The Missionary Review of the World — June 1925
CLASS FOR FOREIGN BOY'S AT KANNAPOLIS, NORTH
Deaf? A post-card Visit World Missions brings joy of in the Far Ea&t under the leadership of good hearing again Dr. Harlan P. Beach Amazing Invention enables deaf to Party sails from San Francisco Sept. hear instantly 26, 1925; returns to Boston March 9, 1926. Sent on Ten Days' Free Trial The outstanding institutions of all Some folks imagine that deafness is Iherely a denominations will be visited. Such a personal annoYance. But it's far more than tour will give you a grasp of World that. It ruins the disposition. Upsets the Missions not otherwise obtainable. nerves. And taxes the health. A Famous Missionary Statesman Now science baa proven it is needless to re- writes; "I know of no one eitfter in Amermain deaf. A remarkable little personal hear- ica 01" upon any other continent so well fitted ing aId bas been perfected by a group of to be the educational director of a cruise New York sCientists. Immediately restores good through mission lands as is Harlan P. Beach. hearIng even to the poorest ears, Results are His ability as a lecturer is widely known Imm~di.ate-there is no waiting-no delay-no across this country. his knowledge of the danger. You hear at once–clearly, distinctly. mission field is unmatched by any living man, naturally, and he himself has visited missions over and over again and knows the whole problem The inventors are so SUre you will be elated from A to Z. Any group can be congratuwith this wonderful little discovery that they lated who can be under the leadership of Dr. offer to send it to you without a string of any Beach upon a tour through mission fields." kind-for ten days' free trial. No red tape– no deposit-no C. O. Do's of any kind. To take For full information address; advantage of this liberal trial offer, . simply write to the Dictograph Products Corporation, PROF. ALBERT E. BAILEY Department 1306-c 220 West 42nd Street, New York City. In justice to yourself. please do Care Temple Tours this now. 441-C Park Sq. Bldg., Boston, Mass. It you have lost hope through other methods, we are even more anxious to have you try this remarkable little invention. For it will not tail you; and there is nothing for you to lose. Simply send name and address noW.
IF YOU WANT A Missionary Education Tours THING DONE WELL "One seeing is worth a hundred telling," Do -It Yourself When you purchase Annuity CRUISE TO ALASKA Agreements you administer your own estate Leaving Los Angeles July 31, San Francisco August 1, and Seattle Au- When you make a Will, you gust 5. let others do it Inclusive cost $165 and up, according .ror further information write to : to length of trip and point of de- parture. Morri. W. Ehne., Treasurer. Board 01 Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 150 Annual tours to Alaska, the Orient, Filth Avenue. New York. N. Y. South America, Australia, the South Sea Islands, Egypt and Palestine. W. J. Elliott, Treasurer, Board of Home Mis_ sions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episco- Reservations and tickets secured for pal Church, 170 I Arch Street, Philadelphia. independent travel.
For prices, itineraries and further in- formation address JOHN COBB WORLEY Travel Secretary Missionary Education Movement 150 Fifth Ave., New York 517 Western Mutual Life Bldg. Los Angeles Please mention THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD 1ll writing to advert1sers. THE MISSIONARY Review 0 f the World DELAVAN L. PIERSON. Editor CONTENTS FOR JUNE, 1925 FRONTISPIECE …….. HELPING TO MA.KE 'L'HE STI!.A.NGERS AT Hm.1E IN AME&JCA Page 421 EDITORIAL,S …………………………………………………….. 429' AT THE MONTEVIDEO CoNGRESS CIIRISTIAN INFLUENcm IN DOSHISHA UNl- 433 THE OlIRlSTJAN SITUATION IN VERSITY 437 INDIA TWENTY-FIVE YEARS W]TH THE AMER- 443 445 ICAN BoARD 451 "I WAS A STRANGER"-IN AMERIOA ………….. FRFJ) HAMILTON RINDGE 457 The story of what some foreigners have e'xperienced in America Qnd of the in- 458 fluence of some Christians in manifesting f,·iena.hip. 459 462 ARAB REACTION TOWARD CHRIST' …..•…………… PAUL W. HARRISON 46& The author of "The Arab at Home" ae8criiJes the ,JJay in which Moslems of 470 Arabia loola upon Christ, and their recepti"n of the Gospel as proalaimed by the 473 missionaries. 476, 4941 AFRICAN ICE CREAM ……………………………….. GEOItGE SCHWAB An interesting picture of African life, sho1"ing some of the results of missionary contacts.
THE RAUSA PEOPLE AND THEIR LANGLTAGE …………… C. F. BEITZEL .A brief account of one of the most virile and important races of north-central Africa.
CAN CHRISTIANITY SOLVE THE RACE PROBLEMf ………………….. An article based on five important books of t-he year: Christianity and the Race Problem, The Clash of Color, Race and Race Relations, Of One Blood, and The Negro from Africa to America.
WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE MISSIONARY EINT'ERPRISE ……………… . … .. … ……. …….. . . .. .. .. . . ……. . . .. .. . MRS. CHARLES K. RoYS A verbatim report of one of the leading addresses gi'uen at th,] recent Foreign Missions Convention at Washington, D. C., – a strong case for woman's leader- ship_ ONE GIRL'S INFLUE.NCE IN BRAZIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MR3. EDWARD LANE HOSP]1TAL EVANGELISM IN KOR},A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. G. FLETCHER A unique and successful method of Chr-istian worla in connection with the min- istry of healing.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES …………………………… An article reviewing the most important book on the Philippines of recent years, written and reviewed by missionaries of !Vide experience.
THE POWER OF A GOSPEL PORTIONETTE ………….. ARTHUR T. UPSON BEST MEITHODS ……..•…………………… EDlTEll BY MRS. E. C. CRONK THE WOMAN'S HOME MISSION BULL]<)TIN …………………………
THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSION BUI,IJETIN ……………. .•………..
NEWS FRIOM MANY LANDS…………………………………. ……
THE MISSIONARY LIBRARY ……..•…………………………….•.
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Robert E. Speer, President William I. Chamberlain, VIce-President D.lavaa L. PlersoD, Secretary Walter McDougall. Treasurer Publication ollie., ad " RelI7 sr.., Harrlaburl, Pa. 250 & Oop:r $2.60 a :ra..r Editorial and Bulin…. Olllce, 156 Fifth ATe….e, New Yorll: Clt:r .aWl-eel u .aaonll-oI…. _ttlr at the POlt Olllce, Harrleburl. PL, under Aet. of Marel!. 8. 1171. HARTFORD PERSONALS T. Z. Koo, a secretary of the World's SEMINA:RY FOUNDATION Student Christian Federation, and for some years one of the secretaries of the National Hartford, Conn. Y. M. C. A. Council of China, is now in America. He rep"esent,ed the Anti·Opium W. DOUGLAS MACKENZIE, President Assoe;ation at the Geneva Conference, and made a profound impression at the student Theological Seminary conference in Manchester as well as in other Dean, X. W. JacobuB · places in England. School of Religious Pedagogy DR. FAYETTE A. MCKENZIE, president of Dean. E. H. Knight Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., has re- cently resigned. There has been some agio Xennedy School of Missions Dean. E. W. Capen · . . tation among the students and alumni in Through these associated schools :E:.lartford favor of having a Negro president. offers full training lor HENR.Y S. NINDE, the oldest living Y. M. 1. The Christia.n Ministry. C. A. secretary, celebrated his ninetieth 2. Religious Educs.tion and Social Service. birthday on April 16th, and on March 12th S. The Foreign Field. · . . he and MI'S. Ninde had their sixty·fifth wed- Each school has its independent faculty and its own lnstitutiQnal life and together they form. ding anniversary. one interdenominational institution with the unity of a common aim and spirit. BISHDP MOTODA, of the diocese of Tokyo of the Protestant Episcopal Church, reo The plan for a group of eight buildings f,?r the Foundation is being carried out. Maekenz16 · . . cently visited China in the interests of the Hall. the woman's, dormitory, is already completed and occupied under direction of the Dean .Tapnne8e living in that count-ry. of Women, Mrs. Lester McLean, Jr. Construe– tion has begun on Knight Hall, a classroom REv. HmE KIN, pastor of thl" Chinese building, and Avery Hall, the library. · . . Presbyterian Church in New York City, has been forced by ill~health to resign.
REV. GILBERT N. BRINK, General Secre· tary of the Baptist Publication Society, to whom a year's leave of absence was granted in October in the hope that he might reo cover his health, has presented his resigna· tion.
~orbon BISHOP SCOT1' of the North China and Shantung Mission of the Society for the Propagati()n of the Gospel celebrated On September 21st, the completion of a service of fifty years in t;'i'!,a.
REV. JDSEPH CI.ARK, of the American Baptist Mission, has returned to America on furlough after forty-five years of missionary service on the Congo. When he went out in 1880 there was not one Christian native in his district. Now thousands of men and · . . women are seeking to follow Christ and many are helping to spread the Good News. OBITUARY JAMES BOYD NEAL, M.D., for forty years a medical missionary in Shantung Province, A Graduate School of Theology China, of the Presbyterian Church in the and Missions, of high scholastic standards and evangelical loyalty . U. S. A., died in Philadelphia, February Degree of B.D. 4tll, in his seventieth year. During his servo Theological, Missionary, Religious-Educational College course ice in Ohina he acted as President of the of 4 years,college standards, hroad China Medical Missional'y Association, Dean of the interdenominational school of medi- cine at Tsinanfu, which later was merged into the medical department of Shantung University, and finally as President of the University. •• curriculum. Degree of Th. B. MR. T'HEODOR.E D, RWGS, for some years a missionary of the Ameriean Board, and NATHAN R. WOOD, President treasurer of the An>1tolia Oollege, Turkey, GORDON COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY died near Boston on April 9th, while pre- AND MISSIONS paring for his return to Turkey. Mr. Riggs Boston, Massachusetts was a grandson of Dr. Eli>1s Riggs and of Rev. R. G. O. Dwight of Constantinople. His father was Rev. Edward Riggs of Marsovan.
Please mention THE MISSIONARY REVIEW 0'11' THE WORLD in writing to advertisers. A NOON-DAY RELIGIOUS SHOP MEETING FOR MEN HELPING TO flfAKE THE STRANGERS AT HOME IN AMERICA (See page 429)
mEMrS~IONARY
mw~ VOL. JUNE, 1925 NUMBER XLVIll SIX , AT THE MONTEVIDEO CONGRESS C HRISTIAN work in South America, its needs, progress and the plans for its advancement were the subjects for considera- tion by the representatives of the Protestant and Evangelical movement on this continent held in Montevideo, March 29th to April Bth. One of the delegates from North America, Mr. VV. Reginald Wheeler, of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, writes of this Congress as follows: "Uruguay, politically speaking, is the Switzerland of South America. Here the representatives of the other republics of the continent can meet to discuss topics of common interest and con cern without exciting national rivalries or competition. Nearly one third of the population of a million and a half live in the capital, Montevideo, on the broad estuary of the River Plate, which has the reputation of being one of the most healthful, progressive and beautiful of South American cities….
" We were impressed by the sturdiness of the men of Montevideo and by the space given to football fields and recreation parks. At the last Olympics at Paris, the Uruguayan soccer football team emerged the champions of the world, and no South American republic is more advanced in its legislation and efforts on behalf of public health and social I'lervice. The Pocitos Hotel, where the Congress meetings were held, is situated outside the city on the beach, and was an ideal place for the conference.
"At the Congress there were 165 delegates, 19 affiliated delegates, 10 invited guests, and 121 visitors. Eighteen nations were represented, ten from South America, five from Europe- France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland; one from Central America; two from North America, the United States and Canada. There were 13 denominations represented with 36 different societies and organizations, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Disciples of Christ 421
having the largest number of delegates. Of the 194 delegates and invited guests, 140 came from South America and 67 of them were representatives of the National Churches.
"At Panama in 1916 most of the delpgates were from North America; but in Montevideo most of them were from South America. The commission reports in 1916 were prepared chiefly in the North, but these have been written chiefly in the South. The committee chairmen and members of commissions were largely from South America and the important Business Committee had 21 of its 29 members from the South. Dr. Robert E. Speer, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, who was Chairman of the Congress at ranama, relinquished the speaker's chair on the first morning to Sr. Erasmo Braga, a Brazilian, after the latter's election to the office of Permanent Chairman. This was symbolic of the transfer being made today in control of the Protestant Movement in these countries from North American to South American hands.
"The topics discussed were marked by their breadth of interest -Education; Evangelism; Social Movement!>; Health Ministry; The Church in the Community; Unoccupied Fields; Indians; Religious Education; Literature; Relations between Foreign and National Workers; Special Religious Problems; Cooperation and Unity. The four of these topics that drew the most attention were evangelism, health ministry, education and social movements. The need of evangelizing the Indians, especially the non-Spanish and non-Portuguese speaking Indians, was emphasized. The Brazilian Government sent Dr. Horta Barbosa, the head of its Indian Department, to represent it at the Congress, and he and Mr. Dinwiddie, and Mrs. vValter C. Roe, made important contributions toward the solving of this problem. The need of reaching the student classes and the varied methods through which the Gospel can best be broadcasted were presented and discussed.
"One of the resolutions passed by the Congress with reference to social movements in South America indicates the nature of this report: "Jesus calls us to a universal brotherhood; peace in industry and between the nations: economic security for all: the uplift of the classes of society that lack opportunity: the awakening of the belated races; the moral enrichment of all peoples by means of a fcree exchange of scientific and spiro itual discoveries; the complete realization of our highest human possibilities. The realization of these ideals depends upon our making universal brotherhood a recognized and practical fact. The Congress therefore calls on all Christian people to cleanse their hearts of all suspicion, all prejUdice and all selfishness; to begin now to treat all men as true brothers; to keep alive the spirit of goodwill in schools and churches; to oppose all forms of discord between national and international groups; to establish personal contacts with men of different beliefs, different social conditions and national affiliations, so that there may be a leaven of brotherhood throughout the continent; to study sympatheticaJly human activities in other lands, in order that under-
EDITORIAL COMMENTS
standing ainndevkenroywllaenddgehemraeyreeplirmesiennatteedatllhesruespmicaiyonbeantdheladcekveolfopcmonefnidt eonfce~ and that consciousness whose touchstone is thc Golden Rule of Christ."
"The Congress bore striking witness to the growth and power of the Protestant Movement in South America during the past two decades.
1903 1924 Evangelical Missionaries ………….. . 750 2,105 National Evangelical Ministers ……… . 1,100 2,306 Communicants Enrolled ………….. . 32,000 122,559 Total Protestant Community ………. . 65,000 251,196 1906 1924 Organized Churches ………………. 856 1,283 Communicant Members ……………. 91,000 122,559 "The largest advance has been made in Brazil; Argentina and Chile follow next. In Brazil, the Presbyterian Church at its last assembly reported more than 21,000 members, with the Independent Presbyterian Church recording about 9,000 more. These two Presbyterian Churches contributed over $200,000 toward their work in 1923.
"There are still vast unoccupied areas on the continent and certain classes and groups are not yet reached. The Protestant Movement has followed in general the coast line, but a vast region, equalling four-fifths of the total area of South America, totalling about 6,000,000 square miles, contains wide ranges untouched vitally by Christian agencies. This continent ·within a continent equals more than a third of all Asia, more than a half of all Africa. It constitutes for Evangelical Christianity the largest geographical expanse of unworked territory to be found on the face of the earth.
"An impression made by the Congress upon the delegates was that of the true unity and fellowship with one another and with Christ. Not once did there arise serious disagreements. Dr. Mackay of Lima, Peru, struck the keynote when he said that we should love the living, loving Christ, we should love one another, and accept the full consequences of such love and allegiance.
" 'Our message is to be prophetic rather than sacerdotal; the living word of the living Christ to living men, the essence of Christianity being not a rite, nor a creed, but communion with the living God and service of men as our brothers, growing out of the inspiration and fellowship of that communion.' "
[A fuller report of this Congress is expected in our next number from Dr. Robert E. Speer.-ED.]
THE CHRISTIAN SITUATION IN INDIA nAS IS well known, the people of India are "very religious," but they are far from Christian. Following the long years of ignorance of Christ's teachings and spirit, and of bitter hostility to Christian missions, there has dawned, however, a period of better understanding and deeper sympathy with Christ's character and ideals. Christianity has had a great influence in changing many Indian customs and many leaders consider Jesus the greatest religious force in India today. His influence has been to purify the native religions and customs, even though men have refused to acknowledge openly His deity and Lordship. Reforms have taken place among Hindus, calling for an abandonment of idolatry, childmarriage, caste and temple immorality.
The Christians are increasing proportionately much more rapidly than the population, but not numerically. Some missionaries feel that the missionary methods of the past are not adequate for the present; that the Christian message needs to be presented more in its original Oriental form and that Indians must be given more freedom in its interpretation and expression. The Occidental form of Christian truth and organization is proving a hindrance to Indian minds, but the essential message of Christ· to sinners is welcomed. This message must be the vital truth of God's love and life offered to men in Jesus Christ and must be related to the history and beliefs and every-day needs and experience of those to whom the message is addressed. Too often the Christian Gospel has been given a Western background, dress and outlook. The presentation of Jesus Christ llimself as the revelation of God is supremely needed. He must be the living Jesus of the Gospels with His deity, His miracles, His parabolic teaching, His godlike holiness and sympathy, His atonement by the sacrifice of Himself, His gift of new life by faith and His aSSUl'anee of eternal life through His resurrection from the dead. Jesus Himself must be the center and circumference of the Christian message.
India has shown her readiness to listen to this message. Mahatma Gandhi is honored for his advocacy of the principles of Jesus. Even lecturers from the West who exa1t Christ are listened to by multitudes with sympathetic attention and respect. The Christian Patriot of Madras, edited by an Indian Christian, says of the lectures on "Jesus" delivered by Rev. Charles "Y. Gilkey of Chicago: "The intensity of interest and unflagging attention . . . was maintained at white heat. . . . It is Jesus, Jesus, and Jesus again that India will listen to . . . not to any other claims, institutions or ecclesiasticisms.' , India also will respond to Christian teaching related to the real, present-day life and problems of India. There has been too often a union of Indian Christians with Western forms of life and edu-
EDITORIAL COMMENTS
cation rather than the injection of Christian life into Indian communities. Ostracism, persecution and lack of sympathy have separated Indian Christians from their neighbors in a way that has made them seem foreign and has made their religion seem to belong to foreigners. The" salt" that seasons must be in close contact with the mass that needs to be saved. Many missionaries also believe that whatever may have been the reasons in the past for paying Indian evangelists with Western money, this method should be gradually discontinued. The Indian Christians should, like the Christians of Apostolic days, be taught to act as unpaid evangelists wherever they are, supporting themselves by their own labor or receiving the free-will contributions of the people among whom they serve. The Indian Christians need to be trained, as do Christians everywhere, in voluntary service and systematic giving.
Rev. James F. Edwards, editor of Dnyanodaya, published in Poona, India, says in the course of a recent address: "As far' back as many of us can remember the Christian Church in the West has been praying that God would show to His Church an 'open door' in the East, that His Spirit might so work on the hearts of millions in the Orient that they would be ready to listen to the message of His Loving Son, and so lead the way to the Christianizing and evangelizing of the whole of the mighty East. All we read the signs of the times we are unable to resist the conclusion that God has answered the greater part of this prayer and that in India there is already the widespread preparedness that has been prayed for by earnest Christians everywhere. The evidence for this is manifold. It will be tragic if, with this truly great and unique situation upon us, we, the followers of Christ, whether missionaries or Indian leaders, are found unequal to the task of leading India's most influential men and movements to Christ, and if one of the biggest opportunities ever offered to the Church should pass away without being used to the fullest possible measure.
"The Indian President of the National Missionary Society of India, in speaking on 'The Missionary Responsibility of the Church in India,' said: 'Leaders of Indian thought and opinion all over the country are today looking up to Jesus with growing regard and admiration, and there is an unprecedented preparedness on their part to listen to the really vital gospel message. . . . On the other hand, the Church is not equally prepared on her part for an advance towards non-Christian India. There are large sections of the Church whose attitude towards evangelism is one of apathy, not to speak of some who are even anti-pathetic. While non-Christian India is saying like the Greek delegation, 'Sir, we would see J es~£s,' the Church is not ready to take the place of Andrew and Philip. The common complaint is that while Jesus Christ attracts people, the Church repels them. To build a more Christlike Church in India must be the supreme duty of missionaries and Indian Christians alike and the task will call for their closest possible cooperation in every sphere of work.' "
Another hindrance to Christianity in India, one that has often been mentioned, is the life of many Europeans and Americans who are looked upon by the Indians as Christians. It is difficult for this
influence to be counterbalanced by the consistent lives of many whose example, testimony and service has been notably Christlike.
For Christ to conquer India, the lives of His people must be more in harmony with His Book. The first place must be given to the Bible as the guide of life and the authoritative history of Jesus and His message. Missionaries or Western teachers who ~ast doubt or discredit upon the Book that has been translated and placed in the hands of the people discredit themselves as messengers of Christ. The editor of Dnyanodaya truly says: "India is turning to the Bible for a correct idea of Jesus, and India is also insisting on what one leading Indian Christian speaks of as 'India's right to interpret Jesus and His" path of salvation" in its own way.' This is clear from a thousand facts that appear daily, facts which illustrate the astonishingly unique position occupied by the Bible among India's remarikable religious literature."
It is the Church of Christ in India that mUi'lt be given the Bible and must be given the opportunity to interpret the teachings of Christ and to apply them to daily problems, conduct and the promotion of Christianity. The young Church must be allowed to grow, to suffer, to learn, to try its strength, to realize its dependence on God and its responsibility to Him. Christianity must pervade Indian life and customs, Indian literature and law, Indian industry and politics, Indian family and social life, Indian education and religion.
The Christians of India are capable of great spiritual development, of remarkable self-sacrifice and of large achievements. They need education; they need concrete example and encouragement; they need to see that Western Ohristians practiee as well as teach absolute dependence on God and His Word for guidance and for power to live in harmony with the teachings of their Divine Master. Christianity is unique in its Way of Life through forgiveness of sin brought by the sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God, on the CrosFl. India has nothing like this, but India can understand this Gospel. The Holy Spirit can bring Indian Christians into a realization of the power of God in the life that now is and for the life that is to come.
OHRISTIAN INE'LUENOE IN DOSHISHA UNIVERSITY I N February, on the eve of the semi-centennial celebration of the founding of Doshisha University by Joseph Hardy Neeisma, a disturbance took place which was said to be due to the President's plan to strengthen the Christian purpose and spirit of the institution. This was founded by a Ohristian Japanese as a Christian college, but the effort to establish a high educational standard in all of the departments has led to the employment of a large number of non-Christian teachers who are not in sympathy with the Christian purpose and program. In order to maip.tain the Ohristian
EDITORIAL COMMENTS
character of a missionary institution, professors are sometimes selected from Ohristians not properly qualified to teach. This naturally creates much dissatisfaction on the part of students. Those who are inclined to be radical and rationalistic also object to all religious influence in their education. There was some opposition to education through the English language and the application of the so-called "Dalton System" of education in the University. These plans are, however, favored by the graduates.
The trouble seems to have been largely due to misunderstanding on the part of certain non-Ohristian professors and students concerning the movement for reform in pedagogy and discipline. The rumor was started that the President intended to get rid of non- Ohristian teachers and professors, of whom there are a considerable majority in some of the departments. There was a short-lived effort to secure the resignation of the President and the Dean, but the misunderstanding has been cleared up and peace restored. Large numbers of Japanese have entered the school in the spring term so that the problem. is how to provide for them.
One thoroughly familiar with the educational work in Japan, says: My judgment in regard to having a large number of non-Christian professors is that if you have such a situation you do not, in fact, have'a Christian institution. .. It is difficult in any case. So many of the first generation Christians are inclined to compromise with their non-Christian environment and pander to it, as was true in the early days of Christianity …
But it is no easy task to find qualHied Christians. There seems to be a lack somewhere in preparing such professors. The Government has its normal and higher normal schools but there is no such institution among the Christian institutions. .. This is one of the subjects for conference in connection with the next annual meeting of the F'ederation of Christian Missions …
There was a strike in another missionary school in Japan last fall because the institution was not Christian enough. The students were displeased with a dean who seemed to be lowering the Christian colors in order to get numbers and a larger sum in fees.
Some of us are more and more coming to the conclusion that largeness spells defeat of our Christian pnrpose in mission instit.utions. With a small number, say about three hundred and fifty or four hundred, we can keep the institutions Christian and permeate the student body with Christian ideals and Christian cosmology. Above that nnmber, the problem becomes increasingly impossible …
This raises again the question of the wisdom of employing a large number of non-Ohristian teachers in a Ohristian missionary institution in order that the scholastic standards may be maintained. It is difficult in a non-Ohristian land to secure a sufficient number of properly trained Ohristian professors. The effort to reach the standards required for government recognition and to enable the institution to offer educational opportunities under Ohristian auspices to as large a number as possible, has led some to adopt a policy that seems to many to compromise the distinctly Ohristian character of
higher educational missionarv institutions. It is difficult to avoid the tendencies of the time au'd in some cases the good has become the enemy of the best. Intellectual standi.ng should never be empha·· sized at the expense of the evangelical Christian message and influence. In most of the missionary institutions, however, the Christian character and training have been kept to the fore. In Doshisha University a few months ago Rev. Paul Kanamori conducted a very fruitful evangelistic campaign.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH THE AMERICAN BOARD D R. EDWARD C. MOORE, in a recent address, reviewed the twenty-five years of his experience with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was elected a member of the Prudential Committee in 1899, became chairman in 1905 and president of the Board in 1914. Among the prominent men active in the Board and in the missions in 1899 were Dr. Samuel B. Capen, Dr. Judson Smith, Mr. D. Willis James, Dr. George Washburn and Dr. Elias Riggs of Turkey, Dr. Daniel C. Green and ,T. H. DeForest of Japan. Professor Moore says that the Prudential Committee has stood for a conservative type of theology but that theological views have not weighed in consideration of men for membership on the Board or in the acceptance of candidates for the field.
Among the notable historical events that have transpired in this period are the Boxer uprising in China, the capture and release of Ellen Stone in Albania, the establishment of "Yale in China," the Spanish-American War and the opening of missions in the Philippines, the Turkish Revolution and the Armenian massacres, the revolutions in China, the Shanghai Missionary Conference, the Edinburgh Conference, and the establishment of National Christian Coullcils in Japan, China and India. In America the "Laymen's Missionary Movement" and the "Interchurch World Movement" have come and gone.
Great progress has been made in medical and in higher educational work and in the employment of native workers during this period. The first year's receipts of the Board in 1810 to 1811 were $999, while the Board Centenary Fund reached the sum of $995,000. The Woman's Board celebrated its Jubilee in 1917 and helped to raise the total receipts to $1,247,000. Then followed the period of struggle after the World War. While the income has increased to over $2,000,000, expenditures have grown even more rapidly and debt has been an almost constant handicap.
Profcs8or Moore closes his report by saying that great as is the need of money, it is "personality upon which everything turns." He warns against the passion for mechanism and high organization.
A Y. M. C. A.· BANQUET OF MANY NATfONALITIElS, PREPARING FOR
IN AMERICA "I Was a Stranger"-in America BY FRED HAMILTON RINDGF;, NEW YORK "OURSecretary of the Industrial Department, International Y. M. C. A. melting pot apparently ha~d-?oils the aliens," remarks a modern newspaper. If so, It IS O1tr fault. The Church and Christian people are in constant danger of ignoring their responsibility for concrete service among the 14,000,000 foreign- a born and 22,000,000 of foreign parentage in America. "Here are millions of strangers in strange land," wrote the late Bishop Charles D. Williams,'" "in the solitude of the crowds, torn up by the roots from their native soil, stripped of the age-long traditions and customs that surrounded them from birth, having lost their old social conventions and standards and found no new ones; church, community, often family and home gone, for many of them are single men. Is it any wonder that they often lose their moorings and are driven by gusts of passion and carried by the ideas of strange life about them to moral shipwreck~" He continued: "Then consider the foreigner's experience. Frequently he is mercilessly exploited by our industrial system, eagerly seeking cheap foreign labor. He is a mere tool to be used, perhaps to be used up, in its process and then thrown carelessly into the scrap-heap. No one cares for his soul, his personality. Even his own countrymen who have come here before him and learned something of the language and customs of the strange land, frequently use their • In his book, "The GospeJ of Fel1owship." ~9
superior knowledge to prey upon him most rnthlessly. We all know what padrones do to their own people. If an immigrant has a family and sends his children to the public schools, these children are often socially ostracized by native-born American children, or children one degree removed from foreign birth. The finger of contempt is pointed at them. They are called 'dagoes' and 'hunkies.'
"By and by, perhaps, the home itself begins to break up. The children acquire a smattering of our language and customs, particularly the 'smarty' Americanisms of the streets, and they turn with contempt on the father and mother who persist in their queer foreign ways. And so the process goes on. Is it to be wondered at that life grows confused, loses its stability and its victims are driven to recklessness or else to an ingrowing association with those they still understand, their own people f"
What a challenge! It is the duty and privilege of every church and Christian organization to help aliens realize their hope of equality, freedom and justice in America; to help them to a better understanding of community life; and to give them a practical demonstration of the spirit of our Christianity.
It is the duty and privilege of every Christian agency to discover the number and character of the foreign population of the city, to study its needs, and learn what other agencies-philanthropic, patriotic and religious-are working for its welfare. A church, Y. M. C. A. or Y. W. C. A. owes it to the development of its membership in Christian service and self-sacrifice, to interest men and women in such volunteer work as teaching immigrants the language of our country, aiding them to appreciate its laws, rights, and institutions, and giving them opportunities for adequate self-expression. Work among immigrants should be coordinated in every city by bringing together representatives of the various welfare societies. Real Christian Americanization is one of the most practical channels of home missionary service. In this work the prayer of our ~faster "that they may be one" may find fulfillment. The foreign-speaking aliens will often be suspicious of our motives. But their suspicions may be turned into implicit faith through unselfish endeavor which will help them understand that the spirit of Christ is "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God."
A common experience is that of a Porto Rico boy brought into touch with Christian men for the summer. Said he, "When you first gave me a: Bible, I got Him in my head. Now, I have been with you all summer, and," touching his breast, "I have Him in my heart!" A Dane, who usually spent his Sundays in carousing with his fel- low countrymen, after attending a series of religious meetings de- cided to become a Christian.. Next morning he went to his work in the steel mill where he had been for fifteen years, and said to the man next to him: "Do you know, I have the greatest joy in my life that I have even known ~ I am a changed man. I have accepted Christ."
"Oh, that is nothing new," said his frieno, "1 have been a mem-
"l925] "I WAS A STlRANGER"-IN AMERICA
ber of the church for sixteen years." "What, you a Ohristian T" said the new convert, "I don't believe it I You could never have had the joy which I have, .and kept it to yourself! I don't believe you were ever converted."
Though the Dane could not speak perfect Eng'lish, he became a real spiritual force and within a year, out of ten men who worked in his gang, seven were led to Ohrist. He was made a deacon in his church, organized a new Sunday-school and expects to give hi81ife to Ohristian Americanization work.
A Scotchman who had dug coal for twelve years in the old country and expected to do nothing else, came in touch with one of the Y. M. O. A. coal miners' Institutes. He took the mining course, passed successfully the state examination, and within eighteen months from the time he started, was promoted to a superintendency. Through the influence of the Association he cut out drink and was restored to active service in the church.
It is necessary to serve people where they are as well as where we are. A secretary thus describes some of his recent experiences: "I have spent two days on the banks of the Hudson, and find foreigners in every town along the river. In the quarrying industry, they are the men who do the hard work. Last evening a group of about sixty lfagyars came toget.her. There wa;; no place where they could meet, so we proposed to study in the open air. .A barn was WORTHY OF A WELCOME-FROM NORWAY close by, and inside two quarry carts. We asked the men to take these out. Two gasoline lamps were lighted, and I stood between these in the barn and gave the men their first lesson. Of course, with the gasoline, barn smell, and garlic, the occasion did not lack the flavor of real life. This evening the first lesson was given to a group of Italians in the store of the Italian commissariat. Inside the counter Mike Cappitala slyly dispensed 'near-beer,' and on the other side I dispensed English. We got the lesson down, but not quite as fast as the other fellows got down the beer. "
An Italian bootblack entered the Young Men's Institute in New York one nig·ht behind one of the bulky members and got into the gallery, where he watched with wondering eyes the men on the gymnasium floor. This appealed to the boy; he wanted to join, but was a year shy of the entrance age. When he had passed his sixteenth birthday, he paid his membership fee, found a class where he might learn to read and speak English, and studied hard to be on an equal
footing with the other members. From that class he went into more advanced English training, and took up mathematics. By persistent effort and by the influence of Christian friends, he has become a man of education and sterling character. He is now superintendent of one of the large life insurance companies.
There are innumerable instances that might be cited of personal service rendered to foreigners by Christian workers. Experienced volunteer workers among foreigners agree that they secure ample reward for their" work from the touching appreciation manifested. One night-school student writes: "The teachers have done the lessons so interesting that the evenings have passed as real entertainments. So far, attendance has been steady without any persisting to it. It is beyond our power of expression to say the full A COSMOPOLITAN ENGLISH CLASS PREPARING FOR CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP Six nationalities represented: 2 Czechs, 2 Ukranians, 2 Greeks, 1 Mexican, 2 (}ermans. 2 Austrians measure of thanks we feel. .Also it is beyond our power to carryon such work ourselves. Weare entirely dependent on you. It is my wish, if we were able in the near future, to contribute something towards the support of the work."
People from other lands hate to be patronized. Why should not the Church assume its rightful place of leadership in bringing about this universal mutual understanding and eympathyf Christian Americanization is a process of getting into tune. A symphony orchestra is composed of many players, using different instruments, but complete harmony is possible when they play in tune. America is a great orchestra of more than fifty racial groups, and harmony will be achieved only when foreign and nativeborn learn to play in tune. "I was a stranger, and ye took me in!"
Reaction Toward
BY PAUL W. HARRISON, M.D., KUWEIT, ARABIA Author of "The Arab at Home"
I T is a time of transition and confusion in Arabia, with currents and cross currents flowing in every direction. Much on the surface has no appearance of stability, and the permanent elements in the currents underneath are not easy to determine. Almost every possible reaction to the gospel message is seen, but an ominous black thread of uniformity runs through them all.
An Arab worthy of study in this connection is Mullah Fulan, a leader of the Bedouin Wahabees, an exceedingly fanatical desert sect which calls itself "The Brethren." This old blind teacher, on first acquaintance, appears to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing during the changes of the last ten years. More intimate acquaintance confirms the ~mpression that he has indeed forgotten nothing. His devotion to Islam is as unquestioning and sublime and intolerant as ever. He would sacrifice his life unhesitatingly rather than give up so much as one jot or tittle of his convictions. When war broke out recently between the desert Brethren, of whom is a leader, and the coast town where he lives, he expressed the hope pnblicly and emphatically that the town might be taken and sacked by the true believers, so that it might thereby be cleansed of its iniquities. He was imprisoned and barely escaped execution for this treason, but he bent to the storm not an inch nor restraeted so much as a syllable.
Mullah Fulan has forgotten nothing, but he has learned a great deal. He knows that the eventual success of his beloved leader, Bin Saoud, will depend upon the British allowing him a free hand. He knows that in spite of the bloodthirsty exploits of the "Brethren" their power is as that of grasshoppers in comparison with the West. All this he knows, as do the Brethren in the depths of the inland deserts, but the Gospel gains no advantage on that account. The West is not loved because it towers above the Arab in point of military strength. Rather, it is hated more cordially than ever, and its religion is hated along with everything else from that part of the world.
Upon coast Arabs the impact of Western civilization, during the past ten years, has made a far deeper impress than upon the desert Brethren. Such a man is Sheikh Abdullah who rules over one of the coast towns of Arabia. He has visited England, and been invited to inspect the great British petroleum works in Persia. His pride in things Arabic has disappeared, and now his people chafe under the rule of a sheikh who, to their mind, has lost every kingly line from the outline of his soul. He has learned a little English and wishes 433
to know more. He has a cook who can prepare an English meal. To his great delight friends from among the Britli'ih political agents and the local missionaries have secured for him a complete outfit of table cloth§, _dishes, cutlery, and glassware. Thus is his soul delighted. It is a pathetic thing to see a man, whom birth has set upon the throne of a king, bring to his task the soul of an amiable child. Does this man, who looks with no pride upon his own people with their superb racial inheritance, regard his religion with doubt and misgiving 7 He does not. Having lost much of his racial self-esteem he clings with renewed determination to the faith in which he was born. Missionaries take dinner with him and enjoy a creditable English meal. He enjoys them, but with the express understanding that religion is something that cannot be changed.
Idris is a moderately prosperous merchant, a keen well-informed man with an appetite for world news which no great number in America could equal. He sees much further below the surface of world affairs than does the ruler of his city. The tinsel of Western civilization has not fascinated him and he wastes no time on table cloths and English dinner services. He knows that the thing which his people need is modern education. Twelve years ago this man organized a school whose attendance runs into the hundreds. The management however passed out of his hands, and the more conservative element gained control, insisting on a curriculum which to his mind did not meet the needs of the situation. He proceeded with unlimited energy to the organization of a second school which should be more modern. In all this the man could make only a moderate financial contribution himself. He secured the necessary funds and cooperation from other members of the community. Even the second school did not prove to be entirely successful, for the teachers that could be secured were insufficiently trained. Undiscouraged by this unsatisfactory outcome he has recently sent four of his most promising boys to Baghdad for training as teachers so that the school may have a better quality of instruction.
What is the motive behind this man's indefatigable labors .to promote education, and protect his city and his people from the evil influence and power of the West 7 Hasi he ever thought that the religion of the West might be a beneficial contribution for his own people 7 He has not. Effort such as this in our lives might be centered around patriotism but the Arab knows no patriotism as such. All he knows is religion. As far as the mind of another can be penetrated and understood, Idris' whole motive has been the service of his religion. Neither his race nor his country constitutes the object of his loyalty. StilI less his ruler whom in fact he would be glad to see deposed. His old outlook upon the universe he will give up without a qualm. The old learning which is so prized in all Mohammedan countries he can sacrifice with no misgivings. He is
192[;] ARAB REACTION TOWARD CHRIST'
convinced that his religion is the one true faith, that it is capable of meeting every problem presented by modern knowledge and present political conditions. He has worked all his life in the service of his faith. To interpret his interest in modern education as evidence of a weakening grip on the part of his religion is to find ourselves about as far from the truth as it is possible to get.
This next man, a young man, is a brother of the director of customs. He has had a moderate amount of education and reads newspapers. His knowledge of the affairs of the world does him credit. He is pathetically friendly toward the missionaries. He will listen courteously to a discussion of Christianity. I doubt if he would resent a courteous and sincere explanation of the weak features of his own religion. But he is not therefore near to the Kingdom of God. The influx of Western civilization has exposed him to temptations that he might possibly have avoided otherwise. More probably he would not have avoided them. He is still a Moslem but his life is so flagrantly immoral and wicked that he has the respect of no one. He is friendly to the missionaries largely because lacking friendship elsewhere he is willing to accept it here.
Unfortunately this man is typical of many of these days. During the war the tide of Western civilization came in with a great rush. It is receding now and, stranded without character or faith, with nothing to cling to or believe in, thousands of these men are to be found all over Mesopotamia and to a less extent throughout the Gulf. Immorality and drunkenness were never so common even in the days of the Turks as they are now. Unbelief was never so prevalent. These men are perhaps the farthest of all from the Kingdom of God. Bound by no sanctions, ethical or social or religious, they seem to have no standard of morality whatever and the world to them is a black stormy landscape without a ray of light. Overcome by appetites and sins, they lack even the elementary faith in God which their religion once provided. It is a tribute to the extraordinary strength of Islam that these utterly stranded men form such a small percentage of the community. As the tide of Western domination recedes the great mass of people are found more or less where they were before.
Finally the rare man who is earnestly seeking the light, how does he react when brough into contact with the Gospel of Christ ¥ Such men exist and, even in the troubled times now upon us, they emerge on occasion. Their numbers indeed are larger than ever in some of our stations, notably in Mesopotamia. These men listen with interest, and look with longing upon the promised land of the Kingdom of God. They are captivated by the vision that gradually unfolds before their eyes as the missionary guides their spirits to a realization of what it is that Christ has to offer us. But more than ever they shrink from paying the price. It is a high price, and with
all the efforts of the British Government to bring in a reign of religious toleration and freedom it is doubtful if that price is substantially less than it was before. A convert does not always pay for his conversion with his life, but his life is always in great danger. Men's hearts have always quailed before such a prospect, and now more than ever they shrink from entering the Kingdom of God on such conditions. It is futile to speculate on the exact cause of this weakening of the moral fiber of the Arab. It may be that the assumption of the reins of government by aliens has weakened the Arab's rigid resolution and self-reliance. It is more likely that political changes which drive the stronger and more admirable types of men away from the vVesterner 's religion, attract weaker men.
Thus there is a black thread of uniformity running through all the bewildering variety of reception given the message of Christ in Arabia. The one thing that stands out, like the gaunt naked skeleton of an unfinished building, is the appalling undiminished grip in which Mohammedanism still holds the human heart. The outside plaster may crumble away only to make possible a more modern and attractive exterior. It may be possible that Islam is disintegrating, but no such impression is gained from experience in Arabia. It is at least equally possible, indeed far more so, that shaking off some of its handicaps under the pressure of modern word sentiment, it will emerge stronger than ever. In Turkey at least, the incubus of polygamy and free divorce appears about to be sloughed off. Such a change will not cripple Islam. It will stand forth a more formidable opponent of the Gospel than ever.
The Church of Christ faces in Islam not merely an unfinished task. She faces a task of appalling difficulty as yet scarcely begun. In the important centers of Moslem life, the voice of Christ's messenger is not even heard. There has yet to appear the first indigenous church called out by the Spirit of God from among the superb peoples now numbered among the followers of Mohammed. The campaign is being pushed by means of medical work. It is being carried forward by means of schools. We try to distribute the Scriptures far and wide. Above everything else the missionary tries so to live that, in meeting him, his Arab friends will meet Christ. What we need is not improved methods and better instruments. Our methods are not bad now, nor are the instruments impossible. We need better ones very much, but what we need above all things is power in the work, the power of God which transforms men and makes them partakers of the divine nature, converts who shall walk through the storms and fires of persecution in the power of God and not in the weakness of man, rocks like Peter upon whom Christ can build His Arabian Church. There has never been a time perhaps when the Church of Christ faced a more desperately difficult task, never a time when the prayers of God's children were more needed. BY GEORGE SCHWAB, BAKBAYEME, WEST AFRICA MJissionaJ"Y of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 19<J5· I F you ask American boys and girls, "vVhat is better t.han ice cream on a hot day~" they will perhaps tell you "More ice cream!" In Africa it is always "a hot day." If you were to give an African boy or girl a dish of ice cream, it would be tasted and then set down.
"Do you like it ~" you ask. "It's sweet, but it's hot!" his indirect answer would be. The few into whose hauds we have given a bit of ice, obtained from some steamer stopping off our coast station, have let it fall exclaiming, "It burns!" But these chocolate-hued boys and girls have something, which to them tastes as good as does ice cream to Americans. When one starts inland from the coast, there is first the low, level, forest-covered delta plain, home of the elephant. At Edea the great Sanaga River drops seventy five feet, making a most wonderful waterfall. This is the first rise from the plain. We march on for fifty miles, up and down the" children hills" until we reach Sakbayeme. The missionary has packed his camping outfit and is about to set out to visit his people and work- MR. SCHWAB AND A GORILLA (DEAD) ers. Down the bluff, upon which is built the station, he and his carriers walk and are ferried across the river in a canoe made of a hollow log. Then up and down he goes again, first over the "father and mother" hills, then over those which are "grandfathers and grandmothers" (very high). There are no "child hills" up there.
At the top of a pass is a small village. Everyone living there is helping build a new hut for the chief of the regiou. The palm leaf thatch roof is supported by walls of poles. Women are climbing 431 up from the spring carrying gourds filled with water to moisten the brown clay which other women are bringing in small baskets from back of the new hut. More women and children and a few old men are beating the moist clay with small paddles to make a hard fioor. The chief and most of the men are talking and telling the women and children how to work.
A shout of welcome is given the missionary and his party as they come to a halt before the group. 1.;Vork ceases. Remarks are in order.
"He is thirsty. Someone go cut sugar cane!" says one. "Find a pineapple! 'White men like pineapples!" says another. "Are there no new eggs in this village f 'White men eat new eggs, not those upon which hens have set or which failed to hatch chickens. " "His men are dying of hunger. There are ripe bananas in the hut of Who-Will-Hear-Me!" "White men never get sick or die. '1'hat's becaus·e they are always eating eggs~ which are' strong medicine' against illness." ,'Look, he uses his left hand!"
"Why, all whites are left-handed! Yau are an ignorant person not to know that. That's why they are all so strong."
"He has a gun! 'White man, our own father, will you not sleep in this village tonighU And today you will kill the wild animals which destroy our gardens 1 If you refuse to do this, we shall sicken of hunger this year. There is a man here who knows where the 'meat' lives and hides in the daytime."
"Yes, yes, sleep with us this night. You'll surely kill an animal today. Our gardens and plantations will be saved!"
They continue to talk and say much more in regard to the wonderful gun and still more wonderful ability of the missionary as a hunter.
Finally it was settled that one of the carriers, who "knew hunting," was to remain behind. A man of the village, who "knew the things of animals and forests" would guide him. Then, after "words of God," the missionary went on some miles to where his people had a "town of God"-a school and chapel.
About a mile from the "town of God," pupils, who Were returning home from school, were met. One ran back fast as a deer to tell all along the path the neWs of the coming of Bango. Everyone along the way followed the latter. You'd think that he was a circus parade I When the missionary reached the" town of God," he first went to the Chief's hut to "do the things of politeness," according to the African code. Messengers went out in all directions to spread the news that" our Bango has come!" Then the missionary went to the
AFRICAN ICE CREAM
guest's hut at the school compound, which was at the other end of the village, to prepare the camp.
"Who'll g'et water from the spring? 'Who'll cut banana leaves 1" asked the head carrier.
"I will! I will!" yelled a dozen boys. "He has fish hooks! He'll give us fish hooks!" "Give me the pail! My mother has a water gourd, I'll get it!" "Where is a machete, I want to cut banana leaves!" Such is the talk. . While the camp was being prepared, with a mat of banana leaves, the people from all about had gathered. All watched the unpacking of the camp things. You should CARRYING A "FREEZER OF AFRICAN ICE CREAM" FOR A FEAST hear the yells as what looked like a bundle of sticks became a table! Another bundle of them makes a chair! A third bundle, a camp bed!
"Those whites, what skill God has put into their hearts!" "His men carry a whole village tied up in their loads!" "If I had a pot like that one, I would not need to buy a new one every time one of my clay pots falls down!" "I hope he will 'eat a can' (open a tin of something), so that I may get a thing for dipping water out of my jar!" "If he would only have an old shirt he despised and would throw it away! I'd have a new dress for Sunday." Our Africans think aloud. "Someone beat the drum. We'll enter the house of God so that I may find out who has been thinking of and learning the things of the followers of God," says the missionary. There is a rush to get the front seats; the people want to be as near as possible to their Sa'/t[Jo when he talks to them.
The sun has reached the place where one says that" it will go to bed before the evening meal bas been cooked." "You will all be here before the sun has gotten out of bed in the morningF' is the last thing the missionary says.
"And who is there that will not be awake and out before he can see his feeH" replies someone. All now leave to reach their villages by twilight.
Suddenly there is a shout and much very loud talking is heard. "What's up nowf Is there a spear :fight somewhere?" asks the missionary. Those who have not yet left rush towards the noise, to miss nothing. The yelling comes nearer. From out the bushes at the side of the guest hut, where goes the path, there come back the people who have just gone. And many more. It seems that everyone has gone crazy mad. "What is making (doing) 1" asks the missionary as he, bewildered, looks at the people, so fluiet only a few moments before. "A pig! A great wild hog! A boar! Your hunter and eight men are 'Carrying him in! Here he is, just look at his size!" So that is it. The African "Ice Cream" has come! For wild hog meat is the "ice cream" of the Basa. Boys and men have their arms around each other, dancing, jumping, yelling, mad with joy at the thought of that pig meat to eat. Girls and women are doing the same. Noone listens to anyone else. All talk. You never heard or saw the like! "My loin cloth! You are pulling it to pieces!" II My grass skirt!"
"Who ever saw such a hunter?" "I hope it is very, very fat! How I like fat meat!" IIIf my husband were a Ohristian, I could eat a piece. We poor women are deserving of pity. ·What the men like best is taboo for us."
"Look at his long tusks. If he had not been killed by that :first 1;hot. there would now be no hunter."
"Pity my brother! He cannot see this great sight. Vl11y is he not here~"
"Why will not Bango build his town here and live with usT Pig meat would be ours every day then." Thus they screamed.
The hog carriers had reached the space before the guest hut and put the pig down. The pole was pulled from under the skin. When the African carries a dead pig, he slits the very tough and thick hide of the back in four places. Thus he has two II straps" which cannot tear or break. Under these two "straps" he thrusts a long pole and off he walks.
While everyone was joy-mad and boar-meat-hungry, the missionary was not. He was mentally dividing that hog so that everyone legally entitled to some of the African "ice cream" could get
a taste. These were : the men who had carried in the hog from the forest. Native custom says thE'Y must get all of the neck. There was the chief of this place and the one from where the carriers came; the teacher and his family here and three others in villages some miles away; the men who provided the missionary's carriers with food and the women who oooked it; the influential members of the community; some guests staying with the chief-they must he made to feel that the chief is a great man, so great that the white man thinks even of his guests; fifty local school boys. No wonder the missionary was not dancing for joy with the others! .
, Now he walks over to where the "ice cream" is lying upon the ground and lifts his arm.
"Silence! Silence I Silence!. Sango is going to talk!"
In a minute you could hear a leaf fall. The laughing, excited faces have changed. Everyone was anxiously asking himself the terrible question he had not before thought of, "Am I going to get a piece ~ " Then the missionary cans one of his men, who is to be the hewer-up of the hog.
Banana leaves are laid down, the pig put on these and the hacking begins. Meanwhile a half dozen boys come running with their mother's wooden bowls to catch any blood which may come out. Not a "drop" of this "African ice cream" is to he wasted.
No one thinks of leaving. The evening cooking is forgotten. There is nothing in the world, for the moment, except those chunks of red meat. What if the machete does cut through the leaves, and' dirt gets on them! If a piece falls, there is only a lot of brown clay on it!
All crowd closer and closer, until the hacker can scarcely wield the machete. The comment and exclamations continue. At last the chunks are ready and the missionary is called to announce how the "ice cream" is to be divided. How tensely quiet all have become! "Am I going to taste it'" is the question on every shiny brown face.
The chiefs, teachers, carriers, all the rest, each one's portion is pointed out and handed over. The school boys must wait, for their portion is not yet made into morsels. More have come in. How small that piece seems for those sixty standing closely huddled and with mouths watering! The teacher has the unenviable task of dividing it into sixty equally large and desirahle bits. And he has never even heard of geometry! The boys form a squirming, wriggling, jabbering, gesticulating, loin-clothed mass, resemhling the dwellers in a disturbed ant heap. Eyes seem popping from their sockets and necks are stretched to the limit.
After a time, "now stand back and stand quietly, I'll call each one of you to come forward for his share," says the teacher. They try to obey-but each fears he may not get that precious tiny bit of pig meat and so all try to be at least second or third.
"My piece is all meat!" "Mine has some fat!" "Woe is me, there is bone in my bit!" "If there had been two pigs, then we could each have had a reaC piece!" "It is small, who'll deny this1 But today I taste meat for the first time in two moons!" "I am dying of meat hunger!" Many more such remarks follow fast. As they feel in their hearts, so they speak aloud. There is no more "ice cream" on the banana leaf; all have been "served." "What did Bango do first when he came to our village'" asks the teacher. "He first called on our chief," pipes someone. "Yes, that's what he did. And why' Because that belongs to the things of politeness. I bear shame in my heart because you have forgotten the things of politeness of the white man which I have taught you. Only two boys said to Bango, 'We are grateful.' And there are six tens of you!" Now a great shout goes up: "Oh Bango, our Bango, we are gratefull" And one added, "Bango, so great was our meat-hunger and so great our fear that we would not get any, that we forgot. Porgive your children, Bango. We are all your very own children." "Now go home to your huts and eat," were the teacher's words as he turned to enter his own. But-Brr! Whing! It looked like a football game with si.'{ty players. The boys had never lost sight of the leaves where the boar had been hacked up and as soon as the teacher had stepped back, there was a wild rush to that spot. You would have thought that for some unknown reason they had suddenly gone mad! For whaU For the dr:ops of "ice cream" which might have fallen as the machete cut the bone and meat, even though they might be mixed in with the earth and not half as big as the rubber on the end of a lead pencil. Nat one ., speck" of that precious meat could be left for ants to carry away during the night. The boys preferred to save the ants this work and 1.0 eat the crumbs themselves.
The day is over. As the missionary rises from his mat of banana leaves before the cot and pulls up the mosquito net to lie down to rest, he hears a knock on the wall of the guest hut-it has no door. "Who is there~" he asks. "I," replies a very scared and timid voice. "You? And who are you and what is it you aTe now wanting¥"
"A Sango, I want thus-I, I want to follow you and to go to live at your town. I am only a small school boy; I know nothing.
1925J 'l'HE HAUSA PEOPLE AND THEIR LANGUAGE
Rut I should like to live at your town where I could learn and where there is a gun and a hunter. I think that you would sometimes give me just a little, little piece of pig's meat. You will not refuse to let me go with you ~"
"In the morning we'll see about this thing you are asking, to learn what your mother says. Now you are to go and give God thanks for this day and sleep."
"I go, Bango." Then the missionary blew out his candle. There was no sleep until long after midnight in that community. All were too excited about the boar, the hunter, the meat. Yet at "the time the birds begin to talk"-earliest grey dawn-somebody was already beating the chapel drum to call the people to prayers. The missionary had already made bundles of his camping things and swallowed a meager breakfast. Young and old came from out the forest streaming into the chapel-()ver two hundred and fifty of them. Words of help, comfort and admonition were given. "Seek ye first the things of the Kingdom of God and hold to them. Wild boar is for today only, the things of God are for today, tomorrow and for all the days to come." Then with a farewell: "God help you until the day we again meet," the carriers picked up their loads and the missionary and his party started down the village street as the sun was rising. At the head of this party marched the proudest and happiest boy in all the Cameroons, he who had knocked at the wall .of the guest hut the night before. He was carrying the gun and was on his way to the town of the missionary, where he could get now and then some African "ice cream."
The Hausa People and Their Language BY REV. C. F. BEITZEL, BUNUNU, NORTHERN NIGERIA "THE A Missionary of the Sudan Inter:or Mission land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia" describes the location and condition of the Hausas. These millions of people are spread over thousands of miles but of them the world has heard little. Only in recent years has Hausaland been opened to the world. The origin of the Hausas is enshrouded in mystery. They themselves can not agree on their beginning. One theory offered is that they came from Egypt. One writer tries to prove that they are related to the Bantu tribes of Central Africa by showing a similarity between a few words of their languages. But the words are few, and all their other characteristics deny the relation. The best founded theory and one that the Hausas support most strongly is that they came from the far E'ast
(beyond Mecca). Their slender forms, features, high foreheads and language testify strongly to this. Their language in form and articu- lation is akin to English, Spanish and somewhat to the German. It is free from the cliques of the Bantu and from the harsh, guttural sounds of the Yoruba and other West African tongues.
The name "Hausa" is applied to nearly all who have a good knowledge of the language which is the trade language of the greater part of the Sudan. The fact that millions of people in this great area speak Rausa may not mean much in Europe or America but it means much for Central Africa which is a Babel of tongues. What a blessing this language is in the midst of this confusion! What a vehicle to make Christ known! What the Greek language was in the days of Christ and as a means of evangelizing the whole known world this language is for the whole Sudan with its fifty millions of dark- ened souls. Here can be found hundreds of tribes numbering from 200 to 2,000 with entirely distinct languages and customs in no re- mote way even related to their neighbors. It would take hundreds of missionaries to enter all these distinct tribes. If there should be one new missionary occupying a community of 10,000 every day it would take ten years to reach the Sudan I But by using the Hausa tongue as a medium we can reach many different tribes because the Hausas are great traders and travelers and their settlemeuts may be found as far removed as Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli, Mecca, Lagos, and the Gold Coast. The English Government is also fostering the use of the Hausa tongue in its courts, schools, etc. It is easy to learn and is capable of extension by adding foreign terms-a difficult thing in most African languages. This is perhaps the only African lan- guage which has developed a literature of its own.
Many of the Hausas are still pagan, practising tree and serpent worship, but the great mass of them are nominally Moslem since the Moslem Fulahs who at first settled among them peaceably finally overran the great country from Timbuctoo to Bornu and introduced Islam into the Sudan about one hundred years ago.
The Hausas are much more difficult to convert to Christianity than the ordinary pagan since they are proud and make much of their superior intelligence. They love sinful pleasures which Islam permits and that religion gives them great influence in their trading with the Arabs and other North African tribes. .
The Hausas presen' one of the greatest challenges to Chris- tianity today, but their turning to Christ and His service would solve the problem of evangelizing Central and North Africa.
Some of their centers have now been entered and little groups of Hausa Christians are gathering at Lokoja, Zaria, Minna, and Kano. Zinder, far to the north on the border of the Sahara, has recently been opened.
Praise God for the" First fruits!"
Christianity Solve the Race Problem? *
BY REV. ROBERT M. LABAREE, D.D., LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, PA.
W ITHIN the last few months four deeply significant books on the race problem have issued from the press. Their sig- nificance is partly due to the fact that they are the work of white men representing rather widely separated sections of their own race. The authors are respectively a Scotchman, an Englishman, an American citizen born and brought up in the north and another bred a southerner. Their earnest and, better still, their frank discussion of the issues involved proves how in many parts of the white world men are realizing clearly the seriousness of these questions, and are having deep heart searchings on the subject. In this respect works like these are but indications of a very widespread interest. Through our modern means of intercommunication races touch and jostle each other as never before. As a result never before have so many discussions appeared in book and magazine on the vital question of right race relationships. These discussions of the past year or two have been written from every possible standpoint, and show a wide divergence of views; but they all indicate the supreme importance of the problem.
But perhaps the chief characteristic that distinguishes these four works from the other literature on the subject is that they are written wholly from the Christian point of view. They seek to find a Christlike solution for the strained and taugled problem of interracial relations. They all realize that while we must bring to bear on the knotty points the most earnest thought and the best scientific methods, yet after all t.here can be no permanent solut.ion IDlless we apply to them the spirit and the principles of our Master; and that it is this Christian attitude of heart and mind that alone gives any hope in the difficult task.
It is interesting to note how the four authors stress the fact that this is a world problem. Even Mr. Weatherford, whos'e interest. is largely in the welfare of the Afro-American, devotes his first chapter the world-wide aspects of our local difficulties. He realizes that our experiences here in our own country are practically the same wherever men of different races meet and clash. 'fhis fact cuts both ways. It confronts the man who would preach peace and goodwill to the antagonistic groups in Asia, but who refuses to apply the same principles to our own vexed social relations. If Christ has a mes- • ChrlsUanlty and the Race Problem. J. H. Oldham, M.A. 265 pp. $2.25. New York. 1924 The Clash of Color. Basil Mathews. 169 pp. $1.25. New York. 1924. Race and Race Relations. Robert E. Speer. 428 pp. $3.50. New York. 1924. Of One Blood. Robert E. Speer. A brief(~r study based upon the above for use by the Council of Women for Home Missions and Missionary Education Movement of the United Sta.tes and Canada. 254 pp. 50c and 75c. New York. 1924.
The Nel'ro from Africa to America. W. D. Weatherford. 487 pp. :&5.00. New York. 1924.
445
sage of love and human brotherhood to the inhabitants of Johannes- burg, Calcutta and Tokyo, he has the same message to the men and women of New York, Atlanta and San Francisco. On the other hand the far-reaching character of the problem may bring something of comfort to the white or colored brother who grows despondent over conditions here. It may help him to realize that ours is only a small sector of the battle line.
But if similar conditioIls face us everywhere, the fact goes to show how natural such situations arc. Weare to expect them, they are as old as history, they have developed in every part of our globe. They are an ever-recurring illustration of what we may well call the nasty spirit of man, whereby the "ins" always seek to exclude the "outs" from sharing in their privileges. Pride and contempt and jealous passion for supremacy meet, yes create, seething unrest, resentment and hate. This is human nature, but human nature at its worst; and it is all the sadder in our day because just such contacts and conflicts as these reveal how little the spirit of Christ has permeated our economic and social relations.
To one fact all the many writers, whatever their other differences, agree. It is the serim6sness of this world problem. The races are gathering in hostile camps. Are we drifting into a world conflict more terrible than any we have yet seen ~ The question is being raised not only by alarmists but by many of the best-informed conservative students of international affairs.
No one, for example, who is familiar with conditions here in America, can shut his eyes to the acuteness of our own special race problem. This is not due to the white man's invention of new forms of discrimination against the colored man, but rather to the changing attitude of the latter to everything that carries with it the brand of inferiority. Every phase of the bar sinister is resented more keenly with each passing year. This is the result of the growing intelligence and perfectly proper pride that comes with intelligence. The wounded self-esteem is not made callous by repeated rebuffs but becomes more sensitive. The educated and self-respecting Negro is therefore quick to imagine a slight when none is perhaps intended; nor can you wonder at it. If the waiter in the restaurant is slow and indifferent in his service, if the telephone girl is pert and saucy, if the clerk in the store is rude and unobliging, the first thought to rise in his mind is, "Would these people treat white folks in this way or is it just because I am colored?" Ji'rom many sad experiences he jumps to the conclusion that it is only another manifestation of the contempt in which he is held, and his spirit is rasped and irritated. If you blame him try to put yourself in his place.
This deepening resentment is reflected in the newspapers and magazines which are issuing in such numbers from the colored press. Frankly they do not make pleasant reading for the whites. Wrongs
CAN CHRISTIANITY SOLVE THE R.kCE PROBLEM
and injustices perpetrated by the majority group are published abroad in head-lines; lynchings are set forth in all their horrid details; every new aggression by members of the dominant race the world over is commented on and the moral pointed. The stories so widely circulated of Negro "uppishness" and "insolence," although grossly exaggerated, owe what truth they have to this increasing self-consciousness and growing resentment of the colored man. All this we usually attribute to the work of agitators. Agitation may stimulate but it does not create the feeling of exasperation. Radicalism always thrives -where there are the most social wrongs. The colored man is not by nature a radical on any question; but if smarting under the sense of what he regards as injustice, he is ever driven into the ranks of the extreme socialists or into the arms of revolutionary demagogues, we shall have ourselves to thank.
But it is in the international field that this question assumes its gravest aspects. Hostility to the dominant race which is extending its political control to every remote corner of the world, and exploiting every weak or backward people, is growing apace. Not only do such Christian statesmen as Dr. Speer and Mr. Oldham raise the note of warning with no uncertain sound; but the uncompromising advocates of Nordic supremacy like Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant are equally emphatic in calling attention to it. Our neWspapers every day bring to us fresh illustrations of the truth, that all Asia from one end to the other, Africa., north, south, east and west, the islands of the sea, whether it be Haiti in the west or the Philippines in the east, are in a state of feverish uurest. To be sure, some of these peoples are demanding rights and privileges for which some think they are unfitted as yet; but whether wisely or foolishly the colored races of the world are making common cause against white aggression. – Can we escape the suicidal race war so dismally foretold by many a prophet of our times? Professor Williams of India and others like him are sure that we can. He tells us that "the impending struggle between the East and the W-est, foretold by many persons who cannot be classed as visionaries or fanatics, may be easily mitigated or entirely averted" by treating these other races with simple justice. And each of the four writers we are reviewing is of the same mind. Mr. Mathews assures us that all that we need is "team work," the same sort of cooperation that leads a man in soccer to pass the ball to his team mate rather than dribble it down the field by himself. In other words, if the Anglo Saxon would stop talking of the "white man's burden" and cooperate with the other races on the basis of a real brotherhood, many of the most acute causes of friction between them would be dissipated.
We must not, however, delude ourselves into the idea that such questions as these are easy of solution. Such cheap and superficial optimism can be attaiued only by shutting our eyes to the facts.
There are indeed two opposite extremes equally to be avoided. One of these is that race antagonism is "rooted in primitive instinct"; in other words, it is innate and ineradicable. If so there is no use beating our heads against a stone barrier; we shall only hurt ourselves and do no good. On the contrary, the facts seems to prove that racial prejudice is a complex of many instincts and mental attitudes. It is usually the result of economic and social competition and of fears that are born of that struggle. It it no more true of races than of competing nations and other social groups, only that in race intercourse physical dissimilarities add another element of friction. Color, or indeed any visible difference in form or feature, advertises the fact at the very first contact that the other ma1l belongs to what is regarded as a hostile or competitive group. One may for instance harbor an extreme prejudice against the Jews; but if one does not recognize the fact on meeting one, it is very possible to establish friendly relations with him; and wbenlater his despised nationality is discovered the chasm has already been largely bridged. Such an initial friendly approach to a Chinaman, Hindu or Negro is made impossible by the badge of their race which they mnst carry everywhere. It is this that makes the antipathy peculiarly sharp in cases of recognized physical differences. But there is nothing innate or insurmountable in the feeling. It is an inheritance from unfortunate experiences and relations in the past. Children as a rule do not possess it; they learn it from their elders, and therefore under proper conditions it can be unlearned.
On the other hand it would be just as unfortunate to approach the question with the notion that it is a simple one and the solution easy, It is in reality one of the most complex and baffling problems of our day. It has many ramifications, and the mere discussion of is arouses passions of the intensest order. Such feeling is justified by many in the name of science. The theory is held by some scientific students and received with eager approval in many quarters that the white man, especially if he is of the Nordic branch of the race, is by native ability and character the best in the world; that he is the creator and defender of our highest civilization and culture, and that therefore the maintenance and development of that civilization depend on the keeping of his blood pure from all taint of that of backward and inferior races, and on the securing for him the control of world affairs. For example, Prof. Josey in his book, "Race and National Solidarity," frankly holds that" a controlled exploitation of the backward races and the continued dominance of the white race will make for the greater good of man and will meet with the approval of God." If that be so, instead of seeking in the name of God to let down racial bars we must as servants of that God strive rather to keep the partitions between us intaCt; indeed we should raise them higher and make them more exclusive.
CAN CHRISTIANITY SOLVE THE RACE PROBLEM
This is dismal doctrine for the missionary and social worker. But fortunately it is not true.
In no part of the books before us is the discussion more satisfactory than in their treatment of this theory of the superiority of the white race. After a very thorough survey of all that has been said on both sides of the subject our authors have come to the decision reached by a growing number of sociologists (Boas, Goldenweiser, Lowie, Miller, etc.) that such claims in behalf of the white man are exaggerated and even unfounded. Races like individuals differ in qualities and abilities: no two of them are alike; and yet each of them has his own contribution to make to life. Mr. Oldham asks pertinently; "Is the winner of the Derby superior to the dray horse1 Is the engineer superior to the poet, or the scientific chemist to the captain of industry, or the prophet that stirs the conscience of the people, to the practical statesman who translates ideals into actual legislation?" God has made "of one blood" all the races of men, all are equally dear children of the Heavenly Father, and all are capable of climbing to the highest summit attainable by any of the sons of God. This is we believe the doctrine of God 's Word: and no physical measurements, nor psychological tests, nor present lack of achievement can shake our faith in that great and inspiring truth. Backward many of these peoples may seem to be, mere children in many ways; but circumstances can explain all that. It was not so many centuries ago that our German ancestors were in the rear guard of civilization. Through circumstances for which they can claim but little credit, they have advanced to the front rank. Others have not yet made the start or have temporarily dropped behind. An era of rapid progress may begin with them at any time. Already we see a startling speeding up of development in Asia. Who knows when some of these backward peoples may pass us in the race 1 Pride in our own achievements, and contempt for others are wholly unwarranted by the facts.
Space forbids the discussion of other complications "that make hard our task of establishing a real brotherhood between men of every color. 'I.'here is for instance the question of intermarriage. No phase of the subject excites greater heat. Even Christian men like Oldham and Speer do not see wholly eye to eye when they come to this problem. But whatever be the ultimate judgment upon this or any other difficulty in making our mutual adjustments, one principle we should adopt, and that is to choose whatever path is obviously just and Christlike, .no matter whither it may lead us.· The spirit of Christ will not alone solve any of the great world questio:p.s. The head must cooperate with the heart in ~very right solution. Scientific research and honest hard thinking are as important as love and Christian brotherliness. But the spirit of Christ aloriecan give the right approach. And, alas! it has been the iack of this 3
spirit that has so embittered our human relations. Nothing so blinds the judgment as pride and prejudice. We see this only too weU in the harsh and cfllel conclusions which once justified slavery in our own country and now equally support every form of racial aggres- sion and exploitation here and elsewhere.
We believe that already we are at the dawn of happier condi- tions. The frank discussion of these problems at the recent splendid missionary conference at Washington was both illuminating and re- freshing. Most emphatic was the demand, reiterated time and again from the platform, for justice and kindliness in our interracial and international relations. If Christianity cannot bring this about its mission will prove a failure; for men will have nothing to do with a religion that is handed down condescendingly to them from some supposed superior height of culture or virtue. In our own country there are many indications that the Christian conscience is being aroused' over our own race problem. Interracial committees are springing up everywhere throughout the South, in which earnest men and womfn of both races are striving to bring about a better understanding. At the Student Volunteer Convention in Indianapolis last year all such problems were seriously discussed by the young people. Some of the results of that convention are worth mentioning. On the way home from Indianapolis to Nashville, the delegates from the white institutions centering about the latter place went over in a body into the car occupied by the colored representatives from the district, to talk over frankly what could be done to make more Christian their relations to one another. Out of that discussion an intercollegiate interracial committee was organized which has been meeting regularly, and has developed a program that must seem radical to their elders. This last summer the young men's conference at Blue Ridge (white) sent a delegation to visit the colored men '8 conference at Kings Mountain, and later a return delegation from the latter went to Blue Ridge, where they were entertained in the dormitory of their hosts and in the common dining room. Recently a Bible study conference was held at Hampton, where delegatee. from practically every white and colored college in Virginia slept in the same building, and ate at the same table. A year ago such a gathering would have been regarded as impossible.
Now I would not have anyone think that these young people have solved any of the great problems at issue. But surely none of us can be blind to the fact that it is in just such frank friendly brotherly intercourse that not only our o"-"Il race questions but the larger world problems will lose much of that antagonism and ill-will which have made any settlement of them seem hitherto a hopeless task. Yes, Christianity can unravel this and every other tangled human relationship by creating the atmosphere in which alone all of earth's heated class and race problems can be solved.
Woman's Place in the
Enterprise * BY MRS. CHARLES KIRKLAND ROYS, NEW YORK l'oreign Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Chmch, U. S. A.
I N considering woman's place in the missionary enterprise our thoug'ht may profitably center around four aspects of the subject. .
First: Is there for woman a peculiar driving power in the mis- sionary movement 1 Second: What has been woman's achievement in missionary effort in the past 7 Third: Are there elements of success in the past which should be conserved in future effort? Fourth: In the adequate Foreign Mission program of the Church, what place shall be assigned to women 7 That the missionary enterprise has from the beginning held a compelling interest for women is inevitable. 'Vho should throw themselves wholeheartedly into missions if not those who owe to Christ their very ability to espouse any cause f The peculiar driving power for women in the missionary effort lies in the determination to open up for others the life of freedom, service and endless possi- bility which Christ has given to them.
Consider also certain characteristics with which woman by na- ture is endowed: her protective, tender instincts which are aroused by accounts of suffering womanhood and unprivileged childhood- needs which only woman in her work for woman could meet; her adventuresome faith which is undaunted by distance or difficulty.
Columbus would have had a poor time with his proposed voyage of discovery, had he dealt solely with men. It was a woman who believed that it could be done. Think of woman's achievement in that far greater adventure of the discovery for other women of the fair land of fulness of life and freedom.
A brief historic perspective on the emergence of women into missionary activity reveals certain significant facts: Two months before Carey baptized his first convert in India, the "Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes" was organized, nniting Congre- gational and Baptist women. Twenty-five years before Perry's deet entered the harbor of Yeddo, and thirty years before the Protestant Episcopal Church sent its first pioneer missiona.ry to Japan, a group of women in Brookline, Massachusetts, organized, and met regularly to pray for Japan and to contribute to its evangelization. In New ~ address delivered at the Foreign Missions Convention. Washington. 451
England the early societies rejoiced in the name "l!'emale Cent So- cieties," and of these not a few have existed to celebrate their Jubilee. .
With what consternation the men of the Church watched these doings of the women, is an old story. Turning in desperation to his elders, one Michigan pastor implored them to see to it that an elder be designated to attend each meeting, lest the women be in- discreet enough to offer voluntary prayer. There was no telling what women might pray for if left to themselves! A Board Secre- tary is on record as having said to his associates, "I cannot recom- mend bringing the women into this work." Of all these men one courageous soul stands out who staunchly maintained in the face of the other men "the help of pious females must not be spurned."
The economic condition of our country in the early part of the ninetee~th century was such that money was difficult to obtain. Out- side the spheres of domestic service and dressmaking there were no opportunities for women to earn money. The contributions to the missionary society, therefore, came in small amounts, and repre- sented chiefly the profits from selling eggs or butter or rags. No more illuminating illustration of the value of small gifts from many sources can be found than is revealed in the activity of those inde- fatigable women who went from door to door gathering small sums for the cause. How eloquent are the records found in the Treasurer's books of that day! Consider that first legacy received by the American Board, which was given by one Sally Thomas, a domestic whose wages never went beyond half a dollar a week, but who left to that Board three hundred and forty-five dollars and eighty-three cents!
Or listen to this letter written to the Treasurer of the Amer- ican Board in 1813: "Bath, New Hampshire. August 17, 1813.
"Dear Sir: "Mr. – – – will deliver $177 into your hands. The items are as follows: From an obscure female who kept the money for many years for a proper opportunity to hestow it upon a religious object ……………………………. $100.00 From an aged woman in Barnet, Vermont, heing the avails of a small dairy the past year …………… 50.00 From the same, being the avails of two superfious gar- ments ……………………………………. 10.00 From the Cent Societ.y in this place being half their annual subscription …………………………. 11.00 From a woman in extreme indigence. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 1.00 . My own dona~ion, being the sum expended hitherto in . ardent spirits in my family, but now totally discon- tinued …………………………………… 5.00 Total •…..'.•……………..•…..•…….. $177.00."
WOMAN'S PLAOE IN THE MISSIONARY ENTEID'RISE
In recording the gifts of women in these early days it is only fair to make note of the fact that much of the earnings of one at least of the Cent Societies was gained from making false bosoms for the shirts of the theological students in Princeton Seminary. The only pattern the good women of the society had was for a man weighing some two hundred and fifty pounds. In the record of mis- sionary self-sacrifice full credit should go to the poor young theolo- gians who suffered the inconvenience of ill-fitting collar bands, and who bought the false bosoms from the women of the missionary society!
Look through the record of gifts in those early days, and we find that the name of the woman donor is often suppressed, but the name of the transmitting pastor or elder is recorded in full, as for example, "From a female friend of missions per the Rev. John Thomas Green."
There is, therefore, revealed in woman's early missionary ac- tivity a remarkable, far-seeing faith; prevailing prayer; and conspicuous sel~-denial. Missions held a tremendous appeal for women.
Of zeal and devotion there was no lack, but there was sore need of organization and revision of methods. The Civil War called forth from the women of our land a service in hospital and barracks and home which developed, as no other experience could, an organizing ability hitherto unknown. At the close of the Civil War, women carried this newly acquired ability in cooperation and in systematized effort to the unorganized missionary endeavor. Women who formerly had been content to sit at one end of the family pew and watch their husbands at the other end putting into the collection box the family contribution to the work of the Church, had experienced during the war years the exhilaration of handling money by themselves. They now gave themselves to organizing the finances of their own missionary societies and Bo~rds. Those men who viewed with misgiving the activity of women in the beginning were not so stupid after all. Something had indeed been started!
The women of the Church were prepared by thirty years of prayer and effort for missions to respond at once to the appeal made in 1834 by an American missionary from China who urged them to organize and undertake the work in non-Christian lands which only women would carry. The denominational Boards stoutly resisted this dangerous innovation, and for thirty years or more prevented the organization of women's boards. The urge to organize these boards could not, however, permanently be held in check. Timid women who in small societies had been almost prostrated by the thought of reading aloud a portion of a missionary letter, were so inspired by the necessity of an organization of women to conduct work for women, that a perfect epidemic of woman's organizations soon occurred. In 1861 the Woman's Union Missionary Society in
New York, an interdenominational organization, came into being. Other organizations soon followed, and by 1900 nearly every leading denomination had a ·Woman's Board. Today there are over forty Women's Boards with a combined annual income of over six million dollars. There are an equal number of Woman's Boards of Home Missions with an annual income almost as great. The work of these Boards and the perfection of their organization is well known. The same genius which characterized woman's efforts in the realm of· temperance and suffrage has organized in volunteer service a mighty host of eager, intelligent, purposeful women in community, county, state and nation. No phase of missionary activity is so justly appraised at its full value. Men and women alike are sound in their clear appreciation of it.
Consider for a moment the tremendous range of achievement of the woman's missiona:ry societies: in practically all the non-Christian lands of the earth they hold property; rent buildings; recruit and educate thousands of evangelists, Sunday-school specialists, teachers, !.lditors, doctors and nurses; provide an educational system from kindergarten through college; maintain hospitals; staff nurses' training schools and medical colleges. In many languages they edit women's and childrens' magazines and publish books. The culmination of the efforts of women is found in the establishment of seven women's college!,!, founded by the ·Woman's Boards of Scotland, England, Canada and the United States. Eighteen Woman's Boards brought to this united effort many diverse methods of organization, but one great aim inspired them all-namely the purpose to train a Christian leadership for the women of the Orient. Three million dollars was recently raised in the United States for these colleges under the able leadership of Mrs. Henry W. Peabody. The colleges are growing, enlarging their equipment and capacity; but they are holding absolutely to the Chrilbtian purpose of their existence. They are Christian to the backbone.
Add to this achievement on the foreign field the conspicuous success of women in establishing the great system of missionary education in the home Church which now touches even the most remote corner of every state in the Union, and who can contemplate this accomplishment without asking, How is it done 1 Surely we can with profit ask, as we review the achievement of women, what has been the secret of the effectiveness of women in the past 1 I am confident that the men of the Church wish above all things to conserve the rich heritage of woman's service for missions. I am equally sure that no adequate missionary program can be carried on, unless certain features of woman's service in the past be counted among the dynamics of our missionary endeavor. Let me be very explicit.
Two facts underlie the conspicuous success of woman's work:
WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE MISSIONARY ENTE:RPRISE
first, through long years of indefatigable effort the women of the Church have built up a system of communication from national Board headquarters down to the most remote individual church. This unbroken continuity of function has been accomplished in a brief half century. It is so effective in its working that, like Lincoln's rat hole, it will bear looking into! Ruthlessly to disrupt by any form of reorganization a system established by such incalculable effort and proved to be of such undeniable efficiency would be little short of madness.
The second secret of woman's success in the past is psychological. Women respond to a definite financial responsibility. They like to raise their own budget. They enjoy a dual relationship to missions as church members and as members of the woman's organization. Any missionary program for the Church which casts aside this wonderworking system of distinctive financial responsibility of women is doomed to failure. Possibly the remote future may hold a better plan but for the coming decade, I am convinced that no adequate missionary program can be built up by the Church which disregards these two aspects of th.e achievements of the past..
The logical masculine mind may not follow this form of argument, but it will be a sad day for missions if the women of the Church come to feel that any form of reorganization has taken from them their distinctive responsibility, and that their task as women is done.
In most denominations a new phase of the missionary program has been reached. In several communions an entire reorganization of the Church Boards has been effected which unites men and women on equal terms in board membership and on the staff of administrative officers. Women who in the past have shown an invincible spirit of entire consecration, and have done for the Church a monumental service without proper equipment, with inadequate salaries, and devoid of technical training, are now entering a new phase of activity, facing a wider opportunity in the work of missions. At this transitional stage, the Church may well give its best thought to the subjec~ of the partnership of men and women in this work.
There are certain attitudes in the Church at large and in Boards in particular, which will ensure success in our common effort; certain others spell unmistakable failure. I am no suffragist, but I cannot refrain from emphasizing certain perfectly clear elements in the situation in our churches today. Have we the courage to face all the far-reaching implications, and to make all the necessary readjustments which are involved in this partnership of men and women of which we so glibly speak1 A sense of mission inspired the women whose past achievements we today laud. Is the Church prepared to present to this generation of alert, capable young women a challenging, compelling task whose pull will be felt as much as the appeal from other fields of activity1 The Church must reckon with other avenues which are open to this generation of women. She must make
it very clear that she has work of such vital importance and of such far-reaching influence as to call for the fullest measure of service. She must show unmistakably that to do this work young women of the highest degree of training are needed who will in turn receive the same considerations in living conditions and salary which other occupations offer. Is the opportunity for missionary work in the Church today, both as administrative officers of the Church Boards and as volunteer workers in the capacity of board members and in the local church, act1tal or merely potential?
This is no theoretic matter. The Church at home and abroad must reckon with the awakened womanhood of the world. At one time we were perplexed by the modern movement among women. Now its direction and impulse are perfectly clear. The State thus far has been in advance of the Church in recognizing the changed situation. Is it not curious that this should be so, when from the Church came the first releasi.ng force to womanhood ?Whatever you may think of the modern movement among women, you must admit that the Church fostered it. I come to you with the deep conviction, born of my knowledge of young women and my experience in working with them, that the Kingdom of God is more nearly within the reach of the Church today than it ever was before, if only-if (Jnly, we can harness up to t.his missionary enterprise the boundless capacities, the trained energies, the fearlessness, the courage and the sincere desire to have a part. in the big business of thiR generation, which characterize the young women of today. If t.hus far the Church has failed to enlist them it is not wholly the fault of the young women; it is largely because the Church has not adequately presented its task..
In the East and in Europe young women are demanding freedom to live their highest life; to develop to the utmost the powers God has given them; to make their full contribution to the life of the world. The intelligent women of the Church have already turned to politics, business and international affairs. At the Institute of International Politics at Williamstown last summer, one third of the personnel was women. Are we offering young women an adequate opportunity to do a constructive work in the Church which will give scope for all their trained capabilities? Will the Church awaken in time to the fact that this new spirit of womanhood may become an instrument for the advancement of the kingdom of Him who chose women for his friends and shared with them His most profound spiritual truths'
Again let us be very explicit. We've talked in vague terms quite long enough. Printed reports and addresses without number theorize on this subject. We have come to the place today where we must face the fact that in working out an adequate missionary program for the Church, whatever share is assigned to women must be given her on the satisfactory and logical basis of ribility and capacity, and not on
WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE MISSIONARY ENTEiRPRISE
that of sex. I plead that woman be allowed to enter that natural relationship to which ,Jesus called her and which the early Church assigned her. If the future missionary program is to be carried through successfully, it must be done by men and women in a level partnership. We do not want a union which means merely diverting one of the separate streams into the channel of another. We want a union made necessary by the great task confronting the Church today which calls for something far greater than our past achievements if the non-Christian world is to be brought to Christ. Let us speak of union as though-to pursue the figure-the two separate streams had broken their banks and must now be guided into a broader, deeper channel of life-giving water.
In the home, in professions, in Church and in State, men and women are needing each other if the complete whole is to be attained. The work of neither alone is or can be wholly complete. Surely the task we are facing today is great enough to capture the imagination of men and women together. We need each other if our sympathies are to become broad enough, our courage high enough, our faith strong enough, our love deep and full enough to meet the requirement of the task in this day. We need as men and women a fresh discovery of the eternal and supreme obligation to give Christ to the world, which shall send us forth determined to stand together, each contributing his own best to the accomplishment of the enormous task to which God is calling our generation.
May God give us in this partnership a more inclusive view and a saner, broader judgment than either men or women could have working separately; and may He crown our united work with achievements and victories which could otherwise never come!
ONE GIRL'S INFLUENCE IN BRAZIL SOON after we took charge of the work in Sao Sebastiao do Paraiso, the girl who had been my mouthpiece in the Sunday school and the Girls' Club, and led the music in both, told me that she had been offered a place in her aunt's school in a near-by town. Her uncle was the chief man in the town, and his family had the entree into the best society.
There the girl, Haydee Machado, gathered around the piano on Sun- days the servants of the school, and a few of the boarders who liked the hymns. Gradually she told them stories from the Bible until before anyone was aware she had a Sunday school. The uncle's family began to read the Bible, and less and less t.o t.ake part in Sunday amusements. Later the teacher got permission to invite the missionaries. Rumors were afloat that their entrance in the city would not be permitted. However, nothing hap- pened to interfere, and the Gospe! was preached for the flrst time in that town.
The young woman's aunt became a professing Christian and thereby lost half of the pupils in her school. Two other members of her family also entered the fold and have become great influences for good. Every service held in the town has been well attended, and many Bibles and hymn books have been sold. A wealthy farmer has given a lot for the building of the church, when God shall open the way. MRS. EDWARD LANE.
Evangelism in
D R. A. G. FLETCHER of Korea writes of the results of hos- pital evangelism as practised in the Taiku (Presbyterian) hospital during the past two and a half years. The aim is (1) to preach the Gospel to every patient; (2) to win as many as possible to Christ; (3) to lead these converts to unite with a church, and (4) to lead each convert to witness to Christ among unbelieving neighbors. The method is (1) to organize the hospital staff into a. preaching society to care for the evangelistic work; (2) to send evangelists to the home of a hospital convert for one month and to seek, with the patient's help, to establish a church.
Three men evangelists and three Bible women are employed who work alterna.tely in pairs, one month in the hospital and the next in the country districts. The results have been very encouraging, both in winning converts and in establishing churches.
Each month a colporteur takes a number of letters from the hospital to patients in the country and on the way sells Bibles as his salary is paid by the Bible Society. The patients help by giving him an introduction to the villagers. They aim to establish one new group every month. During the past thirty months, they have es- tablished twenty-six churches. These churches have a total mem- bership of six hundred and twenty-five, and sixteen have their own church buildings.
Each evangelist is responsible for caring for his groups until turned over to a missionary pastor at the end of one year. At this time, each group must have: (1) A sufficient number of adherents to be able to pay its share of a helper's sala.ry; (2) officers capable of caring for its spiritual and material needs. The preaching society sends to the churches regularly letters of greeting and admonition. Members of the society go to the country and visit the groups when possible. In this way, the new Christians receive a touch of the joy of Christianity. Also each month the society mimeographs and sends out to each group a sermon prepared by the evangelist working in the hospital. This is to give spice to the attempts at sermons given by the new and often unexperienced leader selected from among the new Christians. Officers of new groups are urged to attend Bible institutes and Bible classes. The six evangelists and colporteur each make a report at the monthly meeting of the preaching society.
The preaching to patients within the walls of a hospital is not sufficient to win them to Christ in the majority of cases. Neither is it enough to follow them by post or in person. We must devise .a plan whereby the opposition and persecution of relatives and friends will be turned into sympathy and support. Sending evangelists to the non-Christian home town of hospital converts helps them to win the patient's relatives and friends for Christ.
458
Truth about the
A REVIEW, BY DR. HARRY FARMER, OF "THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINEB." BY FRANK CHARLES LAUBACH, PH.D."
RECENT articles, under the general title of the "Isles of Fear," have appeared in the various papers throughout the country, evidently written to prove that the people of the Philippines ure not ready for their political independence. Dr. Laubach, a missionary of the American Board, could have had no knowledge of the newspaper arti('les, since his book was in press before they began to appear. Dr. Laubach's book deals with facts as he has seen them. At times he has some things to say which are not very complimentary to the Filipinos, but one cannot read the pages without concluding that they are a wonderful people and capable of high development.
Dr. Laubach came to the Philippines when missionary work was already well advanced, but he went to the Island of Mindanao which had been little cultivated up to that time. He was at the first station established by the American Board Mission at Davao, but later moved to the north coast and pushed the work in all directions, cooperating with the. Presbyterians, who sent down preachers from Negros, as well as many fine young men who graduated from the Silliman Institute in Dumaguete. Upon return from furlough in 1920, Dr. Laubach took up work in the Union Theological Seminary of Manila, and has become deeply interested in the student life of the Islands. He believes in the Filipinos, and feels the day is coming when they should have complete control of the country.
'''1'he People of the Philippines" is a religious book and presents the best history of Christian missions in the Philippines that has yet appeared. Everyone who has had anything to do with the wonderful development of the people and the Islands during the last quarter of a century will find it very interesting reading, even casual readers who care little or nothing for the Church.
The religious tendency is strong in the Filipino people, and is probably an inheritance from the Malay race. When the Spaniards came in 1521, the people were Mohammedans, and because of the attempt to convert the natives by force, Magellan and many of his followers were slain. Prior to the coming of the Moslem missionaries, there was intercourse with Indian customs and religious practices, and the people were also greatly influenced by visits from China. There was always a reaching out after God. This can be seen in the present practices of the pagan Igorots of northern Luzon, and those of the interior of Mindanao in the far south.
• Published by Doran, New York. 1924. 465 PP. $3.50 net.
459
With the coming of the Spaniards and their superior forces, the Malays were obliged to submit, though they were never completely conquered. In honor of King Philip, the Islands were called the Philippines. It was either baptism or the sword. The sword conquered, but the people always aspired for independence in all matters of thought, religion and politics. Dr. Laubach speaks charitably, yet plainly, concerning the almost 400 years of Spain and Romanism when the people were given a medireval civilization, with a fanaticism and superstition bred in ignorance. From one to three per cent only were given any form of education, and for the most part only those who could assist in matters of State and Church. One history states that in the last one hundred years of Spanish domination, there were twenty-one insurrections, the last one being so successful that the Government gave the leaders 800,000 pesos to leave the country. Leaders of the revolutions were killed and deported by the hundreds, and at one time 1,500 were shot on the Luneta. The last great murder was that of Jose Rizal" now called the Father of his country, who was shot at the instigation of. the Friars, because he would not recant and receive the absolution of the Church. It was well for the Catholic Church that America stood for religious liberty in the early days, for the people hated both Spain and Rome. The Spanish friars and priests were not safe outside of Manila.
A few years ago 3,000,000 people under a Filipino, Bishop Aglipay, organized an Independent Filipino Church,. based largely on the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, except confession and allegiance to the Pope. A large number of municipalities voted Rome out and the Independents in, turning over the large churches and converts to the Aglipayan priests. In due time, through processes of law, Rome regained these properties and the "Independientes" were forced to build bamboo churches. Attempts were made to use this new church organization largely for political purposes, and great theological difficulties have been encountered. Nevertheless, the Church, with possibly less numbers, is stronger than ever today, and is becoming more like the evangelical churches. The people will not submit to a foreign potentate like the Pope. They want both ecclesiastical and political independence. They love the United States and are grateful for the benevolent paternalism which has been exercised, but feel the time has come to give them entire independence, with such arrangements as will guarantee mutually happy and beneficial relationships.
Missionaries came in the early days of American occupation. In fact, some were to be found among the soldiers. Seven great denomiuations of the Evangelical Church were represented through their several Boards of Foreign Missions. The Protestant Episcopal Mission specialized on the Moslems and the wild tribes, while the other six Missions delimited the territory to avoid overlapping. The
1925J THE TRUTH ABOUT. THE PHILIPPINES
Evangelical Union is stronger than ever today, and has Filipino representatives in its membership. This fellowship makes possible a unity of action which promises a more speedy evangelization of the Islands. Many union institutions prove the fine spirit of cooperation, the centraf example being that of the Theological Seminary in Manila, which trains preachers for all churches. With Bible, hymn book, union periodicals and other Christian literature in common, there is great promise of one great Evangelical Church, manned and supported by the Filipinos.
This is a story to rejoice the heart of those who love to see the Gospel spread abroad in the earth. What trophies of Christ's power! Scores in the Christian ministry, and hundreds more found in all walks of life, teachers, lawyers, doctors, business men. The innate hospitality. and kindliness of the Filipino, tinctured by the Christ love, makes a visit to the Christian homes a joy long to be remembered. No mission field has developed so many self-supporting churches in so brief a period of time. It is not done without sacri- :fice, but it means the laying of a natural foundation which will support a strong Church of the future.
The Evangelical missions have had little need to establish schools, as this has been done by the Government. A few parish schools only have been opened, but a number of secondary schools, and only one high-grade institution-Silliman Institute. The students have been reached through the Christian dormitory, opened near the high schools, and at the University in Manila. Boys and girls have been gathered into these institutions, helped in their school work, and have been given an opportunity to :find their Lord and worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Sunday-school has had a wonderful development. The young people educated in English in the public schools have received through correspondence and in Bible institutes, traiJling in religious education, which has made them leaders in the Sunday-sehools, and in the Proyincial and National Sunday School Unions. This is a forward-looking enthusiastic institution, and will prove the bulwark of the Church.
The Roman Catholic Church has not been untouched by this Evangelical movement. American Jesuits and other American prelates have come to the Islands to take up the training of the Filipino youth and to introduce new methods. The effects are already seen in renovation of church buildings, introduction of pews, organization of Sunday-schools, young people's societies and other aetivities, which appeal to the youth of the land.
The author looks forward to the day when Filipino missionaries will go into all countries of the Far }i~ast and aid in the work of evangelization. Already they have gone to their countrymen in Hawaii, and some have begun work in Malaysia and Java.
Power of a Gospel
BY ABDUL-FADY (ARTHUR T_ UPSON), NILE MISSION PRESS, CAIRO A SCRAP of paper may be used to change the fortunes of a man, a nation, or even of the world. The Bible Societies issne single gospels or epistles, but the Nile Mission Press portionettes contain short, selected passages of Scripture on a special subject. A gift of $5,000 paid for no less than 1,200,000 portionettes, which included eighteen historical SUbjects, twelve doctrinal, seven on parables and miracles, one for Jews upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, and six on the Sermon on the Mount.
Some of these portionettes are given out by the broadcasting method, the object being to cover as much ground as possible in a short space of time. As an illustration, Mr. Porter of the Egypt General Mission, writes: ""'Ve left here early on Wednesday morning by road and on this trip we distributed 4,000 portionettes."
There is also the intensive method of dealing with individuals. Standing in a main thoroughfare, at the turning point for the licensed brothels, and right in a constant stream of traffic, a worker will hand to every passer-by-as fast as his fingers can move-a copy of a purity or a temperance tract, while the worker behind will hand him one of the Scripture portionettes. None are refused or torn.
Meanwhile a third worker is busy "buttonholing" those who have slipped past the first two pickets, and exhorts them to give up sin. Often we are able to give a clear message even amid the distressing sights, sounds and scenes. During four years from 1918 to 1922, not less than 80,000 young men have received these tracts from a single worker. Two such helpers-Gohar Effendi, an American Mission evangelist, and Sheikh Iskandar, a converted Moslem, baptized by the Church Missionary Society twenty years ago-distributed 15,000 leaflets and portionettes during the summer of 1923. As a result, hundreds of young men have been rescued.
The Nile Mission Press has also issued fifty varieties of colloquial porti@nettes in simple Arabic. The publications of the Press go to thirty lands, and hearty welcome comes from even the most barren of all lands-north and east of Arabia.
Arrangements have now been made to produce a large Arabic edition of some larger portionettes on Bible subjects. The selections are wisely made and give the reader a clear conception of the Biblical system of truth, creation, preservation, sin and redemption. On each page is a reading from the Scripture in large print, and at the top and bottom are related passages in smaller type.
Who shall estimate "The Power of a Gospel Portionette"~ 462
M….-B.-.-.-TH=eOcDu.Sas .@
EDITED BY MRS. E. C. CROl'.'X, 728 M1!HLENBURG BLDG., PHILADELPHIA, PA.
COMMUNITY CELEBRATIONS hand to make sure of good order. By R10V. H~:NRY MOEHLING Exactly at nino o'clock the bugle Pastor of Gethsemane Lutheran Church, sounds. Every door in the block is thrown open and out of the doors Philadelphia, Pa.
Philadelphia is a city of communi- come the boys and girls and the men ties with a community spirit. Some and women. Everyone gathers of the communities sub-divide them- around the stand_ A local clergyman selves into blocks, and organize for begins the day's festivities with the celebration of outstanding days: prayer, and makes a very short talk Christmas, Flag Day, Decoration Day about the importance of the day to and Fourth of July. the community. Old Glory is raised For all of these celebrations great high on the staff as everyone joins preparations are made, and a fine in singing" The Star Spangled Ban- spirit pirevaiIs- ner." As the string is pulled unfurl- In one block in West Philadelphia iug the flag hundreds of little flags in which there are thirty houses on float through the air becoming the each side of the street, the residents prize and pride of the c.rowd that is have formed an association to cele- constantly growing larger and larger.
brate the festival days of interest to Later a whistle sounds and the boys everyone. and girls know it is time for the con- On Christmas eve there is a block tests to begin. First come the four- Christmas tree with carolers from all year-olds with their Kiddie Kars, folthe home~ singing Christmas carols. lowed by other contests of various Flag Day and Decoration. Day are types with contestants of various ages.
gala occasions with special decora- At H: 30 A. lVI. a signal is given tions, and the Fourth of July celebra- and everybody goes home to lunch. tion is one of the greatest events of Since extra preparations were made the year. July third is a busy day. the day before lunches are over in a • Cooking is done in advance and all short time. At 12: 45 the band apthe preparations are made for the pears, and at one o'clock the overture coming holiday. The street is roped is played. Immediately the street is off, festooned and decorated with filled. Ponies and pony carts are on bunting, and lanterns. In the center hand and the children, with free of the block a large stand is erected tickets, enjoy an hour of joyous rides with seats for a twenty or thirty piece for the length of the block and back hand and a speaker's platform. Every again. In the meantime a ventrilofamily invites guests from "back quist is ready with his act and the home" or "up country," or from crowd around the stand is having its other sections of the city. Every share of entertainment. Various other member of the various families and features are introduced, differing all the guests receive a patriotic paper somewhat from year to year. Always hat, and for the children there is a a soloist of note adds to the real special gift of ice cream and candy. value of the program.
On the morning of the Fourth all By four o'clock the audience is is in readiness withjJ'olicemen on ready fur the speakers who have been 463
invited by the Committee on Arrange- Very naturally the pastor led the ments. After the speaking there is a conversation to his church on the cor- lull and evervone lmderstands that it ner. '1'he policeman told him that he is the "Do-what-you-Please" Hour. wa& a Jew, and thanking him for the Neighbors visit with neighbors, and a lemonade turned to go.
general friendliness fills the air, until "My wife and boy will be out this time to go home for the evening meal. afternoon," he called as he started At 6: 45 there is another bugle call, down the steps.
and "the block" reappears in the "Bring them around to see us,"
costumes of colonial days, represent- called the pastor cordially.
ing patriotic personages and events. Later on the policeman came back .A. line of parade is formed. Horses, with his wife and son. Jew and Gen- wagons, automobiles-any type of tile, they sat on the stone steps and conveyance that can be commandeered chatted pleasantly together. The . for service is on hand for what "the wife was a member of a Christian block" is pleased to call "The Best church, but the boy had never been Parade in West Philadelphia." to Sunday-school.
.A. schedule has been arranged with "My ooy must go to Sunday- other blocks that are having parades school," announced the father. "I so that each may visit the other, and want him to be in a Christian Sun- all have a vote in which parade is best. day-school. Would you accept him Prominent. speakers are introduced in yours'"
-senators, congressmen and others , 'Indeed we would," answered the who may be available-and their re- pastor. "We'll be glad to have him marks are greeted with enthusiastic as a member of our school and glad applause. to have you and your wife come with Eight-thirty arrives and the whole him."
block is bright with many-colored lan- One Sunday evening a few weeks terns, and the evening's program be- later a policeman slipped into the gins, planned especially for the young corner seat of the last pew in the folks. church. Unafraid in situations which At some time during the day prac- called for valor, he was timid when tically everyone in "the block" has he entered the door of a Christian been on the street. Opportunities for church. ·The cordial welcome he re- acquaintance and friendship are to ceived soon made him feel at home be found on every hand. and he came again and again.
On one of these Fourth of July One year went by. Another year • celebration days a pastor who lived in .was added to it. Then one day he "the block" sat on his porch. Since said to the pastor: early in the morning he had been mov- "Will you baptize me' I want to ing around through the crowd, renew- be a Christian." ing old acquaintances or making new "Indeed I will," answered the pasones. The bowl that had been filled with lemonade at the beginning of tor. "When will you be baptized'" the day was almost empty now. Many "'Whenever you wish," was the guests had stopped at the parsonage earnest answer. that day to greet the pastor and his wife. As the policeman on the beat Mter several months of special inpassed, the pastor called, "Won't you struction he was baptized. Two years have some cold lemonadeT" have passed. Every other Sunday night, when he is off duty, this faith- ful Christian Hebrew is in church, The policeman's eyes brightened at and his daily life and conversation the cordiality of the invitation and testify that. his Christianity is gen- the tinkle of the ice !tgainst the sides uine.
of the bowl. Between the sips of , Neighborly friendship will do much lemonade he talked with the pastor. . to win men and women to the Christ
BEST METHODS
who gave "as thyself" for the stand- as the Pitkin Class, is limited pracard by which we should measure our tically by the capacity of the room in love to our neighbor. which meetings are held. These classes, so far as attendance and ad- MOULDING THE PLASTIC AGE ministration are concerned, are self- By MURDOCK McLEOD governing, self-promoting, and self- In the Shadyside Church of Pitts- perpetuating groups, for they have burgh, of which Dr. Hugh Thompson been meeting now continuously for Kerr is pastor, there assembles every twelve years with unabated interest,. week for religious instruction and eager for the first meeting in the fall spiritual guidance two groups of stu- and reluctant to disband in the dents from the near-by universities spring. The sessions terminate about in two Bible classes which in some May 1st.
a respects are altogether unique. Every Piractically every class and every Thursday evening group of some department of these schools, and fifty or sixty students from Carnegie many religious denominations are Institute of Technology gathers about represented in these two groups. They the table for supper in a pleasant present a cross section of the student room in the church and spends an life of these two great universities.
hour facing and discussing the seri- While regular courses of Bihle ous and practical problems of religion study are conducted by Dr. Kerr as and life, and· the following Friday teacher, the students are allowed to from eighty to one hundred students submit in writing questions for dis- from the University of Pittsburgh cussion. On the day of my visit the meet for lunch in the same room for questions submitted covered a wide a similar purpose. The lunches served range of subjects, all the way from are free to the students, being the "double standard of morals," to financed by individuals and prepared the problems of predestination. Ques- and !';erved by the women of Dr. tions thm; submitted for discussion Kerr's church. must represent real problems or per- .A few days ago the writer had the plexities in the life or thought of those privilege of sitting as a visitor at a who present them. Nothing superfi- session of each of these classes, and cial or trivial, and no questions of was impressed, as anyone must be mere, idle curiosity are accepted.
who has a similar privilege, with sev- There is the utmost frankness in pre- eral unusual features. senting these questions and everyone Noting thc promptness and eager- so presented is considered seriously ness with which these young people and if possible answered with the assembled for this hour of social fel- same frankness and sincerity. There lowship and Bible study, it was quite is no attempt on the part of the natural to inquire what means or teacher to evade or substitute, or methods were employed to secure their merely moralize. Both teacher and attendance and how the attendance student are alike honest seekers after was kept up, every seat being filled. truth.
"The problem is not to keep up the These group gatherings partake of attendance, " replied the president of the nature of a Bible class, a forum the elass, "but to hold it down, that and a sort of confessional, for in this is, to keep it within the limits neces- atmosphere of sincerity and frankness sary for the best results." a mutual confidence between student The Thursday evening class, known and teacher prevails. The student as the "Toknon," fixes its own limit, feels that to this place he may come vacancies being filled by voting the with the problems that perplex him, applicant into membership in the assured of the utmost help.
class. The second, composed of Pitts- As a teacher of such groups of alert, burgh University students and known inquiring and open-minded students, 4
Dr. Kerr is peculiarly fitted. He has have not participated in the survey. a remarkable grasp of the funda- And each one thus taking part is to mental truths of the Christian reli- center petition upon a specific point. gion; understands the student mind Following out this plan closely, at and has those qualities of conviction, the last meeting a dozen different courage, tact and sympathy which people took part, and the entire prestudents admire in a teacher. He has lude did not occupy as much as fifa ready perception and appreciation teen minutes. 'rhus the main feature of the problem involved; a direct of the evening's program is given way of getting at the root of the mat- ample time, and variety is introduced ter; a most interesting and convinc- into the proceedings. ing way of revealing and applying the salient truths. He can make his Possibly a sample of the "reports" remarks pointed without wounding given may be suggestive. Take that and can differ without offending or of India: alienating. " A cable from ~elhi announces the When we think of the hundreds of passing of a resolution in the India young people, who during the past A.ssembly looking to a reduction of twelve years have passed through his opium use, and providing for a comclasses, found new light on the prob- mittee to examine into the Governlems of life, and a firmer footing of ment Opium Policy. In the discusfaith, we are sure that here is a man sion following the introduction of the who is doing much to mould aright a resolution, Sir Basil Blackett, Finance part at least, of the plastic age. Member, announced the government policy as aiming at a maximum of A "SWIFT SURVEY" revenue with a minimum output of opium, declaring that India has done By DAVID MCCONAUGHY more than any other country to re- duce the use of opium, and that at Uppel' Montclair, N. J. heavy loss of revenue. But it will not be forgotten that when the Amer- The Monthly Missionary Meeting ican delegates withdrew f.rom the Inof the Presbyterian Church of Upper ternational Opium Conference at Montclair, :t'j.. .J., regularly features, Geneva a few months ago, it was by way of prelude, a Swift Survey of mainly beeause the English repreworld events. Each of the seven sentative of the India Government remembers of the Missionary Commit- jected the proposal to prohibit the tee is assigned a segment of the circle production of opium except for meof the world-field as follows: dicinal purposes, and it is worthy of note that when this subject came up Our Home Land China in the India Assembly the principal Latin America India speech was made by a Christian, Dr. Africa Japan ·Chosen S. K. Datta, a speech which Sir Moslem World Basil himself described as ' a moderate The understanding is that the swift and sincere exposition of the tempersurvey will be kept "swift" in fact ance view of the suhject.' In contrast as well as in name. Each one is con- to it was the appeal made by Mr. fined to one minute, at the close of COsgrove, an English o:f6;cial, on bewhich, if necessary, the leader rises half of the coolies of Assam, who, he as a silent signal that the time is up. said, found a moderate use of opium It is not expected that anyone will a preventative of the evil effects of make a speech, but simply report a hard work and illness! Mr. McAllum, fact within the compass of a night another English official, defended the letter. The fact in each case is to be Burmah Government and ridiculed selected with special reference to call- some of the statistics cited, as not ing forth prayer, and when the cycle taking into account the consumption of reports has been completed, at once a season of prayer follows, in which those are asked to take part who
of opium by elephants, who he said, in the programs, supplemented by attake it in large doses!" tractive invitations to genuine friend- liness, since all are now in America. FROM ALL NATIONS, BUT The venture has now passed the ex- perimental stage and is proving its AMERICANS ALL worth in the increasing sociability of the women who attend. MRS. FRANK M. GOODCHILD The programs are varied from One of the l1W..t hopeful (woo'1r1>plishments month to month, the foreign women alrmg the 'cay of ilnter-racial friendship I1/l!d themselves furnishing the entertain- 'unilerstanding is being wrought out in New ment. One foreign group will be the York City by a {!roup of wom6'1'll in a month- reception committee, welcoming the ly Friendly Meeting. Mrs. Goodchild tells arrivals at the doors. Another group of the programs in a way thM will be sug- will serve the ;refreshments, taking gestive to other women who may Wl1/l!t to particular delight in offering some try the plan in other cities. national dainty as a surprise. The meeting opens with two or three Racial antipathy is one of the prim- popular hymns, one or two verses of itive instincts of humanity and yields each, sung without books, and often but slowly to the pacifying influence in several different languages, since of either civilization or culture. Even the older women may not understand followers of the Christian religion English. The Scripture is read by must battle long and hard against this one group in concert, and prayer is elemental dislike of one race for an- offered by a member of some other other. This aloofness may pass mus- race. The program continues from ter in countries where the foreign eight until nine and the next hour is population is small or isolated, but in devoted to games and refreshments. America, where the long-time citizen The games are of the variety to inis but a few generations removed from clude all. One evening picture postbeing himself a foreigner, and where cards of places in New York were cut he must perforce rub elbows with the into two irregular parts and distriblatest arrivals from. the ends of the uted, and the company became sucearth, a laissez-faire attitude is im- cessfully mixed in matching their possihle for either comfort or safety. Especially in Christian communities cards. or organizations, the hostile attitude should be broken down by the con- In F'ebruary the program took the vincing demonstration of some com- form of a Hero Night. One member mon interest. of each foreign congregation wrote on the blackboard the name of her Since women are notably the con- country's greatest hero and told the servatives of the world, yielding more reason :fo,r the choice, then the whole readily to prejudice because of the group sang a verse of their national narrow confines of domesticity, they anthem. Presently the names o:f are morc liable to the petty offenses twelve natable heroes were on the of racial antagonisms, and even board, and some of the women were though the Halian man may develop quite eloquent in their praises of a tolerable friendship for the Czecho- their countrymen. Garibaldi, Con- Slovak who works beside him, their fucins, Tolstoy, Booker Washington, wives are apt to pass each other with and Luther were all written there. a stony stare even in the church build- Then Washington and Lincoln were ing where both races hold their meet- added, with a word about their great ings. service to our country, and small pictures of these two patriots were In New York City an effort is be- distributed. A talk followed about ing made to associate the women of the "Name that is above every some of the foreign-speaking churches name, " and high oyer all the names in a monthly Friendly Meeting, and adopting the principle of Dr. Hahnemann that "Like cures like," liberal doses of nationality a,re administered
on the board was hung a card with patience, the utilization of every the name of Jesus Christ in illumi- amusement that is common to woman- nated letters, while the audience sang, kind, and a refusal to be defeated by "Take the Name of Jesus With You." occasional discouragement-these are Tiny American flags were given out all the equipment required to realize and held aloft while all sang, the same results in any town of for- "Our fatl18rs' God to Thee, eign populations.
Author of liberty, 'To Thee we sing." HOW A CHURCH CAN HELP A lively game of geography fin- ABOLISH WAR ished the evening. The star field of By DR. SIDNEY L. GULICK a 'large American flag was covered Every church in America should with plain blue muslin and forty- have a real share in the Christian eight white paper stars were given crusade to abolish war if it desires to out. Those holding the stars came do its full part in establishing the up and pinned them in plac.e, each Kingdom of God. There are several naming from memory a state of the things which every church, large or Union, and so re-making the field of small, can do. the states. Pro-mptly at ten o'clock there is always a great handshaking 1. Observe Armistice Day, Novemas we sing, "Good-night ladies, we're ber 11th, or Armistice Sunday by going to leave you now. " some appropriate service, and also provide in the Sunday-school, at least A "Grown-Up Kindergarten" twice a year, on the Sundays nearest proved a fascinating evening, the May 18th and Novemher 11th, an women sitting obediently on the tiny exercise or lesson on the abolition of chairs and going through the daily war and the way to achieve and mainkindergarten program, the talk be- tain permanent world peace. May ing, "How maya New York woman 18th, formerly .known as "Hague know that spring is coming." The Day" in commemoration of the first regular kindergarten games followed, Hague Conference (1899), since the skipping and Goosey Gander and all war is being observed as "Interthe rest, then refreshments of cocoa national Goodwill Day." and alphabet crackers, and every woman colored and cut out and 2. Promote the use of study courses pasted into form a life-size bluebird on World Justice and Peace by each to take home for happiness. of the groups and classes of young people and adults as a part of the Easter offered opportunity for an regular program during the year '8 "Egg Exchange" and a talk on "The activities. Four or five courses for legends of Easter, rabbits, eggs, study classes are now available and chickens and other Easter toys." at least two others are in course of Each woman brought a c.olored egg with her n am e and nationality preparation. scratched on it. These were collected 3. Establish a Peace Workers' and then redistributed so that no Library for the use of church memone should have her own. Then the bers and definitely encourage its use. leader called the name on the egg One or two dozen volumes would proshe had, and that woman stood up. vide the church a very good variety In turn she called the name on the and enable the readers to secure a egg she held until every woman in well-balanced view of the prohlems of the room was standing. They all war and peace.
took home their eggs, each with the 4. Adopt some declaration of faith name of a new friend. and purpose to work for a warless After all there is nothing remark- world. The" International Ideals"
able in the event. Sympathy, friend- of the churches might serve as a liness, careful preparation, infinite model or be adopted as it stands.
19'25] BEST METHODS
Interna.tional Ideals of the Churches should see that the entire membership of the church is informed and in- of Christ in America spired.
I. We believe that nations no less A Concrete Case than individuals are subject to God'8 immutable moral laws. The Broadway Tabernacle Church of New York City has already done II. We believe that nations achieve four of these five things, and is in true welfare, greatness and honor process of taking the fifth step, numonly through just dealing and unsel- ber four of the abo'Ve list. fish service. Its "Council 0 n International III. We believe that nations that Goodwill" consists of two representaregard themselves as Christian have tives each of the Church Committee, special international obligations. t.he Sunday-school, the Women's Missionary Society, the Young Men's IV. We believe that the spirit of Club and the Christian Endeavor So- Christian brotherliness can remove ciety. The Council meets when every unjust barrier of trade, color, called by the Chairman. The Comcreed and race. mittee on Literature has established an unusually fine collection of books V. We believe that Christian pa- for Peace Workers. The Council triotism demands the practice of printed a special flier on the World goodwill between nations. Court qucstion, which was distributed through the pews one Sunday morn- VI. We believe that international ing in January, 1925. All the groups policies should secure equal justice cooperated in securing signatures for all races. from church members to a petition to the Senate on the World Court ques- VII. We believe that all nations tion. A special committee of the should associate themselves perma- Council presented the World Court nently for world peace and goodwill. question to the New York City Federation of Churches, with a view VIII. We believe in international to having the matter acted on by all law, and in the universal use of in- the churches of New York. The ternational courts of justice and Council is preparing plans for observboards of arbitration. ing Goodwill Day in the Sunday- school. IX. We believe in a sweeping reduction of armaments by all nations. When fifty thousand churches follow this splendid example, the X. We believe in a warless world, Crusade for a Warless World will be and dedicate ourselves to its achieve- well on its way. ment. Churches or individuals desiring 5. Establish a Church Committee further information on this Crusade or Council on International Goodwill for a Warless World may write to to serve as the visible expression of the Federal Council of the Churches the interest of the church in world of Christ in America, 105 East 22d peace, to carry forward the various Street, New York City. peace activities of the church, and to cooperate with other churches in com- "That life is most worth living whose munity enterprises and programs in the establishment of a Christian work is most worth while." world order. "If we have not enough in 'our religion This committee, in the Case of a small church, might consist of only to drive us to share it with all the world, two persons besides the pastor. But it is doomod h~,re at home." every church should lay upon some two or three members the responsibil- "Other people arc talking brotherhood; ity of keeping in touch with other churches in this matter, so that it will the missionary is exemplifying it." be ready to do its part when the time for action comes. The committee
Woman's Home Mission
EDITED BY FLORENCE E. QmxLAN, 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY FARM AND CANNERY MIGRANTS came interested and in some cases at- By MARY EDITH P. OLIVER, tended evening classes and shared in Q.haitrman of the Committee the recreation. Bible stories were Another year of service among dramatized, verses learned and gos- Farm and Cannery Migrants has pels of Mark given to the children. demonstrated the immediate and vital They loved "the little red books." need of this work, and the successful One of the favorite verses was John 3: 16, and the hymns most often called program carried out wherever we for were" Jesus Loves the Little Chil- have had our stations has convinced dren of the World" and "Beneath the Committee that a practical solu- the Cross of Jesus." One little boy tion of the problem has been found. when asked the meaning of the phrase, The Women's Home Mission Boards "in the burning- of the noon-tide heat, "
of twelve denominations have coop- said," Oh! yes, that means being nice erated: Baptist, Christian, Congre- and good when it's hot and we're gational, Evangelical, Free Methodist, down in the fields. picking beans.!" Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, U. S. A., United Presbyterian, Prot- Undernourished children weI' e estant Episcopal, Reformed in Amer- given special attention; first aid was iea, Reformed, U. 8., United Breth- a daily occurrence, not only for the ren, the budget now beiug $10,000. children, but for the older boys, girls Under the able leadership of the and parents at work in the canneries.
Executive Supervisor, Miss Laura H. Children were taken to the hospital Parker, the eastern stations have in- by our workers when their mothers eluded two at Bel Air, Maryland, one could not leave their work.
each at Riverton, New Jersey, Stew- The daily program included day artstown, Pennsylvania, and Hurlock, nursery, playground work, les'Sons in Maryland, among Poles, Lithuanians, Am e I' i can citizenship, sanitation, Italians and Negroes. 'fhe program home making and Christian living, has covered varying periods of from with Bible stories and prayer.
four to eight weeks according to local At Stewartstown the handwork of conditions and needs. The coopera- the children merited the award of tion of managers of eastern canneries, first prize at the County Fair.
and their expressed appreciation, has The activities of the Supervisor been helpful and encouraging. have included in part, the selection As heretofore, most of the workers of the workers, supervision of the at the stations were college girls who eastern stations and, through corre- responded to this opportunity for spondence, those in the West, present- service. The applicants were so un- ing the need and the program to usually well prepared that it was dif- college groups, 10 c a I federations, ficult to choose. The personnel at each women's and young people '8 mission- station was, therefore, remarkably fine, ary societies, women's clubs and and under the guidance of these leaders schools of missions. The use of the most satisfactory progress was made. stereopticon lecture has been helpful The central theme chosen was The and effective, the two sets being much Home in Relation to Health, Educa- in demand.
Hon and Religion. Not only did the Many of the committee members children respond wonderfully to this have contributed generously of their broad program, but their mothers be- time in the interest of publicity, nn- 470 merous addresses haviNg been made Don Nunamaker Ranch in Hood by them. The Committee on Student River County financed jointly by sev- Work has cooperated in the presenta- eral apple growers, the parents of the tion of the program to various col- children enrolled and the Committee leges and schools. on Farm and Cannery Migrants.
"The Kingdom of Love," a pag- After weighing applications from eant written for the Committee by more than thirty cities and counties Ruth Mougey Worrell was most suc- in the eleven Pacific coa.t and Rocky cessfully given at the Northfield In- Mountain states, the Cc;mmonwealth terdenominational Hom eMission Fund has chosen Marion County, Ore- Conference in July, 1924. gon, of which Salem is the County < seat, for a Child Health Demonstra- The latest development has been in tion, thus proving the pressing need the Northwest, where at the request of that' district. The population is of an interdenominational group of estimated at 55,000, 90% Americanwomen, under the immediate super- born. It is essentially rural, Salem "ision of Miss Louise F. Shields work having a population of 25,000. The has been begun in Salem among the varied crops-berries, nuts, hops, flax hop pickers and among the apple har- -and the developing dairying and vesters in the Hood River Valley, canning interests indicate a great Oregon. It is estimated that there variety of resources as well as probare 50,000 migratory workers in that lems incident to a chronic migratory section during the summer and fall, labor population. .As aptly expressed many Americans, some Orientals. by Miss Shields, it is "salvaging bruised and broken lives for the Miss Shields, who is also secretary Kingdom of God." of the Seasonal Employment Commission of Oregon had made a survey Taking into consideration the army in 1923, following a trip in 1922 to a of migratory children in California, estimated at from five to ten thousand, large hop ranch which convinced her many of whom "as fast as Nature of the need of work. At this ranch turns the cycle pick the crops"; the she had persuaded the owner to put young people in the Alaskan canon a program of health and recrea- neries, the children in the beet fields tion. As our representative during of Colorado and Michigan and in the the season of 1924 she has been" sell- onion marshes of Ohio-aU of whom ing the idea" to various ranch owners need just this type of Christian social and paving the way for a much larger service-it is the hope of the Commitprogram another year. Many of the tee that increased resources will make children in the West, as in the East, possible the development of the work are under-nourished and are suffering wherever migratory families can be from serious physical handicaps. reached.
It is gratifying to know that a be- A social worker in a large organiginning has been made in Oregon ~ation writes of this Farm and Canalong the line of citizensnip training. nery service, "It is the soundest piece Through the Oregon Superintendent of Americanization work it has been of Public Instruction it was found my gratification to see." that many of the children do not attend school because the parents want Mary E. McDowell, Commissioner their earnings, or because they feel of Public WeHare in the city of Chiunable to buy suitable clothing or cago, reminds us that "in the playbooks, or because their period of resi- time of their lives, over one million dence is too short in any community children are working for wages in this to make it worth while. Two schools 'land of the brave and the home of were maintained at the Horst ranch the free.' These children are from in Polk County during the hop har- ten to fourteen years of age, and don't vest with all expenses paid by the forget tbat they are the seed corn of ranch manage!llent, and one at· the
the nation's future and the fruit of its for use and a bibliography are to be past. The child who goes to the wage- inclUded in the chapters.
earning world before his playtime of It will be about 128 pages and will life is over is cheated of his God-given be published for the Federation ana rights. The weary child is apt to be Council by the Central Committee or.
weak physically, and is generally the the United Study of Foreign Mission!>.
bitter-sour man that is quarrelsome All orders should be sent to MiSb and cannot think straight. The over- M. H. Leavis, West Medford, Mash.
worked girls cannot be the strong. The price will probably be 30 cents b mothers of vigorous children. It is single copy, 25 cents in lots of ten..
an awful thing for any country to make her children weary-worn. You, THE BLIND as patriotic Americans, will demand Items from the report or the Committee or the Home Missions Council a.nd Council of that every child, black or white, for- eign-born or American-born, shall Women for Home Missions. Irene Ha.islip. Ohairman. have a right to play and work under conditions that give the spiritual life The National Committee for the a chance to develop, for we must never Prevention of Blindness has reported forget that over a million and a half that from 1910 to 1920 there has been of wage-p,arning children in our great a decrease of 5,000 blind because of . prompt treatment and precautionary country are children of God and measures taken by public health orfuture governors of our Republic." ganizations and by school officials.
ON EARTH, PEACE Over against this, this same Com- mittee has announced that from Sep- The Conference on the Cause and tember, 1923, to September, 1924, Cure of War recommended that each 4,456 men, women and children have of the participating organizations been partially or totally blinded plan a program to· make effective the through accidents. findings of that Conference. A booklet on peace suitable for forum use by Once a year a play is given at one summer conferences and schools of of the theatref< in New York City for missions, as well as groups next the blind; 1,150 blind attended the winter, has been decided to be one of performance last fall. the best methods for the Federation of Woman's Boards of Foreign Missions Several non-sectarian organi2;ations and the Council of Women for Home which are interested in the blind are Missions. making an cffort to place a radio set in the home of every blind person in On Earth, Peace is to be the title this country. of this booklet which is to contain six chapters as follow: "Is War Consis- A committee appointed by the Mistent with the Christian Way of Life" souri Commission for the Blind is inby Miss Rhoda McCulloch, "The In- yestigating two-side Braille printing terracial Situation in America" by and hopes in a year to perfect plans }irs. D. E. Waid, "Christianizing for such printing in this country. International Relations" by Miss Margaret E. Burton, "Discussion of The Sunday-School Board of the Causes of War" by Mrs. E. H. Silver- Southern Baptist Convention, having thorn, "Discussion of Cures of War" become interested in the blind, has ap- pointed a Field Secretary and appro- priated $20,000 for this work.
by Mrs. John Ferguson, "The Definite The National Council of the Protes- Task of Church W om,en» by Mrs. tant Episcopal Church has a great Henry W. Peabody, and appendix work for the blind and this past year containing text of the League of Na- has had embossed 100 grand old tions Protocol, Worlc. Court and the hymns, besides a booklet, a calendar Findings of the Conference on the and a Christmas card for 150 of its Cause and Cure of War. Suggestions blind constituency.
Woman's Foreign Mission
EDITED BY MISS ELLA D. MAOLAURIN, 25 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY ISOLATIONISTS OR COOPERATORS bilities voluntarily assumed by the great body of missionary women in For all our generosity and good will our churches, of the splendid service we tend to be in one sense at least, that has been and is being rendered by a nation of isolationists. Asia, Africa, these millions of women _ volunteer ]<Jurope and Latin America are very and employed workers, serving on far away from our daily lives and Boards and Committees, serving as thinking. Most of us are so engrossed officers and as lay workers, giving in our own affairs that the great time energy, strength, ability, money, changes taking place and the prob- pra;er, a great host, doing a maa~gncoifni– lems stirring in the lives of these, to cent piece of work. And, yet I us far distant people, have little if vinced that our Master s word IS not any place in our concern. Many of being entirely fulfilled. That a us even in our good deeds, our gener- greater work than this can we do if ous alleviation of suffering, our altru- we are ready to meet certain condi- istic missionary impulses and en- tions. We must cease being isolationdeavor tend 'to meet these situations ists and become true cooperators. But without perspective and rather senti- how can this be done? What are these mentally and subjectively. We hear conditions?
the appeal or know the need as a more I heard Dr. Julius Richter of Berlin or less isolated fact and do not see, or speak here in New York a few days we disregard, the ocean of cause a~d effect flowing and eddying around It. ago. In tracing the development of missions he said that in the 18th Cen- We think of the "suffering orphan" tury the responsibility for foreign m~s or the "needy heathen" and our sions seemed to rest on Germany, III hearts and purse strings are touched the 19th century that responsibility and loosened. had shifted to Great Britain, but that But we must have more than gener- in the 20th century the largest part ous impulses'and even more than their of that responsibility had unquestion- equally generous responses, if there is ably fallen upon North America:-the to be such a thing as a Christian Amer- United States and Canada. ThIS beica sharing her opportunities and gifts ing so, what an overwhelming r~spon with the rest of the world. sibility is ours! How are we gOIllg to We muSt get a true perspective, meet it? In disputes over woman'8 come to understand relationships and place in the Church, in controversy, in approach the situation, not merely: as multiplying organizations Y None of benefactors, but as intelligent Chris- these will fit U8 to meet that grave retians. We must study the wholeness sponsibility, though some may be con- of the situation and come to see clearly ,cinced that we and the Church as a that the present missionary enterpr~se is tied up with many and complex lU- whole could together meet it better if terrelationships which we must under- women were given recognition in the ecclesiastical organization of the stand and learn: how to meet if we are Church and in the making of its to do with God, the great piece of policies.
work He unquestionably expects us to Let me suggest some practical ways do. which we can put into operation im- I am thinking particularly of our mediately to develop cooperation with Women's Mission Boards and De- the plan of God to meet the needs of partments, of the special responsi- the world.
473
First, let me suggest that we need a of the Gospel of Peace as taught b), much more intelligent knowledge than the missionaries from the West. Can most of ns now possess, of the whole you 1 situation of the missionary enterprise. We are only beginning to realiz(l The missionary information of the that the world and its peoples are average person is mainly some isolated rapidly being bound together in one and rather vague facts about what her bundle of life through the annihila- own deuomination is doing in certain tion of space by means of steam.
countries, but as to the status or prog- electricity, radio, air craft; by edu· ress of missions as a whole, Oil' the cation and the printed page; by dip.
problems which are seriously compli- lomatic and political relationships.
cating the situation of our missionary We are coming very slowly to this enterprise in foreign lands she knows world consciousness. It has been said but little. that the 19th century made the world Some of those problems are grow- a neighborhood, but it remains for the ing out of political and diplomatic re- 20th century to make of that world a lationships of America with the lands brotherhood. We have thought and in which our missionary work is being talked about the theory of a Christian developed; some serious complications world citizenship but the practice has are arising from the new and rapid been found too difficult to be put into industrialization of the Far East; operation to any large extent.
others from the rapid development of How many of us are studying the a strong nationalistic sentiment, great cultures of the world so that our coupled with the desire for self-de- fraternity shall lie a critical and sym- termination, which is expressing itself pathetic nnderstanding and not a also in a natural desire for control in vague undisciplined mood of gener- the National Christian Church and in osity toward unknown peoples? How mission activities and po-licies. The many of us have tried to learn what growth of westernized, scientific edu- life means to the varied racial groups cation and the fact that the East has of the world, or what is implied in the come to know that much of Western personal experience or of the search- civilization and practices is often more ing after God in the world's religions'
pagan than Christian, have added still How many of us understand the na- more complications. A Chinese stu- tional ambitions, the traditions, the dent in the United States in response history of every great and significant to an appeal to become a Christian, racial group 1 said, "Christianity is theoretically the This last question leads us to realideal religion with the most exalted ize the interdependence of interna- ethics. but as I have observed it in tional and interracial factors. We of America, it doesn't work." As Mr. the Anglo-Saxon race have been ac- Chesterton has said, "Christianity cused, and, I fear justly, of what is has not been tried and found to be a termed a "Nordic Complex." The failure, it has been found difficult and conviction of the superiority of the so not tried. " This explains much of Nordic; the white races, is so in- the lack of Christian practice and liv- trenched in our minds and we are so ing in the world today. The peoples equally sure of the inferiority of all of the East are also saying that it is colored. races that we need to make a the West which has taught them the eareful study, such as was offered us art of modern warfare, that might during this past year on "The Way makes right and that the amount of of Christ in Racc Relations." I am influence a nation has in international wondering how many of us took this affairs is conditioned upon the opportunity to think this grave and strength of its armies and navies. serious question through. trying really This they cannot reconcile with the to find "Christ '8 Way." The time principles of Christianity, the message haiS come when we can no longer go
1925J WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSION BULLETIN
to these peoples of the East with their secure cooperative action I suggest a aneient and rieh heritages and eivili- renewal of our prayer life. zations in a spirit of condecension, as superiors and benefactors, but must I have just finished reading the go in the truly Christ-like spirit of latest book published by the Central helpers and cooperators, working Committee on the United Study of with, not for them. Foreign Missions, "Prayer and Mis- siom;" by Helen Barrett Montgomery, My first plea then is for a fresh ap- and I am rejoicing that hundreds of proach with unbiased, unprejudiced thousands of our missionary women minds to a restudy and a clear evalua- throughout the United States are this tion of the whole situation of the mis- year to study this book. It should be sionary enterprise. Material varied in the hands of every woman in the and interesting is available for our Church and it should be placed there reading and study. Latin America, and followed up with the prayer that which is one of our study themes for it may be the means of awakening, or this year, should be considered with reawakening, the prayer life of these these large issues in mind and our individual women. The possibilities relationships and responsibilities to- inhering in this little volume are inward these countries south of us, our calculable when used by God's Spirit. nearest neighbors, yet so little known It should be the means of liberating a or understood. The possibilities of great volume of prayer for the cause cooperation gl-owing out of an intelli- which we all hold dear; the means of gent and sympathetic understanding liberating needed funds and workers; of other peoples and their problems, the means of realizing God's plan for problems which the West has all too the world to those who seek to know often created or COmplicated, should His purpO'3es and to do His will. stimulate us to seek the information needed and then to use it in the wisest, Let us then, the missionary women finest, most Christlike types of service. of America, a force of incalculable My second practical suggestion is potentiality, cease to be isolationists, for a reviving of our spiritual im- which means self-centered, and bepulses, a return to the source of our come cooperators-Chl'isto-Centric. power in order that we may be able to render the service needed, which Let us come to see and know and service must be in the strength and love our brethren more nearly as our the might of our God through the operations of His Holy Spirit. Master and Lord sees and knows and loves them. This attitude of mind In order to carry through this great and heart will become possible as we task which our Master has left us to strive to know Him and His purposes do, our Christianity must have a more clearly, and our brother more depth, a vigor, a vitality, a warmth of truly. love, and that quality of loyalty which will make our obedience and our serv- May we let His spirit of intercesice acceptable and usable. sion and communion sweep through us, liberating His mighty workings As a third practical suggestion to for a world that so sorely needs Him and what He alone can give.
-Katharine V. Silverthorn.
T HE Editorial Committee of the Federation of Woman's BO'lrds of Foreign Missions of North America takes pleasure in the announcement of a series of articles by noted leaders and by outstanding Nationals of China, India and Japan who are themselves the product of foreign missions.
Every woman will read the first article from our own President, Mrs. E. II. Silverthorn, and will give it the widest publicity in her church, city and state.
Note also the valuable article in this issue by Mrs. Chas. K. R<>ys (page 451).
FROM.MANYLANDS
AFRIOA who is nearest to the Kingdom has Arablc Books in North Africa evidently been preaehing the Gospel ANEW and enlarged edition of a zealously, because one of his col- Christian hymn hook in J.rabic, leagues smilingly asked us, 'Are you for the use of Mohammedan-speaking trying to make a m1tbasshir (evanpeoples of North Airica, has been is- gelist) out of him?' Dr. Zwemer sued under the direction of the Rev. turned to the 8th Psalm, and read in Percy Smith, missionary of the Meth- the sonorous monotone they like to odist Episcopal Church in Algeria. u:se for sacred books that splendid He has also published the first two panegyrie of God's works in Nature, parts of a metrical life of Christ writ- amid the reverent approbation of the ten in modern North Africa Arabic. sheikhs who stood about. Then he There will be ten parts to the work turned to the 51st Psalm and marked a few verses there about sin and forwhen completed. Because o.f the form of the Koran, giveness, and I added: 'You must be and the way that it is chanted in the sure, 0 sheikh, to read the 32d mosques, any religious book that can Psalm. ' I wrote on the fiyleaf of be chanted makes a strong appeal to each of the Bibles, 'Presented to Mohammedans. It is hoped through Sheikh – – , .A,zhar University, Cairo, these two volumes to reach a large from the American Bible Society,' number with the Cbristian message. and added our address. Twenty Dr. Smith, with the help of the Amer- years, ten years ago, such a visit ican Christian Literature Soeiety for would have been unthinkable. God is Moslems (New York), has in prepa- answering prayer and giving growth ration a Freneh translation of Muir's to the seed sown. One of these days , 'Mahomet and Islam," for use by -in His own time-there is going to young Moslem students enrolled in eome the mighty harvest from all French schools. This book is an at- these Bibles, Testaments and gospels tempt to depict the great Islamic put into the hands of the leaders and leader apart from the halo of glory teachers of Islam."
whieh bistory has built around him. REV. Modern Life in Oongoland JOHN M. AND MRS. Moslems and the Bible REV. J. OSCAR BOYD, Secretary SPRINGER have been repre- of the Arabic-Levant Agency of senting the Methodist Episcopal the American Bible Society, describes Church for OVer twenty years in the a visit made by Dr. S. M. Zwemer, Belgian Congo, and they have seen Rev. Percy Smith of Algiers and extraordinary changes during that others to EI-Azhar University in period. Mrs. Springer recently wrote: Cairo: "It is amazing how one can "Cannibals and Ford cars! Sounds now walk into that old' stronghold of rather incongruous, doesn't itT But Moslem fanaticism and propaganda the motor ear is rapidly penetrating and present the Bible or a gospel and the remotest regions of the Dark Con- meet with nothing but a friendly weI- tinent and the cannibals can already come and hands stretehed out for the hear the warning honk, honk. Yes, books. We took with us four Arabie and what will yon say when I tell you Bibles and a quantity of Matthew's that I had the white children of my Gospel for presentation, and we had a Sunday-school here on New Year's fine reception. One of the sheikhs and gave them all the ice cream and 476 cake they could eat! Motor cars, ice whole of Kenya is being touched by cream, what next f This is a very dif- the mission work in Nairobi." For ferent Africa from the one to which some time past it has been usual on we came more than twenty years ago. Sunday mornings for two congrega- On the streets one sees white ladies tions of reverent worshippers each and black maidens dressed alike in numbering about a thousar:d, to the latest fashion. Weare very IIp- crowd into the mission buildings. A to-date even to a lack of morals. It business man was so impressed with would be very enlightening to know the work he saw in Nairobi that he ·how many white people there are in gave a considerable sum towards the building of a large stone church capathis place who pass for man and wife ble of holding two thousand people. that really have legal partners else- This church was dedicated on Decemwhere in the world. Flagrant ex- ber 20th, and the following day ten amples of drunkenness and immoral- Africans were ordained deacons by ity have their effect most emphatically the Bishop of Mombasa. On Christon the native population. But we are mas Day the Duke and Duchess of glad to say that there are many of the York attended the morning service. natives constantly coming to us and saying, 'I am tired of living in sin Methodist Work in Rhodesia and wickedness and I want to turn to God.' And turn they do by the scores THE mission of the Methodist Episand hundreds. That is what makes copal Church in Rhodesia, South missionary life endurable, and that Africa, has seen not only great only. Neither motor cars nor good, growth in numbers during the past comfortable houses, nor plenty of twenty years, but also interesting food including ice cream would miti- progress along other lines. Rev. W. gate the discouraging conditions. But C. Gardner, of Old Umtali, speaks or feeding these hungry souls not only "the change in the atmosphere of the mitigates the evH conditions but two, hundred kraals and centers makes us joyously happy that we are where our native workers are either here. " stationed or go with the Christian message. Though the followers 0.£ Wheless Station for Cen.tral Africa Christ are faced with temptation in THE erection at Ujiji, Lake Tan- its peculiar African forms, a Chris- ganyika, of a wireless station has tian standard of conduct is displacemphasized the tremendous develop- ing superstition and fear and many ment in Africa since Livingstone '8 of the distinctly heathen customs and day. Mr. Basil Mathews, comment- beliefs are being abandoned under the ing on this, refers to a letter from impact of enlightenment. The new Livingstone in which ha remarks, "It convert finds himself surrounded bv is a year since I had any news from those who understand his temptatioU:s Europe. " Stanley when he at last and are ready to help him." One of found Livingstone at Ujiji in 1871 the outstanding developments during handed over letters dated 1869. .A the past twenty years has been the message can now be sent between Methodist Mission Press for which a London and Ujiji in, it is stated, one new building has just been erected fortieth of a second. and a modern drum-cylinder-press Church for 2,000 Africans installed for book work. Two hun- dred Christian hymns have been A CONSTANT stream of people of translated, set to music and printed all tribes throughout East Africa in African dialects. On this press a go to Nairobi, a busy town in Kenya large number of tracts and booklets Colony, seeking employment. Arch- have been printed and colporteurs deacon Doulton, a visitor from the C. are going out into hundreds of native M. S. Tanganyika Mission, says that villages spreading gospel portions it is "no exaggeration to say that the and other Christian literature.
A "Packed" Congregation fourteen Egyptian pounds to the THE Right Rev. J. J. Willis, Alumni Fund to pay the tuition of a Bishop of Uganda, writes in the meritorious student for a year. Mrs. Church Missionary Outlook on the Shaldr is one of the leaders of the mass movement towards Christianity Feminist Movement in Egypt and secin his diocese. Of a scene in the retary of the Woman's League of Cairo. She is registered as a special Bukedi district he says: , 'Two long, seemingly interminable student in the School of .Arts and lines of dark figures, craning forward, Sciences. Unveiled, but with her hair smiling, cheering, clapping their covered, she pursues her studies with hands in a vociferous welcome. At the men students without embarrassthe end of the two lines a neatly built ment. Her husband is studying in church, the size of which, by compari- the School of Commerce at the Unison with the crowd to be accommo- versity.
dated, seems as nothing. The crowd Je.rusalem Y. M. C. A. Building pours in, until the church is filled to the doors. No pews or chairs occupy DR. JOHN R. MOTT reports that valuable space–the people sit shoul- a friend of the Y. M. C. A. has der to shoulder on the floOO'. And given $400,000 for a modern Associathen the church, already filled, is tion building in Jerusalem. He atpacked by a simple but drastic proc- tached two conditions to his gift: ess. The ~ongregation is told to one, that his name should never be stand, then to move forward, until known, and the other, that there shall the whole is wedged into a solid mass; be placed in the building a tablet statthe space left at the back is filled ing that it has been erected for the from the waiting crowd outside, and glory of God and in memory of His then the resultant mass is told to sit only begotten Son, our Lord. When down as best it can! That in such a this incident was mentioned, a day or congregation, thus uncomfortably two later, another Christian, who, in packed, there should be silence, and the same spirit, will not let his name eVen a certain reverence, is in itself be mentioned, promised to give as remarkable. And when it is remem- much as $25,000 toward providing a bered that almost all of these are pipe organ for the building, that from young people, the best of them only this Christian center overlooking removed by a few short years from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, there savagery, the sense of wonder grows might ascend praises to the Redeemer. deeper." His example led another friend to make a gift of $12,000 to provide THE NEAR EAST chimes for the tower of the building. When these gifts were reported to Prize for Moslem Woman one of the leading Jewish lawyers in !MONG seven contestants in an ora- New York he was so deeply impressed !. torical contest for Arabic-speak- that he promised to secure by April ing students at the University of 1st for this building enterprise Beirut in February, the prize was $50,000.
won by Mrs. Ahmad Shakir, of Egypt, the first Moslem woman to Jewish Agency for Pa.lestlne D enroll at the University. Her sub- R. WEIZMANN, president of the ject was, "Show Them (the women) . World Zionist Organization, the Light." She spoke in favor of characterized as "the most far-reach- liberal education for women and the ing event that has happened in the abolition of the veil by Moslem history of the Jewish people in many women. After the Governor had de- years," the recent reconciliation of clared the winners, it was announced Zionists, Non-Zionists,' and Anti- that Mrs. Shakir had added an equal Zionists concerning the Jewish re- sum to her prize and presented the colonizing of Palestine. Under the
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
League of Nations, Great Britain has for this opportunity. These young been the mandatory power for Pales- men themselves are helping in grad- tine, but in accordance with this ar- ing and laying out the avenues on and rangement the Jewish Agency for about the campus.-The Continent.
Palestine has been recognized as the appropriate public body for the pur- Moderniza.tion of Baghdad pose of advice and cooperation. The THE Christian statesmanship which Zionist organization has virtually led the foreign mission boards of been this agency, and up till the preB- the American Presbyterian and Reent the cooperation of Non-Zionists formed Churches to o,rganize a united has not been possible. The different mission for the occupation of Mesofactors no,w seem to, have established potamia, beginning with Baghdad a working cooperative basis, and the and Mosul, has been referred to more appro¥al o,f Great Britain and o,f the than once in the REVIEW. Many re- I,eague of Nations will be sought for ports are now coming of the ways in the reestablishment and recognition which the fo,rmer city is being of the Jewish Agency on a basis that modernized, and its c,onsequent imwill make it co,nsist o,f a Co,uncil of portance as a missio,nary center. One one hundred and flity and an execu- missionary writes of seeing" an Arab tive co,mmittee o,f eighteen, the Co,un- Sheikh, with his flowing garments cil to be composed of fifty per cent and distinctive headgear, sitting on a Zionists and fifty per cent Non- corner bootblack chair, having his Zionists, forty per cent of the Non- American shoes shined by an Ar- Zionist bo,dies to be representative of menian bootblack." An article in the American Jewry. New York Times giveB the following Teheran College Opened present-day facts about this ancient THE cornerstone o,f the first real city: "Tourists are flocking into the college in Persia was laid last place. Round-the-world air men autumn. The exercises were simple, dropped down there dThring the sumthe only guests being the scho,ol, the mer. There is a daily train service to alumni and a group of Americans. Basra, and weekly motor convoy serv- "According to custom," writes Mrs. ices to Ramadan, Teheran and Enzeli. S. M. Jordan, a sheep had been sacri- When an airplane mail service to ficed and all the workmen-brick- London, via Cairo, was established layers, carpenters and o,thers-had a two years ago passengers for London feast of mutton stew and melons, thus had to go via India. This co,nsumed giving these humble helpers a share a month, but now motor transports in the general happiness. Dr. Jo,r- carry patro,ns west to, London in from dan, the principal, the architect and nine to twelve days at half the cost of the Persian head maso,n moved the the old journey. There are now five sto,ne into place, and concrete made distinct lines of travel by land and o,f Portland cement imported fro,m sea to London."
Russia was Po,ured about it. The list o,f signatures o,f those who, had taken INDIA AND SIAM part in the breaking o,f ground for India Grateful for Bible A the new institution last May and the HINDU paper published in Bom- bay, The Indian Social Reformer, Bible and New Testament in English and Persian were among the objects commenting on a report of the Britplaced in the co,rnersto,ne. During ish and Foreign Bible Soeiety, says: the ceremony· two, go,vernment air- "It may be safely said that the most planes, circling abo,ut o,verhead, abiding testimony to the work of added to the picturesqueness o,f the Christian missions is the bringing of scene. College wo,rk began sho,rtly the Bible within the reach of all afterward, with two, classeB o,f young classes and communities. No one who men who had been waiting for years knows the facts will deny that mod-
ern Hinduism has in its essential ;re- Bombay, Doctor Mistri says that of spects been profoundly vivified by its Hindu children 90 per cent, and of contacts with Christ's teaching. The Mohammedan children 75 per cent impact of Christianity on Hindu are doped from birth until two years thought is but faintly reflected in the old. It is also given to children to Indian Christian community. Its appease hunger – a sidelight on the largest manifestation is to be found poverty of the masses.
in the unique way in which Hindu life and thought have been reacting Disciples' Jubilee in India to it. India will always gratefully remember the service rendered by the THE Jubilee celebration in America Christian missions in putting her in of the Disciples denomination was possession of the Bible to read in her reported in the Review. In India own languages and to interpret in the the leaders sought in their celebralight of her own great spiritual t<radi- tion to double the membership and to tions and experiences…. The book is make every Christian an intercessor, being studied and searched for the a proportionate giver, a pledged abspirit of Christ independently of the stainer, and a voluntary worker. dogmas of the churches. The Bible Every station has at least partly athas undoubtedly given a great stimu- tained these aims. Stewardship of lus to religious thought in India, and money, time an,d service was stressed the society which has made it its busi- with very gratifying results in many ness to place it within easy reach of instances. These Christians in India all is rendering a great service to the are learning to give to people in other world." countries. The junior society in Harda sent five dollars to help build Opium Given to Babies the chapel at Akita, Japan. The amount pledged as the Golden Jubi- THE National Christian Council of lee gift from India was $3,346, most India, at the request of the Inter- of which will go to Africa. In many' national Missionary Council, has pre- cases people sacrificed much in order pared a report on the use of opium in to give. In Maudaha everyone, even India which is very interesting, the poorest, gave at least one sixteenth though sad, reading. On the question of their income. In Bina two evanof the proportion of the drug that is gelists gave half a month '8 salary.
used medically or to meet the de- mands of the opium habit, the report Aspects of Everyday India R quotes evidence supplied by both In- EV. NICOL MAcNICOL, of the United Free Church of Scotland dian and Western doctors and edueators which shows that about three mission, has ;recently written a book, fifths of the total amount of opium is "The Making of Modern India," The used by addicts. One of the worst following comment made on it by the features of the situation is the terrible Dnya,nodaya is itself a summary of prevalency of doping little children. conditions in present-day I n d i a: In almost every part of India it ap- "The reader is reminded that the pears that the custom of giving opium two typical figures in the Indian landpills to small children prevails. scape are the money-lender and the Usually it is not continued beyond the 'holy man'; . . . that the doetrine age of two or three years, but up to of Karma held by most Hindus 'has that age there is indubitable evidence done more than any other doctrine to that the custom is distressingly wide- enervate them and reduce them to spread. It is given for various rea- lethargy and despair-morally, in a sons. The commonest is the mother's word, to bleed India white,' exercisdesire to stop the child's crying, par- ing 'a paralyzing influence from ticularly in the case of mothers who which India must be set free if she is work as operatives in factories. In to progress at all,' since the doctrine
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
has helped to forge India's three ber of Medical Missions and was later quoted in W m'ld Dmninion. The heaviest chains, viz., her asceticism, writer of this article gave an account of an experiment made by teaching her passive acceptance of things as jungle women what to do in simple cases of eye trouble; how to feed and they are, and her belief in an inex- nurse dysentery cases; how to avoid infection in epidemics of smallpox orable fate; that 'there is nothing and cholera; cleaner methods in mid- wifery work and how to treat infanrooted more deeply in the soul of the tile diseases. Commenting upon this experiment, the Editor said: "Edu- Indian peasant than his sense of God; cationally, . , .the value of such work is immense. Until we have taught . . . and in the making of modern people to do things for themselves we have accomplished nothing. It is the India they reckon ill that leave Him greatest of all achievements to enter their lives at their level and build out' ; that two of the greatest ob- forom the bottom up. ,Videspread work like that at Chota Nagpur would stacles to Indian Christianity are 'the hasten perhaps more than anything else the spiritual and physical, the poverty of the Indian Church' and material and intellectual develop- ments we long to see, " 'the downward pull of the mass move- New Hospital in Siam ments as these pour year by year ig- THE opening of the McCormick norant multitudes into the Church'; Hospital in Chiengmai, Siam, was an occasion of great reJoicing, and and that the two greatest aspirations among the distinguished guests pres- ent was the brother of the King of of Indian Christian leaders are 'to Siam, who studied public health at Harvard. Dr, E. C, Cort gave the have a Christlike character and to history of medical work in Siam "from the time Dr, McGilvary first have the Indian spirit.' . introduced quinine and vaccination for smallpox into Chiengmai" At Baluchistan Christians that time whole villages in one dis- trict would be wiped out by smallpox I N Quetta, one of the most important in a single epidemic; today in the cities of Baluchistan, the English same region there have been barely have a strong military post; and fifteen cases in the last fifteen years. largely for military purposes have 'fhe hospital plant so far consists of built an excellent railroad and motor the surgical building and a ward road clear across the country to group. In the latter is a ward for Chaman, three miles from the Afghan European and American patients, the border. Both English and American gift of British teak timber firms in missionaries are at work in Quetta. North Siam, which is divided into E. E. McCannon, who recently visited four large private rooms. 'fhe kitchen the Methodist missionaries there, and dining room were the gift of the writes: Chiengmai Christian community. Another building, directly across the "Here we have a dispensary, which street, when finished, will be the home ministers not only to the villagers, of the missionary doctor. but also to many of the Afghans who come from far out in the interior. This is in charge of a fine Afghan Christian doctor. Here we also have a school and a wide-awake pastor and church, with a Christian community of nearly two hundred. Notice was sent out that we had arrived and that a Christian service would be held at noon. The chapel was well filled at this unusual hour. On its wall is a memorial tablet to the :first Christian of this community, who also became the first martyr."
New Type of Medical Work ASUGGESTfVE article, entitled "A New Venture in Chota Nagpur," appeared in the February num-
CHINA tianity," the writer says: "Now he is allowed to carry out his peaceful A New Constitution for China plans. He had all along been train- ing his soldiers in all the arts of AWIRELESS message from Peking peace, as weavers, farmers, carpen- to the New York 'l'imes, dated ters, etc. And now comes his ap- April 21st, gives a pessimistic picture pointment as defense commissioner of the political outlook in China, for. the northwest. He has planned which it is to be hoped futUJ"e events for fifty-one villages of 200 families will not justify. It said: "The re- each, the settlers to he given full organization conference to consider transportation, and a house of three means of restoring China to peaceful rooms each, with furniture to be reand constitutional conditions, which turned in two years. So his dishas been sitting for the last three banded soldiers will become useful months, was officially dissolved today citizens. He is making arrangements after much formal discussion which for getting the best breeds of cattle, had very little tangible result. The bees, etc., as well as most useful forconference, however, may have ful- eign farming implements and applifilled its purpose by ordaining the ances. He quietly lives down the summoning of citizens to a confer- slanders circulated about him. He is ence, which will report to a commis- the most splendid demonstration of sion appointed to draft a new consti- the value of practical Christianity to tution. Delegates to the conference China." will be eLected by provinces, but as the provinces are totally under the Union Conference in Chengtn thumbs of the militarists the ordinary citizen is not likely to be powerfully I N Chengtu, Szechwan Province was represented, and as the commission is held in January an "All-Church to be nominated by the Government General Conference in Western brought to office by military agency, China," which brought together repthe character of the constitution resentatives of all the missionary which it will prepare will not be un- agencies at work in that distant reduly democratic. gion. A similar gathering in 1908 led to the organization of a central , 'Meanwhile the provisional Senate educational system and the founding is to be convened forthwith to give in Chengtu of an interdenominational constitutional color to the situation, Christian university for the training which is so irregular that the Parlia- of pastors, teachers, physicians and ment which elected President Tsao lay leaders. The 1925 conference was Kun eighteen months ago has not composed of 500 delegated church even been dissolved. It simply melted leaders and 250 accredited guests, away when judicial proceedings were some of whom traveled two weeks announced against those legislators from their mission stations to attend who had been bribed to make the the conference and was overwhelmaforesaid election." ingly Chinese in membership. All the chief officers of the conference Mal'8hal Feng's New Work were Chinese; every committee had a Chinese chairman and secretary; TRIBUTES to Marshal Fang Yu English was not allowed upon the Hsiang, both as a Christian and a floor of the conference except in the patriot, from people who know him in case of a few visitors whose addresses Peking were quoted in the March RE- were translated from English into VIEW, and others have since appeared Chinese; all formal reports, stated in various papers. Those who are addresses, and devotional services praying for Marshal Feng will be in- were in Chinese. The slogan adopted terested in the latest news of him, for the conference, "West China for contained in a letter from Peking, Christ, and Every Christian a 1fisquoted in The Continent. After contrasting him with Sun Yat Sen, "who chose the sword and laid down Chris-
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
sionary, " was the central theme bel' of Chinese were taken there to around which the conference was or- work in the sugm- plantations. The ganized. Denominational differences Samoan Christians, true to the real and lines were forgotten, and there missionary spirit they have always was unity in thought and purpose. shown, very soon began to think of how these strangers in their midst A Demon Cast Out could be taught the Gospel. The MISS E. E. MASSEY, a mission- Christian Endeavorers promised to ary of the Church Missionary find the necessary funds and sent an Society working at Foochow, in the application to the South China Mis- Fukien Province of China, writes of sion to find them a Chinese evangelist, an instance of answered prayer in the who should work among these exiles_ deliverance of a demon-possessed Mr_ Lei responded to the call and woman. Miss Massey was called to went in 1914. He worked there with go with a Bible woman to pray with a diligence and a good measure of sucpoor woman who was devil-possessed. cess till the greater part of the Chi- Her little boy and girl had died with- nese were repatriated. Then he went in a few days of each other. The to Melbourne and spent two years or woman went to the idols, and became so among his countrymen there.
possessed. For four months she had disturbed the neighborhood, and Anti-Opium Activities S when the missionary arrived the OME of the early work of the Na- tional Anti-Opium Association of .woman was found chained to a post, and had been beaten and burned China was described in the January about the mouth. A number of Christians went with Miss Massey and her REVIEW. Later a petition sent by the helper, and after much prayer the Association to the Geneva Conference demon was cast dut. Now the woman, and to the Peking Government wa.s her husband, and remaining little girl signed by over 2,000 organizations in attend church regularly and take the different 'provinces, representing every opportunity of "learning the over 2,000,000 people. "About thirty doctrine. "-C. M. S. responses to tae petition," says the Chinese Recorder, "ate still coming A Chinese "World Christian" in every day. It is quite safe to say that public opinion against this great REV. LEI SHUE KWAI is one of evil has been awakened in China for the outstanding Chinese leaders the first time. Members of some of in the Hong-Kong Mission of the the branch associations have actually London Missionary Society. The work begun to fight against the compulsory has grown until now there are seven planting of the poppy. A few weeks centers with churches. Mr. Lei is in ago a leader in the anti-opium move- charge of the whole as pastor, and ment in the province of Fukien was there are several evangelists and arrested by local officers for stirring school teachers. He has had an un- up the people against the order to usual experience. As a lad he was plant the poppy. But as the public educated in the mission school in opinion was so strong against the Canton, and afterwards had his the- action of the local officer, the victim ological training in the school of the was released right away and the Basel Mission. He worked in the officer was put out of his position by Pok Lo and Ts'ung Fa districts as an the civil governor of Fukien. This evangelist. After that he was for shows that public opinion is gradually several years in charge of the work gaining ground in regard to the anti- in Macao, an outstation of the Hong opium movement."
Kong church. Then he had a call to The Association has sent several go to Samoa. When those islands representatives to different provinces were under German rule a large num- to promote the movement and they
have met with great success. Miss up the town. In the preliminary ar- May Chang of the W. C. T. U. went rangements, there was no difficulty; to Ningpo and founded a branch as- everyone seemed, rather, to go out of sociation in that city. Through Miss their way to help. Chang's untiring efforts the different The mission began October 21st, bodies in that city participated in the and on the first night the tent was movement and a city-wide campaign crowded, while numbers went away because there were no more seats. is being planned. The first night, over forty men and JAPAN-KOREA women pressed to the front, and earnest souls cried aloud to God for Japanese Youth Movement pardon and salvation. This scene was repeated night after night, and the THREE tendencies characterize the evidences of the Spirit's power was life and thought of the young peo- ·".isible. Scores of New. Testaments ple of Japan today, according to were sold. Talmo Matsumoto. He says, in the J apanes'6 Student Bulletin: At the close of the ten days, 289 converts were registered besides a "First, reality in both personal and number of children, not the least immental life is passionately sought. portant part of the work, for whom Second, we may unhesitatingly say special afternoon meetings were held. that the new generation in Japan At the end of the fourth week of the today is proloundly religious. It is mission, there was no sign of waning true that its religious longings are interest. The responsibility of shepvague and formless in most cases, but herding these people is very great. I believe that they will gradually crystallize themselves into more vital There are opposing for~es at work. co"llvictions. The third noteworthy The Buddhists are becoming aggresfact about the young men and women sive in their opposition. These are of Japan today is the new interest good signs. they have come to take insocial problems. In the spring of 1924, The Stu- What took place in this town of dent Society for the Study of Social Shinmaizuru could be repeated in Science was first inaugurated in everyone of the thousands of such Waseda University, and t.hen in one towns and cities yet unevangelized, after another of various higher insti- and which call in no uncertain tones tutions in Tokyo and elsewhere. Al- to us to discharge our debt of the though these societies in different Gospel to them.
schools aim at a dispassionate scien- Progress in Reconstruction S tific study of social facts and prob- OME of the plans of the Prot~st~nt Episcopal Church for rebUlldmg lems, they show signs of eventually developing into a g.reat student move- its work in Japan which were anment for social righteousness." nounced in the REVIEW for June, A Revival in Japan 1924, are now well under way. All the damaged buildings of St. Paul's A BAND of worker.s set out very University, except the chapel, have early one mornlllg on an ex- been repaired and are now in use. tended evangelistic tour northward to Three important land purchases have the coast from the Japan Evangelistic been made: (1) A new site of about Band Branch Bible School at Kai- eleven acres for St. Margaret's bara. Each important town and city School, fifteen miles west of the old was 'i".isited and Gospel meetings held. site in Tsukiji. This will provide Shinmaizuru, an entirely unevan·· space not only for the new St. :M:ar- gelized town of some twenty thousand garet's buildings, but also for a pri- inhabitants, was one of t.he plaees mary school for both boys and girls, that ealled for occupation. A t.en thus filling the serious gap between days' tent mission was held to open kindergartens and high schools. (2)
NEWS FROM MANY
A new site has been purchased for St. weekly. It is undoubtedly true that Paul's Middle School, near the Uni- a larger percentage of the population versity. This will make possible a in Pyengyang gathers daily for fam- closer coordination in the work of the ily prayers than in any other large two institutions that ought to prove city in the world, except possibly in advantageous and economical for Scotland.' , both. (3) Just opposite the Aoyama Palace, one of the official residences Christian Doctors for Korea of the Imperial Family, and at the SEVERANCE UNION MEDICAL jnnction of two important thorough- COLLEGE in Seoul now holds a fares, a wonderful site has been pur- charter from the Government, and its chased for the new Trinity Church. graduates have the privilege of re- No more satisfactorv location could ceiving license to practice on presenhave been secured in the whole of tation of their diplomas. This applies Tokyo. A residence for Tagawa San, also to the nurses. This is one recogrector of the Japanese congregation, nition of the work which this famous is now being built. institution has been doing for the past thirty years. Its first aim was Pyengyang-Then and Now the education of Christian Korean THIRTY-FOUR years ago Drs. young men as doctors that they might Moffett, Hall and Lee, pioneer mis- be added to the forces of the medical sionarie-s, entered Pyengyang. Since missionaries and 124 doctors and then, says the Korea .llission Pield, forty-six: nurses have been ~raduated, "One of the most wicked Oriental a very worth-while contribution to cities has become one of the most the beneficent 3.nd Christianizing in- Christian cities in any mission field. fluences in the country. When one Then there was not a'single believer, considers, however, that there are now church, modern school or charitable 17,000,000 people in Korea one real- organization in the city. Today in a izes that the college must also fit itself population of about 97,000 people, of to make medical teach ers and trainers whom 76,000 are Koreans and 19,000 of nurses. This means that it must Japanese, there are more than 10,000 advance its standards, enlarge and Protestant believers; 20 "hlethodist improve its faculty and plant and and Presbyterian churches, set upon prepare to move up to university . every hill and at every point of van- grade. Extensive plans are now tage in the city; a complete system under way for the development not of education for men from the kinder- only of the college, but also of the garten to the college and seminary, hospital and dispensary connected and for women to the academy and with it. Dr. O. R. Avison, the Presi- Higher Bible School; and not only do the poor have the glad tidings dent, is now in this country, seeking preached unto them, but the orphans, the large sums' of money which will the aged, the draf and blind, as well be needed to supplement what the as the moral outcasts of society, are Koreans have already given to carry out these plans.
cared for. A very conRervative esti- ISLANDS OF THE SEA mate places the average total Sunday congregation in the city at 9,000. It Australian Aborigines O is no unnsual thing for 5,000 of these NE of the aboriginal groups in Central Australia is the Aranda to meet in the mid-week prayer meetings. Each church conducts its Sun- tribe, which occupies an area not less day schools in relays, instructing the than 700 miles in length from north children, the women and the men in to south and stretches out east and succession, for even the largest church west of the transcontinental telegraph buildings are too small to accommo- line, covering an unknown extent of date the crowds which throng them country in either direction. Lutheran
missionaries began work among them across the island may strip the young in 1875, naming their first station trees of their foliage. To guard Hermannsburg. Rev. C. Strehlow, against this, the koa tree has been who has re~ently died, labored for planted with them. The larger trees twenty-eight years am 0 n g the protect the smaller growth, and later Aranda, a~ting as pastor, teacher, can be removed.
doctor, as well as manager of the sta- tion. In addition to preaching, teach- NORTH AMERICA ing, catechizing, he worked methodi- A Home Missions ArguDlent cally on linguistic and" ethnological subjects and became a real authority MRS. w. O. CARVER, of the on native questions. Since his death Southern Baptist Church, has the Lhanda leaders, thrown on their been stirred by a visit to Europe to own resources, have not only main- realize anew the significance of the tained services at Hermannsburg but work for foreigners c:u-ried on by have received a real impulse to carry home mission boards. She writes; the Gospel to other and less civilized tribes. The activity of the Aranda "It frightens me to know that alevangelists is extending the influence ready 40,000 Italians have gone to of the mission, for only recently a America this year-everyone of group of natives walked a hundred them, in all probability, a Catholic miles to Hermannsburg to hear about and against p.rohibition. America is Jesus. the mission field of the world today! I feel like shouting it aloud from every city in our U. S. A. Let every- Ohaulmoogra Trees in Hawaii body-every Christian-go to work to teach these foreigners in his own THE marked impro'Vement, amount- city Christ '8 religion and how to be ing often to apparent cure, which good citizens. Teach them to love has resulted f,rom the chaulmoogra God and not war…. There is absooil treatment, is an achievement of lutely no hope until the love of God modern science which has proved a gets into their hearts, and how can it great boon in several mission fields. when their hearts are so full of hate?
The oil is distilled from the seeds of And these people with their ideals the fruit of the chaulmoogra tree, the and race hatreds are coming to our cultivation of which is now being country by the thousands every year. pushed on one of the Hawaiian is- Surely it is time we waked up 1"
lands. Formerly the oil used in the treatment of lepers in Hawaii had to The Ohurches of Boston D be imported from India. The seed ENOMINATIONAL statisties is- sued by the Federation of for the chaulmoogra trees now growing in the spe~ial plantation on the Churches in Greater Boston, show island of Oahu was shipped from Congregational churches, 136; Bap- Siam and Burma. It made the trip tist, 117; Methodist, 1l6; Protestant packed in charcoal. The trees were Episcopal, 101; Unitarian, 65; Cni- started in germinating-flats, then versaliRt, 33; Presbyterian, 24. The carefully transplanted into inilividual Record of Christian Work thus com- pots and held for a year Some of ments: "The significant thing about these trees by the end of a year attain these figures is the revelation of the a height of four feet. A year later fact that liberalism has failed to make they are from ten to twelve feet high. good under the most advantageous When they are about eight years old, conditions, and that the evangelical they begin to bear. The red volcanic churches have multiplied and pros- soil on Oahu seems to be very suitable pm·ed in the very stronghold of Uni- for cultivating this tree. However, tarianism. A century ago, in the the trade-winds that at certain sea- great split in the Congregational fold, sons sweep with ~onsiderable violen~e only two churches remained steadfast
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
in the faith, all the ~est going over to tions and for community welfare to the Unitarian wing. A hundred years learn from each others' experiences. later the number of Trinitarian Con- There were 216 delegates, from sevengregational churches is more than teen states, and of these 114 were double that which sails under the colored. The following topics were Unitarian flag." considered in open forum bessions of about three hours each, with full and Presbyterian Stndents Confer free discussion by delegates on the floor, this type of discussion taking FUTURE leaders in the Presbyte- most of the time: "Publicitv and rian Church-140 of them from Race Relations," "Health and Race forty-one universities, colleges, nor- Relations," "Housing and Race Remal and training schools throughout lations, " "Growth of the Interracial the country-spent three days o·f Movement, ' , ,,Social Agencies and their Easter vacation at Ann Arbor, Race Relations," "The Courts and Michigan, discussing questions they Race Relations," and "Schools and consider of vital importance to the Colleges and Race Relations," "The church, nation, the campus and the Church and Race Relations," and individual. Chief among these were "Industry and Race Relations." war, creed, and race. On the second subject they adopted the following "P1'inceton-in New York" findings: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY'S We believe that a creed is only the ex- . century-old religious organization, pression of certain men '. interpretation of The Philadelphian Society, is begin- Christianity as they understand it. Rec- ning a movement, with the above ognizing that thought progresses and that title, which will be analogous to its interpretations change with the advance· , , Princeton-in-Peking' , mi tlSionary ment of knowledge, we believe that forced work in China. Ray F. Purdy, Gradsubscription to a fixed and formal creed uate Secretary of the Society, says may impair the integrity of the individual that the plan has grown out of a sumconscience. Therefore, we are opposed to mer camp for boys, established sevthe requirement that ministers and elders ()f eral years ago. He says: the Presbyterian Church subscribe t() the Westmin ster Confession ()f Faith. However, We found that we must go into the we realize the necessity of a unified expres· family and economic conditions of the boys sian of essential doctrines, and we favor a whom we were endeavoring to benefit. 'l'his creed which is a statement of purpose rather has led us to the conviction that more fun· than a creed which is an elaboration ()f damental work must be done. 'l'hat will theological ideas. result next year in the establishment of a permanent social service secretary jn Prince· The conference organized "The ton and the development of a group of National Association of Presbvterian Princeton men in New York who will live Students," and asked the B~ard of together and begin a community service Christian Education to appoint an from one centre. A part of this will be the executive secretary. erection of a model tenement at a e,ost of $350,000. Here the families of the boys we Race Relations Conference have met at the summer camp and else- where will be gradually worked in as ten- THE first National Interracial Con- ants. We will thus endeavor to see through _ ference to be held in America was the problems we encounter in the earlier held in Cincinnati, Ohio, March 25th- stages of our work. Instead of merely ap- 27th. The meeting was arranged by plying a temporary palliati,e, we shall enthe Commission on Race Relations of deavor to work out practically thl' economic the Federal Council of Churches, and spiritual problems of those with whom jointly with the Commission on Inter- we come in contact. racial Cooperation, with headquarters in Atlanta, to enable white and col- Southern Baptist Progress ored people in uifferent communities, who are wrestling with problems of SIX years' effort to get $75,000,000 organization, methods and programs in subscriptions for missions and for improvement of interracial rela- education through a period of five
years resulted in $59,000,000 in cash, sent to them. The only part of the and the likelihood of more. The gain program which is being pre-deter- in new Baptist churches was thre'e mined is the general division of sub- times that of the preceding five years. jects by weeks, as follows: First Baptists averaged a membership gain week, economic questions; second oi 40,000 a year for the five years week, political; third week, racial; beyond the previous five-year period. fourth week, international. Many Now a 1925 movement has been representative leaders of religious started doing away with the five-year thought have agreed to be present. pledges, but seeking to maintain the rate of growth alongt all lines that was Negro BURiness Progres.. attained in the special campaign. DR. R. R. MOTON, Principal of During the last ten years the for- Tuskegee Institute, is also Presi- eign missionary fields of the denomi- dent of the Nati()nal Negro Business nation have inc.reased from seven to League. In his address at its annual seventeen, the number of churches on meeting he said: "When the Na- these fields from 380 to 1,095, mem- tional Negro Business League was or- bership of foreign churches from ganized in Boston twenty-f()ur years 29,991 to 111,872, Sunday-schools ago the aggregate number of business from 542 to 1,511, Sunday-school organizations, corp()rate and individ- pupils from 22,022 to 76,504, annual ual, owned and operated by colored contributions by foreign churches people was not more than 20,000 with from $91,159.69 to $444,568, .Ameri- a combined capital of $10,000,000. can missionaries on the field from 278 Today they own and operate 60,000 to M4, native Christian workers em- with a combined capital of $60,000,- ployed from 634 to 2,494. 000. The Negro owns in .America more than $1,000,000,000 worth of Diseussional Conference Planned property real and personal, whereas when the Declaration of Independ- A SUMMER conference on eCO- ence was adopted, the combined cap- nomic, political, racial and inter- ital of the entire nation was about national problems, under the auspices $500,000,000. We have now 72 suc- of "The Fellowship for a Christian cessful Negro banks. We should and Social Order," will be held .August could have 700. There are many ] st to 3,lst on the campus of Olivet cities with large Negro population College, Olivet, Michigan. .Around where leaders ,in business among the actual problems of the group the Negroes could accomplish any rea- discussion will be concentrated. No sonable business enterprise if it were program of set speeches is being ar- properly managed. Durham, Savan- ranged in advance. The various per- nah, .Atlanta, Richmond, Norfolk, sons designated as leaders will come New York, with many others, are set- prepared to share their experiences ting notable examples in the possibili- with other members of the group, and ties of this race to accomplish large at opportune moments will speak di- results.' , rectly to the point on issues under • consideration. In other words, the Indian Chlld a Teacher leaders will be available as consult- ants and will stand ready to furnish ON THE edge of an Indian reserva- data that is required by members of tion in Washington is a little the group, as they seek to reach their girl, eleven years old, whose name own conclusions concerning various even has not been recorded on the problems. Prior to the conference books of the Board of Christian Edu- delegates will be asked to cooperate cation, but whose work last summer in the formation of a tentative sylla- has given her a place above thousands bus of outstanding difficulties by fill- of other girls. The little girl was in ing out a questionnaire which will be the Daily Vacation Bible Sch()ol con-
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
ducted at Wellpinit, Washington. Boy babies have a greater value and She had lots of fun, but saw that are seldom, if ever, killed."
there were a great many other boys and girls near her home who would LATIN AMERICA enjoy such a school but who could not Mexican Separatist Movement come. After the school was over, she AN organization of Mexican Cathgathered a group of nine Indian chil- .tl. olics has been formed which indren and carried on for ten days a volves the repudiation of the authorminiature Daily Vacation Bible ity of the Pope, the abandonment of School all by herself. She had a little celibacy for the priesthood and consister who helped her but no grown siderable alterations in the prescribed folks had a hand in this second school. ritual of worship. These features of She carried out a program of Bible the movement are identical with those memory work. The children sang that have characterized a similar one songs, and she told them Bible stories. in Czecho-Slovakia. She also had them stand up and go through exercises just as they did in According to the Philadelphia Pttbthe school she had attended. For lie Ledger, Ash Wednesday was celecraft work she had the young Indians bated in Mexico City in La Soledad make articles out of flour sacks and Church by the new Mexican Apotltolic colored yarns. The sessions were car- Church. The Patriarch, Joaquin ried on in a businesslike way with a Perez, said: seriousness that did credit to the chil- Our desire is to maintain a Catholic dren. The sessions were held out of doors, and the closing demonstration Church preserving all the ritual an d beliefs was given in the community building. intact, but entirely indepeudent of Rome. Mas~es, baptisms, marriages, funerals, cere- monies and rites will be pronounced in the To Sa~e Eskimo Baby Girls Spanish language, that all hearers may un· derstand exactly what is said.
K NUD RASMUSSEN, the famous It is reported that the new church Arctic explorer, who is now on is allied with the Mexican Federation his way, at the invitation of the of Labor, receiving financial and Canadian Government, to report on moral aid from that organization. the Eskimos of the Hudson Bay and The Presbyteria,n Survey comments: more northern sections, was inter- "We strongly suspect that the influviewed in New York City on his ar- ences behind the movement are much rival from Europe. He said that one more political than religious in their of the Eskimo practices which the cha1"acter. ' , Canadian Government hopes to stop is the killing of all girl infants, save those pledged in marriage. The cus- An Appreciati~e Audience R tom of Eskimo infanticide, according EV. J. E. THACKER, Presiding Elder of the Parral District in to Dr. Rasmussen, developed from the Eskimo's difficulty in providing food the Mexican Mission of the M. E.
and other necessities foo: the family. Church South, writes: "Our influ- "The Eskimo has not in any sense the ence is extending in ever-widening same moral viewpoint as civilized peo- circles, and we are reaching more and pIe," he explained, "and the life of a more people every day. To count our child has about the same value as the actual membership does not give a life of any other creature. If there is just idea of our work and its progress.
not provender enough they kill the Our Mexican pastors have lately gone girl babies immediately after birth by to new centers and have had a good smothering them. If a girl baby, degree of success. I 1"ecently accom- prior to birth, is pledged in marriage, panied Rev. Epigmenio Garza to the mother will preserve it. If not, Boquilla, and there we had the privi- the line of le<lSt resistance is followed lege of preaching the Gospel for the and the infant is put out of the way. first time in that place and to an
audience of six fine, bright young Mission Student. Win Honors men who listened with profound in- THE annual ,report from Saneti terest for a whole evening. Tills is Spiritus, Cuba, to the Board of one of the very brightest things in a National Missions of the Presbyterian missionary's life-to tell others of Churrh in the U. S. A. has the follow- ing to say about the mission high Christ for the first time and to such school in that city: "The school has appreciative listeners. We expect to won a great achievement in scholastic continue going there, and hope in annals. In the past course, when the time to win some of these young men government examiners came to hold for Christ. We sold several Bibles to their yearly examinations, there was the Spanish-speaking people and a not a single failure and many of the Bible in Chinese to the only Chinese pupils were awarded the highest in town."
Schools Needed in Porto Rico grade that is gh;en. After finishing ALTHOUGH the United States the examinations the examiners pro- Govel"lllnent at great expense and nounced the pupils the best prepared with the most aggressive diligence has of the entire province. Such combeen laboring for twenty-five years to ments spread quickly throughout the create an American public school sys- city and never before has the work tem at Porto Rico, it is still so far in Sancti Spiritus enjoyed the presbehind the necessities of the situation tige that it has today. Judging from that the provincial commissioner of what has happened in the past year education recently expressed the de- at tills station, there is not a better sire that missionary schools might be field in all Cuba or the West Indies established in each toivn of the island. than Sancti Spiritus; and if efficient " The cOlll1Ilissioner made this re- consecrated efforts are put forth a mark," says The Continent, "after strong congregation will result and an inspection of certain Presbyterian one that will send out well-prepared schools, and it is supposed that they workers for Cuba. "
set the standard which he has in mind for the whole island-although, as a Organbed R. C. Opposition W matter of fact, under the present ORKERS in "The Latin Ameragreement among the evangelical de- ican EvangelizatiO'n Campaign"
nominations, whatever work Presby- describe, as the chief feature of their terians undertake will be done only recent visit to Santo Domingo, "the in the western end of the island or in prepared and determined resistance San Juan, the capital. However, of the Roman Catholic clergy. They within this allotted Presbyterian ter- had been advised from the United ritory there is plenty of room fo·r ex- States of the plan to carry out an pansion, and a great deal to bc done evangelistic campaign through the before the commissioner's idea could republic and their counter-attack was even be approximately met. What along the lines of a virulent anti- has been already accomplished educa- American propaganda. One of the tionally through joint missionary and Catholic papers in the States had re- government enterprise is shown by ported Mr. Strachan as having ad- the fact that since 1898 illiteracy in mitted in a public address the truth Porto Rico has been reduced from 80 of the charge so often made against to 54 per cent. But this very exhibit missionaries in Latin America, that demonstrates that half the population they are the paid agents of the of Porto Rico is still unable to' read United States Government, for the and write, and explains fully why the purpose of winning over the people, commissioner desires all the assistance with a view to preparing for occupa- the churches could give in extending tion later on. Although the United and completing the edu<latiO'nal work States troops were withdrawn from which has been thus so well begun." Santo Domingo last June, yet anti-
NEWS FR.OM MANY LANDS
American feeling still runs very high congress of the league and so it is and the Romanists took advantage of advertised in the daily papers. The the situation to propagate these lies. " league's program of activities, worked out through the local chapters in con- Winning Porto Ricans to Christ nection with their churches, affords OVER 1,000 won for Christ in excellent opportunity for the girls al- Porto Rico is the result of a three ready in training to do practice work, months' evangelistic campaign con- during the school year and at vacaducted by Rev. and Mrs. Fred J. tion time.
Peters of The American Baptist Home Mission Society. In San A Brazilian Indian Tribe R Lorenzo 174 were converted. Services EV. ARTHUR F. TYLEE, of the Inland South America Missioneverywhere have been attended by people of all social ranks and the con- ary Union, writes f,rom Corumba, verts include teachers and lawyers. Brazil: Families have become reunited. .A "These splendid, clean, strong temperance movement has accom- Nhambiquaras, wild in their manner panied the revival with the result of life, but sympathetic of heart, are that stills have been closed and their totally isolated from all opportunity owners brought to realize their de- to know of the Gospel. We have pendence upon God. In other loeali- their friendship and confidence. Our ties not visited' by the American evan- hymns at a service held in the pres- gelists revivals have sprung up to ence of one family pleased them so strengthen the churches. In many much that, on the return journey, we places the services have been carried were requested by them to sing again on in the face of persistent and or- for others to hear. The door is open.
ganized opposition. We have dedicated ourselves to the evangelization of this tribe number- Argentine Evangelical Women ing some 10,000 or more. The task is F OR three years past a Bible Train- difficult, and the way covered with ing School for Spanh,h-speaking obstacles, material, physical and young women has been conducted in spiritual, but the Nhambiquaras are Buenos Aires by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the M. E. to have the Gospel! "Ve are sure of God's call to them. "
Church, the Disciples of Christ, and the National League of Evangelical EUROPE Women. This league is young and its English Methodists Unite N limited resotLrces do not permit itsOT only have the first steps been • taken in the United States tocooperation as far as funds are concerned, but in its own way it con- ward the reunion of the Northern and tributes to the work. It is made up of Southern Methodist Churches, but in women from different Protestant de- England the three Methodist bodies nominations and reaches, through its -Wesleyan, P,rimitive and United- local chapters, many places where have come together. "These three,"
Methodists and Disciples a,re un- says Arthur Porritt, "differ seriously known, but where J e~ms Ohrist is on nothing save church government.
known. The bulletin of the league On doctrinal questions they are sub- goes into many Argentine homes stantially agreed. Tradition and sen- which no other Protestant literature timent, however, are factors, and in enters, and gains new friends for the the discussions spread over the last school. Its prayer calendar gives a five years they have been stressed by place to the school, and intercession the opponents of the reunion pro- goes up £rom many women far from posal. Now the votes of the Meth- Buenos Aires. The work of the school odist people have been taken and a is annually reported at the national very substantial majority have ex-
pressed themselves in favor of the war economic situation has caused union. " The combined body will con- many worthy but poor young men to tain far the largest Noncomformist turn to the theological schools to pre- Church in Gil'eat Britain, second, in pare for the Christian ministry. fact, only to the Church of England. Large numbers of these students It will have 4,368 ministers, 37,697 could not afford even to purchase the lay preachers; 898,936 members and Hebrew and Greek Scriptures which probationers, in addition to adher- are used as textbooks. Last year the ents; 1,541,517 Sunday-school schol- American Bible Society made possible ars, with 173,261 officers and teachers. the distribution of Nestle's Greek It will possess 13,558 Sunday-schools Testaments among theological stuand 12,242 churches. 'rhe property dents in Germany, Poland, Czech()- it will own is probably $150,000,000. Slovakia and Austria. It also sent to It will also have valuable properties the Bible Society of France 5,000 and a large membership in the for- French New Testaments, the sale of eign field. which will increase the receipts of this society. Protestants in Great Britain Minority Religions in Roumania UNDER the auspices of the Evan- gclical Alliance, a large meeting A REPRESENTATIVE American was held liIarch 31st in London "to commission, which visited Roureaffirm the principles of Protestant- mania last year, states in its recently ism. " Representatives of the Free published report that Roumania con- Chur.ches and of the Anglican Church tinues to violate provisions of the took part, and passed resolutions de- Trianon treaty guaranteeing the claring "unwavering devotion to the rights of minority churches in Trangreat Protestant principles of the sylvania. At the request of the Rou- Reformation," and appealing to the manian Government, the commission Bishops and to Parliament, in view submitted statements which dealt of the fact that "a large section of with personal abuses, confiscation of the clergy of the Church of England, church and school property, the alin defiance of the law and in violation leged unjust way in which the great of their oath, have long been engaged estates are being divided under the in endeavoring to destroy its Protes- agrarian reform, the rights of astant character, to maintain the Prot- sembly and other types of coercion. estant character of the National The reply of the Roumanian Govern- Church as settled at the Reformation ment is described by the commission and enshrined in the Book of Com- as "evasive and inconclusive." Soon mon Prayer and the 'l'hirty-nine Ail'- after the publication of the commisticles. " This resolution was for- sion's report came the action of the warded to the Archbishop and Roumanian Ministry of Arts and Bishops of the Church of England, Worship suppressing or curtailing and the members of both Houses of the activities of certain "minority Parliament. religions" in that country. The churches absolutely suppressed are American Bibles for Europe mainly adventist bodies, but even in the case of Baptists it is ordered that THE American Bible Society has they may "continue to enjoy the lib- responded to another urgent need erties accorded by the constitution, in Europe by making grants of money but certain measures of surveillance with which to supply Bibles to theo- will be taken. " In the meantime, the logical students. The 'World War so Metropolitan of the State Church has impoverished most of the theological been raised to the rank of patriarch, schools in Central Europe as to make and every prospect points toward an it impossible for them to furnish text- aggressive effort to clear the country books for poor students. The post-
NEWS FROM M:ANY LANDS
of all rivals of the Greek Orthodox supplying the latest information and system. The special hardships of t~e Ill:ost approved drugs to leper in- Baptists in Roumania were described stItutIOns, settlements and hospital. in the January REVIEW. (2) To support sound schemes of segregation, with the best treatment The Y. M. C. A. ill Estonia in countries where the great majority of the lepers can thus be dealt with THE Estonians, who were once in and the disease rapidly reduced, as in virtual serfdom under Russia and the West Indies, etc. T,rinidad has already set apart an island for this the. Baltic barons, recently celebrated purpose. (3) To collect information theIr seventh anniversary as a free and statistics and to issue bulletins of and independent nation. Out of Es- information to workers among lepers. tonia's war misfortunes have come (4) To support further researches on the promise of brighter and more both the etiology and treatment of prosperous days. She has made rapid leprosy w:ith a view to discovering progress economically and in political more effiCIent methoos of prevention and social adjustments. Education is and further to si~plify, shorten, and compulsory; the universities are cheapen the curatIve measures. The fact that the Oalcutta researches have crowded; technical and agricultural now proved that soluble products of at least five different oils, other than sc~ools 8fe well attended; suffirage is that of chaulmoogra and hydnocarpus seeds, are; e~ective in leprosy, opens ~lllversal; ~he Reval harbor is being up an unlull1ted field of investiooation Improved; mternal industries as wen which may yet yield more efficient as ·foreign trade are being developed. and rapidly acting remedies even The Y. M.. O. A. work, which was than chaulmoogra derivatives. ?egun in 1920, is constantly expandmg. In the chief cities-Reval Dor- American Opium Plan pat and Tartu-are energetic' Associations giving the varied services 1. Restriction by producing counwhich compose an all-round program. tries of production of raw opium and In the university cities of Tartu and coca within the limits set by medical Dorpat extensive activities are being and scientific needs of the world. carried on among students. The attitude of people and Government to- 2. A. strong international central ward the Y. M. O. A. is friendly and board of supervision and control unhelpful. Not l(}ng ago in Reval a der the I.Jeague of Nations. campaign for Y. M. O. A. support exceeded its goal by nearly fifty per 3. Restriction of manufactured decent. Municipal authorities in the rivatives within the requirements of same city gave the "Y" a tract of medicine and science. land for an athletic field. The Government has offered ground for a 4. Perfecting a system now in opercamp site. ation of export and import certifi- cates. MISCELLANEOUS 5. An agreement between countries Leprosy in British Empire where opium smoking is temporarily permitted by which on a given date THE B.rit!sh Empire LeFosy Relief there will be one tenth reduction per ASSOCIatIOn, which was founded in annum for ten years, after which smoking opium will not be permitted. J.ugust, 1924, at a meeting in London 6. A system of licensing and rationpresided over by hLasoridssuOedhealmmsefmoord~ ing during the ten year period; prop- Viceroy of Ind ia, aganda to prevent new addicts; and proper treatment of addicts. randum regarding its medical policy.
This has four divisions: (1) To ex- tend the application of the improved methods of treatment as rapidly as possible throughout the Empire by
D&THE MISSIONARY IJBlRARY &It
Zzr:!9 p&a::;ifiiij,,,,, O(ji(;.i…"bUdi ~ ,Wd . bUd W"biib,,;.
NOTE.-Any books mentioned in these columns will be sent on receipt of price.-THE RS:VIEW..
Modern Turkey. A Politico·Economic In- a.re millions of people in the world, terpretation, 19008·1923 inclnsive, with of whom the Americans and English- Selected Chapters by Representative Au· . hh thorities. Eliot Grinnell Mears, M.B.A., men are leadmg types, w 0 ave F. R. Eeou. S. Illns., Maps, xvi, 779 pp. achieved a well-deserved reputation $6.00. New York. 1924. for fair play. This bo(}k is intended Had the author, with his scholastic for these' and other persons who are standing at h(}me and wide experience interested in the truth and are willing in the Near East, written this volume to reach conclusions only after both unaided, it couId not have failed to sides of each question have been p;rebe authoritative. As it is, he has sented….. The plan followed in called to his assistance eighteen 'Modern Turkey' has been to select specialists, American, European, and subjects of far-reaching importance Levantine, a group of writers .rarely and then assign the writing of them to equaled in 'the marshaling of experts representative authorities. Without in any publication except in such exception, the writers have been in works as "The Encyclopredia of Reli- Turkey and most o,f them have lived gion and Ethics." Mr. Mears' nine there. A unique feature is the number chapters are of the highest order, and of Turks who have contributed willhis 200 pages of Appendix matter- ingly to a book of this character."
bibliographies, chronology and the 99 The twenty-five "subjects of farpage index-add greatly to its value. reaching importance" are truly such, and their ramifications may be found A difference between this volume in the exhaustive Index. If our and other works upon Turkey is sug- readers desire to find a brief, authorgested by the author: "The purpose itative and down-to-date account of of this volume is (1) to set forth the the religions of the I,evant, Prof. contemporary problems in as simple Harvey Porter provides it; if our a fashion as possible, and (2) to give ladies ,,,ould gain a fair idea of presthat kind of a perspective on the con- ent-day womanhood in Turkey, Exfiicting factors underlying the politi- President Mary Mills Patrick, LL. D., co-economic life of Turkey which may of the Constantinople Woman's Colserve to il.'eveal both their relative lege, aids them in a most interesting values and their interrelation. Num- and authoritative manner; if our men erous writers dealing with the Levant wish to know about "The Turkish have been propagandists and stylists, Press," or "The Young Turk Movewho have devoted their efforts in the ment," two eminent Beys are our inpresentation of such well-known sub- formants; should our business men jects as Byzantine history, race, origin wish to know what future trade prosand development, religions of Asia, pects in. Turkey are chapters X-XVI; war operations, atrocities, harems, supply indirect and direct data on dogs, mosques and monasteries. They that point; should friends of Armenia have been informative intermediaries wish to investigate as to the truth in in helping to explain the East to the the case of Armenian questions, chap- Vest. . .. Few foreigners in Turkey ter XXIII is the source to be conor elsewhere can maintain a real dis.. suIted; and if Missions are to be interestedness. While no one wishes sampled, turn to the Index, "Missions to be considered 'faultily faultless, and Missionaries," and read the secicily regular, splendidly null,' there 431 tioIlS there indicated, remembering in and of their relation to theories of addition that one in seven of the au- personality. Portions of the material thorities contributing to the volume of this book have appeared in The is a missionary on the ground. In a Philosophical Review, The Monist and word such a work evokes one's high- The Rice Institute Pamphlet. (Dr.
est enthusiasm for its excellence as Tsanoff is Professor of Philosophy in one separates the wheat from the chaff the Rice Institute.) The author dis- among the books in this field of liter- cusses Materialism, the Doctrine of ature. H. p. B. Eternal RecuITence, Positivist Im- mortality, the Buddhist Doctrine of The Secret of the East. Observations and Karma, Immortality and Modern The- Interpretations. Oliver Huekel. rllustrated. 368 pp. $3.50. New York. 1924. ology, Ethical Arguments for Immor- tality, and iinds in the history of An intelligent and rather discursive tourist here reports observations philosophy a rational basis for a view made while on a leisurely trip around of human destiny which if it does not the world. Most of the chapters were point certainly to personal immortalprepared as lectures to popular audi- ity, at least would seem to justify the hope of immortality on the ground of ences. 'l'here are accolmts of Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, antecedent probability. CandidlY, Java, Burma, India, the Holy Land, he regards personal immortality still and Greece. The author gives his as an unsolved problem. To those who main attention, however, tD Japan, do not accept the Christian Gospel, China and India. He has read widely, perhaps this is the best approach to particularly in the field of religion, the question, "If a man die, shall he and is chiefly interested in these live again f" One of the most valuphases of the cultures of the East. able chapters of this book is a study He is frankly Christian in his outlook of recent British idealism, though the and has warm sympathy for the work main argument is in the closing chapof missions. He would probably per- ter on Value, Personality and Destiny. mit the adjective "liberal" to be ap- Only the philosophical thinker is plied to his theological views. likely to be helped by such a line of reasoning. Its conclusion-if conclu- There is nothing particularly re- sion it can be said to reach-is essenmarkable or original about the book. tially summed up in such a pro- There are pleasant descriptions of nouncement as this: "Man's vision of what are seen by almost all intelligent God is the concrete expression of his travelers who follow the beaten tour- effort to utter the supreme in value. ist paths in Asia. There are, also, . . Whenever divine discontent stirs extensive summaries of the author's a man to reach out for the better and reading on some phases of the reli- truer and more beautiful, the Divine gions of China, Japan, and India. is affirmed and is recognized ….• These summaries are on the whole Its worship is the radiance of a forfairly accurate, although the author ward-piercing glancing, the radiant is inclined to give more credence to sense of the infinite, eternal, eveil'- the theory that Mahayana Buddhism present Beyond." was influenced by Christianity than c. c. A.
the facts walTant. The most interest- Whither Bound in Missions. D. .I: Fleming chapter is, perhaps, the report of ing. 8 va. 222 pp. Paper $1.00. New York. •an hour's visit with Gandhi. K. s. L. The author is already well known The Problem of Immortality. Studies in from his previous books. He here sets Personality and Value. .R. A. Tsanoff. out to show that missionary methods 8vo. 381 pp. Notes and Index. $3.00. need to be changed. This is no doubt New York. 1924. true, but it. does not apply t() mis- A philosophical study of the most sionary ideals. Apostolic power and significant theories of human destiny methods bring apostolic results today, Dr. Fleming's thoughtful arguments attractive and successful chapters of and suggestions are helpful and sound. The evils or weaknesses that modern missionary history. From he would correct are not inherent in the enterprise yesterday or today but the building of the Martyr Memorial are due to human f,railty or to a depa.rture from Christ's spirit and teach- Churches in 1863 to the Centenary of ings. For example, few Christians will defend the exhibition of a sense the London Mission the main events of superiority by missionaries in dealing with natives of non-Christian and development of the Malagasy lands. There is need for recognizing the good in all peoples and the real Church pass before us. J. R. contribution they may make to the Christian Church. There is also need Conferences of Christian Workers Among for recognizing the weaknesses and Moslems. 1924. 8vo. 152 pp. New non-Christian elements in Western York. civilization. It seems to many that the age of "authority" has passed Conferences of Christian workers and that logic and the results of a among Moslems in the Near East were philosophy of life are the evidences held last year at Jerusalem' (Palesdemanded'. Other changes advocated tine), Constantine (Algeria), Helwan refer to the divided Church, the mis- (Egypt) ,Brumana (Syria) and Baghsionary control of the national dad (Iraq). Most of these conferchurches, and emphasis on intensive ences were presided over by Dr. John work as contrasted with extensive ef- R. Mott and were attended by misfort. The book is thoughtful and sionaries, secretaries and others most worth reading. It grows out of ex- interestf)d in the work. They took up perience and study. such topics as occupation of the field, evangelization, the church, education, Fifty Years in Madagascar. Personal Ex- literature, leadership, medical work, periences of Mission Life and Work. social work, cooperation and the James Sibree. 353 pp. $4.00. Boston. spiritual dynamic. The basis of the 1924. discussions was a series of questions sent out in advance to the mission- The author went to Madagascar in aries. The findings gather the con- 1863 and worked there for forty-two sensus of opinion of those present at years. Since returning to England the conferences and should be studied he has visited the island several times by every missionary worker. The on deputations. He is therefore par- population of the Moslem world is ticularly well qualified to write on estimated at 234,814,989, four fifths Malagasy missions. A number of his of whom are increasingly accessible to books have found a wide circulation the Christian missionary approach. in the English-speaking world. The This is cspecially true of British Inpresent volume combines in a very dia, the Dutch East Indies, Persia, interesting way personal experiences Mesopotamia, Cbina, the Balkans, and with a good deal of the missionary Africa (except possibly Northern Nihistory of the island, and to some ex- geria) . The practically unoccupied tent the striking political events of areas include Afghanistan, Central the past fifty years. It is easily un- and Western Arabia, Turkestan and derstood, though regretted by most parts of Siberia, Bokhara, Socotra, readers, that he is very careful in his Albania, Bulgaria, Russia, Tripoli, report on the dealings of the French French Sudan, Morocco, the Sahara, colonial government since their con- and Eastern Malay Peninsula-a quest of the island. total population of about 36,000,000 The book is a fine and comprehen- people. sive introduction to one of the most The most effective means of eV3jl- gelization are by literature, medical missions and Christian educational work. The situation calls insistently upon the Church in the homelands to undertake this difficult task with greater energy, devotion and faith.
The Missionary Review of the World — December 1891
8t2 FOREIGN MISSION DAY AT NORTHFIELD CONVENTION
THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIV. No. 12.-0ld8erie8.–DEOEMBER.–VoL. IV. No.12.-New8erie8.
THE FOREIGN MISSION DAY AT NORTHFIELD CONVENTION.
REPORTED BY MISSES LOUISE B. AND ANNA W. PIERSON.
There are some feasts of fat things, even the fragments of which are of priceless value, and should be carefully gathered that they be not lost. And such a feast was kept at Northfield. Mass., on Tuesday, August 4th.
Mr. Moody uses every means to make the Annual Conferences, at this now famous gathering place, impart a mighty momentum to all true work for the Master. Accordingly a whole day was this year given up to foreign missions, and some who were present have said that no more memorable and impressive day has ever bAen known in the whole history of these yearly meetings of believers. The day was a sort of field-day, and certainly a very full day. From morning to evening up to ten o'clock at night the interest never flagged, but rather grew. By Mr. Moody's request the editor-in-chief of this REVIEW took the chair, but not until the close of the evening session did he speak himself, save very briefly to guide the proceedings and introduce the speakers. The time was given up principally to veteran missionaries from the field, though Dr. Mabill, who has recently returned from his Eastern tour, and Dr. Gordon, who is a special student of missionary questions, very profitably added their testimony and appeals.
No brief resume can do any justice to the addresses. The interest awakened, for instance, by Dr. Clough's story of the new Pentecost in Southern India, which sounded like apostolic days, was at times painfully intense. But our desire is to give our readers some conception of the day's doings and present to them the outline at le:;tst of what was done.
In opening the morning meeting the chairman suggested as a key-note for the day, four passages of Scripture: Isa. 53: 11 ; 1 Cor. 4: 15 ; Gal. 4 : 19 ; Col. 1 : 24. These Scriptures teach us that Christ is yet to see of the travail of His soul, and that in that travail the believer is to share, and that until the Church partakes of Christ's vicarious sorrow and atoning work that travail cannot be accomplished. The one overwhelming thought that should occupy us to-day is not joy and self·gratulation at what a century of modern missions has wrought, but rather shame and humiliation that our Lord has waited for eighteen long centuries to see of His soul's travail and has never yet seen it, because His Church has been so apathetic, selfish, and worldly. Even yet the great body of believers is half asleep, if not practically dead to a lost world's ruin and wreck.
" Were I asked," said the chairman, " what above all else the Church needs for the new century of missions now before us, I would say, not men or money or zeal, but an outpouring of the spirit of believing PRAYER !"
A few most impressive and remarkable instances of answers to prayer in connection with the work of missions were then briefly cited, most of which have been already spread before the readers of the REVIEW-such, for instance, as the special calls to prayer in the history of the Church Missionary Society in 1872, 1880, and 1884, referred_to by Mr. Edwards in his article in the October issue, pages 734-40. And then Dr. J. E.
Clough, of the Telugu Mission in India, was introduced and received by the vast audience with a rising, as well as rousing, welcome. The charm of his story was its simplicity, not an attempt to clothe the facts with any drapery of imagination or embellishments of rhetoric, but a plain, modest, unpretending statement of what he called" the LQrd's work, which he had been permitted to stand by and witness. ,.
He said, in substance: " India has a wonderful history in the past, and, I fully believe, in the future. It contains about 1,600,000 square miles, being about 1800 miles from north to south, and about 1600 in the n01,th, from east to west. The peninsula of Hindostan is peopled by about 286,000,000 people, who are divided into 137 nationalities, speaking entirely different languages, which are subdivided into 100 or more dialects. The~e are an interesting, progressive people. They have the intellect, the push, and the physical strength of a dominant rac~, They have done wonderful things in the past, and will do wonderful things in the future. They gave Buddhism to almost two thirds of the human race, and what they have done for Buddha they will do for Christ, if we but give them a chance to know Him. The 'Lone Star' Mission is situated on the western shore of the Bay of Bengal, about 600 miles from Colombo on the south, and about 1000 miles from Calcutta on the north. It was established in 1836 by men of prayer, but was almost a forlorn hope for thirty years. God's time had not yet come for saving the Telugus. The American Baptist Missionary Union was discouraged and talked of abandoning the mission, but Dr. Jewett determined to go back. The Board said that if he would go he ought to have some one to give him a Christian burial, and sent me back with him. I have never had that duty to perform, and when I last saw him he did not look as if he would need it for some time. When I went out in 1865, the converts connected with that mission numbered twenty, and the scholars were just about that number. Just at this time heathenism there was rampant.· Cholera had broken out, and people were dying by hundreds, and the heathen were taking different idols, carrying them into one place, feasting them, and then taking them to another place, and so on. I took tracts and gave to the heathp,n, who would receive them from ue when they would not from their own people. Hundreds of thousands were distributed. A teacher helped me to commit texts to memory in the language, and especially John 3 : 16, and I would go out and by singing draw a crowd and then deliver my texts. Then I would move on to another place and preach the same sermon. I added a few texts each day, and soon had a purely textual sermon half an hour long. After a while I noticed that the people who saw me would put their fingers in their ears and run away. My escort said, 'They believe you are sent fro~ God, and fear that if they hear you and do not obey, some calamity worse than the cholera will come upon them, and so they are determined not to hear you.' A Hindoo priest, of much influence at one place, for m"any days closed his door in anger against me. Finally this man came to my house and said he had read the Gospel of Luke which I had given him, and had corne to the conclusion there was nothing in idolatry and gave up his idols, which he brought with him, and asked for the whole Bible. A few weeks later he was haptized, and till his death was an efficient colporteur. During a year and three months at that place, perhaps twenty were converted and receiv.ed hy the Church.
" Then I went to another station, one mass of solid heathenism for 73 miles around. With me I had three or four Christians, and the catechist, eight of us in all. We went out two by two and every hamlet was visited, and after a while we extended the circuit till we reached around some 4,0 miles from the station. After two or three months we heard· there was a good deal of interest out about 40 miles. I went out and sent word to surrounding villages. The first morning about forty came, each with a bundle of grain to eat, to stay till they heard all about the religion. We continued in alternate seasons of talk and prayer till about the third day when about all the company were praying. In four days 28 of them gave such evidence that they were baptized. After 25 years every one of these converts has remained faithful, and six of them are working to-day as catechists, preachers, or colporteurs. Some are dead, but all faithful to the end.
" I wanted to get hold of the high-caste people, many of whom were wealthy, finely edueated, and as keen and shrewd as God ever created men. I had a plan of establishing a school in Madras, getting the high class into it, and getting them into the mission. The house was built, teachers were engaged, and everything was ready, when these 28 men were baptized. Secretly I wished low-caste people would keep away on aceount of the high caste, but the latter heard of my intercourse with the lower caste, and refused to have anything to do with the school if I allowed those to come. The school was established, and one day five of the low-caste people carne to me and asked to be baptized. I commissioned some of my fellow-workers to see and catechise them, and if they really believed, we must,' of course, baptize them. After a thorough examination there was no doubt but that they were really Christians. I. could not help feeling sad when I went to baptize them. The high-caste people went where the baptism took place and criticised me, claiming my religion was false, inasmuch as I taught it to the low caste people. By accident I carne across a passage in the Bible which led me to believe that God wanted us to do our work principally among the poor people. I went horne and when alone I opened my Bible at random to 1 Cor. 1 : 18-31 : 'For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God,' etc. As I sat thinking over what I had read, my wife carne in and said, ' I believe the Lord would have us seek to save these low-caste people.' Then she told me how in her ilisappointment at the coming of the low caste she had gone to her Bible, and opening at random began also to read at the same eighteenth verse of the first chapter of First Corinthians, and read to the end ! We concluded God had used that passage to guide us. Our missionary brethren throughout the country regretted the course we took, and it looked as though I had tbrown myself away. But twenty-four years after that time I received a letter from the editor of the Indian Witness, perhaps the most influential religious newspaper published in India, saying: , You by the blessing of God have changed the missionary policy of Ill! India. You are right, stick to it, give us some articles for our paper, telling us what you have done.' A year after, when I left the station, those who had scorned me at first vied with each other to do me honor. From that time on, the converts came into this Lone Star Mission, from 25 to 100 every year for the first year or two, then 200 or 300 a year for the next few years, then 400 or 500 a year, tiIl1872, when I got the jungle fever and came home. We asked for and secured four more workers, and some money for schools. Tbe converts were then coming at the rate of 500 to 1000 a year, and then the great famine of 1876 began.
" As soon as tbe southwest monsoon fails we know there is going to be a great scarcity, but if followed by the failure of tbe northeast monsoon, we know tbere will be a famine. Both these had failed, and I knew there would be a famine, and I wrote to a friend (eXplaining the condition. He sent me back 500 rupees, telling me to send for more. I gave that money out, and the people worked on for three or four months, when it began to be grievous. The government had undertaken relief work, digging a canal for 200 miles. I took a large contract of three miles. The government officials said: 'Y ou can have all the money and assistance you want from us. Just use your influence to get the people to come in.' They diLl this, because the people would not leave their homes to go to famine relief work. That is mainly because they are fatalists, and say: 'If it is fated for us to die, we shall die and it is of no use for us to go away to die.' Others say: 'Some god is angry with us, and if we undertake to fiee from his wrath something worse will come, and what is the good ~' The government officials stuck to their promise most faithfully, and we built huts on the canal, police were furnished, a medical man was sent there, watchers were given to me, money was placed in my hands, and I sent my assistants over the country, crying out to the starving to come from famine to this place and live. The people clime in, and those who were sick were put on litters and brought. In my camp, one division unahle to do work were given subsistence allowances, and everything was done for them till they were able to go to work. The others went to work under 40 assistants, and each preacher, with his hundred or two men, would be a sapper and so they commenced After they were tired out, they would read to them out of the Bible. Thus they read and worked for a few days and the Lord gave us one of. the- most desirable tracts to dig on the canal, though it was thought to be a hard place by the engineer. It was a filled up backwater, and, instead of water coming in as he expected. the soil was light and they could earn more wages than ever before. After I had been at work a few weeks, speculators came and wanted to give me 10 per cent to hand it over to them. Nay, verily!
"When Sunday came this company would come up before my tent and seat themselves, and I would preach to them. This we continued for about five months; then my three miles were done, and the assistants took two miles more on their own account, and I went up to another place. After eight months of this work, the time had come when they must go to their homes to sow their fields, for rain had come. When they got back, they found their houses were without roofs, and many of their cattle had died, and so frequently they had to plough and harrow the fields themselves. After the first crop was up two or three inches there came a cold rain aud the whole was ruined. They sowed again and then locusts spread over the country and took every spear above ground. ' The people were discouraged, and hadn't anything to buy seed-grain with. I was in correspondence with the editor of the Madras Times, and tele- graphed him and to England and wherever I had a fr~end, the condition. Money began to come in and the Mansion House Fund was established in London, one of the noblest charities ever undertaken and executed by men. Within a week I was inf.:>rmed to draw on them for all I wanted. Twenty-five hundred rupees were immediately telegraphed for, and they telegraphed that they were on the way, tut that I had noL asked for half enough. So I sent for 2500 more.
" We formed committees of all the trustworthy men and government officials all over the country, and the people were supplied with money to buy grain. But it was too late to sow any grain that would be long in maturing, so they sowed a small kind of millet, which would mature in six weeks. They got enough grain, which, added with the weeds they could gather, they could use from day to day, while waiting for the next crop, which would come in about six months. The relief work continued to about June 1st, 1878, when the famine had lasted a year and a half. We then notified the people that we could not do anything more for them, and they must go to their homes and take care of themselves till the crop just sown could ripen. For a year and a half we had not done what is ordinarily called mission work at all. Not a single person had been received into the Church, although, the Christmas before, 2200 were inmy compound asking to be received ,n baptism. We had not held a regular meeting. I sent word to my assistants to meet me and organize for work again. On the evening before the meeting. I went up to the place of service, in a traveller's bungalow, and although I had sent word for nobody to come, except assistants and a few of the older members of the church, I saw great swarms of people. I told them I didn't want to baptize them, because we had not instructed them long enough, and the famine was not over, and asked them to wait till the crop came. But they began to cry to me : • What YOll say is all true. We know you are not going to give us any more money and we are not coming for money, but, when we were down on the canal you told us about Jesus. We have ,believed in Him and discarded all our idols. We have two months before we can have anything from our fields. The cholera and small-pox are prevalent, and many of us must die, and if we die we want to die with everybody knowing that we are Christians. We don't want to die with this old stigma on our heads. We want to be baptized and numbered among the people of God.' To every effort I made the same answer came. After a short time of retirement, I decided to do as they wished. We commenced work the next mornin•. and by evening the assistants had examined the most of the company. The first day 500 were baptized, the second 2222, the third day enough to make the whole number about 3500. Delegations began to come in from villages here and there, saying: 'You have baptized that great company, but there are many people U1iable to come in. Come out to our villages and baptize us.' I telegraphed to the principal of the seminary to come to my help, and we went out and before the close of December nearly 10,000 had been baptized.
"Converts came, perhaps a thousand a year, for the next five years. In 1885 I came home again, to ask for men and money. Our one station had grown to be 13 in number, and the converts had increased to 25,000, and our assistants were numbered by the hundred. We had a high school established, a theological seminary, and station schools in all the 13 stations, besides boarding schools in most of them and some 200 or 300 village schools scattered in as many different villages. In all we had perhaps 4000 children in our different schools. Just here sad tidings came. Ten missionary families either died or came home on account of their health. Many were sick, of the last who had gone out, and I had to write for more men to take care of the converts. Word would corne back: 'We are doing the best we can for you, but men don't seem to be wil:ing to go to the Telugus.' We waited three or four years and none came, so we decided that we must do the work ourseh"es. The natives becamG enthusiastic over the matter, and said: 'Yes, we will take care of this work on the field, if you will take care of yourself and not get sick.' I said: 'I will not leave you. I am willing to show you that, if American citizens don't love you and think too much of themselves to come out here, there is one American who loves you enough to stand by you till you take him ovcr the hill to the cemetery and bury him.' I don't think much of missionary dust. One live missionary is worth one thousand dead ones, and remember that missionaries don't ask for your pity. We don't ask for your tears. Good missionaries are not run by water. But we want your prayers, sympathy and help, and we want you to remember that this commission which yon and we are under is all the same. It is, 'Go ye,' every mother's son of you who are men, and every mother's daughter of you who are women, or else get an excuse acceptable to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you cannot go personally, send a substitute. Send your sons, send your daughters, your money, and your prayers. God will never be in debt to American Christians for what they do, you need not be afraid of that. And when you go, burn your bridges behind you till your term of service is over, till God shows you that you have no business to stay any longer.
" While we were feeling so despondent about missionaries, we began to feel there was more of a revival spirit going on than for a long time. Some of the converts came in and told about it. We had meetings, and the first day we baptized 240, and when the time came for them to go away, their request was for me to come to their villages. I told them to go to those villages, to tell the Christians how the matter stood, and to corne to the station December 28th, and we would have a grand time. They had doubts, because these Hindoos like to be baptized in their own villages. With some reluctance they started off. At the time 4000 came and we divided them into companies and the leaders examined them. We baptized from one o'clock till 6.30, 1671 persons. There was not a single request made by anyone for anything except Christian t·eachers to come to their villages.
, 'Then Dr. Mabie came. I showed him the Hindoos in their homes, and he and his travelling companion baptized 600. We gave him a reception, when the 800 children in the schools met him. After they had left, I continued the tour till between lfiOO and 1700 had been baptized. Dr. Mabie convinced me that by coming home to get men and money I might do a better thing for the Telugus than by dying for them. I told him jf I could get twenty-five men and $50,000, so that I could be back to India within a year, I would go."
The speaker then gave a vivid description of his parting with the people on returning to this country last March. He made three attempts to get away and could not on account of the crowds of people that came.
to bid him farewell. He finally stationed guards before his house to send the people away and tell them he could see no one. At about midnight he attempted to slip quietly away, and when he opened his door, what was his snrprise to see hundreds of people gathered to see him off; some of whom had been waiting since early in the morning. Dr. Clough closed his thrilling address with the following story told of a deacon who had been complained of by his wife for giving away all that he had. She asked the pastor to remonstrate with him. When the pastor asked the deacon why he did so, he said he had had a curious dream: he dreamed he had a basket of crackers, and standing near the water threw one out on it, and it skipped along out of sight so nicely that he threw another in the same way, and so on, till they were all gone. But just at that time he noticed something large, coming back to him on the water, which proved to be a loaf of bread, and he waited till every cracker he had thrown out came back such a loaf. "If you want your money to increase, send it out. If you want God to bless the great republic, send out the men and your daughters, and after they go, instead of crying after them, follow them up by prayer and words of cheer. He will take care of your sons and daughters who go, and those who remain, and will be glorified, and our great republic will go on just as well. "
Dr. H. C. Mabie, Home Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, then added a few words as to his experiences in India: " I was never at rest until I could go and see the work among the heathen. The first Sabbath in India, what did I see? A congregation of 666 persons. Eighteen hundred texts were recited by the children. At 11 o'clock the preaching service began. I did not need to be told that I was in the midst of Christians, for I could see the image of Christ on the faces before me. In the audience were foreigners, natives, out-castes, and Brahmans. By first working for the out-castes, Dr. Clough had won them all. I felt during the entire service great spiritual response to the preaching. At 3 o'clock there was a meeting for the examination of candidates which lasted the .remainder of the afternoon. It was no special occasion, but 97 came to be examined.
" The service in the evening to my surprise· was conducted in English. Before the service a delegation of Brahmans came to give me a welcome. They read a document signed by many of the leading men in the vicinity, in which they commended most highly the work of Dr. Clough and the good he had been enabled to accomplish among them. The following day I visited a boys' school of over 200, and later a school for Brahman girls. I was very much impressed by the treatment which I received from these high-caste children. . One of the little girls came up to me, and without any warning threw over my head a large wreath of flowers, another one followed with one for Dr. Clough. Several other children brought me little trinkets and jewelry, and after I had been home I received from some of them little gifts for my daughters."
The chairman opened the afternoon meeting by reading a telegram, conveying the greetings of Rev. Dr. J. T. Gracey. of Rochester, the President of the International Missionary Union. He then gave several striking examples of the power of prayer in missions, such as the remark- able experiences of David Brainerd, Dr. Neesima in his great school in Japan, in which at one time 150 students were found inquiring, after a special season of prayer. A third instance was cited from the story of Tahiti, where-just as the London Missionary Society was about to abandon the work, but under Dr. Haweis's and Mr. Wilks's entreaty determined to go forward with new prayer-the idol systems fell and the idol gods were surrendered, at the very time that the prayer covenant was being formed in London, and the ships bearing intelligence from the society in London and from the missionaries in Tahiti passed each other in mid.ocean.
At the afternoon meeting Dr. W. W. Eddy, the veteran missionary of Syrin, spoke: " Spiritual Christianity is an exile from the home of its birth. Spiritual desolation reigns in Syria. The spiritual temple in that laud should be rebuilt. Corruption has come into the Church. When the American Board fifty years ago sent its missionaries to TUlkey and Syria, it instructed them not to deal with the Mohammedans, but to work with the native Christians. We found, though, that our points of attack were Mohammedanism and orthodox Christianity represented by the Greek Church. The speaker then contrasted the Greek Churc!J with the Roman Catholics, stating that the Reformation had never crossed the Bosphorus. Oriental Christianity is a worship of symbolism. The Bible is not as sacred with them or as much studied as by Roman Catholics. The Greek Church is the Russian Church and there are 85,000,000 members. There are 150,000,000 Mohammedans. The Oriental Church and Mohammedanism cannot be attacked in Rus;lia, as the government will not allow Protestant missionaries in that country. It is against the law to change one's religion in Russia, except to that of the Greek Church.
"One of our greatest weapons for putting down heathenism is the continued and direct contact of the missionaries with the people, who love to converse and argue. Another great weapon used against Mohammedanism is the schools. The people are impressed with the importance of education, and are willing to send their children to our I>chools, though the Bible is used in all of them. We teach the pupils Scripture verses and the catechism, and to those who commit the latter we give presents of Bibles, which they carry into their homes. We also have high schools for boys and female seminaries for girls and a college with 200 pupils. In all there are 7000 pupils under the reach of our missionaries. Another great weapon is the work of our printing-press. We have four steam presses at Beirut and we print from 25,000,000 to 27,000,000 pages of Arabic literature a year. If Mr. Moody should come to Syria he would see his own sermons in Arabic, of which he would not be able to read a word, and Mr. Sankey might see his own hymns, and I fancy would find some difficulty in reading them, as they are printed backwards. Weare sin.qing the children into the Christian religion. The Moslem boys and girls sing our hymns in the street. The cholera reached the city of Hums last year. One woman when dying asked to have a Christian hymn sung. She and her husband began to sing, but before the song was finished she was 8inging in the heavenly choir.
"Our books go to Northern Africa, throughout the Turkish Empire, to India, and China, and even back here to the United States. Person after person is converted by the silent testimony of God's Word. Our press is a mighty lever. People who dare not come to us openly buy our Bibles.
" We rea~h them again through medicine. We have a hospital at Beirut, and we are welcomed as bringing gifts of healing. 'Those who have sought healing for their bodies have found healing for their souls as well. One who has a knowledge of medicine can go from tribe to tribe with perfect safety, and is warmly welcomed. A great problem is how to reach the Bedouins, that wild class. We cannot go among them, it would not be safe. But we send our native helpers, and as the Bedouins are greatly afflicted with small-pox we provide our helpers with vaccine virus. Then we have a theological seminary where we are raising up preachers of the Gospel. I have for several years edited a religious paper and have also bee·.1 engaged on an Arabic commentary (on the New Testament). We do not dare to tell the success with which we have met, only in general terms. If we were to point out cases the persons would be marked men. Any ope who is found to have received Christianity has his property confiscated, and even his life is in danger. Most of them either disguise themselves or leave the country.
" We have a self-supporting church in Beirut with a native pastor with a membership of 400. Our Sunday-school is attended by 1000 children. 'There are 92 places where the Gospel is preached every Sabbath. 'Therp. have been great results in the past 40 years. There arp. 15,000 pupils in the schools of Beirut, all seeking a pl:ome of higher education. I have heard Moody and Spurgeon preached by Greek priests.
" What are the obstacles to the work 1 First, opposition from the 'Turkish Government. At first it paid no attention to the work, considering that it was a case of infidel dogs quarrelling with each other. Now they have become afraid, and a censorship of the press has been established. They keep out all that is against their religion, and put all the obstacles in their power in the way of the pllblishing and distribution of the Bible. We are undermining Mohammedanism. The government has closed up many of our schools. No Mohammedan convert is openly put to death, but he is arrested on some pretext and then disappears, never to be heard (!.f again. A second obstacle is the power of the Jesuits. They come in scores. They open schools where we do, they follow our missionaries and they establish hospitals and. colleges opposed to us. The Greek Church is upheld by Russia and it is hard for Protestantism to get a foothold, but , they that be with us are more than they that be with them.' A third obstacle is a want of means to carryon our work. Ye have to minimize our work to be within our appropriation. You ask, why doesn't our Board look out for us. I'll tell you. In Syria there are many families where all its members sleep under one covering. During the night this covering gradually gets off those on the edges, and then first one pulls it and then another. So with us. On the north we have Tripoli pulling on the Board ; then Sidon wants a share j then Mt. Lebanon complains that too much is given the plain, and the plain complains that Mt. Lebanon's share is too large. It isn't the fault of the Board j rather it isn't a fault. On the contrary, it means that the work is a living, growing work. That it is a growing work is shown by its constantly increasing needs. Missionary work always needs four things: open doors, men, means, and the outpouring of the Spirit.
" Since my return to this country I have visited considerably. I have seen a $180,000 church going up in Detroit, I 'have seen the plan of a projected Young Men's Christian Association building in Chicago. Five huudred dollars will build a church in Syria. It would be but one lump from your store. W'e need money. You must either stop praying or give more. The growing child has constantly increasing claims, and the parent does not complain; neither should the Church complain that her children are growing, and need more means to support them. You build magnificent churches here, while we cannot raise enough money to buy doors and windows for our churches in Syria. Schools have had to be closed so as not to get into debt. I know of a missionary who has sent to a friend in this country and borrowed money in order to carryon his mission work. We have had to shut up three seminary buildings and have had to cripple our presswork. I sail for Syria next week, and I ask your prayers for our work."
THE NEEDS OF CHINA.
Dr. J. R. Hykes, of China: " China to-day is the great mission field of the world. It is one of the largest domains ever swayed by a single power. China is one half larger than the United States with Alaska added. It comprises one third of entire Asia and is one tenth of the habitable globe. Next to Russia it is the largest empire. It has one fourth of the human race. It has 350,- 000,000 souls, six times that of the United States. China has vast stores of mineral wealth. There is coal enough stored to last the entire universe 2000 years. It has stores of copper, gold, and silver which are practically untouched. It is a unique nation. It dates back 4000 years. The end of the ninth chapter of Genesis would be the beginning of the first chapter of Chinese history. It is hoary with antiquity. The greatest problem of the age is the conversion of China. Convert China and you've converted the world. What is the moral condition of China to-day ~ The first chapter of Romans is an accurate description. It is no libel, and is not overdrawn. The heathen character is growing steadily worse. There is no such thing as a standstill in vice. They are vile and polluted in a shocking degree. An excessive statement can't be made. Confucianism is the State religion of China, but it is not a religion. There is no gene!ic word for it in the Chinese language as we mean religion. Confucius was a transmitter of the wisdom of sages; he was an editor, not an author. He is silent on the origin and destiny of the human race. He would not speak about the future life. The basis of Confucianism is ancestral wor- ship, which is more potent than all the idol worship. In China to-day there are 70,000,000 of ancestral tablets. Confucianism after forty years of trial has proved a failure as a religion of elevation. The Chinaman "'who sins once has no one to whom he can pray. Buddhism, introduced to supply a felt want, after eighteen centuries has proved a failure. Taouism is a native faith,. it is an abstruse system of metaphysics that has degen,erated to a mere traffic in charms. China needs the religion of Christ, it is her only hope. Some people 'think that Christianity is not adapted to the Chinese mind.
"The impression has gone about that the conversion of China is an impossible task. The Chinese can't be converted, we are told. It is a hopeless warfare. Now, what are the sources of this information ~ They are twofold. First, they come from globe trotters who never visit the mission fields, but go into some large city and then come home and give their opinions with flippant fluency. One of these romancers was tripped and brought to a humiliating confession. He had never been inside a mission, and yet reported that the missionaries preached to empty benches, and further drew oil. his imagination. A second source of information is that of naval officers and sea captains, who help to circnlate these reports. They have yet to see the inside of a Christian chapel in China. The captain of a steamer which recently arrived at San Francisco made the statement, which was published broadcast, that he saw no native Christians in China. He did not go where they were. He brought home on his vessel the body of a murdered missionary whose Christian servant stuck by him to the death, and whose body was covered with the blood of his master. When the Wesleyan mission was burned, native Christians went into that building when there was no possible prospect of escape, and rescued the children of Christians. I have yet to see the captain of a merchant ship in one of the missions. An Englishman who had spent several years in India, remarked to a missionary there that he had never yet seen a native Christian; and went on to tell of the pleasure he had experienced in tiger hunting. The missionary replied, 'I have lived twenty years in India and have never yet seen a tiger. ' The trouble in both cases was that each had not gone to the right place to look. Can a Chinaman be converted ~ Bishop Newman went among them and personally satisfied himself on that question. He said to one Chinaman, 'I want you to tell me your experience : how you felt when convicted and converted.' He replied, 'I felt as if I were sewed up in a sack filled with snakes and scorpions, with no hope of escape, when Jesus Christ came and opened the sack and lifted me out. ' The conversion of the Chinese is the most important work of the Church in this age. It is important on account of the fnture of the Mongolian race. The Chinese question is to become a difficult one for the world to solve. The Chinese are all over the world, have emigrated into nearly every country on the globe. By their temperate habits and economY' they have outdone almost every other nation. You should not judge the Chinese from those that emigrate to this country, for they are poor specimens.
" There is a general feeling of uneasiness about them. The Australians would give a larger reward to get rid of them than they offered to be rid of rabbits. The Americans are ·also III agony over the Chinaman. It is not so much from his bad qualities as his good qualities. He is becoming a formidable competitor. No iniquitous exclusion act will keep him out. Such an act is a blot and disgrace. We can assimilate the scum of Europe, but we can't digest the Chinaman! That act of exclusion is destined to be classed with the burning of witches. It is a relic of barbarism. But John, like Banquo's ghost, will not down.
" There is some great destiny in store for the Chinese race. I feel this first because I believe that God has not preserved this race 4000 years for nothing. Again, all that mineral wealth isn't stored away for nothing. God doesn't work in that way. He wastes nothing. Third, the Chinese are capable of great things. They are slow, solid, aggressive, patient, industrious, economical, filial, and, above all, determined. The Chinese people are a brainy race. It is not too much to say they are the brainiest of the Asiatic race. There was no sentiment about General Grant, and he said that pre-eminently the three greatest men he h~d ever met were Gladstone, Bismarck, and Li Hung Chang, the· greatest diplomat of his day.
" The Chinese are a nation of students. What other country would have a yearly gathering of 25,000 students to compete for a literary prize, such as takes place at Nanking ~ " Ii a Chinaman determined to acquire an education, and was too poor to afford a light, he'd steal the light which streamed through the knot-hole of a more fortunate neighbor's room, and if there were no knot.-hole he would make one.
" China is rousing herself. She has been generally supposed to be dead, but she's a pretty lively corpse. She isn't even sleeping. She has a fine fleet of merchant steamers, a better navy than that of the United States. China is to be one of the great factors in the development of the world. The Christianizing of China is the only solution of the Chinese problem. Exclusion won't do it. But there are reasons for being hopeful about China. First, its doors have been opened, and there is free access to the country; second. there is a better feeling toward us despite the recent . attacks on missions which occurred in the most turbulent districts; were it not so there would have been fifty massacres instead of two people killed. There is more willingness to hear and a greater measure of success, considering obstacles. Twenty-five years ago there were less than 500 Christians. To-day there are 40,000, who have raised $40,000 for the support of Christianity. In 1877, 41,000 patients were treated in hospitals. In 1889, 347,000 patients were treated. But you can't count heads in the Chinese problem. There is too large an unknown quantity. You must solve the problem by algebra, not arithmetic, to find the unknown quantity. Again, the dominant class is open to you.
"It is not correct that we only touch the scum. If you go fishing for shrimps, you catch shrimps; and if you go fishing for whales, you catch whales. In fishing for souls, you are apt to catch just what you fish for. I believe we are on the verge of a mighty upheaval, a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The truth of God, eternal, unconquerable, invincible, will go forward in these latter days with increasing force and momentum. I see no reason why China should not be converted in fifty years if the Church of God will do her duty. If the work has seemed a failure, it is because the Church has not upheld our arms in prayer. Weare not prayed for as we ….ught to be, nor do you give as you ought. Give until you feel it.
Evening meeting: Dr. H. C. Mabie, on China.
"I too read that unfortunate article by one of our captains, who frequently goes to China, in which he says, 'I have yet to discover one Chinese Christian.' Some men are born blind. He would probably have as great difficulty in discovering one here.
" The first Sunday after my arrival I went to a service in a mission conducted by a Christian rice merchant. He related to me his experience. He said that as soon as he was converted he determined to close his shop on the Sabbath, though he was warned that he would lose all his trade. For a time he was ridiculed, and his shop was almost deserted; but little by little the people found that nowhere could they be so fairly and honestly dealt with; they became willing to wait over the Sabbath for the sake of dealing with a man on whom they could depend. His trade increased far beyond what it had ever been before. Now he has become a minister of Christ.
" During the service I was called upon to speak, which I did. My text was John 1 : 12. 'As many afl received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.' I dwelt on the change in Peter when restored to Christ's favor; of the power which came not only to Peter, but can come into our hearts. I was very well satisfied with my interpretation; but a water-carrier in the rear of the hall did not agree with me, and, rising, he gave another interpretation of it, bringing it down to the minds of his simple companions. ""recognized in that water-carrier the enthronement of the power of God. I arrived at another station on Sabbath morning in a pouring rain, and what did I see? A large number of people gathered for the morning service, singing • All hail the power of Jesus' name!' Dr. John West addressed them on the text, 'Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.' Perfect quiet reigned; not a muscle in their faces moved. They seemed hungry for the Bread of Life. One native, who had not been to the mission for some time, came, bringing a fan which he had made, and on which he had put the hymn' Ashamed of Jesus' and these three texts of Scripture: 'Therefore if any wan be in Christ, he is a new 'creature ; , 'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me; , 'He that loseth his life for Mv sake shall find it.' -He told us how he had been a great opium eater; imd hearing in our mission of Christ and His saving power, he determined to become a Christian if it could save him from the power of opium. He told how he had been giving himself a six months' test, which was now over; of how Christ had taken away even the taste for opium. Now he wanted to make a profession of Christianity.
" The work of missions is no trifling one. There have been 1,500,000 copies of the Word of God, besides thousands of copies of ' Pilgrim's Progress,' sold or given away in one place.
" One day Dr. Ashmore and I went into the market-place, where we knew we would find a crowd. We were soon surrounded by people who treated us with perfect courtesy. We spoke a few words to them, and one of the natives also addressed them. The audience listened with attention. The old salute had been a shower of gravel stones.
" Medical missionaries in China are doing a great work. I visited a hospital where 100 patients daily listened to the preaching of the Gospel. In connection with this institution 350,000 people had been treated during the past year. One missionary in Canton performed 25,000 operations, treated 1,000,000 patients, and published 30 works besides. These men, who come for healing for their bodies, are deeply impressed by what they see, and go home to tell of it. These heathen are deeply moved by a little kindness; the tucking in of the covers, the smoothing of the brow, move some of those strong mlin to tears.
" The problem of to-day is: The re-incarnation of the Son of God among these poor nations until all the world shall join in the strain, ' Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.' "
Dr. A.' J. Gordon, of Boston, spoke, in the evening, on "The Chris- tian's Ambition for Heavenly Honor."
" A few evenings since I was reading the Greek Testament, when my son asked whether any word in the Greek encouraged the exercise of ambition and the seeking of honor. I have found such a word, its meaning being ambition, the love of honor, the love of distinction. It is three times used.
" I believe we have come so much to regard humility the cardinal virtue of Christianity that we may have forgotten the Christian should be ambitious. I think he should be the most ambitious person on the earth. To whom is the promise of eternal life spoken but to those who in patient endurance in well doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality, than which there cannot be a much higher ambition ~ We sometimes fall into the perIl of being proud of our humility. Humility is sometimes only pride turned wrong side out, just as you turn a garment and dye it and refit it. A person says, ' If I can get into heaven at last, I am willing to occupy II back seat.' But Scripture very certainly indicates that you are to seek not only barely to get into heaven, but' and so an abundant entrance shall be given you into the kingdom of God.' The back seats are all spoken for, and God wants us to get as near the throne as possible.
" , One star differeth from another star in glory.' Who will be stars of the first magnitude ~ 'They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.'
"Let us be ' ambitious to preach the Gospel where Christ has not been named' (Rom. 15 : 20, R. V.) is a most extraordinary statement.
" You might think a man who wanted to build a house would prefer to have a lot where the foundation had already been laid for him. But the apostle wants a lot to build II house where the sod has not been broken. That is not our idea, ordinarily, for when I was choosing my field of labor I thought the opposite. 'If I am to win the most souls, let me get where there is a good foundation of hereditary piety and orthodox faith.' I made that mistake because I apprehended preaching the Gospel for success, but not preaching it for a witness. I don't say we should not preach the Gospel for success; but our first duty is to preach it for a witness. Our first business is, not to build a house, but to build a highway. It is not to perfect the kingdom of God in some favored spot under the heavens, but to prepare the way for the kingdom of God when it shall yet come. Therefore put the emphasis on the words' Go ye into all the world.' We make this mistake. Supposing a new Pacific railway should be chartered, and a man should take a contract to build a thousand miles. He reports at the end of the year that, as the State of Dakota furnished the best rock bottom, therefore he put his thousand miles all in Dakota. But the engineer in charge tells him that the very object of the railroad is to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, and yet he has built his section zigzag back and forth through a single State.
" That is exactly what we have been doing with the Gospel. It is to be carried into all the world, because by and by the Lord will return j and when He comes we want a highway from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, and stations everywhere where He can have distributing centres.
"When we do God's way and preach the Gospel for a witness, we are sure to get the best success. In 1810 Adoniram .Tudson was just graduating from the seminary, and his father brought home the news that he was appointed associate pastor of Park Street church, the largest in Boston. He astounded his family by saying, 'My field won't be in Boston; it will be far across the sea. I have an ambition to preach the Gospel where no one else has, lest I "build upon another man's foundation.'" Eighty years have passed. Park Street church has 800 to 1000 members, but Adoniram Judson's church beyond the sea has a membership of 30,000, and thousands have fallen asleep in Jesus blessing his name. How God is honored in building a church out of unpromising materials, calling out songs from those hitherto dumb! That is the reason why the apostle wanted to build where a foundation had not been laid, for where a foundation has been laid anybody can build, but only God can build on nothing. "Next year we shall celebrate the anniversary of Carey's inauguration of missions. He thought, 'I stirred up the people to form a missionary society in England. I am the first missionary, but I believe God will take care of me. Put me out there and give me my tools, and I will not ask another cent.' So he went and supported himself in India, preaching the Word of God. After forty years of labor he had not only marvellously preached the Gospel and laid the foundations of the Church, bnt had sup. ported himself and paid into the missionary treasury $233,000, a fact utterly unparalleled in the history of missions or the ministry. God will sometimes take the widow's mite and not the worldling's million, that He may show what He is able to do. It is a marvellous fact that the greatest gifts bestowed in the work of foreign and home missions have been given to men who have wrought by prayer.
"Mr. George Muller's Home in Bristol is a marvellous example of the power of prayer.
" When men really trust God for success and money, He is ready to show them that He is not only Chief Shepherd of souls, but Chief Treasurer. When we get off of a human foundation we get upon the divine, and the apostle built on the divine foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ, the foundation-stone..
"In 1 Thessalonians 4 : 11 you have another ambition-service conjoined with silence. doing the best you can and saying nothing about it. Some cloeks strike, and some tell the time of day with their hands. So some Christians advertise their business, and others do it and say nothing about it, which is the kind we want. Two texts we ought to read together: 'Do not sound a trumpet before you,' and 'Let your light so shine.' He wants you to be ambitious, to have good works that somebody can see; and light travels faster than sound, and so with Christians, you see the flash before you hear the report if they are the right sort. The ambition is, not that they may praise you, but that they may glorify your Father which is in heaven. You thus have an opportunity to be ambitious, and yet to be sublimely humble.
" The work of the hands and of the head is subordinate to that of the heart. If you have been redeemed by Christ, renewed by the Holy Ghost, and your citizenship is in heaven, what is your principal business ~ It is to tell others about Jesus Christ and bring them to the knowledge of His love and of His grace. Whatever else yon do must be subordinated to that; and it is a shame and scandal in our nineteenth century Christianity that so many business men get, and live, and labor, and save, M if they understood that getting riches was the end of their existence instead of getting riches in order to glorify God. I care not what your occupation is ; you may be a carpenter at the bench, a blacksmith at the forge. a merchant behind the counter, your first business is to give the Gospel to those that have not heard it. Does it look as though we regarded it as our principal business ~ "First, we put our capital in our business. There are eight billions in the hands of Christians in tbis country. That is invested for the most part in bonds, mortgages, diamonds, silks, horses, carriages, houses, furniture, pictures, aud a thousand other things, vastly more than in that which ought to be the principal business of the ChriRtian, giving the Gospel to the world. And somebody says, 'I believe the world is getting better and better every day,' although he has millions laid up, and yet you caunot get twenty cents out of him for missions. He had no conception that he ought to put his eapital into the LQrd's business instead of into his own comfort and the ultimate ruin of his posterity. 'Was there ever a time the Christian Church gave so much for religious purposes l' Well, it gives a good deal; but by the best estimate the amount given to missions is only three cents on a dollar ! We put our best Ulen into business. The command is to give the Gospel to every creature.
" A few months since an order went out from the British Government to take the census of India, and it was done inside of twenty-four hours. Although at the beginning of this dispensation the Church understood it was sent to take the census of the world, and we have been at it nearly 1900 years, what have we done ~ There are 1,000,000,000 out of 1,400,000.000 unreached by the Gospel. When they took the census in a single night they put more than 1,000,000 enumerators in the field. We have in the field 7000 missionaries, but we have 127,000 at home representing the same constituency. Does that look as if foreign missions was this world's principal business ~ " I am hoping that, in this great movement which has now touched us, the Church of God may be lifted to such a position that it will put an army into the field and not simply station a picket line thrcugh the heathen world; that it will put its capital and not the iuterest on its interest into the work; that it will call out the reserves and put the privates in all occupations to work.
"The last subject of ambition is in 2 Corinthians 5 : 9, where the apostle sums up thus: 'Wherefore we strive,' are ambitious, 'that, whether present or ahsent, we may be well pleasing unto HiUl.' Have you ever noticed that Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, utters a sharp contrast between the two kinds of ambition? If you want to get a reputation for piety, make long prayers and eloquent ones. ~o that you can be popu· lar; and, if you deMire to be popular as a benevolent man, sound a trumpet and let everyone know. And He says: 'Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. ' It has been said: If you want to make people think well of you, make them think well of themseh·es. But our business, as long as men are sinners, is to make them think meanly of themselves, so that they may think well of Jesus Christ. Then Christ turns to us, to any faithful disciple: 'But you, go into your own closet to pray, and when you give, do Dot let your right know what your left hand doeth, and your Father who seeth in secret '-I want you to pause on that word. A great sculptor had a contract to put a statue in a niche in a great temple. They told him he could make it cheaply by filling up the back side, as that didn't show. ' But,' said he, 'the gods will see it, and therefore it must be finished up.' The world looks at the front side-God looks on the back. Your Father who seeth in secret shall reward you openly.
" We praise the successful missionaries for the sacrifices and services they have wrought in the name of Christ. But I sometimes think, what about the unsuccessful missionarie", those who have done their best, but in circumstances where they have reaped but little, and perhaps cut off in an untimely way, and thrust out of their field with never an opportunity to do what they had an ambition to do. What about them? 'I have an ambition that, whether absent or preRent, I may be well pleasing unto the Lord. ' Think of George Schmidt, with his heart burning to preach in Africa, who went there and was driven off by the settlers and not allowed to return, and who ulted to pray day after day, ' Lord, perUlit me to go to Africa,' until he was found dead on his knees, without going back. I think of that noble bishop, Coleridge Patterson, so splendidly endowed that they said, "Why waste your talents on the heathen ~ , and yet he went to the Pacific islands, and they took him as an enemy, and as he :was saying' Peace be unto you' they slew him, and, like his Lord, he was sent back from the very people that he came to bless, with five bleeding wounds upon his person. And I think of Melville Cox, that noble Mdhodist who went out from this country, who had a consuming passion to preach the Gospel on the western coast of Africa. He had hardly reached the shore when he was stricken down with fever, and all there is left of him is a grave with the words. ' Though a thousand fall, let not Africa be given up.' Then I think of Adam McCall, one of Livingstone's companions on the Congo, who, stricken down with fever and dying, said, • Lord Jesus, thou knowest that I consecrated my life to Africa. If Thou dost choose to take me instead of the work which I purposed to do for Thee, what is that to me ~ Thy will be done.' Where was their success ~ If they could speak they would say, 'I have but one ambiiion; that, whether I be dead or alive, whether I be absent from the body or present with the Lord, I may be well pleasing unto Him.'
" I end with urging that we may have a heroic and consecrated ambition. The highest encomium I ever heard of a single man was that of John Vassar, after he had talked about Christianity with a fashionable woman in a hotel. Her husband had come in and said that if he had known of it he would have sent him about his business. The woman replied, ' If you had seen him you would have thought that was his business.' Christ set an example of a man being ab'out his business. When His mother said to Him, ' Son, thy father and I have sought thee sOIrowing,' He replied, , Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business.'
" It is a business that meant the loss of His life, that involved the cro~s, and the crown of thorns, and the 'Father, forgive them,' and 'Why hast Thou forsaken Me ~ , and the sepulchre. But, though He saw the end from the beginning, He was about His Father's business till He could say, ' I ha,'e finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.' Be ambitious to be quiet and to be about your Father's business, and may you receive at the end of your life that welcome plaudit, ' Well done, good and faithful servant!' But remember that there can be no ' Well done' unless there has been first well doing; for, if anybody can conjugate' ill doing , into ' well done,' I cannot. Therefore, let us be up and doing, and make God's business our business."
Rev. Dr. Pierson summed up the addresses of the day in the closing speech of the evening. He began by referring to the fact that one of the most remarkable anniversary services that Great Britain has ever witnessed in England will begin May 31st next, and continue to October 2d. It will be the celebration of the one hundredth anni'ersary of the beginning of foreign missionary work under William Carey. After sketching the origin of the movement, he spoke of the four great characteristics by which the com- ing age of mission work would be marked : First, by enterprise ; second, by sacrifice; third, by individual service; fourth, by individual supplication.
These points were enlarged upon, and a fervent appeal was made for the Christian Church to rouse itself in the matter of mission wo~k. And so closed this most memorable of days at Northfield.
THE SACRED LAND OF PALESTINE
THE SACRED LAND OF PALESTINE.
BY MRS. DAVID BARON.
It is strange to be in a land so ancient and to find it in the rear of all known lands; its ancient civilization swept away, as if it had not been; without roads, except a few quite recently made; its cities gone, its forests and groves gone, and its landscapes bare, the hedges of prickly pear being no relief to the eye. You may travel many miles and only see occasional encampments of Arabs on the hill-sides, their flocks of cattle, goats, anu sheep browsing near; or now and again a fellahin village. It is possible to ride over some of these without knowing it, for the flat roofs are turf-rovered, and I have seen palm-trees growing singly, and cattle grazing on them. The larger of their villages look at first sight like a heap of grass-grown ruins, but nearer they resemble more rabbit burrows. The walls are ·of earth or sometimes of stone, with earth floors and earth COVer- 'ng the flat roofs; they have one low door, no window, no chimney.
The fellahin are probably descendants of the ancient Canaanites. They are not nomadic, like the Arabs, but settle in such villages as I have described. They till the ground, using a camel or an ox and ass yoked together to draw the very simple instrument used as a plough. The fellahin women are of a very low type. They work very hard from morning to night, carrying heavy loads great distances, often with their swaddled babies poised in baskets on their heads in addition to their burdens. These women are tattooed about the mouth and chin, and wear silver coins fringing their faces and nose bags. These are their duwry; they are, '10wever, much discolored, and look more like pewter than silver. From early morning, even so early as fiye o'clock, the beggar sits by the wayside begging; often several beggars sit in a row. In the course of one day some things will be painfully apparent to a fresh comer, and possibly the foremost of these will be the frightful prevalence of ophthalmia, the terrible cruelty practised on animals, and the filthy, unsanitary condition of the towns. Ophthalmia is likely to remain the curse of the land so long as no proper escape is made for the smoke in the dwellings of the people. Their want of cleanliness, too, favors this trouble, and the unsanitary conditions of their life. Flies and mosquitoes coming from refuse matter inoculate the eyes with poison. Again, another cause of blindness is the intense glare of the sun where there is no relief of grass or trees to meet the eye. It is a grievous sight to see on every hand, among all ages, from the infant to the aged, this terrible affliction; and pitiable indeed it is to see, as you may any day, a company of a dozen or more blind men passing through the crowded sbk (market-place), each with his hand on the shoulder of the one before him-a forcible illustration of our Saviour's words, "The blind leading the blind." Less common than blindness, and yet all too frequent, is the disease of leprosy. Surely, in any other country care would be taken to prevent the increase and spread of so appalling an evil! Here, however, the lepers are at large, and beset a trayeller on all hands, showing their disfigurements and forcing their maimed members into notice. It is too horrible! At the ascent of the Mount of Olives they lined the narro", way, standing or sitting right in the midst of the stony roads. To the peculiarly painful cry of their appealing voice-a result of the disease attacking the throat-they added the rattle of their tin pots for receiving money; and scarcely could we get free of them, though mounted on asses. These poor creatures marry among themselves, and pass on their disease as a frightful inheritance to their children, who in early life often appear to be healthy. With their growth, however, the evil never fails to develop. The Moravians have long had a hospital in Jerusalem for the shelter and care of lepers, but very few avail themselves of it, being unwilling to separate from their families.
In this land, where the law given by God Himself enjoined merciful treatment of animals, a brutal, inhuman treatment is the practice. The outcome of the 'Moslem creed of the sacredness of life among these unreasoning people is that they kill by inches instead of killing outright. The treatment of the poor asses and camels is simply revolting. Perpetually weighted with burdens beyond their strength to bear, their fur is completely worn off their backs and sides, which look like rusty black leather, and are covered with open wonnds. Their pack-saddles are rarely if ever lifted from off their sore backs, and they are kept in a half-starved condition. To make them increase their speed their drivers dig a knife or any sharp instrument into their flesh, making wounds which they take care shall not heal. In one of the noisome alleys which serve as streets in the actual town of J afia, my husband found, one day. a poor ass tethered, suffering extreme torture. One of its legs was cut away and gangrene had set in, yet no one had pity upon it to end its misery. He tried to induce them to kill it, but all in vain; they were only amused by the sug· gestion. At last he sent a man whom he could trust to buy the animal and see it killed. Even then the owner could not understand so disinterested an action, and professing to believe that the poor animal's skin must be worth something, wished to charge the more. Some time later I learned that the week following another miserable ass in bad plight had been fastened up in the same alley, doubtless with the hope of a purchaser. The unsanitary condition of towns built on the ruins of former towns, and without any system of drainage, is something indescribable. The narrow, filthy, uneven alleys, crowded with refuse from the houses, and constantly receiving more from windows and doors, are no places where to linger and admire the quaint, picturesque scenes sure to meet the eye which would otherwise be of great interest. The scavenger dogs and jackals which roam the towns at night are truly blessings where such a state of thing exists.
There is no encouragement to industry or protection of property in this land. The more diligent and sllccessful a man is in trade or agriclll· ture the more heavily is he taxed by the government, which harasses its subjects in every imaginable way. As every government official pays a sum of money to obtain his post, and is quite uncertain how long he will retain it, he makes the best of his possibly brief opportunity to extort all he can. The law may be, and often is, good, I am told; but it is not known j and the government officials work things their own way. Shortly after we arrived in Jaffa an incident occurred at Gaza which is a good example of this. A quarrel arose among some Arab tribes. The Pasha of Jernsalem came down to make inquiry, but receiving a sufficient backshish from both the offending parties, he made fair promises to each, and' returned. No benefit resulted from his visit, and soon the strife renewed. Again the pasha came down and returned as before with his purse com- fortably lined. The more powerful tribes then succeeded in spoiling and casting out a poorer tribe, and the country became unsafe as far as Jaffa; for this tribe, deprived of all their goods, attacked the property and cruelly injured some of the peaceful German colonists. In one instance the kavasse of the German consul, with two Turkish police, traced the mur- tlerers to a tent, where they found them still red-handed, with the weapon only hidden under a mat. They were taken prisoners and the k3vasse of the German consul took one man on with him to the Turkish prison in Jaffa, leaving the two police to bring along the other men. Having per- formed his own errand, he presently met them returning empty-handed, having allowed their men to escape. Backshish was no doubt the secret of this too, but no inquiry was made j they were not held responsible for their prisoners, and I believe the man in prison was later released, there being no eyewitness of his crime. Another pasha was appointed in place of him who had been twice to Gaza, and who had so profitably to himself investigated the. cause of the troubles there. By order of the new pasha all the men of the tribes at Gaza were taken prisoners and consigned to . prison' in Jerusalem. My husband met the Whole party on the road near Abu Gosh, the ancient Kirjath-.Tearim, and saw them joined by their escort of Turkish soldiers. Whether they are still held prisoners, or how the matter is settled, I do not know j it may probably again be a matter of backshish. In the court of justice, so called, this word" backshish" is rendered more politely by the expression " witnesses." According as gain may be hoped for from the social position of the victim, he is told that unless he can produce five, or a hundred, or yet more witnesses in court, his case cannot be settled. The heads on sovereigns or napoleons are the witnesses in question.
Many primitive customs are still in practice, exactly as they were in the days of our Lord on earth. It is easy tQ see why a curse was pronounced by the law on the man who moved his neighbor's landmarks j it i3 a mat- ter all too easy of accomplishment. It took.me a little time to realize, in going across country, that three or four large irregular.shaped stones, apparently picked from tqe soil around and laid one on another, could have any special meaning. Presently, however, I noticed that they stood in certain relation to other such piles, and guessed that they wert> landmarks. On inquiry I found that I was right in my surmise.
A lady known to us inherited four hundred dunnem of land from her father, but now less than two hundred remain to her, for the Arabs have been constantly at work moving her landmarks. We have heard of an Arab whose property was bounded on one side by a ditch. This ditch had to be renewed after the winter rains, and here the Arab saw his opportunity. Year by year he cleared earth away from the opposite bank, putting it always on his own bank. The ditch moved unobservedly farther and farther away from its original position. Under a fostering government, which encouraged industry in the people of the land, ~his country might soon again be flourishing. The soil is exceedingly productive, and were the terraces rebui:t and carefully watered and tended, the mountains about Jerusalem might soon again drop oil and wine. The water supply should now be sufficient if the aqueducts and cisterns were kept in good repair. For many centuries the rainfall of ·Palestine was very insufficient, and the latter rains, which should fall in the first month of the Jewish calendar, corresponding to March-April, were withheld j but the last thirty years has seen a great change, and during the last ten years the latter rains have fallen more copiously and seasonably. The rains of these past seasons havA been quite exceptional. Twenty-six inches has been the average for the last eight years, but this year it has reached forty-seven and fifty inches in the plain, and from sixty to seventy-two inches at different elevations on the Lebanon. One orange garden outside of Jaffa was standing in water during several months, and a good part of the plain of Sharon was flooded during the same time. Simultaneous with the return of the latter rain in its season we see the return of the population. Both the rain and the people are necessary to the land, and now that God opens the heavens to bless, He opens also the graves of His people. It is difficult to obtai~ accurate statistics of the numbers returning, but in Jerusalem alone the estimates vary from thirty-five to fifty-five thousand Jews now resident there. The former number is probably reckoned from the Halucha, the charity sent by Jews throughout the world to be distributed among the poor Jews in Jerus'alem. This is mostly given to the Ashkenazi, or German-speaking Jews. According to Consul Moore, who recently left Jerusalem, the Jewish population in the Holy City increased by twenty thousand in the period of three years. 'Vhile the numbers of Jews increase, the Moslem population is diminishing j it is now reckoned to be but seven thousand, and all the Christian sects taken together may be stated as about twelve thousand.
There are also large Jewish communities in the other sacred cities, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias, as also in Gaza, Jaffa, Haifa, and other places, while numerous colonies exclnsively Jewish are springing up throughout the land. These colonies, it is true, arc not yet self-sup-
rOecember
porting, and have to struggle against great difficulties, but they exist; and it is an encouraging sight to see this people returning to their ancient patriarchal occupations of husbandry and cattle tending, frolli which they have been so long debarred in most countries of their exile. Their rudely constructed carts may daily be seen coming into Jaffa with loads of healthy Jewish peasants who have no longer the subserVIent, cringing air of the poor Jews we meet with in the West, but a free and independent bearing which it does one good to see. Their villages are homely looking j no one is better off than his neighbor, while all lead a simple peasant life, having sufficient, if barely sufficient,. of this world's goods. They own much cattle, and have many acres of land about their colonies under cultivation and yielding well, which but a few years ago was waste ground. In some cases they are troubled by the Arabs, who either have or fabricate a claim upon the land. These people, when they own land, only encamp upon it at such times as their harvest approaches to guard it and secure the grain. Nothing later remains as sign of their occupation.
It has been reported that these Jewish colonists are unwilling to work themselves, and leave the toil of agriculture to the fellahin. This may be true in some places, but we have seen with our own eyes numbers of Jews at work ploughing and sowing. And still the stream of immigration is not likely to cease, hut rather to increase, considering the unsettled state of the Jews in all parts of the world. It is true that until quite lately we have not had such a large contingent from Russia as we looked for this season, but within the last fortnight the expected exodus for the promised land has commenced. In one week 800 Jews have arrived in Jaffa-500 by one vessel and 300 by another. It is noteworthy that those who now comc pouring into Palestine are not all poor and miserable, such as those who formerly came only to die in the Holy Land, but number among them wealthy Jews, speculators in land, who are buying up large tracts for settlement, and forming building societies. Quite recently a large tract of land has been bought up by them at Haifa for the sum of £17,000, for which, a week later, they were offered £25,000, but refused to give up their purchase. One Jewish building society lately proposed building 1000 }lOuses for Jewish occupation between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The shares being immediately taken up, the number was repeatedly raised until it finally attained 3500. I was quite unprepared to find Jerusalem so much built about. The city within the walls will soon be smaller than the new Jerusalem without. The city itself is very unhealthy, being built on the heaps of ruins of past cities. It abounds in narrow, filthy, noisome covered ways and alleys, where fevers are at home. Inside the city it is impossible to drive, but outside there are fine buildings, roads-rough but wide-good shops, a public garden (in preparation), and building operations extending in all directions. In the colony outside the Jaffa gate there are from 9000 to 10,000 Jews. The artist Holman Hunt has a house in this part, and there are three hotels. Good houses and shops aN
TlIE SACRED LAND OF l'ALESTntfIl
continually building. This neighborhood has grown rapidly since a year ago. A small colony of Jewish artisans just outside of Jaffa are helped, on the building society principles, to become owners of their houses; and so great is the demand for these well-built little dwellings that they cannot be built quickly enough. A yet more important service is being rendered by the Alliance Israelite in providing training schools where Jewish youth are taught some useful trade or a scientific knowledge of agriculture. The Jews coming from Europe are divided into two classes, the Ashkenazi, or German-speaking Jews, and the Sephardi, or Spanish-speaking. The latter are the descendants of those Jews banished from Spain in the year 1492, and are found in all countries bounding the Mediterranean Sea. There are also colonies now coming from Arabia of Jews settled there before the commencement of the Christian era, if their own tradition may be received. They bear traces of having been many ages in the South, their physique being quite different from that of the Jews of Europe. Their build is slight and tall, and their skin a very dark brown. It was ten years ago, in the year 1881, that the first party of German Jews arrived in Jerusalem. Their reason for coming has a prophetic interest j it was none other than a dream or vision of their revered rabbi. He related that it was revealed to him that he and his people should return to their own land, and that there God would make known to them the Messiah for whom they had so long been waiting. Numbers of them did not hesitate to obey a vision so full of comfort. But alas! they had to endure many perils by the way. They were robbed; they suffered shipwreck; many died, and they arrived at their destillation greatly reduced in numbers.. The Jews in Palestine would not recognize them as Jews at all, or render them any help; but General Gordon and some lately arrived American Christians secured them a site where to found a colony on the Mount of Olives. Since that time their numbers are constantly increasing, fresh companies arriving now and again from Yemen. Last year they numbered some eight hundred. In the month of March this year another hundred arrived miserably destitute, having suffered much by the way. Forty of these poor wanderers were sheltered and fed in our mission house during the few days they remained in Jaffa. They are a naturally pious people, as is evidenced by the conduct of these poor immigrants. The first thing they did after entering the house, having but just endured the miseries of disembarkation at Jaffa, and the trials of the custom house, was to seek for a suitable c'orner or recess where to stand their scroll of the law, richly encased and silver-mounted. This important matter settled, they repeated Hehrew prayers and then commenced to instruct the young from the Talmud. So earnest are they for the reli~ious instruction of their families that a father will elaborately copy with his own hand the valued commentaries of some rabbi, a work occupying all his time for some year8, in order to leave it a sacred legacy to his children. These Yemen Jews are a simple, industrious, hard. working race, skilled in small handicrafts, with minds less prejudiced against the truth thn are those of their European co-religionists. Last year my husband visited them in their village on Olivet. I will quote a paragraph from his" Mission Tour in Egypt and Palestine," descriptive of his visit: "One rainy day, going through the gate of David, we crossed the valley of Kedron and climbed up to this lit- tle colony. We found them in a terrible state of destitution and sickness, which Dr. Dixon was able to relieve somewhat. They were delighted to see us. We went from hut to hut-one cannot call them houses-and asked them to assemble in their little synagogue to hear us speak to them collectively of tho Messiah The little place was quite full. I spoke to them about Jesus, the true Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world. I spoke perhaps too sharply about the unbelief and sin of the Jewish peo- ple in rejecting Him. They listened very quietly, and when I had done speaking the aged rabbi said, in words that went to my heart, for they sounded like the old Scripture writings, ' We are from Yemen, in the land of the South, where our fathers have lived since before the days of Ezra the scribe. We, all our lives, and all our fathers in their Ii ves, never heard that the Messiah- had come. If we had heard we might have believed on Him, but we did not hear.''' Now, however, these Yemen Jews, like all others arriving at the port of Jaffa, are met by Jews from the town immediately on arriving, and warned against any missionaries who may attempt conversation with them.
It is of exceeding interest to note that while the rightful inheritors of the soil are compelled to return to it for the most part by the tyranny of their oppressors, the land itself is being opened up for them by the enterprise of strangers, who are often much hindered by the government. A French company is constructing the railway from Jaffa to .Terusalem. The work was for some months at a standstill, there being some difficulty about the compensation to be made the orange grove proprietors through whose property it had to pass. Now, however, the work progresses rapidly. The engin~s sent from Philadelphia, respectively the "Jerusalem," " Ramleh," and" Jaffa," are employed on the line already made, bringing up materials. For this purpose they run even now as far as Ramleh j hut it is a misstatement which has been published to the effect that the line so far is already open to the public.. It will be many months yet ere this can be the case. Possibly the frequent shrill screams of the engine, warning natives off the line on its transit to and fro with trucks of materials, have been mistaken by some tourist passing through. Many most erroneous statements about events said to be occurring in this land find their way into English and other papers, and are very misleading. The railway between Jaffa and Jerusalem should be completed next year. An English company holds a firman for a railway to run from Haifa to Damascus j and we learn that a line, to be called a steam tramway, is also to be constructed between Beyrout and Damascus. It seems that in the firman granted for the Haifa-Damascus line, there was a clause to the effect that there should be no railway between Beyrout and Damascus. This being so, the difficulty in granting permission for the latter was easily got over by giving it another name. It is, therefore, a " steam tramway." It is a very mountainouil district through which this must pass, and will require skilful engineering. A matter much discussed, but in which I believe no steps have yet been taken, is the proposition of a line to connect the prin~ cipal cities on the sea-coast from Port Said to Beyrout. A good carriage road from Jaffa to Jerusalem has existed already some years. From Jeru- salem to Bethlehem and to Hebron there are also good roads. The late pasha commenced roads to Nablous and Jericho, but these have been left unfinished. Harbor works are now in progress at Beyrout, and such must follow at Jaffa on the completion of the railway. The diligence and suc- cess of the thrifty German colonists near Jaffa and Haifa are practical les- sons, proving the capabilities of the soil when properly worked.
Many influences are at work here to hinder the good which might be done among the Jews themselves.
The Ashkenazi are the principal recipients of the Halucha, the charity yearly sent from Jews in all parts of the world for the poor Jews in this land.. It has a very baneful effeot on those who receive it, who are supported in idleness. Some of them even raise mon.ey on the income assured to them by the Halucha alone. The recipients of this charity must of course remain zealous Jews or they would not retain it. The Sephardi do not receive 'so large a share of the Halucha, but benefit, as all Jews may, by the benevolent schemes set on foot hy Jewish national societies to help on their people, and all alike are held under a strict supervision as to their attendance at synagogue and religious zeal by the agents of these societies. The result is that their pride of race and fanaticism is greatly ihCreased, and they are exceedingly bitter with any who venture to speak to them of Jesus. There are many missions at work in the land-American, Scotch, and English-which are doing a good work among the different nationalities represented here. Among the Jews not much is being done, and this work in this land becomes increasingly difficult. The most difficult place, perhaps, in all the world to work among them is the city of Jerusalem itself. Here the idolatries of the Greek and Latin churches are evcr before them, while on every hand gain is held out to them as inducement to join one or other Christian sect-even the Protestant churches, alas! not being free from reproach in this matter. While many Jews are not unwilling to go from one to another, making what they ean from this false charity, it is easy to see into what contempt and ill repute this brings so-called mission work, and that it is not in this way men are convertedrather are they so made hypocrites.
It may be of interest if I add a little about our work in Jaffa during the few months we have been there. As soon as possible we secured a mission house in the town itself, and in the same street as the house called Simon the Tanner's, on the roof of Which Peter had the vision which prepared him to go to Cornelius and proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles. Our mission house had formerly been used as a hospice for the better class of Russian pilgrims. Our fellow-worker, Mr. Barnett, elected to live there in the first story, and was soon joined by an earnest Christian Jew from Smyrna, who came to assist with the Spanish-speaking Jews. To understand and influence the people it is necessary to know their homes, occupations, and circumstances. Of necessity a great deal of time was spent by our missionaries in visiting the loathsome neighborhoods and dwellings where the Jews live. It was attempted to meet Jewish refugees on their arrival, but this was found quite impracticable, as anyone who has disembarked at the port of Jaffa will realize. The confusion on board ship and in the custom house, added to the fact before mentioned, that agents from the Chovevi Zion Society are on the spot to hinder any mis- sion work, prevents any good being done. Later, however, in groups of twos and threes the new-comers have been met about the town, and such opportunities have been made good use of. Visits have also been made to Jewish colonies in the neighborhood of Jaffa, but the winter was excep- tionally severe and the roads were for long impassable.
The mission house, besides being a centre where Jews could gather for conversation, discussing their difficulties and receiving instru~tion without fear of being watched, was also a home and shelter at different times to homeless Jews. Some of these have come in opposing the truth, but being present at prayer, conducted by Mr. Barnett, in which others have joined, have, of their own accord, not only prayed, but done so in the name of Jcsus. One Jew in particular asked God that if what he had heard of Jesus were true He would not let him die without receiving it. If only the chains of formalism were broken, and true, spontaneous, heart- felt confession of sin and prayer for pardon took the place of the 'Continual repetition of lifeless forms of prayer, God would hear and answer, for it is this He waits for.
On Saturday afternoons, being Sabbath, and to the Jews everywhere a . day of lcisure, many would come and read and converse with my husband and Mr. Barnett. On Wednesday afternoons during two hours one room used to be crowded with J ewesses, all sitting, Eastern fashion, cross-legged on the ground and working. A stranger coming in might have been aston- ished to see the array of shoes in the open court-yard to the number of some sixty-eight pairs. Within the interest would have been sustained. Here were Spanish Jewesses for the most part, some few German, one Italian, and two or three very dark-skinned Yemen Jewesses. Some with their forehE,iads bound and their faces bandaged, others simply wearing a pretty kerchief on their heads and having their finger nails dyed scarlet or yellow. Their methods of work are the exact reverse of our European ways j some of these women could work very quickly and well. On leav- ing, many of them resumed their white enveloping sheet, which they had laid aside on entering. We had the va!lA."bk help of some Arabic-speaking
'rltE SA.CR~D LAND Oli' P A.L~S'1'lN1!l
Christian missionary ladies from the English hospital, who interpreted for us, and who entered whole-heartedly into all that was attempted to be done. The poor Jewish women are very ignorant, as it is considered unnecessary and wrong to teach a woman. As.they know so little of their own national history and Scriptures we found it a good plan to question them and arouse their interest, and then to give them Scripture teaching. We also commenced' reading Matthew's Gospel with them. At last, however, the Jewish feasts, followed by my husband's severe prolonged illness, obliging my absence with him, put a stop to these interesting meetings. Although we may not again return to Jaffa, we hope the work will be continued by others, and that God will bless it more and more. The time we have spent in the Holy Land has forced upon us the conviction that the work to be done among the Jews need be done ere they set foot here. Although missions in Palestine may be of great use as a present testimony in the midst of the returning people, it is undoubtedly true that in the lands of their dispersion the best opportunities offer. When the hand of God presses upon them and they are willing to confess that it is on account of sin that they and their fathers suffer, they may be induced to accept and study the Word which tells of the atonement and Sin-bearer. It is hardly credible how soon they forget, and deny having suffered when once within the promised land, and maintain that they need no deliverer, for that God is favoring them. Even now the women in the colonies incite the men to stone any missionary who reasons with them. I firmly believe that the days approach when they will persecut.e and kill their Lord's messengers again, as formerly they did. There are many discouragements attending Jewish mission work. For those who are in haste to see results and num. ber up converts it is indeed very unsatisfactory and trying work, but in every field of mission work we see the same thing; the few receive the Word of God and are changed by it j the many reject and remain indifferent to it. All that the Word of God bids us do, whether among Jews or throughout the wide world, is to sow the Word, the " Gospel of the kingdom in all the world, for a witness unto all nations." When this is done harvest-time will come, and the harvesting is to be the work of angels, not of men.
We know there is and always has been, from the days of Paul to our own, " a remnant according to the election of grace among Israel," but the Word of God tells us plainly that as a nation Israel, like Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor and blasphemer, will only be converted by the vision of Jesus returning in the clouds of heaven in power and great glory. Then they will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn with bitter lamentation as for a first-born son.
EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN THE MISSION FIELDS
EUROPEAN LITERATURE .IN THE MISSION FIELDS.
BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D. D.
It has become a serious question whether the missionaries or the ene- mies of Christianity are making the greater use of the English tongue as a medium of communication with the people of Oriental lands.
In the early days of the modern missionary movement therc were sup- posed to be many motives not only for education, but for instruction in the English tongue. It was thought that by this means the masses of India, for example, might be brought into closer contact with that Christian civilization which afforded the chief hope of their regeneration. There was an additional reason in India and Ceylon in the political relationship of those countries to Great Britain. While missionary institutions gave much attention to the English language and made it the vehicle of instruction in history, science, etc., the schools and colleges established by the Anglo- Indian Government employed the same agency still more widely. There was a great demand for a knowledge of English as a qualification for commercial positions, and the demand was by no means limited to India and Ceylon. The same aspiration for this kind of education filled the youth of Beirut. Cairo, and Constantinople. It appeared in the schools of China and Japan. There was a like demand on the coast of Africa, and wherever the civilization and commerce of the Anglo-Saxon came in contact with heathen races. In all British colonies, like Australia, New Zealand, and Natal, the English tongue very naturally became dominant. Within the last decade the governments holding protectorates over newly acquired territory in Africa and elsewhere have taken special pains to extend the use of their respective languages as a means of establishing thei~ power. The French at the Gaboon place such emphasis upon this requirement as to forbid missionary instruction even in the verna~ular. It must be French and only French, all of which means the future prevalence of French literature.
But the generic thought suggested by this incidental survey is this: that the whole world is coming rapidly under the influence of European Janguages and literatures, the English holding a larger place than any other, and they are opening the way for the propagation of either truth or error on a boundless scale. In higher education, whether in science, history, and general literature, or in special departments, as medicine or theology, it has been claimed that a knowledge of English would open the door at once to a much wider technical literature than could be found as yet in Oriental languages; that in medicine, for example, it would be far easier to give young men a knowledge of the English which would introduce them at once to a wide range of medical science than to undertake the translation of a large number of medical books into the Arabic, the Chinese, or the Hindi; and these reasons have .seemed valid. But possibly the Christian Church in its missionary operations has not been sufficiently mindful of the fact that wherever the husbandman has sown the good seed, an enemy soon follows with tares, and that the result is a strong flank movement again ..t the truth. The apostles of infidelity would never have endured the toil anu hardship necessary to prepare the ground; they would not have undertaken to rAduce languages to a written form, and in some cases even establish a grammatical construction; but when the grubbing and the ploughing and harrowing are all accomplished they are at hand with the seeds of error. They watch for the thousands of youth who have learned the English tongue. They make use of all the agencies of publication which have been established. They are not scrupulous about the kind of intellectual pabulum that they furnish, for it is no part of their purpose to regenerate and uplift the heathen races. It is all one to them if moral poison and destruction are the result. As to the intellectual demand and their methods of meeting it, they have the same amount of scruple and misgiving as those who are deluging heathen lands with adulterated and poisoned liquors, gunpowder and firearms; their work is on the same moral level, neither higher nor lower.
The reports of the Christian Vernacular Education Society of India, while giving many interesting facts in regard to vernacular literature and the great demand for it in India, throw an occasional side light upon the spread of English literature. This society, under the presidency of the Right Honorable, the Earl of Northbrook, has struck a keynote which all friends of missions and of humanity ought to heed. It emphasizes the fact that the circulation of Christian literature in heathen lands is one of the foremost demands of the age. It reminds us that we live in a period when the printing, publication, and circulation of reading matter of all kinds h~ve reached enormous dimensions, and that thought in every variety, good, bad, and indifferent, is being quickened among all races.
A recent communication from an agent of the above-named society says: "The place of tbe English language and literature in India is one of the most marvellous phenomena of this nineteenth century.
"On arriving in Calcutta I set to work under the most competent of all guides, Sir Alfred Croft, Director of Public Instruction for Bengal. In the English shops I was not surprised to find a good supply of books in all departments of literature, and especially in that of fiction. As these were chiefly for our own countrymen, I soon found my way to the native bazaars and shops, where I discovered what astonished me. Our English merchants have no chance with these native shopkeepers in the economy of their management and consequent cheapness. In a comparatively small shop you find the head of the establishment sitting at his desk or counter with a piece of cotton around his waist and loins, in happy freedom from all the restraints of coat, waistcoat, trousers, and stockings, his whole attire worth no more than a shilling or two. The few rings of high value which adorn his ears or fingers are an investment on which the only Joss is 1nterest on the sunk capital. A few active roun~ men, who cost little/ complete the estabiishment. in which an amount of business is done which would astonish his ostentatious neighbors in the European quarter.
" In these native shops I found large piles of our cheap literature, and in stores at hand I was shown large rooms filled from floor to ceiling with the cheap serial literature of the London market, good, bad, and indifferent, but chiefly bad. Not only are the great proportion of these volumes works of fiction, but a great many of them are the very worst of the class; and these, I regret to say, are the most popular, and have by far the largest sale. Many of the most fleshly of the French realistic school in English translations were the most largely sold."
The same writer adds that amid the depressing influences of this appalling exhibit of a vicious appetite for the garbage of our English literature, he was cheered by some hopeful signs. There had been in the more respectable native shops a growing demand for the better class of cheap books; but he was painfully impressed by the fact that the movement of Christian men had been late in the field. One of these native booksellerssaid to him, "If a better class of books had been sent out from England at the first, the low and vicious ones would not have gotten the hold they have on the reading public. The first books which came to this country in cheap and attractive form were these low and vicious novels, and it will be difficult now to supplant them."
If the worst French novels are translated into English for countries in which the English tongue prevails, one can well imagine their still readier access to all lands which are under French protectorates, and in which the French language is assiduously taught. All that French Catholic and French Protestant missions can do for the elevation of the people of such land,. will scarcely equal the disastrous influence of those French novels which represent, as the late Emperor Napoleon IlL put it, " not the civilization of Jerusalem, but that of Corinth."
But only one side of this great evil is seen when we contemplate this 1lood.tide of cheap and corrupting European literature. Another equally formIdable is seen in the widespread use now made of the English language for the spread of Hinduism. Under the movement which is known in India as " Revived Aryanism," embracing various organizations, the leaders have hit upon the happy expedient of utilizing the Euglish tongue as a means of corrupting the very classes of men upon whom most labor has been bestowed by government or by missions, in higher education. There are now many thousands of graduates from the Indian universities and colleges, and the same is true of the graduates of Japanese universities and colleges, who speak the English language fluently, but are not Christian converts. On the contrary, they have been stimulated by their education to a greater pride of nationality, and coming into !lympathy with the various apologies which Western writers, have made for Oriental systems, they are more than ever resolved to stanrl by the ancient literature and cultus of their fatherland, expurgating such corruptions as the better taste and higher ethics of modern times are supposed to condemn. Meanwhile the agents of Western societies, Buddhistic, Theosophic, or Agnostic, by adroitly appealing to the national pride of wealthy rajahs and others, have secured contributions for the purpose of reproducing in cheap form the products of Wester!]. ~cepti cism, so that selections from Thomas Paine, Robert J. Ingersoll, Herbert Spencer, and the late Mr. Bradlaugh are scattered like the leaves of autumn through all English-speaking communities in India. But it would not quite suit the pride of the true Aryans, soi-disant, to be wholly dependent on foreign leaders, and therefore aspiring Hindus have taken the field, are issuing tracts, publishing periodicals and weekly papers whose staple product all bears upon this counter crusade against Christianity, British influence, Anglo-Saxon civilization, and what not.
According to the report above-named, pes~imistic productions find the readiest market j plays and fiction, whether in prose or verse, whether in foreign languages or in the vernacular, are framed on the almost universal assumption of the villainous character of men and the frailties of women. They show also the tendency to advocate a retrograde in social intercourse and even in political life. "The past is praised as the golden age, and all the misfortunes of modern life are attributed to the English Government, the progress of English education and foreign custom. The reason of this is obvious. The only hope of remuneration lies in pandering to popular taste j and, unfortunately, the discontented and unfortunate form a large proportion of the educated masses at present j and it is so pleasant to be able to throw the blame for their failure in life upon the foreigner."
As a specimen of the current Hindu literatur,e which is now being circulated in the English language there lies before me a tract entitled " Hinduism, a Retrospect and Prospect," by Sukumar Haldar. He is the son of Rakhal Das Haldar, who became a follower of the Unitarian missionary Rev. W. R. Dall, and who, with Mr. Dall, came to America.
This young man has had all the advantages of higher education, and he evidently has spent much time in gleaning freely in all the fields of literature for what he regards as concessions on the part of the Christi~n theists; Mosheim, Neander, Sir W. W. Hunter, Bishop Heber, Monier Williams, and others are quoted. He also presents a wide variety of apologies for the Aryan faith, gathered from the writings of Max Miiller, Count Bjornstjerna, Pocock, Heeren, Colonel Todd, Elphinstone, Colebrook, Cunningham, etc. A still wider range of thrusts gathered from infidel writers from the days of Celsus down to the present time are presented in bristling array. This book, published in Calcutta and sold for a dime, has had a very wide circulation. It is not to be supposed that the author has depended upon his own researches merely; rather he has presented the selected facts, arguments, and travesties which the combined research of many writers has produced. There is now an extensive literature of Hindu apologetics which a comparatively moderate labor on the part of any enthusiastic Aryan may throw upon the market at brief notice. In our own country a mere tyro may gather together the results of infidel attacks upon Christianity for the last fifty years, and lay them before the public in a leaflet or in a five-cent Sunday newspaper, issued to the numher of a quarter of a million of copies.
And something approaching this same marvellous facility is coming to be realized on heathen soil, and at the hands of a race who fifty years ago were slumbering on in the old torpor of past centuries. DoubtlesF> the very same cheap issues of Bradlangh are sold in India.
The design of the above-named pamphlet of nearly seventy pages is to show that everything in the West has been borrowed from the East; that Christianity has added nothing to the wisdom of the Indo-Aryans; that corruption rather than advancement has been the law of progress, and that the true wisdom of the world is to turn back and drink at the old fountains. This tractate is published in good English, and it is not confining itself to the Asiatic continent, but already the overflow is setting toward Christian lands, and affiliated anti-Christian associations are everywhere aiding in its dissemination.
As another example, there is published at Lahore, both in English and in the vernacular, what is known as the Vedic Magazine, edited by Pandit Guru Vidyarthi. This university graduate is a man of ability, and his motto seems to be, to " Carry the war into Africa. " Among other striking articles is one entitled " Pecunia Mania." This vice or craze is ascribed with telling effect to the whole Anglo-Saxon race. "It is," says the writer in an editorial, "a disease of the type of insanity, very contagious, transmissible by hereditation, incurable or hardly curable, and of the most virulent type. It is an unsatiable thirst, an always hungry stomach, an extreme sensitiveness and irritability, restless anxiety and sleeplessness, paralysis of moral and spiritual faculties, extreme proneness to overfeeding and overclothing, indolence, luxury, and comfort; it has an air of superficial independence, personal weakness, and infirmities." All these are presented as marked characteristics of the so-called Christian nations, and are in strange contrast with the "quiet thoughtfulness, the spiritual aspiration of the Indo-Aryan races." "This disease," says the author, " sneers at all metaphysics, looks down upon all thoughtful reflection and philosophy, an-d discards theology as speculative, unpractical, and absurd. It stigmatizes all efforts to ennoble mankind, whether moral or philosophic, as theoretical. – It brings morality down to the level of expediency. Instead of the worship of the God of nature, it sets up a wretched and worse form of idolatry-the worship of copper, of silver, and of gold. It denies to man any nature other than one capable of eating, drinking, and m()rrymaking, and we ask whether snch a diseaRe should not be at once uprooted and destroyed, never to spread again. For so long as this influence is dominant in the world there will be no morality, no truth, no philosophy. If there is to be such a thing as disinterestedness or truthfulness in the world, if mankind is not to be given over to restless anxietY"' turbulence, and the overweening bias of sordid interest, something must be done to resist this fearful tide."
It is not to be denied that the writer of such articles has a keen insight into many of the worst phases of character shown by the.beef-eating, beerdrinking, plethoric, discontented and yet self-consequential Englishmen and Germans, whom the lank and spiritual Hindu of the higher classes encounters on the soil of India. " This plethoric travesty of humanity, instead of walking forth to breathe the pure air of heaven and enjoy the scenery of nature and delight in pure and elevating thought, seeks convey.- ance in luxurious carriages rather than by muscular action, and plethoric fulness borrowed from the activity of drugs and the administrations of physicians, instead of inborn healthy glow. . .. Dead photographs and lewd portraits hang upon the walls of his room instead of the scenery of nature. He is entirely dependent on the cooling power of pankas and the warming properties of fire, the refreshing power of beverages, and stirring influence of wines for want of natural endurance. Is this the itidp,pendence that a rational being should feel ?"
We have referred to the writings of Vidyarthi only as illustrating the fact that we have come upon times when the old systems of the East, reinforced by the new impulse which Western education has given them, and possessed of all the weapons of hostility which Western infidelity has produced, are now assuming the aggressive. There is also what is called the Aryan Tract Society, published at Lahore, whose issues are scattered widely through India. The ,revived Aryans are virtually in sympathy with theosophists and esoteric Buddhists in our own country and in Great Britain, and by prearrangement and thorough organization, the issues which are sent forth in India are also circulated among us. The writer above referred to was late Professor of Science in the Government College at Lahore. He is perfectly familiar with the theories of Darwin, Heckel, Spencer, etc., and has made it a study to trace the supposed intimate relations between the theories of these noted theorists and those of the ancient Upanishad philosophy of India. The familiarity shown with Western literature, and even with the early history of the Christian Church, gives in the outset a strong advantage in the implication of authoritativeness as well as breadth of judgment and candid, thorough preparation.
As an evidence that this writer is not ignorant of what transpires III Western lands, he quotes from an address of ex-President White, of Cornell University, in what he construes as a confession of the weakness of our position. The following passage is given: "We are greatly stirred at t~mes as this fraud or that scoundrel is dragged to light, and there rise cries and moans over the corruptions of the times ; but, my friends, these frauds and these scoundrels are not the corruptions of the times. They are the mere pustules which the body politic throws to the surface. Thank God, that there is vitality enough left to throw them to the surface. The disease is, below all, infinitely more widespread. What is that dis-
THE EVANGELIZATION OF ISRAEl
ease? I believe that it is, first of all, indifference-indifference to truth ; next, scepticism; by which I do not mean inability to believe this or that dogma, but the scepticism which refuses to believe that there is any power in the universe strong enough, large enough, good enough, to make the thorough search for truth safe in every line of investigation; next, infidelity, by which I do not mean want of fidelity to this or that creed, but want of fidelity to that which underlies all creeds, the idea that the true and the good are one; and, finally, materialism, by which I do not mean this or that scient,ific theory of the universe, but that devotion to the mere husks and rinds of good, races that struggle for place and pelf, that faith in mere material comfort and wealth which eats out of human hearts all patriotism and which is the very opposite of the spirit that gives 6nergy to scientific achievement."
There is not space to dwell longer upon this new activity on the part of heathen error or its increasing interchange with all types of thought in our own land. It only remains to gather up the lessons which are thus presented to the friends of missions and the advocates of Christian truth. The practical questions which come home to us with great force are, Are we utilizing in proper degree the facilities which have been furnished us by the missionary labors of our fathers, who trained up these Hindu youth and gave them the use of the English tongue and the varif'us facilities for publication 1 With the surfeit of books which we possess here at home, are we sufficiently aggressive in extending our literature abroad 1 Is there an activity commensurate with opportunity, or are we folding our arms in quiet security in the thought that our sole duty is here on our own shores? It should be remembered that the battle-field of truth and error is now one. The terms home and foreign are obsolete; the literatures of the world are blended; and so all the light the Christian Church has to give' should be made to shine.
THE EVANGELIZATION OF ISRAEL.
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, O.
The first missionary work done by primitive Christianity was among the Jews. Christ confined His labors almost exclusively to the chosen people, declaring that He had been sent first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The policy of the earliest apostles of restricting their gospel activity during its first stages to their own race and nation was only in part the result of a misconception of the universality of the redemption secured through the life and death of the Messiah. Paul himself did not become the great apostle of the Gentiles until his labors among the Israelites had convinced him that they did not deserve or appreciate the glorious Gospel he had come to offer them. It is a fundamental error of the Baur-Tiibingen school, and their reconstruction of the inner development of primitive Christianity, to maintain that Paul originally and ex profes8o taught in his doctrine that Christianity was intended for all, also for the Gentiles, a doctrine contradictory to the standpoint of Peter and his friends, who maintained that Christianity was essentially a Jewish sect, and intended only for this peo- ple. The hypothesis that the Christianity of the second and the ihird centuries was a result of a compromise between the Judaism of Peter and the universality of Paul does great violence to the facts in the case. But, as is generally the case, the error is all the more plausible and dangerous because it is at least seemingly based upon a fact, which fact is that the first Gospel messengers one and all recognized the first and historic right of Israel to the blessings of the Gospel, and when rejected by them these were offered to the Gentiles. Between Peter and Paul there was no differ- ence of principle, at most only of degree. On mission methods they agreed to adhere to the example and command of the Lord. While all nations were to be made disciples of Christ, the Jews were first called to this high privilege.
This historic right to priority was not based upon any undue partiality of Christ for the people out of whose midst He had arisen. Indeed, their treatment of Him would have induced another who was not divine to cast them from him. This right was based upon the calling of this nation as the chosen people to bring forth and to establish from the human side the kingdom of God on earth. Christ came in the fulness of time, and this fulness was the result and outcome of a development which had been progressing through centuries and centuries. In this calling Israel lived and had its being j and while the coming of Christ has been the centre of history for the whole world, it, has been such for Israel in an especial sense.
That Israel, when this hour had come, did not recognize the signs of the times, but threw aside its own peace, does not in any way call into doubt the wisdom of God's plans. While the rejection of Christ by His con- temporaries in Israel is one of the saddest facts of history, it is, neverthe- less, not an enigma or a riddle. The attitude of the Pharisees of that day, the orthodox and recognized theological school of the times, was by no means the mushroom growth of a night as little as it was a system based upon Old Testament premises. In fact, in Christ's polemics against them He makes it a prominent matter to show that they had deserted the old landmarks, and that their refusal to accept Him who was the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets was based upon their subversion and misinter- pretation of the cardinal truths of their own religion. Factors and forces had been at work which had, during the centuries of the silence of the prophets between the close of the Old Testament and the opening of the New, inculcated principles diametrically opposed to those taughj; by the sages and seers of God. Had the teachers of Israel in the days of Christ still stood upon the basis of the revealed Word, they could and 'would not have done otherwise than have accepted Him as the promised Messiah. Paul's antagonism, so pronounced and decided, against the doctrine of justification by the works of the law, and in favor of justifica- tion by faith alone, is not based upon the theory that the former is the legitimate outcome of Old Testament teachings, hut that it is a perversion of tJ!ese teachings by the leaders of thought in Israel. He therefore resorts to the same method which Christ had employed-namely, to quote the Old Testament itself against those who claimed to be the only correct interpreters of Old Testament truths. It is substantially the same mission method which is adopted by all the New Testament writers over against the Israelites, particularly by those who make this matter especially promi- nent-namely, Matthew and the; uth Jr of the Epistle to the Hehrews. A recognition of these facts in the great problem of Jewish mission work, as also of the method and manner pursued in the New Testament of conduct.- ing the work, is a matter of the greatest possible importance for us and our day too. Notwithstanding the eighteen hundred years which have elapsed, the problem itself has not changed materially, and the experience of the friends of the work has been such as to convince them that the New Testament method of dealing with the problem, of course adapted to our times, is the only one that promises success. In the entirely unique and peculiar character of the problem lies also the justification of making Jewish missions a distinct branch and separate department of Gospel work among non-Christians. In the nature of the case mission methods must adapt themselves to the exigencies of the case-the history, character, and condition of the people to whom it is proposed to bring the message of grace. In this sense of the word the mission work in no two countries can be carried on in exactly the same manner. But yet the problems and perplexities of Jewish mission work over against those met with in the case of other nations are so entirely sui lIeneris that the work of a laborer in Israel is radically different from that among the Gentiles. This is the case not because the seed is of a different kind, but because the soil is. The Jew meets the Christian missionary in an altogether different spirit from that which a heathen must show toward a Gospel messenger. The Gentile . instinctively sees in him a superior, intellectually and otherwise, and the missionary finds no difficulty in making the impression of this superiority, except perhaps in the cases of Brahmans and adherents of other highly cul- tivated heathen religions. On the other hand, the Jew sees in the Chris- tian a renegade and a pervert from the principles of the Old Testament revelation. While regarding himself as a superior, because he is the repre- sentative and exponent of the pure monotheism of the prophets, he is as such historically entitled to pre-eminence above the Christian, who has changed and distorted these teachings by adding a polytheistic faith, and by recognizing the claims of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah. Instead of being himself a proper subject for instruction and conversion, he considers the Christian as such a subject. It is the idea and the ideal of Judaism, both rationalistic and orthodox, that the religion and the ethics of mankind will eventually find their happy consummation and development in the adoption of a monotheism of the Jewish faith.
However much we may wonder at thiR psychological attitude of the Israelites, it is a fact that such is their standpoint; and mission work, like all other enterprises, must deal with actual facts. This being the case, there is really only one correct mission method for the evangelization of Israel-namely, that already adopted by the New Testament writers and preachers. This method is to produce the conviction in the hearts and minds of the Jews that their interpretation of the Old Testament, which through centuries of teaching has entered into their very marrow and bones, is false; that Israel, in breaking with Christ and His teachings, broke with its own history and with its own religion; that the new departure inaugurated by the Pharasaic school in the New Testament era was a false and unfounded movement; and that Israel's fate and history can only be brought back again to its true and divinely destined course by a return and a rejection of the false positions of the fathers; in other words, by an acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as the fulfilment of the law and the prophets.
Hence it is that argument and proof have a place in Jewish mission work which they occupy nowhere else. The preparation needed by the Jewish Gospel worker is quite distinct from that which the other missionaries should receive, and, therefore, fully justifies the establishment of Rpecial seminaries for such young men of the kind that the late and lamented Professor Delitzsch founded in Leipzig five or six years before his death, and in which he taught down to his last illness. Not the least difficult is the negative work of showing, from the history and the literature of the Israel of the post-biblical era, that the Judaism of to-day can by a misnomer only be called the outgrowth and development of the Old Testament religion. This presupposes a thorough acquaintance with the Mishna, the Talmuds and the Midrashim, the great official compilations of later Jewish faith and tenets. It is an Herculean task to find the Ariadne thread out of the labyrinth of Talmudism. The number of Christian scholars who have in their possession the key, to this literature are few and far between. In former generations this was otherwise. The Buxtorfs, Capellus, and their contemporaries were masters in this field. In our day Delitzsch easily was the greatest scholar in this field; otherwise it would have been impossible for him to prepare his classical Hebrew translation of the New Testament, which has proved to be the most efficient Gospel agency in this arduous and thankless mission department. But others have been apt pupils, and the names of Strack, Siegfried, Dalman, Faber, Wllnsche deserve honorable mention. Post-biblical Hebrew is no longer a lost art or a hidden treasury. How important a matter it is for Gospel work in Israel can be recognized from the fact that its study is the chief occupation of the Instituta Judaica, or Jewish mission associations which have been revived at the German and Scandinavian universities within recent years, and which have a membership of over three hundred. These societies deserve special praise for having published a series of tracts and brochures, in which Christians receive authentic information concerning the Jews, and the Jews authentic information concerning Christianity. No more solid and substantial foundation for efficient work in this line could be established than has been done in this manner.
The problem becomes all the more perplexed and perplexing by the dissensions among the Jews themselves. There are two classes of these, the radicals and the conservatives or orthodox. The Jews of Western Europe and America are almost to a man adherents of the radical wing. Upon their shoulders the ways of the fathers sit but lightly. They have compromised with modern thought and life, and as a result have given up what distinguished them as Jews, except certain formal features. Substantially this type of Jews are either unbelievers or are adherents of a vapid and vague deism. With them the Gospel messenger has double labor, because he must meet them as Jews and as rationalists. It is often doubted whether a W estern Jew can become a consistent Christian, and among the Jews themselves it is practically an axiom that a convert from Judaism is a fraud and a deceiver. How incorrect such extreme views are is seen from the examples of such noble men as Neander, Philippi, Caspari, Kalkar, and others who have become Christians of rare power and success. Western Judaism is not hopeless, but it is probably as difficult a field as the Gospel messenger can select.
Strange to say, the East is more promising. And yet the 9riental Jew is the personification of Talmudism. He has, however, the virtue of being deeply religious, and is hence not closed to religious argument and persuasion. It is among these that Delitzsch's and Salkinson's Hebrew New Testaments are eagerly read and studied, and it is among these Jews that the independent Christward movements of Rabinowitz and others have originated, and the project has been formed of organizing a National Jewish-Christian Church on the basis of the New Testament as the fulfilment of the Old. The Leipzig Society, the most aggressive and progressive of the Jewish mission societies, has recently inaugurated a new departure by confining its labors to the Eastern Jews. It proceeds from the standpoint that Jewish diaspora in Christian communities should be left to the eongregations there, and that systematic efforts toward their eonversion as a nation should be centralized there, where they are most densely settled.
It is to be regretted that there is no general interest among Christians in Gospel work among the Israelites aeeording to the flesh. It is always a limited few, whose love for the people of God enthuse them for this difficult work. However much the Jews may have proved themselves unworthy and unthankful objects for Christian mission activity, this does not excuse us in our negligence. We Christians have in our possession as our greatest blessing the spiritual inheritance of Israel. Gratitude and duty alike should urge us to offer them in return a share of this inheritance.
SOME POLEMICAL WRITINGS AGAINST THE JEWS
The nineteenth. is the greatest missionary century since the apostolic era. But not all Gospel work has been done, nor are the churches everywhere putting forth their best efforts. Israel has a historic claim on the attention, prayers, and work of the Christian churches. Let this claim not be neglected or rejected.
SOME POLEMICAL WRITINGS AGAINST THE JEWS IN THE .FIRST SEVEN CENTURIES.
BY REV. B. PICK, PH.D., ALLEGHENY, PA.
The friendly relation which existed at first between the Church and the synagogue could not always last, and a separation became a matter of necessity. The result was that the non-identification of Christianity with Judaism gave rise to bitterness and enmity, and by and by all friendly relations between the two parties entirely ceased. The best proof for this is the unfeeling but exulting manner in which Jerome writes when speaking of the annual visit the Jews made to Jerusalem on the anniversary of that city's destruction: "Those who once bought the blood of Christ must now buy His tears j and even to weep is not freely conceded them. On the anniversary of the capture,and destruction of Jerusalem you may descry a mourning crowd approaching. Behold here delicate women and aged men weighed down with grief and years, hastening to bewail the destruction of their sanctuary. Their very bearing betokens that the wrath of God is upon them. But while tears are streaming down their cheeks, while in their bitterness of spirit they stand with arms outstretched and hair dishevelled, 10 ! the Roman soldier rudely accosts them, to demand money that they may longer enjoy the liberty and the privilege of weeping" (Com. on Zeph~n., c. iL).
The Church had received the Old Testament from the synagogue, but the attitude of the Church to the Old Testament writings was different from that of the synagogue. The Old Testament writings were read in the light of Christianity, and Christ was found everywhere. The purely Jewish elements appeared as episodical, the truth of the new covenant as the real purport. With the Church the messiahship of Jesus was a conditio sine qua non. Was Jesus the promised Messiah ~ Then the Church was right and the synagogue wrong. From the Old Testament the former adduced her proofs, and pronounced, at the same time, that the synagogue, because rejecting the claims of Jesus as the Messiah, was wrong. The earliest polemical writing is the so-called" Epistle of Barnabas." In this epistle the writer insists especially on two points: first, that Judaism, in its outward and fleshly form, had never been commended by the Almighty to man j bad never been the expression of God's covenant j secondly, that that covenant never belonged to the Jews at all-in other words, that there was a Christianity before Christ. From an exegetical point of view this epistle is also highly interesting, as it exhibits the exegesis of that time.
A lost work ill the" Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus," which is com- monly ascribed to Aristo of Pella. It is quoted by Jerome and Origen.
" In it," says Origen, "is described a Christian arguing with a Jew from the Jewish Scriptures, and showing that the prophecies concerning the Christ are applicable to Jesus; the other replying to the argument vigor- ously and in a way suitable to the character of a Jew."
In his" Dialogue with Trypho." Justin Martyr tries to show that the God of the Jews was the God of the Christians likewise, and that the authority of the Old Testament was recognized by Christians. He labored further to prove that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, sent by the God of Abraham for the salvation of the world, and that His followers were the true Israel. It ha~ been suggested that Rabbi Tarphon, a bitter enemy of Christianity, who declared that, although the Gospels and the other writ- ings of the "Minim" or Christians contained the sacred name of the Deity, they ought to be burned, is the same Trypho who is the interlocutor in Justin Martyr's" Dialogue." But this is mere suggestion.
Hippolytus's " Demonstration against the Jews" is lost, and the frag- ment which is extant shows that the Jews have no 'reason to glory in the sufferings which they inflicted on Jesus of Nazareth, for that it had been foretold that the Messiah should so suffer, and that these sufferings had been the cause of the misery afterward endured by the Jewish nation.
Diodorus of Tarsus wrote a special treatise, " Contra Judreos," which is lost; and Hieronymus Grrecus vehemently abuses the Jew in his " Dia- logue of a Christian with a Jew on the Trinity."
Chrysostom(died 407) wrote, in proof of Christ's divinity, a "De- monstratio adversus J udreos et Gentiles," and seven" Homilies against the Jews," in great measure against the J udaizers within the Church.
Basil of Seleucia tries to demonstrate to the Jews the time of Messiah's advent and the destruction of Jerusalem, which" Demonstratio" results in the proof that Jesus is the Messiah.
Of Philippus of Side remains a narrative of a " Disputation concerning Christ," held in Persia between Christians, Jews, and heathens.
Gregentius of Taphar holds a dialogue with Herbanus the Jew, in which he convinces his opponent by a vision of Christ which appears in the heavens, the result being the conversion and baptism of five millions of Jews.
A certain Timotheu~ holds a dialogue with a Jew, one Aquila, whom he converts, and brings him to Cyril for baptism. Cyril, however, wished Timotheus to perform that office, and so ordained him priest and deacon at once.
A certain Stephanus, Bishop of Bostrs, is mentioned as the author of a treatise, "Contra J udreos," quoted by John of Damascus. • Anastasius, abbot of the monastery of St. Euthymius, in Palestine, is
THE TOUR OF THE LANTERN
said to have written against the Jews and Judaism j and Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis, in Cyprus, wrote an apology against the Jews.
Passing from the Greek to the Latin writers, we mention a work " Against the Jews," by Tertullian, composed on the occasion of a dispute between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. Cyprian and Augustin also wrote against the Jews j and Evagrius's "Altercatio Simonis Judrei et Theophili Christi ani" is said to be a free reproduction of the lost dialogue of Papiscus and Jason.
The" Tractatus adversus Judreos," by Maximus of Turin, is of doubtful authorship.
Isidore of Seville's" De Fide Catholica ex Veteri et Novo Testamento contra J udreos" is addressed to his sister Florentina, and consists of two books. The first, which contains sixty-two chapters, treats of the person of Christ j the second, containing twenty-eight chapters, speaks of the consequences of the Incarnation j that is to say, of the unbelief of the Jews and the ingathering of the Gentiles, of the eonversion of the Jews at the end of the world, and the cessation of the Sabbath.
Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, writes on the Jews in general and their superstitions. The" Divine Institutes" of Lactantius contain also attacks upon Judaism. It is to be regretted that many of these works are lost.
THE TOUR OF THE LANTERN.
A LETTER TO THE YOUNG FOLKS.
BY F. E. HOSKINS, OF SYRIA.
A kind friend in America sent the lantern as a gift to help in reaching the boys and girls of Syria. Then a Sunday-school class of boys at Elwyn, Pa., sent twenty-five views, and later on'a class in the Sixth Presbyterian Church of Albany made a similar gift. The lantern and the views reached Beir11t in safety j but the people in the custom house opened them and then put them back into the box without any straw. The box was then hustled out of the custom house on the back of a porter, and a day or two later carried thirty-three miles over Lebanon on the back ' of a mule. When the man put it down in our court very doleful sounds were heard issuing from the box, and I opened the package with trembling hands j but only one view was smashed and another cracked!
It was more than six weeks before I invited Mr. Magic Lantern to go with me on a tour. I had to have a strong wooden overcoat made for him, and some boxes' for the views. Then I had a folding frame made, and a large white sheet seven feet square to fit it. All this work was done by a Moslem carpenter in, Sidon, and then it came over the mountain in the same way as did the other boxes. In May I invited Mr. Magic to get ready for the journey. I hired a mule for Mr. Magic to ride; but when we went down to the front door the mule objected to the arrangement, and we had great difficulty in persuading him that the matter was all right. You know that it is a very difficult matter to reason with a mule. We first tied him securely to a tree and passed the chain of his halter through his mouth by way of emphasis. Three of us then stood round and assisted Mr. Magic to mount; but the mule kicked and moved round in such a lively way as to prevent Mr. Magic from getting anything like a firm seat. When I thought we had succeed- ed, t turned to go upstairs, but a moment later I heard a great noise, and 10 ! poor Mr. Magic and all his traps were on the ground again. Fortunately he came down right side up and suffered no harm. We remonstrated with the mule, drew the chain tighter, and then wrapped his hcad up in the big coat belonging to his owner. He was not able to see what we were doing, and we did not uncover his eyes until Mr. Magic was all safe and snug. So off they went, and some eight hours later had made the long journey southward without any accident. Once on the way home, a week later, the mule became frisky, and tried to run; but the load began to turn, and two minutes later Mr. Magic and his traps were lying in a wheat field with Mr. Mule on top, his feet sticking up into the air. We all dismounted and had a great time in getting him loose and on his feet again. We had the same trouble in loading up, and, strange to say, Mr. Magic still lives without any broken bones. On other and shorter trips I have hired a man to carry Mr. Magic on his back, as men sometimes carry travellers in other lands.
During the month of May Mr. Magic made seven public appearances, and created the greatest excitement-his coming to a village was like the coming of Barnum's circus. The first threll appearances were in" our school-rooms; but I soon gave that up and took to the threshing-floors. No building could possibly hold all that came, and the crush made anything like a lecture impossible. At one village we tried it in the schoolroom-a place that will hold nearly three hundred people; but everybody wanted to come and everybody came-boys, girls, men, women and babies. We tried to shut the doors and keep the audience quiet, but the crowd outside kept on increasing until they pressed upon the doors and windows, carrying both doors and windows off their hinges inward. Some of the chief men of the village went out and beat the people over the heads with clubs, but a minute or two later it was as bad as ever. I tried to quiet them, but soon became hoarse, so I pushed the views through rapidly, and as each picture fell upon the screen I pounded upon the table, or put the cap on the lantern, and so got quiet long 4ilnough to announce the name of the view. They were all mightily pleased, and thought nothing of the noise and confusion, being accustomed to that in their churches, and always at weddings.
After that I went to the threshing-floors-great open spaces round the villages-set up the screen, and soaked the canvas with water, and then people saw from both sides the same. At Qaroim there were from seven to eight hundred people present, and some of them sat directly beneath the screen, where they could not see anything at all. The sights at each place go beyond description j in no place had anything like a lantern ever been seen. Fully a thousand boys and girls in our schools clapped their hands over the pictures, and perhaps twice as many men and women. Mr. Magic behaved very well j and even if he should never appear again he would be distinguished all his life, for these people will never forget his coming.
The people insisted on making a feast at nearly every place. At one village the teacher made a dinner. Four of us sat on the floor round a low wooden table. On this was placed a large brass waiter more than two feet in diameter j on it were four plates of pounded rice, four bowls of milk, four small plates of sugar, and in the ceutre one large plate of bn..tter without any salt in it. Beside each one on the floor were five or six thin flat loaves of bread. We had neither knife, fork, nor spoon. After a blessing we tore pieces from our loaves of bread, and with them dipped up the cooked rice, and drank from our bowls of milk. But the great dish was the butter. There must have been three pounds of it. The way we di~ posed of this was to take a small piece of bread, hold it between thumb and fingers, pinch off a piece of butter, dip it into the fine pounded sugar, and then eat it. At Qaroun we had a feast of another kind. We had neither knife nor fork, nor had we waiter or stool. Everything was placed on the floor in front of us. They had killed a small kid, stuffed it with rice and pine nuts, and had cooked it whole. It was served on the dish in which it had beeu cooke'd, and I separated the parts by main strength, using my pocket-knife when things did not come apart easily. It was well done, and was as tender as anyone could have asked for. With it we ate rice and bread and some strawberry jam from a tin I had carried from Zahleh.
But the most striking experience that I have had on account of Mr. Magic was not of a pleasing character, and might have ended very seriously had not God kept me from harm. I treated the people of a village named Gedeitha to an exhibition, and haying to make a journey to Damascus the next day, I resolved to ride home that night after the entertainment was over. I left the village at 9.30 P.M., and a few minutes later was attacked by three robbers, who had followed me from the village for that purpose. They were armed with clubs and knives. One seized my bridle-rein, and the word was given to rob me. Of course I objected, but had nothing other than my rawhide whip with which to defend myself. With this I beat them right and left, and managed to keep two of them off, and to retain my own seat in the saddle. For five minutes we struggled j they cut my rein, lifted up their clubs again and again j but I answered only with blows. One worked constantly at my saddle-bags, and, failing to loosen them, they'
JERUSALEM'S CRYING WANTS
whipped out knives and began to slash. Blows of the knives reached and cut my Bible, and in the struggle came within a few inches of my person. At the same time they grabbed for my pockets and my watch. One seized the chain j I put one hand on the watch, and with the other struck: the man j the chain parted and went with the man, but I kept the watch, as also my purse. Tiring of the struggle, they at last tore the saddle-bags asunder and fled away. I marked two of them and the direction they took. I rode back to the village, told my story, organized a search party, and then rode on home, rousing the soldiers and the governor on my way. By prompt action we soon caught the men j later on they confessed, the chain was delivered up, the torn saddle-bags recovered, and the men placed in prison. The trial followed rapidly, and two days ago the men were sent prisoners to Damascus, where they will receive a heavy sentence. They were taken from the local prison here, their hands securely fastened between two pieces of wood, and this wood in turn fastened to the halter rope of the soldier's horse. They were then compelled to go walking beside the armed soldiers forty miles away to Damascus. Truly" the way of the transgressor is hard."
And now Mr. Magic Lantern has come to Baalbec, and if all goes well, this evening he will delight some more children, and go on doing good, I hope, for many years. We always close with a picture of the Bible House in New York, and a talk about spreading the Bible.
How simple and yet how beautiful it is to do good! May God lead each one of you to give your hearts to Christ and your lives to His service j and may you all be ready to suffer hardships as good soldiers of the cross.
JERUSALEM'S CRYING WANTS.
BY A. BEN-OLIEL, JERUSALEM, PALESTINE.
[From Rabbi Ben-Oliel's circular letter we give space to the following extracts.-EDITOR. ] 1. There is no one among the missionaries in Jerusalem, nor has there been anyone for long years, that can preach the Gospel of the grace of God to the Sephardim-Spanish Jews-in their vernacular-Judeo-Spanish j or that can converse freely and intelligently with them in that dialect. But yet the Sephardim are the oldest Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem, the most learned and religious, the most civil, the most accessible to the Gospel messenger and his message of glad tidings, and are less bigoted and bitter toward Christianity than the Ashkenazim-Russian Jews, Polish Jews, etc.
Now, Judeo-Spanish I know from childhood, and in 184£-50 I translated St. Luke's Gospel and a variety of tracts into that dialect, as also others in Hebrew, Spanish, and English. Two native helpers can converse in Judeo-Spanish, one of whom attributes his conversion to the Lord Jesus to attending my Judeo.Spanish services in Smyrna Ilhortly after the Crimean war j but his special duties occupy his time and attention fully.
2. There is no missionary in Jerusalem that can converse in Hebrew with the rabbis, who are so numerous j or that can even quote the Old Testament Scriptures fluently in the original, excepting some native help- ers j and much less anyone acquainted with rabbinic literature and dogmas. Yet thh! is a very essential-an indispensable-qualification for a preacher of the Gospel to the Jews j and it is well known that learned Jews prefer the sacred tongue in religious conversation or discussion. Still, the Liturgy is read in Hebrew every morning in Christ Church.
The London (Episcopal) Society for Jews has a strong mission in Jeru- salem, at an expenditure of some £7000 per annum, but there is no fully qualified missionary to the Jews in Jerusalem. …
Many Christian travellers have carried away very strong impressions on this subject after visiting Jerusalem. One of them, Mr. W. Mortimer Clark, Q.C., of Toronto, wrote to me from Jerusalem: " My impressions here lead me to believe that anything like active evangelistic work among the Jews does not exist in Jerusalem, and that there is ample room for more· effort. The various manifestations of Chris. tianity are more likely to repel than attract the Jew."
" Ample room" there is unquestionably. The British consul estimated the Jewish populatIOn of Jerusalem at 40,000 j but the Rev. C. T. Wilson, of the C. M. S., who has resided here the last seven years, has been .assured by enlightened local authorities that the number of Jews actu1111y in Jerusalem cannot be much und~r 60,000 j and they keep coming constantly, and about one half are Sephardim.
Jerusalem is a Babel of diverse tongues. From 20 to 30, it is said, are spoken within its precincts. Among the Jews the following are in requisition, for there are Jews from all lands here ; and I name them in the order of their relative importance, marking with an asterIsk those in which I can preach or converse more or less :-* Judeo-Spanish, Judeo- Polish and German, * Hebrew, * Aramaic, * Arabic (colloquial), * Eng- * * lish, * French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Modern Greek, etc. Considering the friendly way in which the Sephardi Jews have received me in other mission fields-Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey in Europe, and Asia Minor. Gibraltar, Spain, Rome, etc.-and more recently in Jaffa -which has 3000 to 4000 Jews, I may hope to meet with an equally friendly reception from the far larger number in Jerus:;tlem; and I trust from the Ashkenazim also. There is evidence already that it will be so, for before I could go to them, they are calling on me, and among them has been a leading rabbi, who, after conversation, accepted a Hebrew New Testament, promising to study it, and has called frequently since. They are so pleased to find one with whom they can converse freely in the language of their homes, as well as in Hebrew. It is but natural it should be so, for I am more at home with their characteristics·-their disposition, modes of thought, customs, history, literature, and religious idiosyncrasies; and, therefore, in more thorough sympathy with them.
With sincere gratitude to God, I acknowledge the friendly welcome given to me and my family by all the laborers of the London Society, whom I have assured that my most earnest desire is to fill up deficiencies, and to co-operate in every good work for the advancement of the adorable Master's kingdom and glory.
3. There is no place where non-Episcopalian travellers and visitors, whose numbers increase every year-the United States, and even Canada and Australia, contributing a fair proportion-can worship God in the Holy City according to the simpler forms they prefer and are acc<lstomed to; and, consequently, no place where ministers of other de1).ominations can have the unspeakable privilege of witnessing for the Lord Jesus in the city where He expiated the sins of the whole world, and rose again for our justification: here, where the Son of God bled and died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God: here, where the Lord of glory burst asunder the chains of death, and opened the gates of heaven to all believers.
The Episcopal Mission to the Jews has a handsome church. in which liturgical services are conducted morning and evening every Lord's day. The Church Missionary Society has a beautiful chapel for similar services in Arabic for native converts. The Lutherans have separate services in German, and are now constructing a large church. That the Latins, Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Moslems, Jews, etc., have superb ecclesiastical buildings-churches, convents, chapels, mosques, synagogues, hospitals, schools, etc.-is well known to all travellers in Palestine and readers of their works.
But Presbyterians, Independents, Wesleyans, Baptists, etc., are nowhere in .Terusalem ! They have not even a hired upper room! But yet a considerable number of the annual visitors are ministers of all denominations. Talmage, William Arthur, Spurgeon, Dale, Radstock, etc., may come and weep over Jerusalem and take pleasure in her stones; but they must hold their tongues! They may not celebrate the Lord's Supper in its scriptural commemorative significance, and" show" the grandest historical event the world ever witnessed, "till He come!" They may not testify to the corrupt, degenerate churches of the East, that there is a purer and truer spiritual mode of worship than is exhibited even by some Protestant churches!
In June, 1887, I wrote: "There are certain localities in which all Christians reel a deep interest, of which they cannot divest th~mselves, and Jerusalem is pre-eminently such a spot. It is sacred ground common to all the Christian world. All honor to the Church of Engiand for the noble work which the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, and the Church Missionary Society have been doing for years past in Palestine. But the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, cannot be relegated by the Christian world to anyone church exclusively; aud those Episcopal societies should welcome the co-operation and holy rivalry of other churches and societies, in a sphere which claims and enlists the sympathy and lively interest ot all. "
The Lord has called me to Jerusalem to supply those three crying wants. There is now in Jerusalem AN UPPER ROOM, to hold from 80 to 100 persons, near the Jaffa Gate, and within five minutes' walk of the three principal hotels, where all evangelical Christians may worship God in the city of the Great King, and where their ministers may witness to Divine truth and unalloyed Scripture doctrine; and where the Gospel shall be preached in Judeo-Spanish to the Sephardim, and men of all classes-" to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" –will be welcome to hear the message of red~eming love.
In a few days an inscription-PRESBYTERIAN MISSION-will mark the house to travellers and residents. Some definite designation mu.~t be adopted, and as a Presbyterian, I naturally prefer my true colors, cheerfully extending the hand of fellowship to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. As an illustration of my catholicity, I may mention that, at my earnest desire, TWELVE MINISTERS, representing the Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Independent, Baptist, and Lutheran churches, took part in my ordination in 1852.
This mission and work is at present dependent wholly on the Lord and on the free-will offerings of His people of whatever section or branch of the one Church universal. It is a work of faith and of entire reliance on the gracious promises of our God, who has already raised up some supporters in England and the United States. I solicit, above all, the prayers of God's people. " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee."
The famous" Siloam Inscription," which ranks near the Moabite Stone in the list of hoary Semitic rolkb, has been stolen. This inscription, which was in the purest bihlical Hebrew, told how the tunnel was excavated which conveyed the water from the so-called" Spring of the Virgin" -the only natural spring in Jerusalem-to the pool of Siloam. This work and the inscription, according to Professor Sayee, date from the reign of Hezekiah, or perhaps from that of Solomon. The inscription was accidentally discovered ten years ago by a young man who fell into the ,water. It was in a dark place on the side of the tunnel, about nineteen feet in from the pool, and was only deciphered after an incrustation of lime deposited by the water had been removed by acid. The inscription has now been cut bodily out of the rock, being broken in the process, and the fragments are said to have been sold to a Greek in Jerusalem.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. O. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
To the Editor of the New York Times: SIR: I see that your London correspondent speaks very disdainfully of Bishop Tucker's application to the Marquis of Salisbury for protection to the Protestant Christians in Uganda, especially as this is likely to be accorded. I confess this puzzles me. What ground of complaint has your correspondent against the bishop 1 It is usually supposed that any missionary has a moral right to solicit the protection of his own government for his own converts, in a territory under its suzerainty, as Uganda is under that, of England. Of course your correspondent does not imagine that Tucker has come to ask for repressive measures against the French priests. If he were capable of it, he would understand its futility. But it is news that, under English sovereignty, an English bishop ought to allow the French priests to use repressive measures against him.
I am aware that there are more Catholics than Protestants in Uganda. But the Protestants are numbered by hundreds. Twenty-five hundred came to meet Stanley, and I suppose they .have increased since then. But, more or fewer, have they not as good a right to be as the Catholics 1 Besides, the Protestants came to Uganda a good many months before the French priests, BO that they have the right of priority, which among all honorable missionaries counts for much. It is the Catholics, not they, who are intruders. Cardinal Lavigerie expressly admitted beforehand to the secretary of the Church Missionary Society his obligation to withhold the White Fathers from encroachments on a field already occupied by Protestants. He has publicly signified his agreement with General Gordon that Protestants and Catholics are two divisions of the one army of Christ, who ought not to fire into one another's ranh. If he has now violated his plighted faith, and turned his own words into mockery, his breach of honor has certainly not evacuated any of the rights of the Uganda Protestants.
Your correspondent seems to stand for the position that wherever the Catholics can come in, and by their showy ceremonies tickle the people's fancy faster than the Protestants can touch their hearts, they have a right to driye the latter out. The noble work doing along Lake Nyassa by the Scotch Presbyterians, and eastward of there by the Universities' Mission, is, according to that, entirely at the mercy of Rome. And if the Protestants venture to appeal to a Protestant government against Catholic fistlaw, they are to be reproached with shabbiness and superfluous zeal.
I do not know what religion your correspondent has, beyond a dislike of French atheism. But even if he should be a sort of a kind of a species of a Catholic (which is not probable), most Catholic laymen in our day profess to believe (and in Catholic countries nobly show their creed by their works) that every man who holds a creed agreeable to good morals has an indefeasible right to propagate it. Is not that his position ~ I know that Rome has an organization which makes her a formidable enemy and a profitable friend. As things go, it is no great matter of displeasure if her operations (which are really wide and admirable in the heathen world) are idealized and loudly lauded by the press, which expects to trim its sails to the wind. But surely the matter is pnshed a little beyond bounds whena Protestant bishop is held up to contempt for asking for fundamental rights of religious freedom and English citizenship.
The Catholics and Protestants in Uganda have repeatedly and solemnly pledged themselves not to wrong or oppress one another. All that anybody can imagine Bishop Tucker as asking, or his government as granting, .is that Lord Salisbury shall signify that he will view with displeasure any breach of this compact. Both. Christian parties have shown heroic attachment, even unto the death of fire, to the common faith. The Protestant missionaries are plotting nothing against the rights of the Catholics. The head and front of their offending appears to be that they, first in the field, presume to claim some rights of their own.
If this is not the meaning of your correspondent, pray what is it 1 He expressly holds it up as an indecency for Bishop ,Tucker to claim the right of offering to the natives of Africa" an alternative ritual." Seeing that the alternative ritual, in Uganda, happens to be the Roman Catholic, his own principle recoils on himself. But on whichever side it may operate, it is a strange principle for a man who speaks English to uphold.
CHARLES C. STARBUCK, Associate Editor Missionary Review of the World. ANDOVER, MASS.
EAST INDIES.
-The work of the Rhenish Missionary Society in Sumatra the last year has been more largely blessed than ever before. Five new stations and fifteen or sixteen new out-stations have been founded. The Battas have been so grateful to the Dutch Government for having at length 'yielded to their importunate prayers and allowed the missionaries to come among them, that they have been building fiue roads to facilitate the access, and havE' voluntarily declared themselves Netherlands subjects. Two thousand five hundred heathen have been baptized within the year, and over 5000 more are under instruction. The women and girls are beginning in unwonted measure to desire instruction. Miss Needham, an English volunteer assistant, has been very helpful in this, and the society hopes soon to see her supported by several coadjutrices. Silindury has become a Chrstian country j and this fact, hitherto unknown in Sumatra, is making a deep impression on all the surrounding regions, and occasioning numerous petitions for teachers of Christianity. Several hundred (nearly 700) of the new converts are Mohammedans.
– " In tlie Deccan, though actual conversions"-of fetich worshippers – " have not been numerous, the effect upon the whole community of outcasts has been marked and general. Scattered as they are, a few in every village in the country, there is no part of the province which has not more or less felt the influence of Christian teaching, and the result is not only a general inclination to turn from the gods of terror and uncleanness to the God of love, purity, and truth, but a remarkable social change, which may hereafter bear political fruit, of which time does not now permit me to speak more in detail."-SIR BARTLE FRERE, in Missionary Intelligencer.
-Sir Bartle remarks that, as the results are essentially the same in measure under the labors of Catholics and Protestants, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, an.d Nonconformists, they must be attributed to " the great simple doctrines of Christianity, which all believe-the plain broad precepts of Christian morality which all teach."
– " The following lines from a recent Madras journal show what some of the best Hindu minds are thinking at the present time: " , Wea.ry we are of empty creeds, Of deafening calls to fmitless deeds; Weary of priests who cannot pra.y, Of guides who show no man the way; Weary of rites wise men condemn, Of worship linked with lust and shame; Weary of custom, blind, enthroned, Of conscience trampled, God disowned; Weary of men in sections cleft. Hindu life of love bereft. Woman debased, no more a queen, Nor knowing what she once hath been; Weary of babbling about birth, And of the mockery men call mirth; Weary ~f life not understood. A battle, nut a brotherhood; Weary of Kali yuga years, Freighted with chaos, darkness, fears; Life is an ill, the sea of births is wide, And we are weary; who shall be our guide?' ..
– Oanadiax, Mtssto>lll7"f1 :f.J:nf".
– W e have at hand several copies of The News, a neat little mont,hl;,.- paper representing the American Baptist Missions in Burma and Assam.
It is published at Rangoon. One copy will be mailed to any address in the United States at 60 cents per annum, five copies at $1.25. Subscriptions may be sent to E. P. Coleman, Esq., Tremont Temple, Boston. This lit. tIe paper would bring our Baptist friends into living communication with the land of the Judsons, the Boardmans, the Beechers, the Karens. Even the glorious results among the Telugus cannot deprive Burma of its classic pre.eminence.
Here is an extract: "It was Thursday evening. We sat around the camp fire and talked about a sermon that had just been read. It was pro· posed that we close the day by thanking God for His goodness, and that we also present the especial request that the two women who were held as captives in a heathen village be set free, and that they be delivered without the presence of the missionaries, so that the native teachers may the more fully give the glory to God. Two days later Th'rah Hemmay Klaipo, who was travelling in that region. received a message that if he would come to the village the captives would be delivered up at once. He did so, and the captives were delivered. This was a great astonishment to all the sur· rounding villages, and as a consequence they have decided to call in Chris· tian teachers. It seems as though the whole Bree tribe was coming in. The fear of the Lord has taken hold upon the people. It was in this region that two captive children were. set free last year in answer to prayer."- JOANNA ANnERsoN.
-Periodical Accounts of the Moravians for June says of Kashmir: "Kashmir is no longer isolated. After centuries of oppression and degradation of its people, a change has come for this land of brooks of water, and of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land so beautiful that it seems a garden of the Lord.
"What the Rev. R. Clark, of the Church Missionary Society, says of their mission at Srinagar is relatively true of our own in the tributary province of Ladak : 'Kashmir, by its geographical position, is thrust forward into Central Asia, and is now our outpost of Christianity on this frontier of India. It is the starting-point for travellers to Ladak and Iskardo, Kafiristan, and Tashkend and Lhassa. Kashmir is a great centre, leading to many countries, a highway for the gospel of Christ. We remember that Kashmir once sent forth 500 Buddhists to convert Tibet, and that from Kashmir Buddhism spread to Candahar and Cabul. Our opportunities here are very great. The Kashmir MistJion 8hQuld alway' be maintained by our society in 8trenflth.' "
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Relative Standing of Native Chris- This report shows an increase of na- tians in the Future. tive Christians at school, from over [EDITORIAL, J. T. G.] 40,000 to over 44,000. But that is not all. The ratio of the native Christians God's ways are often very unlike our in school is vastly greater than that of ways. The involutions of His provi- the Hindus and Moslems. This is so all dences are as marvellous as the evolu- over India. For this province the figtions. We plan, but God reaches the ures are very encouraging, Few perend we seek by a way we knew not. sons out of India will measure correctly This finds striking illustration on the such a striking fact as that the percentforeign mission fields. We consider age of Christian girls attending school now the working of God in His own is greater than the percentage of nonway for the uplifting of the Christian Christian boys. In the presidency, as communities brought but recently out a whole, twenty-three per cent of the of the bosom of heathen communities. boys and three per cent of the girls of THE FUTURE HIGH CASTE OF INDIA.. school age are in schooL Taking the native Christian part of the popUlation The Brahmans of India haTe held un- of school age, sixty-one pel' cent of the interrupted sway as the social and re- boys and twenty-eight per cent of the ligious leaders of India. It has some- girls are in school. Of the pupils re- times been the subject of remark that ceiving higher grade education, as rep- the advance of Christianity has not resented by the high-school depart- been among this class in India, and we ments, approaching one fourth (47 out have, perhaps all of us, at times, felt a of 178) are native Christians, only five little as if there were something a shade being European or Eurasian.
discouraging in the fact, and perhaps a To get the force of this, it must be little suspicion has come over ns that remembered that thus nearly one-fourth Christianity mieht, after all, not be able of the higher grade students come from to reach the brain of the heathen races, one-fortieth of the total population.
and thus exhibit a lower vitality than Turning to the colleges, this same one- we could fondly wi.h. fortieth part of the community furnishes It is well to observe, however, that eight per cent of the graduates of the God's ways are not as our ways. "We University. It is easy to see, if this con- must brain Hinduism," said that great tinues, who are to be the learned class man Duff, when he established his great of India in the near -future. The old college in Calcutta. He aimed at its Brahmanic classics are of little practi- head. He accomplished much, but cal value, and if the Brahmans keep the died, not having reached the result he lead in the old indigenous literature desired. He meant to educate the of the land, even then they must take a high-caste people, and conque" India back seat, together with that effete lit- through its head and headship. It is erature. The practical modern scien- marvellous, now, to Bee God's way, and tific and literary courses of study repre- not ours, to reach the end. The Mad- sent the advance guard of the native ras Native Christian Association has re- community itself: that which must cently sent forth a little paper on edu- lead, must direct and control in the cational progress among native Chris- whole public affairs of the country. If tians, which is a summary of the Report anything like the present relative pro- on Public Instruction for the Presi- portion of that kind of knowledge re- dency of Madras, so far as it bears on mains with the native Christian com- ~e JJat~v!l Chpstiall communit!. munity~ it is easy to see who m'llst bll the directors of the civil and political through the native literature in the forces of the land. The native Chris- schools which the Government has sub- tian community must move up into the sidized among the Hindus. The Gov- place occupied by the Brahman class ernment of India has put itHelf in com- through a thousand years. We are munication with all the local Govern- pleased to see this pointed out by the ments in regard to purer text·books.
director of public instruction in his ref- It proposes, as a measure for uplifting erence to the university examinations. the moral teaching of the land, that at He says (the italics are ours) : least one half of every "Reader" in ., I have frequently drawn attention to English or the vernacular used in the the educational progress of the native schools shall be devoted to lessons hav- Christian community. There can be ing a direct bearing on conduct as pre- no question, if this community pursues cept or example. This is something of with steadiness the present policy of immense and radical importance. Few its teachers, that, with the immense will appreciate what it means to India.
advantages it possesses in the way of One familiar with the situation says it educational institutions, in the course is becoming more patent to missionaries of a generation it will have secured a that sensitiveness of conscience as to preponderating position in all the great pro- conduct is essential to the progress of jessio'YIS, and possibly, too, in the indus- Christianity. No native literature is trial enterprise oj the country-in the lat- likely to foster that. The Hindus are ter because no section of the community indifferent as to whether actions are has entered on the new departure in good or bad. The Hindu philosophy education with greater earnestness than does not emphasi7.e blameworthiness.
the native Christians." Pantheism does not and cannot, any- To go back, then, we remark again, where. Hence, there can be little Dr that God has had a way of taking pos- no sense of conviction of sin. This session of the brains of India quite proposition of the Government, there- other than that proposed by Dr. Duff fore, is radically in the teeth of Hindu- and others. It is not so much by ism. It is plain that the standard of bringing the upper classes into the what is right and wrong will he that of Christian college, though that has been the Christian religion. This will mark, done to some extent, but by reaching therefore, a moral revolution of the and elevating the lower and middle conscience force of India. The native classes in the scale till they shall dis- Christian force being, as we have seen, place what was the top of society, and in such preponderance relatively in the themselves take their place, and that in schools, must therefore come to be de- a stronger and progressive civilization. veloped as the strong and leading moral These forces, like so many of the great force of the community of India, as forces of nature and Providence, have well as its leading intellectual and po- operated, and are operating, so silently litical power. Thus the future high that the kingdom cometh" without ob- caste-the native Christian community servation. " -will be strongly impregnated with a But something besides this is being high moral quality, and will be strong done. Dr. Duff laid great stress on the accordingly.
compiling of good, pure text·books for A native paper of Iqdia called The the entire educational operations of the Hindu has seen this tendency of things country, from the lowest school to the concerning the female portion of the highest college class. A good deal of community in India. The editor says: this work has been done, but a good " The progress of education among deal remains to be done. There is still the girls of the native Christian comneed of the displacement of the im. munity, and the absence of caste remOTal :rubbiSh which. has filtered strictions among them will eventually give them an advantage which no amount of intellectual precocity can families in Jerusalem who a few years. compensate the Brahmans for. We re- ago were well off, who are now on the cently approved of the statement of a verge of starvation from this cause. All Bombay writer that the social eminence these things are working together to that the Parsis so deservedly enjoy at equalize the relative positions of Mosthe present moment was due to these lems and Ohristians. The large numtwo causes-namely, their women are bers of travellers and pilgrims, and the well educated and they are bound by ever-increasing interest shown by Eurono restrictions of caste. These two ad- peans and Americans in the Holy Land, vantages slowly make themselves felt are not without inftuence." among our native Ohristian brethren, and it is probable they will soon be the Truly God's ways are not as our Parsis of Southern India; they will ways, but we discover in them very disfurnish the most distinguished public tinct and decided plan. servants, barristers. merchants, and citizens amopg the various classes of The Influence of the Pariah Ohristians the nati ve community." of Southern India on the Ohristianiza- tion of the Country. NA.TIVE OHRISTIANS IN TURKEY. BY BEV. JOHN MOLA.URIN (WOODSTOCK, CAN. A striking illustration of the same ADA), SEC. BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSIONS.
indirect working of the all. directing The remarkable movements toward Ohristianity among these people during Providence, which supernaturally su- the last few years is my apology for the subject of this paper; and fourteen perintends the affairs of the world in years of closest contact with them, first as itinerant missionary and afterward the interests of Ohristianity, is furnished as principal of a theological Reminary, are my credentials for undertaking thi. by the Rev. O. T. Wilson, of Turkey. task.
The work of missions in that empire is By the pariahs I mean that large and important class of people lying socially cErtainly hampered, but a vAry silent between the caste classes proper and the aborigines of the hill districts. It sub.soiling is going on, and Ohristians is evident enough that the pariah bears no relatbn to the aborigines. In phyare gradually assuming a very changed sique, in language,in habits and customs they are wholly distinct. I think it is relation to the Moslems of the land. easily demonstrable that they are not the offspring of individuals ostracized We cannot forbear making a lengthy from the castes of the later Aryans. Before the introduction of Mohammequotation from Mr. Wilson. He says: danism I)r Christianity there was lit- tle temptation to break' caste, and little .. Islam, it is true, still holds the occasion for cutting anyone adrift. sword, but in the declining condition No one is cast off for moral, but only of the country this is a source of weak- for ceremonial defilement, and that was ness, and not of power. Military ser- easily atoned for. vice is compulsory on the Moslem population, while Ohristians are prohibited Besides, the pariahs are far too nufrom bearing arms. This causes a con- merous and were too defined in phystant drain on the M02lems, which is sique, language, and general characterfelt increasingly year by year. In the istics to be the result of a series of villages also (where the bulk of the lapses from caste, 1 ut at the same time population live), a much larger propor- they are too much like the Aryans in tion of the Moslems remain unmarried all these particulars to be other than than of the Ohristians. This is owing to their greater poverty. For, poor as the country is, and bitterly as all classes feel the oppression of the Government, the Moslems are worse off than the Ohristians. Russia has assumed the guardianship of the Greeks, and France of the Latins, and this fact acts as somewhat of a check on the Government. But in the case of the Moslems, there is no one to help them or speak a word for them. The immense inftux: of Jews into Jerusalem and other towns, causing the diversion of much of the trade and busines8 of the natives into their hands. has been severely felt by all classes, but especially by the Moslems. I have heen told, on good authority, that there are many Mohammedall sprung from the same original stock. derful dreams began stirring his sluggish I believe them to be a long previous ir- brain. It took long to move him. He ruption from the home of the Aryan was half deaf because unused to hear, race. They had left their ancestral lind half blind because unaccustomed home before the later civilization had to see; but at length the oft·told tale moulded the people and language with begins to tell upon the dull ear, the their later forms, and had come down wearied eyeballs respond to a glimmer and driven the aborigines to the hills, of light, the rusty intellect begins slowly and were in turn conquered by a later to revolve, the frozen heart to thaw, and wave of their own race. the soul resumes its proper functions- in fact, begins to pulsate with the new In the Telugu country especially they life. are divided into two distinct classesthe mala and the madiga. The latter First these people .came by twos and are the leather·workers ; the former are threes, slowly, timidly and at long in. small farmers, coarse·cloth.weavers, tervals. Then they came in hundreds, coolies, and household servants. The afterward by thousands, and now they madiga is negatively wicked, the mala are taking the kingdom by violence, positively so; the madiga is docile, rushing in by the tens of thousands. easily governed, and inclined to be religious ; the mala is self assertive, diffi- II. The Attitude of the Missionary focult to manage, but has more brain wards this Movement.-At first the mis· power. Both classes are very ignorant, sionary was sorely puzzled. This was very superstitious, and exceedingly im- so utterly opposed to his ideal methods. moral. It was the intellectual Brahman, the shrewd merchant, or the docile but It is from among these people that wealthy Sudras he wanted. It was tens of thousands are now flocking into dreams of keen intellectual contests the kingdom. What influence are they with these sons of an ancient philoso. going to have upon the final collapse of phy which disturbed his rest, but in. Brahmanism and the Christianization stead here is this clamoring throng of of India? unclothed, unwashed pariahs. These degraded, ignorant, immoral hordes, I. There was a Period of P'I'eparaiion. what shall. he do with them? Open -The stage was being fitted for the the doors of the kingdom and let them man and the man fitted for the stage. in! How could he ? If he allows these God sent the British nation to set the in, farewell to his dreams of conquest pariah free, theoretically free at least, among the higher classes ; but accus· from a species of serfdom to the higher tomed to consult the Oracle, he went to classes. Few nations dare give as much the Book and read, ., Go out into tho freedom to their civilized subjects as the highways and hedges and constrain British do to their semi·civilized hea- them to come in, that my house may be then subjects; not that many English full." There was nothing to do but officials look upon the Hindu in any open wide the doors and let them in. other light than as a " nigger." But the conservatism of the mission. Then the missionary came upon the ary was a blessing in disguise. It made scene, and not only told the pariah a him ready to divine the dangers con· wonderful story of a wonderful God and nected with the influx of such multi. more wonderful Saviour, but also told tudes, and to take measures to provide him and showed him how to become a against them-the danger of a whole· free man in deed hnd in truth. He sale relapse into idolatry, the danger of went into the courts and set in motion liberty running into license, and the the mighty machinery of the empire on danger of these people falling a prey to his behalf, and got justice for him. It designing leaders of evil. To avoid this began to dawn upon him that he was a the missionary requirE!6 to be careful ; – man-new hopes, new fears, and won. (a) That, as far as can be Ascertained, learns to do is to wash his face and each Case is one qf Genuine Conversion.- comb his hair. His wife does the same.
There must be a oredible evidenoe of Then he clothes himself and family.
suoh a ohange. This must be insisted Still further, under the advice of and .on. To aocept a person who gives no maybe pressure from the missionary evidence of a radioal ohange of heart is he repairs his house and keeps the ap.
a fatal mistake. Not only is he not a proaches to it clean, especially when source of strength, but he is a sJ)uroe of expecting an episcopal call. A little positive danger. Faith in Christ is the education and a great deal of advice only anohor whioh oan hold a heathen make him a more provident farmer, a to Christianity. I believe that history better husband and father, a better ser- demonstrates the misohievousness of vant, a more trustworthy coolie, and village or tribal oonversions. We oan his heathen neighbors see and feel this.
polish a dead organism, but only a liv. (b) Their Manliness or Independence is ing one oan be made to grow. Telling.-This is not pleasant at first to (b) To Train a Native Ministry,-This the high-caste man. The Ohristian is essential. No other ministry will will not work on Sunday for him, will do. We oannot graft an alien ministry not lie nor swear falsely in court for upon these churohes without destroying his benefit, will not eat his diseased them. Then, also, this is an outlet for cattle, neither to please him will he the developing life. It must be a trained burn his neighbor's house nor beat ministry; not merely an eduoated min- him with a stick for a few pieces of istry, trained in pastoral work, in evan. money. In his rage the caste man per- gelistio work, and in general Christian secutes him, boycotts him, and swears work. These ohurches and their pas. false cases on him in court, but finally tors and teachers should have all the gives up in despair and begins to won· liberty possible, oompatible with a firm der why. When he finds out the rea· but unfelt hand in shaping their Chris. son why, he is impressed with it.
tian life and views of divine truth. (c) Their General Intelligence has a (c) To Train and Help the Peaple to Strong infiuence.-These men and women Self support.-SelI-relianoe must be a cannot come in contact with the mis- cardinal principle with the. missionary. sionary for years without their knowl.
I believe that just here was made the edge of the world and passing events vital mistake of our century in foreign being vastly increased. And especially missions. They ought to remain in those points of interrogation –the their own villages. They ought to school.boys-cannot sit at the feet of a build their own churches and school. live missionary for five or six years and houses, support their own pasiors and not know more than anyone in their teaohers, educate their own children, native village, high or low.
and assist largely in every Ohristian Many a time the preacher or teacher enterprise. There is no comparison is called aside by a group of caste idlers between the robustness of Christian char- and asked the news of the day. These acter developed under this system and things are telling more powerfully upon that under the subsidized Ohristian these people than if the Christian were village system. Now with tens of thou. a caste man. The pariah Christian is sands of these people undergoing these insensibly rising in their estimation, processes, while living in daily contact and his religion rises with him.
with millions of their high-caste fellow- (d) Their Christian Character Acts creatures, what is this influence likely to be ? Powerfully.-But, after all, it is the 1. It is having a Profound Present Christian character of these people influence. which is telling upon their neighbors.
(a) Their Material Prosperity Tells.- The change is neither seen nor appre- The first thing the Christian pariah ciated at first. They do not seem to expect a change, but when a man stops cohesion, and in wealth. Thesll drinking cullu (liquor), stops rolling churches, these schools, these colleges, vile words from his tongue, stops beat- these debating clubs and literary soci- ing his wife, burning his neighbor's eties are all repositories of power and house or poisoning his cattle, no longer rapidly increasing power, too. Those cheats nor swears falsely in court, pays thousands of primary schools, dotted his debts and becomes honest and trust- all over the land, may seem very insig- worthy-then the people begin to think. nificant indeed when taken singly, as When he meekly bears insult and re- indeed they are; but as the nuclei turns good for evil, when he speaks around which this ever-increasing force kindly to the poor and helps the outcast is gathering they are exceedingly for- and beggar, when he reads God'B Word midable.
and praYB regularly with hiB family, and . As starting-points they are small, when some of them give one-tenth of but they lead on to the boarding- their income to the Lord, to Bupport school, the college, the university, and the religion he professes, and when on by and by into the professor'Bchair, the every proper occasion he testifies to the judge'B bench, the editor's sanctum, or love of God to him, then tho people feel the legislator'B seat. They are the lit- that a new element has entered into tle springs which feed the tiny rivulet, their life. When they see such an one which fills the little streams which in calmness and confidence and often- make the mighty river which refills the times with joy pass away to what he boundless ocean.
fully believes to be a home of bliss with Those little boys sitting on that earth- his God, they are profoundly impressed en floor, writing seemingly meaningless with the conviction that here is some- hieroglyphics, may seem powerless thing beyond their experience. The enough, but some day they will be caste people often acknowledge the pres- stUdying history, sacred and profane, ence of thiB change in the people. Some will be puzzling their brains over the are deeply and favorably impressed philosophies of the past and the pres- with it, while others bitterly resent it. ent, will be the leaders, the trusted Some years ago in India some caste Christian leaders, of Hindu Christian people, after having expelled one of the thought, and some day further on their native preachers from their village, sent sons will be the rulers of an emanci- me the following message: "Tell the pated Christian Indian Empire.
Dhora," said they, "that if he comes I do not overlook the fact that otber to our village to preach this Gospel we elements are at work. The so-called will make a foot-ball of his head." Soon godless education of Government col- after, having occasion to visit that vil- leges and universities, the Bemi godly lage, I called these people and asked education of Christian educational in- them what they meant by such a mes- stitutions, the Brahmo-Somaj, the Eng- sage. Apologizing for their rudeness, lish and vernacular press, the Bible, they said: "You have come here to book and tract societies, the English put these pariahs upon our shoulders" official and unofficial classes, godly and -that is, to educate the pariahs above ungodly, the railways, telegraphs and them. They knew what the result post-offices-all these are preparing would be. I told them, Yes, that is my India for the great revolution which is purpose if you do not believe the Gos- to be ; but some of these elements are pel and get elevated too. antichristian, many of them are color- 2. It is Going to Have a Greater Il1flu- less, and but few of them positively ence in the Future. Christian in their tendency. In that These Christians are not only grow- day we shall need more than religious ing in numbers daily, but they are leanings-Christian tendencies or influ- growing in intelligence, in power, in ences •• which make for righteousness." VIe shall need Christ in men and wom- with skill, Then, let the conflict come en, divine truth incarnate in regenerate when and how it may, we shall be pre- Bouls, living epistles known and read pared for it, and under our Leader, the of all men, men and women whose lives Lord Jesus Himself, India shall become are the best testimony to the principles His possession. they profess. In the midst of the turmoil and anarchy which are sure to God will hasten it in His time. come, there will be need of cool heads and brave hearts, need of men who The Jews and Jerusalem, [J. T. G.] have faith in God and the Gospel. An unusual interest obtains just now The Ohristian converts of India will in regard to the Jews. Mr, William E. again prove to be the salt of the earth. Blackstone, of Chicago, kindly furnishes The missionary will be there in ever- us with a large budget of fresh items increasing numbers. The Christian concerning them, from which we select official, military as well as civil, as well some statements. The diagram of Jeruas the Christian trader will be on hand salem needs only the explanation that and will do valiant service for the Mas- the solid line represents the wall of the ter, but what are they among BO many? city, which is about two and a half Only generals for the army of the Lord. miles around. For centuries no one Whence are we to look for the rank and dared live outside of this territory from file? To the converted HinduB them- fear of robbers. The dotted line is selves. Comparatively few of the higher Jeremiah's" measuring line." classes have become obedient to the faith. Noble specimens many of them Up to 1841, only three hundred are, but they are so few. For either Jews were permitted to live in Jerusaaggressive attack upon heathenism or lem. Then that restriction was refor resistanc~ they are comparatively moved, but they "were still confined insignificant. My conviction is that to a narrow, filthy district of the city, the shock of battle must be met by the next to the leper quarters." regenerated hosts from Madura, Tinnevelli, ,Ongole, Burma, Assam, the late In 1867. by a .. firman" or edict of ingatherings along the Gangetic Valley, the Sultan, this restriction was reand other places, all these multiplied a moved, and the Jews, in common with thousand-fold. The Hindu propaganda other foreigners, were allowed to puris already flinging itself across the path chase and own land in Palestine withof this advancing tide, but in vain, out becoming subjects of the Sultan. Like the ancient warrior opposing the From this time the number of Jewish ocean's tide with dirk and targe and settlers has rapidly increased, When broad claymore, it is either retreat or the late anti. Semitic agitation broke death, out in Europe, especially in Russia, the Turkish authorities feal'ed that the Are these people ready for the fray Jaws would coUe to Palestine in such now? No; neither is the fray ready overwhelming numbers as to cause for them; but whatever the character of famine, etc., and issued a firman that the conflict, whether semi·political or no Jew coming to Palestine could rewholly spiritual, we must be prepared. main more than thirty days, To this The forces must be largely increased, the United States consul took exceptiont thoroughly organized and disciplined. on the ground that his Governmens The churches in Christian lands must made no distinction in the nationality SAnd their best men and women to the of its citizens. He was soon joined by front, the native preachers and evan- the French and English consuls, and gelists and workers of all kinds mnst be the Turkish Government modified the thoroughly furnished in God's Word, firman by first extending the time to trained to wield the sword of the Spirit three months, and finally, in 1888, by removing it altogether. Since then the Jews are literally flocking into the country, Nine agricultural colonies have been established, and all are pros- pering and well protected.
At the present time, as will be seen by the buildings represented in the dia- gram, Jerusalem is covering this entire area. Great hospices, hotels, churches, stores, etc" have been erected, but most notable of all a multitude of dwellings for Jews, The number of Jews now residing in the inner and outer city is estimated at 30,000, fully one half the entire population, and adding those at JERUSALEM .
.. They shall prosper that love Thee, "-Psalm 122: 6.
Showing wall of the city and the measnring line of J eremiah.-31 : 38-40.
Tiberias, Safed and throughout the Episcopal Church has seven missionwhole land of Palestine, it can hardly aries to Jews, and is also working be less than 50,000, and so, probably, through a portion of their clergy and 42,000 have returned since the year some schools; the Lutherans have two missionaries; the independent Hebrew 1867. This is equal to the number that Christian Mission in New York has one returned from the Babylonian captivity. missionary, and that in Chicago has three missionaries. Surely this is very A railroad is being constructed from little Christian effort for such a people. Joppa to Jerusalem, with projected lines to Hebron, Jericho, Acre, Tiberias The Hebrew Ohristian Mission in and Damascus. And this is being done principally by Jews. Chicago was begun in 1887, under an in- terdenominational cOlnmittee, and was There are said to be 500,000 Jews in llermanently organized in December, the United States, and 4U,OOO in the 1889. It is availing itself of the widecity of Chicago, spread phenomenal willingness of the Jews to read the New Testament in He- In Great Britain, where the Jewish brew, and asks for corresponding mempopulation is little over one·tenth that bers to co·operate in tract and Bible in the United States, there are nine work among Jews in all the larger cities. prominent societies, with several hun- Mr, William E. Blackstone, of Oak dl'ed missionaries and agents working for Israel. In this country we have Park, Ill" is the superintendent.
only the following: the Protestant
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
IlI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Rev. Dr. George W. Chamberlain, of Dr. Chamberlain asks, "Is that an ab- Brazil, tells the following story: solute doctrine ? As you ride through the roads of Brazil and pass by any cemetery " I met an old Brazilian at the mouth you will see little catacombs outside of of the Amazon ninety years of age, who the walls of the cemeteries, and you will knew much of the Indians. I said, ' Oan inquire what they are. They are the you tell whether there has ever been tombs of children who could not go into any portion of the Gospel translated holy ground because their souls had into the general tongue of the Indians? ' gone to limbo. They died without bap. • No,' he replied; • I am interested in the tism, and they cannot go to heaven. Indians, but I have never known of any They are buried in stone, like the stony part of the Gospel being translated into heart of the holy mother Church that their language. I have a catechism over tells this to the mothers to whom Christ two hundred years old, translated into said, • Let the little children come unto their tongue hy the Jesuits.' He says, Me.'" • Take the book and use it. I am too old to do anything more; take it and A circular letter has recently been do something for the Indians.' As I sent out to pastors and elders of the opened it on the high seas between Para United Presbyterian Church, calling atand New York I came upon a page with tention to the fact that tbe General Asthese questions: 'How many places are sembly of 1891 has voted a total of ap. there to which the soul at death can propriations to the various boards of go?' 'There are four.' • What are $312,000, or an average of $3.23 per they? ' 'Hell, purgatory, limbo of the member-a little over one cent per fathers, limbo of the children.' • What working day-and suggesting the fol· is hell? ' • Hell is a fire in the centre lowing means as helpful to the raising of the earth, to which the wicked go at of this amount: death.' • What is purgatory?' • Pur. gatory is a fire above that of hell, to FIVE SUGGESTIONS. which the souls of the holy go that they may get satisfaction for sin for which First. Let the pastor or " Stated Supthey did not get satisfaction in this ply" call together the members of his life. ' • What is the limbo of the fa. Session for prayer and consultation. thers?' • It is a cavern above purga· Speak to them of Christ's" Great Comtory, to which the souls of the holy mission" and of their obligations to fathers went formerly, before that Jesus help carry it out, and that the Boards Christ was manifested in the flesh to of our Church are the chief agencies take them out.' On the margin of this through which this Commission is carcatechism some one had written op- ried into effect by the Church. posite the definition of the limbo of the fathers words in Portuguese which, Second. At this same meeting speak translated, read, •It is now for rent.' I of and discuss the New Testament rule read that to a friend in New York, and of gi,ing, 1 Cor. 16: 2. Pray over it. he said, • It will do for the brethren of Then, if not already done, let each the new theology.' The catechism con- member of Session, knowing his privitinued, "What is the limbo of the chilo leges and feeling his obligations, redren? ' Oh, ye mothers, hear! It is solve to devote at least the one tenth of a cavern above the limbo of the fathers, his income to the Lord, or to give" as into which the souls of little children God hath prospered him." If time is who died without baptism go ; a land asked by any of the members of Sesof darkness and of the shadow of death, sion for further consideration of the to wander forever," subject, grant it, and call another meet· ing in one or two weeks, Third. When this is done, present it were yet continued. A missionary the whole subject of " missions" and of writes that of late it has greatly increased to New Caledonia, and is continued to "Christian giving" to the members of Fiji, causing much suffering and opthe congregation. Let them know of pression to our poor islanders, greatly the resolve taken by the members of hindering our work and rapidly depopu- Session, and then earnestly ask them to lating the islands. The traffic grieves join you in devoting at least the one us exceedingly, and we have done all we tenth of their income to the Lord, or to can by exposing its evils-its curses, both to the islanders and collectors and give" as God hath prospered them." all engaged in it-to get it suppressed; Present the subject of giving not only but by man's selfish greed it goes on. as a duty, but as a high privilege. Let Yet Heaven will reckon with us and all giving be regarded as an act of worship. engaged in it for all the oppression and bloodshed caused by it. We missiona- Fourth. Commence the raising of mis- ries and our Victorian church have pro- sion money early in the year. Do not tested against it, exposed its cruel atrociunder any circumstances postpone the ties in every way possible, petitioned matter until the middle or close of the the British Government again and again to suppress it ; but self interested sugar- year. planters and employers of cheap labor Fifth. We desire to emphasize the get it carried on. fact that it is the regular, stated, Bys- As Britain now forbids her traders to tematic giving of the many that is of spe- use as trade with the natives of those islands fire-arms, ammunition, intoxi- cial benefit to the Church and to the in- cating drinks, and opium, and the inter- dividual. Every member should be island labor traffic; and as the traders encouraged to give something. Some of all other nations use these and the interesteil Kanaka labor traffic, which is may not be able to give the full " gen- one of its most cruel, oppressive branch- eral average," $3.23, in addition to what es, there has been and is now in our colothey give to support the ordinances in nies a cOD!'!iderable agitation to get our their home congregations. A large ma- British prohibitions applied to all traders of all nationalities, or rescinded by Great jority, however, can. Very many can Britain. On the platform and in the give a much larger amount. But all press I have strongly opposed the reshould have a part in carrying forward scinding of any of them, and pleaded for the mi98ion work of our Church. them to be applied to all traders, in the interests of humanity and the honor of We commend this as a move in the Britain. In this I have been supported right direction, which all might imitate. by Bishop Selwyn and His Excellency It emphasizes prayer, Bible teaching, Sir John Thurston, H. M. High Comprivilege as well as duty of giving, missioner for the Southern Pacific. But if we shall succeed in getting all the promptness of effort. and regular, nations interested to agree to such re- habitual, systematic, and individual co- strictions with their traders is very doubtful. If America would agree, nearoperation. We look for large results. ly all the others have signified their willingness to agree to such prohibi- From a letter from Rev. J. G. Paton, tions in trade.. A missionary now writE'S to me : "In one large district of late we the author of one of the greatest of mis- have made very little progress, owing to sionary biographies, a friend sends us the sad drink curse. The traders the following: around there have been busy pushing this trade, and a few of our church· MORELAND GROVE, COBURG, members have been implicated in the VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, July 2, 1891. drinking bouts and .mspended in con- The shocking Kanaka labor question sequence. This has forced us tempo- gives us missionaries great concern. It rarily to suspend some of our itinerat- was to have been closed to Queensland ing services for lack of preachers; but by Act of Parliament in the beginning there seems to be a reaction, and I hope of this year; but a few days ago, on God will strengthen our Christian na- June 27th, R. dismasted Kanaka labor tives to follow after holiness; but my vessel entered the capital, Brisbane, heart bleeds for the hret1)ren who, with- with seventy-three islanders, for their out Christian influences or anyone to suger plantations, which appears as if guide them, are easy victims to traders' greed and their own evil passions. during the last May meetings, and heard Drinking our intoxicating drink is now with what applause the proposition to being added to tpeir every heathen associate the women with the men in ceremonial, with what sad results I their great missionary societies (boards) need not tell you. This is decidedly was welcomed. the greatest curse that so-called civiliza tion is bringing to these shores; and "The ladies have shown their effi. both in the islands and the colonies we ciency, their ability, their power, and need to do all we can to resist it. The zeal in their own independent societies, sale of arms, dynamite, etc., to the but they lack the presence and support natives is nothing to it, and on quite a of their fathers, their brothers, and different footing. I know of much in_ their sons. Indeed, in some of the justice, and cruelty, and bullying hav- churches the whole cause of foreign ing been carried on by worthless men missions is relegated to the ladies. against the poor natives, who had meekly to submit to such injustice because "How shall we remedy this grave any vagabond foreigner, as a trader, mistake? may have magazine rifles, etc., and the oppressed popUlation of the soil is de- ,. God's triple command, 'Go ye into prived of and unable to defend his just all the world,' 'Pray ye the Lord of rights to land, to his home, and to all the harvest,' and • Bring all your tithes that is dear and sacred to him." into the storehouse,' was spoken to the whole church. God needs His sons aE Bible Translation in Japan. well as His daughters to help evangelize the world A correspondent writes as to the arti. "If more closely associated in this cle in the September issue, on the Bible glorious work, would it not go forward with accelerated speed, and the pro. and its introduction iuto Japan, that voking of one another to good works fulfil the prophecy of universal mis- Dr. I. C. Hepburn is justly put at the sions ?" head of the list of those who have the honor of doing this work of Bible trans. Missionary Maps. lation. I enjoyed the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with this pioneer Information is always in place; but missionary and dictionary maker for the people are won quite as much Japan, and his colleagues, S. R. Brown through Eye.gate as through Ear.gate. and the Gulick family, and some others, We cannot reproduce pictures of mis. among whom was Nath9.n Brown, who sion buildings and scenery; we canre· made a version of the New Testament produce maps. in the two languages of Assam and Japan, and performed honorable mis· Almost all churches where there is sionary work in both. The omission of any missionary life observe the Month. his name among the translators in ly Concert for Prayer. If you could Japan, together with the allusion to Dr. give us occasionally in the REVIEW a Bettleheim and the sentence .. con- correct map, showing the principal mis. temptible criticisms spoken in Tremont sion stations in the field, we could use Temple," may give to the reader the it to good advantage. impression that the MISSIONARY REVIEW is not for the world, but for a sect. which Perhaps others who read the REVIEW I am sure the editor would not endorse. have suffered as I did for a map. If they will only make up their minds to Yours in the service, have one they can have as good a one WILLIAM DEAN. as they could buy, and that at a merely nominal cost. I found directions in an NATIONAL CITY, CAL., August 15, 1891. old number of the REVIEW, but they were from an Englishman, referring to Assooiate Mission Boards, English colors, and not within my pos· A correspondent urges the formation of some new foreign mission boards composed of both men and women.
.. They are working that way in Eng.
land now, and shall America lag behind in any scheme for the advancement of the kingdom?
"We were ill EJl:eter Hall, London, sibility. So here is what I did, with size. It would be safe to say that where the cost thereof. one makes a set of maps for use during the year they will not cost more than a Three yards of unbleached sheeting, dollar apiece. nine quarters wide, at 22 cents; that gave me a piece of cloth six feet by nine This is only a voice from a country on which to work. Tack it lightly to the parish. I believe good maps will be floor, having laid newspapers under. appreciated and used by all who are neath. Prepare a sizing of one·quarter interested in missions. Will you help pound of white glue to a gallon of boil. us if you can? ing water, and when dissolved apply smoothly and thoroughly to the cloth. AUSTIN D. WOLFE. Raise the wet sheet, remove the papers STATE CENTRE, IA., July, 1891. (or they would be glued fast), and reo tack the sheet. Five hours will dry it. -A letter received from Miss Romig, With lead-pencil and ruler rule straight of Berthelsdorf, near Herrnhut, Gerlines over the map which is to be en· many, corrects a few misstatements in larged, dividing the whole surface into regard to the Moravian Church, and squares; I ruled mine at intervals of which appeared in the July number of one degree, so as to have geographi~al the REVIEW. measurements handy. With a stick of drawing charcoal, a carpenter's square, " 1. The Unity's Elders' Conference is and a long straight stick for ruling, comprised of twelve members and three square off the sheet just like the small secretaries-fifteen persons in all. map. Then trace the outline carefully Four of the elders form the educational and lightly with charcoal. Use ultra. department, four the financial, and marine blue ground in oil for the coast four thA missionary. The secretariesline and thin it with turpentine, so one for each department-have no voice that it will work; it dries instantly. in the affairs of the boards and no re- Raw Sienna will make the mountains; sponsibility, their duties being purely add silver white to the blue, and make local. a light blue for the rivers; vermilion will do for boundary lines, and black " 2. The first missionaries to the West for lettering. It took me about two Indies were sent, not to .Jamaica, but days to make the map of Siam from the to St. Thomas. The mission in Jamaica small map in the 1Iay issue of the was not begun till 1754. Church at Home and Abroad, and I could not have bought it if I had wished to " 3. The number of Moravian mission do so. Here is what it cost, without stations is at present one hundred and reckoning the time and labor expended: thirteen, and out-stations twenty.one, and not forty.two as stated." Cts. Three yards sheeting, at 22 cts. . . . . .. . … . . . .66 -The article on missions to Iberian One pound ultramarine blue (enough for peoples, which we published last month, was by Rev. J. M. Allis, D.D., so well fifty maps). .. . . . .. . . . . . .. . . … . . . . . . . . .. . .20 and widely known in connection with One three-inch varnish brush, for the sizing. .25 the Presbyterian missionary work in One quarter pound white glue………….. .10 I::lantiago, Chili. By what trick of the Oue tube each silver white, raw Sienna, machine the author's name got trans_ formed into" Challis." and then escap- ivory black, vermilion….. …………•• .50 ed three or four proof-l'eadings, is inex- Turpentine. . . . . . . . . . .. …. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .05 plicable. We hope Dr. Challis will not, CharcoaL……. ..•………… …•.•…… .05 like the Celt, allow his "feelings to overcome his emotions," when he sees Total ..•._…••.•.•…•••••………. $1.81 the aggravating transmigration his name Not all of this is to be charged up to G.J underwent. rJ. T. this one map, for I have enough paint left to ma}re a !lo~en more of similar
1891.1 THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
Syria, Etc. the death, the rising again of our Lord. It was here, that His Churoh was con- BY WILLLUI BRENTON GREENE, JR., D.D. stituted by the desoent of His Spirit; that His disoiples were first oalled Chris- .. Syria is that Asiatio oountry at the tians ; that Peter made the astounding eastern end of the Mediterranean." Its discovery that on the Gentiles also was length from north to south is some 400 poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, miles. Its area is about 60,000 square and that Barnabas and Saul were sent miles, or nearly one and a quarter times forth as the first missionaries to the that of Pennsylvania or of England. Gentile world. Of what other land is Though it has endured oenturies of mis~ the evangelization so imperative, so inrule and negleot, it is still a goodly land. teresting?
The estimates of its population vary The religion of Syria is called by the widely. The lowest is 1,0UO,000, the government Moslem and non-Moslem. highest e,ooo,OOO. The explanation is The former includes orthodox and Perthat there is a large unoertain and ever- sian Mohammedans, Druzes, Nusaireechanging element, the wandering desert yehs, Ismailiyehs, and all Bedouin tribes, who, to-day in Syria, to-morrow Arabs. The Persian Mohammedans are are far down in Arabia. The fixed popu- the followers of Ali, the son-in-law of lation is in the cities and villages. Mohammed. The Druzes hold to a Damascus has 150,000; Aleppo, some- superstition which sprang in the thing less than 100,000 ; Hums, 20,000 ; eleventh century from Islam, but has Tripoli, 16,000; Beirut, 90,000; Jeru- so far departed from it as not properly salem, 70,000 ; Sidon,7000. As to races, to be ranked with it. They profess one there are considerably over 40,000 Jews. God indefinable, incomprehensible, and There are a few Turks, and from 50,000 passionless. He became incarnate in a to 60,000 Armenians. The great bulk succession of ten men, the last of whom of the population, however, is Arab; was Hakim, Caliph of Egypt, assassinatthe prevalent language is Arabic ; and ed 1044 A.D. With that incarnation the the whole country is under Turkish rule. door of mercy was closed, and no con- verts are now to be made. Hakim, how- Syria has figured prominently in ever, will reappear and conquer the history, both profane and sacred. world. They believe in the transmigra- .. Through it lies the great highway tion of souls. They have seven great between Asia and Africa, whioh has commandments, one of whioh enjoins been so often thronged by caravans of truth, but only among themselves. trade, so often trodden by hosts of They have no faith in prayer. Among war. Pharaohs that flourished before them is a speoiiLl class, the Ockals, who the days of Moses, Assyrian oonquerors, alone are initiated into their deeper mysthe great Alexander, Pompey, Moslem teries. The Nusaireeyehs are a strange hosts, Crusaders, the Frenoh under wildraoe numbering about 200,000, and Napoleon and again in our own time, living to the north of Mt. Lebanon. conflicting Egyptian and Turkish armies They keep their doctrines seoret, and -are all in the procession that has have signs of reoognition, like a seoret moved over or tarried upon the Syrian order. The Ismailiyehs oooupy the soil." More still, here was unrolled the mountains west of Hamah, are few, are anoient revelation of the true God. allied to the Persian Mohammedans in Patriarohs wandered here ; this was in belief, and are desoendants of the peopart the ancient territory of the" Chosen ple known in the time of the Crusades· People." Prophet and apostle lived and as Ass~ssills. The Bedollill Arabs ar~ labored here. Highest of all, here 00curred the life, the toils, the sorrows, less devout and more inclined to scep- found in the perverted doctrines and ticism than other Moslems. spiritual deadness of even the best of the nominally Christian sects. Most The non-Moslems are J eWB, nominal serious of all is the dominant religion. Christians, orthodox Greeks, Papal The Moslem who leaves the faith of his Greeks, Maronites, Jacobites, Syrian fathers does it at his peril. Were this and Armenian and Latin Papists, and not so, his pride and bigotry would tend Evangelical Christians. The orthodox to make him impregnable to another re- Greeks are so called, though Arabs, be- ligion. The very truth to which he cause orthodox members of the Greek holds, the doctrine of the spirituality of Church. The Papal Greeks are converts God, prejudices him against Christianfrom the Greek Church to Romanism. ity; for he identifies it alw'ays with They have, however, made a few those idolatrous corruptions of it with changes. Their worship is in Arabic, which alone he is familiar, Added to and their priests are allowed to marry. all this is the oppression of the Turkish The Maronites represent the ancient Government. Because of it the mission Syrian Church. They get their name has constantly to guard itself against from John Maro, monk, priest, and the violation of contracts. The poverty patriarch, who died A.D. 707. Since the of the people, too, is "their destructwelfth century they have been in close tion." They are kept so poor by taxacommunion with the Romish Church, tion that they have no time to think of though adhering to the Oriental rite. their souls on week-days; and while the The Jacobites are a small body of dis- Moslems have no Sabbath, the members senters from the Greek Church. They of the Oriental churches are encouraged get their name from Jacobus, Bishop of to labor on theirs. This grinding pov- Edessa, who died A.D. 578. Notwith- erty both causes and is much aggravatstanding the various sects, however, of ed by the" emigration fever." So hard which the non-Moslems number, per- are the times that it is estimated that haps, 400,000, the mass of the popula- upward of 12,000 leave Syria yearly. tion are orthodox Moslems or Sunnites, This, of course, increases just so much and look, of course, to the Sultan. not the burdens of those who remain, and only as their political, but also their re- renders them just so much the less susligious head. ceptible to missionary influences.
Of the morals of the people the less In spite of these difficulties, however, said the better. The Druzes, though Syria has for seventy years been the polite, are cruel, fanatical, and, to scene of most faithful missionary effort. strangers, deceitful. The Nusaireeyehs The history of the mission presents are bloodthirsty. Polygamy is common. alternations of success and discourage- Divorce occurs at the will of the man. ment. If there were times of quiet, there Swearing and lying are universal. The were also times of persecution. More Bedouins, though hospitable and often than once has the land seen massacres, magnanimous, are fierce, revengeful, and the mission has produced more than and depraved. The non-Moslems, ex- a few martyrs. Political commotions cept the Jews and Evangelical Chris- have been particularly numerous and tians, are bigoted, idolatroul, and de- peculiarly trying. Of late years the based. 'In general, the population is Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the rebelignorant, narrow-minded, corrupt, su- lion of Araby Pasha in Egypt in 1882, perstitious ; and, as in all Mohammedan and the rebellion of the Mahdi in 1883 countries, woman is held in low esteem. have been most prejudicial, by introduc- ing into the mission fields II new, disor- , The difficulties of missionary effort in derIy, corrupting and hostile element. such a field are great and numerous. So many rival and jealous sects, all call- The instrumentalities employed in ing themselves Christian, constitute a the mission work are the following: serious hindrance. A greater one is 1. Preaching. The way for thifl has pages printed since the beginning, in not been as open as in many countries. 1826, amounts to over 400,000,000. The The Moslems have been specially inac- issues have been of all kinds, religious cessible to it. Nevertheless. it has at and educational. The list of publica- no time been neglected. It is now re- tions includes more than 400 titles. ceiving regular and considerable atten- Among them may be mentioned" Scrip- tion. In Beirut services are held in fi ve ture Interpretation and Systematic places, and there are three evening Theology," by Dr. Dennis; a transla- meetings during the week. A recent tion of the Westminster Confession of visitor to Syria, speaking of the Sabbath Faith, by Dr. Van Dyck; and a "Com- service at Baalbek, says that 27 men, 9 mentalJ' on the New Testament," by women, and 15 boys (all natives) were Dr. W. W. Eddy. The great glory, how- present. 'I'here are in the whole coun- ever, of the press, as of the mission, is try upward of 30 church buildings and the Arabic Bible. Begun by Dr. Eli 100 preaching places, and no fewer than Smith, in 1849, and prosecuted by him 5000 regular hearers, of whom nearly with the aid of Mr. Bistany, a nati¥e 2000 are church-members. How marked scholar, until 1857, it was then taken an advance this is appears in the fact np by Dr. Van Dyck, assisted by the that in 1848 there were only one church, highest native scholarship, and com- three or four preaching stations, and 18 pleted in 1864. A modal of accuracy church-members. and elegance, it has made the Word of Life intelligible, and, from the literary 2. Medical Work. This has lately be- standpoint, attractive to the 180,000,- come a specially prominent feature. 000 whose sacred language is the Arabic. Native physicians are being educated. Meanwhile, Dr. Post, Dr. Van Dyck. and Unti! lately no political restriction others of the medical missionaries have interfered with the mission press. Now, gained great influence by their skill lind however, the Government has waked kindness. The hospital of the Prussian up to the danger in the free circulation Knights of St. John at Beirut, under the of Christian literature, and a strict care of the deaconesses of Kaiserwerth, censorship has been instituted. Most is served by them. In the last year of of the books, including the Scriptures, which we have any report, nearly 10,000 have been officially sanctioned; but the' cases were treated. Patients come from weekly paper has received severe criti- all parts, and carry back with them im- cism, and was temporarily suppressed. pressions of Christian love as well as It is now licensed, but on condition that direct Gospel teaching. The tours of "no adverse criticism be made upon the late Dr. Calhoun and his services at any of the religious beliefs of any of the Tripoli, followed by thosA of Dr. Har- sects of the empire." ri~, have also opened the way for Gos- pel work. Many of the large number 4. The Schools. Though persistently called together by the dispensary at and bitterly opposed by the Jesuits, Tripoli are Moslems, and all hear the these ha¥e proved the most effective of Gospel read and explained before re- the missionary agencies. They have ceiving treatment. Mention should be done more than all others combined to made in this connection of the Leper elevate woman; they have given II Chris- Home at Jerusalem, under the charge of tian education to many thousands of the Moravians. ,. Most of the dear pa- persons; and they have called into being tients here," we read, 'rejoice in being numerous schools supported by the peo- Christians. under the protection of the ple themselves. In all the mission . Saviour, and enjoying the advantages of schools biblical instruction is made His Church." prominent, and the amount of Scripture that can be recited whenever called for 3. The Press. Its work has been great is surprising. The crown of the whole and influential. The total number of educational system is the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut. This is an 5. They hate idols and idolatry with institution of the highest order, and perfect hatred. 6. They reverence law. has academical, theological, medical, 7. They practise total abstinence from pharmaceutical, and preparatory depart- intoxicating drinks. 8. They have no ments. The graduates number more respect for a man who has no religion. than 200, and the attendance of students 9. They have implicit confidence in the is now large. Strictly independent word of an Englishman. 10. They beof the mission, it is thoroughly evan- lieve that Protestantism is the form of gelical and evangelistic in its. aim and faith nearest their own. 11. They aro effect. In addition to the college, there beginning to repose confidence in the are connected with the Presbyterian integrity of the American missionaries. Mission the seminaries for girls at Bei- 12. It is the common belief of the Mosrut, and Sidon, and Tripoli; the board- lems that in the latter days there will be ing-schools for boys in Sidon and Suk- an universal apostasy from Islam, when el-Ghurb, and a hundred or more com- the true faith, as they account it, will mon schools. In these gather 5200 cease to exist. pupils, of whom 1800 are girls. Did we include all the Protestant schools of The following facts also are signifi- Syria !t1J.d Palestine, the number of cant: scholars would exceed 15,000. A system of home study is being established 1. Of the 132 girls attending the Protas a branch of the Chautauqua organiza- estant female school at Sidon lately, 90 tion. and will be a stimulus to the whole were Mohammedans. 2. Of the 4780 intellectual life Of Syria. girls who were scholars not long ago in the Protestant schools of Syria, 1000 The development of this educational were Mohammedans. .. If all other work is remarkable. In 1824 it was means fail to draw them to Christ, it summed up in a class of six Arab chil- may be that the words of Isaiah shall dren taught by one of the missionary yet be verified in their experience, ladies. In 1834 ten young men were • And a little child shall lead them.' " under instruction. Not until 1866 was the college opened. Now more than 200 'THE JEWS. students crowd its buildings. For several reasons they are impor- The question arises, What will be tant and interesting enough to demand the outcome of all this effort? Will this separate treatment. 1. They were God's stronghold of Islam ever be under- .. chosen nation." 2. They have had mined? Aside from the sure word of the most wonderful history. 3. They prophecy that such will be the case, in are rapidly assuming a prominence Mohammedanism itself are elements which is as significant as unique. This which. if fairly considered, bring its is specially marked in their influence in overthrow by Christianity clearly within education, the press, and general literathe sphere of probability. Among ture. So strong has this come to be others, these are mentioned by Dr. H. that such men as the late Professor H. Jesup, of Beirut, whose residence Delitzsch, the late Professor Christlieb, for thirty-five years in Syria entitles him and Professor Godet Ree in it a source to speak authoritatively on this ques- of serious danger to the Christian faith. tion : 1. The Mohammedans believe in In Italy, for example, there are 50 Jewthe unity of God. 2. They reverence ish professors in the universities in a the Old and New Testaments. 3. They land where Jews number only about revere Christ as the greatest of all the 40,000 in 28,000,000. In France the prophets before Mohammed. 4. While highest education is to a remarkable exregarding all but themselves as infidels, tent in the hands of the Jews. In the they have some respect for Christians universities of Germany Jewish profes- sors have increased forty per cent in five and Jews as .. the people Df a book." years. The number of Jewish students has multiplied yet more rapidly. At he is by that fact divorced from the the University of Brtda Pesth, Hungary, other who remains a Jew; and the conof 3100 students, 1072 are Jews, and vert may marry again, but the Jew must that in a country where they form only remain single. Private or family prayer four per cent of the population. As the is fo.bidden except by a license, and natural result of this, according to a synagogue worship is permitted only in leader in the London Times: "A per- towns containing eighty or more Jewish manent epidemic of alarm at iewish dwellings. This outrageous oppression encroachments prevails, to which Vien- has already affected commerce, and has na is as subject as Berlin. . .. The issued in untold suffering. Not a little enlire circle of the liberal professions, is being done to mitigate thil' by Baron as well as finance, is almost in the ex- Hirsch, the Hebrew philanthropist. clusive possession of Jewish practition- Worth from $100,000,000 to $150,000,- ers. Jews are eloquent at the bar and 000, made largely in a railway contract in Parliament. 'l'hey heal the diseases with Turkey, he is pouring out his of Christians and guide their views wealth in providing for those of his race through the press." The late Professor in Russia who are heing expelled from Christlieb is only one of many witnesses their homes. The Russian Minister of to the fact that almost the entire liberal Finance also has lately ohtained a suspress of the German Empire is in the pension of further repressive measures hands of the Jews. It has been stated by pointing out to the Czar the vexatious on good authority that in Paris there is financial results which they might inonly one paper of any note not under volve. Christians throughout the world, JewiRh control. Could more be said to too, have begun to protest. Nor are show how imperative is the evangeliza. the Jewish bankers and brokers inactive. tion of this" peculiar people" ? 2. The return of the Jews to their The interest of this work now clus· own land. This has been much stimuters about three points: lated by the persecution just mentioned. Within three or four years 20,000 have 1. The persecution of the Jews by come to Jerusalem. while the influx into Russia. Since 1881. when Jgnatieff pro· other parts of Palestine has been withmulgated the terrible Jewish laws, the out precedent. There are more than lives of the 5,000,000 of Russian He- 80,000 in the country in all. An era of brews, miserable enough before, have improvement has also begun. Jerusa· been spent in unbroken war against the lem is a new city. The streets have frightful abuse and persecution of the been paved, five hotels have been authorities. The taxes of the Jews are opened, water is about to be introduced, douhle those of other subjects. Numer. large factories have been erected, a ous restrictions and disabilities fetter railroad is almost completecl from Jaffa their activity. They are not suffered to to Jerusalem. With this enlargement enter the civil service, to practise law of population and revival of trade there or medicine, to hold municipal office, or has been a marked increase in the rain. to take part in an election. The num· fall. The factors seem to have been supber of them drafted into the army large- plied to make Palestine, as of old, " the ly exceeds that of the Gentiles, but no garden of the Lord." Jew can hire a substitute or become an officer. They can reside only within 3. The conversion of the Jews. More certain limits, and are not allowed to interest has been taken in this than is own land. Jewish pupils can form no generally supposed. The Protestant more than ten per cent of the number churches have 377 missionaries among in any school, though in many towns them. If, as estimated, there are 6,400,- they are more than fifty per cent of the 000 Jews-this gives one missionnry to population. If a·wife or a husband is every 16,976 Israelites-a larger numconverted to the Russian Church, she or ber in· proportion than among the heathen. The results of this effort lan, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, supportare becoming apparent. Professor De- ed by a society of English ladies. litzsch's Hebrew New Testament has exerted a mighty influence. Jewish- 7. At Brummana, in Lebanon and at Christian congregations are not un- Ram Alia, near Bethel, industrial schools known in the larger cities of Christen- belonging to the Quakers. dom. Notwithstanding sectarian strife and the bitter opposition of Romanism, 8. The Lebanon Schools Committee's there are more than 200 believing Jews Mission, in Lebanon-a. training school in Jerusalem. Most significant is the for boys and one for girls, and several Jewish-Christian movement at Kishch- village schools. ineff, in Southern Russia. Its leader, Rabinowitz, a learned lawyer, who has 9. The Irish Presbyterian Mission at come to the knowledge of the truth Damascus-several churches, and very through the independent study of the vigorous. Scriptures, and who is in substantial accord with evangelical teachers, ad- 10. The Reformed Presbyterian Misheres to his original plan of organizing sion, at Latakia, Antioch. and elsewhere a National Christian Church for Israel, -chiefly among the NUflaireeyeh. in which such characteristics of Judaism as circumcision. observance of Saturday 11. At Tiberias a very successful as the Sabbath, and the like. are to be Scotch mission to the Jews, retained, though not as essentials. He seems to be imbued with the Spirit of 12. The Church Missionary Society Christ, and numbers among his support- (London)-stations at Jaffa, Gaza, Ramers thousands of the Jews of southeast- leh, Jerusalem, Nablous, Es SaIt, Nazaern Europe. Is there not much to war- reth, Haifa. rant the hope that the redemption of Israel is drawing nigh? 13. The London Jews' Society, in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Damasclls, Aleppo, The following statistics of the mis- and elsewherA. sionary agencies in Syria may be useful: 14. The American Bible Society's 1. Preshyterian Board of Foreign Mis- Agency at Beirut. sions, North. See MISSIONARY REVIEW for June, 1891, p. 476. For the sum- 15. The British Foreign Bible Somary below we are indebted to the ciety's Agency at Beirut. Church at Home and Abroad. 16. The Evangelical Mission to Israel 2. Mission of the Established Church at Hebron. of Scotland in Beirut to the Jews, under the care of Rev. G. M. Mackie. 17. A Presbyterian Mission in Jerusa- He has large schools for both sexes. lem, just establish.ed by Rev. A. Ben Oliel. 3. The British Syrian Schools and Bible Mission, established in 1860 by -Dr. Cornelius Van Dyck, of the Mrs. Bowen Thompson and since her Presbyterian Mission at Beirut, has death conducted l;y her sister, Mrs. just finished his Hfty years in that field. Mott -30 schools and about 3000 pu- The occasion of his golden anniversary pils. was taken note of in a most pleasant way by his friends and neighbors. An 4. Miss Taylor'S (Scotch) school in address was presented and gifts were Beirut for Druze and Moslem girls- sent. Delegations came from the Hosvery successful, pital, from the Orphanage, from the native Protestant Church. The Greek 5. The Kaiserwerth Prussian Deacon- Patriarch of Damascus and the Turkish ess' Orphanage for Girls at Beirut and Governor sent messages-the latter anat Jerusalem. nouncing that a decoration would come from the Sultan. All day a stream of 6. Training schools for girls at Shim- visitors of all nationalities and sects poured through Dr. Van Dyck's rooms, greeting him. There is surely some- thing very wonderful in this honor paid to a missionary whO' has wrought fifty years for Christ.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistios' Edited by Rev. D, L, Leonard, Bellevue, O.
-In the tables summing up in fignres -Of course, no summing up of misthe work done by the various mission- sionary work would be at all complete ary societies of America and Europe, a which did not include the doings of the large number were, for various reasons, Propaganda at Rome. As to the amount necessarily omitted, but not at all be- of money expended, Cardinal Lavigerie cause the sphere they fill is nnimportant estimates that Protestants contribute or ungermane. In the aggregate their annually about twenty times as much as income is very great, and the effect of Roman Catholics. Five years ago, actheir operations is broad and far reach- cording to an authority quoted in the ing. Such as the Salvation Army, "Concise Dictionary of Religious which is said to raise annually $2,250,- Knowledge," Rome had 2,745,000 ad- 000 j the Mildmay Home and Foreign herents in mission fields proper, with and Medical Mission, whose income is 3634 priests and 4502 schools, And, ac- $115,000; the McAll Mission, almost cording to the report of the Propaganda $90,000 ; the East London Institute for for 1890, and omitting British North Home and Foreign Missions of H. Grat- America and the United States, the adtan Guinness, $60,000 j the Edinburgh herents on missionary ground number Medical Society, $30,000 ; the Christian 3,314,000, the priests 3848, and the Vernacular Society, $20,000; for the schools 7593. And of this Catholic Blind in China, $12,000 ; the Lepers in population, 1,077,500 are found in India India, $11,000, etc. If all such were and Ceylon. 694,000 in Indo-China, in.cluded, the aggregate income would 568,000 in the Chinese Empire, and 398,- be not much less than $3,000,000. 900 in Africa, including Madagascar.
-The twenty.sixth anniversary of the -Nothing is more certain than that Salvation Army was held in London, the spread of the kingdom of God in July 7th. General Booth said, in his heathen lands is dependent upon the address, that the Army now comprised maintenance and prosperity of the 4289 societies (of which 1200 were out- churches within the present pale of posts), with 10,449 commanding officers. Christendom; and, therefore, that giv- Of these, 1383 corps and 152 outposts, ing for the local church, for the frontier, or 1535 religious societies, with 4649 the foreign. born population, and the deofficers, were in Great Britain, and 1705 graded in the cities is really helping to corps and 1049 outposts, or 2754 socie- carry the Gospel to every creature. Only ties in all, with 5800 officers, were out- it is a great matter to make a proper side the United Kingdom. During the division of the funds received, to beyear there had been an increase of 252 stow upon the foreign work its fuJI procorps and 1281 officers. Of the War- portion. The total giving of the Estab- Ory, 312,525 copies had been circulated, lished Church of Scotland reaches and 129,350 copies of the weekly Ohil- $2,142,790, and is divided among 6 dren's War- Ory. Monthly publications schemes. But $224,855, or about one were sold to the number of 94,000. tenth, fall to foreign missions. The Twenty-seven editions of the War-Cry Southern Baptist Convention reports were published abroad, in 15 languages. $115,445 for work abroad and $238,893 The operations called in tbe Army" tak- for mission work at home. The mising prisoners," or the arousing of anx- sionary appropriations of the Methodist ious inquirers, had resulted in the con- Episcopal Church aggregate $1,200,000, version of 100,000 .persons at home and and of this sum, $566,347 are bestowed 131,000 abroad. upon toil outside of the United States. The Congregationalists sustain 7 socie- eign affairs, army and navy, internal, ties. Of these, the American Home educational and ecclesiastical affairs, Missionary Society receives $635,150, and in providing interest on the Swed- (the American Missionary Association ish debt." The London City Mission freedmen, Indians, etc.) $429,420, and alone had an income in 1887-8 o()f about the total of Ohristian beneficence reaches $435,000. The receipts of the Brooklyn $2,270,161. Add home expenditures, Society were $25,000 in 1889, and of the and the sum is $8,361,382-an average Boston Society $43,698 in 1890. Acof $16.50 for each church-member. The cording to the same authority,45 benevo- Presbyterian Church reports for home lent societies in New York received a missions $9:15,625, and for freedmen, total of $1,810,675 in 1889. Of this sum, Bunday-schools, education, etc., $411,- 17 Roman Catholic societies received 247 more, and for congregational or local from municipal allowance and excise purposes, $9,764,379. Including all re- appropriation $1,000,521, and 28 other ligious objects, the total is $14,062,356, societies $802, 086. or an average of over $17 per member. -Says Dr. A. H. Clapp, of the Ameri- -The various publication societies of can Home Missionary Society, and Great ·Britain and America are indis- speaking of New York: ., Few who do pensable adjuncts to the work of the not live here can have any idea of the missionary societies. Among the chief voluntary work carried on throughout of these may be named the British and the year by the benevolent men and Foreign Bible Society, with annual re- women of our churches. The rapid ceipts aggregating $1,125,000; the running over of a list of the various or- American Bible Society, $512,388 ; the ganized methods of help for men, wom- National Bible Society of Scotland, en, and children needing aid by reason $165,000 ; the London Society for the of age, sickness, misfortune, orphanage, Promotion of Christian Knowledge, etc., methods originated and carried on $215,000; and the London Religious entirely by the churche.~ of this city, shows Tract Society, whose missionary ex- that there are very nearly 900 of them. penditure reached $197,560 last year. Adding to these the more public or: The sum of the receipts of these five ganizations outside of church circles, of societies is $2,214,948. which people hear more, the number will be found somewhat startling. -According to a recent estimate, which seems to be moderate, the 49 so- -The value of the investments in cieties organized for Christian effort iL. church property in Brooklyn is estimatbehalf of the Jews expend annually ed by the Standard- Union at nearly $20,- $490,000. Almost all of the leading 000,000. Of this sum the Protestant churches in Great Britain and upon the churches represent about $13,000,000, continent are engaged in this form of and the Roman Catholic about $7,000,- evangelization; and of the Bums expend- 000. The former number 290 and the ed, these are specimens: the London latter 58. The sum of the debts resting Society, $189,220; the British Society, upon the Protestant churches is about $H,625; the Free Church, $44,945 ; the $3,000,000, and upon the Roman Catho- Church of Scotland, $28,760 ; the Irish lic churches $1,150,000. Presbyterian Church, $18,435. –In reckoning up the beneficences -According to the" Encycloprodia of of Christendom, hospital work must not Missions," it was written several years be omitted. London alone has almost ago that" the annual revenue of the 30 general and special hospitals, with Metropolitan Charities of London is 6000 beds, and which receive net less greater than the whole of the expendi- than 50,000 patients annually. In eneh ture in Sweden on maintaining royalty, of the large cities of the United States the administration of justice and formillions are expended upon such insti- dred Indias, with a hundred different tutions. As among those best endowed languages, and representing every stage with choicest facilities may be named of civilization, from the most primitive the Johns Hopkins Hospital of Balti- to the most advanced. Smlh differences more, and the Presbyterian Hospital of formed a great part of the prQblem of New York, whose" plant" is valued at mission work. Hinduism included only $2,500,000. about a third of the 260,000,000 inhab- itants of India; there were about 50,- -One of the most powerful private 000,000 Moslems, 6,000,000 Sikhs, Parassociations to which the recent anti- sees, and Christians, and about 20,000,- slavery movement has given birth is the 000 of aboriginal tribes. The number African Association of German Catho- of Pariahs – outside caste – was, he lics. L' Afrique reports that this asso- thought, from 40,OOO,COO to 60,000,000, ciation holds many public meetings in and these were practically, for mission different cities, publishes a journal- purposes, outside the great realm of Gott will es-and has 10 Diocesan Com- Hinduism. mittees, comprising 1500 circles and about 200,000 members. The Central -The Mission to Lepers in India, an Council at Cologne has received more organization baving its headquarters in than $130,000 in money. This is to be Edinburgh. Scotland, reports for 1890 spent in African expeditions, in found- an increase of $2180 in its receipts. ing safe retreats for threatened negroes, This society aims to reach the great in missions, orphan houses, eto., all number of lepers in India (estimated at over the German African possessions, 500,000) by establishing leper asylums, and $6000 have been given to aid in the sending special missionaries and preachtransport of the first German steamer ers, and doing what is practicable to for the Victoria Nyanza. alleviate their condition. Then it as- sists the Presbyterian Board of this ..:.-The American Baptist missionary country at Allahabad, the Church Mis- Union gives the following statistics for sionary Society at Alleppi, etc. Its atits African missions, which are confined tention having been recently especially to Congo, for the year ending March called to China., it is starting a work 31st, 1891 : Missionaries, 47; stations, there. Under its plan of work a con- 10; unordained native preachers, 10; tribution of $25 will support a leper for self-supporting churches, 1; not self. a year, and $100 will supply a Christian supporting churches, 5; church-mem- teacher to a village for the same period. bers, 454 ; Sunday-school scholars, 261 ; day schools, 20; native teachers, 14; -The first of October brought a most day school pupils, 770; value of mis- radical innovation in the educational sion property, $47,490; total expendi- policy of France, namely, the complete tures, $62,536. secularization of the boys' schools. The law of 1885 decrees that within five -The census of 1881 showed that years from October, 1886, this must be there were in India 124,000,000 women, accomplished. Steady efforts have been of whom 21,000,000 were returned as made in this direction all along, and in widows, of whom there were under 19 1890 of 52,000 teachers in these schools years of age, 669,000 ; under 15 years of only 1213 were of the clerical orders. age, 286,000 ;' under 9 years of age, 79,- The law of 1886 decrees that a similar 000. All these figures were undoubted- change must be made in the girls' ly within the appalling t}'uth. schools as soon as a sufficient number of secular lady teachers can be secured – Professor Lindsay, D.D., speaking to take the place of the sisters. As yet at the meeting of the London Missionary of the 44,000 lady teachers in France Society, thus defined the problem pre- 11 ,000 are sisters. sented by India: "There were a hun- Statistics of Missionary Societies in Gre&t FROM these tables are of necessity omitr.ed quite a large number of societies which are trulY whose aims and methods are broader and more general.
Home Missionary Income. .; Constituency.
NAlIfE OF SOCIETY. 'H O ~ "~:i B "'"0" "0-,',;;,: ·S ~.~ 0.9 j '0'""''"'"""" ~" a'~ r~1j A~ 0 0" 5 ;;:: ~ 0 ———– —————~ Society for Propagation of Gospel …… 1701 8,800 246,700 $625,_95 $100,000 1,238,685 46,300 Church Missionary Society…. ……… 1799 1,877 452,302 112,165 29,508 401,944 24,3D5 Baptist Society .. ……. ……….. 1792 1,610 7,105 571,465 London Society .. ……………….. 1795 449 464,515 22,283 Wesleyan Methodist ……………….. 1814 2,018 Methodist New Connection ……….. 1859 196 United Methodist Free Churches ……•. 1858 345 1,333 67,510 49,953 58,147 Welsh Calvinistic …………………. 1841 673 1,200 134,239 37,768 2,000 Presbyterian Church of England ……. 1847 95,140 2,750 Friends' Association …………….. ,. 1867 290 289 65,941 62,835 Universities Miss. to Central Africa….. 1860 85,875 2,175 350 200 15,836 South American …….•……..•.•…. 1844 51,736 10,015 North Africa Mission … '" ………..•. 1881 23,250 China Inland Mission ………………. 1865 190,605 Presbyterian Church of Ireland……… 1840 637 558 102,735 83,155 10,335 1,515 1,358 593,393 224,855 45,907 Church of Scotland ….•……………. 1829 1,235 1,045 340,000 377,455 94,470 184,854 202,960 68,025 Free Church of Scotland ……..• …… 1843 615 567 United Presbyterian …. ………….. 1847 40 45 5,552 3,750 233,650 337 132 21,350 116,825 9,000 Reformed Presbyterian …•. .. …….. 1842 230,273 2,000 2,000 79,483 16,320 United Brethren (Moravian) ..•………. 1732 79,539 579 9 51 98,897 Basle Evangelical … …………. 1815 19,400 529 22,945 Leipsic Evangelical Lntheran ……….. 1819 48,630 Berlin Evangelical. ………………… 1824 15,523 Rhenish Missionary Society………… 1829 North German . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1836 ………. Gossner's ~Ii88ion ….. : ….• 1836 Hermannsburg ….. …. …… ……. 1849 Dutch Missionary Society…………… 1818 Dutch Reformed Church……………. 1859 180 280 5,500 Ermelo Missionary Society ………••.. 1846 5,00G Paris Evangelical. ………………. .. 1822 48,315 13,846 Danish Missionary Society..•…•……. 1721 430 19,626 …… Danish Mission to Santals ……. … Norwegian Missionary Society .. … 1869 54,958 67 Swedish Missionary Association …•.•.. 1842 122,000 Swedish Evangelical National……•..•. 1835 550 650 80,000 34,852 Totals for Europe. ……………. 1856 – -245 – – – – – – – – – 48,959 – – – – Totals for America ……………… — Grand Totals…………… 12,845 27,839 2,339,420 5,852,549 796,315 1– 285 104,888 10,936,317 4,180'~1 507,883 73, 1 86,134 132,737 13,275,737 10,033,151 1 1,304,198
Brita.in and on the Continent for 1891.
missionary, but whose sphere, or mode of work, is so peculiar as not to tabulate with that of those Missionaries. Native Helpers.
·1 ~ o -.-. ~ ~ I~ ~ 2,300 ~,87~ ~ ~~ -;687 -1-,827' 1,800-~0,600 318 72 219 76 ~78 3,792 4,755 327…. 50,005 3,250 1,719 70,311 131.. 1051 6 602 2,624 3,467 515…. 48,509 2,924 .•. 17,144 159 18 121 39 1,202 4,195 5,684 1,9~ … 67,797 …. 1,643 63,873 264 97 86 91 144 6,445 7,036 363 1,572 40,078 1,934 805 65,803 71 5 1 3 36 53 60 42 1,301 33 16 240 66 295 ••. •• 9…. 370 275 145 10,335 227 152 11,367 93 5 1 . . . . 564 582 163 72 1,869 285 143 4,143 20 13 22 17 8 108 188 134 43 3,746 103 4 41 •.. 17 •.. 24… 350 391 265 150 2,796 . ••. 140 2,945 24 26 1 29 3 85 168 22 12 850 …. 27 2,500 1212 ..• 6 2 …. 32 25 . . . . . . • . • • • • • . . . . . .
17 9 28 54 17 1 20 171 70 142 13 174 570 172 94 3,038 424 30 423 12 3 11 10 2 124 162 24 18 590 252 52 3,533 22 10 H 23 7 89 165 37 33 951 285 89 5,287 52 45 331 35 15 640 800 224 42 6,895 696 313 27,951 .. ·1 57 15 25 20 538 655 251 15,799 900 1 1 9 12 3 1 37 3 3 100 127 24 135 6 19 1,691 2,002 133 137 31,591 2,757 235 20,629 106 29 90 4 39 672 936 352 11,584 1,279 282 "0,500 25 1 14 491 531 117 141 13.559 228 177 4,492 60 11 59 5 5 471 611 145 10,892 2,011 55 4,158 75 3 61 1 11 490 641 158 134 10,735 360 121, 5,536 94 7 4 1 26 51 14 442 34 'Ii 358 17 167 30,027 69 332 401 59 12,371 1,770 2,567 8 8 24 40 20' … 1,013 3 4. 112 120 '" 65 6,500 1,000 12 6 10 16 6 30 700 30 3 27 6 19 206 391 261 19 9,122 131 7,928 52 5 1 3 24 35 4- 4 208 62 5 5 5 142 165 14 14 6,070 707 2 284 40 5 37 12 16 916 1,026 • 379 17,055 3,246 372 30,580 23 10 6 6 45 12 6 200 4 160 – -11 7 – -9 – -5 – -3 – -26 – 61 – 10 – 5 – 108 50 – 10 – 453 — — – – — —- – — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – 2,283 772 1,149 688 1,570 27,704 35,037 6,948 2,946 447,041 22,382 8,235 403,664 — — — 966 736111,341 7,218 11,946 4,649 8,6251 285,276 29,806 4,867 169,451 – – – – – – 1,066 145 — —- — —— 3,349 917 2,115 1,424 2,911 34,922 46,983 11,597 11,571 682,317 52,188 13,102 573,115
GENERAL 1lISSIONARY INTELLIGENC1il
Statistics of Woman's Missionary Societies in America and Europe.
THE names by which the societies are designated are those of the denominations or of the larger societies with which they are connected. In cases where more than one Woman's Board exists in a ehurch the work of all is included in a single statement.
. j . SOCIETIES.~~o.~'~~II·]~~j~~ a) ~ ~~ ~ ~ f~ 'Q1 a:I ~~H § 1__ i I I ________________ .
Baptist (Four Societies)….. '" 1871 4,060 132,460 70 17 4 130 273 5,675 Baptist, South …………….. _ 1888 Free.Baptist…. ……….. 1873 1,469 21,398 18 5 .. Seventh-Day Baptist.. .. …. …. 1884 1 Congregational (Four Societies). 1868 307 7,G94 20 13 8 305 Methodist Episcopal …• _. . . . .. . 1869 70 675 95 5 Methodist Episcopal, South…. 1878 3,849 4 11 11 1 12 Methodist Protestant… . . . . . . . . . 1879 157,364 20 2 Presb. (Seven Societies) .•….. _ 1870 104 4 .. 245 397 11,217 Cumberlaud Presbyterian……. 1880 53 15 United Presbyterian………… 1884 5,557 220,330 100 4 .. 626 852 10,896 Reformed Dutch…… …….. 1875 Protestant Episcopal…. …. …. 1872 3,272 85,969 31 1 37 34 1,248 Reformed Episcopal .. __ . . . . •. . 1889 11 .. Evangelical Lutheran Synod…. 1879 435 5,059 4 5 2 50 Christian Disciples.. _………. _ 1875 1 United Brethren ………….. 1875 5,865 336,244 251 209 356 Fri.ends' Society………… .. .. 1889 1 Union Missionary Society…… , 1860 524 11,216 5 22 2 4 169 Canada Baptist (Three Societies) 1870 Canada Presby. (Three Socs.)… 1876 782 16,704 19 5 268 2,793 Canada Methodist…….. ….. 1881 15 1 Propagation Society… …….. 1865 834 19,413 28 2 .. 57 14 895 Church Missionary Society…… 1880 Baptist Zenana ……… _……. 1867 59 36,838 39 112 1 30 95 3,163 Wesleyan Methodist………. .. 1858 2 London Missionary Society. . . . . 1875 4,077 2 I> Presbyterian Church….. , ….. 1879 Presbyterian ChurCh, Ireland… 1874 584 9,000 52 27 1 2 20 939 Female Education in East. . . . . . 1834 20 3 Syrian Schools.. .. .. .. .. •…. .. 1860 1,329 10,000 4 13 2 2 52 Church of Scotland………… 1838 Free Church of Scotland .. _. . . . 1843 44 14,567 10 2 18 United Fresbyterian …….. __ .. 1880 431 66 226 23,164 18 8 7 304 Total" 60,027 60 109 158 3,929 315 12,109 11 66 21 103 760 39,072 16 511 25,560 13 11 13 419 35,417 61 104 18 4,250 961 129,085 7 650 192 7,811 38,650 48 161 144 1,800 432 42,880 32 08 281 12,000 32,355 36 139 10,000 160 16,665 19 19 14 273 19,115 8 56 19 1,100 275 35,000 40 275 19,978 76 17,435 103 31 29 2,996 546 52,685 22 98 39 2,590 89,125 29 232 70 7,354 259 18,990 21 75 32,9!l4 1,785.001 1,305 ~,052 3,295 112,269 British Foreign Missions. By Rev. James requesting Government aid on behalf Johnston, Bolton, England. of the East Africa Company.
" Farewell" to C. M. S. Missiona- Furlough of the Rev. E. C. Gordon ries.-On September 29th a crowded from Uganda.-A hearty welcome is gathering assembled in Exeter Rail, being accorded to this splendid mis- London, under the presidency of Sir sionary-the latest arrival from a peril- John Kennaway, to bid farewell to some ous sphere of operations. He is a sixty-seven missionaries-clergy, laity, nephew of the late Bishop Hannington, and ladies-thirty-nine of whom were through whose devotion Cyril Gordon fresh recruits. Bishop Tucker was pres- was incited to leave wife and friends . ent, and spoke of the whiteness, vast- behind in entering on the hazardous ness, and inestimable worth of the har- " call" to the Dark Continent. In 1882 vest. A party of nine join him for the uncle and nephew sailed together.
Eastern Equatorial Africa. The Pales- The following year Hannington was tine work had a vigorous reinforcement driven back by fever, but again re.- represented. With Archdeacon ]l.10ule, turned in 1884 to the land he bad learned who has S13en thirty-one years of service to love, as first bishop in Eastern Equa- in China, a strong band were leaving for torial Africa. His tragical murder soon mid-China. Among the Punjab mis- afterward stirred the whole civilized sionaries was the Rev. E. F. E. Wigram, world. Gordon was spared, and through son of the society's honorary secretary, nine long years has heroically labored.
who is sacrificing a bright and lucrative The climate and trials 4ave told deeply career at home for the "good cause" on a vigorous constitution. Rest and abroad. In addition to the above-named care will be needed if, as it is antici- contingent were a number of missiona- pated, he is to return in 1892.
ries' wives. At a subsequent meeting, The Congo Free State and its Misorganized by the Church of England sions.-There is ground for the state- Zenana Missionary Society, to wish ment in the English press that the King " God-speed" to some twenty-five ladies of the Belgians had informed the Pope about to depart for India and China, the that the Roman Catholic form of Chris· chairman, Sir Charles U. Aitchison, tianity is to be the recognized religion spoke of the Gospel in these two great of the Free State, and that His Majesty empires as the most effective means has placed his African dominions under of glorifying God and of solving many the direct protection of the Virgin Mary, perplexing social and political ques- as the patron saint of the Free State. tions. Gratifying as this will be to His Holi- Africa-Uganda.-The Church Mis- ness, it is not supposed that it causes sionary Society'S General Committee any anxiety to the English Protestant was summoned the last week in Sep- missionaries who have for many years tember to consider the situation in had flourishing missions on the Congo.
Uganda, in view of the proposed with- King Leopold is well disposed to these drawal of the Imperial British East Af- worthy men, a proof of which has been rica Companyfrom that country. Bishop shown in asking one of the leaders in Tucker and the Hev. E. C. Gordon, the that region-Rev. George Grenfell-to latter fresh from East Africa, stated become a member of the Belgian Com- that the abandonment of the country by mission for the delimitation of the the company" will plaile the Protestant boundary between the Free State and Christians there in a position of immi- Portuguese territory in the Lunda coun- nent peril." The gravity of the posi- try. Mr. Grenfell has accepted the in- tion is realized by the pioneers of the vitation, and shortly leaves England for mission and its friends. It was decided the Congo. The landmarks between to memorialize Lord S:1lisbury at once, the respective territories will doubtless be soon arranged. It is not intended outcome of unceasing prayer, marked that Mr. Grenfell should take the now the whole proceedings.
missionary steamer, the Goodwill. This Dr. Glover on Missions in China.- will follow the missionary in seotions, Speaking of the" Needs and Claims of and will be put together on the Congo, China" before the Baptist Union in where it must become a valuable addi- Manchester; the doctor gave some of tion in assisting missionaries and car- the impressions which he had received rying cargoes. from a recent visit to that great Eastern empire. ·He l'emarked that the creed Though slavery is passing away for a of the Chinaman was in brief, "I beconsiderable distance up the Congo, lieve in man," meaning by that the ex- Mr. Grenfell speaks in sorrowflll terms istence and worship of man and in the of the ravages of the" infamous drink claims of man on man. The success of traffic" caused by the white man. In missions in that country was real. It reducing the natives to a wreck men- was greatest in the country districts, tally, physically, and morally, Mr. Gren. where family life was purest; less sucfell said it was an open question whether cessful in the cities; still less in the the horrors of slavery were not less dis- ports; least of all in the treaty ports. astrous than the terrible consequences In the north and south among every of the drinking habits. They now knew class it was visible, and its dimensions 6000 miles of river, or a coast line of were very striking. There were nearly about 12,000 miles in Central Africa, 40,000 converts in China, who have been which gave them access. to scores of vil- gathered together in forty years, in spite lages and towns on the banks and their of contempt, hatred, and miRccJllcep_ vicinity. In combating the darkest tions at once awful, heart· breaking and mass of heathendom that the world heart· wearing. More men and more knew, Mr. Grenfell believes the burden women were urgently required to spread of it will hav" to be done by the native the work. converts, of whom so many were bravely responding to the need. This was one of the most encouraging features of the The Anti-Foreign Riots in China.- work. To help dispel the native misapprehen- sions regarding what is done in mission China Inland Mission.-Still lead- schools and hospitals, it is now stated ing the crusade in China in the modern that British and other missionary bodies revival of missions, this enterprising are being urged to adopt rules for the society bade farewell to a party of guidance of their members in China. It twenty – six outgoing missionaries in is a common native belief that the eyes London on September 21st. Some of and other organs of the dead are taken these devoted servants formed a re- by Europeans for the purpose of mak- sponse to the appeal from the Shanghai ing certain medicines. For the same Conference for a thousand missionaries use children are supposed to be stolen to China during the next five years. and killed. The kernel of this rumor The stations of the mission have been proceeds from the fact that missionary mercifully preserved from the recent bodies, especially the French sister· outbreaks. Among the lady missiona- hoods, take in the little waifs and strays ries were Miss Mina Sundstrom, from of Chinese cities and give them shelter Finland; Miss Sekina Storhang, from and education. In order to overcome, if Norway; and Miss Eugenie C. Hilbold, possible, the ignorance and prejudice from Strasburg. Four of the departing of the Chinese mobs, there is a proposal missionaries had been members of the on foot that all missionaries-princi- Rev. Archibald G. Brown's church, in- pally those superintending hospitals, cluding his own daughter, Miss Eleanor schools, and foundling institutions- M. Brown. Intense enthusiasm, the should, on a death occurring, communicate with a local officer to make an in- interesting figures respecting a country quiry, and likewise allow the institu- where suffering in a terrible form exists tions to be open at any time to the in- in many districts. The Government of spection of Chinese officials. When the Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia, which is scheme is submitted to the missionary divided into five districts, contains only societies there is no doubt that they will 868,552 persons, of whom three fourths readily adopt it. Certain representative are of the orthodox religion. There are missionary committees have suggested 487 schools of different kinds in Irku tsk, the plan and discusded it with the con- where Christian children are taught Buls. When it is put into practical form alongside of Pagans, Mohammedans, it will tend to remove the fanatical no· Buddhists, and the worshippers of tions that there is "nything to screen in stones and talismans. In this extensive connection with the institutions which region are 60,000 of the last-nlmed class. have rendered invaluable aid to thou- 12,000 Buddhists, 6000 Jews, and 2500 sands of dying Chinese orphans and Mohammedans. In the Transba'ikal, homeless little ones. where political convicts are chiefly to be found, there are 110,000 women who A " Polynesian Society."-Akin to do not belong to the orthodox religion, the plan and objects of the Asiatic So- and in the same district 13 schools, the ciety, it is urged, in New Zealand, that teachers of which are exiles or deported a society might be established to cover criminals. Australia, New Zealand, Chatham Islands, Polynesia proper, Melanesia, Monthly Bulletin, Micronesia, Malaysia, and Papua. Contributions of a most helpful character -Dr. Shedd, writing of the" Work would be presented and circulated relat- among the Nestorians,.. in the Indeing to Polynesian Inthropology, ethnol- pendent, says, .. We have not an easy ogy, philology, and history. Everything mission field in Persia." But he sees that has a bearing on the manners, cus- also the bright side of things. He says, toms, practices, and kindred questions .. There is this encouragement among affecting oceanic races would be pre- the Nestorians of Persia, that from year served. Mr. Percy Smith, of Welling- to year there is a wider interest, more ton, the originator of the movement, spiritual thirst, more Christian activity will be content if the society at the out- in education and work for souls, and esset is not of large dimensions, inasmuch pecially more volunteer work by laymen. as he believes that good work, by its There is a stronger' momentum toward agency, will eventually attract scientific the evangelical cause." The most pressmen in every part of the world, Every ing need which he sees in this field is day opportunities are slipping away of for more houses of worship. As at procuring information from the natives home, so in distant Persia, a church themselves, or from European and building, with manse and school, tends American missionaries, respecting the to make all Christian work permanent. customs of former times-a permanent repository for this is urgently needed. -At a missionary meeting in New What valuable facts are happily pre- Guinea, held recently, one of the speakserved in the literature by missionaries ers picked up a spear and said, "This may be judged from the works of Dr. used to be our constant companion; we Turner, Dr. Inglis, and others, so high- dared not go to our gardens without it ; ly praised by Professor Max Miiller, Sir we took it in our canoes; we carried it H. Tylor, and a number of scientific on our journeys; we slept with it by scholars. 011r side; and we took our meals with it close at hand; but," said he, holding Siberia.-A St. Petersburg journal, up a copy of the Gospel, .. we can now quoted by the London Times, giTes some sleep safely because of this; this book has brought to us peace ancI protection, Christian Associations opened in AmancI we no longer require the spear." sterdam, August 12th. The total num- ber of delegates was about 500, of whom 8yria.-Mrs. Eddy, of the Presbyte. 100 carne from America and 100 from rian Syrian Mission, who has spent England. There were also large deleforty years in that fielcI, describes very gations from Holland, Germany, Switvividly the changes wrought in that zerland, and France. Sweden, Italy, time. She h~s kept house in Syria in Russia, India, and many other countries twenty.seven different houses. Some were also represented. '[he officers think the missionaries have good times. elacted were President, Count Von Hog- So they do, if they can; but not such endorp, of The Hague; Vice-Presidents, as they have in this country. When George A. Williams, of London, Wilshe reachf'cI Beirut there was no rich liam E. Dodge, of New York, and Count church building; but even then she A. Bernstorff, of Berlin. The annual could "sing the songs of Zion in a report showed 4151 associations affiliatstrange laud." Now they have a large ing with the central committee, of which church edifice, a choir, a hymn-book- there were, in the United States, 1305 ; some of our tunes set to the hymns-a in Canada, 80 ; in Great Britain, 614 ; Sabbath-school room built as a memorial in Germany, 800; in Holland, 387 ; in offering. There are five other churches. Switzerland, 379 ; in Norway, Sweden, There is a large Beirut seminary. and Denmark, 223 ; in France, 66 ; in Houses and homes have been greatly Russia, 9 ; in Asia, 92 ; and in Africa, improved. In times of sickness, instead 13. of finding pictures of the Virgin, we see the Bible laid upon the pillow of the Samoa.-Th(,l Samoan group have a sick. Great changes are noted in the Christian population of 30,000. In the speech of the women. Cursing, for- largest of the islands there are not fifty merly so common, has in a great meas. families that fail to observe family worure passed away. There is a prayer in ship. Last year, besides supporting the home. Then hardly a woman could the Gospel at home, they sent a thank read; now many read in their homes. offering, as their custom is, of $9000 The women are learning to pray in their to the parent Missionary Society of meetings, which are much blessed. London to help to carry the good news farther on. When a church-member -The number of blind seen in the dies, they still keep his name on the East is very distressing. There are books, and put a mark after it, denotblind schools at Beirut, Damascus, and ing a word picture which means, .. We Tyree. Blind Scdpture readers have the cannot think of him as dead either to entree of Moslem homes, a privilege us or to the work. We shall give a which blindness confers. contribution in his name, that the cause may not suffer by his removal hence." Thibet. – A Moravian mISSIonary named Letzen, with his wife, certainly General.-The Scarritt Bible Training is to be written with those who love School for Missionary Workers in Kantheir fellow. men. For thirty years he sas Oity is a new institution projected has been preaching and working at a by the late Dr. Scarritt, who bequeath Ad station in the Thibetan mountains, a tract of ground and $25,000 in money, without the sight of a European face, on condition that $25,000 more be raised and with the post-office fourteen days by the Methodist Episcopal Church, distant, separated from them by the South. This sum has been promptly high passes of the Himalayas and dan- raised, and the corner-stone has been gerous streams. laid for the building. The design is to train young men and women for home Y. M. O. A.-The Twelfth Interna- and foreign mission work. It is expecttional Convention of Young Men's ed that the school will be opened in had aided them. They speak of the 1892. people in a place called Tankay, who -Dr. John E. Clough, an American had never received instructions in Christian things. They had simply Baptist missionary, is now in the Unit· heard the word .. praying," and' they ed States, having spent twenty-six years knew that people who did that met toamong the Telugus in India. When he gether in one place. Noone of their went there such was the force of preju- number was able to read or to tell them dice that the Hindus, meeting the mis- anything about the Gospel. They had sionary on the street, would make a a New Testament, bought in Imerina, long detour, lest his shadow falling on but that lay unopened, since no one them, or the odors of his person being could read it. On a Sunday they met in waftad toward them by the wind, should a house; they placed the Testament in cause defilement. When hi'! came away their midst, no one could read, no one such was the char.ge that the Hindu could sing or pray, and so they sat for a citizens of the highest position gave time in silence. When ell were assemhim a farewell meeti.ng, inviting Chris- bled, one of the chief men stood up and tians, MohammedanR, and Brahmins to asked, .. Have all come from the north ?" join in a public expression of gratitude "Ay," answered they all. .. Have all for the great blessing his labors had come from the south?"' .. Ay. " And brought t. their country. Dr. Clough so on from the east and west. .. Then now asks for 25 extra millsionaries and let us break up, for we have done our $~O,OOO for the support of. his work. duty," said the chief; .. but be sure He tells of a meeting appointed at his and come early next Sunday." Is it not own house for a certain day. Two days pitiful to think of these men groping in before the date of the meeting the peo- the dark when they seem so ready to ple began to gather from distant parts, walt in the light? and on the morning of the day over 3000 had assembled. Of the congregation at New IIebrides.-Twelve years ago Rev. the close of the service, which lasted Oscar Mi()helson landed on the island several days, 1671 persons came forward, of Tonga, in the New Hebrides, alone desiring baptism and membership in among cannibals. At first he had the church. In 1866 there were only many perilous adventures, and again 38 conversions on the work, but in 1877 and again fled into hiding to save his the membership had grown to 4517, life. Once a savage, now one of his while in 1878 10,000 were baptized, and best teachers, levelled a rifle to kill in 1890 the membership had risen to him, but was stopped by Ii. look. He 33,838. Dr. Clough gives the chief persevered amid many threatenings and credit in this wonderful work to the dangers. His house became known as native preachers and the Bible women. "The Sunday House," and Christian Madagascar.-The London Missionary hymns were often heard mingling with Society has published a review of ten heathen songs. From heart to heart, years' work in Madagascar. The figures from home to home the Gospel won its are encouraging, but still more impor. way, until now 30 Christian teachers tant is the impression that is given of are laboring in as many different viI.
both progress and permanence. There lages. Mr. Michelson's field now in- is a growth of piety, vf intelligence, dudes, he writes, four whole islands.
and of the power of religion among the The people speak three ianguages. At people. Christianity is asserting its one meeting 300 rose for prayer. Ten reformatory and transforming power. years ago they proposed to eat him.
-A touching story comes from Mada- Now he lives in perfect safety.
gascar, in a letter written by native Palestine.-The medical mission at missionaries to friends in England who Gaza, in the Holy Land, has been very effectively carried on by Dr. Elliott. In Balolos, on the Upper Congo, report the 1878 Rev. A. W. Shapira opened this region to be healthy. A missionary at the mlSSlon. He has lately been appointed Lolongo station writes: .. Only one lady by Bishop Blyth to the ohapel at Haifa. here has suffered from fever since our 'l'his mission has 400 boys and girls in arrival, fourteen months ago; three of the schools. The children's hospital at us have enjoyed wonderful good health. Jerusalem is superintended by Dr. M. The combined fevers of all three of us Sandreczki. The medical mission at may perhaps have lasted twenty·four Nazareth is under Dr. Vartan, at Tibe. hours." rias under Dr. Torrance. -The London Missionary Society's Persia.-Missionary Horberg (Luthe- mission at Lake Tanganyika is rejoicing ran), writes that the pupils of his Bible in the first gathering of fruit. Kalulu class on Saturday afternoons and on was ransomed as a poor hoy Borne few Sundays visit the neighboring villages years ago, and ever since has been more and speak to the people about religious or less in contact with the missionaries. matters. About twenty villages have Only recently did he show any desire to been visited. The missionary recently become a Christian. The service when visited the leper village near Tabriz, and he was baptized and received the compreached to the unfortunate people, who munion was an occasion of great joy, begged him to come again. and made a deep impression on the natives. -One of. the most cheering signs reported is interest among laymen in vol- -The translftion of the Scriptures, unteer effort. Two from Persia are begun by Mr. Mackay, missionary to physician~, good men, full of the Holy Uganda, is being diligently completed Ghost and of faith. They support their by three of his most intelligent converts families by their profession, but find and pupils. The memoir of Mackay by time to make tours and to do the work his sister, of which eight thousand of evangelists for whole weeks at their copies have been sold, has led several own charges. Four others own prop- young men to consecrate themselves to erty in vineyards, and spend all their the evangelization of Africa. time beyond what is necessary to attend to their property in direct work Alaska.-The sixth annual report of for souls. the Moravian Mission at Bethel, Alaska, shows a year of quiet, faithful work. -A young Mussulman girl was brough t Religious services have been better atinto a missionary home in Ramadan, tended and there has been betterobserv· Persia, as a seamstress, and, becoming ance of the Lord's day. There has also interested in seeing other girls read, ap- been an effort to improve the tone of plied for admission to the school. Her family life by instructing husbands and family and friends hearing of it, forced wives as to their relations to each other, her to leave, but not until the Bible had and by helping them to provide more become familiar to her. A young man, comfortable homes. who had remained unmarried because he could not find a Christian wife, Egypt.-A clergyman travelling in the heard of her, and through friends, ac- East writes in the highest terms of the cording to Persian custom, a marriage American United Presbyterian Mission was arranged. The ceremony was first in Egypt and Syria. He says they are performed in Persian style, but after· gathering the young boys about them in ward the couple came to the mission- their mission schools, alld in ten years ary's home and were married in Chris- the tourist will find the villages· along tian form. the Nile filled with hundreds of young men who not only speak English well, Africa.-Missionaries who have gone but who are washed and .. clothed and to labor among the ten millions of the in their right mind."