquarters, Portland, Ore. year, $80,678. Periodioals, same as other Presbyterian boards. This society, so recently indepen- dently organized, has 2 Presbyterian Work is carried on among the North societies, Oregon and East Oregon. It Amerioan Indians, Mexico, Guatemala, reports 20 children's bands with 360 South Amerioa, Africa, Syria, Persia, menibers. Number of auxiliaries not India, Siam and Laos, China, Japan, given. Amount of money raised in and Korea. 1889, $5908.
Number of mIssionaries supported, Woman's Board of Foreign Mis- 70, of whom 7 are. medioal; Bible sions of the Cumberland Presbytewomen, 26; native teachers and pas- rian Church.-Organized 1880. Cortors' wives, 30; boarding-schools, responding Secretary, Mrs. J. C. Mcwholly supported, 7; pupils in other Clurkin, Evansville, Ind. boarding-schools, 211 ; day schools, 92. This society is represented by 46 Woman's Foreign Missionary So- Presbyterian societies; auxiliary sociciety, Northern New York.-Corre- eties 793, with a membership of 7900 ; sponding Secretary, Mrs. Archibald Mo- young ladies' societies, 8, with a mem- Clure, 232 State Street, Albany, N. Y. bership of 130; children's bands, 138, with 1741 members. Amountof money This sooiety oontributes to the work raised in 1889, $10,614. in Africa, China, Guatemala, India, Japan, Korea, Mexioo, Persia, Siam, Organ of the society, Missionary Syria, and to home work in Idaho and Record, with 3000 subscribers. A chil- Dakota. Home society is represented dren's paper is also published called the by 96 auxiliary societies and 100 bands. Missionary Banner.
It supports 4 missionaries, 5 native Eight stations in Japan are occupied pastors, 12 Bible readers, and 51 schools by the society, and in the Indian Terand scholarships. Amount of money ritory 1 missionary is supported by raised during past year, $9692. them. Appropriations have beon made for work in Mexico. Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions of the 50uthwest.-Oflice, Woman's General Missionary So- 1107 Olive Street, St. Louis, Mo. For- ciety of the United Presbyterian eign Secretary, Mrs. L. D. Hopkins. Church. – Corresponding Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Miss M. H. Mrs. W. J. Reid, 38 Federal Street, Morris, 406 North Greene Street, Balti- Pittsburg, Pa. more, Md.
This society is represented by 46 Pres- This society prints a report only once byterian societies, 764 auxiliaries, and in two years, after their Biennial Con- 18,819 members, and raised for foreign vention. The statistics given below are missions, in 1889, $13,024. Over$21,000 the latest. Number of Synodical soci- was raised by the Woman's Society, but eties corresponding to the district Syn- the remainder was appropriated to vari- ods in the General Synod, 20 ; number ous church and home enterprises_ of auxiliaries, including young people's societies and children's bands, 566; Work is carried on in Egypt and In- number of members, active, honorary, dia. Of the 23 missionaries supported and life, 14,472. Amount of money 9 are in Egypt and 14 in India. A me- contributed for the year filnding March morial hospital was opened at Sialkot. 31st, 1890, $22,752. Besides work in India, during the year. some of the Western States, the society has foreign work in India and Africa. The Woman's .Missionary Magazine, of In India zenana, educational, and medthe United Presbyterian Church, is the ical work is carried on. There are 12 organ. It has 3800 subscribers. schools, with 24'teachers and 719 pupils, located in Guntur and neighboring Woman's Board of Foreign Mis- towns. A very succelisful industrial sions or the Reformed Church in school has been established for Mo- America.-Organized 1875. Corre- hammedan girls and women, and a sponding Secretary, Miss Mary 0_ Dur- boarding-school with 35 pupils. The yee, 30 Washington Place, Newark, N. J. medical work is prosperous, and a tract of land has been secured upon which a The home force of this society is rep- hospital will be built. The women have resented by 267 auxiliary societies. a department in the Missionary Journal, Amount of money raised during year. which is published by the General So- $28,517. The society has work in ciety. China, Japan, and India. In Amoy a girls' boarding school with 48 pupils, a CongregationaISocieties.-Auxiliary day school, a Bible school, and a chil- to the American Board of Foreign Misdren's home are supported. In Japan sions and independent of each other are 103 pupils are in the Ferris Seminary, 3 organizations which are the channels at Yokohama. of woman's foreign missionary work in the Congregational churches of the At Nagasaki the Jonathan Sturges United States, viz. : Seminary has 22 pupils. In India 3 important stations are occupied, viz., Woman's Board of Missions, Woman's Vellore, Madanapalle, and Tindivanum, Board of Missions of the Interior, ,with surrounding towns. Woman's Board of Missions for the Pacific. In the Hindu Girls' School, at Vellore, are 111 pupils, 61 at Madanapalle, Woman's Board of Missions.-Orand 49 at Tindivanum. Beside this, ganized 1868. Corresponding Secretary, work is done a!Dong the native women Miss Abbie B. Child, 1 Congregational in the zenanas. Eight high-caste girls' Bouse, Boston, Mass. schools have 585 pupils. The board, with headquarters at Bos- The Missionary Gleaner, organ of the ton, has work among the Zulus of South society, has 1485 subscribers. Africa, also in East and West Central Africa, European and Asiatic Turkey, In 1881 the :Woman's Board assumed India, Ceylon, China, Japan, Microne. the entire cast of all the work carried sia, Mexico, Spain, and Austria. on by the board in the various missions for women and girls. The home force of the society is rep- Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the Evangelical Lutheran Church General Synod.- resented by 1182 auxiliaries, of which The foreign work of the society is III are young ladies' societies, with a represented by the support of 4 mis- membership of 34,300; mission circles, sionaries, 3 schools, and aid toward 1 549, with 15,500 members. ship. The schools aided are in Tur- key, India, and Spain. Five thousand The board has under its care 111 mis· two hundred and ninety-five dollars sionaries, 32 boarding-schools, 228 day were given by the Congregational schools, 143 Bible readers, 1 hospital, 2 churches of California for foreign mis- dispensaries, and 1 training-school for sions in 1889. Of this $4319 were given nurses. by the women of this board, leaving $949 as given by the churches in gen- During the year 22 missionaries have eral, or by the 11,223 members of been sent out, 11 going out for the first the churches. Home statistics not time and 11 returning, and 8 have sev- given. ered their connection with the board. Organ of the society, Life and Light, Life and Light has 373 subscribers, published in Boston, with a circulation and has a column in The Pacifio to repof 15,500. The society also publishes resent its work. a periodical for children, the Mission Day-Spring, with a circulation of 18,730. Woman's Board of Missions for the Pacific Islands.-Organized 1871. Amount of money raised in 1889, President, Mrs. Hiram Bingham, Hon- $115,000. olull1, Sandwich Islands.
Woman's Board of Missions of This board is Congregational and inthe Interior.-Organized 1868. Presi- dependent. It has work in Honolulu dent, Mrs. Moses Smith, 59 Dearborn among the. Hawaiians, Chinese, and Street, Chicago, Ill. Japanese. Six Bible women are em- ployed in Honolulu. Auxiliary soci. Thirteen interior States represent the eties are prganized in the adjoining home field of this board. The work is islands of Hilo, Maui, Kauai. represented by 1000 auxiliary societies and 365 junior bands. Receipts from June, 1889 to June, 1890, $1548. The society has work in Africa, European and Asiatic Turkey, India, Cey- Woman's Foreign Missionary Solon, China, 'Japan, Micronesia, Mexico, ciety, Methodist Episcopal Church. and Spain. -Organized 1869.
It supports 85 missionaries, 15 having This society includes ten associated been sent out last year. Amount of branches. Each branch has its territomoney raised for 1889-90, $56,041.89. rial limits, with Corresponding Secretary and Treasurer. These corresponding It has under its care over 30 Bible secretaries constitute a Committee of readers and 13 boarding-schools; other Reference, of which Mrs. H. B. Skidforeign statistics not given. more, No. 230 West Fifty.ninth Street, New York, is Chairman. Life and Light is the organ of this board; M"l.Ssion Studies is also pub- The work of the society in the home lished by the board, and over a 1,000,- field is represented by the following fig- 000 pages of missionary leaflets have ures : Auxiliary societies, 4308 ; young been issued. ladies' societies, 501 ; children's bands, 748; total organizations, 5557. Mem- Woman's Board of Missions for bers of auxiliaries, 112,834; of young the Pacific.-Organized 1873. Home ladies' societies, 10,119; children's. Secretary, Mrs. J. H. Warren, 1316 bandll, 15,997 ; total membership, 138,- Mason Street, San Francisco, Cal. 950.
The territory of this board covers all The society has work among the Gerportions of the country west of the mans in the United States, also 25 aux- Rocky Mountains. This board has 3 iliaries in Germany, and 13 in Switzerbranches, the Oregon, the Young Ladies' Branch, and the newly organized Southern Branch. land. Amount of money raised from Oc- ers is established at Kansas City, tober, 1889, to October, 1890, $220,329- through the munificent gift of Rev. $10,000 of this by bequest. Over $14,- Nathan Scarritt of property valued at 000 was raised beyond this for a $25,000 and cash $25,000. woman's college in Lucknow. Woman's Foreign Missionary So· The society has work in Japan, ciety of the Methodist Protestant Korea, China, India, Burmah, Singa- Church. – Organized 1879. Corre- pore, Bulgaria, Italy,. South America, sponding Secretary, Mrs. M. A. Miller, and Mexico. Box 1065, Pittsburg, Pa.
Of the 96 missionaries abroad, 34 are Since the organization of this society ih India, 23 in Japan, 20 in China, 4 in 5 missionariel> have been sent out to Korea, 7 in Mexico, 4 in South America, Japan, to Yokohamaand Nagoya, where 2 in Bulgaria, 1 in Italy, and 1 in Sin- prosperous schools are conducted. gapore. Included in these are 11 regularly graduated medical mission- The summary of work is comprised in aries. the following statistics, as nearly as can be approximated: Branches 14, with 7 The foreign work is represented by 25 others partially organized-an increase boarding-schools with 1671 pupils, 306 over the previous year of 1. Auxiliaries day schools with 9225 scholars, 300 Bible 355, an increase of 31 ; mission bands women, 8 hospitals and dispensaries. EO, an increase of 20 ; members 3700, The Heathen Woman's Friend is pub- an increase of 500; life·members 142, lished monthly by the society, with 19,- an increase of 9; honorary man· 236 subscribers, also a paper in German, agers 6, nn increase of 1; memorial with 2176, and a children's paper, with members 3. 5128, and a paper for women in India, in three dialects. Amount of money for the year, $4166. Organ of the society, Woman's Mis· Woman's Missionary Society of sionary Record. the Methodist Episcopal Church, Woman's Missionary Association South.-Organized 1878. Correspond- of the United Brethren in Christ.- ing Secretary, Mrs. D. H. McGavock, Organized 1875. Corresponding Secre- Nashville, Tenn. tary, Mrs. L. R. Keister, Dayton, O. This society has work in Africa, Ger- The work of this Church throughout many, among the Chinese in Portland, the Southern Methodist Church is rep- Ore., and during the past year they have 'resented by 1986 auxiliary societies and opened a mission in Canton, China, and 41,235 members. Young people's and sent 2 ladies to take charge of the work. children's societies, 995 ; members, 31,- They now Rupport 10 American mission. 132 ; total societies, 2991. Total mem- aries, 18 native helpers, a membership bership, 72,367. Amount of money of 1484, with property valued at $28,500. raised for 1889-90, $75,486. Amount of money raised for 1889-90, $4,567. The society has work in China, Mexi. Woman'sEvangel is the organ of the can border, Brazil, Indian Territory, society. and has 2,300 subscribers. and Mexico. It is represented in Woman's Missionary Society or. foreign fields by 31 missionaries, 20 ns· the Evangelical Association of North sistants, 37 native teachers, 10 board. America. – Headquarters, Napierville, ing.schools, 31 day schools, 1248 pupils, Ind. Has department in Missionary 1 hospital, 1 medical missionary, 1 Messenger published in Cleveland, O. foreign assistant, and 9 native hospital This society has work in Germany assistants. Value of property owned and Japan, and raises between two and by this board in foreign fields is $181, three thousand dollars annuall~, ~~ 000. Organ of the society, Woman's Mts. report of work has reached us., sionary Advocate, Nashville, Tenn'., with a circulation of 13,000. (To be continued.) A training.school for Christian work.
The Missionary Review of the World — 1890 Index
according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890
M~~ionary Review of the Worl~, VOL. III. NEW SERIES. . VOL. XIII. OLD SERIES.
JANUARY TO DECEMBER, 1890.
J. M. SHERWOOD, EDITORS: NEW YORK. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, PHILADELPHIA.
PUBLISHERS: FUNK & W AGN ALLS, NEW YORK: LONDON: 18 AND 20 ASTOR PLACE. 44 FLEET STREET.
TORONTO, CANADA: WILLIAM BRIGGS, 78 AND 80 KING STREET, EAST. FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
1~90.) INDEX
INDEX FOR 1890.
INDEX OF DEPARTMENTS.
LITERATURE OF ~IISSIONS. Pages 1,81, MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. Pages 161, 241, 321, 401, 481, 561, 641, 721, 801, 63, 144, 225, 305, 383, 466, 546, 624, 704, 785, 881. 862,944.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS, Pages 43, 125, 203, 284, 364, 447, 525, 603, 684, 68, 151, 231,310, 387, 471, 551, 627, 709, 792, 763, 842, 936. 867,949.
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE. Pages ORGANIZED MISSIONARY. WORK AND 49, 131, 211; 292, 372, 454, 536, 612, 693, 773, STATISTICS. Pages 73, 156, 237, 393, 636, 850,941. 714,873.
INTEfu~ATIONAL DEPARTMENT. Pages PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY 54, 136, 217, 297, 375,458,537,616,696, 777, BULLETIN. Pages 77, 159, 239, 316, 396 854. 475,556,637,717,797,877,958.
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
EDITORS. PAGB BRACQ, RE'V. J. C. Belgium-The French A. T. PIERSON. PAGE Protestants…. ………………….. 45 Is there to be a New Departure iu Mis- Cardinal La'Vigerie and his Anti·Slavery sions! …………….. ,……….. . Work …………………………… 721 Mission Tour of Britain …. 87, 161, 254, 361, 401 BROCKETT, L. P., M.D. Education and • Medical Missions …………………….. 354 Editorial notes …. 70, 155, 310, 627, 709, 867, E'Vangelization…… •……….. … … 850 BRADFORD, RE'V. A. H., D.D. The Chari· 891. ……………………………… 949 The McAlI Mission……………… " ….. 481 ties of Germany…. … …. ….. ….. .. 92 The Lack in Missions. :.. …. .. …….507, 58a A MiSSionary Heroine…… … . …….. 561 Letters from Abroad, 87, 161, 254, 361, 401, BROWN, HENRY E. Mechanic Missionaries. 540 CHAMBERS, TALBOT W., D.D. An Ameli· 481 ………………………………. 567 The Supernatural Factor in Missions••••• 653 "an" Persis the Beloved" •.••••••••••• 892 The Prsyer for Laborers ……………… 741 CLARK, REV. R. W. A Spiritual Barome- The Miracles of Missions-No. XVI., The ter for the Church………………… 918 Bishop of the Niger, 18; No. xvn., CLARKE, PASTOR. Poem, Tell the Tale … 494 CLARK, MISS HELEN F. The Congo Mis- The Wonderful Story of Madagasear.. 808 Book Notices………………………… 842 sions …………………………… 826 The Soudan Mission ………………….. 793 Dr. Pentecost's Siege of Calcutta……. •• 794 CROSS, REV. R. T. Prayer and Missions… 58Q The "New Herrnhut" ………………… 794 CuRTIS, REV. F. S. Account of the Shang· Missionary Crusade in Seotland.•• 87, 161, 254 Facts from Mission Fields. …………… 152 hai Missionary Conference •••..•• … 669 A Plea for Enthusiasm in Missions ….. 195 DELITZSCH, DR. FRANZ. Biblical Thoughts A Grand Farewell Meeting .••••••••••••••• 232 The Jews and Jerusalem ……………… 811 on the Conversion of the Jews. (Trans- The Present Outlook in France … .. ….. 897 laM by Prof. Schodde.) .•••..•. . •••• 575 Land of Martyrs and Missionaries .••••••• 891 DBNNI8, MRS. JAMES S. Lord Stratford de Redcli1fe….. …. …. ….. … … .. •…. 881 J. M. SHERwoon. ELLINWoon, F. F., D.D. Asceticism in Missions ………. '" ." .. .. . .. ……. • 32 Editorial Notes, 68, 151, 231, 313, 887, 471, The Last Decade of the Century…. • • . . 63 552, 680, 712, 795……… ……. .. …… 867 Is it an Answer to Prayer?.. … ……. .. 67 The Credulity of Skepticism………… 110 Book Notices…………………… ….. 841 The Religions of China……………… 144 ANONYHOUS. How Shall Mohammedans China as a Mission Field…………….. 147 Thibet and its Religions …………….. 149 be E'Vangelized? … .. …………… 428 The Roman Catholic Lay Congress of AGNEW, ELIZA, The Story of, in Ceylon…. 596 1889 ……………………………. 187 ARJ[STRONG, MRS. W. F. Life among the • Mexico …………………………… 225 Gautemala ………………………… 229 }{arens …………………………. 248 Missionary Churches .. , …………… 272 AsuMORE, 'V>r., JR. Correspondence …… 875 PAGE PAGE' – ELLINWOOD, F. F., D.D., continued. The Results of Modern Missions Perma- India ••••.•…•••.•.•••••••••••.•••••••• 305 nent …………………………….. 746- Shadowings of Messiah in Heathen Sys· LEONARD, REV. D. L. Mormon Proselytism 661 terns ••.•…••.••••••.•••••••••.••••••• 359 Moravian Missions among the American Buddhism and Christianity in Burmah Indians ………………. __ ………. 173- Babylon is Falling .• , •••••..•••.•••••••.• 266· and Siam •••••••.•••••••••••• _•••••••• 383 A Life that Told ..••…••••••.••.•••••. OOT The Druid Celts … • . . . . .••• •• .•••• •.•.• 438 Can we trust the Mormon Saints? •••••. 008· The Great African Mission Field….. ••• 466 The Indian Somajes • . ••. •••• …. •••••. 501 LOOMIS, REv. H. The Unexpected in Ja- A Plea for the Senecas ……………… 546 pan …………………………….. :ell… The Japanese on the Pacific Coast ••••• 550 Missions in Papal Europe …••.••••••••. 624 MUDGE, REv. JAMES. The Evolution of a Are they "Rice Christians" ?………. 627 Missionary Society…… , •••••••.•.• " 701 Woman's Work for Woman ….••••••.•. 648 The Situation in Japan and Korea ..•.•• 704 MCCONAUGHY, DAVID, JR. Y. M. C. A. A Foreign Missionary of Old Testament Work in India…………………… 61» Times………………………… '" 725 MOOREHEAD, MAx W. Student Volunteer Missions and Sects in the Turkish Em- Movement, 364,447,684,763..••….•••• 842'
pire……. . ….. …… ……. .. 785 NEVIUS, J. L., D.D. Famine and the Work The Duty of Christendom to the Jews •• 801 of Famine Relief …………………. 514 Brazil and its Missions. •. • .., .•••••••• 862 Various Missions in South America …• _ 866 PORTER, REV. THoMAS J. First Impres- The Faith Element in Missions .•.••.••• 944 sions in Brazil.. ………………….. 783· FULTON, REv. S. D. Nicaragna as a Mis- PrIZER, A. W., D.D. The Inheritances of sionary Field .•••••..•••••••••• . . . . •••• 199 Nations Allotted by God .••••••••••…. B2O- FERGUSON, WM. P. F., D.D. The Native PARKER, H. D., D.D. Changes in China Languages of Mexico•..•.••••••••.•••• 218 affecting its Progress.. . . ••.. …. •••• •• 61 GRACEY, J. T., D.D., International Depart- RIGGS, REV. JAMES-F. Undenominational ment, 54, 136, 217, 375,458, 616, 697, 777, 851 Mission Work ……………………. 736· The Jew in the Nineteenth Century …• 181 RAND, REV. F. E. Latest Facts about Mi· • Missionary Training Schools.•…••.•.•• 300 cronesia. ••. . ••.. … " _… • •. •. • .•.•• 41 GROUT, REV. LEWIS. Pastor Harms and Ross, REV. JOHN, A.M. The Christian his Mission Work…………………. 410 Dawn in Korea…………………… 241 Mahdism and Missions in the Soudan••• 753 The Chinese Missionary Problem •••••• 901 The Boers and Missions. ….. • • . . •. •.•• •• 166 SCHODDE, PROF. GEO. H., Ph.D. Abyssini- flApPER, DR. A. P. Letter from China..•. 372 Shanghai Missionary Conference ••..369, 676 ans and their Christianity. . •• • ••• ••••• • 44 A Chinese Secret Society and its Influ- The Religions work among the Immi- ence on Evangelistic Work ..•…••• '" 600 grants… •.••• ………………… " (IS- Unoccupied Territory………………. 269 STARBUCK, REV. CRAS. C. Translations, 37, HULBERT, PROF. H. B. The Science of 179, 277, 359, 443, 519, 679, 759, 836…… 924 Missions. •••• •••• •• •••• •• ••••. ••• •••• •• 486 SHEDD, DR. J. H. Letter to I. M. U …… 623 A Sketch 01' the Roman Catholic Move- SHrIH, REv. ARTHlJR H. Religion in China 543 ment in Korea..•••••.•••••.•••..•.•••• '730 Chinese Characteristics. ..•••••••••.••• 56· The Historical Geography of the Chris- STORROW, REV. EDWARD•.Foreign Missions tian Church…… …. •.••••••••• .••••• 26 in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth HAlIILTON, REv. J. TAYLOR. The Foreign Centuries. 260, 336, 495……………. m· Missions of the Moravian Church .••• 777 HAMLIN, DR. CYRUS. Letter to I. M. U •••• 622 STEFL, REV. ROBERT, D.D. The Jubilee of HERRICK. GEORGE F., D.D. The Kingdom the New Hebrides Mission, 100……. 561 'of God in the Land of Its Origin.. •• •. 854 SCHWEINrIZ, REv. PAUL DE. The Ramona Proper Attitude of Foreign Missio~ries Mission ………………………….. 358'
toward Conflicting Faiths….. .••• •• •• 59 The Romance of Goedverwacht…….. 833· JOHNSTON, Rev.J.ums. Notes on India, 365, 686 Moravians not Lutherans………….. 853- The Moravian Mission in the Kuskokwim 11~ Mission Notes•••••••••••••••.••••• 527, 765 THwING, E. P., D.D. Oriental Missions. •• 922 Education as an Evangelistic Agency.. 9 Protestant Missions a Hundred Years THOBURN, BISHOP. Missionary Comity…. 375- Ago and Now. .•• ••••• ••• •••• •••••• •••• 81 TAFT, REv. M. F. Chinese Education•••• 69'T KNox, CHAs. E., D.D. Personal Observa- TUOHSON, REV. ANDREW, D.D. The Mis- tions in Brazil…………………341, 422 sionin Basuto Land, 641; No. II …….. 1110' KNox, J. W., D.D., (Japan). Review ot TEMPLE, ANNA.. A Suggestion-A Poem•• SIll the Year 1889……………………. 321 LAURIE, REv. TaolUB. The Law ot the TAYLOR, J. HUDSON. To Every Creature •• 101· Advance …. '" ………………….. 490 WYCKOFF, PRoF. M. N. Education in Ja- pan……………………………. Ii37 WEST, MARIA A. Hidden Springs; or How • Missionaries are made. ……….. . •• 831>- WYLIE, REv. A. McELROY. The Marvel of Modem Medical Missions………….. 01. LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
PAGE PAOli: Asceticism in Missions, F. F. Ellinwood, Law of the Advance, The, Thomas Laurie, D.D…………………………….. 32 D.D …………………………… 490 American "Persis the Beloved," Talbot Letters froni Abroad-No. VI., Review of W. Chambers, D.D………………… 892 his Mission, A. T. P ………………. 567 Babylon is Falling, Rev. D. L. Leonard … 266 Life among the Karens, IIlrs. W. F. Arm- Biblical Thonghts on the Conversion of the strong …………………………. 248 Jews, Prof. F. Delitzsch, D.D. Trans- Life that Told, Rev. D. L. Leonard…….. 908 lated by Prof. J. H. Schodde………. 575 Mahdism and Missions in the Soudan, Rev.
Boers and Missions, The, Rev. Lewis Grout 166 Lewis Grout ………………….. 753 Cardinal Lavigerie and his Anti-Slavery McAll Mission, The, A. T. P ……………. 481 work, Rev. J. C. Bracq……………. 721 Miracles of Missions-No. XVI., Bishop of Dharities of Germany, The, A. H. Brad- the Niger, A. T. P……….. …….. 18 ford, D.D ………………………. 92 No. XVII., Madagascar, A. T. P……… 808 Dhlnese Secret Society and its Influence on Missionary Churches, F. F. Ellinwood, the Evangelistic Work, J. Stewart D. D …………… "" …………… 272 Happer.. .. . .. …. ….. …. . ………. 600 Missionary Crusade of Dr. Pierson in Scot- Dhristian Dawn in Korea, The, Rev. John land-No. I………. …. …. ………. 87 Ross, A. M…………. ……………. 241 No. II ……………………………. 254 Dhinese Missionary Problem, Rev. John Missionary Heroine, A, A. H. Bradford, Ross…………….. … . …………. 901 D. D…. .. …………………… 561 {)ongo Missio-as, The, Miss Helen F. Clark 826 Mission in Basuto Land, The, Rev. Andrew Dan we Trust the Mormon Saints, Rev. D. Thomson, D. D ………………….. 641 L. Leonard.. . . . . . .. . …. .. …… 908 Missions in Old Scotland-No. II., A. T. P. 161 'Credulity of Skepticism, The, F. F Ellin- Mission Tour of Britain, The, A. T. P., wood, D. D………………………. 110 No.ill………………………….. 831 Druid Celts.-The Early Missionary Race No. IV…………………………….. 401 of Western Europe, F. F. Ellinwood, 1I10ravian Missions among the American D.D ……………………………… 438 Indians, Rfv. D. L. Leonard….. . . . . .. 173 Duty of Christendom to the Jews, F. F. El- 1I10ravian lI1isslOn on the Kuskokwim, Rev.
linwood, D.D……………………… 801 Paul de Schweinitz ……… ……… 115.
Education as an Evangelistic Agency, 1I10rmon Proselytism, Rev. D. L. Leonard. 661 JamesJohnston, F.S.S……….. _….. 9 lI1ission in Basuto Land-No. II.. Rev. A.
Famine and the Work of Famine Relief, J Thomson, D. D …………………… 910 L. Nevius, D. D……………………. 514 lI1arvel of Modern Medical lI1issions, Rev.
Foreign Missionary of Old Testament A. McElroy Wylie…………………. 919 Times, A, F. F'. Ellinwood, D.D ….. 725 Nicaragua as a Missionary Field, Rev. S.
Foreign Missions in the Seventeenth and D. Fulton………………………… 199 Eighteenth Centuries, Rev. Edward Notes on New Books of a Missionary Char- Storrow, ……………………… 260, 336, 495, 579 acter ….. .. . •. •….. . . . … . …524, 841 "Hidtlen Springs; or, How Missionaries Are Orientalll1issions, Dr. E. P. Thwing. 922 Made, Maria.A. West……………… 835 Our Volunteer Missionary Students, E.
Historical Geography of the Christian W. R. ……. .. ……………… 123, 202 Church, The, Prof. Henry W. Hulbert. 26 Pastor Harms and his Mission Work, Rev.
How Shall Mohammedans be Evangelized? 428 Lewis Grout …. '" ………………. 410 Importance of Medical Missions, The, (Edi· Personal Observations in Brazil, Chas. E.
torial, A. T. P.) …………………… 354 Knox, D.D ……………………. 341, 422 Indian Somajes, The, F. F. Ellinwood,D.D. 501 Plea for Enthusiasm in lI1issions, A, {Edi- Inheritances of Nations Allotted by God, torial, A. T. P.) …………… .. … . … 195 The, A. W. Pitzer, D.D. …… …….. 820 Prayer and lI1issions, Rev. R. T. Cross …. 588 Is There to be a New Departure in Mis- Prayer for Laborers, The, (Editorial, A.
sions? A. T. P ……………………. . T.PJ………… .. ……………. 741 .Japan: Review of the Year 1889, Geo. W. Proceedings of the Shanghai Missionary .Knox, D.D……………………….. 321 Conference, Rev. F. S. Curtis …….. 669 .Jew in the Nineteenth Century, The, J. Protestant Missions a Hundred Years T. Gracey, D.D……………………. 181 Ago and Now, Rev. James Johnston, .Jubilee of the New Hebrides Missions. F. S.S., ………………………… 81 The, Robert Steel, D.D… . ……. 100, 591 Present Outlook in France, A. T. P …….. 897 Lack of Consecration and Prayer, The Ramona lI1ission,The, Rev. Paul de Schwei- (Editorial, A. T. P.) ………………. 583 nitz ……………………………… 358 J..aek of Information and Individualism, Religious Work among the Immigrants, The (Editorial, A. T. P.)…………… 5b7 The, Rev. G. H. Schodde, Ph. D…….. 416 Latest Facts about Micronesia, Rev. F. E. Results of 1I10dern Missions Permanent, Rand ……………………………. 41 '!'he, Thomas Laurie, D. D…………. 746 PAGE PAGE'.
• Revival In the Nestorlan Churches in 1800. Supernatural Factor in Missions. The. The ..•.••..••••…•……….••••…… 517 A. T.P ……………………….. 653· Revolution in Uganda. The .••………… 281 Stratford de Redcliff", I.ord. !lirs. James Roman Catholic Lay Congress of 1889.The. S. Dennis…. .. .. .. .. .. ….. .. .. … …. 881 F. F. Ellinwood. D. D …….. . • .. ….. 187 Suggestion. A Poem. Anna Temple …… 891 Romance of Goedverwacht. Rev. Paul de Spiritual Barometer for the Church. A.
Schwelnitz …. . ……………… '" 833 Rev. R. W. Clark………………… , 918· Science of Missions. The, Prof. Homer B. Tell the Tale. A Poem. Rev. J. Clark …… 494 To Every Creature. Rev. J. Hudson Taylor 106 Hulbert … . .. •. …. • • .. .. .. .. …. . …. 486 Translations from Foreign Missionary Shadowlngs of Messiah in Heathen Sys· Periodicals. Rev. C. C. Starbuck. tems. F. F. Ellinwood. D. D……….. 349 87. 119. 277. 859. 448. 519. 679. 759. 886. 924 Shanghai Conference. Dr. A. P. Happer.. 676 Undenominational Mission 'York, Rev. Sketch of the Roman Catholic Movement James F. Riggs ………………….. 786· Unoccupied Territory, A. P. Happel'. In Korea, A, Prof. H. B. Hulbert …… 730 D.D…………………………….. 269 Story of Eliza Agnew In Ceylon. The. Miss Woman's Work for Woman. F. F. Ellin· wood. D. D………………………. r>48 M. W. Leitch ……………………. 596 Student Volunteer Movement, The. E. W.
R …………………………….. I23.202 GENERAL INDEX.
PAGE PAGE.
AFRICA.-77, 159. 239,816.951. 958; Stan- A Pathetic Story. 450; Ascent of Ruweu· ley's Arrival. 125; Stanley and Africa. 126; zori in Africa, 451; The Great African Missionary Interests In East Africa. 127; Mission }<'ield,by Dr. F. F.Ellinwood, 466; Commerce Checking Slave Trade on the African Explorations, 467; "Sincere Congo. 43; The Bishop of the Niger, 18; Christians" and the Liquor Traffic in Italy and Africa. Peculiarities of the Africa, 471; Two Favorite Pictures of Nile. 48; Abysslnians· and Their Chris- Stanley. 471; The Balolo Tribes on the tianity. 44; Bishop Taylor's Industrial Upper Congo, 475; Geographical Discov- Missions. 141; The United States and the ery and Missions. 476; Lieut.Werner and Congo Free State. 152.217; Royal Niger Tippo Tib. 476; Congo Steamers. 476. Co., 208; BoersandMissions. Rev. Lewia Missionary Notes from the Congo. 476; Grout. 166; East African Coast. 205; Eng- South African Missions. 476; Swedish land and Portugal in Africa. 206; Letter Missionaries to the Congo and China, 476; from Rev. James Scott. 211; North Af- Royal Niger Co. 476; Bishop Taylor am!' rica as a Mission Field. Letter from Rev. his African Missions, 477; From our Cor· George Pearse.211; The Revolution In respondent at the Equator Station. 477; Uganda. 281; Notes on Africa, by our Britisif South Africa Co., 477; Map of English Correspondent. 285; Lord Salis- Central. 525; British Churches and the bury's Policy. 286: Dr. Guinness' New Brussels Conference. 527; African Trade· Magazine. 286; African and European 529; Italy's Position, 529; Mackenzie and Influence, 286; Dr. Thomson on the Major Wissman, 530; Inner VaUey of the- Mission in Basuto Land-No. 11.•910; The Congo. 530; Congo Money. 530; Mission Bishop of Cape Town, 933; The Inde- Work In the Congo Valley. 556; Letter- pendent Congo State, 933; M. Chaudoin from Rev. John Scott., 583; Baptism of a held by King Dahomey. 933; Rev. Dr. Mohammedan in Algiers. 533; Shall Islam Johnston. a Jamaica Missionary. 988; Rule Africa? 552; The Soudan Missionary Scientific Fact. 941; Lake Tanganyika Movement. 555; King Mwanga, 556; Brus- lIission, 367; The Ugauda Mission. 867; sels Conference. 556; Country of the Oil West African Missions. 868; Bishop Rivers, 556; Intoxicants, 556; Dr. Meyer's Smythies and Slavery at Zanzibar. 868; Exploit. 556; Various Items of Interest, A Revival In Katl'raria.368; The Work 556; Stanley Found a New Race of and the Honor Conferred upon Miss Blacks. 556: New Station on the Congo. Waterston, M. D., 869; Work on the Zam- 556; Missionary Societies on the Congo. besi. 360; Work of the Protestant 557; Portuguese Departure from. Nyassa- Churches of French Switzerland. 861; land. 605; Experiences on Lake Nyassa. The Kbassas People. 861; •. Immanuel" 605; "An Awful Land," 605; North Af- God be with us. 863; England and Portu- rica Mission, 605; Another Missionary gal. 396; Mwanga Re·established. 396; Martyr, 605; Dr. Felkin on Uganda, 606; European Territory, 897; The Niger England and Germany In East Africa, Country. 397; British Missions and the 606; The French in West Africa, 607; The Portuguese. 448; German Protestant Soudan Missionary Movement, 615; Uni- Missions on the Cameroons River, 449' versities Mission to Central Africa, 633; PAGE PAGB Con~o Balolo Mission, 6.37; Drink Traffic, ment, 465; Sao Paulo School and Educa- 637; Stanley's Remedy for Slavery, 637; tion,638; Letter from Rev. J. B. KnIt, on Duke of Fife's Statement, 637; Dr. Thom- Presbytery of Sao Paulo, 131 ; Letter son on Missions in the Basuto Land. fromRev.J. B. Howell,49; Presbyterian 641; The Anglo – German Agreement, Mission, 2fY7; Reaction. 769; First Im- 689; Stanley and the Bmssels Con- pressions in,783; Protestant Newspapers, ference, 691; Nelson's Starvation Camp, 797; Political Changes, American Mis- 692; The Work in Abyssinia, 717; sions, etc., 862; Other South American Steamer on Victoria Nyanza, 717; Missions, Brussels Anti-Siavery Con- The Gaza Country, 717; Mackenzie gress.. .. ………….. _.. …. ….. .. .. 860 Memorial Mission, 717; King Mwanga, BELGIUM.-New Membersto the Chris- 717; Soudan Famine, 717; Number tian MiSSionary Church, 637; Stanley's of Stations in Africa. 717; Bishop Appointment, 638; The French Protes- Tucker,717; Mahdism and Missions in tants, 45; Anti-Slavery Congress, 209; the Soudan, 753; Abolition of Slavery in The Conference at Brussels, 231; Loan Zanzibar, 765; The British East Africa to the Congo Free State ……………. 877 Co., ';'68; The Congo River of to-day, 769; BURMAH and SIAM.-240, 316; Bud- King Leopold and the Congo State. 769; dhism and Christianity in, 383; Buddhist Zanzibar Decree Against I:llavery, 797; extravagance in beautifying tbeir Tem- Number of Missionary Societ.ies in Af- ples, 770; "A Thousand Miles on an Ele- rica, 797; Congo Railway, 797; The Congo pbant," 842; Life amoug the .Karena, Missions, 826; New World of Central Af- Mrs. W. F. Armstrong, 248; Letter from rica, 841; Daybreak in North Africa, 841; Rev. M. Jameson …………………… 292 Dr. Blaikie's Life of Livingstone, 842; Buddhism and Christianity, 383, 389…••.. 941 Mwanga Stripped of Despotic Power CHINA.-78,159, 240, 317, 958; Shanghai 844; Editorial Notes on Uganda, 845; Missionary Conference, 369; The ·Worship Zanzibar, 845; The Slave Traffic, 861; of Heaven by the Emperor, 372; Mission Firearms, 862; The Liquor Traffic. 861; to the Chinese Blind, Miss Gordon-Cum- Great Britain. Sphere of Influence, 877; ming, 392; Dr. Mary Fulton, 397; Text to Explore Central Africa, 877; Univer- Books in China, 397; The Empress, 397; sities' Mission, 877; the Trappists, 877; High Honor shown to an American mis- Roman Catholic Missions in Uganda….. 877 sionary, 452; God and the Opium Traffic. American Board, Missionaries Appointed. 559 Letter from an American Missionary at American Indians, Moravian Missions Shaughai, and an Appeal from the Chris- tian Churches of Canton to the Christian among the, Rev. D. L. Leonard…… 173 Churches of England, 454; The Literary Almanac, American Board .•• " . •• . •• •. . .. 153 Teacher in China, 474; Anti-Chinese Leg- Anniversary of 1892 ………….. __ …… 155 islation, 474; Dr. Peck's Nine Year's AUSTRALlA.-Evangelistic Society of Service, 477; Chinese Evangelist, .79; Famine and its Relief, 514; The Religions Victoria ………………………….. 637 of China, 543; Value of a single Proc1a- ALASKA.-The Moravian Mission, 960; mation of the Gospel, 531; The Impend- ing Opium Crisis: Anti-Opium Memorial. On the Kuskokwim ……………….. 115 612; Sh:lnghai Conference, 638; Statistics ASIA.-Asiatic Heatbendom, 80; E. G. Presen."d,638; Proceedings of Shanghai Conference, 669; The Four Appeals of Porter "To the Churches of Asia" …… 296 the Conference to the Churches, 673; Dr. American "Persis the Beloved," T. W. Happer's Remarks on the Conference. 676; Editorial Note on do., 712; Plan of Chambers, D.D …………………….. 892 Uulon of Presbyterian Cburches, 693; A.. B. C. F. M………………………… 933 Editorial Note on, 709; Chinese Educa- ARMENIA………… '" ………….. 934 tion, 697; A Great Revival,717; Shanghai Baptist Missions…. .. . ……………… 237 Union Confereuce, 712; China Inland Baptist Missionary Society…. • •• •. . . . … 237 Mission of North America, 773; The Baptist Year Book for 1890, TbeAmerican 479 Treaty with Chiua,785; Support of a Mis- Baptist MissionaryUnion……………. 153 sionary in, 796; Estimated Population. Boers and Missions, Rev. Lewis Grout ••.. 166 797; China Inland Mission, 797; A great Birmingbam, Young Men's Foreign Mis- Evangelizing Agency, 845; Inland Mt'!- sion. 878; Board Indemnified, 878; Chi- sionary Rociety ……………………. 238 nese ~Iissionary Problem, 900; Canada Babylon is Falling, Rev. D. L. Leonard … 266 and English Presbyterian Missions in Berlin 1I1ir.sionary Society, Statistics of… 458 China, 128; Chinese Characteristics, 56; Berlin Mission in Transvaal •..•……..• 682 Uneasiness at Peking, 128; Letter from Bible, Letter of Rev. H. Bingham on Com- .. Missionary in the Interior, 131; Th"
pleting Translation of the, ……….•••• 554 Boston and African Liquor Traffic … … 559 Books of a Missionary Character, Notes onNew.524………………………. 841 BRAZI L.":"Dr. Knox's Personal Observa- tions in, 341, 422; Church Dis·establish- PAGE PAOlI number of the Buddhists, 293; Opening of Work in Kirin, 132; Presbyterian land Missions, 528; British Churches and Church of, 984; The Religions of China, the Brussels Conference, 527; Presby- 144; The Population, 984; China as a tery of Edinburgh and Indian Missions, Mission Field, 147; Medical Missionaries, 528; Wesleyan Mis.<;ionary Society, 528; 984; First Impressions in a China Mis- ChurchMissionary Society, 528; British 8ion, 50; Letter from Rev. A. H. Smith, and Foreign Bible Society, 529; Baptist 51; Meeting its Progress, 61; Action Missionary Society. 529; Society for the of New York Chamber of Commerce, Propagation of the Gospel: Origin and 207; The Temple of Heaven, 287; Letter Operations in the 18th Century, 580; do., from Dr. Happer, 212; Dr. Henry V. Report for 1889, 636; Report of Presby- Noyes, 288; Letter from Miss F. C. terian Church for 1889, 636; Report of Hayes, 214; Missionary Education in London Missionary Society, 635; Report China, 222; The China Inland Mission, of Universities Mission, 633; English 315, 950; The General Conference of Wesleyan Missionary Society, Report, Shanghai.•.••.••.•••.••………•…. 304, 949 719; Dr. Barnardo's Annual Meeting of Children, 770; Report of the Investiga- COSTA RICA.-387, 389; Letter from ting Committee of the London Mis- the only Protestant Missionary there, sionary Society, 773; Flow of Converts 388; Hon. N. F. Graves on Costa Rica .. 388 to the Church of Rome…• __ …….. . .. 84i CANADA.-Presbyterian Church, 878; EGYPT.-78; The Arabian Mission …… 121 Toronto Medical Students' Y. M. C. A. 878 Education as an Evangelistic Agency, CEYLON.-Eliza Agnew's Work •••••••• 596 James Johnston, F. S. S…………… __ !I Century of Missions-uPeriodical Ac- Evangelizing the WQrld in the Present counts" •••• __ ……………………… 314 Generation …………………. :… …. 31. Evangelical Alliance …….. __ ………… 318 CENTRAL AMERICA.-Nicaragna as a Mission Field, Rev.·S. D. Fnlton, 199; l"RANCE.-159, 317, 958; Missionary S0- ciety, Letter from Rev. J. C. Bracq,51; Guatemala…. •• •••• •• .••• •. . .•.••• • .. .. 229 The Public Schools, 130; The McAll Mis- sion, 371, 481; A Strong Appeal for Help, Con1licting Faiths, Proper Attitude to- 584; Letter from CharlesE. Faithful, 584; ward, Rev. J. Herrick .•..•••••…….. 59 Missionary Conference at Chamounix. 638; Letter from our Correspondent at ChrIstian Missions, Prof. Flint .. _. . _. _.•• 235 Marseilles, 775; A Missionary Boat on ChrIstlieb, Mrs. Dr …•••. _…. _….. -.,. •. 235 the Seine, 797; Anti-slavery Congress, Chntches, Missionary, Dr. Ellinwood .•…• t72 878; The Present Outlook in France Convention of the Northwest•••.•….•… : 154 (Editorial, A. T. P.), 897; Protestantism Colonization Society of America, Report. 479 in France, 984; Population…………. 98i Comparative Destitution in Christian and Dr. Faith Element in Missions, Ellinwood, 944 Pagan Lands ……………•••.•••••…. 471 ConsecrationPrayerMeeting, A.•••.••••.. 472 FORMOSA. – Dr. Mackay's Fruitful Contil14!ntal Evangelization ..•…•.•••.•.. 608 Work, 557;0 Rapid Progress in Mission Corpus Christi, Adoration of. :. . . . . . ••. . .• 711 Work ……………………………… 797 Christian Endeavor Society, Statistics of.. 719 ChrIstian Church, Historical Geography Foreign Missions in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Rev. E. Storrow, of, H. W. Hulbert…………. •••• . . . . 26 260, 336, 495, 571 Can We Trust the Mormon Saints 1 Rev. Frederick IV. of Denmark, Morts to Con- D. L. Leonard …………… __ ••• .••• •• 908 vert the Heathen in 1699…………….. 491 Catholicism, Roman ..••••…. 984, 955, 957, 960 Churches Disbanded ••••••..•.•. , ••.•••••• 984 GREAT RRITAIN.-Dr. Pierson's Mis- Correspondents, Replies to ………….. __ 952 sion Tour, 331, 401; Anglo-Saxon Missions Druid Celts, The, F. F. Ellinwood, D. D•.. 438 in the 17th and 18th Centuries, 336; Dr. Death of Missionaries, 143, 942; Death of Pierson's Address Before the Edin- burgh Medical Missionary Society, 354; Dr. Sherwood……………………… 949 Foreign Missionary Incomes, 870; Nota- Dark Continent, Hope for the.•.•..•..•.• ,. 236 ble Testhnony to Rev. Mr. Anderson, 370; Dr. Miller's Letter to Dr. Pierson, 374; DENMARK ………………………. 317 Missionaries Wanted, 897; Extent of England's Empire, 397; Report and Sta.- ENGLAND.-78, 240, 317; Letter from tistics of Established Churches of Scot- Bishop Taylor, 129; A Layman's Views land, 395; United Methodist Free about England, 214; From Our Corres- Churches, 395; Reformed Presbyterian -pondent, 288; Missionary Operations in (Covenanter) Church of Scotland 395. the 17th and 18th Centuries, 495: For- PrImitive Methodist Missionary Society, mation of the Society for Promoting 396; Memorial Statue to John Howard, ChrIstian Knowledge, also of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 474; National Protestant Congress…… 93i Foreign Parts, 500; Presbyterian Alli· ance, 527; Presbyterian Church of Eng- PAGE PAGE GERMANY.-159; The Charities of Ger- of Missions in India, " 841; Poverty of the many, Dr. Bradford, 92; Evangeli9al People, 846; Missionaries in Court, 878; Synod,239; Generous Giving. …… ….. 878 Sir Bartle Frere, 935; Missionaries for India ……………………………… 936 fifREECE.-CaU for Laborers.. . . .. . . . . .. 557 Indians of North America, 173; Contract Harms, Pastor Louis, Rev. Lewis Grout. .. 410 Schools, 936; Defeat of the "Whipple Heathen at Home.. . . . . . . … •. . . .. . . . . . . . .. 479 BilI"…. _•.•• _……… • …… _…… 632 HAWAII.-Rev. W. A. Essery's Address Iuternational Missionary Union, 223; An- nual Meeting……………………… 465 on the Victory of the Gospel ………… 846 Information, Lack of……………….. 5W Health, RePort of the Board of.. •• .••. .. . • 46 IRELAND.-Colonel Olcott's Lecture, Health in the Tropics. . .. . . …. • .. . . . …. . . 54 BO; Irish Church Society ……. _…….. 879 HUNGARY. – 317; Seven Years of ITALY.-79, 160. Italy and Africa, 43; Italian Evangeli7.a.tion, 290; The Free Prayer for Buda Pesth……………… 303 Christian Church, 614; Missionary Con- "Hottentot," a Noble Example.. .•.••… 683 ference at Flo;ence in 1891, 718; The INDIA.-79, 160, 240, 317, 305; Mission Evangelical Church Mission, 798; A New Law …………………………… 936 Sunday·schools, 46; Current Literature, Interesting Communication from Rev. Jesuit Missions, 47; A Hindu Lady Re- James Herrick …………………….. l!96 former, 130; Government Supporting JAPAN.-79, 160, 240, 317, 958; Dr. Griffis, Idolatry, 208; Sir. Wm. Hunter's Testi- 48; Letter from L. D. Wishard,53; The mony, 208, 398; Letter from Miss Wilder, Unexpected in Japan, 297; Dr. Geo. W. 215; Wesleyans on Reeent Criticisms, Knox's Review of the Events of 1889, 224; Christian Vernacular Education So- 321; Orphan Asylum at Okayama, 398; ciety, 238; The Opium Traffic, 289; Pres- Y. M. C. A. Convention at Osaka, 398; A byterian Missionary Societies, 289; Eng- New Station at Tottori, 398; The Modern lish Wesleyans and the Indian lI-fission- Martyr of the Orient, Joseph Neesima. aries, 365; Current Literature and Edu- Letter from Rev. James H. Pettee, 456; cation, 366; Church Missionary Society Various Items of Interest, 478; Map and and the Higher Education, 366; (Jonfes- Statistics, 535; Education in, 537; Japan- sion of Keshub Chunder Sen, 398; The ese on the Pacific Coast, 5i1O; A. B. C. F. Telugus, 398; Opium smoking, 398; An M. Mission, 639; Buddhist Priests, 639; Extraordinary Pamphlet, 452; Appeal Educational Exhibit at Paris Exposition. from the Kohlapur MiSSion, 456; The 69"2; The Situation in, by Dr. Ellinwood, Gospel Weakening the Defences of 704; Work of Home Missions, 719; A Hinduism, 444; The oldest Foreign Mis- Correction of Statement, 776; Murder of sionary out of 900, in India, an Ameri- Mr. Large, 718, 797; First Japanese Par- can, Rev. John Newton, 477; The Cam- liament, 798; The New Constitutional bridge Mission to Delhi, 477; Darjeeling Government, 846; Appeal from Baptist Mission, 478; The Indian Somajes, 501; Missionaries, 847, Russian Orthodox Mis- Pupils in Protestant and Roman Catho- sionaries, 936; The Hochl Shlmbun..•.•. Il36 lic Mission Schools, 522; Great Bathing JEWS.-79, 318, 533, 952, 958, 959; Confer- Festival, 523; Disintegration of Hindu- ence in Behalf of the Jews, 70; The Jew in ism, 557; A New Sect, 557; Dr. Thwing's the Nineteenth Century, Dr. Gracey, 181; Travels, 558; Strength of the Church, London Society for the Jews, 238; British and the Population, 558; Useful Litera- Society,238; Jews and Jerusalem, 311; ture Society, 607; Irish Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland Missions, 453; Church, "Jungle Tribe Mission, " 569; Jews, Prof. Delitztch, on Conversion of Missions among the Santals, 638; Need the, 575; The Number of Jews in Pales- of Female Misslonaries,639; Notes on tine, 799; The Duty of Christendom to, Various Interests (Translations), 680; In- BOl; Relief Fund, 937; Persecution in dian Church Aid Association, 686; De- Russia, 937; Spirit of Antagonism …… 937 Telopment of Medical Missions, 687; Fe- JAVA.-240; Missionary Work in …….. 521 maleEducation,687; Lepers, 688; Zenana Judson, Mrs. Adoniram, By Dr. Bradford 561 Missions, 688; Welsh Calvanistic Foreign " Jungle Tribe Mission" of Irish PresbylIIssions, 689; Young Men's Christian terian Church……………………… ~ Association Work, 694; Work Prosper- Jones, Rev. John……………. _….. ••. !88 Ing, 718; Bishop Thoburn on India, 718; KOREA.-l60, 209, 942; The Christian London Auxiliary of the Mission to Dawn in Korea, 241; Letter from Corres- Lepers, 718; Child Marriages, 765; Ze- pondent at Seoul, 295; KhArtoum Con- :aana Misions, 766; Testimony to Indian gress, The, 392; The Koreau Alphabet, Missions, 766; Lepers in India, 767; The 478; The Present Condition of '1'hings,'/08; Opium Curse, 770; Tendency toward Progress in Mission Work, 717; Roman. Brahma Somajlsm, 771; Letter from 1Iiss Ellen Arnold, 775; Hebraic Race in the Punjab, 798; Baptism of an Interest- Jbg Hindu, 797; Lunn's Work; "A Friend PAGE PAG. 08.tholic lfovement in, 730; The gift of a Methodist New Connection Missionary Bible to the King, 879; Roman Catholic MissioDruies, 879; Moravian Missions … 879 Society……………. • ………… 23'/' LABRADOR.-Moravian Missions in ..• 519 Mixed Company in America, The…. . . . .. 940 Latin America, Our Relations with…….. 136 Mormonism …………………………. 951 Last Decade of the Century. . .• . . . . . •.•• • • 63 Mormons Abolish Polygamy •••.••.. ~ ••••. 938 LetUs Expect Great Things, Dr. Gracey.. 458 Mormon Saints-Can we trust them f •• '" 908 Life that Told, A …………………….. 007 Miscellaneous……………………959, 960 NEW HEBBIDES.-The Jubilee of Large, Murder of Mr……………… 718, 'l'¥l MADAGASCAPh -80, 240, 818, 949; Missions there, 100, 591; Anniversary of the Martyrdom of John Williams, 152; Opening of a New Church, 558; Concern Remarkable Liberality of the Converts.. 798 of English Missionary SoCieties, 767; The NEW ZEALAND. – Ninety-five per Gold Craze, 767; The Wonderful Story cent. of the Population professing Chris- of its Evangelization, 808; Letter from tians, 478; The Last Census ……….., 799 Rev. James B. Mackay……………… 850 NEW MEXlCO.-Synod of, J. J. Gil· Mackay, Alexander, Death of…………. 555 christ …. .. ……………………. 54 Marvel of Modern Medical Missions, The, NEW GUINEA……………. ……… 80 Rev. A. McElroy Wylie ……………… 919 Need of Caution, The ………………… 151 Mechanic Missionaries ……………….. Ii40 Nestorian Churches, Revivalin ……….. 517 Medical Missions, Facts and Testimonies NICARAGUA and COSTA RICA.- to their Success ……………………. 479 387, Letter from Dr. Brockett………. 389 Medical Misnions …………………….. 234 NORWAy…… .. ……………….. 318 Medical Missions at Home and Abroad .•. 820 Opium Tra.fflc in China, Appeal against it 454 MEXICO.-225; The Native Languages Oriental Missions, Dr. E. P. Thwing……. 922 of, Rev. W. P. F. Ferguson, D.D., 218; A PERSIA.-Murderof Mrs. J. W. Wright, 79!1 TheolOgical Training School.•••••••••••• 639 P ALESTINE.-818; The Number ofJews Moody's Training School …………….. , 69 there, 799; Colonization, 799; AnAwaken· Missionaries, The Distribution of, in the ing of Life and Energy …. .. …. . . …… 847 World ……………………………. 479 PORTUGAL.-818, Its Claims to Afri· Missionary Comity…. .. .. .. .. ……. ….. 375 can Territory, A note of warning. . ….• 458 Missionary Training Instituts at Minne- Poems, Tell the Tale, 494; A Suggestion.. 891 apolis, 393; at Brooklyn…………….. 960 Prayer, 583; Prayer and Missions, 588; Missionary Exposition, A Grand Picture Prize Essay, 680; Prize Offer, 680; An. swered Prayer, 633; Prayer for Labor. of …………………………… 627 ers, 741; The Bishop of Korea, 768; Is it MiSSionaries Answer the Critics on Mis· an Answer to Prayer? ….. ………… 67 Presbyterian Board of Foreigu Missions, sion Economy……………………… 138 955 ……………………………….. 956 Missionary Lectureships……. ……….. 68 Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Reports. 559 MIssionary Review of the World. ••. .••••• 71 Protestants in Heathen Conntries…….. 80 MiSSionary Work, Vessels Engaged in …. 820 Railway across Behring Strait……… 940, 954 Meravian Missions, 320, 445; in the Kus- Reformed Church, Receipts of 1889.•..•… 559 Religions of the World, Classified……… 478 kokwim, 115; Table of Statistics, 478; in Replies to Correspondents, A. T. P …….. ~ Labrador, 519; in Surinam………….. 867 Results of European Intercourse with the Moravian Missions among the Ameri· African.. . ………… .. . .. …. … .. … 479 can Indians, Rev. D. L. Leonard……… 173 Roman Catholic Lay Congress, Dr. Ellin. Moravians, not Lutherans ………….. 853 wood …………………………….. 187 Mohammedans. 957; How Shall they be Evangelized.. .. …… .. …………….. 428 RUSSIA.-l60, Evangelical Lutheran Missions, How Advanced ……………… 490 Church, 359; Foreigu Religions in the Missions, The Science of………………. 486 Empire, 4.8; Persecution of the Jews, Missions, A Hundred Years Ago and Now, 719; Repressing Missionary Work. .. .. 79!1 Protestant, Rev. James Johnston……. 81 Missions, The Crises of……………. 155 SCOTLAND.-80, 819, Missions in Old Missions, Is there to be a New Departure in, A. T. P., D.D ………………… .. Scotland-No. n., A. T. P.,161; Dr. Pier Missions, The Miracles of, No. XVI.' The Bishop of the Niger, 18. No. XVII.- son's Missionary Crusade in, 87, 2M; Mis· Madagascar, A. T. P ………………. 808 sion Work of the Church of Scotland, Missions, Asceticism in, F. F. Ellenwood, 290; Good News Received by the Free D.D., 82 …… …. ……… …. ……. 155 Missions, A Plea. for Enthusiasm in, A. T. Church from L":ke Nyassa, 555; J4ee P…………………………………. 195 MiSsion Fields……………………….. 210 Church of Scotland, Report, 685; United lIicronesia, Latest Facts About, Rev. F. E. Presbyterian Church, Report, 685; Send· Rand …………………………………1 ing out Missionaries to Morocco……… 791 SOUTH AMERICA.-819, American Bible Society, 131; Strategic Points, 608; Spanish Mission Work in Chili, 698; Rom· PAGE PAGE ish outbreaks in Zacatecas, 709; South Presbyterian Church of England, Report American Missions. . .. •••• • • .. •• • .. ….. 866 for 1889, 716; Reformed (Dutch) Church SPAIN.-Conversion of the Jesuit, Father in America, Report for 1889·90, 716; Raphael de Jafra Menendez, 639 ..•…•• 938 American Marathi Mi••lon. 873; Ameri- SWEDEN.-160; Request for Prayer, 537; can Madura. Mission, South India., A New Mission in Africa, 558; The Force 874; American Free Baptist Mi.sion. of the Mission on the Congo to be In- South Bengal, 874; Canada Bapti.t Telngu creased,559; Answered Prayer, 639; An- Mi••ion, 874; Malayam Mi.sion of L. M. nual Convention of the Fatherland Mis- S., Ba.el G. E. M. S.. Southwe.tern India, sionary Society, 719; Scandinavian Mis- 874; Mackay Mis.ion Ho.pital, Formosa. sionary Conference in Christiana……. 683 874; M. E. Church (North) N. China Mis· SWITZERLAND.-l60, 379, The Religi- .ion., 874; Board of Foreign Mis.ions of ous Condition of, 771; Annual Meeting of Pre.byterian Church (South) Raport for M. E. Conference…. . .. . •.. .. •• .. .. . …. 799 1889·90.874; American Pre.byterian(North) SYRIA.-80, Mr. Lethaby in Moab; An Mis.ion in Canton. China. 875; American Ancient Assyrian Library, 48; Work of Baptist Missionary Union. 876; Church American Bible Society, 381; Revival Mission~ Society…………………. 878 in Aintab, 399; Annual Report Presby- terian Board, 399; The Reformed Party THIBET.-Moravian Mis.ion Work, 371. in the Syrian Church defeated after a 939: Thibet and it. Religions, 149; Thi- long contest, 559; Letter from our Afri- betao Dictionary. 478; A Thibet Prayer can Correspondent, now in Beyrout••••• 776 Unlon,559; Intere.ting Letter from Rev. Seaman's Friend Society, American, ~Re- R. Gray Owen. 612; Letter. from Rev. port ………….. " ……… " …… " .. 479 George Parker and Mr. Cecil Po1hill Sallors'Society…………………….. , 238 Turner, 614; The Thibet Prayer Union. Secular Instruction….. • … ………….. 443 639; A Perilous Journey …………….. 879 Salvation Army …… " ………………. 938 Six Missionaries……………………… 320 TRINIDAD. – Letter from Rev. Dr. Skepticism, The Credulty of, Rev. F. F. Ellenwood, D.D…………………….. 110 Morton ……………………………. 78' Spiritual Barometer for the Church, Rev. R. W. Clarke ……………………… 918 To Every Creature, J. Hudson Taylor……. 106 Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 447, 603; Criticism and Letters, 631 TmlnlngSchools……………. 69. 800, 393, 960 Suggestion, A Poem, AnnaTemple …….. 890 Sherwood, Death of Rev. Dr. James M …. 949 TURKISH EMPIRE.-Misslons and Stanley, Arrival in Africa-Stanley and Sects. 780; The Greek Church, 786; The Africa, 125……….. • .. .. .. .. .. ……. 126 Maronite Church, 787; The Druzes, 787; Startling Facts. . . • •.. • • •.. •.. •… • … • . … 291 Mission. in Turkey, 791; The Religion of Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, A Noble the Nusairiyeh, 799; Oriental Railroads, Friend of Missions, Mrs.J. S. Dennis…. 881 209; Tnrkey and the Slave Trade, 291; Sunday·school Union Continental Mission. 238 The Great Revival in Aintab, 138. 816; STATISTICS OF FOREIGN MIS- Large Armenian Exodu. to America, 799; SIONS.-73, 156, 237, 320, 478, 959, 960; Revival in Cesarea, 939; MODSY, not Men, Friends Foreign Missionary Association, Wanted Now ……………………… 9~ 393; Bible Christian Home and Foreign Missionary Soolety, 393; Annual Statistics UNITED STATES. – 80. 319; Congo of Japan Mission for 1889, table, 394; Basle Free State and U. S. A., 152, 217; Bishop MiSSionary Society,896; United Brethern in Taylor's Self·supportlng Missions, 899; Christ, Report for 1889·90,633; Universities Mis.ions in Alaska, 399; Evangelization, Mission to Oentral"Africa, Report for 1889, What is It? 875; Raligious Work among 633; Evangelical Lutheran Foreign Mis· the Immigrant., 416: Sailing of the Kansas slonary Work. table, 634; Free Church of Band of Mi.sionaries for the Soudan, 615; Scotland, Report for 1889·90, 635; Uni· Chinese Secret Society and its Influence ted Presbyterian Church of Scot- on Evangelistic Work, 600; Dr. Mitchell's land, Report for 1889, 635: London Views of China's Needs, 639; The Silver Missionary Society, Raport for 1889·90, Law's Effect on Missions, 848; Farefell 635; Society lor the Propagation of the Meeting of Missionaries in Boston, 849; Gospel in Foreign Parts, Report for 1889, Presbyterian Woman's Missionary So- 636; Moravian Missions, Last Report, 636; oiety, 879; Report of International Medi- Presbyterian Ohurch of ,England, Raport cal Mieslonary Society, 879; Receipts for 1889, 636: Reformed Presbyterian American Board………….. .. ……… 879 Church in the United States, Report for 1889·90, 714; Presbyterian Church (North) Unoccupied Territory, A. P. Happer. D. D.. 269 Raport for 1889 – 90, 715; Pre.byterian Nepaul …………………………….. 80 Church (South) Report for 1889·90, 715; Volunteer Missionary Students, Our, E. W. R …………………………….. 123,202 Volunteer Movement for Foreign MISSions.• 284 Wanted-A Conscience: The United States and China. …. • … .. . • •• …. .. ….. 802 Wesleyan Indlsn Missions Oontroversy…… 570 What Ought We to do for Foreign Mi.sions? T. G. Field ………………………… 713 Woman's Missionary Societies, Table of Foreign Mission Work, 73; of United States. 7'-77; of Oanada, of Europe …156, 157 Woman and Missions – Good that one Woman Can Do…………………….. 210 Woman. A Tribute to …………………. 311 Worship of Words, The ………………. 464 Work of Various Mis.ionary Societies••••••• 312 Work Abroad, Dr. Pierson's …… , ……. 310 World's Convention on Mi.sions in 1892 …. 135 Young Men's Chri.tian Association and Mi••ion…………………………… 9~ Zenana Work. Origin of…………… 554, 9511
The Missionary Review of the World — November 1890
THE DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM TO THE JEWS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIII. No. ll.-Old Series.– NOVEMBER. –VOL. ill. No. 11.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
THE DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM TO 'I'HE .JEWS.
BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK.
That most intelligent and devoted friend of missions, Robert N. Cust, LL. D., of London, has published recently in the Church Missionary Intelligencer, an able article on the changing phases of the non-Christian religions, in which occurs an interesting monograph on "Neo Judaism." Dr. Cust is a member, not only of the Administrative Committee of the Church Missionary Society, but also of the London Missionary Society to the Jews, and he is equally qualified to speak of the operations and the successes of both. More than this, he is a man who thoroughly acquaints himself with the character of those systems which he hopes to see displaced by the Gospel of Christ. He confesses that great success has not as yet crowned the efforts of Christian missionaries among the Jews, either in London or in the cities of the Continent and of northern Africa. But he is none the less certain as to the duty of the Christian Church. He states that the Jews now number not less than 7,000,000, and are, therefore, a much more numerous people than were ruled over by David or Solomon-more numerous, in fact, than Palestine could possibly have supported.
If Dr. Custis correct in this estimate-and he seldom errs in matters of fact-the return to the Holy Land must be hastened, or it can only be re-occupied by representation. For what race, unless it be the American Negro, increases so rapidly as the Hebrew? Wherever the environment is favorable, and he has an equal chance with others, the Jew is the most thrifty of men, not only in money-getting but in the number and healthfulness of his children. Where the native American imagines that he cannot afford to marry, and must be satisfied with the" club" instead of a home, the Jew rears a prosperous family, and in the end endows them with wealth.
That the Hebrew race have suffered great persecution during the past centuries, must be confessed to the shame of the Christian Church. They have found in Europe as well as Africa and western Asia, another and much longer Babylonish captivity. But that this has been wholly due to religious prejudice cannot be affirmed. The tone and implication of Shakespeare's" Merchant of Venice" must rest on a basis which, even in his time, was historic. Probably the prejudice and contempt entertained toward the race by their Roman conquerors was fully as strong as has ever been exercised by the most bigoted of Christian nations. Nay, the latter .prejudice may have been in part an heirloom of the former.
The strangest prejudice and the greatest injustice and oppression now visited upon the Jews, so far as the Christian powers are concerned, are found in eastern Europe, where the doctrines of Christianity have the slightest hold, and where governmental policy and the bitterness of industrial competition must be held responsible for the entire crusade. One million of Jews are now being banished from Russian territory, not because of their faith but because the Government does not regard them as desirable subjects.
One thing is certain, whatever prejudice exists against the Hebrew population in the United States, does not arise from differences of .faith. Their best friends, both in this country and in Great Britain, are found in the Christian Church-certainly in the Protestant Church.
Some months since, the question was sent out to different men of prominent positions among us, "What is the occasion of the prevailing prejudice against the Hebrews ?" , Generally the re.sponse given was, "We are not aware of any prejudice." . Several clergymen disavowed any feeling of the kind. But Rev. Edward Everett Hale was cre~ited with charging the hostile feeling to a difference of religious faith.
As the implication was that of a prejudice now existing on the part of the American churches, we must earnestly protest against it. Mr. Hale cannot be aware-possibly he has forgotten-that four or five years ago, U. S. Minister Strauss was chosen to represent our Government at Constantinople on the recommendation of the missionary boards, and that petitions from the missionaries in the Turkish Empire were sent to Washington asking that he might be appointed for a second term.
The hostile feeling against the Jews in this country grows out of business relations. It is not cherished by Christians as such, but by those who have had to do with them in trade, or by those who have been employed by them in manufacturing. The trades unions, largely composed of infidels and Nihilists, would probably be found to represent the most bitter of all the animosities that they encounter. Whether it be just or not, there exists a feeling that the chief oppressors of poor needle-women are Jews. The industries in which unfortunate and starving females engage, as a last resort, are mostly in the hands of this class of men, and when the ruinous rates at which manufactured garments are produced in the attics and tenement houses of desperate poverty corne to be known, it must not be thought strange if popular sympathy and indignation are aroused. Some Americans join in the same extortion, but their miserable plea is that .competition compels them to do what others do. As a rule, women do not "strike." They suffer on and die, and their employers prosper .and live on Fifth Avenue.
There are among our Hebrew citizens thousands of worthy and honorable business men who suffer unjustly from the prejudice which .other thousands of their race have brought upon them, and it is to be hoped, that on the one hand, public opinion will become more discrimjnating, while on the other, the example of the nobler Hebrew tradesmen will raise the standard of honor and humanity among all their race.
Another thing which creates prejudice against the Jews may be regarded as a mere accident of their phenomenal thrift. At the summer resorts they are deemed undesirable guests on account of rough and disagreeable manners. This is no proof that the average of the race is more clownish or swinish than other races. Quite as disagree- ,able companionship might be found among the Irish, or some classes of native-bom Americans, but the difference is, that these are not found at first-class hotels; with them, there is a different relation between manners and money. Financial competency reaches a lower stratum in Jewish society than in any other. It extends to classes among whom the gentle amenities of life are unknown, and even good grammar is wanting. And the same habit of overreaching, which has made the money, is carried into all the contacts and experiences of hotel life.
Now, it is quite time that the common notion that Jews are suffering from any narrow religious prejudice of the Christian Church were laid aside.
How is it in Mohammedan countries where a common rejection of Christianity might be supposed to draw both classes of rigid Monothists together in full sympathy? In no Christian country-not even in Russia-is there so bitter a hatred, so degrading a bondage for the ~ews as in northern Africa-particularly in Morocco. They are thrifty in money matters, even there. It is impossible to impoverish them by any ordinary measures of oppression. On some accounts it is for the interest of impecunious Moors, and even of the officials, to have such a class from whom to borrow money, and by whose energy business shall be kept from stagnation, but as to indignitIes of every kind, the treatment meted out to them is almost incredible. They must wear a prescribed attire, and dwell in a certain quarter, and submit to many special police regulations; while in taxation, the only question is how far the life blood can be drawn with safety.
It seems strange that in their wide range among the nations, these people who are not a nation, cling to the Mohammedans and the Christians. Though the world is open before them, and they do not seem bound by local attachments, they are never found among the heathen. Opportunities for money-getting have been great in the East; almost every other race of Europe and western Asia-ancient and modern-has been lured by the wealth of India or China or the southern Archipelago, but never the Jew. His financial counterpart, the Parsee, is everywhere found in the East, driving bargains with Jewish sagacity, in opium or in spices and coffee, but the Hebrew has never crossed their track. Even in those centuries where he has suffered the greatest disabilities in the proscribed "Jew quarters" of European or Levantine cities, it seems never to have occurred to him to join the rush of Persians, Pathans, Macedonians, Portuguese, Dutch, and English, after the wealth of the heathen Orient. He preferred to be snubbed and crushed by Christian and Moslem nations, and to find solace in that money-getting passion which, in the course of centuries, has become a nature.
Hertzog alludes to the fact that the Jew confines himself mostly to temperate latitudes; he is not found in the tropics of either hemisphere. And our readers hardly need to be reminded that he is always found in the cities. Who ever heard of a Hebrew farmer ?-at least this side of Bible times. The Nomadic character has forsaken him. He is no longer a keeper of sheep. Yet, no other race except the Hindu or the Mongolian has shown such tenacity of life and such unimpaired vigor. The Romans who crushed the national life of Israel, on the one hand, and t].}e Assyrians who enslaved and scattered the chosen tribes, on the other, have alike perished, while the seed of Abraham, driven everywhither, have survived and are more numerous and a hundredfold more thrifty than in the days of Solomon and his glory.
The financial power of Jewish bankers on the Continent of Europe has become proverbial. The author of La France Juive claims that French politics, as well as finance, are largely controlled by the same race. We have, in our day, seen a D'Israeli climb to the heights of power in England, and wield a magician's wand over Queen and Parliament, and finally win for himself a statue in the consecrated shrine of national heroes and statesmen.
On this side of the Atlantic, the main business thoroughfare of our great metropolis is exchanging the names of its old American firms for the names of German Jews. 'l'hey are sure to become not only a great financial power but a strong social and political element in this country. The logic of their twofold increase-by natural generation and by immigration-renders certain a great future development.
Meanwhile, there is reason to believe that a better state of feeling is springing up. If the Jew has been rather Ishmaelitish than Israelitish it is not wholly his fault, though it is in part. On both sides, there should be confidence, and among business men of the highest grade there is already a clasping of hands over the old "wall of partition.'" Dr. Cust quotes from an address, delivered this very year, by Dr. Adler (not Felix), in the great synagogue in Aldgate, in the presence -of the Lord-Mayor, himself a Jew, in which the Rabbi alluded to the influence exerted by that synagogue. "Many a soul-stirring service," said the speaker, "has been witnessed within its venerable walls. Whatever the event that moved the hearts of England's sons-when a great victory evoked national rejoicing; when a sovereign had been _stricken down by illness, and when it pleased the Lord to send him healing; when a joyous jubilee was kept, and when death had entered -the palace-every event was commemorated in the great synagogue with the voice of prayer and supplication, of praise and thanksgiving, proving that the Israelite then, as always, was steeped to the very lips with loyalty. Nor were the administrators of the synagogue unmindful of the needs of their fellow-men-though of other lands and -creeds. Whether the appeal came to relieve a famine in Sweden, or to diminish the sufferings of English prisoners in France, or a plaint reached these shores from the hunger-stricken children of Ireland- the authorities of the great synagogue were ever ready to aid and to succor."
The benefactions as well as the exalted character of a Moses Montifiore are fresh in the mind of every reader. And that love of fair play which is so strong in the character of Englishmen, is welcoming :such men as he to their confidence, and is appreciating the philanthropic efforts of the great synagogue.
Instead of clinging to an old religious grudge against the race, Christian London is the focal centre of interest ih their welfare. Mis- -sions to the Jews at home and abroad are multiplied, and the strong :prayer of faith is offered up by thousands of devout Christians that God 'Will redeem His own chosen people by the blood of an accepted Christ!
It must be confessed that the Christian Church at large has seemed to be apathetic in regard to Jewish missions, but it has been rather the apathy of despair than of indifference. There has been too great .a readiness to "turn unto the Gentiles" and to consider the engrafted "wild olive" the real tree. At the London Missionary Conference of 1888, Mr. James E. Mathieson quoted the late Dr. Schwartz as saying, '''You Gentile Christians take all the sweet promises to yourselves, out you leave all the curses to the poor Jews." And in continuing, Mr. MathieRon alluded to a custom of the Scotch ecclesiastical bodies .()f rising at the close of their sessions (though they usually sit in prayer), and singing with marked solemnity: "Pray for the 'peace .()f Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee," etc. "But they do not mean Jerusalem," he added, "and they do not mean the Jews: they mean the Established Church and the Free Church of Scotland." 18 Dot this something like "robbery for burnt offering ?"
But, however, the Church, a8 a whole, may have negleeted her duty, there have always been those who have God's chosen people in their hearts. Count Zinzendoof, the founder of the Moravian Mis- sions, took a warm interest in the Jews, and he had the great joy, in 1735, of seeing a prominent Jewish rabbi become a member of the' Moravian Church, and a successful missionary among his people. "Everywhere," says Dr. Fleming, Secretary of the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, "he won the esteem of the Jews, and not long since, a gift was sent to the Moravian Church at Herrnhut by a Jewish family who cherished the traditions of bless- ing through Rabbi Lieberkiihn."
The London Society, above named, has been at work for over eighty years. Nor is it alone. There are altogether eight Jewish missionary societies in England, five in Scotland, and one in Ireland. Together, these employ 312 agents. On the Continent of Europe, the societies number 27. America has seven, with 34 agents. Thus 48 societies with 377 agents are striving to win God's ancient people to· tlileir own Messiah. That their labors have not been wholly in vain is shown by the estimated fact that 100,000 Jews have been baptized in the last seventy-five years, and that with their children the number' of believers may be set down at 250,000. Among these have been many distinguished men.
Though these numbers are not relatively great, yet it is believed that the breaking down on both sides of an unrelenting prejudice, has been a far greater result and one which opens the way for blessed in-gatherings in the time to come.
There are certainly some valid grounds of hope for the Jews, even aside from the Divine promises. They are less tenacious of their old faith than they were formerly. Though still more or less clannish, yet they are more than ever disposed to break down barriers and be like other people. They are getting tired of the real or imagined stigma and reproach attached to their name. Each successive generation cares less for the old shibboleths and more for the privileges of social life without distinction of race.
It is seen that the prophetic situation is awkward. If the Messiah has come, who, and what was He? If He has not come, when will He appear? If sacrifice symbolized a promised Redeemer why is it not 'kept up? Why is the Moslem permitted to hold century after century, the only place of sacrifice, unless to show that its meaning is done away and its necessity gone? Perhaps it is in despair over such questions as these that multitudes of Jews are driven to Agnosticism., More and more Jews observe our Sabbath as a day of rest, and their Sabbath-schools inevitably tend toward Christian ways. It is well-nigh impossible to prevent their children from coming intosympathy with the Christian institutions and customs which prevaiL around them. Two or three years ago a liberal-minded and philanthropio Jew in Italy offered an immense sum of money to be devoted to the edu- oation of children in Russia, and recommended that Jews and Chris- tians be educated together. His idea was that the race distinction should be ignored, and that the young of his people should be allowed to become absorbed in the national life wherever they might be, and that gradually the distinction between Jew and Gentile should dis- appear. It may be, that social abs!)rption, intermarriage, the assimi- lating influence of the common school, the fading out of the Jewish pride and prejudice of race are to be factots in God's plan of recovery. Doubtless, they will have a part to act, but God's express will is that the Gospel shall be ,faithfully preached meanwhile, and that prayer be .offered for His people. '
Surely the Christian Church owes it to itself to present no higher consideration to promote the spiritual enlightenment of the Jews. We ourselves need this effort, if only tt> remind us continually how much we owe to the race that ga,ve us the Saviour of mankind-if only to keep fresh in memory the great missionary whom the Jewish race gave as the Apostle to us Gentiles. Our indebtedness for the Chief of the apostles will never be paid. The Gentile world, with its Christian institutions, is a monument of the great fact that it is possible to overcome the most inveterate Jewish prejudice, and to win the stoutest Pharasaic heart to Christ. If Paul could be converted and could convert thousands of others of his own faith, the Christian Church has no right to despair. Jew:ish synagogues were the first cradles of the nascent church in all lands. They opened their doors to the apostles for the planting of the first germs of truth, and Jewish converts everywhere gave character and steadiness to the ignorant Gentile church.
But, how shall the Jews of our time be reached? The London Society, as the result of eighty years of experience, answers this question under the following heads: (1.) By striving to win their confidence by removing prejudice: (a.) Never speak sneeringly or disparagingly of them; overcome the habit in ourselves and others. (b.) Manifest sympathy with them as a nation and as individuals. (c.) Win confidence by medical missions.
(2.) By preaching the Gospel as the apostles preached it-proving from their own Scriptures that Christ is the promised Messiah.
(3.) By encouraging a diligent, oandid, and prayerful study of the whole Bible-the Old and the New Testament in their connection.
(4.) By educating Jewish children. In a school supported by the Society, in Palestine Place, London, where 595 Jewish boys have been educated, the master, after 28 years of service, does not know of one pupil, who, after pursuing a full course, has relapsed into Judaism.
(5.) By assisting poor Jewish youth to obtain positions and Imcouraging them in seeking a subsistence.
(6.) By training promising young men as missionaries. tt should not be forgotten, as an encouragement, that the Jews are worshippers of our God, have a large portion of our Bible, are sharers of our civilization, speak our language, and are-or ought to be-our friends as well as neighbors, and are even before us, heirs of the covenant of promise !
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF MADAGASCAR. [EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] To an English boy, Robert Drury, wrecked near Port Dauphine, the Southeastern cape of Madagascar, we owe the first full account of the savages on this great island. He saw the captain and crew, who escaped with him from the angry sea, pierced with the lances of the inhospitable natives, till out of over a hundred only a dozen survived, and he himself was saved only to be enslaved. This was early in this century. He found the country divided among many warring tribes; might the only right, women and children carried off like cattle and made slaves; woman, so degraded that even the King's daughter, wife or mother, cringed before him and licked his feet. Heathen ceremonies of the most absurd and degrading kind were matters of daily occurrence. A wooden charm called an owZey, borne up by forked sticks, was worshiped with incense. Fortune tellers, or umossees, held the people in the bondage of superstition, and lived upon their ignorance and credulity. The Malagasy were the victims of magicians, and constantly fought and plundered one another, The arrival of a European vessel was the signal for wholesale crimes of lust and trading in human bodies and: souls. All who had slaves drove them to the seaside.
Half a century ago the Hovas held the interior portion of the island, and their King or chief, who was called Radama, had come to the throne in 1808. With these Hovas and their sovereigns the modern history of Madagascar is mainly concerned, Morally and spiritually the picture is very dark. From three to four thousand natives were sold, it is said, every year, and the spot where they caught the last glimpse of home, and the first glimpse of the sea that was to bear them into hopeless exile, is even now called the''weeping pZace ofthe Hovas." Though they had courts of law, bribery was so common that trial was a form and a farce. Honesty was scarce known, and children were trained to falsehood and deception as a virtue. Punishments were savagely cruel, devised to give long, lingering pain-burning by slow fires, drowning in boiiing water, poisoning by tangena, beating, starving, hurling over precipices, crucifying. 'fhe tangena was a substitute for trial, and thousands died every year from this poison, while those who proved their innocence by outliving the dose were wrecked in health.
The people were a nation of thieves as well as liars. Madame Pfeiffer's property was stolen while at the house of the Chief Justice, but }'ecovery was impossible, where even high officers stole. Even graves were robbed, bodies stripped, and every article of value buried with the dead was an object of ruthless plunder. The nation was so wedded to lying and thieving that Christianity was objected to because it taught people to be true and honest. They were so far lost to all virtue that they resisted any influence that promised moral improvement. .As to the homes of Madagascar, there were none. A native never I:lpoke ,of family or family ties. Madame Pfeiffer's travels had brought t.o her knowledge no people so immoral, and her pen refused to chronicle what her eyes and ears were compelled to see and hear. The worst vices were so universal as to seem natural. A man might put away his wife for no cause and take a fresh one as often as his caprice or passion led him; female virtue was of so little account that it did not ·even affect the legitimacy of offspring. Children born on unlucky days it was no crime to strangle, drown or expose to the trampling feet of cattle.
The Hovas were not an irreligious people-idols filled the land. ·Gods were so plenty that anything new, which they did not compre- hend, though it were a machine or a photograph, they deified. Their idols were conceived as having all power, but neither knowledge nor .goodness, virtue nor love; they were simply human greed, cruelty,mean- ness and malice, invested with almightiness! monsters of lies and lusts.
Among such a people-of whom the French governor of the Isle of Bourbon said, "You might as well attempt to convert sheep, oxen or -asses, as to make the Malagasy Christians "-among such a people the gospel has gone to win some of its mightiest triumphs.
The first obvious step that God took was one of preparation. He -gave Madagascar political unity. King Radama in his reign of twenty years"proved himself the Cresar or Napoleon" of his realm, making him- self master of the whole island except two districts in the South,and this rendered easier the spread of a new faith, as the unification of the Roman Empire had done eighteen centuries before. Radama was at ·once a general, a ruler and a reformer. He had with all his faults and vices a patriotic spirit. Contact with European civilization had becn sufficient to satisfy him of its superior type, and he first opened the -door to civilization and Christianity that he might secure the progress .and prosperity of his people. He made a treaty with Britain, abolishing the slave trade, though domestic slavery still prevailed in his own ,dominions; and seeing t~e benefits accruing to even heathen lands from the gospel of Ohrist, he welcomed the pioneer English mission- -ary, in 1820, to his capital Antananarivo, and kept his word, which pledged to him and others who might join him royal protection.
The missionaries reduced the language of the people to writing, and in teaching and preaching had all their time and strength employed. -God gave them the king's patronage; an adult sch,ool was opened in the palace court yard, and by his favor a central model school was -opened for training native teachers for the villages round about; and when murmurs arose against the missionaries, because their teachings lessened respect for the native religion, Radama had the independence ;and the indifference to go on with the work of education, at heart -caring nothing for the idols that the Hovas worshipped. In 1826 the first printing press was set up in the i.sland, and a new literature began to be created. The people were slowly waking from the sleep of ages. But at the death of Radama, in June, 1828, not'om~' convert had yet made a confession of Christ. The king himself was a progressive sovereign, but he was led simply by worldly wisdom. It was civilization and not Christianity, as such, that he encouraged. He was too intelligent to have faith in priestcraft and witchcraft, but too carnally minded to embrace Christianity or even attend preaching services.
And now opens the era of a most bloody and cruel persecution. One of Radama's wives, Ranavalona, took forcible possession of the throne, mounting it by murdering all rivals. If Radama was the Cresar, she was the" Bloody Mary," of Madagascar. From twenty to thirty thousand victims fell annually a prey to her cruelty. She was as reckless as Nero, as treacherous as Judas, and as selfish as Cleopatra. Her chief amusement was a bull-fight, her imperial journeys were·· destructive raids that left famine in their track, and her whole rule was that of a despot that cared neither for the liberty nor life of her subjects. She would waste tears over the death of a favorite bull, and lavish honors on its burial, such as not even the decease of her whole· family would have drawn forth. Had her reign been long, the island would have been a depopulated desert; and as it was, it has been calculated that half of the population perished under her. bloody sceptre. We purposely draw her hideous portrait that it may be seen what wasthe natural flower of the Madagascar society, and under what a deadly influence the infant church of Christ there struck down its tender' roots and unfolded its stalk.
There was everything, humanly speaking, to prevent the gospel from getting any hold in Madagascar. The soil was thick with the awful growths of a paganism of the lowest type; and a queen who had neither justice nor mercy was ready to pluck up the first plant of godliness, 01' burn over any field where the seed of the gospel might spring up. Among her first acts was the prohibition of all preaching and the breaking up o~ the schools. 4fterward, probably from motives of policy, she permitted the missionaries not only to make converts, but to organize native Christian churches, and, in 1831, twenty were baptized, among them "Paul," who had been a famous heathen diviner, but who had become a humble learner in the school of Christ.
As soon as the work of conversion thus began in earnest, the queen Bet herself resolutely against it. Her hatred and cruelty were so satanic' that a pall seemed to have fallen upon the whole people. The preaching went forward, and the queen was besought not to persecute the· new disciples. But it was all in vain. In March, 1834, a royal proc– lamation was made in the ears of a hundred thousand people drawn. up on the plain, Imahamasina, declaring war against the new faith•.. Converts were branded as criminals, and required to accuse themselves within one week on pain of death. Astonishing as it may seem, the, great body of these native disciples stood firm. Praying for help, trusting in God, they appeared before the judges and confessed their faith in Jesus. In these days of peril these Malagasy Christians spent whole nights in prayer, by their fidelity to an unseen Saviour exciting the astonishment of their very enemies. The queen contented herself in this case with degrading four hundred officers and fining two thou~ sand others. A week httor she demanded all books to be delivered up. As all literature on the island was the creation of the mission press, this edict was aimed against the Bible. But the brave Malagasy would not give up the Scriptures, which some of them had walked a hundred miles to procure.
The strong hold of the gospel upon the native J,J:ovas could be ac- counted for on no philosophy that excludps the power of God. Al~ ready twenty~four hundred of the queen's officers were among the con~ verts, and in the army the best and bravest soldiers were also soldiers of Christ. In vain were they placed in the most exposed positions in the battle: they still routed the foe. Thirty~thousand Hovas could read the Scriptures. Many cast away idols and superstitious charms.
Large congregations met at the capital and the influence reached hundreds of miles in every direction. No fault could be found in the Chi-istians of Madagascar, except that founl! with Daniel in Baby~ lon-they believed in their God. Wheu compelled to cease public labor, the missionaries worked privately, and besides teaching the people, published the complete Old Testament and" Pilgrim'S Progress." Then, driven from the island, they left the young church of Christ without a foreign mi~sionary among them, in July, 1836; and for twenty-five long years, persecution which had bared her red right arm continued to make it a crime to confess Jesus as Saviour aud Lord. .
Ranavalona 1., ather coronation in June, 1829, took two of the na- tional idols in her hands and said, "From my ancestors I received you; in you I put my trust, therefore support me.. " And, robed in scarlet.
and gold, those idols were held at the front of the platform to overawe the multitude while the ceremonies went forward. Here was a throne literally pillared on idols, as her reign abundantly proved.
There .were four eras of persecution, lasting respectively for fourr seven, three and. two years, together reaching from 1835 to 1860, with intervals of comparative quiet. The third was the most severe.
Christians met secretly in each other's houses, and traveled sometimes twenty miles to mountain tops, to praise and pray and read the word of God.
A woman of high family, Rafaravavy, became a sincere disciple and opened one of the largest houses in the capital for Christian worship. Despite the queen's hostile attitude, she continued to hold Sunday .evening meetings. She refused to reveal the names of her fellowworshipers, and the queen in a rage ordered her put to death. While -expecting cruel tortures, she retained her serene composure; the peacc {)f God filled her soul. Her life was spared, but her property in part ~onfiscated. She continued to meet believers, however, and the number of converts constantly increased. These persecuted disciples, bereft of human teachers, looked only to the Holy Spirit as teacher, and became themselves instructors of others who could not read. Their .quick sensibilities made them weep at the bare mention of Jesus. Rafaravavy's house was assaulted by a mob, and she was led away, as ~he snpposed, to execution, and put in irons; but a terrible conflagration that same night was snpposed to have alarmed the queen and .aroused her supe;stitious fears, and the penalty was delayed. At last .sentence of perpetual slavery was inflicted on all who had been seized in Rafaravavy's house, and Rasalama, another of the women, was speared while kneeling in prayer. Thus, on August 14, 1837, the first Mada- .gascar martyr died witnessing for Jesus. Two hundred converts were .enslaved for Jesus' sake at this time. Some of those thus enslaved to traders, afterwards escaped, but astonished their masters by returning to them accounts of their goods, with money obtained from sales. Fugitives hid three months at a time in forests. Wanderers often 'came into contact with lonely dwellings, where little congregations hitherto unknown gathered for Christian worship.
These are fragments of this remarkable story of Madagascar which read like the highest romance of Christian chivalry.
In 1839 some fugitives, on their way to England, stopping at Port Elizabeth, in South Africa, met with fellow-converts. Unable to communicate freely with these converted Hottentots, their Bibles be- -l'ame actually vehicles of converse. The Malagasy and Hottentots turning to the same passages in their respective translations of the Word, in this way made known to each other their sentiments. For .example, the Hottentot disciples pointed to Ephesians ii : 2 : "Among whom we all had our cop,versation in time past," etc. The Malagasy disciples responded by Eph. ii : 14, 15: "For He is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition." Also Gal. iii: 28: "Ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Again, the Hottentots pointed to John xvi: 33: "In the world ye .shall have tribnlation." The Hovas replied by Rom. viii: 35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation?" etc. When was e'Ver the Bible put to a more beautiful use even by the most mature Christians? Then they sang the same hymns to the Bame tunes in different languages. Verily, "Multm terricolis lin~um; celestibus una." Then the Hottentots made them a voluntary contribution to help pay costs of their voyage, and knelt on the beach commending them to God. And these were Hottentot" dogs" and Malagasy "asses!" How soon and strangely they had developed into Christian men!
When these fugitives reached England, in May, 1839, they wrote a letter to their suffering fellow-disciples at home, which for beauty and purity of Christian sentiment might have graced the fame of Paul, theapostle and writer of epistles. For three years they stayed on British shores, winning universal esteem and love, and furnishing an unanswerable proof of the reality of the gospel. When, in 1842, they returned to Mauritius, their mission station at Moka became the asylum for other fugitives from persecutions at Madagascar. The queen was only enraged by the escape of her victims. She became the more bloodthirsty. She ordered her soldiers, when they found any Christians, 4J;0 dig a pit, cast them into it, pour boiling water on them and then fill up the pit, and go in search of others on whom to wreak similar vengeance.
Meanwhile, the patience and fidelity of these poor disciples confounded their very enemies, and constrained them to admire and wonder at a power so mysterious that could take away the fear of death, even in forms so horrible. In July, 1840, nine perilons, recaptured out of sixteen who had fied, were put to death by the spear of the executioner, and among them PauZ the Aged, the converted conjurer and preacher. And still the Gospel made conquests in these, the darkest days.
Two years of respite from persecution passed by, and a second era of cruelty began about June 19, 1842. Two converts were seized while returning from a missionary tour among the Salaklava tribes, and tortured to induce them to reveal the names of their fellow-disciples, but in vain. These lambs went to the slaughter without opening their mouths to betray other believers.
A few months later the queen was wrought to fury by the act of some imprudent person who affixed to the wall of a house in the capital a leaf of the New Testament, underlining Matthew xxiii, 13, "Woe unto you," etc. Construing this as a personal insult, she required the unknown offender to confess in four days, under penalty of being cut into pieces as small as musket balls. As no confession followed, the queen arrested several Christians and selected two, whose bodies wereliterally chopped as fine as mincemeat, and then burned to ashes! And the only ground for attaching to these disciples the guilt of this offence was that they knew enough to read and write!
Strange to say, it pleased God that the only son and heir of this atrocious Jezebel should, at the age of sixteen, become interested in the very Christians who were the,objects of his mother's persecuting rage! Rakatond.-Radama was one ofthat illustrations of that paradox of heredity, that a lamb should be born of a hyena. His gentle spirit was the exact reverse of his mother's ferocity. Where she delighted in cruelty, he delighted in kindness; he hated blood-shedding even as she thirsted for it. Of course, the people soon found out where to go for sympathy and succor. He cut the cords of those who were bound, and released those appointed to death; and yet the natural affection existing between the son and mother prevented a rupture between them.
About tliis time, 1847, Ramaka, called Rasalasala, or the BoZd One, arose, a mighty preacher, the first in the Madagascar church. Prince Rakatond was drawn to hear him, and was so impressed that he had Christian teachers come to the palace to instruct him in the Scriptures and pray with him. So far as he could he prevented all executions, .or, at least, modified and mollified the severity of the sentence against accused disciples. Though he never seems to have become a convert himself, he often attended OhrIstian worship and befriended the converts in every possible way. His cousin, Prince Ramonja, older than he, yet singularly like him, and also a favorite of the queen, joined him in the chivalrous defence of the persecuted followers of Jesus. The nephew of the prime minister went further than these two royal princes, and openly declared himself a disciple, and so the gospel once more invaded "Ooosar's household." His uncle threatened him with the loss of his head, but he calmly answered, I l( am a Ohristian, and if you will, you may put me to death, but I must and will pray." He might be assassinated, but could not be in- timidated, as Ourran said of himself when conducting the defense of Bond.
To recount all the fascinating story of the Malagasy's sufferings would require a volume. But we seek rather to portray in outline the main features of this romance of missions. One of the most affecting memorials of this persecution may be found in the fragments of Holy Scripture afterwards brought home by Mr. Ellis. During this famine .of the written word, the more educated converts copiAd out portions .of the blessed book, and these were found, worn, soiled and rent, with the toru edges carefully drawn together and sewed with fibres of bark, .or repaired with pieces of stronger paper; and giving evidence that they had been buried in the earth or hidden in smoky thatches, to conceal them from the eyes of the malignant persecutors.
In 1849 a third era of persecution began with the a~sault upon Prince Ramonja. A kabar or business meeting was summoned at Andahalo. rrhe queen addressed a message to her subjects, asking «why it was that they did not give up praying," in view of the :severe penalties affixed to the crime of apostasy from the gods of Madagascar.
The Ohristians made mild but firm answer, refusing to recognize idols. Rainitraho, a noble of royal blood, was among Ohrist's conlessors, and his heroism was so contagious that the officers stopped the -examinations lest the whole people should be carried away with his example. Four nobles were burned alive, and f.ourteen others hurled from a precipice 150 feet high, and their families sold as slaves; 117 were publicly flogged and compelled to labor for life in chains; 1,700 were fined, and Prince Ramonja was degraded from his rank. The -prince royal was accused of being a Christian, but the queen was too indulgent to her only son to take notice of the charge.
No acts of violence could sway these simple Malagasy converts from Jesus. They calmly replied, "None of these things move me." They sang a hymn of "going home to God," as they were borne to ~,x:ecution, and prayers and praises ascended in the very flames that wrapped the stakes. Once, indeed, the flames were extinguished by a sudden rain, and a bow appeared, one end of which seemed to rest on the very posts to which the martyrs were tied. The spectators were overwhelmed with awe, but the fires were relit, and the martyrs gave up the ghost.
To the precipice near the palace, .JI.mpamarinana, fourteen prisoners were then led and hurled over its awful edge, bounding from ledge to ledge until they were broken on the granite rocks below, and one of them was heard singing as he fell. One timid woman, Ranivo, who was kept to the last, compelled to look over the edge of the cliff upon the mangled bodies below, in answer to the '6ntreaties of friends that she would save her life by apostasy from Dhrist, only begged to be hurled from the precipice too. And yet the word of the Lord had free course and was glorified. Converts was still gathered. Believers numbered thousands. In at least seven places in the capital secret meetings were held.
Rainiharo, one of the ministers who had placed Ranavalona on the throne and propped her persecuting policy by his influence, died, and this period of relentless persecution came to a close. The prince royal, Rakatond, now became associated with his mother in the government: The time now seemed to have come for the return of the expelled mIsSIOnaries. The London Missionary Society, to whose planting the gospel owed Its harvest in Madagascar, sent a deputation, composed of the veteran missionary, Rev. William Ellis, and the Rev. Mr. Cameron, to prepare the way for re-establishing the mission which for about eighteen years had been broken np.
Mr. Ellis found two parties on the island, led respectively by Prince Rakatond and by his cousin, Ramboasalama, the former favoring Christ~anity and all its noble institutions; the latterin league with idolatry and all its vicious associations. But Mr. Ellis found the church of Christ in the island stronger than before persecution began, and the knowledge of the gospel spread to the remote parts of the island. Not until his third visit, in 1856, did he reach the capital. But when he did, he found that just the fruits which the blessed gospel had produced in the most enlightened communities, it had borne in Madagascar. Disciples had there fought the same fight of faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, and burning with zeal for God and passion for souls. Closet and la:mily prayer were more common than among disciples in London; the word of God was daily searched as for hid treasure, and the meetings for worship were attended at all risk. . The fourth and last persecution may be traced to a plot to depose the wicked queen. June, 1857, was fixed as the time for carrying out the design. Mr. Lambert, a Frenchman, first sought aid from Louis Napoleon and the English prime minister, Lord Clarendon, in relieving the misery of the Malagasy. When the hope of foreign interference failed, he is said to have enlisted the co-operation of Prince Rakatond with some of the nobles and soldiers, in' the plan of revolutionizing the government by native aid alone. No violence was to be done to the queen's person; she was simply to be removed from the throne, and her son to be proclaimed king. But ou the eve of accomplishment the plot failed, and when the knowledge of the conspiracy came to Queen Ranavalona's ears, she refused to allow anyone to hint a suspicion against her son, and like Nero when Rome burned, fixed the guilt of the whole plot upon the poor innocent disciples of Christ. A traitor who had professed conversion gave the queen a list of seventy whom he charged with a share in the conspiracy. Prince Rakatond got hold of this list and tore it in pieces. But the bloody queen must have some victims for her new fever of rage, and so another kabar was called. Not more than three hundred Christians were found, as they had fled in bands so numerous as to put to flight the detachments of soldiers sent to capture them. The infuriated queen declared that her search should extend to the bowels of the earth and the very beds of lakes and rivers; but the more she raved the more calm and cautious were the followers of Jesus; only Prince Rakatond's energy and interposition prevented the destruction not only of hundreds of natives bUl of the six Europeans who were on the island, including Madame Pfeiffer, the traveler. They were, however, banished and barely escaped from the island with their lives.
Christians were pierced and tortured with spears and then beheaded. More than two hundred suffered punishment, most of them men of mark, and stoning was now for the first time employed as a new and cruel mode of execution. Iron necklaces were attached to the necks of others and they were thus linked together and compelled to constant companionship until death ended their sufferings; if one died the rest had to drag about this body of death-a revival of the hideous forms of ancient torture. Fifty-seven Christians were thus chained together and banished to a distant province. This was the last triumph of persecuting hatred against the little church in Madagascar. For thirty-two years Ranavalona had held her red sceptre. She had sought to trample upon and stamp out with iron heel the humble plant of renown that was growIng in the soil of this great island. But God used all this rage of this modern Jezebel to test and develop the faith and love of disciples. The tan.gena draught, the boiling caldron, the rice-pit, the awful precipice, the chain, the spear, the stone, the stake-all united in vain to compel these poor~ ignorant, persecuted disciples to disown their newly-found Saviour. For the first time iu the history of modern missions God permitted a. feeble church, just planted and scarcely rooted on pagan soil, to undergo It quarter of a century of persecution, having scarcely a parallel in violence and cruelty. That church was literally anu emphatically isolated; not only on an island, but cut off from sympathetic contact and communication with the Ohristian church in otber lands, and yet it more than survived; for a,t the end of that twenty-five years, when, if not plucked up by the roots, it might have been expected to be found feeble and half dead, it was strong and firmly rooted, and among its precious fruits were many of the soldiers, the nobles and even the royal household. Many thousand persons had been sentenced to various punishments by the" Bloody Mary" of Madagascar, for theirfaith; and yet when, in 1861, persecution ceased, the Christian popUlation was fivefold greater than before she began to exterminate them; and more than this-this Plant of Renown had spread its roots through the very soil of society, and its branches reached afar; the perfume of its golden blooms pervaded the very atmosphere; its fruits were to be found in every home. The whole community was undergoing transformation. The name of Christian had become the sign and synonym, the pledge and promise of truth, purity, fidelity, integrity-new virtues were growing, where vice had sprung up rank as weeds. A miracle had been wrought. A Supernatural Power had been at work. The Spirit of God had breathed new life into Malagasy hearts.
July, 1861, came and the queen died~ and Rakatond, as Radama II., became king. His first act was to proclaim his policy of toleration. The era of religious liberty had dawned for Madagascar. He proclaimed deliverance to the captives and the opening of prison doors to them that were bound. Exiles returned home, slaves were set free; it was a year of jubilee. Idols were banished from the palace, and to show his contempt he sent some Christians to burn the very shrine of one of the national gods, while he looked on to witness the impotency of the so-called" deity." Radama was a reformer, but not a Christian. He was tolerant of the gospel, and so he was of rum, and 60,000 gallons flooded the island in a week and debauched whole villages.
It was now safe for Mr. Ellis to come again and resume missionary work, and in November. 1861, he sailed for Madagascar. On his arrival, with Radama's permission, he secured the sites made sacred by the blood and ashes of the martyrs, for the building of churches; and so the houses of worship in Madagascar to-day are monmilents and memorials of the faith and faithfulness of those who there s~ered for Jesus.
!;Ir. Ellis's arrival was the signal for a triumphal march through the island. Delegations of disciples met him, and processions went ont to welcome the veteran missionary. Throngs of worshippers assembled. at early dawn. .A second service would begin by 8 o'clock in the morning. Every encouragement was now given to the devoted missionary from the hut of the poor to the palace of the king.
Radama II. fell a victim to a conspiracy within a twelvemonth. :ge who had never shed blood was strangled by assassins, in May, 1863, and his widow, under the title of Queen Rasoherina, ascended the vacant throne, the first constitutional ruler of the Malagasy. She reigned five years, and her subjects enjoyed full liberty of conscience. 'rhe work of evangelization went rapidly forward. Nevertheless the government was not Christian, and at her coronation, which was on Sunday, the priests and idols were conspicuously in the foreground.
Congregations multiplied and converts increased, and a native ministry was trained up, and a native Christian literature created. The thirst of the native Christians for the word of God was insatiable, and every mark of a Christian home was to be found in their domestic life. Marriage was honored and divorce discouraged. Contributions were liberal, aud the missionary spirit led to abundant labors to spread the gospel by both home and foreign missions.
The queen's health was failing, and before she died, it is believed, her mind turned from her old idols, which she had placed in her court and carried on her journeys. She died in April, 1868. Her youngest sister took the throne as Ranavalona II. And now, for the first time, Madagascar had a Christian as well as a constitutional ruler.
He who would see the marvelous change in Madagascar, need only contrast the coronation of the two queens-Ranavalona I. and Ranavalona II. One took place June 12, 1829. Then the Bloody Mary of Madagascar took two of the national idols in her hands, and declared: " I received you from my ancestors. I put my trust in you, therefore support me." And then the scarlet-clad images were held at the front corners of the platform to awe the superstitious multitude. On September 3, 1868, a Christian queen was crowned, and the ceremony befitted such a monarch. 'I'he symbols of pagan faith were nowhere to be seen. In their place lay a beautiful copy of the Bible, side by side with the laws of Madagascar. A canopy was stretched above the queen, and on its four sides were four Scripture mottoes: "Glory to God"; "Peace on earth"; "Good-will to man"; "God with us." Her inaugural address was interwoven with Scripture dialect, and instead of Ohristianity it was now idolatry which became a suppliant for toleration. And all this took place seven years after Ranavalona I. expired! Astrologers and diviners were no longer to be found at court; Rasoherina's idol was cast out of the palace. Government work ceased on Sunday, and the Sunday markets were closed. In the palace court services of divine worship were instituted, which are kept up to this date. Ohurches now grow rapidly, sometimes fivefold in a year. The Madagascar New Year, formerly an idolatrous festival, now became a Ohristian holy day; and the queen's address declared, "I have brought my kingdom to lean upon God, and I expect you, one and all, to be wise and just, and to walk in His ways." Just one month later Ranavalona II. and her prime minister were publicly baptized by one of the native preachers, in the very courtyard where, a few years before, the bloodiest edicts had been issued.
In the queen's examination by the native ministers, it transpired that her first serious impressions were traceable to a native Ohristian who, when she was a mere child, sought to impress her with the truth as it is in Jesus. It was Andriantoiamba, one of the four noblemen who were afterward burned as martyrs, who thus sowed the seed in that young heart that afterward ripened into the first Ohristian queen of the island. Two days before their baptism the queen and the prime minister, were wedded, and shortly after both publicly joined in the Lord's Supper, thus magnifying the Ohristian family and the Sacraments of the church of God.
Such an example was likely to be followed. Almost all the government·officers of high rank, and among them the chief idol-keeper, the astrologer of Rasoherina, came forward to receive baptism. Oongregations multiplied beyond all means of accommodation. One hundred new buildings were in demand; 37,000 persons attended worship, an increase of 16,000 in a year! On July 20 the cornerstone of a chapel, designed for the use of the queen and court, was laid in the very courtyard of the palace.
To-day in that palace courtyard the traveler may see a beautiful house of prayer. In gilded letters upon two large stone tablets forming part of the surbase of the structure, appears engraven the following royal statement, read at the laying of the corner-stone in 1869 : "By the power of God and grace of our Lord Jesus, I, Ranavalomanjaka, Queen of Madagascar, founded the House of Prayer, on the thirteenth Adimizana, in the year of our Lord Jesus Ohrist, 1869, as a house of prayer for the service of God, King of kings and Lord of lords, according to the word in the Sacred Scriptures, by Jesus Ohrist the Lord, who died for the sons of all men. and rose
THE INHERITANCES OF NATIONS ALLOTTED BY GOD
again for the justification and salvation of all who believe in and love- Him. ":For these reasons this stone house, founded by me as a house of prayer, cannot be destroyed by any one, whoever may be king of this my land, forever and forever; but if he shall destroy this house of prayer to God which I have founded, then is he not king of my land, Madagascar. Wherefore I have signed my name with my hand and the· seal of the kingdom.
" RANAVALOMANJAKA, "Queen of Madagascar.
" This word is genuine, and the signature by the hand of Rana- valomanjaka is genuine.
"RAINILAIARIVONY, "Prime Minister and Commander-in-Ohief of Madagascar."
If you should visit this island to-day, you would find four sacred sites occupied by memorial ehurches. .I1.mpamannana, the summit of the martyrs' precipice; .I1.mhohipotsy, where Rasalama, the first martyr, w~s speared; .I1.mhatonakan,ta, where so many were kept in prison; and Faravohitra, where the rainbow rested over the burning pile, and where the first stone of the church was laid exactly beneath the spot where the remains of the martyrs were found.
Is it possible to account for changes such as these, wrought within the space of sixty years by the simple preaChing and teaching of the gospel, unless the power of God is indeed behind the Bible? If there ever was a wonder that compelled even the sceptical and the unbelieving to exclaim, "What hath God wrought I" it is to be found in the story of Madagascar.
THE INHERITANOES OF NATIONS ALLOTTED BY GOD.
BY REV. A. W. PITZER, D.D., WASHINGTON, D. c.
"God's works of Providence are His most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures, ordering them and all their actions to His own glory."
Individual life cannot be detached from God and His overruling Providence; and nations rise, flourish, decay and die in accordance not merely with natural law and second causes, but also, in accordance with His eternal purposes and plans. Before man was created, or human history had begun, God had a fixed place for every nation and a definite phm for every man's life. Nor has this Divine decree· and Providence ever impaired the freedom and responsibility of the individual or the nation, nor is God the author of man~s sin, nor is the efficiency of second causes diminished.
The nations of the earth come to their separate places of inheritance on the globe, moved by various motives and impelled by different forces. Restless for change, greedy for gain, envious of their neighbors, ambitious for fame, filled with cruelty and thirsting for blood, the nations of the past and the present have freely worked ()ut the problem of national destiny. And yet, it was the Most High God, whose Providence divided to these nations their inheritance, and who decreed and settled the bounds of all kindreds, tribes and peoples; and to each and to all He said, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." There is a philosophJt of history, but the Godless historian has never seen it-a philosophy of history human, yet divine-that m"akes full estimate of all human forces at work in the world, but fails not at the same time to see the mighty Providence of God in the onward march of all earthly things.
The Most High God located the nations of the old world and the new. He planted the Egyptian by the waters of the Nile, ,flowing from the ever-living lakes of equatorial Africa; He gave to the sons ()f Ham the "dark continent" teeming with life and filled with food; from central Asia His hand led out the people after the confusion of tongues at Babel to the Euphrates and Tigris; to India, to China, and to the islands of the great seas that wash the coasts of the Asiatic -continent. To the sons of J apheth, the Cimbri, the Tartars, the Medes, the Greeks, the Muscovites, He gave northern Asia, Asia Minor and Europe.
The ethnology of the lOth chapter of Genesis remains an unchallenged chart of the nations to this day. Fifteen hundred years after Moses incorporated in his writings this chart, and after he had sung this song, another descendant from the family of Shem, stood in the midst of Mars Hill and declared to the wisdom-seeking sons of Javan that God had made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath deterniined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.
God, then, has a purpose concerning this race and world of ours, and His overruling providence is silently, but irresistibly, conducting the races and nations along the great highway of human history. He plants and He plucks up dynasties, kingdoms, nations and empires, and orders, controls and governs all things according to the counsels ()f His own will.
What, then, is that supreme purpose of God, to the development and accomplishment of which, all agents and agencies, all forces and events, all kings and empires are made subservient and tributary? Surely it must be an object worthy of God Himself, and commensurate with His all-embracing and resistless providence. It is nothingless than the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth, in visible sovereignty and glory. Devout worshippers of the true and living God in all ages and lands have cried in prayer to -Him, "Thy Kingdom Come." In his last song, Moses tells the children of Israel encamped on the plains of Moab and in sight of the promised land, why it was that God had divided to the nations their inheritance and fixed the bound- aries of the peoples. He had taken Israel, the seed of His friend Abraham, as his possession and portion, and, in relation to their number and location on the globe, He had arranged all other nations and peoples.
The Kingdom of God is to come on earth through Israel; for sal- vation is of the Jews; and David's greater soil' is yet to sit on David's throne, and hence God's people, His portion must be the centre around which and for the sake of which, all national movements, great and small, shall revolve.
The little strip of land on the western border of the continent of Asia, not 200 miles from north to south, by less than 100 miles from east to west, washed by the Mediterranean Sea, almost in sight of the life-giving waters of Africa's great river, and touching to the west- ward, the isles and lands of the Gentiles, is the divinely ordained home of the chosen people, and the geographical centre of all human history until the Kingdom of God shall come in power and glory.
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome, all the nations of modern Europe have gazed with greedy eyes on this historic spot of earth.
Canon Farrar, in deAcribing this land, as it spread out in beauty before the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth, says, "Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Emins and Arsacids, judges and consuls, have all contended for the mastery of this smiling tract. It had glittered with the lances of the Amalekites; it had trembled under the chariot wheels of Serostris; it had echoed the twanging bow strings of Sennacharib; it had clashed with the broadswords of Rome; it was destined to ring with the battle-cry of the Crusaders, and thunder with the artillery of England and France. Here, Europe and 'Asia, Judaism and Heathenism, Barbarism and civilization had met and struggled for supremacy."
The careful student of history cannot fail to see that the destinies of the empires of the Old World were determined by their relations to this land and its wondrous people whom the living God had chosen for portion and possession.
If he in<iuired why this land and people were so important in the history of the race, the answer is easily given. From Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Malachi, by words and acts, God made Himself known to this people. He came into this earthly realm, and became a factor in human history. Israel received from God the truth unto salvation in trust for all the nations of the earth. They are the divinely appointed trustees of this sacred deposit-to hold this in trust and preserve it pure, for all the families of man, is their high calling and providential mission to all tribes and races and nations. The history of Israel, therefore, will have relations that reach out and embrace all lands and all peoples.
To the Egyptians, God gave the fertile valley of the Nile, that, here in the midst of this ancient civilization, the !!Qns of .Jacob, His chosen, might be developed from a clan into a nation, and be taught and trained in all the wisdoms and arts of this mighty and marvelous people.
To the Assyrians he gave the lands along the Euphrates and the Tigris, t.hat here might be founded an empire that should, as His minister of justice and judgment, at the appointed time, sweep the kingdom of the ten tribes from the land of their fathers.
He, too, ordained that Assyria should be wasted by Babylon, and that Babylon should become the hammer of the whole earth, and should carry His people, Judah, captives to that far-off land, that in the horrors of the seventy years' captivity they might forsake idolatry forever. And when God has accomplished His purposes concerning Israel with Babylon, then He raised up the Medes, who broke down her broad walls, and burned her high gates with fire, and Babylon became heaps of ruins, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment and an hissing without inhabitant_ The Hebrew pi'ophets depict with the utmost minuteness and clearness the relations of the nations to Israel, their providential places in history, and how God used them to extend on the earth the knowledge of that truth given to His chosen and covenanted people. Isaiah foretells the fate of Moab, of Damascus, of Egypt, of Tyre, of Assyria, and of Babylon. Daniel in vision, and under the symbol of a beast, beholds in succession, the empires of Babylonia, the Medo- Persian, the Greek and the Roman, and even the destruction of the old Roman empire, and the ten kingdoms of modern Europe, that continue until the return of Jesus our Lord, from the heavens.
God divided to all these nations their inheritance; He fixed their boundaries; He appointed their providential mission; He determined the days of their dominion, and the day of their destruction; their highest use and chief end were what service they rendered in the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Egypt furnishad the tempOl'ary home of the Israelites; the Babylonish captivity cured them of idolatry; the Persians restored them to their own land; the Grecians prepared the language to contain the Gospel of the son of David; and Rome builded the great highways whereon the apostles of our Lord carried the glad tidings to the ends of the earth.
Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of God, was the climax and culmination of the revelations of God to the Hebrew people; and when He died upon the Cross, the inscription over His head, testifying to His kingship, was written in the world's historic language!;l, the Hebrew, tIle Greek and the Roman. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the people of Israel, did whatsoever God's hand and counsel had determined before to be done. To this great central and germinal event all the ages had looked, and all nations had oontributed. The wise men from the east spake not for themselves merely, but for others, when they said: " Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen His 'star in the east, and have come to worship Him." God's kingdom must come on earth through Him, who is both David's son and David's Lord.
The Risen Christ, from His father's throne in heaven, exercises now an invisible, but resistless, dominion over all nations, kingdoms and empires, and the nations still come to their inheritance according to the divine appointment, and as they serve to make known on earth the sacred truth given in trust to the Jews, they prepare the way for the coming. Lord, by proclaiming the glad tidings of that kingdom that shall never end.
God still determines the appointed times of the nations and the bounds of their habitations, with reference to their relations to His son, Jesus Christ, and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Many nations shall yet say: "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths;' for the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
So far as nations have had any history, since the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that history has been connected with and tributary to the extension and establishment of the Gospel of that Risen Lord among all the peoples of the earth: for that Gospel must be preached to all nations, as God's witness, before the Kingdom of Heaven can come in power and glory on this earth.
The movements of men and nations through eighteen Christian centuries have been guided by the divine eye, and controlled by the divine hand. 'fhe dismemberment of the old Roman empire, the rise of the kingdoms of modern l£urope, the growth of the Papacy, the career 'of Mohammed, the wars of the Crusaders, the darkness of the Middle Ages, the 'revival of learning, the persecutions of the Church by Rome-Pagan and Papal-the invention of printing, the translations of the Scriptures, the reformation of the sixteenth century, the exile of Christians for conscience sake, the use of the mariner's compass, and the opening up of new and unknown lands, were not less directed by the Almighty God of heaven, than Israel's march from Egypt to Canaan, and the times and bounds of the nations of the Old World.
Nowhere is the overruling providence of God more clearly seen than in this our land, and in the history of the people of these United States. Israel's God and our father's God divided to us this rich inheritance; and He has appointed our time and fixed our bounds, that we might not only seek the Lord ourselves, but should give His -Gospel, committed in trust to our custody, to all the nations. Morde- ~ai's question to Queen Esther comes with fearful emphasis to the rulers and people of this republic: "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whe'ther thou art come to the king- ·dom for such a time as this?"
Our forefathers brought with them to this new world that fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, that liberty of conscience to worship God that could not be enjoyed at home. With them came, too, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, the inspired and infallible Word of God; the family as the basis and unit of all true life in both Church and State; the sanctity of the oath unto God as the hope of a pure administration of justice in our courts; the divinely .ordained rest of the Lord's Day, not for a holiday but for a holy day -in short, they brought with them, not monarchy, nor anarchy, not .communism, nor atheism, not infidelity, nor materialism, nor papacy, but God-fearing piety and customs founded on the Word of God.
We have come to the Kingdom at such a time as this-a time when there are no longer any hermit nations, nor Chinese walls of ·exclusion; in a wider and deeper sense than ever before, every man may now say, "The world is my parish." Steamships supersede sail vessels, the engine does the work of a thousand men and horses, the :Bun paints our pictures, electricity illumines our cities and sends our words with lightning speed around the globe. All the ends of the .-earth are brought face to face in the great struggle for existence; .and all races and nations jostle each other on the broad highway .of life. Surely the Anglo-Saxon Christianity of America must have .a mission from the God of Heaven to all the races and nations of the .-earth. "The wheels of history are the chariot wheels of the Almighty, .a.nd with every revolution there is an onward movement toward the goal of His eternal purposes," to establish here on earth the Kingdom .of God in supernal splendor. .
The providential mission of this nation is to give the blessed Gos- ]>el of the Son of God to all peoples of the earth. The weary and :sin-stricken children of Adam, of every continent and island, of every tribe and tongue, in their darkness and degradation, look, with long- ing eyes to us for light and help and healing. "Come over into Mace- .donia and help us," is the despairing cry borne on every breeze and from every land beneath the skies-from China and Korea, from In- .dia and Japan, from Persia and Papal Europe, from the South Ameri- .can Republic and Mexico, from the islands of the oceans and the "'dark continent" of Livingstone and Stanley.
We hold the Gospel, not merely for ourselves but in trust for a
THE CONGO MISSIONS
lost world. We have the men and the money, the missionaries and the agencies, methods of transit and transportation, in more than abundance, to give the Gospel in ten years, as God's witness, to every nation under heaven. The supreme duty of this nation is to realize her sublime providential mission, and bear the blessed light of the Gospel to all the dark places of the earth, to the habitations of men now filled with cruelty. There is no second C~lumbus to be born~ noi' any new continent to be discovered. This is the "last days," and this "the ends of the earth," the light that shines across the' Pacific from San Francisco and Portland reaches to the very lands where first that light was kindled "Now or never," is the world to be eV2..ngelized by us.
THE CONGO :MISSIONS.
BY MISS HELEN F. CLARK, NEW YORK.
[Mr. C. J. Laffin went out to Africa llilder Bishop Taylor, but when his Congo Mission failed, he worked independently, though unofficially associated with the A. B. M. U. He sent us various notes from the Congo. He has just returned to take a medical course, then goes back to Central Africa. He has furnished Miss Clark with the facts and experiences of his three years' mission tour, which she here puts into form, under his supervision. The paper, being reliable and fresh from the Congo, cannot fail to be of special interest at the- present juncture.-J. M. S.] The question of evangelizing Central Africa is one that now en- grosses the attention of aggressive Christianity in both England and America. The best plan of work, and the character of the workers, is largely discussed among the various boards and missionary com- mittees; consequently any light that can be thrown upon these topics by missionaries who have been upon the field, and are, therefore, best qualified to give an opinion, is gratefully received.
Mr. Laffin spent his iiz-st few months in Africa in the vicinity of Vivi and Isangila, but afterwards pushed on up the Congo river 800' miles to the equator, stopping at Equatol'ville station, forming theacquaintance of various tribes along the banks of the Congo and lesser streams.
From the first he was keenly interested in the methods of work followed in the various mission stations which he visited, and carefully studied their every detail. Then followed much practical work Qn his o,*n part among the natives as he traveled throngh the country and mingled with them.
As an independent missionary, Mr. Laffin founded no station, nor reported his work to any superior, but to the great Master Himself, but wisely spent his time in examining the country and the conditions under which he must work, and in forming his own opinion as to the wisest and most effective way to prosecute that work.
The Africans he came in contact with are a peculiar people, and must· be dealt with in the utmost candor and with straightforward simplicity. With them no half-hearted work is possible; no clouded testimony in word or life will receive the 81ightest regard from them.
Nothing but sterling Christianity in word or deed will convince them that the Gospel you preach is true; but the testimony clearly borne, and the life that will bear the sharpest scrutiny, will bring a multitude of hungry hearts to God. Perhaps the work done is more satisfactory in Africa than in any other country, for the man or woman who is converted is converted in deed and in truth, and becomes at once as aggressive for the truth as the missionary himself. Mr. Laffin has vouchsafed the following interesting facts under the heads of "What has been done in Africa;" "What is being done," and" What can be done," which we give, as nearly as possible, in his own words.
FIRST-WHAT HAS BEEN DONE.
There are, at the present time, four societies prosecuting active work in Central Africa: the American Baptists, the English Baptists. the Swedish Society, and the Congo Balolo Society, who have a combined working force of about 80 missionaries in all, occupying 20 mission stations. Of these stations 13 are situated on the lower Congo and Cataract region, below Stanley Pool, and the remaining 'l are on the upper Congo and in the Balolo district. Thus far 'l churches have been organized-all among the Bakongo people-which aggregate about 1,500 communicants, with half as many more who profess conversion, but whom the missionaries are keeping on probation for a short time. Besides these regular stations, there are in this vicinity from 15 to 20 out-stations and preaching-posts, all manned by able native evangelists. It is but thirteen years since the first missionaries penetrated the Congo districts, and but ten of these have been spent in actually publishing the Gospel, for the first three were spent by the little band of sturdy English Christians in fighting fevers, and in trying to conciliate the hostile natives. Since that time, one tribe only has been, to a large extent, evangelized-that is to say, the Gospel has been preached the length of the land upon which this numerous and powerful tribe of Bakongo people live. The difficulties experienced by these indomitable pioneers seem almost beyond belief. During those first three perilous years the missionaries were driven from place to place and were not able to settle anywhere. They found it difficult to establish any communication with the natives~ since the black men regarded them with the utmost suspicion and distrust, and gave them almost no opportunity to acquire the native language. In the course of time, seeing that the strange whites were neither slave traders nor state officials, the suspicion of the natives finally gave way to confidence, and their would-be friends were allowed to found their station in peace, and to begin the publication of those good tidings which afterwards brought peace to so many troubled souls among them.
The greatest difficulty in reaching the interior has ever been in getting above the falls in the great river, about 100 miles above its mouth. To navigate the stream at this point is impossible. Therefore, all stores and baggage for the interior must be conveyed a distance ·of 250 miles around in sixty-pound packages, which the lithe and .agile natives bear upon their heads. The steamboats for the upper .congo were taken apart and packed in this manner, and rebuilded upon the upper side.
There are thirty-one steamers now running upon the upper Congo, three of which are missionary boats, the others belonging either to the Government or to the traders. Two more mission steamers are now in process of construction for the lower Congo, and one for the upper.
Stations have been established among three other tribes, but as yet only one convert has crowned their labors. Here the difficulty <>f acquiring the language hinders the missionaries. There is no written language, and the tongue must be acquired slowly and unsatisfactorily by mingling with the people as often as they will permit, and there is no missionary upon the field to-day who has mastered it sufficiently to talk intelligently, without having frequent recourse to an interpreter: In these distant stations on the upper river, isolated from @ne another, it has required a long time to gain the confidence of the natives, but the past few years have sufficed at last to convince these distrustful people that the white man really came to them from an unselfish motive, and he has now won their hearts, so that to-day these perse:vering workers have a firm footing in the three tribes, and are ready to branch out into large work as soon as their numbers are re-inforced by the arrival of new missionaries.
WHAT IS BEING DONE.
As to what is being done, perhaps the most successful of all the ~fforts put forth, is that of the native evangelists. This, of course, brings us back to the Bakongo people along the Lower Congo.
Of the members of these churches, a very large percentage-considerably more than half-are persevering, energetic, aggressive Christian workers-such workers as put to shame the feeble and childish efforts of many Christians in our own land.
To them, black man or white man, State official, of however high degree, or slave, of ever so mean a degradation, is either a "son of God" or a "son of the Devil." They know but two classes, and if you are not avowedly of the first, they immediately pronounce you in the second, and proceed to give you the Gospel on the spot. They fear no man, soldier or government-official, trader or traveler, brother African' or slave, and one of the first questions asked, upon formingone's acquaintance, will be, "Kanzi, ngeye mUJana' nzambi?" (are you a son of God?) If the -answer is in the negative, they very frequently respond, "B08i mUJana' mbungi /" (Then you are a child of the Devil.) After which they present the Gospel to you with all the eloquence and clearness of which their incomparable language is capable.
These workers are continually organizing themselves into bands of twenty or thirty, and with neither scrip nor staves, they go from village to village, preaching the Gospel, and often remaining away for weeks at a time.
The missionaries freely acknowledge that one native is worth threeor four white men as an evangelist. They speak with marvellous oratorical effect; indeed, they are said to be born orators. "A sermon that I heard from one of them," says Mr. Laffin, "waf> as fi,ne as ever I heard in either Europe or America, not only in point of delivery, but in its clearness of reasoning, and in its profound perception of spiritual truth."
These bands of workers go out invariably at their own expense. Besides these unpaid volunteers there are some 25 native evangelists who go individually to out-posts and preaching-stations, and who are nearly all self-supporting or are maintained by the native churches. The natives believe the Gospel at the mouths of their own people far more readily than they do from the missionary himself; consequently their work is of vastly more value in the general evangelization of a tribe than is that of the white man.
But the simplicity of the native evangelist is, as a rule, altogether spoiled by transportation to America or England.. A taste of European life robs him of his unconsciousness of self, and, thereafter, he looks down upon his kindred and will no longer associate with them, but must live as we live, and wants more luxuries than any missionary would allow himself. These people frequently travel half a day's journey, bringing their food with them, in order to attend divine service.
The loyalty of the native Christian to God's Word is marvellous. While the people are perfectly obedient to the Supreme Being, they will bear no dictation from us whatever. If we insist upon their conforming their lives to any precept or principle which we may lay down, they immediately begin to reason the matter with us. If therule be a scriptural one, they insist upon our finding the text, when we must read it to them and translate it into their own language. But if the scripture bears out our words, that is an end of all controversy; thereafter, it becomes a law to them, or as they style it in their own beautiful native tongue, "The Lord hath said it, and we must obey." On this account we are obliged to discriminate accurately in our teaching against what is purely a matter of custom with us, since they will learn nothing from us save that which is scriptural. But when they are told not to lie, or cheat in business, or to steal, seeing it in Scripture, they immediately desist.
As an illustration of this, I will give you· an incident in my own experience. Traveling through strange villages one day, I saw a woman by the roadside with a pawpaw beside her. I asked what she would sell it for, and she named a price; I bade the boy who was with me take it away for our noon-day meal. "No, no," she cried, "the pawpaw will not be ripe enough until to-morrow; go on down the road, sir, and you will find plenty more that are ripe enough to eat now." I then learned that she was a Christian. She had heard the Gospel from a native evangelist who had ollce come to her village to preach, and she had received the truth, and, although untaught in the principles of Christian living, yet by the Holy Spirit's help, had instinctively perceived the right.
When the surveyors for the Congo railroad, which is now being built, were laying out the road through a certain tract, one of them approached the chief of the neighboring tribe, and, as is customary, offered him a glass of rum. The chief thanked him for the courtesy, but declined the rum with these words: "That is what destroys the bodies alld souls of my people. As a Christian I cannot take it."
I come now to our last proposition:.
WHAT CAN BE DONE }N CENTRAL AFRICA.
The whole of the Congo Free State is now open to mIssIonaries. This district contains about 1,680,000 square miles of country, all of which is accessible through the Congo and ,its tributaries. This immense system of rivers affords at least, according to explorations up to date, 10,000 miles of navigable waterway above Stanley Pool. This district contains from fifteen to twenty different tribes, speaking as many different languages, and numbering in the aggregate, as near as may be estimated, from thirty to eighty millions of souls. The best known of these tribes, the Balolo, is calculated to number ten millions of itself. Many parts of the interior are said to be particularly healthy and free from malaria and fevers. Dr. Summers, in speaking of Luluaburg, calls it a very healthy place, and states that at night the thermometer will sometimes fall to the freezing point.
There is not known to be a single town in the interior, or Central Africa, that will refuse to receive a missionary, if once satisfied that he is a missionary. To them the yoke of a foreign government is so galling that the very sight of the men in its employ, as a rule, arouses all their enmity.
The Congo Free State obliges all vessels to fly its flag, and wherever the missionary goes he is marked as a State man, and only undeniable proof will suffice to convince them that the missionary is lIot an enemy in disguise. To them, words prove nothing, and deeds purporting to flow from an unselfish motive are an unsolvable .enigma; hence, it is only the" heroes," who can persevere without the slightest show of fear or alarm, and endure the suspicion and the consequent tribulations until their identity is established. This some- times takes a long time. In the case of the first missionaries on the lower Congo it required three years, and it has required almost as long a time for the faithful pioneers on the upper river to gain an .entrance and a footing.
In Africa, the women missionaries are the happier. Nothing is feared from them, and they are allowed to go in and out at their pleasure without molestation. Their presence in a party has more than once spared valuable lives to the Congo work. At one time a small party, including two ladies, sailed up an unexplored river, and at night-time they attempted to land and camp for the night. The natives immediately assembled, and ordered them off. They expostu- lated in vain, insisting that they were not foes, but missionaries de- siring to be their friends, but they refused to believe them, and they were forced to take refuge on a sand-bar for the night. In the morn- ing their men came out, and examining their boat carefully, and find- ing no arms or weapons such as the State men carried, finally permitted them to land and make friends with them, but averred that it was only the presence of the ladies that had kept them from killing them immediately on their approach.
At one time, in company with two blacks from a village where I had been working, I rowed up another river a distance of probably .eigM or ten miles, when, coming within sight of a strange village, We were surprised to hear a hasty alarm sounded, and instantly a multitude of the brown-skinned fellows rushed to the banks of the creek, armed with bows and arrows. Then, with a peculiar beating of drums, a message was telegraphed down the creek to the adjoining village, and from there the alarm was sounded on to the next, and the next, till at last the hoarse din died away to a faint sound, and finally hushed to our ears altogether, while up and down the river-bank were gathered the wild people eager to wreak their vengeance on our defenceless heads.
I surely thought it was all over with me, and the blacks by my side had settled themselves stoically to meet their fate, when far off came the hurried tang-tang-tang of a message swiftly sent back. The word had gone even to the village I had left, and instantly came the response: "Let him alone! He is a missionary!" Then the assembled blacks apologized, and treated us with the utmost cordiality and friendliness, saying: "We have no complaint againt the ambassadors of God." Weare always called by them "ambassadors of God," and native Christians are called" witnesses of Jesus Christ." The mIssIonaries in Africa, as a rule, count the work of onEl' woman worth that of twelve men, since they can go anywhere, even among the fiercest tribes. Their motives are never qnestioned, and they are invariably listened to with the greatest respect. Miss Silvey went about among the Bayansi tribe with perfect freedom, althongh they are by far the most formidable of all the tribes yet known. They are also the most inveterate of the cannibals, since they buy slave- children and slaughter them for the markets, as we do cattle. Miss Silvey spoke to them only through interpreters, since their speech. has not yet been reduced to language. Miss de Hailes and Mra. McKittrick work quite as freely among the Balolo people.
These inland tribes are, as a rule, a fine, powerful people. They are not Negroes but Bantus, and are of a choclate brown color, with thin, well-curved lips and fine features. They are wonderfully energetic, pushing and business-like, and, if converted, will make princely evangelists, since they fear nothing, and will make long journeys from home, remaining away many mouths at a time. While they are suspicious of the white men, they have no hatred for them unless they have done them an injury. Government representatives they count their mortal enemies, but the missionaries, when they are once known to be such, are invariably welcomed.
The missionary's first step is to gain the confidence of the people,. and then it is easy to win their affections, and his opportunity to preach the Gospel is unlimited. When they believe in you they believe your gospel, and are quickly won to God and to abide by His. Word.
At first they will give you two motives for not believing yC!u: 1st, The improbability of people doing anything from a purely unselfish motive. 2d, The impossibility of it. Therefore, they are not willing in the beginning to believe that Jesus could possibly have loved and died for them. But the life of a missionary among them, self-sacrificing and exhibiting unfeigned love for their souls, becomes at last incontrovertible proof of the truth of the Gospel, and they accept it gladly and fully.
But one· great question troubles them, that has troubled many Christians before, "If it is all true and Christ's unselfish love begets a, like love in your souls, why is it that you never came to us before, why do not more come now?" Christian reader, can you answer it ?'
One of these men said to me one day, "White man, my heart is hungry for something, and I don't know what it is." After he was converted I said to him, "Well, have you found out now what it was that your heart was hungering for?" "Yes," he answered, quickly; " It was hungry for salvation !"
, My advice to every missionary coming here, would be, not to try to educate the people, not even to make the civilization of these tribes
THE RO~IANCE OF GOEDVERWACHT
their initiatory effort, but to make their one effort, first and last and all the time, to PREACH THE GOSPEL !
Any child or adult will refuse to come to school after the novelty wears off unless paid for it, but when converted, they Clamor at once to be taught to read, that they may search the Scriptures for themselves.
It is most unwise to attempt to Europeanize them. It is far better to leave them Africans still, since the Word teaches them all that is required for purity and wholesomeness of life and morals, and customs are only galling and useless to a people so differently situated from us.
It would require, probably from twenty to thirty missionaries per tribe to equip Central Africa; after which, the work of the native evangelist becomes the main factor in the gospelizingof this darkened land.
The Jesuits, backed by the government of the Congo Free State, are coming into this region like a flood, from the west, and the Mo- hammedans are coming in almost equal numbers, from the east. Hence, whatever is done for the spreading of the Gospel here must be done quickly.
THE ROMANCE OF GOEDVERWACHT. BY REV. PAUL DE SCHWEINITZ, NAZARETH, PA. Goedverwacht is a Moravian mission station among the Hottentots in South Africa, almost a huudred miles due north from Cape Town. The Moravians began missionary operations, both in Guinea and in the Cape Colony, in 1737, but this particular station was not founded until 1858. Like many tales of fiction, so, too, the veritable romance of Goedverwacht is founded upon a most peculiar and very complicated testament, which became intricately involved with the history of the mission, and upon which for a time its very existence depended. In 1810, a certain wealthy Dutch farmer, by the name of Buergers, purchased a beautiful, well-watered, fertile valley, of some 900 acres, in the Piquet mouutains, and, by means of his Hottentot slaves, transformed it into a prosperous little colony, which now bears the name of Goedverwacht. Here Mr. Buergers lived most contentedly uutil the year 1838, when the emancipation of all slaves should take place. To his great displeasure he noticed that his slaves had become filled with spiritual desires, and, as soon as they became free, would forsake him and move to a mission station. In order to prevent this, Mr. Buergers chose six of his slaves whom he valued most highly, and told them, that if they would remain with him and care for him up to his death, he would will them his entire estate. He drew up his will accordingly, decreeing that these six slaves should hold the estate in common, but that it could not be sold until the last of the six slaves died, and then it must be sold and the proceeds divided equally among the living children of these six slaves.
This will was considered an insult to his white neighbors and relatives, but it was drawn up so skillfully, that all attempts to upset it proved utterly futile.
Thus, in 1843, six poor, despised Hottentot men and women, having faitlfully fulfilled all the conditions of the will, suddenly became wealthy real-estate owners. The property did not fall into unworthy hands. These six gathered to- gether their friends and relatives, and soon had a colony of over 500 souls, and they at once _proceeded to take measures to have their spiritual wants sup- plied. For this purpose, they applied to the Moravians for missionaries.
The Moravians in their work among these peoples, have always found it best to gather their converts into little villages around the mission-houses, which, for this purpose must, of course, stand upon ground owned by the Church. Owing to the peculiar conditions of the will, they could purchase no land there, and so had to serve these Hottentots as best they could from a neighboring station. However, a flourishing congregation of Christian con- verts was gradually gathered. – In the meantime, the six owners began to die off. It became apparent that the time when the estate must be sold, was fast approaching. If the Moravian Church could not purchase the estate, the flourishing mission-work would be destroyed. The surrounding white farmers could scarcely await the time when tJtey could avenge the imagined insult of making Hottentots equal landowners with themselves. They openly boasted of the sums they would pay, and de- clared they would resell the land to the highest bidders. The Mora-vians, with their scanty means, could not compete with the fat purses of these hostile farmers. The future looked very dark. The survivors of the six would gladly have secured the possession to the Church, but the courts had decided that, under the will they were powerless.
In this extremity, the good brethren put in motion the mightiest force of which the Kingdom of God knows. They and their converts prayed-prayed unceasingly, prayed in Africa and prayed at home, prayed constantly-for the roofs over their heads, and the ground under their feet seemed to totter and tremble. It was an invisible power, but it was silently at work.
In the meantime, the courts had decided that, according to the letter of the will, only the actually living children of the original six, and not their grandchildren, would be thp heirs of the estate. Further, that unless all the heirs were of age the estate must be sold at auction to the highest bidder.
Further, that even if all were of age, if there was a single one who refused to agree upon a price, it would again have to be sold at auction to the highest bidder. In either of those two cases the estate would be lost to the Moravians, and their faithfulla bor of years scattered to the winds, and the scene of their prayers, and tears and triumphs for Christ become the abode and property of godless men. On the other hand, the courts had decided that, if all the heirs were of age, and if all were unanimously agreed, then they could sell the estate at private sale for any price they chose, no matter how low, and to whomsoever they chose.
:::'inally the fate -of the entire mission depended upon the life of one old womaa, the last survivor of the original six slaves. At length, on December 28, 1J) j, old Christine, who for thirty-eight years had lived the life of a true Chri~tian, died in her ninety-third year.
At once the hostile-minded neighbors began to tempt the poor Hottentot heirs with fancy prices. What would be the fate of the mission? After thorough investigation, the court decided that there were thirteen heirs ac- cording to the letter of Buerger's will, and as one of these thirteen died after Christine, the three children of that one were also heirs. By the merciful overruling of Providence the life of old Christine had been preserved just long enough to permit the youngest of these heirs to become of age. The power of prayer began to be evident. But were these all willing to sell their valuable estate to the 'Moravian mission, and not only to sell it to the mission, but also
HIDDEN SPRINGS-oR HOW MISSIONARIES ARE MADE
for a price the church could afford to pay-which must be one far below its value? Upon this now hung the fate of this flourishing mission. The count- less prayers of the believers had not been in vain. The numberless difficulties and delicate negotiations cannot be detailed here. Suffice it, therefore, to say that a prayer-hearing God so ruled the hearts of these fifteen heirs that they voluntarily adopted the unanimous resolution to sell their estate to the Mora- vian Church for the moderate sum of £750 on Jme 30, 1889. Each heir re- ·ceived £51 and 15 shillings, of which nearly everyone at once returned £1 as a gift towards a church building, and some more. However, there is still a need for much more before all the expenses of the transactions can be paid ;;'nd th!" necessary church buildings erected. But the Lord, who won the hearts of the self-sacrificing heirs, will also move the hearts of Christians to give of their' means to upbuild this noble mission.
What is the" moral" of this tale? A prayer-hearing God can overrule the testament of one who cared not for the Church, can guide the decisions of {)ourts, can defeat the machinations of malicious men, can guide the hearts of poor Hottentots.
And further, when Christians at home are earnestly, and non-Christians are sneeringly, seeking for permanent results of missionary work among debased people, here is again a shining example of the precepts of Christ entering into and controling the practical life of converts. Imagine fifteen Ameri- {)an nominal Christians of all ages and conditions, not rich, but really poor, deliberately refusing a fancy price for real estate, when it could be honestly gained, and being satisfied with a very moderate figure, out of love for the Lord Jesus and pure loyalty to the Church. It would have been so easy to have simply put the estate up at auction and taken the highest bid, and no one could have acpused them of the slightest crime, as the world goes. But higher, more Christlike principles controlled these poor South Africans. See how Christ has transformed these poor, degraded, down-trodden, despised Hottentots! God bless their self-sacrifice to them and their children!
HIDDEN SPRINGS-OR HOW MISSIONARIES ARE MADE.
BY MARIA A. WEST, SARATOGA, N. Y.
In the deep recesses of the forest and mountain solitudes, far away from human sight and pen, God prepares the hidden fountains which send their pure, perennial streams down to.the valleys below, causing life and beauty, verdure and fruitfulness, to spring up on every side, and filling the rivers which flow onward to the great sea, to carry its blessings to the distant places of the earth, till the desert shall revive and blossom as the garden of the Lord.
And, as in the economy of nature, so, also, in the Kingdom of Grace, the most powerful and· permeating forces are often those that are secretly, silently working, nnheralded and often unknown, but set in motion by the Divine Hand which keeps the heavenly record, and marks the onward flow and fruitage, through time and through eternity!
A remarkable instance of this hidden spring of far-reaching influence, l}as recently been brought to light, and is especially worthy of mention at this time, when its power is strikingly illustrated.
In the year 1837, Mrs. Francis G. Clewe-born in the year 1801-and living at Genville, a village four miles from Schenectady, listened to the preaching of a missionary sermon, at Hudson, which, as she said, "Converted her tQ missions, as much as she was ever converted to Christ!" Her first query was, "What can I do? " The result was the formation by her, of a Woman's For-
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS
eign Missionary Aid Society. Perhaps the first one of the kind in these United States of America.
At the first meeting of this new-born society. she pledged one dollar, as her free-will offering to the cause. To obtain that sum, she walked four miles to Schenectady, secured some vests to make at one of the shops, and then walked home again with her work. And, at every meeting of the society, she never failed to bring an offering for herself and for each of her children, while they were still ~mall. One of her daughters died, but the gift in her name was still continued, with the words, "And this is for Ann." Her yearly offering sometimes amounted to $20,00, and was sent, now to the American Board, and then to another foreign missionary society, in which she was also interested. For this sacred purpose, Mrs. Clewesometimes reared "missionary chickens,'
sometimes planted a piece of land, or set apart a portion of her butter and eggs. And, during all those fifty or more years of her consecrated life, this "mother in Israel" continued to hold the missionary meeting of the society she had originated in her own home; even if none were present but herself and one of her children, a chapter was read, a hymn sung, and prayer offered-and this, not monthly, but every week! One of the original members of that little society is still living and testified that when Mrs. Clewe was too ill to rise from her bed, the same order was observed; and that she would "turn herself," and offer a fervent prayer for missions and missionaries throughout the world, and pleading that some of her descendants might thus be used of God.
September 9, 1889, she was called from the earth to the heavenly Kingdom, being 88 years of age, and, like a shock of corn, fully ripe. Her last earthly home was with a daughter in Schenectady. And now, a grandson of this noble Christian woman, of whom the world never heard, is appointed as a missionary of the American Board for West Central Africa; soon to depart with his young wife and little child for that "dark continent." To some in that city, where this young physician, in the opening of his career with all of earth's allurements before him, had every prospect of success, this decision seems the height of folly-like the throwing away of a life and all that makes life worth the living. They have not seen the silent working of the sacred leaven in divine preparation for this culmination. They little think that it will have its fullest manifestation and justificationon theday when' 'all the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and when Christ shall reign over all, for ever and ever."
The consecration of any life, in fellowship with Christ, receives added dignity and grandeur from partnership with Him, "who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, that He might bring many sons unto glory," and "see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied," When they shall come from the east and the west, the north and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God-"A great multitude, whom no man could number-of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues." The glorious harvest-time of souls, when the "new song" shall arise: "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood-to HIM be glory and dominion, for ever and ever, Amen !"
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
M. Alfred Casalis, speaking of the Basutos, to whom he, like his father be- fore him, has now become a missionary, says: -''How can we fail to experience a closesense of unity with this little nation, so desirous of maintaining its unity and independence? It is undoubtedly, the influence of the Gospel which has alone protected it from partition and complete annexation to the invading neighbors who covet its land so greedily. .Are we sure that God may not have a great destiny in store for this pettv people? Whence shall come the missionaries capable of resisting the terrible climate of the Zambesi, ifnot from Lessuto-from that school oftheology modestly founded at Morija, and which, perhaps, in the near future, will give us a chosen band ()f native pastors? On the day when these 200,000 Basutos shall be Christians, we shall have at our disposal an incalculable force, a veritable Christian army, ready to carry afar into the interior of this Africa, still buried undera darkness so deep-the blazing light of the Gospel."
Pastor Schneller, of Bethlehem, writing, in the Allgemeine Mission3chrijt, says: "Talking lately with a priest of the Greek Church, I quoted something from the Acts. He retorted, 'You Protestants always make so much of the Old Testament and its Acts of the Apostles. Only quote some books of the New Testament, I know all of them.' The same priest, wishing to convince the people of the unsoundness of our doctrine of Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer, proved his point as follows: 'These poor Protestants! Why, they are for be- mg saved through Jesus Christ alone. DQYou believe that Jesus is able to save anybody whatever, without the help of saints? If He could, why must Judas Iscariot perish by the very side of the Lord? Why did He not save him? Why must the impenitent thief be lost by the very side of the much-praised atoning Cross? Why? Because they had not the saints! And the poor Protestants have not a single saint to help them, they have only Jesus and cqnsequently they are bound for hell.' "
Before our Anglican Church, to strengthen hersel'f against Rome, becomes too earnest for union with the Greek Church, she had better counsel her to re- vise her teachings of her clergy a little. Profe~sor Mahaffy says, that he can understand proposals to unite with the Roman Catholics, on one hand, or with the Protestant Dissenters, on the other, but, after traveling in the East, proposals to unite with the Greek Church, are, to him, an inexplicable marvel, uuleas, of course, as some parts of the Greek Church are said to have shown a disposition to do, she maintaining her own distinctiveness, welcomes the vivifying stream ()f Protestant warmth and enlightenment. At least she is not pre-committcd by an assumption of infallibility.
-"When, often, on the spot where Jesus did his greatest works, one sees how the Lord, together with his .Gospel, has become a stranger here; how, in the home of Christ, faith in Christ has been distorted into an unrecognizable caricature, it must come into the consciousness of every evangelical Christian, that, if anywhere in the world, our evangelical church has a great and momentous task to accomplish in the home of the Gospel, however great the difnculties may be."
"Almost every one in these lands," says Herr Schmeller, 'lknows only himself and his own interests, without regard to others, were they even members of his own family. His cold indifference represses the development of men that might have a benevolent interest in promoting the common weal, whether in village, city, or province of their native country. Where here are friends of the people, friends of the fatherland? The people have not even the idea of such a thing. The inhabitants of one quarter of a village or town only too often regard those of another quarter not only as utterly foreign to them but as hostile, which gives rise to perpetual feuds. To bring about unity or to carry through any unanimous purpose, is no more possible in a city or village than in the country at large. Yet, it is in just this state of disintegration that the Turkish government finds a strengthening of its own security, and it favors this accordingly."
-January 1,1888, the following were the missionary statistics of the Nor- wegian Miasionary Society.
Ordained missionaries, 41, (1 being a physician); 6 unmarried ladies, 1 layman, 16,555 church members, 87,500 school children, 44,000 adherents, 16 native pastors, 900 native teachers and evangelists, $81,050 contributions from Norway, and $12,000 from America. The fields of labor are Natal and Madagascar. The Schruder Mission in Natal, has 2 missionaries, 1 single lady, 352 bapt,ized members, 130 communicants, and 124 school children. Income, $1,505. The Santal mission h India, has 3 or4 Norwegian missionaries, and a revenue of $8,918. It now works independently of the Gossner Mission.
The sum totAll of Norwegian missionary contributions for 1887 (omitting the $12,000 from America), amounted to $91,841.76. The population being 1,913,000, this average, about 20 cents ahead.
-Herr Nather, of the Leipsic Society in South India, speaking of some famous- of bathing festivals on the banks the southern Ganges, the Kaweri remarks; "They avail for the cleansing away of ceremonial sins; for other than cere- monial sins the heathen do not really know."
-M. Teisseres and M. Allegret, missionaries of the Paris Society, after a stay of about a year with the American Presbyterian missionaries, on the Gaboon, were. in April, about leaving for the Congo, under a convoy furnished by the French government.
'-The Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift for June, 1890, in a detailed article treating of the present condition of Protestant missions in South Africa, says, that the Cape Colony is growing poorer. Much of it is incapable of sustaining ths growing population. Moreover, the almost entil'e withdrawal of imperial control has given the colonists opportunity to repel the laws restricting the manufacture and sale of brandy. This is one of the many ways in which England has done immense harm by being too eager to throw responsibility off her shoulders before the tid. She staggers "Under the too vast orb of her fate." The latest statistics of the Cape Colony, (1888-9), give: Christians of European descent,. belonging to established congregations, 267,817. Colored Christians, 234,329. Chureh sittings, 287,825. Average church attendance,172,428. Sunday scholars, 57,678. Nearlya quarter of thecolored people are baptized. Twenty different Protestant denominations are laboring in the country with 547 clergymen. The different churches receive from the colonial government, £190,432, yearly. Of this, about $150,000 may be counted for proper missionary work. The Boer (pronounced Boor) party, however, now in the ascendant, is unfriendly to these grants. Cape Town has 41,704 inhabitants, of whom 8,000 or 10,000 are Mohammedan Malays. Among the half-breeds of the west of Cape Colony, the Rhenish, the Berlin SOCieties, and the Unitas Fratrum are the principal laborers. The Berlin Society has 11 stations, 13 ordained European missionaries; 87 native helpers, 11,138 baptized adherents,' 3,918 communicants, 2,378 scholars. Contributions, $9,300. The Berlin Society (in the west), has 7 stations, 8 missionaries, 74 helpers, 4,335 baptized adherents, 1,843 communicants, 614 scholars. Contributions, $4,688. The Moravians have (in the west) 11 stations, 20 brethren, 2 native ordained missionaries, 239 helpers, 9,145 adherents, 2,218 communicants, 2,154 scholars.
The Brethren's Church, on July 9, 1887, celebrated the 150th anniversary of its first arrival in South Africa, 'Its work is still important and fruitful, but suffers under a growing difficulty. Not laboring in colonial villages, but in distinct stations, it finds its people sinking more and more into poverty, because of the scarcity of arable land. Their people are therefore widely scattered, many being in the diamond fields, whither they are followed by colored 'Diaspora laborers.' "
The Dutch Reformed Church of Cape Colony, which has 175,555 baptized white members, is coming, under Scottish and English stimulus, to show a much more animated missionary zeal. "Stellenbosch, with its theological institute, is very especially a focus of missionary zeal."
Among the others, the Wesleyan Missionary Society is most prominent. It has (in the west): 9 stations, 6 missionariE'S, 96 native helpers, 1,476 communicants, 1,467 scholars The South African Wesleyans are quite indepepdent of the British Conference. In the whole Colony, they have 71 stations, 156 churches and chapels, 55 clergymen, 1,198 native helpers, 16,840 communicants, 88,000 baptized adherents, 218 schOQls, 310 teachers, 13,803 scholars.
"But no other British society laboring in South Africa compares with the Scottish societies as respects capability, sobriety and diligence, combined with true evangelical piety."
The Free Church of Scotland haa9 stations, 10 ordained Europeans, 2 ordained natives,23 native helpers, 4,214 commnnicants, 12,113 baptized adherents, 3,510 scholars. Their institute of Lovedale (largely assisted by the colonial government) is a great force for education and indus· trial training.
The United Presbyterians have 11 stations, 12 missionaries, 60 native helpers, 2,307 communicants, 8,080 baptized adherents, 43 schools, 1,735 scholars.
-Of the 500,000 or more of Protestant Christians in India, 7,000 live in the city of Madras ~tself. South India is still the great seat of Christianity, its in- habitants being not Aryans but Dravidians, and, therefore, being related to Hinduism somewhat as the Turks are to Mohammedanism, which they have accepted, but which is not native to them, as it is to the Arabs.
-Missionary Lazarus says of the moral condition of the people of Madras an admirable example of south India at large), that, like Greece in Paul's day, the things that they do "are a shame even to speak of." But whereas Paul's admonitions show plainly that his converts had but imperfectly extricated themselves from "the moral chaos surrounding them," "it may be confidently said," declares Mr. Lazarus, himself a native of India, "that the native church of Madras has raised itself above the abominations of the encompassing hea- thenism. Devil-dances, drinking-bouts, quarrels and tumults, unchastity, prac- tised under the cloak of religion, and similar abominations, are absolutely foreign to the native Christians. Such exhibitions of godlessness as are common among the lower classes in Europe, are unknown to them. The Hindus have an immeasurable vocabulary of vituperation, but I do not remember to have ever met with a native Christian that made any use of it. No native Christian has been sent to the gallows, or convicted of crime before the courts." Mr. Laza- rus, it should be remembered, is here speaking only for the Protestants; cases of crime, among the native Christiahs, it would seem, are mostly of Roman Catholics, though among these also, it is rare. The Mohammedans in M&dras, though vastly less disposed to crime than the Hindus, make but a poor show compared with the Christians generally, and seem to sink out of sight, com- pared with the Protestants.
This great superiority of the Protestants, is, however, rather an inference of my own than a distinct statement of Mr. Lazarus, and may bean exaggeration.
"The native Christians, moreover, are as good as wholly emancipated from faith in astrology and palmistry, from child-marriages and compulsory widowhood, from neglect of the education of their children, from the foolish marriage-system involved in caste, from polyandry and polygamy, from perjury and prostitution, and other violations of the moral law, which are so general among the Hindus, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Even if no wider results had been reached, this alone would have been a great achievement, which must be ascribed to the steadfastness and faithfulness with which the missionary pioneers have administered their difficult trust.
"The more positive virtues are less satisfactorily developed, yet, I may venture to say, that for family virtue the Christians have established a solid reputation. Hypocrisy, however, suspiciousness, mutual detraction and backbiting, hardness toward the poor, prodigality, fickleness, pride of birth, are faults only too common among them. . . . If 'cleanliness is next to godliness,' our people have not yet discovered it, or at Ip,ast have not yet applied their discovery. In this respect they are inferior to the Hindus of the same social level. As to the English standard of moral obligation, there is much of it to which their apprehensions are not yet at all awakened." It should be remembered, however, that the English are by nature, a much higher development of mankind. "As respects the higher, active virtues, which our Lord pronounces blessed, poverty of spirit, sorrow for sin, forbearance, hunger and thirst after righteousness, compassion, purity of heart, willingness to suffer for righteousness sake, the whole moral scale, the highest that humanity can attain, of these we find in the native Christians only the first feeble shoots. There are, of course, honorable exceptions, which, in reference to deve~opment of character and Christian virtues, may easily stand comparison with European Christians, hut they are not man:r." "But when we consider the infection which lies in the air of India, together with the dullness and inertness of the people, and all the various forces, which join to work against the development of the moral sense, and also consider that the mass of the native Christians comefrom the most deeply sunken social stratum of the Hindus, there is certainly occasion for surprise and thankfulness, that the moral standing of the native church is so much higher than that of the Hindus. Thus, the last are higher than the first, as compared with the most of those who stand outside of Christianity."
"Docility, tractability, respectfulness, sobriety and meekness, trust in Providence, and careful discharge of religious duties, are, indeed, traits of our converts; but they are not peculiar to them. They were traits of the Indian character long before Christianity came hither. And it seems surprising that so eminent and learned a man as Bishop Caldwell should have described them as distinguishing traits of our Christians. They are genuine Indian traits, just as courage and capacity, sincerity and manliness, vehemence and violence and energy are genuine European, or, if you will, specific Anglo-Saxon qualities."
Mr. Lazarus thinks, that until pains are taken to secure a higher grade of catechists, we must make up our minds to a comparatively low grade of native Christians. He tells his fellow-missionaries some plain truths: "If the missionaries are to raise the native standard, they must take pains to learn how to speak elegant and accurate Tamil, a thing which, I am sorry to say, receives less attention here in Madras than in old days. Clergymen must not be content with their Sunday services. They ought to establish Bible classes for youth and grown people, as well as for children, and make these entertaining, so that they can mspire native Christians with a taste for an intelligent and thorough study of the Holy Scriptures, and in particular, of the life and work of our Lord. By these, and like means, there will !3pring up a clearer, purer and more thorough conception of what Christianity is, and this will thus exercise a growing influence upon the moral condition of the native church."
• Mr. Lazarus severely criticises the mission1l.ry schools of south India: "These schools are often Christian in name, but heathen in effect. Their main element is made up of heathen boys, and there is only a little fraction of Christian children. Most of the teachers are heathen, the rector is often a Brahmin. The director of the mission prefers heathen to Christian teachers; the former are 'wiser towards their generation than the children of light.' They are more creeping and busy; this is taken by the easily-believing director as humility and zeal; Oll the other hand, he cannot bear with the faults of 'the own children of the family.' What makes matters worse is, that the instruction in br Christianity is committed to the 'Bible teacher,' who is often a poor native Christian of the catechist class, who is nothing accounted of either his pupils or his fellow-teachers. Thus, the whole is under strong heathen mfluence; the Christian element is as a drop in the bucket. Think what it means to be eight hours daily, year out and year in, in contact with a hundred heathen lads and teachers, whose mouths overflow with abominations, and whose hearts are leavened with heathen rottenness. Such a contact cannot otherwise than strikingly infect and corrupt the young Christian's soul before he comes under the missionary's immediate influence. I speak from sad experi- ence.."
Mr. Lazarus is utterly opposed to the appointment of heathen teachers in Christian schools, in any case whatever. He also uses some plain speaking toward the English missionaries in South India: "The fault lies with the native Christians as well as with the whites, that there is so little mutual affection between them. Yet, the latter, as belonging to an older and more developed church, which is renowned not less for piety and philanthropy than for zeal and learning might be expected to be first to lay plans of love toward their weaker brethren. . . Impelled by the Saviour's self-sacrificing love, a messenger of God ought to be able to lay aside his pride of race, to overcome his prejudices, to condescend to the native level, and by free and familiar intercourse, to endeavor to lift the native Christians up to l1imself, and thus, with his Lord, to strive to develop the native church into a glorious church, not havin~ spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.' Only by the exercise of love can the mISSIOnary lead the church on and up. He ought, at least, to show himself as often in the homes oofort he native Christian s as at the dinner-tables of his c~untrymen. It is bettoc !"-:m to exercise his influence
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER
in modest native civility, than by a presence at games of ball or on croquetgrounds. It is pleasanterto see him befriending the poor, than doing homage. to the rich. In brief, all his works, all his walk, ought to be such as to call back into living remembrance the days when the Lord of heaven lived and walked in intimate converse with His own disciples."
Mr. Lazarus bears emphatic testimony to the inestimable good wrought by missionary labors in South India. But he desires, speaking the truth in love, to lay home to the hearts of some of the missionaries, considerations which they have great occasion to weigh, if they would see established in India a stable and richly developed native church.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
Tke New World of Central Africa; With a History of the First Christian Mission on the Congo. By Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness. London: Hodder & Stoughton. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell. $2.00. Central Africa, by means of God's wonder·working Providence, is in- deed, become a "new world," to us. And the great Powers of Europe have hastened to improve their opportunity to extend "the spheres of their ir:tluence" and establish their "protectorates" over its vast areas. This is well. This is a part of God's wise and comprehensive plan for Africa's enlightenment and regeneration. This secures the rapid introduction of civilizing agencies, the development of its immense resources, the protection of life, the extinction of slavery and civil and religious liberty to all its teeming millions. The Church of Christ, also, is astir to enter this new world with the missionary, the Bible and the school, and conquer it for One greater than Cresar. And this book is just what the exigency calls for. It tells just what we want to know. It shows, briefly and intelligently, what has been done and attempted for the evangel- ization of Africa. It is well written-written with a purpose; written by one whose whole heart, as well as that of her husband and family, is given to the missionary cause. It is pro- fusely illustrated. It gives us vivid pictures of the "dark continent." It gives facts of momen· 100us interest. Take this: "The Congo and its tributaries have been already explored to a length of 11,000 miles, giving 22,000 miles of river bank, peopled with native villages. In his journey across Africa, Stanley gazed on the representatives of tribes numbering at least 50,000,000, and to none of them has the message of mercy ever been proclaimed." And this: "From the last mission station on the Upper Congo, a journey of 1,000 miles would be needed to reach the near- .est stations on the east-those on the great lakes. Seventeen hundred miles to the northeast, lies the Red Sea, and there is no mission station between. Two thousand, two hundred miles due north is the Mediterranean, and no mission station between; while 2,500 miles to the northwest are the .stations of the North African nUssion, but no single centre of light between I Seven hundred miles to the west is the Cameroons Station, but the whole intervening country is unvisited; and in the south-west, the American Mission at Bihe, is fully a thousand miles distant. "-J. M. S.
Daybreak in North Africa. By Mrs. F. T. Haig. London: Partridge & Company. This is An account of missionary work in Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli. Our readers have heard from time to time from this region, from one of our correspondents, Rev.E. F. Baldwin, of Tangiers, Morocco. The mission here is but a few years old, and is but little known and feebly supported. 'The North African Mission had no child's play before it when it sought to carry the 'Gospel to Mohammedans in that part of the world where Mohammedanism had most completely triumphed over Christianity, and had, for more than a thousand years, held undisputed sway over Berbers and Arabs alike. The success of the Gospel even against such fearful odds is proof that Islam is not invincible. Here, as elsewhere, the testimony is that Mohammedan power is passing away. But eight years have passed since the effort began, and what hath God wrought I Mrs. Haig says, "At the present time there are 51 missionaries occupying 12 dilferent statious, in connection with the North Americar: Mission. beside a nnmber of in- .dependent workers [Mr. Baldwin, for one, who has been quite successful], several of whom be· gan work with the help of the Society, but afterwards preferred working on separate lines." The book is modestly and pleasantly written and well illustrated. It encourages hope and labor for Africa.-J. M. S.
A Friend of Missions in India. The journal of Rev. Henry S. Lunn. London: James Clarke & Company. Our readers will remember that a flerce and prolonged controversy has agitated the missionaries and friends of the London Missionary Society (Wesleyan,) for a year or two past,growing out of serions criticisms,which appeared in the Methodist Times (London), respecting the administration of the Society and the habits of living on the part of it. missionaries in India, etc. The anthor of this work, and the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, editor of the Methodist Times, were chiefly responsible for stirring up this severe controversy. In the last number of the REVIEW we gave the report of the Special Committee appointed by the Society to investigate :this whole matter.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
The chief interest which attaches to this book is the fact that It consists of "The Cyclo- • styled Indian Journal," in the form of twelve letters, which Mr. Lunn wrote while in India as a. missionary, "thirty copies of which he sent to thirty circles of friends in England." These letters of course, laid the foundation for the discussion and warfare which followed. And when, after his return to London, he wrote a series of anonymous articles to the Methodist Times on "A New Missionary Policy," which the editor strongly 'endorsed, the writer's identity with the letters sent home from India was seen by all who had read the Journal. Bitterness of feeling, at home and abroad, and angry discussion was the result. The missionaries demanded a thorough investigation and persisted in their demand, and, at length got it, and got a vindication. Hap- pily the war Is now ended, and, apparently, all parties are snbstantially satisfied. The lesson from It all isobvions, and should be laid to heart-Young missionaries are too apt to criticise those of age and long experience.-J. M. S.
A ThousandMiles on an Elephant. By Holt S. Hallett. Dedicated by the author to the Ameri- can missionaries in Burmah and Siam. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh and London. This book is the record of a tour of exploration by Messrs. Colquhoun and Hallett for a railway from Bur- mah to China, through the Shan States of Northern Siam. Dr. J. N. Cushing, whom the author designated as the most learned Shan scholar, accompanied the exploring party as interpreter. They met a cordial welcome and much helpful information from Dr. McGilvary and associates of the Preshyterian Mission to the Laos of Chiang-Mal. They there enjoyed a refreshing rest after their tedious jungle-travel from Burmah. Thence onward through unexplored regions of unwasted resources of commercial wealth, and opening an easy access to the hoards of superstitious spirit-worshippers of the Shan tribes in northern Slam, and leading to the unharvested fields of commerce in China, and giving to the disciples of Christ an open door to the uncounted myriads of her inhabitants when these explorations shall result in a living railway from India to, the middle kingdom.
The book is Wllitten in an attractive style, presenting a clear picture of the dwellings, character and customs of the people, the forests of teak timber and other wood that shelter herds of elephants and buffaloes, poniesand cattle, tigers and monkeys, chickens and peacocks,with rich fiE-Ids of rice, sugar, tobacco and tropical fruits. which include pineapple, pumelo, plantin, orange, lemon, mango, mangosteen, durean, custard-apple, and in great variety and rich fiavor the fruits generally found in the tropics. Extensive plains of fertile soil still remain uncultivated for want of facilities for the transportation of the productions. It has been intimated that the Burmah·Siam-China railway, for the extension of British trade and the civilization of" south-eastern Asia, may be classed with the Slez canal and tbe American Pacific railway as one of the grand works of tbe century. We think it in harmony with the call for a thousand missionaries for China, and the Christ-command to preach the Gospel to every creature.-W. D.
Personal Life of David Lit,lngstone. By William G. Biackie, D.D. London: John Murray. This is one of the hest worth reading of all missionary hooks. I am now reading it a second time aloud to my family. For fullness of detail, intense interest, graphic portraiture of character and freedom from exaggeration, it stands very high. And I would recommend all readers· ol the REVIEW to get it.-A. T. P.
Life of John Hunt: Missionary to Fiji. By G. Stringer Rowe, London. This Is one of the most kindling books I ever read. Mr. Hunt was a pioneer, and hurned .out his life's fiame in his holy zeal for God. He died October 4, 1848, at the age of 36, but he had lived a century, judged by the standard of effective work. This hook is full of the rarest inspirlition. It is one of the finest evidences of Christianity it has fallen to my lot to examine. He, who has any doubt of the Divine Power unto salvation, should read this book; and yet. valuahle, as it is, we have seldom seen a copy of It in any missionary library.-A. T. P..
H.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.
A leaflet lies before me setting forth with personal and peculiar interest· the Students' Foreign MissionaryUnion because of its origin. of Great Britain, not yet one year old. Some facts concerning this organi- "It began in one Howard Taylor's zation will be of interest to the read- study, on his return from Northfield, ers of this REVIEW, because of the Massachusetts, and in the hearts and tremendous significance of a new prayers of a group of missionary men student movement abroad, and vol- at the hospital, shortly before he sailed unteers will regard the movement for China." A London correspondent goes on to say "Two large and influential meetings were lished volume of letters edited by her held in connection with its foundation: one at sister, under the title "In the Far' Spurgeon's Tabernacle, when he (Spurgeon) East." Miss Wilder's name is familiar delivered a grand missionary sermon on Mark to readers of THE REVIEW by reason xvi: 15, to as many London students as could of her occasional letters to that peribe gotten together (and the great building was odical, and to young women in our full to doors and roof), and one at Exeter colleges and connected with Y. W. C. Hall." A. She is known through her mes- sage to them, entitled, "Shall I Go?" The Union numbers 165 members, which has already reached its Fifth all men. London has 74 members, edition. Miss Wilder's pamphlet, "An Cambridge 6, Oxford 5, Edinburgh 32, Appeal from India," should be read Aberdeen 3, Bangor 1. Besides these with very great care in order to be there are some scattered members and understood rightly, and not' read merely, but pondered on-not because some fu. Ireland, making the total of of any obscurity on the writer's part, but rather by reason of the meaning 165 men. of statements-which meaning does The membership consists of all not lie readily on the surface.
students who accept and sign the fol- "The fact that our Saviour is using us in the lowing declaration: salvation of souls, and for hastening the day of His coming-that is certainly the reason "It is my earnest hope, if God per- for our staying in India. So we who are here mit, to engage in Foreign mission would say to you in America and Canada, this work." is the strongest appeal we can send you for coming to India. The presence of the moving The objects of the Union shall be: cloud was sufficient reason for the Israelites 1. To band together students who to follow. Does not the presence of God's feel called to Foreign missionary work. Spirit, as now felt in India, convince us that 2. To urge the claims of the Foreign He is calling a large portion of our volunteer Mission field upon Christian students band to work for Him here I" everywhere, and to advocate the formation of missionary associations in In refutation of the popular notion connection with the various universi- that Africa presents the greatest need ties and colleges where they do not al- for missionary workers, the writer ready exist. says, "Do you say there are large 3. For the furtherance of its objects tracts in Africa unoccupied? True. the Union shall use the following Yet, relative to its population, India agencies: Meetings of members, meet- must have some 119 more missionaries ings in universities and colleges, de- to equal the missionary force of putations, correspondence and indi- Africa." vidual effort, and the pUblication of an occasional paper. Miss Wilder has corresponded with On the ground of respect for and ap- missionary agencies of the Protestant preciation of the work of the authors denominations in India, and in brief of these appeals from different coun- extracts which she gives from letters tties, the appeals, though without any from various districts, a very adequate pretence to literary merit, should be. and true picture of India's needs is read with undivided attention, and in a receptive and prayerful spirit. presented~ Mr. Forman's views on Foreign missions are familiar to us through his From the Central Provinces one addresses delivered in our colleges, in 1886-87. Miss Geraldine Guinness, writes: author of "An Appeal from China," "I am persuaded in my own mind noticed in the last number of THE RE- VIEW, has already shown herenthusi- that the most eventful period in the asm for, and consideration to her history of missionary effort in this work in China, as disclosed in the pub- country is rapi~ly approa?hing. Th.e Lord is preparmg for a time of gI01:1- ous in-gathering. These souls will need the care of his children." Arcot Mission of the Reformed the answer to every difficulty, hin- drance or disappointment." Church: "Never, in my somewhat long ex- Unoccupied fields: "The Nizam's dominions are now perience, were the claims of India ap- open; population 10,000,000. Only a parently so urgent as now. A restless, beginning has been made in the Conaalmost feverish spirit of inquiry per- rese portion on the west. Much of vades the community." India is but nominally occupied. The region about Jhonsi and Bhopal is Madura Mission, American Board: said to have 10,000,000 unprovided for, "To-day, one brother has four sta- except for the mission at Jhonsi, and tions, another three, and two others a native worker of the American two each. How can they do justice . Board at Lalitpun. to the work? They are all driven to "In closing: To you who have finthe verge of desperation and ill-health. ished your course of study, and waver We thank God that we have recently not at the question of ultimate comreceived into our mission-circle one of ing, but of coming this year, I would· that large band of consecrated stu- say, Satan is taking advantage of our dents. How we long, and pray, and delays. Our aboriginal tribes, numwrite, and implore, that more be bered at some 50,000,000, now very acsent !" cessible, are said to be getting rapidly absorbed into Hinduism. In large Marathi Mission, American Pres- cities, where for years there has been much undermining of old faiths, inbyterian Board: fidelity, materialism, and theosophy "An earnest request has been sent are being pressed u1>0n the attention of the people, and there is danger of for sixteen new workers. In Kolha- seven unclean spirits coming in place pur State alone there are 1,097 vil- of one. lages; it would take a missionary a "We need you now. We pray God whole year to preach once around to to send you to us, filled with the Holy the village population of that single Spirit. It is useless to preach Christ State." to minds steeped in ignorance and idolatry, in any other way than in the From the Akola Field, Mrs. Fuller power of the Spirit."
writes: "The greater need is the quality of the men. We need anointed menmen who know Christ, who find in God Africa.-Progress. Letters from gether for the good of the country. the missionaries in Uganda say that There is still considerable bad feeling King Mwanga has been almost wholly and jealousy, but there seems to be no stripped of the despotic power which prospect now of the open rupture that he and his fathers for centuries have recently threatened. The parties have exercised. He is now of little import- taken an oath, signed by their leaderll. ance in his own country-white influ- agreeing that whatever their disputes ences are in ascendancy. The King may be they will not spill one another's can get nothing that he does not ask blood, but will depend upon sober for from his chiefs, who are under the arguments and arbitration to settle all control of the Protestant or Catholic their quarrels. religion. This is a great change for the young King, who awhile ago killed The Mohammedan party seems to a bishop, imprisoned white mission- be entirely defeated. Thus a remarkaries, and slaughtered native Chris- able change has been wrought in tians by the score. No heathen are Uganda, where a while ago the allowed to hold any office in the new Mohammedans ruled everything, and Government. Many of them are per- by their influence upon Mwanga and mitted to remain in the land, but there his successor, Karema, drove the is not a chief among them. The great whites out of the country and threatoffices, of which there are about six ened to retard the progress of white very important ones, have been enterprises and of all civilization in equally divided between the two Central Africa for half a century to Christian parties. come. Now the Mohammedans have been driven from power in a series of There has been great danger of bloody battles, their influence is enserious clashing between the Protestant tirely gone and the Arabs are fugitives, and Catholic sects. By the advice of Uganda is a British J?rotectorate, and both Catholic and Protestant mission- the white missionarIes, recently peraries they have, however, decided to secuted, are the power in the country. bury their differences and work to- Never before was the prospect so bright for the rapid extension of European of the most valuable concessions' influence and commercial enterprise granted her by Germany. The history in the African lake region.-N. Y. of English rule in India shows how Sun. adroit she is in turning the office of protector to her own advantage. [Uganda is the field where Bishop Hanning- The situation of Zanzibar was not ton was murdered by Mwanga, and where the likely to escape the attention of the- slave-stealers. Their interest lay in lamented Mackay spent his brief but heroic making the road from the villages which they depopulated to the coast as life. Stanley speaks in warmest terms of this short as possible. On the journey, however short it may be, many of mission, declaring it "a most remarkable suc- their victims died from fatigue and exposure to the sun. Zanzibar was cess." Of Mackay, in whose house at the near, and it was also convenient. There the dealers came from Europe sonthern end of Victoria Nyanza, he took who had commissions from the Turks and Egyptians to supply them with grateful rest, "sipping real coffee and eating slaves. There, too, vessels might be chartered to carry away the living home-made bread and butter for the first time booty to other ports. So Zanzibar early became a mart of commerce in the in thirty months," he says: "He has no awful traffic. The efforts of Germany and England have largely suppressed time' to fret and groan and weep, and God this trade in Zanzibar, and under the protectorate of England we may be knows, if ever man had reason to think of sure it will not be revived. The mar- kets will now be better occupied by 'graves and worms and oblivion,' and to be the trade in ivory.-African News.
dolefuland lonely and sad, Mackay had, when, Chi n a. – A great evan~elizing after murdering his Bishop, and burning his agency. – The Chinese, especially pupils, and strangling his converts, and those in the southern part of the em- clubbing to death his dark friends, Mwanga pire, are going out from China in all turned his eye of death on him. And yet the directions. They are not only going little man met it with calm, blue eyes that to many adjacent islands and those never winked. To see one man of this kind, more remote in the Pacific, but they working day after day for twelve years, are settling upon all the coasts of bravely, and without a syllable of complaint south-eastern Asia, pushing up an the or a moan, among the 'wilderness,' and to rivers, and in every place holding hear him lead his little flock to show forth tenaciously the ground on which they God's loving kindness in the morning and His settle. They are a great colonizing faithfnlness every night, is worth going a people, and, if only the Gospel is long journey for the moral courage and con- given to them, they will assist greatly tentment that one derives from it."-J. M. S.] in the redemption of the lands to Zanzibar.-The importance of which they go from sin and darkness. Zanzibar, as a key to Central Africa, was recognized early in the era of ex- They seem to be destined, in the good ploration. What New York is to the United States, what Liverpool is to providence of God, to become a pow- Great Britain, Zanzibar is to Equatorial Africa. In his first expedition erful evangelizing agency, and a great Stanley made it the base of operations, and he went there again, in 1879, to blessing to humanity. . organize his second expedition. It lies on the east coast of Africa, seven Bishop Thoburn, writing from Sindegrees south of the equator. Its chief markets and the seat of the govern- gapore, says of these Chinese colonment are on the island of Zanzibar, but the adjacent country on the main- ists: land is also under the Sultan's domin- "'fhe more I see of our mission work ion, and is also called Zanzibar. It is at this point that the caravans from the in this part of the world, the more do interior strike the coast, and from I bQcome confirmed in the conviction there the explorers, Burton, Grant, which I received the first time I Stanley, Cameron and others, hired visited Rangoon and saw the Chinese their carriers and set out on their ex- there; mingling as they were with the peditions, and to that place they re- Burmese, that God would use them as turned, and came once more into com- a great evangelizing agency all up and munication with civilization. It was Stanley's first business, in organizing the Congo Free State, to establish a chain of stations extending from Zanzibar to Nyangwe and the lakes. Under the new arrangement with Germany and England, the latter country has acquired the right of "protecting" the Sultan of Zanzibar, which is one down these coasts. They are not only converts are mostly gathered from the most energetic people to be found in this region, but, strangely enough, the poor, he argued that it was better they seem more accessible to the Gos- pel than any others; and those of them so. When a house is to be lifted, jackwho are born in Malaysia will be able to speak the vernacular of the coun- screws are put in at the bottom. If try in which they live, and this, added to their knowledge of English and the roof was grappled it would be only Chinese, will qualify them for usefulness on the widest jossible scale. the top that would be lifted. Strange are the ways 0 Providence!" -Spirit of Missions. Hawaii.-Rev. W. A. Essery, in a recent address in London, said: England.-There is much in the "The gospel has won the victory English papers of the increasing flow over heathenism in the Sandwich Islands. It was a peculiar joy to me of converts from the ritualistic section when I found myself in Honolulu. On a certain sunny Easter Sunday of the Anglican Church to the Church morning I wended my way to the old stone church, a large square sanctuof Rome. The activity of the priests of ary, built of blocks of reef coral that had been cut out of the sea for. this Rome is very great, and their boastful- purpose by the early converts. I ness is greater. But the Pall Mall Ga- stood in the pulpit and spoke to an zette concedes that the tide sets rapidly eager audience of the purpose of {lne way. In a recent issue it says: Christ's gospel, the many triumphs thereof I had seen in all parts of the " The conversion to Catholicity is recorded world, and exhorted them to cleave of Rev. Dr. Townsend, superior of a mission to the Lord. Where are the idols the house of Oxford University at Calcutta, and people worshipped a hundred years this so soon after a similar step taken by Dr. ago? More of them are preserved in Rivington, principal of a similar institution at the museum cases of the London Mis- Bombay. Itis also given upon good authority sionary Society than I could hear of that Drs. Tatlock, Beasley and Clarke, sta- in the islands to-day. All around me tioned respectively at Christ Church, Clap- were proofs of how the gospel had ham, Helmsley, Yorkshire and St. James', raised and civilized the community. Liverpool, will shortly enter the Catholic The entire money cost of converting Church. Since the beginning of the Lenten these islanders, which was done by season no less than 100 Anglicans have em- American missionaries, was less than braced Catholicity, and this in one parish the cost of one first-class British ironalone. At Brighton, a centre of ritualistic clad. Christ's gospel has been wafted activity, the number of converts is reckoned to New Zealand. Last Good Friday at 500 persons." twelve months I landed at Gisborne, in Poverty Bay; it was about three India.-Bishop Thoburn's picture o'clock in the afternoon. Going up over the same beach where Captain of the poverty of the people of Asia, Cook had landed a hundred years before I heard the music of a churchespecially of India, where families going bell; turning in its direction I came upon a wooden, weather-boarded live on five cents a day, and thousands church; stepping inside I saw a con- gregation of Maoris, the natives of of growing children go to bed hungry New Zealand. The clergyman had just started the service, men and every night, drew forth a chorus of women had their Bibles and prayer- books, and all were taking part in the groans and sighs as well as generous worship of Him whose sorrows are remembered on Good Friday. It was gifts. He mentioned, as a sample: a a simple sight but it gladdened the heart to find Christ's name honored in man who was paid $2.50 per month, the ends of the world. And so from these illustrations we learn that the whose wife, by hard work, added 28 missionary spirit is once more a power of life in the earth, and that the work cents per month to it. This had to of Christianizing the nations has actually commenced, and is making be divided among a family of five, real progress."
none of whom could have enough even Japan.-The new Constitutional of their own coarse food (rice mixed Government assumes control of affairs with weeds). "Five hundred millions of the people of this world," said the Bishop, "will go to bed hungry to- night. The tramps of this country would be 'swell' in any part of India." Speaking of the fact that missionary in November. The Parliament will a considerable interval, iinds the <Jontain many liberal-minded men. changes that have recently occurred There will be manifest in it four dis- so marked and suggestive that he is tinct parties: the Conservatives, the induced to indicate some of the most Conservative-Radicals, the Moderates, prominent. He writes as follows: and the Radicals. All of them, " On approaching the city from the west, in former years, there were however, have more or less ad- scarcely any buildings except the Russian convent and the Monteiiore vanced notions, and have no desire to Almshouses to intercept the ·…iew of the city walls; now the whole plain is go back exclusively to the old order covered with private residences and colonies of Jews, whilst near to the ()f things. The Moderate party is Jaffa Gate· are large numbers of shops called Kaishinto. It took its rise in already tenanted and numerous others in course of construction. This ex- 1882, and has been very active in the tension beyond the walls has become necessary on account of the rapid agitation for and adoption of the increase of the population. I am in- formed by Mr. Moore, British consul present Constitution. It is very pro- here, that within the last three or four years about 20,000 Jews have come to gressive in its aims, and favors "gov- Jerusalem for permanent residence in and around the city, and that of the €rnment by party, treaty-revision and entire population of about 70,000 it is estimated that nearly 40,000 are Jews. the reform of almost all departments of He also stated that the influx of Jews into other parts of Palestine during the government." The Conservative- recent years has been entirely without precedent. The principal streets,which Radicals came into recognition in 1888 but a few years since were almost impassable in rainy weather, have and have adopted as their motto, been paved with stone, a new wide street has been opened up through a "United in great things-differing in densely-populated quarter, and five hotels are now open for the reception small." They are, as yet,few in num- 6f the annually-increasing number of visitors and traders from all lands. bers, and not very influential. The " Public works of importance have Jihu-to is the real Radical Party. been executed, and others are in pro- gress. The road from Jaffa to Jerusa- I lem, at one time all but impracticable, has been reconstructed by an eminent -Appeal from Baptist missionaries. engineer-over it our own and other "At a conference of the missionaries carriage services are in full operation ()f the American Baptist Missionary -a good road has been formed from Union, held at Yokohama, June 11, Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and another 1890, it was resolved, in view of the from Jerusalem to Hebron; several great needs of this iield and the en- others are rapidly approaching comlarged opportunities for work in this pletion-from Jaffa to Nablous (She- <Jountry, to beseech God, and, under chern), 40 miles; Jerusalem to Jericho, Him, the missionary union and the 20 miles; Caipha to Nazareth, 20 Baptists of the north, for a speedy re- miles, and Nazareth to Tiberias, 18 inforcement of twenty-three men. miles. Jerusalem has hitherto been almost wholly dependent for its water "That there has been a crisis in Ja- supply upon its large underground pan is admitted by all, and this crisis cisterns for the reception of rain water, has not passed away in the late revul- which, after a summer's drouth, often sion of feeling against foreigners, al- proves insufficient in quantity and though, we believe, it has changed in almost unfit for use. The Governsome of its phases. The situation is ment is now about to introduce an more urgent and pressing than ever. unfailing supply from a spring of pure There remain as many souls to be water beyond Solomon's Pools-about reached; the work has been increased nine miles distant. A large flour mill, in difficulty, and our time for its ac- established by the Messrs. Bergheim, complishmentis diminishing.
[This appeal is urged by many "very startling and solemn facts."-Ens.] Palestine. – Anything indicative of an awakening and a revival of energy in the Holy Land, especially at Jerusalem, must prove of especial interest to every Christian who is watching "the signs of the times."
A correspondent of the London Christian World, now on a visit to the Holy City for the seventh time, after having proved both a great benefit try to commerce, are without preceand a financial success, others, with dent in modern times. Viewed in large steam power, are in progress of connection with the numerous and erection; soap factories have com- active efforts being made by various· menced operations, and at Jaffa steam religious agencies throughout the saw-mills have been established. conntry for the evangelization of the Colonies of Jews following agricul- people, and the conversion of the' tural pursuits, stated to be successful, Jews, these facts must encourage are located, one about five miles from every lover of God's ancient people to Jaffa, and a larger one at Limerin, hope that His set time to favor Zion is near Cresarea, originated and assisted fast approaching."-Exchange. by the Rothschild family. The beforenamed rmid to Jericho is being con- The Silver Law's effect on misstructed by the Government, who sions.-Strange as it may seem, the have taken up all the land available in Silver law seriously affects Christian the best parts of the valley for the de- missions. Weallknowwhatithasdone velopment of an extensive scheme of for the silver barons. It has made a agricultural operations, which, with fine market for their ore, and lined such a temperature, so fertile a soil, their pockets, not with their own coin, and well watered by the copious but with good, merchantable money. stream from Elisha's fountain, should stamped with the seal of the United promise abundant and remunerative States Treasury. It has raised the crops. Grapes, bananas, sugar-cane, price of silver, and therefore accomcotton, and various fruits and vege- plished the purpose for which it was tables have for some time past been forced through the two Houses at cultivated here with much success. Washington, It has enriched mine- The increased amount of rain which owners; has it blessed anybody else? has fallen the last few years in Pales- We will wait to see. Meantime, it is tine has had a most marked effect in having a disastrous effect on the mislarger and more abundant harvests sionary societies which make largeexthan hitherto known. penditures in foreign lands. By rais- lUg the price of silver it has so ad- "The most important results, how- vanced the rates of exchange for all ever, of all may be anticipated from those countries which have a silver the railway about to be constructed standard that a large percentage of between Jaffa and Jerusalem. As every dollar transmitted to the various rumors in former years have pre- fields is lost in discount. vailed which have never been realized, I called upon Mr. Frutiger, the banker, The dealings of the societies, it to whom the concession has been should be explained, with Mexico, granted by the Turkish Government, Brazil and other American countries, and was assured by him that the with India, China, Japan, Syria, Pernecessary capital had been subscribed, sia, and other Asiatic fields, are all and that the works would commence conducted on the silver basis. In makimmediately npon the close of the ing appropriations for the year, the sorainy season in the early spring, and cieties make them on the basis of an pushed on urgently to completion. exchange rate, averaged on the rates of The influence such a line of communi- the previous years. -While this rate difcation between Jerusalem and the' fers in different countries, it has avercoast may be expected to exert is in- aged less, the treasurer of the Presbycalculable, for as a natural sequence terian Board, Mr. Dulles, informs us, the harbor, which is now inaccessible "than 80 cents to the dollar for all to Mediterranean steamers, must be countries. " deepened and enlarged, and the rocky barrier which prevents ingress re- Now for the effect of the Silver Bill moved. on exchange. Mr. Dulles writes us: " It is contemplated to snbsequently "I find, by reference to my records, that on extend this line via Gaza and EI-Arish over the Short desert to Port Said and April 9th, our bills sold in Chiua at 77~ (this Ismalia on the Maritime Canal, thus connecting with the railway system is discount on the Mexican silver dollar); on of Lower Egypt for Cairo, Alexandria April 21st it had risen to 79~; May 28 to 82li; and Suez, and to the Fayoum and Upper Egypt. Such important action July 15th to 86jf; July 28th to 88.03, which is for the improvement of the Holy City and the development of the resources thelast date at which I had advices of actual of Palestine, and opening up the coun- sales; or a rise of 15 per cent. This will serve as an example. In fact, our estimates were made below 77, the first price above given; but assuming the variation as above, it means that when we contract to pay a native helper or incur any other form of expense for a given number of Mexican silver dollars, we must now, in order to meet our accounts, add 15 per the Church's history has recorded' a cent. to our disbursements of American gold. similar advance, although that ad- This is not a simple illustration, but the state- vance is relativelv small in the light ment of an actual fact." of the unexampled growth of popu- lation, even in non-Christian lands. The rise in India is somewhat less. The ten missionary organizations of On April 15th £500 yielded 6,832 the United Kingdom have become 65; rupees; on May 14th, 6,357: on July the 27 of all evangelical Christendom 21st, 6,140. The last· advices, says have increased to 185. The sum of Mr. Dulles, show that the rate is still half a million sterling raised to evanrising. Withal, the market is so gelize the world has grown fivefold uncertain, that 60-day bills cannot be -to two millions and a half. The sold at all. The rates in Mexico are living converts, then under 400,000, higher, even, than in China and India, now form native Christian communivarying from 15 to 20 per cent. ties three millions strong. The mis- sionary band, ordained and unor- What is true of the Presbyterian dained, was then 760 strong, and Board is also true of the American not 12 of these were women or Board and other societies. A note natives; now it is a host of nearly to us from one of the 'secretaries of 40,000, of whom 2,000 are women, bethe American Board says its expen- sides missionaries' wives: 33,000 are ditures are affected, "not only in India natives, and of these, 3,000 are orand China, but in Japan and Mexico dained. Besides all that Carey and as well-fields in which fully one-half his imitators had done to translate the of our total expenditures are made." Word of God, we see now in other 41 The Western Christian Advocate says languages the Old Testament, and in a "special appropriation of about other 64 languages the New Testa- $20,000 to meet the increased cost of ment. Our empire has grown till we exchange" in India will have to be have become responsible for a fourth made by the Methodist Missionary So- of mankind. The English speaking ciety at its meeting in November. race were only 22 millions when Carey The cost of the Silver Bill to the So- made his survey; we have increased ciety will be, the Advocate estimates, at the rate of nearly a million a year, fully $40,000. till in and outside of Christendom we are 113 millions. Our wealth has The outlook is a serious one for all swollen even more rapidly. Our the societies. A large increase in the mother-tongue, the Queen's English, incomes of the societies will be neces- has become the Christianizing and saryto pay the same bills as informer civilizing speech of earth, carrying to years. Says Mr. Dulles, speaking for the thousand millions who are still barthe Presbyterian Board: barians in the Hellenic sense, even as Greek influenced the hundred millions "It is early to calculate the etl'ects of a of the Roman Empire, that Divine revelation which, to all who believe it, change of 15 to 20 per cent. upon appropri- is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. Save in the ations of $900,000. Without entering into the very heart of Asia-Mohammedan, Buddhist and Russian-The Spirit of merits of the silver-question or venturing God has opened every door, as our fathers prayed.-Free Church (Scotprophecies as to the results, it certainly is un- land) Annual Report.
likely that silver will fall much below its pres· Farewell Meeting in Boston under ent value, and those who are considering the the direction of the secretaries of the American Board, in view of the early obligations of the Church to foreign work departure of missionaries for the several fields under the care of the must bear in mind the unavoidable demand Board. The missionaries were intro- duced by Dr. Clark and Dr. Smith, acupon them this year, and indeed in subsequent cording to the fields to which they were destined, and addresses were years, on account of the special change in the made by Dr. Herrick and Mr. Bartlett, for the Western Turkey Mission; by rise of silver. " Messrs. Hill and White for the Japan Mission; by Messrs. Lay and Jeffery Upon the churches the burden must for the missions in India, and by Mr. fall. It will not do to cut down former Ransom for the Zulu Mission. When appropriations by 15 or 20 per cent.; therefore, it will be necessary for them to increase their contributions by that amount. If last year a society appropriated $500,000, it must appropriate this year, to keep up its work, $575,000 or $600,000.
What a pity the extra percentage cannot be assessed on the silver barons! -The Independent.
The Missionary Age. The Victorian has been emphatically the missionary era. Since the immediately post-apostolic days, no half century of
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
the name of Mrs. Ransom was read, Dr. sent to the field since the last annual Alden stated that she was a daughter report is now 54, a greater number of Rev. Simeon H. Calhoun, formerly than has been sent out by the of the Mission to Svria. The Rev. Board during anyone year for the past James D.Tracy, of theMadura Mission, 50 years. The number of missiontemporarily in tIns country, extended aries appointed since the last annual the right hand of welcome to Mr. Jef- meeting of the Board is 63, 22 of fery, who goes to the same mission. whom are men, representing all the The exercises occupied two hours, Congregational theological seminaries and were listened to with the closest of the country, excepting Bangor and attention and deepest interest by a Oakland. These facts, taken with the large audience. Thirty-four mission- very handsome increase in the receipts aries were named at this farewell meet- of the Board during the past year, and ing, either now on the way or soon to the good reports of work. from all go to their respective fields; going out parts of the mission field, give abunfor the first time. The total number dant occasion for thanksgiving and of new missionaries that have been good courage for the future.
III.':"'-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Madagascar. where we hope shortly to build a dwelling- house, leaving the town of Ambatondrazaka to Antsihanaka, May 1, 1890. our friend and colleague, the Rev. E. H. Strib- DEAR EDITons:-Herewith I enclose a copy ling, thus extending the mission. We are of circular on the subject of a Cottage Hos- already about 100 miles, or four days' journey, pital, which it is proposed togo on with imme- from any other missionary, and a new hospital diately here iu the heathen province of Antsi- has become an absolute necessity. We intend hanaka. You will note that this mission is to to build a suitable structure to accommodate be extended by our removing a day's journey about sixteen patients, and this comparafurther north, where we hope to have much tively small effort will cost about £250. It is blessing on the work in future years. I need our earnest desire to build it without assishardly trouble you with details, other than to tance from the society, if possible, and so we say that the Christian public at home should are making known the present position of not be allowed to run off with the generally- affairs to personal friends, and to the friends accepted idea, which is false, of the "ad- of missions in general. To the former, we vanced religious and social condition of the would suggest this as a fitting opportunity for island," referred to in a letter received yester- affording encouragement to lonely workers in day from a Christian friend at home. The a far country, which, added to the far higher fact is that Madagascar is about one-third consideration of helping on the work of God, simply evangelized, and that one-third -about we hope will prove a sufficient inducement to three-fonrths-civilized. The work of deepen- help forward this particular object. Almost ing and spreading the spiritual life is only the whole of the working expenses (except now beginning in the above one-third of the the very important items of medicines and island. The work of evangelization and estab- medical appliances) have been obtained for lishment of new missions is being carried out the last two years without any help from the in about half of the remaining two-thirds, society, our patients paying more than twowhich, like here in Antsihanaka, is heathen, thirds of the expense of board and nursing; without missionary agencies at all; and the many of our native friends, too, having conrest is in "gross darkness." tributed to this object." The above is only a very general way of looking at it as a whole, but still it will give a LETTER FROM DR. BROCKETT. good idea of how things really are here. Brooklyn, July 28, 1890. With kindest regards, DEAR DR. SHERWOOD:-I was very much in- JAMES G. MACKAY. terested in that part of Dr. Pierson's letter, in your August number, which treated of the [We regret that space permits only important questions of education and evan- gelization in the mission fields, and the coman extract or two from the printed parative success of the two methods, education first, and then evangelization, or evangeliztlr circular accompanying this letter.- tion first, followed by Ohristian education. EnS.] As I have been for many years studying these questions carefully, with reference to the , .. And now to come to the point of our re- missions of most evangelical denominations, I port. Our present hospital served well for a beg leave to offer a few thoughts, which Inay beginning, .but is now too small for us. Further, the directors of the L. M. S. have agreed to our removing to a more healthy spot at Imerimandroso, a day's journey to the north, be of service in the settlement of the difficult who had the privilege of hearing Rev. Dr. J. problem. E. Clongh, the Apostle to the Telugns, tell of his experience in endeavoring to carry the 1st. I find in our Lord's missionary tours in Gospel to that [,,,ople, will ever forget how Palestine that He devoted His instruction this matter presented itself to him. The mis- and preaching to .. the common people, who sion to the Telugns was founded in 1836, and heard Him gladly"-to" publicansand sinners, in 1866, thirty years later, when Mr. Clough who thronged to hear Him, and almost trode reached Ongola, there had not been a hun· upon one another to listen to the gracious dred native Telugns converted. There were words which He spake." He opened no about fifty members of the single church there, sChools, rabbinical or other, for Pharisees and but some of them were Tamils, English sol- Sadducees, practised no asceticism like the diers or sailors, or men of other nationalities, Essenes, but the burden of his discourses was and not to exceed 25 or 30 were Telugns. concerning the Kingdom of Heaven. There was one native assistant, and sChools had been maintained for instructing the chil- I cannot find that the Apostles opened any dren of Brahmins. The missionaries were ex. school to instruct or propagate the Gospel cellent men, men of deep piety and learning, which they preached. Paul tells us that it and thoroughly in earnest in their efforts to pleased God that by the foolishness of preach- win souls. But, somehow, they did not sucing mlln might believe, and that not many wise, ceed. The Brahmins were very friendly, ana not many learned were brought to the knowl- often called on them to discuss questions of edge of the truth-that" He had hidden these science, and if pressed on the subject of perthings from the wise and prudent, and revealed sonal religion, would reply that they were exthem unto babes." Throughout the Acts and amining the Christian doctrines, and were the Epistles, whether they were preaching to very favorably impressed with them, but Greeks, Romans or Barbarians, the theme desired time to consider. They did not wish was Christ, as the Saviour and Redeemer from to mingle with the lower castes, but thought sin, and no time was spent in endeavoring to they should, in time, come over to Chriscivilize or educate the people before convert- tianity. ingthem. When Mr. Clough came to Ongola, in 1866, 2d. I think it will be found in all modern they pursued the same course with him, and missions that the great snccesses have been at first deceived him; but his faithful assistachieved by following in the line of Christ's ant had preached the Gospel to the poor outexample. In almost every Asiatic mission casts (pariahs) at one of the out stations, and field there will be found two distinct classes, had sent some of the converts in one Saturday often of different origin, the one aristocratic to Mr. Clough for examination and baptism. and lordly, generally the ruling race, educated The Brahmins heard of it, and sent a message after their fashion, and looking down with to him, begging him not to disgrace himself contempt upon their ignorant inferiors. In and them by having anything to do with these India, this class are the Brahmins, proud, in- low and degraded people. The Brahmins telligent, in some respects the superioI'S in could not visit him Or hold any intercourse inteliectual culture of even the best European with him if he thus polluted himself. Mr. a,pd races. Their inferiors, who are gi-ound down Mrs. Clough devoted themselves to the study to the lowest degradation, are the men of low of the Word of God and prayer that night. caste or no caste at all. the pariahs or out- They found that they had erred in respecting casts. persons; they humbly confessed and repented of their sins, and the next day openly went to Many of our missionaries and missionary one of the large tanks in the city, baptized societies have made the mistake of trying to these converts, and preached the Gospel to convert the Brahmins first. They were so re- the poor, who had gathered by thousands to fined and cultured, so polite, and took so witness the ordinance. The Brahmins were much pleasure in discussing-religious ques- furious: they showed tHeir displeasure by tions with the missionaries, and sometimes cutting his acquaintance and reviling him confounding them with their dialectic skill, publicly, but the common people heard him that the poormissionaries indulged high hopes gladly, and received the word with joy. Bapof gathering a church whose members should tisms were constant, and in the ten years all be converied Brahmins, and through whom (1867-1877) preceding the famine, the church the whole nation should ere long Le brought at Ongola alone had received 4,394 members to Christ. It has now been about a hundred by baptism. After the famine, and Mr. (now years since missionary labor was commenced Dr.) Clough's noble and self-sacrificing efforts in India. Has anybody ever seen or heard of to relieve the sufferingcaused by it, the people a church there composed wholly of converted began to press into the kingdom of God, and Brahmins, who, as being all of. the highest to take it by violence. In 1Si'8, 8,691 were caste, did not need to break its bonds and defile baptized in six weeks-2,222 of them in one themselves by associating with Sudras or day-and during the 13 years since the ,,-ork Pariahs? Converied Brahmins there have certainly been, but never those who came in cempanies and retained their caste. Those has gone forward steadily, till on the first of was the only God to be worshipped. Now, January, IS90, there had been during the pre- contrast with this the Karen Missions in Burvious year, in the thirteen stations of that mah. Beginning in 1828 with the baptism of mission, 3,340 baptisms, and the number of a single convert brought to Christ by Dr. Judliving members at that date was 33,838. A son's efforts, it spread through Tavoy, Moullarge majority of these are people of low caste, mein, Rangoon, Bassein and Henzada within or of no caste, but of late the higher castes a dozen years, and has now extended wherehave begun to come in, and some Brahmins ever there are Karens. These people were among them. Of course, schools were neces- very poor; they were cruelly oppressed by sary after this rapid evangelization, and they their Burmese rulers; they were illiterate; have been provided liberally. There are sem- had no written language, till the misinaries for training native preachers (many of sionari.,s reduced their languages to writing; these poor people have developed remarkable they were not idolaters, and while they had abflities, both asscholars and preachers); there some:ideas of a Supreme Being they had never are high schools for girls and boys, and sta- heard of Christ, yet they came to Him at once tion-schools for instruction in the vernacular. when they did hear of Him, and in such num- In some of the stations there are caste schools bers, that for three years and more, under the for girls, in which ·the Bible is tanght, and fierce Burmese persecution, the thOllsands very soon the bonds of caste give way. The who were willing to die for Christ could not girls in these caste schools do not seem to be receive Christian baptism. They have in sixty superior in intellect or ability to their outcast years become an intelligent and powerful peosisters. There are connected with the mission ple, advancing from semi-barbarism to civilinow 47 missionaries, f!7 of them women-IS are zation, education and administrative ability, in America or Enrope. There is pressing need till the Government of British India, whose of at least 20 more missionaries. The number subjects they are, are putting them into places of native helpers is 421, of whom 204 (67 01'- of honor and trust in the place of the Burmese, .dained and 137 unordained) are preachers. whom they have found dishonest and untrust- The appropriations of the Missionary Union worthy. This wonderful change has come for all departments of the work in 1889-'90 solely by the preaching of the Gospel of ,yere $67,972, of which about one-half was for Christ, and in their case evangelization preschools. Here, out of 54 years of mission ceded education. They have had comparawork, only 24 have been productive of large tively few American missionaries (they have visible results. now 57, of whom only 20 are men). They have 560 native helpers, of whom 125 are or- Take another instance, which illustrates my dained pastors and evangelists, many of them point still more fully-the Baptist missions in the peers of our pastors in city or country, Burmah. Dr. Judson entered upon his mis- 492 churches, with a membership of 28,000, and sion to the Burmese in 1813. No abler or more an adherent population of about 175,000. Over· devoted missionaries have been connected 40,000 have died in these sixty years. They with any missions in the world than Dr. Jud- carryon Home and Foreign Missions with son and some of his associates; they were great success. Of course they have schoolslaborious, patient and persevering to a degree over 400 of them, with 11,000 pupils, all receivalmost beyond belief, yet six years elapsed ing an elementary Christian education; ten or before the baptism of the first convert. At twelve academies-some teaching English, but the close of the first Burmese war (1824-'26) all giving instruction in the Scriptures; a theothere were not more than 30 converted Bur- logical seminary, a college, and two highmese living, and now after 75 years of very grade high schools (boarding}-one of them earnest labor, with a large force of mission- with over 400 students. Their native preachers aries constantly in the field, and 63 (20 men are well educated, and their schools have reand 43 women) now at work, there are only ceived the highest praise from the Govern- 29 Burmese churches, with about 2,000 mem- ment Commissioners and inspectors for their bers (probably 4,000 or 5,000 have gone to thorough and critical scholarship. They are heaven in these 75 y£>-&rs). The reasons of growing spiritually; aboU:t 1,850 were bapthis scanty return are not far to seek. The tized the past year. Three·fourths of missionaries are not in fault; they have done their native pastors and four-fifths of the their work faithfully and well. They relied schools, including the costly high schools and to some extent on schools, in many of which college, are supported by the native churches, English was taught. The Burmese were and every church has a chapel of its own, proud, intelligent, imperious, and cruel in built by native Christians. Their contributions temper, bigoted in their Buddhism, and looked to church and benevolent purposes, taking all down with contempt on all other nations, es- their churches together, average $1.75 per peeially upon the Karen tribes, whom they member, while in the missions, where they held in a sort of peonage. They were glad of have plans of systematic beneficence, they the schools, because their children coul~ learn come up to $3.25 per member, and this where English, though they hated the English peo- $50 a year is considered a liberal salary. Here" ple, but they insisted that the Lord Buddha most certainly, education followed evangeli· missionary life does not allow of much time zation. for writing, but I am going to do better in the I might go on to speak of the Mallegassy, who certainly were evangelized before they future. In the meantime I send you an article had anything more than the most meagre education, but are now rejoicing in many good written by my husband, Rev. F. E. Hoskins. schools; of the Kohls, of Central India, Goss· ner's converts*-in this mission, also, evangel- On.him has fallen Mr. Dale's mantle, and it ization preceded education, and indeed educa· tion has not proceeded very far yet; and of is a heavy one, eombined with the study of many other missions of a like character, did space permit, but the points I want to make Arabic. We are feeling especiaJIy burdened are these: at this tillIe, as word has COme to retrench 1. That among the nations who profess and maintain the systematized false faiths- Zahleh station ($554). Buddhism, Brahmanism, Tauism, Moham- medanism – and even, in a somewhat less If we ask which of the out stations we will .degree, the doctrines of the Greek and Roman Cathoftc churches, and who have' a written close, it is like asking a man which of his chil- langnage and literature defending and ex- pounding their respective faiths,. progress in dren he can spare best. With the present evangelization will be slow by any method, and education will help very little, if at all. state of the Government, if we close we will Comparatively little impression has been made in Siam, in the Buddhist portion of not get permission to open again. It is hard China, and in Burmah, upon the Buddhists, .and general scientific education, however com- fighting to hold what we have, and no pros- plete it may have convinced the intellect, has not touched the heart. The same is pect o~ getting more. Turks and Jesuits make equally true of the educational assaults which have been made upon Islamism among the a trying combination. Three girls' schools Turks and other Mohammedan nations. That system of faith has too strong a hold upon have been closed; each one had over seventy the weakness of human nature to be readily relinquished. It does not seem that either the pupils; $40 each would run them to the end adherents of the Greek or the Roman Church have been often educated into Protestant of the year. Can yon not stir some heart to Christianity. Indeed, the results of the educative process have very often found to enure help us? Think of the large sums that were to these religions, e. g., Cardinals Manning, 'Wiseman and Newman, and many bishops raised at Northfield. and other perverts. We have church buildings that need repair; 2. It seems easily demonstrable that our Lord'S plan was to begin missionary work. we do not see how they can stand another with the poor, the lowly, the illiterate and the sinful; to present the dying, risen and glori- winter. fied Saviour to those who are conscious of t.heir You must pray that we may have patience need of such a Saviour from sin; and when the Gospel has lifted them up to Christian under discouragements, wisdom in' facing manhood and brought them to work for the salvation of others, then Christian education many vexing questions, and a great outpoursteps in, and prepares them to lead the hardened idolaters, by the force of a holy example, ing of God's Spirit. to Him who alone can save them. In my sister's absence I have the little organ L. P. BROCKETT. you sent her.* • Syria. During the last ten days I have had a guest Zahleh, Aug. 19, 1890. who formerly lived in Zahleh, so we have had DEAR DR. PIERSON:-YOu asked me to be one of your" Editorial Correspondents." My over a hundred callers, everyone has had a.
* I think the missionaries of the Society for glass of sherbet, about half have been fed; the Propagation of the Gospel, who have ab- with a little maid (Jeannette) to look after, sorbed tbis mission, overrate the conversions among the Kohls. They took over only 7,000, do you wonder that I do not write more? But and their latest report gives only 11,954 communicants. The 32,000 were only adherents. notwithstanding all, I have read the REVIEW for July and retailed its contents to my caIlers.
How we wish you could have extended your mission tour to Syria! You mustspend some time with us when you do come. Our home is near to the grand old ruins of Baalbec.
For some years I have been gathering suo perstitioI!s of these people. Very odd, and of course have their infiuence; and if sueb articles would be acceptable to you, will send one.
Mr. Hoskins is away for the day. Since Jan. 1st he has traveled more than 1,500 miles, 1,200 of these in the saddle, in all weathers and all hours of the day. Yours sincerely, Mas. F. E, HOSKINS.
Moravians not Lutherans.
Nazareth, Pa., Aug. 20, 1890. In the August number of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW (page 634), in the "Table of the Evan- gelical Lutheran Foreign Missionary Work," we find as the 27th Society (sic) the Moravian Church included among the Lutheran Mission- ary Societies, with the foot-note: .. The 110- * This little parlor organ was sent as a help in carrying on Sunday-school and prayer ser- vices. It was given by Bethany Church, Phila- delphia.~A. T. P.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
ravians have the same confession of faith as stuecke des christlichen Glaubens klar und the Lutherans." einfach ausgesprochen sind. Die Freiheit der " Gewissen unsrer Geschwister wird dadurch This is a very inaccurate and misleading in keiner Weise gebunden, insonderheit in statement. The official statement of the doc· solchen Laendern, wo die Augsburgische Kon· trine of the Brethren's or Moravian Church, fession nicht dieselbe Geltung hat, als in as determined by her General Synod, contains, Deutschland. ") among many other statements, this paragraph (freely "trausJated): "In common with all The peculiar position which the Moravian Christendom, the Moravian Church subscribes Church holds among the continental churches to the doctrines enunciated in the so-called makes it necessary for her to take some Apostles' Creed, and acknowledges further notice of the Augustana in order to retain her that in the 21 doctrinal articles of the Augs· legal standing and to carry on her work un· burg Confession the chief points of Christian trammelled. As a matter of fact the Moravian belief are clearly and simply defined. The Church technically has no "confession" of freedom of conscience of our memhers, how· her own, and binds herself to no confessioR of ever, is in no wise infiuenced by this state· any other church, while in all essential p<>ints ment, especially not in those countries where she agrees with the creeds of all Protestant the Augsburg COnfession is not of SO much Churches. She gladly co·operates with any importance, as in Germany." Results of the Protestant Church that will work with her. General Eiynod of 1889 : However, Moravians, as such, are in no sense of the word Lutherans, and Moravian mission (" Die Bruederkirche bekennt slch daher mit work has nothing whatsoever to do with the der gesammten Christenheit zu den im apo· Lutheran Church, although the Moravians stolischen Glaubensbekenntniose enthaltenen gladly and thankfully acknowledge that they Lehrsaetzen, und erkennt weiter, dasz in den have frequently received aid both from Ger· 21 Lehrartikeln der Augsburgischen Konfes· man and American Lutherans sion als dem ersten und allgemeinsten Be· kenntnis der evangelischen Kirche, die Haupt- PAUL DE ScHWEINITZ.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Kingdom of God in the Land of planet on which changes of most sig- its Origin. nificance in the tife of races of men, have, in recent years, taken place most [Condensed from an address of Rev. George rapidly, you must leave behind the F. Herrick, D. D., of Auatolia College and great cities of this land and of Europe, Marsovan Theological Seminary, at the 7th and pass over into Asia. Annual Meeting of the InternatIOnal Mission· ary Union, June 12, 1890.] I. GLANCE AT RECENT OTTOMAN mSTORY. Occidental life is proverbiaIlyrapid; Oriental life, we are all sure, is ex- Reference is not now made to tke ceedingly slow. We travel by ex- press a thousand miles a day. The restless and aspiring empire on the Asiatic still plods on horseback along ememe margin of Asia. I do not a bridle path, or, more recently, in assume to tell of India, where, accord- a springless wagon, over his twenty- ing to those best informed, the English four miles in twenty-four hours. He language has already become the lan- smokes his nargileh, and takes no note guage of all arms of the Government of time. He scratches the ground service, of travel, of all schools; the instead of plowing it; he threshes one vehicle of a progress whose silent his grain as his ancestors did 3,000 and bloodless revolutions are in happy years ago; he puts off his shoes contrast to the numberless revolutions and wears his hat when he enters a that have characterized the life of dwelling; he pulls a saw instead of India for thousands of years.
pushing it, he builds a city with mole I point to the fact that, twenty-nve tracks through it, and if he makes years ago, the Ottoman Empire posstreets at all, it is an after-thought, sessed a territory fully as large in and he burns out the needful spaces; Europe as in Asia, and almost equally by his watch it is always twelve o'clock as large in Africa. The dismember- when the sun sets. And with all this, ment of the empire in respect of terri- if you would find the portion of our tory and its depletion in respect of population, within a qnarter of a hopeful indication of possible entercentury, has been with a rapidity that prise seen in Turkey in modern times. would be startling if we could be Meantime Russia – that essentially startled with anything which is at Oriental Power illy domesticated as once distant and Oriental. yet in Europe-has played her game with singular fatuity in South-eastern Roumania and Servia are inde- Europe. There is no Power, great pendent kingdoms, Montenegro and or small, Slavic or Greek, German, Bulgaria are independent princedoms. French, Italian or English, that will Greeceis enriched by some of Turkey's consent to see Constantinople in the fairest provinces in Thessaly and control of Russia. We should not de- Epirus. Egypt is as much under spise those smaller States, anyone British control as India. Syria is of four can mass a trained army under European protection. England of a 100,000 men, and little Greece holds Cyprus, Austria dominates Her- can launch a fleet that would rival zegovina and Bosnia, Russia has ac- our own navy. But there is one quired Batoum, the most important Power, viz: Austro-Hungary, to which Black Sea port, and Kars, the key it is a question of life or death to keep fortress of Asia Minor. Russia out of Constantinople. The great northern Power may count on In place of 44,000,000 of pop- Austria's opposing her march southulation, the Ottoman Empire now ward and westward by the full force has about 23,000,000; the proportion of her army and her navy. It is of Moslems to Christians has greatly almost equally impossible for Russia changed. They were about equally to push far into Asia Minor on the divided; ?ww the Chritsian population east. She may take and hold Erzroom is but little more than one-fourth of easily enough. She may, perhaps, pass the entire number. Van and even Harpoot, where the Christian population is proportionally The seeming strength of Turkey large, and she may, if she will, push on during the years which followed the to the Euphrates, but she may not Crimean war was fictitious and de- pass on into the heart of Asia Minor. lusive. The semblance of prosperity There, from the Black Sea to the was kept up by immense loans at ruin- Arabian Desert, and from the Euphous rates. "Let the evil come when it rates to the Mediterranean, the Ottowill, so it be not in my day." So runs man people will live, and an Ottoman the Oriental proverb. Turkey was Power will rule for long years to come. rushing on to bankruptcy, at the very Nor is it easy, in the light of history, moment when she was constructing or on principles of justice, to see how an iron-clad fleet, and building palaces the Turks can be driven from Constanon every eligible site at and near Con- tinople, where they outnumber all stantinople. She did not build roads other races put together, or from nor develop her mines, nor undertake Adrianople, their ancient capital and commerce or manufactures, nor es- a Moslem City. tablish schools, except on paper. For two years after the commence- The record of the last disastrous war ment of the present Sultan's reign of twelve years ago is well known. Turkey exhibited the farce of Consti- Strangely enough, ever since then, the tutional Government, played at a policy of the Government of Turkey Parliament with representation from has been studiously cold toward Eng- the different races. But all this was, land, and friendly toward Russia. in the expressive language of one of the ablest mi.nisters our Government We must not fail to give the Turks ever had at the Sublime Porte-HoN. the credit of covering Asia Minor, within the last ten years, with a net work of carriage roads, built without the aid of foreign capital-the most Horace Maynard, "for EUl"opean con- and acknowledge the obligations of sumption." friendly European powers ?"
II.- TURKISH PATRIOISM. "That is all very well for you to There has, under the present Sultan, say," replied my friend, "but for us been a reaction against the liberal the problem is not to be solved in that ideas that prevailed during the years way."
following the Crimean war. Many "Do you mean to tell me," I asked good things can, with truth, be said of again, "that you would prefer to per- the reigning Sultan. He certainly de- ish, as an independent people, rather sires to secure justice and the welfare than owe your continued existence of all his subjects, but he is not a and your future prosperity, with what- liberal man, as we use the term. He ever that would necessarily imply of does not see that the traditions and European influence, to th,e aid of responsibilities of his House, with all Christian nations ?"
that these imply, constitute the load ,'Yes," he promptly answered,"that of lead which leaves him hopelessly is precisely what I-what all faithful weighted in the race with the rulers Mussulmans-mean."
of his age, even with the rulers of Can any true American fail to feel States which have been erected out of a thrill of responsive sympathy with what was just now his own domin- the patriotism, the devotion to ances- ions. If he would but cultivate a tral faith, which underlies that an- relation of real friendship toward swer? And does not such a spirit fur- Christian and especially Protestant nish a new incentive to bring the bless- and English-speaking' nations, the ings of our own civilization within Ottoman State might yet justify its the reach of every race in western place on' the arena of material, com- Asia-not to impatiently force a Chris- mercial, and even of intellectual and tianity, weighted with the gravest e),- moral progress, in western Asia. rors of teaching and of example, upon One chief reason why the Ottoman Moslem races, but, watchfully keep- Turks have been so greatly misunder- ing step with the unfoldings of God's stood and maligned is that we, of the providence, to exhibit before Moslem 'Vest, in defiance of a wise maxim, eyes, at all points, the winning graces none too often quoted, have never of truly Christian example?
taken the pains to see and consider We should never forget that when the Turkish problem from the stand- Islam rose, in the first half of the sev- point of the Turks themselves. Less enth century, it was confronted by, vituperation and wholesale, and really and was a protest against, some of the unjust, condemnation, and more con- most corrupt forms of Christian doc- siderateness would greatly benefit trine and worship, some of the worst every party in interest. caricatures of Christian living, in Some time since, in conversation Arabia and northern Africa, that the with an enlightened Turkish official, world has ever seen.
on the Bosphorus, I criticised the un- Those reckless raids from Europe wisdom of his government in deliber- into Asia, called, in bitter irony, "holy ately keeping foreign capital from en- wars," in the eleventh and following tering Turkey, to construct railroads centuries, violently repelled Moham- and develop her mineral resources. medans from Christianity. How could "But," he replied, "if foreign capital they do otherwise? The expulsion of be welcomed the interference of the Moors from Spain, early in the foreign powers must be accepted sixteenth century, under the greatly too." over-praised Queen Isabella-is any "What harm can it do to govern- 'right or justice discoverable in that ment or people," I asked, "to receive movement on the Christian side, ex- ,eept the right of might? The author worldly men; examples-that is, more read, some years ago, in Turkish, cer- . than 10,000 members of evangelical tain trenchant articles of historic cri- churches in Asia Minor now–of his- ticism, from the pen of an enlightened fellow country~en who are true, liv- and acute Turk, which presented a ing disciples of their master. Evan- long array of facts from the history of gelical worship attracts, it does not Christian Europe, in a fashion not repel the Moslem. Protestant Chris- likely to win Moslem minds to an ac- tian doctrine does not, like the bald eeptance of Christianity. "orthodoxy" of the Eastern Church, And not only in the earlier years, set his reason continually at defiance.
but all down through the later centu- We must not, however, suppose that l"ies, in all western Asia, the Moslem, the Turks officially recognize the right with his clear-cut doctrine of God, or contemplate the contingency of and his sharp recoil from every sem- Mohammedans becoming Christians.
blance of idolatry in worship, with his To this degree, religious liberty is not sobriety and his generous hospitality, yet a fact. Still, in the face of dif- has pointed, with a certain contempt, ficulty and opposition, scarcely con- to the Christians around him, as less ceivable by us, some Mohammedans sober, less truthful, less hospitable, have become Christians, have lived less manly than himself, with a form and died as shining examples of Chris- of religious worship redolent of idola- tian confessors as the early ages ex- try, while his own is simple and pure, hibited. To-day there is, in a town even if it be exposed to the charge of of Asia Minor, a young Turkishwoman lifeless formality. who witnesses a good confession in the We do not say the Moslems' charge house where she was born, enduring against Christil¥lity and Christians is repeated beatings and living down cal- true. Clearly it is not true, but it is umny by Christian gentleness-who not strange the charge is made. The told her Christian sisters, only in ans- vitality and the vigor of the. Christian wer to their inquiry one day in meet- races, their better morality, their men- ing, why her arm was in a sling, that tal and moral elasticity under centu- her brother's last beating broke it.
ries of oppression, is one of the marvels Once, in conversation with one ~f of God's government of Asia. Why the most liberal and best educated do the Christian races remain in kindly Turks of the present age, a man who neighborhood to the Moslem races, has, at one time or another, filled all through western Asia, but to be to nearly all the highest offices of the them in the coming years, the means ~tate, I referred to a well-known of the largest blessing? And who are case of religious persecution that had to be theagents, and what theagencies, recently occurred. He drew me up for which those races have silently sharp on the expression, "religious and sullenly waited for so many gen- persecution," and said, "No religious ,erations? persecution is possible under our Gov- m.-OUR GRAND OPPORTUNITY. ernment. A man's faith is his own, It was, in God's providence, com- between himself and God only, and mitted to American Christians, to re- Government cannot interfere with it."
~stablish vital Christianity in the land "What, then, shall we call the ~f its origin. Call it duty, call it high case?" I asked.
privilege, thEl responsibility, the un- "Why," he replied, "it is perfectly "dertaking, is ours, to put the Bible into plain. The man renounced his ances- Moslem hands and then set before his tral, the national, faith, in which he ~yes living examples of a true and a owes duties to the State. All right, so pure Christianity by which alone the far. But he has publicly avowed his Bible is illustrated to the conviction of renunciation, and declared himself a Christian. In so doing he has com- we that we should withstand God!" mitted a civil offence, and it is, for this The Church of Christ sends out her alone, that he is arrested and pnt un- challenge, "You can do nothi-.g der discipline." against the Truth but for the Truth !"
That is, being a Christian is all right Nearly sixty years ago the Turkish for a born Moslem, if only he will never Government demanded that those say he is above a whisper. pioneer missionaries, Goodell, Schauf- fler and Dwight, be sent out of the In the meantime, as the years have country. Our ambassador, Commo- passed, the Christian races have reo dorePorter, communicated the order. sponded, more and more widely, to evangelical influence. It has pene- "Do you order us to go ?" they asked: traLed all parts of the country. Ameri- "No, I only notify you of the de- can Christian philanthropy has, mand of the Government, and of my through the several departments of inability to protect you," the work, planted the Christian home, "Then we notify you that we de- the evangelical church, developed cide to stay," they replied. Christian education, created through Political events, which shook the the press a periodical and permanent throne and resulted in the destruction Christian literature in the several lan- of the Janizaries and the introductiou guages, begun to establish Christian of European forms of law, hastened philanthropic institutions, and every- on and the missionaries were forgot- where fostered, together with loyalty ten. During all that crisis, and up till to the' existing Government, ideas of the close of the Crimean war, the freedom and of justice. American cit- leading mind, the most imperial presizens have established institutions, an ence at the Turkish capital, was that extensive Bible-house, churches, high- Christian Statesman, Lord Stratford' schools, colleges and seminaries. They de Redcliffe, of England. have acquired property in a hundred As evangelical influence extended different places all over the country. among Armenians, Greeks and Syri- These business interests have become ans, the persecuted Protestants found the care of our Government through aid and comfort from the Turks, as its-official representatives. The power the Jews who rebuilt the temple found of the United States flag is second to aid and protection from Cyrus. none. The Turks have no reason for Twenty years ago, in the Koordislt jealousy of the great republic across mountains, above the city of Mosul, a the sea. Illiberal men, in the govern- young Arab Koord, a born Moslem. ment and out of it, are jealous of was dipping deep into Mohammedan evangelical progress, and wish it had lore, at the feet of a famous teacher, not gained so strong a foothold in the his total wardrobe, a shirt; his food, land. But many Turks see that ,they the coarse bread of the tribe; his bed, also may profit by those ideas that the ground. He committed the Koran Protestant Christianity everywhere to memory, he acquired a most involves and develops, viz: The su- thorough knowledge of' Arabic, of premacy of truth and justice, the in- Moslem law, tradition, history, sciviolability of the individual consci- ence, and interpretation. He found" ence, and individual and social edu- one day, the binding of an Arabic cation and elevation. Bible which had been destroyed. Afterwards, when a teacher at Mozul, IV.-DIVINE INTERPOSITIONS. he sought, found, bought a Bible in Arabic, read and studied it, was in- The modern history of western Asia structed in it by Deacon Michah, as is a history of divine interpositions, Apollos by Aquilla, accepted Christi- These have been so accentuated, that anity as true, accepted Christ as his. men of the world, however highplaced, may well exclaim, "Who are Slaviour, was obliged to flee his part come, found him interested in anti- of the country, came to the Bible trans- quities, of which there are specially lators'room,in the.Constantinople Bible fine relics near where he had lived.
House, and aided in giving the Bible to In fine, we made ourselves as agree- the Ottoman race, a special aid very able as we knew how, not forgetting few men living could have given; to give His Excellency a cordial invi- found of God, led of God, and taken tation to visit our college and other home-to God when,the work was done. schools. "I was just about to mount Permission was asked to print the my horse to do that wnen you called,"
Biblein the Osmanly, and was refused. he said. "Ah, indeed," we replied, After long months of argument, of "then, our call and invitation are propositions and counter-propositions, quite opportune!" They were indeed.
the Board of Censors unwittingly did Thus forewarned, all was in readi- the greatest possible service to the ness at the college to receive the Gov- spread of God's Word, by condition- ernor with all respect. We showed ing the permission on the placing of him all through the buildings; he ex- the statement of the fact of Govern- amined classes, asked to see our text- ment permission on the title-page of books. Among our books he found every copy; and the time when the one of his own composition, and, nat- final version was launched was fixed urally, was not displeased with the by the Author of the Word Himself. It delicate compliment. He visited the was just as the last war closed, just as girls' boarding-school, enjoyed the the last sharp crisis of the Eastern choral singing, and, as he mounted question was attracting all eyes, that his horse at my door, he leaned over, God, by his Word, in the language of and said, "I have been greatly pleased all the people, sent forth His challenge with all I have seen; you may rely on to the Cabinets of Europe, set His wis- me for a report every way favorable.
dom face to face with their folly. And I wish we had such schools in every between that time and this, inquiry city."
concerning the Bible has become as And he meant what he said, as after common among TUl:ks, as before it echoes clearly showed. God's special was rare. They inquire from curiosity, guidance was conspicuous at every it may be, but many do buy and read point of this incident.
God's Word. V.-THE OPPORTUNITY MET.
Four years ago, just as Anatolia The evangelical centres in Turkey College was organized under that now number more than 300. These name, a demand was made through are the centres of influence, extending the local government that we procure from the extreme western border to· from the central government at Con- the farthest east, and from the Black stantinople a formal recognition of Sea to the Arabian desert. The in- our college. Meantime, one morning fluence of the evangelical press is the we learned that the Governor-General leading influence in the department of had come to town over night. We literature. The newly established, hastened to call upon His Excellency, and rapidly growing girls' boarding and invite him to visit our schools- schools, have already revolutionized all the difference in the world from the country in respect of female ectu- which side the invitation comes. In cation.
the court-yard of the house where the But there, as everywhere, the col- governor was entertained were horses, lege is the leader; and Robert College saddled and ready for mounting. We on the Bosphorns, and Syria Protest- were received in audience, praised the ant College at Beirout, and Euphra- public-spirit he had shown in the tes College at Harpoot, and Central province from which he had recently Turkey College at Aintab; and now. the last four years, Anatolia College at guiding all in the interest of His Jllarsovan, in the heart of Anatolia- church, is, by our hands, re-estab- these are the challenges of Christian lishing His Kingdom in the lands of America to the darkness of Asia. Its origin.
Once the comparative importance of The work will not stop for discus- educational and evangelistic agencies sion and criticism. The army of God was a subject of animated discussion will march right onward, and with in missions and missionary societies, accelerated step; and the legacy we .and among the churches of this coun- will commit to those who come after try and of Great Britain. This dis- us will be to hand on our Lord's com- -cussion is a thing of the past. Edu- mission, "Go, make disciples of all the cational work, as represented and led nations," and the testimony and as- by Christian colleges–colleges in- surance we will offer to the diffident tensely Christian and Biblical-is shall be, that the Master ever fulfills His promise to be with His chosen, pressed, and to be pressed to the ut- amid all toil and conflict. Great will most possible-that is, just as far as be the multitude, who, with no alloy resource.9 can be obtained with which of sin, will chant the Hallelujahs of to carry on the work. On this all are the heavenly choir. . agreed. There is no consensus of The Brussels Anti-Slavery Oonference. those interested in the evangelization -of the world which is more perfect; The Christian world has occasion to .and the economy of administration of rejoice in the late Brussels Conference these institutions may be shown by the of signatory Congo powers, and to statement that the actual sum used to carefully study its proceedings. Per- run Anatolia College is one per cent. haps it is not too late-it is rather ·of the cost of running Yale or Cornell doubtful if it may not be too early-to University. The American Christian pass in review what it did. College-these three words are used .advisedly-The American Christian King Leopold of Belgium was the college is the hope and light of Asia. official source of the Convention; but This institution, with its Biblical in- delegates from Great Britain, Austriastruction, with its thorough culture, Hungary, Belgiuin, Congo Free State, with its pervasive Christian spirit, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, with its development of manly, self- Italy, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, reliant Christian character; this in- Sweden and Norway, Turkey, the stitution, in which the preachers and United States and Zanzibar, were the teachers are prepared for their present. work, in which men of affairs are trained for the responsibilities that are The object of the Conference was coming upon them in all eastern lands plainly as possible stated in the circuin this fl.nd the next generation: this lar of invitation issued by Leopold, American Christian college is the which was "the necessity of effectively pledge of a Christian home, of a per- preventing the slave-trade in the inmanent and self-propagating church, terior of Africa, the capture of slaves of all true progress and harmony of destined for sale, and their transport races, of the gradual realization of by sea, which can Qnly be stopped by free and just government in those the organized display of force greater lands of Asia, for ages and centuries than that at the disposal of those who oppressed and groping amid the dark- take part " in the traffic. ness which has enveloped them. This was not the first Convention of Seen or unseen by our eyes, God, the great Powers held to consider the by His Word in every language, by main question. What is known as the Christian example, by education, Berlin General Act had already pro- vided that "All the Powers exercising rights of sovereignty, or any influence 6, ThQ Liquor traffic. 7, General Proin the territories in question,undertake visions, and 8, The Custom's regulato watch over the preservation of the tions of the Congo Valley. native races, and the improvement of their moral and material conditions THE SLAVE TRAFFIC. of existence, and to co-operate in the suppression of Slavery, and especially 1. The maritime trade in slaves was in the negro traffic; they will protect first considered as the part where and favor, without distinction of na- united action could be made most ef-· tionalities or worship, all religious fective if agreement could be come to. The sensitive point here was on the· scientific or charitable institutions and "right of search," whether on the high seas, or in territorial waters, over all undertakings, created and organized sailing vessels,under any Hag, suspect-· ed of being engaged in the slave-trade. for this object or tending to instruct France was specially sensitive on this· point. She, after a month, suggested the natives and make them under- a series of new measures for the pre- vention of the abuse of the French stand and appreciate the advantages Hag, and for checking the crew and passenger-lists at places of departure, of civilization." call and destination. The British government proposed a compromise, It had been fUrther provided that, subjecting only vessels of 500 tons, and under, to the right of supervision and "In accordance with the principles of detention on the high seas, which was agreed to, unless slavers of over 500 the law of nations as recognized by tons shall hereafter be discovered.
the signatory Powers, the slave-trade 2. The suppression of the foreign market was also a delicate and difficult being forbidden, and the operation part of the general question. It is the existence of slavery in foreign counwhich on land and on sea furnish tries which keeps alive the maritime traffic. Abolish that in countries outslaves for the traffic also being consid- side of Africa and the motive for the slave traffic on the high seas is extinered as forbidden, the Powers which guished. The eastern market for exercise, or shall exercise, rights of slaves must be broken down, as a part sovereignty or any influence in the of the general plan to destroy the territories forming the conventional African traffic in slaves. basin of the Congo, declare that these territories cannot serve either as a It is readily seen that this touched market or as a means of transit of most delicate lines of diplomatic slaves, of whatsoever race they may courtesy. Had Turkey been invited be. Each of these Powers undertakes to this general council, to learn that to employ all the means in its power the combined European Powers would to put an end to this traffic and to interfere here and thus with her terpunish those who take part in it." ritorial authority ? Was anyone of these Powers to find in this Congress a It was, however, recognized that dictator domineering its independence as a State? This was, indeed, a delithese most excellent provisions and cate matter. The Conference could do no less, however, than deprecate the understandings were too inoperative, influence of such domestic slavery, and it thus brought the force of Euroand the British House of Commons, in pean public opinion to bear directly March 1889, said so. In August of that year the Queen of Great Britain said in her speech that the King of Belgium had consented to call the Conference of which we now write, and it convened in Brussels November 18,1889.
The three great topics which it traversed were the slave-traffic and the means to suppress it, the importa- tion of fire-arms and the liquor traffic.
The chapters of the work as completed deal with-1, Places of capture of Slaves. 2, The Caravan routes. 3, The Maritime traffic in slaves. 4, The Countries of destination. 5, Institu- tions created for the purpose of insur- ing the execution of the general act.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
()n Turkey and Persia in the matter l.-The territory to be regulated ()f slavery in those lands. The rash- in the matter of fire-arms extends n€ss of this influence is manifest. through 42 degrees of latitude (from 20 degrees north to 22 degrees south), An effort was made to provide for from coast to coast, and a hundred the regulations of caravans for the miles seaward. prevention of slave-trading expeditions. It was sought to exact security 2.-The principle of prohibition is from the chiefs and organizers of laid down, with exceptions. The ~aravans, and for the examination of arms are to be deposited in Govern- ~aravans at their places of destination ment warehouses and taken out only inland, as well as on the coast. No se- on permission, and are not to include curity from caravan organizers, how- the most improved weapons. €ver, was feasible, as these caravans seldom return to their starting points THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. with the same elements. They are renewed from place to place among the If the rights of humanity are to be tribes they pass, remain long at the conciliated with the interests of trade, ~entre, and return to the coast at dif- so far as such interests are legitimate, ferent points. The security, how- as the Conference proposed to attempt, ever, it was agreed, is to be demanded the liquor question had to be dealt ()f those who had already been con- with. The Conference distinguished demned for slave-trade.offenses. between regions where no traffic in liquors had begun and those where it FIRE-ARMS. already existed. For the first of these, the British delegates proposed absolute But slavery was only one feature of prohibition, and for the second, a the great task to which the Powers heavy duty on the importation of had pledged themselves to each other, liquor. The Conference agreed to the when they undertook "to watch over prohibition in the cage of races with the preservation of the native races, whom at present no trade exists; but and the improvement of their moral it was not so easy to reach a concluand material conditions." sion on the other cases. The powers had themselves agreed to Free Trade in From 80,000 to 100,000 muskets and the Congo Basin; how could they then rifles, mainly the disused arms of Eu- now agree to a duty on liquor in that ropean standing armies, are imported districr, and yet, how could they keep annually into Zanzibar alone, and this great channel into the interior of these fire-arms are bartered to Arab Africa from becoming contaminated traders for ivory and other inland with the liquor traffic, unless they products. If the negro is to be pro- prohibited or restricted by the impotected from the slave hunter this slave sition of a duty? The races of the hunter must be disarmed. That was second class, or those among whom a the argument. But there are great traffic in liquors is already established, trade interests which require arms it was agreed that there should be al!l for their conduct and defence. France impost of l~d. or 3 cents per quart, here, was zealous for total prohibition this duty to be subject to advance at throughout Africa. Others would the expiration of three years. limit the territory. Two things seem to have been decided upon: V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY SECRETARY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
Brazil. to a republican form of government The year 1890 is the most eventful without bloodshed, renders it proper of all years in Brazilian history. The that the November concert of prayer fact that an empire has given place for Brazil should be largely an occasion for thanksgiving. Civil liberty is fol- standpoint. Whoever will examine lowed as it always has been by liberty our constitution will there read that ()f conscience. There is now perfect the Apostolic Roman Catholic religion ~ualityofreligious privileges among is the religion of the State; that the Emperor, Senators, Deputies, and all all sects. the public officers, are obliged by pub- The following outline of the pro- lic and solemn oath to maintain and defend it, and that the criminal code clamation of religious freedom issued establishes punishments for any of- after the establishment of repub- fence against it.
lican order will show how completely " A people that, by its fundamental the new authorities have overthrown law, gives special privileges to Roman the assumptions of the Papacy. Catholicism, and seeks by oath to "The text of a decree of the Provisional . guarantee it; that requires its profes- Government of the United States of Brazil of .January 7, 1890, states in substance: sion as a condition of holding office; 1. That Federal and State authorities alike that considers penal all offences against it, ought to be regarded as profoundly religious, eminently Cathare prohibited to expedite laws, regulations, olic. But an observer, looking only or administrative acts establishingor prohibit- at our political Constitution and penal ing any religion, or to create distinctions code, would infer that Brazil is a dis- between inhabitantsof that country on account sonant chord in the infernal chorus of ofreligious and philosophicbeliefsor opinions. imprecations against the Catholic 2. That all religious denominations have Church.
equal rights ~o liberty of worship, and to gov- "But," continues the writer, "let .em themselves in accordance with their us look on the other side of the picture.
respective creeds without being constrained in Whoever reads the history Qf Brazil the acts, private or public, which pertain to in these latter times will learn that the the exercise of this right. Government destroyed, by an edict, 3. The liberty hereby instituted shall em- the religious orders, J?rohibiting the brace not only individuals in their personal receiving of any nOVItiates; that no .acts, but also churches, associations, and insti- country pays such insignificant sal- tutes in which they may be Joined; to all of aries to its church officials; that two which belongs the right to organize and main- bishops were shamefully imprisoned tain their corporate existence in conformity for observing faithfully the Pontifical with their creeds and policy, without the Bull; that the priests are hindered on interference of the Government. every hand in the fulfillment of their duties; that any act directed against 4. That patronage with all its Institutions the Church is applauded; that a .and prerogatives is hereby abolished. bishop, respected even in Protestant countries, here has not the privileges 5. That the legal capacity of churches and of the most humble citizen. As to religious denominations to acquire and admin- the churches, some are already fallister property is recoguized within the limit ing into ruin, while others are comof the laws concerning mortmain, securing pletely stripped of their parapherto each their possession of their present nalia." properties, as well as their houses of worship. The writer goes on to show that the Over against this full and complete guaranty of freedom, the following attitude of the press is no more favorquotation from a Brazilian Catholic paper of ten years ago will show what able to the Church than the Governthe ideal empire was supposed to be in those bygone days. It is a jere- ment. With the exception of five or miad uttered by a bigoted Catholic editor over the inroads which had al- six Catholic papers in the whole em- Ieady been made upon the old regime • f intolerance and oppression, even pire (there is the difficulty) the press under the mild and progressive sceptre of Dom Pedro II. of the country is either indifferent or . "What is the religion of the Brazilian people?" says the writer. openly hostile to the Apostolic Roman " At present, this country (Brazil) is Catholic Church• in an abnormal and contradictory Yet, bad as the case seems for the Catholic, the writer spurns the idea that Brazil is, or is to be, a Protestant country. "Here and there a Protest- ant Church, frequented by a few dozen souls, is all that we see of Pro- position, viewed from a religious testantism. It is clear that with such a state of affairs soon there will be no ernment. This fact doubtless pre- religion at all in Brazil." vented Brazil from becoming a repub- Well, the evil has not mended, as lic during that series of revolutions in seen from the writer's standpoint, and the Spanish States of Central and to an enlightened American reader it South America which followed as a seems that just such specimens of result of Napoleon's usurpation of narrow bigotry as this must have power in th(l Spanish Peninsula.
been the very means of bringing about The home revolution, which oc- the fulfillment of all dark prophe- curred in Portugal in 1820, led the cyings. people of Brazil to demand a govern- More than-was predicted has been ment quite distinct from that of the fulfilled. Doubtless, it is in the mother country, and in 1822 it was power of the priesthood to obstruct declared an independent sovereignty, the extension of Protestant freedom under the heir-apparent, Dom Pedro L and enlightenment to a greater or less A year later the Portuguese court em- extent, but the civil authorities are on barked for Portugal, no more to re- the side of equality, the press willcast turn, and in 1825 Dom John formally its influence in the same direction, abdicated in favor of Dom Pedro I., and the whole spirit and drift of the and the independence of Brazil was age are against the hierarchical as- acknowledged by Portugal.
sumptions which have so long cursed In 1831, Dom Pedro I., alarmed by the country. another movement toward republi- Now that Brazil has joined the large canism, as he thought, abdicated in group of American republics, with favor of his son, Dom Pedro IL, then all the religious freedom enjoyed by five years old, and embarked for the most highly favored, a glance at Europe. Some injudicious republican its eventful history will be in place. agitations which occurred during the The country was discovered in 1499 regency prepared the country for an- by the Spaniard, Vincent Yonez Pin- other trial of monarchy, and on the con, though it was first settled by the 23d of July, 1840, Dom Pedro II. was Portuguese under Alvarez Cabral in proclaimed emperor.
1500. Other small Portuguese settle- This remarkable man, thus pro- ments were made between 1500 and claimed the sovereign of a vast empire 1550. of 3,288,000 square miles, or nearly as Rio de Janeiro was settled in 1558 large as Europe, doubtless owed his by the French as an asylum and a long reIgn to the enlightened and mission field for the Huguenots. By liberal policy which he was wise the adverse influences of shipwreck enough to adopt.
and the treachery of Villegagnon, the While the Spanish-American repub- leader of the colony, it was utterly lics were tossed with political convul- broken up, and Protestantism, as well sions, Mexico alone having experienced as French influence, was swept out of over fifty between the years 1821 and the country. 1867, Brazil, with quite as much real Brazil came under the power of political freedom as they, held on her Spain in 1578 by the assumption of peaceful way. Dom Pedro became em.
the crown of Portugal, but was re- peror at the age of fourteen, and con.
stored in 1648 on the accession of the tinued to reign for nearly fifty years.
Braganzas to the Portuguese throne. Few sovereigns have been able to In 1807, upon the invasion of Portu- maintain a sceptre so long in the gal by Napoleon's army, King Dom midst of a mercurial people, and sur· John VI., appointing a regent at Lis- rounded on every side by nations with bon, fled to Brazil and established which revolution seemed to be the- there the seat of the Portuguese Gov- normal condition of political existence._ But in late years the more advanced priesthood has so long been associated of the Spanish republics have attained with habits of profligacy and vice. and to greater stability; the increase of the hollow sham of mere official sancwealth, and the multiplication of tity, that the intelligent classes have manufacturing and commercial il;l- become infidel, while every form of vestments have rendered the ruling error-8piritualism, Theosophy, Nihilclasses more conservative, and their ism, and even Mohammedanismrapid and prosperous development have been imported; and a paralysis has spurred the aspirations of Bra- of general indifference has settled upzilians for complete freedom. At the on the country. same time, the gloomy outlook. of a possible reaction toward It tyranni- Yet, there are not wanting many incal absolutism under the probable stances of encouragement, especially successors to Dom Pedro's throne, led in the country districts, where the in- Brazilian statesmen to the conclusion fluence of foreign contact has been that the opportune moment had al- little felt. In the last reports of the ready come for a Republic. Brazilian Mission of the Presbyterian Board (North). there is evidence that The world was, therefore, suddenly the most fruitful source of results is startled by a peaceful revolution, the native ministry. The chief inwhich had been precipitated in the gatherings of converts into the quiet evening of Dom Pedro's reign. churches during the last year were in rather than wait for the dubious congregations ministered to by native morning of a bigoted and impracti- pastors. And the argument thus furcable sovereignty in the hands of his nished for the education of young nafanatical daughter. tives for this important field is strong and significant. Thus, under the pressure of an irrepressible longing for liberty, on the The Northern Presbyterian Mission part of the people, there have been reports at the close of 1889, 9 churches three notable embarkations of royalty and 5 ordained missionaries, -8 nativQ for Europe. First, in 1825, when Dom preachers and 22 teachers. The num- John VI. acknowledged the indepen- ber of communicants is 1,009-153, or dence of the Brazilian Monarchy under about 11 per cent., having been added his son, Dom Pedro 1. Second, in 1831, during the year. when Dom Pedro I., alarmed at the appearance of republican tendencies, The great educational centre of this abdicated in favor of his five-year old mission is at Sao Paulo, where 395 puson, Dom Pedro II., and, with what pils of all grades are under instruction. seems a cowardly desertion, left him Under the efficient management of alone and returned to Europe. And, Dr. Lane and his associates a noble last of all, when Dom Pedro, nearly work has been accomplished during 60 years later, was obliged to renounce the year. Dr. Chamberlain, who has a sceptre which he had swayed with labored in connection with the Sao rare moderation for half a century, Paulo institution for many years, is and sail away an exile to the land of now in this country raising funds his fathers, to find there so soon a to endow it as a college for the traingrave for his empress as well as for ing of native ministers and teachers. his life-long hopes. The success gained by the few native pastors during the year is too instruc- Brazil enjoys now perfect freedom tive to need enforcement. of opinion, but it is rather late to reap the harvest which might have been A NATIVE MINISTRY. gained years ago. Other things being equal, a native The cause of religion has so long preacher familiar with the idiom of suffered discredit, the idea of the his mother-tongue, and at one with the people in all his habits of thought, can reach his countrymen far more ons mission in the Argentine republic, effectively than a foreigner. Besides, at with five ordained missionaries and least three natives can be supported as 15 native preachers. Eight stations cheaplyas one missionary. If we add are occupied,.of which Buenos Ayres to this, the fact shown in the Brazilian is the chief. I reports, that four-fifths of the con- In Uruguay there is but 1 ordained verts have been won in the out-stations missionary, but 8 native preachers are under native preachprs, we have a at work; 7 stations are occupied, the pretty strong argument for the educa- largest of which is Montevideo.
tion of more Brazilians and for the Paraguay, Brazil and Peru are also building up of a strong and efficient occupied by the Methodist Episcopal college and theological seminary. Church, each with OIie station. In While at Sao Paulo a given number all these South American missions, a of men shall be trained for the first total membership of 882 is reported, rank of preachers and leaders, it is also 688 probationers. The total num- felt that an institution of a different ber of adherents is reported at 8,935.
grade and, perhaps, having something The missions are apparently charac- of the industrial element, should be terized by remarkable vigor, and all opened for the practical preparation friends of the cause will rejoice that of a clsss of men of lower grade of an influence so directly opposite to the scholarship to be employed in evangel- droning and stagnation of the Rom- istic work in the interior districts. ish church for nearly three centuries Probably this diversity of education past is now awakening these south- should be observed in all the South ern races.
American republics. The enterprise with which the mis- The old order of things is every- sions are carried on is shown by the where passing away. The days when fact that the mission reports $222,290 ignorance was the safe cover for in church property-viz: in churches, religious oppression have gone. Under $190,290, and in parsonages and or- the new impulse imparted by republi- phanages, $32,800, can institutions, schools and colleges The contributions reported in the will be multiplied by Government, and missions in 1889-90 are reported at they will be indifferent in religion ex- $11,205 for self-support, and $13,666 cept so far as they are infidel. for other purposes-a total of $24,871.
The Roman Catholic Church, by a Of conversions 89 were reported, and radical and politic change, will either 335 baptisms of infants. These vigor- compete on the ground, or will im_ ous missions are represented by only port well educated 'priests from Eu- 6 ordained missionaries. " . rope, and Protestantism must not be THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH open to contempt as the repreSenta- (SOUTH).
tive of an ignorant ministry. Some Missions in Brazil begun in 1875. The men must be well prepared, others first Conference was held in 1887, at must not be out of relation and sym- Sao Paulo. There are 7 local preach- pathy with the rural masses-all ers, and 288 church members. Eleven should be filled with a devoted.spirit. Sunday-schools with 33 teachers OTHER SOUTH AMERICAN MISSIONS. and 339 pupils are reported. Three Of the flourishing mission of the church buildings at Rio, Piracicaba Southern Presbyterian Church in Bra- and Juiz de Fora are valued at $52,938.
zil and the missions of the Northern Contributions dur-ing the year amount- Presbyterian Church in U.S. Columbia ed to $2,221. Bishop Granberry's re- and Chili, there is not space to write port credits the Woman's Missionary in the present article. The Methodist Society for all the educational insti- Episcopal Church (North) has a vigor- tutions of the mission, viz•• 2 colleges,
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
with'4 missionary teachers, and 13 as- the inhospitable shores of Terra del sistants and 143 pupils. Fuego, grew the South American Mission. His heroism roused all the MORAVIAN MISSION IN SURINAM, DUTCH best manhood, as well as the most de- voted Christian sentimentof England. GUIANA. It was resolved that, by the grace of God, so noble an attempt should not In this interesting Mission 17 sta- fail. It was another of the many in- tions are reported with 71 "mission- stances in which sacrifice and death ary agents," and 377 native helpers. have brought forth more abundant The communicants are 8,313, baptized fruit than a long and laborious life adults, 7,408; baptized children, 8,901; could have accomplished. By the re- candidates, new people, etc., 1,640. port of 1888, the South American S0- Total, 26,262. The missions carried on ciety received contributions, amount- by all Protestant societies in the three ing, with legacies, to $70,000. They Guianas are all attended by peculiar came generally in the form of indivi- hardships. These hot and malarious dual gifts. and from every land in countries have been settled from time which Englishmen wide. to time by the captives rescued from slave-ships. In fact, they were, in It will be remembered that the the early days, regarded as rendezvous late Charles Darwin, after actually for all refuse and castaway classes of seeing the work done in Terra ael humanity, and the population consists Fuego, became a supporter of the S0- -of colonies of English, Dutch, French, ciety. and Spanish, with every cross and grade, with bush-~egroes (the larger The work takes on a wide variety. -class), Indians and Asiatic Coolies. It is directed largely to the Indians in Terra del Fuego, Patagonia, and Para- The susceptible and half-savage guay, but also to chaplaincies in the bush-Negro, on the banks of the low ports and for the seamen of all nations. .and marshy rivers, affords the hope- It embraces the Falkland Islands, ful, because fruitful, field of labor for Terra del Fuego, Wollaston Islands, 1he self-denying Moravian. the Argentine Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Chili. Of almost equal interest with the mission in Surinam, is that of the Mo- The Earl of Aberdeen is its presiravians on the Mosquitoe Coast. It dent, and many eminent names of reports 12 missionaries, and 490 com- England, both clerical and lay, are municants. among its vice-presidents. It has 1 field superintendent, 29 clergymen, THE SOUTH AMERICAN MISSION. and 5 native helpers.
The romance of missions will not' The annual reports of the society, esdie out till the name of Allen Gardner pecially those relating to work among shall' be fotgotten. Out of the melan- the Indians, are deeply interesting. choly circumstance of his death with that of six associates, from starvation, while trying to found a mission on VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
.Important Official Documents From from Downing Street, London, under Sierra Leone, West Africa. date of August 28, 1890. We have not space to give the documents entire, The Editors of this REVIEW have but quote the main facts which conbeen both surprised and shocked to cern the Christian public, and espereceive a copy of sundry official com- cially all the friends of missions. One munications "relating to some Ameri- of these documents is from Dr. Ross, ('an missionaries who have latelyar- Colonial Surgeon at Freetown, and rived" at Freetown, specially directed another from Sir J. G. Hay, Governor to us by order of Lord Kuntsford of Sierra Leone, transmitting Dr. Furthermore Dr. Ross states that he understands these "missionaries. Ross's lengthy report to Lord Kunts- intend going due east into the interior, guided only by a compass;" that they ford, of the home Government, Lon- have been "living as the natives, in the hope that by so doing they will don, and one from him through his sec- gain the confidence of the people;" that they "have been eating native· retary, transmitting the whole corres- food, cooking and washing for them- selves and even collecting their own pondence to the editors of the MISSION- fuel, in this rainy weather." Of course· that they should expose themselves to ARY REVIEW, calling special attention fatal fever and should actually court death by such manner of proceeding to their contents, and "to a notice, is not strange.
headed the 'Soudan Missionary Move- Such is the purport of the commu- ment,' which appeared at page 555, of nications referred to; and the Editors of this REVIEW feel compelled to say the REVIEW for July, 1890." in this connection, that up to this time These documents inform us that sun- they had never had the least intima- dry "American missionaries .have lately arrived at Freetown with a tion that this "Soudan Movement" view of proceeding due east into the was characterized by any such fanat- interior for evangelizing purposes;" that "three of their number have al- icism. We felt that, like other move- ready died," and that "the first inti- ments originating among well meali- mation Dr. Ross had of their being ill was by receipt of a letter ing but inexperienced persons who from Mr. Kingman, reporting that are young in years, it needed a head, two deaths had occurred in the 'Mis- wise counsel and sound discretion. sion House' that afternoon," (July 9th). Even now we see no reason to recall a.. "On Inquiry," continues Dr. Ross, "I gathered that no medical man had word of commendation of the singubeen asked to attend the deceased, the lar unselfishness and heroic consecrawhole party being staunch believers in the 'faith-healing' doctrine, nor had tion that appear to have marked these any medicine been taken." Further- pioneers, but we confess to being asmore Dr. Ross "remonstrated with tounded at the statementscontained in Mr. Helmick, another member of the this correspondence. Itis a sad affair, p~rty," but could not obtain from little less than wanton suicide. To him any satisfactory promise that they persist in such a policy would not would in future depart from the course they were adopting, nor did he only ruin this whole movement but' mention that there were any more inflict a lasting damage onall missionpersons suffering in the house. To ary enterprises and compel sensible prevent this. neglected tropical fever from assuming a virulent and con- people to wash their hands clean of tagious form, the bodies were at once buried by his order and the sanitary all abetting such supreme folly and policeman sent to disinfect the house, practical madness. Certainly the destroy all infected bedding, clothing, editors of the MISSIONARY REVIEW OF etc. On the 10th of July Mrs. King- THE WORLD, have not the slightest man was found in the last stages of exhaustion from neglected fever, sympathy with such disregard of all which had then assumed a malignant proper precautions, not to say defiance type, she having been ill nine days before; and in spite of all that could be of all sanitary and social laws. done Mrs. Kingman died on the even- From the inception of this moveing of the 11th.' "Mr. Kingman was ill also and visited by Dr. Ross, who ment we have said to these western strongly urged him to take medicine. Finding Mr. Trice ill, Dr. Ross re- brethren, "move slowly; gel compemoved him to the hospital, and at last tent medical advisers, and experienced prevailed on Mr. Kingman to be treated, on the ground that his "action explorers, .that you may not risk endangered the whole coummunity." health and life by needless exposure." Dr. Ross felt "compelled to keep the God not only gives a "spirit of power missionaries from going into any other house than their own, and stopped and of love, but of a 80und mind 1'" all communication with other white poeple." We repeat the advice. Call a halt! their own lives dear unto themselves, bui and let it be fully understood that no have obediently gone forth to proclaim the man or woman goes to Tropical Africa joyful Message. to throwaway life on a theory, and -endanger the lives of others by pro- "Our beloved friends believed that nothing moting infectious disease. was too precious for their Saviour, and have made the supreme offering of their lives, and, A. T. PIERSON. standing to-day, where we may again see the J. M. SHERWOOD. broken body of the Christ and hear His words 'As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I On receiving these communications you, ' we are confident that there are -many the Editors felt bound to transmit a who will gladly offer themselves and take the (lOPY to the brethern in Kansas, who place of these messengers who have been are more closely connected with this called home, and, by His grace, plant the ban- movement, expressing also our sorrow ner of the Cross in -darkest Africa. -and apprehension as to the disastrous effect of such a course as that pursued "Asking that continual prayermay be made in Africa, not only upon this, but all to our Lord so that indeed He may speedily other mission enterprises. We have a send His messengers to the uttermost parts of reply from Geo. S. Fisher, Esq., dis- the world, I am, claiming all responsibility for these peculiar views, and saying that these "In the hope of His coming, sincerely thine, pioneers had no such views when they "GEORGE S. FISHER." left the west, but on their way a certain well known advocate of " faith heal- The National Missionary Convention ing" in New York City got hold of them and infused into them his views which met at Indianapolis Septem- <If the subject. We mention this in ber 3d to 9th, inclusive, was, in some ·order to attach responsibility to those respects, a remarkable gathering; not -to whom it 'belongs; and that responsi- in point of numbers, for but a few hundred visitors were there, and resibility, in our judgment, is a very grave dents of _the town were largely kept out of the city by the excessive heat. <lne. But there were signs of the Holy In response to our inquiry, Mr. Spirit's presence and power. Mr. Robert E. Speer, traveling secretary Fisher sends us also the following more of the Students' Volunteer Movement, -cheerful news concerning the surviv- and GeorgeS. Fisher, Esq., of Kansas, as well as Augustus Nash, of Neors.-3. M. S. braska, and Rev. T. C. Horton, of St. Paul, were among the leading spirits. "Ourvery latest Information is to the effect that, Mr. Kingman and Mr. Trice, the colored After watching the Convention with man, have both recovered, and that the others a careful eye, and noting the addresses have had no sickness whatever. They are now made and the tone of general feeling, waiting until the arrangements can be ef- we were constrained to acknowledge :fected so that they can leave Freetown, cross that there were signs of a Higher the Kong Mountains, and enter upon their Hand than man's in the whole miswork, if the Lord will, and enter among the sionary movement of which this is one Mandingo tribes." expression.
Also the following, which we read The band of intending missionaries with many "falling tears:" that we found there, were nearly all young-under thirty years. Moved "The enclosed letter is sent out with some by the awful destitution of a hundred :faIling of tears, but with much peace of heart, millions who, in Africa, are utterly for none who are conversant with the history without the Gospel, they have felt of the spreading of the Gospel in the dark more needed there than here, and have lands, will be surprised orcast down by reason practically offered thelllseives to go ~f these words: abroad to the Regions Beyond-most of them to the Soudan, some to China "'Except a corn of wheat fall into the and other lands of the Orient. No ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it <iie, it bringeth forth much fruit.' This scripture has indeed been fulfilled many times in the history of the early church, among the lllartyrs, and those who have not counted doubt there is some zeal that needs to so that this snall be a gift to the be tempered with knowledge-no Lord's cause for His servants' use doubt a good deal of imprudence that when at home for a season to gather experience will correct and chasten. new strength for further toils. Dr. A.
There is excess of enthusiasm that J. Gordon, of Boston; D. L. Moody, should be restrained, and impulsive Esq., S. P. Harbison, of Pittsburgh; activity that must be wisely guarded. Dr. Munhall, and a few others, will But there seems to be also a passion for be asked to act as counsellors in the souls, a self-surrender to God's work, completion of the plan; and it is not a certain abandon of confidence in his designed to ask any help from a~yone Word and guidance, that we would but leave to those of ~he Lord's people gladly feel were more general in dis- who may feel so inclined to assist in ciples of more mature years. We rearing the cottages. The ground is· should say that not less than fifty already paid for, mostly by one indi- young men and women were present, vidual; and already unsolicited con- whose faces are set toward the deso- tributions have been made to the ex- late regions of the earth, and who are tent of $650. Any who are so disPosed only waiting for the door to open. may send contributions to the editors of There were present several of these this REVIEW and they will be promptly young men who have been traveling acknowledged. Ultimately, after the through the States, mainly o( the cottages are built, a report of the work West, presenting the needs of the per- will be printed and sent to the par- ishing millions, and urging consecra- ties contributing, with pictures of the tion of men and of money to supply houses erected. A. T. P.
their need of the Gospel. These "trav- A Remonstranoe that Should be Heard. elling secretaries" have gone like primitive disciples, carrying nothing "Pardon me, if I seem presump- in their purses, and their unanimous tuous, but do you think the' Presby- testimony was that they ~ave lacked terian Church is moving in the right nothing. Some who heard them wit- direction in its efforts to remove the ness, publicly confessed that, though heavy indebtedness of the two Boards? they had been prejudiced against the Does it not seem that a curse, rather movement, they felt constrained to than a blessing, will follow one form say this is the Finger of GOd. A. T. P. adopted, viz. : cutting down the meagre' salarie.s of our missionaries, and leav- The Home Rest for Missianaries at ing them with no escape from this. Northfield, Mass. iron rule? Is not this 'muzzling the ox which treadeth out the corn?' I By a strange fatality a part of our do not know when anything has so editorial note on this topic in our last burdened me as this mismanagem!'nt issue was left out. We said further on the part of the Assembly. Surely, that these 15 acres of land are to be some better plan could have been laid out in a sort of park, to be named adopted there. This is something like Livingstone Park, in honor of. David 'making bricks without straw.' Livingstone, and it is proposed to erect a few economical and conven- "In my own mind it is clear that ient cottages on these grounds, to be this great debt could have been made furnished rent free to returned mis- the means of rousing the Church to sionaries who are at home for rest and a sense of its responsibility as nothing recuperation. It is desired to have else could have done. It would have these cottages free to those who oc- called out a special day of preaching cupy them without reference to de- on the subject of missions-humili- 1'I.0mination; and to enlist various ation and prayer-aday of collections. benevolent people in their erection, for the debt alone, making at least two Sundays of the fifty-two to be de- voted to the great work of the church. The letters one reads from missiona- ries on the frontier a,re pitiful; and if the church does not hear will not God avenge II "Pardon me, but I feel I am only saying what many must feel. I do awakening in this country. His 00- not like to seem to criticise over-much, dresSB evinced considerable familiarity but it makes me sick at heart to be at with the present situation of things in ease in our luxurious churches and India, and appreciation of the diffi- notice the indifference, the want of culty and importance of the mUwion reference to this, the most, crying evil he had undertaken. I have known; for it is from thosepoor missionaries that part of the money Among other things he said: already collected (?) is wrested–not voluntary offerings, but oppressive "There are 5,000,000 Hindus, young men, taxation, in a sense. " who speak English. We aregoing to reach them. They have never been evangelized. Oc- The above letter is from one -of the casionallya lecturer like the Rev. Joseph Cook largest and best known givers in the will drop in among them; but he is gone in a denomination, and we publish it, first, week. What they want is preaching every because such a munificent giver has a day for six months. All has been touch and right to be heard; and again, because go sofar. We go to preach and not to prove the this church and other denominations Gospel. Disabuse your minds of one thought. ought to know how their principal We don't propose to convert India. Weonly benefactors look on such a mistaken policy as retrenchment; -and thirdly, intend to do our share. It we come back because we feel in absolute accord with these sentiments. God will never without having made any visible impression, bless any policy which is practically we won't feel disappointed. Fifty blows may robbery both of Him and His poor be necessary before the rock of heathenism is and faithful servants, It cannot be split. We hope to strike one of those blows. our duty to do wrong, and we believe The Hindus say that as the English go to this course, whenever and wherever India they drop their religion in the Red Sea, adopted, is dishonoring to both the hoping to lind it there as they go back. The church and to God. There must be people of India are profoundly religious in some way of meeting a crisis like this their way. They look on our missionaries as beside doing an' aditional wrong. being merely men who are hired to conquer This policy reminds us of the man who their religion with our own, just as they were borrowed money to pay a debt! and politically conquered by the English. They the fact that at this time of the judge our religion not by our missionaries but world's history a great denomination by the English people among them, sevencan Bound the cry, Retrench! while tenths of whom are there to trade and not to every call of God says Advance! is it- set a religious example. Belf a melancholy sign of the times. We know one city where a craze for "We will go first to Calcutta., where we will expensive church-buildings has led to open an evangelistic mission and begin on the the abandonment of large and com- English themselves. From them-having by modious edifices for others that cost the help of God brought them to a condition enough more than the old to pay thill where they can exemplify and reflect the debt by the excess on each building. Gospel-we will proceed to evangelize the Eng, lish-speaking Hindus. After them, Provi- EDITORS. dence permitting, we will evangelize the half- breeds. We hope to make a break among the Dr. Pentecost's Farewell Words. high castes. Don't think we are pl"oud be- cause we are going to work among the high We were present at the farewell castes. We have chosen them because nQ service in Dr. Meredith's church in work of evangelization has ever been done Brooklyn, of which he was formerly among them. Finally, we are doing this work pastor. He gave an outline of his strictly at our own expense. If anybody feels plan of evangelistic work in India. He moved to chip in and help us pay our current is sanguine that a great break in expenses, all right. But we are not begging. heathenism will begin there, which Persoually I will pay my own expenses. We will be followed by a wide-spread are a voluutary mission, repreaenting no society and no fuud."
May he not be disappointed in this bold undertaking! May India be moved as never before! He needs and asks and deserves the earnest prayers of Christendom. He remains a month in England and then sails for India. Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, who have aided him in his €vangelistic Alloa, Scotland, has recently gone to his reward, in his eighty-seventh work, will accompany him in this year. He set an example of benefi- cence which will be fra~ant in Scotforeign tour. J. M. S. land and in all the Christian church for many years to come. His liberal- The Tribune (New York), in a re- ity toward foreign missions is very cent editorial entitled, "Why Foreign conspicuous; but scarcely less so to- Missions Languish," exhibits the most ward all home missionaryschemes also. surprising ignorance of the subject. AUoa, where he built up his fortune, The very reverse is true. Instead of witnessed its dispensing in all good being in a languishing condition the works. He supported missions in the cause of foreign missions was never destitute neighborhoods, provided for so active, so promising, so full of en- the free entertainment of infirm minterprise, so far-reaching and world- isters at Criefi' Hydropathic; and gave, wide in its scope and plans. The great as few men since apostolic days have English societies in 1889 expended given, great sums to God's cause. He $13,000,000 in the work; and our has spent a vast fortune of $1,000,000 American societies full $6,000,000! on missions; and, out of the small anmore than in any former year! Does nuity reserved to keep him from acthis look like languishing? tual want, he managed to give, at the time of my visit to AUoa, another Quite as false is the reason assigned 250 pounds sterling; and, as a letter for the decline of missions. It argues from Dr. McAll informs me, his last they "languish" because the Gospel if! act of giving was the sending of $500 presented so as to repel rather than more to the same great work of French attract, by men not properlytrained. evangelization. He was an office- It is sure that the prevailing methods bearer in the United Presbyterian of mission work are radically wrong. Church, and one of the brightest orna- Now thousands of the ripest scholars, ments of that beautiful body of breththe broadest culture, the most distin- ren, of whom we may say on personal guished gifts, the noblest educators, knowledge that it contains some of the and the most eminent and useful men noblest examples both of piety and of in the Church to-day, are found in the generosity which the United Kingdom foreign field! Methods radically wrong furnishes. That dear old saint gave that have civilized and evangelized not grudgingly nor of necessity, but whole nations, converted millions of cheerfully. Self· denial became to him souls in heathendom, established a habit and a delight for Christ's sake. schools and colleges, and hospitals, To press his hand and look in his eyes and Y. M. C. A.'s all over the world! was one of the rare privileges of that Does not the Trtbune know these recent tour of missions in Scotland. facts? Such stupendous ignorance is He was the patriarch of givers, and, enough to bring Horace Greeley up we trust will have a numerous spiritfrom the grave to weep over the pa- ual progeny who shall emulate an per he made so grand a power for good. example that has few rivals since the This attack on missions is a very feeble days of Barnabas of Cyprus. echo of Canon Taylor's charges two years ago, the falsity and grossness of A. T. P. which were abundantly shown by testimony that could not be set aside. Bishop William Tay:or seems to be The Tribune is late in reviving a man of great common sense. He these exploded charges.-J. M. S. says that on the dead level of heath- enism all genius is excluded; any in- A Princely Giver's Death. ventor is liable to the charge of witch- craft, and the poison draught is the David Paton, Esq., of Tillicoutry, inevitable doom of one who im- Canada, and for years residing in proves upon the crude implements of his ancestors. In the South of Africa the men wear two coats, one of red paint, the other of grease well-rubbed in; and women dig, hoe, gather crops, carry burdens and do other hard work. To educate an African without chris- tianizing him is to train a polite loafer. He instanced the educated native known as "Hodge," who, with a tine culture, turned to Paganism, put on
ORGANIZED lIIISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS
the breech-clout and took six wives tian church, he will again let loose this and set up a harem. The educational system of false religion to drive out plan must include all industries that an infernal rum traffic let in by prepare for a life of self-support. The Christian nations! Already are 300,- short and sure cut is to be found in 000 mounted followers of the False rearing in Africa Christian industrial Prophet said to be overrunning th{l homes, adopting about 12 children Dark Continent. under five years of age. Young chil- A. T. P.
dren are not yet heathen and must be The India Sunday-school Union, prevented from becoming such. It is having secured the hearty' co-opereasy to get boys but not girls, to adopt. Girls are a marketable commodity for ation of the British Sunday-school polygamous purposes. The only way Union, has been planning a large ex- tension of its work. Dr. James L. at present is to redeem them from this Phillips, 17 years medical and educapolygamous slavery by a virtual pur- tional missionary in Bengal, has been {lhase. They are sold in infancy for appointed general-secretary of the the future harem of these polygamists, India Sunday-school Union, and sailed and if not redeemed will be claimed ~ven after adoption and education. from New York for Europe. He will A young and pretty girl was thus speak in behalf of this promising movement in the chief citIes of the adopted by a missionary's family and United Kingdom during September iirained as a converted woman, and and October, and then embark for -one day claimed as the betrothed wife Bombay, where he will enter upon his -of a rich polygamist. She was al- work, attend the Punjab Sundayready pledged to a converted young school Convention at Lahore in Thr man connected with the mission cember, and reach Calcutta for the .and presents were freely given to annual meeting of the India Sunday- -secure her release from the prior con- School Union in December. All India iiract. Apparently she was released seems ripe for Sunday-school exten- sion at this time. and the marriage consented to. But afterward under pretext of a visit to It has been our privilege to make the her parents was, with her husband, acquaintance of this beloved brother induced to go to their home, and -on entering the village her young while home on a furlough. Failing husband was literally hewn to pieces, to find us at the office, where he called and she was tied to a tree and whipped to say good-bye, he left us a very kind every two hours till she consented letter from which we make an extract: to go and live with this wretched pagan. That is a glimpse of woman's "Now I go back to my dear India, condition in the dark continent. where I was born, as general-secretary Meanwhile all the work of missions of the India Sunday-school Union, is threatened by the awful flooding of with headquarters at Calcutta. For Africa with rum. Hamburg alone two or three years I shall be on the -exports by two companies annually move constantly all over India, organ- .200,000 tuns of liquor, not to speak of izing and pushing Sunday-school what France, Spain, Portugal, Eng- work. My post is a new one. I am land and New England are doing to called back to India by my brethren ]lOur into that land an Amazon river of all the churches. Our Sunday- -of rum. If Mohammedanism were let school Union there, as here and in Eu- loose, it would soon put an end to this rope, is international and inter-debusiness, for Islam's banner is the nominational, like the evangelical banner of total abstinence and pro- alliance work in the U. S. A., with hibition. It may be that as God at the which I have been connected as gen- beginning let loose Mohammedanism eral-secretary at Philadelphia for a as the scourge of idolatry in the Ohris- year." J. M. S.
VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
SPecIAL'l'IELDS. square miles, including 30 towns and 3,579 vil· lages, and containing a population of 3,286,889, INDIA. of whom 2, 835,382 are Hindus and 284,889 are American Marathi Mission. Mussulmans. (A. B. C. F. M.) Stations, 5; outstations, 107; missionaries, REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1889. 27 (of whom 11 ordained, 1 lay, 9 missionaries' Stations at Bombay, Ahmednagal', etc. wives, 6 other ladies); n~tive helpers, 302 (of This mission covers a territory of 16,9i4 whom 18 pastors, 21 preachers); churches, 33; ordained); churches, 22; communicants,. communicants, 2,115 (1,197 male, 918 female); 2,466; additions not reported fully, about 300: added on profession, 192; schools, 127; pupils, schools, 40; average attendance, 583; Sunday- 8,280,(2,461 male, 819 female); Sunday-schools, schools, 19; average attendance, 626. 124; pupils, 4,718 (of whom 1,688 Christian); Jlatients treated at dispensary in Raburi, new, Malayalan Mission of the London Mis- 5,052; old, 9,428; total, 14,480 (of these, 12,045 sionary Society, South Travancore. Hindus, 2,059 Mussulmans, 76 Parsees, 41 R0- man Catholics, 259 Protestants). The report for this mission comes to us in four parts: the Trevandrum, Quilon and Ne- PROGREIlS IN TWENTY YEARs. yoor districts and the mission seminary.
Number of churches, 1869, 22; 1889, 33; net In the six stations there are 9 ordained mis- gain in twenty years, 11. Received on pro- sionaries; 18 ordained native ministers; 22S fession of faith, 1869, 53; 1889, 192; net gain in other native helpers; 273 congregations; twenty years, 139. Number of communicants 5,659 church members; 521 admissions; 718- at close of the year, 1869, 677; 1889,2,115; net candidates; 311 schools; 10,560 boys under in- gain in twenty years, 1,438. Contributions by struction, 3,504 girls-total scholars, 14,064; native Christians, 1869, 1,651 rupees; 1889, patients registered iu mission hospital anddi&' 4,630, rupees; net gain in twenty years, 2,979 pensaries-Protestant Christians, 13,874; Ro- rupees. Number of schools, 1869, 35; 1889, 127; man Catholics, 1,698; heathen, 12,116; Moham- net gain in twenty years, 92. Number of medans, 676-total, 28,SfU. Publications, by pupils, 1869,667; 1889,8,280; net gain in twenty London mission press, periodicals, 52 numbers, years, 2,613. 116,600 pages; tracts, 33, S23,100 pages. South Travancore Tract and Book Society has. From this it will be evident that the number published since 1833, when it was formed by of communicants on the church rolls, the con- the union of tract societies long existing at tributions of native Christians, and the num- Nagercoil and Neyoor,442,549 monthly maga- ber of schools, have trebled in the last twenty zines, 181,200 tracts, 28,500 catechisms, 13,500' years. The number of pupils is five times as books, 3,146,900 handbills, and 260,000 Glad IDany as then attended our schools. News for Children, in Tamil-4,072,649 publi- cations. American Madura Mission, South India. Basel German Evangelical Missionary- Population of district, 1,775,000. Stations Society in Southwestern India. at Madura, Pasumaleli, Battalagundi, etc. Canara, Coorg, South Mahratta, Malabar. Stations, 7; out-stations, 25; missionaries, 36 Stations, 24; European miSSionaries, male, (of whom 13 'ordained, 1 lay, 13 missionaries' 66, female, 40; native agency, pastors, 15" wives, 9 other ladies); native helpers, 448 evangelists, 106; other helpers, 27; teachers,. (of whom 17 ordained pastors); organized 27'8; communicants, 5,160; additions, 1M;: churches, 35; communicants, 3,562; added on schools, 121; pupils, 6,707. .profession, 272; schqols, 156; pupils, 5,410; Sabbath-schools, 146; average attendance Mackay Mission Hospital, Formosa. 4,151; patients treated at dispensary, new fi,066; old, 6,504; total, 15,570 (of these 4,775 Connected with the Presbyterian Board of' Hindus, 3,272 native Christians, including Ro- Missions, Canada. manists, 815 Mussulmans. New patients, 3,055; old patients returned American Free Baptist Mission, for medicines, etc., 7,224. The number is less. Southern Bengal, than the last year by 225, due to the fact that there has been less sickness and that fewer Population, 3.817,65.~. Stations at Balasore, soldiers have been admitted. J ellltSOre, Midnapore, etc. Methodist Episcopal Church, (North)t. Stations, 11; missionarles,25 (of whom 9 are North China Mission. ordained, 1 lay, 9 missionaries' wives, and 6 other ladies); native preachers, 17 (of whom Peking, Tientsin, Shantung, etc. 5 are ordained, 12 lay); other native helpers Stations or circuits, 20; ordained missionanot enumerated; organized churches, 11; ries, 15; missionaries' wives, 14; other ladies, communicants, 646; added, 55; schools, 105; 9; native ordained preachers, 6; unordained,. pupils, 3,619. Considerable medical work 10; teachers, 20: other helpers, 22; members, seems to hav" been done, but no statistics are 782; probationers, 517; averagtl atten<jancegiven. Sunday worship, 931; Sunday-schools, 10; scholars, 746; Theological schools, 3; st.udents, Canadian Baptist Telugu Mission. 40; other schools, 27; scholars, 529, Population reached 3,000,000. Stations: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presby- Akidu, Cocanada, Bimlipatam, Bobbili, etc. terian Church, (South).
Stations, 9; missionaries, 30 (of whom 11 Secretary: REV. M. H. HOUSTON, D.D., Nashare ordained, 10 missionaries' wives, 7 other ville, Tenn. ladies); native helpers, 74 (of whom 8 are [By some error the statistics reported for municants, 625;' additions, 100; schoQls, 37, pnpils, 916; medical work, out-patients (at-· this society in the September number of the tendances), 59,311; in-patients, 1,459; visits at homes, 647; surgical operations, 2,868. REVIEW were drawn from the report of 1889,in- stead of from that of 1890. Dr. Houston has kindly called our notice to the error, alld sent corrected ftgures.-EDs.] General Baptist Missionary Society.
REPORT FOR YII:AIl ENDING APRIL 1, 1800. Secretary: REV.WILLIAHHILL, Mission House. 60 Wilson St., Derby, England. Receipts. . REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING HAY 31, 1890. Balance on hand ..••••••..•••… $ 8,457 59 Receipts.
From churches……………….. 49,812 90 Collections, etc …………….. . £3,257 4 5· Legacies …………………. .. 1,497 4 11 Sabbath·schools….. .•.•• •••••••••. 8,673 50 Miscellaneous ………………. . 693 17 10 Missionary societies ••••……••.• 27,258 80 Legacies……… ..•••••••• ••••.•• 14,927 02 Miscellaneous… ••••.•••••••• •••.• 8,652 88 Total for general purposes … ,£5,448 7 2· Speclalfunds……… ………… 225 17 6 Total ••••••••….••••.••.•••••• $117,782 69 In India…. ………………… 2,929 9 6 In Rome……. … . .. . .. .. . ..• … . 149 0 11 Expenditures.
Three Brazil Missions•..•.•••••..•• 5 36,100 32 China llissions.• '" . • . •. • . •. • ••.• •• 24,701 71 Total. ………………….. , £8.752 15 1 Japan •••••••••.•.. ••••. .• 12,814 31 Pavments.
Congo . •.. .••• . • …. . . . . . . 4,000 00 Balance due May 81, 1889…….. .. £20 12 11 Greek • •• ••••• ••••• •• • . . .. 3,453 70 Orissa Mission ……………… .. 3,27013 2- Italian . . . . ••.• •• . . . •.••• •• 1,200 00 Agency…………………….. . 31517 7 Indian •••• • • ••• • •••• ••.. . • 6,490 00 Publications………………… . 171 12 0- Mexican U •• ,. • • • • ••• • •••• •••• 7,870,29 Incidentals. .. • • . .. .. …. .. …. . .. 144 5 7 Totalfor Missions. •••••.••.•••• $ 96,680 33 Assurance, Annuities, and Capi· General Expenses. . . • . . . . ..••. . … • 8,663 02 Balance on hand (including Relief tal, etc ……. " …………… . 1,441 0 4- Fund)….. • •. .. • . .. • ••.• .•••• •••• 12,489 34 In India, (see ahove) ………… . 2,929 9 9 In Rome, ……… "… .. 449 011 Total…. • • •• . .. •••••…•••••• $117,782 69 Balance to new account •••••••••• 10 3 STATISTIcs. Total……………………. £8,75215 .; STATISTICS OF ORISSA MISSION. ~ .,; -d .,; ..:=:l Stations, 4; 15 out·stations, 8 missionaries,. g 0 4 missionaries wives, 4 other female mission· s:l .'"~ -d aries, 21 native preachers, 18 chapels, 1,376 ..= ~ ~'>" church members; 1 orphanage, 122 members; '" :0;:~. '" ~ 12 schools, 641 scholars; 12 Sunday·schools, 751> • oji o[ '" '" " ] '" .$8 ..0= Z members. Local contributions, 8,411 rupees. ~~ '".." ~ » UjUj..~'Si"~1II-5..:.l..r9 ~ '" .9 f/1 ~ s:l ,Q s:l oj Baptist Missionary Society. '~I'~ ~ oj oj ~O A Secretary: ALFREn H. BAYNES, ESQ.,F. R.A.S•• 1 gl§ ~ g! Baptist Mission House, 19 Furnival St., j ~::: Holborn, London, E. C. ~ <I .S .S ~ REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1890 ::l8 Receipts. !,! ~ ! ~ — 8 – – zz 8 oj oj ::l Balance from last year, on Special — – ._- -~ Fund, and Widows" etc., 00· count…………………….. £4,894 14 9 Brazil… 3011 10 510 670 126 224 165 $1,400 China .. 1113 16 .. 15 158 12 245'260 165 For debt……….. ………….. 2,405 2 ;;. Japan •. 19 8 8 5 2 766 151 305 130 651 General Fund . . . …. …. .. • . 68,331 0 1 41111 Special, etc., account…. ……. 3,978 9 6 Greece. "c:' ~'" Total receipts…………… £74,714 12 0 28 ~ 15 … Balance over·drawn on General Italy .•. 1 .. ~ 0 Fund……………………… 2,472 3 1() Mexico. 51 2 Africa •. Z Total …………………. £82,081 10 7 2· ·8 40 …… Expenditures. 4 '3 450 71 ··~~r~ 635 Balances. Debton General Fund. £2,862 3 6 2 .. General Fund. … .. £70,346 2 10 Special, etc., account 6,761 10 3 Total. 116 3741 1931 2,072 360 1,207 845 $2,851' £77,107 13 1 1 Total expenditure……….. £79,969 16 7 American Presbyterian, (North), Mission Balance on hand on Special,etc., in Oanton, Ohina. account ……………..•.••. 2,111 14 () Stations, 2; out-stations, 28. Foreign missionaries, ordained, 8; lay, 6; mediC'.a.l, 4; mis- Total. ………………… £82,081 10 '7 sionaries' wives, 11; other ladies, 6 (1 medical); total, 31. Native 'ordained ministers, 3; other native assistants, 84; churches, 8; com- STATISTICS. Income of Funds ••..••..•••••• " 21,796 51 Government Grants-in-aid, etc…. 8,017 47 I 15 J,'"<ll i1 ~ " oj0;oj "" O.:goj $440,788 07 0; • <ll ~ U-"0=l -UC"=l Balance due April, 1890…… …… 7,942 06 ., 1=:1=l'd …. ~~.[~ ) .0 Total. …………………….. $448,730 13 """'Iaj.9 ~;;<;ll In addition there has been added to the Per- ~ ~1ii S manent Fund, $118,739.68, making the gross ! I~"' ""E"" O~~w";";d''§''~ receipts for the year $559,527.75. …. O·S ."E.:~~ -~= Expenditures. t'l Burmah ………………………. $151,290 85 z~ Assam ……………….. _…….. 22,31258 – – – – — – — — 38 Telugu…. ….. . ….. ……. …… • 64,778 India .,. 147, 57 94 9 4,129 231 15 4,027 Ceylon .• 104 4! 25 868 160342.0..3.,.1.9.0 Siam ………………. ………. 1,373 95 ,China..• 60 21 10 60 1,049 China…. …. …………. …….. 31,605 25 ~!fe~~ine 157 8 1 58 Japan ……………………… , 39,122 72 20 15 75 2 2 69 Africa…….. ……………. ….. 43,780 42 3 1 ••. Europe …………………. …… 32,984 57 Enrope •• 60 W.Indies 111 641143.73 18 1,860 210 .. 409 $381.248 72 12 6,135 423 5 Home expenses. .. …………….. 39,71387 – – – – – – – ,Africa.•• – 10 25 5 .' Publications…. ……………… 1,671 40 43 12 4 143 Annuities…….. ……….. ….. 11,92';) 58 — S440,55657 – – – 515 119319 99 14,316 1,053 47 7,896 Balance due April 1, 1839………. 8,173 56 American Baptist Missionary Union. Total. . •. …. .. . • . . . … •.. • . .. $448,730 13 Secretary: REV. J. N. MURDOCH, D.D., Tre- mont Temple, Boston, Mass. REpORT FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, lR90. Receipts.
Donations ………… _………… $212,96294 Legacies……….. … ………… 91,935 49 Woman'sBoards…. … …….. ..•. 93,94922 Miscellaneous ……………….. 12,126 44 STATISTICS.
Mission· Natives. .,. ! j aries ~ ~o0~ joj~o~i ~1~~p~;1~"1'.~~jjoi ~ r/.lo)i:j~il<OO 0 ~ a.: 00 Z '21-593 45li7 116 "Bn~-rm-a':'h-..-.-..-.-.-..-.- ..-.-..-.- .•-.-..-.-.. 021 520 29,689 2,039 444 12,669 – $52,633 I Assam .. …… … ….. .. .. 7 64 11 14 22 54 30 1,937 185 87 1,900 740 381 Telugu ………. …………. 13 635 21 26 204 217 72 33,838 3,340 460 4,934 564 China (inch!ding Siam)………. ' 8 59 18 23 25 17 1,535 61 23 325 521 Japan …•… …….. ……… 8 27 15 26 29 17 10 lO5 158 6 216 311 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Africa……. ….. …… …….. 7 4 23 16 5 8 5 386 156 10 471 75 Total…………………… 64 1382 133 192 8191437 654 68,290 5,939 1030 20,515 $54,844 ,Europe …………………. 917 707 70,003 5,638 169,425 TotaL ………………….. 64 ii2 133 100 i7a6 4a7.WtI38,29311.57711OOO 2O,5i5J~ Ohurch Missionary Society. Collection 0 f Funds…….. 13,739 13 2 The Secretaries, Church Missonary House, Administration. 10,596 11 5 Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London,E. C. £215,222 11 0 REPORT FOR' THE YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1890. Deduct, charged Receipts. to Special Fonds.. …. 8,193 6 7 Through Associations.. £146,771 6 10 Total Ordinary……. '" .. £207,029 4 5 Direct to the Society, including Special Funds…………….. 17,556 8 1 Legacies23,862 7 9……… . 56,046 4 8 Disabled Missionaries' Funds 1,646 10 ..
Rent and Interest …………. 4,05215 9 Total Ordinary….. ……. £208,516 17 10 Total Payments……….. £224,585 12 6 Special Funds… …………. 51,765 13 7 Balance carried to Contin- 35,696 18 11 Total Receipts…………. £26a,282 11 5 gency Fund: OrdinaryRe- Expenditures. ForMissions…..£I82,845 3 2 ceipts……… £1,487 13 5 Disabled M i s- Special Funds.. 34,209 5 6 sionaries, etc.. 7,941 3 3 —– Total…… ……………. £260,282 11 I:>
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
STATISTICS.
Natives, Eurasians, Missionaries, etc, ~ ~ ~..$.~; , g i 'I 3 __________________I§~ ~ ~ i~ ~ h ~ ~j~;. ~ _~_~_§__~_~____ ~ ~ @ ~ Africa ……………. ,…………. 5 59 30 17 15 48 293 9,826 445 108 8,8U Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Persia.. 3 13 16 6 9 9 107 597 4 50 2,575 India…………… …… ………… 8 96 128 14 15 144 2150 26,942 1,577 1191 47,184 21 Ceylon.,……………… ………… 1 14 18…. 2 15 446 2,363 172 229 11,345 Mauritius…… …… .. …. .. . …. . 1 7 81 3 51 542 108 25 1,562 S!~':t~:::: .. ·:::::.~:::::::::::::::·::: ~ ~ 171 …. 19 1~ ~ 2,~~ .~ Iii 2,~ 1 38 151 2 27 378 2,631 5 1 18 2Q 65 2,455 109 58 1,424 3.835149;016 3,llo i700 ,= 59 286 75:"'581 New Zealand ……… ".. N. W, America and North Pacific .. " 6 55 321 4"..
-~L====·.~: ;iii 3t5 "286152 VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa-It is said that the annexations of Their professed object is to convert the Afri- Great Britain in Africa amount to over cans to their faith; and their modus oper- 2,000,000 squa.re miles, "Spheres of influ- andi is to civilize them first, and then to make ence" they are termed, not annexations. We Trappists of them. Their largest monastery care not what they are called; we are glad is at l'IIarianhill, in Natal. At present it con- to know that under the flag of Great Britain tains 170 monks, and in a convent, half a mile the slave trade cannot live. Under that flag, away, are 135 nuns. There are 300 native boys the Bible may be printed and scattered with· and girls under tuition, and the knowledge im- out "let or hindrance," Under that flag, parted is almost entirely industrial. The rear- missionaries of the cross will be safe, and can ing of bees is one of the important industries, go about their work unmolested, Ambitious Papers are published in four languages. They and grasping England, men may call her, but have a church capable of holding 2,000 people, she carries into her colonies, all over the world, the light of civilization, to brighten -Harvest Field. the faces of their ignorant and degraded. -The grant of an immense territory -Rapid progress all along the line is being along tbe Zambesi river has been made to the made in the opening up of the new world of Duke of Fife and some English colleagues, Central Africa. Europe has 'such vast re- The region embraces nearly 300,000 .square sources of power and wealth to bring to bear miles and is very rich both in soil and mines, on the enterprise that the rate at which civili- The company has power to abolish slavery zation is advancing on barbarism is surpris- and restrict the liquor traffic in its domains, ing. and missionary work will be as free there as in India. -To explore Central Africa.-The Siecle says that a French expedition to explore Cen· – The Portuguese have released the British tral Africa is being organized. It will be African Lakes Company's steamer, which divided into three sections, which will start was seized by Lieutenant Continho, Thecrew simultaneously from Algeria and the Niger of the steamer have also been released, and Congo rivers, and converge at Lake Tchad, -The Roman Catholic missions at Uganda will be strengthened by a new party of priests, -The Universities' Mission in Central who were ordained in the cathedral of Car· Africa employs seventy Europeans at four thage, June 29th, According to Roman Cathoprincipal centres in Africa and on Lake Nyassa, where a church steamer is maintained, lic usage, the feet of these 20 "messengers of Bishop Smithers is the leader of this mission, which extends over 25,000 square miles, peace" were devoutly kissed by all priests present, including high dignitaries. Cardinal -The Trappists, an order of Jesuits, have Lavigerie even kissed the feet of two black lately begun work in South Africa on a large surgeons, formerly slave·boys, purchased by scale, In Natal they have an estate of 2Q,OOO white monks on the Nile. acres, and in Griqualand of 500,000 acres, Belgium.-The Government has voted a loan of $5,000,000 to the Congo Free State. The expense of the founding of this State, and introduction into-the-familyof nations, has been Catholic Church has moved against the here- borne chiefly by the king, at an expense of tic, and suppressed his services by the power $~,OOO to $300,000 a year_ In return for this of the civil law. During the present year Diaz grant, King Leopold makes Belgium the heir, and his helpers have been arrested,sent to jail, ten years hence, of his African possessions, and harassed in all possible ways. Diaz is ont which it is believed will one day prove a great on bail, but the courts hesitate and keep him source of revenue_ and his friends in suspense. The intervention of the American Government has been in- -Pastor Anet's Christian Missionary voked. Church of Belgium, added to its members last year 500 converts from Romanism and infidel- England.-The report of the Bible Car- ity. It employs 4 evangelists, 7 Bible-readers, riage Mission in England, shows tbat this so- ,and 5 colporteurs. ciety is doing an important work in the rural parts of the country. Over 49,000 Bibles and Canada.-The Presbyterian Church in Testaments, and about 367,000 books, tracts, -canada has, in all, 326 distinct fields of home etc., were circulated in 270 villages and towns. mission work, and 990 preaching places. The In these places the Gospel was preached, number of missionaries employed last year with many conversions as the result. was 329, of whom 121 were ordained ministers and liceL. iates,and 208 students an.d catechists. -Another new missionary band of special 'The average Sabbath attendance at all the interest is about to go forth in connection stations was 43,065, the number of families with the Church Missionary Society. Rev. Bar- connected with them, 11,701, and of communi- clay F. Buxton, son of Mr. T. Fowell Buxton, cants, 13,907. The progress made in the Pres- has offered to go to Japan with a smaIl party bytery of Manitoba may be given as a speci- of missionaries, undertaking both the direction men of the result.q. It was formed 19 years and entire charges himself. Mr. Barclay is an ago. Winnipeg had tben a popUlation of 421, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is pro- now it has 22,892. Manitoba had then 19,000, posed that Mr. Buxton's party should occupy now it has 150,000. Then Presbyterianism stood the town and district of Matsupe, an import- third relative to other denominations, now it ant place at the west end of the maIn island heads the list. In meeting the expenses in- of Japan. volved in this vast home mission undertaking, the church acknowledges grants from the ~Mra. Hannington, widow of Bishop Han- Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Church nington, who was murdered in 1885, near <>f Scotland and the Free Church. Uganda, conducts a weekly missionary prayer meeting, in Brighton. -The Toronto medical students' Y. M. C. A., which has 179 members, has just sent one France.-Cardinal Lavigerie opened the <>f their number, Dr. Hardie and his wife, as a Anti-Slavery Congress, in Paris, with an admissionary to Korea, and have agreed to sup- dress, in the Church of St. SuIpice. He highly port him"for a period of at least eight years." praised the enthusiasm of England in the anti- His destination is "Fusan, where he is to co- slavery work, although it was headed by <>perate with Mr. Gale, of University College Catholics. He said he, did not desire the im-, Y. M. C. A." $1,800 is requisite for outfit and mediate abolition of slavery, as that would support for the first year. entail starvation of slaves, but that man-hunt- ing must be immediately suppressed. China.-TheChina Inland Mission hasestablished in China, 16 opium refuges, 3 hospi- Germany.-According to Bisho» Warren tals, and 5 dispensaries. The churches num- the members of the Methodist Church in Gerber 66 and chapels 110. many average, in their contributions, $4.40 per member annually, while the largest incomes -Dr Douthwaite, of the China Inland Mis- among them do not exceed $1.25 per day." sion, Che-Foo, says, that in the late famine district in Shan·Tung, there are now over a. India.-Some of our missionaries in India thousand applicants for baptism. have been caIled on to stand at the bar of the civil courts. Rev. J. J. Lucas and Rev. -The government has indemnified the Henry Forman were summoned before the Presbyterian Board to tbe extent of over a High Court in Allahabad, to answer for the thousand dollars for property destroyed by a baptism of a youth of eighteen, who had promob, in 1885, in the province of Kwong-Sai, fessed to be a convert to Christianity, and China. It has taken our United States lIIin- who had acted throughout of his own free ister a long while to securethis justreimhurse- will, and with intelligent comprehension of ment, but the final action is encouraging, in what his act meant. The judge was a Mothat it recognizes the right of foreigners to hammedan, but so clearly arrayed before him hold property in interior cities. were the facts in the case, and so explicit was the law, that the decision rendered was Cuba.-The Rev. A. J. Diaz, an evangelist that the missionaries had violated no law of her Majesty's empire, and the yonng convert <>f the Southern Baptists, in the Island of was his own master in religious affairs and Cuba, has been wonderfully successful in at liberty to dwell and worship where he preaching and organizing churches. He is a pleased. The case was regarded as an Ironative of Cuba, and preaches with great ease and freedom in his own tongue. The Roman portant one, and the judgment rendered years that the Chinese have been able makes the work of evangelizing the youth of to plant themselves in the country he India much easier and less dangerous. traveled through, so hostile have the na- tives always shown themselves, It is said -The Woman's Christian Temperance that in Thibet nearly every crime is pun- Union of Singapore has organized 'a mission ished by the imposition of a fine, and tha~ for the benefit of European sailors that visit murder is by no means an expensive luxury. tht.t port. This, of course, greatly increases the danger of travel in that remarkable land. Ireland.-The Irish Church Mission So- <:iety seeks to give a pllre gospel to the Irish United States.-The Presbyterian Wo- Roman Catholics. A good work has been done man's Mission Society received for last year through this instrumentality. Fresh impetus $337,842. The society was able to support the has been given to it by the munificent be- following missions: Indians:–ll3 schools, 164 ,quest of $150,000 by Mrs. Susan Hopper. teachers, 2,264 pupils. Mormons:–37 schools, 99 teachers, 2,374 pupils. Mexicans :-32 Korea.-A missionary, Mr. Appenzeller, schools, 67 teachers, 1,627 pupils. South:-16 in the Fndependent, says, that when mission schools, 48 teachers, 1,213 pupils. Total. 118 work began in Korea, the missionaries pre- schools, 361 teachers, 7,47'8 pupils.-Mid·Consented a Bible to the king. The prime minis- tinent. ter took the Bible to the palace, showed it to the king, and then, with the klng's approval, -The Universalists, after an existence of tore it in pieces. Years afterwards, a Ken- more than a hundred years, send out their tucky man presented the Korean minister at first missionary. Washington with a bottle of the best Bourbon whiskey for the king. This was accepted. -The Annual Report of the International 'Then the Christians of Kentuckyresolved to Medical Missionary Society, shows that 7,356 show the king, at as early a period as possible, new cases of disease and injury were treated that the country produced something better during the past Society's year; 14,717 attendthan whiskey. Recently they sent, through ances were given at the dispensaries, of which the Korean minister, three Bibles, one for the there are 7 in New York and 2 in Brooklyn; king, one for the prime minister, and one for 1,641 visits were paid to the sick in their own the foreign secretary. The present has been homes. DuriIig the eight and a half years of 4Ccepted. the Society's existence, over 32,000 cases were treated, about 70,000 attendances were given -Roman Catholic missionaI'ies have at dispensaries, and over 14;000 visits were been in Korea 200 years, yet have never Is- made to sick at their homes. This Society sued the Bible In the native language. They co·operates with all existing Christian agenhave translated the New Testament but have cies, as far as possible, and establishes medinot put it into print, and the only copies, cal missions at Gospel missions, or mission made by hand, cost from $10 to $20 each. churches, wherever practicable. The presi- dent is Boudinot C. Atterbury, M. D.; the -Sad News.-Dr. John W. Heron, Medi- treasurer, Cleveland H. Dodge, Esq., No. 11 <ml Missionary of the Presbyterian Board in Cliff Street; and the medical director, George Seoul, is dead. He died of dysentery. The D. Dowkoutt, M. D., 118 East 45th Street, New loss is great, 'for he was Superintendent of the York City. The Society deserves the liberal Royal Hospital in the capital, and had won the support of Christian people. {lonfidence of the King. His infiuence in the foreign comniunity and in Seoul was also -The receipts of the American Board for very great. the year ending Septemb"r 1st, are $617,723. This amount is $69,025 in excess of last year. .of-Moravian Missions.-The latest statistics Of this increase $22,876 is from donations, the our missions show an increase over last balance is from legacies. During the year 64 year of 620 communicants and of 1457 In the new mission aries have been appointed. 22 of total membership of our congregations in the whom are men: 54 of. these new recruits have foreign fields. The number under the direct already been sent to the field. This number care of our missionaries DOW amounts to 87,263, is in excess of any year since 1837.-The Adand of these 30,591 are enjoying the full privi- vance. leges of communicant membership. These are solid figures, and we thank God for the un- -Secretary Ellinwood of the Presbyterian mistakable token of His blessing on our work Board of Foreign Missions writes, that the in Asia, Africa, America and Australia.- new value put upon silver has so affected ex- Periodical Accotlnts. change in all the foreign countries where silver is the chief medium, that the purchasing power Thibet.-Mr. W. Woodville Rockhill, of the Board's appropriations is diminished formerly of the American Diplomatic Service, from 15 to 20 per cent., and the rate of exhas recently returned from a long and peril- change is constantly fluctuating. A heavy, <>us journey through Thibet, the unknown needless tax is thus laid upon the missionary heart' of Asia. For 700 hundred miles he cause for the benefit of a few silver kings. passed through a country where no white man had ever set foot, journeying, of course, in disguise. It is only within the last few
INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE NOVEMBER NUMBER
INDEX OF CONTENTS NOVEMBER NUMBER.
PAGE PAGE I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS••••••• 801–842 plore Central Africa, 877; Universities' IT.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLI- Mission, 877; the Trappists, 877; Roman Catholic Missions in Uganda ………… 877 GENCE•• – …………….. _…. 842–850 IIT.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE… 85O-S54 BELGIUM.-Loan to the Congo Free IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT ••• 854-862 States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877 V.-MONTHLY CONOERT OF MISSIONS 862–867 BRAZIL.-Political Changes, American VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT Missions, etc., 862; Other South Ameri- can MiSSions, Brussels Anti-Slavery Con- TOPICS …… _……………. 867-873 gress……………………………… 86(t vn.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK BURMAH AND SIAM.-"A Thousand AND STATISTICS. .. ……..–873-877 Miles on an Elephant. " …………….. 842 VIIT.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS; MONTH- CANADA.-Presbyterian Church, 878; LY BULLETIN ……………… 877-879 Toronto Medical Students' Y. M. C. A… 878 IX.-INDEX TO CONTENTS. .••••• •• • ••• 880 CHINA.-A Great Evangelizing Agency, 845; Inland Mission, 878; Presbyterian Authors. Board Indemnified …………….. : …. 878 EDITORS.-A. T. Pierson. The Miracles ENGLAND.-Flowof Converts to the of Missions; The Wonderful Story of Church of Rome……. .. . … .. …… 846 Madagascar, 808; Editorial Notes. J. M. Sherwood, Book Notices, 841; Editorial FRANCE.-Anti-sla.very Congress …… 878 Notes …………………………….. 871 GERMANY.-Generous Giving………. 878 HAWA H.-Rev.W. A. Essery's Address Blackie, William G., D.D., "Personal Life of David Livingstone, " noticed………. 842 on the Victory of the Gospel ………… 846 Brockett, r,. P., M.D., Education and INDIA.-Lunn's Work; "A Friend of Missions in India," 841; Poverty of the E.vangelization…………………….. 850 Clark. Miss Helen F., The Congo Missions, 826 People, 846; Missionaries in Court. 878 Ellinwood, F. F., D.D.• The Duty of Chris- IRELAl'U>.-Irish Church Mission So- tendom to.the Jews, 801; Brazil and its ciety ……………………………. 879 Missions. Other South American Mis- sions………… _._ ……………….. 860 JAPAN.-The New Constitutional Gov- Gracey, J. T., D.D., International Depart- ernment, 846; Appeal from Ba.ptist Mis- ment …………………………….. 851 sionaries. ……………………….. '" 847 Guinness, Mrs. H. Grattan, "New World of Central Africa," noticed…•…. __ .. 841 JEWS.-The Duty of Christendom to …. 801 Haig, Mrs. F. T.,"Daybreak in North Afri- ca," noticed…. …….. …………… 841 KOREA.-The gift of a Bible to the King, Hallett, Holt S • "A Thousand Miles on an 879; Roman Catholic Missionaries, 879; Elephant," noticed……….. .. .. . •. 842 Moravian Missions ………………… 879 Herrick, George F., D.D., The Kingdom of God in the Land of its Origin…….. 854 MADAGASCAR.-TheWonderful Story Hunt, Life of John; Missionary to Fiji, of its Evangelization, 808; Letter from noticed ……….. _…………………. 842 Rev. James B. Mackay…. .. …. . 850 Lunn, Rev. Henry S., "A Friend of Mis- sions in India, " noticed ………… "…… 841 Moravian Missions in Surinam………… 867 Moorhead, Max Wood, Student Volunteer Moravians not Lutherans……………… 853 Movement ………………… …….. 842 Pitzer, A. W., D.D., The Inheritance of PALESTINE.-An Awakening of Life Nations Allotted of God….. ………… 820 and Energy………. .. …… 847 Schweinitz, Rev. Paul de, The Romance of Goedverwacht ………………….. 833 South American Missions ……. _…….. 866 Starbuck, Rev. Chas. C., Translations from Foreign Missionary Periodicals………. 836 Turkish Empire, Dr. Herrick's Graphic West, Maria A.. Hidden Springs, or How Sketch of its Present Condition .. _. . . .. 854- Missionaries are Made.. .. .. … . . . . .. …. 835 THIBET.-A perilous journey………. 879 Countries and Subjects. UNITED STATES.-The Silver Law's AFRICA.-The Congo Missions, 826; Effect on Missions, 848;.Farewell Meeting New World of Central Africa, 841; of Missionaries in Boston, 849; Presby- Daybreak in North Africa, 841; Dr. terian Woman's Missionary Society, 879; Blackie's Life of Livingstone, 842; Mwan- Report of International'Medical Mission- ga Stripred of Despotic Power, 844; ary Society, 879; Receipts American Editoria Notes on Uganda, 845; Zanzi- Board ………………………. _…. 879· bar, 84.5; The Slave Traffic, 861; Fire- arn1S, 862; The Liquor Traffic, 861; Great Statistics of Foreign Missions. Britain. Sphere of inlluence, 877; to ex- American :r.larathi Mission, 873; American Madura Mission, South India, 874; Amer- ican Free Baptist Mission, South Ben· gal, 874; Canada Baptist TeJugn Mis- sion, 874; Malayam Mission of L. M. S., Basel G. E. M. S., Southwestern India, 874; Mackay Mission Hospital, Formosa, 874; M. E. Church (North) N. China Missions, 874; American Presbyterian (North) Mission in Canton. China., 875; B. F. Missions of Presbyterian Church (South) Report for 1889-90, 874; Ameri- can Baptist Missionary Union, 876; Church Missionary Society…… • … 876·
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 — 1889 Index
according to Act of Congress, in the year ~889
Missionary Review of the World.
VOL. II. NEW SERIES. VOL. XII. OLD SERIES.
JANUARY TO DECEMBER, 1889.
J. M. SHERWOOD, EDITORS: NEW YORK. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, PHILADELPHIA.
PUBLISHERS: FUNK & WAGNALLS, NEW YORK: LONDON: 18 AND 20 ASTOR PLACE. 44 FLEET STREET. WILLIAM BRIGGS. 18 AND 80 KING STREET. EAsT. TORONTO,CANADA: FUNK & W AGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. O.
mho:. .959
INDEX FOR I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
PAGE. .. PAGB. Laborers wanted in the Republic of Cnlom- American Missionary in tbe Orient, The, by Autbor of '"Islam and Cbristian Mi.- hials. A., Rev. T. H. Candor……… 618 slons" …•…..•…..•….•……….. $01 Lay M ssions in China, B. C. Atterbury, Book of Acts and the World's Evangeliza- M. D …………………………….. 436 tion, Prof. W. A. Pitzer …………… 490 Lookinl!" Backward and Forward, Editors. 1 Bondei 1l1ission, The, W. H. Morse, M. D .. 197 Madagascat, L. P. Brockett, M. D. Part British Opium in China, G. '1'. Masun …… 36 I. 351; Part II ……………………. 4Z5 -Buddhist Doctrine of Salvation by Faith, Miracles of Missions.• No. IX. Signs of F. F. Ellinwood, D.D ……………… 647 the Superanatural in the General Work, Carey, William, J. M. Ludlow, D.D…….. 7~D A. T. P., 2Il. No. X. Mission to the Characteristics of the ltecent Atlverse Criticisms upon Missions, Cyrus 1tamlin, Blind in China, A. T. P., 106. No. XI. Wonderful Work in: the West Indies, D.D ……………………………… 696 A. T. P.,187. No. XlI. The Story of Cities, The Crisis in, A. T. P ………….. SIlO . City, The, as a Factor in the World's Evan- Siam, A. T. P., 845. No. XUI. Work gelization, J. iI'l. S ………………… 161 Among the Wynds of Glasgow, A. T. P., 492. No. XlV. The Land of the China Inland Missiou, Prof. Homer B. Hul- Inqnisition, A. T. P., 588. No. XV. The bert…………………………….. 255 Land of Esther, A. T. P …………. 9011 Chinese, The Character of the, Rev. J. H. Missionary Heroes in Africa, Robert N.
Roberts ………………………. 136; 218 Oust, LL.D …………… , ………… 117 Christian College at San Panlo, Brazil, Missionary Puem, "Till He Come. " .•…. 846 G. W. Cbamberlain, D.D …………… 836 Missionar~ The, in the'midst of Poverty, Christian Missions as tbe Ente1'l>rise of the Cyms Hamlin, D.D……………….. 857' Church, A. T. P…………………… 5 Missions in tbe Levant. No. ll. Tbeir Christian Unity and Christian Missions, Metbods. Rev. Edwin M.Bli••, 20. No. Rev. J. L. Russell ………… ; …….. 888 Continental Missionary Conferencll at Bre- Ill. Their Resnlts……………….. 90 Mission, The, and Commission of the men, Germany. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . … 840 Church,A. T. P .. ~………………… 321 Criticisms npon Forei.!ln Missions, Rev. Ed- Modern Apostle, A. Hon. Ion Keith-Falwin M. Hliss ……………………… 184 coner, Rev. W. J. Mutch ………….. 414 Damien, Father, the Leper Priest of the Mohammedanism in China, Rev. H. V. Molokai. Rev. Edwin M. Bliss………. 507 Noyes ……………………………. 58 DeIitzsch's Hebrew New Test., Semi-Cen- , Money, Tbe Ministry of, No. I., A. T. P., tennial of, Prof. George H. Schodde, 661. No. ll. A. T. P.; No. llI. E. p~ Ph.D ……………………………. 97 Cowan, D.D., William Tbaw, ~94; No. Disl ribution of Mission:try Agents, Tbe, IV. Rev. W. Harrison……………. 744 Rev. EdwardStarrow ……………… 262 Mormon Missions, The Marvels of. Rev. D. Emin Pasha, Rev. Loui. Grout………….. 439 L. Leonard ………………. : …….. 382 England and Foreign Missions, James John- Notes from our English Correspondent, ston, Secretary World's Missionary …………………………..274;498: 677 Conference ………………………. 26 Notes on New Books of a Missionary Char- Evangelization of the Cbinese in America, acter, Editorial ………. , .. .12'~l 3&!; 518 J. Stewart Happer .'……………….. 509 Our Extant Sidney Smitbs, Rev. D. L. Leon- Exposition of Missions, Tbe, A. T. P ……. 174 ard ……………………………… 658 Further 'l'estimonit"s to Mls"ions, A. T. P .. 241 Papal Cburch (toward Progress), The Atti- Hans Egede, Thomas Laurie, D.D ………. 881 tude of the. A. T. P……………….. 577 Have we too' Many Miss:onary Periodi- Pastor Harms and his Work, Rev. Thomas cals, J. M. S………………………. 592 Laurie…………………………… 840 Henry Martyn, J. M. Ludlow, D.D……… 14 Persia, The Ancient Church of and its Reform, J. H. Shedd, D.D…………. 774 Historic Churches of the East, Tbe, Prof. George H.Scbodde, Ph.D ………….. 819 Pillar on tbe Borrler of Egypt, A, Chas. S. Historical Outline of Missions among the Robinson. D.D……………………. 101 , Jews, Prof. B. Pick, Ph. D, …….. 669; 750 Pioneer of tbe Gospel in France, A, Rev. Important Events in Papal Lands, A. T. P .. 268 J. C.Bracq ………………………. 581 Intluence of Missionary Efforts on the In- Prayer-Basis ofMi.sion Wc.rk, The, A. T. P. 652 Press, The, on Foreign Mission Il'ields, dians of New York, F. F. Ellinwood, J. T. Gracey, D. D………………… 458 ·D.D………………………………. 902 Tnterest in Missions, .. A Watcbman " …… 74:1 Protestant Missions in Eastern Eqnatorial Islam, J. T. Gracey, D.D ………….. 214; 300 Africa, Robert N. eust, LL.D………. 194 Islam and Christian Missions …… " ….. , 561 Returned Missionaries, Geo W. Wood,D.D. 772 Japan, Hindrances and Helps in, J. T. Roman Catholic Encroachments on Protes- Oracey, D.D, 616; Notes from, Rev. H. tant Missions …………………….. 899 Loomis……………………….. 622; 862 Serving our own Generation, A. T. ,P…… 481 Japan, The Great Crisis in, F. F. :Ellin- . ShaftesburyJ:he Evangelistic Earl, A. T. P. 721 wood, D.D …………………………815 Sir William Hunter on the Religions of In- dia……………………………… 71 Japan, The Outlook in, George W. Knox, Slavery, The Current Contlict with, Rev. D.D., 410; A First Year's Impression of, Fred. S. Cnrtis …………………. 504 James Johnston, A. S. A …………… 914 JeWish Mission Work, Prof. Geo. H. South Africa. The Mustard Seed of Mis- , Schodd… Ph. D …. __ ……… '" …… 419 sions in, Rev. Lewis Grout …………. 488
INDEX
~I'AGE. I Dph il a M. ·m·~·M~~·~·~·~P· A Gm . .
Stndent Missionary Uprising, The, JonriR. s and the' Gothic Bible: Jan:es Mott…………………………….. 824 Lndlow, D.D………………………. 259 Vindication of Missions, A. T. Po,……… 81 Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions ………… 200; 361; 442; 516; 605 Waldensians, The, and their Bi-Centennial, 640 Prof. Henry W. Hnlbert …………… .r Taylor and Radcliffe's Mission in America, When Shall Coms' the Consummation Reginald Radcliffe ………………….· 33 Poem. J. E. RankinJ.p.D.. . . . . . .. . .. 600 Woman and Woman's work at the Lon- .. Till He Come." Poem by Mrs. Merrill don Conference, Mrs. J. T. Gracey. . . 111 E. Gates………………… .. …. .. … 846 World's Conference, A Retrospect 'of That Question of Population, F. F. Ellln- A. T. P ………………………….. : 401 wood,D.D……………………….. 250 ZnlU8, Religious Views and Practices of the, Rev. LewisGrout……………… 738 The Great Famine Cry. Poem by Miss West …………………………….. 282 Translations from Foreign Miss. Periodi- cals, Rev. Chas. C. Starbnck, 40; 201; H.-GENERAL INDEX. '
PAGE. PAGE.
AFRICA.-Mission work among the Zulu! aries, 955; Bp. Taylor………………….956 in Natal, 5~; Central Africa, description, 53; Aberdeen, The Earl of, Editorial Note.. …. 78 North Africa, descrIption, 52; Mohammedan· Alaska, Lawlessness and Woman Stealing.. 221 ism and Missions, M; Note from Rev. Chas. Alaska, Moravian ~lission ……………… 151 W. Kilbon, 71 ; Trans·Afriea railway, 71 ; Mis- Albania, Appeal in its Behalf…………… 453 sionary Heroes in, 117 ; appeal from an evan- American Government. Tbe, and tbe Drink gelist, 127' Note on the Deserted Ml.sion, 1~7 ; tbo Congo tribes, 182; Liberia, 132; Cardinal Traffic in Africa, Ed. .. .. . .. .. .. .. . .. … 70 Lavigiere's mission, 150; Scotch Free Church American Missionary in the Orient, The, by Mission amongtbe Znlus, 150; Baptist Mission on the Congo, 151 ; Liquor traffic. 151; Basutoland, author of "Islam aud Christiau Mis- 151 : Protestant Mis.ions in Eastern Equatorial sions "……… ………….. ….. . .. 801 Africa, 194; the Bondei Mission, lUi; East Af· American Sunday School Union,65th Annirican policy, 210; butchery or the Oe;oni tribe, ni vel'sary ……………………… 636, 640 2~1 ; Universities' Mission, 226; Eastern Africa Anti-Slavery Defense, James Stevenson's in a ferment, 227 ; session of American Presb. Pamphlet………………………… 876 Cburch, ~~9 ; letter from Sec. N. bofrica Mis· Appeal of Grimth John and Arnold Foster sion, 291; Rum on tbe Copgo, 292 ; Llvingstone's in Bebalf ofan Independent Mission in discoveries, 292; Lieutenant Wissman's ad- China …………………………… 455 dress before Hamburg Geo. Society, 29~; Miss. Applied Missionary Information ……•….. 297 iuterest in E. Africa, 293 ; how some missions Arabia, Keith-Falconer Mission ………… 638 were saved, 293; Bechuanaland, 865: Logos, a Arabian Mission, The …………………. 855 vivid picture of, 366 ; Mohammedan resolution, Archliisbop of Canterbury Quoted. . . . . . . . . 238 367 ; Exeter Hall meeting on Slave traffic, 444 ; Arnold, Miss Ellen, Thrilling Description of a missionary's journey in Central Africa, 446; Work in Australia …………………. 688 missionary interests in C. Africa, 446; Congo, a Arnot, Fred. S., Work in Central Africa, hopefullleld, 447; exciting events in the Soudan, noticed …………………………. 518 447 ; Bishop Smythies on Zanzibar,<l48; African Artbingon's, Robert,.Criticisms ……….. U42 ivory, 448; physical features, religion, 465; tbe Asia Minor, Letter from Mrs. Dr. Metbeny. 127 Congo MiSSion, 466; notes, 469; ,notes of In· Asia Minor, St. Paul's Institute at Tarsus.. 51 terest, 476; the mustard seerl of Missions in S. Association for Free Distribution of Scrip– Africa, 488 ; release of missional'ies, 498; mls· tures………………………………. 384 sionaries for C. Africa, 502; Prof. Calderwood Ansam Mission, noticed. …… .. . . … …… 364 quoted,520; must be aggressive, 520; diffusion Austria, Hostility to Evangelical Work….. 310 of tbe English language, 520; are foreigu mis- Baldwin, Rev. E. F., Letter from Morocco, sions a success, 520; African Lake Co. 521; 209 ; Oriticism on Letters in The Ohris– revived Hinduism. 521; results of a Chrlstle8s tian, 548; Work in Southern Mocivilization, 521 ; Dr. Cust on missionary wives, rocco ………………… ".,,,,,,,,,,,, 525 522; Dr. Su.nmers in the Congo Free States, Bain, James Alexander, Death of……….. 789 522; E. F. Baldwin'swork in Morocco, 525; Baptist Ylissionary SOCiety (En~lish) …….. 500 missions of German and English societies, !i56 ; Baptist Churches of Great BrItain, Statiswork in Mogador ; slave hunters and misslon- tics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " . . . . . . . . . 890 eries, 606; Africa's regeneration, 606; what Beall, M. E., Quoted from North American Bishop Turner says of Africa, 607 ; notes ofmiss. Review …………………………… 297 evangelists, 607; Indigo,607; miss. societies In Beall, Rev. M. E., Letter from San Luis Africa; 634; items of interest, 637; situation in Potosi. ….. ;'……………………… 291 Nyassa, 677 ; 681 ; new slation in Ukukivi, 678 ; shocking barbarities, 67!;. Cameron on C. Africa, BELGIUM.-E"angelical Society, 227' 680: C. M. S's work, t!Ild; Church of Scotland The King a nd the oCfo, n5~g7r;egEavtiaonng,e3li1c0a'l missions :near Nyassa, 686; Drommond on slave Evangelical Society trade, 70&; items ofinterest, 716; farewell meet· Church of Belginm, 716; Consumption ing at Liverpool, 760; Arab traders in C. Africa, of Liquor …………………………… 878 760 ; J. B. E. African Co. 761; letter from Rev. Bible Distribution …………………….. 398 Jos. Clark,766; do. Chas. Jas.Laffin, 767; Jas. Johnston on Catholicmissions, 769; letter from Black's" Christian Womanhood," noticed. 519 Rev. H. Jackson, 770; Arabs in C. Africa, Blake, Dr. J., Impressions of Mission Work in India ………………………….. 211 Congo mission, etc., 796 i.Jlghtingthe Arabs, 847; BliSS, Rev. Edwin M., Missions in the Levant, No. II., Their Methods, 20; No. the fnture of Africa, 84'1 ; miss. for C. Africa, III., Their Result,;, 00; Note in Reply chauges at Bonny, Portuguese, advance, 848 ; outstations of C. A., 878. Slave life on the to Dr. Hamlin ………………….. ' " 709 Congo, 914; Christian slaves at Mecca; Por· Bliss, Dr. Isaac G., Death and Sketcb of tuguese and the slave trade, 915 ; Fight against Life ……………………………… 818 slave trade at NY8ssa, 916 ; Slavery in British E. African possessions. 918 ? Native races aud Bokbara and tbe Liquor Traffic…………. 275 liquor tramc commerce, 918 ; :Dr. Guinne.s in Bonar, Dr. A. A., Address at MUdmay Con- Boston,924 ; Cust on African Languages, 926 ; ference ………………………….. 236 Latest l)ews from Stanley, 955; Scotch mission· Booth, Gen., on Revivals ………………. 683 Bound Volume of MISSIONARY REVIEW OF TBE WORLD …………………….. 160 Boynton, Rev. F. H., Letter to Dr. Pierson. 210 PAGE. China Inland Mission. Prof. Homer '~GE. BRAZIL.-Letter from Rev. George B. Nind, 49; Organization of llraz.i!an Synod, Hulbert ………………………….. 255 80 ; Opportnnity for Christian MisSIOns, ~21 ; Chinese Evangelist, The …………. .474; 509 Self-supporting MisSionaries, 5~6; "eneral As- Chmese 10 America.. .. . ……………… 54.1 sem bly Action on Presbyterian Missions, 6U7 ; Christian College .at San Paulo, Brazil, G. Mission ~tatistics, 635; Stl1tistics of Presbyterian Church Mission, 714; A Christian Col<- W.Chamberlam, D.D …………….. 836 lege, 886 ; A Wonderful Old Metn, 865. Christian Missions as tne l£nterprise of the Barnum, Dr. H. N., eloquent appeal. ……. 9<3 Bright Bits of Readings, etc., noticed……. 364 Clmrch. Editorial…….. ……….. 5 British Contributions to Foreign Missions Christianity and Humanity, by Charles·S.
in 1881, Tables of, Rev. W. A. ::lcott Ely, noticed.. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . …. . . … 123 Robinson…………………. …….. 75 Christian Unity and Christian Missiuns, British Government sells the right to man- ufacture and sell liquor in India .. 0<••••• 398 Hev. J.L. Hussell …………………. 888 Bl'itish Opium in China, Rev. G. L. Mason. 36 Christlieb, D,·. TneodJr, Death of………. ol~ Brool<s. Arthur, Death of ……………… 275 Church, the Growth of the, in U. S. ::ltettis- Buddhist Doctrine of Salvation by Faith, l!'. F. Ellinwood, D.D ……………… 6i7 tics ………………………………. 232 Bulgarian Annoyances…. …………… 864 Church,The Mission and Commission of the, .
BURMAH.-Latest news in regard to fam- A.T.P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ·321 ine,151; What statistics show, 15~; The loyal City, the, as a Factur in the World's Evan- Karens, 210; Area, 380; A religious ceremony, 608. gelization, J. M. ::l., 161; Evangeliza- tion of Cities. . .. . . . . .. .. . . . … .. . . .. … 222 . CANADA.-Wuman's Missionary Societies, Clark,N.G., D.D., Letter to Dr. Pierson …. 547 43 ; Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, College Students …………………….. 480 123. Colonization, The New Era of, and its Bear- Canadian Congregational Year·Book, 1888·9. ]58 ing on Christian Philanthrophy, F. F. Carey, William,J. 1Il. Lndlow, D.D …….. 739 Ellinwood, D.D ………………….. 738 centenary Missionary Conference, A Retro- Colored Race, Missions Among the …….. 214 Continental Missionary Conference at Bre- spect of, A. T. P …………………… 401 men ………………………….. 840,899 Contribntions to Miss. and Bible Society CHIN A.-British Opinm, 36; Letter from for fifty years. . . . . . .. . . . .. …………. 159 Dr. John L. Nevius on Synod of China, 46; Mo- Convention of Christian Workers in De· ha.mmedauism in, 5):;; Numbe,· of Christians, troit ……………………………. 231 71; Threats of Government, 72; Synod of Chi- Cook, Rev. J. A. B., letter describing a na, discllsbion of the Uniun quetition, 8.0; the ChristianBaba ……. , ……………. 527 petrty of progress.. 133; Character of the Chi- Copp, Rev. Alfred, A Call to China……… 200 nese, 136; the Uhinese language and some Correspondent3, Letters from and replies .. 385 tl'aits of character,144; Vision of the Cross, Crisis in Cities, The, A. T. P …………… tl30 150; Texts and themes for ~1issionary Sermons, Critics of ~lissions, The . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611 15J; the blind, 151; the great examination at Criticisms upon Missions, Cyrus Hamlin, Nankin, 152; China Inland Mission, 152; A Call D.D ……………………………… 696 to Cbina, 208; Letter from Tangier, Morocco, Criticisms upon Foreign Missions, Rev. Ed- 209; Dr. MartinIs labors in Peking, 210; the win M. Bliss………….. .. ………. 184 habit..tions of cruelty, 220; meeting of Synod of Cuba, Baptist Mission …………………. 717 China, 227; China Inland MiSSion, 227; An· Cuba, Religious Outlook ……………….. 477 ting hospital, 227; the Christian Cullege, 2~8; Custl Dr. H Notes" on Miss. subjects, J. T. ",', Chinese policy, 228; Chinese benevolence, 237; Gracey, D D., 531; on African languages. 926 China Inland Mission work, :;55; the Famine, Damien, Father, the leper priest of Molo- 277; opium habit,291; Roman Catholic mis- kai. ……………………………… 50. sions, 265; Exclusion Bill passed, 310, table of Daniels, estimate of world's population …. 390 statIstics for 18b8, 316; religions orChina, 367; Death of ilir. Ahok's mother ……..•….. 60 American Commerce, 367; Dr. Happer on Oen· DeQuincy, a beautiful distinction. .. ……. 237 tenary Conference, 3;0; Famine in Shantung, Distinguished Witnesses, by Rev. John Lig- 372; Gen. MISS. Conference, 379; statistics of gins, noticed ……………………… 123 China Inland Mission, 1888. 388; Ching-Kiang Division of the World-field …………….. 634 riot, 397; medical work, 397; lay missionaries itl, Duff, Alexander. . . . .. . .. . . . .. .. . … .. .. …. 135 4'35; idolatry in Canton, 448; appeal in behalf oran independent mission, 4i5; Chinese New ENGLAND.-England and Foreign Missions, Year, 456; the Exclusion Bill, 477; Evangeliza- 26; Woman's Miss. Societe of Great Britain tion of the Ohinese in Americ<1, 50~; a good and Ireland, 41; the opi urn traffic, action of book, 522; Chinese in America, 544; chal)els in '" Tue Christian Union," 5! ; London Mission- Canton, 557; medical missionaries, 608; Che- ary Society, 7:l; Outburst of paganism, 72; Turfoo hospital, 638; mission work in ShanSl, key Mission Aid Society, 152; Garibaldi'S ap- 684; letter from Rev. H. Corbett,687; table of peal, 152; Church of England Woman's :Miss. Catb.olic miSSIOns, 715; AmericanPresb. Miss., Association, 152; The Salvation Army, 211 ; Canton, 715; Inland mission, 717; Cbristian Contributions to Missions, 228; Sir Monier College, 761; items of interest, 796; death of Willams' Kensington address, 296; Laymission- Rev. J. Crossett, 849; services of U. S. Minister aries, 310 ; British and Foreign Bible Society, Reed. 853; Caine's criticisms refuted, 854; items 443; item~ of interest, 443; a missionary exhiof interest,879; the great hospital at Canton, bition, 522 ~ Wesleyan Miss. Society's missions, 924; changes affecting China'" progress, 931. 558; J .s. Johnston on Canon Taylor's attack, 55~; We~layan Mi.s. Society. 638; New Miss. CEYLON.-Education, 133: Mission work scheme, 633; Baptist Union (G. B.), 638 ; report at Jaffa, 175; Great change in,879; careless use on E. African Mission, 717; Zenana society of figures ……… : ……………………. 943 meeting, 7~7; C. M. S. missionaries, 879 .. Cheap Missionaries," 852; Views of Mer- Egypt, A Pillar on the borders of, C. S.
edith Townsend, 852 ; Literary Mission- Robinson, D.D ……………………. 101 aries……………………………… 852 E~ypt, American Mission in . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . 468 Changes in Ohina affecting its progress, Egypt, Miss Whately's Work in Cairo …… 557 Rev. H. D. Porter, lI'1.D ……………. 931 Ellinwood, F. F., D.D., classes in compara- Church Habits ………………………. 223 Chile, An Appeal to Christians for Prayer .. 767 tive religions ……………………… 787 Children'S Aid Society, Work of. ………. 480 Emin Pasha, Rev. Lewis Grout ……….. , 439 England and Foreign Missions, Rev. James Johnston, A. S. A. ………….. …… 26 Europe, Standing Armies ……………… 295 E.angelical Miss. Society at Basel, Switzer– land, Prof. Henry W. Hulbert……… < 2Q!'j PAGR. PAGK.
Evangelical Preaching,What it has done for test case. 303; some facts about India, 305; the heathen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ….. …… 368 benefits of British rule. 307; missionary in_ fluence. 808; the Jesuits. 809; Rum exported Exposition of Missions, The, A. T. P ……. l74 to Africa from Liverpool, 809; alarming Extant Sydney Smiths, Onr, Rev. D. L. uews from Uganda.. 309; Bishop Taylor's advance party. 809 ; an independent mission Leonard. . . . . . . . . . . • •••. . . . . . . . •. . . . . . •• 6li8 in Liberia, 309; Dr. Jex-Blake's impressions of mission work in India.3ll; Rev.J.Shi!- FRANCE.-Annnal report of Societlt; dn lidy's statistics of progress in India,311 ; N. Nord, 72; Death 01 an old servant woman, 152 ; India M<ethodistConference.312; Justice in Seaman's Rest at Marseilles,:l87; Letter from India. 317 ; Pundita Ramabai, 365.523; Bukh- C. E. Faithful about work ill Marseilles, 289 ; mabai. 365; Patna Mission, 365; Wesleyan Dr. McAU's account of hiS work in France. 450; Foreign Missions, 365; Government and the Interference with missions, 55~; A Pioneer of liquor traffic. 368; pilgrimage to Mecca, 368 ; the Gospel in France, 581; The McAll Mission, missionary schools, 386; BengalConference, 825 ; The Black Fields of France, 630; Miss 398; Emin Pasha, 439; educational report Leigh's Paris homes, 762; A Pioneer of the 1887-8.444; a commissioner'S viewsof Indian Gospel, Roussel, 581. missions, 449; drunkenness, 449; Pundita Faithful, C. Eo, letter on work in France … 289 Ra.mabai,478; Assam, 478; Caine'sinvestiga,.. Famine Cry, The great, Miss West……… 282 tion at Lucknow. 478; Roman Catholic mis- Fiji, population,etc …………………… 152 sions,503; ArnericanBaptistTelugaMissioll, Financial facts ……………………….. 387 523; letter from Secretary Haegert, 527; a Finland, baptisms …………………….. 152 Christian Baba.527; Rev.J.E.Scott's letter Foreign Missionary Societies of the U. S., from Muttsa.558; Dr. Fry's report on medi- cal missions, 558; Arcot America.n Mission, 1887-88, table of statistics. . . . . . . … . . . .. 158 558; Mrs. Wishard's success. 612; Mala.bar Foreign Miss. Prayer Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Syrian Chnrch case, 615 ; number of Roman Formosa, Canadian Mission ……………. 211 Clttholics m India. 639; mission to lepers, Formosa, English Presbyterian Church …. 477 639; Telnga Mission. 639; Marathi Mission. Freedman, The, Senator Bruce on Race 639;.hero missionary Stevenson, 685; stirring letter from Albert M…rton. G90; Syrian Problem, 469 ; gifts to …………….. 480 Ohristlans. 691; Bombay. 71B; various Freshman's Hebrew Christian Church in items of interest, 718; child marriage, leprosy. 762; missionary life. 762; false New york . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 charges. 764 ; significant facts, 797; Madras Gale. Rev. Jas. S., letter concerning Korea. 289 Bible SociE'ty, 797; child marriages, 849; Ze- Gavazzi, Death of……. •……………. 270 nana seclusion. 850 ; poisoning Hindu con- verts, 924. GERMANY.-Dr. Zieman's labors inSchles- wig-Holstein. 211 ; reflex influence of mis- INDIANS.-Conference of the Dakota churches. 154; wonderfnl change. 478; insions.684. fluence of missionary etIorts on the Indians Germany. Conference at Frankfort……… 638 of New York. 902. Germany. '.!'he Continental Miss. Conference Indian political problem, Rev. Geo.M.
at Bremen.. .. .. .. .. . .. .. . .. …. ……. 840 Wood.JI· ………………………… 766 Gibson, Dr. Otis, a fear/ess missionary…… 525 Indians of New York. The Influence of Gladstone's translation of Rock of Ages … 611 Gracey's "Sketch of Mrs. Doremns," no- MissionaryetIorts on the, F. F. ElJin- wood.D………………………….. 902 ticed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519 Interested in Missions……………….. 742 GrlJlin, Miss Libbie C., account of Miss. InternatIOnal Miss. Union, Sixth annual meeting……………………… 304; 692 Conference at Lucknow ……………. 129 International Miss. Union at Bridgeton. Guinea, PIlgrim's Progress printed …….. 228 N. J ……………………………… 538 Hans Egede. Rev. Thomas Laurie ………. 881 Ireland,19th report of Churc,h of. ……. 636 Hawaii. The Anglican MissiOn …………. 134 ITALY.-Statistics of evangelical Chri.- Happer, Dr. A. P., on Centenary Confer- tians, 390; the Free Church, 635; sehool at, Pisa, 850. ence …………………………….. 870 Islam, Dr. J. T. Gracey ………….. 214; 300 Harms, Pastor, and His Work, Thomas Islam and Christian Missions ………… 561 Laurie, D.D………………………. 340 JAPAN.-Progress. 56; Japanese views of Heathen and Christian Giving …………. 238 Christianity. 56; increase of converts, 73; Hebrew M688enger. Ph_, commended …… 475 awakening 73; Japanese views of Chris- Hell Gate Explosion. The ……………… 547 tianity. 134; Buddhism. 153; contribntions Heroic Chnrch among the heathen. . . .•. . .. 621 of converts. 153 ; J'apanese mission to Chris- Heroic Women ……………………….. 681 tendom, 154; Eby's apneal for Japan. 206; Histop Stephen, Work on India, noticed…. 364 mission of M. E. Church. South. 286; Rev. Historic Churches in the East, George' H. T. Richards on the condition of thin!;s, 312; the Greek Church alive. 312; prohibitory Schodde. Ph. D …………………… 819 laws against rum.368; appeal for the In- Historical Outline of Missions flmong the dnstrial Home. 372: Japan under its con- stitution. 379; statistics of miSSIOns for Jews,Prof. B. Pick, Ph. D ……… 669; 750 1868. 391; the outlook in, 410.,i Secretary Holcomb's "Bits about India," noticed …. 519 Wishard's letter relating to x. 111. C. A. Home Missions, Joseph Cook on, 867; Sec'y building in Tokio, 452; letter of Rev. Fred (Jurtis, 452; etIorts to revive Buddhism, Wines on convicts, etc…………….. 888 462; first year's impressions of Japan, 504 ; Humphrey, Dr. Heman, Weighty Words … 790 a college revival. 523; OPPOSItion to Union. Hnnter. Sir William, on the Religions of 559; change of sentiment, 560; report of Council of MisslonR, 560; religion the ab- India …………………………….. 271 soroing topic, 612; editorial to Buddhists, 613 ; hindrances and helps. 616; notes from Icela.nd. number of converts…….•…•. 478 Japan, 622; the sunrIse kingdom. 700; Ja- panese Christian Church, 798; the great INDIA.–Report of TravancoreCommittee crisis in, 815; notes from Japan, 862; new of L. M. S .• 55; revival of Hinduism. 72; re- constitntion.871 ; itemsof interest, 879; Ja- ply to some of Dr. pust's criticisms. 128; pan Mission annual report, 880. Miss Griffin. account of Missionary Confer- ence at Lucknow.l29 ; how the opium traf- fic a.ro86.134; incidentsof the work in Japan, 142'1 Grant Dufl"s address before FAinburgh Phi o. Institution. 153; Ca.techlsm Aryan- Vedie religion, 153; Christian Vernacu- la.r Ed. Society. 153; a voice from India, 208; times of refreshing, 212; character, of the Chinese. 219; statistical abstract of em- pire, 232; the Hanchow Hospital, 234; wo- men in Japan. 238; Sir William Hnnter on the religions of India. 271 ; area. ponulation. etc.,278; the ,. P~tna." case in court,303; 8t PAGE. Missionary Agents, The Distribntion J;AGIIl.
JAVA.-Missionary work, 154; description Rev. Edward Storrow•…………… : 262 of, etc., 546; when missionary work began, Missionary LibrarY-6 vols.-noticed…… : 518 300; number of converts in central district, Missionary Training School, Boston ….•… 880 399. JJ() Jenanyan, Rev. H. S., St. Paul's Institute.. 51 MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-No. IX., Jerusalem, rapid growth of the city .213; 478; 940 Signs of the Supernatural in the General Work. 28; No. X., Mission to the Blind in China, 106; JEWS.-Freshman's missionary work in No. XI., A Wonderful Work in the West Indies, New York,'lsil; Jewish population of PrussIa, 187; No. XII., The Story of Siam, 845; No. 159; mission to Jews in Paris, 230; mission in XIII.• Work Among the Wynds of Glasgow, Philadelphia, 231; Christianity among the 492; No. XIV., The Land of the Inquisition, Jews, 365; Jewish mission work, 419; move- 588 ; the Land of Esther, 909. ments of various Jewish societies, 449; first Missionary, The, in the midst of poverty… 857 Hebrew church in America, 615; history of Missionary Conference in London, Report Jewish missions, 669, 750; Jews in Paris, 798; Judaism and ethics, 79ti; missions among, 9il9; of. noticed…………….. ……….. 122 mission notes, 925; great interest in their evan- Missionary Periodicals, Have we too many, JgeelWi~za:tDi~o~n~, ~94~4~.~. ~~~~'..~.o'..~'..~~~.~~~~b~~ J.M. S …………………………… 592 Missionary Heroes in Africa, Robt. N. Cust Jesnit missions, number, etc ………….. :L394 Jesuitism in Canada, Fight with ……….. 632 LL.D……………•……………… : 117 Johnston, H. H., quoted ………………. 521 M!ss!onary Ye.ar-Book for 1889 …….. 320; 475 KOREA.-The work in Seoul, 288; Korea a MISSIOnary WIfe, A, what Dr. Herrick says miracle in modern missions, 312 ; aid asked for famine, 312; Underwood's statement and ap- of her ……………………………. 313 peal for Korea, 456; the Hermit nation, 703; Misapprehension, A, of a critic of "Crisis progress of the gospel, 798; Union Mission, 851 ; friendly criticism. 856. of Mission" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. 790 Keith-Fslconer. Hon. Ion., Rev. J. Mutch.. 414 Moody's Training School.. . . . . . . •. . . . . . . . .. 945 KeUey, Mrs. Augusta, memoirs, noticed …. 519 Monthly.Concert, topics for 1890.•…•…… 942 Kinnard, Dowager Lady, death of ………. 385 Moravian Gen. Synod …………………. 925 Land of the Inquisition, The, A. T. P …… 58B Moravian iVIissions, The Marvel of, Rev. D. Larkin. Clarence, How to make missionary L. Leonard…………………….. : .. 332 Wall Maps and Charts …………….. 129 Mohammedanism, Dr. Post on Islam ……. 218 Lay missionaries in China, B. C. Atterbury, Mohammedanism …………………….. 682 Mohammedan Revolution in Uganda ……. 276 M.D……………………………… 435 Money, The Christianization of. ….•…… 744 Leo XIII. and the civil power….•…….. , 629 Lincoln. Bishop, Trial of. . . . . . . . .. …….. 710 Monthly Concert,A. 'r. Pierson, D.D., Gen- Looking Backward and Forward, Editorial, 1 Ludlow, James M., Henry Martyn………. 14 eral Survey, 67; Texts and Themes for Miss. Sermons……………………. , 70 "' MADAGASCAR.-L. M, S. pushing its work, Mormon Morality…………………….. 541 78; growth of schools, 154; Mrs. Leavitt's Moslem Manifesto, A ……. , …………… 862 – grand work, 154 ; school statistics, 232; should Mossoul, Jewish Congregation at……. …. 58 be prayed for, 813; Mrs. Leavitt's visit. 313 ; Mott. Geo. S., D.D., Letter to Dr. PierRon .. 131 History of its mission by Dr. Brockett, 357; 421 Muhler, Rev. George, results of life work .. ZiI!l McAn, Rev. R. W., important statement of Murray's Bible in the PacifiC, noticed .. , … 388 his work in France •……..• , ………. 450 NEW GUINEA.-Grand field for miss. McAJI Association, The American ……….. 474 work,73. Marshal Bazaine …………………….. , 633 New Guinea, account of mission work… . .. 540 MEXICO.-Destitution of the Bible, 73; new NEW MEXICO.-A ~new mission in Para- mission stations, 154; periodical literatnre of guay,73. . Mexico, 369; plea for a college 399: Friends' Mission, 399; progress. 479; vainable discov- NEW ZEALAND.-Is in fact evangelized, 73; 926. " ery.557. :Mitchell, Dr. Arthur, on vindication of mis- Nevius, John L .. D.D., on Synod of China.. 46 Nevius, Dr., on famine in Shantung …. : … 372 sions……………………………… 92B Nichobar Islands, The, S. P. G., begun miss. Mattees, Rev. S., letter on Syrian Chris- work in ………………•………… 397 Nind, Rev. Geo., on Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 tians…………………………… 691 Norton, Alhert, stirring letter…..•…….. 68~ Martyn, Henry• James M. Ludlow.. . . . . . . . . 14 Noyes, Rev. H. V., Mohammedanism in Mechlin. Rev. John C., on Petsia……….. 50 China ……………………………. 58 Medical charity the fruit of Christianity… 41)0 Medical Miss. Rociety. InternationaL …… 719 Oriental Justice, a Case of…………….. 387 Metheny, Mrs. Dr., affecting acconnt of her ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK. work in Mersine ………………….. 127 Methodist E. Church, appropriations for Latest Reports of Missionary Societies. American Board of Foreign MiSSions, sta- 1889-90.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 159 tistical table,156; 80th annoalreport … 947 Ministry of Money. The, No. I., A. T. P., African Methodist Church, Miss. Board.3S9; r55 . 661; No. II., Rev. W. Harrison, 744; American Bible Society. . . . •. . . . . . . . .. …. 555 No. Ill., Wm. Thaw, an example, by Association for Improvement of Remote Dr. E. P. Cowan …………………. 894 Highlands, etc., in connection with Free Church of Scotland…………………. 287 Mission and Commission of the Church, A. British and Foreign Bible Society…… 124 ~ ~38 T. P ……………………………… 321 British Syrian Mission Schools. etc….. : . " 712 Baptist, American ~lis8ionary Union…….. 794 Missions, The Vindication of, A. T. P. . . . . . 81 Missions, recent assaults on ……………. 384 " Brethren. General. ……………. 795 Missions and the new Theology………… 871 Gen. ASBo. of U. S. and Territo- Missions, another Assault, W. S. Cane ….. 47~ ries ……. . ………….. ,'95 Missions, Further 'I'estimonies to, A. T. P.. 242 Missions in the Levant, No. II.• Their Miss. Convention, The Consoli- dated, Amer………………. 795 Methods, 20; No. III., Their Results, Rev. Edwin M. Bliss ………………. 190 Convention, Southern…………. 795 Missions among the Jews, Historical. .669; 750 Miss. Society, Seventh-day O..n.t.a1r2i5~' 794 Missions to Lepers …………………… , 535 Foreign Miss. Society of and Quebec ……………. 551 ; 954 Brethren (German)….. . ……. 947 Amer. Free, Mission in Southern Benga. ………………….. 286 PAGE. • PAGII. South American Miss. Association •••••••… 389 llaptist Amer. Free, Woman's Miss. So- ciety……………………… 288 SOCiety for the P. of Gospel in Foreign Church of England in Canada ………….. 955 Parts …………………………….. 555 Church Missionary Society…………….. 711 Spanish Evangelistic :Hission in Figueras •. 285 China Iuland Missi'?n……. : …………. 7ti..l Chnstlan MIss. SOCiety, Foreign ……….. 95~ United Brethren in Christ, church statis- tics, 390; annual report ……………. 952 Christian Connection …………………. 958 United Church of Christ in Japan ………. 551 Chnrch of God ……………………….. 952 Welsh Calvinistic Methodist, England ….. 875 Colonial and Contiuental Ch. Society …… 712 'Voman.. s Missionary ~oCleties of Can… Danish Evangelical Miss. Society ………. 283 ada…………………………… 43; 155 Darjeeling. Mission. . . … … . ………….. 288 Woman's lIliss. Societies of Great Britain Egyptian Mission, statistics of, 1865, 1887… 551 and Ireland … '" ……………… ,44; 155 Evangelical AslSociation ………………. 953 Womau's Foreign Miss.:Work ………….. 155 GeI'man Evan~elical Mission SOcieties ….. 157 . PERSIA.-Dr, Bruce's Account, 154 ; Mis- Jaffa Medical Mission and Hospital.. …… 555 ~lOn Movements., 524; Amer. Presbyterian Keith·Falconer Mission, S. Arabia………. 71:! Mission, 5~J; the land of Esther, 909; the Jews Leper House in Jerusalem …………….. 521 and the Shah,764; Pel'sia and its Missions Leipzig Missionary Society……………… 124 781 j Dr. Pierson on Persia. 909. '
London Association in Aid of the lloravian Paraguay, A New Mission Started……… 154 ·Missions …………………………. 389 Pa~'an Reli..::ion, Ethical Value of………. 3~2 London Missionary Society … . •.. . . . . .. 711 Luth~ran, The Evangelical Mission (Leip- Papal C!Jurch, The Attitude of ~he, Toward SiC) ……………………………… 284 Progress, A. T. P.. .. .. .. .. . .. .. …. …. 577 Lutheran Evangelical Gen. Synod in India. 550 Papal Doctrine ……………………….. 866 " "Church Gen. Council. 946 Papal Lands, Important Events in, A. T. P. 268 " h H U Synod .. 946 Patna Case, Progress in ………………. 385 McAll Mission in France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 953 Paton, John G., book noticed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 Parkhurst, C. H., D.D., quoted ………… 686 Malayalam Mission, Travancore, L. M. S .. 550 Mennonite Ganel'al Conference ………… 253 Pierson, A. T .. D.D., Resig-nation of Pas- Methodist Episcopal Church, receipts for torate for Miss ionary Work……… '" 871 1887-88. tables ………………… 157; 314 Popnlation, That Question of, F. F. Eilin- Methodist Episcopal Church (South)J"pan wood, D.D………………………. 250 M.ission. .. … . .. … .. .. ….. . .. … .. . 286 Portuguese, and the Slave Traffic ………. 915 Prayer, The Unspoken. Poem ………… 308 Methodist Miss. Society (Canada) ………. 123 Pra)"er-Basis of Mission Work. A. T. P •• 652 Methodist Church, Canada …………….. 954 " Protestant Church, U. S. A ….. 954 PreshyterianBoards' Receipts ………… 640 Episcopal .. (South) ….. 954 Presid{'nt Harrison and ::Missions ….. 630; 708 U H (African) . .. 95 Pl'ess, The, on Forei!'u Mission Fields …. 41i8 Protestant Churches of the U. S., Contribn- Wesleyan Methodist Connection (Ameri- tlons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480 can) ……………………………… 952 Protestant Epis. Church U. S., Statistics .. 687 Wesleyan Methodist Mis"ion in Mysore dis- Protestantism in Hamburg …………… 502 triCt …………………………….. 549 Protestant lI1issionade<! and Lepers …….. 851 Methodist E. Church, North India Con ….. 549 Private Missionary Enterprises. . . . . . . . . . .. 870 " " Bengal }'IiRsion ……. 550 .. E. MiSSion, Bareilly Theo. Sem. 550 RUSSIA.-interrerence in African Affairs, 400; persecution of Lutheran Chllrch, 719: Day- , "Central China Miss .. 555 break Among the Kirghiz, 764; Con verts Bap- " Protestant Church, 1888……… 388 tized.798. Medical Miss. Association, …………….. 389 Ramabai's Inetit.lItion for CbJild Widows. .. 64 Reed. Hon. William R, D;stingnished Ser- Edingborgh Medical Miss. Society ………. 389 Moravian Missions ……………. 283; 712; 792 viees while U. S. Minister to China …. 835 London Asso. in Aid of Moravian Missions. 712 Heformca, or Covenanter ChUl·ch ………. 369 Netherland Societies.
Netherland Missionary Union ………….. 522 Reforme( CatholiCS; Labors of Rev. James " "Society.. .. .. . . .. … 522 A. O'Conn"r …………………….. 474 Rescued Sla ves Fund …………………. 240 Christian Reformed Church in the Nether- lands …………………………….. 522 Returned 1Ilissionaries Work at Home ….. 772 .~Mi8sion and Church of Ermeloo, Ja va . . . . . . 5~2 Revelle's Improved Atlas of the World, no- Mennonite Union for P. G. in Dutch Colo- ticed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . · …………… 518 nies ……………………………… 528 Richardson, Rev. A. D., Letter Giving In- teresting Facts ……………………. 371 Dutch Lutheran Society for H. and F. Missions ……………………………. /)23 Ronriguef'l.. MadalPe J-,opez, Letter on l'1is- • sion Work ill Figueras ……………. 290 Java Comite,Batavia for H. and F. Miss .. 528 Utrecht Mission Union H " 523 Roman ('atholic Encroachments on Protes- H Rhenish Mission Society, Barmen, Ger•…. 523 tant Mi!"sions. . ………………….. Bn9 North Africa MissioD …………………..1954 Romanism in Quebec…………………. eo8 Romamsm, D,·. Dore.hester on ………. '" 791 Pl'esbyterian Church in the U. S. of America …………………………….. 874 Roussel, Napoleon, Sketch orLife ……… 581 Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Sonth)… 947 SCOTLAND~-Important 'PaperR on Mis- Fion Suhjects, 73; Church of Scotland, Young H "America (United) …. 877 Men's Guild, 1:35; Annual lIfeeting Nat. Bible h " i n Canada, …. ", .. , … 877 SOCiety, 400. Samoa ………………………………. 886 inEn,e;land ……….. 875 Samoa, Mormon Invasion. .. ….. .. .. … .. 5!JO Samoans, The Fille Race. etc ………….. 400 Cumberland ………. 952 Associate Reformed Church, (South) …………….. 952 Church, Reformed ……….. , 712 " in N. A., General SIAM.-The Story of, A. T. P., 345; Area, Synod (Reformed) ……..•• 874 population, religion, etc., 3~0. Free Chnrch of ScotJan<l …… 876 Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.. 952 SPAIN .-Pel'eecution and Trial of Rev. J. R~formed (Dutch )Church of America….. 873 M. Vila, 57; Evan!!elistic missir'n work in Fi- Reformed (German) Church in the U. S …. 947 gueras, 285; Letter from Madame Rodrigues, 290; Rhenish Missionary Society ……………. 389 Irish Pt"f'sbyterian Work, 313; "SunnySpaill~H Seaman's Friend Society, American … 126; 504 464; The Land of the Inquisition, 588; Celebra- Seaman's Rest, Marseilles ……………… 2A7 tion of the Discovery of America, 609; Second South American Missionary Society ……. 954 Reformation, 628; lI1edical Missions, 629; PAGE. Thibet, expulsion 01 Roman Catholic Mi~~GE. Strength ofProtestant Church, 636; Irisll Presb. . sionaries…………………………. 210 Work, 640; Irisll Presb, Ch ……………. 719 Sumatra, Dutcll Mission Work …………. 230 Thlbet, not open to missions …………… 479 Sweden, Princess Eugenie Establishes a Thlbet, area, etc ……………………… 160 Missiou House …………………… 313 Thibetans, a praying people….•……….. 525 Sweden, Request for Prayer………….. 292 Tahiti, interesting account of.. …..••….•. ~530 South Africa, The Mustard-Seed of Missions Terra del Fuefl;o.. . … . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . . .. … 869 Texts and Themes for miss. sermons ..308; 363 in, Rev. Lewis Grout ………………. 488 Teluga people, speedy evangelization, reso- lutIOns of Canadian Baptist Miss. Con. 549 SYRIA.-Eddy's Arabic Oommentary, 74; Transfer of Political Power, Dr. J. T. Gra- The Abeih Field, 74; Ancient Syrian Church, cey………………………….. ; …. 375 136; Dr. Jessup ou Student Graduates, 213; En- Trans~ations from Foreign Missionary magcouragement, 230; Protestant College, 313' azmes, Rev. Chas. C. Starbnck, 40; Emigration of Syrians, 313; Statistics of Presb: 28403];; 92176.9; 358'' 512,' 601,' 674.,' -756' Missions, 392-90; Annual !leeting of Syrian Missions,4oo; A Private Letter, 453; lIlurder I , of a Faithful Missionary, 52g; Journal of :liiss. 'fonr, 613; Dr. Lindsay 76,p3 Freshman Mis- . UNITED STATES.-Mr. Hand's princely sion,770; Letter from Miss. Jl'lary P. Eddy, 613' g~f~ .for Free~men, 74; Dr. Pierson's gift of Syrian Prot. College, 636; Outlook. 640; Dr: Cnsls'of MiSSIOns, 74; Y. M. C. A. Conference Pierson on Syria, 936; Union Church in Bei- at Stockholm, 74; Christian endeavor,7th rerut, 937. port, 74; Protestant Episcopal Missions, 74; Sailor's Magazine, Bound Vol., 1888, no- theol. schools for the colored race, 369: falling ticed … , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 off in miss. receipts, 369 ; Dorchester's statis- Sailor's Bethel in New Orleans ………… 231 ~ics of th~ churches of the U. S. for 1888, ;)94; Salvation Army… .. .. … ………. .. ….. 398 !tems of, Interest, 480; medical missions, 719 ; Scandinavia, the Lutheran religion.; ……. 230 Items ofmterest, 720; Dr. G76u6in; nceosrsr'evcitsiiot~s76o5~' Scott, Rev. James, Mission work among' Indian POlitical probiem, the Zulus in Africa. .. … ………….. 52 Madagascar article, 770; letter from Rev. W. Scott Rev. J. E. letter from India ……… . McBray, 771; Dr. Gninness m Kam,as, 772; Semi-Centennial of Detitzsch's Hebrew departure of missionaries, non-partisan Indian New Testament, Geo. H.Schodde.Ph. D. 97 schools, miSSIOnary interest, 799; mission Serving our own Generation. A. T. P……. 148 press, Home miss. work, 800. . Shaftesbury, Lord, Statue of…………… 240 UnderWood, Rev. H. G., letter concerning Shaftesbury, the Evangelistic Earl, A. T. P .. 741 ~ork in Seonl, Korea ……….. : ….,288 Slavery, Current Conflict with, Jas. John- Uphllas and the Gothic Bible, J. M. Ludlow, D.D……………………………… 250 ston, A. S. A ………………………. 914 Utah, Good tidings from ………………. 317 Slave Trade. The, in EaAtern Africa. Ed. . . . 79 Van Norden …………………………. 808 Slenny, Edward H., Sec. N.AfricanMission, Victoria, Congregational Union ……•….. 241 Wainright, Sam'l H. , letter from Japan …. 613 letter from, 2~1 …………………… , .Waldensian Church Statistics ………….. 635 Snodgrass, Rev. E. letter on Japan ……… 613 t::lomerville Sec., Rev. R. M., account ofmur· Waldensians, The, and their Bi-Centennial, Prof. Henry W. Hulbert……………. 641 der of a missionary in Antioch ………. 529 Wallace, Alfred Rnssell, remarkable testi- South A.merioa, laborers wa)1ted in Col- • mony to value of missions ………….. 297 War, The Cost of…………………….. 944 umbla …………………………… 619 Spurgeon on Revivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6H2 'Varne'.'k's Modern Missions and Culture, Starbuck, Rev. Chas. C., Translations from notICed ………………………….. 361 Foreign Missionary Magazines 40 ; 201 ; West Indies, A wonderful work in the, A. 279; 358: 512 ; 601 ; 674; 756; 843; 919; T. P.. , …….. o..f. …………………. 187 Stevenson, Wm.Fleming, D.D., Life of, no- West's Missions,"noticed … 519 ticed…………………………….. ; 363 '~Romance Statistics (tabulated) of the Missionary So- cieties of the World ………………948-51 Whtar I a missionary-statistics of contri- " Strange Doctrine," A. T. P …………… 545 u IOns …………………………. 296 Stndent Missionary UpriSing, The, John R. Mott ……………………………. 824 William's" Sonth Sea Islands, " noticed … 518 Stndent Volunteer Movement for Foreign Wilson, John, Life of, noticed…………. 122 Missions, 200; 361 ; 442; 516; 605 Women's Christian Temperance Union….. 234 Snggestions from correspondents, and edi- Woman's Miss. Societies of the U. S., sta- tistics ……………………………. 155 t tors reply ………………………… 493 Woman's work in missions …………. : .. 610 Switzerland Evan. Society ……………. 880 Woman and Woman's Work at the London Conference. Mrs. Dr. J. T. Gracey ….. 111 TURKEY. – Government opposition to Wood, Rev. C. B., A voice from India…… 208 rMmeisosthsraiiocmntimoinendsflaumneiansdmcee297o64p;p; rleewtsitstehiverrefinr4Oo0~"0E~irnzsferluorevonimccee3s7oo1ff' Vorld's Debt to missionaries, The ……… 297 Minister Htraus, 479: American institutions in World's Evangelization, The, and the Book (~onstantinople ~25; statistics of E. Turkey Mis- of Acts …………………………… 490 sIOn 609; Tnrklsh Government and American 'World's Miss. Com. of Christian Women… 861 schools,78B; a concession, 799 ; the revival at Anitab, 927. Work among- the Wynds of Glasgow, Taylor (J. Hndson) and Radcliffe's Mission A. T. P ………………………….. 492 Working Theology of the day ………….. 945 Campai~n in America.. " …. . ~. .. ….. 33 Worship' of the virO'in …………. , …….. 896 Taylor, Bishop Wm …………………… 234 Yoga, Sir Monier Williams, description of Taylor's China MiSSions, noticed ………. 364 devotees ………………………. '" 383· Znlulano, descriptive ………………… 468 zUIT;' R!,li!!'ious Views and Practices. Rev. eWlS Gront………………………. 734
The Missionary Review of the World — August 1889
ISLAM AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF. THE WORLD.
VOL. XII .No. S.-Old Series.–AUGUST.–VOL. II. No. S.-New Serielf.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
ISLAM AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. * HUMAN religions are compared in the Bible to "broken cisterns, that can hold no water." God is Himself the source of all true religion, and in contrast with" broken cisterns," in this same verse (Jer. ii: 13), is compared to a "Fountain of living waters." All human. systems of religion are not only incapable of producing living water, but, like "broken cisterns," they will hold no water. They are no~ simply on a lower level of wisdom and power than the divine religion, but as religions they are failures, incapable of holding in any helpful and saving way even the modicum of truth which they may have in solution, and wholly unable to provide the soul of man with the living water which will quench his thirst.
Our subject invites our attention to a religious faith which, although it may be classed as a "broken cistern," has had a marvelous history, and to-das dominates the minds and hearts of millions of our fellowmen in the Orient. We mean Islam, or the religion of Mohammed. Here the thought will perhaps occur to many, Is it not taking too much for granted to rank Mohammedanism among merely human religions? It has been the faith of a vast number of our fellow-men, who have been singularly loyal and intense in their devotion to it, and has held its own with extraordinary tenacity, while its central truth has ever been the acknowledgement of God's existence and supremacy. This is an true, and Islam must have the credit of it. There is probably no religion, not confessedly based upon the facts recorded in the Bible, which has such a satisfying element of truth in its creed and,presents such a conception of a personal and supreme God as Islam. As compared with idolatry it is an immeasurably nobler form of worship. As contrasted with the metaphysical vagaries of other Oriental religions it is doctrinally helpful. It is, however, simply the old monotheism of the ancient Jewish religion projected into the Christian ages with the divine environment of Judaism left out and a hU1I).an environment substituted. "There is no God but God," was the creed *We are requested to withhold the name of the writer of this able and timely article. We regret the necessity, as the·name would be sure to command a wide and considerate reading of it. Let it suffice to say, that the writer has long enjoyed the very best opportunities of studying the system discussed in the light of its historical development and results.-EDs. of the Jew long before the Moslem proclaimed it. Mohammed and his followers adopted it, apparently in utter unconsciousness, or rather in supercilious rejection of its historic environment under the Jewish dispensation, and brought it into line as the leading truth of a human scheme of religion. They rejected.its historic development in the Incarnation, acknowledged Christ simply as one of the prophets, supplemented and in almost every respect superseded Him by another, and making Mohammed the central personality, they established the Mohammedan religion as the latest and best revelation from heaven-a religion whose right it was to reign, and whose prerogative it was to supplant and annihilate every other religion, and especially Christianity.
We cannot undertake in the limits of this article to bring forward the evidences that Mohammedanism as a spiritual system must be considered a « broken cistern," nor can we undertake to present the evidence furnished by the present state of the Moslem world, that as a religion it is futile and powerless as an uplifting agency. It would absorb too much of our space, and lead us away from tke main purpose we have in view. We must be content to rest the verdict as to its alien birth and false credentials upon one single consideration, which for our purposes at the present time should be sufficient to carry conviction. "What think ye of Christ?" is here, as elsewhere, a test question. The Mohammedan religion, while acknowledging Christ as one of the prophets, yet denies that he is anything more than one of the prophets. His unique position as God in the flesh-the Messiah of prophecy, the Redeemer of men, the heaven-sent Mediator, the divinely-appointed victim of an atoning sacrifice, the Prophet, Priest and King of a redeemed Israel, the risen Lord and the ascended Intercessor, the only name given am6ng men, is boldly and defiantly denied and repudiated by the Moslem. The office, and work, and dignity of the Holy Spirit are also rejected. In place of the divine Christ and the life-giving Holy Spirit, we have a conception of God which is but an imperfect and misleading reproduction of the earliest Jewish idea, and is cold and bald and stern, without the tenderness of fatherhood or the sweet mi'nistries of pity-for, after all, divine mercy in the view of the Moslem is quite as much of the nature of a deserved reward as of a compassionate ministry; it is a reproduction, through a purely human channel, in an environment of ignorance, of the earliest revelation of a Supreme Being. This distorted reflection of the primitive teachings of religion about the Deity is still further marred and shadowed by making Mohammed His greatest prophet and the Koran His final and consummate revelation to man. The result as compared with Christianity is a notable failure on" a merely human plane of religious thought, yet with enough of the light of heaven borrowed and misused to deceive the conscience and lead an ignorant Oriental constituency to accept it as a revelation from heaven, and Mohammed as a prophet sent of God. An intelligent Ohristian faith can pronounce but one judgment upon this question. After recognizing every element of truth which Islam has borrowed from Judaism or Ohristianity, it must pronounce it lacking in. the essentials of saving religion as we find them in God's Word. What is included in Moslem doctrine is valuable, but what is not there is essential. The modicum of truth is lost in the maximum of error. A counterfeit, coin may have some grains of pure metal in it, but its entire make-up is none the less a deception, and it must be condemued. So Mohammedanism must be condemned, not because it does not contain any truth, but because the truth is so mixed with superabounding alloy that in the combination it has lost its virtue and become simply an ingredient of a compound which, on the whole, must be regarded as false metal. One truth mixed in with twenty errors will not make a resultant of truth, especially if the twenty errors are in direct opposition to other truths as essential as the one included. If we extend our survey over the whole field of Moslem doctrine and practice the conviction becomes irresistible that its moral influence in the world has been harmful, and its spiritual results have brought to man nothing higher than formalism and self- ; righteousness. Satan is represented as sometimes" transformed into an angel of light." Islam, as a religious system, may be regarded as playing the part of " an angel of light" among the religions of the world.
Mohammedanism isa profound theme, and one which has occupied the minds of many accomplished scholars. It has been the subject of much patient research and careful thought by some of the greatest students of history. Dr. Johnson once remarked that "there are two objects of curiosity-the Ohristian world and the Mohammedan world; all the rest may be considered as barbarous." The subject is worthy of a careful examination, both for its own sake as one of the enigmas of religious history, and also to prepare our minds for an intelligent understanding of the amazing task to which God is leading the church, viz.: the conversion of the Moslem world to Ohristianity. The duty of Ohristianity to Mohammedanism, the enormous difficulties in the way of discharging it, the historic grandeur of, the conflict, the way in which the honor of Ohrist is involved in the result, and the brilliant issues of victory all combine to make this problem of the true relation of Ohristian missions to Islam one of the most faccinating and momentous themes which the great missionary movement of the present century has brought to the attention of the Ohristian church. The number of Moslems in the world is given in the latest statistical tables as 200,000,000. This is. possibly too high an estimate, but we may safely fix the figure at not less than 180,000,- 000. They are chiefly in Western Asia, India, and Africa, with a few in Southe~stern Europe. It may be roughly estimated that the total Dumber of those who have lived aud died in the Moslem faith since its establishment is over 6,OOO,OOO,OOO-a number equivalentto nearly five times the present population of the globe. Of this vast number a large proportion have, of course, died in infancy. Weare dealing, therefore, with the religious faith of about one-seventh of the human race. It cannot be regarded as a stagnant and effete religion, unaggressive in spirit and powerless to inspire devotion and sacrifice. It is to-day probably the most pushing, aggressive, and formidable foe to Christianityon foreign mission ground. It is historically true, I think, that never has Christianity been called upon to face a more thoroughly equipped and a more desperately determined foe than Islam; never has our heaven-sent gospel received a more defiant challenge than that given it by the religion of Mohammed.
The time has come for the Church of Christ seriously to consider her duty to this large fraction of our race. It is not to be supposed that a church guided and inspired by an Almighty Leader will neglect a duty simply because it is difficult and calls for faith and fortitude. It is especially foreign to the spirit of American Christianity to slight a task because it is hard, or ignore a question of moral reform or religious respopsibility because it looks formidable. Let us endeavor, then, calmly to consider the duty of Christian missions to the Moslems. Is there a duty of this kind? If so, what special difficulties must be overcome in order to its successful accomplishment; what should be our aim; and what is the spirit which should inspire and govern us in the proper discharge ot it?
The duty seems plain-" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." The gospel of Christ, not of Mohammedto every creature, because' all need the gospel. If there were a possibility of a human substitute for the gospel, we might consider it an open question whether salvation is of Mohammed; but Christ has taught us one way of salvation for all men. and that way is through Him-through the merits of His sacrifice, and not through works or worthiness. in man. I would not be understood as implying here that every Moslem is. necessarily lost. If he despises and rejeCts Christ, and puts his sole trust in Mohammed, or even trusts in divine mercy because that mercy is his due as a Moslem, I should not feel that there was a substantial basis of hope for him. He is looking to a human saviour, or he is simply claiming the divine mercy as a subsidy to the Moslem religion. I can conceive, however, ofa Mohammedan while formally adhering to his religion, in reality taking such an attitude of heart to Christ that he may receive mercy and pardon for Christ's sake, though he is not openly enrolled on the side of Christ. God alone can judge and pronounce when a soul takes that attitude of humility and faith towards His Son, or where His !Son is not known, towards His infinite mercy, which will open the way for Him to apply the merits of Christ's atonement to the salvation of the soul. Where Christ is known and recognized we have no margin of hope outside of a full and conscious acceptance of Him. In proportion as God has left the souls of men in ignorance and darkness about Christ, in that proportion may we enlarge the margin of hope that. His infinitc mercy will find the way to respond to conscious penitence and humble trust by freely granting and applying the boundless merits of Christ's sacrifice to a soul truly seeking after Him. We understand the Bible to teach that all opportunity of accepting the gospel is limited to life this side of the grave, and that there is no probation or renewed opportunity beyond our earthly existence. It is also clearly taught in the Bible that salvation is not of works nOl; of external adherence to any sect. '1.'he Jew was not saved because he was a Jew. The Christian is not saved because he is a Christian. The Moslem, of course, cannot be saved because he is a Moslem. All who may be saved outside of formal and visible connection with Christianity, will be saved because of a real and invisible connection with Christ. They will have obtained consciously, or unconsciously, l?y the aid of God's Spirit, that attitude of humility and trust toward God which will make it consistent with His character and in harmony with His wisdom and goodness to impart to their souls the free gift of. pardon through Christ's merits, and apply to them in the gladness of His love the benefits of Ohrist's death. It is in any case salvation by gift, received from God's mercy, and based upon Ohrist's atonement, and not by works or by reason of human merit. We claim, therefore, that the Mohammedan, as. such, needs the knowledge of Ohrist, and can only be saved through Ohrist. He needs to be taught Ohristianity and brought into the light of Bible truth. He needs to recognize the dangerous errors of his religion and turn to Christianity as the true light from heaven. He needs to take a radically different and essentially new attitude towards Ohrist. He needs spiritual regeneration and moral reformation. In one word, he needs the gospel. He needs all its lessons, and all its help, and all its inspiration. Here we rest the question of duty. If any class of men need the gospel, to them it should be given, and it is our mission in the world as Ohristians to do this.
Let us turn now to consider the special difficulties of mission work among Moslems. That there are serious and formidable difficulties is not simply the verdict of the literary student or the historical theologian, but it is a matter of experience. All missionaries in Moslem communities recognize this; and there is hardly a problem in the whole range of mission service which is a severer tax upon faith and courage and wisdom than that involved in the effort to win converts to Ohristianity from Islam. It is necessary to a full understanding of this phase of our subject that we should secure if possible an inside view of the strength and resources oi the Mohammedan faith. Let us endeavor to take the measure of our foe. Let us ask whence the power and prestige and influence of Islam. What is its secret of success? What makes it a force which so easily dominates the religious life of so many millions? What gives it its aggressive push and its staying power? It is comparatively easy to show the immense inferiority of Islam io Ohristianity in the essential points of true religion, especially those of practical morality. It is, however, for this very reason all the more difficult to give a satisfactory explanation of its successes, and show why Ohristianity is so slow in coping with it effectively. Islam has arisen, within the pale, so to speak, of Ohristianity. It has overrun and held ground which is historically Ohristian. Its great conflict has been largely with Ohristianity. It now occupies regions which were the scene of the earliest triumphs of the Ohristian church. Ohristianity, to be sure, has held its own in a marvelous way in the ancient Oriental Ohristian sects which have held to their Ohristian faith in the very centres of the Moslem domination. '1'heir influence, however, has been simply negative. The part they have played. has been that of resistance and stubborn adherence to the external symbols of Ohristianity. They have never succeeded, for good reasons, in impressing the Moslem with the superiority of the Ohristian religion. We must not fail, however, to give them the credit they deserve, and to recognize God's wonderful providence in preserving them to be the medium of introducing through Protestant missionary effort a pure and spiritual form of Ohristianity into the very heart of the Moslem world.
The question recurs to us-Whence the success of Islam ? We mean its success, not as a saving religion, but in winning and holding its devotees in the very presence of the Ohristian centuries. There are some considerations which throw light upon this point, and if we give them a few moments of patient attention they may help to lift the burden of this great mystery, and at the same time will bringto our attention more clearly the full meaning of the task we have before us in conquering Islam for Ohrist with the spiritual weapons of the gospel. It is not my purpose, and it is, moreover, clearly impossible to attempt here allY full or critical survey of Mohammedanism. This would require a volume, and the gifts and learning of the careful student of Oriental history. What I ha"Ve to offer, however, towards the solution of the problem of Mohammedan success will be the result of a patient study of the subject in connection with unusual opportunities for personal observation of the intellectual, social and religious life of Moslems.
Islam is a living power-a strong and vigorous moral force among Orientals for several reasons, and with all of these Ohristianity must reckon if sbe is to win her way. We will name them in order: I. In its origin, and also in its subsequent history, :Mohammedanism represents the spirit of reform working under the inspiration of ,a great truth. Mohammed appears upon the stage of history as a religious reformer. In the early period of his career he was influenced no doubt by sincere motives. His purpose was to inaugurate a religious revolution-a revolt ,against the idolatry which prevailed in Arabia. The heathenism of his day was gross idolatry; and the Christianity of that age in the Orient was little better in its superstitious and idolatrous practices. It was the era of the iconoclast even within the circle of professed Christianity. It was the purpose of Mohammed to re-establish among men a spiritual worship of the one God-to demolish forever the Arabian Pantheon. The unity and spirituality of the Supreme Being were basis ideas in his religious creed, and he advocated direct communion with God in prayer and worship, anll the utter rejection of idolatry, which in his age was equivalent to polytheism. This movement was certainly a remarkable one when we consider the times and the environment out of which it sprung. Had it been inspired and guided by the Spirit of God, and founded upon the revealed Word, with a divinely called and sanctified leader, we might have seen the great reformation of the sixteenth century anticipated in the seventh.
The power and prestige of Mohammed were due to the fact that men soon believed him to be a prophet sent of God, and his message was to such an extent in the name and to the honor of God that his commission seemed to be genuine. In an age of abject superstition and driveling idolatry he announced with the prophetic fervor of conviction that great truth which has ever had the power to arrest the attention of earnest minds, namely: the existence of one only and true God, supreme in His will and absolute in His power. With the music of this eternal truth Mohammed has held the attention of a large portion of the Eastern world for over twelve hundred years. This one message has seemed to guarantee him as a prophet to his misguided and undiscriminating followers. Having given bonds, as it were, of such overwhelming value in this one supreme truth, men have not been careful to scrutinize in other respects his credentials; with the charm and majesty of this one great central idea of all religion, he has swept all before him. This, in connection with the success of his arms, as his followers carried on in his name their successful aggressive warfare, has been his passport to the front rank of religious leadership; and although he hopelessly forfeited his position by the most manifest signs of moral weakness and human ignorance, yet the clarion call of "N0 God but God!" has held the ear of the East with a constancy at once marvelous and pathetic. It was considered in no wise to his discredit that he taught what is practically a plan of salvation by works based upon external allegiance to a religious creed, and it rather added to his popularity with his Oriental following that his religion officially sanctioned polygamy, slavery, and unlimited divorce.
The Prophet of Mecca, however, was simply a religious enthusiast with a tendency to mysticism-a man of visions and dreams-with a. sensitive and imaginative temperament and a disordered physical system, and a nature swayed by passions and lacking in moral stamina, who became deeply impressed with the Jewish conception of one spiritual God, and conceived himself a prophet of monotheistic reform amidst the abounding follies of idolatry. Under the influence, no doubt, of sincere conviction, he began to teach and proclaim the religious ideas which had lodged in his mind from all sources-Jewish and Ohristian and heathen-and shaped them into the rude consistency of the Moslem code. He can hardly be considered the originator of the religious reform he advocated. He was rather the exponent of a spirit of reformation which seems to have been in the air at that time. The movement at first did not seem to imply more than a purely religious purpose. It was not until the exigencies of his success led him to adopt methods of expediency and worldly policy that Mohammed became the political schemer and the ambitious leader of a military movement.
II. Mohammedanism was established and propagated by the agency of two of the most energetic and commanding forces of human history -the power of moral conviction and the power of the sword. In addition it at once threw its mantle of protection and loyalty over every adherent, and acknowledged him as a member of a Moslem brotherhood in which all are equal, and all can expect and claim the help and protection of all others. Islam is a religious caste-so much so that in India, the land of castes, it exists and wins its converts from the people of India without any disturbance or shock to the claims and exactions of the spirit of caste. It is an immense religious monopoly-a gigantic spiritual corporation whose celestial capital is of unknown proportions-a stupendous combination for the exclusive handling of the commodities of Paradise. It is an actual" Brotherhood" of Moslems, a social, political and religious "Union" of knights of the turban. With the exception that the Sunnites repudiate the Shiites as heretics, and the latter return the compliment, every Moslem befriends and respeots every other Moslem because of the religious affinity which exists between them. This striking feature of the Moslem religion is to-day one of the most powerful forces to hold Mohammedanism together throughout the world. '
III. Islam has never known or seen Ohristianity except in its corrupt and semi-~dolatrousforms. This is a damage to Ohristianity–a gain to Islam. Mohammedanism is thus enabled to appear in the role of a spiritual religion inviting to direct communion with the Deity, scorning the fiction of a human priesthood as in any sense a necessary instrument of mediation between God and the soul, and rebuking idolatry in all its forms. On the other hand, the corrupt Ohristianity of the East seems to be deeply imbued with the spirit of idolatry, overloaded with superstitious.practices, and weighted with the enormous assumptions of the Oriental priesthood. This was, and is-still, an ele~ ment of weakness to Ohristianity and of strength to Islam. It reduces the spiritual energy and convincing power of Ohristianity.to a minimum, and gives to Islam a vigor and assurance and a direct hold upon the religious nature which it could not have had in the presence of a purer form of Ohristianity. Oould Islam have subdued a Ohristianity filled with the spiritual power of the Reformation? Oould it gain i.ts historic victories over the form of Ohristianity found in our American churches? Most assuredly not! The power of a living Ohrist is more than a match for Islam in any age of the world and among any ·class of people. There is no hope that the Moslem will ever be converted to Ohristianity as we see it in the Greek and Papal churches of the Orient. There is an ever brightening hope that a purer and more spiritual form of Ohristianity may carry conviction. Weare sure, in fact, that God will never use any other agency than the gospel in its purity as an instrument for the conversion of the Moslem world. It is with this conviction that Protestant missions in the Orient have been laboring ever since their entrance into the field to establish a pure Ohristianity in the East, that a regenerated Ohristianity may be ready to carry conviction to hearts hitherto shut and barred against the entrance of the truth. It will be ·an immense gain to Ohristianity as a religion, in the eyes of the Moslem, not to be encumbered with the odium of image and picture worship as we see it in the Oriental churches. It is at present a part of a Moslem's religion to despise every form of Ohristianity with which he has come in contact. It is only as he becomes familiar with Protestant forms of worship and thought and life that he begins to realize that there is not necessarily an idolatrous element and a human priesthood associated with it.
IV. Islam has all the advantage which there is in the ma~netic power of personal leadership. Ohristianity has Ohrist. Islam has Mohammed. Such a comparison may startle and half offend Ohristian sensibilities, but it may be unwelcome to the Moslem for a reason precisely opposite. Mohammed is regarded as an inspired man and a divinely sent prophet and the supreme historical personality in the religion he founded. There is a magnetic charm about the prophet of Islam which thrills the whole Moslem world. rfhey believe in him and are ready at any sacrifice to uphold the honor of his name. Would that the nominal Ohristian world-we do not refer here to the inn~r circle of Ohrist's loving followers-were as visibly and unreservedly loyal to the honor and dignity of Ohrist's name as Islam is to that of her prophet. Imagine the city of New York thrown into a state of dangerous excitement because some one down at the Battery had cursed the name of Jesus Ohrist. Lnany Eastern city where Moslems reside the improper or contemptuous use of the name of Mohammed in public would produce an uproar and poss~bly lead to violence and bloodshed. To be sure, we must recognize in this connection the difference between the conservatism of civilization and the fanaticism of Eastern devotees; yet the fact remains that there is a public and prevailing respect for the name of Mohammed in the Moslem world which indicates the commanding power of his personality among his followers.
V. Islam proposes easy terms of saZvation and easy dealinis with sin, and is full of Zarie license and attractive promise to the lower sensuous nature. The shibboleth of "No God but God" is the password to the skies. Salvation is simply the provision of mercy on God's part for aU true Moslems. It is mercy shown because of works done aud as a reward for loyalty. If that loyalty is crowned by martyrdom, then martyrdom in its turn is crowned by exceptional rewards. Holi·ness as an element of God's character and man's religious life is a very vague and shadowy matter to the Moslem, and the same may be said of his view of the nature of sin. This is, however, quite consistent with the fact that Islam for conscience sake insists on many of the great truths of religion such as faith and prayer, God's absolute sovereignty, man's moral accountability, a coming judgment, and a future state both of happiness aud retribution, and meanwhile maintains a formal but very indifferent ethical and religious code which it strives to enforce. It is true, nevertheless, that regeneration and moral reformation-the becoming of a "new creature," as the Scriptures express it, is not a doctrine or a practical outcome of the Moslem religion. Regeneration is not a password to the Mohammedan heaven. "Ye must be born again" is not an essential of his creed. Transformation of character is to him simply a metaphysical fiction, and legal justification by the merits of Christ is an absurdity. Hawthorne's charming literary fiction of a celestial railway is a suggestive illustration of the Moslem theory of salvation. Every good Mohammedan has a perpetual free pass over that line which not only secures to him personally a safe transportation to Paradise, but provides for him upon his arrival there so luxuriously that he can leave all the cumbersome baggage of his earthly harem behind him and begin his celestial housekeeping with an entirely new outfit.
We express no astonishment that Mohammed did not teach these high mysteries of religion, nor do we charge him with any deli~rate purpose to deceive and play the part of an imposter; we simply point to the absence of these unique and essential features of revealed truth as an evidence that his schemeo! religion, and his method of salvation, are merely human conceptions, and that his soul was not taught of God in the things of the kingdom. The light which shone around him was a broken and dimmed reflection of divine revelation, which he proceeded to focus .as best he could with the lens of human reason. He brought the scattered rays to the burning point in his doctrine of "one God," but the result was God and Mohammednot the divine truth revealed in its true setting by the inspired guidance of the Enlightening Spirit, but distorted by the unguided presumption of the human medium.
V1. Islam comes into conflict with the doctrinal teachings of Ohristianity just at those points where reason has its best vanta.te.tround in opposition to faith. The doctrines which Islam most strenuously opposes and repudiates in Ohristianityare confessedly the most profound mysteries of the faith. They are the great problems over which Ohristianity herself has ever pondered with amazement and awe and with reference to which there has been the keenest discussion and the largest reserve, even within the ranks of professed believers. The Incarnation, the Divinity of Ohrist, the Trinity, are all stumbling blocks to the Moslem and are looked upon rather in the light of ridiculous enigmas than sober truths. The doctrine of the Oross, the whole conception of atonement, is to his mind a needless vagary. Divine mercy, in his view, is ample enough and can act freely and promptly in the case of all Moslems without the mysterious mediation of a vicarious sacrifice. That the Incarnate Ohrist should die upon the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of men is to his mind an absurdity which borders upon blasphemy. It is in vain you attempt to solve these mysteries by a refined theory of Ohrist's exalted personality with its two natures in one person. It is to his mind simply unfathomable, and he dismisses the whole subject of Ohrist's unique position and work as taught in the Bible with a feeling of impatience as only one of many Ohristian superstitions. We think it was John Bunyan who once said when he saw a criminal led to execution: H There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bunyan." As we think of this attitude of the Moslem towards the mysteries of the Ohristian faith, and measure the capacity of our own unaided reason to deal with such themes as these, who of us is not ready to exclaim: "This is probably' just the attitude which my own darkened and finite reason would take were it not for the guidance of God's revealed Word?" These mysteries of the Trinity, of God in the flesh, and of Ohrist upon the Oross are the most amazing revelations of the Infinite to the finite mind, and it is only as faith aids and supports reason that they will be trustfully, joyfully and gratefully received. The Moslem objects also to Ohristian morality, and regards it as an impracticable ideal which he never found exemplified in all the Ohristianity he ever knew anything about. U nfortunately, the ethical standards and the constant practice of a large part of the Ohristian laity and the Ohristian priesthood of all ranks in the Orient is a sad confirmation of his tlieory that Ohristianity is a shabby piece of hypocrisy-impossible in doctrine and in practice a shallow sham. Let us pause for a moment in review and quietly take the measure of this foe. Remember that Islam in its orig,in and in its subsequent contact with Christianity, was the spirit of reformation inspired by high enthusiasm grasping a great religious truth and contending for it in the face of soul-degrading and soul destroying idolatry. I verily believe, if you and I had lived in those times amidst the dark idolatry of Arabia and had possessed the conviction and the courage we wOJlld have sprung to the banner of Mohammed, and would have been thrilled with the thought that there was no God but God, and probably we should have been captivated with the idea that Mohammed was a leader sent of God. The unity and supremacy of God is to-day the central truth of the Moslem's creed, in the recognition of which he subdues his soul and prostrates his body, and with a feeling of profound conviction says: "La ilah illa Ullah !" Remember again the fiery energy of the Moslem and the marvelous successes of his arms and his practical recognition of religious brotherhood. Remember, again, that he has neyer been famIliar with anything but a corrupt and scandalous Christianity. Remember the charm and power of that historic personality of the Prophet of Islam. Remember its offer of immediate accesS to God and a free and exclusive salvation to all loyal adherents. Remember its liberal margin for human faults and passions and the fact that it lays no viole~t hands upon sins of the flesh. Remember the Paradise it pictures to the sensuous Oriental imagination. Remember that it makes its issue with Christianity and puts forward its assumptions of superiority just at those points where the weak ahd finite reason of man is most inclined to falter and yield, and where Christianity advances truths which only a God-taught faith can receive and grasp, and which have always been attacked with equal vehemence by human philosophy and rationalistic criticism. Remember, moreover, that Islam has always regarded Christianity as cowed and defeated, and that Reformed Christianity, with its spiritual weapons and its resources of grace and its heavenly alliances, has never fairly grappled with Mohammedanism, and that every energy of both state,and church will be in array to prevent the very entrance of Christianity into the field, and will seek to hold the Moslem world intact by every resource of irresponsible power. If we bear in mind also that in the Turkish Empire at least every defection from the Moslem ranks is looked upon in the same light as a desertion from the army, we can form some conception of the gigantic task and the heroic opportunity God is preparing in the near future for the Christian church. Christianity in her historic childhood was called upon to contend with the colossal power of the heathen Roman Empire. She was victorious, although her resources were limited and her opponent was, to all human judgment, unconquerable. Let her not think now in her splendid maturity, with her imperial resources, her heavenly Leader, her gracious – mission, and with the crying needs and the pressing problems and the deepening ~onfiicts of this nineteenth century challenging her attention, that her warfare is accomplished and she can disband her forces.
Islam and all else arrayed in opposition must first give place to Ohris- tianity. Our Lord is even now leading His church to this battle ground of sublime privilege and high responsibility. His leadership is our inspiration, His promises our hope, His power our trust,' His glory and supremacy our aim and the only possible outcome of the contest.
Ohristian missions, as related to Mohammedanism and the mission- ary activity of Islam are just now live themes among readers of ollr current literature in Europe and America. A prolonged and vigorous debate has arisen in the periodicals of our day, and more especially in Church of England circles, upon this subject, arising from a paper pre- sented by Canon Taylor at the Church of England Congress in 1887.
.His exaggerated statements of the present progress of Islam have been fully answered by Sir William Hunter. We shall discuss here only his ideal views of Islam as a religion. The whole field is now being searched and discussed by both the friends and critics of missions.
Aside from the literary and historic interest which Oriental students would find in the discussion, the whole subject of the propriety, neces- sity and usefulness of Christian missions to Moslems has come to the front in the debate. It is a matter which under present couditions fairly challenges the attention of Christendom, and as our American Congregational and Presbyterian churches have important and very successful missions in the Turkish Empire, the stronghold of the Mos- lem faith, it is a subject of interest also to American Christianity. Our American churches have at present a constituency of 70,000 Protestant adherents to their mission churches in the Turkish Empire, including Syria and Egypt. Of this number 15,200 are upon the roll of church membership, and additions to the church at present are at the rate of about 1,500 every year. 'rhere are six American colleges in the em- pire with 1,200 students, and 700 mission schools with 40,000 pupils.
The Bible has been translated by American missionaries into every prominent language of the empire, and tens of thousands of copies are annually sold. The mission presses in Turkey, including Syria, print not less than 40,000,000 of pages of religious and educational litera- ture every year, including over 20,000,000 of pages of the Word of God. These converts of whom I have spoken are not, however, from the Moslems-they are from the Oriental Christian churches, among which a reformation work is going on and a purpl' form of Christianity is being established. There are converts from Islam to Christianity in India and in Egypt, but Moslem converts in any numbers cannot openly at least be won as yet within the limits of the Turkish Empire, for the government will not allow the effort to be made; nor is aMoslem's life safe foran hour (except perhaps in Egypt) if he openly becomes a Christian. It is hard to convince when conviction means death; it is hardly possible to cultivate the spirit of martyrdom before conviction. The Turkish government, just 'at present, is in a state of very lively suspicion with reference to this growing and expanding work of American mISSIOnaries. The Turkish authorities, from the Sultan downwards, are beginning to feel that Islam has more to fear from the quiet growth and the expanding influence of missionary inst:tutions than from any other opposing force. They find themselves suddenly confronted with ,churches, colleges, schools, hospitals, Bibles in the vernacular, and presses from which flow such a stream of permanent and periodical literature that they are fairly bewildered, and lament the day that missionary agencies were admitted to the empire. It will, no doubt, become more and more evident that God's purpose contemplates not simply the reformation of Oriental Christianty, but the establishment of a basis of operations for that far more inspiring and formidable task of which I forbear to speak here in any further detail.
The paper of Canon Taylor, as coming from a Christian clergyman, was remarkable for its exaltation of Mohammedanism, and in his subsequent articles, published chiefly in the Fortnightly Review, he has shown scant courtesy to missions which he has caricatured and misrepresented. The main points of his position in the paper on Mohammedanism may be briefly stated as follows: He contends that Islam demands the consideration and esteem of the Christian church, since it is in essence an imperfect or undeveloped Christianity, and may be regarded as preparatory to an advanced Christian faith. It must, in his opinion, be looked upon as a religious position half way between Judaism and Christianity, and being more cosmopolitan and less exclusive than Judaism, and missionary in its activities, it helps on in the general direction of Christianity wherever it wins converts from heathen communities. In fact, it must be considered, according to his judgment, as an advanced guard of Christian missions-not antagonistic to the gospel, but fighting at the outposts the same battle against heathenism with weapons on the whole rather better and more effective· than those wielded by Christianity. He contends that it leads men from the darkness and degradation of pure heathenism, with its superstitions and cruelties, to an intelligent conception of one God, and gives them a simple and comprehensive view of His attributes and dealings with men, and the duties He reqUIres of them. It leads them, moreover, into an attitude of human brotherhood with their fellowmen, and brings them into league with each other under the inspiration of a common religious faith. He contends that Islam contains and teaches all the morality that heathen and barbarous nations could be expected to receive and practice. It represents what he regards as the high-water mark of practical morality and intelligible doctrine among Oriental nations, and as such should be supported and encouraged by Christianity, hoping for better things further on. Islam, in his opinion, is divine as far as it goes; it is at once a successful illustration and a happy outcome of the law of expediency, representing:;,n imperfect possibility, which is better practically than an impossible ideal. In view of these considerations he advocates that Christianity should join hands 'with Islam and establish a modus vivendi on the basis of mutual concession and recognition.
This is an attractive position with a large class of minds who are willing to rank the gospel as only one of a dozen religiollli'. With them the divine origin of Christianity, its exclusive claims, its unique glories, its adaptation and efficacy as the only religion which saves, are still open questions. What religion should be taught to men becomes, therefore, a mere question of expediency and availability. An effective accommodation in the light of human wisdom is with them as serviceable in religion as in anything else. The gospel may, therefore, be manipulated into a compromise with any other religion if it is a workable scheme.
To this it may be replied, why does not this general plan which Canon Taylor advocates with reference to Islam hold also with reference to the relations of Christianity to Judaism, or of Protestantism to the Papacy, and more especially to the Greek and Armenian churches? Why does it not apply in theory to the relations of Ohristianity to all religions of the East? It should be noted here that Oanon Taylor seems to regard all reformation of existing Christianity in the Orient, and even throughout the world, as a needless and wasteful expenditure of money and labor, as he speaks with great disparagement of all attempts to proselyte from the Oriental Ohristian churches. He would apparently leave apostate Ohristianity in its decay and degradation, and extend the hand of brotherhood even to Islam. We must pause to ask here-would Ohrist approve? Would the Bible sanction? The simple answer may be given in the words of Paul, "If I or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which I have preached to you, let him be accursed." God has given us the gospel; it is the duty of the church to preach and teach the religion of Ohrist and no other. It is a mistake to regard Ohristianityas an impossible ideal, nor can we consider Islam as a step towards Ohris~ianity. It is rather an attitude of pronounced opposition to Ohristianity, and not to Ohristianityonly, but to civilization and to all social and intellectual and spiritual progress.
It is, however, the part both of wisdom and courtesy to give to Islam all the credit it deserves; to acknowledge its iufluence in the world as an anti-heathen reform; tv place it high in the scale of historic failures on the part of human wisdom to establish a religion to supersede the gospel; to acknowledge its skillful ada.ptation to an Oriental constituency; to recognize the truth which it contains and the natural basis which it affords for a work of supernatural grace and spiritual enlightenment through the revealed Word applied by the Spirit; to recognize every excellence of personal character which may be found in individual Moslems of the more serious and devout type. No one can do all this more easily than a Ohristian missionary living in Moslem lands. When, however, it come;; to the question of his duty and respor::.sibilityas a religious teacher, every consideration of loyalty and high obligation requires him to teach only the gospel of his Div;ne Master. This is his supreme privilege, his sublime mission, and his inexorable task. No Ohristian missionary is sent to the Moslem world to establish a treaty of peace with Islam. He is sent there to carry the gospel of salvation to the perishing Moslem. He is God's messenger to a deluded people. The preaching of the Oross, which, of course, is an offense to the Moslem as it was to Jew and Gentile of old, is the very business which brings him there. He must endeavor to accomplish this delicate mission with, tact and wisdom, and must be patient and courteous and courageous; but he has not the slightest authority from God or man to depart from his instructions or enter into any questionable compromises. He is an ambassador of the Oross, not an apologist for the Orescent.
The question of method is, no doubt, a pressing one, and upon this point Ohristian missionaries all over the wodd are seeking guidance and would be grateful for light. One thing, however, is certain: no method can be tolerated which lowers the standards of the gospel, or compromises its truths, or places a human religion on the same plane with the one divine religion; nor would such a method be fruitful in any results of solid or permanent value.
This is most assuredly the spirit of all our American missionaries in the Orient. They look to the Ohristian churches at home to sustain and encourage them in this theory of Ohristian missions to Mohammedans. They hope for the sympathy and prayers of Ohrist's people as they endeavor to work on upon these lines. It is time for the Ohristian public of America to be intelligently and profoundly interested in the religious development of Orjental nations, and especially in the problem of the relation of Ohristianity to Islam and the duty of the church of Christ to Moslems. Let us study this question in the light of history and with a living sympathy in the welfare of 200,000,000 of our race. Oonsider the desperate nature of the undertaking, and how the honor of Ohrist is involved throughout the whole Eastern world. Watch the developments of the Eastern question as one which holds in focus the most burning problems of European diplomacy. Note the rapid movements of European governments in taking possession of the territory of Africa, more than one-half of which is now in their
THE ATTITUDE OF THE PAPAL CHURCH TOWARD PROGRlI:ss
control. Watch the tightening grip of Christian civilization upon the African slave trade, which is the most hideous scandal of our century and is almost antirely the work of Arab Mohammedans. Take a broad outlook over the field where are gathered the momentous interests involved in this Mohammedan problem, and let us have the prayers of Christendom in the interests of Christ's kingdom and its blessed reign. Within the memory of living men the Christian church was praying for open doors in Asia and throughout the heathen world. To-day the church is sending her missionaries through a thousand avenues into the heart of heathendom. Let us have another triumph ~f prayer. If the church of Christ will march around this mighty fortress of the Mohammedan faith sounding her silver trumpets of prayer, it will not be long before, by some intervention of divine power, it will be overthrown. Let it be one of the watchwords of our church in these closing decades of the 19th century, that Christ, the Child of the Orient and the divine Heir of her tribes and kingdoms, shall possess His inheritance. The Moslem world shall be open to the gracious entrance of the Saviour and the triumphs of the gospel. The spell of twelve centuries shall be broken. That voice from the Arabian desert shall no longer say to the church of the living God-thus far and no further. The deep and sad delusion which shadows the intellectual and spiritual life of so many millions of our fellow-men shall be dispelled, and the blessed life-giving power of Christ's religion shall supplant the dead forms and the outworn creed of Islam.
,THE A'FTITUDE OF THE PAPAL CHURCH TOWARD PROGRESS.
[EDITORAL A. T. p.] WE have read, recently, of a Roman Catholic priest, in Victoria, whose sermons are usually of a practical kind. On entering the pulpit one Sunday he took with him a walnut to illustrate the character of the various Christian churches. He told his people the "shell was tasteless and valueless-that was the Wesleyan church. The skin was nauseous, disagreeable and worthless-that was the Presbyterian church. He then said he would show them the Holy Roman Apostolic church. He cracked the nut for the kernel and-found it rotten! Then his reverence coughed violently and pronounced the benediction."
There are two objections to the Papal church as an institution: First, putrifaction; and second, petrifaction. Whatever may be said of it, favorably or charitably, there can be no doubt that certain -leading doctrines of our holy faith are there in a state of decay. Justification by faith in Christ alone is so corrupted by the doctrine of good works that, like putrid substances, it has suffered decomposition, and is no longer recognizable. Mariolatry, and the worship of St. Joseph which in some parts actually displaces the supremacy of the Father, the Son and the Virgin-have become practically as idolatrous as any heathenism or paganism. Penance is put in place of repentance; indulgence ,sets a premium on sin; the confessional is at once despotic in its power over the conscience and destructive in its influence over modesty and virtue. The withholding of the Bible from the people, and the intervention of the church and its priesthood between the soul and God, are fundamentally opposed to both individual independence and individual development, while' the intercession of saints and consequent prayers to the saints strike at the mediatorial prerogatives of the only Intercessor, and introduce a virtual polytheism into the practical creed of Christianity. Romanism may represent "a branch of the church of Christ," but the branch is, we fear, very rotten, and covered with fungus growths and excrescences which make it liable to summary excision by the great Husbandman.
But, in this brief paper, we desire to call attention to the other feature of petrifaction. In an age when all else is mobile and flexible, here is immobility, inflexibility. This is a century of marvelous progress. The world has never known any age like this for those victories of peace which are so much grander than any martial triumphs, and those rapid advances in art, science, letters, manners, discovery, invention, national brotherhood and universal charity, which make the most aggressive and progressive eras of the past seem like snails for slowness.
The cosmopolite looks about him, and he sees four grand features marking the present age: Intense activity, individual development, general intelligence, and tolerant charity. With all the admitted evils of the modern age, these are its prominent and undeniable characteristics. The candid observer turns to the Papal church and he finds exactly the opposite-apathetic lethargy, individual repression, general ignorance, and despotic intolerance. He has gone from a garden into a grave, from a market-place of bustling life to a museum of fossils. The century glories in progress; the genius of Romanism is to arrest progress. The Pope leads the way with his broom and resolutely sweeps back into its be1 the advancing wave of the rising tide of civilization.
For more than a thousand years Rome has been allied to despotism both in church and state. The Papal church is essentially feudal; its subjects are vassals; their persons and property, service and substance, nay, even their opinions, are the perpetual property of their papal lord, Christ's vicar; they have no rights in matter or in mind, such rights are all fiefs, held of a feudal superior.
While the Pope held Italy under his "sacred toe," there was no movement. When Napoleon the First, eighty years ago, replied to the Papal bull against himself by leading the Holy Father, Pius VII., across the Cottian Alps into France, Italy woke as from the sleep of ages. For the five years that the Pope was captive at Grenoble and Fontainebleau, Rome's captivity was broken. Life, liberty, prope:rty, prosperity, received new guarantees and immunities. For five years civilization, unshackled, ran to catch up with the age; but when Napoleon's fall broke the Pope's captivity, and His Holiness returned to the Vatican, he put the old fetters on the feet of civilization and riveted them anew, and order and progress came to a dead halt.
When Gregory XVI. was but assuming the tiara, even Russia and Austria-themselves far from leaders in progress-urged the necessity of "great administrative and organic improvements" within the territories he ruled. But he was the stern and infle,xible foe of all innovations, whether in theology, politics or popular life. His policy for fifteen years was repression and suppression. The Camaldolese monk tried to confine and cramp the world within his cell. With him every advance toward liberty was a relapse into liberalism; reform meant a revolt against the church and God, to be resisted to the last.
It has been well said that nowhere on eartb could the political and social conditions of the Roman states have been maintained anywhere in Christendom, save where priestcraft ruled. There was in Rome one ecclesiastic for every ten families; it is no marvel that neither the soil nor the mind was cultivated, that scarce one in a thousand could read, that there was neither freedom for the press nor an open field for enterprise. Even vaccination was under the ban and the Pontine marshes went undrained. If Pius IX. was a man of more progressive instincts, yet he was in ecclesiastical fetters; and under his rule we find three significant and signal events which sufficiently mark the antagonism to human progress. We cannot forget the bull, " Ineffabilis," in 1854, when the Madonna was crowned with the diadem· of the "Immaculate Conception," and all faithful souls were henceforth forbidden to think of the virgin mother as having the taint of original sin. Nor can we forget the" Encyclical" of 1864, when fourscore 'heresies' fell under the papal anathema, and the position that the Pope should be "reconciled to progress, liberalism and modern civilization," to "civil liberty of worship and freedom of the press," was held up to execration. Nor can we forget that five years later the 20th Ecumenical Council met in St. Peter's, and asserted the" Personal Infallibility of the Pope," and thus completed this trinity of absurdities.
Here was the last step toward petrifaction. It was not enough for Rome to curse the very progress for which all the rest of the enlightened world blessed God; not enough to stamp upon and seek to stamp out the very life of this aspiring age; not enough resolutely to fight against all the attainments and achievements of this, the last in time, as it is also the first in rank, of the centuries; all the errors of the Pope must be made incapable of retraction, all his mistakes become impossible of reparation, by pronouncing him incapable of error! The whole ot this monstrous conglomeration of age-long blunders must take on the rigidity of stone and the frigidity of ice! Unlimited authority is invested with personal infallibility. Was there ever such social petrifaction as that? As Robert MackenzIe well says, "the assertion of infallibility is a reiterated declaration of irreconcilable hostility against all enlightening modern impulses. It is the assumption of power more despotic than the world ever knew before in order the better to give effect to this hostility." * But two things are very plain: first, the effort is vain to sweep back the tide of progress; and, secondly, this is a mere expedient to arrest or at least conceal the waning power of the Papal church. Men and women even in these Papal lands are beginning to read, to talk, to think. The Bible is printed and distributed and read. Knowledge runs to and fro in the earth a.nd it is the natural, eternal foe of ignorance and its allies, superstition and bigotry. You cannot keep the people in slavery to the Vatican unless you keep them in chains, and intelligence carries a file for all fetters. A railway, a printing press, a common school, a newspaper, are God's battering rams to demolish the walls that shut in the human mind and shut out light and liberty. Rome resists progress, but in so doing resists Providence, for back of human history is the Hidden Hand of God. Final defeat is inevitable to those who fight against Him. Already the Pope has ceased to be the master of earthly kingdoms. Nearly twenty years ago he surrendered his sceptre of Temporal Sovereignty at the imperative call of an intellectually enfranchised people, and retired to his prison in the Vatican. Father Hecker vainly re-affirmed the right of the church to punish 'crimes in thought.' Even the Romanist has begun to think and to think for himself. He is learning that the' footprint of the Ass' that the Virgin rode on the way to Egypt, could not have been left on a rock in Brazil, inasmuch as Brazil was rather off the route from Bethlehem to Egypt, and so he ceases to kiss with idolatrous homage a mere water-mark on the stone. He reads astray leaf of a torn bible, ora chapter in the gospel published in a daily paper, and wonders why no priest or pope, confessional or penance, stood between that prodigal and his Father! It is intelligence that begets independence, that de. tects Jesuitical intrigues and priestly delusions, that scorns anathemas directed against human prosperity and happmess, and defies bulls of excommunication which thunder against invention, discovery and human brotherhood. Above all, it is intelligence that nourishes an Independent faith and an unhampered worship.
We believe in perfect freedom of religious opinion and worship. To the Romish church as representing a form of ecclesiastical faith and ." Nineteenth Century," Chap. Ix.
A PIONEER OF THE GOSPEL IN FRANCE
polity, we would extend all that toleration which we claim for Protestant doctrine and order. But to the Romish church as a political power, teaching the constructive treason of allegiance to a foreign temporal sovereign on the part of subjects of the English Queen or the American Republic; to the Romish church as a Jesuitical cabal, manreuvering to get possessison of common schools, public institutions and state funds; to the Romish church as a persecuting despotism, making it a crime for men to think, to read, to talk, to obey conscience or to encourage progress, we are opposed, and against that we proclaim eternal war.
But we have no need to fight with carnal weapons. We have only to scatter bibles, gather the children into schools, send the preacher of a pure gospel; help the people to think for themselves and read for themselves, and hear for themselves, and we may safely leave the issue with the human mind and the light-giving, life-giving truth. The perverse policy of the Papacy belongs to the dead past. It cannot stand against the living present. Even putrifaction has an end; decay gives placc to new life. 'fhere is a remeq.y also for petrifactionthe hammer can break and the fire can melt, even stone. Better than all, there is a gospel of grace and a Spirit of grace, that cltn change stone even into flesh. No marvels of modern missions exceed in fascinating interest the story of the gospel in Papal lands. Matteo Prochet, in Italy, and Robert McAll, in Paris, and Pastor Fliedner, in Spain, can write new chapters in the acts of the apostles. This is a desperate foe, and a war of Armageddon. But one weapon is omnipotent: " The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God!"
A PIONEER OF THE GOSPEL IN FRANOE.
By REV J. O. BRACQ, OF THE McALL MISSION, PARIS.
In our enthusiasm for the men who are laboring so efficiently to spread the gospel in France, we are apt to forget those who, in former days, toiled nobly and suffered greatly for the same end. There are, in many parts of France, churches that owe their existence to those fearless proneers of the gospel, men who did not achieve what they had hoped, but who did what could be done with limited resources and without liberty. Foremost among them was Napoleon Roussel, whose labors were of such moment to French Protestantism.
Napoleon Roussel was born at Sauvre, a small city in the south of France, in 1805. His parents belonged to the Protestant church, the church of martyrs, then disorganized, disintegrated and lifeless. Some of his ancestors had died for their faith, but his father was more interested in the victories of Napoleon than in those of Ohristianity. The childhood of Roussel-named Napoleon for the Emperor-was uneventful. His school days have left nothing on record in any way exceptional. At the age of fourteen he began to learn a trade; but A PIONEER OF THE GOSPEL IN FRANCE.
this was far from being in keeping with his aspirations. In 1825 he entered the theological faculty of G~neva. In 1829, having finished his studies, and having been ordained to the ministry, he became pastor of the church of Havre, from which he removed to St. Etienne in 1831.
Roussel had left Geneva at a time when theological teachings were rationalistic; but when living evangelical ideas were once more to assert themselves, and when the French speaking churches were to be quickened by the most remarkable revival of modern times. French Protestantism was at this time both shallow and lifeless. Its religion had no personal element in it, its theology was at best a vague supernaturalism, without contact with individual life. Preaching had lost its power, and sin was presented in the pulpit as an accident-and not a part of our nature; while the divinity of Christ, when at all referred to, was touched upon with hesitancy. About this time a mighty revival of r.eligion shook to their very center the churches of Switzerland and those of France. It began at first with the labors of Robert Haldane, and Cesar Malan, but soon it was Cellerier, Gaussen, Adolphe Monod, Vinet, Merle d' Aubigne and other distinguished spirits. Roussel was a formalist whose objective creed corresponded to no objective reality. The preaching of Cesar Malan and of Haldane, in Geneva, had probably excited his contempt, but it had none the less brought him to a healthy spirit of prayerful inquiry. His class-mate, Adolphe Monod, settled in Lyons, had left the city of Calvin in the same frame of mind, but now he was converted. He had too much life and earnestness to be at peace with a lifeless church. Soon, his consistory dismissed him. His bearing in these circumstances, his beautiful Christian spirit and life, greatly moved Roussell. While his religious experience may be considered as a part of that great irresistible revival of religion known among French Prostestants as "Ie Reveil," Adolphe Monod was, after God, the greatest power that worked the radical change in Roussel and which brought him to the foot of the cross. From this time a new earnestness and a new activity took possession of him. Not long after, he left St. Etienne to evangelize French settlers in Algeria. On his way there he stopped in Marseilles to spend a few days with a fellow-student, Armand-Delille. Both had left the Geneva School of Theology permeated with its virtual rationalism. Roussel was now rejoicing in the sunlight of God's love. Delille was still under the cloud. Roussel became the instrument in his conversion. Armand-Delille was afterwards, and is still, foremost among aggressive French pastors. On his return from Algeria, Roussel was called to Marseilles. A terrible scourge of cholera visited the city at this time. One of the first victims was his wife. Still he remained at his post, working day and night for those visited by the p,lague, except when he tore himself away from his dangerous and arduous duties to visit the dying and attend the funeral of Protestants in Toulon. There few examples of greater zeal in such trying circumstances.
In 1839, Roussel was invited to become the chicf editor of l'Esperance, a paper representing the interests of Protestant orthodoxy. He accepted, and went to live in Paris. We can hardly speak of his work as an editor; still, in this capacity, he uttered no uncertain sound. Ever ready to defend the great truths of evangelical Christianityagainst the Rationalists, to stir up his brethren to missionary activity, to vindicate the rights of Protestantism in the face of the audacious intolerance and shameless proceedings of the Catholic clergy, he used a ready, humorous and witty pen, which seemed to play with sarcasm and irony as with a whip, under which all concerned smarted; although we do not know of any case where his charity was seriously at fault. His task was almost beyond any man's power for he wished to make his paper a political one, whose politics would be absolutely guided by the gospel-a lofty journalistic ideal for France or America, but where has such an ideal been realized? After four years of noble struggles to maintain l'Esperance on such a basis, it passed into other hands to become a strictly religious paper.
At the very outset of the ReveiZ the churches of France and of Switzerland were seized with a remarkable missionary spirit. The Swiss began their missionary work at home, then went over into Italy. The Evangelical Society of Geneva was soon founded, and began to evangelize France ia 1832. They looked toward America, sent their missionaries to Canada, where they established the Grande Ligne Mission, and the Pointe aux Trembles Mission, while French Protestants organized the Societe Evangelique in 1833, whose work was the evangelization of France. Roussel was ever an enthusiastic friend of Home Missions; to them he consecrated the best of his life. No one saw better than he that French Protestanism must become missionary or die. He hailed with delight the first efforts in France of the Evangelical Society of Geneva, and those of the Evangelical Society of France. Moreover, he felt that, compared with former times, this period was most favorable to the principles of the gospel. Were not the most cultivated people of Paris drawn to the Christian socialism of St. Simon? and was not the picture of Jesus in the rooms of the socialists? Was not the thrist for something that neither Catholicism nor infidelity could give apparent? The time fpr action had come, and soon after Roussel was in the thickest of the fray.
In 1830 the people of the little town of Senneville, about forty miles south of Paris, called a priest who had broken away from Romanism to be their pastor. They built for him a church and paid his salary, but the church was soon closed by the authorities. For seven years they refused to submit to the Catholic hierarchy. They wrote to the king, asking permis~ion to change their religion, but their respectful petition remained unnoticed. At last they urged the Protestants of Paris to come. Roussel set out at once to visit them. He informed them of the demands of evangelical religion on their faith and life. They expressed at once their desire to accept Protestantism, with its privileges and responsibilities. On the following Sunday Roussel conducted divine worship in their chapel, but in less than a fortnight he found fifty soldiers in front of the chapel who prevented him entering; and who not only locked and sealed the door, but gave him only ten mmutes to leave the town. He was summoned to the oourt of Mantes together with nine members of his congregation. In spite of the article of the Constitution which granted" freedom of worship" to all, they were each fined sixteen franos, were forbidden to reassemble, and had to pay all costs. Roussel appealed to a higher court. The court session was at Versailles. Barrot, the most eloquent lawyer of the time, pleaded with force the cause of religious liberty; Roussel did better, because, as soon as he had faced the legal aspect of the case, he took the great apostolic stand that has given to Christianity its grand~ est confessors. "Whether you absolve me or not, I shall return to Senneville. If you condemn me again and send me to prison, leaving the prison, I shall return to Senneville. This I should do because my duty is there, and because as a Christian and a minister of the gospel, it is better that I should obey God rather than men." The court condemned him to pay the amount of the first fine and the cost'of appeal. Undaunted by this, Roussel brought the case before the Supreme Court, where it met the same fate. It was not the spirit of mere opposition that led him to continue the struggle, but the feeling that it was the cause of French religious liberty that was at stake, and the highest interest of immortal souls. Senneville suffered, but did not yield. Missionaries and pastors paid frequent visits to the people, and later on their church was re-opened.
Not far from the City of Limoges is the town of Villefavard. Freed from the Roman Catholic church since the French Revolution, its people had called among them a Gallican priest. In 1843 this priest received from a friendly hand a book of controversy by the celebrated Protestant minister, Drelincourt. He read it, changed his convictions, and told his people that he was a Protestant. " We will be Protestants also," said all but four of them. They forthwith wrote to the Bible Society to send them a colporteur. One was sent, and he met with such encouragement that he wrote to Paris for a pastor•. Roussel offered to go, and on the next Sunday he was in Villefavard" surrounded by an audience of more than 400 hearers-nearly the whol~ population of the village. Here again he was pursued by the govern" ment, although he had carefully submitted to all the formaliti~1! Qf th~ law in its severest application. Again he re-appeared in Paris to plead the cause of religious liberty. He and his friends did not leave a stone unturned until they had succeeded in securing permission to continue the work at Villefavard. At once Roussel, his wife and child and servant, started for the province formerly known as Limousin. The inhabitants of Villefavard lived on poor bread, chestnuts and milk, and dwelt in miserable huts, most of them having but one room. The inn-keeper had two rooms. Roussel hired one of them, which he divided into two by means of sheets and blankets, thus securing greater comfort. It was not long before Roussel rented the other room for a school, in which he and Madame Roussel began to teach the children of the village.
Roussel not only obtained permission to preach the gospel, but also to use for that purpose the Oatholic church, as there were no longer any Roman Oatholics in the village. That permission delighted the people. As soon as the official documents arrived, they went to the church, the altar was removed, the saints were dethroned, all other accessories of the Roman Oatholic worship were set to one side, and the ministry proper of Roussel began. This flock became sincerely evangelical; their lives were influenced by the word of God, and their children were taught in the Protestant schools.
The work at Villefavard was no sooner begun than the mayor, an alderman, and six counsellors of Belladent, a neighboring village, sent Roussel an urgent appeal to come and preach to their people. There he started a mission, brought a minister, a school-teacher, and built a church. He also started a mission in Rancon, another village, with a first attendance of more than five hundred hearers. As in Belladent, he called a missionary and a teacher. Seldom was there a man more active. He sought everywhere for opportunities, answered every appeal, faced every call-and there were many. Let us quote from one of his letters written at this time; it is like an echo of Reformation days in Germany: "I would like to give you a general idea of what one may expect here, and to that end I can do no better than to set forth before you the experiences of last week at Rancon. It was on the day of the county fail'. The peasants came from every direction. A man entered my room as an envoy from his town. He began by asking me what they should do to secure a minister. We were yet speaking, when four persons came in and enquired when I could go to them to open a station. They have already sent me a petition covered with signatures. I had scarcely answered them, when a third deputation from another village entered with a similar request. Before all' had left, four peasants, from four different neighboring villages, came to tell me that they and their relatives wished to become Protestants. At length a fifth deputation appeared to ask me for evangelical ministrations. "
Soon after, four new stations were added to those already mentioned, but Limoges itself, where many Protestant martyrs were burned during the 16th and 17th centuries, where temples were many times alternately built by Protestants and destroyed by Catholics, had, at this time, neither temple, school, nor religious services. In 1845 Roussel laid the foundation of a temple, while he preached to kindly-diRposed audiences. After his two-fold ministry of edification in this city, he went to Mansle, and from Mansle to Angouleme. Everywhere he drew large audiences of Catholics. The people became greatly interested in the Bible, and Protestant books became so popular that at a fair a Roman Catholic bookseller tried to sell his own books as Protestant ones. Village after village called for htborers. In a village called Ambazac the people at once collected money to rent a house, which they used as a temple. In most places the services took place in large barns. At Mansle, the Catholic authorities, seeing that at least two thousand people attended the meetings, again tried to stop the work, and brought Roussel before the courts, where he was fined in the first instance and acquitted in the second.
In 1847 Roussel returned to Paris, his heart overflowing with hope. In six years he had not only established twelve churches and twelve Protestant day schools, and built several temples, but he had seen many souls turned to God. The times seemed to him auspicious. The need of the hour was unquestionably that of men able to do popular missionary work. He tried to meet that want by establishing a school of evangelization.
Paris seemed the best city of France for that purpose. The predominance of Paris at that time, its influence in the domain of politics, of thought, of science, of fashion, was paramount. To Roussel, Paris seemed the strategic point whence the gospel could be most easily spread through France. His school was to be an institution" where devoted Christians would find in prayer and the study of the Bible the strength and wisdom necessary to enable them to visit and pray with those willing to receive them." Moreover, this would be a place of worship where those who had been evangelized during the week by the students would be addressed on Sunday by the pastor. It was thought that after two years of such a life the students would be prepared to carry the H Good News" into different parts of France. It was also hoped that a large number of earnest Christians would join the movement to evangelize their neighbors. It was to be a sort of French " Mildmay" for men.
In 1847 the school was opened. Adolphe Monod and and Dr. de Pressense were among the five professors of the institution. Roussel opened his own home to the students, who came in larger numbers than could be admitted. They were immediately set to the systematic study of the Bible, and to practical work for souls, chiefly through visitation a.nd t)l~ distributiou ot tracts. Houssel composed able, sharp, and concille statements of evangelical truth, which were printed in large type and posted by his pupils in different parts of. the capital. Pupils and professors were full of hope, the confidence of Protestants in the school was great, when the Revolution of 1848 dealt a deathblow to it by the economic crisis which it brought upon France. Subsequently, Napoleon III. consummated the wreck of the school by his arbitrary and despotic rule. The school and its rudime~tary realization passed away, the scheme of evangelization was not put into practice, but the spirit of Christian aggresOliveness of Roussel has survived; and God has since raised up other men to carry out, in an enlarged form, the school.and work of evangelization which he had conceived and attempted. Leon Pilatte, Pasteur Richard, and Rev. R. W. McAll have entered into the" promised1and," of which Roussel had only seen glimpses. His missionary churches were closed, some for four, some for five, some for ten years. Most of them, however, survived, and remain to-day enduring nionuments to the courage, the faith and the zeal of Roussel.
Roussel fought three great enemies, Romanism, Infidelity and Indifference. His numerous tracts are masterpieces of the kind, whether they be directed against popes, priests, preachers or infidels. They were so hated by the clergy and so mercilessly pursued by the police that even during the Second Republic, in 1851, a French Protestant bookseller, who unknowingly chanced to have a few thousand of them in an old stock which he had bought, was condemned to three months' imprisonment and fined 500 francs. Our missionary wrote few large books, but his one hundred tracts and booklets have been a great power among French-speaking Romanists. No tract has ever opened the eyes of so many Catholics as his "Why Does Your Priest Forbid Your Reading the Bible?" With all his other work he found time to write on science, history and religion, but always for the masses, with the uncommon talent of bringing the loftier subjects within the reach of popular intelligence. Of him it may be said that he had the rare gift, popuZariser sans vuZ~ariser.
Roussel was particularly fitted for his work and times. While his studies had given him great erudition.. his conversion great concern for souls, he was impelled onward by uncommon enthusiasm. Ever watching for opportunities, he grasped them as they appeared above the horizon, and his rich, practical common sense enabled him to make the best use of them. He had all the great gifts that earn for a great preacher a permanent popularity. He was a rapid thinker, had a large modern, concrete, popular vocabulary, and a voice, strong, sonorous and clear. He fascinated his hearers by his originality and simplicity. He was not only a living contrast to Roman Catholic priests, but also to his Protestant brethren, who could not speak without a gown, and who, in the pulpit, used a religious language that was to the French
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
masses what that of the Friends would be to Americans at large. With voice and pen he passionately toiled to advance the kingdom of God in France, and to him, as to no other man, can be applied the name which a filial hand has written as the title of a book recently devoted to his memory, "A Pioneer of the Gospel."
THE MIRAOLES OF MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL-A. T. P.] The Land of the Inquisition.
THE arms of the Escurial bear the motto: Post Fata Resurgo, with the sun emerging from behind clouds. That motto is prophetic.
Nothing more wonderful has saluted the eyes of God's watchers who wait for the morning than the recent work of the gospel in thie Land of the Inquisition, where the ashes of 10,000 martyrs may be found, who were burned alive for their faith's sake. Three hundred years of ecclesiastical despotism, upheld by the awful appliances of torture, had desolated the Spanish church. But for twenty years past, this coun- try has been the arena of very remarkable triumphs. Already, when Pastor Fliedner, of Madrid, addressed the Evangelical Alliance in Oopenhagen, in 1884, there were more than ] 2,000 evangelical disci- ples, representing nearly 100 congregations, courageously holding their ground against papal opposition, in various parts of Spain; and over 8,000 children were in Ohristian schools, with high schools at Madrid, St. Sebastian and Puerto Santa Maria; and Sunday-schools every- where, and evangelical hospitals at Madrid and Barcelona.
In 1883 the Luther-festival was observed even in the cradle-land of Inquisitorial cruelty, and the first evangelical students were matricu- lated in the university at the capital. Previous to 1868, not even a New Testament would have been tolerated in Spain; and now the pub- lications of the Bible and tract societies are spreading so fast that it is difficult for the supply to keep up with the demand.
Those who apologize for Romanism and question whether it be even worth while to send missionaries to papal lands, should visit such countries as Mexico and Spain. As in Brazil and Italy it is St. Joseph that is practically worshipped, so in Spain it is the virgin: in fact, the great day of the Passion Season is not the good Friday of the Lord's death, but the Friday previous, sacred to the Virgin of Sorrows. Her breast is pierced with seven swords, and beneath are the words: Is there a sorrow like to my sorrow? and above, "I am the Mediatrix ofthe human race!" The children's bedtime prayer is: " Oon Dios me acuesto, "With God I go to sleep, Oon Dios me levanto ; With God I wake; Oon la Virgen Maria Even with the Virgin Mary Y el Espirito Sant{)." And the Holy Spirit."
In connection with this displacement of the Mediator by His human mother, there is a practical idolatry that is scarcely surpassed by the lowest pagans. In the sanctuary of Our Lady of Gliada]oupe is a black wooden image dressed gorgeously, and having a special costume for each new festival, which even royal princesses deem it an honor to make. To the doors of the Spanish chapel at Madrid a leaflet was affixed, representing Mary, Queen of Angels, supported on each hand by a praying angel; beneath is a foot-measure with the inscription: "This is the true measure of the sole of the foot of the Most Holy Virgin, kept with great veneration in a convent of Spain. Pope John XXIII, has accorded 300 years' indulgence to all who will kiss this measure and say three Ave Marias. Clement VIII. confirmed these indulgences in 1603, and they are obtainable as often as desired for the souls of the blest in purgatory and for the greater honor of the Queen of Angels. It is permissible to take from this measure others, and hereby obtain thel same indulgences. Mary, Mother of Graces, pray for us. This is sold in the chapel of our deal' Lady of Solitude, in Her chapel in the street of Doves, and to her honor. Madrid, 1883."
The great means by which God is illumining this death-shade of idolatry and superstition is His Holy Word. But the Bible has not found its way into Spain without resistance. A colporteur sold in the market place of Montalborejo a large copy of the Word of God. A priest, just leaving the adjoining church, snatched it from the buyer and flung it to the ground, exclaiming, "'l.'he books of these heretics shall not come into our village." He led on an assault, in which the colporteur, pelted with stones, was glad to escape with life. Five weeks afterward, he passed that same hamlet at evening, when he thought he would not be recognized. But the first man who met him asked if he were not the Bible-man. Truth compelled him to say" I am," though not without fear. What was his surprise, however, to find that, instead of stoning him, the people were now all clamoring for his books! And mark how God has brought about this wondrous change. A grocer, picking up the Bible which the priest had thrown to the ground, had torn out the leaves and used them as wrappingpaper for his soap and candles and cheese. The Spaniards unwrapped their wares, and were attracted to read the words printed in large type upon them; and so the precious truths taught in narrative and parable found their way into their he.1rts, and they went to the shopkeeper to get more, and when the stock was exhausted prayed God to send back the colporteur with his bibles. His reappearance was the signal for the immediate sale of all his books; and then they begged him to stay and teach them the truth which the Book contained. Pastor Fliedner well says, it reminds us of the words on Luther's monument at Worms: " The gospel which our Lord put into mouths of His apostles, that is His sword, with which as with thunder and lightning, He strikes in the world." With that weapon alone, the Almighty has been driving before Him the armies of the aliena and beating down the strongholds of the Devil.
Pastor Fliedner, on his way to prison, where he had the privilege of being cast for Ohrist's sake, looked over the tracts he had with him and rejoiced to find them suit.tble to distribute among prisoners. But he was compelled to leave them outside his cell. His handcuffs were so loosely holding his wrists thathe managed to slip his hands through and passed them to the sergeant. Thereupon the jailer put a fetter around his ankle and pushed him into a cell, with five others, but kept his books for his boy, for the sake of the pictures. Pastor Fliedner cared less for being shut in a cell than for having his tracts shut out. Suddenly he was called out and searched by the jailer, who coolly appropriated his handkerchief, the little money he had about him, and even the pocket-knife which was his little boy's gift. Indignant at such robbery, Pastor.Fliednersaid,"What do they here call people who take what is not their own?" "You call me a thief, do you?" said the brutal jailer, and violently boxed his ear. Then fixing a weight of 350 pounds to his fetter, he shoved him back into the dungeon, and flung his tracts after him, saying, "I will have nothing that belongs' to you."
The prisoners pounced on the tracts. " Ah, you are a Protestant! You believe in God. We do not, and have long ceased to." "Yes," he replied, "I do believe in a God." "But have you seen him?" " No ; but when the jailer speaks and answers you through that closed door, you know he is there, though you don't see him. So I speak to God in prayer, and when He answers me I know He is there." "Well," they rejoined, "how do you know He hears and answers you?" Pastor Fliedner then referred to the scene they had just witnessed, the rude box on the ear; and, calling their attention to his own tall and stalwart frame and the ease with which he could have dealt a blow that would have felled the dim.inutive jailer to the earth, he said, "I had a mind to strike him back, and double him up, but I sent up to God a prayer for patience, and it was at once granted me, and now I shall have patience given me till the end." This was a practical example of the power of prayer that those men, wont to yield to passion, could well understand. And the result was that those prisoners read and prayed together in that dungeon, and when Pastor Fliedner, at three o'clock in the morning, awoke, he saw one of those convicts reading by the dim light the parable of the prodigal son, and so he "thanked God for that box on the ear."
In May, 1884, three young disciples were thrown into prison for not worshipping" the host," as it was borne past. But, like Paul and Silas, they prayed and sang praises unto God, even in jail, and a by-passer in the street sent them five francs for their sweet singing. After the ten days of their sentence expired, the Judge demanded the fine of fifty francs. They had no money, and he remanded them to prison for another ten days. Two days later he set them free; for the priest had complained that his parishioners stood morning and evening before the prison, listening to the hymns they sang; and that the in- terest and sympathy they were exciting would only make more Protest- ants! And so they were set free.
This brief narrative of facts may serve to show us how the living God is moving with His mission band. Even in the land of the Holy Office, the blood of the martyrs, that seed of the church, is now spring- ing up from soil black with the ashes of the "heretics." The first in- stance in which the blood of a heretic was shed by the solemn forms of law was in 385, when Priscillian, leader of the Gnostics in Spain, was put to the sword at the instigation of Bishop Hacius. And now, 1,500 years after, the pure, sweet gospel is flowing like the river of the water of life, to turn that desert of the Inquisition into the garden of the Lord.
The ecclesiastical history of Spain is written in blood. The Ara- gonese branch of the Inquisition can be traced as far back as 1232; at first its severest sentence was the confiscation of property; toward the close of the 15th century the Cardinal Archbishop of Seville gave it a new impulse, and it assumed in time the huge proportions of a mon- ster, becoming more despotic and cruel than in any other European state. In 1478 a papal bull authorized the establishment of the Tribunal, and the consent of Ferdinand and Isabella gave it the sanc- tion of Royalty. The first formal court was established at Seville, and on Jan. 6, 1481, the first auto da fe was held, six persons being burned alive. In 1483 Torquemada became Grand Inquisitor General of all Spain, and the organic laws of the new Tribunal were framed, which Inquisitor General Valdez, in 1561, brought to their final form. Ap- pointed jointly by King and Pope, the inquisitors-general became in- vested with absolute power. Llorente estimates that under Torquemada 8,800 were burned; under Seza, 1,664; under Ximenes, 2,536. From 1483 to 1808-when Joseph Bonaparte abolished the Inquisition-the estimate is: burned alive, 31,912; burned in effigy, 17,659; subjected to various pains, penalties and penances, 291,450, a totaZ number of victims reaching 323,362 ! .
Yet here, in this central fortress of Inquisitorial horrors and ter- rors, the word of God, the gospel tract, the song of grace, the trans- formed iife of saintly men and women, without one carnal weapon, are moving with the power of God, to turn the land of many martyrs into the land of many churches and schools of Christ. Spain may yet, lead Christendom in the defence of the Protestant faith•. 592 HAVE WE TOO MANY MISSIONARY PERIODICALS? [AUG., HAVE WE TOO MANY MISSIONARY PERIODICALS? [EDITORIAL.-J. M. S.] THE Publishers of this REVIEW recently seIit a letter to some of our prominent ministers, asking for a brief expression of opinion as to its scope and merits. The response in every instance was kind and encouraging. We venture, on our editorial responsibility, to give here the reply of our respected and beloved brother, Dr. Cuyler, of Brooklyn, who expressed a" fear" that may have occurred to other minds, and one that we deem per- tinent and worthy of consideration.
Says Dl'. Cuyler: .. THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD is a. powerful periodica.l ; but I ha.ve one tea.r, viz.: that since a.bout all the Foreign Mission enterprisesare conducted by denominational boards or societies, and all of these have their missionary journals, will the good people find time to read them and yours also? Do we not need to ha.ve more reading of the present journa.IB. rather than the addition of more new periodicals'" .
We have great respect for Dr. Cuyler's judgment, on this as on other matters in which he takes a deep interest. And still we think his opinion in this case is based on a superficial and hasty view of the question. And we will state in brief some reasons for so thinking: 1. So far as known to the writer, Dr. Cuyler stands quite alone in thi!<1 opinion. The editors and publishers have received (literally) thousands of expressions from leading pastors of aU'denominations, from the secretaries of missionary societies in all parts of the world, from intelligent and influ- entiallaymen, from our missionaries in every land, from woman's boards of missions, from youthful bands of missionary workers, from student vol- unteers, from Y. M. C. Associations, from heads of families, from profes- sors in colleges and theological seminaries, and from the leading religious papers and missionary periodicals of Christendom-and from all these sources of intelligent judgment and disinterested opinion not one expression has met our eye or ea.r othel' than that of warmest commendation and God- speed. Even on the platform of the World's great Conference in London, THE MISSIONARY REvmw OF THE WORLD (then but a few months old) was several times referred to with warmest praise and thanksgiving to God.
Very many of these testimonials have deepJy touched our hea.rts, and stim- ulated our zeal and courage in the enterprise to which we have committed ourselves in obedience to what seemed to Dr. Pierson and myself a plain call of God. Thus the weight of testimony is decidedly against our good brother's opinion, so far as least as this REVIEW is concerned.
In response to the same publishers' circular, sent to some fifty persons in all, came very strong words, from some of the most intelligent and prominent men in the Christian church. As they present various phases of the subject, and their judgment is entitled to consideration, we trust it will not ~e thought immodest in us if we give a few of them in this connection.
We want it distinctly understood by our readers that we are not engaged in any private personal enterprise for selfish ends. The cause of this Re- view is simply the cause of Christian missions, conducted for the honor of Christ.
OPINIONS OF EMINENT MINISTERS. the magazine in Its entirety leaves little to be desired either as regards the separate fields In Rev. C. H. Parkhurst, D.D., New York: which missionary work is being done, or a8 relates to the general problems of missionary .. No one who desires to hold in bird's-eye interest." view the movement which the militant church at large is making upon the enemy's territory Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntinjtton, D.D., can aiford to dispense with THE MISSIONARY LL.D., Risbop of Central New York: •. In the REVIEW OF THE WORLD. Each of its depart- widespread and ever-increasing interest felt ments is full of carefnllyedited instruction, and
HAVE WE .rOO MANY MISSIONARY PERIODICALS?
among Christian people In the great missionary sionary facts and methods. I shall take pleasmovements of t~e church militant. there must ure in speaking a good word for it whenever be constant occasion, especially among edu- opportunity offers." cated and educating minds, to seek for accurate information respecting all parts of the lield, Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., of Beirut, and .all departments of the service. Such a Syria, than whom, for position, service, and carefully gathered treasnry of knowledge, at qnalifications, no missionary's words would once authentic and comprehensive, is THB command greater respect: .. THE MISSIONARY MISSIONARY RliVIEW OF THB WORLD. REVIEw OF THE WORLD is a. noble tribute and a most effective contribution to the cause of Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D;D., Secretary of world-wide missions. It is highly appreciated Board of Missions Methodist Episcopal by missionaries io the field for its able and fer- Church: .. I am very greatly pleased with the vid treatment of great missionary themes, its successive numbers. The amount of informa- wide outlook, and its unrivalled statistical sumtilln which they bring from various portions of maries. That the Christian church hail such a the mission field renders them invaluable to magazineat hand, and that the missionary cause the student of missions. And the thorough throughout the world has such an organ, iQ discussion of live topiCS connected with mission- both gratifying and Significant. No pastor at ary work very greatly increases their value." home, and no missionary abroad. should be without it. The marvelous movements of Rev. A. F. Schauftler, D.D., New York: Providence io the interests of missions, the ex- "I do not see how THB REVIBW could be panding and cumulative energies of grace as made better than it is, and I do not see how any they appear at so many points In the world, and one who has the charge of a church can get the unprecedented opportnnities of this era oC along without it. The bonnd volume which I missionary activity, all call for just such a preh..ve ..Iso is a very encyclopedia of grand and sentation as your REVIBW aims to give." useful knowledge. and has already been used in my work many times. I do wish that every Howard Crosby, D.D.: "Snpplies a longmioister would get and read THB REVIBW. It felt want. • • • • It will meet both the Iitwould do a world of good, for it is sparklingly erary and spiritual taste of God's people." written." Dr. William Henry Green, Princeton Professor Wm. C. WUkinson, D.D.: Theological Seminary: "I have read THE MIS- .. THE MISSIONABY REVIEw OF THE WORLD SIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD from the has excited more interest and more zeal for the beginning with Increasiog ioterest. The comcause of missions in my family than have all prehensiveness of its plan and the extraordiother agencies combined, apart from the Word nary pains and diligence shown in gathering of God, that ever entered my house. I found it late and reliable information from every quaralready known and highly prized a year ago ter, together with the value and attractiveness among the missionaries oC the Levant. More of its special articles, make it quite Indispensathan once J there heard it pronounced the best ble' for everyone who would take an iotelligent missionary periodical in lhe world." survey of the present state and progress of missions, as conducted by the various Christian Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D.: "Drs. bodies in all p..rts of the earth." Sherwood and Pierson deserve the thanks of the entire chnrch, ..nd of the whole Christian M. H., Houston, D.D., Sec. of ForeIgn world, for their'masterly editing of this superb periodical. There is nothing equal to it within lIIissions of the Presb. Church in the U. S. my knowledge in the entire lield of missions." (South): .. Itisagain to the whole church to have a magazine so capacious as yours, which Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D.: "We is stored to the full with information, which need just snch an ecumenical missionary mag..· every Christian should rejoice to have." zine." Arthur Edwards, D.D., Editor North- Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., Secretary Board of Missions Reformed Church: .. For western OhriBtian Advocate: "I send merely abilty of editorship, breadth ofview, earnest ad- a line to say th..t your missionary magazine is vocacy of advance all along the line and volume simply splendid, It is full of lire, brains, news, of general information, it is iovaluable. To suggestion, religion a.nd holy contagion. Go the pastor especially indispensable. There Is ahead and set the churches on lire. God bless no substitute; and he will be crippled in this you." br..nch of service who attempts to do without It.' r. D. Witherspoon,D.D.,LL.D., Louis- Joseph Cook: "Breadth of outlook, am- ville, Ky.: "The Christian who, in the spirit of ple information, zealous loyalty to evangelical true CatholiCity, desires to be informed as to trnth, great editori..l skill, and an intense and the great mission..ry enterprises and operations lofty devoutness of spirit pervading everypage, ofall churches, and in all lands, will fiod io THill make It a periodical of extraordinary value." MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD jnst what he needs. Its pages are crowded with the latest Misll Frances E. Willard writes; "It and most satisfactory Information from all is the best thing of the kind I kno w of. I hear mission fields and upon all mission topics, whilst good things said of it on every hand. It is so great themes involving the principles and con- fresh and cosmopolitan in its putting of mls- duct of missions are treated at large in each number by the ablest writers of the day." Rev. F. Holm, Seo. Danish Evangelical THE MISSIONARY REVIEW takes within its Missionary Society: .. I reoeive THE MISSION- ken the mission work of all Protestant chnrches, ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD regularly and am and is the faithful and friendly observer of very grateful for it. When read by me it is sent every method of gospel elIort all the world to the editor of our missionary paper. In the over, irrespective of church or denomination, last number of this paper, he has giveu a traus- but in loving and cordial sympathy with all the latiou of Dr. Pierson's memorable paper on Scriptural endeavors to win souls for Christ. home work for missions, read by him at the Such a magazine is much needed in Great General Conference in London, and in doing so Britian in this busy age, having a comprehensive he has seized the opportunity to reoommend view of the highest and noblest work of tbe your review as the most complete, most im- whole church of Christ; but until a mon thly of partial, best written and best conducted of the this description has been started, we recom- numerous missionary periodicals of our· days.'" mend all who are interested in world-wide missions to subscribe to this American monthly. PRESS NOTICES. -Servicefm" the King, (England.) [We add a rew out of thousands.] THE most complete thing of the kInd in ex- THE MISSIONARY REVIEW has already won for istence. Not only collated intelligence from itself, by its catholicity and comprehensiveness every part of the mission-field, but articles, llnd thorough treatment of missionary ques- biographical sketches, reviews, statistics, as tions, a unique place in the periodical literature well. A few copies of this incompal'able misof missions. It is the organ of no one church or sionary magazine in a church would go far to society, but aims at representing the great make it a" missionary church." And a mis- missionary movement as a whole, and gathers sionary church is always one that does most together with admirabie impartiality the work at home.-Oanadian Independent. methods and results of all the churches and socie.ies in the mission-field. It thus occupies ONE of the most valuable features is the space a sphere quite different from the ordinary it gives to the literatnre of missions. Its demissionary records, and within its eighty pages partment of statistics is especially important; it can discuss missionary problems as they can- and not less interesting, if less valnable. is the not possibly do.-Ohurch of Scotland Mission international department, under which trans- Report. lated selections from missionary periodicals of aU countries are given. The editorialcontribu- THE MISSIONARY REVIEW covers the Whole tions are, however, by far the most attractive foreign work of all the different organizations, feature of the periodical, and the one most caland teems with the freshest facts from the culated te arouse interest, especially of the entire field. Nothing we have ever met with is yonng, in the subject of missions.-The New So bold, fearless and independent, or discusses York Evangelist. with such candor and so intelligently the various phases of missions. There is no other pub- THIS periodical is uniqne in its purpose, conlication like it, or that even approaches it, in fined to no one denomination, aiming to be a its many admirable featnres.-Ohristtan at review of missions throughout the wQrld. It is Work. no disparagement to The Missionary Herald, or any other missionary monthly, to say that THE REVIEW sweeps its vision over the entire this miSSionary review occnpies a place wholly world, and it not only sees, but knows how to by itself of great importance. In the stupendtell what it sees. If the high standard of ous undertaking to which the church of our literary excellence so far sustained can be con- time is beginning to arouse itself, we are not tinuously held, we shall have a magazine of alone. There are many and powerfnl Christian missions which will be the peer of our best organizations engaged in the same work. There literary monthlies in quality and interest.- is much which we all need to learn from each American Missimwry. other. Pastors and others in preparation for missionary discourses and missionary concerts, THE MISSIONAIlY REVIEW OF THE WORLD will find a great deal in this work that wfll be easily distances, by its high literary ability, its ofpecnllar interest and value to them, especially breadth of discussion and information, and its in what may be termed the literature of misworld-wide sweep of survey, all other mission_ sions.-The Inter-iol·. ary peri-odicals.-Lutheran Observer. No man who wisbes to keep up with current THE REVIEW is needed by every minister who missionary movements, and to read the newest would be thoroughly furnished for efficient thoughts of foremost thinkers on missionary work, and when he gets it he will want to pre- subjects, can afford to be without THE MISSIONserve it; one will not be conten t to borrow It ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.-Oumberiand from a neighbor, nor will he care to give it Presbyterian. away if he subscribes to it. The yearly volumes of THE REVIEW are annual encyelopredias 01 SAYS The Ohristian Leader, Of Scotland, a misslons.-National Baptist weekly of rare merit and influence: " The absolute necessity of evangelizing our cities. if No one can read its pages without being in- we would save the nation and evangelize the spired with a warmer zeal and a brighter hope Iworld, is a truth enforced in a profoundly imfor missions. Send for this excellent periodical pressive paper by Dr. J. M. Sberwood,jointtor yourself, for your pastor, or for your anxiliary.-Woman's Missionary Rceord. editor with Dr. Pierson. in the current number As an organ of the missionary cause. this periodof THE MISSIONARY REVIEW Oil' THE WORLD. icalleaves an others immeasurably in therear/'
2. We quite agree with Dr. Cuyler, that we" need to have more reading," of a missionary character. It is a thousand pities that our" missionary journals" are not read more than they are. There are hundreds of them, and some of them are excellent in their way, as The Missionary Herald. The Gospel in All Lands, The Church at Home and Abroad, Regions Beyond, China's Millions, etc. But the complaint is and always has been, they are not read; with half a dozen exceptions, their circulation is very limited. They attract no attention outside of their respective, limited corporate or missionary circles. They do not reach and guide public sentiment, or create, enlarge and emphasize the missionary spil'it and enthuse the church with it. Our society organs and board journals have had the field all to themselves for a long while, and no doubt they have done their best to rouse the church to do her duty, to interest the world in missions, to meet the stupendous demands and exigencies of this missionary age. But, confessedly, they have failed of this,at least to a large extent. The people will not read themwe mean the mass even of professing Christians-and hence their influence is scarcely felt beyond their own immediate narrow circles. They are indispeniable, it may be, and certainly useful in their particular spheres. But they fail to meet the increasing and imperative demands of the times. The missionary work has outgrown them in a great measure. God's Spirit and providence have been at work in these latter days in a wonderful, a majestic way. A new era has dawned. All barriers are thrown down. The nations are pleading, and waiting for the gospel. A new and mighty impulse is felt. A thousand questions, innumerable problems, confront us. New conditions, new possibilities, new auxiliaries, have sprung into being. The agencies and appliances that may have sufficed in former days are not adapted to or sufficient for the new order of things. From the nature of the case this class of journals are local in scope and work; they are restricted by corporate or denominational lines ; they are limited in space, lay no claim to literary merit, and take no means to enlist the consecrated intellectual talent of the world in the great and rapidly enlarging missionary enterprise of the age. Especially in this day, when secular and literary magazines are multiplied and made as attractive and irresistible {is the best literary talent and artistic beauty and business enterprise can make them, it were unreasonable to expect that our comparatively dull, dry, perfunctory society and boal'd organs and missionary journals, edited by secretaries whose hands are full of other pressing work and the staple of which consists largely of the details of missionary life and work among the heathen, can even hold their own, much less have any great attraction for young, ardent, active, minds or even for the mass of reading and intelligent Christan men and women. They are not made mentally or spiritually attractive, and hence are not read; and Dr. Cuyler will have cause to lamentthis lact as long as he lives ! We may all regret the fact never so much, but it will remain a fact nevertheless.
And simply because the mass of the people of God will not read this class of journals, shall no effort be made to produce and sustain a missionary monthly that will be read-a missionary magazine that, for literary ability. for masterfy discussion of the grand themes and the living questions of the age from the missionary standpoint, shall be the peer of Harper and Scribner, and shall find its way, side by side with them, into the study of the minister, into the family circle, and on the tables of our "reading rooms," in college and seminary and Y. M. C. A's, and our public libraries? When individual self-denial and heroic courage, without aid or promise from any of the boards or other orgamzations of the church, were made willing in God's providence to put brains, hard work and push into such an nndertaking, from simple love to the cause, in order to supply a felt need-to elevate and make attractive missionary literature-may they not reasonably look for friendly recognition and co-operation Il'om pastors like Dr. Cuyler, filling high positions in the church and lamenting the want of practical interest in the missionary literature furnished by the old missionary journals? Is it, as a matter of enlightened policy or of Christian ethics, a wise thing to do to deprecate and discourage the circulation among his people of a missionary magazine of a new order-one which heis pleased to characterize as a "powerful periodical "-on the ground that it might interfere with the organ of his own church board? Would it not seem highly propel' to give his people a fairchance to judge for themselves, as many who do not" find time" to read the denominational journal might perchance find time and have the will to read one of entirely a different order-as we know some of them do in spite of the pastor's position? Doubtless there are scores of other godly men and women in his great congregation who never read the ordinary "missionary journals," who might be induced to take and read one that has received the ~ighest commendation of those abundantly qualified to judge. It is qUlte possible that fifty or a hundred copies of it, circulated monthly in his church, and read and quoted and talked of in the family and in prayer and missionary circles, might increase the missionary zeal and liberality even of Dr. Cuyler's generous people, and help to excite and train some of his young people to be missionaries.
Say what we will, "denominational" and even literary' "organs" have seldoni proved a success in any department of literature, as flvery intelligent man knows, and missionary journals controlled by boards, or societies, or church organizations, are no exception. Somehow the machinery is cumber- some and does not work well. In spite ofall efforts to the contrary,the mechan- ical and the perfunctory prevail. The genius of our people, who love freedom, liberty, independence, freshness, enterprise, revolts at such organs. Why, Dr. Cuyler has a forcible illustration of this fact in his own denomination. The Presbyterian Church has made a stupendous effort to esta.blish and sustain a "denominational" missionary journal that shonld meet fully the demands of·the times and the needs of the great body it represents. No other maga- zine, religious or secular, excited so much forethought, discussion, and anx- ious interest, in the matter of its inception. One General Assembly after an- other brooded over the proposal, discussed it in all its relations and bearings, and appointed large committees of its wise and dignified doctors and judges, and senators-and the issue finally was The Ohurch at Home and Abroad.
A liberally-paid editor was chosen to conduct it, with the aid of the secre. taries of the eight boards of the church. It was made the official organ of . the denomination. Its pages were ample, the price made ridiculously low, and the good wishes, the loyalty, and the resources of this large, intelligent, and wealthy church were behind it. Every pastor was expected to act as its agent, and commend it to his people fro111 the pulpit and urge it upon his people, as Dr. Cuyler, we know, has donE', and a thousand other Presbyterian pastors.
Such an experiment, judging from general principles, we should say, was bound to succeed. But it has not prot'ed a success, even in the judgment of its friends and originators. Its failure has b,een assignal, ali conspicuous, as its origin, and its opportunities were unusual and grand. At the end of the first year there was a deficit of over nine thousand dollars-a charge upon the boards. During the second year the deficit was over five thousand, and the circuiation fell off nearly one-half! Less than one in forty, of even the membership of the body of Christians which it represents, at'e subscribers to it ! It has caused the distinguished committee which has it in charge no little anxiety, trouble, and" nursing," and the great and prosperous body which it represents mortification and disappointment.
After such a failure of a" denominational missionary journal," what can we expect? And what is the great Presbyterian Church to do in the matter of missionary literature? Where are the more than 700,000 church members who do not take their own "organ" to get their missionary information and inspiration? Is it not just possible that we may find along this line one of the reasons for the falling off in the receipts of their Board of Foreign Missions the past yea,r? The immense falling off in the circulation of the denominational organ, and no interest in 01' effort on the part of the vast majority of Presbyterian pastors to substitute any other means of mis· sionary information and inspiration, suggests a possible cause. This is delicate ground for us to tread on; but we know no good reason why we should not state the fact, that in the Presbyterian Church alone, in which both my associate and myself are members and presbyters, have we experienced the lack of brotherly sympathy and cordIal co-operation in our enterprise. My own pastor not only refused our Review when offered him, but discouraged its circulation among his people, while he took the" denominational" journal into his pulpit, and urged evet'y family again and again to subscribe for· and read it. And my neighbor and friend, Dr. Cuyler, did the same; and the same policy has been generally pursued by the pastors of my own denomination. While in every other denomination in the United States and Canada and Great Britain, the Review has l:een hailed with joy and gratitude, and all reasonable means adopted to give iJ a large circulation, notwithstanding they all have their own local journals.
The qustion is pertinent just here: Can the Presbyterian Church-its pastors, the leaders in its councils, or its large membership–afford to ignore such a magazine as the Missionary Review of the World is affirmed to be by a thou sand competent witnesses who are familiar witli its pages? If we rightly in. terpret the signs of the times, it has been clearly demonstrated that justsuch a Review of Universal missions is an imperative need ofour day; and that in seeking to supply this need, we were simply falling into our place in a divine plan. As we said editorially in the January issue, the impression and conviction with which this enterprise was begun have onlybecomedeeperandstronger by the first year's experience, viz.: that, in respect of missions, no greater need exists than that of the universal diffusion of information as to the facts of past and present missionary histol·Y. To know those facts, to be informed and kept informed and fully informed, as to the march of God and His hosts in all the earth, is,ineffect, to quicken the pulse of the whole church of Christ. Inmissions, Love is the skilful alchemist that turns knowledge into zeal and out of intelligence distils inspiration. If we would have more prayer, we must know what to pray about and pray for; if we want more money, we must know what open doors God is placing before us for the investment of consecrated capital, and what wondrous results He has wrought and is working with the merchant's millions, and even the widow's mites, if we want mc>re men and women as workers. The mind and heart and conscience of disciples must be awakened from sleep and aroused from sluggishness by the electric touch of thrilling facts. If we want more zeal, all true zeal is "according to knowledge" and consequent upon it. If we want the spirit of holy enterprise, doing and daring for God, missions must be exhibited as the enterprise of the church, and it must be shown that no equal or proportionate investment of men, means and money ever brought returns so ample-all of which the logic of events stands ready to prove by the most overwhelming of arguments.
In a word, we believe that, if every true disciple could be continually confronted by a fresh bulletin of news from the world-wide field and kept familiar with the movements of every assaulting column now moving against Satan's citadels, all the workmen and all the money-both the personnel and material of war-would be voluntarily furnished for prosecuting this colossal campaign.
The time has come, moreover, for a Review of Missions that may take its place side by side with the ablest periodicals in the secular sphere. The gospel has found its way into Cresar's household, as well as into the jailer's family, and Bethany's humble home. God is now calling the wise, the mighty, the noble, to the kingdom. Merchantprinces, public leaders, statesmen, journalists, philosophers, generals, judges, sages, bow at the cradle of Christ as did the Eastern seers. King's daughters are among the honorable women who follow the Saviour and minister to Him of their own substance, and at His right hand stands more than one queen in gold of ophar. Piety is not linked with stupidity and superstition, ignorance and imbecility. Even the infidel no longer sneers as the gospel as" fit only for women, children and small men. " The thoughtful, cultured classes of society are compelled to ask whence came that wonderful religion that iUustr~Ltes the survival of thefittest because fittest to survive; that amazes the evolutionist by not being evolved at all, but springing at once into mat.urity without development, and yet de. fies for eighteen centuries all improvement, either by addition 01' subtraction I And we are profoundly persuadedthat a Review of Missions, properly conduct. ed, will not only inform the ignorant and enlighten and educate the unculti. vated, but may also command and compel the attention of the most intellect. ual and intelligent readers, and bring them into closer and more practical fel. lowship with mission work. And abundant facts have come to our knowledge that thus the Review has gl'eatly enlarged the circle of readers of mission- ary literature; has interested a large number of educated men and women in mission themes who nevel' before gave them the least attention; and has made a place for missions in the secular press, which has been accustomed to sneer at them. One of the leading literary journals of the country, located in Washington, reproduces the substance of many of our leading articles, advertised the Review largely at its own cost, and sought of our publishers a clubbing arrangement with it, Many of our leading articles are also reproduced month by month, in whole or in part, in the religious periodicals of America, Great Britain, and India. Some of them have been translated into' other tongues. Such facts encourage the belief that the lines of its beneficent influence have gone out into all the earth, and that, humble as was its origin, and with none to sound its trumpet, and with only private resources to back it, and two busy men to guide and inspire it, God, in His gracious providence, is honoring and blessing its agency far beyond our expectations.
3, One thought more. It seems clear to us thatin the present grand missionary movement we have noScripture warrant to propagateDenominationalism. The sectarian spirit is a great obstacle to the success of missions among the :leathen. The t1!ndency in the mission field is to unity, oneness, a native independent union church. Even at home there is a drawing together. The spirit of comity and catholicity is on the increase. And we need to foster this movement in every possible way. But the tendency of denominational journals, absorbed with their own particular interests, is in the opposite direction-to magnify and build up denominationalism at the expense of the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Our aim is to present and urge the missionary work of the age in its unity, its oneness, its entirety, its apostolic simplicity and grandeur. In no other way, along no other line of policy, can the church fully execute the commission of her asc.ended Lord. In no other way can we uplift and dignify and glorify the cause of missions, and demonstrate to the world the infinite importance and farreaching scope of the work we have taken in hand. Only when we look at missions as a whole; at the evangelization of the world as the one supreme end at which we are unitedly to aim. and to accomplish which we are to concentrate all resources, do all questions relating to sects and policies and rivalries sink into insignificance as unworthyof serious thought orcontention.
The mission of this Review is to work along this line. Werepresentnosect or society or organization of men, but simply the Church of the living God in its entirety and loyalty to Christ, the Kingly Head. Our simple motto is the conquest of this world for Christ. Our scope is world-wide as is the Commission which is our warrant. Our one desire, policy, ambition, is to present the claims of missions to the entire brotherhood of disciples; to sound aloud the bugle-call, and rally the hosts of the cross to the mighty work laid upon us; to put ourselves abreast the swelling tide of missionary life and enterprise and aspiL'ation, and help to guide it in the right direction; to survey critically and constantly the world-field 6f missionary needs and operations and lay them before our readers ~ to put ourselves en rapport with leading missionaries in all parts of the field, and with the leading missionary societies of Christendom, helping and being helped in our work; and at any cost to .enlist the ablest pens available to discuss mission problems and write upon the grand and inspiring themes of missionary life and of missionay thought. We hear it said that the" romance of missions" is a thing of the past. It is a mistake. The annals of modern missions are all aflame with heroic devotion, with self-sacrificing consecration, with deeds of daring and glory not surpassed in any age of the world. Why, this is the martyr-age of the church in many a heathen land. There are more martyrdoms for the faith of Christ occuring during this age than during the apostolic age.. The story of Madagascar, as related by Dr. Brockett in the May and June numbers of this REVIEW, and the" Miracles of Missions" as graphicaly sketched by our associate in these pages, equal in romantic interest, in sublime endurance, in all the elements of tragic power and suffering for Christ's sake, anything you read of in history under the early persecutions. And these are but the first fruits of what we are to witness in the prosecution of the missionary work. And do we not need to know and read of these things? Is there not inspiration in them? Can the chu:rch realize that such baptisms of blood await the new disciples of the cross in other lands-disciples just emerged from heathenism-and that the religion of Jesus sustains them under fiery persecutions as it did the early martyrs-and not feel a new interest in missions, a thrill of sympathy with these sufferers for the faith as it is in Jesus, and not offer up more fervent prayer in their behalf and in behalf of lands and peoples still cursed with superstition and idolatry and cruel rulers? Such revelations of Missionary life and faith and triumph l!>s are occurring inour own day ona hundred fields of labor, read like
WHEN SHALL COME THE CONSUMMATION?
the highest romances of Christian chivalry. It is the mission of this Review to spread out on its ample pages from time to time this side of the mission work, as well as the biographies of the choicest missionaries who have wrought and gone to their reward.
All this service we are doing and hope to do in the future for missions at our own cost. We ask not the church for a dollar. With few exceptions, the boards' and denominational journals are a tax on missionary receiptsin the aggregate a large tax. They do not pay the cost of production. We fain believe that the influence of this Review whas been a stimulus to this class of magazines, infusing additional vigor and breadth, as well asa new inspiration to the church at large. And it is all a gratuity. The editors and publishers have worked hard, early and late, and without the hope of pecuniary reward. And we count it an honor and no mean achievementand we are not ashamed to confess it-to have actually demonstrated to the public the fact that it has been possible, without the caresses or patronage of any board, or society, or committee, or denominational backing what. soever, to establish and carry forward to a. position of self support, a large, vigorous, independent, unsectarian, uncompromising Missionary Monthly, exclusively devoted and intensely consecrated to the cause of m.issions in all the earth. Henceforth let no man sneer at missions! In the face of such a fact a thousand Canon Taylors could not show that" Missions are a Failure." The friends of missions may rejoice with us over the achievement. They share in the fruits of our success. They have the power, by their prayersand interest, to widen its sphere and increase its usefulness a hundredfold.
WHEN SHALL COME THE CONSUMMATION?
BY J. E. RANKIN, D.D., ORANGE VALLEY, N. J.
WHEN shall come the consummation? When gleam forth Messiah's sign?
And in garments of salvation He set up His royal line ?
In His purple vestments glorious, Mighty as a king to save; Treading down hiH foes victorious, And redeeming from the grave?
When His people shall be willing, In the great day of His power; Glad the solemn vows fulfilling Of their first espousal hour.
When they as their Lord adore Him, Bring their silver and their gold; Lay their prayers and gifts before Him, And His dying love unfold.
·When they consecrate their daughters, Bring their sons within their arms; Send them heralds o'er the waters To proclaim the Saviour's charms; When His name is daily spoken; For the poor His table spread; When the bread of life is broken, Till His hungry all are fed.
In the dew, then, of the morning, With the freshness of His youth, Zeal like raiment Him adorning, Shall He gird His thigh with truth Then shall come the consummation, Then His reign on earth begin; And full rivers of salvation Flood this world of woe and sin.
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
THE Berichte, of the Rhenish Missionary Society, says: .. There is.a significant parable that the Lord God in the beginning created the birds with all the present variety of their plumage, but withont wings, and afterwards lightlv attached these to them. Some of them refused to bear this added burden and cast them off ; these became the wingless birds, that cannot fiy. But for the others, who were willing to bear the burden, the wings grew fast, giving them power to soar high towards heaven. So, in the last hundred years, by God's grace, two mighty pinions have grown out on our evangelical church, namely, home and foreign missions, with which she may joyfully and freely mount upwards toward God, and, furnished with these, she has no need to fear either that she is going to languish out of existence or to be overwhelmed by Rome."
.. Through evil report and good report." says the Berichte, .. This is a word which, as I believe,deserves at this very time our especial attentiou. 1t seems almost as if the opinion was rather widely diffused among the friends of missions that for the missionary cause among us in Germany the day has dawned, when the former disparagement and contempt shown to this is over for good and all, when, even in the widest circles, even in so-called public opinion, it will more and more find unrestricted recognition. But such an expectation is assuredly a very serious mistake, and the sooner. missionary circles come to recognize it as such, the better. Otherwise, after long entertainment of false expectatIOns and hopes, the subsequent a,wakenlng will be so much the more bitter and discoUl;aging, when again the call is addressed to the friends of missions to go once more through ignominy and evil report, and to approve themselves therein also as the servants of God."
The Berichte remarks: .. That, in the diffusion of Christianity, reference must everywhere be had to the founding of new congregations, that Cl:ristianity cannot continue to exist in any living vigor except in this form, tl1at according to the Scriptnre the individual Christian is not to be conceived as existing for himself, but as a member of a community-all this is so clear, that we need waste no words about it. ferhaps. however, less thought is given to the truth, the true building-stones for a Christian community are not individual Christians, but Christian families. And yet even the Scripture gives us significant intimations in this respect, drawn from the labors of the apostles. Repeatedly we read: •And he (or she) was baptized, with his whole house.' The missionaries know only too well, from their own experience, that so long as they have only gained over individual detached members of families, they are yet very nncertain of their results and of the prospects of Christianity. Only when whole families are won does the cause gain permanence, and only then can there be talk of forming a community. To some of onr missionaries, indeed, this point has come to seem of su<lh weight that they have made it a fixed rnle never to baptize one of a married pair without the other, because otherwise nnhappy complications are almost inevitable. Moreover, if one has gained a thoroughly clear conception of-the importance of gaining Christian families for the formation of Christian congregations, he has thereby gained a new point of view from which to judge correctly one of the most frequent and favorite attacks of the Roman Catholics upon the evangelical missionaries. The Catholics never weary of scoffing over the fact that most of our missionaries are married, and think· there can be nothing more absurdly incongruous than a married apostle. Now we will leave them their easy scoff, but will remain quietly in the maintenauce of our opinion~ that Peter also, and the other apostles, as the Scripture expressly attests (1 Cor. Ix: 5) must have been married. So, then, our missionaries may well be so to. Nay. more; they are as married people much better adapted to gain over Christian families from the heathen, because they themselves know the Christian family life not merely from hearsay, and Cain give an example "f it before thE,! heathen. Exempla trahunt."
The Evangelisch-Lutheri8che8 MisBion8blatt calls attention to the growing importance of the Hindoo element In Zanzibar: .. Alongside of the Arab infiuence and in part at its expense the infiuence of the Hindoos is growing with every year. These mostly come from the peninsula of Cutch, North of Bombay. They are partly Mohammedans, partly Parsees, partly cow-worshippers, that Is, Hindus proper. The prinCipal wealth belongs to the Banyans, or merchant-caste, and to the Kojes. The Arab merchants are heavily in debt to them, for they are so very successful in business that they are drawing most of the commercial profits of the East coast into their own hands. Everywhere the commercial middleman is the pliant and well-trained Indian. Their number is estimated at some 7,000 or 8,000. Besides the British Indians there is, especially ill ZallZibar City, a colony of Portuguese Indians, the so-called Goanese. These have no social importance, but are exceedingly useful as retail traders, laundrymen and domestics. Doubtless they are chiefiy low-caste and Catholics in religion. In general the Hindoo element has shown itself very friendly towards the German efforts at colonition.'"
The Journal des Missions Evangeliques, speaking of the recent ordination of MM. Allegret and Teisseres, for the Congo Mission, says: .. We are very well assured that this occasion will be found to have left in Christian hearts more than one refreshing remembrance, and we entre!1.t God that He will himself call out into fruitful growth the germs of life and love which have been sown in these hearts by His word. In permitting our churches,and especially the Church of Paris, to set apart various missionaries at brief intervals, God, we believe, addresses to us all a serious a.ppeal, demanding that we shall set ourselves apart. Active service, that is what He requires of us. May His appeal beJistened to I And may many Christians, as a result of this evening of January 17, finally make to Him the complete surrender of their possessions, of their children, and above all, of their hearts I"
Herr Winter, of the Berlin Society, who has to undergo much weariness from the extremely unspii'itual temper of the Caffres, expresses the comfort that he has in meeting with an exception in the person of a Chief Kcholokoe. He says: "I become more and more attached to him the longer and better I know him. I cannot but wish that more Bassutos were like him. He is really a man in whom we can;ot deny that there is found a habit of deep meditation upon things which lie beyond the sphere of every-day life. Let our conversation turn upon what it may, it is always interesting. I have often sat talking with him for hours together and have never felt myself weary. Had he not been a chief he would long since have been a ChristiSon. Unhappily, he is very ill and has little hope of ever being better."
Herr van Eendenburg, of the Nederlandsche Zendingsvereeniging, gives as his judgment that the spread of Christianity in Java imperatively requires that those who are inclined to receive Christian instruction should be settled apart on newly-cleared lands. He declares that all attempts to bring over the old-established agricultural communities of Java have been a failure.
Herr de Haan, speaking of a man of good position on one of the Sunda .Islands, who seems very friendly to the missionaries, says:' "I entertained the hope that in him we should, for once, have an accession to a Sundanese congregation of a man of some mental development, of some influence upon those around him, and, which cannot be exactly a censurable desire, of a man of means." The gospel, though of a higher birth than worldly distinctions, yet, as the Book of Acts shows, by no means disdains these in their measure and time. They are subordinate, but by no means valueless.
Herr Berg, in the Dansk Missions-Blad, gives some interesting reflections in describing the ruins of an ancient temple in Southern India: .. I contemplated this splendid work of man with yet greater interest than when I saw it before; itsgreatness, both in extent and in the execution of the work, together with itsven_ erable age, awakened my wonder. not so much in view of the great. well-formed masses of stone, as of the earlier life of the spirit, of which this temple is a magnificent, though material product. The high, pyramidal pagoda-towers might dispute rank with church-spires of no mean celebrity in their aspiring loftiness. The burdensomeness of the material shows, indeed. that the fiight was heavy, but nevertheless it was directed upwards. As the towers bear witness to aspiration, so the whole temple bears witness to a persistent unity and spirit of self-sacrifice, for the rearing of it has taken long periods and swallowed up great sums of treasure. This fact testifies to an earnest endeavor to please their god, and to give to this endeavor a visible expression by raising temples as grand as possible. Abeve all, the whole of this great achievement of Hindoo devotion bears witness to the energy with which the truth-seeking element in their hearts has groped after the living God." The following brief account of the spiritual development of a Chinese con, vert illustrates St. Paul's reference to "feeling after God." It is from the Berliner Missions-Berichte : .. Deacon Wong-Yinen had even as a youth clearly recognized the worthlessness of idol. atry, and mocked at the worshippers of images. Nevertheless, he could never feel easy without a lord, but sought and inquired after his rightful Lord. Once, coming to Canton. and entering a chapel, he heard that Shan-te is the true God, who is to be worshipped by all men. On his return home he erected an altar to God and adored Him in heathen fashion. In gradUl>1 succession there came also messengers of the gospel into his district; they were native helpers, belonging to the Berlin Verein, or Association for China. They disclosed to him how the true God is to be worshipped, and made known to him salvation in Christ. He listened with joy. learned God's word, was baptized, and has since then diligently and iovingly heard the gospel."
Herr Vosskamp, of the Berlin Society, gives some very interesting descriptions of the island of Hong Kong, and city of Victoria, this outpost of Brit- ish Christianity at the gates of China, at once a part of it &'nd not a part of it.
.. We spent some days in Hong-Kong. They refreshed us in body and soul. Th" heat of summer had abated. I enjoyed the refreshing nearness of the sea. Hong-Kong has an enchantingly beautiful situation. Formerly it was a bare and desolate island, that served as a place of abode for fishermen and pirates. Then the English took possession of it, and they have changed this fragment of earth which here rises out oi the sea into a genuine Paradise. Trees of various kinds and of peculiar beauty have been-transplanted to Hong- Kong from every country of Asia, from the islands of the Pacific, and from Australia; there blossom everywhere the fa.irest fiowers, and everywhere the view ends with the sea. In a deep valley, surrounded by lofty rocks, lies the most beautiful churchyard of the world, called' Happy Valley.' Here all the pomp of veget';'tion is found concentrated. LiCe lnd beauty overspread the world of the dead. From hence you see the country seats of the wea.lthy lords of commerce stretching to the very mountain top. Of Hong-Kong you may say, as Isaiah says of Tyre, her merchants are princes. Beneath these the city of Victoria stretches along the sea. Here, at the threshold of China, Asiatic and Occidental life are conlluent. Across the strait lies the coast of the grea.test heathen realm of the world, silent, without lite."
Again: .. The tones of my harp are now mingled with testal resonance and the wild music of an idolatrous display. Hong-Kong had tor months been making ready for the Queen's Jubilee. All the lands of the earth which stand under English sovereignty had already offered their homage. The princes of Europe had appeared in person or by their deputies. From India the mightiest Rajas had gone to London to salute the Empress of India, in whose capital the foreign forms became the objects of popular curiosity and admiration in the strangeness of their Oriental magnificence. Already the echoes of the festival, whichset almost t he whole earth in motion, had died into the past, when on the little island ofeastern Asia the notes of Jnbtlee again arose. The festival, in this tropic climate, had been transferred to the greater coolness of November. In the morning came the Governor's reception. Pastor Hartmann accompanied me to it. I, like all the world, gave the great man my hand in token of conl:'ratulation. A moving and diversified throng filled the Government Palace, In the garden 1U front, Bengalese troops acted as guards of honortall, stateiv forms, in picturesque costume. A deputation of leading Chinese had just brought into the Government House a loyal address, a magnillcent piece of embroidery OD white silk, with the names of the Chinese citizens and a huge e~cutcheon containing the hyperbolical wish in behelf of the aging Queen: •May you fiourish tor a thousand springs.' In the evening Victoria swam in a sea of light. I wandered with my bride and someladies of the Foundling House through the close-packed streets. At the corners of the principal streets stands had been put up for Chinese musicians, who overwhelmed the passersby with a fiood of the most hideous melody."
In this loyal festival in honol' of the Christian Queen, Chinese heathenism Idisplayed itself in its own wild way. "For two days and two nights an endless procession of idols wound hither and thither along the islands, and on both sideshulll&nity was packed likea solid wall. There boomed the gongs, there rolled the drums, there screeched and wailed the stringed instruments. there crackled the fireworks, the silken dragon banners, green, red and blue, fluttered I.. the /!oir, the ear-splitting tones of the bamboo fife fioated wildly among the throng, while in the midst of tbe procession men dragged along on tables the sacrificial feasts. The hungry gods were entertained to-day with what were esteemed the very choicest delicacies. Splendid idol sbrines are carried by; on fantasticaUyornamented wagons sit children with rouged faces. But now comes the Holy Thing of the Middle Kingdom-a gigantic dragon, from 50 to 60 teet long. His greenish body, covered with silver scales, winds through the streets; the fearful head of the monster, with the long, red tongue in the wide-opened mouth, keeps turning from one Side to the other ever the throngs. Thus does" the good principle" diffuse all his blessing over the smiling children of tbe Middle. .. The good principle" appears in terrible guise. Should it emerge in bright day, without warning, in a German town, tbere would be howling and chattering of teeth. Tbeold Greeks endeavor to represent the arcbetypes of perfect beauty. The Cbinese have attained to the archetype at perfect ugliness .
.. Slowly does tbe train move on. And everywhere tbat the image of tbe dragon appeal's, there do innumerable human countenances turn tbemselves towards it and innumerable hands stretch themselves after it. How entirely has tbe Prince of Darkness bound tbis people in his fetters! How vain have the Chinese become in tbeir imaginations, and their foolish heart is darkened. Esteeming themselver to be wise, they have become fools, and have ch~nged the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a loathsome worm."
Herr Vosskamp, des('.ribing his return to Canton, says: .. On the deck of the steamer two groups bave formed. In one things are going on at a lively rate. Two young American girls are engaged with some gentlemen in a land conversation. They appear to belong tothe race of'globetrotters,'who consider it the mission of their life to traverse every sea, to hnrry through every land, to climb every mountain, and then to return home with the proud consciousness of having seen aU that is to be seen. The other group consists of fellow-laborers. We have quickly made acquaintance. That old and venerable man has labored long in Burmah. He was going to Ameri<;a to procure help for his work. That young girl in the background is the daughter ala deceased missionary in Canton. She is returning to her father's field of labor. A young pastor from America, accompanied by his aged mother, has associated himself with them. He would like to carryon missionary work among the (;hinese who live in his community at home, and is going- to Canton to gain some knowledge of the speech and manners of the people• .. In a bay of the river a strange spectacle presents itself. A large black steamship, enveloped in smoke, lies on the water. Thick and stifiing vapor globes itself aro'und the ship's sides. Soon the wind drives the lf1asses of smoke apart, and then they pour yet more voluminously ant of the portholes. Several hours before, in the night, the Wah-Yun, filled with petroleum, and plyingregularly between Canton and Hong-Kong-, had gone up in fiames, and from three to fonr thousand Chinese are supposed to have perished in the fiames or in the smoke. Few on anI' ship dreamed what a scene at unimaginable calamity we were gliding by. What anguish and despair among the passengers in the night t what a tumult of wild imprecations t what death agonies in the burning ship! -and now she lay before us a scene of desolation and, death. still and lifeless."
I have given elsewhere, in a few lines, a portrayal of a Cagie chief unlike his class. Here, in brief, is a portrayal of one like his class: .. This week I have had an unnsual visit. Umkankonyeke, the former captain of Konig.- bere", came here to see me. He has become fat and stout, wholly indifferent, his heart like grease; the world and the flesh have taken entire possession of him. He has thirty children alive; how many are dead he does not know. He has not peace, and to the cross of the Lord, where alone It is to be found, he will not come. Once I had good hope of him; now nonel Ah, it is hard for a missionary to see how people willingly harden themselves and hurry recklessly forward to eternal destruction."
The Neuesten Nachrichte aus dem Morgenlande, in a very appreciative description of the work in Palestine of the Church liissional'y Society, remarks with just satisfa.ction that of the 1,616 native Protestant Christians and 431 native communicants given in the last annual report, a goodly percentage has come from purely German institutions. Indeed, the German element has always been strong in the English work here, as might have been expected under the long presidency of a German bishop, the faithful Gobat.
The Nachrichten has an article written from Bethlehem, from which we give this extract:
i889·r STUDENT VOLUNTEER NOTE~ •
.. For the inhabitant of the hill country of Judah the autumn. has its special. a.nd right a.round Bethlehem, peculia.r charm. Especially do the maidens love to give expression In song to the uni versal joy, answering each other back and forth from the trees the livelong day in re"llonsive refrains and popular melodies peculiar to the district. When autumn comes. nothing has any longer power to keep the Bethlehemite, voung or old, in the house. It draws him out into the open air. into the Kurum (vineyards). where he takes up his sum. mer abode under his vine and figtree. Why, in this case, are the vine alld figtree especially mentioned in the Bible of old and in Palestine to.day f Because both have qualities which 'are able to fetter the owner for a good long while to his vineyard; the vine, because the different sorts of grapes do not ripen simultaneously. but during a. season of five months; the figtree, because this likewise, whose sweet fruits offer themselves for daily plucking, distribute them over three months."
The Bulletin Missionaire of the churches of French Switzerland, has a com· munication from M. Paul Berthoud, in which he describes the character of the new converts of the coast·town of Lourenco.Marques, in Southeastern Africa: .. Ignorance the most profound is the first thiug which strikes the spectator. By the side of this one remarks a religious feeling which is an unfailing source of encouragement and joy. But, finally. one is obliged to admit with grief the absence, one mil"htsay the complete absence, of the moral sense. which has been degraded, extinguished. aunihilated, bya con· tact of several centuries with Europeans. Such· are the three prlDcipal traits to be seen in the physiognomy of these souls which it is our work to Instruct in the things of salvation."
"If, since the opening of the year." says M. Berthoud, "we have registered about 290 new confessions at Lourenco.Marqu~s,this cannot but be very encouraging to the friends of our miasion. But it is not without some disposition to tremble that we rejoice, for we see things at very rrear·range, and this city is filled full of the snares of Satan. Among these numer· ous neophytes, I have good hope that most will resemble the good ground in which the die vine seed has germinated and brought forth abundance; but how many who will probably prove like the ground where the thorns will choke the plant, when they have to choose reo solutely between a holy life and their old courses. It would be easy to have retained some who have already abandoned us. But if we did that, what would become of the Word of God, which says : 'Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.' 'Beye holy, for I am holy.'"
STUDENT V0LUNTEERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS.
WE give below the results of work done in the churches during last sum· mer's vacation by several volunteers.
Mr. J. P.Stoops, of Union Theological Seminary, presented the volunteer movement to 45 congregations. all of whom ware favorably impressed; dve responded immediately, ten expect soon to have their missionary, and 49 names were received 80S volunteers. Mr.A. N. O'Brien during the SUmmer secured the pledges of 85 volunteers and the sum of $445 per year for five years.
In addition to this should be mentioned the deepening work among volunteers. Mr. Edwin B. Stiles, who. with his wife, has lately sailed for India, reports as conclusions reached from his summer's experience that the people are waiting to be instructed on the subject of foreign missionH, and when instructed are ready to give; that intelligent inter· est among the masses is increasing; and that there is a crying need of more thorough sys· temin giving. a thing which he has demonstrated can be accomplished by presenting to young people's societies in all its significance the present uprising of young people for for· eign missions.
An inspiring report also comes from Mr. W. W. Smith, of Princeton, '89 : "When the idea entered my head some months ago to devote a part of my summer to a missionary tour of one of the States, great apprehension arose as to my fitness in any possible way for the work. But God said, • Not by might nor by power, but by my Rpirit'; and so I determined to try. After the Northfield Bible school closed, Mr. Wilder and I went to Springfield. Mass., where between us w.. spoke in ten different places. As a. result four churches adopted the' plan for volunteer gifts for foreign missions.' We then divided forces, Mr. Wilder leaving for Niagara. while I continued the work in Massachu. setts, and later in Northern. Central, and Eastern New-York, Northern New Jersey and Eastern PennsylVania. II::. he Y. M. C. A. at Brocton, Mass., there was an audience of but 35, six of whom offered to go to the foreign field as missionaries. Nine young men pledged $93.60 per year towards the support of a missionary representative; twelve were already living $1.00 per week besides. They ha.ve now chosen one of the six to educate as age••
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
er"l secretary in the Y. 111. C. A., preparatory to sending him to the f"reign field. In Jer- sey City 18 signed the pledge in one day. .
"Altogether I have spoken 41 time since college closed. Providence used me as the means of putting the' plan' in 15 places. All but two or three of these adopted the plan in toto, undertaking the full support of a missionary. The sum thus raised for the various foreign boards is about $8,000. God also raised up twenty-six new volun_ teers, 20 men and six young women. I disposed of 34 copies of •The Evangelization of the World,' and received several orders for the M,SSIONARY REVIEW OJ!' THE WORLD. The work to me personally has proved an inestimable blessing, drawing me closer to the divine help and guidance. I wish all volunteers would take up this method of awakening interest and stirring up their OWn ardor in • the crowning work of the century.'"
~ II.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Afrlca.-Slave-hunters and missionaries. there was no work which excited so much For some time past the missionaries in Ny- sympathy as that Which was being pursued assaland have had to defend themselves by Europeans in Africa. In Nyassaiand and against Arab slave-hunters. Not only so, the Shire Highlands the ga.llant missions but in their heroic stand against the mer- and the Scottish company were maintainciless man-stealers they have been ham- ing themselves against the great attack of pered by the representatives of a so-called Arab slavers, who recognized in these piocivilizec power. ThePortuguesewhooccupy neers of civilization their natural enemy. adjacent territory, being apparently anx- It was a desperate struggle, but it was one ious to annex Nyassaland itself, are well which did not at present apparently involve content that the slaver should not only the direct co-operation of the Portuguese. well-nigh exterminate the natives, but do The missions and Europeans could only dehis best or worst to drive the missionaries pend for their defence upon the possession off the coveted land. In this extremity it of arms. These had to pass through Portuwas decided to approach the British Gov- guese territory, and Portugal, said the ernment. To this end a deputation, repre- Prime Minister, had thrown every impedisenting the joint committees of the Es- ment in the way of furnishmg these arms. tabhshed, Free and United Presbyterian Their sympathies had not been with the churches of Scotland, the Universities Mis- missionaries. Portugal claimed the whole sion and the African Lakes Company, territory from the Atlantic to the Indian waited lipon Lord Salisbury at the Foreign Ocean. This claim was not admitted by the Office on Friday. The deputation, a most British Government, nor did this country in1luential one, made up of representative consider that Portugal had any claim to the men from the Scottish churches, together banks of Lake Nyassa or the Shir6 Highwith several members of Parliament, was lands. There was no danger, Lord Salisbury introduced hy Lord Balfour, whoeKpressed assured thedeputation,that the Portuguese the hope that theBritish Government would would lay violent hands upon any of the 110t lIo11ow the interests of this country in mission stations. The position was, how_ Nyassaland to be abandoned to Portugal. ever, a peculiar one; but the deputation' Rev. Dr. Scott presented a memorial to the must not expect more from the government Premier, signed by 11,006 ministers and than it could accomplish. Nyassaland was elders in the three Scottish churches, set- not British territory and the government ting forth the extent of their missionary could not protect the Europeans from the effort on the shores of the Nyassa, and in power which the possession of the coast the district known ·as the Shire Highlands, gave to the Portuguese. Diplomatic action pointing out the dangers which beset the should not be wanting. and there was reamissions, especially from the Portuguese, son to hope that the problem would alter as who threaten to annex the country, and civilization extended. urging upon Her Majesty's Government the necessity of taking steps to insure that the -Africa's Regeneration-How and When? missions should be permitted to continue In a paper on British West Africa, read before their Christian work undisturbed. Rev. the Royal Colonial Institution at Freetown, Horace Waller, on behalf of the Universi- Sierra Leone, Mr. Johnston, the English Viceties Mission; Mr. Campbell White, repre- Consul, spoke of the Negro races as those of" a senting theFree Church; Rev. John M'Mur- lower mental dcvelopment" This objectiontie, on behalf of the Established Church of able designation elicited an immediate and pun- Scotland; and Mr. Moir. joint manager of gent reply through the editorial columns of the African Lakes Company; also spoke. Tlu Sierra Leone Weekly News, in which were The latter mentioned that the natives in forcibly sdvocated new and important theories 1885, fearing annexation, invited the com- for the real elevation of the Negro, which cerpany to protect them and administer the country. Lord Salisbury, in reply, said tainly se9m worthy ofa more careful study and a more thorough trial than they ha.ve yet re- ceived by those laboring for the rejteneratloD ofAfrica. The writer contends that, while the where they gave medical advice and Negro is different from the white man, he is no~ preached the gospel. At one place the chief 'nterim', and that he wonld prove his intellec- made them encamp in a farm-yard close nal eqnality nnder as favorable circumstances to his own house, warning them that if they as his white brother has enjoyed for centnries ; went a few yards away he would not be an- that there is no essential snperiority or inferi- swerable for their lives. Just after the orityon the one side or the other. The ques- ladies had got off their mules a woman came tion, it is said, is simply one of a difference of up, and seizing one of them by the throat endowment and destiny, ~which is really the withone hand, drew therother hand acrosll difference between a movement of two distinct it in imitation of cutting it and said: "That races In the same groove, with one thrown by is what we ought to do with you!" But circnmstances behind the other, and the move- before they left the place the Lord lJad given ment of the same races along lines which are the missionaries much favor in the sight of destined to be always parallel, without coinci- the people. The chief was the most inter- dence in capacityor performance. Though dis- ested of all the listeners, and when they tinct, they are equal, and never until the Ne- proceeded on their journey accompanied gro has opportunity to develope along his own them all day to see them safely up on their appointed lines, can he vindicate himself, and way.-Bombay Guardian.
Africa experience any material intellectual or -The Indigo of AfrIca is the best grown in moral elevation. The views here condensed the world. Even the wild indigo of Africa and presented, are, in fact, those so ablyelabora- is better than the famous plant cultivated ted by that remarkable mlln aud eminent with great care in India. A soci"ty has scholar, E. W. BIyden, LL.D., of West Africa, been formed in Liverpool to develop its a Negro of pure blood, well kuown to many in prOduction. We shOUld soon have Chri&- hia .. Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race," tian farmers connected with our mission a work worthy of a wider circnlation in this stations, engaged in the commercial pro- connlry.-N. Y. Evangelist, ducts in their vicinity. Sugar, coffee, -Bishop Turner of the African Methodist cassia, indigo and other products could be church says: "Africa is the richest couti- cultivated to profit where these are indigi- nent under the canopyofheaven. Her nat- nous.
ural resources are incalculable. England B razi I. – The matter of Presbyterian and other European countries keep 200 ships missions in Brazil received due attention at the hugging the coast the year arouud, pouring meeting of the General Assembly in New York her wealth into their coffers; and this in May last. It came up in the report of country could double the number by utiliz- the commission sent to that country to or- ing the Negro, if it could just look beyond ganize a Synod and to make a general ex- its prejudices and adjust itself to its possi- amination of the condition of the churcb tbere.
bilities. A lineofsteamers between Charles- Dr. J. Aspinwall Hodge of Hartford gave an ton, Savannah, New Orleans or Wilming- account of the trip and made a most urgent ap- ton and Africa could in a few years be made peal to the Presbyterians oftbis country to con- toft60d the land with unuumbered millions tribute liberally to the work there. The condi- of money. The Negro as an agent might be tion of affairs as he pictured them was deplora- made a thousandfold more valuable to the able in the extreme. Tbere lire only 32 Pres- South than he was as a slave, and at the byterian ministers to carry on the work of same time more valuable to himself as a evangelizing a country nearIy as large as the freeman. If England can keep steamer United States. Dr. Charles E. Knox of lines running all the time hurdened with Bloomfield, N, J., who was also one of the com- gold-dust, ivory, coffee, cam-wood, palm- mission, was equally strong iu his appeals for oil and a thousand other things which bring money to establish a theological seminary in wealth and give business to the world, why Brazil. He was glowingly enthusiastic in pic- cannot this country, with millions of men turing the spread of Protestant schools and of at its disposal adapted to the climate of Republicanism in Brazil, and in recounting the Africa and as faithful to their trust as any vast opportunities for spreading the gospel of- race in the world. do as much or more f If fered there.
the Negro is a burden, amenace and source Another stirring plea for aid, both missiona- of v~xation to our white friends, let them ries aud money, for the Brazilian work was open up a highway to the land of his ances- made by Dr. G. W. Chamberlain, who repre- try by a line of steamers, cheap transporta- sents the Synod of Brazil in the AssembIy. He tion and a little business thrown in, and the pointed out that iu nine years the Assembly had • dark Negro problem' will solve itself i;:' a sent only one minister to the field, and that he rew years."-Spirit oj Missions. had been so overworked that he was now re- -A missionary sends from Tangier some turning to the United States, broken down in notes ot a journey which three lady evan- health. His speech had a deep inftuence on tb.
gelists recently made to Fez, a city with a commissiouers, and will no doubt result in sub population of 150,000. They carried a tent stantiaJly beuefitiug the work of supplying th~ with them, camping by the way at villages, spiritual needs of the millions of Brazil. The resolutions offered by the commission were no part of the world 18 the medieal missionary carried. more highly appreciated than within the Chi- nese Empire, and a great part of the current ex- Burma.-A Burmese religious cere- penses of the hospitals and dispensaries afe mony. A corresponeent of an Indian paper de- borne by Chinese olllcials, the gentry and scribes a curious ceremony which took place the merchants. Foreigners residing in China recently at Rangoon. I seems that in a recent also give a good deal, Iethere were 100 mediearthquake the bird's wing ofgold and precious stonesicrowningthe great :Rangoon pag'?<¥l was cal missionanes in China among 300,000,000 of thrown down and injnred. The trustees of the people, each phYSician would have more than building. called on the people for subscriptions twice as many people to attend as there afe for a new one, and in three weeks a snm of living in New York.-Medical NiBS. Jlect»"d. 80,000 rupees was coIlected. It was notified that on a certain day the melting of the gold India. – The fact is not commonly and silver would take place, and that it would recognized that the missionary bodies most be the last opportunity ofcontributing. In one interested in higher educational work in of the large rooms of the pagoda two large cru- India are Presbyterian and Anglican. Of cibles were placed, one for gold, the other for the large stalf of the Baptist and Methodist Episcopa.l, aud several other ag&,ressive silver. Hundreds of men and women, girls, missions, we do not know of one "{hich is boys, and small children passed by dropping engaged in what is known as higher educatheir silver or gold ornaments into the crucibles tional work, except Dr. Badley at Lucknow, orhanding their precions stones to the clerk snd the Christian College he is founding is for the purpose of being set in the bird's wing. the model upon which existing mission col- Women gaily dressed and covered with jewels leges shonld be immediately re-organized. passed by, and, taking a couple of gold bangles Its curriculum and appointments throughfrom each arm, threw them into the pot, or they out are adapted especially for native Christook olf rings, and, handing the stones to the clerk, added the gold to the melting mass. tian students. Non-Christian students are Those who had no gold put in rupee coins into not excluded, bnt if they come they must the silver crucible and handed over others to accept the teaching which has in view the the clerk for the use of the pagoda; eveu the needs of our native Christian youth.-The beggars came and added their mites. All part Indian Witness. ed with their treasnres without a sigh, and, in fact, seemed glad to give it {or such a devout Romanlsm.-Romani8m in the Provpurpose. All their good deeds are so many ince of Quebec has attained a degree of rungs mounted on the ladder towards heaven. strength and wealth, and is snpported by a The Shans went in a body of 20 men, and pre- self-denying and resolute spirit. not known sented a valuable diamond weighing 75 carats, or appreciated until recently by even wellwhich is to be placed as the chief ornament of informed Canadians. At the recent meet- the wing. The silver melted amounted ing of the Canadian Branch of the Evanto :Rs. 7,580; that collected to 3,525: the gelical Alliance, Principal McVicar pre- gold melted amounted to Rs. 13,BOO, and sented carefully compliedstatisticsshowing the precious stones given were valued at that .the Papistical chnrch receives on an Rs. 22,000. The wing that fell down was valued average, annually, from 200,000 families in at :Rs. 1.22,500, and the one to replace it will be worth Rs•. 1,75,000. The umbrella ornament at the Province of Quebec. the enormons 8um the top of the same pagoda (the Shawgda-goan} of $8,000,000 for the exclusive ends ofCatho- lic worship. She owns 900 churches and the is said to have cost King Mindine Min six lakha same number of parsonages, together with of rupees; it is of pure gold, richly set with the palaces of the cardin'al, archbishops gems, ano! is actually 15 feet high, although at and bishops, valued at $000.000; 12 semi- its present elevation it does not seem two feet. naries, worth $600,000; 17 classical colleges, The pagoda itself I~ 328 feet high, and the hil- worth $850,000; 259 boarding schools and lock on which it stands is 100 feet. The pagoda academies. worth $6,000.000; 80 convents. is surrounded by the barracks of the British worth $4,000,000; and 68 hospitals and asy- troops, and the magazines are said to be in the lums, worth $4,000,000; making a total of hillock on which It is built. $61,210,000. Besides, certain ecclesiastical orders are enormously wealthy. The Snlpi- China.-There are now 82 medical mis- cians, for instance, on Catholic testimony sionaries iniChina, the majority of whom are from the United States; 16 of them are female are wealthier thau the Bank of Montreal, physicians. There are large mission hospitals the most powerfnl monied corporation in and dispensaries in Peking, Tientsin, Shang- America. The lady superior of the Lon&,ue hai and Canton, and smaner ones at various Point Asylum recently informed a press other cities. At these hospitals, where many representative that the nnns built that thousands are treated yearly, and at the homes splendid bnilding at their own cost of $100.- of other sick people, the teaching of the gospel 000. To everyone familiar with history the goes hand in hand with the medical treatment, growth of Romanism on this continent is a. and the good accomplished is very great. In menace to free institntions_ to the public schools, and to a. competent and honest administra.tion of public a.1fairs. -Rev. Jacob Primmer of Dunfermline, "ART. V. The Ministers of State, Colonies charges that the church of Scotland is War and Marine shall be charged with the exe: becomin~ honeycombed with Jesuits and cution oUhis decree in everything relating to Popery. He quoted from the latest work of their respective departments. the Church Service Society "An Order of Divine Service for Children," to show that .. Given in the Palace, February 28th, 1888. it was a liturgy largely drawn from popish mas&-books, and taught baptIsmal regen- " MARlA CRISTINA. eration. In this secret society, the two clerks of Assembly and ex-moderator were "The President of the Council of Ministers, leading spirits. These Romanizers had in- .. PRAxEnEs MATEO PAGASTA." troduced into their church large numbers of popish images of mouks, the virgin TV .rkey.-" The statistics for the Eastern saints, angels, crosses, also a service-book, and ritualism, as in St. Giles's, Edinburgh; Turkey Mission have just been completed for popish pulpits with the crucifix on them, as the year 1888, and possibly an extract from in Craigiebuckler churcQ; a large stone these may not prove unintereSting to many of cross standing seventeen feet eight inches your readers. They may also give a better idea high in Ruthwell church, which had been of the work of the mission. enlarged to receive it, and last Sunday It was dedicated by the minister of Morning- .. The estimated population of the field occu·· side, although the whole thing was a viola- pied by this mission is over one and a quarter tion of the law of the church. He had million. This gives to each ordained missionmade the Scottish hymnal a special ary in the field a parish of ninety-two thousand study, and he had discovered that fifty of souls. Of this two and one-quarter millions the, hymns were written by popish monks, within the limits of the mission only about sixpriests and sa.ints. These Romanizers were at large in the church. teen thousand are declared Protestants, one- tenth Qf rme per cent. ofthe whOle number. But of Spaln.-Celebratlon of the Discovery of America. Dr. Curry, United States Minister to the sixteen thousand declared Protestants. only Spain, sends a translation of the decree, signed 2,686 are membeI·s of the Protestant churchby the Queen-Regent, setting forth the plan by which makes one church member to every 500 wliich Spain is to celebrate the four hundreth of the sonls included within the mission limits. anniversary of the discovery of America. It is These figures show that the time has not yet rather amusing to observe that the United arrived for the withdrawal ofmi88ionary forces States i8 not to be invited to participate in the from Turk~y. Spanish festivities. .. There are five regular stations at which The following is the Royal Decree: missionaries reside: Bitlis, established in 1858; "ARTICLE I. For the purpose of commemo- Erzroom, In 1839; Harpoot, in 1855; Mardin, rating the fourth Ceutennial of the Discovery of In 1856, and Van, in 1872. Bitlis occupies 15 America and of honoring the memory of Chris- out-stations, Erzroom 22, Harpoot 56, Mardin topher Columbus, an Exposition shall be estab- 20 and Van 2. About five·elghts of all of the lished for the year 1892, to which the Govern· Protestants of the mission are within the limment shal, invite the kingdom of Portugal and its of Harpoot station. There are 40 regularly the Governments of the Nations of Latin established churches in the mission, with a to- America. tal membership of 2,686. To these churches "ART. II. The object of the Exposition will there were received on confeSsion, in 1888, 205 be t? present, in. t!Ie most complete manner members; 156 of these were received in the pOSSIble, the condItIon of the inhabitants of Harpoot field. These churches are presided ~merica at the time of the discovery by collect- over by 28 ordained pastors. There are also 50 l1!g for t.he purpose all the objects which can regular preachers, 176 native teachers and 45 gIve an Idea of the state of their civllization and other helpers, such as Bible-readers, colpor of the Civilization of the races inhabiting the teors, evangelists, etc. Each Sabbath there is American Continent at the end of the fifteenth preaching at 120 stated places, with an average centur~, and by a separate exhibition at the congregation of 11,000. About 75 per cent. of same time of all the products of the art, science this number are members of the Sabbathand industry which characterize the present schools. cuItu» of the Nations of Latin america. "AltT. III. A special committee, which shall "The educational statistics show, also, a large be sent to South America in a government war- work. The center of the mission schools is at ves~el, shall be charged with the dnty of pre- Harpoot, where is located the Mission Theologpsrmg the Exposition in agreement with and ical Seminary and Euphrates College, with over u'!der the dire~tion.of the diplomatic represent- 590 students in attendance. From here teachatIves of Spam 1D the different American ers and preachers r:o out to all parts or the field. States. Exclusive of the college there are over 6,000 "ART. IV. To meet the expenses necessary scholars studying in the high and common for the celebration of the centennial the Gov- schools of the mission. ernment will euter in each of the five coming budgets, aJ:d will submit to the approval of the "When it is remembered that all these schools Cortes, an appropriation of 500,000 francs which are strictly evangelical, in which lessons from sh~ll be exclusively destined to the expenses re- the Bible and Testament are daily given. whose q,!Ired b! the commemoration. This appropri- teachers are supposed to be Christians, and who atIOn WIll be deClared permanent until June are especially charged with the duty of giving 30th, 1893, and the sums unexpended shall be to all their pupils religious Instruction, the part kept in the the treasury until that date. which these schools are destined to play in the evangelization of this land can be partlally appredated. It is undoubtedly true that over oue- Apart from aU figures, there Is at present half of the studeuts above mentioned are mem- a thorough stirring up in the old church.
bers of non-Protestaut families. The school is There is less of hostility and more hearty already a power in the land, and its in1luence Is co-operation than ever before. Protestant increasing every day. preachers are constantly invited into the .. The next question IS, What do these people oVJ. Gregorian churches to conduct service pay for all the gospel and educational privileges -not the service of the church. but the they enjoy Y Before this question Is answerad, Protestant service with preaching. Our you must remember that this is in the Oriellt, educated Christian young men are urged to where it is the nature of the people to receive, teach in the schools which the Gregorians not to give; whose common nature and desire are attempting to establish. Many of the is expressed by the universal never-forgotten Protestant text-books have been adopted word, "bakshish"; where many a man will by them and very frequently the New Tesendure a hard beating from officials rather than tament is used. All of these things were unpay his tax of one or two dollars, when he has heard of a few years ago. Protestantism the money in his pocket aud knows that he must has come to be synonymous with enlighten- ment and this is the foundation of true ultimately pay it. But above all this it is a land Christianity.-Rev. J. L. Barton, 0/ Harput, of extreme poverty and oppression, where thou- in The independent. sands of deaths occur each year from lack of food Woman's Work.-In the heart of a deand from exposure; where the whole tendency voted Christian woman some 54 years ago was conceived the idea of how to reach the of the country is toward extreme poverty. It women in the zenanas of India. Singlemust also not be forgotteu that here the regular handed and against great opposition did wages of a common laborer, he boarding him- Mrs. Doremus put that thought into operaself, is 10 to 15 cents a day; for a man with a tion. trade from 20 to 40 cents a day; that bread costs nearly as much as it does in America, and tha Dr. David Abel, an American missionary many articles of clothing are imported from to China, returning in 1834, started in Eng- Europe. Looking at all of these things, it is land the .. Society for Promoting Female evident that $1 here would equal from $5 to $8 Education in the East." lIrs. Doremus,list- ening to his appeals as he strove to arouse in the United States-i. e., it would be procured Christians in America to the needs of the women in the East, said: I will go to my with as much difficulty and labor, while it will sisters in Christ, sisters of wealth, of culnot go so far in the purchase of necessities and ture, with leisure, and tell them what you luxuries. have told me ; what it is that is holding the heathen nations to their sUl)erstition and " After this introduction, let me say that the Protestants of this mission contributed during the year 1888 for religious and educational pur- poses nearly $13,000. This does not include idolatry. It is the women of India, the large sums paid for the purchase of religious mothers and sisters incarcerated bepind and school-hooks, nor does it take into consid- those walls, that shield them from all aperation personal expense incurred in sending proach, not only of religion, but of educascholars to school and in hoarding them while tion and friends. We will uUlte together, we there, except when this money, in a few cases only, is put into missionaries' hands for the pur- women of America, of every creed, in this pose of board. This is an average of nearly 90 great work of sending single women as mis- sionaries, who, not having the ca.re of huscents each for every declared Protestan bands and families, can give themselves throughout the mission and $4.80 for each especially to this work. church member. The women listened, felt the call as a "To put it in a little different form: for special message to them and responded every dollar contributed by the American gladly. The men said. It was not possible Board for direct evangelical and education- that women could go out, unmarried, to al purposes, the people contributed one dol- these heathen countries and be respected, lar and ten cents. Bear in mind that the and so great was the opposition that what party who paid the $1.10 earned it at 14 was intended to be simply a movement of cents a da.y, boarding himself in the mean women auxiliary to already established time. If all who cOll1;ribute to the work of the missionary sscieties, was organized 26 American Board would give with the same years afterwards as a distinct work, asliberality and self-sacrifice that these peo- suming the name of "The Woman's Union ple of the Orient have given during the past Missionary Society of A·merica for Heathen year, the treasury of the Board would be Lands," whose prominent feature was the more than full." sending of single women to do a specific These churches have also a Home Mission work among the women. The wedge ha.s Society, which is carrying on a noble work entered the very heart of idolatry, in that at Kourdistaa. The contributions to this the heathen women are being reached as society are so liberal that the wqrk is not never before; but a greater workeven than at all hampered for the want of funds. this has been accomplished, for this inBDlr-
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
ation bas emancipatea our own' American goes a.wa.y damning the cause with faint women. The women of India and China and praise of the worthy man's zeal. It would Japan need our personal elforts in their be- be interesting to compare the opinions of half, but we needed more the stimulus book.making tourists with those of the that has come to us through the missional'Y British governors of India, the ministers to work. Since Mrs. Doremus and her sympa- Turkey and the admirals of Pacific squadthizers organized this woman's work, sO rons; that is, the opinions of casual obshort a time ago, there have sprung up all servers wlth those of men who thoroughly over our land a multitude of women's socI- w.nderstand the subject. eties. Thousands are organized, not only for the foreign missionary work, but for the But the most confident critic of missions home work, for temperance work, for all is the statisticiau, w.ho demolishes them manner of church and state charities. by a sum in arithmetic: the heathen popu- Woman is fast becoming the almoner of lation increases at such a ratio, converts a' man's best gifts to his fellow-men. While such a ratio, a.nd the latter never overtake we rejoice in the well being of the multitude the former. He deems himself under no of women's missionary societies that have obligation to explain why the basilicas of been the direct outcome of this mother in Rome became churches, or why England Israel-for it is the oldest of aJl onr women's does not still worship at Stonehenge inorganizations in America-we will do well stead of Westminster. It would seem to to cherish and promote to the utmost of our be not a difficult thing to learu that human ability the prosperity of this Union work, progress is not determined by a law of nuwhich has six mission stations, one hospital, merical ratio, but there are enough who two dispensa.ries, fifty-seven missionaries can think in no other fashion even with hisand 3,381 pupils dependent upon it,with wider tory for an object-Iesson.-Dr. Munger in fields of usefulness still opening before it. Forum for June.
This peculiar and all-important work calls -SOME ten years ago,Mr. Gladstone transfor tile hearty co-operation of everyone lated into beautiful Italian the well-known mterested in aggressive foreign missionary hymn, Rock of Ages. This suggested to work. Signor RuggeroBonghi, the Gladstone of the Italian Parliament, tbe idea of using his -The Critic:a of Missions. The most per- pen in diffusing and defending the truth. sistent critics are the tourists and the stat- Among other productions he has written isticians. The former make the jOllrney of Vita di Gesu, The Life of Christ, a work the world, and, finding in every port a hand- based on the evangelists, of warm Christian ful of missionaries, and behind them the spirit and heartily endorsed by those who great, black m..ss of untouched heathenism, have examined it as far as published. Each not unnaturalIv infer that this speck of number consists of eight superbly printed whiteness can never overcome this mass of pages, costing bu,t two cents. On the Corso, blackness. What reason has the tourist the most fashionable street of Rome, are for believing that a thing which is so near seen in large letters the words, Vita di Gesu, nothing can bring to naught a thing so vast Vita di Gesu, while near by stands a splenand real as Asiatic Buddhism 1 He forgets did illustration from the book, Christ talkthat one rope-girded priest converted Eng- ing with the woman of Samaria. It is worth land, another Germany, another Ireland. while statiilg that there will be seventy He finds that the missionary is a commou parts, containing in all eighty-six fine illusand uninteresting man, that often his con- trations by the best artists in the kingdom. verts are chieftyretaiuers, that lapses are Such an occurrencc has never before taken frequeut, and that his methods have ap- place iu Italy. Mr. Boughi appears daily in parently little relations to the ends most to the Senate, and losses nothmg. of his in- be desired. And so he eats the missiouary's fiuence by having written tbis scholarly and bread, as a god from Olympus might sup mauly life of Christ. The parts. as they with mortals, accepts his suggestions as to Come from the press, are eagerly sought routes, and fiUs his note-book with bor- for, and read with avidity by tbousandswho rowed information, which appears in his are now e::etting for the first time the history printed pages as original observations, and of the Holy Child.
IH.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
India. establishing Y. M. C. A's. in foreign [OUR reaC:ers will remember that lands and visiting colleges and other Mr. Wishard, Secretary of the Colle- schools of learning, performing evangiate International Y. M. C. Associ- gelistic work among the students. His mission thus far has proved a. a.tion, is spending some years abroad great success. Col. Olcott, the New wards what kind of a religion shall the York Theosophist, who was convert- country have. And upon this latter ed some years age to the vagaries of ground it seems that the contest must Madame Blavatsky, the Russo-Indian speedily ,come to an issue. Spiritualist, has been paying a missionary visit to Japan in the hope of "It is likely that, for a ttme at least, there turning Christian converts to Budd- will be three rival forces contendinghism, as it is interpreted by the Christianity, Buddhism and Skepticism. The next twenty years is going to witness Theosophists. We get a glimpse in a great change in the national character this letter of the kind of work he is of Japan. As far as skepticism is concerned, doing.-EDs.] it lies at the very heart of the rising gener- ation. We are sowmg the seed in a skepti_ "Mr. L. D.Wishard has just returned from cal soil. A bright young man, a student in a trip down the inland sea to Nagasaki, Oka' our school, told me, a short time ago, that yama, etc. In some of these places he fol- he did not believe there was a human soul, lowed Col. Olcott, the Theosophist, by about neither a God, heaveu nor hell. This is the a week. Col. Olcott began by lecturing on case with many young men here. But the Buddhism. pure and simple, but now is trav- gospel has power, if it can reach the heart elling through the Empire attackin~ Ohris- directly, without hUman conception, to anity, since in this he has the support of overcome this skepticism. This skepticism the Buddhist priests. kt Hiroshima, the is not a native of the Japallese soil; it Snnday after his lectures, Miss Bryan's and is an imported article from Europe and Miss Cuthbert's Sunday-schools were re- America. duced by one-half, so strongly stirred were the Buddhists against Christianity, but in a .. But the mosta.ctive opponent to Christifew weeks the schools will probably be at- anity will be Buddhism-Buddhism retended by their wonted numbers. Mr. Wish- formed. Its adheren ts are bestirring themard has been at work among the students of selves on an sides. They are to have schools the Government schools of late, and by issu- aud colleges, both classical and theologiing cards anuouncing himself as a rept'esen- cal, newspapers and magazines, a. clergy tative of the students of Europe and Amer- with itinerant preaching, and everything • ica. has drawn immense crowds in the thea- on the Christian plan 'of propagating their tres-sometimes over 1,000 young men. At faith. They will have missionary societies; a recent meeting (at Okayama) the Buddhist and it is thought that America will be repriests c..me in, as they often do to make deemed from the heathenism of Chrisdisturbance, and if possible, bre..k up the tianity. What think you, Americans? Col. meeting. On this occasion Mr. Wishard ap- Olcott, the American apostle of Buddhism, pealed to the students, who at once sided and the first American convert to the religwith him and enforced order. The students ion of Shaka, is now in Japau, lecturing to are evidently very much taken with him, full houses. He comes from ,Ceylon for the and are delighted to be addressed as a class; purpose of uniting Japanese Buddhism with and he can, therefore, as a college secretary that of Ceylon. The object is to have Buddhand representative. reach them as no other ism present one solid front to Christianity mau could. He is doing a grand work. Over in the East. Thinking that the strength of 100 young men were baptized a few weeks Christian ty is largely in Its methods of ago at the Congregational College at Kyoto spreading, Buddhism will adopt these as the fruit of his labors. He conducts a methods; and instead of a priest sitting summer school for Bible study in this insti- all day upon his feet beside bibacki (a tution, on the Northfield plan, early in July, brazier), and smoking a piper sixty times an and says he wtshes Dr. Pierson would come hour. he will be called a preacher as in out and assist in the work. Here is a new America, and will go about delivering serform of work in Japan that promises great mons. They wish to solidify and move a.s an results and should enlist the prayers of unbroken phalanx. saints everYwhere. ' FRED. S. CURTIS. They will learn one invaluable lesson from "KOBE, JAPAN, May 16, 1889." united Catholicism and divided Protestant- ism. Here, where Christianity has to staud Japan, alone, without the popular sentiment in its favor, Christian union shines with a diviner .. EDS. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: brightness. Missionaries who represent the .. Religion inJapan still continues tobethe most ant~gonistie theological schools, meet one another, and give the friendly greeting, ab.obing topic of the day. The purely polit- and wish the union God speed. But occastical newspapers even cannot keep the sub- ionally a home paper comes from across the ject out of their columns. The drift of sea, full of sad foreboding concerning the the discussion is not so much towards union movement. They fear that each will the having or not having a relil:"ion, but to- not have an equal share in rights and privileges, tha.t the home church constitu- bEmOAN MISSION, BEIRUT, March 18, ]889. tion will be viola.ted, a.nd tha.t some one DEAR DR. SHERWOOD: My brother and brotherchurch will lose its identity in the noion. in-law have been touring in the southern part of But there are very few missionaries in the Sidon field. I enclose part of a private jour- Japan who are opposing the union. While nal kept by the latter during the trip. It will It is exclusively among the Pedoba.ptists. give a good idea of the experience of mis~iona the Baptists hope to see it triumph; for it will hasten the day of a union of them too. ries. Looking at this rich field in the light of the Saviour's prayer, and considering what has A year ago Beirut became the seat of a new been a.ccomplished towa.rds its fulfillment. "Warhijat" or province and a Governor-Gen. who can doubt that we have rightly inter- eral, Ali Pasha, was appointed. After a year'" preted that prayer, or lift an opposing voice residence here he has been removed by death. against the progress made? Long a resident in Paris and Berlin, he had lib- eral views and was affable and personally friend- .. FraternalJy, E. SNODGRASS. ly to the representatives of foreign powers resi- .. SHONAI, JAPAN, May 6, ]889." dent, and as far as lay in his power he aided rather than opposed our work in this province… Another letter from Japan. Journal. After pa.sing Ras el Ain beyond [A hopeful si.gn and further news Tyre, I was on new ground, and everything berespecting Col. Olcott's mission.- came more interesting. Two and a half honrs along the sea brought us to a famous headland, EDS.) Rasel Abyad, over which the road is cot deep into the white chalky rock. At places it is very smooth .. The following editorial appeared recently and steep, while the cliffdrops sheer away for ZOO in the local paper published here: ft.'into the blue sea. Beyond this along the shore for miles is a sample of Turkish mismanagement. .,' Buddhist, ' where are you? I want to call They forced the surrounding popnlation to come and labor upon a new carriage road, which beyour attention to some facts, and roIly a thon- gins nowhere and ends nowhere, crosses no ravines, is straight where it ought to be sand of the brethren who have grown indiff.rent crooked, and crooked where it ought to be to our religion. Don·t you see the water drip- straight, I. double the width needed, and though ping throngh the roofs and soiling the clothes continuing tor many miles is nowhere finished. of our idols? Don't you see the priests going It is a perfect type of the scale on which snch about the streets caring only for their beauti- works are often projected, and the way in which ful robes, wine and money? Can't we reform they are abandoned after some one in money these priests and restore the religion that has or muscle has paid out enough to complete two done so mnch for our country? I was sur· such roads. prised when I saw the earnestness of the missionaries, and I was also very sorry, be- We visited several rockhewn tombs, of which cause they are establishing the foreign religion there lire thousands in PhoeniCia, and below in onr country. The students in our schools Alexander's fountain we left the sea and began are believing in their religion. Do yon know to climb the mountain slope, visiting some an- what that means 1 The very ones who will cient ruins, acres of pillars, columns and blocks soon be the leaders of our nation are believing lying all over the top of the slope. It is saddenand accepting the teachings of these IOreign ing to think of how hard these unknowu people missionaries. See how they establish schools, must have labored to erect such buildings and and work diligently every day, and then take then to pass away, thus leaving nothing behind warning. You have read how onr Bnddhists them, not even a name. Then for an honr more have been persecuted in the Eastern countries we pulled up the mountain, rugged and stony, by those foreigners. ' with a scrnbby oak, thorns and coarse grasses, finally reaching our destination. Alma, on the "This man only gives us a picture ofthe decay top of the ridge, surronnded by mulberry and of Buddhism. They are in the throes of death, olive trees, is very pretty from a distance, but, and we may expect to hear snch groans. Col. like Constantinople, a closer acquaintance dis- Olcott, an American, is trying to revive their pels something of first Impres~ions. The people cause in Japan. He tells them in his addresses are desperately poor-poorer than any village to retain their native religion and not be found I have yet visited. For years they have suffer- accepting the religion of another country; but ed from oppression and robbery; murders and the Colonei doesn't practice What he preaches. fights have been of frequent occurrence, and A town near us offered $500 to get a few this whole region until quite recently was un· lectures from him, but the amount was not safe. Yet a nice new church was finished and sufficient, which shows that he Is a rather ex· dedicated a year ago, and the communicants pensive assistance. Many revivlas are gOing on number nearly thirty. We came to the room of in the Christian work and most all the churches the resident teacher. It is a curions old place, are enjoying a healthy and steady growth. a large yard in front in which cattle are tethered by day. On the ground 1I00r are three large "SUI'L H. WAlNRIGHT. .. OITA, April, 14, 1889."
Syria. – Missionary Experience. – Miss Mary l', Eddy sends us the following: rooms, each of which serves as house, barn Now let me describe our .. dwelling" here. and stable. A family, stores of hay and grain, We occupy the room belouging to the teacher. a.nd cattle being quartered in each one. I wish I It is 15 ft. by 12, with a mud 1Ioor and very dinconld clearly picture one with its arches of gy walls. The roof rests on two long, heaT)' stone, supporting mud roofs with mud 1Ioors, beams, across which are laid rows of crooked granaries, rough mats, absolutely no furni ture. sticks, then layers of moss and thorns, then At nights only a smoky oil light to illumiue earth. All day long, but especially at night, the the darkness. Men and women, old and young, dry mud is dropping dowu, covering everyinhahit the room. Water has all to be carried thing with dust, which is whirled about every by the women from a fonntain half an hour time the door or window is opened. I find lots below the village, hence cleanliness is at a dis· of mud in my hair every morning. The door connt. More than one man in the church has is about five feet high, so one must either duck taken hnman life in' self-defense or otherwise. his head or bump it when entering. Two Four of the members are blind, and others will windows, without glass, alford good ventisoon be in the same sad condition. The poverty lation. Both windows remain shut most of the and snlfering of many is pitiable to behold. Yet day on account of the strong wind, and we get the church at Alma is not a discouraging one; our light through the open doorway. I know there are some bright jewels in it who have the meaning of "darkening one's doorway," withstood much persecution in years past. Since, when anl one comes the room is dark- ened. The east wall has a" yoke," or clothes- Sunday was a pleasant day. S"turday after- press, without doors, or shelves, or anything, noon we had held a meeting preparatory to cbm- except bl'ck and bottom. In It are piled our munion; so we rose early Sabbath morning. beds and bedding, when not In use. On the At 7.80 we went to the church. There was first north and south walls are very rude shelves, a meeting of the members to examine candidates on which are piled in beautiful confusion jars for admission. Then came the communion ser- and bottles and cooking utensils, dishes and vice, in whichl helped. Three were admitted, oll cans, tin boxes of salt and sugar and powthe service lasting till nearly half past ten der, bellows, old bags, and below all a small- O'clock. The church is a new building of clean er shelf with a row of books. Below the white stone, with a battlemented top, the lU- clothespress are small compartments in which side plainly finished. The roof rests on two are earthen jars containing olives, and molasrows of arches, which run lengthwise of the ses, etc. In one corner of the room are three or building. It is bare of furniture, only a table four" pockets" of mud, ajar resting in each one. for a pulpit,a chair, and a few mats on the 1Ioor. In another corner· a large wooden chest, in These are in daily use by the teacher and chil- which the teacher keeps his treasures, clothdren who comprise the school. In one corner ing, spoons, etc. At this present moment its stands the commOn bier, a heavy wooden one, cover is piled with our books and papers, sadused at all funerals. The congregation num- dle bags and canned goods. The end of the bered 120, aU seated on the floor, the men and room near the door is a. sort of combination, women being separated by a curtain. All left pantry, cellar, garret, kitchen and coal-bin, not· their shoes as they entered the door, and the to mention the guns and old saddles. The rest collection of them in all stages of worn-outed- of the 1Ioor is covered with coarse mats, and ness was a unique 1Inish to the open doorway. my "corner" has a thin bed spread onthe1l00r, I have not seeil a gathering that was more poor- on which I am sitting and writing. I have ly dressed and in the main of sadder faces. drawn the tiny, low, round table over my knees They listened like hungry people, and surely aud am writing by the dim rays of a smoky, God must look in great pity upon them. The light. When we go to bed we get out and elder, who passed the bread and wine, wore the set up our travding iron bedsteads, spread our roughest and commonest clothing, his head cov- beds and bedding, and go to sleep with the mud ered by a black sort of scarf, kept in place by a sifting iuto our ears. In the morning we go double circle or fillet of rope. His feet and legs outside, down the rough stone steps, and !brawere bare to the knees. But that took nothing ham pours wat~r on our hands while we away from the meaning and sacredness of the wash. Stationary washstands, bath-tubs, etc., service. Babies cried and were carried out and are unknown luxuries here. For dishes we in again, and once during the service two were have several plates and bowls, two cups withseated, playing, inside the bier that has been out handles or saucers, three odd tumblers, and used at so many funerals. To·day, Tuesday, knives and forks. But what fun we have in and we went out hunting, not for partridges, but through it all. !braham makes" soup," which for small deer, known here by the term" waai." is dry, and we eatit with a fork. He has to In Ps. civ: 18, the word is translated" wild inform us when the stew and rice are warm, goats," which is an error. There was an ex- for we should never discover that fact citing time when two were started, aud when unaided. Yesterday Mr. E. stutr~d and deer and hnnters went flying through the bosh. cooked a partridge he had shot, and I But the deer got away. Still later another deer made "tomato sauce" for it, a dinner Was driven from cover and brought down by we "two missionaries" mOlt heartIly enthree shots. It is a great prize and repays us for all our hunting. joyed. Southern India.-The Malaba….Syr. Royal Court of Final Appeal, representative of ian Church Case. The great Syrian church the Maharajah, and consisting of the Chief lawswt has just been heard in the Royal Court Justice and a European Christian judge. For of Final Appeal in Travancore and judgment this purpose the whole of the previous proceedwill, no doubt, shortly be pronounced. The ings, depositions pro and con, docnments repoint in contention is, whether the Patriarch of ferred to, extracts from hh;tories, canons, mis- Antioch has jurisdiction over the Syrian church sals and other books, and prior judgments were of Malabar or not. The late Mar Athanasius, printed for the use of the judges and advocates Metropolitan, and his successor, Mar Thomas in four volumes, 4to, amounting in all to 1172 Athanasius, are charged with having changed pages. Many of the remarks bearing on the the usages and doctrines of the church by the manners and customs and religious views of the omission from the ancient liturgy of prayers for Syrian Christians are of the greatest interest to the dead and prayers addressed to saints; by students, and the ultimate decision of this administering communion in both kinds, and cause celebre, whichever way it goes, will have sundry other measures tending towards what a great and permanent effect on the future of Protestant Christians would regard as reform the Syrian church of Malabar. from superstition and error. For this, the Patriarch long ago interdicted Mar Athanasius and Is not the Mar Gregorius, Syrian Bishop of contends that the orders of Mar Thomas Atha- Jerusalem, referred to in THE MISSIONARY REnaiius are invalid, not having been conferred VIEW for February, as visiting England to col~ in due form by the Patriarch himself. lect money for schools to spread Bible truths connected with this same Patriarch who in On the other hand, Mar Athanasius maintains Travancore is fighting so hard against evanthat the Patriarch possesses no such adminis- gelical and Scriptural truth ~ trative authority as he claims and that the alleged innovations ar-e in accordance with the (REv.) S. MATEER TREVANDIUJI!. earlier and purer teaching and practice of the Malabar church before they were forcibly prose- Evangelization of the Jewe. lyted to Rome by Alexis Menezes and the Portuguese power at the end of the sixteenth century EXTREMELY interesting incidents might and their ancient books destroyed. In this res- be gathered from the current annals of pect he seems to have taken up much the same the First Hebrew Christian ..hurch in ground as that assumed by the old Catholics of America. No. 17 St. Mark's Place, New Germany and Switzerland against the preten- York (Rev. Jacob Freshman, pastor), sions of the See of Rome. to illustrate the power of the gospel and the accessibility of the Jewish as] well When in Travancore in 1875-6, after a visit to as of the Gentile enemy of Christ to England In 1874, with a view of enforcing his the influences of the Holy Spirit a.ttendant claims in person, the Patriarch consecrated six on the faithful ana ..ifectionate preaching new Metrans besides one, Mar Dionysius,whom of Jesus the Messiah. The baptism of a he had previously consecrated at Merdeen, and Jew is martyrdom: the end for him of all whom he authorized, with the aid of a commit- he ever held dear or knew of hope or comtee, to carryon the litigation and' to exercise fort before in this world. Man or woman, general superintendence over the affairs of the boy or maiden, is from that hour an outcast church. This Mar Dionysins accordingly sued from home, kindred, society, employment; Mar Thomas Athanasius and other representa- followed only with bitter curses by all who tives of the reform party, in the Zillah Civil ever loved or knew them. Hardly can they Court of Alleppey, in 1879, the hearing of which even find refuge in Christian associations, at vast length occupied five years. He claimed for they are often obliged to become wanderthe Syrian seminary at Cottayam, and certain erswhere they are not known, to obtain a lands and funds belonging to It, also omcial chance to earn their bread. Notwithstandbooks, ornaments, and vestments used by the ing all this, earnest inquirers are at all Metropolitans for the time being-the decision times .. searching the Scriptures whether on which would ·carry with it the whole these things are so," at the rooms of the property and jurisdictIon over the Syrian mission, and baptisms are so frequent as to church. he almost a usual occurrence on Sabbath evenings. Seven were united to the little In 188i decree was made by the Zillah judge, church at the last quarterly communion Mr. T. C. Krishna Menon, in favor of Mar service. What wonder that these who have Dionysius, both parties to bear their respective left all for Christ are burning with zeal to costs. testify of Him, and almost always wish to devote their lives to preaching the gospel f At once appeal was made by Mar Thomas A venerable lady, who had lived in wealth Athanasius to the High Court of Travancore, and luxury until, 17 years ago,she became a whose judgment by Justices T. R. Narayana Christian, declares that since then she Pillai and G. Arianayayam Pillai, after hearing has not eaten a morsel that was not ea.rned the caso at fnll length, was delivered in 1885. by the lone labor of her own hands. yet again adjudging the properties in dispute to Mar that she has been full of increasing JOY in Dionyslus and awarding costs to him.
Finally, an appeal has been made to the
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. [AUG.,'
the Lord to this day. Another lady, whose entered and availed himself of tbe first pause husband and six of her twelve children are to state that he had received an invitation still unbelievingJews, has brought the other to attend this conference. and to ask if he six with her to Jesus, and the writer saw would be recognized as a member, with all them aU baptized together by Mr. Freshman, the privileges of other members. Mr. and heard the trustful prayers that will not Freshman replied that he knew nothing of cease until the rema.ining ha.lf of this fami- such an invitation, but was gratified by his Iyof fourteen a.re a.lso ga.thered in. The attendance. Interruption of the order of other day, a Jewish gentlema.n came on exercises Was objected to, however, and the from Boston to see Mr. Freshman, as the Rabbi, perhaps with some misunderstanddelega.te of four Jewish fa.milies, who, ha.v- in~, made indiguant protest and went out, ing become c.onvinced tha.t Jesus is the Messia.h. desire to cha.ng-e their residence A letter to Mr. Freshman (since his visit to New York for the purpose of uniting with to Paris) from Pastor Hirsch, laboring for the Hebrew Christian church. the Jews in that city, contains striking pas- sages. He says: Those who a.re sca.ttered abroa.d prea.ching the word oft"n send back precious tid- .. I have often wondered whether conings. From the branch mission begun in verted Jews were best fitted for the evan- Chica.go, we reproduce the following, out of gelization of those who remain faithful to Mr. Freshma.n's,sixth annua.l report: the old relibion. Though they know the his- tory, occupations, and instincts of their .. On the first Sa.turday 14 Hebrews were race, is not this advantage more than present. All Were arguing about our Sav- counterbalanced by the antipathy, at times iour in langua.ge more or less a.greeable to almost ferodous, that every Jew, belie'{ing Christia.nears. But with the most of them or indifferent, feels tor a • Meschommed' ? I observed a total ignorance of the Christ This objection, which possibly at the beginof the fifty-thirdchapterofIsaiah. I called ning of my ministry hindered me from dethe attention of these Hebrews to some of voting myself entirely to their <)onversion, the Messia.nic passages. Although some of and which has since more than once parathem are learned Jews, tbey seem never to lyzed me in the little I have done for themhave paid attention to these passage; but this objection certain circumstances, dur· now they promised to read them carefully, ing the last few months. have removed from and to call on me to argue about them. my mind. I have seen that Intercourse wa.s possible between them and ns, in .. On Saturday sixteen Israelites were Paris as in New York. They must learn present, mostof them infidels. They would to know us; to see in Uti men convinced of not go to a synagogue, a church or a gospel the truth of what we believe, and who, meeting; but these infidel Hebrews would tho~l.we no longer believe as they do, like to come to our meetings, as they all say have not the less a truly brotherly affection • if we had preaching on Saturday.' Nowa, for them, are ready to detend them When days the Jews themselves require us to unjustly attacked, and to render them juspreach the gospel to them. We had a lively tice. This is what Inever cease to do in the time; but the Lord Was with me, and en- press. in lectures, and in other meetings, abled me to speak of the truth as it is in and this has been the means of drawing to Christ, in spite of all dangers." me many intelligent Jews, who respect and consent to listen to me. W. C. CONANT." Not infrequently, edu<)ated Jews come into Mr. Freshman's meetings and show a NEW YORK. disposition to discuss the tMessianic question with the preacher. One afternoon durin&" the late conference. the Rabbi Gottheil IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Hindranoes and Helps in Japan. tional form of Government to the peo- WE were not misled by the lan- ple in the twenty-third year of his guageofthe new Constitution of Ja- reign, or in the year 1890; the procla- pan in regard to religious liberty. A mation of the Constitution of the 11th great deal has been commendably February of this present year, and the said of the liberality of the Govern_ increased liberty of speech, and, above ment, of the immense reform inau- all,toleration ofallreligions. This was gurated since the Mikado's restora- accepted in some quarters as absolute tion to power twenty-two years ago: freedom of speech and conscience, notably concerning the fulfilment of which it clearly is not, nor should it be held that this waa th~ i~te~t ()f the th~ImperialpledgetoglveaCQuatitu- Emperor in face of a plain text which the temple of the Sun-goddess; and says: ., among our subjects and peo- .to the tomb of Jin Mi Ten No, the ple freedom ofbeliefshall existonly so first Emperor, and to his own fathfar as it is not disturbing to the peace er's tomb at Kyoto (Ko Mei TenNo). or the order of society." If this refers to the various ranks among the These may be regarded as proper people, then at any time a teaching and becoming acts of loyalty and de- . n1ight be declared to be represented votion on the part of His Majesty, as subversive of this order. It is not the Emperor, only. But this was not likely that any such interpretation all. In all the Provinces the heads will be given to it as against Chris- of Government or local officials were tianity, for the momentum is the to propitiate the national shrines. other way, and too strongly to be long And the observance of this worship arrested; but still the technical pro- is faithfully continued in and out of vision is only for freedom of religion, the palace. All Japanese represensubject to th,e Imperial interpreta- tatives abt'Oad are supposed to wortion or that of the Parliament. ship the insignia of the Emperor's royalty, kept in a shrine in the palace. In one aspect, however, Christianity is recognized as one of the existing re- If this is obiected to as heathen, ligions. The recognition to which we idolatrous and non-Christian, it may refer is of a prohibitory character, to be weU to note that, from" a Japanese be sure, but it is just as positive, nev- standpoint, the Messiah's reign et·theless. There is in the new Con- through Christian potentates is not stitution a restriction against the ad- altogether desirable. The foreign mission to membership in the Na- press writers in the service of the tional Parliament, as we would say, Japanese have contrasted their own of the clergy. The Buddhist and religion not unfavorably with the Shinto priests are distinctly named hypocritical declarations and titles as ineligible, but so also is the of the "Most Christian," "MORt .. Teacher of Religion," which is the Faithful" and "Catholic" "Majesterm by which the Christian preacher ties," who by "the Grace of God" is known. That may, of course, in cut the throats of their. subjects and turn have a wider application forced rob and plunder one another's doupon it, but the face meaning of it mains. is a prohibition of the Christian ministers of Japan from admission to Secondly, we note the extension of membership in the National Diet or this zeal for the religions of Japan even Lower Assemblies. This ad verse among the people-like Government, legislation against Christian preach- like people. There are not wanting ~rs is, however, a covert recognition signs of a revival of Buddhism and that the Christian religion exists in Shintoism, as we have het"etofore the land, and as now current is not noted. condemned as contrary to good order. The Buddhists, especially if Shin- Shiu, "True" or "Reformed Sect," But the Government itself has not as they may be called, owing to their become more Christian. It is pro- great improvement and advance on nounced in its worship of all national ancient Buddhism, are not only mythological gods. On the day of building new temples as the Hon the Proclamation the Emperor and Gauji at Kyoto, but have a fullall his COUl·t made special worship at fledged theological seminary "~here the cenotaph or shrine of his ances- with a great giltBuddhainits chapel tors, and he dispatched high officials hall, and are establishing preparato the Nation~~Shinto temple ftt Ise, tory schools and even popularschools for teaching English in many parts of the country, and expect to found a university at Kyoto to oppose the Among the common people an the successful Doshesha school of the. American Board at that place. They old grovelling superstitions are rife; are also glad to welcome Col. Olcott, followed by all their looseness and the Theosophist, from India, who has immorality of life. . been going throughout the country decrying Christianity and upholding Thirdly, we must consider the for- Buddhism as tl"e doctrine of benevo- eign influences adverse to Christian- lence and truth, and Christianity as ity, such as the agnosticism of Spen- heartlessly selfish. All the worldliness cer, Huxley, Mill and others who of the Western nations, and their have had and will have confirmed vices as well, are laid at the door of sway among the educated classes, Christianity, and it IS declared to be especially of young men. This, how- opposed to science, to progress and ever, is probably less now than at to liberty. The Buddhists of all the earlier period of its introduction sects – seven larger and thirteen into the country. Romanism, with smaller-but the Shin-Shiu in partic- its easy conditions of Sabbath observ- ular, are carrying out their schemes ance, free drinking, confession and for opposing the gospel, not only by remission of sin, and picture-worship, education and the use of other appli- is spreading among the lower orders ances, such as organ music, but by of society and among luke-warm active evangelism and organized mis- Christians. The Greek church, with sionary movement. They have been its grand cathedral and imposing lately sending priests to China and archimandrite and governmental Korea, and more recently sent oneto help j and the Roman, with much Hawaii. help from nearly every European government, are having their influ- The Shintos also have a new polit- ence with or upon the official military ical and religious organization for classes. the preservation of what they are pleased to call" The National Spirit." Of Protestant adverse influences, a It has a magazine said to be ably ed- German-Swiss Rationalist and helper ited by a former Christian theological are turning some of the preachersand student, a good English scholar,with dependent churches away from the some knowledge of ancient and mod- truth. This is partially because the ern languages. He fell away from Government leans toward the Ger- his Christian relations some years man system in government and ago, in the zeal of his advocacy of the military matters; also in medicine. people's rights, or of the Liberal A Unitarian representative and his party's principles, ,and he is now not wife are doubtless obtaining a follow- unconscious that the Royal patron- ing. Such are some of the difficul- age may be possibly susceptible to ties of the evangelical situation in the flattery of warm admiration. the Empire of Japan, as set forth by Large numbers of the Government persons who have given patient and officials are members of this society, careful study to the whole subject on and it is said the Emperor himself at the spot. least reads their magazine, which may mean much more among Orient- Fourthly. At home there are grave . als possibly than it would among us, misapprehensions of the situation in Japan on the part of some of the Thus much for the leading classes, warmest sympathizers with and many of whom are exceedingly zeal- patrons of the Evangelistic move- ous in their advocacy of their new ment abroad. Some have construed methods for rehabilitatmg theIr an- the glowing representations of the cient order of f~nh and worship, marvelous progress of Japan in ma~ tel'S of Western civilization to imply that the land was well nigh Christian. The progress of Christ's cause has ing of lukewarm professors and con- certainly been .of a. very encouraging versions of unbelievers. The im- character. There are twenty-five pressions have been deep. Mr.
thousand converts in the, several Wishard's visit to Japan slmulta- Protestant churches, possibly as neously with the arrival of Mr_ Ol- many more in the Roman and Greek- cott, reminds some persons that Rev_ Catholic communions; but that is Joseph Cook arrived in Japan just only one in seven or eight hundred after an American professor had of the population which is estimated been lecturing against Christianity at. nearly thirty-eight millions. Then on Sundays in halls erected for that it must be borne in mind that a purpose. .
church just out of heathendom is But there are other phases of worl.
necessarily weak, and in this case as also of value. The work of temper- in others lacks powerful influence in ance among young men marks a society, and has not wealth with great advance. There are, doing which to push forward its plans; work in Japan, no less than twenty- that great impressions for good, for six missionary societies, of which righteousness, for pUl'ity, for a spir- eighteen are of the United States.
itual regenerating power have been There are no less than 447 missiona- made among all classes, and in nearly ries, male and female, of whom 365 all parts of the Empire. The Scrip- are from the United States. The tures are increasingly studied by American Board missionaries num- large numbers in concert through ber 79, the Presbyterians (North), 64; the Bible Union, and in Bible classes, the Methodist Episcopal, 57; the a schools and churches. The written Protestant EpIscopal and Baptist, word is available in varretyof forms, each 29, and the Reformed church, 26.
and is in the hands of the Japanese. Of the 249 native churches 92 are A beautiful reference Bible, with self-supporting, and the total mem- maps and aU the references usual to bership is 25,514.
our Enghsh reference Bible, can be procured for sixty cents, American Laborers Wanted in the Republic of gold. Oolombia, South America. The word is being faithfully BY REV. T. H. CANDOR.
preached and practically applied. IN the April number of THE MIS- There is a wonderful ,insight and ap- SIONARY REVIEW I notice your con- preciation of the true meaning of tribution on "Applied Missionary Scriptures on the part of many of the Intelligence." I am very much older Christians. pleased with the idea of the article.
Then the work and power of the Having been associated with the Holy Spirit have never been more work in the Republic of Colombia for manifest than in this the eighteenth eight years past, though not on the year o[ Protestant progress in this field aU the time, I would like to put empire. The week of prayer was before the Christian world the re· very generally and faithfully ob- sults of my observation on this served by the native <:lhurches. Some country as a mission field for mis- while ago a revh-al began in connec- sionary efforts. I will not try to do tion with Mr. Wishard's work in a so at the present time, only giving mission college at Kyoto and Tokyo, you some general information to which spread through the churches. open the way for more details.
Conservative preaching serVICes, fol- The country is hardly touched yet lowed by prayer-meetings and bytes- by our Protestant Christianity. The timony-meetings, have been largely force is as follows: attended; there has been a quicken- ,1. The Isthmus of Panama, both at Colon and Panama, enjoys occasional Presbyterian, he welcomed us and services from clergymen of the assists us all that he can, Very lit- Church of England, under the care tle work has been done outside of of the Bishop of Jamaica. We are these two centers, chiefly because informed here that since the work on the force has been too small; and the canal has been suspended Chris- what has been done outside is chiefly tian work has also stopped. It will seed-sowing by the wayside, without be some time before anything can be time to wait for the harvest. done there on account of the overturning of all relations there. I was The position of the Government is told by natives in Colon that no work simply to permit us to live and work. was done there for Spanish-speaking It is conservatively Romanist, but people at any time; but that Eng- grants religious liberty, and punlish-speaking ministers of different ishes any assault that may be made denominations had held occasional on us or our services. But it proservices there for years. The Isthmus hibits us from openly attacking the is almost as much separated from Roman Catholic dogmas by the the rest of the Republic as if it were press, and virtually prohibits the a different nation. The only com- same in spirit. munication is by sea, and as its ports are free, all articles coming A portion of the people are confrom there pay duties in the other servative Roman Catholics, and will pOI·ts of the country as if they came not allow us a chance to preach the from some other nation. gospel to them, but the majority are willing to hear what we have to say. 2. The only other missionary work Nowhere are we ostracized in society, is under the care of the Presbyterian but can be on visiting terms socially church in the U. S. A. (North). The with even the stl'ictest of the people. mission has two stations, viz: Bogota and Ban'anguilla. (1) The Bo- In the larger cities in the interior gota station's wol'k has been carried living expenses are very high, much on for some thirty years. It is con- more so than in the United States. ducted by Rev. M. G. Caldwell and Rentlil, clothing and living (necessary wife (now visiting in the U. S. A.), expenses) are high. Here on the sea Rev. J. G. Touzean and wife, who coast these are I).ot so high, but still expect to open a new station as soon it costs more to live in the same comas Rev. Mr. Caldwell returns. and Miss M. B. Franks, iii charge of a a fort than it does in city of the same school for girls. There are several native helpers, none, however, or- size (30,000) in the United States of dained. A teacher for a boys' school America. Still, I believe that selfand a teacher for the girls' school are supporting missionaries, especially expected in June or July. if they had a small capital, could maintain themselves here and do (2) The Bal'l'anguilla station was great good. Mr. A. H. Erwin is an opened last year. My wife and I are example of this. A good gardener, the only workers on the field con- with $2,000, could buy a plot of land nected with our mission board. There and support his family very well. A is an independent worker, Mr. A. H. photographer, builder, carpenter and Erwin, who has been here for a num- others could make a living. There ber of years !'upporting himself on a are Americans here in business who small property that he has by culti- make a good living on a small capivating it and selling fruit and by tal stock-raising, buying and shipteaching a small school. Not being ping produce to New York, and an ordained ministel; and being a others in the fruit business. Why could not Christians do this for Christ's sake? I am here at the port of the country and would be glad to meet all brethren who pass this missionaries, and go away with .them. They way. were mostly men of wealth and property, hOld- ing high olllcial apPOintments. We nrver wit- BARRANQUILLA, REpUBLIC OF COLOXBIA., SOUTH nessed such a scene before. They thronged AMERICA.. the parsonagtl where Rajah was taken, and this was kept up for several days. We were The Heroio Ohuroh among the Heathen. ohliged on several occasions to seek for him, as well as ourselves, the protection of the police. WE speak of heroic missionaries, Even his wife, mother and sister, in a closed carriage, went to the parsonage. and tried by but we should not overlook the hero- their tears, threats and entreaties to indnce ic element in the church we are devel- him to come away. They rolled on the ground, oping among the heathen. We make threw sand on their heads, beat their breasts, room at cost of other good material and in grief aud agony hegged him to return to them. Mind yon, these were higkcaate women' for the following illustrations: Miss who would not dare show their faces outside of Grace Stephens, of the mission at their own doors. It was, as he himself said, • so hard to hear their cries and entreaties, and Madras, a frail Eurasian girl, coura- witness their grief, and then receive their curse.' geous in faith and abundant in good But, he said, • the peace of God kept mind and works, writes to Miss Hart, of Balti- heart. ' It was the tearing asnnder of the jOints more, the following, which appears and marrow, and many a sympathetic tear was in the Baltimore Methodist, about a shed for Rajah and his afflicted bnt blinded native pt'ince, one Rajah Naidu, in friends. How true that' a man's foes are they protecting and guiding whom both of his own household.' her own and Dr. Rudisill's lire have been constantly threatened. She .. They still keep up their persecution and says of the Rajah: give him no rest, while he still adheres to his ho- ly pnrpose to preach Christ. Yesterday morn- •. His troubles are many and great; ou all ing he went out with Dr. Rudisill and preached sides he has been persecuted, and his friends in the streets. He is scorned and hated, and are still trying to persuade him to give up his many an insult he has to bear. Alas, many Christian profession and return to the old faith. flowery inducements are put before him to go But he has the martyr spirit in him, and even back to his home, but he knows full well that goes into the midst of his people and preaches they consider him an ontcast and never will as- Christ. The day he'Was' baptized our chapel sociate with him or make him One of them unwas crowded with people who had come to til he gives up Christianity and is restored' to witness it, but none of his friends or relations caste. One of his relatives told me, confidenwere there. Everything had to be doue in se- tially. that if he went back to them, till this is cret, and we had to keep a strict watch lest done they would treat him worse than a dog, they should hear of It; otherwise our purpose make him stay outside the house, throw his would have been defeated. At that time he food at him, and make him sleep with horseboldly read a paper on the confession of his keepers (lowest caste of people), or perhaps faith. Immediately after Dr. Rudisill took him send him away from Madras with threats to kill to Goolverja, near Hyderabad, but his friends him should he retnrn. On the other hand, they followed him and gave him and the missionary offer him large snms of money for a ceremony in charge there a lot of trouble. They tried to that will restore him to his family and reinstate take him away by force, so Dr. Rudisill went him in caste. They feel so lowered and degradout and bronght him back. When coming. ed that, as I said before, they would prefer his down, at some of the railway stations gangs of death. " people waited for them and pleaded with him to return. Poor Dr. Rudisill was wonderfully And still another illustration must snstained, and bravely faced the mob. or other be given of another mission and anwise they would have, in all probability, torn Rajah to pieces. It was thought best that he other land. A native Pastor of the should openly declare his faith to his relations, China Island mission writes from so notices were sent to them and a meeting convened. Rajah was overwhelmed; it was Sh;:to-hing of a man named Tsang a great trial to him. His friends and relatives thronged the place, and it was a hard task to Ying-kuei. face them all and tell them of his new faith, bnt He is about 53 years of age. Five he did it in a few Simple words. The very sight ofhim, as he stood there without his marks, his years ago he carried his sister's bedhair cut short, was enough to anger them. They would, thongh they loved Rajah, rather ding to the chapel and incidently have seen him dead than numbered among the Christians, and they entreated him to leave the heard the gospel. A year ago he was converted.
H For some time his wife. son, and son's wife umtedly opposed him in all his etrorts to win them to Christ, and would not for a obtained such peace and happlneBS ?.. He moment listen to his exhortations. His replied, ..It is the extraordinary grace of relatives and neighbors reviled him as hav- God to me." .. Other men know not these ing gone mad. But Brother Tsanlir kept firm, things; how is it that you know them t" and patiently endnred all their spi~e and "By the teaching and guidance of God's hatred, calmly going about his own duties, Holy Spirit I have been led to know them." and forbearing to answer or retaliate in any "Is their any virtue or anything meritorious shape or form. At this his friends and neighbors were more than ever astonished in baptism t can it wash away your sins t" for they knew Brother Tsang to be a famous military athlete, many of his pupils having He replied, "My trust is in Jesus; there is passed the Government military examina- no merIt bnt in Him, and baptism is only an tions with honors. But our brother was now ordinance." .. To be a disciple of Jesus, and an entirely changed man; he sought no re- to join the church will involve you in' sufvenge, he took no advantage of his fame or ferings and persecutions." He answered, prowess as an athlete to settle the petty "When the Saviour was on earth he was persecutions to which he was daily exposed. nailed to the cross by sinuers; now sinners His weapons were not carnal; he himself become His disciples, and by His Holy was born again, and he believed others Spirit helping me, I am willing to sulfer, could be chanlired by the same quiet yet even unto death. I shall the sooner get to wondrous power that had changed him. heaven, and enjoy its happiness." .. Do you believe in eternal happiness'" .. I do, " He has had his faith greatly tested by with all my heart." havinlir to pass through heavy affliction since he became a follower of ttle Lord Mr. Tsang moreover added the following Jesus. Last year he lost three fine cows in words: "Sir, I thank God very much fol' an epidemic-a heavy los8 to him,poor man. giving me this precious truth, for had I not Soon after his eldest son died; then his had this belief in my heart when my cows wife died, and his daughter-in-law left him. were suuck down one after tbe other, my His relatives, instead of helping and trylnl:' son' died, and my wife was taken away, 1 to comfort him, only reviled him, and bit- should bave died myself, for my frIends terly mocked him about his new God and not only stood aloof from me, but reviled new Saviour, declaring that 8011 his suf- and slandered me most relentlessly; yet 1 ferings were on account of believing the felt a calm and peace in my heart that surdoctrine of Jesus, and that tbe gods and prised and strengthened me. Now they his ancestors had sent down these judg- may curse and revile as they like, my beart mente upon him for having forsaken is not atall ruffled by their words. I know them." that all I had the God of heaven gave me, and I also know that it is He Who ha.th tak- How many of the persons baptized en them all away; therefore I thank bim for His grace to me. Moreovor, I have at our home altars witness a better eternal life from Bim, and 1 see that the things of this life are only temporal, and confession than this: passing away, while God's gift is for ever."
"Now on the-third day of the ninth moon I Notes from Japan. met him at Yih-k6-cun. He had walked SOME 15 years ago a young man twenty miles to come here and worship, and from the Province of Tosa came to ask for baptism. I gathered together a rew Yokoh.ama for the purpose of learnof the elder brethren, and we examined him ing English. He had heard someon his faith in the Lord Jesus. I asked him thing about the Christian religion, why he wished to join the church. He answered, .. I wish to act as a disciple of and believed it to be an evil system Jesus." .. What benefit is ther.. in being a .which induced men to forsake their disciple of Jesus?" He replied," There is parents and family ties and lose their forgiveness of sins, and heaven with all its loyalty to their country. He sushappiness." ,. How ca.n sin be forgiven?" pected that there was some secret He answered, .. The Lord Jesus was nailed method by which people were deon the cross, and shed His blood to this prived of their reason and duped end." .. Are your sins for~iven f" He said, U Forgiven long ago. n U What evi- into becoming its followers. He redence have you that they are forgiven?" solved to find out what it was, and He answered, " Since I believed and trust- then he would be able to expose its ed in Jesus my heart has great peace and pretensions and save his people from grelitjoy." "Your great peace and great this dreadful delusion. joy, whence come t.hey f" .. From God and the Lord Jesus Christ." .. There are multi- With this purpose in his mind he tudesall around who know nothing of these wonderful things, bow is it that you hava began the study of English with the tion with medical work. It was a Rev. Dr. Ballagh, and kept a very hard field, 'and accompanied with careful watch of him to see wherein more or less of personal danger.' The was the secret of his power to make people of that section were very bitconverts. He did not believe in a ter against Christianity, and no one God, and supposed all worship was felt inclined to go. (Mr. Oshikawa mere form and the evidence of a did not think it was a call to him, weak and depraved mind. but felt that the consideration of safety was a sumcient reason why he With each of his lessons there was should remain at Yokohama.) allied some religious instruction and prayer. He had no interest in these But at one of the sabbath evening fUrther than mere curiosity, and prayer meetings the subject was reo listened to them, not to be profited ferred to, and Rev. Mr. Ballagh ofby them, but if possible to detect fered special prayer that the Lord their errors and thus be able to op- would incline some one to acceptthe pose them. call. As this request was offered to God, MI'. Oshikawa seemed to hear But one day Mr. Ballagh prayed a voice from heaven saying, "Go to very earnestly that God would send Niigata." He arose from his knees His spirit upon this people and open and said, "I will go. The Lord has their eyes to see the truth as it is in called me." Jesus. The earnestness and evident sincerity of the prayer made such an Three days later he was on his impression upon this young man journey. It was in the last of Dethat he could not resist the convic- cember, and a distance of 263 miles tion that there ilS a God, and that he over rough mountain roads that were does hear our prayer. This convic- filled with snow, and in places almost tion was so strong that he at once impassible. But with God to began to seek a knowledge of God strengthen and comfort him, he and how he coul d serve Him. After pressed on. a short period of inquiry he found the way of peace, and fully accepted Ata town called Uyeda he learned Christ as his Saviour. So great was that there was a small band of behis joy that he could not sleep, and lievers who were afraid to call themhe spent the whole night in singing selves Christians, and so had formed "Jesus loves me." He was not con- themselves into a "Temperance Sotent with a mere trust in God for ciety." But they kept the Sabbath, salvation, but he felt that the relig- and met regularly to worship God ion of Christ required a service ac- and study the Bible. They had only cording to ths ability and opportu- a copy of the gospel of Matthew; nity of each individual. and yet they came to a knowledge of God and his worship by this alone. From this time the whole timor of his life was changed, and he felt that MI'. Oshikawa sought out this band he ought to make known this gospel of secret disciples, and they were deto the people. He bega,n the study lighted beyond measure to have some of theology with Dr. S,.R. Brown, and one to teach them more fully the looked gladly forward to the time doctrines of the cross and the duties when he would be able to preach to of all who believe in the Lord Jesus. others the same truths that had At their earnest solicitation he rebrought life and comfort to his soul. mained with them two days, and the whole time was spent in instruction About three years later a call came and worship. from Dr. Palm of Niigata for a native helper who could aid him in con- This work continued to prosper, ducting religious services in connec- and Rev. MI'. BaUagh afterwards visited the place and formed this band of believers into a Christian earnest request other laborers were church. One of the number has to be sent to assist in the various desince become a preacher, and is now partments of his work. located at Yokohama as pastor of the largest Christian church in Japan. The Reformed Church (German) has taken this as their special field. Mr. Oshikawa pushel! on through and are extending their work as the the dflep snow and cold until he ar- men and the means are provided. A rived at Niigata, and entered at once school for girls was started there in into the work of teachingand preach- May, 1886, which has now an attending. as opportunity offered. In Jan., ance of 51 pupils. 1876. (as the result of his efforts and those of Dr. Halm) eleven persons During- the past three years five were baptized. The work was con- new churches have been added, and tinued in the face of much opposi- the total membership is now over tion and many difficulties until in 1,200; and there are other stations 1878 there was a church organized where converts have been gathered with 23 members. and will soon form new organiza- tions. In no part of Japan is the The difficulties of this field were so work more interesting or hopeful. great that in 1880 he resolved to go It has been carried on from the first to some location where the people with the most perfect trust in the were more progressive and less big- Lord and utter humility of soul. oted. He chose the large city of God has singuhirlyblessed this spirit Sendai, and has continued to labor of consecration, and many more are in that town and the region round seeking the Lord. about. The difference in the attitude of the people has enabled him to Among the converts is the Viceconduct his work with constant en- President of the Provincial Assemcouragement and far greater success. bly. Several officials and persons of In about one year from its begin- rank are also coming to Mr. Oshining a church was formed with 11 kawa to be taught in private, and as members, who called and agreed to they become convinced of the truth, support a pastor of their own. will connect themselves with the church. So great has the power of Until 1885 Mr. Oshikawa had no the ~ospel become that a Buddhist connection with any society, and no priest went to the Governor and help in his work except some native begged that the Christian school assistants. All he received in the way of financial aid was his own sal- about to be established might be ary and the support of a Bible wo- stopped. man. To meet the great demand for new With only this help, the work has men to occupy the various stations, grown under his faithful· care, until a theological class has been formed, in November, 1885, there were three with fifteen members. This is taught churches and 200 members. Hethen by Mr. Oshikawa, and Rev. Mr. Hoy connected his work with the church is his associate. In a letter recently of Christ, which includes the varions received from Mr. Hoy, he says: Presbyterian and Reformed bodies in "It seems that Rev. Mr. Oshikawa Japan. At the meeting of the Gen- is growing more and more spiritual; eral AsseDibly in Tokio all were im- hence his power. It does my soul pressed with his humility, his deep good to be associated with such a. piety and his fine scholarship and man. If the Lord spares him ten or power as a public speaker. It was fifteen years, he will do a wonderful arranged that his field should consti- work. The Father in heaven bless tute a new Presbytery. and at his him." Such in brief is the history of a.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF
most devoted and successful man. change. By the advice and aid of It is due to the faith and devotion of his milony friends he has decided to such men that God's work has pros- take a trip to America for the purpered so wonderfully in this land. pose of seeing the results of Chris- May the Lord raise up many more of tianityas exemplified in the people, like spirit and power to be leaders of the churches and the institutions of the host, and the conquest of the the home land. He will perhaps whole country will be speedy and spend a year in study, should his sure. health permit and the way be opened for him to do so. We bespeak for The unceasing and most arduous him a cordial welcome by all who labors of Rev. Mr. Oshikawa have love our common Saviour. resulted in great nervous prostration, which renders it necessary that H. LOOMIS. he should have complete rest and YOKOHAMA, Japan.
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY ARTHUR T. pmRSON, D.D.
Papal Europe -France, Spain, verted woman said she had been Italy, etc. See volume for 1888, pp. warned by her priest not to "lose 629 etseq. and miracles of missions in her faith"; "but." said she, "how this number. could I !,o8e my faith when I had none to 1o,e y" In no part of the world, perhaps, have changes more radical and revo- IN FRANCE, lutionary taken place, within a quar- for fifteen years, all eyes have been ter of a century past, than in Papal increasingly turned to the marvelous Europe. Dr. Burt used to say, here McAll Mi88ion.
the vital question ishow to makethe There is a manifest plan of God in people evangelical believers; on the history; the charm of missions is to continent it is, how to secure preva- follow the luminous pillar in its lence of Protestantism; and in the march. The commission is univer- East it iE', how to displace heathenism sal, but certain doors seemed closed by Christianity. and hopelessly barred, particularly Mr. Schauffl,er testified from a resi- in Papal lands. The main hin- dence of years in Austria that the drances: 1. A designing priesthood.
moral degradation was greater far 2. An autocratic system. 3. Lodg- than in this land among the same ing authority in man rather than the classes. We do not know RCj)manism word of God. 4. Ignorance of the here. There it fosters licentiousness Bible. . 5. Appeals to superstition.
both in its grosser and more refined 6. Combination of church and state.
types, so that the maxim has been France, Spain, Italy, Austria, framed, "The nearer to Rome the were seemingly hopeless fields for nearer to hell." Think of Raphael mission work. At peril of liberty, if painting Madonnas and lewd pictures not of life, men undertook to circu- for the bedrooms of Cardinals; of late Bibles or preach pure gospel.
modest girls fleeing in terror from Suddenly, in France, an opening the confessional because its secrecy was apparent. M. Bouchard, the was the shelter for audacious propos- Mayor of Beaune, M. Reveillaud and als; of Government providing hos- others rebelling against clericalism, pitals for women enciente so that they not yet prepared to espouse Protest- may never know what disposition is antism, aroused France by their pro- made of their illegitimate children I tests against Papacy. Really pro- The people of Papal Europe are very testing but not Protestants; tired of religious and very worldly. A con- a system of superstitionand suppression, declaring themselves opposed work is more economically admtnisto priestly domination and Papal tered than any otherof like extent of supremacy, they led on a reaction which we know; and the only quesfrom the monarchistic idea in church tion now awaiting a satisfactory soand state. Just at this time God lution is, how can the converts be sent R. W. McAll to Paris. A man brought into full fellowship with the pt'ovidentially raised up-fitted for church of Christ? To that the misa work fitted for him. He was at sion is now earnestly addressing first ona visit to Paris at the close of thought and prayer. the Franco-Prussian war distributing tracts on boulevardand in hotels Besides the McAll mission there when he was addressed by a working are grand facilities for evangelizing man in Belleville. It was another France through regularly organized voice of the Macedonian, ., Come societies of the French churches.
over and help us." The great Reformed Protestant Mr. McAll went, and manifested Church of France, receiving aid from the state in the same manner as Rosingular tact, opening a simple hall, manists and Jews, is doing a very or 8alle, a small room with a few important home missionary work. It chairs, a desk, a reed organ and a has a school preparatory for theo- Bible_; no priest, no ceremony, no logical students: also tW(' theologialtar, no elaborate ritual. Bdef cal seminaries in Paris and Montau- Jlt:ayers. evangelical songs, fifteen- ban. minute addresses, etc., were the only attraction. The working people had "The Societe Centrale de Evangeliza. never seen anything like this. They tion," of which Rev. Mr. Duchemnin, had accustomed themselves "to think son-in-law of the late F. Merle D'Auof the church and religion as a costly bigne, is the present secretary, was thing; here not a centime was brought to its present stage by Pasasked ~ they were used to an elabo- tor Lorriaux, for a while pastor in rate ceremonial; here no rites: they America. Through it a number of had long felt the power of a priest Protestant churches and schools have holding them in bondage at the con- been organized; but, receiving not a fessional; here no priest, no confes- centime from the state for new work, sional-box, not even the name of a they are compelled to make up what church, not even the sacraments of was given formerly by the state to baptism and the Lord's Supper. It support their own church; and, was very strange. Here was a new secondly, they are diffusing themrevelation of a church without any selves throughout France, organizoffensive churchly features, all pre- ing new churches and schools, and vious obnoxious characteristics elim- supporting~stors and evangelists in inated. They were drawn to McAll new stations. The progress of the and his work, and now, after these work is wonderful. New churches fifteen years, he stands at the head are springing up all over France, of the most amazmg evangelical and and are being greatly blessed, and evangelistic work ever seen in Papal calls are coming in from innumercountries, and which promises the able districts, and the society is unultimate regenei-ation of France. able to answer them. More than one hundred and twenty salles are now open from night to After the Reformed Church comes night, and crowded. The largest the Free Church, the fathers of which band of voluntary workers in any were D'Aubigne, Gau~sen and Malan such work in Christendom are con- of Geneva. and Adolf Monod of nected with these meetings. The France. Among the representatives of that work to-day are such men as Dr. Pressense, life senator as well as pastor, and Pastor Holl'lnd and Pas- The second society connected with tor Fisch, son of dear Dr. Fisch, the Reformed and Free churches is whose eloquence and piety at the " &ciete Eoongelique 01 France,"
meeting of the Evangelical Alliance Pastor Mauron being secretary. This at New York so impressedthe minds society is doing exactly the work of of Americans, and who was himself the Societe Centrale, the Home Mis- the most active in the Free Church. sionary SOCiety of the Reformed The Free Church is specially strong church, giving to its stations the in the South, on the old Huguenot choice of belonging to the Reformed ground, and is a protest against ra- or Free Church.
'tionalism. The churches generally The edict of Nantes, 1598, gave are poor, and the membel's make Protestants the right to worship every sacrifice to support them: of outside the city walls; and in the course receiving nothing from the suburb of Charenton they built a state, as that is the first article not church, with provision for 8,000 of creed but of polity. Precious re- worshipers, and Debrosses, who de- vivals are constantly in progress, signed the, Luxembourg, was the extending from district to dilltrict. architect. In October,1685, however, The Home Missionary Society of the revocation of the edict of Nantes the Free Church is very weak finan- left that great Protestant church at cially, and fl'om its nature and Charenton to be demolished, and it its work especially commends itself was laid in ruins that very day, and to the American church. Of the the Huguenots were cruelly scatsums sent from the United States to tered. For two hundred years Char- various societies for the evangeliza- enton, with its 60,000 people, had no tion of France, this society has re- Protestant public worship. Some ceived an insignificant amount. ten or twelve years ago Prof. Clouet, There are threesocieties in France, of McAll Mission, began preaching the work of which is associated with there and gathered a church of some both Reformed and Free churches. 300 Huguenots. They raised some The most important of these is at $4,000 OT $5,000 toward a sanctuary, Geneva-" Societe EoangeZique." This and then Prof. Clouet came to Amer- is the oldest evangelical society on ica in 1887 to secure $5.000 more.
the continent: though sitting at Ge- In the same year, 1887, an apPl'al neva, yet working specially for was issued from the church of Bar- France, children of Huguenot refu- bezieux, Charente, France, to their gees now seeking to send back the fellow-believers. This church had its gospel to homes from winch they orlgin in the religious movement were driven. This society was or- which introduced itself in Angou- ganized by Drs. F. Merle D'Aubigne, moil', following the two sojourns Gaussen and Malan. They have a which Calvin made in that pal"t of theological seminary, not only capa- France during 1532 an4 1534.
ble, but spiritual and practical. They In spite of the persecutions ai~ed have sent out such men as Bersier at the newly-born church, it soon and other leading pastors. The sem- became prosperous; from 1583to 1586 inary at Geneva is called the" Ora- there were 776 baptisms, and from toire" and is constantly obliged toO 1595 to 1604, 1,228 baptisms and pro- refuse candidate students for lack of tests against Popery. Such successes funds. This society is doing a blessed did not gladden the enemies of the work in· organizing and sustaining gospel, and more than others the missionary stations and schools, and ,church of Barbezieux has been hon- is the best organized colportage ored with their hatred. Louvois, the agency in France. minister of Louis XIV., was Marquis ofBarbezieux; and this circumstance writes of the Second Reformation in that land only made more difficult the situa- She says: tion of the Reformers of that town. He wrote to Du Vigier, President of "There is fascination in the very name of the Parliament of Bordeaux, to pro- SpaiD. The vivid pen pictures of Spanish liIe, ceed against the citizens belonging enhaDced by the surroundings of romance and to the R. P. R. who had transgressed tradition, while away many an hour of summer against the declarations of the King resting time. In reading the religiOUS hI&tory again more obdurately. "as if I was also of the land, one's soul is stirred. The not the lord of the said town, inas- events of the First Reformation and the terrible much as I desire that they follow sequel form an unequalled chapter. The achere more accurately than elsewhere count of the heginnlnga and the history of the the designs of his Majesty." progress of the Second Reformation. after three centuries of Papal rule, Is ot no less iuterest, al- Two days before the revocation of though the Inquisition has forever lost Its powthe edict of Nantes, by order of the er. In this Reformation American Christians King, the church was pulled down to have had a part. Twenty-llve years ago it was its foundation. In ol'der that the a crime to possess a Bible-punishable with imwork of destruction be more com- prisonment. To-day the Bible is printed In the plete, Louvois wrote in December in capital city of Madrid. Those who have not the same year to De Ris, intendant known the history of these years can Uttle realof the province, ordering him to ize the progress made. The church of Rome march some troops to Barbezieux to has lost its controlling power over the nation. prove that the King would not bear Many, it is true, as in France, are drifting into any longer with the Protestants. indifference or atheism; but others, really re- From the revocation of the edict the ligious by nature, accept the pure gospel of Protestants of Barbezieux partook of Christ, and there is a growing evangelical ' the fate of all those of the kingdom; church which will probably never again be upthose who could not' take refuge in rooted. It is noticeable by way of contrast that foreign countries, and who remained the First Reformation numbered its converts loyal to their faith, were sent, some from among the higher classes of society-the' to prison or the galleys, others to edncated ofthe land. Upon these the InquiSition the gallows. easily placed its hand of torture. The Second Reformation ha8begnn among the very poor Louis XIV. had wished to extir- and lowly. To such our Savionr came and enpate Protestantism from France, and trusted His glorious work. There is every rea.- his design appeared entirely realized son to believe that at last this nation is to be upas concerns Barbezieux. But God is lifted and Its bouds of ignorance and religious stronger than man.· In less than 150 superstition broken asunder. The work caryears later .this church rose again ried .on by some individuals and by various from its ashes and affirmed its exist- missionary socIeties has been bleBBed of God. ence by the construction of a modest It shows each year a slow but sure gain. It building; but it became unsafe and may be safely stated that wherever the gospel is it was necessary to pull it down en- preached there are some to listen and to receive tirely; and so once more the Protes- it. There are organized Protestant churches in tants of Barbezieux, deprived of a the priucipal cities of the land. Colporteur work house of prayer, opened a subscrip- is extensively carried on and thousands of bibles tion, imposing on themselves real aud "portions" are aunually sold. The chief sacrifices, and appealed to Christians interest iu all the missions centers in the educaeverywhere to help them in their tional work. Our aim is to keep the children poverty. France stretches out hands from learning the practices ot Mariolatry. to us to aid her in rebuilding the wasted churches of the Huguenots. In our own mission, we have been especially engaged during the last twelve years in laying MBa. W. H. GULICK,OrSan Sebastian, Spain. the foundation of a boarding-school for the higher education of girls. Taking into account all the diftlculties in carrying out such an object without any precedent a8 a ·guide, and with ter- rihle prejudice to overcome, the school in San Sebastian may be considered a success. During the llve years, 1882-'87, llfteen graduated; four- teen of these are now engaged in active Christ- ian work. In 1881 there were forty boarders. Recently preparatory and kindergarten depart- ments have been opened. not only to provide for the day scholars, but to serve as llelds of practice for those who may be studying to be teachers. Seventy-seven have entered these and to so many. If the tree is ~() be Classes, and more than half the number from judged by its fruit, the Protestant Roman Catholic families. In order that this tree is better than the Roman Cathschool may become a permanency, a snltably- olic one. You will always be welcome fnrnished buildiug must be provided. I believe to the house of your servant." a school modeled after our best, and thoroughly leavened with a pure Christianity,would do much Whilst waiting. to see the doctor, iu the next ten years toward elevatin~ the whole the patients listen with great attencountry. Imagine for a moment a nation without tion to the reading and explanation a Christian school for the higher education of of the Scriptures. Most of them -girls I 'rhat will be the case if the school in have never seen a bible before. On San Sebastian cannot be supported. It i. hoped leaving, each one receives a little that not oilly the Spanish girls wiJI be benefited gospel portion, and the children a by such an institution, but also the French of pretty text-card, accompanied by a the southern part of France, who are our neigh- kind word of sympathy. As patients bors on the other side of the Pyrenees. come continually from distant towns and villages, the "good news" is MEDICAL MISSIONS in Spain have thus carried far and wide. When gained the confidence and grati- the Medical Mission had been open tude of many who were once most fanatical. Over one hundred patients for twenty-two months, 1,011 pain one summer came for treatment tients had received treatment and from Castillon, one of the most relief, and in many cases been visited priest-ridden places. A year or two in their homes. At first the people ago the pastor and his brother, Don Were afraid to attend the Protestant Alexandel', went there to distribute Hospital, but good results are changportions of the gospel, and escaped ing fear into confidence. Much more witb their lives but not without in- could be done but for the lack of jury from showers of stones. Since means. then, through the Medical Mission, theway is being prepared. There is SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. hope soon to be able with safety to open a hall for the preaching of the -THE Nineteenth Century for January. 1888. gospel and a Sabbath-school. A has an article entitled "Leo XIII. and the priest here professed to be able to Civil Power." It is of value only as showing cure the intermittent fever which the alarming influence of the Papacy toattacked so many in the summer. day. The author. Herbert, Bishop of Sal- He charged even the very poor four ford. does not deceive us in pointing to the shillings a visit; but as no one was pacific utterances of the present Pontiff. cured, his patients very soon for- Beneath the white glove of peace is the red sook him, and came to the Medical hand of tyranny. Here are some of the ut- Mission. As each case, without ex- terances: .. When Napoleon had Incorpoception, has been remarkably suc- rated Rome with his empire and had locked cessful, the faith of the people is up Pius VII. within the walls of Sarona, he unbounded, and the fame of the declared. in a memorable conversation with Protestant Hospital has spread far Metternich. that it was his intention to esand wide. The patients, once our tablish the Pontiff in an exalted position of bitterest enemies, have been most dignity and Independence. He then ungrateful for benefit received, and folded his plans. He would bring the Pope have brought little gifts of fresh to Paris; he would give him a palace in the eggs, fine fruit, etc. Their surprise neighborhood of the capital with a. zone wa.s great when told that the doc- of neutral territory; he would transfer from tor's advice and medicines were Rome. as in fact he did. the archives of the gratis. One day a patient remarked, Holy Office of the Propaganda; he would "What a great favor, what mercy surronnd the Pope with the Sacred College and kindness you have shown to me, ofCardinals ; would allow him to send forth and to receive envoys and ambassadors. and wonld guarante~ to him a civil list of six millions of francs. He would treat him with sovereign honors. 'Placed near Paris.' he continued. 'the Pope wilJ flnd hi~self more in the centre of tHe Catholic world,
EDITORIAL NOTES
nearer to Vienna, Lisbon and Madrid, than spiritual thlnga. Meetlnga have been held In when he resided In Rome.' .. Metternich saw the cottages of the miners, and on every occathat Napoleon, with the Pope under his ston have been overfiowing ; the deep interest thumb, would be master of Europe, and he replied, .. My master will give the Pope and even delight which these dark BOns of toU twelve millions, will you consent 1" .. The take in arranging for these meetings and In proposal which Napoleon failed to caTry out singing Sankey's hymns Is very touching. The has been accomplished under the King of men are everywhere more ready to receive the Italy. The law of guarantees of 1871 has gospel than the women. The work amongst thrown into legal form the plan sketched in the children is especially Interesting. A great 1810." The l'ope is .. the religious head of many Roman Catholics attend, and in one place 225,000,000, who form the larger part of the no less than eight families were admitted as modern democracy." .. As a matter of tact, members of the Protestant church. At Hersin the civil powers of the :world are for the the persecntlon by the priests, and more espemost part in direct relations with the Holy cially the 'sisters,' continnes. and we had to See. All the great States of the Continent visit the cottages after dark, lest the Mining accredit ambassadors or ministers to the Company, being informed of our movements, Vatican. Fifteen different governments should tum the poor people out of their homes. treat diplomatically with the Pope, and M. Ie Pastenr Ducros has many dllllcnlties to even distant China and Japan desire to es- contend with at Hersln, but his work Is eminenttablish relations with him. Not only Catho- ly owned of God, and at au evening meeting lic, therefore, but Protestant, non-Chris- we had an attendance of over 120 persons, all tian and pagan countries believe it to be miners and their wives. A small chll1'ch might their Interest to recogmze and treat with a be erected in this neighborhood with great adspiritual power which is one of the de facto vantage to the work, as the present Salle Is phenomena of the world. quite inadequate. The congregation at Lievin still maintains its numbers, althongh several THE BLACK nBLDS OF mANCE. families have left. It Is, however, not the least encouraging feature In the work that those who M_a8 S. BtmGESS writes from Llevin, Pas de move to another mine are often the means of Calais: starting a fresh mission station in their new 10- .. These vast blackenjld fields of coal mines cality." are indeed white unto the harvest as regards VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
President Harrison and Missions. request was echoed by the religious and missionary press at home and IT is known to our readers and in abroad. But it was of no avail. all our missionary circles that Mr. Political eonsiderations outweighed Strauss, our late Minister to Turkey, the high interests of missions and although in religion a Jew, was a the expressed wishes of hundreds of warm friend of our missions in that religious and missionary journals. empire, and in several critical emer- By universal consent, we never had gencies interposed his wise and effi- a more intelligent, prudent, fearless cient efforts in their behalf. Again and faithful man to represent us at and again has he succeeded in ~lav Constantinople. His removalfor no ing the order of government for the other reason than politics will disapclosing of mission schools revoked. point the expeCtations of multitudes He had gained the confidence and of the friends of the new President good-will of the Sultan in a remark- and excite grave fears for the future. able degree, and hence was able to befriend signally our missionaries The change may prove disastrous and missionary interests in the Le- to our important and prosperous vant. Sueh repeated services had he Christian interests in the Levant. resdered in their behalf that, on a The present attitude of the Turkish change of Administration at home, Government towards American misthe entire body of American mis- sions,and particularly American missiona.ries and the friends of Chris- sion schools, is known to beone of extian educa.tion in and about Constan- treme suspicion. One unwise step, a tinople petitioned to have Mr. little rashness, a blundering policy, Strauss retained. And the same and in a day our schools will all be closed and our mission work well nigh Indians, irrespective of party aftl)iation, suspended. In all they say and do and be retained in power as long as they and write, even for readers in this remain competent and faithfuL" country, the utmost caution has to be observed by all our missionaries Similar expressions were made by there. No new official, whatever his leading religious journals and by the qualification, can for years, in such a condition of affairs, acquire or exert active friends of the Indians, who the same beneficent influence which are laboring for their spiritual and our late Minister had acquired and social improvement. But aU in vain. used with the Turkish authorities. Politics again rule the hour. The eminent fitness of the Commissioner And right on the heels of this un- as shown by his course, and the fortunate act comes another no less unanimous wish of those who have surprising. We all know how justly long labored in behalf of the Indian and severely President Cleveland availed nothing. We quote the was censured on account of the ad- words of two leading journals: ministratiofl of the Indian Bureau ullder Commissioner Atkins. The "We regret to have to report that Mr. entire church of the land was excit- Oberly, the present Indian Commissioner, ed over it. Not only the religious has been removed, or rather his reSignation press and many secular papers pro- requested. We do not think there is any tested, but our ecclesiastical bodies reason for this removal except a political one. Mr. Oberly's administration of the and missionary societies took very Indian Department was satisfactory to the significant action in the matter. friends of the Indian, and his appointment And so strong waxed protest and in- last October was hailed even with enthusdignation, that the President re- iasm by the Lake Mohonk Conference. Had moved the obnoxious party and his he retained the place, he could not have agents, and after due consultation used it for Democratic purposes under a with the prominent friends of the Republican Administration, and he surely Indians, selected for the important would not have used it for Republican office the Hon. John H. Cberly. purposes. being himself a Democrat. We Hundreds of intelligent and impartial are compelled, therefore, to regard his refriends of the Indians have expressed moval as one among the many signs that to President Harrison their desire President Harrison does not regard either that he should be continued in office. efficiency or incompetency the sole rea- They say: son for removal.H "During his brief incumbency he has " Our friends of the Indian Rights Associagiven entire satisfaction to many friends of tion, are naturally perturbed over the rethe Indians who are un..fficially and gra.tu- tirement of Commissioner j. H. Oberly, the itously laboring for the advancement of this request for whose retention we noted quite people. and who have had the best oppor- recently. Beyond question, Mr. Oberly has tunities for estima.ting the practical value proved himself one of the mostcapable, conof Mr. Oberly's services to the government. scientious, and pains-taking officers that We believe that the most serious and dan· have ever administered the Indian Bureau_ gerous abuses connected with the Indian It is a matter of great regret that his serservice in the pa.st~abuses which have vices have been dispensed with. " brought discredit to the nation, misery and distruction to the Indian, and have cost the We do not hesitate to express our lives of many of our own people-may be traced directly to the appointment of bad painful surprise at our new Presior incompetent men as Indian agents and dent's action in these test cases. They employes, as a reward for partisan services. are not ordinary cases, but from a Mr. Oberly favors the abolition of the spoils missionary standpoint as truly test system in the Indian service, and the intro- cases as Mr. Pearson's case was from duction of the merit system in its place, a simple business point of view. Mr. whereby men of character and ability may H&rrison has not in this stood by his be appointed to places of trust among the own avowed principles. He has need- lessly put in jeopardy great mission- ary interests abroad; and he has shown a singular disregard of the wishes and judgment of the wisest and most tried friends of the Indians at home. Can he afford to do it just head of the EXQcutive Committee is at his entrance upon his administra- the Rev. Dr. Caven, Principal of· tion? President Cleveland, when he Knox College, Toronto. found himself confronted by an indignant Christian sentiment, caused This movement aims specifically at by the blundering and wickedness of the overthrow of the act in the DohisIndian Commissioner, hastened to minion Parliament. This measure put himself right before the people, appropriated to the Jesuit Society and so far as lay in his power, atone $400,000 as a compensation for lands for the error of the past by putting escheated to the crown in 1773, at the the Indian Bureau into the hands of time when the order was abolished one who would conscientiously ad- by Pope Clement. The act was a minister its affairs with sole refer- gross piece of unwarranted class legence to the elevation of the wards of islation, as, whatever the rights of the nation. We write from no the old society, the new order has political animus, but out of a grieved not a shadow of a claim to the land, heart, as a friend of missions. and as it proposes to tax the Protest- ant minority of Quebec for the ben- J. M. S efit of a body in which they have not the slightest interest. It will be re- The Fight with Jesuitism in Oanada. membered that the Legislature of the Province of Quebec passed the THE Protestants of Canada are bill, and the Governor-General in thoroughly aroused in consequence Council was asked to disallow it or of the Jesuit Estates act, as it is veto it. The matter came up in the called. The excitement runs high Dominion Parliament, but Parliaand bids fair to lead to important ment, by a large majority, refused to results. It started some months since ask the Governor-General to interon the passage of the act by the Que- fere. The victory for the bill was so bec Legislatul'e, and has been gath- complete that it seemed useless to ering force ever since. A Confer- contest the matter further, but the ence of 600 delegates from all parts feeling of indignation ran too deep of Ontario was recently held in To- among the people to be suppressed, ropto, which discussed the matter and the Conference of last week was for two days in all its relations and the result of mass-meetings held in adopted strongly-worded resolutions all the cities, townsandothercentel's denouncing the Jesuits' Estate act of population in the Province. The and calling urgently for its disallow- Government may well feel alarmed ance. at the character of the demonstra- tion. The resolutions passed by the A provincial organization was also Conference breathe a calm, but most formed, to be known as the Equal earne5t and determined spirit-a Rights Association of Ontario, the spirit which the politicians may find object of which is to continue the it to their advantage not to ignore or agitation for the disallowance of the trifle with. It nmy even be possible Jesuit Estates act, and to do its ut- yet to induce the Governor-General most to prevent the recurrence of to disallow the bill. similar legislation in the future. The time up to which the Dominion Gov- It is clear that the Protestantism of ernment has the right to disalJow is Canada has been aroused by these agthe 8th of August, just a year from gressions'of the Jesuits as it seldom, the passage of the act. The Provin- if ever, has been stirred up before. It cial Association is to h~ve district has a tremendous task before it, and branches all over the province, and a one which will demand wisdom and Provincial Council with an executive tenacity of purpose equally with en-. has headquarters in Toronto. The I thusiasm and vigorous action. But and the House of Commons, led by in the end there can be but one out- the Government of Canada, of the come. "Roman Catholicism, in spite right of the Pope to interfere in civil of its virtue, is a religion of the van- affa.irs, the right to say wh-ether an ishing past. Protestantism, in spite act of a British Leg"islature shall go of its faults, is a religion of the fu- into operation or not, the right to ture even more than of the present." nullify such an act, the right to de. The demand for the separation of termine how the sum of $400,000 of church and state is becoming very Canadian money shall be distributed, strong in Canada, and if the Jesuits' or whether it shall be be distributed bill finally succeeds, the movement at all. The elevation of the Pope of in that direction will probably soon Rome into an estate of the British become irresistible. If so, the Jesuits realm superior to aU the other eswill have broughtit upon themselves. tates is distinctly incorporated into the Jesuits Estates act, w~ich con- Weare not surprised at this upris- tains a dozen pages of correspondingofthe people of Ontario. The won- ence between the Pope and the der is that they have borne with this Catholic Premier of Quebec, the alien, hostile power so long. It is a Pope and the Jesuits, and the Jesuits justrevoltagainstthepoweroftheJe- suits, and a righteous protest agamst and the Premier, and this is called the subserviency of the Canadian " the preamble" of the act, and it is Government to Papal rule. The this unparalleled example of legisla- Province of Quebec is the weak point tion which has called forth, even in the politics of the Dominion. It is more than the payment of public given over to the power of the Ro- money to the Jesuits, such an outman church. The Papacy dominates burst of public indignation as Canathere in politics, society, industry, da had not witnessed heretofore. religion, everywhere. A writer in a J. M.S.
secular journal says: WHEN Marshal Bazaine was tried for irresolution at the siege of Metz, " In Quebec the Roman Catholic church takes which resulted in disaster to the precedence in everything-is, in fact, a state French arms, he sought to shield church; collects Its tithes and ecclesiastical himself from blame and degradation assessments by the machinery of the law, and from his rank on the ground that he the Legisla.ture cannot be opened until the Car- did not know what was the governdinal comes to occupy his • seat' or 'throne.' ment of the country, or whether, in- Every inducement is offered by the laws to deed, there were any government at squeeze out Protestants who do not pay tithes all. But the president of the miliand thus enrich the colThrs Of the church, whose tary tribunal burst out with the imrevennes are numbered by tens of millions of patient, impas5ioned exclamation: dollars. The claims for debt of the Catholic church take precedence over everything. In " But France I But France' " The the professions the tests for admission are 80 Emperor might be a prisoner and the framed as to discourage study and entrance by empire a ruin; the Prussian guns Protestant.and English-speaking youth, English might have swept the army away at collegiate institutions being severely discriminat- Sedan and the very capital be the ed against. Throughout the French districts no camp of the foe, but France was still business man, if a Protestant and an English- alive, bleeding but not dead. The speaking subject of her Majesty, can;have any unfaithful Marshal owed something chance to live nntil he has' seeu the cure.' If to his country. If he could not save you want even a tavern license you must 'see the Emperor or the empire, he should the cure,' and the cure will come around every month and collect from you whatever assessment he chooses to deduct from your English and Protestant moneys."
The astounding fact has been disclosed that there has been a distinct recognition by the Legislature of have struck boldly to save the land.
Quebec, the Government of Canada, We are not to hesitate lin this
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS
crisis of missions. We may not be welcome message came too late for able to save our methods or follow insertion in the present number of our favorite plans. Our whole basis "China's Millions," which contains of missions may need reconstruc- letters telling of a distressing state tion. But the kingdom , the king- of things. We suppose that it is now dom' That must not be imperilled considered that the funds in hand or its progress delayed. A. T. P. will enable the poor sufferers to tide over the few weeks that yet remain SUGGESTIONS made in these pages before their own harvest isgathered. touching division of the world-field, All who by their kind gifts have etc., fin< an echo and emphasis in a shown true sympathy with the paper by Rev. W. J. Smith in the famine-stricken people will rejoice Evangelical Christendom. Hedwells at the prospect of this early relief. upon the difficultIes experienced in missionary work in the organization B. BROOMHALL, Secretary. of native churches; and in order to CHINA INLAND MISSION, May 21, avoid the painful differences cre- 1889. ated by the clashing of different sects in the mission field, he advo- PROF. GRAHAM TAYLOR writes that cates the aUotmentof different areas, Hartford Theologic:al Seminary is to determined by language or clear be opened to women who desire to geographical boundaries, to various fit themselves for Christian teaching missionary societies. He advocates and missionary work. The seminary greater co-operation among societies is to be radically readjusted to meet in bible and tract translation, edu- the demands of the field, all along cation and other objects, and in the line. Popular instruction to be church government, architecture, provided as demanded in all deetc., he would leave the natives as partments, to give larger knowlfree as possible. He is of opinion edge of the word and training for that we have not trusted the native every line of Christian work. We Christians enough in the past. He hope Hartford Seminary will lead in pleaded also for the formation of a the erection of a special chair for the General International Missionary E'If,glish Bible. As it is, students are Council, which, having representa- carried through brief fragmentary tives of all Protestant societies, portions of Old and New Testaments might co-operate with all movements and trained in special exegesis. We for avoiding schisms and for aavo- need chairs devoted to this one purcating unity in native churches. pose: to train students to know the entire contents of the English Bible, WE have received the following the object of the various books, the telegram from China: "Further as- scope of its entire testimony and sistance famine not required." This teaching, its unity, etc., etc. Possi- bly such a chair might be combined with "Christian missions."-A. T. P.
VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WOR;K AND STATISTICS.
Africa.-Missionary Societies Represent- 633 native pastors and helpers. The II re ed In. England has 14. with 376 ordained porting membership aggregate 11.500. preachers. 37 laymen. 100 women, and 8.764 native pastors and helpers. The converts in The English society representing the some of the societies are not reported in greatest number of imported helpers is the the statistics before us; II report 4,500. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel- 134; next to this come the Wesleyan America is represented by 13 societies Methodists, the Moravians. and the Unlver- aities Missions, each with 63. with T.7 o}'dained preachers,87 W'PInen, and The society with the larl'"st number of 9th inst. Mr.S. Smith, M. P., presided. The report. submitted by Mr. Thompson, stq.ted Dative belpers is tbe London, with G.OOO; that the total income of the society durin&' the year had been £125,250,and theexpenditbe Wesleyan Methodists have·I.527, and ture £122,596. leaving a balance of £2,6.;)4 toward meeting the deficiency of the preother Methodist bodies 1183 ; the Moravians, vious year. Practically they commenced the new year with a clean balance sheet. 887. In response to the special appeal issued by the directors, £16,390 had heen received, in The UnitedPresbyteriansof Scotlandhave addition to which the ordinary income of the society has been increased by U.OOO. the I&rgest membership in Africa-IS.OOO; -According to the OjJlci.al Year-Book of next to them come the Baptists, with 8,000; the (]hurch. of Ji.'ngland for 1889. th.. expendi- tures on church extension the past year in *h~ Society for Propaglltion of the Gospel the Established Church aggregated $5,. 500,000. of which $4,697,770 was devoted to have 5,000. church building. During the last twenty_ dve years the expendltun for tais purpose Of the American societies the Bishop reached the enormous total of $175.000,000. The number ot candidates confirmed last Taylor Missions lead in imported helpers, rear was 217,483. ITALY. The Free Cburch The eighteenth having more than 100; the Presbyterans, report of the Evangelization Committee of this church gives the number of churches 45; the American Board, 42; and the Bap- connected with it as 32, having 1,5211 com- municants and 222 catechumenll. Tlere are tists.23. 152 ministers and 12 evangelists, besideS colporters and other 88lstants. Several The United Presbyterians have 219 native new field& h"ve been occupied within the helpers; Bishop Taylor, 76; the United past year: many interesting cases ot con- Brethren,53; ProtestantEpiscopal,42; a.nd version are reported. The most marked event in connection with the church during Presbyterians, 22. the past year Is the death of Gavazzi. whose infiuence on the aide of truth and The United Brethren have the greatest righteousness was very great. -The Waldension Church. Wm are indebted Dumber of converts, 4,000; Bishop T;l.ylor·s to M. M. Fisher, D. D., for the folowinll: facts: Missions, which includes Liberia, 2,700; There are two distinct boards in charge the United Presbyterians, 1,850; the Pres- of the work of the Waldensian church in Italy-one In the valleys and the other for byterians 875; the American Board the 'he mission fields.
same. The report on evangelization tor 1888 pre- sents the following particulars' So that, &11 told, excepting several not In- Number of churches.« ; stations,«; pascluded in the report before us, there are 27 tors, 38; evangelists, 8; localities visited, 180; evangelical teachers, 67; colporteurs, societies baving missions In Africa, with 9; Bible readers. 6: regular attendants on preaching, 6,218; occasional hearers, 49,795; 453 ordained and 107 lay preachers and help- communicants, 4,074; catechumens. 469: baptisms, 190; marriages, 41 ; deaths, 187; ers; 186 women, 10,000 native pastors and seholars in ordinary schools. 2,323; In night schools, 890; Sabbath-schools, 2,621; conhelpers, and about 16,000 commuBicants……. tributions from the churches, 65,825 francs, African News. or $13,155. Last year America contributed 13,489francs; Belgium, 20 francs ; Denmark, -British trade with Africa Is estimated to 2.158; France, 2,354; Germany, 31,'783; Engbe worth about $125.000,000 annuslly, while land, 88,343; Ireland, 8,955; Holland, 1,194; Scotland, 78,852; Sweden and Sorway. 5,811, that of France is about '100,000,000, The Switzerland., 20.555 ; total help from other lands, 262,943 francs, or about $52,588. commerce of Germany with the great Con- -Wuttke gives the following statistics tinent is as yet insignificant. The total value of evangelical Christians among the Italof the exports and imports of Africa is esti- ians : There are 16.500 Waldenses. Most of mated at $375,000.000 annually.-A.frican these are found in tho old churchos of the ~itorll.
Brazll.-The following statistics are glven lu the" Evangelical Year Book," pub- lished by Rev. Mr. Vanorden.
Presbyterian Synod.-63 churches, 32 min- isters, of whom 12 are natives, 3 licentiates, 'l candidates, 2,006 members and 13 schools.
Methodist Ep. Church.-3~: members, 'l ordaiued ministers, 6 candidates for ordi- nation, 3 local preaches. 20 preaching places. two schools and tour foreign mis- sionary lady-teachers. .
Baptist Church.-5 churches, 241 mem- bers, 12 male and female missionaries and 3 native preachers.
Bishop Taylor has four laborers in Para, Pernambuco and Maranhao. The churches organized by the late Dr. Kaley are three in number. having a membership of about 250 believers. There are fiV8 evangelical papers and two agencies of Bible societies.
Thirty years ago there were hardly anr na- tive Christiana in Brazil. These figures are the beat answer to those who regard mis- aions a failure.
England.-London Missionary Society.
At the great meeting at Exeter Hall on the valleys. but there are also new <-hurches in in the whole of Dutch India from 148.672 to cities. namely one in Milan with 326 communicants. one in Turin with 317 an'- two in about 250.000, or about 66 per cent. Ih Java Florence with 325. The Free ·Church' of nearly 801 the converts have been Won from Italy has 71 <lhurches and stations, and 1.580 members. The Plymouth Brethren Mohamm~dani.m. In Sumatra. the number have 5C small congregations: the Wesleyans 55 congregations and stations, with of Christians has increased since 1878 from l,38C members: the Methodist Episcopal 2,500 to 1~,()(J(). and there are bundredsof Mo~ zn Church con~rega,tioDS a.nd I) stations, hammedans who have been baptized by our with 950 members; the Baptists have 53 missionaries, or are at present under instations and 870 members. There are. besides, a few small missions in different parts struction.-Dr. Schreiber, Rhenish Missionof the country. The statistics of the German, English, American and French . ary &Jeiety. church . are not given. The total number of Italian communicants in the Evangeli- S pal n.-The Protestant Church of Spain cal churches is 22,OOO.-Dr. Stuckenberg. in Homiletic Review. numbers at present 112 chapels and school- Ireland.-Summary of the nineteenth houses. 111 parochial schools. with 81 male report of the Representative Body of the Church of Ireland. The contributions re- and 78. female teachers. 2,545 boys and 2.095 ceived from voluutary sources during the year 1888 amounted to £148.380 19s., girls. There are 80 Sunday.schools. with 183 au increase on the receipts of the previous year of £11,417 15s. Of the contri- helpers and 3,231 scholars. The churches are butions received, £107.557 8s. was paid in for assessment. being an increase of ministered to by 56 pastors and 35 evangel. £5.480 11~. on the previous year. The contributions received since Disestablishment ists. The number of regular attend.ants is amount to £3,562,455. The total income during the year 1888 was: Voluntary contri- 9.164; of communicants. 3.442. Pastor F. butions. £148.380 19s.; investments. £290.- 5OO2s.; glebe rents. etc., £13,194 13s.; sun- Fliedner reports steady prolrl"ess on all dries. etc.• £7.836 Is.; total, £469.911 16s. The total expenditure was £42.~.020. leaving sides.-Ohri.fian at Work. a balance of £44.89111s. to be added to cap_ ital; but in this balance is included £2,763 Syran Protestant College, Beirut. Cata. 18. interest on mortgages which have not been paid. It should also be observed that logue, 188&-9. this £44,89111s.• being impressed with special trnsts. is not at the disposal of the Faculty: Rev. Daniel Bliss, D.D.• Presldent, and Representative Body. .rotal assets on January 1. 1888. amounted to £7.313.338. and on six American professors; four American .lee· January 1,1889, they had increased to £7.- 358,730. The investments in securities turers and instructor.; four Arab Instructors. amount to £6.537.381. These figures show that the affairs of the church are adminis- one French instructor. Three departments: tered skillfully and pruden tl.v. The total Preparatory, Collegiate, Medical. ' Students. capital sum in the hands of the Representative Body devoted to parochial sustentation Preparatory Department……•…….94 Is £3.818,629. The Interest of this sum at 4 Collegiate .. •……•…… 65 per cent, amounts to £152,745 per annum, which, If divided equally amongst the Medical …… ;, …… 38 1.3()(l clergy still required for the service of the church. gives £117.a year for each. If 197 the bishops are included in the calculation. An increase of 16 over the prevlons year. and It is found that the average income of the the largest number present durlu~ any ~'ear bishops and clergy derived from interest since the foundation of the college lu 1866. A of ca.pita; amount tc £132 per annum. The glance over the list of graduates from the -comamount paid for stipends under dioceans mencement, numbering in all 192 different perschemes in 1888 was £205,860 168.• being an sons, shows them widely scattered throughout increase of £2,564 3s. on the a.mount paid Syria and Egypt. many holding po.itlons of in 1887.-Iri8h Times. trust in governmeut and educational institutions, as well as in the professions. A most importan~ .Java.-1n Java the uativeChristianshave feature is the new school of Biblical Archmology increased since 1873 from 5.673 to 11,229. and and Philology for foreign students in those de- partments especially attrsctive to ministers who desire to take up those lines under the most favorable circnmstances. for a time. Rev. D. S. Dodge. 11 ClllfStreet, New York, Secretary.
United States. – American Coloniza- tion. t888. The Seventy-second Annual Report shows receipts. $6,176.05 ; expenses, $13,007.60.- 56 emigrants have been sent. 39 to Sinoe and 15 to MonrOVia, inclnding one ordained minister. a teacher. machiulst; physicians, carpellters and farmers. A large number of applications have been received, but not all could be sent, partly on account of the yellow fever in the South.
Arthington, in Liberia, founded by Robert Arthington, of England, is the most important settlement.
-American Sunday School Union-65th An- niversary. The last year has been marked by an increased force of workers, there now being 87 missionaries In 31 States and Territories, as against 60 in the deld two years ago. The fol· lowing summary is for the year ending March
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY- BULLETIN. .637
1,1889: New Snnday-<rehools organlzed. 1,756; from the report made by Cephaa. BraInerd. of teachers in them, 7,869 ; scholars in them, 63,- the International Committee, to the convention 375; scholars not before reported-aided, 1,816; recently in session in Philadelphia: The numcontaining teachers, 13,045 and 123,538 scholars; ber of associations reporting statistics in 1879 schools previously reported-aided, ~,432; con- was 889; in 1889, 1,141; total membership.in taining teachers, .21,718 and 201,531 scholars; 1879, 67,739; in. 1889, 115,456; active membership Bibles distributed, 8,625; Testaments, p,681 ; in 1871l, 34,120; in 1889, 94,120; number of buildalso large amounts of evangelical Iitera- in:;:s in 1879,60; in lES9, 156;.value of buildings ture; families visited. 40,041 ; addresses de_ in 1871l, $2,474,600; in 1889, $6,829,395; volumes livered, 11,341 ; miles traveled, 409,:;()6. At iu libraries in 1879, 173,650; ill 1<'89, 385,728; hlast 4,000 persons hav·e been reported a.s total net value of al. property in 1879, $~,3S0,724; hopefully converted and more than 100 in IES9, $6,944,685; number of States employing churches of different denominations have State secretaries in 1b79, 12; in 1889,32.
developed from tbese schools. -Internal Revenue Taxation. The total re -Statistics of the Protestant Episcopal ceipta from Internal revenne taxation (or the Church In the United States for 1887-88 are year endillg June 30, 1888, were as follows: as follows: Dioceses, 50; missionary juris- From spirits, $69,306,166.41; from fermented diction,I6; clergy (bishops, 69, priests and liqnors, $23,324,218.48, and from tobacco, $30,.
deacons, 3,766), 3,IlIO parishes. about 2,975 662,431.52, an iucrease over the previous year missions, about 2,078; candidates for orders. f..om spirits of $3.476,844.70: from fermented 343 ; ordinations. deacons, 116 ; ordinations, liquors of $1,402,130.99, and from tobacco of 103: baptisms, (total infants and adnlts), $551,364.39, a total tax of $123,292,816.39. And 56,709; confirmations, 39,590; communi- this fearful tax represeuts but a tithe of the cants. 450,042; Sunday-school teachers, money expended by the people for the items 311,601; Sunday-school scholars, 342,431; taxed. On what a gigantic scale does our Gov- ~ra.lI.d total of con.tributions, $11,483,- ernment participate in the inlqnlty of the rum 597.(8. traffic and of the untold evUs which result from -The following Y. M. C. A.-s-ta-t-is-ti-cs–ar-e—th-e-u-s-e-o-f i-n-to-xicants and tobacco I VIII.–PROGRESS OF MISSIONS:" MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Afrlca.-Mr. Guinness"1s maturing plans ·-The lat.at news from Malange, one ot for a grand advance of three columns of mis- Bishop Taylor's stations, is that an entire fam- sionaries to go simnltsueously np the three IIv of natives, five in nnmber, haye forsaken branches of the Congo-Northern, Central and their idols and turned to Cbrist. May it be the Southern. The central one may be considered flrst fruits of a large harvest! Each of tbe fi~e as started a fortnight since, by the departure of stations in Angola has now two missionar!
eight missionaries from London, to work as au graves.
English auxiliary to tbe American Baptist Mis- -Bishop Crowther has lately opened at sionary Unien. Bonny a new church buUt of iron, ",ith sitting -Stanley Moving Eastward. Word was accommodations Cor 1,000 worshippers received at Zanzibar on June 12, to the effect -A new Mohammedan leader, uEI Sen- that Stanley had arrtved in December at Ururi, oussi," is, according to reports from Cairo, on the eastern shore of the Victoria Nyanza, making a great deal of trouble for the Mabdi.
with a nnmber of invalids of his force. The re- U El senoussi " presides over a great organiza- port stated that Stanley had met with heavy tion of devotees, witb adherents from Tonis to losses, and that he had rejoined and left Emin the Congo. He has, it is said, caused the Mahdl Pacha at Unyara, on tbe northeastern shore of to fall back on Khartoum, in furtherance of s the lake. Unyara is fifteen days' march from large scheme of conquest, which includes not Ururi. Letters received at Zanzibar trom only the annihilation of Mahdism, but the Ujljl, dated March 10, say that Stanley met dominion of the Soudan, and possibly of Egyp Tippoo 'fib and sent a nnmber of sick followers itself.
back with him by way of the Congo. Stanley PALABALA,CONGO, April 13,'89-.Messrs, BUlintended coming to the east coast witb Emin ington and Glun.k of A B.M.Union afe building Pacha. Tlppoo Tib would arrive at Zanzibar a new (second.) station beyond Stanley Pool.
In July. Small-pox raging in several districts. At -Missionary letters to the London Anti- Lukunza Station several clmrch members have Slavery Society say that the Mabdists have died. Others are being added to the church. made lfes:ern Abyssinia a desert. Whole Mr. Ingham, of Banza Manteke, has heen ill flocks and herds bave been destroyed, with same, but attack has beell mild.
tbousands of Christians have been thrown into Rev. S. Silvey B. M. S.) goes home-nearly slavery, thousands of others have been butch. three and a half years in the country.
ered, and hundreds of the noblest Inhabitants In the B. M. S. seven have been added to the have been taken to Mecca as siaves in violation churcb at Stanley Pool. NOlle ofBishop Taylor's of treaties. steamer is beyond Isangila yet. J os. CLARK.
01' lIISSlONS-)(ONTBLY BUlJ,BTqf. [Au(t
Arabla.-The Keith·Falconer Mission. £17.000 wblch hu been aenmaJatiq tor tile We have batorereferred te the interesting coni· past th~ yean. In addttlon to tile above Is tile pan of captive. taken {rom slave-shipe on the work done by the Ladies' A.uxIlIary collD8Cted Red Sea, and committed by the government to with the society, and reporting an In_ for this mission for edncation. These children now the year of .lmost £8,000. number My.one. It was at first supposed that they were Abysslnlans, aud hence nominally -A New Miaaionary Scheme. The Baptist Christians, but It now appears that they are Mlsslonary SocIety have decided to make a Gallas and that none of them had ever heard fresh experiment in India. Rev. W. R. James, the name of Christ. These boys and girls are one of their ablest and moat experienced mIs.. developiq rapidly, and show an earnestness sionaries, and a notable bazaar preacher, Ia to and spirit which promise wen. Teachers have be entrnsted with it. He Is a single man him· been sent from the United Presbyterian Mis· self, and half a dozen earnest young men, who slon In Egypt, who will help In the education of are prepared to devote themselves to the work these youth, and it is hoped that tbey will reo In wblch he has been so long engaged, are to be turn to their native land to preach the gospel. found and go back to India with him. They are all to live together In the native quarter ofsome Ohlna.-It i. reported that In the China great city, probably Calcutta, and there to com· Inland Mission Hospital and Dispensary at Che· mend the g08pelln life and deed, as wen as b:r foo,5,539 out'patlents have been relieved, 217 word. lb. James estimates that they can live surglcaJ operations performed, 96 In·patients In comfort and good health at a cost of abont treated and brought under spiritual inftuences, £liO a year each-The (Jhristiaft. not a few of whom are believed to have ac· cepted Christ as- their Saviour; and an this -The Baptist Union of Great BritalB and work Is done at the small cost of 143l. One of Ireland have had tabled at their session these the most encouraging sllns in the missionary statistics: Congregations, 2,770 ; members, 2119,. work In China is the hold the gospel Is gaining 498; Sabbath-school teachers, 45,977: scholars on the hearts of the womeu. One Isdy has from attendlng 8abbath.school,452,167; local preachforty to ftfty present at a women's meeting each ers, 3,988; pastors In charge, 1.865. It was com- Sunday. Miss Gulnness, of the C. I, H., tens puted that In the denomination there had been of the eaA'Brness of the women to hear the truth. gained during the past year about 20,000 mem Mrs. Cassels gives the same testimony. bersaud 28,000 Sabbath scholars. Some churches had not reported, and of course the Union had Oeylon.-Mr. Murdock, of Ceylon, whne no means of enforcing a request for statistics. In government employ, founded the ve~acular ReligiOns Tract Society thirty year$go, which. -The total receipta of the BrItIab and during the past year, published 8,000,000 pages Foreign Bible Society are 84,986l. le8II than lut year. There Is a diminution In all the Items of of reading matter. or the salary received he receipts except two, bnt the most serious reduce tion Is In legacies, which last year were extraorwas not satisfted to give a tellth to the Haster's dinarily high. The return from distribution of work. but devoted eight-tenths to that purpose. Scriptures also shows a decrease, but this Is He set up printing presses, composed and accounted for by the cessation of sale of the Ju· printed his own gospel tracts, and packing bUee Bible and Testament, and by Ule lessened them in a bullock cart, spent his vacations In demand lor the penny Testament. distributing them over the country. FIU.-Once the synonym of the utm08tde- England.-Wesleyan Missionary So. pravlty, the I'ijllslands to.dayare a monument ciety. ThIs society, with headquarters In Lon· to the value and power of Christian missions. don, hss miSSions In Europe, India, Cbina, West A gentleman who has labored there for 14 years Africa. the Transvaal, British Honduras and the recently testilled publicly In London that Queen Bahamas. It reports 336 central stations or cir· Victoria had nowhere 120,000 subjects more cults and 1,338 chapels and preaching-places. It loyal than the residents of these Islands. The has a stall' of 333 missionaries and assistant mls· gospel was brought there by Christianized na· sionaries. with 2,000 other paid agents, such as tlves of the Friendly Islands, ana In turn the catechists, interpreters, etc. It enumerates 8,859 Fijians themselves have hecome Imbued with unpaid agents, such as local preachers and Sab- the missionary spirit, no fewer than 5Ot,"hristlan bath.school teachers, and a church membership Fijians having gone to proclaim the gospel In of 82,325, with ',674 persons on trial Cor admis· New Guinea. slon to the church. The method pursued by the cermany.-Tbe Mia.lonary Conference society Is to send to the fteld English mlsslona· ries for the purpose of organization and super· I, recently held In J'ranklort-on·the·Oder took vision, or to give iustrnction In tralniq institu· tlons. All subordinate positions are occupied the Initiative of a very courageous petition to by a trained na tlve agency, while It is under- the Emperor with. view to obtain, possible, stood that every convert, according to his abil- some more stringent control over the manu· Ity, should be a voluntary worker for Christ. facture and exportation of rum. A.ccordlng to The total Income for tbe past year was nearly a report made to the conference, 69118! cent. of £132,000. The report for the year expresses the freight destined for the negroes, and shipped great discouragement because of a debt ofalmost from Hamburg, consisted oC rum. And then, what rum I The saUors never touch It, for they
rROGRESS OF lIISSiONS"";'XON'l'HLY
know 'too well that it woald kill them. But count of peculiar eircumstances, hQ piq,b,efl,biB then the negroes! What matters It If it does tent at a spot where, unknown to himself at kill them f .. Am I my brother's keeper f" the time, a fakir some 25 years before had prophesied that a teacher from God would at Indla.-SirHerbertEdwardB, iuaspeeeh some time pitch his tent, who woald bring a delivered in Exeter Hall, London, in 1868, message to the people from God. ' It seems this sa.id: "Everyother faith in Indio. is decaying; fakir who mad" the prophecy ordered the Christia.nity alone is beginning to run its people to keep three big pots of ghee (clarified .course. It has taken root, and by God's butter), and give them over to the teachers grace will never be uprooted. TheChristian whom God would send them. So when Dr. converts were tested by persecution aud Clough pitched his tent on,the designated spot, martyrdom in 1857, aud they stood the test. the people brought the pots of ghee and asked I believe that If ,the Euglish were driven him what he was going to do with them. He out of India. tOomorrow, Christianity would took them, and stulllng old rags Into each of remain a.nd triumph." the pots, lighted them, making a grand blaze throughoot the night. This attracted the people -There are one-and-a-halfmlllions of Ro- and they came in crowds, and the golden opma.n Ca.tholics in India.. It is therefore with portunity was seized for preaching Christ. tha.nkfulness that we see the continuance Hundreds heard the word of salvation in the ot 0. movement which seems like" a stirriug light of this blaze, before which Idola were of the dry bones" of Romanism in India.. brought out and broken in pieces. Thepreach. Last month 0. crowded meeting of Catholics Ing was continued until dawn, and for some dayt was held at Karachi in protest ae:ainst subsequently. , It was a remarkable Icene, and the a.ttempts of the Jesuits to crush the itlls believed many saving impressions were editor of AngkrLmitano, the paper which produced.-Miasion. Herald. is strul:'gliug to ma.intain 0. certain amount of religious liberty in'the Catholic church. -In the Marathi Misaion of the American An unprecedented sale of Bibles has taken Board the misslonari,s report the organization place during the past few months amongst of several new churches as a prominent feature csrtain sections of the Indian Catholics. of the last year's work. One of the older churches added 18 per cent. to its membershtp -Among the 500,000 lepers of Iudla, the on profession offaith, and sent olffrom its num- Mission to Lepers iu Iudis is doing a noble ber a large colony to form a new church. These work. The society endesvors to utilize, as fsr new efforts are started with thirty or more as possible, existing agencies by assisting communicants, a number comparing not nnleper asylums already established, and provid- favorably with the original membership of ing missionaries with the means for carrying on churches In this country. ViSits of evangellsts Christian work in connection therewith. It have been very profitable, and a native of Bommakes granta towards the building of new bay, Sumant 'Vishu, io addition to general asylums, and In many cases provides for the meetings, held In one district a meeting excluseutlre support of lepers. An illustration of Ively for women. Over 100 women were, the work may be taken from the record of the gathered to hear him, more than half of them year's dOings at Purulia. On February 8, Hindu women-a rare sight-to listen to the 1ll88, the foundation-stone of an asylum was gospel. This prepares us for a statement that laid. On April 16, one house, capable of follows latter: .. Among the recent converholding twenty persons, was opened. By Octo- sersions In that district women are 111 a ber other homes had been opened, and the Inmates numbered 50. The year closes with the m~orlty." glorious news that there are 67 ic the asylum, of whom 511 had just been accepted for baptism_ Italy.-The British and Forei/l"n Bible So- The report of the society says, .. Traly a won- ciety have circnlated in Italy, during the pas derful record for one short year." Mr. Welle- year, 137,045 portions, New Testaments and sley C. Bailey, Edinburgh, is Secretary. whole Bibl~s, and, more often than not, in dis- tricts 1IIto which no evangelist has penetrated. -In ollr Christian College at Lahore there Some of the best sales were efleeted in the are 125 students-Hlndoo8, Mussulmans, Sikhs, mountain district of the Abrnzzi, in the Basil!- and Christians. cats, and in the two Calabrias; also in the in- -The Telugu Mission. The remarkable terior of Sicily and Sardinia. work carried on by the American Baptist Mis- -The changes taking place in Italy may be sionary Union among the Telugus is still a cause for surprise and gratitude. It is reported indexed by such signs as the seizure by the that since the beginning of 1889 there have Roman police of the Pope's jubilee medals been over 1,000 baptisms In the Ongole dis- which bore an inscription ascribing to His trict and 471 In the Vinukonda district. Dr. Holiness the title of Killg. The Italian Gov· Clough of Ongale reports the baptism by him- ernment very naturally looked upon this as self ot 420 during the month of February. an a.ssumption fraught with danlrer to the He sends the following striking account of a peace of the country, a.nd immediately visit at Rivalporum, a village thirty miles from ordered the confiscation of the meda.ls. Ougole. When he reached the village, on ac- The Roman Catholics were, of course turi. ous about It, and threats were made that past year 1,758 new SundayoSchools in 81 concerted efforts will now be taken by the States and Territories, in I?laoos hitherto adherents of Leo XIII. to restore. him to the destitute of relil:'ious priVileges. It &180 temporal sovereignty. A cable correspond- gave aid to other needy schools in 6,488 inent of the New York Telegram, who is evi- stances. In many cases the scbools have dentlya Romish sympathizer, spoke of it as developed into churches of dill'erent denom. ..a piece of impertinence on the part of the inations. It also distributed, by sale a.nd Italian' Government to assume that the gift,8,585 Bibles &nd l1,68ll Testament and Pope is not a kin/:, I " made 40,041 visits to families. In the winter its missionaries conducred eva.ngelistio In the city of Rome are 80 cardinals, 85 rh~~~~~t!!~ered many hundred BOuls into bishops, 1,469 priests, 2,832 monks, and 2,215 nuns; and yet, with all this teaching power, -The Presbyterian Church,through its Board 190,000 of the Inhabitants can neither read of Pub1ication~reports the resnits of last year's nor write. work as follows: ..apan.-The number of adult baptisms 8 TATJlS. ….c':O:m"JCi,00"~…….;. ….. .; in the C.M.S. Japan Mission, 867, has consider- , 0 '~" ably exceeded that of any former year, the cor- "o"o"g 0 .. responding figures in the preceding two years ZI having been 179 and 222. The baptized mem- <12'0 E-t ~''~0 bers are now 1,851, with 178 catechumens. ———1– —- 8cotland.-The report ofthe Statistical California ..•.•……….. 11 39 279 Committee of the United Presbyterian Church Florida…………….. .. 9 26 190 of Scotland shows that there are 565 congrega- Indiana……………. .. 6 80 269 tions, an increase of one; 867 Sabbath-schools, Indian Territory •..•.••.. 22 72 1,109 an increase of 6,404 scholars, and that the total Iowa ………………. .. 11 49 438 membershIp Is 182,963, a gain of 793, being above Kansas ……………… . 114 &Ill' 4,189 the average rate of Increase for the last ten Kentucky ………….. .. 118 Ii84 5,:149 years. Michigan.. .. .. … .. .. .. 65 310 2,488 M!nnes~ta …………. .. 1(5 577 4,679 Spaln.-The Irish Presbyterian work in Mlssoun ……………. . 20 100 1,020 Spain. The Rev. Wm. Moore writes from Po- Montana ……………… 1 8 81 erto~ Santa Maria: .. The work was never so Nebraska …………… . 104 3S9 3,200 jJourishlng as It is now. I han been spending North Carolina………. . 8 81 my leisure hours in •setting up , a new geogra- 252 raphy (elementary), sorely needed for our NorthDakota ………. . 78 281 1,922 schools, and which we are going to attempt to South Dakota ……….. . 78 279 2,387 bring out on our little prlutinlt press. This Virginia ……………… Ii 22 873 geography is the translation of one compiled by Washington Territory .. . 12 50 353 Miss Whately for evening schools In Egypt aud West Virginia ……….. . 15 83 640 the Levaut. It is the oue branch of study of Wyoming…………… . 89 89 which the Spaniards seem to know nothing, and Wisconsin …………… . 16 55 518 any school text,book one can find is so complicated aud absurd as to be oseless for elementary 831 8,416 29.615 schools." Besides these Sabbath-schools, directly or- Syria.-Dr. George E. Post, in an article on gallized by the' missionaries, there were inthe outlook In Syria, says: directly organized by the Department, 117 Sab- bath-schoolS, 585 teachers; 8,750 scholars. .. Little by little the light is stealing In. Men Total number of Sabbath-schools organized last ofall religious opinions are inClining to tolera- year, 948; total number of persons gathered tion, The Bible is being circulated among the into Sabbath-schoolslast year, 37,866. masses. The number of readers is mnitlplied. -Fifteen have been added to th.. Indian Those who believe are bolder, but .at the same church at Lewiston, Dakotjl.. Red Cloud time more discreet. Those who do not believe came into the church jailor fashlon-" he are forced to concede that the Bible is the and aU his household." He was tr.arried. source of religiOUS knowledge and the referee ba.ptlzed, received the Lord's Supper and In all oases of doubt or dispute. Those who are had his two children baptized, all the same far from the spirit of the New Testament claim pay. to be evangelical. Everything Is ripening for a grand demonstration of the power of the Holy -To educate the Indian. Port Townsend. Spirit. When the day oC the revelation of the W. T., May 8. Dr. Sheldon Jackson, Com- Son of lIlan shall have come, and the ancient missioner of Indian Educatiou, left yesterseats of Christianity shall have received their day with a large pa.rty of missionaries who King, men will wonder that they were so slow will be stationed among the Indians In a.ll of heart to believe the Scriptures and to inter- l>&rts of Alaska. pret the signs of his home-coming," -Father Damien's heroic liCe and death are United States•..,.The American Sun- calling attention to the condition of lepers the day-school Union has orll'anized during the world over, and have given a new Impulse to investigation of possible means for, alleviating, Ifnot curing, the disease. Probably few have any idea ofthe great number of lepers, especial- ly in Asia. It has been estimated that there are a quarter of fA million in India, and they are found in colonies through Persia and Syria. London Is horrified by the assertion that a leper has been found lu. active employment in one of the large markets of that city. Fortunately, the type of the disease generally prevalent is not tbe most virulent, bot it is appalling at the best, and it may be that the faithful priest bas accomp- lished even more than he ever dreamed of in relieving the most wretched cla~s of 8ufferers the world knows. B.
. New York.