The Missionary Review of the World — April 1899
lI!ISSIO:'-f HOUSE, SALISBURY SQ,UARE
. COUXCIL ROOM OF THE CHURCH MISSIONAHY SOCIETY. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: Old Series. t APRIL. j New Series. VOL. XXII. No.4. f I VOL. XII. No.4.
THE MOVEMENT AGAINST RITUALISM AND SACER- DOTALISM.
t "THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT."
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
The Anglican Church, conspicuously, is in the throes of a great' convulsion. Like an earthquake for which pent-up fires' have long been preparing, and of which lesser seismic upheavings have been the premonitory symptoms and signals, this modern outbreak has for more than a quarter of a century given increasing indications that it was inevitable-the precursors of the coming conflict; and a colossal meeting for protest convened in Albert Memorial Hall in London, in January, under the chairmanship of Baron Kinnaird, when ten thousand Protestants assembled to give their grievances a voice. t The crisis has been hastened, partly by the bold, alarming, and flagrant practises of the Ritualists and Romanists in the English Church, and partly by that astonishing exposure of the facts found in Walter Walsh's" Secret History of the Oxford Movement," whic1) had so rapid a sale that it was at one time difficult to get a copy, notwithstanding the large and repeated editions put on the market. That book ought to be read by every lover of the Protestant and Reformed faith, and of a simple apostolic worship. No such volume has been pnblisht for half a century, and it can be nnderstood only by a careful and candid reading. It exhibits the candor that it challenges in others, and at the same time it is markt by a courtesy very rare in controversial matters. Mr. Walsh claims to have reluctantly undertaken the work, under the pressure of duty and in order to open the eyes of loyal churchmen to what is going on beneath the surface; and being reluctantly compelled to his task of unearthing church secrets, • This periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Associatiou and the Philological Society of England :-Change d or ed final to t when so pronounced, except when the e affects a preceding sound.-PuBLISHERS.
t By Walter Walsh, publisht by the Church Association, London. t See p. 2f7.
MOVEMENT AGAINST RITUALISM AND SACERDOTALISM
he boldly drags forth into the daylight a hideous brood of monsters that have been rapidly and insidiously undermining the foundations of the Anglican Church as a Protestant, reformed, and anti-Romanist body.
One of the most conspicnous features of this volume is thltt these secret and subtle plotters, whose work seems Jesuitism in disguise, are made to tell their story in their ollJn lIJords, Full references and proofs are given for all the statements made, and the confirmation is drawn from the writings of the Ritualists themselves; and almost all the authorities quoted and appealed to are themselves ritualistic.
The hook thus appears to be an unanswerable array of facts, and a fair arraignment of the parties and the practises which it exposes. Secrecy has been the veil behind which these objectionable movements have been carried on. Ritualistic societies of this secret character have been annually increasing in number, and growing in membership and influence for years, until the Church of England is honeycombed with them, and the ultimate object appears unmistakably to be corporate reunion with the Church of Rome.
One feature of Mr. Walsh's volume is that it gathers together the scattered evidence found in variolls biographies and letters of those who have been the head plotters and actors ill this apostasy from Protestantism, and masses the testimony so as to give it force and weight. Much that in the earlier history of affairs was successfully concealed has been revealed, including the secret or private documents of the Ritualists, with reports of speeches actually made in the secret meetings, where freedom has been given to the real expression of the intent and purpose of the actors.
,The secret history of the Priest 1'n absolution is here for the first time brought to the light of day. The exposure made twelve years ago in the House of Lords, by Lord Redesdale, of the indecencies of the manual used by ritualistic father confessors, roused throughont Britain a great excitement, and so alarmed the brethren of the secret Society of the Holy Cross (S. S. Co), that they met to consult as to their course, and the full reports of their conferences, printed for members only, are here open to inspection, The exposure has come none too soon, and it is none too bold. For the Church of Rome even Protestants may have a degree of respect and forbearance, when it presents itself in its proper garb and without any false pretenses, But who can have any respect for a movement, .which, in the guise of Protestantism, is insidiously corrupting the very fountains of the reformed faith and worship? This strikes the unprejudiced observer as an act of ecclesiastical treason which has no more claim to either concealment or forbearance than the acts of a traitor in the state.
Mr. Walsh's four hundred pages ought to open the eyes of all lovers of pure faith and uncontaminated church life. Here the veil of estheticism and elaborate ceremony is rent asunder from top to bottom. The real intent and tendency are here seen, of the artistic musical services, the spectacular display, the imposing ceremonial, the gorgeous man-millinery, the importations of papal notions and customs, such as the confessional, the mass, prayers for the dead, etc.; and behind all this outward pomp and grandeur we catch a glimpse of the real doctrines awl practises which, as Protestants, we abhor and denounce.
Mr. Walsh's book is not, however, the only expositor of this occult Jesuitism in the Euglish Church. One has only to put patent facts together to see that the tendencies of things are by no means latent only. Ritualism has been. getting bolder and more defiant for twentyfive years, until there is little hesitation as to open collision with the bishops, as well as with all remonstrants. Not only confusion, but anarchy prevails, and some diocesans confess, like the evangelical bishop of Liverpool, their practical helplessness to contend with the sons of Anak, that have their stronghold in the very "city of the priests;" and, alas! in too many cases the bishops themselves are either ritualists or connive at the evil which they ought to suppress.
No one disputes the right of men to follow conviction, or even tastes and preferences, in a land where liberty is supposed to have sway. But no man has a right to stay in a church after he is not in vital sympathy with its doctrine and polity; and above all, do common honesty and decency demand ,that there shall be obedience to law, regard for order, and a still more sacred respect for the personal obligations assumed and implied in the ministry of a church. For any man, while yet in a church or denomination, secretly or openly to defy its constitutional law and constituted authority, is a first-class offense against the common law of conscience.
The saddest part of this volume is perhaps the unveiling of the downright disingenuousness and sometimes deliberate deception and hypocrisy of men who have at least been credited with sincerity of conviction and loyalty to conscience. Surely no man can read these four hundred pages without a moral shudder at the atrocious frauds and unblushing lies which have characterized leading men in the Tractarian and ritualistic developments of the last sixty-five years. Ever since 1833, which Cardinal Newman markt as the starting point of the Tractarian movement, there has been in progress the forging of a chain of deceptions, to which link after link has been added. The Disciplina Arcant', or secret teaching of the early centuries of corruption, seems to have been revived; and the so-called " Economical" mode of teaching and arguing has been one of the prominent links in this chain. Cardinal Newman himself defines these two-one as "withholding the truth," the other, as "setting it out to advantage," quoting with approval the advice of Clement of Alexandria, who gives rules to guide the Christian in "speaking and writing economically: "
He both thinks and speaks the truth; except when cU1'eful treatment is necessary, and then, as a physician for the good of his patients, he will LIE, or rather utter a lie, as the sophists say. He gives hin/self up for the church.* Mr. Walsh's Look traces the history of the development of this Oxford movement, and, of course, our space permits scarcely an out· line of it. But anyone can see how natural the steps arc, from secret doctrines, learned not from the Word of God but from the church, to the erection of tradition as of coordinate value and authority with Scripture, and so on to the sanctioning of customs, not only extra· scriptural, but antiscriptural.
From the Ritualists themselves it is made plain that the secret societies within the Church of England were for « the dissemination of High Church principles," and that because the open declaration of this purpose would involve risk to its success, privacy and secrecy and subtlety were resorted to in place of publicity and straightforwardness. The names of the instigators of this movement were, so far and so long as possible, concealed. For fifteen years no list of brethren of the S. S. C. found its way into Protestant hands, and the printed lists had no dates or place;; of issue by which to be traced to their source and time of publication. It seems difficult to believe that such men as Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Manning, Dr. Pusey, Joshua Watson, Harrell Froude, Prof. Mozley, F. W. Faber, and even Mr. Gladstone could have winkt at such methods. A letter from Newman has been publisht, in which he confesses, "I expect to be called a papist when my opinions are known." Mr. Froude acknowledges that he is doing what he can « to proselytize in an underhand way," and it becomes too plain that many who have in public profest to be evangelicals, have in private made quite other professions, and belonged to secret societies, whose object was unmistakably Romish. Among the doctrines held back in reserve for the initiated only, were such as the atonement, free grace, etc., which we reckon fundamental and for universal acceptance. To conceal their real intent, some of these Tractarians were "crypto-papists," and actually wrote against popery while seeking to promote it, "teaching people Catholicism without their suspecting it," so "that they might find themselves Catholics before they were aware." t Newman is thus shown to have abused and denounced the Church of Rome to cover his real aims, and afterward, when his temporary purpose was answered, withdrawing all these charges.
*Secret History, etc., p. 2. t Ibid, page 10. A letter is publisht from Rev. Wm. G. Ward, who was Newman's successor in Jeading the Tractarians, in which he confest that he no longer believed the English Church to be a part of the true Church at all, but" felt bound to retain his external communion with her mem- bers, because he believed that he was bringing many of them. toward Rome" (p. 15). We are not surprised that such a man upheld equivo- cation, and said, " Make yourself clear that you are justified in decep- tion, and then LIE LIK E A TROOPER" (p. 16). Newman's" Cmnobitinm "at Littlemore, was ostensibly a "hall"
for students, in reality a monastery, as he acknowledged to a friend. Yet he elaborately and in terms denied this to the bishop of Oxford.
We can understand his Apologia, in the light of such conduct, when he says: "'l'here is some kind or other of verbal misleading which is not sin;" but we fail to see that such use of words is " not sin." Mr. Walsh brings to the light of noonday not only the secret history of the Oxford mQvement, but the Society. of the Holy Cross, the secrecy of the ritualistic confessional, and the Priest in absolu- tion, the Order of Corporate Reunion, the ritualistic sisterhoods, the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, etc.
As to Ritualism, a careful study of the Old Testament will reveal similar snares, exposed long ago, in the golden calf of Aaron, the brazen serpent of Moses, the ephod of Gideon, Micah's house of gods, the carved altar of Ahaz, etc., all of which are recorded for our admo- nition.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
And now, in V18W of all this, and much more that can not here be written, the solemn crisis is now before the whole Church of G09., to be met fairly and squarely and promptly, viz: What are Protestants going to do about the ritualizing and Romanizing tendencies so patent, especially in prelatical churches?
For ourselves, it seems that there is much talk about ritualism which does not touch the core and root of the evil, which is sacerdotalism, or priestly pretension. A priest is something foreign to New Testament ideas, since all believers are in Christ priests, having priestly access and prerogatives. The word priest is justified as an abbrevia- tion of presbyter)" but practically it is a corruption of the Scriptural term, and represents one who (pre-sto) stands b~fore God in place of the believer-assuming the mediatorial place and function.
Whatever be the etymology, modern sacerdotalism is a subtle system of imposture which p~d8 a human being between the believer and Christ. It establishes a merely human and arbitrary medium of approach, thus preventing immediate access to and fellowship with God. It renders every believer or inquirer liable to forfeit all true blessing by the fallible and even false natrure of that mediation which alike perverts his conceptions of Divine things, and misleads him in his supposed conformity to the Divine will. It is an unwarranted priestly -intrus-ion between a human soul and God.
To see this clearly we need only to put these pretensions together. To consider the confessional, prayers for the dead, etc., apart from this system, is to lose their main significance. These are not disjecta membra, but members in a body to which they belong, and in which, with singular skill, they are fitted to their place. ·There are at least seven parts to this body of doctrine: 1. Priestly ordinat-ion. 2. Priestly regeneration. 3. Priestly indoctrination. 4. Priestly absolution. 5. Priestly confirmation. 6. Priestly admint·stration. 'I. Priestly intercession. In other words, ordination, baptismal regeneration, tradition, confession, confirmation, the real presence, and prayers for the dead.
1. The basis of all the rest is Priestly Ordination, which puts priestly intervention between a believer and his right to act as a minister of Christ, and is supposed to confer, by a sort of succession in grace, the Divine authority to preach and administer sacraments. In the primitive days all believers preacht (Acts viii: 1-4, xi: 19, 20), and Philip baptized, tho he was set apart for a temporal office, and was, therefore, a "layman," and one case breaks the sacred line. Priestly ordination is the head of the whole system of sacerdotalism, and, if granted, it carries the rest with it by making a human authority necessary for all ministry, so that one is dependent for all else upon such priestly intervention.
2. Then follows Baptismal Regeneration, which puts the' ordained priest between the infant child and the church. Infant baptism becomes the means of regenerating the infant with the Holy Spirit and engrafting the child upon the body of Christ.
3. Next follows Priestly Interpretation or indoctrination, which puts the priest between the baptized child and the Word of God. The priest becomes the teacher of the child, and churchly tradition the practical source of authority. Wherever the testimony of Scripture is considered doubtful, tradition interprets it; and wherever the two conflict, tradition takes precedence. Hence the Bible is not a safe book to be put into the hands of any but priests.
4. Priestly Absolution naturally follows. The child is supposed to err, fall short, commit sin, and the only way to get clear of it is by the way of the confessional. This puts the priestly intervention between the sinner and Divine forgiveness.
5. Next follows Priestly C011;firnwtion, in which is supposed to he found the channel of grace to the believer, as in ordination to the priestly candidate. This puts priestly intervention between the "child of the church" and the Holy Spirit.
6. Then comes Priestly Administration of the Eucharist, whereby some mysterious change-transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or whatever it be called-takes place, in priestly hands, in the" bread and cup," so that they become the body and blood of the Lord. Hence the Lord's table becomes an altar, and the Supper a sacrifice. This puts pri~stly intervention between the child of the church and Christ's atoning death and sustaining life. .
7. l<'inally come Prayors for the Dead. The soul departing lingers in some intermediate state of more or less imperfect and disciplinary suffering, until priestly intercession relieves it of disabilities, and promotes fuller entrance into the heavenly estate. This puts priestly intervention between the human spirit and final entrance into glory. "Vhat must the dying thief have done with no priest to baptize, instruct, confirm, absolve, administer the" real presence," or pray for the repose of his soul!
To put all this together is to see the singular and subtle completeness of the whole system. If priestly ordination is the head of this body of sacerdotal pretension, we may compare baptismal regeneration to the breath which gives life; priestly interpretation, to the brain which supplies thought; priestly absolution, to the hands which apply cleansing water; priestly Eucharistic administration, to the mouth which receives food; priestly confirmation, to the blood which affords vigor; and prayers for the dead to the feet whereby all final advance within the doors of heaven is secured.
It is not necessary to contend that for nonti of these features of modern sacerdotalism there is any Scriptural foundation. All most subtle error is at bottom a half truth, and herein often lies its fatal character; but whenever even a Scriptural truth or practise is lifted into unscriptural prominence, or is linkt with other unscriptural teachings and practises £t becomes error. Truth is wholly such only while it holds its true position and true relation. The most sacred teaching if made to uphold error, becomes practically erroneous.
The question is whether any permanent and thorough cure of the existing malady in the church can be found until disciples renounce the whole system ~f sacerdotalism as such, and return to the simple New Testament faith and life. A system of idolatry is the inevitable outcome of the present growth of the sacerdotal pretensions which too many meet with practical apathy. The priest is virtually assuming Divine prerogatives; in the eyes of the victims of sacerdotal superstition, the water of baptism is becoming holy water, the bread of the Lord's Supper an adorable" host," the confessional a throne of grace, the priest a Divine teacher and intercessor, and the church, instead of a mere helper in drawing nigh to God, a hopeless barrier-not a means to an end, but itself the end.
There seems to be no alternative but to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," and disregard the claims of mere artistic and esthetic beauty. Under the guise of symbolism and sacramentarianism and sacerdotalism, we are in danger of creating new Nehushtans, and erecting new houses of idols under the name of Christian churches. A sagacio-us Christian philosopher iiaid thirty years ago, as he watcht the tendencies already too ilpparent in Protestant churches, that the only safety would be found in "excluding any practises not enjoined or encouraged in the New Testament."
WHAT RETRENCHMENT MEANS IN INDIA
WHAT RETRENCHMENT MEANS IN INDIA.
BY REV. JACOB CHAMBERLAIN, M.D., D.D., MADANAPELLE, INDIA.* Missionary of the Reformed Church in America.
U Self-support among the mission cnurches" is, it is true, the apostolic plan, and none are working harder toward that end than the missionaries who are pushing the founding of native churches in India. To our joy steady progress is being made. In church after church in India a majority of the members give one-tenth of their income for church support and evangelistic effort. Is that exceeded in happy, Christian America? But even that tenth makes but a small aggregate here, for the average income is so scant. "' To the poor is the Gospel preacht," has al ways been the glory of Christianity. Even under the preaching of the Apostles, "not many mighty, not many noble" were called. In India, too, God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. But the mighty are not yet confounded. It is still the weak. As yet those of our converts who have any property are, usually, in some way, stript of it all, on embracing Jesus Christ as their Savior. In few of our upcountry congregations is the average total income of our members equal to seven dollars per month, while in hosts of our small village congregations the total income, per family; is not twenty-five dollars per year. And in these last three famine years often the village catechist, or pastor, himself on a salary of from three to six dollars pei' month for 'self and family, has had, out of that S11m, to keep a pot of conjee, or gruel, boiling all the day, to deal out a little to the hungry or starving of his flock, or of inquirers.
What does retrenchment mean in India? I will give you a few composite photographs taken from those working in different mis-' sio~s, and from these safe general conclusions may be drawn, without a tedious array of statistics.
THE DISAPPOINTED HOPE.
" Good' news, wife, good news," called Mr. G., as he sprang from the horse on which he had ridden twenty-three miles from a trip in the district. "The people of three hamlets near Kotur have given up their idols, pledged themselves to observe the Sabbath, and to obey all Christian teachings so fast as they are taught them. They promise to send their children to school to learn to read the Bible and Christian books, and I have promist to give them two teachers, for two of the hamlets are near each other, and one school will do for * I have recently met, in conference, missionaries of fourteen different societies, and we have compared notes. We have told one another of our joys, yes, and of our sorrows, and disappointments too, for on many of those missions the ax of retrenchment has fallen, fallen heavily, for from 10 to 20 per cent. of the annual expenditure for work on the field has, in several instances, been cut off, and from the fulness of their hearts, and mine. I speak.-J. C. both. They are in hereditary servitude to the head man of the neighboring caste town, and are wretchedly poor, but they seem to be really in earn,st. We shall get hold of their children, even if we do not make very intelligent Ohristians out of the older people. Now if that extra two hundred dollars that I askt for in the new year's appropriation comes, it will just cover the absolutely necessary outlay in these three villages, and in the two that I received last month, eighteen miles south. There is evidently a movement toward Ohristianity among these downtrodden people, and if we can only provide them with teachers, we shall see a grand ingathering. ThankGod for giving us this opening, for which we have long been praying and working."
His wife tried to look glad, but failed, as she led him in for the cup of tea and slice of toast she had prepared since seeing him come over the knoll a mile away, and until he had had this refreshment she would not tell him of the home mail, with iLs freight of crushing news that had come during his absence.
He needed the refreshment, for even then his hands trembled as he held the letter and read the imperative orders for a ten per cent. retrenchment on the last year's expenditure, instead of his hopt-for expansion, and then, putting his head on his hands, the strong man sobbed. a Then these seekers to whom I have promist the bread of life must go back and feed 011 their old ashes. 0 God, what does Thy Ohurch mean thus to play fast and loose with thirsty souls ?-to send me to proclaim in all this district' Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,' and then strike the cup of the water of life from their lips as they bend to drink. Merciful Jesus, show Thy Ohurch what they are doing."
THE ABANDONED MISSION SCHOOL.
The heart of Mr. K., missionary at 'renevur, had been greatly ,:sladdened two years before, by the reception of a petition from the town of Bibinagar, twenty miles west, signed by the leading inhabitants, Brahmans, merchants, artisans, farmers, begging him to take under his charge, as a mission school, an Anglo-vernacular school which they had establisht a few years before for the education of their sons. They exprest their perfect willingness to have him introduce the Bible, as a text-book, in each class, every day, for they had noticed that the study of the Bible elevated the character of those who studied it, even tho they did not become Ohristians.
He found these people in earnest. The fees paid by the boys entirely supplied the salaries of the present masters. The missionary put in better teachers, and added a new Bible mastm.. In two years the people had grown to appreciate the school so much that higher fees could be collected. But, with the Bible master, it still required one hundred dollars per year from mission funds to keep it up. It was worth it. Ohristianity was gaining its first foothold in that town, in that taluk, or county. '1'he people were listening with respect, and attention, and interest, to the weekly preaching.
Then a heavy letter came from the home board; heavy with heartache. "Retrenchment, immediate, must be made at all the stations." The proportion falling on Tellevur was Rs. 1,000 (three hundred dollars). Sadly Mr. K. went over every expenditure, cut off Rs. 50 here, 75 there, 100 in another place; dismist three native agents, tho t.hey knew of no other employment; and yet there was Rs. 300 (one hundred dollars) more that must be cut off. No other way could be found. The Bibinagar school had to be gIven np. The Bible teacher was obliged to leave. It was reorganized as a heathen school, and Bibinagar was envelopt in its pristine darkness.
THRUST BACK INTO HEATHENISM.
"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so," sang Sikamani (Orown-jewel), the little Brahman girl, as she entered her fathu's house from Miss R's caste girls' school in Singapuram, and her musical voice rang through the zenana apartments. "Here, my lotus blossom, what is that you are singing? Who is Jesus? and what is the Bible?" asked her kindly-faced grandmother. "Oome and sit down, and tell us all about it."
It was a leisure hour, and all the zenana women gathered and, seated on the mats around, listened while little" Orown-jewel" sang more of the beautiful songs Miss v. R. had taught them, in their own vernaculars. Then she told them all she had learned about that loving Jesus "who died that we all, yes, we women too, may be saved." Daily in this Brahman's home, in merchants' and artisans' homes, were such scenes witnest since Miss v. R. had, one year before, opened the first Hindu girls' school in all that region. The school had filled its building in the Brahman street, and Miss v. R. had just engaged to rent another in the Goldsmiths' street, and open another school, and already scores of pupils had made application to be received.
Miss v. R. had come horne joyously from completing the arrangements, making melody in her heart unto the Lord for giving her such opportunities, for she was already getting an entrance into one and another of her pupils' homes, to talk with their mothers and aunts. On her table lay the evening letters. One, from the secretary of the mission, she seized, opened, read, and sank into a chair, while disappointment and despair, too dry for tears, shook her slender frame. "Kiiling retrenchments ordered from home. No appropriations for Hindu girls' school. Must close them all from end of next month." That school cost Rs. 225, or $75 per year. The llew one would cost the same. But the home church was too poor to afford the $150, so the order had come as to all those Hindu homes into which the light was beginning to steal, "Shut out the light, shut in the darkness."
DR. ANNA AND HER PATIENTS.
Dr. Anna B., sent out five years before, had opened ou~ a very fine and desperately needed medical work in Bilanagar. Her hospital with twenty beds for in-patients was always filled, while the hundred out-patients daily were blest with her medicines, her skill, and her prayers. The seeds of the kingdom were daily sown in hundreds of grateful souls. Some seemed germinating. More patients were begging for treatment than she could possibly receive on her appropriations. She had sent a strong appeal for an increase in funds, and an assistant or associate, as the work was more than she could do. "Impossible. Funds not coming in. Can not keep up even present appropriations. Retrench 15 per cent. from January 1st. Imperative."
Sick at heart she went over every expenditure to see where she could possibly cut down. Medicines and necessaries for treatment must be had. A small reduction was possible in a few minor points, but on " diets of in-patients" must nearly the whole reduction fall. There was no help for it. Hereafter but ten of the twenty beds could be filled, for the people coming from distant villages were all too poor to provide food for themselves away from home. Ten beds were packt away, as they were vacated. The remaining ten were all filled with important cases, and Dr. Anna prayed for a hard heart, to enable her to refuse others.
"Will the dear lady doctor please come and see a dying woman in Kallur, four miles north?" A young mother, fourteen years old, whom native midwives had horribly maltreated, from want of skill and knowledge, was what she found. Her life still might be saved by the utmost skill and care, if she could be placed in a hospital, not otherwise. " Bring her in on her bed. I will try." Half way back and Dr. Anna was stopt at a hamlet to see a young girl, terribly gored by a bull. "Bring her in too." As she neared the hospital a woman wrapt in a blanket tied as a hammock to a long bamboo, and "borne of four," was laid 011 the veranda of the hospital, with foot dropping off from gangrene, the result of the bite of a poisonous, but not deadly, serpent. The love of Jesus pulsed in Dr. Anna's heart. She could not say no. "Take her in," and so of two others equally needy who came. Bu t how were they to be fed?
Dr. Anna had already devoted all she could spare from her small salary to purchase additional medicines for the growing throngs of out-patients. Now, to feed these, her suffering sisters, while they were being healed she gave up the more expensive articles in her own die'.:;, meat, eggs, fruit, etc., and struggled on, giving her every energy to her increasing number of patients, and working harder, if possible, even on her unnourishing diet. Months thus sped by. One morning she fainted at her work, and fell upon the masonry floor of her hospital. An adjacent missionary was hastily called. An English doctor of experience and skill came from the large town near. "Nervous prostration and threatening paralysis, from overstrain and lack of nourishment. Must be put on the first steamer and sent home as the only hope," was his unhesitating verdict.
Her board had saved one hundred dollars by the cut, and paid two hundred dollars to take home poor wreckt Dr. Anna B. The sick were deserted, and the hospital closed. The murmur went aro'und the home land, "What a mysterious Providence that strong and vigorous Dr. Anna B. should be stricken down after only six years of service, and just when she was most needed."
These incidents occurred in no one mISSIOn, in no one year. But they are true illustrations of what are the terrible burdens put upon her missionaries by the wholesale retrenchments ordered by the home church, in ignorance, let us hope, of the havoc they sometimes necessitate. Only a few of the actual workings of retrenchment have been pictured, for my heart is too heavy to gaze further myself, or open to the gaze of others all that a ten or twenty per cent. reduction involves. For here and there, in this mission and that, it means all that I have pictured, and more.
Retrenchment means the dismissing of faithful eatechists in halfinstructed little village congregations of those too poor and hungry themselves to feed the catechist and his family. It means the sending away of Bible women, and zenana workers who are gaining an entrance, or are eagerly welcomed in many houses where" the Sweetest Name" is beginning to be lispt. It means the closing of scores of day-schools attended by the worshipers of Vishnu or followers of Mohammed, who, in those schools, are daily reading and learning the teachings of the Nazarene. It means the giving up of preaching tours in "the regions beyond," with glad invitations to the Gospel feast. It means the closing or cutting down of schools for training young men and young women to be the 'l'imothys, and the Loises, ye~, the Barnabases and Pauls of the militant church of Christ in India. It means the sending out word to all seeking communities who are too poorto pay for a teacher," Don't give up yonI' idols and avow yoursel yes Christians now, for we can send no one to teach you how to find and follow Jesus! "
o Christ, who seest Thy crippled work, rrhy delayed chariot in India, rouse, rouse Thy people to a just appreciation of what they themselves owe to Thee; of what rrhou dost expect of them. Summon, with insistent voice, those redeemed by Thee to become Thy working partners in that stupendous work, the salvation of a sin-lost world.
1899.J PUERTO RICO AND THE PUERTO RICANS
PUERTO RICO AND 'l'HE PUEHTO mCANS.
BY REV. W. H. SLOANE, ~IEXICO.* The island of Puerto Hico is the summit of a mountain that rises five miles from the depths of the Caribbean Sea. It is a parallelogram in shape, its length from east to west beillg about one hundred and eight miles, and its average breadth thirty-seven miles. It has an area of about 3,530 square miles, or slightly less than that of the State of Connecticut or the island of Jamaica. It lies some 1,500 miles sOftheast of New York, and seventy miles ~ast of Hayti, and is the smallest and most easterly of the greater AntIlles. I Puerto Rico is an island of great beauty. Its numerous rivers, prolific soil, and humid climate, contribute to produce a luxuriant vege- tation, surpast by no other part of the West Indies. Hilly in the interior, with level lowlands around the coast, and innumerable valleys extending in beautiful vistas in all directions, every foot of soil invites to cultivation. Broad reaches of sugar-cane on the lower levels, fringed and dotted with the coconut palm, give place ufter a while to extensive tobacco fields, and these in turn are followed up the hills and mountain sides by the waxen-leaved coffee plant, yielding its aromatic berry under the shade of the broad banana. These heights are tilled almost to their summits, and it would be difficult to find anywhere in the interior of Puerto Rico an acre of soil that does not contribute in some way to the sustenance of man.
Besides the staples mentioned, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, cotton, • Mr. Sloane has recently returned from a tour in Puerto Rico, and has kindly furnisht this article, together with photographs taken by himself. See also map in our ~larch number. rice, corn, sweet potatoes, bananas. and oranges are produced. The rice is a mountain variety whicho does not need flooding, and with imported codfish, forms the principal article of food among the laboring classes. On the lowland pastures, of which there are many, excellent beef cattle are reared. A good military road, constructed at immense cost to the government, traverses the island from San Juan to Ponce, with a branch or Y leading from Cayey to Guayama. One great need of the island is good roads and bridges. 'rhe journey across the hills can 11e performed only on horseback. Fortunately for travelers, the horses, diminutive animals, have an easy canter, and a ride on one of them is a delightful experience.
Puerto Rico has been misgoverned and exploited by rapacious officials to a point almost inconceivable.* The haciendas, or planta- tions, have been largely owned by Spaniards. 'rhe extortion practist by the Spanish tax-gatherers, along with other ·abuses of a similar nature, made the ownership of land and the carrying 011 of any business on the part of native Puerto Ricans almost an impossibility. From the beginning of Spanish rule, the inhabitants of the island have suffered a boycott in almost every industry they have undertaken. Indeed it Jllay be doubted whether the Spaniards themselves, who OWli the land, ever made a tithe as much ont of it as did the officials who governed them.
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS.
The total population amounts to about 800,000, of whom the Spaniards, or "Peninsulares," form a small but commercially dominant class. The children of these Spaniards, born on the island, are known as Puerto Ricans, and in Spain they are compelled to move in a lower social circle than do their parents. The Gibaros, or small land owners and day laborers of the country districts, are a curious old stock modified by Carib descent. A still ].ower class has a large mixture of negro blood. All speak Spanish, but with a rapid a~.'ticulation, a dropping of the" s," and a changing of the "1''' into" I" that make their language very exasperating to a lover of the old Castilian.
The ni1tives of Puerto Rico are slight in physique, and more or less consumptive in appearance, altho vigorous frames are occasionally seen. The anemic cO);ldition of the middle ana lower classes is said to be dUll partly to the constant intermarriages that have taken place in this small island during the past 400 years, and partly to the treatment received at the hands of their rulers, who seemingly spared • Ever since the island was conquerBJi by Ponce de Leon in 1508, and the origina~ Carib inhabitants reduced to subjection, Puerto Rico has been a Spanish possession. For three centuries It was a penal station, then a colony, and after 1870 a province of Spain. When discovered by Columbus in 1493 it was known a's Borinquen, and this word in its adjective form has entered largely into the language of the country. Pohce de Leon called the island Puerto Rico, or "Rich Haven," from the fertile appearance of the country. The last traces of slavery were abolisht in 1873 by the abrogation of the ~ystem of forced labor. American supremacy was completely establisht in the island on the 18th of October, 1898.-W. H. S. no effort to repress every aspiration, and crush every enterprise, that showed themselves among this intelligent and generous-hearted people. With wages ranging from $1.00 per day down to twenty bananas (which were often considered sufficient for the support of a laborer's family), and even this wage paid in depreciated silver or unripe fruit, it is not to be wondered at that the average Puerto Rican looks more like a walking corpse than a living being. Naturally bright and vivacious, quick and eager to learn, of great kindliness of spirit, hospitable to a degree, remarkably docile and patient under restraint, intensely loyal to the soil on which he was born, he has been represt, boycotted, over-taxt and over-workt, under-fed and scantily clad, until hope was well nigh extinct in his bosom. Is it to be wondered at that, when the Stars and Stripes were unfurled over his native soil, A PUERTO RICAN FAMILY.
he should rush toward them, wild with delirious joy, and, with bursting heart, should thank God that the year of jubilee had come?
A few of the Puerto Ricans are well-to-do; a larger number manage to live in some sort of comfort, altho their scantily-furnisht shed-like dwellings offer few attractions to the visitor from northern climes. The great majority of the people are poor, and one wonders how they live. Day after day we have watcht the open apartments of indigent families, members of which had no employment, where no food seemed to enter, no table was spread, and no fire was kindled for culinary purposes. The routine of family life went on day after day, save that all labor and all partaking of food and drink were left out of the account.
For the poor, the blind, and the maimed, there are no asylums, and but few hospitals for the sick. One is astonisht at the number of malformed children he meets on the street, but learns that a larger number died in infancy. The conditions of life are such that infant mortality is very great. Little regard is paid by the authorities to the death and burial of the indigent. In the city of Oaguas the dying poor are removed to a room adjoining the cemetery, where they may breathe their last close by their final resting-place, and leave their measure for the grave before the expiring breath has departed from the body. Frequently corpses are placed in the shallow graves without box or coffin, or one coffin is made to serve for many funerals. 'rhe bones of the dead are constantly being removed from graves on which the annual tax has not been paid, in order to make room for new interments.
Ooncubinage is very common, almost the rule, in fact, and is not regarded with the disfavor that such a life would cause in the United States. The exorbitant fees demanded by the Roman Oatholic Ohurch for the solemnization of the marriage ceremony has brought about an almost total disregard of the sanctity of the marriage relation. The number of illegitimate children is largely in excess of the legitimate, and many of the priests have families.
RELIGION AND EDUCATION.
The inhabitants of Puerto Rico are Roman Oatholics, but the hold that the church has upon them is very slight. Ohurch and State have been so closely identified that the oppression exerted by the Spanish government has weakened the influence of the clergy. Religious services in all parts of the island are poorly attended, and the catechetical instruction of the children has been greatly neglected. Those evidences of rigid training that are seen in Mexico, and South American countries, are here absent. Many country districts have no churches, and the monasteries and convents that have been founded have never taken deep root in the Puerto Rican soil, nor been to the liking of the Puerto Rican people. Now that Ohurch and State are separated, as a result of the war, many priests, deprived of governmental support, are leaving for Spain. Some remain in hopes of aid from the United States government, and some are endeavoring to educate their congregations to look after the temporal wants of their pastors. The change brought about in the Oatholic ecclesiastical system in Puerto Rico has, for the time being, by its suddenness and force, dazed the adherents of th~ Roman Ohurch.
There is but slight observance of the Sabbath in Puerto Rico. A few people attend mass in the forenoon, and still fewer the vesper service in the afternoon. More or less traffic is carried on during the day, cock-fighting and gambling in all its forms are common, and the chief operas and plays are given in the theaters. Rum is one of the beverages most used by the lower classes, altho drunkenness is not common. All classes, and both sexes, smoke tobacco. Religious processions are not so frequent as in Central and South America, nor is the" devotion" shown the viaticum, when carried on the street, so great as we have seen it in Mexico. Take it all in all, Roman Catholicism on the island is noticeable chiefly for the absence of religious life and spirit, for the indolence of its clergy, and the indifference of its adherents. The people are longing for a new faith, and in every part of the island throng with eagerness to listen to a preacher who brings them the glad tidings of the Gospel. Americans are regarded as the liberators of the inhabitants from a hated political system, and they, better than any other people, are qualified to carry the message of salvation to the Puerto mcans.
Education in Puerto Rico is at a low ebb. Parochial schools are scarce and poor in quality. 0nly one governor-general has ever manifested any interest in the education of the Puerto Rican youth; his rule was short, and the measures he adopted, looking toward the establishment of a better school system, proved ineffective. Spanish youth have been sent to Spain or France to be educated, and the provision made for the schooling of the remaining 125,000 boys and girls has been lacking in both quality and thoroughness, and to only a _ limited extent has ad vantage been taken of it. Spanish statistics are notoriously untrustworthy, and they furnish but meager data on which to base exact conclusions regarding education in the island. The pu blic schools are a little over five hundred in number, are partly supported by a government fund, but depend mainly upon tuition fees, from which the very poor, however, are exempt. At the breaking out of the war between Spain and the Uni~ed States, these fees amounted to about 350,000 Puerto Rican dollars pel' year, say $212,333 in American money. The teachers were poorly paid for their services, and we were informed by a number of them that months would go by without their receiving any salary, and that it was not an uncommon thing to lose their stipend altogether.
A careful computation regarding the illiteracy of the inhabitants shows that about eighty-seven per cent. can neither read nor write. There is a compulsory school law, but it remains a dead letter. No one has ever been arrested for not sending his children to school. The system of education is not greatly unlike that followed in the United States. The primary school receives children of five years of age and under. Then come the intermediate, the grammar, and the superior schools. In the rural districts we seldom met with a school of any kind. The primary schools are taught by women, the others by both sexes. The teachers do not show a high grade of efficiency, but manifest a strong desire to qualify themselves more thoroughly for the better work that will now be expected of them. There are ~hree schools for adults on the island, but the attendauce is extremely
SOME FEATURES OF THE HISTORY OF THE C. M. S
slight. Puerto Rico has never had a university. An institution known as a " collegiate institute," located in the capital, has afforded some opportunity to students to acquire a knowledge of the classics, and of physics, geology, botany, algebra, chemistry, and history. The laboratories are poorly furnisht, mechanical apparatus is antiquated and worn out, and the facilities for obtaining a careful scientific train.ing generally very imperfect. Very few students remain through the four years' course. It is said that both sexes have equal access to the privileges of the institution, and that three young ladies have there taken their degrees. Spanish prejudice, however, is strong against the higher education of women, and it will be long before any large number of them seek a college course. At present a desire is strongly exprest on the part of all classes that teachers, qualified in both English and Spanish, be sent from the United States to Puerto Rico to take charge of the work of instruction, and introduce into the schools the methods and studies that have made our own the admiration of the world.
If the strong desire exprest by the Puerto Ricans, that missionaries of the Gospel be sent them, and school teachers be provided for the schools that now languish, be met by the people of the United States, we see no reason why Puerto Rico may not become the choicest of the possessions lately acquired by us. What the island now needs is a reenforcement of hope, the infusion of new religious and intellectual vigor, the creation of new aspirations, the establishment of new ideals; in a word, the evangelic faith, and all that follows it.
SOME FEATURES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOUIETY.-II.
BY REV. T. A. GURNEY, M.A., LL.B., DORSET, ENGLAND.
It is interesting and profitable to mark some of the special influences at work in the development of the Church Missionary Society throughout its whole history.
First there is noticeable the VARIETY OF CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE ORGANIZATION OF JfISSIONS throughout the hundred years. There are missions which precede all pioneering, trade, or government, missions which follow in the wake of exploration, but precede trade and government; missions suggested by trade openings, missions inspired by political events, and missions whose initiative springs from a statesmanlike conception of what the mission as a whole aims to acoornplish.
1. The best illustration of a mission UJhiclt preceded pioneering, and gave the impetus to trade and government, is the Eastern Equatorial African Mission, founded by the intrepid missionary Krapf. When, in 1844, he went forth from Zanzibar to Mobas with a letter from the all-powerful Imam of Muscat and Sultan of Zanzibar, inform- ing the coast governors that he was" a good man who wishes to convert the world to God," nothing ,,:as known behind the actual coast line, then in the possession of that sultan from Cape Guardafui to Cape Delgado. For the civilized world it was a vast terra incognita, a blank on the maps, a region which most people imagined to be desert and sandy waste. The idea that behind that wall of torrid coast line lay such wonders as the Lakes Albert and Victoria Kyanza, such mountains as Kenia and Kilimanjaro, such uplands as healthy, fertile Uganda, such rivers as the Nile and, further west, the Kongo, would then have seemed a Utopian dream. It is most significant that it was a missionary, bent on his Master's work, who first peered over the wall, who first broke the zariba barrier of forest tribes at the peril of his life, who first laid thc trophy of the new age for Africa on the lonesome shore in the bodies of wife and child, who first astonisht the world with a record of journeys, in which his colleague Rebmann shared, so strange in their results that the geographers of Germany and England laught at them as myths. Yet this was the man who afterward wrote to fellow-missionaries the counsel to "resist with all the power of faith, of prayer, and of truth the mood of despondency and faint-heartedness which would say, with the men sent out to spy the land of Canaan, " We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we." The pioneering of Burton, Speke, Baker, Livingstone, and Stanley, came about as the direct result of that missionary work, and once again in the history of the world, the nations have inherited the blessing.
2. The Uganda mission gives an illustration of our second type. It is a mission following in the wake of exploration, but preceding trade and government. The challenge of Stunley to the Christian churches of America and England, from the court of Mtesa in 1875, led to the first offer of men and means, the mission work of Alexander Mackay, the episcopates of Hannington, Parker, and Tucker, the progress and fiery trial of the infant church, the opening up of trade, the railway, and the political protectorate. Krapf wrote nearly fifty years ago, "Accept little or nothing from political changes in Africa; it is a vital mistake to make the results of missionary enterprise depend upon the powers that be." The troubles since Europe intervened in East Africa bear fatal witness to the truth of this prophecy.
3. As an instance of missions 81lggested by trade openings, the Niger, Yoruba, and Northwest Canadian missions may be noted. Th~ course of the Niger had been determined in 1830 by Lander. In 1839 a Society for the Civilization of Africa was inaugurated through the energies of Fowell Buxton, whose watchword that" the Bible and the plow together should regenerate Africa," was accepted by the C. M. S., and two mission ag-ents accompanied the expedition in 18H, The expedition, tho lauoncht under the auspices of Prince Albert, proved a failure, but a second and third expedition followed in 1854 and 1857, and these were accompanied by Samuel Crowther. Thus step by step, following in the wake of trade, mission stations were planted. The demoralization caused by trade influences afterward, especially the liquor traffic, has been one of the greatest obstacles of the missiou.
4. An example of missions inspired by political events is to be found in the Punjab and Sindh missions, which sprang in 1851 from the two Sikh wars and the annexation of the country. 'fhe Japan mission, in which the C. M. S. only followed in the wake of the Amer- ican mission, started in 1869 from the great revolution which had created modern Japan, and which gave a limited opening in the coun- try. The China mission was the outcome of the two Chinese wars of 1841 and 1858-9, with their opening of the treaty ports to Western powers. The abandoned Constantinople mission sprang from the Crimean war, and the mission to the Bhils of western India from the efforts of the Indian government and Sir James Outram to raise them.
5. Among missions whose initiative springs from a statesman-like conception of missionary work as a whole, we may mention the early efforts to revive the Eastern churches with a view to reaching the heathen through them-the original design of the mission to the ancient church of 'fravancore, and the occupation, in the earlier years of the century, of Egypt. In each case the society aimed at something beyond the mission itself-the employment of it as a vantage ground from which to reach, through Greeks, Syrians, or Copts, the heathen of the world.
THE INFLUENCE OF LAYMEN.
A second influence, and one full of interest, is the influence of lay- men. We have seen what the C. M. S. owes in its first commencement to such laymen as Wilberforce, Grant, 'fhornton, Zachary Macaulay, and others of the" Clapham sect." But for their energies of organization and liberal supply of the sinews of war the missionary discussions of the Eclectic Society might have remained academical for years to come.
When the society actually took footing eleven out of the twenty-four who composed the original committee were laymen, and a layman has always since been the president of the society. The direct influence of laymen in those earlier years upon special questions of missionary pol- icy, such as Sierra Leone and India, was enormous. But when we come to the actual missionary work proper, the same influence is manifest. In fact from the first the C. M. S. has been an enterprise of the Church of England upon a lay footing, reflecting at each ~tage of its history, as it markedly does to-day, lay principles, lay ideas, lay methods.
Hence, it has been, and remains, sturdily Protestant, stanchly and pon-apologetically evan$"elical, and, :perhaps, sometimes a littlt;l undul! suspicious of ecclesiastical influences. It has expressly disclaimed, especially at one crisis of its history, any au thority to "send forth" in Christ's name, an authority exercised by the bishops of the church at the ordination of each missionary, claiming to be, in the words of Henry Venn's defense, "an institution for discharging the temporal and lay offices necessary for the preaching of the Gospel among the heathen." Perhaps its success has largely lain, under God, to this moderate attitude, for it has enabled clergy and laity to work heartily together without any heart-burnings. The constitution of the central committee of the society is a reflection ·of ·this feature. It is not a com- mittee of clergy at home-a band of amateurs unacquainted with the actual conditions of the mission field abroad. The committee com- prises (a) retired Anglo-Indians, high civil and military officers, who have governed provinces and commanded armies; (b) veteran mission- aries, returned after many years' work of active service; (c) a few bankers and lawyers, who bring to the financial and legal aspects of the work all their business experience; (d) members of the home ministry, wo::-king side by side with laymen and missionaries, bringing their spiritual inspiration and practical home knowledge.
This feature has undoubtedly quickened the zeal and enthusiasm of laymen, which, to this day, marks its whole history. In a church not remarkable always for the success of its development of laymen's work, this has stood out as the bright exception It is surprising how many missions C. M. S. owes to their conception, design, and first start. The first mission to Ceylon, not long after its annexation, was due to the appeals of Sir Alexander Johnson, the chief justice of the island, for a C. M. S. association there. The mission to the West Indies was also due to the same providential leading, in the offer of Mr. William Dawes, formerly governor of Sierra Leone, to act as hon- orary catechist.
The Himalaya mission was set on foot by officers and civilians at Simla, one of whom undertook to subscribe £-10 a month, and another of whom pledged himself to pay £60 annually for the rest of his life.
The Christian officers who won the Punjab for England, which, with its dependent states, is larger than the German Empire, were the ardent promoters of missionary enterprise. The Punjab mission sprang from a circular from those officers as a token of thanksgiving to God for the success of their arms. Within three years the Punjab C. M. Association was inaugurated, with generous support from John, afterward Lord, Lawrence, and Henry Lawrence. The deputy-com- missioner at Lahore built the first mission house there, and Lord Napier of Magdala designed the school house, whilst Sir Henry Lawrence raised the first girls' school in memory of his wife. At Sir Donald Macleod's initiative Multan was occupied as an important ·frontier station. Through the earnest prayers of Major Martin, who spent a part of each day in private supplication before God for the nE:)eds of the Punjab, upon the appointment of Major, afterward Sir, Herbert Edwardes, to Peshawar, as "the outpost of Indian empire," a mission was started there, the chief commissioner himself presiding over its launch. When the mutiny came it was that very province and those very officers who, by their loyalty and bravery, saved India. The very men who were foremost in evangelization and fearless in their devotion to Jesus Christ, were the men whose provinces refused to rebel, and whose soldiers marcht behind them enthusiastically to victory. And after the mutiny was over the same spirit was manifested even more strongly. Edwardes left his house at Peshawar, on his home coming to England, as a gift to the mission. And the very men who had saved India spoke ont most loudly, on their return home, against the old" Neutrality Policy" of the British government, a policy for ever ended by the significant words in recognition of Christianity, added by the queen herself to her proclamation assuming the direct government of India.
RAISING FUNDS AND AWAKENING INTEREST.
A glance must be taken at the methods of raising funds, of awakening or deepening interest, and of preparing candidates, which have markt the one hundred years. In the early days of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, it was customary for the king to issue "royal letters," as they were called, commanding that collections should be made throughout the country for some special object, such as the relief of the West Indies from the results of a hurricane. Such royal letters were issued for the S. P. G., but for the newer O. M. S. there came no such royally-invited supplies. The first contributions were large private donations, and one chief source of income was the collection at the annual sermon, which sometimes, inasmuch as there were no local associations, amounted to £300. The total amount raised in the first five years was £2,467.
But in 1812, having twelve men already in the field and ten under training, the committee devised means, through Pratt, for an increase in their resources by means of local associations, the plan already adopted by the Bible Society. The main idea of these local associations was to obtain not only collections in churches, but penny-a-week collections from rich and poor alike. The first of these associations was formed in London, and Dewsbury comes second as the first provincial association, others soon following, Bristol soon taking the lead of all others.
In 1813 began the practise of sending leading clergy to different counties to preach sermons and address meetings, the West Riding of Yorkshire being the first district visited. The new move was regarded with much official suspicion, and trooted as one more evangelical innovation, but it was welcomed with great popular enthusiasm. "Penny associations" were started in many places, collectors undertaking to gather at least a penny a week from at least twelve persons through- out the year. Several ladies in different towns obtained hundreds of subscribers. From these efforts the income leapt up from £3,000 in 1812 to £30,000 in 1819-20.
The associations meanwhile multiplied in all parts of England, but there are in that early day no greater watering-places prominently on the list. By the jubilee the regular parochial associations had begun to take the place of the ladies' associations. Juvenile associa- tions and Sunday-schools were not yet prominent, nor sales of work, but one at York realizes £1,000 in 1839. The ordinary guinea sub- scriptions are the rule, with the penny-a-week collections and collec- tions in churches. Legacies have become an important addition, their yearly average, just previous to the jubilee, reaching £4,000.
Missionary boxes had also become a factor. In the war between America and England (1812), an American privateer captured a small Welsh collier in the Irish Ohannel. The captain of the privateer noticed in the cabin a strange little box, with a slit in it, and askt what it was. " Ah!" replied the Welshman, "I and my pOol' fellows drop a penny apiece every Sunday into that box to help to send missionaries to the heathen." "Indeed," exclaimed the American, "that's a good thing." And then, after a pause, "I won't touch your vessel nor a hail' of your heads." And the vessel, saved by its missionary box, went free.* The missionary boxes have become in recent years a very large source of income. So have juvenile associations, sales of work, and the further development of the local associations.
Ooming down to the present day, the whole country is now divided into districts, under association secretaries, who act as corresponding secretaries for their districts, and provide preachers and speakers, each diocese being divided into rural deaneries, embracing a group of neighboring parishes. These have, since 1860, had their own special ruridecanal secretary working with special knowledge of the district. In the case of great centers there are also auxiliaryassociations, such as the Bristol, Liverpool and southwest Lancashire, Manchester, and other associations. There are also county unions, whose object was never primarily the raising of funds, but many of them now have their own county missionary in the field, and raise funds for this purpose.
Fresh developments for widening interest have markt recent years. One of these is the Gleaners' Union for prayer and work, which commenced in 1886, and has a total membership from its first start of 102,- 216. The union supports its own missionaries, and also has become an * E. Stock's History of the C. M. S. I. 480. enormous incentive in local organization for all purposes. Another is the lantern and loan department, which commenced in 1881, for providing materials for meetings. 'rhe first lay-workers' union started in 1882, and now London has 600 members. The younger clergy unions now embrace twenty-one unions in federation, and the ladies' unions, the first of which dates from 1883, are doing very valuable work.
Differentiation in jin(1.nce has also markt recent years. The Missionary Leaves Association raises funds for special needs of special missions, such as the furniture of churches or schools and other equipment, and, tho started long previously, in 1883 it was first recognized as an ally of the society's work. Special gifts for particular missions are inspired by news from the field awakening thanksgiving or special interest.
But the greatest development has been in appropriated contributions for the support of our own missionaries. The idea was advocated in 1837, at the annual sermon, that each should have his or her own representative in the mission field, or that members of one congregation should combine to have their collective representative. But for many years the idea lay fallow, till in 1878 a "substitute for service fund" was opened at the instance of one clergyman, who gave £250 a year and afterward £500 till his death. In 1893, however, an appeal resulted in 48 missionaries being thus taken up, and in June, 1898, 300 were thus adopted wholly or in part, besides 63 who are selfsupporting.
Among more recent methods ~f awakening interest may be named missionary exhibitions, the first of which was held at Cambridge in 1882 ; also "missionary missions" and the "February simultaneous meetings." Missionary missions commenced in 1884, and the latter were held in 1886-87 in the chief towns all o'er the kingdom, not for collecting funds but for the deepening of the sense of missionary responsibility. The pttblications have also undergone great recent developments and are an immense source of deepened interest.' The O. M. S. Intelligencer is a missionary review for the thoughtful classes; the Gleaner, illustrated and in a popular style, has a very wide circulation; Awake does useful work among the working classes; the Ohildren's World carries its object in its name, and medical mjssions have now their own monthly, Mercy and Truth.
SELECTING AND PREPARING CANDIDATES.
From the first the C. M. S. wisely did not limit its choice of candi– dates for the mission field to clergymen and Englishmen. In fact it was impossible to do so because of the lack of men. Men were, therefore, accepted from foreign sources, particularly the Berlin Missionary Seminary, and these were ordained in Lutheran orders. The first Englishmen accepted were artisans, for Henry Martyn was not strictly a missionary, being one of the five chaplains who did so much to pre- pare the way for missionary work in India as Evangelicals under the influence of Simeon of Cambridge. The artisans were sent to New Zealand as industrial missionaries without ordination. Even when two candidates for ordination in England presented themselves, there was still the difficulty as to their actual ordination. This was, however, surmounted by their ordination to home work for a time in English curacies, and afterward the scruples of the bishops were overcome by an Act of Parliament, giving the bishops power to ordain for service abroad. Of course, long ago all such difficulties were entirely surmounted, and the candidates for the mission field from Islington College now form a feature of the London ordinations.
The choice of candidates has been widened comparatively, recently, by the acceptance of medical and female missionaries.
In 1865 the first medical mission of the C. M. S. was started by Dr. Elmslie in the native state of Kashmir. No work has grown with greater rapidity or been markt by more important results in China, throughout North India, in the Punjab, and Bengal, and among the great Mohammedan centers. A special medical department now deals with this work, raising funds which cover all the current expenditure for it, except the personal allowance of the missionary. Twenty-seven mission hospitals are scattered over the mission field, and to-day there are 53 medical missionaries, 1,252 beds in the various hospitals, and in 1897 treatment was given to 9,364 in-patients and 59,474 outpatients.
In 1885 Miss Harvey went to Africa as the first woman upon the modern roll of the C. M. S. female staff. There had been lady missionaries before working in girls' schools or otherwise, but there had been no systematic employment of women except in India, and there they workt under the zenana missionary societies, independently, tho in close alliance. In 1887 several women were accepted for mission fields not occu pied by the zenana societies. This step was soon followed by the sending of bands of female evangelists to Yoruba and Ceylon, and of trained women to East Africa, Palestine, and Japan. By 1895 200 women had been sent out, China having become meanwhile an important field for female work, and the coming of women missionaries to Uganda gave a new impetus to all the work.
The preparation of candidates for the mission field can not be more than toucht on here. In the earliest days this was accomplisht, as we have seen, by personal oversight and instruction. At length in 1825 a house was set apart at Islington as the first beginning of a training institution especially for Basle and Berlin men. This led to the present Islington College, which is the only missionary college provided by any society in England. The experiment has answered and some of the best men in the field have gone forth from thence. The methods of preparation and selection of candidates at home have become much more varied in recent years. There has also been abroad a similar development in such institutions as the Lahore Divinity School. Ridley Hall, Cambridge, has sent forth many graduates. The curriculum of Islington has been raised since 1868 and a more elementary preparatory institution has been provided at Clapham. Medical training is now paid for in the case of outgoing medical missionaries. A newly-formed candidates' department has been created for examination, advice, and oversight of candidates, and women are provided with three special homes, with two degrees of expense.
METHODS OF CONDUCTING MISSIONS.
Methods oj carrying on missions cover an immense field, for they embrace all the agencies, educational, medical, evangelistic, translational, and industrial, which form part of this highest enterprise of our Christian civilization. The field is so vast here that we can only view it in the aspects presented by the last fifteen years, regarding them in their unity as the diversified expression of modern Christian culture and devction. In no other sphere is a tax put upon gifts so many and so varied. Public schools and universities send forth their physique and learning. Islington or Ridley Hall, Cambridge, in many cases, supply the special and detailed preparation. '1'he Church of England sets apart the candidate with the solemn offices of ordination. Then the missionary goes forth, after the heart-stirring words of instruction from the committee, and the enthusiastic God-speed of the valedictory meeting. Like Paul of old, he lays tribute upon the gifts of civilization in their every form for his Master's service. The swift ocean-going steamers are the shuttles of the missionary loom.
Every sort of agency and talent is employed to attack the citadel of men's hearts. For most the method of attack is the direct evangelistic work in mela, bazaar, preaching room, itinerating, mission church, tract distribution, all which demands knowledge of language, tact, patience, and sacred culture. Others use the medical skill learned at Edinburgh or in London, in the plague-stricken districts of Bombay, or among the villages of bright Kashmir, or in hospitals such as the Hangchow hospital or convalescent homes, the leper hospital at Pakhoi in China, or Srinagar, capital of Kashmir, or the new mission hospital at Peshawur. Such medical work is used to allay the fanatic hatred of the Moslem at Cairo, Bagdad, and elsewhere, whilst Chinese prejudice against the foreigner is lessened by it in Fuhning, and Seven Stars' Bridge in Fuhkien. Active university men become the leaders of bands of associated evangelists in Tinnevelly, among the untutored Gonds, or in the wild jungles and swamps of the Kandyan Itinerancy. Educated ladies peer "behind the Purdah" of Indian zenanas, and learn as trusted friends their dark secrets of sorrow and shame. Others in girls' boarding schools, homes for lepers' children, women's hospitals, or itinerating work, in Kucheng, Hangchow, Ning-Taik or elsewhere, seek by the travail of faith to overthrow the great stronghold of China's age-long heathenism. Many ladies, joining in the general functions of the mission field elsewhere, mark by their advent, new eras of work at Abeokuta, Mombasa, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Mengo in Uganda.
Gifts of teaching are employed in educational posts of our mission field. French burns with enthusiasm over his divinity college at Lahore, the future" school of the prophets" for the Urdu-speaking people; A. L. O. E. throws the youthful energy of her ripest years into her Batala boys' school, whilst her pen pours forth short stories which are the first precursors of' a popular native Christian literature for the Punjab. Some are occupi~d with ordinary university pupils, as at Jay Narain's school at Benares, St. John's College, Agra, or the Noble High School at Masulipatam. Others labor in the divinity schools of Calcutta, Poona and Madras, or beside the waters of Fourah Bay, Sierra Leone, train the men who are to win the Western Sudan to Christ. Lady teachers are busy with the girls of Metlakahtla or in the schools of Baddegama, Cotta, or Lagos. The Annie Walsh school for girls at Sierra Leone deserves its own special mention.
Industrial mission work taxes the Scotch versatility of Alexander Mackay, boat builder, flagstaff constructor, and tomb mason. to King Mtesa for the Gospel's sake. Meanwhile Pilkington is busy translating Waganda Bibles and prayer books, bought with such eagerness that the book fund for Uganda in four years receives £2,000.
For some it is the tender shepherding of lambs snatcht from the cruel hands of the slave dealer, as in the Frere Town homes; for others the relief work amid the horrors of an Indian famine; for a few the ingathering of the flock of Christ amid the frozen solitudes of the waste howling wilderness of the great lone land. But all these, whether among Tinnevelly shanars, or bold Waganda, or timid aboriginals on India's hills, or quick Japanese, or fanatic Moslems, or simple Red Indians, "all these worketh that One and the self-same Spirit dividing severaUy to every man as lIB will." Thus, everywhere, whether beneath the muezzin towers of Islam, beside the waters of the Victoria Nyanza, within the walled cities of China, in the solitudes of the far west, or beside the sacred stream of Ganges, by a manifold agency which is yet one, "Christ is preacht." The devout conception of Gordon Hall and Samuel Newell, two members of the first band of missionaries sent forth by the American Board of Missions to Calcutta in 1812, of the possibility of the evangelization of the world in one generation, sufficiently difficult then, ought to be realizable now with such agencies at work not by one but many societies. That is all we need ask for, but that is a minimum to faith. " And then shall the end come."
MISSIONS AMONG TRE LAOS OF INDo-CRINA
MISSIONS AMONG THE LAOS OF INDO-CHINA.-I.
BY W. A. BRIGGS, M.D., LAKAWN, LAOS. Missionary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.
It is thirty-two years since our two veteran fathers, Drs. MacGi}· vary and Wilson, with their families, hired a few small river-boats and begall t heir long, tedious journey up the river from Bangkok; tho boatmen pushing the boats along by means of long poles, until after five hnndred miles of pools and whirl- pools, rapids and shallows, these ambassadors of Christ reacht Cheung Mai, the capital city of northel'll Siam. They found the Laos to be a semi-civilized people of far gentler and more impressionable disposition than the Siamese, and untoucht by. foreign com- A SIAMESE RIVER' BOAT. merce or European notions.* But who are all these people called Laos?
What was their origin? Where was their ancient home? If we could go back to the time of Christ, we would find on the fertile plains of western an d southwestern China, a race called" Tais" or the" Free"
people. Their system of govel'llment and their ancient history are still subjects for research. Shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, Chinese encroachment made it necessary for the" Tais" to emigrate southward. This process continued and continues, till we find the original Tai race now scattered among all the countries of Indo-China, and of this great race the Siamese, Laos, and Western Shans of to-day, are the principal branches. Important differences in the written and printed character, as well as in the spoken language, constitute the dividing lines between these three main branches. The Presbyterian Church in the United States has accepted the responsibility of giving the Gospel to the Laos. .
The Laos of northern Siam resemble the Japanese in color, feature, and stature. The similarity is also noticed in their light-heartedness, love of music, and gentle disposition. In many respects, however, they are very unlovely; coward ly, immoral, malicious, hypocritical, and without honor. Tbe women in a measure are free, but are lookt down upon as inferior beings who in a past existence obtained but little merit, and were th erefore born females. As they are not allowed to enter the merit-making priesthood, their future existence will probably be in the form of a dog, a snake, {L pig, or a buffalo. The people live in small bamboo houses, generally of one room with a bal- • All th e people of northern Slam were called Lao by the Siamese, but strictly speaking the name is only properly applied to tpe people of Looung Prabang and the lower Mas. Kong region. The English term Laos h a s been used for all these northern peoples, and we have adopted it t o embrace all those who use the written character and the spoken language common to the people of our present mission stations.-W. A. B. A NATIVE LAOS HOUSE IN LAKAWN.
cony in front. 'fhese houses are windowless, and have but one door.
The floors are built a few feet from the ground, to avoid dampness and the floods of the rainy season. As a rule, the space under the floor is left open to accommodate the cattle, the pigs, and the poultry.
The principal food of the Laos is rice, and the chief industry is rice-farming. There being no other food produced to any extent, when the rice crop fails there is a famine; and when it fails for two or three years in succession, the extent and effects of the famine are indescribable.
In religion, the Laos divide their attention between Buddhism and Demonolatry. Buddhism recognizes no God, and no immortal soul or spirit in man. Its teachings hold the individual as supremely responsible only to himself. It professes to be merely a system of atheistic and rationalistic philosophy, according to which anything tending to a continuance of one's existence beyond the present life is wrong, and anything which tends to one's complete extinction after this present life is right. Activity is evil. To live by begging is righteousness. To humanely shorten the suffering of some poor brute is sin, for it may be one's grandmother. We hear a good deal about the brotherhood of religions. Here are some of the d~tlerence8 between Buddhism and Christianity: I Buddhism teaches passivity, and Christillonity teaches activity and t1!erefore encourages laziness. demands energy, work. Buddhism is an agnostic nega- Christianity is a positive revelativism. tion.
Buddhists speak of "entering Christianity requires one to be religion" (a change of residence). "possest of religion" (a change of heart). Buddhism tries to answer the question, .. vVhat can I do to inherit Christianity answers the queseternal extinction?" a question of tion, "What must I do to inherit its own asking. eternal life?" a question common to serious men and women the Buddhism neither recognizes, nor world over. attempts to supply the answer to the soul-cry of "every man that Christianity is God's incarnate cometh into the world." answer to that cry; seeking, sav- ing, satisfying. Buddhism stands off and says "Get out." Christianity comes down and says, "Come up higher."', Is it any wonder, therefore, that Buddhists everywhere have been driven to seek outside of Buddhism for that" something" which the soul may lean upon? Among the Laos, that" something" is Demonolatry. In reality the power of Demonolatry is far greater than that of Buddhist idolatry. The missionaries must meet both the theoristic philosophy of Buddha, and the subtler and more deeply entrencht systems of Demonolatry and fetichism. In open conversation Buddhism is quoted and offered for excuse; but the secret trouble in almost every case is the fear of, or the faith in, demons and witchcraft.
So much for the field in which the pioneer missionaries began to labor. At first there was the patient sowing, followed by a very small harvest. 'l'hen there was a long season of persecution, ending in the martyrdom of two Laos Christians. There was a brief lull, and then further persecution followed, until finally, in 1878, the present king of Siam issued a "Proclamation of Religious Liberty to the Laos."
f:)OME RESULTS 01<' MISSION WORK.
For sixteen years the original band of pioneers labored alone. Since then the force has been largely increast. From the first God's blessing has been evidenced, not by any sudden and intermittent periods of revival, hut by the gradual, steady growth in numbers and character of the native church. The following are some of the results: To-day we have 5 stations and 19 out-stations. There are 15 organized churches, with a total of 2,500 communicants. vVithin the past ten years the first church of Cheung Mai has received on profession of faith 1,162 adults. From this mother church 10 other churches have been directly organized, and its adult membership is still more than 700. Is that a good enough record for our critics of foreign missions? Did it pay to send missionaries to Cheung Mai ?
A theological training-school has been establisht. Eight Laos pastors have been ordained, and 3 men licenst, by the presbytery of Laos, Not one of these is receiving any pay from American funds. ",Ve have a force of evangelists, elders, dea- conesses, etc., trained for active Christian work. Only 2 of these have received any pay from Amer· ica this past y ear. The total sum appropriated by the board in ]898, for Laos church and evangelistic helpers, was less than $100.
Elementary school work is done in each station, much on the line of the Nevius plan. There a re 4 boarding-schools in the mission, with a total of over 300 scholars.
It is the exception for a girl or boy to graduate without having con- fest Christ. To-day there is grow- ing up a strong force of educated Christian young men and women, who are a lready entering enthusi- A LA uS BUDDHIST R I GH-PRIEST.
astically into active church work.
In the year 1897, almost every Christian family in Cheung Mai, whether or not they h a d children in school, contributed something to the support of the two Cheung Mai boarding-8chools; and of the entire expenses of the second term, more than one-half was defrayed by native contributions (salaries of missionaries, of course, excepted). The n ative contributions f o"r the o ne term w ere seven times as great as for both terms of any previous year_ Is there not here room for thought and generous, practical thanks- giving?
Hospital work and dis- pensa ry work are carried on in each station. The medical department of Cheung Mai Station is fully self-supporting_ Long stl'ides are being taken by the other stations in that direction_ We reach directly by this means some 15,000 people annually. In La,os, as in all other mission fields, this department has prov- ed its efficiency as a very essential missionary agency.
The Laos Christia ns are taking hold energet- ically of Christian En- deavorand Sabbath-school A LAOS CRRISTIAN PREACHER. work. As a result of the energy and perseverance of Dr. S. C. Peoples, a font of Laos type and a printing-press were sent to Cheung Mai seven years ago. To-day we have, printed in Laos, the following: The Gospels-Matthew, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles, Genesis, the Psalms, the Epistle of James, an Old 'restament' History, a Life of Christ, the Shorter Catechism, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a hymn book, * numerons small bo@ks and tracts; and, of secular school books, an arithmetic, a geography, four readers, an ancient history, and other smaller books. Sabbath-school and Christian Endeavor lesson leaves are printed monthly. The mission press is entirely self-supporting.
The church in America is not askt to support any feature of the work in Laos that the native church there can justly be expected to support at this stage of its development. More than that, the native Laos church is undertaking active work in the regions beyond. A small struggling church of fifty members (which has just finisht building a neat, cozy chapel without allY outside help) has contributed two months' support of a Laos minister, preaching the Gospel in French Laos territory, where, for the present, the missionaries are encouragrd by French officials not to go. A small Christian Endeavor Society ill Laos is assuming partial support of an evangelist at work in the French Laos field. A Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of fifteen members gave of their poverty thirty rupees in one year, sufficient to pay the expenses of a native minister for two months in evangelistic work.
At the annual mission meeting for 1897 the following resolution was adopted unanimously: "Resolved, That the misslon request the board for no appropriation for native ministers, licentiates, Bible women, and Sabbath-schools for the coming year."
Has it paid to send missionaries to the Laos of Northern Siam? Yes, truly; and yet a mere beginning has been made. Support from the church in America is needed more than ever before (1st) because of the necessity of emphasizing "Episcopal" oversight in the thorough upbuilding of the native church in the older stations, (2d) because of the new stations lately establisht, and (3d) because of the immense unevangelized Laos territory close by and beyond us.
* The advance edition of this hymnal which we have been using for three years contains 239 hymns. The complete edition, to be issued shortly, will contain over four hundred hymns, and will be accompanied by a collection of the choicest tunes familiar to the Church in America. This represents practically the work of one man. Six years ago we were without a single Laos hymn. One of our veteran missionaries had been urged to return to America, on account of physical suffering and almost continuous ill health. He struggled against what seemed to most of us a necessity. He struggled for four years, and during that time, besides being stated supply for the station church, he translated the Psalms and Genesis, revised a translation of Pilgrim's Progress, and composed or translated over four hundred hymns in the Laos language. Our veteran, Father .Jonathan Wilson, has lately returned to the Laos field, determined to be able to say with Paul, "I have fou~ht a good fi~ht."-W. A. B.
BENARES-THE MECCA OF HINDUISlIL
THE BURNING GHATS OF BENARES.
Here the bodies of tll" llIndu dead are burned on funeral pyres.
BENARES-THE MECCA OF HINDUISM.
BY MRS. MARGARET B. DENNING, NARSINGHPUR, INDIA. Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North).
Even after a residence of more than seven years in India; and with many experiences in different cities, Benares is a revelation of '
the possibilities of Hinduism. . -. .
The city lies on the banks of the magnificent Ganges, and facing the river is a perfect forest of temples, towers, bathing-ghats, and palaces. The various-colored stone of which they are built, the swarms of people in their many-tinted garments, the booths, the boats, the clear reflection of it all in the beautiful river, make a truly gorgeous scene of Oriental life.
Titular kings and queens, and a few real ones from all parts of India, come here, and each olle erects a temple to his or her favorite god or goddess, and also a palace, or mansion, in which to dwell during their sojourn in the sacred city. Here, too, they expect to come in their last days, to die on the banks of the great Ganges. Happy the man who dies in Benares, having his feet washt by the purifying stream as his soul leaves his body; then to be burned on its banks, and have his ashes carried away on the bosom of the river.
Many of the palaces are mere quadrangular piles of masonry, but many are really fine buildings, and enclose beautiful gardens. Near each palace is the temple built by the same devotee. The architecture is curious, ornate, and varied. Many temples are ornamented with pure gold. An elaborate, pinnated spire in different colorings was· often repeated. Around the base, and along the edge of the roof, numbers of small spires start out, first as bas-relief and then taper off : into graceful, separate spires, while again the bas-relief would begin. behind this row, and in turn taper off, and so on, until the spire in the· very center shoots up its graceful form, surrounded by symmetrical, alternate rows of spires, each row lower than the one nearer the center, down to the roof of the temple. Two of these spires, one in white and gold, and the other in dull green and brick red, with gold lines, were very pleasing to the eye.
In the city there is a double temple, whose exterior resembles that of a mosque. The domes are overlaid with thin plates of pure gold. Its interior is filled with almost innumerable idols-images of Gunpat, Parwati, the sacred bull; Siva, and the indescribable "ling," and many others. The whole scene was loathsome in the extreme. Swarms of people were going in and out of the temple, and up and down the narrow alleys leading to the temple. Each one going in was carrying a plate filled with flowers, rice, and little cups of oil and water, which form the offerings to the idols. Stalls of flower-sellers, oil and grain-venders blockt· the roads on either side. The water, oil, and flowers which fell on the pavement were trampled into a slimy paste, and as most of the flowers were marigolds, the odor was sickening. The temples in the crowded city, the idols, the deluded worshiping throngs, and, above all, the scenes along the river's edge, all proclaim superstition, impurity, vileness, a people given over to uncleanness and all abominations.
We spent most of our time in a boat going up and down the two miles of river front. The numerous ghiits are long flights of wide stone steps, reaching down below the water's edge. All day long, and most of the night, these great steps are literally covered with throngs of people, all eager to wash away their sins by a plunge into Mother Ganges. As one after another comes !lown into the river, they lift their folded, or outstrecht, hands, and,looking toward the far horizon, they breathe a prayer to the god of the waters. Some throw handfuls of the water over their heads as they repeat their mautras, or prayers. And the thought comes to us that this worship, and the throngs of people, have been like this for hundreds, even thousands, of years.
Oh! those generations old, Over whom no church bell tolled, Sightless, lifting up blind eyes To the silence of the skies, For the innumerable dead Is my soul disquieted!
One of the ghats is called" the burning ghat," and sitting in the boat, we watcht three or four bodies prepared for Hindu cremation. Whatever the rite of cremation may be elsewhere, here it partook only of the repulsive. The bodies are brought on bamboo stretchers, and are placed just inside the edge of the stream while the pyre is being made ready. This is the place where" suttee" used to be performed before English law put a stop to the cruel practise. One corpse was that of a man of about forty years of age. His widow, in the white garments of widowhood, came down to the water's edge, and dipping up some of the blest Ganges, poured it over the face of the dead. When the body was lifted on the pyre, she helpt to pile wood over it, and it was her hand that applied the torch. When the sickening crackling began, she went up the bank a little distance,· and at a gesture from a relative, perhaps a command also-for we were not near enough to hear-she pickt up a stone, and putting her hands alternately on the ground, she broke off the pretty glass bangles from her wrists, and walkt up the Dank, a desolate widow, done with pleasures, ornaments, and even respect, perhaps to endure treatment which wiII make her wish for the olden, sharper, but speedier death by suttee.
The dust of the burnings is strewn upon the beautiful stream, whose origin, according to Hindu mythology, is too revolting to mention. But in reality much of the body is not reduced to ashes, owing to the very primitive arrangements. Near one of the pyres we saw a gaunt Pariah dog gnawing away on the remains of a previous burning, and, on looking closely, we saw it was a human skull. This, my first view of a burning ghat, I hope may be my last.
Many strange and pathetic scenes were transpiring on all sides. The fakirs, or holy men, were to be seen everywhere-some at prayers, some in meditation, and some bathing.
A Brahman priest was leading a young woman into the water. We were told that he was giving her the holy bath. He dipt her up and down, mumbling incantations all the while. She placed the edge of his robe on her head every now and then, and the sad sight suggested temple practises such as Pundita Ramabai tells us go on in this great city of Hinduism and elsewhere in India. While we were still in the boat an old ascetic died, and we heard he was to be immediately lowered into the river instead of being burned. This is a privilege of this class of men, if they so desire.
'rhey tied large earthen pots to his arms and feet, and then rowing out into the stream a little way, while they blew an unearthly blast on a conch-shell, the disciples of the old devotee, laughing and chatting with apparent unconcern, tumbled the skeleton-like form overboard, and turning the" chatties," so they filled with water, the remains were soon out of sight beneath the water.
In a garden, neal' the monkey temple, we saw an old man, Shri Swami Bhar-karanand Sarasvati by name, who is supposed by his austerities to have attaincd to the state of deity. As we entered the garden in the chill of the early January morning, we saw the thin old man, on an upper veranda, in a state of nudity. He hastily donned a half yard of clothing. his robes of state, as it were, for he only dons it for the reception of visitors, and came down the rose-bordercd walk to meet us. To Ollr surprise, he took our hands in a friendly grasp. Then he presented us with a little book, containing a short sketch of his life, and a long list of noted and unnoted foreign visitors who have come to see him. He inquired all about us-our work, residence, and so on-and then bidding us be sure to see his own marble image in a little shrinil on the other side of the garden, he smiled, salaamed, and he did not ask for bakshish, and for that reason, if no other, we shall never forget Shri Swami, the holy man of BenareEi. We saw the statue, done most exquisitely in pure white, glossy marble, with the eyes painted to exactly simulate life. People from far and neal' come to bow down and worship this saint's image.
We have seen Benares! To some extent we can comprehend the first clause in verse 5 of lsa.lvii, and we can realize the necessity for some of the awful punishments meted out to idolaters in Bible times. We can give but a glimpse of Hinduism, with its multitudinous gods and its evil effects on mind, heart, and body of man. The worst we see we dare not write, and we can never know the worst as it really exists. But in spite of all this dark picture, India is arising from the slough of superstition, for her light has come. 'rhousands of her idols have been crusht, and even into dark Benares the beneficent rays are piercing, and some day, not very distant, the ashes of the idols in this city shall strew the beauteous river, and her inhabitants shall drink of the" fountain of life," and bathe for cleansing in the river of the water of life, which proceedeth out of the throne of God and the Lamb.
ISLAM: IN CHINA
II.-MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
ISLAM IN CHINA.* BY REV. EDWARD SELL.
The first Mohammedans who came to China were Arab merchants. It is said that commercial relations with Arabia existed before the time of Mohammed. Four of the Companions of the Prophet brought presents to the emperor, and were allowed to settle in Canton, where they built a mosque called the "Holy Remembrance." This would give as the date of the first Moslem mission to China the latter part of the seventh century. The Khalif Valid, in the early part of the eighth century, advanced his victorious army to the frontiers of China. The general of his army demanded, and received, tribute from the emperor. In the year 755 A. D. a band of 4,000 Moslem soldiers came from Khorasan to the aid of the emperor, and in return for their services were allowed to settle in various towns in China. In 794 A. D. Harlm'r-Rashid sent ambassadors to China. The political relation thus entered into lasted for some centuries. In 1068 the Emperor Chin Tsoung appointed a Moslem to the oversight of the Arab strangers who came to Canton. This official distributed them in different places, and kept a register of their names.
Professor Vasilieff, writing in 1867, says that there were then in Peking alone 20,000 Moslem families, containing 100,000 persons, and that there were 11 mosques in that city. Another writer, in 1873, states that the Moslems were prosperous merchants, in a flourishing condition. Their present number is computed to be 20,000,000, scattered about in various parts of the empire. This is not an extraordinary number when we remember that some fourteen centuries have past since the first Moslems settled in the country, frequently in plague-stricken and deserted districts which they took possession of, and then increast their number by the purchase of children of indigent parents, and by marriages with Chinese women.
The Moslems are convinced that the future lies with them, and that, sooner or later, the religion of Mohammed will prevail in the extreme East, and replace the various forms of paganism. Professor V!1silieff is evidently of the same opinion, and views the position with much alarm.
The Moslems differ both in character and in physiognomy from the Chinese proper, and show clearly that they are a mixt race. The original source was the band of 4,000 soldiers who early settled in the country. Three centuries later, when the conquest of Genkhis Khan opened up a way of communication between the East and the West, many Syrians, Arabs, and Persians came to China. Some were merchants, some soldiers, and all more or less settlers. They were men strong in physique, active in habits, and they soon establisht themselves in the various localities in which they settled. They married Chinese women, and their descendants, the present mass of Chinese Moslems, bear markt traces of a foreign origin. The Moslem women, tho not so tall as the men, are, generally speaking, more robust and vigorous than the Chinese women.
As a race these Chinese Moslems unite the good and the bad qualities of the Chinese, the Arabs, and the Turks, tho they are less bigoted than the latter. They prefer the occupation of arms and commerce to the *Condenst from the Church Missionary Intelligence,', February, 1899.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
cultivation of the arts and sciences. They are very clannish, and are reputed to be honest. Owing to this unity which binds them together, and also to the concessions they make to the PTejudices of the Chinese people, they enjoy the same rights and privileges as other subjects, and are not treated as a foreign body. They are agriculturists, artisaLls, mer- chants, and even officials, if they are qualified for such a position. They wear the Chinese dress-the long robe and the pigtail. Their mosques are not prominent buildings, and the minarets are kept low so as not to excite the 'superstition of the people. They assist at popular fetes, and contribute to things in which they have no special interest. Those who hold high official positions even go so far as to perform certain religious ceremonies connected with the state religion. In discussions with the learned on religious matters they are careful to say that they differ from Confucianism chiefly in matters of a personal nat~re, such as marriage and funeral rites, ceremonial ablutions, and the prohibition of pork, wine, and games of chance. The result is that Islam is lookt upon by the Chinese as a religion similar in many points to their own. A Chinese writer of the eighteenth century says: "The Arab religion prescribes for the worship of the Supreme that which Confucius did for the Chang-Ty, and borrows from Buddhism what concerns prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and certain religious ceremonies."
The government has, as a rule, shown itself favorable to Islam, and at differentiJeriods has issued decrees to the effect that Islam has a good object, that it observes natural and social laws, and that the differences it presents to other religions only concern simple questions of national usage. The Chinese Mussulmans, thus allowed freeq.om in the exercise of their religion, have lived in the same way as the other inhabitants of the country. They submit to the same charges, enjoy the same rights, yet whilst casting in their lot with the other subjects of the empire have, as regards their religious position and their personal laws, remained a dis- tinct community. * .
The majority of the Chinese Moslems are Sunnis of the Hanifa sect.
The main dogmas of the orthodox creed are in agreement with their coreligionists elsewhere; but in speculative and philosophical questions they have been influenced by Buddhist and Confucian teaching. Living isolated for twelve centuries, in the midst of idolaters, and under a sus- picious government, the prejudices of which had to be duly considered, deprived of all facilities for reinvigorating their faith at the sanctuaries of their ancient saints, they have cultivated a humbler and more tolerant spirit; than is common among Moslems in other Eastern lands.
They have never been able in China to assert with boldness that Islam is the one, absolute religion, outside of which there is no salvation.
They have enjoyed equal civil rights with others, and have held official positions, involving conformity to certain national laws and customs con- trary to the spirit of Islam, and necessitating the close study of certain philosophical doctrines alien to the teaching of Mohammed. The result is that a certain laxness in practise has been permitted, and that the *The Chinese term for Moslem, given about the thirteenth century, is Roey·Roey, or Hoey-Tsee, which means "return and submission," in accordance with the verse in the Koran which says, "Verily, we are God's, and to Rim shall we return." The Mohammedans call themselves Mouminin (believers), and Moslemin. The name given to the religion is Roey- Roey-Kiao, or Tsin-Tching-Kiao, the true and pure religion. This latter name was formally authorized by the emperor in 1335 A. D.
ISLAM IN CHINA
dogmatic system has been influenced by philosophic ideas taken from other religions.
The Mohammedans believe in the salvation of Moslems only; but the Chinese Mohammedans say that of non-Moslems one man in a thousand and one woman in ten thousand will receive salvation. They further teach that as Eve was created from a bone taken from the left side of Adam, and as the left side is inferior to the right one, women are worse than men.* They tempt men to neglect religious duties and lead them astray. Women are said to love three things only-those who flatter them, their pleasure, and their own children.
The Chinese Moslems hold that all physical actions are the result of immutable decrees of God, that moral acts depend on the will of the individual, who is free to choose. Each man is born with a different natl}re, but, whatever that nature may be, he does not the less possess the faculty of thinking and acting according to his own will, subordinate to the power of God.
As regards their relation to the state, Chinese Moslems inculcate loyalty to the emperor, and conform to certain practises of the state religion. That religion is made up of certain rites and ceremonies performed by the emperor and the functionaries who undertake the duties of priests. Sacrifices are offered to propitiate the superior powers. The public officials have to take part in these observances. The Moslem functionaries, tho they regard the whole thing as ridiculous and superstitious, conform to the law in their own interest and in that of their own community. They know that such concessions to paganism are absolutely opposed to the iconoclastic system of Islam, but they yield to the temptation, and hope that under the peculiar circumstances of the case they may receive pardon.
The Chinese Moslems prohibit the use of tobacco, but opium-smokers are numerous among them. Gambling and games are illegal, but they evade this by saying that the prophet only forbade games of hazard, and allowed draughts and chess, which depend on the skill of the player. As a matter of fact, dice, cards, and betting at cockfights are common, and the Moslems equally with other Chinese are gamblers. Musical instruments must not be used in private or in public. Vocal music also is improper, tho passages from the Koran may be chanted at the time of prayer. Dancing is altogether wrong. It is also forbidden to make statues of men or figures of animals; but photographs are allowed.t Astrology, divinations, magic, and all calculations based on auguries and dreams, are utterly condemned. In this respect the Moslems have not fallen under the spell of the Chinese custom and practise in these matters. Among themselves they use the ordinary Moslem salutations, but to outsiders they use the form common to all.
Education is regulated partly by the Islamic law; and partly by the state system. At the age of four years, four months, and four days, a lad begins to read the Koran by rote. When he is about seven years old his general education begins. The mosque schools are adapted to this purpose, and the Chinese, Arabic, and Persian languages are taught. This education is carried on till the young man is twenty-one years old.
• Another form of this tradition used against female education is that the bone, being a rib bone, was bent, and so the disposition of woman is by nature crooked, and any attempt by education to improve it is clearly contrary to the natural order of things.
t It is sometimes said that as the sunlight does this and not man, this pictorial representation of the human form does not come under the prohibitive law. .
MiSSIONARY bWElST bEPA"R'l'MElN1'
Later on, provided he passes the necessary examinations, he can enter the service of the state. If the lad is to devote his life to some manual trade the course of education is different. Girls do not receive a general education.
The books composed and publisht by the Chinese Moslems are not sold publicly, owing to the suspicious character of the government and the prejudices of the literary classes. It is said that the first Mohammedan book publisht in Chinese appeared in 1642, and that was written in order to show the points in common between Islam and Confucianism.
From the above statements it will be seen that Moslems in China possess much religious liberty, but that they purchase this by conforming to pagan practises and ceremonial, and by a subserviency to the prejudices of the state officials and of the literary classes, in a manner not usual among their 'coreligionists in other lands. As regards their dogmatic beliefs they may be classed as orthodox Moslems, but they are certainly lax and time-serving in their conduct and relation to others of an alien faith. Now and again they have broken out into rebellion, but it seems very doubtful whether a body of men, who for many centuries have conformed to customs repugnant to the true Moslem, can ever become the political force which, it is said, Russia fears they may become, or are at all likely to prove a hostile power in the future developments of the Chinese empire.
WORK FOR THE PRISONERS AND EX-CONVICTS.* BY MRS. BALLINGTON BOOTH.
The first aspect of prison life that strikes one who enters within the doors is its cut-offness from the world outside. The man who has friends who still care for him may receive a stated number of visits a year, when, for a few minutes, he talks with wife or mother or friend in the guardroom, and he is allowed to write one letter a month, and to receive letters twice a week. To him there is, therefore, still this little bridge between his cell and the world from which he has been banisht. To many, however, there does not exist this link-no friends have they to call on them, and the deliverer of letters-passes their cell every week for years without stopping to hand a message through the bars to them. Stern discipline, loneliness, long hours of work, a narrow little cell, with just room enough for a stool and a bed, with a thick-barred door through which the light falls, flankt with shadows as a constant reminder of confinement-these, in part, make up prison life. The felon of wealth, and the poor prisoner from the slums, may march next each other in the lock-step, and occupy adjacent cells on the gallery, for to all intents and purposes they are alike now. The striped dress, close-cropped hair, the utter stripping off of all comforts, have a leveling influence.
The awfulness of prison life lies in the memories of the past; the dismal contrast between home and prison cell; the longing for loved ones, whose hearts are aching, away out of reach; the knowledge that the wretched companionship of misery must be theirs, in the weary round of prison toil from morning till night, for the long years ahead, which seem interminable. Above and beyond all this, prisoners have th'l bitter realization of the brand that has fallen upon them never to be removed- "Condenst from The Ladies' Horne Journal for February, 1899.
WOltK FOlt 'rHEl PltlS0NERS AND EX-CONVICTS
"convicts"-that they are degraded before the public, and will be lookt upon forever as accursed.
Upon many men imprisonment tells terribly. The nervous strain, the heartache, the close confinement often breaks down the strongest man, and he returns to the world a wreck of his former self, while in his pallid face, his stuttering accents, his halting walk, and his furtive, haunted look, we can read something of the much he has suffered, and surely, whatever his crime, however dark the past, we should pity him, and whisper, "Go in peace and sin no more."
The movement to help these men begin anew the battle of life, after they have been liberated, as well as to help them while in prison, started in Sing Sing prison, at a service in' the chapel on Sunday, May 24, 1896. Never shall I forget that first meeting. It was a scene that painted itself in unfading colors on the minds of many there present. The pale spring sunshine flickered through the barred windows, the guards in their blue uniforms stood lined up against the wall and at the doors, while every seat was filled with the men, all clad i1) the striped garments, set apart from their fellow-men, and yet each bearing his own burden, and having behind and before him the retrospect and prospect of his own individual life with its sorrow and its need.
As I stood on the platform of that prison chapel, looking down upon the sea of faces-between nine hundred and a thousand of them-a new revelation of the great wide field they represented dawned upon my life. The mark of suffering, hopelessness, and despair could be seEm deeply stampt on many of them, and as the awfulextent of the need dawned on me, and the heartache seemed to surge up from them to my own soul, I broke down, and the picture became blurred and indistinct.
Perhaps my tears meant more to my audience than my words that day, for many a man wept who had long been unused to weeping, and the chords of sympathy and confidence were struck between us, so that from that hour they accepted me into their lives, and I undertook my new mission as one direct from the God to whom the prisoner's cry has reacht, and been heard in all its bitterness. From that day, little by little, the work has grown, and become organized and systematized. We commenced with chapel meetings, and with correspondence, then came the need for interviews with those who wrote to us.
As men took their stand for a new, right life, it became necessary to have some kind of organization, and we formed what is now known as the "Volunteers' Prisoners' League." In each prison the V. P. L. Post has its own standard, and very proud they are of the pure white flag, with its blue star of hope, and the motto of our league that shows up plainly on the snowy field in crimson letters, "Look Up, and Hope."
The work has spread from prison to prison until it has become firmly establisht in eight of our large State prisons, and over three thousand members have been enrolled in the league. I have had the warmest assu-:>ances from the wardens and chaplains of our prisons as to the beneficial effect on the prison popUlation at large, as well as the wonderful change wrought in many individual lives. By no means the smallest factor of this work is the fact that it is bringing hopefulness in where there was nothing but despair.
Two outside branches of work naturally grew from this league within the walls. The first was the hunting up, cheering, and helping of the families of those in prison. Noone on the outside can form any idea
MiSSIONARY bIGEST bEPARTMENT
of the anguish, suspense, and misery men in prison suffer as the news reaches them of the sickness, want, or danger of loved ones on the out- side. I have had letters from men written in the first glimmering of the dawn at their cell doors, after a night of pacing back and forth in the narrow cells, with hearts breaking and brains reeling at the vision of a dying child's face, or the news of a wife out of work being driven to ruin as a means of support for herself and little ones.
Sometimes we are called upon to find parents for the son who has lost track of home and for years sent them no message; sometimes the relieving of a family on the point of eviction, having failed in the struggle to make ends meet after the breadwinners were gone, and at other times the reconciling of husband and wife" who had been estranged. I am in correspondence with mothers, wives, sisters, and children of prisoners all over this country, and in some instances in foreign countries.
The last, but perhaps the most important, branch of work which we have set on foot is that which stretches out the helping hand and gives the needed shelter to prisoners after their discharge from State prison. One can gather no idea of the difficulties which beset their paths; or of the constant rebuffs, disappointments, and suspicions that meet and thwart them in their efforts to do right. Happy the man who has a loving mother to whose home he can turn for shelter, or a wife who has stood by him with devoted loyalty. But what of the many" boys" who are homeless and motherless? Their money is soon spent. Employment is well-nigh impossible to find, and in the strangeness of the rush and turmoil of a world that pauses not to give them a thought or a word, they drift aimlessly and despairingly until hope deserts them. To such "Hope Hall" has proved, indeed, a haven of rest. We have made the place as homelike as possible, robbing it of any likeness to an institution. No one is allowed to visit it. No prying eyes can wound the sensitive, no publicity make them feel the memory of the stripes and lockstep. Situated in a countrified part of New York City, it has a garden to be cultivated, cows and horses to be cared for, and household duties enough to keep everyone busy. The building of the barn, the painting of the house, the cooking for the big family, laundry work, and all else is done by the men themselves. We can accommodate forty-eight men at a time, and already several hundred have past through its doors, graduating again into a new life, and to positions either found for them by us or procured in their own energetic search after work.
Perhaps the following incident concerning the first "boy" who entered" Hope Hall" will serve to show just how we can help men in the direst extremities through having such a place to prove their shelter when most beset with temptation and discouragement: I was busy in my office one morning, when a very urgent request to see me was brought in by my secretary, who added that my visitor was from "up the river." As he entered I noted at a glance that he was one of those who had learned long and hard the bitter lessons of crime's teaching. I rose to meet him and led him to a chair· by my desk, and tried by my hand-grip and smile to reassure and make him understand my sympathy. Bit by bit his sad story came out-and it was indeed a sad story.
He had been a burglar and highway robber for many years, and had served several terms in prison, and had hardened his heart against the hope of anything better in store for the future. He did not attend chapel, but from other prisoners he nad heard of my message and deter-, mined to have one more try to be honest. On leaving prison, not know-
JAPANEiSE LECTUREiS AGAiNST CHRISTIANiTY
ing me personally, he did not come to us, but tried to fight his unequal battle against circumstances. First, he hunted for work in New York, but, failing utterly, went down to Long Island and secured work at erecting telegraph poles. At this, however, he broke down through physical inability; tho a big, strong-looking man, a dread disease had its cruel hand on his lungs.
He had returned to New York to hunt for work once more, ineffectually, and then had utterly given up hope. In this dark hour came the enemy to tempt, and there being no stronger power within to lift up the standard against the inflowing flood of evil and bitterness, he determined that night to resort to the old way of gaining a living. Getting a revolTer and a handful of 38-caliber cartridges (that still lie in one of my drawers at the office), he made a sand-bag, and at nightfall went out to waylay some victim. In the lonely shadows of that night he fought again his battle between good and evil. Once more the words of hope came back to his mind, and by and by his good angel returned and withheld his hand from the doing of violence, guiding him to us in the morning, weak, faint, and weary, to surrender his weapons and ask for our friendship. He became the first inmate of "Hope Hall."
Diligently and faithfully did he work at getting" Hope Hall" ready for the others who were to come. He was so thanlrful for everything done for him, so relieved and happy over the new life that was opening out before him, that the old, hopeless, dejected look soon wore away. After he had found Christ as his Savior the change in him was wonderful, and no one could have believed him to be the same man. He was with us one year, having special duties assigned him. Tho his health was failing rapidly he became very ambitious to go out and test his strength at some employment. He became motorman on one of the cars in New York, and when the end came it was quite sudden, but a few days illness serving as his passage from the world that so grudgingly gives an ex-prisoner a chance, to the Heaven where all must wear the same white robes, and where no one will be asked, "What have you been? Where have you come from?" but where all shall be welcome who bear on their foreheads a new name and on their lips a new song.
Into "Hope Hall" we welcome all who come to us from State prison desiring to lead a better life-Protestants or Catholics, Jews or infidels.
The only two requirements are that they must have served one or more terms in State prison, and must be earnestly determined to lead honest lives. Some of our men are first-offenders, some have served five or six terms in prison, but we are just as hopeful for the latter as the former, and in many, many instances they are now living such lives as to justify our confidence in their sincerity.
Before us lies a great field-a need that makes itself felt in every State-a problem whose ghastly proportions loom up before us, and will not be downed by the selfish shifting of responsibility or the convenient theorizing as to the uselessness of efforts for its solution.
JAPANESE LECTURES AGAINST CHRISTIANITY.* BY REV. H. V. S. PEAKE, KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN. Missionary of the Reformed Church in America.
Having occasion in November to spend a few days in Nagasaki, and seeing notice of some lectureR by a Buddhist, one of whose objects was to urge the rejection of Christianity, I attended two nights in succession. From six to eight hundred men, representing merchants, students, and mechanics, gathered in a large theater and took a lively interest in the proceedings. The lecturer represented Shin-shu, the most numerous sect of Japanese Buddhists, and directed his argument and ridicule against Christianity. two modern mongrel cults, Tenrikyo and Remmonkyo, and * Condenst from The Independent, February 9, 1899.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
against Nichiren-shu, another Buddhist sect. The audience greatly appreciated his ridicule of the two mongrel cults and the Nichiren-shu. They caught the points quickly, and showed plainly how strongly their sympathies lay with the speaker. The different subjects were posted back of the stage, and ran somewhat as follows: " Christianity is a kind of Ghost-story_" ~'Tenrikyo is a Know-nothing." "The Doctrines of the Nichiren Sect are Dead Things." "Christianity Works Great Harm to Japanese Institutions." "The Priests of the Nichiren Sect Lure their Believers to Hell." "Concerning the Beneficent Influence of Buddhism on Society." "The Nichiren Sect Should be Ostracized," etc., etc.
An entire hour was devoted to the consideration of Christianity as a Ghost-story. Ridicule was the weapon, and the speaker, beginning at Genesis, gave us man created like a mud doll, and Jehovah, the architect of Noah's ark, a box-like craft whose lines would disgrace the ingenuity of a Japanese schoolboy. He wondered who sounded to find the exact depth of water that is stated to have covered Mt. Ararat; said that the man who wrote Genesis labored under the delusion that Ararat was the highest mountain in the world, wherein again the Japanese schoolboy was superior, and after a few other references, ended with the oft-quoted verses concerning a man set at variance against his father, the daughter against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, etc., wherein he claimed Christianity teaches unfiliality.
The second night he began by likening Christianity to the deadly cholera bacillus that must not for an instant be allowed to find a lodging place. He referred to the doctrine of future punishment. Their highnesses, the emperor and empress, are not believers, and Christians ruthlessly consign them to hell with ordinary unbelievers, while Buddhism offers a final way of happiness even to those who do not attain to the perfection of Buddha in this life. People in America can not estimate the intense feeling such words as these produce in Japan. Again, some Christians forbid the use of liquor and tobacco, principal sources of revenue, thus agitating against the country's temporal prosperity. Their real object is to play into the hands of foreign importers of wine and leaf tobacco.
Christianity inveighs against the honoring (or worshiping) of ancestors, heroes, and even the Buddha. Christians evade, on religious pretexts, putting up festoons and contributing money at the time of popular festivals. This wicked religion teaches that there is a duty .first to God, then to native country. This leads ultimately to affiliation with a foreign country in case of war. This would be eminently true in the case of members of the Russo-Greek Church. History goes to show that evangelization is but a first step toward conquest. In the speaker's mind, Christ was punisht simply and solely because he was a traitor. All Christians are traitors whose object is to found republican institutions like those of the United States and France.
In the introduction to his lectures the speaker referred to the fact that from July, 1899, foreigners may reside freely in any part of the country. Merchants will come from Christian countries, and missionaries, with both hands full of Bibles, will be more than ever a menace to our national purity. This, he said, is the reason why Buddhist speakers are traveling everywhere holding such meetings. "Now is the time to prepare for the dire day when this deadly Christian cholera bacillus will be entirely free to carryon his ravages. Buddhism is the carbolic acid, the antiseptic, with which to combat this. Let us awake and exert ourselves to the utmost."
THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF HAWAIl
THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF HAWAII.* BY REV. J. LEADINGHAM, HONOLULU.
According to the census of 1896, the population of the Hawaiian islands was divided as follows: NATIONALITY. 39,50l RELIGION. 24,4()7 Hawaiian and part Hawaiian……… 21.616 Protestants ……………………….. 23,273 Jap"neset.. .. …… …. …….. .. ….. 15,191 Roman Oatholicst……… , ………… 26,363 Ohinese………………………….. 8,302 Mormons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 4,886 Portuguese………………. Oonfucianists,Euddhists and Shintoists 44,000 Other nationalities. ….. .. . .. … ….. Others ……………………………. 10,498 Total. …….. : …………. 109,020 Total. ………………….. 109,020 It is well known that the evangelization of the Hawaiian Islands was accomplisht by missionaries of the American Board. It may not be so generally understood that when this board withdrew from control it was succeeded by the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, whose board is now the agency for directing missionary operations. At present this board renders advice and oversight to all of the fifty or more Hawaiian churches, and, in many cases, this is supplemented by financial aid. It also supports, in whole or in part, eleven mission stations among the Japanese, and is the mainstay of three Chinese and two Portuguese missions. A beginning has been made toward opening up religious work among the remote and scattered communities of Americans and other whites. As the country develops, one of its greatest opportunities is likely to be found in the religious needs of such communities. The Hawaiian Board also gives aid to the theological school in Honolulu, in which pastors are trained for the Hawaiian and some of the other fields, and several schools for girls are under its care. Besides the local work, this board supports native Hawaiian missionaries in the Gilbert Islands, and is the agent of the American Board in the administration of its affairs in that and other parts of Micronesia.
It will appear from this that the relations which the Hawaiian Board sustains to the religious needs of t,hese islands especially are very impor- tant. Historically and practically it is the organization best fitted to lead in the development of religious life here, and with a generous support from the prayers and material resources of its friends for the next decade or so, it can easily hold the key t.o the situation. Just now, however, it stands face to face with large opportunities and likewise serious obstacles; and the form of Christianity which shall prevail here in t.he fut.ure is quite likely to be determined in a degree by the success with which the board is able to meet the demands upon it during the immediate future.
Opportunities are now opening up in the shape of new fields at home.
In addition to the stations already establisht among the various nation- alities here, there are other strategic points among each of them at which evangelists and teachers could be placed to great advantage, if the means for doing so were at hand. This is especially true of the communities of whites which are now beginning to be formed in different places. These are important, because they should in the natural course of events swell the constituency which supports the missionary work among the less favored races.
There are also serious difficulties to be met and overcome in the *From the Missionary Herald.
t Now about 35,000. ~ More than half of these are Portuguese.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
Hawaiian Islands. There is just now a singular state of apathy and indifference to spiritual things among the Hawaiians. The natural in~olence of the Hawaiian's disposition will always be a leading factor in explaining such a condition. Recent political issues have also been used by many to embitter the minds of the natives against their best friends. A general spirit of worldliness on the part of many of the foreign population has likewise its depressing effect. To all these influences is to be added that of the use of intoxicating drink. This is debauching and ruining the nations by scores and hundreds.
Heathenism is also a foe which Christianity must still encounter here. Besides the lingering remnants of Hawaiian heathenism is that which is imported from China and Japan. Shinto and Buddhist priests are active in the support of their faith among the Japanese laborers in some places in the islands. It is no uncommon sight to see a hack loaded with Chinamen, having with them a roasted pig, on their way to the cemetery to pay their homage to their dead ancestors.
Such obstacles will be overcome only by patient, determined effort. We have now a stable government, and the country will henceforth be free from the distractions and animosities of revolutions. A well-ordered system of education in the government schools, conducted wholly in the English language, will in time do its part in enlightening and amalgamating the different races on the basis of a common language. There is also a body of people here who have a sincere and prayerful interest in the welfare of the country, and who give generously of their means to aid in its spiritual advancement. The great need of the islands to-day is that this body be increast.
RECE~T ARTICLES ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS.
AFRICA-Unoccupied Fields of Africa, The Christian and Missionary Alliance (February); History of Missions in Sierra Leone, Rev. Chas. Marks, Work and lVorkers (February); Missionary Work in Delagoa Bay, The Mission Field, British (February).
AMERICA-Home Life Among Alaska Eskimos, Mrs. Harrison Thornton, Cong"egational Work (February); The Red Indian of To-day, Geo. B. Grinnell, Cosmopolitan (March); Reform of the Indian Service, Herbert Walsh, Assembly Herald (February); Syro-Arabians in the United States, Isabel F. Hapgood, The Independent (February 16); A Sermon in a Saloon, J. B. Hamilton, The Independent (February 23); The Regeneration of Cuba, Geo. Kennan, The Outlook (March 4); The Reconcentrados of Cuba, W. R. Lamberth, Review oj Mi.•sions (February); The Church in Cuba, E. S. Houston, Catholic World (March); The Conditions of Puerto Rico, Wm. Hayes Ward, American Review oj Reviews (March); Missions in Mexico and Guatemala, Woman's Work for Woman (March); The Negleded Continent, Christian and Missionm'Y Alliance (March).
CHINA, JAPAN, AND KOREA-Recent Remarkable Events in China, BaptistMissionary Magazine (March); Some Sober Elements in the Situation in China, Robert E. Speer, Sunday School Times (February 11); The Reform Movement in China, Rev. Wm. Ashmore, D.D., Baptist Missionm-y Review (January); The Truth About the Chinese Emperor, Pashih Kin, Worldwide Magazine (March); The Empress Dowager of China, Henry Biodget, Missionary He"ald (March); The Japan of 1898, The Japan Evangelist (January); Present State of Thought in Japan, S. H. Wainwright, Review of Missions (February); Buddhism as it is in Japan, D. S. Spencer, Review of Missions (February); Country Evangelistic Work in Japan, C. K. Harrington, Baptist Missionary Review (February); The Agitation in Korea, H. G. Appenzeller, World Wide Missions (March); The Spirit of Independence in Korea, R. E. Speer, The Independent (March 2).
INDIA AND BURMA-Tribes, 'Clans and Castes of Nepal, Indian Evangelical Review (January); Among the Burmese, Woman'. Missionary F,-iend (March).
ISLANDS-Philippine Types and Characteristics, American Review of Reviews (March); Exploration in the Caroline Islands, F. W. Christian, Geographical Journal (February); The Races of Malaysia, R. W. Munson, Medical Missions (March); Samoa, The Missionary (Feb.).
MORMONISM-Presbyterian ;lIissions among Mormons, ·Gen. John J. Eaton, Assembly Herald (February); Woman's Life in Utah, Ruth Everett, The Arena (February).
RUSSIA AND SYRIA-Russia as a World Power, Chas. A. Conant, North American Review (February); Contending Religious Forces in Syria, H. H. Jessup, Mission World (February).
GENERAL-The Missionary Outlook, A. H. Bradford, Biblical World (February); What the Bible Societies have done for Missions, Paul Richter, Mission World (February); The Student Movement at Home and Abroad, A Symposium, Review of Missions (March); The Missionary as a "Buffer State," Wm. M. Upcraft, Baptist Missionary Review (January); Self-Nutrition in Native Churches, Wm. Ashmore, Chinese Recorder (January). III.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Qualifications of Missionaries. Europe, "went out into the forest wilderness, amid wild robber BY REV. R. P. MACKAY, B.A. hordes, swarming with wild beasts, unhealthy and fever-breeding; with We tried to make room for all of their own hands reared for themthe admirable paper read before selves huts, cleared and cultivated the Missionary Officers' Conference the soil, and, when the harvest in January last, by Rev. R. P. failed or fish in the brooks failed, Mackay, B.A., Secretary of the they lived on bark and weeds and Foreign Missions Committee of the the small fruit that grew in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, forest." but are compelled to merely select from its closing paragraphs. After Making due allowance for discussing the need of spirituality changed conditions at home and as a fundamental qualification for abroad, and for the fact that only missionary service, and the need of the most noticeable names are rea definite call thereto, and then the ported in history, is there still educational qualifications requisite, ground for the view that the spirit unless under exceptional cases, he of heroism in missions is subsiding, proceeds as follows: [J. T. G.] that in order to give point and in- terest to mission addresses, the We would venture in the fourth same old incidents are retold, and place to name enthusiasm, or at these not by any means from the least a capacity for enthusiasm, as, lives of missionaries of the last deif not indispensable, at least ex- cade? tremely desirable. Where would science be were it not for the en- It may be that the shelter of thusiasm of Galileo, Newton, Dar- Christian powers is making marwin, or Edison? Where would the tyrdom, in its primitive sense, im- Reformation be but for the en- possible, even to those who might thusiasm of Wyclif, who braved seek it, and that the increase of death that he might give England wealth has taken the virtue out of the Bible? or of Luther, who stood extreme self-denial and poverty, single-handed against Charles V. yet genuine enthusiasm will find and Leo X., against Germany and its own expression and its own the Papacy combined? It was the crucifixion too. Would the men enthusiasm of Paul that overcame who followed Columba to Scotland, the triple alliance of Jewish bigotry, or Columbanus to Gaul, or Ansker Greek intellectualh,m, and Roman to Scandinavia, if living to-day, be satisfied with simply offering their materialism. This enthusiasm is names to a board, and, when told divine. It came like a breath from that there were no funds, turn heaven, and set men on fire. Col- away feeling that their whole duty liding with the world they fell, but was done? Would they not rather their fall was the rising of the na- feel that the financial is only one tions. Hence as has been said, of the many problems to be solved, "The world's progress has been and solved by the same Power, from scaffold to scaffold, and from that their call is by One to whom belong the cattle on a thousand stake to stake! " hills, the silver and the gold, and Is there as much, it may be, and that His call must be obeyed?
has been, askt, of this enthusiasm in missions and missionaries now as in former years? We I'ead that the Irish and Scotch missionaries who evangelized the continent of Does this enthusiasm still exist? ence at home and abroad, impress We answer "Yes," but, whether on my mind more and more the iJl the same degree as in former need of a clear elucidation of those times or not, certainly not in the fundamental divine thoughts upon degree the occasion demands. Is which we ostensibly base our apit that the Church at home is peal for men and money to spread "neither cold nor hot," and that as the Gospel to the nations. The the parents, so are the children? weakness of the modern movement Or has there crept in a misgiving, in missions-or the lack of that a shade of doubt as to the need- eminent success which should the lost condition of the heathen? crown so enormous an enterprise, To the apostle the heathen were backt by such powers, human and without hope and without God, divine-is to be sought largely in aliens from God and the enemies of the want of a candid study and a God; and his vivid perception of practical application of the princiwhat that means made enthusiasm ples with which the apostles startglow, consumed him with zeal that ed, upon which the work. of God by any means he might save some. ought to be based to-day. The The missionary needs a clear vision fundamental ideas on which God that he may be able to fill up that intends to save the nations are just which is behind of the sufferings of as important as those by which He Christ-become poor that others justifies and sanctifies the individmay be rich. ual sinner, and may be just as readily learned from direct revela- There are other qualifications so tion and common-sense evolution apparent that they need not be of revealed thought wrought out in named, some of which are essential history. But the want of appreand others desirable, such as health, hension and scientific application ability to cooperate with others, of these principles often side-tracks freedom from racial pride, a bright the train along lines that, if not and cheerful temperament, power antagonistic to Christ principles, of adaptation to varying condi- are shoddy imitations of the mind tions, ability to lead, the construct- of the Master. And of all the inive faculty, etc. All are important genious devices of the devil to hinand not in goodly measure beyond der the work of God, none are so the possibility of attainment by effective as good imitations of the any of average gifts and conse- genuine article-on lines of princicrated life. "Prayer and pains," ples "good" enough for this world, said Eliot, "can do anything." but the direst enemy of "the best," Yes, anything that God will re- the divine-required for the cause quire at our hands. of God.
Basal Ideas in Missions. The tendency is to-day away from the central idea as exprest BY REV. C. S. EBY, D.D., VANCOU- and illustrated by Christ, around which the whole thought and effort VER, BRITISH COLUMBIA. of the apostles and early Church were concentrated, namely, the The missionary undertaking is a spiritual and the divine, and in its divine plan in human hands. The place the secular and the financial essential underlying ideas seem conditions are taken as the criteplain enough, the principles on rion of duty and limit of enterprise; which they are to be realized ap- an essential reversal of the Christ pear obvious. But, the passing idea. years and growth of varied experi- If we once get the great funda- management of universal affairs. mental outlines of our chart clearly We are told that He came that He drawn, the details will be easily might "destroy the works of the adjusted, as the ability of the devil." That will not be done until Ohurch and the development of He shows us how to turn the devil opportunities open the way for out of the world, redeemed by His taking possession of the land yet blood and bought for His inherit- to be conquered for our King, who ance, over which He shall reign in has undertaken to do so much for righteousness and without a rival. the human race, and has put the We are told that God made of one high honor into our hands of being blood all nations of the earth; they fellow-workers with Him in so are, if possible, still more one by glorious a cause, fellow-heirs of the the efficacy of the blood of the final triumph. What are these cross. For this purpose did He ideas? send forth His Holy Spirit to clothe the apostles and all really and THE DIVINE COMMISSION. equally consecrated believers with power from on high, transforming The scope of the divine commis- men and women into versions of sion is nowhere better exprest than the incarnate Word, flaming with in our Savior's words to the Apos- the same divine inspiration, each tles, astranslatedinthe RevisedVer- to the extent of his make-up, one sion: "Allauthorityhathbeengiven with the Ohrist ideal. The result unto me in heaven and on earth. was to be that in this practical age, Go ye, therefore, and make disciples this dispensation of the Spirit, the of all the nations, baptizing them Holy Ghost should be executive of into the name of the Father, and the Godhead, first making the of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Ohrist incarnate in His Ohurch, teaching them to observe all things then enabling Him to complete whatsoever I commanded you: and through His people the work He be- 10, I am with you alway, even unto gan to do while tabernacled in the the end of the world." The scope flesh. The Son of God claims equal of the mission evidently contem- authority as king in heaven and plates all the nations of the earth, upon the earth. He undertakes and will not be satisfied until the with His Ohurch to put in motion kingdoms of this world have be- a new set of operations to bring come the kingdoms of our God and the whole earth practically under His Ohrist, and humanity does the His sway, until His kingdom shall will of God on earth as it is done be as complete on earth as in in heaven. This is an enterprise heaven. worthy of God. This is the evolving thought of the Old Testament, For many years I have studied and the spiritual projection of the all sides of this question, and can New. This the trend of spiritual find no other satisfactory consumrevelation, the potency of ancient mation of this age according to the promise, the purpose of all sacred Bible, fulfiling its prophecies and history, to recreate the earth in its promises, than the evolution of righteousness. For this purpose a Ohristian society resulting in a was Ohrist born into the world, reconstruction of humanityaccordhead of a new type of humanity. ing to the mind of Ohrist, by means For this purpose did He live among of a complete and full appropriation men, teach, show His glory, glory of Ohrist's plan and provisions for as of the Only Begotten, suffer, die, such salvation of the world. Too rise again, and ascend to the head long has a defective theology and emasculated Christian experience Christ. They are sent forth to DISlimited the Holy One of Israel, and CIPLINE THE NATIONS. Nothing played into the hands of the enemy. less than that. The way they are Are the provisions of salvation too to do it is by teaching and baptizscanty to bring all this about along ing into the Name. lines already laid down? Is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as Reduced to its last analysis, the already revealed, too feeble for so divine ideal is to let loose on the" large a task? Is the Holy Spirit world men and women who have incompetent to work the Christ become like Christ. This idea was into so many human hearts? Will carried out in apostolic times, He tire of this task before it is com- Paul, the missionary, giving the plete? Not if it takes a million most illustrious example. years! The mind of Christ, in so far as The work of the Spirit, the relig- it could be taught by words, had to ion of Jesus, is it not a salvation be formulated into language to imunto the uttermost? Does it not part it to human minds. So theolreconstruct the individual and ogy grew. In order to efficient make him fit for angel society? If and combined work in carrying not, is it the fault of the plan or out the practical plans of divine provision of salvation? Where "disciplining," organization sprang such saved individuals have multi- into being. How much of our theplied, is there not a spot of "new ology is human thought, and how earth" begun? Are there not in- much divine? How much of our stalments of the heavenlies where organizations and church machinmen live together in Christ-spots ery is human politics, and how of the "new creation?" If not, much God's way of working? How whose fault is it? Is there not far are we carrying out the divine much more of heaven in Christian ideal? And how far is that divine lands, with all their defects, than ideal vitiated by the intrusion of in heathen lands? If this power the human element? an element should increase in more rapid ratio, which always neutralizes and hinand in profounder oneness with ders when developt beyond a cer- Christ's character in practical life, tain point. Church history is one would it not still more revolution- long series of records of the swampize society? You need nothing but ing of the divine element, gradually the mind of Christ in complete, reaching a vanishing point under practical working, to make the the accumulations of the human, earth a heaven. And you need which grew more and more, until nothing but this submission of the it eventuated in a human instituwill to the Holy Spirit to give every tion, divine only in name. And man the mind of Christ. how often graduated into an insti- tution run by the devil, clad as an "Go into all the world-preach angel of light! Then a reformation the Gospel to the whole creation- with new theology and newdenomdiscipline all the nations," was the inations, partially harking back to burden of Christ's command. That first principles, to repeat in a few is, men are sent forth, commanded years a similar history of degenerto bring about what God had ation. promist for ages. Men were sent forth filled with the Spirit, filled DENOMINATIONAL EFFORT. with the God-idea and the Godcharacter, and endued with the As translated by human methods God-power, to bring the world to to-day, and put into brief shape, the churches, to a large extent, understand the great commission to 9. To undertake work whe.re we mean a great denominational effort: are surest of having the quickest returns to place on statistical 1. To bring the largest number of records. people possible into fellowship with our denomination. Of course, there are exceptions to this type of practical translation 2. To bring the largest number of the Savior's command. But it possible to accept our type of is very easy to see how the human theology. element can grow more and more, and the divine grow less and less. 3. To have a comity of missions How easy it is to have all the form that will give us and our denomina- and machinery of missions, accom- tion the widest area possible and panied by much good work of godly free of competition. One man in men, and yet the whole business Japan sat in an island containing have in it very little of the divine 11,000 souls. In ten years he had idea, because the first great basal won eight converts, and protested thought of God is ignored in pracagainst another preaching t,here. tise, tho sounded forth from pub- lic platforms! How easy it is for 4. To make the missionary society the devil to sneak in and have a the right arm of the church. It hand in the management of affairs, arouses enthusiasm, and brings a while all on the surface is pious as a "reflex influence," making the parish beadle, smooth as a summer home church more successful. sea I 5. This society must be manned Gli:npses of Korea. by a strong secretary or secretaries, a good position for men who have R. A. HARDIE, M.D. won distinction anywhere but on Canadian Colleges Missions. mission fields, and deserve emoluments and honor. Then there must One of the most needy, but at the same be a strong committee, or commit- time most encouraging mission fields of totees, of men representative of va- day, is Korea, best known to most Westerrious places and church interests, ners as the cause, and in its beginning, the but whose least and last qualifica- scene of the late war between China and tion is a knowledge of outside Japan. evangelization. Korea is a peninsular kingdom 6. To raise money by every sort hanging down from the southof appeal, to be spent in detail by eastern border of Manchuria, but officials and committees who have separated from China proper by little direct knowledge of the work. the Yellow Sea. The Strait of Korea, 120 miles wide, intervenes 7. To select men who shall be between its southern extremity well pleasing to (1) the secretary, and Japan, while in the extreme (2) the committee, and (3) the northeast only the Tumen River church at large, who are then sent separates Korea from Russian Sias appointees of men, controlled in beria. The whole peninsula is exafter years as servants of a cor- ceedingly mountainous, a range poration by men often changing, indeed, the back-bone of which for who have no knowledge of their over 400 miles follows the east work. coast, then striking across the country, terminates in the ocean 8. These men to be appointed, on the southeast, its unsubmerged directed, withdrawn at the pleasure peaks forming the Korean Archiof officials, or according to the exi- pelago. Its territorial area of 00,- gencies of finances or other conditions, local and modern, which have no connection with their work or their personality. 000 sqUl,tre miles is a little more pared to festering cesspools. -Bethan half that of the Empire of fore the hottest weather sets in, Japan. It is just about the size of the windows of heaven are mercithe Island of Great Britain, being fully opened and all this deadly 600 miles in length and from 120 to putrefaction swept away. 200 miles wide. PRODUCTS. CLIMATE. The soil of Korea is everywhere Extending through eight degrees rich and fertile, but that in the of latitude, the mainland affords valleys, easily producing sufficifmt considerable variety of climate. for the wants of the people, is the An equatorial ocean current ren- only land tilled. 'Vheat, barley, ders the southwest warmer than it broom-corn, buckwheat, tobacco, would otherwise be and here cot- hemp, two or three vegetables, and ton is extensively grown. At in the more mountainous districts, Fusan, on the southeast, snow oats and the potato are cultivated. falls every winter, altho at sea Jfost of our fruits too are found, level it seldom lies longer than a but are very inferior in quality. few hours. At Wonsan, half way The principal productions however up the east, the thermometer rare- are rice and millet, forming the ly registers over 100 degrees Fahr- chief article of diet for the richer enheit in summer or falls lower and poorer classes respectively; and than two or three degrees below beans, which are boiled and fed to zero in winter; yet here snow may their cattle and horses. The forbe seen on the mountains for over mer are used for agricultural purfive months of the year, and rice is poses, but, notwithstanding the grown 150 miles farther north. meager diet of the natives, are Altho Korea is exactly on a par- never milkt. The horses are allel with the State of California, small, but being sure-footed and the climate is on the whole but lit- capable of great endurance, are, in tle warmer than that of Northern this rough and carriageless land, Ohio or Southern Ontario, but ow- invaluable as beasts of burden. ing to the greater humidity of the The pig and dog are the chief atmosphere the heat of summer is scavengers of the streets, but both more depressing and the cold of are used for food. The fauna inwinter more keenly felt than are cludes several species of deer, bear!!, corresponding temperatures in the wild-hogs, wolves, wild-cats, badglatter places. The rainy season, ers, and foxes. The tiger and usually beginning in July, and leopard are common in the north, lasting five or six weeks, is espe- and in 1895, during an unusually cially trying. During this time the severe winter, several people were atmosphere is saturated with mois- carried away from the vicinity of ture, and everything takes on a 'Vonsan by the former. Wildfowl, coat of must and mildew. Yet this especially pheasants, ducks, and season is of the greatest possible geese, also abound in the autumn. utility, not only from an agricultural, but also from a sanitary Except in the most mountainous standpoint. For the greater part districts, there is little timber, but of the year garbage and filth is the peninsula is said to be rich in allowed so to collect in the closed minerals. Gold, obtained only by courts, narrow streets, and open placer washing, is exported to the drains of village, town, and city amount of $1,000,000 annually. alike, that these may be well com- Copper, lead, iron, and excellent coal are also found. The coast fisheries too are very valuable, but are tall and well-formed, generally like the mines, have as vet been prepossessing in appearance, and but little developt. always dignified in bearing. Their complexion is dark and all have GOVERNMENT. long, straight, black hair, which, by the women, is worn in a loop at Altho Korea has been from time the back or coiled about the tem- immemorial the battle-ground of ples, but by the men is twisted China and Japan, and usually trib- into a peculiar topknot, which utary to the one or to the other of stands upright on their heads. The these powers, and not infrequently men have usually a thick, dark to both at once, she has neverthe- mustache and an Eastern pointed less remained a separate country, beard. They do not shave. and her rulers have always been supreme within the peninsula. The The population of Korea is vari- present dynasty, which came to the ously estimated at from twelve to throne in 1392, acknowledged the fifteen millions. Its growth, how- sovereignty of China, until the be- ever, is very slow on account of the ginning of the late war between frightful infant mortality and the that empire and Japan. Under occurrence from time to time of Japanese pressure the king then epidemics. In 1886, in the metro- renounced his allegiance to the politan province alone, one hundred emperor of China, and Korea was thousand people are said to have declared independent. The mon- perished of cholera in two months. archy has always been absolute, Smallpox is common in all parts the government consisting of min- of the peninsula every winter and isters appointed by, and responsible spring, but vaccination, now very to, the king alone. The governors generally practist, is doing much of the thirteen provinces and the to curtail the ravages of this disprefects of the 339 magisterial dis- ease. Typhoid, typhus, relapsing tricts into which the former are and malarial fevers, measles, sysubdivided, are still appointed by philis, digestive disorders, and parthe king and cabinet. The people asitic diseases, both skin and inteshave no voice whatever in their tinal, are extremely common. Nor government. The present monarch is this to be wondered at when we is, however, an amiable, intelligent, remember that absolntely nothing and progressive sovereign, evident- is known of the cause or prevenly desirous of the welfare and ad- tion, and scarcely anything of the vancement of his country. Altho treatment of disease, and that the a Confucianist, His Majesty has whole popUlation is congregated in frequently exprest his appreciation villages, towns, and cities, invariof the work done by the Protestant ably situated low in the valleys, missionaries, and less than two while the open gutters at the sides years ago spoke to Bishop Ninde, of the streets are, during the greatof the Methodist Episcopal Church, er part of the year, so choked with "those memorable words, which filth, that flow in them is imposthe churches cannot and must not sible. Even in Seoul, the capital, forget, 'Send us more teachers.' " a large walled city containing 150,- 000 inhabitants, with another 100,- PEOPLE. 000 immediately outside the wall, this state of things exists. The 'Vhile probably of Mongolian capitals of the thirteen provinces, origin, the Koreans are in race and and many of the magistracies, too, language, quite distinct from both are walled cities, containing from the Chinese and Japanese. They four or five to sixty or eighty by Welsh market-wives, altho the thousand inhabitants. crown is slightly less conical. This hat is made, according to the sta- GRADES OF SOCIETY. tion of the wearer, of silk, horse- hair, or finely fibred bamboo. Caste exists in Korea, not per- These differences are further em- haps to the same extent as in India, phasized in conversation by the and yet between the eat-pat-ehe use of the honorifics-low endings (worker in leather) and his august and almost innumerable interme- sovereign there exists an almost diate forms with which the lan- innumerable number of classes the guage abounds. differences between which are made apparent, not only by marks Roughly speaking the people of poverty or plenty, and of ignor- may be divided into three classes, ance or culture, but by required the upper, composed of officials peculiarities in dress. The color is and the descendants of such; the invariably white, but those who middle, consisting of merchants hold rank or office are permitted to and others able to keep slaves and dress in silk instead of the ordinar- hired labor; and the lower, em- ily worn cotton or hemp. Mourn- bracing all employed in any form ers only are now allowed to wear of manual work. To this class dis- the large sleeves (pockets) worn by tinction more than to anything all "gentlemen" previous to the else is due the Korean's character- coming of the Japanese army in istic laziness and its resultant im- the summer of 1894. They were at poverishment of land and people. that time ordered to discard them Those whom birth has favored with a view to effacing at least one with a claim to official standing or of the signs of caste distinction. the possession of a few rice-pad- The ordinary outer dress of married dies, look upon labor not only as women who have borne children beneath their dignity, but as de- consists of one or more short pet- grading and debasing others who ticoats, all but concealing the pan- engage in it. For the lower class, taloons, which terminate just below on the other hand, there is no en- the knees, and a short bodice which couragement to do more than they covers the shoulders but leaves the absolutely must to obtain a bare breasts entirely exposed. The livelihood, any acquirement over jacket worn by those who are not and above this, going to support mothers is longer, reaching down the indolent, overbearing, and op- to where the skirts are bound pressive aristocracy. Not until the about the waist. The higher class former class has learned the dignity women wear overskirts which of labor, and the latter has been touch the ground, so that their granted a guaranteE' of the enjoy- . dress more freely resembles that ment, of its fruits can we hope for of 'Vestern women. The head- prosperity in Korea. dress varies with every rank and station of life. Court officials, THE DAWN OF BETTER THINGS soldiers, yamen-runners, chair- coolies, mourners, etc., all wear is, we believe, already at hand. characteristic hats; bachelors and Since the opening of the country coolies wear kerchiefs only, and to Western intercourse in 1882, and women and children no head-dress especially since the declaration of whatever. The hat most common- independence two years ago, rapid ly worn is a black gauze-like struc- strides have been made toward the ture resembling in shape that worn inauguration of reforms' adminis- trative and social. Witness the following resolutions past by the to receive a hundred blows, and to council of state, and approved by be imprisoned at hard labor for his majesty the king. life.
" The distinction between patri- Now is the time for a great forcian .and plebeian shall be done ward movement in Korea. Many away, and men shall be selected influential officials are thoroughly for office according to ability, and alive to the fact that upon the inwithout distinction of birth. troduction of Western civilization depends their own as well as their "The law which renders the country's future, while by the family and connections of a crimi- masses the present relaxation of the nal liable to punishment shall be ancient hermit policy is welcomed abrogated. The offender only shall as a hope of deliverance from long be punished. and cruel oppression. The transi- tion has begun, and while pastors, "The law authorizing the keep- evangelists, and teachers are urging of official or private male or ently called for there is especial female slaves shall be abolished need for medical missionaries, male and it shall be forbidden to buy or and female. sell any person." CRUELTY IN SICKNESS. Other resolutions relating to taxation, the institution of an efficient By the Koreans, disease, as well police force, early marriages, etc., as all the other ills of life, is attribhave been adopted and are already uted to the malevolence of demons, bearing fruit. The trial referred to and in most cases of sickness more in the following incident would money is spent in exorcism, with a have been impossible two years view to propitiating the evil spirit, ago, and its result shows that those than in medicine for the suffering in authority are resolved that the victim. Perhaps nothing else serves reforms instituted shall be carried better to illustrate to the occidental mind the contrariness of things into effect. oriental than the music, singing, General Han, the minister of dancing, and feasting called for in case of sickness in a Korean home. justice, was one day passing, in his The chief figure in the troop of chair, through the streets of Seoul, actors is a female exorcist, believed when a ragged native stopt him to be in league with a powerful and presented a written complaint demon, by whose aid she can entice against the magistrate of Sang- or drive away the evil spirit caus- Yang. The complainantbelonged to ing the sickness. As she sings and the humblest and lowest class of dances the others beat upon drums, Korean peasants; the magistrate tom-toms, etc., all together making was a man well known and influ- noise enough to distract the poor ential in the capital, backt and sufferer. As a propitiatory sacrisupported by some of the highest fice tables are spread laden with officials. General Han, however, food and wine, of the odor arising immediately took cognizance of the from which the spirit is supposed complaint, and had the magistrate, to partake and depart satisfied. who happened to be in Seoul, arrested. He sent to the distant The Korean doctor's treatment, district for witnesses, and after a too, being directed toward the drivcareful trial, the magistrate was ing out of the demon, is naturally not only found guilty of having believed to be effective in propormost outrageously robbed the poor tion to its severity. Persons sufferpeasant under the guise of the law, but also of committing many other extortions and robberies, and was forced to make full restitution to the peasant, condemned ing from low malarial and other many homes and hearts that other- fevers invariably have various parts wise might not be reacht, and many of the body pierced with large, and, . of the most earnest and active of course, surgically unclean nee- Christians in Korea to-day are per- dles, as a supposed important part of sons into whose hearts the Gospel their treatment. We have seen found its way along paths opened broken limbs that have been punc- up by this means.
tured all round the seat of fracture The work of the medical mission- in a similar manner. Indeed no ary is, indeed, a blessed one. No treatment is more common than the other so nearly approaches and use of the needle. No attempt is repeats the life of Christ, and as we made to keep it clean, and conse- remember the crying need for and quently frightful abscesses, some- the glorious opportunity of this life, times causing death, often follow we wonder that more do not enter its use. How often too, must it. In all the heathen world there syphilis be transmitted by this cruel are but 400 medical missionaries, instrument. Rheumatic complaints whereas in Canada and the United are treated by repea ted burnings States alone there are over 100,000 with hot irons until sometimes all practising physicians. One physi- flesh in the neighborhood of joints cian to every six or seven hundred affected becomes a mass of scar of the population at home, and yet tissue. Urine is almost the only we send but one to every two and wash used for inflamed eyes and one-half million in heathendom!
granulating lids. Mixtures contain- We can well spare one-quarter ing such ingredients as fossil our doctors, and the remaining bones, powdered snake-skins, boiled 75,000 would be glad to see them toads and newts, moths, human go! Some, it is true, are offering secretions, and animal excrement themselves for this work, but the are commonly prescribed. necessary funds to send them out MEDICAL MISSIONS. are not forthcoming, and so the doctors alone are not to blame.
Loathsome as the above picture Protestant Christians in the United is, it is but a faint index, as it is States and Canada spend every but one result of the awful spiri- year hundreds of millions of dol- tual degradation of our brothers lars on wholly unnecessary-yes, and sisters in Korea. To improve often harmful-luxuries. They their condition spiritually is our spend as much more on mere com- chief aim; but in order to do this forts and conveniences, while over we must first win their respect and and above all necessaries, benevo- assure them of our love and sym- lences, conveniences, and luxuries pathy, and in the alleviation of they save annually $500,000,000, a pain and suffering, we have the sum sufficient to send out 25,000 most effective means to this end. – physicians and their families, fur- It is a work most trying in many nish them homes and thoroughly respects, but it is the self-sacrifice equipt dispensaries and surgeries, demanded that proves the sincerity and support them for at least ten of our love, and the results, often years. We claim the name Chris· so wonderful to them, and demon- t'ian, but by what right? "Whoso strating' as they do, our superiority hath this world's goods and seeth in one direction, command both his brother have need, and shutteth their confidence and their respect. up his bowels of compassion from The skill and practical kindness of him, how dwelleth the love of God the physician finds an entrance into in him?"
EDITORIAL
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Anti-Ritualistio Movement. pIe of England, parliament, and the queen, to whom a telegram was We believe that the movement sent together with a copy of Mr. against ritualism and sacerdotalism Walsh's book. Prebendary H. V. which is now agitating the Church Webb-Peploe, Dean Farrar, Sir of England, has such a definite in- 'Villiam Harcourt, Lord Kinnaird, fluence on the evangelization of and many other prominent men, the world, that we have devoted are leaders in the Anti-Ritualistic considerable space to the consider- Movement. ation of the subject in this number of the IlEnEw. Ritualism is especially deplor- able in its effects on missions. If A great Protestant demonstra- it does not displace a true zeal for tion was held in Albert Hall, Lon- the salvation of souls by a false don, early in February, at which zeal for ceremonialism,' it certainly 10,000 persons were present, and introduces into foreign lands a form 5,000 more could not obtain tickets. of worship so sadly like the super- The demonstration had the support stitions which Christianity comof over 50 Protestant organiza- bats, that a pagan people must tions, and delegates were present often be bewildered in the attempt from over 110 provincial towns. to make a distinction. The following resolutions, the first moved by Lord Overtoun, and the Mormonism in Oongress. second by Col. Sandys, M. P., were adopted unanimously: If Brigham H. Roberts retains his seat in Congress, it will be in 1. That this meeting views with alarm spite of the will of the people of and sorrow the extensive reintroduction the United States. It rests with throughout our land (1) of doctrines, rites, the individuals to make their will and ceremonies ,vhich were distinctly re- known through their representajected by the English nation at the time of tives. Numberless resolutions h~ve the Reformation, as being Romish inven- already been past and petitions tions contrary to God's word; (2) of "the forwarded to Congress. The Pressacrifices of masses II which were then de- byterian 'Voman'sBoardfor Home clared to be blasphemous fables and danger- Missions, and the League for Social ous deceit; and (3) of the evils connected Service, are especially active in with the confessional, and as the bishops in opposing Mr. Roberts' reception. too many cases appear unable or unwilling All citizens who have not already to arrest these misehievous abuses, this done so, should immediately draw meeting hereby demands that the conduct of up and sign a petition and send it public worship by the clergy of the Estab- to their representative in the 56th lisht Church shali be brought within the Congress requesting him to oppose limits imposed by law; and that public pat- the seating of polygamists in ronage be no longer employed for the fur- Congress. If these petitions are therance of Romish principles. sent to Dr. Josiah Strong, United Charities Building, New York, they II. That this meeting is of opinion that will be forwarded to vVashington legislation is imperatively required (1) to at the proper time. * compel obedience to the law, and (2) to give the laity free access to the courts of the • A favorable report was made in the recent realm, and hereby invokes the aid of Her Congress on the proposed constitutional lIlajesty·.s Government towards the passing amendment prohibiting polygamists from of a bllim order to secure these objects dur- being eligible to election to Congress, but the ing the ensuing session of parliament. determination of the question rests with the new Congress. The mass meeting is generally accounted a great success. Vhat practical results are to come from it remain to be seen. As a whole, we think the effect would have been greater, had it been more entirely in the hands of the evangelical members of the Church of England, and less dominated by non-conformists. We hope, however, that it will influence the peo- Mormonism is distinctively a Bishop Satterlee has said, " An heathen religion, tending to en- enormous increase to the efficiency snare the soul as well as a poli- of our mission work," to have tico-ecclesiastical power, seeking to " missionaries with independent control the country. Roberts, a means" going out at their own representative of this religion, expense? And would it not incite should be expelled from Congress on to a new heroism of self-denial and the ground that he is an avowed self-offering? The editors would polygamist and covenant breaker, gladly become vehicles of comand, having married his wives since munication between such parties. the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Law of 1882, has acted in defiance of Rev. Chas. Inwood in China,* American law, is guilty of a crime against the United States; he is Since Mr. Inwood landed in therefore punishable with dis- China, October 2d, he has traveled franchisement and disqualification about 2,500 miles in the missions to vote, should not hold office of held to November 30th. Three honor or emolument in the United days after his arrival in Shanghai, States, or any State or Territory he started for North China, holdtherein. It will be a disgrace to ing missions in Tientsin, Peking, the United States, and a menace to Tungcho, and Chefoo. The camour laws and institutions, should paign was a dual one in each cen- Brigham H. Roberts be allowed to ter. At least one meeting each day retain his seat. But in order to was held for the native Christians, prevent this, each voter should who manifested the deepest intermake known his will to his repre- est in the Word, and in many sentative with no uncertain sound. cases were very responsive thereto.
Self-Supporting Missionaries. Both in Tientsin and Peking the congregrations grew so much that A letter has been received from they had to move to larger churches. a highly esteemed correspondent, In Peking they had between 700 to who feels providentially called to 800 native Christians at the service. go as a missionary without salary In Tungcho, upward of 60 students to Puerto Rico, the Philippine were reacht, besides theological Islands, or some other 'needy field. students from the city, and native He is an evangelical clergyman of Christians. Mr. Inwood contir.ues: the Episcopal Church, a man of good education and much experi- At ont') meeting in Tientsin I ence, also having been himself an had 25 English-speaking Chinese educator. He feels, moreover, medical students, who are Chrismoved to gather together a band of tians, and several of them of large volunteers who will go, under intellectual capacity, and men similar conditions, to the heathen whose souls are on fire with love to or papal lands open to the Gospel. Christ. These men will occupy re- The Church Missionary Society in sponsible positions in society and England has a number of such in the army and navy. self-supporting volunteers, and the system has worked well. The English meetings have us- ually been for missionaries and Does not this appeal find a re- other Europeans. These have been sponse in some God-called man or full of encoura~ment. All the miswoman who would like to join this sionaries (except the is. P. G. workbrother? Would it not imply, as ers) gave me the right hand of fel- lowship, and I love them all as if I had workt with them a quarter of • A letter written November 30, 1898, on board the S. S. Sha-si, on the Yang-tse-Kiang, en route to Chung-Ching. a century. Long distances, consid- Storrow, for some years a missionerable anti-foreign excitement, and the intense pressure of their work ary in India, can not allow to pass were not permitted to stand in the way, and I know from testiID:0- unchallenged. After speaking of nies that many a heavy and dIscouraged worker in these centers the great difficulty of governing a is now facing the winter with new heart and power and hope. Their distant empire, vast in extent and devotion to the people, their selfsacrifice, their steadfast pursuit of diverse in race and religion, Mr. the highest good of the people, has deeply toucht my heart. Much as Storrow says in part: I loved missionaries before, I shall return home with a new and deeper The government has not been as love. despotic and unprogressive as it is assumed to have been. Its method After returning to Shanghai I of procedure has been on the lines started in four days for the West. in favor by all English-speaking Hankow, Hangang, and Wuchang people, and if its movements have are only separated from each other been slow, it could plead the extreme by the Yang-tse and Han rivers, delicacy and difficulty of its posiand nearly two millions of peo- tion. And where even in Christian ple live in these tnree centers. In and civilized Europe and America, these cities there are now 4,000 are great public abuses easily over- Ohristian members, but one's heart thrown? aches at the thought of the sin and sorrow of the rest. We had crowded The people of India are as free as native gatherings, two remarkable any people in the world in opinion, meetings for native pastors 'and speech, and manner of life, but the evangelists, and one each day for government is wise in not throwing the missionaries. open to Europeans and natives alike civil service appointments. The The larger outlook in this land is latter are certainly sufficiently full of promise to those who believe gifted intellectually, but what of in God and in His government of their moral integrity as magistrates the world. The bloody coup d'etat and judges? A wise and prudent of September has for the moment policy demands that authority arrested the forces of prayers and should, for some time to come at righteousness, but only in appear- least, mainly be in the hands of ance The impact of Ohristianity Englishmen. upon: the life and thought of this conservative empire is very much We have made and are making mightier than I had imagined, and mistakes alike in policy and governmeans the impact of the life and ment, but Mr. Mathieson is most teaching of the missionaries only. unfortunate in his illustrations. There is not much outside the mis- For instance, after the death of sionary circle which really makes Rungeet Swigh, the Sikh army, for righteousness in China. No freed from his strong control man who studies spiritual facts and thirsting for excitement and with a spiritual eye can arrive at plunder, invaded our territory any other conclusion. Eliminate without the least provocation. We the missionary factor, and the defeated them again and again, but presence of W e~~ern lear~ing and treated them with great clemency, science and pohtiCS notwIthstand- and did not anrex the Punjab. ing, this land is absolutely without Four years later they again broke hope of regeneration. "On the loose; with great difficulty we Cross hangs all its hope." May defeated them, and to save ourwe have grace to uplift the Cross of selves from similar troubles, and the Jesus Ohrist as long as we live. Punjab from anarchy, made it a province of our empire. For sixty British Rule in India. years it has been peaceful and prosperous as never it had been In the December number of the before. To save the boy who was said to be heir to the precarious REVIEW Mr. J. E. Mathieson brings throne from assassination, or be- ing the center of conspiracy and some heavy charges against Bdtish intrigue, we found it prudent to bring him to England, secure in policy in India, which Rev. E. C. his family estates and a splendid pension.
The king of Oude received his title to royalty from us, and only by courtesy could be called an in- Comity at Home. dependent sovereign. Sensuality, violence, and oppression, were the Dr. S. E. Wishard, of Utah, takes chief features of his rule. The British government advised him again exception to the paragraph on "De- and again to check oppression and nominational Comity at Home," live decently. Then he was warned that the misgovernment and vio- in our issue of November last, lence would necessitate his depo- on the ground that it is missition, if not put down, and when that occurred, he was granted a leading and calculated to discour- age contributions to home mission handsome pension. work. * It is true that the general Oppression is no doubt rife in statements made might convey a India, as it is in every country in false impression if applied to the Asia, for power is thus abused by all, from policemen to rajahs. But work as a whole, and might seem the British government is in no to furnish to those who wish it, an sense oppressive, and sternly deals excuse for withholding financial with it when proven. Nor is taxation, as affirmed, support. Nothing was further from oppressive. It might, it should be our thought than to disparage in lighter, but this is true of every the slightest degree the work of country in Europe. It is misleading to speak of the Indian land home missions. In our opinion tax. The theory handed down from there is no nobler or more selfpast Hindu and Mohammedan sacrificing work in the world, than generations is that the land of a country belongs to the people, that done by the true missionary represented by its rulers. The zenimdars, for the most part, collect on the frontier, and none that more the rent from the cultivators, and thoroughly merits our hearty suppay rent to the government. Their holdings are not absolute like those port. In general, there are far too of an American or English resident, few, rather than too many, heralds but restricted. The government is of the Gospel in our Western towns, the supreme landowner. The zenimdars and talookdars are its and we believe that in the vast matenants, as the rijots or cultivators jority of cases they are earnestly are theirs. More than one-third of the Indian revenue is therefore not seeking to win souls to Christ. We tax, properly speaking, but rent believe, too, that our home mission for land. The policy of the government is to be just to the people. secretaries are conscientiously en- It stands, in fact, as a protector deavoring to distribute the men between the great landholders.who no doubt are prone to exaction and means at their disposal as econand" squeezing," and their tenants, omically and efficiently as possible. and has again and again enacted It is nevertheless acknowledged to laws to protect the people from their exactions, and limit the land be true, that there is a loud call rent. for reform in too many separate Much is said about the salt tax. instances. Dr. Wishard himself acknowledges that there are in his It is objectionable, as are so many synod two cases of a breach of taxes among ourselves, but it is the comity by other denominations only article used by all the people than his own. It is a difficult thing to fix the fault and to find that is taxt, or indeed taxable, and and apply the remedy. Unfortuaccording to Lord Cromer the con- nately the reform is not only needed in Western towns, but in Eastern tribution to government by taxa- cities, and not only in home, but tion throughout the empire is about in foreign fields-witness the in- rush of societies into Cuba and one shilling and eight pence per Puerto Rico. head annually. This sum is relatively more to them than to us, but The statements in the paragraph referred to, were intentionally genit is questionable if the people of eral, not to mislead or discourage, any civilized country are governed but in order that any who find the cap to fit might wear it. and protected at as low a cost to * Herald and Presbyter, February 15, 1899. themselves.
RECENT ARTICLES ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS
V.-RECENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS.
ACROSS INDIA at the Dawn of the 20th Cen· containing 20 millions of people, tury. Lucy E. Guinness. Illustrated. without a single missionary among Maps, quarto 260 pp. $1.50. Religious them. A. T. P. Tract Society, London, and Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, Chicago and OUR SISTERS IN INDIA. By Rev. Edward Toronto. Storrow. Illustrated. Index. 12mo. 256 pp. $1.25. Fleming H. Revell Co., New Miss Guinness is essentially a York and Chicago. pictorial writer. She sees every fact with an artist's vision, and her The study of the women of India books are always full, not of em- is one of deep interest and great bellishment only, but of helpful ex- importance. In spite of the fact hibits of truth in forms that ap- that they are downtrodden and pear to the eye. This latest book despised, they are the stronghold from her gifted pen is a gallery of of Hinduism, and from every standoriginal pictures, diagrams, and point, humanitarian and Christian, various devices ingeniously pre- call loudly for our sympathy and pared to present the otherwise efforts to s.ave them physically, somewhat dry statistics in an im- intellectually, and spiritually. pressive form. This feature is especially unique, and is seldom Mr. Storrow will be remembered met with to the same extent in by many as a frequent contributor other bt'loks. Almost every illus- to our pages, and as the author of tration is a study. The diagrams an able article on Hindu women in show by comparative geometrical the REVIEW for April, 1898. He figures such matters as the com- went as a missionary to Calcutta in parative areas and populations of 1848, and has had excellent opportho globe, and of India; the compara- tunities for studying his subject. tive increase of Christianity, Islam, He gives us a graphic description and Hinduism, in a decade of years; of the legal and religious status of the spiritual needs of leading dis- woman in India, her daily life from tricts; the student population, In- childhood to old age, and he dedian and British; the growth of votes special chapters to infantithe student Christian movement, cide, the suttee, and widowhood; he the proportion of India's girls and discusses the causes of and evils women, etc., etc. Every page is arising from the present status of fascinating, and the genius of au- women, the remedy, and the varithorship is added to the talent for ous forms of effort to alleviate their gathering facts and presenting sufferings and elevate their condithem to the reader. tion.
After a brief sketch of the jour- This is the most complete and valney to India, Miss Guiuness gives uable recent book on this subject. a full account of Bombay and It is sympathetically written, but Poona and the mission work in avoids extreme and misleading western India. There are interest- statements in which one is tempted ing accounts of central India, Ma- to indulge, when stirred by the dras,Calcutta,and Northwest India, scenes of cruelty and degradation with a vIvid sketch of the visit to so common in India. Much is left Darjeeling and the borders of Ti- unsaid which is important in a bet. The closing chapter makes a thorough study of Hindu women, special appeal for Behar, the most but enough is told to prove beyond neglected mission field in India, a doubt the dire need of " Our Sisters in India" for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all its fulness, and Mr. Thornton is a careful student, to encourage Christians by the knowledge of progress already and has given us in condensed form made, and souls already won. a scholarly piece of work. He dis- WITHIN' THE PURDAH; also, IN THE ZENANA cusses briefly the origin, growth, HOMES OF INDIAN PRINCES, AND HEROES doctrines, and influence of these AND HEROINES OF ZION. By Mrs. S. Arm- sects. Parsiism which arose in strong Hopkins, M.D. 8vo. 248 pp. Illus- trated. $1.25. Eaton & Mains, New Persia under Zoroaster at an un- York, and Curtis and Jennings, Cincin- nati, O. certain date, came into India about These" personal 0 bservations of a 700 A. D., when the Parsi fled from woman medical missionary in India" presents in very truth an array their Moslem persecutors. They of heartrending facts. No one with a heart can read them without long- now number about 90,000. ing and seeking to help alleviate the The Jaina number over 1,400,000 sufferings of the poor Hindu childwives and widows. Dr. Armstrong- in India. Jainism is probably a Hopkins deals not in generalities, but in specific cases, which come to reform movement from Brahmanher notice in the Hyderabad hospital. ism, and is thought to antedate The style of the book is simple, Buddhism, which it resembles in clear, and vivid. It is exceptionally interesting, tho picturing heart- many doctrines and practises. rending scenes of suffering and sorrow. One is almost tempted to Sikhism arose about the last of believe that the husbands and mothers-in-law in India know the 15th Century, as a revolt from neither compassion nor love, and are incapable of such sentiments. the idolatry and caste systems of The book has a mission, to create deeper interest and stimulate the Hinduism. Its followers now nummore persistent effort in behalf of Hindu women. We do riot see how ber nearly 2,OOO,OOO-mostly living it can fail to fulfil that mission. It is particularly well adapted to wo- in the Punjab. men's and young people's societies. EMINENT MISSIONARY WOMEN. By Mrs. J The third portion of the book T. Gracey. 8vo, 216 pp. 85c. Eaton & describes the heroic character and Mains, N. Y., and Curts & Jennings, Cin· work of the Methodist missionary cinnati. women in India. The illustrations are unusually good. Two facts a8sure for this book a PARSI JAINA, AND SIKH, or some minor re- welcome: It is written by Mrs. ligiouS sects in India. By Douglas M. Thornton, B. A. 12mo. 96 pp. Religious Gracey, whose pen adorns what it Tract Society, London. touches; and it is written about 29 This is the Maitland Prize Essay, in 1897 awarded by the University heroic women, whose lives were of Cambridge, to Mr. Thornton, the author of "Africa Waiting," devoted to the service of Christ in who was for some time secretary of the British Student Volunteer the mission field, or as promoters Movement, and has recently gone out under the C. M. S. to Khartum. of missions at hom!). Mrs. Gracey has made a sagacious selection: Mary Lyon, whose name is in- separable from Holyoke and Wo- man's Education; Mrs. Doremus, who was for 15 years president of the Woman's Union Missionary Society; Fidelia Fiske, who was Mary Lyon reproduced in Persia. Educational and missionary work in Greenland is represented by the wife of Hans Egede; in Mexico, by Melinda Rankin; in Egypt, Liberia. and other parts of Africa, by Miss Whately, Miss Wilkins, Mrs. Day, and Madame Coillard, in China, by Miss Woolston, Lydia Fay. and Miss Aldersey; in India, by Mrs. Mullens, Miss .Tucker, Mary Reed, Miss Butler, Miss Cook, Mrs. .:vIarsh- man, Miss Anstey, Miss Swain, and Miss Brittan; in Ceylon, by Miss Agnew; in Burma, by Mrs. In· galls; in the South Seas, by Mrs. Lyth, Mrs. Geddie, and Mrs. Inglis; ancient origin of the Waldenses, and Greece, Syria, etc., by Mrs. and presents a hasty sketch of Thompson, Mary Baldwin, and the their history, giving one a new in- wife of Bishop Gobat. sight into the sufferings of the "Israel of the Alps." We could not but wish that Mrs. Gracey had enlarged her survey, They were burned, they were cast into and taken in a few other glorious damp and horrid dungeons; they were smoth- wcmen, for we need an encyclo- ered in crowds, in mountain caverns,-moth- pedia of women's heroic services, ers and babes, and old men and women to- and there is no complete work on gether; they were sent out into exile of a the subject. The three wonderful winter night, unclothed, unfed, to climb the women who were the successive snowy mountains; they were hurled over wives of Adoniram Judson, Mrs. the rocks, their heads were used as footballs, Moffat, Mrs. Livingstone, Mrs. their· houses and lands were taken from Krapf, Mrs. Grant, Mary Wil- them, and their little children were stolen to liams, Miss Field, Mrs. Rhea, Miss be educated in the religion they abhorred. Willard, Mrs. Capron, Miss Gard- n~r, and a host of others are wait- This extract reveals the temper of ing for some fit memorial. Let the book and some of the defects of Mrs. Gracey take up her pen again. its literary style. -A. T. P. The history, written from an I tal- ITALY AND THill ITALIANS. By Geo. B. Taylor, ian point of view, dwells perhaps at D.D. Map and IllnstratIans. 8vo, 441 pp. undue length upon the shadowy his- $1.50. The American Baptist Publication tory of the days before Peter Wal- Society, Philadelphia. do, and gives too few historical references in proof of controverted Dr. Taylor, a Baptist missionary points. It also makes too much of in Italy or over 25 years, is well qual- the cordiality of King Humbert ified to write on his adopted home toward the revived church of the and countrymen, and has done so Waldenses. Some of the chapters in a very acceptable manner. His are curiously divided. Chapter book supplies a lack, and will XV. deals with the Heroes, Chapter be sought and read, both for enjoy- XVI:with Martyrs, Chapter XVII. ment and information. Among all with Women. The reader queries the books which have appeared, we whether none of the martyrs were know of none which presents the heroes, whether none of the women subject so broadly and so well. Dr. were martyrs. Taylor has written sympathetically, justly, and frankly, neither CEYLON, a Key to India. An open letter to concealing nor extenuating faults, the Constituency of the American Board. and not unduly prejudiced in re- By Mary and Margaret Leitch. Illusligious matters by a sectarian bias. trated. 8vo, 80 pp. Paper. 10 cents. While not distinctively a mission- American Board of Commissioners for ary book, it has, of course, a posi- Foreign Missions, Boston. tive missionary value in the study of the Italian people and Roman- This is a very striking and forcism at home. The last chapter ible appeal, ably setting forth the deals with the evangelization of history, condition, and opportuni- Italy. The book is well illustrated, ties of mission work in "India's clearly printed, and attractively Pearl." Pictorially, statistically, bound. and in every way it is very com- plete, being full of valuable facts, HISTORY OF THE WALDENSES. By Sophia interesting incidents, and moving V. Bompiani. Illustrated. 12mo. 175" pp. arguments. $1.25. A. S. Barnes and Co., New York. WITH SOUTH SEA FOLK. By Miss E. Theodora This "modest little work" gath-. Crosby. Illustrated. 12mo, 208 pp. $1.00. ers up the few arguments for the The Pilgrim Press, Boston and Chicago.
Those who have heard Miss Crosby speak, or have read her in- teresting and able article in our January number, will need no fur- ther inducement to secure and read this fascinating little story of Monthly Missionary Bibliography. missionary life and work in the Caroline Islands. It is especially THE REDEMPTION OF AFRICA. A Story of Civadapted for young people, and if ilization. By Frederic Perry Noble. Bibknown to be in a Sunday-school liography, illustrations, maps and statislibrary will not spend many days on tical tables. 2 vols. 8vo, 856 pp. $4.00. the shelf. The fictitious character Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, Chiof the narrative has not unduly cago, and Toronto. colored the statements with regard to the character of the islands and IN AFRIC'S FOREST AND JU:NGLE ; or1 Six years their people, and the picture of the among the Yorubans. By Rev. R. H. joys and trials of missionary life ~~:eli C~~mo, 282 pp. $1.00. FlemingH. may be relied upon as being drawn from experience rather than from THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF ASIA. Studies the imagination. and personal observations of Oriental Re- ligions. By John Henry Barrows. 12mo, THE STORY OF BEAUTIFUL PUERTO RICO. By 258 pp. $1.50. Charles Scribner'S Sons, C. H. Rector. Map and illustrations. New York. 12mo, 184 pp. $1. 25. Laird & Lee, Chicago. THE NEW FAR EAST. A study of present The claim that this is a "graphic political conditions and prospects. By description of the garden spot Arthur Diosy. Illustrated by Kubota of the world by pen and cam- Beisen. Map. 8vo., $3.50. G. P. Putera, comprising the history, geog- nam1sSons. raphy, soil, climate, inhabitants, customs, churches, schools, rivers, ACROSS INDIA at the Dawn of the Twentieth lakes, mountains, mines, prod- Century. By Lucy E. Guinne"s. Illusucts, invasion, railroads," etc., trated. Maps and diagrams. -Quarto, etc., might lead one to expect 260 pp. $1.50. Fleming H. Revell Co. an encyclopedia on things Puerto- Rican. One is, however, somewhat OUR SISTERS IN INDIA. By Rev. E. Storrow_ disappointed to find these subjects Illustrated. 12mo, 256 pp. $1.25. Flemtoucht upon only in barest outline, ing H. Revell Co. and about one-third of the pages devoted to half-tones. In general CEYLON A KEY TO INDIA. By :r.fary and Marthe information seems to be reli- garet Leitch. Illustrated. Paper. 8vo, able, but it will never rank with 80 pp. 10 cents. American Board, Boston. more thorough treatises, the island and its institutions. PROBLEMS OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY IN The League for Social Services is CHINA. By Rev. Ernst Faber, Ph.D. preparing a series of 6 leaflets for Translated from the German by Rev. F. the express purpose of combating Ohlingan, and edited by John Stevens the evils of the Mormon system. Litt. D., D.D. J. Tamblyn, London.
Methods of Mormon Missionaries, by Rev. HISTORY OF PROTESTAXT MISSIONS IN JAPAN.
Wm. R. Campbell. By H. Ritter. Translated by G. E. Al- brecht. Methodist Publishing House, Present Attitude of Mormonism, by Rev. Tokyo.
R. G. McNiece, D.D. THE NATIVE TRIBES OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.
Historical Sketch, by Rev. D. J. McMillan, By Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen. 8vo, 671 pp. The ~Iacmillan Co., N. Y. D.D. . Political Significance of Mormonism, by THE STORY OF THE PHILIPPINES. By Murat Halstead. Quarto, 400 pp. The Dominion Rev. Dr. Josiah Strong. Company, Chicago. Mormon Articles of Faith, with ~lormon AMERICA IN HAWAII; a History of the United Explanations, by Rev. D. J. Nutting and States Infiuenoe in the Hawaiian Islands. By Edmund James Carpenter. 16mo, 275 Rev. D. J. McMillan, D.D. pp. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.
Ten Reasons Why Christians can not Fel- THE WEST INDIES. A History of the West In- dian Archipelago, together with an aclowship the Mormon Church, Being the count of their physical characteristics, resources and condition. Amos K. Fisk. Action of the Presbytery of Utah. Illustrated. 12mo. $1.50. G. P. Putnam's Sons. Specimen leaflets will be sent free on application, and quantities at CAMPAIGNING IN CUBA. By Geo. Kennan. 35 cents pel' hundred, postpaid. 12mo, 269 pp. The Century Co.
CATHOLICISM, ROMAN AND ANGLICAN. By A. M. Fairbairn. 8vo, 481 pp. Charles Scrib· ner's Sons.
MISSIONARY EXPANSION SINCE THE REFORMA- TION. By Rev. J. A. Graham. Maps and illustrations. 12mo, 244 pp. $1.00. Flem- ing H. Revell Co.
THE CHURCH MISSIONARY HYMN BOOK. 12mo, 224 pp. 3 shillings. Church Missionary Society, London.
BRIGHT BITS FOR READING IN MISSIONARY 80- CIETIF.S. By Mrs. M. S. Budlong, Rock- ford, II. 40 cents, MAPS OF CHINA. We have on hand a small quantity of maps of China, like those which appeared in our February number, showing the location of all missionary so- cieties. These may be obtained, while the supply lasts, by sending 10 cents in stamps or coin, to D. L. Pierson, 944 Marcy Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
VI.- GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D. TRANSLATIONS BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK.
THE KINGDOM. never come to the front as in these years of scarcity. Their praise is -THE LORD IS KING, BE THE not only in the writings of Mere- wether and Hawthorne, but in the PEOPLE NEVER SO IMPATIENT: HE mouths of English officials, who had ignored or despised them. No SITTETH BETWEEN THE CHERU- other whites except the mission- aries, are in touch with those whom BIMS, BE THE EARTH NEVER SO the famine pinches most. No others are at all fit to be wardens of UNQUIET. orphans more numerous than ever. No class can be so safely trusted as This first verse of Psalm ninety- honest and wise almoners of nine, according to the Church of bounty.-The Nation. England Prayer-Book version, has been taken as the motto-text for -M. Appia, in the Journal des the current year by the China Missions, speaking of the mission- Inland Mission, and Clvina's Mil- ary army, says: lions, for January, tells how the choice was made: "The verse came "Under the motley array of to us personally in a time of uniforms, of names and of societies, trial, and was God's message to it is difficult not to have mainly in our soul. Threatening news had view the divisions of the army of just been received from China, Christ. And yet it forms one and which indicated that our beloved the same whole under one head. missionaries there were in immi- As of the true Church, we can say . nent peril. There had preceded this also of it, that God alone shrouds the telegraphic despatches of the it. Vho does not feel that even daily press, to the effect that China among those who anathematize us, was in turmoil, that rebellions were there are still brethren, who will threatened, and that wars seemed one day recognize us as genuine about to devastate the land. Under members of Christ, and whom we these depressing tidings the heart shall salute as true warriors in the was bowed down and the spirit army of the Lord? " was in sore distress. But one of our mission household, who had -Joseph Kam is surnamed the been reading the Prayer-Book Apostle of the Moluccas. The C. version of the Psalms, suddenly M. S. Intelligencer says of him: came to our side, as a messenger "Born in Bois-Ie-Duc, the son of a sent from God, and read, ' The Moravian leather merchant, he felt Lord is King, be the people never so early drawn toward the foreign impatient: He sitteth between the field, but waited patiently in defer- cherubims, be the earth never so ence to the home ties imposed by unquiet.' It was enough. We saw the care of his aged parents. Upon in the precious words the living their death, shortly after the siege God in the eternal calm of His of Bois-Ie-Duc by the French, in infinite power and love. Since then which he displayed great intrepid- the peace which passeth under- ity, Joseph conceived the path standing has garrisoned heart and clear. The Moravian body, how- mind; and so we delight to pass the ever, refused to accept one not in message on to other souls." fellowship, and he was persuaded to remain in Holland for the sake -Christian missions, as hllman- Qf his two sisters, received a good itarian inl>titutions ill hldia, have government position, and eventu- -Medical Missions at Home and ally married. But sisters, wife, Abroad (London), for January, position, and child, were taken gives the following table, showing from him, the last s'o unexpectedly the progress made in ten years in that his friends feared to break the medical missions, and the present tidings. The lonely man received distribution in the different coun- calmly the news of his latest be- tries: reavement, repelling all consola- tion by the remark: 'I now learn January, 1890………. 125 God's way and will. I desired to " 1891 ………. 142 become a missionary. You held 1892 … '" … 156 me unfitted, procured me a situa- " 1893 ………. 165 tion, and bid me marry. I followed 1894 ………. 185 your advice. God, by depriving 1895………. 202 me of all, has loosed me now from 1896 ………. 216 every earthly tie. Therefore, to- 1897………. 239 morrow, I go to Rotterdam, in obe- 1898 ………. 251 dience to the voice, which for years " 1899 ………. 268 has spoken in my heart. I shall become a missionary.' Writing six Of the 268 medical missionaries, years later from Amboyna, this 64 are women. Their distribution same eager-spirited Kam says: is as follows: In India, 92; in China, 'There is no man in all the world 90; in Africa, 36; in Syria and Palso happy as myself.' " estine, 18; in Turkey, 5; in Persia, 4; in Japan, 4; in the New He- MEDICAL MISSIONS. brides, 4; in Madagascar, 3; in Egypt, 3; in Arabia, 2; in Korea, 1; -It means a great deal when a in Siam, 1; in Java, 1; in Northmedical journal of the stan'ding of west America, 1; in Natal, 1; in The Lancet presents such an utter- France, 1; unlocated, l. ance as the following: "We can imagine no career more lofty or -Medical Missions gives the honorable than that of a well-in- number of physicians of the Presformed, capable, and courageous byterian Church (North), as folmedical missionary. A few hun- lows: China, 22; India, 8; Siam and dreds of such men in the next half Laos, 8; Persia,9; Japan, 2; Syria, century would powerfully affect 2; Africa, 3; Korea, 5; South the history of China, India, and America, l. Africa. If men of commerce could give as good an account of their -Perhaps nothing shows the work in these lands as men of med- improvement in the inhabitants icine, the evangelization of the of Hebron like the change in the world would be hastened." behavior of the children. The quiet, business-like way in which -The Mission to Lepers in India dozens of these-our former torand the East has under its charge mentors-come, armed with mediat present in its own homes, adults' cine-bottle and ointment-cup, to and children's, 1,458 lepers, and the consult the doctor on their own acinstitutions which are subsidized count, is really remarkable. Poor by the mission contain 1,798 more; children; many of them are in a sad the total number of lepers helpt by condition, and in sore need of conthis means is 3,256. The society stant medical treatment, through will complete its first twenty-five no fault of their own. One miseryears of work in September of this able little girl, about twelve years year. of age, has persevered in coming for nearly four years, and is now blossoming out into health and bea,uty. Here, as everywhere else, child tongues. Let as many as possible life is sweet and attractive, and have medical training-a sure pass- many a sunbeam is thrown uponour port into many zenanas. Above path by the trustful affection and in- all, let -then]. be full of Christian nocent simplicity of the li.ttle ones. zeal and enterprise. Love for their A sturdy little man of three years native sisters will follow of itself- old shouts valiantly, "Boys, boys for the knowledge we have gained to the rescue!" when he finds his of educated native women from the head imprisoned between the doc- few who have broken through tor's knees, and a spray of warm trammels of caste and the gates of water playing over his inflamed the zenana, proves that no more eyes, and yet is not above consol- charming, gentle, and refined exist ing his injured dignity by a lump on earth than the Hindu woman of of sugar and a kiss when all is India. And in due season they over. A town maiden of six or shall reap. I have often said that seven says pitifully, "Dear lady, it is my firm conviction that the how can you let these dirty village whole fabric of popular Hinduism women sit down on your nice clean is being fast and surely undermined bed? " When she sees a Felluhah by Western education and Chris on the surgery couch, a moralist of tian influences." eight, bewailing her impaired eyesight, tells us seriously that chil- -Among the manifold novelties dren who have mothers as young of the passing generation is the apas her's was, always suffer a great pointment of a woman as superin- ' deal in their infancy, because "a tendent of Indian schools. Miss very little mother is too fond of Reel had previously held the posiplay, and does not know how to tion of land commissioner, and also take care of her children." An im- that of superintendent of public promptu poet of nine or ten, being instruction for the State of Wyomheld down by main force to undergo ing. In her first annual report she a very simple and painless exam- gives prominence to the necessity ination, suddenly ceast his screams for the industrial feature of educaand began to chant a kind of fu- tion: neral dirge, "Oh, mother, mother, come and see your poor son in the "I desire to emphasize the statedust!" then in a martial tone: ments of numerous Indian edu- "The knife is bared, the red blood cators that industrial training flows; oh, mother, mother, come should have the foremost place in and see your darling in the dust! " Indian education. Industrial train- All the time there was no knife in ing should be in a line with the the question at all.-Medical Mis- work that the students will find on sions. their reservations, and should tend to teach them to become self-sup- WOMAN'S WORK. porting. The backbone of an edu- cation is the ability to do some- -Sir Alexander Mackenzie, at thing, and to enable them to under- stand existing conditions and to the annual meeting of the Bir- adapt themselves to their surround- ings." mingham auxiliary of the Church -Miss McBeth continues her of England Zenana Missionary So- unique work among the Nez Perce Indians-that of conducting a theciety, had this to say of the agents ological class of promising native Christians, who have come to live to be appointed to zenana mission near her at Lapwai for this instruc- tion,and who hold themselves ready work, than which there is none more to answer any call for Christian important and delicate: "Multiply, therefore, the numbers of your agents. See to it that the women you send out are physically sound and strong, for the work at its best is onerous and exhausting. Let them be tactful, not too full of the idea of English superiority, while maintaining, in all its fulness, the English standard of life and morals.
Let them be apt in acquiring foreign work among their people.-Home lines, 1,000; Guam in Ladrones, 500; Mission Monthly. total, 171,600. Cuba is about the -A pleasant picture this: The size of New York, Ohio, or Ala- Woman's Missionary Society of the bama. Puerto Rico is a Iittle smaller Indian church at Good Will than Connecticut. The Hawaiian assembled in the home of their Islands are somewhat smaller than pastor, himself a Dakota Indian; New Jersey, the largest island, the neat frame house attractive Hawaii, being about twice the size with its cozy porches, bow window of Delaware. The Philippines cover of blooming plants, and tasteful a land space about as great as New interior; 25 women industriously York and the New England states plying needle and thread; the after- together. Luzon, on which Manila noon closing with a prayer-meet- is situated, is not much smaller ing, as usual, the eldest daughter than New York. All the new de- of the pastor leading the singing pendencies together are about equal at the organ. – Home kIission in area to the New England states, Monthly. New York, Pennsylvania, and New -Take a crumb from a report Jersey. In annexing lands we which is full of meat, that of the annex populations also. These are girls' school at Tabriz, Persia: "A as follows: Cuba, 1,500,000; 65 per Kurdish chief visited our school, cent. white. Puerto Rico, 1,000,000; and when he had heard the girls 60 per cent. white. Hawaii, 90,000; recite, seen their needlework, heard 65 per cent. white. Philippines, them sing and talk in three lan- 8,000,000; mostly Orientals. Sulus, guages, when he himself had exam- Carolines, and Ladrones, mainly ined the little girls in Turkish and barbarous. Roughly, we annex the seniors in Persian, he threw about 10,000,000 people, of whom 00 down his book and exclaimed that per cent. belong to more or less he 'had heard, but the half had inferior races."
never been told' him. ' 1Vho -Dr. Gunsaulus, in the six years would think,' he said, 'that girls of his service at Plymouth Church, could ever learn to do all these Chicago, raised something over things? But onr girls, what do $6,000,000 for institutions which he they know? 1Vhy, compared with chose to aid or found. One Sunday ;ljonr girls, they are mere donkeys;' he set forth in his best ma,nner the and he left, saying he prayed for things that ought to be done for the day when Kurdish children, the young boys and girls of our too, might be in school."-lYoman's generation. When he was through, Work/or Woman. Philip D. Armour came forward and said: "Do you believe in those AMERICA.
-The New York Evening Post ideas you just now exprest?" " I summarizes our new possessions as certainly do," said Dr. Gunsaulus.
follows: "The islands we have " And you'd carry them out if you taken number more than 2,000- had the means?" "Most assured- they have never been counted, and ly." "vVell,then," said Mr. Armour, still less have they been accurately " if you will give me five years of surveyed. But the best statistics your time, I will give you the available yield the following results money." The result was that Ar- as to areas in square miles: Cuba, mour Institute has Dr. Gunsaulus 45,000; Puerto Rico, 3,550; Hawai- as its president, where 1,200 young ian group, 6,640; the Philippines, men and women are taught 114,000; the SuIus. 1.OOOj the Caro- the most important industrial branches. The Sabbath address is same work-Booker T. Washing- to go down in history under the ton." title of the" $2,800,000 sermon." -A woman, bringing her daugh- -According to the census of 1890 ter fresh from the mountains to there were 33,004 negroes in the U ni- one of our schools, was much im- ted States engaged in professional prest. She declared, "It was a services. Of these 12,182 were minis- plumb sight! "-her "it" meaning ters, 440 lawyers, 1,190 physicians, everything in general. When taken 15,147 professors and teachers, and to the third floor of the house, she 4,025 in other pursuits clast as rusht in frantic fear to pull the girl professional. In 1895-00 there were from the window, where she had 1,319 students in professional gone to look out, crying, "You'II courses in colored schools, and of fall! I'm plumb dizzy!" In crossing these 126 were women. There were the veranda she took the precau- 703 students and 76 graduates of tion to keep close to the house, as theology, 124 students and 24 grad- if in danger of plunging over the uates in law, 286 students and 30 edge of a precipice. When shown graduates in medicine, and 6 grad- dormitoriee, she remarkt, "The uates in pharmacy, and 126 students girls sleep in rotation." – Home and 40 graduates in nurse training. Mission Monthly. The number of trained colored physicians has since risen to 805. -Episcopal work among the freedmen is establisht in 24 dio- – -When recently President Mc- ceses, wherein 40 colored priests Kinley and his cabinet paid a visit and 340 colored deacons are laborto Tuskegee anQ. Booker Washing- ing, and also 60 white clergymen. ton's Institute, Secretary Long There are 5 archdeacons in as many said: "A picture has been presented dioceses. The approximate results to-day which should be put upon taken from last reports: Communithe canvas with the pictures of cants, 7,556; baptized, 1,4079; Sun- Vashington and Lincoln, and day-school scholars (average), 6,248; transmitted to the future time and teachers, 633; the day pupils avergeneration; a picture which the age 3,9400, and it is estimated that press of the country should spread in all about 8,000 negroes have been broadcast over the land, a dramatic confirmed. picture, and that picture is this: The president of the United States -Troopfl Land 11, of Roosevelt's standing on this platform; on one Rough Riders, were enlisted at side the governor of Alabama, on :lHuskogee, Indian Territory. In the other, completing the trinity, a troop L were three Kendall College representative of a race only a few students-one Creek, one Cherokee, years ago in bondage, the colored and one white. Troop L was the president of the Tuskegee Normal company commanded by the fearand Industrial Institute. God bless less Capron. Our Creek boy was the president under whose majesty bugler for that troop, and sounded such a scene as this is presented to the first charge of the war. He the American people. God bless had his trumpet shot away, and the State or Alabama, which is was wounded in that first fight at showing that it can deal with this La Quasina. The Cherokee was inproblem for itself. God bless the stantly killed by the bursting of a orator, philanthropist, and disciple shell in the charge at San Juan. of the Great Master who, if he The white boy came home gaunt were on earth, would be doing the and fever-stricken. Kendall stu- dents have enlisted in other regiments; some have gone South, and saw them last year giving it up for some West, in the army of occupa- books, things that were lookt upon tion.-ALICE ROBERTSON. only two or three years ago as not worth bothering about. The first -Mr. A. H. Waggener, of Eure- thing an Eskimo now asks for, as a ka, Ill., is still engaged in his mis- rule, is so many books for himself sionary institute work. He has and family. But what astonishes since 1895 devoted his time ex- me most of all is the use they make clusively to this form of service. of them. Eskimos who could not Last year he lectured for charity read the year before, came last five weeks in Illinois and Indiana, spring, not only able to read them, besides attending numerous con- but able to show me the page where ventions. The work is, of course, any particular word was that I an interdenominational one, and askt them for. Surely this is a the maps and illustrations greatly cause for praise and thankful.. aid in impression. Pastors and ness. "-0. M. S. Gleaner. others, who desire to stimulate missionary zeal, which is founded EUROPE. on knowledge of the world-field, would do well to correspond with Great Britain.-The record num- Mr. Waggener.-A. T. P. ber of British warships now build- ing amounts to 119 vessels, ranging -The largest Indian work of the from the heaviest battle-ships to Episcopal Church "is in South tiny torpedo-boat destroyers, the Dakota, where the result of Bishop figures being 16 first-class ironclads, Hare's great work of 25 years is 36 cruisers, 14 sloops and gunboats, evidenced in the chapels and and 53 torpedo-boat destroyers. schools and 70 congregations scat- Chatham Dockyard is credited with tered over that great prairie the unparalleled achievement of waste, which a quarter of a cen- launching 3 of the heaviest battletury ago was inhabited by In- ships from the same slip within ten dians, then sunk in vice and every months. The armored ships being kind of wickedness, illiterate and built, at a cost of over £26,000,000 savage, having no higher ambi- ($130,000,000), number 28, with a tion than to live like the brute tonnage of over 350,000, the number beasts. To:·day there stand, in that exceeding by 2 the entire Russian same wilderness, 4 substantial fleet of battle-ships, and treble the boarding-schools, averaging 50 pu- number of armored vessels in the pils each, 53 neat church buildings, American navy. The whole of and 37 small mission houses, that these ships will be added to the have, in the kind providence of effective strength of the British God, gathered into His fold over navy by March, 1903. 10,000 baptized Indians from among the Sioux Indians, 12 of whom have -Dr. Barnardo's homes now conbeen especially trained and edu- tain nearly 5,000 waifs and strays cated, and have been ordained and (among whom are 700 little incursent forth to minister the Word ables, deaf and dumb, blind, and the Sacraments to their own crippled or otherwise diseased), and people."-Spirit of Mi$$ion$. 8 souls are added every 24 hour~ to this great family. 36,000 waifs -The Rev. W. G. Walton, work- have been rescued, of whom over ing in the diocese of Moosonee, 10,000 trained boys and girls have writes: "It is a common saying been successfully placed out in the here that an Eskimo will not give colonies, and nearly 21,000 sent to up his tobacco for anything, but I sea, or placed in situations in Great Britain. During the last two years at Drammen. They were continued no fewer than 4,877 fresh cases have during four days. This society been admitted-a number probably holds correspondence with the in excess of admissions by all the French Lutheran Synod and has other existing societies put to- extensive missions in Madagascar. gether. The doors are open to the Last year there were, in connection homeless freely day and night all with this mission, 25,336 communithe year round. No eligible case is cants and 44,000 regular attendants rejected on the ground of age, sex, at worship. The number of school creed, nationality, or physical con- children was 46,811, of whom 29,421 dition. No really destitute child were taught French. The number has ever been refused admission. of native pastors was 60.
The Continent.-Societe des Mis- -The following notice has been sions Evangeliques de Paris has received from the Moravian Mission just closed a memorable year, for it Board in Berthelsdorf: ' , We hasten has called forth an unprecedented to inform the friends of our mission effort and sacrifice. Forty-two that the trustees of the Morton Europeans, of whom 25 are men Bequest have paid £16,406 as the and 17 women, have gone out to 5 first instalment for our missions. different mission fields, six to the By the provisions of the will, this Lessouto, 10 to the Zambesi, 5 to is only available for the forming of the Kongo, 3 to Tahiti, and 18 to new out-stations in missions Madagascar. Of these, 9 were mis- selected by the trustees, and for sionaries returning to the former paying additional workers at such scenes of their labors; 31 were new stations. On the basis of proposals workers – missionaries, teachers, requested from us, the trustees evangelists, or artisans; and 2 were have decided tl).at the above-named delegates sent on special work by sum shall commence the following the society. enterprises: 1. Port Elizabeth, South Africa. 2. Cape Gracias a -The last annual report of the Dios, Nicaragua. 3. Rigolet, Lab- Roman Catholic Society of Foreign rador. 4. New Church in Para- Missions in Paris, as noted in The maribo, Surinam. These will be Independent, shows that the work commenced as soon as possible in of the society extends over Eastern each case. We repeat with empha- Asia and includes 28 dioceses, with sis that this bequest is not available 1,031 European and 569 native for the large -deficiency on our priests. The adult baptisms, with- general fund, or for the maintenout counting missions in Siam and ance of existing work. The present Yunnan, were 46,326, an advance of financial crisis of our missions is nearly 8,000 on the preceding year, not relieved in any wise by this and the entire community reported gift." in connection with the missions number 1,162,165. -Dr. Gustav Warneck, of Halle, has completed the twenty-fifth year -Thirteen missionaries of the of his issue of the Allgemeine Mis- Paris Lutheran Society labor on sionszeitschrijt. There is no one the island of Madagascar. The on th-e Continent who has a greater Lutheran Church of Norway knowledge of missions, or has renrecently sent 20 additional workers dered greater service to the sciento the same field. tific study of them. His rewritten "History of Protestant Missions" is -The Norwegian Missionary So- by far the best in any language; it ciety held lately its annual meetings has run through three editions in ASIA. Germany in one year, and we hope soon to see it in English dress. Islam.-The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind to -The contest for religious liberty powder. 'l'he Jewish Missionary in Austria is still going on. A re- Intelligence states that since 1876, cent case in the highest court was when the present sultan ascended decided against the evangelical the throne, Turkey has shrunk to party, and some of the officials are half its former size. In Europe already making use of this decision there has been the loss of Bosnia, to insist that children must receive Servia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the religious instruction of the Rumania, :Montenegro, Thessaly, church in which their parents were and now Crete; in Asia of Kars, born. This decision will bear hard- Batum, and Ardahan; in Africa, of ly upon former Romanists. A Egypt. The population has dememorial has been sent to the em- creast from 42,000,000 in 1876, to peror, testifying to the loyalty of 21,000,000 in 1898. But, 0 Lord, the members of the free churches, how long!! and calling his attention to the restrictions put upon their liberty. -Mr. Timothy B. Hussey, of Our missionary writes, "God has the excellent Ramallah Mission of helpt and will help."-Missionary the American Friends, writes from Herald. Jerusalem under date of December 10th, 1898, speaking of their pleas- -We know of no more practical ure and encouragement in a recent way in which to show sympathy visit of Dr. Cecil F. T. Bancroft, with the best elements in the popu- principal of the Phillips Academy, lation there who are eager to see Andover, Mass. better days for the country (Spain) than by assisting Mrs. Alice Gordon There are 27 girls in the training Gulick in her splendid work at the home of the mission, "where they American Institute for Girls. The are taught, first the Christian reo school has been in Biarritz, just ligion, then, all things good and over the French border, during useful, as in secular schools. They the war. That it still retains its are taught housework, sewing, etc. influence over a considerable sec- We have in aJl the day-schools tion of the Spanish population is about 150 more little Arab girls, proved by the fact that in Septem- and it is such a beautiful sight to ber 11 new students crost the see them thus brought together frontier and entered the institu- under good Christian discipline. tion. The time is at hand when a For the training home we endeavor return to Spain seems wise, and to select bright, active, healthy, Mrs. Gulick believes that the largest and intelligent girls, who will be usefulness will be secured if Madrid, likely to develop into missionaries, and not its former location, San teachers, good wives, and helpers Sebastian, is selected as the future in the future for the elevation of home for the school. If $50,000 can this people." be secured, land and a building will be speedily forthcoming, and thus Mr. Hussey refers, naturally, to a substantial center of American the unhappy state of women there. and Christian ideas and influences will be planted in the heart of the "Yesterday my wife was called nation's capital.-Congregational- to see a sick family. She found a ist. home, where lived in one room, two fathers, two mothers, nine children, and the grandmother, and six of them sick with very sore eyes. The room was totally dark Mount of Olives to Jerusalem, and when the door was shut, and smoky, before starting, the leading sheik, as there was no chimney, these de- a Moslem, askt permission to be fects causing the most of the ill- allowed to say "good-by" to his ness." When Mrs. Hussey had friend, and stooping down he revthoroughly washt up the nine chil- erently kist the cold forehead, saydren, there was great delight. ing in a low tone, "The peace of God rest upon thee. Be assured The treasurer of the Ramallah that without doubt I will meet Mission is Sarah J. Swift, 22 Oak thee in heaven;" and he made an Avenue, Worcester, Mass. earnest request that another lady worker should be sent to Et Tur, -The remarkable increase in the the village where she had lived.- population in Jerusalem during the C. M. S. Intelligencer. last fifty years is exciting much interest. The number to-day is India.-Dr. Fairbairn says, as the estimated at 45,000; of these 28,000 Indian Witness reports: To stand are Jews. Indeed, the whole Jewish face to face with the teeming milpopulation of Palestine is reckoned lions, and with all the influences at 100,000. that work against a hearing and against success, without fainting No fewer than 565 baptisms of or being discouraged, speaks of the Jews have taken place at Christ highest heroism; all the more so Church, Jerusalem, hundreds of because much of this work is done Jewish children have been edu- in obscurity, and made the harder cated in its schools, tens of because of lack of sympathy on the thousands of sick Jews have been part of those of our own race and treated in its hospitals, and a large faith and country. It seemed to number of Bibles and New Testa- him, he said, that the missionary ments circulated. and his work is more fully appre- ciated by the people of India than Jerusalem seems on the eve of by the Christian people of England becoming once more the "praise of in India. There may be immense the whole earth." No people need resources behind a great state; but, more the prayers of Christians in his judgment, the missionary than the Jews. "Pray for the and his work have more influence peace of Jerusalern."-The Chr'is- in reconciling the people of India tian. and the people of England.
-From that sacred spot where -I met in India an intelligent the Lord and Savior ascended from Sikh from the Punjab, and askt the earth to resume the glory which him about his religion. He re- He had laid aside for our sakes, plied, "I believe in one God, and I another devoted friend and worker repeat my prayers, called Japji, has been taken to her reward. every morning and evening. These Miss Helen Attlee went out to prayers occupy 6 pages of print, Palestine in 1890, and most of her but I can get through them in little time of service was spent on the more than 10 minutes." He Mount of Olives, where her patient seemed to pride himself on this love and ever-ready sympathy and rapid recitation as a work of inkindness won her an influence of a creast merit. I said, "What else quite remarkable kind over the does your religion require of you?" Moslem villagers around her. This He replied, "I have made one pilwas very touchingly manifested at grimage to a holy well near Amrither funeral on December 23, the day after her death, when numbers followed the remains from the sar. Eighty-five steps lead down being held. The following statistics to it. I descended and bathed in the sacred pool. Then I ascended of the C. M. S. in North India will one step, and repeated my Japji in about ten minutes. Then I de- show the advance that has been scended again to the pool and bathed again, and ascended to the made: second step, and repeated my Japji a second time. Then I descended a 1848 1898 third time and bathed, and ascend- 113 ed to the third step and repeated Ordained Missionaries……… 28 20 my J apji a third time; and so on for 14 the whole 85 steps, 85 bathings, and Unordained Missionaries 12 44 85 repetitions of the same prayers. It took me exactly 14 hours, from Medical Missionaries………. 0 1,050 5 P. M .• one evening, to 7 A. 1'!., 82 next morning." I askt, "What Ordained Native Pastors …… 0 good did you expect to get by going 7,000 through this task?" He replied, Native Agents …………….. 150 23,000 "Ihope I have laid up a great store of merit, which will last me a long Mission Stations…………… 21 350 time." This is the genuine Hindu 19,000 idea.-Sir MONIER-WILLIAMS. Communicants ……………. 1,040 450 -A missionary writes: "May I Baptized Adherents……….. 3,000 18,000 tell you of three subjects for encouragement and praise in the Schools……………………. 70 280 Northwest Provinces: (1) The wonderful raising and transforming of Scholars ………………….. 4,700 Indian women by Christianity. A striking proof of this is, that the Baptisms…………………. 50 first Indian deaconess has just been appointed, and she is likely to be Gifts from Native Churches.. 0 followed by others. Christianity can develop in women capacity for English unmarried Women … bearing responsibility and for independence. (2) There have been, -The Industrial Missions Aid the bishop says, more baptisms in Society has now issued its prothe Northwest Provinces during spectus for the establishing of carthe last 6 months than in the whole pet-making and other industries in of the previous 24 years. At Mirat India, as an auxiliary to mission the converts are being tested by work. A company has been startvery trying persecution. They are ed, called the Indian Mission Inentirely boycotted; they are re-_ dustries, Limited, which calls for fused their wages; they are not 5,000 shares at £1 each. The first even allowed to drink water from factory to be started will be at the wells. (3) The setting aside by Ahmednagar, in connection with the Church Missionary Society of the technical school of the Amerispecially and scientifically trained ca~ Marathi Mission. The carpets missionaries to work among 1'£0- to be manufactured will be the hammedans. " high class hand-made carpets. A competent manager is to come -In 1848, the jubilee of the C. M. from England to superintend the S. was held. now its centenary is work. The factory will probably employ several hundred hands, and so provide a means of livelihood to many in that district. Many boys are being already trained by Mr. Smith, and they will be ready to enter the factory as soon as it is started. A similar arrangement, we understand, is in contemplation in connection with the Wesleyan Mission. There is a promising field for the Indian Mission Industries Company, which, we are glad to see, is founded on a thorough busi- ness basis.
-On the 3rd of November last, three buildings were opened at Alimednagal' for the school of in- dustrial arts, of which our mission- ary, Rev. James. Smith, is the principal. The school owes its exist- tians in a town 7 miles away; ence to the generosity of Sir D. M. fodder and firewood from Chris- Petit, of Bombay, who gave Rs. tians in a town 4 miles away." 10,000 ($3,300) for the establishment Other instances of self-sacrificing of the im;titution, the remaining benevolence are named, including Rs. 17,000 which the buildings cost a donation of 50 rupees from the having been provided by smaller Second Church in Ahmednagar, gifts from England and America. which has an article in its consti- One of the buildings is designed for tution forbidding the reception of the teaching of carpentry and pecuniary aid from the mission. metal work, another for carpet The people are doing what they can making, and the third is a dormi- in the matter of self-support, but tory for boys. The chief advantage their poverty is so deep that the of such an institution in its bearing gifts are necessarily small. It is, upon the kingdom of Christ in therefore, impossible for them to India is the preparation of a body make up the more than 50 per cent, of native men trained in the arts, reduction in the appropriation for who will be able to lift the churches evangelistic work. They ought not out of their dependence upon others to be askt to do the impossible.- for support. Trained hands will Missionary Herald. find employment, even among people who would absolutely refuse to -Miss Muller, formerly a memgive work to native Christians who ber of the London School Board, had no manual school training. and an active worker in social Such an institution will do much reform, went out to India as a to break down caste. delegate to the Indian National Congress four years ago, and then -The Friends' Mission in India gave herself to the study of Hinduhas now 850 orphans under its care, ism in its native home. As the of whom the greater portion are result she has authorized the Bomfamine waifs. Four pounds per bay Guardian to say that she has annum will support each of these found herself faced with the unlittle ones until he can earn his own avoidable conclusion that Hinduliving, and funds are earnestly ism "is utterly rotten and corrupt needed for this object. At Seoni, from beginning to end, and full of Malwa, 37 of the older boys re- danger to the unhappy people who cently made public confession of place their faith in it." Miss Muller Chlist. had joined the movement under Swami Vivekananda for the spread -Dr. R. A. Hume, of Ahmedna- of Hinduism; now she has abangar, writes us that " American doned it, and is thankful that it is Christians would surely be toucht coming to nothing both in England if they could see how some of these and in America. We would point native Christians are trying to out that these Eastern faiths, meet their responsibilities. Few sometimes so plausible, need a days pass in which village Chris- trained mind to expound them; tians do not send or bring some- e.g., a great scholar read monothing for their churches. Within theism in the words-" Brahm is the past few days I have received great, and beside him there is small sums of money from 5 towns; none"; but an experienced mission- 14 loads of firewood were brought ary read pantheism-" Brahm is on their heads by Christians from everything, and everything is a town 10 miles away; firewood, Brahm."-The Christian. vegetables, and grass from Chris- China.-In 1842 the English na- mand for new books, even in this tion employed more than 15,000 interior province of Shansi, is so persons to secure for itself commer- great that some enterprising mem- cial advantages in China; the same bers of the Christian congregation year all the churches in Christen- propose to start a bookstore, in- dom had only 16 missionaries in vesting several hundred dollars in the empire. Now there are nearly the enterprise. 2,500, and 5,000 Chinese workers. -The writings of Dr. Martin, Dr. -Last August the Yellow River Faber, Dr. Fryer, and Dr. Allen, had one of its worst sprees. It have exerted an enormous influence broke its bank in four different everywhere. The same is especially places, and now makes for the true of the numerous and timely ocean by two new channels which publications of Rev. Tim 0 thy it is gouging out for itself, one on Richard, the secretary of the Soeach side of the old one, which in ciety for the Diffusion of Christime may become a dry bed of sand, tian Knowledge, whose translation most of the year. One of these of Mackenzie's "Nineteenth Cennew streams is about 120 miles tury," together with Dr. Allen's long, and floods the country in a " History of the War between strip from 16 to 30 miles wide. The China and Japan," have been, pergap in the bank where it breaks haps, more widely read than any through is about 7 miles wide. The other foreign-made books. The other stream sweeps a strip of monthly periodical called The Recountry not as wide as in the other view of the Times, finds its way all case. Except at the very beginning over the eighteen provinces, and it is in no place less than 8 or 10 even into the hauds of the emperor miles, and in some places it is 16 himself, who recently sent out urand 20 miles wide. No fewer than gent orders for all the back num- 31 counties are submerged, hun- bers for some years. dreds of towns and villages are utterly ruined, and some large walled -One of the six Chinamen recities are like islands in the sea.- cently executed in accordance with Rev. WM. ASHMORE. the imperial edict of the empress- dowager of China, brought her -So P., in the Christian World, wrath upon him because he reestimates that at least 500,000 at- printed an astronomy compiled by tempts occur annually in China to two of the missionaries, and added commit suicide by opium, and gives certain notes of his, in which he data sufficient, apparently, to jus- pointed out the incompatibility of tify his conclusion. By far the the facts revealed by astronomy greater number are women. with ancient Chinese doctrines. Tho only twenty-two years old, he -Rev. Mr. Atwater, of Shansi, had taken high rank as a scholar. calls attention to the wisdom and Such men as he, growing up within forecast of Protestant missionaries the confines of China, show how in translating books of science into the leaven is working, and in a Chinese. The result of this work very real sense they are martyrs is marvelous. At Fen-cho-fu, for to the truth. instance, the district and provincial magistrates, and the principal -One of the American Board schoolmaster, have just purchast missionaries in North China says numbers of books from mission- that a very encouraging feature in aries, and have ordered others that the present outlook is the fact that they have not on hand. The de- the spirit of martyrdom is abroad in the land. He adds: "Some of they have played something that these progressive officials might sounds like a Scotch bagpipe, and easily have availed themselves of ought to alarm any. devil, I should foreign protection and escaped say; the priests chanted. and what they knew was certain death, enough fireworks were set off to but they were heroes, and the world make a fourth of July. Every now ought to honor their memory as and then they stop. They also that of men who went down in the place tempting dishes outside the noble cause of truth and progress. door, and politely invite the devil They died obscurely, with their to come out and feast. The serv- bodies disgracefully mutilated like ants say they will keep up this those of murderers and criminals noise all night, stopping only to of the worst type, but the time will drink teal If we were heath8n we come, I hope before long, when should be afraid that the devil these men will be recognized and might come into our house when it their memory honored as the truest leaves the other. To prevent this, heroes in their country's history." we would place a knife and a broom across the door, besides hanging -The British consul at Chung- clothes around all the beds." king, basing his calculations on information received from the French -The most intelligent Chinese consul and priests, computed that are beginning now to perceive the up to the beginning of November, weaknesses of the hitherto impreg- 25 Roman Catholic chapels had nable citadel of Confucianism. Rebeen destroyed, thousands of their cent political events have given a native Christians had been ren- blow to the power of the old dered homeless, and perhaps 60 or philosophy from which it will pro- 70 killed. Bishop Cassels states bably never recover. The lettered that he had heard from other class, the "readers of books," the sources that in some cases these obstinate and prejudiced disciples of Christians had an opportunity the sage, who for so many ages given them to recant, but refused has been considered divine, were to do so, and were then beheaded. powerless to do anything to save their country, or to spare her the -Miss E. B. Sale, Canton, writes: keenest insults. People begin to "The people in the house opposite agree that it might be well to us are very busy this evening driv- abandon a decrepit system and to ing out the devil. Judging from accept some principles, perhaps the sounds they are having a pretty even a new religion, from those hard job of it; the devil must be abominable foreigners, so long rather a determined fellow. It be- mockt at and even stoned. – Lc gan while we were at tea. Such a MissionaiTc. beating of brass gongs that we could scarcely hear each other -Mr. Cecil Smith, of C. 1. M., speak. We askt the cook what writes from Shanghai. "In the was the matter, and he replied: July 1898 Number (Vol. xi, No.7). 'Oh, they are only driving out the on page 557, Rev. 1. Southy is devil! Some one in the house is quoted as never having seen an sick.' When one is sick, of course, indecent picture of any kind durthat is a sign that a devil is tor- ing his residence in China. The menting him, and the only cure is inference would seem to be that to frighten the evil spirit away. there are none. This is quite in- They have tried several plans this correct. In our boy's school at evening. Besides beating the gongs, Hsing-i (Province of Kuei-chou) I found a lad 10 years old with a set rule of the province, which he afcf most filthy pictures in his pos- firmed would be in the hands of the session. The native school-teacher queen and the khedive, the sole told me (and others have since con- representative of both being the firmed his statement) that these sirdar, in whom they have full conpictures are issued largely from fidence. There will be no attempt Hunan province, and scattered to govern the country from Cairo, over the various provinces by still less from London. He then Hunan and other pedlers. The promist perfect religious freedom, pictures are not exposed for public and in answer to a question assured sale, but are offered to boys and the sheiks that Moslem sacred law young men. I think that we mis- would be applied. Another act of sionaries are in danger of white- Lord Cromer's on his visit was the washing the Chinese for the sake laying of the foundation stone at of emphasizing the sins of Christen- Khartum of the Gordon Memorial dom. This is not wise." College. He outlined the aims of the college, announced that it will AFRICA. be wholly undenominational, and that the instruction so far as prac- North.-Twenty years ago there ticable will be conducted in Arabic; was scarcely a mile of good wagon- that its object shall not be to create road in Egypt. During the last 6 a race of Anglicized Sudanese, but years more than a 1,000 miles of to train their minds. fine roads have been constructed. Egypt to-day has more miles of -A method of propagating Islam railroad than Spain, or Portugal, without the Mohammedans at home or Austria-Hungary. Under the having to support their mission- Ptolemies it is estimated that the aries is thus reported to Evangepopulation did not exceed 8,000,000; lisches Missions Magazin: " A under the Mamelukes it fell to Basle missionary, traveling in the 3,000,000. When the British began German Sudan, met a Mohammedan their rule in 1882 the population teacher who carried with him the was less than 6,000,000; it is now Koran and wooden writing tables. almost 10,000,OOO-an increase of 66 Stopping at all places which have per cent. in 16 years. Egypt is no Mohammedan colonies, he goes longer the granary of the world, through his prayers every evening but its agricultural productions are in public in the most careful and far in excess of what they were in impressive way. He gathers the the "sev~n fat years" of Joseph. Moslem children and teaches them British enterprise and British gov- to read and write, requiring them ernment, joined with modern meth- to learn by heart verses of the ods, have wrought wonders in this Koran and prayers. When a land of the oldest civilization of scholar has completed his course in historic times. They have refuted this superficial instruction, his the idea that ruined empires can father has to pay a cow or produ;je not be rehabilitated.-United Pres- of the country to the value of about byterian. 40 shillings to the teacher. In this way these Mohammedan priests -Lord Cromer, the British diplo- support themselves and lead a very matic agent in Egypt, has been up comfortable life." the Nile to visit General Kitchener at Omdurman, and in a general re- West.-The present mutiny in the ception to the Sudanese sheiks KongoFree State is probablythe last made a long address on the future desperate attempt to throw off the white man's control. It is also the East.-The missionaries of the most serious outbreak, on account Zambesi Industrial Mission, in of the inaccessibility of the region. British Central Africa, recently When it is remembered that Baron sent to the queen a box containing Dhanis, the Belgian commander, is about 201bs. of coffee, as a sample of 300 miles from his base of supplies, the crop (of some 40 tons) which has with only a handful of whites, it is been raised this year on the plantasmall wonder that so many Euro- tions of the mission, by means of peans have already been sacrificed, native labor, under the supervision and it will occasion no surprise if of the missionaries. The sample further disasters await the Bel- represented the coffee in 4 of its gians. According to the latest in- different stages of preparation: (1) formation, Baron Dhanis is practi- In the berry, as exported, after cally surrounded by mutinous na- being gathered, pulpt, and dried; tives, and it is reported that panic (2) the berries cleaned and stript reigns throughout the Kongo ter- of their husks, as sold in the Lonritory. don market; (3) the berries roast- ed; (4) the coffee roasted and South.-Under the appropriate ground and ready for use. title, "A Battlefield in Africa," Rev. F. R. Bunker writes: "The Girls' There are some 30 English mis- Seminary, at lnanda, is a most im- sionaries in the field. Ten stations portant part of our Zulu mission. have been opened, 7 of which are The front veranda of the teacher's in charge of English missionaries, house, like the valley of Esdraelon and 3 are under native supervision. in Palestine, is famous in heaven, Eleven schools are maintained, and I believe, for the illustrious battles the average daily attendance last of the Lord waged here against year was 670. There are 2 hospitals, heathenism in this land." And this and a recent report states that the, is one of several hard-fought fields number of cases treated in 1 month he tells of: "Here Nomdeha, a prin- was about 1500, of which number cess, whose value was reckoned at about 50 were in-patients. The a hundred sleek cows, stood one number of natives employed on the day. An old counselor of her chief- mission's estates last year amounttain father pleads with her: 'Re- ed to between 1600 and 2000. member your royalty; don't cast disgrace upon your great name, -A missionary writes in Cenand bring sorrow and shame upon tral Africa (Universities' Mission): your tribe.' Hear her reply: 'Do "vVill those who send home-made you see that rose-bush in bloom?' or other dainties to Africa please pointing to it. 'My royalty is like remember that they must be sent t,hose flowers, soon to fade.' She in soldered tins. Cakes, plum-pudstays. A term went by, and she dings, cheese, bacon, are very acthought it safe to return home in ceptable in a country where these vacation. Her father commands things are entirely unprocurable, her mother to tear off her clothes, and if put into a tin and soldered and it is done. She borrows a down they will travel safely and shawl, anti, under shelter of the add zest to meals composed day darkness, runs back to school. She after day of tinned meat and the stays two terms, then returns home bony African kuku (fowl). It would again, and is kept a prisoner for be a great kindness if we someover six months, closely guarded. times gave a thought to the mon- Again she runs away." otonous African fare of our mis- sionaries, especially those up country. Zanzibar is more civilized, years later he was caIled to the service of the and there the table is better fur- foreign board. Dr. Gillespie was a man with nisht. How acceptable a Buszard a warm heart and good judgment. His piety cake would be at Magila, Kota was deep and unaffected, his courtesy was Kota, or Masasi ! " genuine and unfailing. He was an able writer and excellent speaker, and his sys- -Bishop Tucker writes: "One tematic methods and thoroughness, commust thankfully and praisefully bined with his other excellent qualities, made acknowledge that the church of him an invaluable secretary. Buganda, however much it may fall short in this or that particular, Dr. Gillespie past away f~""" his home at is full of vital energy,-an energy Elizabeth, N. J., on February 16. He was which can only be described as twice married, and leaves a vidow, two sons God-given. This God-given energy by his first marriage, and a son and a is manifesting itself in many di- daughter by his second marriage. rections, but in none is it more markedly apparent than in mission- The Rev. Benjamin Du Bois Wyckoff, for ary operations both in Toro and thirty-five years a missionary in India, died the adjacent countries. It is aiact, on March 1. He was born in Ohio on May 18, hardly I think realized, that the 1834, was a graduate of Hanover College and foundations of a church in Toro Allegheny Theological Seminary; was marare being laid, a church which ried to ~1alissa Johnson on May 31,1860, and, bids fair to become as strong and acconlpanied by his wife, started almost improsperous as that in Buganda. mediately for the mission field. After many Nor is it more fully realized that years of service, broken only by occasional Bugandn, missionaries have pene- furloughs, he finally returned to the United trated even to the outskirts of States in 1895, very much shattered in health. Stanley's dark forest,-some 300 He had gone to North Carolina, hoping to remiles from Mengo,-and that at the cover his strength. There survive him his present moment these missionaries widow and six children, four daughters and are nearer to the nearest mission two sons-Walter A. 'Vyckoff, a professor station on the Kongo than they at Princeton University, and J. Edward are to the capital of Buganda. Wyckoff, of New York City. These men (Baganda) have given up home and friends, luxury, and The Rev. Alexander Thomson, D.D., one of so-called pleasures for their Mas- Constantinop1e1s veteran missionaries, past ter's sake and the Gospel's, and are away on January 15th. He was Oorn in Arliving lives of such self-denial and broath, Scotland, Dec. 2, 1820. After his devotion as almost to make one gradnation from St. Andrew'g University, he ashamed of the little one has given taught for'a year in Ireland, and in 1845 went up in the same great cause." out as a missionary of the Free Church, to work among the Jews. After a year of pre· Necrology. lilninary training in BuLla-Pesth, he began active work in Constantinople, and until 1860 The Board of Foreign Missions of the his work was entirely among the ,Tews of Presbyterian Church has lost a most efficient Turkey. His linguistic ability was of great and beloved officer by the death of Rev. John assistance to hirn in that cosmopolitan city, Gillespie, D.D., who for thirteen years has for he was facile in his use of Hebrew, Spanbeen one of its corresponding secretaries. Dr. ish, German, French, Greek, Italian, and Gillespie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in Turkish. Translation work occupied a large 1839, and came to America with his parents share of his energy, and he twice assisted in at the age of fourteen. He studied at Wash- revising the Hebrew-Spanish New Testament. ington and Jefferson College and at Alle- He also publisht two editions of a series of gheny Theological Seminary. After a pas- graded text-books in the same dialect, which torate in West Liberty, Pittsburg, in 1882 he are used in most schools for Jewish children succeeded Dr. W. C. Roberts as pastor of throughout Turkey. He was also the author Westminster Church in Elizabeth, N. J. Four of an Old Testament History in Hebrew- Spanish.
In 1860 Dr. Thomson resigned his connec- tion with the Scotch mission, and accepted the position of agent in Turkey and Greece of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which position he held tiII failing health forced him to retire from it in 1896. During these years he became especially interested in the study of Albanian, in which language he edited quite a number of tracts. He was also chiefly instrumental in maintaining work among the Albanians at Koritza and other points.
Dr. Thomson leaves five children, three sons and two daughters. One son is the Rev. Robert Thomson, missionary of the A, B. Q. F. M. at Samokov, Bulgaria.
The Missionary Review of the World — December 1895
"/01", Livinj{ston Nevius." Copyrij{kt I8qS. by Flemine H. Revell
DR. NevIus AND "FAMINE Boys" AT THE "NAN-Lou." MISSION'ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVIII. No. 12.-0IdSeries:-DEcEMBER.-VOL. VIII. No. 12.-NewSe1ies.
JOHN LIVINGSTON NEVIUS, THE MODERN APOSTLE OF CHINA. * BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Thcre is an apostolic succession, in a very unique sense. The Holy Ghost has His apostles, as the Acts of the Apostles proves; for, in the church of Antioch, lIe separated unto Himself and" sent forth" Barnabas and Saul; and, as the word apostle means one who is sent forth, Barnabas is afterward called an " apostle." (Compare 13 : 1-4 ; 14 : 14.) Thus a word, hitherto having the specific sense of one chosen by Christ and sent forth by Him, and limited to such, is now for the first and, so far as we have observed, only time, used of a man who is sent forth under the authority and by the definite commission of the Spirit of God. Christ's apostles were all from those who had seen Him after He was risen, and who therefore can have no proper successors, as even Vhately himself conceded; but the Holy Spirit's apostles may still be among us, for He still sends forth representatives, and we cannot doubt that he who is the subject of this sketch was among them.
For forty years out of sixty-four he was a missionary to the Chinese, and a faithful, loving, devoted, successful missionary he was. From the days of that pioneer, Robert Morrison, until now, it may well be doubted whether anyone man has ever, during so long a term of service in the Middle Kingdom, had more abundant attestation that he was sent forth by the Spirit to that laud.
It is true, Nevius was no common man. He possessed unusual capacity and sagacity combincd, and he filled out a very varied and versatile career, as preacher, teacher, evangelist, pastor, organizer, administrator, gathering converts and training helpers, raising foreign fruits and relieving famished thousands, a botanist and an inventor, an author and a translator, all in one. He was so wise a counsellor that he was looked up to as a sage, so faithful an administrator that boundless confidence was re- * John Livingston Nevius. By his wife. $2.00. Published by F. H. Revell Co., New York.
LIVINGSTON NEVIUS
posed in him, so catholic a disciple that he drew all believers into his capacious friendship, and so loyal a witness to Christ that he never gave an uncertain sound. His death leaves a gap, as an oak of Bashan leaves when torn np by a tornado, and it is a gap which half-a-dozen common men will not fill. Like Livingstone in Africa, Livingston Nevius was a missionary general and statesman in China.
Yet, tho an uncommon man, the secrets of his success are open for the most part to all who will learn them where he did, in the school of Christ. 'Ve shall here onlyad,'ert to some of these divinely taught lessons, referring the reader to that more copious and complete narrative, and graphic profile of his character and career, which his widow has left us, in which she mixed her colors with her own brains and heart's blood.
First of all, Dr. Nevius laid the basis of his lifework in f'egulating resolves. He lived by rule, tho not by rote j and twenty-four such " Rules" are on record, the first dated December 29th, 1850 j the last, April 17th, 1851. Four months, just after he attained majority, seem to have been given to the settling of the great principles by which his life was t.o be governed-in the best sense, t·uled.
It is not needful to transcribe them here, as they are published in full in his life (p. 713) ; but they are the laying of foundations tried by the plumb-line and level, set true and square. It is amazing how comprehen.. sive they are; they show the master builder working at the basis of the structure of character.
He begins by abandoning self-made plans, while seeking to be ready for whatever God wills j he puts life before him as a transaction with God and for God, and sets service rather than scholarship before him as his aim j he proposes victory over evil, Divine daily guidance, and habits of prayer, as to be expected and provided for; carelessness in devotion, covetousness in disposition, and envious and jealous tempers as to be anticipated and provided against; he determines also to study courtesy , of manners, but especially love to God and charity to all men in his heart.
Physical health is not overlooked. Hours of sleep, of exercise; habits of eating and fasting, of holy reflection, and Bible study j diligent use of time and thoroughness of application, avoidance of procrastination, of frivolous and indelicate conversation, and even of careless speech-all these crowned by the solemn purpose in aU his ways to acknowledge God, and to account nothing too trivial to submit to His direction-such are the basal stones which lay at the founuations of one of the purest, truest, noblest lives of this century of missions. What if every young man would lay a similar basis for his own life !What decision of character and what objects in living, deliberately chosen and sedulously pursued to the end!
Such Christian virtue brings its own reward. He shortly afterward recorded that whenever he had attempted to engage in any public service without asking help of God with a sense of weakness and dependence on Him, he had without a single exception made a signal failure (p. 83). But his lifelong success proves so signal, that we need no further record of the fact that he learned to lean and lean hard on the everlasting arms.
Another lesson, learned early in life, was that supreme one of waiting on God (Ps. 130 : 6)-passive receptivity, the attitude of repose, which is the opposite of action, and necessary to the acquisition of strength for action. To get alone with God in the secret place and there wait for the vision of God, as watchers for the dawn; waiting without speaking, in a sense without thinking, just spreading out the soul like Gideon's fleece to drink in the heavenly dew; awed into silence yet blest with expectancy, oppressed with conscious emptiness and impotency, but confident of Divine fulness and sufficiency-this was his second great lesson in the school of holy living, and there is scarce a greater to be learned (p. 99) !
The third grea~ step in this life was taken when, yet scarce twenty-four years old, God taught him the secret of a restful activity. These terms are not contradictory. He observed a tendency, both mental and physical, to hurry, with the usual accompaniments, flurry and worry, which rhyme in reason as well as in speech. He found an " impulsive, impetuous, hurrying, driving, reckless spirit manifesting itself in all intellectual enterprises"-" a restless anxiety to see the end of everything before the time"-" trying to do many things at once." And he marked the resuItnothing ever half done, not stopping long enough to treasure up a good thought or deepen a holy impression, weakening the memory and the heart alike; reluctance to do 'anything save under the pressure of hurry and excitement, and yet suffering from the inevitable reaction, with its depression of spirit. All this young Nevius learned to exchange for that co-labor with God that makes all work so blessed that even waiting on God renews strength. Some disciples have only got far enough to say, " I and God;" others have got further, and say, "God and I;" but blessed is he who has gone even further, and says, " God, and not I," as Paul did. To think of myself as only an instrument, and He the agent or actor-how restful this makes all labor for Him! "Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (p. 103).
When John L. Nevius reached Ningpo, in 1854, he found a sphere for full application of his resolve to be diligent and thorough. To learn the Chinese tongue was no easy task. It has been said to require " a head of steel, lungs of brass, a heart of oak, the patience of Job, and the lifetime of Methusaleh." He found that some who ventured too soon into public address did themselves more good than their hearers; and that the thorough knowledge of the Chinese" character," the" book language" of the country, was more difficult than to get hold of any other language in the world. But there was another study which exhausted his whole forty years-the study of the contradictions and complexities of the Chinese character in another sense. This remained to the cnd a half-solved problem. Dr. Nevius appears never to have been troubled with scepticism. Perhaps, after all, there is not much" honest doubt." For thirty years and more we have known but one case where scepticism had no obvious connection with the evil hem't of unbelief which departs from the living God. He maintained constant fellowship with God, and, when he could obtain no more favorable hours for devotion, would walk ahead of others to com- 'mune with God. "Without having in him anything of the ascetic bent, he seemed dead to the pleasures as well as to the charms of a sinful world.
In 1859 Dr. Nevius undertook, as pioneer, to open a new station at lIangchow, a city of a million inhabitants, and found a residence in the old Loh-o-tah Monastery. There he was overawed by the multitude of worshipers wending their way to the different monasteries, and, as for the vast throngs of beggars, such a loathsome spectacle he had never even imagined. In one immense hall he found five hundred idols, having cost enormous sums; but what most impressed him was an a.sylum f01' a.nimals, where horses and donkeys, buffaloes and oxen, sheep, pigs, and fowls were honsed by those who wonld secure merit with the gods. Beggars at large, and beasts cared for! A cemetery for asses and swine, and human beings left without burial (pp. 164-73) !
At Hangchow this apostle of China experienced the onerous exchange of courtesies. Every gift received implied another returned, so that even Chinese liberality was found to be organized selfishness. At the same time he had to meet and overcome Chinese suspicion and misrepresentation. lIe found that selfishness could not appreciate self-sacrifice, and he was asked how much he paid converts for becoming Christians, and felt that he was suspected of sinister motives. A book was printed and scattered broadcast, warning the people against capture and a worse than slave's fate. It was reported that girls were gathered into schools to be exported for manufacture into an elixir of life by boiling their bodies and obtaining the oil from them (pp. 186, 244)! To be suspected of monstrous crimes was a new sensation to the Christ-loving, soul-loving missionary ; but he remembered how his Master was reckoned as a malefactor and crucified between thieves, and the servant and disciple was content not to be above his Lord.
Dr. Nevius, in the a)Vful famine that visited Shantung, personally visited the stricken districts, and for three "months disbursed relief in person. He had to carry the heavy bulky copper cask in huge barrows, sometimes as many as five j the amount of money he distributed was about $10,000 j the persons aided, 32,500 ; and the villages, 383. The discretion he exhibited was marvelous. No man could have made so little money go farther. It was a fearfnl tax on sympathy and endurance, but he bore it grandly. and the famine became God's pioneer evangelist, opening doors for the Gospel.
The following is a testimonial from those in the famine district to the work and character of the" teacher Nee" (Nevius) : " Heaven, by means" of rain and dew, nourishes all things. Man, by
FT"'" "./ohn Li'llinpton Nruius." Colyrigltt llils. oy Fleming- H. R ..,,1/
CHINESE BEGGARS PUTTING UP POR THE NIGHT.
JOHN LIVINGSTON NEVIUS
the refreshing influences of kindness, confers blessings upon his fellow- beings. The work is one, and the spirit which inspires it is the same. Therefore, he who exerts all his power to benefit others may be character- ized as acting out of the principles of Heaven.
"The American teacher Nee was born in his own country, and on arriving at mature age came to China. He is thoroughly instructed in the doctrines of Christianity, and familiar with the mysteries of trnth. He prints books and preaches true doctrine for the purpose of enlightening the ignorant; and not only teaches by words, but is able, in imitation of Heaven, to practise what he preaches.
" We, inhabitants of Ching-chiu, from the cycle Ye-hai to the cycle Ping-ts [three years], haye been visited by a prolonged famine. Cries of distress, like 1hose of the wild swans, filled the whole plain, and persons about to die stared at one another on the roads. When the teacher looked upon this spectacle his heart was grieved within him. Heaven-inspired pity was aroused, and he at once desired to institute extensive plans for saving the multitudes from calamity, only fearing that his ability was not equal to the task before him. Fortunately, noble men of like sympathies came to his aid, and contributed of their wealth, so that their beneficence was spread far and wide. Still, without special qualifications for executing this work, it would not have been accomplishcd.
"In disbursing the funds he put forth all his ability. Favors were evenly distributed, without partiality, and extended in every direction, passing by no one.
" Altho the teacher is unwilling to regard himself as having any merit in this .matter, still how can those who have received such favors refrain from a grateful acknowledgment of them ~"
Nevius's work as an author was conspicuous. Before he haa. been in China four years he began a series of papers on " the religions and super- stitions" of the people, afterward enlarged into his volume, " China and the Chinese." About the same time he wrote" The Disciple's Guide,"
his first book in Cltinese, and he translated part of Abbott's" Mother at Home." In 1859 he was appointed to prepare a " Compendium of Sys- tematic Theology" by the Ningpo Presbytery-a sufficient witness to the confidence in which he was held (p. 195). In 1861 he had in press 8ix books or tracts, including notes on Mark, and the first volume of his " Theology" (p. 222). His book on " Demonology," begun in 1880 and recently published, is a monument of patient toil and research ;* and his " Methods of Mission Work" and " Manual for Inquirers" complete the list of his main publications-the former one of the standard books, in- valuable for practical wisdom, a classic in its way.
Nothing was more prominent in Dr. Nevius's purpose for China than the creation of a native ministry (p. 23!:i). This was the hope of the Church. Perhaps his greatest work in China was found in his itinerating tours, sometimes covering six hundred miles. Everywhere he preached, gathered converts, and then set them at work telling the Gospel story.
In one of these tours he found that nameless sect, whose books had all beeu destroyed in times of persecution, but who perpetuated their beliefs by oral traditions embodied in rude rhymes. They held to a supreme deity, * .. Demon Possession," eto. $1.50. F. H. Revell & Co. to a sort of fall, and a coming restoration, when a great teacher should appear. Many of them were persuaded that Christ is the Savior for whom they had been looking (pp. 300, 301). He regarded evangelistic work as secondary to no other, aud in it he was marvelously blest, and pursued the most apostolic methods. On one such tour he baptized two hundred and eight adult converts, and in the intervals of the tours he was equally busy training theological classes.
He made visits home in 1864, 1881, and 1890, but in each his work was unceasing and most blessed, visiting the chnrches and the colleges to kindle and feed mission fires. He always told the truth; however discouraging. His watchword was not enthusiasm, bnt obedience.
Evide~tly when Dr. Nevins got his wife, he got a good thing, a favor from the Lord. She stuck by him while she could, sharing his whole life and labor, and, when health imperionsly demanded her to withdraw, she imperatively but lovingly commanded him to stay and let her go alone, heroically adding, "I would ratIle!' die here than take you from your work." Noble sodl! who never could be thankful enough that, in three instances, she had strength to refuse positively to have the man she so loved go away for her sake. (Compare p. 150, etc.) Mrs. Nevius started an industrial school, her Thread and Needle Club, which soon had a hundred women in it, and she used it as a means of teaching Gospel truth. When her voice failed, she actually studied and mastered the violin, that by it she might lead hel· music classes, herself about as ferlile in expedients as her gifted husband. She has not only written this charming life, to which reference has been made, but has gone back to China now to prepare another in the language of that land of his adoption, suited to the needs of the people for whom he lived and died.
The last two mornings of his life he read, aud with striking comments illumined, the second chapter of First TheRsalonians. Forty-one years before he had recorded his delight in the study of that same chapter, and had written: "I only wish that I may be able to adopt such language with reference to the people with whom God may let me labor"-an unconscious prophecy of his whole life's work and its blessed end.
His death itself was an answered prayer, for his devoted wife had often besought God not to let her noble husband suffer decay of mind or body or long-continued pain ; and so suddenly did God remove him, it was like a translation (p. 466).
Dr. W. A. P. Martin, long and closely identified with our friend Nevius, his alter erlO, _pays iu the introduction a noble tribute to the grand man who had" planted churches through the length and breadth of the peninsula," and was" a pioneer in more than one field;" he attributes to him a "concord of harmonious powers," and characterizes him as one whose "inborn dignity compelled respect from the highest," while " his kindly sympathies" won the confidence of the lowest.
We can only again commend this life story to the careful reading and study of all who would learn the secrets and feel the promptings of one of the purest and truest lives our generation has known.
THE JEWS IN P ALES'NNE AND SYRIA. 88'7
THE JEWS IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA.
BY REV. H. II. JESSUP, D.D., BEIRUT, SYRIA.
The question is constantly asked of one returning from Syria to the United States: What is the nnmber of Jews in Syria and Palestine? Is it true that they are flocking back by thousands and tens of thousands to the land of their fathers, and that soon they will take possession of Canaan, restore their kingdom, and rebuild their temple?
Let us look at the facts in the case, and try to consider them impar- tially. The only way to obtain accurate statistics in Palestine with regard to any particular sect is through the religious heads of the sects. The Ottoman Government has made repeated attempts to obtain an accurate census, but finds it difficult excepting in the case of the Mohammedans, whose male offspring are carefully registered at their birth 011 the military conscription lists. The 'other sects notoriously evade the census-takers, and give false reports in order to escape taxation. Very stringest regnlations have now been adopted by the Ottoman officials, and by another decade they will probably have a fairly correct census.
Owiug to the conflicting and exaggerated reports prevailing in Europe and America with regard to the Jews in Palestine, Her British Majesty's Consul in Jerusalem, Mr. J. Dickson, a most conscientious and worthy man in every respect, and Rev. Selah Merrill, D.D., United States Consul in Jerusalem, made careful and independent investigation in the year 1891 as to the numbers and location of the Jews. Dr. Merrill is too well known to need any word of introduction or praise.
After several months of searching every possible source of information, they arrived at substantially the same result, viz. : Jews in Jerusalem .••……………….••• 25,000 to 27,000 " Jaffa ………….. , ………………… 2,700 " Ramleh…….. …. …. .. …. …. …….. 166 " ,Hebron. . . . . . . . .• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . 1,200 " Nablus…. ~ …. …. …. …. .. …….. …. 99 " '1'iberias …………………………… . 2,900 " Safed …………………………….. . 6,126 " Acre ………•••..•..•……………… 200 " IIaifa …………………………. " … . 1,640 " all the colonies, less than…….••….•.•..•. 3,000 Total …………•…•.•.•.•••….. , 45,031 These statistics cover Palestine proper. There are Jews in Damascus, Beirut, alld Aleppo (in Syria proper), numbering some 23,000 in all. The Jews of Aleppo and Damascus have lived there from time immemorial, and all of them speak the Arabic language as their vernacular. In Beirut is a small Jewish population, Arabic-speaking, largely connected with the families of Damascus and Aleppo. More recently Jewish merchants have come in from Vienna and Germany, who deal in clothing and are bankers and merchants, speaking the European languages. They arc lax a'.ld liberal in their Jewish ideas, and some of them keep open shops on Saturdays.
The Jews of Palestine proper are largely supported by the European rabbitl' fund, receiving house rent and weekly rations from the common fund, and thus encouraged in habits of idleness. No better means could be devised to demoralize and degrade a people than to support them from a charity fund. The Jews in Europe have a tender sympathy for" the poor saints in Jerusalem," and are taking the very best way to keep them poor aud make them poorer.
The Rothschild colonies arc conducted on the same pauperizing system. An intelligent observer visited the new Jewish colony on the coast near the ancient Cesarea. Each colonist receives land, a house, fnrnitnre, agricultnral implements, and household utensils free, and a daily allowance of at least one franc per heari. Our friend the visitor found the Jews living at ease in their houses on one half of the allowance, and with the other half hiring the Arabs to do all the work. This was largely the case with other colonies, so that Rothschild's agent indignantly declined to continue the allowance, excepting as wages paid for work actually performed. I visited two of the colonies in "May, 1893, one on the west bank of the Jordan, at the J isr mnat Yakob, north of the Sea of Galilee, and the other on the southwestern shore of the waters of Merom.
The first named was an unthrifty and forlorn affair. The colonists looked sickly and dejected. Their houses were built of boards, poorly suited to that hot valley, and their gardens were overgrown with weeds. Several houses were just begun, and they had been forbidden finishing them by the interference of the Turkish Government in Safed. The colony at Lake Merom has a splendid agricultural site, a level plot of hundreds of acres of deep, rich soil; but, alas! it is on the margin of the most pestilential marsh in Palestine. The Greek and Protestant villagers of Merj Aiyun, ten miles north of Merom, live on the hills, but are obliged to go down 10 the IIuleh (Merom) to sow and harvest their crops; and it is notorious that, almost without exception, they all return home with chills and fever. The Jewish colonists at Merom are superior to those at the Jisr, and have beautiful plantations of roses and fruit trees, but they are surrounded by a poisonous atmosphere, and their neighbors south and east arc the wild Arabs, Druses, and Circassians.
The whole impression made upon an observer with regard to these Jewish colonies is that they are forced, unnatural, and of doubtful success. The pauperizing system which has made Jerusalem a great almshouse tends to demoralize the whole system of Palestine colonization. The entire scheme seems to be a kind of fad, which is being pursued with a special object, having none of the elements which made the old Phceni- cian colonies and the modern Anglo-Saxon colonies successful.
Several observations occur to me in connection with this whole subject of the future of the Jewish peopk : 1. The trend of Jewish migration at tlle present is westward, and far- ther than ever from the old land of Israel. There are about four times as Illany Jews now in New York City as there are in the whole of Palestine. Tens of thousands are going to the Argentine Republic in South America. They 8eem to be more aud more torn loose from territorial attachments, and the great future of the Jewish race seems to be about to be wrought ont in the free air of America.
2. The return of tIle Jews is to be a spiritual return to Christ, their Messiah and Lord. The marvelous prophecies in Ezekiel 40 to 48, clothed in priestly language and figures which speak of a readjustment of the con- figuration of Palestine, of a temple a mile square, and a special sacred " oblation" or temple arca fifty miles square, clearly refer in splendid imagery to the fnJure glories of the Church of Jesus Christ, and the " waters" flowing from beneath the sanctuary point to the life· giving streams of the Gospel dispensation, which are destined to vitalize and bless all mankind. A literal fulfilment of those extraordinary prophecies is manifestly physically impossible without the most stupendous miracle ever performed.
3. The literal interpretation of t.he prophecies with regard to the" return" of the Jews is extremely improbable.
According to the New Testament, "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly." "They are not alI Israel who are of Israel." 'When II Jew believes in Christ he becomes by faith a son of Abraham. The Christian Church to day is the Israel of God, and all believing Jews who enter the Church become Israelites.
Two lincs of prophecy run through the Old Testament, one pointmg to tile Messiah and the other to the future of the Jews. If we take one literally, we mnst the other. If we take one spiritually, we must the other.
If wc say that the future of the Jews is a literally material future; that they are to return to Palestine, rebuild Jerusalem, reconstrnct the temple, its altars, ritual, and ccremonies, and that all the world is litcrally to " go up once a year to Jerusalem" to worship, and that the destruction of the temple by Titus was only an incidental matter, a temporary disappearance of the temple, as when destroyed by the King of Babylon, and that it is to be restored in all its details, services, and typical rites, then we are bound to say that the Messiah was to be an earthly king, and that I£e 'ws never come. But if we claim that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messiah, our atoning High Priest, and that the Epistle to the Hebrews rightly declared the whole Jewish dispensation, with its types, symbols, sacred persons, and rites and victims to have been fulfilled in Christ and done away forever in Christ, the only Priest and Sacrifice, then we must believe that all the figurative glorious language in the Old 'l'estament with regard to the return of the Jews refers to their spiritual return to Christ, their Savior, and their glorious reception by faith into the great company of Christ's disciples, who constitute the Christian Church.
The Apostle Paul says of Israel's future that" when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have come in, then all Israel shall be saved." Surely this is a more glorious future than a deportation to the narrow confines of Palestine, to set up again the old scaffolding of sacrifices and burnt offer- iugs which was torn down forever when the veio! of the temple was rent as Christ our Saviour died on the Cross. Before the times of .Tesus of Naza- reth Judaism led to Christ j since His advent, it leads away from Christ.
God in His providence lias made very clear the duty of the Church of Christ with regard to the Jews. He is locating them in the centers of Christian light and liberty, and preparing the way for their evangelization. Judaism in England and America is undergoing a process of liberalization, if not of disintegration. The traditions of the Talmud cannot stand against the light and education of the nineteenth century.
The Jews here are our fellow-citizens, neighbors, and friends. Many of them are men of true nobility of character. They admit the beanty of the character of Jesus of Nazareth, and need only the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit to accept Him as their Messiah.
Our duty to them is plaiu. 'Ye shonld labor to win them to Christ. We should train our young ministers and evangeli"ts to familiarity with the Messianic prophecies, that they may meet the sincere difficulties of the Jews as well as the specious objections of the caviller. How many among our Christian workers can meet the candid objections of an educated Jew to our Messianic interpretations of Isaiah, Daniel, and Zechariah!
We have sUrI'endered too much the work among Jews to special laborers converted from the Jews themselves. All honor to such men as Hermann Warsawiack and Jacob Freshman and others! May the Lord bless them more and more. They are peculiarly fitted for their work, but let us not leave them to bear the burden alone.
The great fnture ingathering of the Jewish people to Christ will no donbt be on this continent. God is bringing them here in multitudes, and laying the burden of their salvation upon the heart of the Church of Christ.
There is little profit to be derived from counting the few scores of forlorn Jews who find their way to Palestine, to be fed on charity and treated as lionized paupers.
It is far more scriptural, more in the spirit of the New Testament, and more Christ-like to give the Gospel to the hundreds of thousands of Jews in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and aU our smaller cities. They are not far from the kingdom of God. Some of them are noble examples of liberality and benevolence. Those two eminent Jews, the Hon. Messrs. Strauss and Hirsch, who successively filled
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN SYRU
the post of United States Minister to Constantinople, did mQre to promote American interests and protect American missions in Turkey than many of their Christian predecessors had done.
We may say, in couclusion, that it is violently improbable that the lost ten tribes, now lost to history for about twenty-six hundred years and hopelessly intermingled and intermarried among the nations of the world, are to come forth a distinct people and prove their tribal pedigrees in order to obtain their tribal allotment of territory as described in Ezekiel 47.
The Prophet Ezekiel, himself a priest, described the future glories of the Gospel age in priestly language and in terms with which he was familiar; but his meaning was spiritual, full of Christ and the Gospel in its coming glory and triumph.
Let us draw from it inspiration, hope, and courage. All Israel shall be saved. The Lord hasten it in His own blessed time and way!
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN IN SYRIA. * BY REV. T. LAURIE.
The mere record of what was done by the ladies of tl1e Syrian Mission could no more convey a correct idea of the work than mere measurements of distance and description of the surface of the country could describe the obstacles encountered by an army in rescuing that country from the power of the oppressor. Before we can get a true conception of the work of woman's deliverance we must understand that from which she was delivered.
Burying their daughters alive was so common among the Arabs, that it is said in the Koran (Sura LXXXI.), "When the girl bur·ied alive shall be asked for what sin she was slain," etc., and an ancient provarb says, " To send women before to the other world is a benefit; The best son·in·law is the grave."
One shudders to think of the social condition that furnished a reason for such an utterance. The only occasion on which Othman is said to have shed a tear was when the daughter whom he was burying alive reached up her little hand to wipe the dry dust of her grave from her father's beard.
The Koran says (Sura IV., line 38), " Virtuous women are obedient, but chide those for whose refractoriness ye have cause to fear-and scourge them." How literally this instruction is carried out in Moslem * The recent death of Mrs. RahiI Bistany in Beirflt led to the pnblication of an interesting episode in her early life in the MiSsWnaTY Herald for May, 1894, and revived interest in the memories of those days led on to the preparation of the present narrative. CO[lntries few in this land can understand. Women are not seldom killed in this way, and none take notice of the crime. Dr. H. H. Jessup tells us: "A Moslem neighbor of mine once beat one of his wives to death. I heard her screams day after day, till one night I heard a dreadful shriek, and blow after blow falling on her tortured body. I could hear the brute cnrsing her as he struck. The Moslem police wonld not interfere, and I could not enter the honse. Next day there was a fnneral there, and the dead body was bnried like a dog. 'When you ask tJJC reason of a scream in the Moslem quarter of the city, you will be told, with a shrug of the shoulder, ' Only some one beating his wife.' "
How far the influence of this Moslem practice is felt among the CIJri3tian sects may be inferred from the following incident: A missionary in Eastern Turkey noticed that no women came to church, and urged the men to persuade them to attend. Next Sabbath they were all there as meek as lambs. "Vhy, how did yon induce so many to come?" "Oh, we beat them till they promised to come I"~ Verily evil commnnications corrupt good manners.
In 1862 Daood Pasha, the Christian governor secured for Lebanon by Europeau intervention, arrested, convicted, and hnng a Druze who murdered a girl of his own village, supposing that the Pasha would never call in qnestion such a time-honored custom, and the women of all sects began to feel that, after all, they had some right to life which the other sex was bound to respect-a right, however, not yet fully guaranteed in Turkey.
The same year a vile dervish, under preteuce of casting out a devil, tied a cord round the feet of an insane woman and drew her up to the ceiling head downward, thrust a red-hot iron iuto her eye, and cauterized her body almost from head to foot, then placing a gallon of pitch under her head, bnrned her to charcoal. The government took no notice of the fact, save that the official journal in Beirut advised the public not to patronize the impostor!
Some soldiers attempted to outrage a woman from Ain Kesoor who was employed to carry water to men at work on the road. Mr. Calhoun's cook reported the case to the Turkish officer, and was beaten with a club for his pains. The colonel at Abeih, however, ordered the soldiers to be beaten with forty stripes, but when Colonel Frazer, the British Commissioner, was authorized, with Omer Pasha, to look into the case, two of the soldiers were shot, aUlI both Drnzes and Moslems began to realize that woman's life and honor had a value that could be appreciated. This was in 1861.
At an anniversary of the Girls' Seminary in BeirUt, Rev. John "Vortabet, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Syrian Protestant College, told the audience of a man near Gaza who yoked together his wife' and his ass to plough his field, and contrasted the public sentiment that tolerated such things with the assembly of educated women before him.
Marriage ceremonies reveal much of the condition of woman. In Syria no bride was ever asked if she would marry the bridegroom. She was simply pronounced to be his wife. Indeed. often she was not consulted at all, but simply required to marry so-and· so. If he pleased her, very well; if not, it was all the same.
In 1863 Dr. H. lI. Jessup was sent for to marry two Protestant couples at lImns. The brides could not be allowed to go to him to get the needful directions for the ceremony, so their male relatives had to go with him to their homes. Even so it required much diplomacy to induce the bride to come in from the next room veiled and attended by several women.
Said one: "I hear that you ask the girl if she is willing to take this man to be her husband g" "Certainly we do." "Vell, I know one woman who would have said no had they given her the opportunity." The surprise of the women that the bride should have the right to say yes or no was most amazing. That one thing gave them new ideas of the dignity of woman under the Gospel.
What was even more contrary to their ideas of propriety, they had heard that the brides were to walk home from church with their husbands, and certain young men planned to mob them if they did so, but ample preparations were made to meet them. Evening brought with it such a crowd as could hardly squeeze into the open court of the mission house.' Men, women, and children were laughing, screaming, and discussing the strange innovations. A way was made throngh the crowd for the brides and their attendants. The parties were arranged before the pulpit, and then the missionaries had to wait till a tolerable stillness had been secured, for in Oriental churches silence and good order are almost unknown. The address to the married pairs called forth more than Methodist responses : "That is true;" "That, is news here;" "Mashallah;" and a woman cried out, "Praise to God, women are something after all. " A Moslem Effendi, who had listened to it all, said: "That is the most sensible way of getting married I ever heard of." The missionaries escorted each couple separately to their homes, and the rioters, seeing they conld not reach their victims without first making the acquaintance of stout missionary canes, were content to let them alone.
Nofel Effendi, an intelligent Syrian Protestant, excuses husband and wife not walking together in this way: "You can walk with your wife in the street, because, being unveiled, men know that she is your wife, bnt ours are so veiled and swathed that nobody could tell whether she belonged to me or to another man, and that is rather an awkward predicament."
Vhen Enropean women walk unveiled through the Moslem quarters <1f Syrian cities it is well for them that they do not understand Arabic. When French ladies first resided in Tripoli, the governor could suppress the insults offered to them in the streets only by the free use of the bastinado.
Arabs are noted for their ceremonious politeness, but a Moslem, empIDyed to teach Arabic grammar to a missionary, when the wife of his pupil had occasion to pass through the room, spat toward her with a look of ineffable contempt, his feeling of scorn for a woman overcoming every instinct of politeness.
In Syria the mother weeps when told that she has borne a daughter, and a proverb in Kesrawan says: "The threshold weeps forty days when a girl is born." Dr. Jessup knew a grandmother in Tripoli who would not kiss her granddaughter for six months after birth. Our American consul at Tripoli was so annoyed hy'the women coming to condole with his wife on the birth of another daughter, that he ordered the American flag to be unfurled as a token of his joy.
So the entire community set itself against the education of woman. The Moslem bitterly opposed it as contrary to all his ideas of woman, and his opposition influenced the other sects. Then the native Christians had other reasons of their own, for though they could not deny the correct lives of Protestants, they held that they were without religion, and were not willing therefore to place their daughters under their control. Some thought that if a woman could write, she would write improper letters to the other sex; others feared that she would write incantations to bewitch or even take away the life of her husband-ideas that only proclaimed the failure of their methods of training and the lack of love in their own homes.
Our missionary ladies, however, had gone to Syria to do good, and were not disposed to despair of success in anything that would advance the kingdom of God. Even though some objected, ' , We are only girls," as though that settled the question of their ability to learn, they confidently expected God would remove every obstacle and answer every objection in His own way. At first establishing a seminary, or even a school, was impossible, and so Mrs. Goodell and Mrs. Bird were content to gather girls and women in their houses for an hour or two each day, and teach them what they could. This was in 1825, but they accomplished so little, that in 1833 the missionaries wrote: "The education of woman is not. merely neglected, but discouraged and opposed. Indeed, as yet it is nearly untried."
On the arrival of Mrs. S. L. Smith, in January, 1834, she found Mrs. W. M. Thomson teaching six or eight girls, who met every afternoon at her room in Beirilt, and Mrs. Dodge conducted a school for Druze girls at Aaleih, a village in Lebanon, 2300 feet above the sea. One morning not a girl appeared, for the villagers had heard that the English fleet was coming up the mountain to Aaleih to carry off all the girls to England ! In 1837 Mrs. Whiting and Miss Tilden had a school for lfoslem girls in Jerusalem, and Mrs. Whiting had several native girls in her own family.
Mrs. Smith soon enlarged the little school for girls, and with help, principally from Mrs. Alexander Tod, nee Gliddon, of Alexandria, built, in 1835, a school-house for it on the mission premises. In 1836 she had as many as forty pupils. From the most promising of these she selected Rahil Ata, and with the consent of her parents took her into her own home to get her away from evil example and be continuously under the influence of a well-ordered Christian home. There could not have been found a better "house mother" or a more promising subject for the experiment.
A word here about this method of working. In some respects it was much bctter than a seminary could have been at that time. When God would bring back a world from idolatry, He began with the father of a family, who He knew" would command his children, and his household after him, and they would keep the way of the Lord." This method brought each young lady into personal relations with her instructor; so Miss Fisk, in Persia, found not only a seminary needful, but one in which the pupils would be under her personal supervision in all things all the while. They were not only taught, but led in every path of righteousness j counsels were given that conld not be imparted in the 8chool-room, and moulded the whole character in every department of daily life. I had almost said that day and night the pnpils were brought in oontact with the highest order of piety and intelligence. Very few children in our own land are so favored. Manners and personal habits were sedulously cared for j their views of life were shaped after the highest ideals, in sharpest contrast to the low frivolity round about them.
Besides the constant influence of a truly religious home, it was no small privilege to meet representatives of ollr best religious families, who visited the missionary on entering or leaving the Holy Land. Pastors of churches, professors in colleges, the cream of both our city and our country life, all left an influence for good on these Syrian maidens.
While their character was moulded under such favorable circumstances, the intellect was not neglected. Mathematics cultivated the reasoning powers j grammar taught them how to express what they knew j geography and history gave them correct views of the world j botany opened up new beauties in flowers, and astronomy unfolded the fulness of the heavens. The library, atlases, missionary and astronomical maps, globes, an orrery, chemical, galvanic, and electric apparatus, made their knowledge more exact and serviceable. Their study of English opened up to them the treasures of English literature, while their native Arabic was not overlooked. Instruction in physiology and hygiene also corrected the errors that had grown strong during the ages.
Above all else, the Word of God held the place of honor. Every morning it occupied the first hour of school. It was explained at family prayer in the evening, when some of the neighbors were usually present, and the Catechism furnished a fitting casket for the treasures of the Word.
They knew the religious condition of the world better than most of the pupils in our academies at home, and could tell when and how the Gospel was introduced where it is known. Every alternate Sabbath evening was devoted to a conference on this subject, to which all, even the youngest, bronght the facts which they had learned. Mrs. De Forest tells of one little girl-not one of the bright ones either-who had studied out the errors of her own church, and could tell at what period each of them had its origin. One day when it priest was telling her mother how sin entered the world, she gave Bible and Catechism on the subject, till the priest angrily demanded, " What right have you to know anything about it 1" Nor must we forget their sweet singing of hymns, for there is in Arabic both a church and Sunday-school hymn-book, and thcre are organs and pianos to accompany the singing.
With all this special care was taken not to get the young ladies out of sympathy with their own people, except in things which shonld not be tolerated. Thus, though their food and clothing conformed to the customs of the country, they did not wear the same clothing night and day, nor were calves and donkeys counted indispensable inmates of their chambers. In all things they were taught to observe the laws of health and propriety.
One lady, whenever her protegee showed symptoms of feeling above her people, used to bring out the old faded dress she wore when she first came to the house, as an object-lesson, that for all which she had received more than others she was indebted to God, owing Him so much more love and service. Noblesse oblige.
This general account of methods of education applies more especially to the family of Dr. and Mrs. De Forest, with whom the writer was best acquainted, but it also applies more or less perfectly to other families engaged in the same work. Mrs. Beadle had taken Khazma Vitwat, a Druze girl, into her home, and Mrs. Keyes had Lulu, from Wady Shahrur. When the writer reached Bcirl1t, December, 1844, Rahil had been married to Butrus Bistany, and had a house of her own. Lulu and Khazma were with Dr. De Forest, and Salome and Melita Karabed, Hannah W01'- tabet, and Saadeh and Rufka (Rebecca) Gregory were with Mrs. Whiting in Abeih. Dr. De Forest afterward had more, at one time fifteen and at another eighteen. Dr. Jessup says of him: "The good wrought by that sainted man in Syria will never be fully known in this world. The lovely Christian families whose mothers were trained by him and his wife will be his monuments in future generations. It is a common remark in Syria that· his pupils have turned out well." Of Mrs. De Forest he says: " Her name is embalmed with that of her sainted husband in the memory of the Christian families of Syria. The list of their pupils is to a great extent the list of the leading women who have tanght or engaged in other evangelical work in Syria."
Mrs. S. L. Smith had written, February 18th, 1835: "With the exception of the three or four native converts, we know not one pious teacher, one judicious parent, one family regulated by the love of God, or one tradesman actuated by the fear of God-no, not even one." It is a terrible statement, and tells how much Syria owes to those who have rendered such a cry out of the depths henceforth impossible. The instruc- tion of these girls was toilsome, their moral training was eveu more diffi- cult, and then as grace rendered them more attractive than the frivolous ones around them in a Moslem land, new dangers arose. Also in a land where each sect believed its own rites the only pasRport to heaven, it is not strange if their relatives felt uneasy at their being trained outside their own church.
The Missionary Herald for 1894, pp. 119-124, gives a vivid picture of the perils encountered by Rahil in 1843 from relatives, who held that sin could be forgiven through priestly absolution.
Take another example. Dr. Jessup says: "If any doubt the utility of labors for Arab women, let him first visit the disorderly aud cheerless homes of the common villager, and then enter the tidy, well-ordered home of Mr. Araman, the husband of Lulu, and in the morning listen to the voice of praise and communiou with God at family prayer. Instead of the father eating gloomily alone, mother and children eating what he is pleased to leave them, he would see the whole family seated together at the table, a blessing asked, and everything conducted with decorum.
Then father and daughter go to give their morning lessons at the semi- nary, and the son sets out for his recitation at college." • That same Lulu, when with Mrs. Keyes, went home to attend the wedding of a cousin, and at night, when her brothers thought her asleep, she heard them laying their plans to force her to the confessional and the mass, and then be married to a villager whom they had selected to be her husband. She gave no hint of being awake, but next day adroitly shunned the priest and came back with a native helper, her brothers having drank too much wine to be able to prevent it. Then, when they heard that Mrs. Keyes was returning to America, and Lulu was 'with Dr. Thomson till the De Forests came back from Jerusalem, they went down by night with an armed company of mountaineers to take her by force, and in this also were unsuccessful. Still they did not abaudon their purpose. Years after, when Luln had joiued the mission church and was betrothed to Mr. Araman, they came up to the summer home of Dr. De Forest, and heaped all manner of abuse on her for what thq called her apostasy and betrothal to a Protestant. More than that, they plotted to seize and carry her off by force when the family should go back to Beirut in the autumn.
Happily the doctor heard of their plan, and took: her down at midnight by another road than that where they intended to waylay her, and so she escaped their hands.
Another case also brings out the care God has for orphans entrusted to His hands. Saadeh and Rufka Gregory had a grandmother whose reputation was none of the best, and when the mother died she came on to Beirut for the children. She was allowed to visit them, and one day she stealthily placed Saadeh in a native boat (skukktoor) to be taken to Jaffa. The poor child, then only six years old, cried bitterly when she found that grandma was not with her, as she had promised, but God moved an Armenian on board, who knew her father, to comfort her, and on their arrival at Jaffa to inform the American consul about the case, who rescued her and sent her to Mr. Whiting at Jerusalem. Not long after Mr. 'Whiting was surprised, on returning from.a call, to find the grandmother and Rufka at his house. She had quarrelled with her associates, and come to him for refuge; so both the orphans were reunited in a Christian home.
Years after the old woman, who had never given up her plotting to get the young ladies into her power for her own purposes, induced a blind brother to claim possession of them as their proper guardian. She had also in some way got into the good graces of the wife of a prominent representative of England in Syria, and as she knew her English friend had some influence with the Grand Vizier at Constantinople, it was so managed among them all that a Turkish man-of-war was being sent to seize the young ladies. Providentially our minister then at the Sublime Porte was both fearless and energetic, and had so much to say about another bombardment of Beirtlt by American guns, that the whole matter was allowed to drop very quietly. Miss Rufka .Gregory was teacher in the seminary for several years while Mr. Araman was principal. This whole narrative shows that whatever means the God of this world may employ against the missionary work, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, for there is One who has power over all flesh to give eternal life to as many as are given Him. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. These things may make interesting readiNg for us, but at the time they caused our missionary ladies many anxious hours and sleepless nights.
Syria was an excellent field in which to try this experiment of woman's education, it is so cosmopolitan in the extent of its influence. Melita assisted the missionary ladies at Aleppo. Salome taught school in Mosul, on the banks of the Tigris. Hannah Wortabet taught in Egypt. Saadeh, after teaching in a United Presbyterian school in Egypt, died a member of Dr. John Hall's church in New York City. Her sister Rufka also taught in Egypt as well as in Beirtlt, and is 'now in Melbourne, Australia, or was the last time she was heard from, for she married a Scotchman, and after his death in Melbourne resumed her former occupation. A son of a Syrian missionary met a son of Hahil at the Columbian Fair at Chicago; so that good seed sown in BeirUt bears fruit over all the world.
Some will doubtless ask, How many of these young ladies became true disciples ~ Mrs. De Fot'est, who returned home with her husband in 1854, mentions thirteen who had joined the church before that time.
The husband of Khazma failed in business, so that the family depended on her needle for its daily bread. After that she was bedridden for years, but never murmured. Her trusting submission was so manifestly from the Lord that it led a number to prove for themselves the blessedness of faith in Jesus. A girl who had lived with her in more prosperous days insisted
THE DRUSES
on coming back to work in the family, and care for her gratuitously till she died. That must have been the true grace of God in both of them that yielded fruit like that. After her death young ladies in Lakewood, N. J., carried one of her daughters through the seminary in Beirut.
An American lady travelling in Syria wrote to Mrs. De Forest of one of her pupils, Miriam, daughter of Khalid, of Bhamdun, and wife of Naoom (Nahum) Tahit, of BeirUt, as follows: " We went to see her at the hospital, where she will have an internal tumor removed to-morrow. She spoke very sweetly of you. She said: , Those were delightful days when she taught me of Jesus. What could I now do without Him ~ He is my Saviour, aud I am in His hands. He has gone to prepare a hom~ for me, and I leave all with Him. I am not afraid, but without Him I should be in terror all the while.' Her calm face and quiet tones witnessed to the truth of what she said. She died soon after leaving the operating-table. ,. .
Dr. H. H. Jessup says of Rahil: "I was with her almost daily for weeks before she died. Her faith and patience' were beautiful.' The aroma of Christian peace filled her chamber, and all who came to see her were comforted and blessed. The devotion of her children was lovely, and we could only bless God for such a Christian home and such testi- mony to the power and grace of our blessed Lord."
The writer regrets that he has no details concerning others who have entered into rest, btit only a general testimony to their faith and patience.
It is not the design of this paper to give more than the beginnings of that education of woman in Syria that now bears such abundant fruits.
The present large building was provided for the seminary in 1867, three years before the A. .B. C. F. M. retired from Syria. The timber used in its construction was brought from Maine; the doors and windows were made in Lowell, under the direction of Dr. Cyrus Hamlin; the tiles came from Marseilles, the iron bedsteads from Birmingham, and the pave- ments partly from Italy and partly from Lebanon. A good beginning had been made toward making the institution self-supporting; $3220 was paid for tuition that year, counting its value on a gold basis. The num- ber in attendance was 76, of whom 57 were boarding pupils, and the sem- inary was exceedingly popular.
THE DRUSES.* BY A. H. MCKINNEY, PH.D.
In a district of Northern Syria, comprising the whole of the southern range of Mt. Lebanon and the western slope of Anti-Lebanon, is to be • A despatch from Beirflt. dated October 18th, says that there is mnch excitement iu Lebanon, owing to conflicts between the Druses and Mutualis. A number on both sides have been killed. The Mutualis, pleading that it is impossible for them to obtain justice from the TlllkiBh offiCials, found a peculiar people. Independent, proud, brave, handsome, industrious, hospitable, self-possessed, educated, and very mysterious, they form a unique branch of the human family. In addition to the districts named above, they occupy in whole or in part many of the adjacent towns and villages. Their numbers have been estimated all the way from fifty thousand to over one hundred thousand souls.
An old tradition derived their name from the Count of Dreux, and made them descendants of a band of Crusaders who had been left in Lebanon. Later investigations have shown that this tradition is pure fic- tion. The name is derived from Darazi, * a Persian adventurer, who first taught the peculiar tenets of the Druses. These people themselves hate the name of Darazi, and deny the derivation, claiming that their name comes from the Arabic darisa (those who read), or from durs (the clever one). These seem to be fanciful derivations, and it is reserved for the future philologist to determine the exact etymology of the word.
Among other things for which the Druses are remarkable is the mixed character of their ancestry. By many ethnologists they are supposed to have sprung originally from the Cuthites (Kurds), who were brought into Samaria by Esarhaddon to repeople the strongholds, which had been depopulated during the captivity of Israel. In 686 A.D. Constantine IV. brought in the Mardi, a warlike people originally from Persia, for the purpose of repelling the Mohammedan invaders. At different times the Arabs swept through the mountains and left their impress on the people, giving to the Druse his language, which is Arabic. Thus the Druses of to-day are the outgrowth of that conglomeration which had been formed by the eleventh century A.D. It still remains, however, for the ethnologist to determine whether these strange people originally were Semites,. Indo- Teutonics, or, as their own tradition indicates, Chinese. Haskett Smith, who lived among the Druses for many years, is satisfied that they are the direct descendants of the subjects of Hiram, King of Tyre, who assisted Solomon in building the temple.
Their religion came from Hakem Bemrillah of Egypt, who was the sixth Fatimite caliph. He is generally considered to have been insane, and is known as the Nero of Africa. During the twenty-five years of his reign he had eighteen thousand men put to death, and thousands of Christian churches and monasteries destroyed. He was flattered by Darazi into proclaiming himself a representative of God. In Cairo, in the year 1029 A.D., he publicly declared himself to be the incarnation of God. This announcement at first met with violent opposition, and Darazi was obliged to flee for his life. A quieter and more crafty method of propagandism met with suc- have assembled to the nnmber of 4000 men, all armed, in the vicinity of Marghilonm, to march against the Druses. The latter have appealed for aid from their co-religionists at Hanran, who are preparing to send 8000 men to their assistance. The Van of Damascus has thus far prevented the Hauranltes from leaving. The Van of Beidt has sent cavalry to prevent armed men from entering the vilayet.
* MohllllUlled Ibn lsm~il Dnrnzi (or Darazl). cess, and many of the ignorant mountaineers became converts. A Persian mystic, named Hamze, became nrst the disciple, and finally the primeminister of Hakem. With great shrewdness and adroitness he added to the new religion many attractive features; and it is he that is enshrined in the heart of the modern Druse as the founder of his faith.
Five years ago the writer listened to a lecture by a Syrian, a native of lft. Lebanon, who called himself a "Christian Druse," * and who was, supposed to tell something about his people and their religion. The lecture was chiefly remarkable for what it did not tell about the Druse religion. A subsequent conversation with the lecturer failed to elicit anything definite about his faith. Thi3 mysteriousness concerning his belief on the part of the Druse was in keeping with the whole trend of his life. Mystery overshadows everything connected with the Druses. So accus- tomed are they to lie, that a missionary t living among them declares that when an Englishman tells them that there are no Druses in England, they suspect him of being one. Instead of feeling offended at what they consider his deceit, they honor him for it. So esoteric are they, that they do not hesitate to put to death anyone who reveals their secrets, or anyone found in possession of their sacred books.
How, then, do we know anything of their religion ~ Copies of their manuscripts have been found by travelers and explorers, and are in public libraries in different parts of Europe. But the hostile army has given us more than the peaceful traveler has been able to secure. In 1838, during an invasion of Ibrahim Pasha, the sacred books of the Druses were captured, and from them we are able to learn something of their teachings. But even with these books in his hands, the theologian can no more give a clear statement of their religious truths and practices than can the ethnologist speak decisively concerning their origin.
Their doctrines are derived from the Pentateuch, the Gospel, the Koran, and the Sufi Allegories. Intermingled with selections from all these sources are traces of Persian dualism and Indian transmigration. Is it strange that from such diverse sources one of the most remarkable doctrinal systems! that the world has ever known should have been developed 1 The following are their chief doctrines : 1. Monotheism.-The Druses, who rival the Mohammedans in their declaration of the Unity of God, call themselves Muwahhidun, or Unitarians. They believe in one self-existent, eternal God, without parts or attributes, "indefinahle, incomprehensible, ineffable, and passionless." § Belief in this one God is essential to salvation. "Book of Testimonies to the Mysteries of the Unity" is the title of one of their sacred books, composed by Hamze.
* Smith challenges the missionaries to produce a converted Druse.
t The Rev. William Ewing. :I: Milman characterizes the Druse system as "one of the mOlt extraordinary religious aljerrationa which ever extensively affected the mind of man."
i Encyclop81dia Britannica. II. Inferior Beings.-Like the Zoroastrians, the Druses have a number of created beings inferior to God and yet much superior to man. Universal Intelligence, the highest of these beings, alone enjoys communion with God. Next to him are four archangels, who help to support the throne of God. Then comes spiritual agents of various ranks. While many claim that the dualism of spiritual beings found in the Zoroastrian system is not paralleled, Carnarvon* holds that Iblis corresponds to Ahriman, and that the moral conflict goes on between him and Hakem. Re. membering that Hamze was a Persian, it is but natural to find that the dualism of the Zoroastrians should have beeu adopted in whole or in part.
III. Incarnations.-As manifestations of His love to mankind, there have been ten incarnations of God, of which the Elijah of the Old Testament was the fourth and Hakem was the tenth and final one. The latter appeared and held open the door of mercy for twenty-six years, and it was then closed forever, so that there is now no hope for his rejectors. In addition to these incarnations, God has manifested Himl'Jelf in the person of others. Hence Jesus and Mohammed are reverenced as prophets, as are also such teachers as Abraham, Moses, Pythagoras, Plato, Darazi, and many others, who are not regarded as incarnations of God.
IV. The Coming One.-Hakem will come again and conquer the world, tramping under foot those who rejected him and subduing those who oppose him. Whether this doctrine is connected with the Christian's belief in the second coming of Christ, or with the Parsee's hope of the coming of Sosiosh, it is difficult to determine.
V. Souls are individual, but the number never varies. They were all created together, and as soon as a Druse dies his soul enters another body.
VI. Transmigration.-There is a want of agreement among scholars as to just how far this doctrine is believed in. Some claim that the Druses hold that the souls of the virtuous are to pass into the bodies of Chinese Druses, and that souls of the wicked enter the bodies of animals, such as camels or even dogs. Others claim that there is no belief in transmigration into animals. Our most reliable information on this, as well as on all other subjects connected with the Druses, comes from those who within recent years have lived among these interesting people. Sutlh investigators agree in declaring that they believe that after a life of holiness t:'he soul will enter into an angel or other heavenly being, and that a life of wickedness leads to transmigration into an animal, corresponding in nature to the life led by the iudividual. (For example, the soul of a ferocious Druse will enter some sch animal as the tiger.) A missionary testifies: t " At the very moment of his mother's death a calf was born in the herd of a Druse, and he firmly believed that the soul Qf his mother dwelt in that calf. "
VII. Fatalism.-According to Druse theology, not only is God per- * See .. Recollections of the Drnses,.. by the Earl of Carnarvon.
t The Rev. William Ewilli' in The Sunday·School Times, February 4,1893. sona], but His providential government extends to the most minute details of life. Not only is He the great first cause, but all secondary causes are ruled out. Believing that whatever happens is the result of God's immediate action, the Druses are, in theory at least, extreme fatalists. And with some of them it is more than theory, as may be proven by some of their practices. Many of them, acting from motives different from those which influence the faith-enrist of to-day, refuse, when ill, to take medicine, on the ground that to do so would be to interfere with God's work. On the other hand, the good effects of this theory are evidenced in the calmness with which many Druses bear what to others would be bitter affliction. At such times they say, " Hamdillah! Praise be to God! It is the Lord's doing, and we are thankful." "
VIII. The Seven Points of Islam are rejected, and the following are substituted for them : 1. Veracity (only to one another). 2. Mutual protection and resistance. 3. Renunciation of all other religions. 4. Profession of the unity of Hakem as God. 5. Contentment with the works of God. 6. Submission to the will of God. 7. Separation from those in error and from demons. The Druses are divided religiously into two classes, the Akals (Arabic Aki, intelligence) and the Djahils (ignorant). Only the former are initiated into the Druse mysteries, and they are very strict as to religious observances and personal conduct. The latter are uninitiated, and free from religious restrictions. While the Druses must speak the truth to their fellow-religionists, they need not do so to outsiders. Hence their word counts for nothing. All their doctrines are kept secret; they condemn proselyting, and they make outward profession of the dominant religion. Hence they pray with the Mohammedan, or ~prinkle themselves with the holy water of the Maronite. They are Christian to-day and Mohammedan to-morrow should circumstances demand the change. Few esoteric religions have escaped the charge of hiding immoralities under the cloak of religion. Even the early Christians met such charges. Is it any wonder, then, that the vilest practices have been at.tributed to the Drnses? "Habitually marrying their own daughters," " carrying on licentions orgies with promiscuous intercourse in the name of religion," " worshiping the calf," " worshiping the devil," are samples of the accusations which had been brought against them. Those t who have had the best opportunities for knowing the truth have characterized such charges as utterly false.
Some of the practices of the Druses are as strange as their doctrines, while others are worthy of imitation.
* See Haskett Smith in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 148, p. 700.
t Clmrchlll, Carnarvon, et al. Prayer in the sense of supplication is unknown among them, because their fatalism makes it impossible for God to change His will; and therefore they argue: " Why ask Him for anything? If He is to give it, He will give it."
Fasting is unknown. Almsgivmg is distinctly discouraged j their theory being that if they act with brotherly love toward one another there will be no necessity for charity in the ordinary sense of that term. The Druses resemble the Parsees in that it is said that there are no beggars among them. Polygamy is unheard of. They are strict monogamists. The grave defect in their marriage laws is in reference to divorce. Here the husband has absolute power. He has but to say, "Leave my house, you are no longer my wife," and the moment that the wife crosses the threshold the marriage relation terminates, and can never be resumed by the two who are thus divorced. Illegitimacy is exceedingly rare. The Druse maiden is guarded with care, and great emphasis is plaeed on strict morality. No one has yet seen a male and a female Druse dancing together. Attention is paid to education. Unlike many of their Syrian sister3, the women can read and write. They are said to be admitted to the secret conclaves of the Druses, and even to the priesthood. The traditions of these people are many and curious. The most remarkable is the one that vaguely conneets them with the Chinese. Scholars are puzzled by, and unable to account for, their knowledge of the Chinese. Among their traditions of Jesus Christ may be mentioned the one concerning His crucifixion. They hold " that a second Jesus Christ, the * manifestation of the Divine, passed scathless from the world."
As is to be expected, the influence of these people amounts to almost nothing. But this is not the worst result of their esoteric teachings and practices. They are so shut up within themselves that they have been but little influenced by the outside world. Hence Christian missionaries have made almost no impression upon them. In both these respects the Druse and the Parsee stand side by side.
But what of the future? Will the religion of the Druse ever touch men's hearts as does the religion of Jesus? No. For the former says: " The door is shut; none can enter in, and none can pass out," while the invitation of the latter, offered to every sin-sick, heart-sore son and daughter of Adam is: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
* Ewing.
1895·1 EDUCATIONAL MISSION WORK IN EGYPT
EDUCATIONAL MISSION WORK IN EGYPT.* BY REV. H. W. HOGG, ASSIOUT, EGYPT.
Egypt, as an old center of Christianity and a land subjected to a growing European influence, must differ from many scenes of missionary labor. Even what applies to one part of Egypt may not apply in the same degree to anyother, the Upper country being, e.g., much more simple and primiti"e than the Lower. As the writer's experience of edncational mission work has been gained in the former, while the country wiII be dealt with here as a whole, it wiII necessarily by m'I seen froID Upper Egypt.
The people of Egypt all speak one language-Arabic-the native Egyptian language being just as absolutely dead in its Christian Coptic stage as in its pagan hieroglyphic. The educational advantage of uniformity of language, however, is more than counterbalanced by diversity of religion. No really national system of education exists. The Mohammedan mosques teach boys to recite the Koran, and a certain number of men receive a very thorough if primitive training in Arabic studies at the great Mohammedan school in Cairo. Many Coptic boys are taught to recite the Psalms in Arabic, and Coptic priests are taught to chant the church service in Coptic. The government has for years been trying to develop an educational system OR a Mohammedan basis; latterly, with the help of English inspection and to some extent under English direction, a number of schools have been organized in the more important centers of population. Especially in Lower Egypt there are many schools .supported by foreigners- French schools, Italian schools, German schools, English schools, Scotch schools, monks' schools, nuns' schools, secular schools-many of the pupils being European ; in so~e of them a good many Egyptian. Of these schools, however, I have no direct personal knowledge, and it will therefore be more satisfactory not to include them in our survey.t To show that the problems and principles of educational missions in Egypt may be fairly studied in connection with the American schools, it is enough to say that at present there are, in round numbers, 120 schools, 20 of them for girls alone; 8000 pupils, 500 being Jews, etc. ; 1500 Mohammedans, 4500 Copts, and 1500 Protestants; £3000 received in school fees; the total cost being £5000.
All this has grown out of the work begun by the American missiona- * The last annual report of the Egyptian Mission of the United Presbyterian Chnrch of America, which has just reached the writer, contains an excellant account of educational work in Egypt from the missionary point of view by the Rev. J. R. Alexander, D.D.• the man who knows most about it. A copy of this report could donbtless be had by anyone by applying to Rev. W. W. Barr, D.D., 1425 Christian Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
t In what follows, therefore, what is Bald mnst be taken as referring to the work originated by the American Mission. ries in 1854, forty-one years ago. As this work includes most of the departments of missionary labor, we must begin by answering the question: 1. To what extent has the educational side been developed? The 119 schools (the exact number) represent a complete system, embracing 107 that are elementary schools, situated chiefly in villages; and 12 others-namely, 10 high schools, 1 college, and 1 theological school. The last two are for boys and young men alone. Seven of the high schools are for girls alone, and of the 107 elementary schools, 13. Of the remaining 94, 44 have also girls in attendance-a remarkable fact when we remember the treatment of girls in the East, and encouraging in view of the difficulty of procuring female teachers. Thus, while there are 20 schools for girls alone, there are 64 out of 119 where girls attend. The elementary schools give instruction in Bible knowledge, reading and writing Arabic, simple arithmetic, usually a little English, singing, sometimes Arabic grammar, and geography of Egypt, and occasionally a little French. The high schools carryon these subjects to a further point, and add some history-Egyptian and general-some mathematics, and more or less natural science. The college teaches these branches yet more fully, paying great attention to English-many of the subjects being taught through the medium of the English language ; also giving a very complete course in history-Egyptian and general, sacred, church, and secular-and adding courses in a number of physical sciences, mental science, ethics, political economy, Christian evidences, and other distinctively Christian subjects. Essays and debates are freely used. The theological school provides the ordinary courses in ancient languages, dogmatics, apologetics, exegesis, history, and homiletics. Of the 107 elementary schools, 87 are already absolutely self-supporting. Two of these, one for boys and one for girls, have been entirely supported for many years by two wealthy Egyptian families in Assiout, and are quite equal in grade to some of the high schools. The remaining 20 schools received in all during last year £300 of aid, and it is hoped they will soon be self-supporting. The 12 higher schools are entirely under the control and management of the missionaries, and many of the higher classes are taught by them-an interesting fact being that it is now found possible to have ladies teaching young men in the college. In the 107 primary schools, the teachers are almost without exception young men trained in the college or in one of the higher schools, or youug women from one of the higher girls' schools. Their election and appointment is with the cognizance and largely by the management of missionaries, in the largest number of cases the head of the college ; and there is a certain undefinable control exercised over the school. The interdependence of the college and the elementary schools is such that the teachers of the latter are kept more or less in touch with the former. Pupils are in general not received into the college till they have got all that can be got in their native place. A certain uniformity in text· books is thus maintained, and the young teachers instinctively or purposely try to some extent to copy the methods employed in the higher schools. Still much is purposely or of necessity left to local management. Some leading local man-oftenest a clergyman or other officer in the church-is appointed by the community guardian of the school. He signs tIle agreements with the teacher, and in general conserves the interests of teacher and taught. There is no inspec- tor of schools; but missionaries ana native ministers informally do a good deal of such work, and the semi-annual entrance examinations for admission to· the college are by no means without their use in this respect. 'Gradua- tion at the collego takes place after the annual inspection by a committee appointed for the purpose by the General Missionary Association. Gradua- tion at the theological school is dependent on the decision of a special com- mittee appointed by the Presbytery of the Native Reformed Church, with the advice of the professors. '
2. HOUJ far has this department justified its existence?
Most organizations serve several distinct ends, especially at different stages in their history, and not unfrequently their most important service is not quite that for which they were originally brought into existence.
Most of the wants, however, that educational mission work strives to meet are still to be found in Egypt.
It has proved itself an early available and safe means of bringing new area within the influence of enlightened Christianity. The absolute begin- ning at any new town in Egypt is probably made by a colporteur selling Scriptures and other books, religious and educational, or by some enlight- ened tradesman, followed up, probably, by a visit or visits from a preacher or teacher of some kind. But the first formal step, now almost always originating in the people themselves, is the opening of a school. It is iu this way that most of the 107 primary schools have come into existence, and new ones are coming into existence every few months. The school forms a center. Very soon, if not from the first, religious serviceI'! are conducted in the evening and on Sahbath, often 'by the teacher himself.
In time, if not at the outset, children of all religions come to the school, and they and their guardians are brought informally into connection with enlightened Christian thought and practice. The numbers quoted above show, e.g., what a large Mohammedan constituency is influenced in this way, and it shonld be noted that considerably more than half of these Mohammedans are in the elementary schools. In most cases the forma- tion of the school leads eventually to the organization of a more or less formally constituted church. But long before this is accomplished, the religious teaching and the religious and moral tone of the school, imper- fect though it be, make themselves felt throughout a wide circle. It thus, by the interest it creates, reacts markedly in increasing the circulation of the Scriptures iIi other ways than by teaching the people to read them, and the children to understand somethin~ of them. 'Ve have thus arrived at the second great service rendered by the educational work, it is educating the Christian community. The test here i~ the product. The government departments prefer to employ lads trained in these schools to any others, largely on moral grounds. It is hardly likely that anyone who has been brought enough into contact with Egyptians to know the average Egyptian lad-and with the schools we speak of, to know the average pupil-would be unwiliug to testify that there is a real difference. Dr. Alexander, III the article referred to above, says that these pupils "are found occupying positions of trust and honor in the pastorate, in the schools, in the postal, railway, telegraph, police, justice, finance, and war departments of the civil service. They are found among the pupils and teachers of the gQ,vernment colleges. They are servants, laborers, farmers, mechanics, merchants, clerks, interpreters, theologues, teachers, newspaper correspondents, printers, medical students, doctors, lawyers, journalists, authors." From the girls' schools, where there were last year 2332 girls, " have gone forth 50 teachers and scores and hundreds of wives and mothers who are examples to all in the care and cleanliness of their homes and their persons, in the training of their children, in thilir moral, earnest lives." If, on the one hand, this long list means that the Christian influence of the schools is being felt and appreciated throughout the country, on the other hand, it means that the schools have a serious and responsible task. Perhaps the severest test is the home. The fathers, elders though they be in the Protestant Church, cannot restrain their amazement that the missionary should eat with his wife; the children, when they grow up, have in some cases actually succeeded in bringing into existence a domestic life that we English can with a good conscience call a home. This is of incalculable importance. For the European civilization that is seen reflected in the streets of Egypt drives young men from their " homes. " It is the girls' schools that produce the women that make it possible for the men to think of home as something more than a place to sleep in.
The greatest difficulty in regard to girls' schools is to get teachers, i.e., suitable teachers; and this introduces us to a third important service rendered by the educational department-it is training workers. There are 19 ordained native ministers and 308 other native workers in receipt of salaries paid largely from native sources. There are 33 organized congregations, with elders and deacons. A great deal depends on the qualification of these men and women for their work. In fact, this is becoming more and more every year the main condition of success. One duty after another is being assumed by the native church. The possibility of advance depends on the ability of the native community. through its schools, to provide the right kind of men and women. There is now some splendid faithful work being done by these men and women. They hold the key to the situation. But there is also an army of unofficial workers to be trained, the living members of the Church, the leaders of society, the supporters of reform. Rich men need to learn that they may be Christian. :Men of all grades in the social scale need to know that the best intellect and power and social position in the world can be beautified and perfected by being made conformable to the spirit of Christ.
3. What have been found to be the most serious difficulties? The first difficulty is to get the right staff of workers. Among the men and women sent out as missionaries there is not always a sufficient propor- tion of those who are gifted with the peculiar qualities required for making teachers or for managing schools. The work of selection here of course falls on the Church at home. It is a very responsible task. On the field it is the finding of native workers that needs all the skill and tact and perseverance at one's command. In Egypt there has been no little success in this line, but it has cost great labor-labor that can never be known, and, if known, could not be understood by one outside. The arrangement of the course of study presents serious difficulties. The supporters of the mission are deeply and chiefly interested in the religious branchcs of education ; the position of the schools in the country depends on their success as an educational organization ; the tastes and prejudices of the more ignorant of the natives demand, 01', rather, crave, the laying of an undue emphasis on certain showy but secondary subjects. What has been said above as to the moral stuff of the pupils that have passed through the schools shows that a course has been steered that has avoided many snares; but it has been difficult. The finding of appropriate text· books is no easy thing. The mission has itself produced several text-books, but latterly it has found it to be almost imperative to adopt the text·books used in the schools established by the government. There are, of course, difficulties connected with finance. In the expending of money dangers have to be avoided. Excessive economy may lead to inefficiency. The opposite plan may fill important positions with men who have not the moral qualifications needful for true educational work. Then again, in boarding institutions, the style of living must be refined enough to elevate, if possible, and yet must not be beyond the mean~ of the average pupil to maintain after school days. On the other side of the account there are perhaps even greater difficulties. In all but the 12 higher schools the principle followed has been that of absolute selfsupport. There have been exceptions, but they are few. This makes it often very difficult to find a teacher, for the constituency of many of the schools is poor, and the people fancy themselves poorer than they really are. It is not rare to find a rather inferior teacher in a school, because the people cannot or will not pay for a better. What seems to be needed is some feasible way of making a grant in aid which, while conserving the spirit of self-support, would give a certain power of control to some central authority, and relieve constraint where it exists. No such plan has yct been practicably available. In the higher schools self-support is not within sight j but the difficulty is all the greater. The varying circumstances of the pupils have to be considered. A certain number of pupils have to be received free. Even in boarding-schools there are many who pay almost nothing. Many, however, bring their own bread, and they are encouraged to do so j and in the college all who do not pay the full fees required are expected to perform some service for the good of the institution in recognition of the privileges they enjoy. This has often been found an important principle when there has been a scarcity of teachers for village schools. At the theological school there are no charges for regular students. The difficulties of finance are very great; but some of them have been surmounted, altho at the expense of immense labor and worry.
In organization, much trouble arises from the fact that usually moral suasion is the strongest force than can be used. The perplexities involved iu securing the best possible distribution of teaching force over the various schools, when the schools aud the teachers arc all really free agems, are very great. Yet by perseverance much has been done. Frequently the college has had to give up a useful teacher and train another for the sake of some other school.
Competition with other schools is the last difficulty we shall mention. That a Mohammedan school should draw off Christian boys would be a calamity. And yet, if the method or course of study followed in the Christian school does not please the popular fancy, e.g., by supplying the amount and kind of secular instruction desired, this will happen. It has happened when some improvement has been introduced into the Christian school.
We must bring this article to a close. Enough has been said to show that a very important work is being done in Egypt, and, in many respects, with marked success. It will not have been difficult, either, to see what have been some of the conditions the more or less complete fulfilment of which have made that success possible. It seems to the writer that among these are the bold recognition of the educational department as an important institution needing to be managed in a business-like way ; the selection and setting apart of men and women, in the mission or out of it, having the needful qualifications for educational work; the adoption of a carefully thought out and fairly continuous policy, of which the principles of self-support and the training of teachers within the system should be an important part; and the maintenance of a distinctively Christian tone and character, which has in Egypt been a means of strength, and has not prevented 1500 of Mohammedan children from joining the schools, and even Mohammedan parents from sending their daughters as boarding pupils. Some of these principles have been but partially recognized, but apparently with increasing definiteness as the work expanded, and it seems hardly possible that the present encouraging position could have been reached had they been ignored. Friends who make a winter trip to the East have an opportunity of seeing how these things are. Many who have done so have testified that a visit to some of these schools has been one of the most interesting events of an eventful visit to the land of the Pharaohs.
CONVE'N'fION OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY
THE FOUNDERS' WEEK CONVENTION OF THE LONDON MIS- SIONARY SOCIETY.
BY JAMES DOUGLAS, BRIXTON HILL, LONDON, ENGLAND.
This celebration, which has been attended by about a thousand delegates, has been worthy of the occasion, and has been marked by an intensive view of missionary facts over the wide area of the society's operations. Brethrcn from the foreign field were in strong force, and had each his place in the kaleidoscopic views presented of the world's state and needs. It added to the cosmopolitan character of the convention that there were representatives from Basle, Norway, and Holland present; while the brotherhood of the evangelical churches at home was emphasized by the presence and hearty greetings of leading Baptist, Wesleyan, and Presbyterian ministers. What struck us most was the matter-of-fact spirit in- forming the whole line of the proceedings. The day of romance or of sensation in missions seems to be ended, and all is now dead earnest. It would be a mistake to aver that enthusiasm is decayed, but it is now too well instructed to talk seBtiment. The morning conferences especially were characterized by seriousness of tone, and by an enthusiasm that was strictly harnessed to the practical view of mission facts and needs. Doubtless the present outlook in China and Madagascal, ominous enough to make flesh and blood falter, told on the meetings. This was apparent from time to time. But tho the exceptional difficulties of the hour exercised a sobering influence on .the assemblies, there was no sign that they had a repressive effect either on the missionaries themselves or on their supporters at home. On the contrary, courage rose with danger, and pressed on to the goal undeterred by the rough hewing of adverse circumstance.
There was so~ething truly sublime in the Founders' Week Convention, were it only for the chastened spirit which it showed, the ungarnished view of results, and the fortitude oblivious of so much as the thought of retreat. It is grand when faith is such that the will is whole; and when faith under grievous trial has this issue, it is grander still. Prudence may be a virtue, a missionary virtue; but it is not, as Edward Irving felt in his day, the pole-star of the virtues. Prudence does not merit the first, second, and third place. No. 'I'he real Great-Heart is faith. The London Missionary Society, and so far the whole Church of God, is to be congratulated on an exhibition of faith of an approved quality.
Immense public interest centered in the presence of three native Christians from Bechuanaland, two of them chiefs. Khama, the senior chief, a man of spare and stooping frame and impressive mien, gave two brief addresses in his native tongue, which were interpreted, sentence by sentence, by Mr. Willoughby. His attitude to the liquor traffic may be inferred from his description of strong drink as " our common enemy;" while his feelings with respect to Christian missions are portrayed in the following words : " The work we stand iu to-day is the work of goodness, the work that excels all work in real goodness. The work we find in the land is the work that tires men and passes away j the work of God knows no ending, and goes on ever before us. I have been trying to help all my young people to go forward in learning in schools, in things like this; and I say that that town is a town of beauty where the work of God is taken up with both hands."
Interesting papers concerning all parts of the foreign field were sup- plied by the society's missionaries, and in most cases were read by the writers themselves. Thus, one morning was deyoted to an exposition of the work in the South Seas and in Madagascar, while at a similar sitting a many-sided view of the work in India and China was submitted. In the sketches supplied there was an evident desire on the part of the mis- sionary brethren that the friends at home should see things according to the law of true perspective and a just regard for light and shade. Frank- ness reigned. The results were gracious, affording ample ground for grateful retrospect and hopeful incentive, but they were not absolutely phenomenal. Speaking of the Hervey Islands, Mr. Lawrence, of Aitutaki, called attention to the fact that the inhabitants of these regions are a tropical people, and largely display the constitutional failings that usually appear where such climatic conditions exist. They are not conspicuous for moral grit, but rather show a weakness in the direction of luxurious ease and supineness of character. "Indeed," said Mr. Lawrence, "the bulk of the people show a greater aptitude for the taking on of Christianity than they show for the taking of it in." At the same time, without staying to observe that there was home as well as foreign thrust in such a confession, he knew of many native Christians who were stalwarts alike in strength of character and devotion of heart. In his view, a pressing need of the hour lay in meeting the public demand for an English education. The native mind was now on the qui vive for this j and while important results had already accrued from the educational work that had been for years in course, since the greater number of the people could now read and write, and were also expert in figures, still he felt that there was a loud call, with the dawn of their second century, for a forward movement in education. Of late the Roman Catholics had come, together with the Seventh-Day Adventists and Mormons. The times were transitional, and it devolved on the London Missionary Society that, having been first in the field, they should see that the future of the people should not suffer through any unwisdom or slackness in the conduct of the campaign.
The claims of New Guinea found an able and exceedingly popular exponent in the person of the Rev. James Chalmers. Papers were not in his line, but his tongue was " as the pen of a ready writer." He spoke more frequently than any other brother from the foreign field, but not, so far as we could notice, to the disarrangement of the program, or the eclipsing of a lesser light. His words added mightily to the stimulus, power, and life of the meetings. It is not given to all to have a giant soul, or to speak words that literally throb with life-force. As a speaker, Mr. Chalmers is neither eloquent nor ornamental; no more does he strike the ear with the impact of intellectuality. His forte lies in this, that he is so much at home, that his big soul is in all he says, that he speaks not for effect, but to give the truth; he w;}u~2 bring home to another the same incision that it has in his own heart, and that in listening to him all are as much at ease as if he were speaking to a company of friends across a dinner-table.
His general topic was New Guinea itself, one of the newest of missions, but greatly blessed of God. He depictured the introduction of the Gospel into that large island which had been without any knowledge of God whatever. The scene of the landing of the tiny missionary party was sketched, and what a meaning it had, seen by the eye that could see! Did they think what it ~eant thus to disembark on a distant pagan shore, and set to work as best they could to lift up the standard of the Gospel? He himself could best answer that question by bringing before them another picture, by describing a ~cene of which he himself had been a spectator, and in the proceedings of which he had had a share; he referred to what took place eleven years after the original missionary party had landed, when there was a second landing on that shore, this time of a few representatives of the British crown. They came, amid the acclamations of the islanders, to annex a portion of New Guinea to the British crown, and never did he (Mr. Chalmers) feel prouder of what it was to be a citizen of the British Empire than on that memorable day. In that ceremonial they had an emblem-a faint emblem-of what the first landing of the missionaries meant in New Guinea. They had, in fact, unfurled the banner of King Jesus, and annexed the island in Messiah's name. Their object was not to Anglicize, as the s.avants satlrically alleged, nor had they ought to do with native customs which were in themselves decent, still less had they any women's battle to fight, for the women of New Guinea were accomplished in holding their own; their one aim was to Christianize the people and attach the isle to the crown of the King of kings.
As was natural, the affairs of Madagascar had a prominent place in the business of the convention. An admirable review of the whole history of the society'S operations in Madagascar was given by the Rev. James Richardson, F.R.G.S., of Antanan.arivo, from which we learn that there are now 1406 buildings or chapels in connection with the London Missionary Society, the present staff comprising 33 men and 6 single ladies. The Rev. G. A. Shaw, F.Z.S., of Farafangana, followed with an account of work done among other tribes, giving special prominence to the encouraging results that have attended the Betsileo Mission. On the evening of the same day (September 24th) the chairman, W. Woodall, Esq., M.P., dealt with the political aspects of the situation in Madagascar and China as these were likely to bear on missionary enterprise. "In resplilct of Madagascar," he said, "we have to look on while that great island is desolated by the invader, we having to maintain a passive neutrality." The latest deliverance, however, on the subject of Madagascar, and certainly the most cheering one, was supplied on Thursday evening, September 26th, by the Rev. W. E. Cousins, who came fresh from the capital of the Hovas, and succeeded in imparting an inspiriting tone to what had hitherto been a depressing subject. Mr. Cousins's creed, in respect of the future of Christian missions in Madagascar, is that we need fear no evil. He has nQ suspicion that the French will seek to disown treaty rights, and for himself he has faith in the loyalty and toleration of the French civil authorities. Mr. Cousins looks on the bright side. Happily there is ever a bright side to faith, even when it is darkest to sense. May the Hova Christians and their evangelical shepherds have this vision now!
Both India and China were ably represented. According to the Rev. I. H. Hacker, of Neyoor, Travancore, the self-supporting churches, which it is the aim of the missionaries to establish, are both their anxiety in the present and their hope of the future. Nearly all as yet is elementary. There is more of the spirit of the Old Testament than of the New. Historical facts are grasped, but the experimental knowledge is faint. The tendency is to trust in a round of mechanical service, to wage a social rather than a spiritual warfare. In Mr. Hacker's view this leaven infects the native pastorates. Hitherto the native pastors have been left very much to themselves-a doubtful policy. The ponsequence has been the perfunctory round of duty, with no serious effort to deepen the spiritual life of the churches. The need of the hour concerned the overhauling of present methods and the adoption of a more intensive and definite aim.
Four papers were read on China-North, Central, and South. In North China the foreign staff consists of 16 men, assisted by a native staff of 21 teachers. The present membership is 1000, but nowhere is there a strong native church. Mr. Bryson's testimony is that the majority of the converts may be regarded as babes in Christ, with, however, the passions of men and women. Thus far of Tientsin and neighborhood, where practically the field is boundless and the people show no hostility.
In dealing with Central China, Mr. Sparham, of Hankow, described the history of the London Missionary Society mission as " one long forward movement." God had upheld Dr. Griffith John and his companions in labor, so that they had been able both to sow and to reap abundantly. The news from Hong-Kong, in the south, was to the effect that there had grown up an admirable system of itineracy, and that the Chinese were beginning to appreciate Christianity as a moral force.
In what the Rev. R. M. Ross had to say, touching Amoy, there was much to cheer and but little to sadden. Here the Christian type is of a pronounced manly description-robust, aggressive, intrepid, and selfdenying. Some thousands are now Christians, and these, with native money, have started a forward movement of their own, and are now carrying on missionary operations on the mainland in the hope eventually of joining forces with Dr. John. Mr. Ross's speech must have made every Christian heart in the great assembly to rejoice.
Among the speakers whose long service on the field of missions lent the weight of added interest were Dr. Lockhart, the first Protestant medical missionary in China, and Dr. Muirhead, who has been nearly fifty years there. The latter spoke of the opposing forces in the Chinese Empire as threefold: Confucianism, or self-reformation j Buddhism, or self-abnegation j and the worship of ancestors, which may be construed as self-development or rationalism.
In bringing this rough sketch to a close, in which it has been our aim to sample rather than exhaustively chronicle the program of the convention, we should fail in chivalrous feeling did we omit altogether to note the distinguished niche accorded to women's work and place and sphere on the mission field~ Several papers written by lady missionaries were read, tho not by their writers, and many an interesting peep was given into the home life of the heathen world. We learn, so far as the Chinese women are concerned, with how small cares and petty things the web of life is woven j and how volatile the mind must be which can interrupt an earnest talk from curiosity to know if the foreign lady trimmed her own hat. Never probably before have the difficulties been so brought home to the English mind that hedge round the work of Christian women in heathen lands j but as Miss Budden, of Almora, pointed out, what a boundless field is opened for European women! In India especially all things are ready. "European women," said Miss Budden, "can lead native women anywhere, and ,native women teachers can go anywhere." And for the work, not only are health and strength required, but cheerfulness and love to the people also.
We have but to add that to Dr. Stalker, of Glasgow, fell the honor of preaching the sermon in which the proceedings closed, the text being, " Yet have I set My king upon My holy hill of Sion"-,a sublime text and, as might have been expected, graphically handled. God speed the hour of Christ's enthronement amI apocalypse on that holy hill j yea, let that day come and let all other days pass away!
Rev. Edward Storrow also writes as follows concerning this centenary celebration: " In the City Temple for six days, and usually three times each day, the friends of the society met to rejoice, to praise God, to receive reports of what has been accomplished,' and to consider in what manner the so- ciety can in the future best fulfil the great purposes for which it exists.
" It was very impressive to gather from the presence of the mission- aries and the papers read how wide and varied were the spheres occu- pied: India, China, New Guinea, Polynesia, South and Central Africa, and Madagascar-all had their representatives j but in some of these spheres, as in India, a distance not far short of two thousand miles sepa- rated the extreme stations of Kumaon, in the north, from those of Travan- core, in the South. " The forms of labor carried on in these various spheres differ considerably. Direct endeavors to preach the Gospel have properly the first place, but auxiliary efforts were described, and too much stress by several speakers was laid-as we think-on the importance of increasing them.
" The amount and variety of work accomplished by the missionaries and their native helpers was seen to be very great. Islands in the South Seas were referred to where every ves~ige of heathenism has disappeared j 1400 congregations of Christians in Madagascar owe their origin to the society, and hard and formidable as the propagation of the Gospel in Africa, China, and India may be, abundant evidence was given of solid progress.
" The spirit and tone of the speaking and of the papers read were very admirable. 'Without boastfulness or hero-worship, or even a consciousness of having done aught but fulfil a great and solemn duty, missionary after missionary told of work accomplished or needing to be done.
" Their hopefulness was very apparent. They had an amount of faith in God and the power of the Gospel not usually possessed by ministers at home, and even those who had clear conceptions of the tremendous difficulty of combating the great superstitions of the East, showed no signll of weariness and despair. Elation often comes to the true men when so placed.
" While the society has a noble history, a record of great things accomplished' and occupies spheres of remarkable promise, it closes its centenary with not a little anxiety. Its hope to increase its income by £25,000 a year, its missionaries from about 200 to 300, and to raise a special centenary fund of £100,000 have met with but partial success. Is there not great reason to desire that evangelical beliefs and convictions, which feed and nourish the missionary enterprise, may spread rather than languish in all Protestant communities j and that there should be a deeper conviction that our greatest want is not money or machinery, but more of the mind of Christ and of the Divine Spirit? If we had these, men, money, converts could not"but follow."
The following, from the society'S last report, is a clear indication of its high position : English missionaries….•. , …•.••.•.•.•.••..• 196 Female missionaries …•••••..••…•.•.•..•••• 65 Ordained native ministers .•.•…•…….••…. 1,429 Native preachers. _.. _.•.. _•…•.•…•.•••…. 6,708 Christian schoolteachers…. , ……………•.. 785 Bible-women. . …….••….•….•.. _ , •.•… 155 Church-lnembers ……………..•••….•… 94,295 Native adherents •.••………•••.•••..•.•••• 408,147 Scholars, boys ..•…………•…..•…….. 71,562 " girls..•.•………… , •.•… , •….. 55,902 Local contributions. , ………….•.. £22,217 15s. 9d. School fees………… . . . . . • • • . . . . . 8,748 7 9 Total raised at mission stations. • • •• £30,966 3s. 6d.
THE RECENT RIOTS IN CHINA AND THEIR CAUSE
THE RECENT RIOTS IN CHINA AND THEIR CAUSE.
BY HENRY M. WOODS, TSING KIANG PU, CHINA.
American missionaries in China, representing the Protestant Church of all denominations, not long since sent to the United States Government a petition requesting that their treaty rights in this land be more clearly defined and established, and that steps be taken to put an end to the riots which have been occurring with increasing frequency of late years, and which have been so disastrous to missions. H~rdly had this petition time to reach Washington before a melancholy proof of the necessity of such action was given by the stupendous outrages perpetrated on missions in the province of Szechwen, West China. The riots began in Chengtn, the provincial capital, on May 28th; the great Dragon Feast Day. On the three following days the four missions occupying the city, the English, the Canadian Methodist, the Northern Methodist (United States), and the Roman Catholic (French), were successively destroyed. In eight cities the riots broke out, the missions being plundered and burned, and the missionaries barely escaping with their lives.
An account of the riots is best given by the sufferers themselves. A Protestant missionary writes: "At four 0' clock on the afternoon of May 29th our compounds were burned to the gronnd-that is, the dwellings, schools, and chapels in one, and adjoining, the hospital. From our place the rioters went to the China Inland Mission, carrying off every stick on the place. The compound where the ladies of our women's mission lived was also looted, the ladies going over the wall into a neighbor's. Next morning they began with the Methodist Mission (United States), cleaning it out completely, even to the walls and the leaves on the trees. The Catholics had five different stations, at one of which was a cathedral. All these places are utterly wiped out. All the foreigners are at the yamen (official residence) of one of the magistrates. The prefect of the city himself camc and looked at the work of destruction going on, then got into his chair and had not gone forty yards before the rioters were at it again. Mrs. S. and Mrs. K. with four children crawled out of a hole in the hospital gate upon the street. They tried to take refuge in several houses as well as at the fort near by, but were driven off each place, one of the soldiers kicking Mrs. S. and driving them off with curses. These women, with the children, wandered about the city wall till midnight, then went to the China Inland Mission till the early morning, when the mob reached there. At present you cannot calculate the harm done to the mission work, to say nothing of the monetary loss."
This statement is weB supplemented by the account of the Roman Catholic bishop, Mgr. Dunand, who says: "Now the hatred of the Viceroy onght to be satisfied. He has let the mob loose against us, and everything' wo possessed in this city, and, for all I know, throughont the province, has been destroyed. The trouble began with the ill treatment of a medical missionary belonging to one of the Protestant missions. Toward the end of May the Chinese were holding the feast of Twan-yang. One of the foreigners here, a Protestant missionary, went very naturally to see the spectacle, * and as Roon as the mob perceived him they began to shout and throw stones at him. The missionary returned to his residence followed by the mob, and as soon as they arrived at the house they broke open the door and looted the premises, the inmates barely escaping with their lives. When they had stolen everything and destroyed all they could not carry away, they burned down the house.
"On May 29th, just after mass, we received a letter warning us that all foreigners were to be attacked. On hearing this I wrote to the Viceroy, who resided only a short distance away, asking for protection, but no answer was received. On that day the residences and establishments of all the Protestant missionaries were burned and looted, after which the rioters tnrned their attention to the Catholic orphanage, and, seeing there was no help to be obtained from. the Viceroy, I went in my chair to the Taotai general's yamen to appeal to that official for protection. When I arrived at the yamen they would not allow me to enter, bnt received me with insults and stoned me. Afterward my chair was overturned aud my bearers beaten. As I was making off, a mandarin in the crowd tried to strike me with an ax, and had the blow taken effect, it would have shorn off my head. I was hurt and bruised about my body, and my head was cut. During my absence the mob destroyed the Catholic premises. It was all over so quickly that the fathers had time to save nothing but a few papers. While the work of destruction was going on· the Viceroy himself passed, and called out to the mob, ' You can pull down what you like and rob what you like, but do not burn anything, lest you should set fire to the neighbors' houses.' During the destruction of our property the tomb of Mgr. Dufresse, one of our bishops who was decapitated by the Chinese seventy years ago, was broken into. The skeleton of the martyr was torn from its resting-place and the poor hones were carried about the streets by the moh for the purpose of further infuriating the people against us, the rioters crying, ' See, here are the bones of some of the people the missionaries have murdered. We have just taken them from under the foreign devils' houses.' Orphanages, churches, and all our houses were destroyed. There is not one stone left standing on another. At three A. M. on May 30th we were taken in chairs to the yamen of the "Vha Yang Shien (a magistrate), where we found eighteen English and American missionaries, including ladies and children, who were all, like ourselves, poor people-beggars-without anything left to them in this world.
" Here we all remained till June 1st, when we were taken to the Prefect's yamen, from which I am now writing to you."
* A mistake; no missionary went to see the spectacle. Such is an account of the actual occurrences of the riots. The West- ern reader lays down his paper in perplexity, and asks: "What can be the cause of such fierce outbreaks; who is responsible for them I"
Let us try to find the answer. In doing so, first hear the Chinese version of the matter-what they allege the cause of the riots to be. Let the Chinese state their own case. The Viceroy, the chief official of the Szechwen province, in a dispatch of June 22d to the Viceroy of Chihli province, in which Peking is situated, gives as his official account the following: "There was a whay (an idol procession) on the streets of Chengtu, and a foreigner got into the crowd, who hustled him about. Finding himself hustled, he used his stick; whereupon he was attacked by the mob, and took to flight. He got into his house, fastened the door, and, taking a gun, fired on the mob, who had surrounded the honse, killing two persons. Then the crowd gutted and burned the building, the foreign residents escaping to the yamen. Inside the foreign houses the people found two Chinese children kept in a cage of some kind. They were in a state of suspended animation. These children were taken to the yamen and skillful Chinese doctors were then called in, who, on examining them, found some kind of black drug introdnced into their nostrils, which was the cause of their insensibility. By the use of remedies the doctors restored them to consciousness, when the children related how they had been kidnapped by the foreigners, who administered the drug, and they knew no more. Upon this dreadful crime being brought to light by au open examination in a Chinese court of law, the people were fired with indignation, and the di.sturbances were spreading in all directions, much to the grief of the Viceroy, who was powerless to control the disorder." The substance of this statement is at once recognized by anyone conversant with Chinese affairs as the old threadbare plea which Chinese officials have used for the past twenty-five years or more in explaining anti- Christian riots. Their defence is : that the riots are the work of ignorant, irresponsible people, the" stupid masses;" that they are sudden, violent outbreaks which no one could foresee; that the canse is the rumors, the charges against missionaries of committing secret outrageous crimes ; that the officials cannot control the people, and are powerless to prevent the riots. In a word, the Chinese are not to blame for the riots; the fault is wholly with the foreigner. Iu one important respect the statement of the Viceroy differs from any the writer has ever seen before. Usually the officials, in explaining the origin of the riots, say that the people believed the missionaries were guilty of such crimes, but that afterward it was found that the charges were not sustained. In this statement the Viceroy is very bold. He actually states these things as facts: that the missionaries were guilty of the alleged crimes. He states as facts that the missionary began the riots by striking with his cane, by firing into the crowd and killing two men, and that an examination of his house showed that he had kidnapped and drugged children in order to commit vile crimes. These things were proved in a Chinese court of law, and therefore the people could not be restrained !
It is hardly necessary to say that the whole statement is an outrageous falsehood, a horrible calumny intended to justify the riots before the Chinese nation and poison the minds of thousands against the Gospel for years to come. It is simply the case of …..Esop's wolf against the lamb. Every foreigner in China, merchant as well as missionary, knows that the riots are not the work of th( common people. The people are either ft'iendly or indifferent-they are not of themselves hostile. The authors of the riots are the officials t.hemselves, who stir the people up as the priests and scribes and Pharisees did the people in Christ's day; the people are the dupe, the tool of the officials. A close scrutiny of the riots reveals the fact that there is always a preconcerted plan-the riot is worked up. The rumors and charges against missionaries are really the pretext, the occasion of the outbreaks; the true cause is the bitter hatred of the Chinese officials toward foreigners and their increasing anti-foreign propaganda. Whenever missions seem too successful or foreign influence too aggressive, the officials and literati collect the band of ruffians, such as are found in every large city, by the offer of plunder and promise of immunity from punishment, and their grewsome work is easily done. As to the plea that officials are unable to restrain the people, the experiences of the past eight months in China during the war with Japan prove exactly the opposite to be the fact. Under the most trying circumstances the officials all over China have been able to preserve order and to protect missionaries, because they knew the salvation of the empire depended on it. The only exceptions have been in the case of wandering bands of soldiers, and from these the Chinese people havil suffered more than the missionaries. That the Szechwen riots were the work of the officials is proven by the statements of the sufferers already quoted. The Viceroy and otber officials refused protection-nay more, they actually encouraged the mob in the work of destruction. At the time the riots were at their height the highest police official of Chengtu issued a proclamation stating that he had proof the foreigners were guilty of the horrible crimes alleged against them.
Here, then, is the true cause of the riots-the incendiary publications of the officials, charging missionaries with vile crimes, the motive being to drive out Christianity and Western civilization from China. The officials see that Christianity, with its attendant benefits, must revolutionize the empire s:)oner or later, and, above all, that it will put an end to mandarinism and" squeezing"-that system of peculation by which the influential grow rich at the expense of the people.
·What is the reme,:y for the riots? Our government can do much by holding the Chinese Government responsible for the acts of its officials, and by insisting that an end must be put to this whole sale system of slander by the officials. A mere indemnity for the destruction of property does
THE MOUNTAIN WHITES OF THE SOUTH
not touch the root of the evil. A strict investigation should be held, and guilty officials should be punished for inciting riot by false accusation. Moreover, special attention should be called to the province of Hunan. Here is the center of anti-foreign agitation. Hunan is like an ulcer, virulent with slander; it poisons, and has been poisoning for years, the whole body politic. Open and cleanse that ulcer, and the root of the matter has been reached. If the Chinese Government is sincere in its professions, and. desires to stop these slanders and riots, it has an excellent opportunity to show its earnestness. Let it open up Hunan to foreign intercourse, and stop the slanderous publications there. It is to be hoped our government will request this.
Meanwhile, let us work and pray with the greater energy, believing that these disturbances are but the" overturnings" which precede the triumph of HIM whose right it is to rule. "Fear not, little flock; it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
* THE MOUNTAIN WHITES OF THE SOUTH.
BY REV. 3. T. WILDS, NEW YORK.
Exaggerated statements regarding a people or a work, whether to their credit or discredit, and the citation of extreme cases of destitution and degradation as representative of the condition of a whole district, always do injury to a cause.
A long acquaintance with the mountain whites of Eastern Tennessee andWestern North Carolina caused me to read with peculiar interest the report of Mrs. Davis's address on the Mountain ·Whites. It is interesting and touching; it shows a zeal for souls that is highly commendable; and yet my experience among these people causes me to feel indignation and regret at what I regard a great misrepresentation of facts. Mrs. Davis has either been misinformed, or her experience is unique. Seventy-five years ago lIlany of the statements might have been true, and map.y of her anecdotes were to~d many years ago in connection with other persons and places. Some of the keenest minds and sharpest wits I ever met I have found in those mountain cabins; they are forever hoodwinking strangers, and commenting among themselves upon the ignoramuses who come from the cities ready to believe everything they hear. I once asked a hunter if he knew of any mugwumps in the mountains. He said, "No, he 11ad not heard of the varments." I informed him that I had seen the tracks of * We have received many communications from various sources (among them Rev. Geo. W. Dutler, D.D., of Roane College, Tennessee), takinll exception to the article upon the" Mountain Whites" Which appeared in Ol1r June issue (p. 422). Mrs. Davis says that she emphatically repeato hel' fonner ~tatements, and that the half has not been told. In fairnesB, however, we give some communications which have come to hand taking another view of the situation. one across the river, and had also seen one that morning climbing the mountain. Away he rushed, saying, " 1'11 bag him ;" but turning around, by the movement of his hand he let me know that of the two fools, I was the bigger.
The stories of Bible texts and ignorance of Divine truth are handed down like coIlege yarns from generation to generation, and I believe are for the most part drawn from a fertile imagination.
I have whipped the streams of these mountains for trout for many years, have spent much time among the people, visiting their schools and churches, hearing their preachers and teachers, and I have been impressed with the great advancement made during the past few years. I have met scores of preachers and teachers, and have not yet fonnd one after the type which Mrs. Davis describes. Schools are needed, better teachers are needed-that is true of New York; but these people are not destitute of schools. There are few districts without the school-honsc ; and I have yet to find one" with the primitive floor of native earth." I visited a school in the summer of 1894 which was attended by about sixty pupils. Some of the scholars walked about four miles, for each district has but one school. The teacher was gentlemanly, bright, and Christian in all he did. He showed a love for souls, and was a consecrated servant. Few teachers in the city of New York have a more gentle manner or are more unselfish in their work. I attended the Sabbath-school and overheard most of the instruction; for a time I was in a Bible class of men; all except one could read, and that one sent all of his children to school. I had the pleasure of preaching that day to more than three hundred men and women. They sang out of books, they read out of their Bibles. I never stood before a people more interesting, more reverent, or more thoughtful. My heart grows warm for them as I write. I lodged in some of their homes, talked with them by the way, and could see nothing of the degradation and illiteracy of which Mrs. Davis spoke. I should, I think, have heard of "crimes committed by them" which would " put to blush enormities committed in the worst districts of our great cities," for I have traveled and sojourned in all parts of these mountain districts, but they did not come to my knowledge. " Their ignorance is deplorable," says Mrs. Davis. Of course it is; but it is more deplorable to represent a whole people as not knowing Jesus and as calling Him" that Mister you be a talkin' about." I doubt if there is one in those mountains who has not heard something of Jesus as the Son of God. The mountain whites are a great many' things, but they are not fools. Sensational statements never sent a worker into a field and kept him there. I have labored day and night on the East Side of New York for ten years. I knew a home of sad destitution; Two children were in the last stages of consumption. When I caIled I asked if I might pray for the dying daughter, and the mother said: "No, He is a fiend; don't talk to me about Him." I pleaded and pleaded, and at last she consented if I would not mention the name of God. She sat upright in defiance; the dying girl gritted her teeth when I prayed. When I arose the older daughter went with me to thc door, clenched her fist, and said, " I want to die, so that I can shake my fist in God's face and call Him a monster." (She afterward called Him her dear heavenly Father, and became a teacher in my Sabbathschool.) I know a home where there is bestial living. Ten are huddled together in two small rooms. They work day and night, and earn a pittance. These are facts, but how much truth would there be in them if I cited them as showing the general condition of the people, instead of as isolated cases ~ The truth is, that some of the sweetest, purest, truest men and women, the shrewdest mechanics, the kindest housewives, the tenderest mothers I ever met live in these tenements. I could lead you into scores of homes where you would find the highest grade of gentility and the truest Chris" tianity. I could, of course, show you ignorance and vice, and tell you of crime and woe; but there is something else-there always has been something else, and always will be-and that something else is not by any means so rare as one might judge from many reports.
What God's people want is to see both sides of a case, and not to hear or read a one-sided description of a people, and to be allowed to infer that isolated cases represent the whole.
Rev. J. H. Polhemus, working under the Presbyterian Board, also writes from Swannanoa, N. C.: "The article on ' The Mountain vVhites of America' is so extravagant in statement that I cannot but inform you of the feeling that it has excited among the workers here. .Almost every statement made is or may be only true of the most exceptional cases J' and to state them as facts about these mountain people as a whole is untrue and unjust. The whole is an extravagance which we fear will do more harm than good. Such statements getting among this people would antagonize them toward the schools and missionaries (that has resulted very seriously already from another like article).
"I have been but nine months as a missionary among this people, but to me and to others much longer in this work that address is not the kind of presentation of this work which gives an intelligent or true idea of the people in which many churches are now deeply interested. "
" Jewish women are considered to have but slight religious responsibility, as their knowledge of the law is small," writes Rev. G. M. Mackie, of' Beirut; "but they bring devotional meaning into household life that more enlightened people might well repeat. When sending a batch of dough to the public oven, the poor Jewish woman plucks off a small piece of dough and puts it on top. It is her tithe, an offering to the Lord from her substance, and is thrown into the fire; so when the baked bread is brought home it is sanctified-a gift from God."
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV, J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Great Evangelistio Development in dia's popUlation. They are in a sense North India, 1888-93. serfs-in some cases, however, being quite independent, in othel's occupying . [J. T. G.] a position of mild slavery. For centu- ries they have been one and all subor·· The India social organization is pecu- dillated directly or indirectly to the liar. Partly from religious causes, partly great social system of the Hindus, and from successive waves of immigration, politically have exerted no power. They and partly from a highly artificial eco· are not Hindus, yet are sometimes nomic division of labor, there exist great spoken of as such, though their religclass divisions of society. The social ious teachers and their gods are wholly league rests on caste, which bas its outside the Brahmanic system. roots deep down in race elements. The Brahmans are the" twice born" high- They are found in all parts of India est caste. The civil and military rulers as individuals, in small communities in are the Kshatriyas; the class who till wards of towns and villages, or in sepaand trade are the Vaishyas. Artisans rated districts. In Norlh India and in and day-laborers are Sudras. Below the Nerbudda Valley they foIlow varithese are the out-caste, with non-Aryan ous occupations, as farmers, weavers, blood current in their veins. Religious· shoemakers, village watchmen, dayly all the four castes are of Divinc ori- laborers, coolies, or personal servants gin, tho with degrees of dignity. These to richer Hindus and Europeans. The castes are subdivided into hundreds of English Govel'llment has released them other castes_ In the course of time it from all technical legal relati::ms which has come to pass that the out-castes could imply a condition of depression, have fallen into social class divisions but, by usage of centuries, they are still among themselves, the classification for a submerged community. Many of the most part following the lines of these are slowly awakening to the division of labor, such as chumars or recognition of their altered relation, leatber-workers, mahters or sweepers, and gradually asserting their indepenand so forth. As they are survivals of dence, exhibiting a disposition to adthe most primitive races who immigrat- vance their culture and condition. Tbey ed from Central Asia into India, they have never been educated, anti are as a are sometimes spoken of as " aboriginal whole positively illiterate, few of them tribes," tho that term is somcwhat more having learned to read or write. comprehensive, including whole tribes which are absolutely segregated from Sir William Hunter estimates them as the Ilindu communi'y and some sepa- numbering 50,000,000. As the British rated from all influences of Hinduism, Government opens to them, in common either social or religious. In Bengal this with every other subject of the empire, general segment of population is spoken all avenues, and they are not hampered of as Nama·Sudra, or below the Sudra, liS others with pride and traditions, if the term Sudra being that of the lowest they should, as they have already done class recognized as a component part of in a small way, make a geIlc~al use of the Hindu social order. In the Bom- these opportunities, India would in a bay Census Report of 1882 they were sense be turned" bottom side up." Sir cataloged as " Depressed Classes," and William Hunter says, " Within the next a not wholly inapplicable designation fifty years these 50,000,000 of human might be the Submerged Sixth of In- beings will incorporate themselves into one or the other of the higher faiths about them," and adds, " speaking hu- caste were baptized at Aon1a, who bravemanly, it rests with Christian missiona- 1y withstood the persecution which fol· ries in India whether a great proportion lowed this act. The police treated them of these 50,000,000 shall accept. Chris- as thieves and arrested them whenever tianity, Hinduism, or Islam." It is any theIt occurred, no matter by whom among these non-caste {leoples that Mu- committed, confining th(;llI, beating hammadanism has made advance in them, and sometimes burning their Bengal, and from them come the follow- houses. At Bilsi, the chumars of four ers of Kabir and Nanak in northern localities gave excellent attention to the India. They are, in many portions of Word. In Budaon they sent their the country, accessible to Christian in- children to the schools. The Bairagis fluences. The great revivals in the and Thakurs followed more slowly, Telugu and other missions in southern and Christian sweepers began separat- India were among such non-caste peo- ing from their unbaptized relatives. There were now Christians in 16 vilples. lages about Krakala. Very soon after the Methodist Mis· In 1881 tokens of very extended sion was begun in Moradabad, several movements of entire castes toward persons came to the missionary there, Christianity were observed, where 80me delegated by their people to secure a of the members of the circle had al- Christian teacher to instruct them in ready become Christians. This meant Christianity, of which they had heard much when it was intimated that there something at a religious fair. These were 500,000 chumars in the Rohnlpeople lived about twenty miles from kund district alone. The missionaries Moradabad city. A teacher was sent_ became confident that faithful pursuit Later a religious teacher among the of the lines on which they had thus far chumars (leather-dressers), who had conducted their work would result in been converted in the Church of England mission beyond the Ganges, was the course of a few years or many thouemployed to teach these old disciples of his in Christianity. As a few lads sands turning to the Christian religion. learned to read they were sent to Mora- Another illustration of the variety of dabad for further instruction, Bnd soon these non-caste communities is furnished there were 50 of the chumar boys there, in the report of an outlying district of being trained, as the sequel proved, for Shahjehanpore in 1886, known as follow- Christian leadership among their own ers of Rae Dass, an ancient bard or people. prince. These were not idolaters; no idol or temple was found among them; Very early in the history of the mis- all belief in devatas (gods) was rejected. sion another low·caste people in the They made no pilgrimage to sacred Budaon district moved in the same di- shrines. Their worship consisted in rection. As early as 1879 the Bairagis gathering round the village fire and as a body seemed ready to turn to singing bhajans (native hymns with na- Christianity, but being a priestly class, tive tunes), accompanied by a simple they would lose their means of support, stringed instrument in honor of Parand they could not see what to do. meshwar (the Supreme Being). These The sweeper caste, however, continued were free from the sensuous doggerel to turn to this new way, and were ris- common to native songs. This people ing in the social scale. Men who ten were not generally easy to influence, but years before dared not enter the pres- they consented to become disciples of ence of the zemindar (land – owner) Jesus Christ. were now cordially invited in; four converted sweepers became themselves 'l'his work in the north Gonda dislanded proprietors. trict under Rev. Samuel Knowles was among the Tharn peoples, a remnant of In 1880 a number of the sweeper the aboriginal race-wave at the foot of the Himalaya mountains north of Luck- 1888 •• surprised and even startled some now. These people were not learned of the missionaries who were engaged in enough to institute any literary com- this work, 8S it then became evident parisons between the several religions of that a steady movement had set in, and the country, but they quite understood that not only more converts had been themselves. They gave as among the baptized during the previous year than reasons that controlled them such as ever before, but that the number of inthese: 1. "We are saved from idol wor- quirers had more than doubled." Dr. ship and many of its customs, which we Parker, at the Decennial Conference, know are bad." 2. "This religion wor· 1893, alluded to, made the following ships God. and we find a Savior of men statements: ".At the end of 1891 they here." 3. "Those of us who have be- had 261 native preachers licensed as come Christian have been benefited and preachers, and 386 preachers of a lower elevated in every way." The greater grade, not regularly licensed; 736 ChrisdeVelopment of this work, dating from tian teachers, 600 schools for Christians 1888, rested on the foundation of thirty and inquirers, with 10,261 Christian years of careful and gradual growth. young people and children, and at least The larger number of converts in the 5000 children of inquirers in these mission were from this class from the schools, making 15,000 children of inbeginning. Dr. Parker. at the Decen- quirers in these schools on the side of niallHissionary Conference in Bombay, Christianity. The number of regularly received members in the church was 1893, gave the following statistics ot the 9487, with 16,913 baptized probationers and many thousands of inquirers. They growth of t,his work: In 1859 there had also 1164 Sunday-schools in which were 2 native preachers, 5 communi- were 45,531 pupils. and they counted 8 cants, 8 Christian boys in the schools, Christian community of 36,055livlng in and no baptisms. In 1868 there were more than a thousand towns and vil- 30 native preachers, 665 communicants, lages. During 1891, and again in 1892, 297 Christian boys, and 168 Christian over 17,000 persons, including children, girls in school, and 187 were baptized were admitted to baptism." that year. In 1878 there were 73 native preachers, 2526 communicants, 424 Beyond the original mission bounda- Christian boys and 715 Christian girls in ries these people were settled in more school, and ·/87 baptisms that year. In than a thousand villages, mainly up 1888 there were 168 native preachers, along the Ganges and Jumna rivers, 7944 communicants, 2027 Christian boys from Allahabad to Delhi. The great and 1327 Christian girls in school, and centers of the work in this section in 1958 baptisms that year, with some 400 1893 were Meerut, .Aligarh, Muttra, Christian teachers in the school. By Kasgauj, Buland"hahr, and .Aligarh. this date many of the children in the These people may have had more or less schools had been converted, and a very thought of their worldly advantage in general interest was taken in the Chris- turning to Christianity, but surely they tian religion. The work extended out- were a part of the" noble army" who side the boundaries of the conference suffered the "loss of all things" for until there were now some 500 villages Christ's sake. Here were those who in which native Christians resided and had gone to prison under false accusasome 200 centers of work, with schools, tions, persecuted for righteousness' pastors, and more than 3000 Christian sake, some even beaten with many children. It was not surprising that stripes; parents lost children and chilwith a spiritual baptism there should dren parents; husbands lost wives and develop in this section an active evan- wives husbands; cultivators were burngelistic "forward movement" of the ed out of their fields; policemen, upon native church. Yet Bishop Thoburn becoming Christians, lost their posideclared that the statistical returns of tions, and village watchmen their hered- and for these multitudes thus turning itary employment. Dr. J. E. Scott to Christ. The Goucher and Frey said that he saw one man killed out- schools are mentioned through all the right, and five Christian villagers, with reports of the work from 1883-93.
the blood streaming down their faces, Still another feature of this careful beaten out of sheer religious animosity. supervision was the selection as teach- But they continued to increase, and ers in these schools of men competent to many rose rapidly. The hcad-mas- be pastors to their people. Thus orig- ter of the Moradabad high-school was inated a growing and important class of from this non-caste community, as were pastor-teachers.
some of the leading graduates of the When Bishop Thoburn arrived in theological seminary; men who but a America in 1890 to endeavor to secure few years before were driving conserva- relief from the financial emergency of tory carts or sweeping streets were now the press in Calcutta, he found awaiting acceptable preachers. him an invitation to attend Mr. Moody's The mission was in less danger of summer meetings at Northfield, Mass.
misplaced confidence in this movement He accepted the call, and stated the na- because they had carefully trained the ture of this work and its obstacles, and generation of native ChristIans on whom referred to what they might do if they this movement had its foundation. As had sufficient money to employ a num- early as 1881 the mission recognized ber of these pastor-teachers. At the that as the work progressed among these close of the address Mr. Moody sprang suppressed people in Bijnour, Morada- to his feet with the proposal that they bad, and Budaon districts, there was an help that work, and in a few minutes increasing demand for schools of a pri. $3000 was pledged for the support of mary grade among them. The people 100 of these pastor·teachers. Bishop themsel ves were asking for these schools. Thoburn said the effect of this on the Dr. Parker, presiding elder of Robil- native Christian community in India kund district, thought schools could was to incite them to greater effort.
be established for necessary primary Converts multiplied and inquirers came instruction at a cost of $36 each, and forward, until in 1891 they were baptiz- that $100,000 would sustain a good cen· ing 50 a day. These little schools were tral high·school and 100 primary schools, the center where the teacher was often from which the most promising pnpils the class-leader and really the pastor, could be selected and transferred for and sometimes also the evangelist.
fnrther instruction; or that 100 primary There was nothing new in any part of schools could be established if some one these methods, as they were only an would give $3600 a year for this pur- extension of a plan of work adopted pose. from the beginning. This work was Rev. J. F. Goucher, D.D., of Balti- snbjected to severe analysis and open more, responded to this opportunity, and criticism. Many supposed these people initiated what were soon known as the would turn away from Christianity as " Goucher schools." These were pri- readily and as rapidly as they had mary schools snpported by Dr. Gouch- turned toward it. "Quick baptisms"
er's contributions which he generously were thought only to mean baptized continued till they were established in heathen. The answer to all this was many villages widely distributed over ready to hand. These were people of a the mission territory. Mr. Frey, of second generation of Christian instruc- Baltimore, joined Dr. Goucher in this tion. Christian schools, Sunday-schools, movement in Lucknow and other dis- and gospel instruction had been main- tricts in Oudh, and at his death endowed tained for thirty years. They were in 17 scholarships in the Bareilly Theologi: most cases, at least partly, instructed as cal Seminary to train preachers from to what Christianity was i and there was a large class among them who had of whom were foreign to the soil. For been educated in the mission schools, thirty-five years the careful and intelliand were sufficiently advanced to be- gent education of the masses now movcome teachers for others. In this sense ing toward the mission had been under the work was not a precipitous one. the systematic training and development There had been graeJ.ual preparation, of this society. In 1893 the schools and it was only the external manifesta- numbered 3361, with 136.106 pupils tion that was at first so sudden and so ex- under 4034 teachers. These were gradtended. This extended to others not thus ed from the rudest village school thro trained or instructed, and the mission- many grades up to the entrance requirearies grew more cautious, limiting the ments of the Calcutta University, and baptisms to their capacity to place the the most thorough theological seminary neophytes under competent instructors. standards. The contributions to the Another criticism made was that the benevolent societies beyond themselves, turning of these low-caste people to reached nearly $2000 per annum, and Christianity in such numbers would for the support of their pastors they prejudice the higher caste people against raised over $70,000. becoming Christians; but the missiona· ries were again prompt with their re- There are no signs of a check to this ply, that by far the larger number of development sa ve as prudence demands baptisms among these upper classes had that the accessions by baptism shall be occurred where this movement of the restricted to the ability to furnish religlower classes was greatest_ ious instruction and guidance.
Besides the regular school training A Message to the Churches of America there were held among all the workers from Missionaries in Japan. a practical literary and theological school once in three months, at what At a recent informal conference of the denomination knows as " Quarterly about thirty Presbyterian and Reformed Meetings." All newly admitted work- missionaries in Japan, it was decided to ers, licensed and unlicensed, women as send the following communication to well as men, were obliged to pursue a the Church papers in America. The regularly graded and prescribed order feeling that a statement of this nature of studies. and to undergo an examina- has become necessary is affirmed by tion in these annually. These exercises them to be shared by many other miswere public and attended by hundreds sionaries in their own and sister denomof Christians besides these workers. who inations. The action comes to us duly thus gained intelligent apprehension of certified by one of the" thirty," a long the Christian religion and were enabled time known to us and gIeatly honto sympathize with the a.cquisitions and ored by us, from Tokyo, under date powers of their teachers. The young October 7th, 1895. [J. T. G.] people were trained in all the activities and intelligent drill of the Epworth During the past year there have ap- League or Christian Endeavor societies. peared in leading religious periodicals A vast literature was issued from the statements and opinions from certain of Methodist press prepared expressly to our brethren who have retired from meet the demands of this rapidly grow- missionary work in Japan, which are ing community of Christians. It may calculated not only to raise the hopes of be doubted if a mass of con verts ever the friends of Christian work in this sought Christianity under a more intel- country to a degree unwarranted by ligent and careful course of training. the facts, but also to prove a serious ob~ By 1893 there were not less than 3660 stacIe to the work itself. The Japanese agents at work in the India mission- Church is represented as having reachfield of ti.is denomination, less than 300 ed an advanced stage of development, its earliest converts having been young men, patriots and scholars fit to lead not unimportant ecclesiastical bodies their countrymen, its present member- the Japanese neither take the lead in ship coming largely from the higher school or church, nor do they resent the walks of life, and including judges, direction and guidance of the foreigner.
editors, authors, orators, also men able Among the early converts Qf all the to maintain a high position in the Diet churches were bright young men, edu- and even in the Imperial Ministry. cated and, for the most part, supported The Japanese are said to lead in schools, in mission schools. As to their fitness in churches, in ecclesiastical bodies; to lead, it is significant that the form the Church as a whole is said to resent of government which offered the most the direction and guidance of the for- unrestricted opportunity for the exer- eigner, and self-supporting, self-gov- cise of such ability-namely, the Con- erning, and self-propagating individual gregational-has suffered most severely churches are reckoned by scores. In from their leadership. The history of short, Christianity is represented as the progress of Christianity in Japan having been born under the most fa- has been marked by the wrecked faith vorable auspices, passed through a and wandering steps of some of these golden youth with ever-growing spirit. enthusiastic and immature "leaders,"
ual, moral, intellectual, financial, and and by their attempted guidance of the numerical strength, and as having al· multitude into untried and dangerous ready attained to full maturity of Chris- paths. The youth and precocity of tian life and thought, and hence as such early converts should have pro- being in a position in which, while tected them from responsibility; but, gratefully acknowledging the work on the contrary, the records of the Of- done by missionaries in former years, it ganization of one of the first of our may now rightfully demand a readjust. Presbyterian churches contain the ment of mission forces-whatever that nallles of two youths, eighteen and may mean. twenty years of age, as elders!
Further, it has been stated in effect There is said to be a Protestant that the intellectual tone of the nation church-membership now of more than is so high that an address suitable to thirty thousand. It must be under- an audience of Japanese would need to stood, however, that this number in- be simplified to come within the com- cludes not only baptized children. but prehension of an audience in America. also adults who are reported as " trav· Regretting the issue forced upon us eling" or of "residence qnknown,"
by the repeated appearance in the pub- "many" who are" weak and sickly,"
lic press of these and similar opinions, and some who have fallen into a sleep we feel that a statement of the condi- resembling spiritual death; and also tion of mission and church work from thll self-righteous brother who sits at the field is imperative. Silence would home declaiming against a "hireling only support and confirm what we ministry," disdaining instruction, and know to be error. denying to the ordinances of the Church It is true that two of the branches of any helpful Influence. Thu8 the nu- the Christian Church in this country- merical strength oj the 0 hurch as an ag- tho only two-have been so organized gressive power must be reckoned jar below as to possess each its own native councils the total u8ually quoted.
or church courts. In those that are epi8. It is true that Christianity counts copal ia government the missionaries among its influeJ;lces some honored and are but cautiously calling their native honorable names; but it is also true brethren to such responsibility, and the now, as of old, that" not many mighty, prospect of essentially native convoca- not many noble are called." The tions or conferences as well as of native Church obtains its adherents chiefly bishops lies far in the future. In these from the middle and higher middle classes ; but these are men and women in the country but little more than a of all occupations and of varying de- decade. Before its introduction the grees of intellectual attainment. There 8arnurai (higher middle) class was are those who may claim to be schol- known as the literary as well as mili- ars; there are many who have received tary part of the nation. Below this only the ordinary elementary educa. rank there was virtually no education, tion, and there are not a few who can whlIe within it there were many who neither read nor write. A member of could not be regarded as either edu· the Diet may occasionally be found cated or intellectual. God in His provi.
who is also an active Christian, ready dence has done great things for Japan; to preach a sermon when one is need- but He has wrought no miracle here of ed ; but there are other Christians in spontaneous intellectual development.
political life who will quite as readily 'rhe Japanese and European languages hold a political meeting on the Lord's are well enough known to serve as day, and there are editors and orators media for the revelation of this won· who eagerly grasp at every new form derful intellectual ability if it existed; of Western "liberal" thought, which but the world yet waits for the Japanese they pour out, crude and undigested, poet, philosopher, scholar, or theologian for the bewilderment of their less" ad· who shall startle it into admiration vanced" brethren. Christian orators either of his power of conception or and editors have spoken and written strength of reasoning.
against the keeping of the Sabbath, the Christian ministers and evangelists value of prayer, the necessity for for- are usually of the higher middle class, mulated religious beliefs, and quite reo but with a moderate representation cently the Christian idea of monoga· from among heimin or ordinary men.
mous marriage has been lightly spoken In education they range from the fortu· of. Since the bishop was to be the nate graduate of an American college husband of one wife, it follows by im- and seminary to him who can boast of plication that in the early Christian but very ordinary attainments in nil.· Church plurality of wives was not un· tive secular learning plus four years'
known, and therefore too much strict. training in a seminary in Japan. What· ness along this line toward the young ever of mental stimulus he who studies Japanese Church is to be deprecated. abroad may be able to secure in the With regard to the assumed intellec· "less intellectual" atmosphere of the tual superiority of the Japanese people, West, there is but little question that we find the following in an address de· he comes back to his native land handi· livered at the last Inter.Seminary Mis· capped for his conflict with the powers sionary Alliance Convention, as report. of darkness. To quote from a Japa.
ed in the Union Seminary Magazine of nese who writes from personal experi· the Southern Presbyterian Church: ence of seminary life abroad, as well as "I am often asked, 'Can you use in from observation: "Many a case do I the United States the discourses pre· know of my own countrymen who pared/o!' the Japanese?' and my 1'eply have adapted themselves to Occidental is' Y68, after simplifying them.'* Our ways of life and thought during such congregations at home on Sundays are trainings, and come home as a. stranger somewhat impatient of careful and ad· to readapt himself to his former sur· equate discussion; but among educated roundings with the utmost difficulty.
Asiatics one may venture pretty far and Boiled rice and smashed beans do not find a somewhat receptive hearing." now afford him all the nutriment his The common school is an institution newly adapted system requires. and of modern advanced Japan, and has been sittings upon hard straw mats cause 8ynobiti8 and other troubles of his lower • Italics ae found in the quotation. limbs. His throat .sul!ers because native churches have no sleam·heaters to the miasion t'l'etUU'I'1/". other denomina· take off chill from the ail', and his head tions report but four or five; others, rings because the ventilation is poor. again. not even so many as this. Ref- The least he needs is greatest in the erence may be made in this connection eyes of his people. He loses flesh, and to statements frequently seen in Ameri· with flesh spirit. Preaching becomes can papers to the effect that Japanese unbearable. To some other occupa· Christians are about to engage in for- tion he betakes himself, and others eign mission work:. It may serve to hardier than he take his place. Strug- throw some light on this subject that a gle for existence is too much for him. recent address from America to the Then his thought-how incompatible Synod of the Presbyterian Church it, too, has become with that of his (" Church of Christ in Japan"), recom- countrymen! He denounces Hume- mending it to consider and urge the ism and Theodore Parker·ism ; but early attainment of self·support in its Hume and Parker have no existence in churches, was met with the refusal to the minds of the people to whom he is do anything special in the matter at the preaching. The Downfall of the Ro- same meeting in which the synod de- man Empire and the persecutions of cided to impose upon the churches a Bloody Mary sound as "wind to a budget of three thousand yen for home horse's ear," as we term all incompre· and foreign missions. We would place hensibilities. He proves biblical truths no obstacle in the way of any worthy by the Bible; but the Bible is no more effort on the part of our Japanese breth- to these people than some sooty parch- ren. On the contrary, we heartily ments of idle antiquarians. His ~er· commend the zeal for missions mani- mons fly over their heads and vanish fested by them; but the fact remains Into the air. He is disappointed with that they are leaving the financial buI'- his hearers, and his hearers with him. dens of the established church to be Dissatisfaction, grumbling, resignation, largely borne by Christians in the West, separation. while thus devising -liberal things for From the above it will be seen that, others. It is in faithfulness to their viewed at close range, even through best interests, as wcll as to the interests native eyes, the Church in Japan is by of truth, that we call attention to this no means so intellectual as it evidently somewhat incongruous state of affairs.
appears to our sanguine brethren across A healthier comprehension of duty can- the sea. not fail to be developing in its effect One other important test of the abil- upon the individual Christian and the ityof the Church in Japan to under- churches; but this can never be at- take the great work of evangelizing tained so long as they are encouraged the Japanese millions who are as yet to regard themselves as having a statu!!, worshipers of graven images, or whose ecclesiastically and potentially, which lives are influenced by "the non·re· as yet they have not.
ligiosity of Chinese moralists," to quote The magnitUde of the work of evan- a native writer, or who are utterly in· gelizing Japan is seriously underrated different to their souls' welfare either by thosc who regard the Japanese in "the life that now is or in that Church as already sufficient for it, and which is to come," is how far its faith we believe that we could not do this and zeal may be counted on to bear the Church a greater unkindness, or prove financial burdens inevitably connected more faithless to the causc of our Mas- with such work. Churches that are ter, than by holding our peace while really self.supporting are very few. the theory of the Church's sufficiency, One denomination in its published reo notwithstanding the tremendous odds ports claims thirty.nine "80 cla8aed," of heathenism that are still and must meaning those that are not aided from long continue to be against it, is circulating and apparcntly gaining ground " 2. That the present staff of foreign in America, to the natural end of a di- missionaries be not only continued, but minishing missionary force and of the increased when necessary. financial aid which accompanies it. "3. That those who are sent out to Emphasis should be laid also on the Japan as missionaries should be persons fact that the Christians of Japan are of superior equipment, and that they not yet old in the faith. The past few should go with a determination to acyears have been years of especial trial quire the language, and give their lives to those interested in the propagation to the work. of a pure Gospel, and to the yet undeveloped thinkers along tJ1eological and " 4. That increased attention be given other kindred lines among the better to Christian educational work. educated of the Christians. The various forms of "liberal Christianity" "Resolved, That we as missionaries have been urged upon the attention of representing various mission boards the latter by word, book, pamphlet, working in Japan, in conference asand newspaper. Besides this, the dis- sembled at Karuizawa, in view of variintegrating teachings of Plymouth ous reports that have gone forth con- Brethren have made no small inroads cerning the need of more foreign workupon the membership of the churches, ers in Japan, would express it as our and disturbed and unsettled many opinion that not only has the time not where no actual defection resulted. come for the withdrawal of the mis- sionaries already on the field, but we From the foregoing it will be seen believe that there is still a need of many that the Church in Japan is not suffi- more foreign worl{ers in this land." ciently strong numerically, financially, intellectually, or spiritually for the bur- Apropo8 of the contribution from Jadens which the unwisdom of certain of pan missionaries in a block, there chance its friends would lay upon it, and we to be on our desk some notes prepared heartily commend to the consideration by Rev. F. A. Cassidy, of the Canada of all10ver8 of our Lord who are inter- Methodist Japan Mission, on some of ested in the advancement of His king- the questions canvassed In connection dom in this interesting country the fol- with Japan missions, which we take lowing resolutions, passed by the Inter· the liberty to edit into form, much as national Missionary Union at Clifton the secular newspaper interviewer might Springs, N. Y., June 12th, 1895, and do. They contain the following points: also that which obtained the approval of upward of one hundred missionaries [J. T. G.] who met in an interdenominational conference a few weeks since in Karuizawa : 1. The missionary as an educational- ist is indispensable in Japan, and must " Since it has pleased God in the or- be for some time to come. der of His providence to bring the Empire of Japan into such a position of 2. Even when he does not occupy the prominence as she occupies to·day, relation of acting pastor, he may be this International !lfissionary Union important as a preacher and general deems it advisable to urge upon all the adviser among the people and the minevangelical churches the necessity of istry. taking advantage of the present crisis in the history of missionary effort in 3. If the future brings great lind rapid Eastern Asia, and would beg especially increase of church-members, a weIIto emphasize the following points: trained staff of missionaries will be needed. If a period of depression in- " 1. 'rhat no pains be spared in the stead of one of advance comes, a strong development of an efficient native min- sta:ff will surely be required. istry. 4. The only way to have efficient men for both educational and general work this committee during Miss Child's ab- . is 1;0 follow the old method of sending out a fair supply of the best men and sence from America. The committee women, with the idea of their devoting themselves to the service by acquiring made a call for the observance of No- the language and growing old in the work on the field of Japan, just as vember 15th as a day of prayer, in view in other mission-lands. of the disturbing events in four of the 5. The control exercised by the mis- sionary over the Japanese Church varies countries where American missionaries with the several organizations. The Episcopalian has the maximum, the are at work-viz., Turkey, China, Ja- Congregational the minimum, the Pres- byterian the medium. pan, and Korea.
6. The usefulness of the missionary Dr. A. T. Pierson never wearies of is greatly independent of the official searching out the evidences of the su- position he mayor may not:occupy. pernatural supervision of the world in He is needed, and will be so long as the interests of modern evangelical Japan is non-Christian, or largely anti- movements, and it is equally sale to Christian. say he never wearied a reader in writ- ing of the" modern marvels in the his- 7. As to the economy in employing tory of missionary enterprise." Here Japanese because they can be secured is a "second series" of the "Miracles far cheaper, it is not at all probable of Missions." from the Funk & Wag- that the Church which can produce the naIls Company, New York. Formosa, men for pastors, cannot itself produce Hawaii, Banza, Manteke-all pass in the money. If it costs, as claimed, only living review, fresh and forceful from one tenth to support a Japanese that it the pen of the author. The" MeAll does a European, then self-support Mission," "Livingstone's Bodyought to be in sight. When they do Guard," and other captions are necesnot need foreign men, they ought to be sarily attractive. Read, mark, learn, beyond the need of foreign money. It and inwardly digest this and similar is eminently important that the danger phases of the Divine development of be avoided of corrupting a native church the Messianic kingdom, and your Chris· on any field by putting financial aid tian faith will grow bolder for all deforward unduly. partments of Christian life and activ- ity, near or far, minute or extended. 8. In judging of Japan and its advance, it is essential to discriminate be- Miss V. F. Penrose, who furnished tween material progress and religious the article in the October REVIEW on reform. "Maps and Money," writes to ask us to "put a note in the REVIEW to the Miss Abbie B. Child, Secretary of the effect that the beautiful little map Woman's Board of Missions, is absent, published with' The New Acts of the making a tour by official appointment Apostles' may be had also separately of of the missions of that society in India, the publishers? It is an invaluable aid China, Japan, and Korea. Miss Child to mission workers, bands, leaders, Chrisis chairman of the American branch of tian Endeavor missionary committees, the World's Missionary Committee of etc. I should like to see one in every Christian Women, a permanent organi- class-room. Price~ singly, 40 cents." zation which grew out of the World's We called attention t<1 this elaborate Missionary Conference in London, in map, prepared originally at great cost 1888. Mrs. J. T. Gracey, Rochester, for Dr. Pierson's" New Acts of the N, Y., has been chosen as chairman of Apostles," and are pleased to accentuate . its worth by Miss Penrose's note. The Illap may be had from Baker & Taylor Company, 5 and 7 East Sixteenth Street, New York. Miss Penrose adds that two errors crept into the print of her article. 'The" w" for a " t" in the first sentence (page 763) makes the direct op- posite of her meaning and reasoning. It should read" The Christian Church is not everywhere using maps. Hence, etc." Also three ciphers were dropped from the United States drink bill, mak- ing twelve hundred thousand instead of twelve hundred million.
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
III.–FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY D. L. pmRSON.
Syria.,* Thfil Jews,t Educational Work.t SYRIA AND PALESTINE. Then Rev. Pliny Fisk and Rev. Levi Parsons landed in Smyrna and began Syria, while properly a part of Tur- work in Jerusalem and Beirut. Wars key in Asia, which was considered in and pestilence, intolerance, persecution, our October number, is, from a missIon- and banishment beset these and subse- ary standpoint, a separate field, and is quent missionaries on every side, and taken up this month in connection with made the work of evangelization exceed- the Jews. Syria was so called from its ingly difficult and progress slow. The chief commercial city, Sur (Tyre), and Bible was denounced and proscribed it denotes an historical rather than a po- and burned, and those who read it were litical territory. The extent of the ter- persecuted and excommunicated. In ritory which goes by this nlime is about 1822 the American Arabic press was 400 miles (from the Taurus Mountains founded at Malta, and in 1834 was re- to Egypt) by 200 miles (from the Med- moved to Beirut. This press has now iterranean to the Syrian desert). The printed over 500.000,000 pages in Ara- area is about '70,00u square miles and bic (nearly 23,000,000 in 1893); there the popUlation about 2,000,000, about have been issued over 500 publications one half of whom are orthodox Moham- which bear the seal of the Imperial medans, the remainder belonging to Board of Public Instruction. In 1893, various sects-Nusairiyeh, Maronites, 33,281 Arabic Scripllues were issued Greeks, Papists, Druses, Arabs, Jews, and sent into Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Armenians, etc. Egypt, Arabia, Tunis, Algiers, Moroc- co, India, Persia, Muscat, and Bahrein. Palestine, the Promised Land of the Hebrew and the birthplace of the Chris- The first girls' school ever opened in tian faith, is of peculiar interest to the Turkish Empire was established in the Bible student aud Christian worker 1834 in Beirut by lIrs. Eli Smith, an- of every nationality. This land has other being opened in Aabeih by Mrs. been from time Immemorial the field of Dodge. In Syria there are now nearly political and more especially of relig- 10,000 girls (and as many more men and ious strife. Here Mohammedanism, boys) under Protestant instruction, be- Judaism, Romanism, Oriental sects and sides thousand in the Greek and papal Christianity meet in a common belief in schools. Female education has wrought God and in a reverence for the Holy a palpable change in the status and dig- Land, but here they contend zealously nity of woman; the moral and intel- . to uphold and propagate their different lectual elevation which have resulted creeds regarding God's appointed way nre plain even to the casual observer. of salvation. It was not until 1819 that The mother is becoming the primary in- Protestantism entered upon the field. structor of the children at home, Ilnd by precept and example their moral and * See pp. 339 (May), 847 (November), 891, 899 religious guide.
(December). .. The Land and the Book," Wil- In 1839 a boys' boarding-school was liam M. Thomson; H Syrian Home Life," H. opened in Beirut with 15 pupils, and in H. Jessnp; "Bible Work in Bible Lands," James 1863 the Syrian Protestant College was Bird; .. Encyclopedia' of Missions." incorporated by the New York State Legislature. In 1894 it had 46 collegi- t See pp. 738 (October), 837 (November), 887 ate students, 60 medical students, 134 (December). "Iorael my Glory," Wilkinson; "The Jews," Kellogg.
~ See pp. 281 (April), 526 (July), 586 (Augnst), 005 (December). in the preparatory department; total, missionary. The Oospel is now being 240. In 1848 the first Syrian Evangeli- proclaimed by tl,,:m and to them in cal Church was organized in Beirilt every nook and corner of the globe.
with 18 members. The Hebrew-Ohristianenumerates the There are now 21 medical missionary following principles for carrying on stations, which treat annually about mission work among the Jews: 3000 in-door and 140,000 ont·door pa- 1. Jewish missions should recognize tients. The principal American agency that Jews need a Savior (to sulfer) as at work is the Presbyterian Board well as a Messiah (to reign).
(North), besides which there are 21 2. They should have for their object other American, English, Scotch, and the Ohri8tianizing of the Jew-i.e., Irish denominational and independent bringing them individuaUll to trust in missions carrying on educational and Christ as their Savior.
medical work among all classes. Jeru- 3. They should understand the dif- salem is becoming one of the headquar- ference between Jud'lism and Chris- ters for work among the Jews, of whom tianity. The latter must supplant, not there are now about 50,000 in Pal- simply supplement, the former.
estine (over 2500 in Jerusalem.) Work 4. They should teach and preach the among the lepers is carried on by the fullest revelation of the truth. The Moravians. Divine Fatherhood of God should be Nineteenth· century civilization is emphasizl'd as revealed in the New 'res- rudely changing Lhe character and cus- tament in contrast to the partial revela- toms of the country. The sacred hills tions of God in the Old Testament.
are beginning to resound with the puff 5. They should be based upon an in- and shriek of the modern locomotive, telligent conception of the whole Jew- and the Dead Sea is to be navigated by ish question, including the salvation of freight and passenger boats. the nation, the re-establishment in the land and reign of Messiah as King.
THE JEWS. 6. They should be conducted in view of the mission of Israel-as heralds of The number of Hebrews on the face the Gospel to all the nations of the of the globe is estimated at from 7,000,- world.
000 to 8,000,000 (about twice as many as were in Palestine in David's reign). Gospel Work in La.bra.dor. There are about 6,800,000 iu Europe (3,600,000 in Russia and 1,860,000 in Labrador is politically connected with Austria); the remainder are scattered Newfoundland, and had, in 1891, a over the face of the earth, but are dis- popUlation of 4106 permanent residents, tinguishable everywhere not only by all reported as belonging to some de· their national characteristics, but in re- nomination. The Moravian settlement taining their national name as a sur- among the Esquimaux had then a popu- name instead of as a descriptive adjective lation of 1387. "Besides the mission to -e.g., American·Jews, German·Jews, Deep Sea Fishermen," writes Rev. T. B.
etc., whereas other nationalities take the Darby, of Newfoundland, "the Method- name of their adopted country-e.g., ist Church has two missionaries (in sum- German·American, elc. .mer three); the Church of England one There are over 50 societies in opera- clergyman and a teacher; the Halifax tion for the evangelization of this Book and Tract Society a colporteur at " chosen race ;" they operate in some times; and the Salvation Army a yacht 130 stations, employ over 300 workers, which visits the whole coast during the and have gathered about 150,000 con- summer season, when the large tioat- verts. A Christian Israelite almost in- ing popUlation of fishermen calls for an variably makes a zealous and efficient increase in the number of workers."
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Prospeotus for 1896. subjectil connected with the Inspired Word, Prayer, the Holy Spirit, Spir- The MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE itual Life, the Lord's Coming, and Mis- WORI,D will follow the scriptural motto, sions. His address will be, care of Passforgetting what is behind, and reaching more & Alabaster, 4 Paternoster Buildforth and pressing forward to what is ings, London, E. C. He hopes to furbefore-a more advanced goal. nish letters upon matters of great inter- est, and to secure important papers from We beg to remind our readers that the most competent sources. the editor and his colleagues in editorship regal'd this as no me~ money,mak- The labor of which this RETIEW is ing enterprise. Missionary magazines the product is for the whole Church; may be a lucrative investment in the and if onr readers would remember how millennium, but at the present time much each onc can do to bring the REthey are with difficulty enabled barely VIEW to the notice of others, both ento pay expenses, if, indeed; they do not larging the circle of reader. and the become bankrupt. This is to the edi- number of subscribers, the same amount tor's conception simply a means of of toil done for our present circle of hastening the work of a world's evangel- readers might reach tenfold that number ization, and no labor or expense is Ilpared within a short time. One hnmble man to make this REVIEW indispensable to in Scotland secured sixteen additional those who would keep an eye on the friends for the REVIEW, without even whole world-wide field. our knowledge at the time, by simply lending them his copy after reading. If Besides an editorial corps represent- our brethren who read these pages ing fi ve leading denominations of Chris- would remember that our work is untians, and a body of editorial corre- selfishly done for the Lord's sake, what spondents representing all the great help might be rendered us in enlarging nations and countries of the world, we our constituency and extending our inhave a body of contribntors furnishing fluence! These pages might have one special and solicited papers, which for hundred thousand readers before the ability and variety cannot be excelled. close of another year, and new lives To all these attractions we add the cost- might feel the quickening of a new conly charm of illustrations largely unpub- secration. A little effort in extending lished hitherto. our circulation might in effect be the sending out of new missionaries, and Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, who is the mUltiplying of gifts; and what i3 one of the leaders of religious thought best of all, of intelligent, importunate in Britain, consents to take the place of praying. Dr. A. J. Gordon on the editorial staff, and will act as our English editor. THE GREAT CONVENTION IN LIVER- POOL. A series of articles will appear in 1896 from the best available writers in all The Student Volunteer Union of parts of the field and on every conceiv- Great Britain and Ireland is making able phase of missions at home or preparation on an immense scale for abroad. Biographical sketches and dis- the colossal international convention cussions of delicate questions of mission called to meet in Liverpool in January: policy will form features of the new 1896. It opens Wednesday, January year. The editor· in-chief expects to sail 1st, and continues five days. Over a for Europe before the new year, to attend the great convention of students at Liverpool, and to conduct with Rev. F. B. Meyer and others a series of fourdays' meetings in great centers upon thousand leading representatives from rum of God's house. For example, colleges and universities of Europe are what shall be said of introducing a vio- expected, and such well-known young lin soloist, just before a sermon is to be men, identified with the students' cru- preached, to discourse airs from" Der sade for missions, as Robert P. Wilder Freischiitz"and" Norma;" and a! organ and Robert E. Speer, are invited to take voluntaries during a church oll'ertory, part. Two great ob.iective results are that remind of operas where the shame- aimed at : First, a union of prayer for less ballet is the crowning attraction I a speedy effusion of the Spirit of God Who would not be shocked to find a in all lands; and, secondly, a union of half-drunk Italian introduced into a ell'ort in the speedy occupation of all church service with his hand-organ unevangelized territory. to play the airs of the beer garden?
In our opinion the former is of tran- A.nd yet the writer has preached the scendent importance, for on united and Gospel in a very prominent church believing prayer all else depends. If where a half-drunken German sat there be one lost art which in apostolic at the organ keyboard playing just days was the vital secret of church life such snatches from melodies in favor and activity and the very spring of mis- at the Theatre Comique, and having sions, it is the art of praying so as to not one 'sacred association I What of command a blessing. We use these a Punch and Judy show at a Sunday- words deliberately and intelligently. school festival, where money was to be God Himself has authorized us to do raised for missions, or a raffie where a more than timidly and feebly a8k for white donkey was the prize at a church blessing–" Ooncerning the WQ1'k of My bazaar I These are no doubt excep- llands command Ue Me" (Isa. 45: 11). tions, but they show a drift and ten· Where God's work is concerned, and dency, all but too manifest in our mod- we are working not only according to ern church life, to subordinate the spir- His command but His methods, we are itual to the secular, the ethical to the authorized to claim blessing. There is !esthetical, the things of the kingdom a boldness which is not only reverent to the spirit of the world. The worst but honoring to God; and the holy bold- result of all this is not the lowering ness of praying saints-who, undertak- of our standard of church life, bad ing for God and underIIis orders, go into as that is. but the crowding out of the all the world and preach the Gospel to Holy Spirit by the consent given to the every creature; and who, concerning the presence of unspiritual elements.
work of His hands, command the bless- One of the great unappreciated warn- ing, and plead like Jeremiah, " Do not ings of the Word of God is the sensi· disgrace the throne of Thy glory"-is a tivenes8 of tl16 Spt'rit of God. He forces boldness born of a Divine jealousy for Himself through no unwilling doors.
God's honor, and faithfulness to His He retains His seat of authority and promise. It is to be feared that the control in the midst of no unwilling as- worldliness of the Church has been a semblies. He is easily grieved, like a flood that has drowned prevailing pray- tender-hearted parent,and quenched like er. All prevailing prayer is the groan- a flame that can burn only when it has ing of the Spirit in us. How can the unrestricted freedom to shine. Where Holy Spirit hold llia seat of control the Spirit is not actively in control, while the idols of the world fill His no prevailing prayer is possible, and courts and vex Him with their presence I where ITe is virtually neglected or re- Some things have so far the sanction jected, prayer may become even a of prevailing custom that they have mockery and an abomination.
become entrenched behind impregnable How any intelligent disciple can look redoubts, and yet they are essentially at the present conditions of missions indefensible as violations of the deco- and feel satisfied passes oar compr~ hension. We see fifty millions of Protes- fields, for the victims of superstition and tant church-members, standing face to false religion and tyrannical caste and face with twenty times their own num- custom? Who of us with any godly bers who are yet in as profound persistence appeals for Thibet, the vast ignorance of Christ's salvation as if district of the Soudan, the great basin of they lived on another planet; and spar- the Amazon, the immense plains of Cen- ing only one in five thousand of their tral Asia, and other territory wholly un· own number to carry the Gospel to occupied with evangelical missions r them; and giving on an average Who of us pleads with God for a world- twenty cents a year to the cause. wide revival. an effusion of the Holy There is something in all this that seems Ghost in all lands ? Who of us impor- more like apathy and apostasy than like tunes Him to thrust forth laborers into sympathy and activity. Liberality? a harvest field too vast even to be trod- We do not know the meaning of the den OVe1' in one generation by the few la- word. The money spent on self-Indul- borers now in it, and where all sowing or gence is enormously out of proportion reaping must be but partially done and to what is turned into God's treas- in widely scattered portions, until there ury. is a larger body of husbandmen with seed In the recent addresses of Rev, An- and sickle? In the tilling of nature's drew Murray, at the Northfield Confer- fields machine work has so displaced ence, none made a deeper impression hand work that the latter is no longer than that, at the last meeting conducted profitable, and cannot compete with by him, when hlssnbject wasinte'l'ceSSOrll the former. Immense tracts in our prayer (Rom. 8 : 26, 27). He brought out Western prairies are ploughed and har- with masterly courage and pathos the rowed and sown and reaped by steam.
lack of sympathy with the whole body But God has ordained that no machin· of Christ, the narrow range of our ery, however complete, shall ever till prayers and cven of our yearnings. He the world's harvest fields. Individual appealed to us whether thc Church of hands must continue to the end to sow Christ in all its branches and members the seed of the kingdom; aye, believers is not one body; and whether, instead of must to the end themsel ves be sown as standing apart and coldly criticising the seed of the kingdom. It is the seed the errors, follies, faults, heresies and steeped in tears and watered with tears practices of brethren, we should not and watched with prayers that takes monrn, as Daniel did, over the sins of root and bears fruit. We must love the those with whom we are organically world if we would save the world: love connected, and feel ourselves responsi- must be back of prayer and labor if pray- ble in our measure for the evils we have ar is to prevail and labor is to be effec- indirectly fostered and made little effort tive. And when we love men as Christ directly to remove or remedy. Then, loved them, we shall make sacrifices with tenderne~s and pathos the author for them even unto death as He did, of that marvellous book, " With Christ and it wiII be easy to give money, not as in the School of Prayer," besought us a hush price, It hire with which to quiet to give at least ten minutes It day an accusing conscience, or as a com- to prayer for the whole Church of pounding with self-indulgence. but be- God. cause lo'll8 con8trains us: and we shall And what shall we add as tJ the duty give tenfold, a hundredfold, and ac- and privilege of prayer daily for a whole count it nothing, as Jacob did his four- world that Heth in the lap of the wick- teen years of service for the love he bore ed one? Who among us prays, and to Rachel.
prays habitually, for the unconverted We believe, if the Son of God can masses of mankind, for missionaries in feel vicarious shame, He is ashamed of tbeir difficult and seemingly fruitless His Church in this century; and that He whose omniscient eye pierces " F01' Thanksgiving and Prayer.
through all the glitter and tinsel of a Remember daily deceptive enthusiasm and self-gratula- The Inte'rnational Oonference tion sees our mission work to be super- of the S. V. M. U. in Liverpool, ficial, often artificial, utterly inadequate Januaru 1-5, 1896."
to the wants of a world field, and ut- And on the back the sentence, which it terly unworthy of His Church, with her is asked may be "placed in a promiintelligence, numbers, wealth, oppor- nent position, where it may always be tanities, and resources. seen,"
Great hopes centre and cluster about "HAVE FAITH IN GOD." ~ this new year convention at Liverpool.
A thousand young men, the flower of our college and university life, in the This REVIEW is not a ekronicle of warmth of an enthusiasm not yet cooled daily news, even from the mission field.
aud chilled by habits of worldliness, Before we can get these pages electro- with their future before them, not yet typed, news becomes stale. We seek, entangled in the al!airs of this life and therefore, only to note ehanges which weighed down bybusinesscares, are com- are permanent, and pennanently all'ect ing together to consider the demands of the enterprise of missions. China, a dying world and the commands of a Korea, Armenia, and Turkey-in fact, risen Lord, to organize more completely the whole Asiatic world-is yet in a tur- for the occupation of neglected terri- moil, while Madagascar, Cuba, and Cen- tory. Such a convention ought to enlist tral and Southern America are in the sympathy as broad as Christendom, and midst of war, revolution, and general prayer as earnest and prevailing as commotion. The Queen of Korea has God's promises warrant. It will be the been assassinated, and the plot is traced first time in history that an equal num- to disgraced Korean officials who em- ber of Christian young men have met ployed Japanese soshi and corrupted in Europe for such a purpose, the first the Japanese troops. The colonel of time since our Lord ascended that such the palace guard saw Japanese assassins a gathering has been convoked in the enter the queen's apartment with swords leading nation of Europe. All Protes- and afterward burn the body. Pro- tant Christendom will be represented. curator Kamura with a commission has If, first of all, a spirit of grace and sup- come from Japan to investigate the out- plication should be outpoured, and that break. A usurper, Tal Non Kun, is- vast assembly should be melted into sues a proclamation, and whereunto this one, fused into unity in the Spirit, so will grow does not yet appear.
as to pray as one man, as Samuel, Dan· The French have taken Antanana- iel, Job prayed for others, no human rivo, the capital of Madagascar. The mind ean foresee the glorious outcome. F~ch premier, Ribot, who evidently If the very place were not shaken when thinks it easier and better to pacify the they were assembled together, it would Hovas than to rule them, exiles the only be because the period ot such signs queen's consort, hut leaves her on her has passed with their necessity; but throne under a French " protectorate" I signs and wonders of another sort But from first to last this whole war would appear and follow. Nothing has seems to us without adequate justifica· cheered u.s more than to see tokens of tion or provocation, one of the most a praying spirit in those who Bummon flagrant outrages of the century.
this convention. For example, they Meanwhile, Armenian remonstrances have sent out a call for daily thanks- have provoked new riots and murder$, giving and prayer, in the form of a and the irrepressible Turk shows him- beautiful and striking card, in colors, self more than ever the enemy of hu- with this inscription: manity, capable of any cruelty or vio· lence; and the bitter cry of Armenia in Syria, Asia Minor. Cyprus, and is goes up to God. now establishing one in China. She has missions to the Freedmen, to the Ind· Spain is having no easy task in Cuba, ians, to the Jews, and to the Chinese in and we can only wait for future devel- the home land. opments, with prayer to Him with whom right is the only real might. Rev. J. A. McElwain, pastor at Clar· endon Street Baptist Church, Boston, It may not be generally known that Mass., lately home from Britain, rather Anette Island is in the Alaskan terri· startled his people by the announce· tory claimed by England. To this mont that in England there is the Cirisland William Duncan moved his 1fet- cle of the Sacred Cross, having 1200 siglakahtla settlement by agreement with natures (clerical), and 1400 of laymen, the United States, and has been recent· to turn the Anglican Church over to ly much disturbed by British miners Rome; and that, to offset this movement, who have invaded his territory. eleven Gospel wagons are at work sow· ing seed of truth among the people. Another church falls into line in the direct sending forth and support of mis- A. R. Stark writes from Lima, Sepsionaries on the field. The Central Presbyterian Church, New York City. tember 16, 1895: "Like China and other of which Rev. W_ Merle Smith is pastor, bade farewell on Sunday evening. mission fields, we are now passing September 29th, to Rev. Charles Otis Gill and his wife, about to depart for through a crisis in Peru which we be- Peking, North China, as the church's representatives. The exercises were of lieve is no accident, but part of God's rare interest. Rev. Dr. Arthur J. Brown, the new Secretary of the Foreign Mis- great plan in the opening and the evansion Board, gave a charge to the congre· gation, and Dr. Gillespie and Dr. Smith gelization of this as well as the adjagave parting words. May the day not be long deferred when a church shall as cent lands, Bolivia and Ecuador. naturally support a missionary of its own on. the foreign field as support a " On August 22d Messrs. Peters and pastor of its own on thl. home field. Jarrett, of the Peruvian Mission, were The power of these living links with expelled from Cuzco by m'deI' of the 8Uthe mission field no words can express. preme g01!ernment here in Lima. This unlawful and outrageous persecution, New Mission. without excuse or justification by' the authorities, fomented by the priests, The Reformed Presbyterian Church was not only contrary to the wishes of is about to open a new mission in the educated people, youth, and puLlic China. Two missionaries. Rev. Elmer press of the city of Cuzco, but contrary McBurney and Rev. A. 1. Robb, each to the constitution, law, and justice. accompanied by his wife, were to sail from San Franci~co aLout the middle •• In a letter from the said Government, of November. Their fieJd will probab- they excuse their action by saying ly be in one of the large unoccupied • that there existed a well-founded fear cities. There are many of these, and that the said gentlemen might be subin the "gross darkness" of degrad· jected to some insult,' which is all the ing superstitions. About them are vast more contemptible when we know that stretches of country densely populated: the press and thinking people and University of Cuzco stood by them and The Covenanter Church has, no dou bt, petitioned the Government on their bebeen divinely guided in securing these half. Protestants, mission premises and missionaries. They have qualifications schools here in Lima and Callao are of mind and heart fitting them for the subjected to insult every week; and if work. that is an excuse for expulsion, then aU the missionaries may be banished from This little church, not more than ten Peru, regardless of sacrifice or injustice. thousand strong, has foreign missions "The British}1inistel',who will doubt- less be supported by the Legation of the United States, is now laying this in- justice before the new Government, which we trust will result in more Ilb- erty for preaching the Gospel in the in- terior; and if not, in defining our stand- ing more clearly.
" Let it be known that the pUblicity of Protestant worship is prohibited here in Peru as well as Ecuador and Bolivia. We are here, but we are merely toler~ small meaDS had not the South African ated. The expulsion of Messrs. Peters natives contributed a considerable sum; and Jarrett has brought on a crisis here. the sum derived from South African People's eyes are now being opened to sources amounts to £9000. So the sothe abuses and degradation of Roman- ciety could keep up in China, South ism, and especially of the priests, as never and East Africa 57 stations, with 76 before. More than one of the news- European missionaries, 5 European helppapers have written strongly against the ers, and 6 lady teachers. In China the influence which the priests exercised in this affai r. society has onlr8 missionaries in the neighborhood 0 Canton; her principal " The time is an opportune one, and field is South Africa and German East calls for special prayer and sympathy. Africa. Here she supports 76 Euro- God has given us indications that His pean workers for church and schoolpillar is moving toward Peru. May it the wives of missionaries not includedbe ours to watch and move with Him, and 131 colored agents. The number inspired by His promise, 'Lo, I am of baptized people in the African conwith you always.' " gregations is 27,119 (in China, 784), of whom 12,774 are full members. Tow- At the la~t meeting of the Council of ard the end of the year 1343 adults were under instruction as catechumens, and the South American Evangelical Mission in the schools 4798 children were in daily attendance. It is very remarkable it was decided to send Dr. Bremner, of that the African natives of these con- gregations contributed to the support of Toronto, to the South at the beginning their churches and schools the sum of £6800-that is, more than five shilof the new year, to be accompanied by lings per head, children included. In the South African republic the society has one or more young men, as the Lord by God's blessing done a very extensive work; 30 of their missionaries are stamay open up the way. tioned here, but the work is much ham- pered by the way the natives are treat- It is the intentiou of the Couucil that ed in this country. They are not per- Dr. Bremner shall establish a home in mitted to be proprietors of the smallest Buenos Ayres or Montevideo for the re- area of land or buy an inch of the ground ception of missionary candidates, where that once belonged to their fathers. Not the language may be learned, and from only that, but they are compelled to which, as they are found ready, they work for the farmers for low wages at will be sent out to different stations in fixed rate. This is to be deplored, as the republics of Uruguay, Paraguay, the natives of this country (Basuto) are Argentine, and Bolivia. very fond of cultivating the land, and many of them would be able to acquire At the same meeting applications from a higher position and raise themselves several most promising men and women more and more if they were allowed to were considered. As the Lord opens the way, it is proposed to send all that possess farms. are suitable to the field. This is a time " The mission which this society has of opportunity for the South; the " fields are white unto the harvest," and established on the north end of Lake many laborers are praying to be sent Nyassa, at the foot of the Livingstone there. Mountains, in the Konde country, has prospered in an unexpected way. Eight Deputation speakers will gladly be missionaries are laboring there, and sent by the S. A. E. ~I. to any church since 1891 four stations have been founddesiring it. Apply to the secretary, ed. It is a cause of praise that during Rev. J. McP. Scott, 4 Simpson Avenue, the establishment of this mission not one Toronto, Canada. of the workers has died, altho the cli- mate on the north end of the Nyassa is Our correspondent, A. Merensky, of by no means favorable. A small steam- er, the Paulus, has been sent out and Berlin, writes : is dbing good service, carrying the mis· sionaries fro!ll shore to shore, enabling " The old Berlin Mission Society has them to preach the Gospel in the viljust published her report for 1894 ; she lages lying there. From all sides it is has to thank God for many blessings be· acknowledged that the missionaries stowed upou her by the grace of God ha ve gained the confidence of the native during this period. The revenue of the population in a very remarkable degree, society from home sources has been the and it is a very hopeful sign that at all sum of £16,664 lOs. ; the expenditure amounted to £17.807 2s. ; so that it exceeds the income. It would be impossible for the society to carryon her very extensive work with such comparatively the stations hearers of the Gospel are peril of greater defection. Statements never wanting, and that a few are come from other quarters that the writearnestly asking, What must I do to be ings of materialists and rationalists in saved 1" European schools have been widely read and studied in Japan, and their The Red Orass in Japa.n, effect has been to beget a semi·rational- Some forty governments in all are ism which is causing divisions among church-members, which greatly hinders bound together by the compact known the advance of Christianity_ Creeds are as the Red Cross, or the International often repudiated, and great doctrines loosely held. All of this proves what Convention of Geneva of 1864. we have always urged, that it is of the foremost consequence that the Church The one word neutral signifies the of Christ should not allow Satan and whole essence of this treaty; it defines his agents to get ahead of Christ's discithe condition of all sick and wounded ples in planting seed of skeptical and soldiers, all surgeons, nurses, and at· rationalistic opinion. Before we had tendants, all hospitals, ambula.nces, and set up our first presses, the devil was other appliances while they display the Red Cross arm, badge, or flag duly au· disseminating his literature. thorized and inscribed by the military power of the army to which they are Mr. J. E. Skinncr calls our attention attached; and fUrthermore, all inhah- to the new Home for Medical Missionitants of a country in the vicinity of ary Volunteers, established in Chicago, where a battle is mging, as well as their in the medical schools of which city a buildings, are sacredly regarded as neu- band of student volunteers was formed tral while they are administering to the wants of the wounded and disabled, or in 1800. From the Detroit Convention being employed for hospital purposes. of 1894 this band received a great im- pulse, spiritually and numerically, and Wounded soldiers falling into the enemy's hands are neutral, and must be attention was turned toward the estabsent to the frontier for delivery to their lishment of a home, and a temporary own army, as soon as possible, provided, of course, that the country to which one waS found at 140 Ashland Boulevard. they belong is an adherent to the Red In April, much better premises at 112 Cross treaty. Loomis Street were secured, with the By applying the foregoing principles advantage of time in which to complete one will readily grasp the reason why Japan is doing such effective and com- the purchase. mendable work as a humanitarian na- This building is a three story and tion. She is carrying out to the letter the spirit and obligations of the Geneva basement brick structure, the basement Red Cross Treaty, to which she gave of which, besides the dining-room, her adhesion in 1886, while her emperor kitchen, and servants' room, contains 1 stands at the head of her civil Red Cross laundry, store-rooms, and a boiler-room; Society. and the house is so built that good light and ventilation are assured_ Some In six great wars the Red Cross has twenty-five student volunteers will here been conspicuous. Written history reo find a home. most of whom are preparcords the beneficent work it has done, ing for medical missionary work. but only unwritten history can relate the prevention of untold misery and No city, perhaps, offers better facilisuffering on every field.-E.:cchaniJe. ties for mastering medicine and surgery. The buildings of the various colleges Dr. J. D. Davis, for years an active are large and commodious, equipped with every modern appliance, and missionary in Japan, frankly admits II grouped about the various hospitals, thus guaranteeing unsurpassed clinical seeming failure in missionary work. advantages. In this extensive group are Rush Medical College, the College He confesses to a distinct doctrinal de- of Physicians and Sur~eons. Chicago Homeopathic College, Women's Medifection among the Japanese churches, cal College, Chicago Post-Graduate and expresses the hope that American missionaries and the Japanese ministers would soon come to a comprehension of the emergency, and meet it wisely and bravely. He admits the emergency which is upon them, and the imminent School, and the Chicago College of and tell of about one seventh as much Dental Surgery. The faculties are gathered for missions is somewhat out made up of men of large ability and of proportion, and that nine tenths of scholarship, who have world·wide repu- a cent a week is not a large average tation as inat.ructors, practitioners, and contribution over which to applaud and authors. Suveral of these colleges, to wave handkerchiefs as banners of trithose preparing for foreign mission umph. But we cannot think the Chriswork, remit or rebate tuition, and their tian Endeavorers are alone in this small diplomas give students good standing proportion. We could not expect thebe in any community. young people to outdo their elders, and yet they have done it. This home for missionary volunteers can scarcely be self·supporting. Those Hatuay, a powerful native chief of for whom it has been established can Hispaniola, urged by the Spaniards to pay barely enough for running ex- embrace Christianity before he was penses. While the colleges are closed, burned, and thus " go to heaven, " asked some three or four months of the year, if the Spaniards were to be there, and the students return home or seek em· when told that they were, said he would ployment. But the home must be kept not go where he wonld meet any of the up in readiness for their return. Money accursed, race which had shown snch is needed for alterations to better adapt crnelty as conquerors to the unhappy the new building to the needs of the people whom they so robbed, tortured, home, and to complete the purdlase of and slew. the property. How terrible is it when so-called Friends are earnestly invited to visit Christian nations so conduct in the pres· this home, and here is an opportunity ence of the heathen as to bring Chrisfor Endeavor societies to meet, and, if tianity into contempt! they choose, select some young missionaries, provide for their education, The African never can be a moderate and send them out as their direct repre- drinker; the appetite once formed, he sentatives. has no control, and, under its influence, is maddened. Joseph Thomson, who PREVENTED FROM DOING RIGHT.- led three expeditions into Eastern Cen- tral Africa, writes: "I traveled and Every lover of temperance will sympa- suffered, inspired by the idea that I was doing good in opening new lands to thize with Lady Henrf Somerset, and commerce and civilization; but all sat- isfaction was blIghted as I felt that wonder at the law which forbids her to what little I had done were better unuse her own discretion in refusing a. done, and Africa would better remain the liquor license on her estates. It appears dark continent, if such must be the end of it all. Underneath the cry for gin I that a certain hotel sought the renewal seem to hear the reproach, 'You see what Christians have made us. You of its liquor license, which she refused. talk of peace and good·will, yet put devils into us.' As things stand in The proprietor appealed, and the Jus- many places, I translate this cry of opening Africa to civilization as really tice in Chancery has sustained the ap- opening it to European vices, old clothes, gin, rum, powder and guns. peal on the ground that she is simply Truly, liquor has been well termed 'the devil in solution.' "-Mi8sionl1ll'1J holding the estate as tenant for life, and Outlook.
that her personal opinions must not affect her fiduciary action. That is, if it is for the pecuniary interest of those who come into the estate after her death to ruin men body and soul by liquor, she has no right to stop it.-Religiou8 I ntelligencer.
A Western missl;>nary paper, The G08pel Mes8age, refers to the late Chris· tian Endeavor Convention in Boston, where the Roll of Honor, 500 feet long, was unfolded, with 5500 societies' names as contributing to the cause of foreign missions $150,000. The editor thinks that $1,000,000 spent to come together
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. [Del!ember
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extracts and Translations from Foreign stranger whom we are forcing upon Periodioals, them, but their own, coming to bring BY REV. C. C. STA.RBUCK, ANDOVER, the fulness of the Father to His own.
MASS. "The Greek of the New Testament violates all the rules of classic elegance, INDIA. and departs on almost every page from -" There has been of late an appar- classic usage; not always nor perhaps ent revival of Hinduism. This is mani- chiefly because the writers were nGt fested by certain spasmodic movements. Greek)cholars, but chiefly because their An outcry is raised, an attempt is made ideas were largely new and their lanto retine and spiritualize the grosser ele- guage labored and marked in broken ments of heathenism, and efforts made steps under the burden of new meanin 0' to prevent Hindus from professing an which they strove to put upon i; alien faith. Such movements will Among modern languages German and doubtless multiply. There are indica- English have been raised to dignity and tions that Hinduism is feeling the at- honor as vehicles of human thought altacks made upon it. The struggle will most entirely by the influence upon doubtless wax more fierce, and dOUbt- them of the Bible. less become more intolerant. The ancient philosophies will be studied anew; ., Returning to Tamil and the Dravid- ian languages, it is well known that bethe new thought ot the West will be yond the names of a few devils these have hardly any religious vocabulary. read into them, and feelings of false The influx of Brahmanical and BudpatIiotism will lead men to reject all dhistic ideas is marked by the absorpthat comes from a foreign source. tion into the Southern languages of a These movements must be studied, so new vocabulary. Theold Hindu teachthat they can be wisely and sympatheti- ers experienced the same difficulty that cally met. There is doubtless in many we experience to·day, and they left quarters an intense antipathy to Jesus time to settle it by clinging stolidly to Christ as the Son of God and Savior of their old vocabulary, until a large part men. We need to learn how to 'present of it became current coin in the new Jesus Christ to the people in a way that current into which they had carried it. will command the response of the con- Their labor has certainly made the way science, of t.he reason, and of the will. less difficult for us. It has created a Careful study of the thought of the kind of spiritual alphabet where there people and close contact with Jesus was not one; but they have by no Christ are needed if the ambassadors of means left the task of the Christian Christ are to accomplish their purpose. teachcr easy. Rcligious tcrminology Much knowledge is still necessury for drawn from Sanskrit bears almost inan Intelligent, vigorous, persistent evan- variably a detinite Hindu meaning, and, gelization of the masses of the people." used incautiously, will often give a -Ha1"Ve8t Field. sense entirely subversive of that intend- –'" Sympathetically.' Gladlyappre- ed. The preacher has to choose be- ciating and acknowledging all the truth tween the use of a Sanskrit word at the which the people know alIeady, and risk of conveying a Hindu meaning und showing them that this is the dawn of the use of a common word which still that Divine reason which in Jesus Christ stands in common use a mere symbol is risen as the sun; that He is not a _ for a natural object, reading into it as
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATION'S. 9i5
he goes a spiritual meaning by the old this was almost dissolved by theunut- process of metaphor. In any case, he terable miseries of the Thirty Years'
must face the difficulty and overcome it War, during which Germany 10it more as he may by periphrasis, by illustra- than half her popUlation and became tion, by comment. No mere tranRla- the marching ground of swarms of every tion will serve his end. "–Rev. WILL- kind of foreign invaders, the speech was IAM GOUDIL, in Ha1"l!est Field. renewed by a general instinct of rever- sion to Luther's Bibw. It is no wonder -It is perhaps a little too much to say that the Italians regard the German that English owes almost all its dignity Catholics as a species of mitigated Prot- to its translation of the Bible, as Shake- estants, for if by some sudden lurch all speare, Spenser, Bacon, Hooker, and a Germany should revert to the outward great ~hrong of lesser yet noted writers communion of the old Church, Luther's had used it before 1611, and the earlier tongue would still stand between them translations, even that of William Tyn- and any essential appropriation of Latin- dall, can hardly be shown to have very ism.
perceptibly determined the style of -Foreign translators into Eastern these earlier authors. England had tongues cannot, of course, have anyalready a true and copious national thing more than a preliminary work, speech, out of the fulness of which all- but still a profoundly important one. translators, dramatists, divines, philoso- In Malabar (Southwestern India) the phers, and poeta of various kinds-alike Hindu popUlation in the last decade indrew. Yet undoubtedly the version of creased 9 per cent; the Christians, 10 1611, issuing so completely out of the per cent. ; the Mohammedans, 18 per heart of the language, made by scholars cent. The Moslem are a wealthy class who in their work let their scholarship in this burdened and overpeopled land, subside into a simple instinct, while and use their wealth to advance their they thought only how they could bring creed_ their words home to the heart of the people, at once developed and fixed the -The Rev. Howard Campbell, of the language in a remarkable degree. As London Mission, as we perceive from Macaulay says, no one can pretend to the Dansk Missions-Blad, declares that understand the true perfection of Eng- it is an error to suppose that labor lish use who has not the Authorized among the low-castes shuts a man out Version at his tongue's end. Of Lu- from the high-castes. On the contrary, ther's version, it is strictly true that it he anq his associates had found that the created the German language. Pre- more success they had in any place viously it was but a conglomeration of among the low-castes, the more highvarying dialects, the extremes of which, castes they were likely to gain_ Bishop even within the High German range, Thoburn emphatically confirms this seem hardly to have been mutually in- statement.
telligible. Luther laid hold of the -Buddhism, as we know, has long "mandarin dialects," the diplomatic since been driven out of its native India, speech which had grown up between but it is still adjacent to it on the north the various German courts, fixed it, de- in Tibet and on the south in Ceylon.
veloped it, enriched it with treasures Mr_ Sarat Chandra Das, a Hindu schol- from every German dialect gathered in ar, very friendly to Christianity, tho not his vast correspondence, and fused it a professed Christian, is mentioned in into unity and expressiveness in his the Ohurch Miasionary InteUigenCfJl" as a marvelous mind and heart under the great authority on Buddhism. "He power and presence of the Word of God_ regards Northern Buddhism a8 far supe- Indeed, Lllther's version has twice cre- rior to the Southern,. and so much was ated the German language; for when his mind taken up with its wonderful
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
system that it was the greatest pleasure that the Mongolians are the people of to sit and listen while he described the the future; that they are destined to :intricacies of its keystone, transmigra- overrun the world? '
tion, and the fine distinctions of its mar- " 'All nonsense. The Chinese are velous philosophy. But he said, •Bud- very unlikely ever to develop into a dhism has no moral governor.' Buddha warlike people.'
gave his followers a law, but the path " , The social condition of the people of rectitude is one of -self-evolution." -is it good or bad? '
-As was lately remarked in the RE- .. 'It is not very bad. There is a VIEW, and as is implied in the nature of great deal of poverty, but their wants the case, the representations of mis- are few, and I should say the mass of sionaries in a country, when disparag- the people are better off than the masses ing, must be received with some re- of India; the country is wealthier.' " serve, since, aiming as they do to substitute a higher standard. they insensibly Dr. Legge does not think that 400,000,- emphasize the darker features of the 000 is too high an estimate of the popUlaalready existing system. Unhappily. tion of China. He declares that after a however, the Hindus themselves use very long experience of the Chinese, he very strong language sometimes. Thus thinks more of them than ever he did. an orthodox Brahmanic newspaper, the " I have found those who had any posi- Hindu, published in Madras, speaks of tion in society for the most part faiththe Brahman class .as follows: .. Pro- ful to their engagements and true to foundly ignorant asa class, and infinite- their word." He agrees with Sir Harry ly selfish, it is the mainstay of every Parkes, who has been British 11inister unholy, immoral, and cruel custom and in both China and Japan, in regarding superstition in our midst, from the the Japanese officials as children comwretched dancing girl, who insults the pared with the Chinese, an opinion Deity by ber existence, to the pining which Sir Harry declares continued exchild widow, whose every tear and perience to have only confirmed, but every hair of her head shall 8tand up which certainly seems very plainly conagainst everyone of us who tolerate it tradicted by recent events, in which the on the day of judgment. And of such Japanese have shown as mnch diplo- matic as military skill.
a priestly class our women are the igno- .. '-The Lord is King, be the people rant tools and helpless dupes."-Har- never so impatient; He sitteth between _eField. the cherubims, be the earth never so unquiet.' Such is the rendering of CHINA.
-The Free Church Monthly quotes Psalm 99 : 1, in the great Bible of Hen- from the Ohri8tian Oommonwealth opin- ry VIII. 's time, preserved to us in ions expressed to its reporter by the emi- our Prayer-Book Version. The famil- nent Dr. Legge, now Professor of Chi- iar words come to us as we think of Dese in the University of Oxford. For China just now. There are more than instance: a thousand English missionaries, men .. , What effect do you think will the and women, in China at the present un- Chicago Congress have on the future quiet time, many of them probably in religious development of both East and peril of life. No wonder if friends at West? ' home are • impatient' day by day for " , None at all.' tidings of them. Yet, after all,' the '" How, then, did you regard the Par- Lord is King ; , that is a real fact; and IIament of Religions? ' His soldiers, if in the path of duty and .. , A piece of nonsense.' " at the post appointed them, are safe in Then, turning particularly to China: His hand, far safer than on board a … What do you think of the notion British ironclad. But, then, safe from
EXTBACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
what? From whatever is not His will Japanese characteT. We know how for them. Do we wish them to be safe little such newspaper eulogies signify.
from whatever is His will fOT them? So Yet we have no reason to doubt that let our' impatience' give place to peace. this book of Hearn's may be a work of " •Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away? considerable value. When, however, in an interview he declares that the In Jesus' keeping we are safe, and they.' "
-Ohurc1. Mi8sionary Gleaner. Japanese morally far outgo the Chris- tians, he makes himself somewhat -When we heaT of ManchuTian mis- ridiculous. Considering that some of sions it appeaTs that we must not think UII have lived in our own country for of Manchuria as at present the country near threescore years and ten, and have of the Manchus. The Revue de8 Mis· spent many years in each of its main sions Contemporaines infol"IDs us that parts, and yet do not dare to pronounce siQce the little horde, in 1643, seized the with any confidence which of these thTone of China, the whole tribe have parts morally excels the other, or whether become government officers. Their for- this generation is morally superior or mer country is now filling up with Chi- inferior to the last, it seems a little nese. This explains why it is so easy strange that a young man, on the for missionaries to go back and forth strength of a few years' residence in a between there and China proper. country utterly strange in character, -Dr. Legge has been inclined to history, traditions, languagc, religion, think that in diplomacy the Japanese moral ideals, can become so well ac- would show themselves mere children quainted with the inmost character of compared with the Chinese. It is true, its people, even after having intermar- the open frankness of the Japanese ried among them, as to be able to pro- character might ordinarily be somewhat nounce them greatly superior morally in the way; but now that they have to ChristIans. . Whatever measure of thrown .the sword with so resounding certainty such a man may imagine him- an energy into the scale, they are not self to possess, the only certaInty that likely to have much occasion to wish he can give to us is that he himself is a for any greater measuTe of craft. malignant hater of Christ.
-As to Japanese humanity in this The Japanese are an amiable and galwar, most accounts seem to agree with lant people, highly cultivated, and of the testimony of the German Jesuit, wonderful courtesy. They have also STORR, who remarks: "We have no an exalted sense of public duty, fully occasion to fear the Japanese, for every- equal to that of Sparta, while wholly where that they come they maintain divested of its unnatural austerities. rigorous discipline and order. Exactly As their moral ideals, however, tho the opposite is true of the Chinese fine, are essentially temporal and retroops. They are rather to be called stricted, it is not strange if a very large robber bands, and the people have much proportion of the nation should be found to suffer where they appear. The Jap· capable of fulfilling them. The ideals anese, on the contrary, pay for all that of Christianity lay hold of infinity and they take, and do not burden the poor . eternity, and therefore ·long ages have people."-Oalwe1" Missionsblatt. passed befoTe even the aurora of their fulfilment has appeared; but when it MISCELLANEOUS. comes at last, with its mighty fulness, the coming of the Son of man, it will -There is a certain man, named sweep the light but exquisite Japanese Lafcadio Hearn, who has written a nation into its mighty current, and, lIke book on Japan which is declared by Undine in the story, she will receive some newspapers to excel anything that what she has never yet had, a truly im- has yet appeared in knowledge of the mortal soul.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
-The eminent scholar, Professor of course treats the hope and desire of Rhys Davids, as we know, has been eternal life less as selfishness (which is lecturing in different parts of this coun- hardly a Buddhist idea) than as supreme tryon Buddhism. He disavows the folly. The Gospel, holding the creacharacter of a missionary of Buddhism. ture for the fruit of supreme wisdom Yet to judge by an interview with and goodness, and the rational creature him reported in the Boston T1'(J//UJoript, as destined, in that oneness of love with this is exactly what he is. This inter- the Creator which at once eternally dis· view has been reproduced with a deli· tinguishes and identifies, to be the etercacy of detail which shows clearly that nal expression and organ of the Uncreit proceeds throughout from the great ated Excellence. makes the case of our scholar himself. The faintest allusions personal salvation-that is, of ollr moral show a profound acquaintance with oneness with God-not only our su- Buddhist authorities, as reported by preme privilege, but our supreme duty, other great writers, which confirms that which alone gives to the creation them as authentic. And they show as its essential blessedness and value, both distinctly that Professor Rhys Davids, of which Buddhism denies alike to it as as to all essential points.-is a Buddhist, a whole and in all its parts. As Max and means to commend and propagate MiUler says, Buddhism, though in many Buddhism. He calls himself a Chris- aspects so greatly resembling Christian, it is true, which in the mouth of tianity, is its exactly opposite pole. an Englishman signifies simply that he Therefore Professor Rhys Davids may acknowledges Christianity as the relig- justly be held as an apostle of Budion of his country-something from dhism, and by that very fact far more which he has absorbed many ways of truly a resolute opponent of the Gospel thinking, and against 'Yhich he has no than any preacher of Brahmanism would thought of preaching a crusade. But be. Buddhism is the great spiritual almost at the very beginning he subtly torpedo, deadening the whole religious substitutes Buddhism for Christianity and personal sense, so far as it is capaby assuming. as something which every- ble of being developed and applied in body now allows, that the universe is the fulness of its fundamental assump· so constructed that every inner and tions. outer act is immediately accompanied by the exactly proportioned retribution English Notes. due to it, and that therefore the belief in an ultramundane tribunal is a mere BY JAMES DOUGLAS. superfluity. Herbert Spencer declares the same; and St. George Mivart right- London Missionary Society. – The ly pronounces him culpable of an utter- Founders' Week Convention, held rely unproved and superstitious assump- cently in the City Temple, September tion. Rhys Davids also treats with un· 21st-27th, has been a great success; disguised approbation and sympathy but as we have made this the subject of the fundamental thesis of Buddhism, a special article, which appears in this that individuality is a temporary thing, issue of the REVIEW, we need not enter of little value, a mere bubble thrown into details here. up and forthwith swallowed up by the turbulent forces of universal existence. Madaga8oa7'.-The latest intelligence He speaks with complacency of the from this war·swept island is fairly re- Buddhist contempt of personal salva- assuring. Thus far the Central Provtion as" selfish." Buddhism, denying ince is free from disturbance. " Misthat individual existence has an eternal sion work and the ordinary lives of the worth, or any worth at all, since uni- people were proceeding as usual, and versal existence itself is only an illusion, there was no indication whatever of an anti-foreign feeling." Despite the coun-
ENGLISH NOTES
sel of the British vice consul, all the if it might spread all over that part of .male missionaries, and a fair proportion the country." Also in Ti~m-men an in- of the ladies also, have decided to re- teresting work is springing up. So at main at their posts-a decision in which a place called Peh-ho-kou, from 20 to the representatives of the S. P. G., the 30 are reported as !leeking for baptism.
Friends' Mission, and the Norwegian Amoy.-Rev. J. Sadler cites several Missionary Society concur. cases of good received from their com- South Seaa.-Times of refreshing are mentary on Matthew. A man named reportcd from Apia. A Mr. and Mrs. Lim has thereby been won, and is now Smith, of the Helping Hand Mission, working vigorously for the salvation of of Auckland, were induced, as they souls. .. My younger brother," writes were passing through. to stay and lend one of the native evangelists, " became for a few days a helping hand. "God a Christian last year, .also through the drew near," writes the Rev. W. E. commentary. "
Goward, " and some of our young folks Bechuanaland.-The directors of the who were seekers, and my chief hope, London Missionary Society have accordcame out boldly for God, and others ed a warm welcome to the chiefs Khama, were able to dedicate themselves to Sebele, and Bathoen, and have in the God." Since then the work has en· most emphatic manner espoused the larged, and about twenty have been object of their visit, and have done brought in. Active opposition has been everything possible to them by way of aroused. strengthening their appeal to the impe- Cltina.-Deep regret is felt at the rial protectorate of Great Britain, in trying circumstances which have neces- which they seek, among other things, sitated the early return of Dr. and Mrs. the confirmation of their tribal rights Bennett from Tientsin-namely, illness to the ownership of the land, as also to of Mrs. Bennett from serious aural the administration of justice in accordtrouble. The District Committee has ance with native law, and, further, the put on record" its deep sympathy with control and prohibition of the liquor the dear friends whom it so recently traffic in their territories.
welcomed to its fellowship, and from Centenary Fund.-This fund has now whom, in the cause of God's provi- reached the sum of £76,000.
dence, it is now called to part." Mrs. Baptist Missionwry Society.-Writing from Wathen Station, Congo, the Rev. Bennett is a daughter of the Rev. A. G. G. Cameron says, .. There are some in whose hearts the good seed has found Brown, of the East End Tabernacle, London. .
King-shan.-Dr. Griffith John writes good soil, and their earnest inquiries concerning this place in Central China: and altered lives give us hope that they " Now for a bit of news that will cheer are being taught by the Holy Spirit of your heart. Mr. Hiung, one of our na- Go~." He also reports the baptism of tive assistants at Hankow, has just re- two converts.
turned from a visit to King-shan. He &mbalpur, India.-District meetings tells us that all the converts baptized last were recently held for the first time in year (when Dr. John baptized 41 adults) Sambalpur. The reporting churches remain strong and firm in the faith. were none of them large, but they had There are now more than 190 waiting each some measure of blessing to re- for baptism, of whom 100 are deemed cord. The following deliverance on the quite satisfactory. The Christians have subject of prayer deserves heart inscrip- bought a large house for chapel pur- tion: " As the amount a cow eats regu- poses, and paid for it themselves. lates the quantity of milk it gives, so About 40 villages have become more prayer is the gauge of a man's ability or less Christian, and the work looks as to display the Christian virtues."
GENERAL MISSIONARY mTELLIGENCE
China Inland Mi88ion.-Many letters Mackay in Africa, of the noble army of have been received giving a graphic de- m'artyrs which Rev. R. W. Stewart and scription of the riots in Si-ch'uen, Ihe his associates in China have now joined, deeds of pillage done, and the providen- has not made the sacrifice of human tial escapes through the abounding lives seem too great even in behalf of mercy of God_ These letters show the degraded savages. Rather has it exult- practical value of that peace which is ed the value of the lives that have been deep set in God_ It is beautiful to see laid down at the hands of those whom such patience under trial, and to note they sought to save and the value of hu- how graciously God has been hearing manityeverywhere. The whole human prayer during the long time of suspense race has been ennobled by these sacri- (even verifying the promise, "before fices."-Oong1'egationalist.
they call I will answer"), and enabling – IlluJJtrated Aj1'ica announces that 4 His servants" to take joyj'ully the spoil- missionaries from New Zealand arrived ing of their goods." at Cape Town after a stormy passage, and proceeded at once to Durban, en The extent of this wave of disturb- route to Inhambane. Think of it! New ance is shown in the fact that in the Zealand sending out evangelists for the western province of Si-ch'uen, as the redemption of Africa I result of a series of riots, some 65 missionaries have been drivcn from their -Backed by the statements of Henry stations, many of them being in the most imminent peril of their lives. Not- Norman in his" The Peoples and Poliwithstanding all, there has been much tics of the Far East," by similar opin- of the dew of blessing on the fleece of ions in Mr. Curzon's " Problems of the service_ In little more than the space Far East," and by editorial assents of of two months no fewer than 160 souls these bold affirmations from the London have been baptized throughout the sta- Standard, the PaU Mall, and the St. tions of the C. I. M. ; and these. added James Gazette8, the New York Tribune to the results formerly given, bring up suggests the new doctrine as a legiti- the total to 401 since the beginning of mate and necessary deduction from the the year. .. acknowledged fact" that the Chinese do not want Christian missions, which THE KINGDOM. Is, that our missions are an intrusion, an -J. F. Willing speaks thus in the international impertinence. – FJoangelist.
Western Christian Advocate of a recent -To. go on a mission to China just visitor to our shores: "The earnest now is, in the estimation of some of the Christian thought of New York has secular journals, .. pious foolhardiness." been arrested by the visit of Andrew The Pall Mall Gazette calls upon the }Iurray, of South Africa, as I have not foreign office of Great Britain to give known it to be during the last half dozen faithful warning to all intending misyears. Scientists have found that there sionaries that if they go they must " go is electricity enough in an acre of fog forth at their peril," and asks the furto destroy all the animal life in that ther question, "Why cannot they, if acre; but it is unknown except to their they persist, as would-be suicides be experiments. Andrew Murray is one forcibly detained 1" of the Lord's electricians, revealing to common people the powers that are -One of the most important addresses dormant and unrecognized within and ever given in Minneapolis was that of around them, that they may be used to General Foster, Secretary of State under light the world gloriously toward the President Harrison, before the General coming of the kingdom." Convention of the Episcopal Church.
-The death of such men as Patteson The successor of Blaine and the adviser in the South Seas and Hannington and of Li Hung Chang, the imperial chancellor of the Celestial realm, has made a which are embraced in his field, and special study of missions. He has had preside at the mceting of the Central peculiar facilities to understand state- Conference of India and Malaysia, craft, and as a peacemaker between which meets at Poonah in March.
China and Japan to know whereof he -Of the 247,000 Indians in thiscoun- speaks. For an hour and a half, in sim- try, 30,000 are engaged in farming, stock- . pIe, straightforward speech, he gave the raising, and other civilized pursuits. evidences that Christianity was doing a During the last year the Indians raised mighty work in all the lands of the 11,722,656 bushels of wheat, 1,878,230 Eaat.-North and West. bushels of corn and other grain, and -" There is no use my trying to be a vegetables in like proportion. They Christian," said an old Chinese woman marketed 30,233,000 feet of lumber; to the missionary's wife; "look at my they own 205,844 head of cattle, 1,283,- feet," pointing to her deformed, band- 633 sheep and goats, and the value of aged feet. "Why, what have your feet products of Indian labor sold by them to do with it 1" asked the lady in sur- is estimated at $1,220,517. Of the 24'7,- prise. "Oh," said the other, "if I am 000 Indians, 189,000 are self-supporting, to be a Christian I will have to go into and 35,000 pay taxes, live outside the the world and preach the Gospel, and I reservations, and are counted in the could not travel with these feet." general population. A.t the last election -Hon. Chauncey :M:. Depew says the about 22,000 Indians voted. About whole tonnage of ocean vessels in the 30,000 are church-members.
world last year was about 140,000,000, -A recent issue of the St. Louis Pres- while the tonnage of the railway of the byterian contained a picture which rep- world carried 100 miles was about resented a group of 13 missionaries, 1,400,000,000. There are 400,000 miles now living, who have given from thirty of railroad in the world, of which 180,- to fifty years of life to the work. Their 000 miles are in the United States, or names are: enough to encircle the earth seven and G. W. Wood, D.D., Turkey, 183B. one fifth times. Of the 1,400,000,000 J. C, Hepburn, M.D., China, 1840. tonnage carried by the world's railroads Mrs. J. C. Hepburn, China, 1840. last year, the roads of the United States William Ashmore, D_D., China, 1850. carried 800,000,000 tons. :MI'. Depew Mrs. William Ashmore, China, 1850. says the internal commerce of the United Henry Blodgett, D.O., China, 1853. States makes it the most wonderful Mrs. Henry Blodgett, China, 1853. market on the globe. John Scudder, M.D., India, 1855.
UNITED STATES. Mrs, John Scudder, India, 1851i. H. H. Jessup, D,D., Syria, 1855.
-Miss Stella Franklin, a granddaugh- J. F, Clarke, D.D., Bulgaria, 1859. ter of Benjamin Franklin, sailed recent· J, W. Waugh, D,D., India, 1859. ly from New York to Bombay as a mis- Benjamin Labaree, D.D., Persia, 1860.
sionary. This is the second of the -Rev. F. B. Meyer makes this an- granddaughters of Franklin now on the nouncement in the London Ohristian: foreign field. "Permit me to state that Dr. A.. '1'.
-Bishop Thoburn was to sail from Pierson has promised to spend six: New York for India November 6th, and months in this country from January, is due in Bombay December 1st. He and it is proposed that he should visit will at once begin an extended tour of several of the larger towns, spending the conferences, but will return again three or four days in each, and holding for the General Conference in May of conferences on the following subjects: 1896. While in India and Malaysia the First day, the Inspiration and Author- bishop will hold the six conferences ity of the Bible; second day, the Personality and Power of tho Holy Spirit; Whole number of laborers sentfrom this 572 third day, the Culture of the Inner country.. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. . … .. .. .. .. 242 Life; fourth day, Christian Missions. 500 There would be two meetings daily." Native pa.tors…………………….. 1,734 Native preachers and catechists….. ..•. 613 -A despatch states that Henry M. Native .chooHeachers…. … ………. 8,107 Stanley, M.P. and explorer, has ac- Other native laborers.. .. .. .. …. . . .. …. 3,679 cepted the nppointment of associate editor of Bishop William Taylor's monthly Total of native laborers…………… pUblication, nlustrated .Africa. It was Total of Americans and natives……. during his recent visit to New York, en route to Canada, that Mr. Stanley be- Churches. came associated with Bishop Taylor in the present work. Churches ……………………. . 461 -The latest report of the American Church-members…………………. .. 44,413 Board, the oldest and among the greatest of American missionaries, is full of Added during the year ……… ,. ….. .. 3,266 eloquent and most suggestive figures, as this brief abstract will show : Whole number from the flrst…….. '" • 131,914 EXPENSES. -At a recent all· day's meeting of the Woman's Auxiliary of the Protestant Co.t of mis.ions ………………….. $661,886 Episcopal Church, held in St. Paul, an .. .. agencies (district secretaries, etc.) .13,964 offering of $54,000 was laid upon the .. .. publications…….. .. .. .. .. .. .. 10,947 altar. During last year the society .. .. administration (secretariell, rents, raised $349,215 in the 52 dioceses and etc.)…………………… ". 28,485 13 missionary districts over which it has spread its network, part of this value Tota,l. .. .. .. . … ………. .. …….. $715,2a'J being sent to the mission fields in the Balance, debt August 31, 1894 •..••••… 116,237 form of boxes, and $23,529 being cred- ited to the Junior Auxiliary. Total. ………………………….$831,469 -Bishop Thoburn estimates that in the Methodi!!t Episcopal Church there ought to be at least 1,250,000 givers to missions, and that they are easily able to give in this fashion: RECEIPTS. 500,000 at $0.05 each monthly. •• . •• ••.. $300,000 500,000 at .10 each monthly……….. 600,000 Donations ………………………… $516,003 150,000 at .25 each monthly. . . . . … •. . 450,000 Legacie… .. .. .. .. … .. .. .. . . . .. .. .. . … 150,435 75,000 at .50 each monthly……….. 450,000 Otis Fund….. ……………………. 41,367 15,000 at 1.00 each monthly.. •.. . .. . . • 180,000 General Permanent Fund…………… 9,Oa'J 5,000 at 2.50 each monthly……….. 150,000 Total …………………………… $716,837 2,500 at 5.00 each monthly……….. 150,000 Debt August 31,!1895….••••..•……•• , 114,632 2,500 at 10.00 each monthly. . ..• •. . ••. 300,000 Total. ………………………….. $831,469 1,250,000 $2,580,000 GENERAL SUMMARY. -The Western Watchman is not cheered by the outlook for Catholic M'U8Wn8. 2" education, and for these cogent rea· 103 sons: "The preachers are now doing Missions…………………………. . 1,163 more for education than we. We are Stations ………………………… .. astonished at the slim attendance at our Out·stations ….•….•.•..••…•..•….. 1,461 boarding.schools. Our convents are not Places for stated preaching. .• ••. ••••• • patronized as they once were. Our col- Average congregations…………….. . 72,000 leges aro not tilled with Protestant boys from the States as of yore. The good Lawrers Employed. Sisters are astonished. The Jesuits and the Christian Brothers are puzzled to Ordained missionaries (16 baing physi· account for the reduced classes. While we men were insensing ourselves the cians) ………………………. .. 187 enemy, the preachers, came and built Male physicians not ordained (besides 11 women)……………………….. .. 13 Other male assistants ……………… . 5 Women (11 of them physicians), (wives, 187; unmarried, 180) …………….. . 367 colleges, male and female, all around professed tbeir faith in Christ during us. There are to-day in this State tens the past year. Some of the institutions of thousands of Protestant and non- may now be considered as wbolly Cbris- Catholic young men and women attend- tian. The income for 1894 was £7752, ing colleges built and maintained by the less than that of 1893 by £1074. The Protestant sects, where thirty years ago new work entered upon includes a home not one could find an education outside near Hankow, at Roha, North India, a Catholic boarding-school." and at Tokio; the erection of a small -Rev_ W. C. Pond writes from San hospital at Kalimpong, DarjeeUng; and Francisco: "Two of our best mission- the transference to the society of a Govary helpers, Loo Quong and Chin ernment leper asylum at Calicut. Funds Quong, left us for their native land are in hand for a new home in Rangoon, about two weeks ago. Another, Gin and another for European lepers is being Foo King, is to follow them next week. subscribed for. It brings a little lightening of the burden of expense, as I shall not attempt -The Chronicle of the London Soto fill their places till our empty treas- ciety in a late issue bas a paragraph in ury is replenished, but it brings, appar- reference to a new organization in Great ently, a great loss to our work. It Britain, to be entitled the Industrial Misseems almost impossible to make it suc- sions Aid Society. The scheme has cessful at the points of greatest need been started by Mr. F. W. Crossley, of Manchester, the idea being to encour- and greatest promise without the minis- age industrial missions wherever there try of men like these." is promise that they can be conducted on a self-supporting basis. Such insti- EUROPE. tutions always need aid at the outset in securing their plant and in starting the Great Britain.-Three African kings industries. It is believed that no at- have been paying a visit to British soil, tempt should be made to foster institu- all worthy men, and were received tions wherever there is no such promise everywhere with becoming respect. of speedy self-support, but where there They were Khama, the Christian ruler is this promise, it is designed to make of the Bamangwato ; Bathoen, chief of loans at a low rate of interest, and to the Bangwaketse; and Sebele, headman afford aid by.such counsels as experi- of the Bechuana. The last named was ence may suggest.
intimately"associated with Dr. Living- -At the recent meeting of the Wesstone. The saddest feature of their leyan Conference a debt was reportcd visit is found in the fact that what they of £30,000 on the Missionary Society, chiefiy desired was the help of the gov- and it was resolved to make a great ernment to protect thefr people from effort to get it removed. A session was the desolations wrought by the rum accordingly given to .. a financial lovetraffic. feast," with the following results: One -The Mission to Lepers cooperates member of the conference after another with 15 different societies, supports 15 rose, giving evidence of approval of the leper asylums or hospitals of its own, effort by a promise to give. By the end and aIds 11 other similar institutions. of" the session nearly £20,000 had al- In addition to these, 12 places are open ready been promised. This amount in- to the mission for Christian instruction, cluded several donations of £1000; Mr.
and 8 homes for the untainted children Morgan Harvey, the treasurer of the of lepers have been opened. In the so- society, adding a second £1000 on be- ciety's homes there are about 800 in- half of his wife and family. Some of mates, and 700 more in the assisted in- the smaller gifts were announced with stitutions. One hundred and fifty have touching details. -At one of the centenary meetings notably the case with South and Cen- of the London Missionary Society, tral Africa and Surinam (or Dutch Chief Khama, whose people had reo Guiana in South America). In all these ceived the Gospel from the missionaries fields new stations have been planted of this organization, being present, said amid heathen populations.
in his own tungue: "I rejoice very -There died recently in Moscow, much to be present here with you in says the New York Tribune, a man who this house of God. I rejoice much to in the last twenty years gave $5,000,000 see so many young children, and I pray to charity. He was State Councillor God that as we have been joined to- Jermakoft, who came from a poor famgether in the body, so He will help us ily. His first public act which excited to join in the one spirit, the spirit to general attention was the purchase of help people. The work in which we the freedom of aU the serfs living in his stand is a work of goodness, a work native village. 'l'his cost him $120,000. which excels all other works in real He came to the rescue of the poor peogoodness. The work that we find on ple time and time again when the harthe earth is a work that tries men, and vests failed. His funeral was one of again it is a work that passes away; but the largest ever seen in the old burial the work of God has no ending. And place of the Russian czars, thousands of I have been trying to get my own peo- the poor of the capital following the ple to go forward in the ways of right- philanthropist's body to the grave. eousness as you are doing. I have not long words to say to you, because I am -According to Russian prison statisnot a man practised in speech, I know tics in 1890, the number of prisoners in how to do things better than to say government jails was 764,373, and for them. But I give you joy with my the suhsequent years 817,945, 855,356, words, the joy that I see in your faces. " and 842,729. The unfortunates in mili- The Continent.-An article has re- tary prisons, the peasants in the village centlyappeared from the pen of Rev. houses of correction, and the prisoners G. E. Hiller in answer to the question, in the 'franscaspian district would make Why are there :Methodist missions in up a total of a million in the Czar's do- Scandinavia and in Germany? The minion who are under loci>: and key. writer finds a legitimate reason for These figures do not includl) the people them, because (1) the origin of these transported to Siberia, w~lO in the years missions was providential; (2) Method- named numbered 18,363,20,106,20,727, ism has the right of way in Europe, as 17,160-a total of 76,356. Nor do they well as in other parts of the world ; (3) include 5328 convicts SC!!t within the they are necessary; (4) they have same period from Odessa to the penal aroused the Lutheran churches from stations of the inhospitable island of their lethargy; and (5) they are justified Saghalien.
by the religious indifferentism and spir- ASIA. ituallethargy of many Lutheran clergy- men. Islam.-The Porte has finally accept- -'rhe Moravian Church also reports ed the inevitable, and under compulsion a deficiency in the missionary treasury, from four ot the great European pow- one amounting to £5745 ($28,725). The ers has consented to radical reforms in causes are, on the one hand, a falling Armenia, relating to taxes, judicial pro- off of income, mainly under the head of cedure, etc. Christians are to have :egacies, and, on the other hand, an in- some real protection from Moslem hatred crease in the expenditure of several and violence. Let us rejoice at the fields. This is largely due to healthy steady waning of the crescent and the growth and necessary extension, .and steady waxing of the cross. -In a recent Nineteenth Century the without either the imperial permit or Hon. Mr. Justice Ameer Ali appears for the stamp !"
the defence of the Turks in " Islam -The Presbyterian Mission in Persia, and the Critics." These sentences give including the Eastern and Western secthe fia vor of the article: .. No country in tions, reports the following statistics for the world has had to contend with such the past year: Stations, 6; out-stations. insuperable difficulties as Turkey. For 91; ordained missionaries, 16; medical the last century and a half every two missionaries-men, 4, women, 4; lay decades or so she has been engaged in missionaries, 1; lady missionaries, inexhausting wars, not of her own mak- cluding wives, 38; total, 63; ordaineu ing, but forced upon her by the crusad- nati ves, 45; licentiates and teachers, ing zeal or the ambition of others. And 244; total of native laborers, 289; yet, in spite of all difficulties, partly churches, 38; communicants, 2838; originating from within and partly added during the year, 173: students from without, all candid observers ad- for the ministry, 11 ; total of pupils ill mit that the country has made consid- all schools, 3470 ; hospitals and dispenerable progress in every direction. Nor saries, 4; patients treated, 20,785; naare wise and patriotic statesmen want- tive contributions, $23,500. ing. Men like Said, Turk.han, Zia, and Tewfik would do honor to any coun· India.-Among the proofs of this try." country's progress in adopting methods -Rev. H. H. Jessup has returned to of Western civilization, it may be noted Syria, and gives evidence that the SuI· that in the year 1894 the money spent tan's change of heart is not entire. on education was 96 lakhs of rupees Read this: "Ten days ago orders came more than in 1888, and that during the from Constantinople to the Beirut cus- six years the number of pupils in schools tom house to allow no books to be increased more than 60,000. The numshipped, even though they have the ber of letters, etc., which passed imperial permit, unless each separate through the post-office in 1888 was 274,- volume is stamped by the Director of 000,000, and in 1894 was 370,000,000. Education. As we have 12,000 volumes The number of telegraphic messages ready for shipment, our work is virtu- sent nearly doubled within the six ally and practically stopped. The Direc- years; the area under irrigation grew tor of Education has written to the Col- from 7,500,000 to nearly 9,500,000 acres; lector of the Port that these books all and the hands employed in cotton-mills have the imperial permit, but he says increased from 72,000 to 130,000.-Indhis new orders are peremptory, and not ian Witne88.
a book can go without the disfiguring -Rev. John E. Clough writes: "The stamp on it. All of our Arabic Scriptures Madras·Bezwada Railway, for which and other books have the imperial im- project I have worked not a little, both print, the official permit on the title- here and in London, has at last been page. More than this no government sanctioned, and work on it is to com- can req uire. But they insist now on mence September 1st. This railway refusing to recognize their own permit, will be 290 miles long, and is really an and oblige us to have a disfiguring, extension of the East Coast Railway, inky stamp put on every volume and on and the two will be about 1000 miles in as many pages as they choose to put it length, and will make as direct a rail- in. The object plainly is to obstruct way line as possible between Madras Bible distribution. And what makes and Calcutta. This railway will pass the order more outrageous and offensive through Nellore, Kavali, Ongole and is that the Jesuit edition of the Arabic BapatIa, and will pass within three Bible goes through the custom house miles or so of Ramapatam and Kundukur. It will be a great boon to UlJ in 99 out of every 100 Hindus. They are our mission work, and in many ways. bound to it by an inexorable Jaw, so Oh, that it had been completed thirty that the Hindu never practically adyears ago !" vances beyond the question, 'Is this act which I am about to do consonant -Read this from the MiBBion Field: with the caste rules and religious rites ., In consequence of the custom of early of my people l' They think over and marriage universally prevailing among are affected by religious truth about as Hindu youths of the plains, it follows much as they are by modern explorathat most of our Christian boys' class tions to the north pole. Moreover, it companions are married men. I had should be remembered that Hinduism heard about boy·marriages before going has accomplished in the minds and lives to India, but neither this nor any other of its votaries a complete divorce of mostrange custom produces much effect rality and religion. The most ' holy' upon one's mind until one is brought and most highly venerated men, religface to face with its practical working; iously, in India to-day are known everyand so, soon after my arrival, I was where to be highly immoral, the moral teaching a class of ordinary-sized school- lepers of the community." boys in St. Stephen's High School, when, on inquiry why a certain youth -The Pasumalai Institution of the had not put in an appearance on the Madura Mission has at. present 351 stuprevious day, I could hardly believe dents, under the instruction of 3 Amerimy ears when he said, ~ Please, sir, my can missionaries and 20 native teachers. son was taken sick and I had to stay Its several departments embrace a col· and look after him.' 'Your son !' I lege, high and middle schools, normal said; 'my dear boy, what do you school, practising school, and theologimean?' • Oh, yes, sir I ' was the re- cal seminary. Its jubilee celebration ply, , you know we marry very early in was on September 19th. The instituthis country.' I said, when I had re- tion is one of the most valuable within covered my breath, • Will all those who the whole field of the American Board. are married men in this class kindly During the half century $30,000 have hold up their hands?' And another been expended in buildings and not less shock was in store for me when all but than $100,000 in its support. 3 or 4 out of a class of 35, averaging about fourteen or fifteen years of age, -Well may Rocwell Clancy send signified that they were husbands: the forth his lament over the case of the minority consisting of 2 Christians and Methodist North India Mission, whose 1 or 2 Mohammedans." prosperity, strange to say, actually threatens its ruin. He writes: " Mis- -Dr. J. P. Jones, of Pasumalai, has sionaries who have been sent to this this to suggest concerning Hinduism: country to preach the Gospel and to .. So far as Hindus are concerned, the lead India to Christ are succeeding in Vedic teachings and the philosophic thiir mission. Every year about 10,000 systems of Brahmanism-of which so converts are added to the Church; and much is said on American platforms- yet, year after year, the missionary sohnve very little, practically nothing, to ciety is forced to keep us at the same do with their daily lives. They have old figures. Our success is proving to the completest legal code and ceremo- be our greatest embarrassment. The nial system of any people on earth. It classes from which our converts are enters every detail of their life. At the taken are for the most part the most root and permeating every fibre of this ignorant and degraded in India. Alis the caste system, to which every Hin- most the only religion they have known du is an abject slave. Thisexternalism is demon worship. When they come to is the alpha and omega of religion to us they are so ignorant that only about 3 persons out of 100 can read and write. lains to Formosa, the authorities at They are like little children, and need Tokyo replied that they were glad to the most patient, loving teaching, or have as many Christian preachers sent matiy of them would relapse into idola- as possible. The 5 who were sent to try. They are sorely oppressed by their the army in China did such admirable relatives and caste people, so that if left service that the more of such work the alone without a Christian teacher among better. Work among sick soldiers in them, they would soon become dis- the hospitals grows in interest. ,So couraged and yield to the persuasions of much is this the case that Miss Talcott their friends to renounce Christianity." of our own mission and her coworkers -Aligarh Anglo·Oriental College is have returned to Hiroshima, braving rapidly becoming the most important cholera and intense heat in order to centre of Mohammedanism in this coun· continue this telling service." try. It is attracting hundreds of Mohammedan youth of the best families; -The Chinese have been accused of and while it seeks to establish them' in not being patriotic. But those who the faith of Islam, it also aims to give make such accusations do not know the them a liberal education abreast of that Chinese. What is it that makes 80 given in any other institution of learn· many of them want to be brought back ing. The school wlIl exert a great in- home to be burled? What makes them fluence upon Mohammedan society. refuse to be absorbed by the countries The young men who have had from to which they go? What makes them four to six years in the college board- refuse to adopt anything that is foring-house and class-rooms will not go eign? It is the same feeling that back to their homes unchanged in char- prompted the Jew to hold to the law acter or ideas of life. The college has and the prophets. Only those who take an annual income of 24,000 rupees from a superficial view of the Chinese, their landed property assigned to it by the philosophy, Jiterature, and history, can Nizam of Hyderabad. Other Moham- attribute it to ignorance, and it is conmedan noblemen will doubtless emulate ceit only if too much patriotism is con- ceit.-T. HEADLAND, in the Independent.
the Nizam's zeal. The college not only -One of our missionaries in a great has money and a good prospect of more, city of China (it may be as well not to but it has students also. There were .mention names) reports that the leading last year 205 students in the college de- officials of the city sent him a request to partment and 360 in the school depart- meet them at a place which they named ment.-Indian Witness. for a quiet conference. Accompanied Cbina.-The Chinese word for medi- by another missionary, the two were recine is " yoh," and the Chinese form of ceived with the honors paid to the govthe word John is "Yohan." In one ernor of a province. Passing through part of China, says the Baptist MUiaion- a double line of$oldiers, a military salute ary Magazine, there has been a great de- was fired, and ceremonies were carried mand for the Gospel of John, as the out according to the" Book of Rites." people thought it was a treatise on After a collation had been partaken of, medicine. It is to be hoped they found the theme of conversation was largely in it healing for their souls if not for China and her relation to the Western world. These officers commented with their bodies. severity upon the evils of the govern- -Rev. J. H. Pettee is persuaded that ment of China, but evidently felt help- in the Flowery Kingdom " Christianity less and hopeless as to means of reform.
as a whole is gainini steadily in intlu- The object of this conference seemed to ence. To cite one proof, when permis- be solely to gain information and to es- ,sion was asked recently to send chap· tablish friendly relations. The incident ia certainly a striking one, and serves to the truth and superiority of the l'elig- show the impression which some at least ion of Christ by intelleetual discourses of our missionaries are making on Chi· and" apologies" aimed at the heads of nese otHcials.-Missiona1'1l Herald. some of the most rapid and acute think- ers and logicians in the world. -Rev. Gilbert Reid continues his efforts to gain access to the highest dig- AFRICA. nitaries in the empire, to make their acquaintance and win their confidence, This continent, the second of all for respect, and friendship, and that so he size, is said to contain the largest forest may help them to see some things from on the globe, having one whose length the Occidental point of view. So would is at least 3200 miles, and whose width he carry blessing to the teeming mill- is unknown, because no traveler has ions. His success is beyond his expec- ever pushed his way from side to side. tations. Besides, the latest evidence goes to show that Victoria Nyanza, if not equal in Japan.-MissG. Nott, of Kumamoto, area to Lake Superior, is not far infe- Japan, an English missionary, says: rior.
.. I was talking one day to a woman of -Joseph Thomson, the African exvery good family, anotlicer's wife here, plorer, who recently died at thirty.six and was telling her that before the one years of age, was the only man who true God we are all sinners. She list- penetrated into the interior from all ened politely, and then, covering her four sides. From Morocco on the north face with her hands, she burst into a he explored Mount Atlas; from the west peal of quiet laughter. 'I do beg your he went up the Niger; from the Cape pardon,' she said, ' but I a sinner! the he reached the great lakes and the spot idea is too ridiculous.' You see it is where Livingstone died; and from the firmly believed in many cases among east he traveled through the Masali men and women, too, that other nations country to the lakes. In all his expedimay need a Savior, but not Japan; tions he never found it necessary to use Japan is the country of the gods, the a revolver or a rifle against a human Japanese the children of the gods, and, being. therefore, they cannot sin."
-The Salvation Army is to make a -The London Freeman (Baptist) says determined assault upon Japan. The that King Leopold, of Belgium, chief (Jonqueror gives this answer to the ques- of the Congo Free State, is very kindly tion, "What are they going to do in disposed toward the Baptist missiona· Japan ," They are going to plant the ries on the Congo. Recently he exflag of blood and fire in the name of pressed in a letter his high appreciation God and the Army, and raise up a na- of the services rendered to the state by tive force of Salvation warriors to con- a grammar of the language which Mr. quer the Empire for Christ. They are Bentley, a missionary, had prepared. going, a band of 15 of them, to make He also knighted another missionary, their attack on what are known in Mr. Grenfell.
Army parltmce as "native lines"-that -Mr. Snyder writes thus jubilantly is, they will dress, eat, and live as the from Luebo, on the Upper Congo: Japanese do, and they expect that the " This mission has been in operation people will, when they come to know some five years, and now comes the an- them, receive them gladly_ They will swer to the unnumbered prayers that not go there as superior beings, con- have ceaselessly ascended to our Father demning all the Buddhists and spirit- since that time, five years ago, when worshippers and free·thinkers as fools Mr. Lapsley and Brother Sheppard left tm or knaT6S, llor will they try to prove America now. Frayer will prevail. On Sabbath morning, March 17th, 12 will ask, how do they collect damages, more were baptized and became mem- debts, etc. Well, the African excels in bers of this church, and on the follow- dunning. The African may quickly tire ing Sabbath, 14, and on April 7th. 2 of almost anything else, but of making more, and on April 14t.h, 1 more. This requests, never. The debtor is met in makes in all 35. What a day of rejoic- the market-place, and publicly remind- ing, when we had our first communion ed of that little debt. He is hailed in with them! Hematuria and death were the path with, "When arc you going nowhere in the presence of this Life! ! to settle?" And at his house he re- Weare all well at this date, and are ceives all sorts of untimely and unwel- hopeful of more converts soon. These come calls from the aggrieved party, were mostly from among our station and life becomes a burden until he pays.
people; out of the 35 only 3 were Then there is a little trick the Congo Bakete, the rest being Baluba." man has, of tying up (the Congo meth- od of imprisoning) the wife or wives of -" There is much illness among the the debtor until the pay is forthcom- natives themselves [of the Congo basin]. ing.-A Mi8sionary.
One physician estimates that 90 per cent have hereditary diseases. Forty- -The railway race has begun even in five church-members have died this Nyassaland. There is now there an en· year, and 46 have been received into gineer surveying for a line from Chiro- the Church. At one of the out·stations mo to Blantyre under the egis of the 25 died in three years. I remember of Lakes Corporation. Hopes are also having seen but one gray-haired person. held out of the speedy completion of They expose themselves unnecessarily, the transcontinental telegraph between and have no idea of sanitary laws. Blantyre and Fort Salisbury. It is said They have poor houses, lie on the that a few weeks will see a direct com- ground, and take no care of themselves munication open with the lIashonaland when ill." office, and so on to England 'Dia the Cape. Meantime, the reduction of the -Avarice is perhaps the most strik- cable rate between England and Cape- ing characteristic of this people. 'fhe town to 38. per word will effect a con- love of wealth is the root of a vast siderable reduction in the cost of through amount of evil in Africa as well as in telegrams from BIantyre.-Life and America. They look upon all things Work.
as property. The state flogged a native so severely that he died. His people -A letter from the Bishop of Ma- were very indignant, and threatened to shonaland gives a graphic account of a join other natives who were then up in page in the life of a modern missionary arms in rebellion against the state on bishop. He says: " I write from Bulu- account of its tyranny. But when the wayo, which I duly reached on Mon- state gave them some cloth, it was all day after a coach journey of 550 miles right. A man was supposed to have from Pretoria across the Limpopo and been killed in an attack upon a state sta- its crocodiles, and on through dusty tion. His friends did not find his body, tracks made through the bush by pio- but according to their custom, buried neers. It was, even to me, a very rough considerable cloth. In time, the man journey, with scarcely any sleep and supposed to be dead appeared. When little food. On Sunday afternoon, after the fact was known, instead of rejoic. many hours' travelling in choking dust ing, a friend (1) said, "What about all and heat, we rested for an hour at a that cloth which we buried 1 Who will wayside shanty of poles and mud.
pay for that? The white ants have Prospectors were lounging about, and eaten it by this time." Perhaps you one man had put on a clean shirt. Every one was hearty and the bishop guages the Scriptures of the Old and was warmly welcomed. Damper was New Testaments into the Niuean lan- ready. and there was turned butter and guage of Central Polynesia. and the bUtung (buck or beef meat dried in the Motu language of the Papuan people, sun). I expect I was the only bishop more than justifies the act of the Scotch in the world on Vtat particular Sunday university.
sitting astride a plank, cutting slices of biltung with my pocket-knife, and -It is a strange fact that the very washing them down with digger tea throne which the French are seeking to out of a billy, a sort of tinpot or mug wrest from the Queen of Madagascar which prospectors carry about. was presented to her by Emperor Na- -The Uganda railway soon to be poleon III. It will probably constitute commenced will extend from Mombasa, one of the trophies of the war now on the Indian Ocean, to the Victoria waged in Madagascar_-The Indepen- Nyanza, a distance of 650 miles. The (Unt.
estimated cost is $8.775.000. The cost -The French have finally, tho with of running one train up and down per great loBS of life. climbed from the week is put at $200.000 a year. The coast to the central highlands; the capi- railroad will, however, greatly reduce tal, Antananarivo, has fallen, the queen the expense of government transport, has yielded and made peace. and Gallic which now costs $900 a ton from the influence Is supreme in Madagascar. coast. For some two and a half centuries -Henry M. Stanley. M.P.• said re- France has claimed this great island, cently in an interview of the religious several times over has sought to gain growth in the region of Lake Victoria possession. and now rejoices in having Nyanza: .. When I was at the lake 18 the prize within her grasp. Of course years ago there was not a missionary the only right in the matter is might. there. Now there are 40,000 Christian Very likely a better government than natives and 200 churches. The natives the natives ever had will be set uP. good are enthusiastic converts. They would order will prevail, roads will be built. spend their last penny to acquire a and all that; but the gravest fears may Bible. They are not like the blacks of well be entertained that a course of the West Coast; in fact, there are no vexatious and disastrous meddling with real Ethiopians among them. They Protestant missions will be commenced. vary in color from light yellow to dark If only these are let alone, and the copper. and are much more intelligent Jesuits are kept within decent bounds, than the blacks." all may yet be well.
ISLANDS OF THE SEA. CHINESE AND JAPANESE IN THE -The many friends of the Rev. W. G_ UNITED STATES. Lawes, of New Guinea. in Australia and New Zealand, will be gratified to There are about 100,000 Chinese resilearn that the University of Glasgow dents in the United States. and more has conferred upon him the degree of than 90,000 attend no Christian service. Doctor of Divinity. He has devoted nearly thirty-five years of untiring work The Japanese in America number to Christian· literature and Christian about 2100. Missions are carried on education in Polynesia and New Guinea. among both of these claBSes by the Presand the quality of the work he has done byterians, Methodists, and others with in training pastors and evangelists, and 'considerable success. The Young Men's in translating from the Qri~n~l ~lAa. Christian Association has been the means of a good work among them on the Pacific slope.
The Missionary Review of the World — December 1890
I•I. 882 LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
Vox.; XIII. No. 12.-0Id Series.– DECEMBER. –VOL. m. No. 12.-New Serie3.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE. A NOBLE FRIEND OF MISSIONS.
BY MRS. JAMES S. DENNIS, BEIRU'l', SYRIA.
It is inspiring to all loyal lovers of the Kingdom of God to recalI the varied sources of its tribute, and the widely contrasted ranks in society which have yielded it allegiance. It kindles the heart to observe how the sceptre of that Kingdom has waved, up and down the centuries, compelling history to proclaim its sway. Literature has lent the charm of her gracefnl periods to exalt its pure and noble principles. Science, perchance unconscious of its unsought honor, has delved for its service. It brings its wealth from far, and unexpected gifts are poured into its treasury. Truly "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof," and, with deep gladness, we learn that "His Kingdom ruleth over all."
To those of us who are accustomed to fix our eyes intently on certain agencies of the church, as the main, if not the only, means of extending the reign of Divine law, order, beauty and righteousness, it comes almost as a delightful surprise to note how often those not directly connected with such agencies are, in their own way, helping on the one grand work. 'l'ruth is one, whether sung by the poet, painted or chiseled by-the artist, proclaimed by the orator, toiled for by the statesman, died for by the soldier, preached or taught by the humble missionary. Into this fellowship of service it is a refreshment to come.
The story of the life of Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe,* is an illustration of the valuable work done for God's Kingdom by one holding a lofty social and diplomatic position in the kingdoms of this world. Daniels there have been, starring the course of history all down the ages, men raised up to stand firmly for righteousness, justice, and the liberty of the human soul, even amid the dark though high places of sin and oppression-among these this honored name has a place. No human character is perfect, and his was marred by an imperious temper which often flashed with too hot a hlaze; but rarely do we find a more tenacious hold upon principle, * The thread of thisnaJTative is mainly drawn from the able volumes on the "Life of Strat- ford Canning,Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe," by Stanley Lane-Poole. Additional information has been derived from "Forty Years in the Turkish Empire," and an article on "Civil and Religous Liberljy in Turkey," in the Princeton Review for October, 1875, by Rev. E. D. G. Prime, D.D. gr~ater devotion to duty, stronger faith in Providence, more unre- lenting efforts in behalf of human rights and religious liberty, in the face of almost unconquerable difficulties, extending through many long years.
A brave and loyal Englishman, gladly representing his own hon- ored sovereign, his fealty was to that Kingdom which shall embrace all the kingdoms of this world. His long life of nearly 94 years began in the heart of London in 1786. It was destined to touch many lands in its influence, and, extending over so large a portion of this wonderful 19th century, to come into contact with many phases of its history and many of its earnest questions. Only after his three score years and ten had passed was he able, with any sense of abiding, to linger in England-the land so devotedly loved during all the years of his foreign service. The exceptional beauty, as well as moral and intellectual vigor, of those later years in his English home must have been something of a compensation for his long period of exile. He must, however, have found a deeper satisfaction in the consciousness that he had been able to accomplish much towards the establishment of the principles of justice and religious liberty in the land which had been the field of his most prolonged labors. Some disappointment mingled with his content and some sadness that what had been ob- tained in word had not all been carried out in deed; but, we trust, that he, too, like the men of faith of old, though not receiving the fullness of the promise, was able to discern it afar.
When only 20 years of age 11r. Canning began his association with the diplomatic service, being appointed to the position of second sec- retary to the Mission to Copenhagen, through the influence of his relative, George Canning, then at the head of the foreign department.
He left Cambridge to accept this office, which had but a two months'
tenure-the Danes continuing, at that time, to maintain an attitude of hostility toward England. Ere another year had ,passed, we find him af'l secretary to the mission of the plenipotentiary, Mr. Adair, entering the Dardanelles, and having his introduction to the scenes where, later in life, he was to wield so important an influence and to maintain so dignified a position. He was fascinated with the beauty of scenery and the historic charms of the East, which his poetical and classical tastes enabled him to appreciate well. 'l'here was, however, much in the human elements of the situation which was utterly distasteful to him. Again and again, during his residence, did he "shake the dust of Stamboul from his feet" with the firm resolve never to return there.
Still, the strangely reiterated call of duty found him ever obedient, and six times did he go back. Only at the age of 73 did he say a last farewell to Constantinople. These early years of his life there were a peculiar training for his later service. Singular and great responsi- bilities were laid on his young shoulders. In 1808, the time lVIr. Adair entered upon his mission, Europe was in a most confused and intricate political situation, Napoleon being on the scene of action. England was at war not only with France, but in a sense, with the countries under French influence. She had been in conflict with Turkey, not on account of British grievances, but for those of Russia. Later in the same year she found herself in discord with Russia herself. Such were the kaleidoscopic changes and counter- changes of the time. '1'he aim of lVIr. Adair's mission was to arrange a peace with Turkey, and the negotiations for the consummation of this object afforded young Canning his first lessons in the vexatious and procrastinating diplomacy of the '!'urks. The French, on their part, brought every possible influence to bear upon the Porte, to deter her from acceding to England's propositions. The desired result, was, however, at last accomplished, and the "Treaty of the Darda- nelles" was signed in January, 1809.
On the departure of Mr. Adair, in 1810, 111'. Canning, in his 24th year, was placed in the responsible position of minister-plenipotenti- aryat the Sublime Porte. The time was at hand for him to enter upon his true career in a contest of high importance. Napoleon was pre~:; ing on in deep-laid schemes for Eastern dominion. His aim was nothing less than the spoliation of the Ottoman Empire, To withstand, in battle, this man of prestige and might, in his grasping and selfish ambitions, was the work set before the youthful minister. Far from England, with no one in Constantinople on whom he could rely for advice, alone he entered upon the task. A mysterious silence rested upon the office of the Foreign Secretary, in London. "The fact seems incredible," says Canning's biographer, "nevertheless it is true, that not a word of political'instructions did he receive during these two years in which he (at thi::; time) ,'eprcoellteJ EllglanJ at the rurte." This was the school in which he was trained in self-reliance, and in which were developed his rare diplomatic abilities. Most keenly, however, did he feel his isolation and responsibility. Oft and oft did he besiege the Foreign Office for instructions, but for some unexplained cause the silence on the subject of his repeated dispatches remained unbroken.
.The "Treaty of Bucharest" effecting a peace between Russia and the Porte, signed in 1812, was the outcome of these labors. By means of this, the Russian army of the Danube was released and enabled to oppose the French. The Duke of Wellington afterwards wrote, in terms of extreme laudation, of the value of the work that had thus been done, rating it even as "the most important service that ever fell to the lot of an individual to perform:" Thus early in life was he pr?videntially the agent in accomplishing great results, and his writings indicate his appreciation of the deep moral responsibility resting upon him. There is something pathetic in the stripling, alone, without human <.lounsel, being left to deal with issiles of such vast import, but it is sometimes the way of the Supreme Ruler to carry-out His great designs through a single individual.
Canning, notwithstanding his success, was ever yearning for England, the centre of his affections and ambitions. Having resigned his position in Constantinople, we find him again at home, but it is not for long. In 1814, he was sent to assist in the reconstruction of Switzerland, and later, in connection with Swiss affairs, he mingles in ,the crowd of sovereigns, soldiers and statesmen who gather at the Vienna Congress.
In 1819, he went for three years as Minister to the United States, and, in 1824, he received his appointment as Ambassador to Turkey. At this time, the question of the liberation of Greece and her restoration to an independent existence, was one which enlisted the attention of many generous souls. Canning was one who, from an enthusiastic interest in the classic past and an ever-kindling indignation at cruelty and oppression, as well as sympathy in struggles for attainment of just human rights, naturally felt deeply in reference to the future of Greece. Before going to Constantinople, his instructions embraced a visit to the court:of St. Petersburg, for the purpose of negotiations in connection with the Greek question. Returning from Russia, he was married to the lovely lady who seems to have been a rare helpmeet through his remaining years. Her intelligent sympathy, restraining gentleness, and sincere piety enriched and strengthened his life. On their way to Constantinople they visited Greece. Canning there had informal conferences with the Greek patriots, and saw with his own eyes some of the horrors which had stirred so many hearts. lIe wrote, at this time: "Heavens! how I long to be the instrument of repairing such calamities by carrying my mission of peace and deliverance to a successful issue." Thus he e!ltered upon this period of his work at Constantinople which was that of mediation in reference to Greek affairs. Laborious, indeed, were his efforts, though fruitless.
These were times of tragedies. Fear of the J anizaries had so shaken the heart of the Sultan that he considered their extermination a necessity for self-preservation and they perished in blood. Murders abounded. Life was of little account. Corpses floated past the home of the British Legation, on the Bosphorus. 'fhe reign of terror was enhanced in its horrors by the presence of the plague. Conflagrations raged, but still the Ambassador, with his brave young wife, remained at their post. In the Autumn of 1827 came the battle of Navarino. The day of mediation was over. The flags of the consuls were struck and the three embassies of England, France and Russia disappeared from the scene. Canning returned to England, but in 1829 was sent to the conference at Poros, to discuss the form of governmeiIt and frontier for Gt:eece. He paused in the harbor of N avarino, where "a deep quiet had replaced the thunder of battle." Faithfully did he toil in laying the foundation stones of the new Greece. Often did his heart sink as he witnessed the dissensions and divisions among her po- liticalleaders, threatening to make valueless that for which so much had been sacrificed. The true patriots, it is said, "all hailed him as the saviour of their country."
However much we hope that an enlightened Christianity and a fuller civilization may yet do for this interesting land, we cannot visit her to-day and note ;the upspringing life, the system of common schools, the really magnificent institutions of a higher grade, and the open Bible, without a sense of gratitude to those whose services were so laboriously given in this formative period of her new existence.
Passing hastily over the period of Mr. Canning's special mission to Turkey, in 1831, his occupancy of a seat in the House of Commons, and his brief mission to Madrid, we come to the most interesting and important period of his own life, that extending over the 16 years between 1842 and 1858. These years, with short intervals of absence were spent as England's ambassador at Constantinople. He was called the "Great Elchi," this being the term applied at the Porte to an ambassador, in distinction from that given to a minister, which was simply "Elchi." The dignity of the title had special meaning in his case, for it was known ere long in the whole extent of the Turkish Empire as a tower of strength and refuge to the oppressed and wronged of whatever race or religion. In 1851 he was created Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe. His fac3 and presence were singularly noble and impressive, his manners of the old school of courtesy, his speech grave, quiet, simple, and sincere. When he felt himself officially representing his Queen and his country, he was indeed an august personage, but in the intimate converse of friendship "his frank graciousness was captivating, and he showed only the aspect of the cultivated scholar of Eton and Cambridge-the simple-hearted gentleman, the poetic idealist, the man of high thoughts and glowing imagination." He was, when entering upon this period of service, 55 years of age,and we note in him a deeper seriousness and a loftier tone. The passing years, with their varied opportunities and great responsibilities, had enriched and strengthened him. We find him furnished for what yet remains for him to do. He enters now upon a gJ;eat work of reformation in the Turkish Empire itself. During his previous residence in Constantinople his mind had been largely absorbed in outside interests, but now he conceives the idea of using all his influence to inaugurate or help on beneficent reforms. Hitherto, they seem not to have occurred to him as possible. With resoluteness, persistent determination and pj).tient devotion, he addresses himself to the task of securing not only freedom from many lesser grievances, but the establishment of equal rights and liberty of conscience. That he suc-
lDec
ceeded in accomplishing much, the grateful expressions of large num- bers testify.
That there has been but imperfect fulfillment of solemn promises, is no reflection upon him who,with such untiring efforts, obtained them. A true friend to Turkey, and seeking the best interests of her people, he was in full harmony with those men and women who were also seeking her true weal by preaching and teaching the eternal principles of truth, which, when received by any nation, must redound to its most genuine prosperity.
Great changes had, however, already come. Some glimmer of the light shining so brightly in Western Christendom had penetrated here. Turkey, even through her wars, had come into contact with a different civilization from her own. Mahmud II. had had sincere, though perhaps, indefinite desires for a better condition of things for his country. The fall of the J anizaries had put an end to a military despotism, and with the disappearance of this, Mahmud had hoped to accomplish something. The Sultan met with only opposition from the throng of Turkish officials, and little to help him in any quarter. There is something rather touching in the crude efforts he made. If he had had a fuller enlightenment and had received greater "ympathy, he might have achieved happier results. He, however, like many another dreamer, died without seeing his visions take the form of realities, but he bequeathed to his son, Abdu-I-Mejid, a disposition towards reform. This youth of 16 came to the throne in 1839. He was amiable and wellintentioned, and had much about him that was humane and kindly, but he was also weak and irresolute. The personal relations between him and Lord Canning seem to have been of unusual friendliness, and it is probable that under the influence of such a character as that of the "Great Elchi" more was obtained from him than if he had been of a different mould. Most of the Turkish statesmen were antagonistic to this influence, and sought to make the young Sultan a prey to their machinati?ns. It was, therefore, with infinite patience and skill that most of the reforms were obtained. There was, however, one 'l'urkish official, Rashid Pasha, who was in warm sympathy with these new ideas. He had been ambassador to England, and later to Paris, during the administration of M. Guizot.
Abdu-I·Mejid, very early in his reign, assembled at his palace the vassals of his empire and his officials with the foreig: I ambassadors, and caused to be read to them the first formal Bill of Rights ever granted by the Sultans. It was theo"Hatti Sherif of Gul Hane." It did not touch the subject of religion but confined itself to three points: "1st. Guaranteeing to all the subjects of the Porte security of life, honor and property.
"2d. Regular systf'nl of levying and collecting the taxes.
LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE
"3d. An established system of recruiting the army and defining the period of service."
Thus was taken the "first step in a series of constitutional guarantees which afterwards took the form of charters of religious freedom, culminating in the celebrated 'Hatti Humayoun' of 1856." Not long after the charter of Gul Hane was given, the sincerity of the Turkish government was well tested. A young Armenian subject of the Porte had embraced Islam, but afterwards returned to his Christian faith, having repented of hIS apostasy. He remained firm, though subjected to severe ordeals. He was then sentenced to death. Sir Stratford de Redcliffe, in connection with the ambassadors of some of the other European Powers, exerted himself to the utmost to save his life, but without avail. The youngman was killed under circumstances of exceptional cruelty, but his death was not fruitless. Such an exhibition of barbarity stirred deeply the representatives of Christian Powers, and especially the English ambassador. An extensive correspondence with their respective governments ensued. The pressure brought to bear upon the Porte was of tIle strongest kind. Lord Canning made a study of the Koran in search of proof from that book itself that such executions were illegal. When he placed his official not~ to the Porte on the subject in the hands of Mr. Pisani, the principal interpreter of the Legation, Mr. Pisani expressed the opinion that it would not succeed. "Mr. Pisani, it shall," was the reply; and succeed it did, for Sir Stratford secured from the Ottoman Govel'llment the following pledge: "The sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures to prevent henceforward the execution and putting to death of a Christian who is an apostate."
Two days later, in a personal interview with the Sultan himself, he secured another still more important guarantee, as follows: "Declaration of his highness, the Sultan, to Sir Stratford Canning at his audience on the 23d of March, 1844: "Henceforth neither shall Christianity be insulted in my dominions, nor shall Christians be in any way persecuted for their religion."
In reference to this declaration Lord Canning afterwards said, "It seemed little less than a miracle, and God alone could have brought it about."
As time passed on, and in connection with missionary labors, the number of Protestant converts greatly increased. The result was bitter persecution on the part of the Armenian ecclesiastics, and through them communicated to the people. "Defamed, maltreated, cut off from means of support, stoned and imprisoned," the distress of these adherents of evangelical truth was extreme. Again Sir Stratford put forth his efforts, andi"succeeded after much trouble,'in securing a recognized position for the Protestants, as such, and the right of con· verts to he protected by the civil authorities from vexation on the part of their relinquished churches." The result was embodied in the "Protestant Charter of 1847." This, however, had one defect, it was signed only by the Grand Vizier, Rashid, and was liable, according to the organic law of the empire, to be repealed. In 1850, through the same influence, another firman was obtained confirming the charter and signed by the Sultan himself. Notwithstanding these guarantees, the persecutions did not altogether cease, and in 1853 another firman still was issued by the Sultan, copies of which were sent to all Protestant headmen in the empire, and also to the governors, with strict orders that it should not be disregarded. The object of this was designed to make it clearly understood that the charter was a reality, and would be enforced.
Among the illustrations of the spirit, honor and humanity of Lord Canning was that afforded in connection with the episode of the IIungarian patriots, Kossuth and others, who fled as refugees to Turkey. He used the full weight of his influence to prevent the Porte from yielding to the demands of Russia that they slOuld be given up, and sheltered, hi!llseIf, some of the children at the Legation. "The Ambassador," it is said, "with all the impressive solemnity which he knew so well how to use, bade the Porte have courage, be true to the everlasting principles of honor and humanity, be true to its own independence and dignity, and boldly refuse to obey the Czar's commands."
We now approach the period of the Crimean war, a season of great and manifold responsibility to England's ambassador. Whatever may be thought of that war and its results, it was overruled to secure greater promises of religious liberty, It is interesting to know that at this season "special prayer was offered by the missionaries in behalf of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, that he might be endued with the spirit of wisdom in conducting his important negotiations, and that in counseling the Sultan, he, too, might have counsel from aboye. Never before had the position of this representative of the British Government and devoted friend of the cause of Christ been so responsible, and never before did he hold such influential relatiollS t() the Porte.
The later grants in behalf of religious liberty were embodied in the famous "Hatti-Humayoun" in 1856. The Sultan, with solemn form and ceremony, proclaimed this edict, promising equal civil and religious rights.
There were present Turkish ministers, the Council of State, the Grand Mufti, patriarch~, rabbis, and other heads of religious communities. At the time it was issued, it "was generally regarded as a complete guarantee of religious liberty to all the subjects of the Porte of whatever creed." "In March, 1856," as stated in the Life of Dr. Goodell, "eleven missionaries of the American Board, together with four other missionary laborers and two British chaplains, united in presenting to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, through whose special agency the charter had been obtained, an address acknowledging in the warmest terms the important service he had rendered to the cause of humanity and of Christianity in Turkey." This address speaks feelingly of "the better day" dawning upon the millions of Turkey, and indulges in joyous anticipations of their social and religious free- dom. Clouds have somewhat obscured that bright dawn, but the Turkey of to-day is on a far higher plane than at the time Mr. Can- ning began his labors for reform. Those who love the Kingdom of God, and whose unselfish interest in Turkey'S millions is still steady and true, may yet see the promise of the dawn fulfilled in the splendor of the perfect day.
Many are the testimonies to the diplomatic skill and perseverance of Sir Stratford as well as to his services in the cause of religious liberty and his support of Christian missions. Dr. Goodell, who was in rare circumstances to thoroughly understand the good which had been accomplished, in a letter, on the occasion of Lord Canning's departure to England, at the close of his period of service, in referring to the changes which had taken place, says: "In these changes your name stands connected with all that is worthy to rise and prosper, with all that is stable and enduring. Connected, as it is, with the great cause of civil and religious liberty, it stands connected with that which shall never pass away, for it is as etern~l as the immutable purpose of Infinite Goodness can make it, and when this cause shall triumph in 'I'm'key (and triumph it shall), and the future history of the country shall be written, the influence and important agency of your lordship will DOt fail of a public recognition and a due acknowledgment."
It was a source of keen regret to Lord Canning, that the "Treaty of Paris," which recognized the "Hatti-Humayoun," did not contain iome provision for its enforcement. On this he strenuously insisted, hut the Powers of Europe refused to do that which might have secured more fully the advantages of the victory he had won.
An indication of the crumbling of barriers between Frank and Turk, Christians and Moslems occurred in the presence of the Sultan himself at a festive entertaiment given at the residence of the English Ambassador. It was the first time in the history of Turkey that .a Sultan had been the guest of a Christian Ambassador. The occasion has been described with picturesque beauty, but the moral import of the scene must have been deeply felt by the thoughtful gazer. The Golden Horn rang with the salvos of cannon. The brilliant throng of representatives of many races looked on with wonder as· Sir Stratford walked hand in hand with the Sultan through the lines of British Soldiers.
But now Sir Stratford's residence in the East was approaching it~ close. After his severe toil during the years of t}:te war and his sub- sequent diplomatic labors he was worn and weary, and asked for a leave of absence. This, after reaching England, principally in con- sequence of a change in the ministry, was followed by his resignation. He returned to Constantinople to close up affairs and take an im- pressive and dignified farewell. Many grateful expressions from varied nationalities touched his heart. " Nothing," it is said, " came more sweetly to the ear of the departing statesman than the memo- rial of the American missionaries, in which they recited the many reforms which he had brought into Turkey, and especially the aboli- tion of executions for apostasy, the recognition of the Protestant community, the open sale of the Bible in the 'l'urkish bazaars, and the building of the first Protestant church in Jerusalem; and added' we love to consider your lordship's influence as one of the important providential means by which God has been pleased to carryon his work.' "
Sir Stratford's last public act in Constantinople was the laying the foundation stone of a Protestant memorial church on a noble site given by the Sultan. The church was to be a monument of the brave Englishmen who had fallen in the recent war, and, at the same time, of the religious freedom which made it possible to have it there in the near neighborhood of a Moslem mosque. A great multitude gathered. The noble old man, with his white locks and imposing form, spoke a few solemn last words before he took the trowel in his hand, and then having fulfilled his office, followed by throngs of the people to whom he had been so true a friend, he went to the landingplace aud took a last farewell. On his homeward voyage he paused at Smyrna and was received with similar respect and feeling. He was there led in triumph to open the first railway line ever laid in Turkey.
His great public work was done, but he continued from the retirement of his English home to exert a wide and beneficent influence. Removed from the wear and vexation of public responsibility his often heated spirit grew in sweetness and calm, though ever ready to flash in indignation at a wrong, or to kindle with enthusiasm at a noble deed. The tastes of his youth solaced him in his old age. Poetry and literature received some worthy additions from his pen. Two small volumes, entitled" Why amI a Christian?" "The Greatest of Miracles," testify to the firmness of a religious faith he would fain leave on record for the solace and strength of others. An essay for the Princeton Review, on " The Ennobling Influence of Reverence in the'Vorld," lay unfinished on his table at the time of his death. So he went slowly and gently down the valley, which for him had but little of shadow.
" Long sweet days of golden haze "
.ended at last in one whose sunset was full of calm and beauty. Sir Robert Morier thus records his last visit to him not long before his death: "His intellect was as clear, his speech as incisive, his interest in poetry and politics as keen as when I last S3/W him three years ago. It was a beautiful English summer afternoon; a warm sun lit up his pale features, which still retained their splendid outline and were entirely wanting in the wrinkles or withered look of extreme old age. . . He seemed some grand old Titan majestically sinking to his rest in all his glory, as if he knew the Infinite was waiting to receive him in all due honor."
He was laid to rest in the little quiet churchyard of Frant village, lmt a statue in 'Vestminster Abbey is a national tribute to his memory. Dean Stanley's eloquence recounted his services to mankind, and Tennyson wrote the lines which are engraved on the base of his statue. Before his death his Queen sent him her thanks for his great and valued services. A higher meed was his from his Divine Sovereign: " Well done good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
THE LAND OF MARTYRS AND MISSIONARIES.
EDITORIAL.
vYe mean dear old Scotland! 'Yhat other land is so full of memorials and monuments of the martyrs who died, or the heroes who lived, for the testimony of Christ's Crown and covenant ? We went llOwhere without treading on sacred ground, and breathing an atmosphere of consecration! At Dundee's gate, where 'Vishart preached to the victims of plague; at St. Andrews, where he was burned; at JEantyre, where Livingstone was bol'll; at Strathaven, whence the :Martins went to India and Jamaica; in Edenburgh Church yard, where the tablet records the Martyrs and the tombstone held the covenant signed with blood! No wonder such godly ministers succeeded such martyrs; that such great missionary meetings are held, such numbers ofIeI' to go to the heathen, and even the poorest give 1,0 missions! God bless dear old Scotland!
/ A SUGGESTION.
God's ships of treasure sail upon the sea Of boundless love, of mercy infinite; To change their course, retard their onward way, Nor wind nor wave hath might.
Prayer is the tide for which the vessels wait E'er they can come to port, and if it be The tide is low, then how canst thou expect The treasure ship to see. -Anna Temple.
AN A~mRICA~ "PERSIS THE BELOVED."
AN AMERICAN "PERSIS THE BELOVED."
BY TALBOT W. CHAlIBERS, D.D., NEW YORK.
In the interesting list of friends and disciples at Rome, to whom the Apostle Paul sends Christian salutations in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Church in that city, occurs the name of one not men- tioned elsewhere, yet highly distinguished here. It is "Persis the be- loved, which labored much in the l"ord," (R.V.)-a woman of such a character as to win affection in a remarkable degree, and at the same time an efficient worker in the Lord's vineyard. She who combined these features went to her reward ages ago, but her name remains imperishable on the sacred record, an example and a stimulus to all succeeding generations. Nor has it lieen without fruit. Again and again have been seen, in the various branches of the Church, goodly women, of whom all that knew them would be willing to use the terms which the Apostle applied to Persis. It is one of these to whom the present paper is devoted. And it is prepared with the more zeal and interest because the chiefest form of her service is one that has been very greatly and very widely misrepresented.
A striking instance of this misrepresentation is found in one of the well-known novels of the late Charles Dickens. That popular writer was a firm believer in the Christian religion, as appears from statements made in his last will and testament, and in his letters to his sons. But he had a singular method of showing it. In alll1is early fictions, wherever a minister of the Gospel is introduced, he turns out to be a self-seeking hypocrite, whose life constantly belies his profes~ sions. And not until almost the last of his books does it appear that the author had ever met a clergy,man who lived as he preached, and was sincere and self-denying. In the tale entitled "Bleak House," we are introduced to the famous Mrs. J ellaby, who figures as one of the first philanthropists of the age, and at the same time is conspieuous for the neglect of every domestic duty. She is deeply interested in an African settlement called Borrioboola-Gha, and to this devotes all her time and strength, holding meetings, instituting branch aid societies, maintaining an extensive correspondence and issuing circulars· by the thousand, while her own household is entirely overlooked and her husband and children are made wretched. The good woman does not see this, being entirely carried away by her sympathies with the human race. Nor does it occur to her that she is at all to blame, since she is not at all indolent, but indeed so overwhelmed with public business that she does not know which way to turn. The whole sketch is very lifelike and amusing; nor can anyone deny the deft hand of him who drew it. But the question arises, How much of truth does it contain? Is it drawn from life? Does Mrs. Jellaby represent a class of real personages? No one wishes to assume the responsibility of a universal negative; but I must say that I have never met, in actual life or in any biographical records, any pel'sons whose course would even suggest a hint for such a'revolting caricature.
But, be that as it may, it is certain that there is no necessary con- nection between an intense zeal and activity for the conversion of the world, and the disregard of the claims of one's own family. Rather the contrary is true. For the best friends of foreign missions are usually interested ill all minor spheres of duty and usefulness. No more shining example of this has been seen in modern times than in the excellent lady referred to in the title of this paper, as an Ameri- can "Persis the Beloved." This was Sarah Platt Haines, the wife of Thomas C. Doremus, of New.York city. She was born in 1802, and died in 1877, her life thus covering three-quarters of a century. In 1821 she was married, forming a happy connection which was broken only by her death.
She was conspicuous for interest in foreign missions, and for her continuous and unsparing labors in their behalf. The impulse came when she was a little girl and accompanied her mother to meetings, where such eminent believers as Mrs. Isabella Graham and Mrs. Divie Bethune were accustomed to pray for the world's conversion. As years passed on her interest became a settled conviction, dominating her whole life. Her husband, being like-minded with herself, so far from putting obstacles in her way, co-operated to the extent of his ability. There seem to have been no limits to her activity. Her houfre was always open to missionaries of the Cross, on their way to and from their fields of labor. She performed for them a thousand offices of kindness, seeing to the completeness of their outfit, providing little comforts that had been overlooked, and guarding against unpleasant contingencies. Nor did her ministrations cease until they had actually commenced their journey. And so on their return. Usually the first face that met the weary traveler was that of Mrs. Doremus. She was ready to make all the arrangements needful for them and their baggage, and often, by her forethought, saved them from serious perplexity. This kind attention was rendered not only to persons connected with her own denomination but also to the representatives of all evangelical churches. It was enough for her that they were heralds of the Cross, laboring in the regions beyond. She spared no pains t~ aid them in the accomplishment of their mission. It made no difference whether the work was done in Greece, in Canada, or in the wide wastes of heathenism, nor to, what body of Christians would accrue the fame arising from success; she was always ready to help. In the year 1861 she was active in forming the Woman's Union Mission Society, which has done so much in advancing the cause, not only by its direct efforts, but also by its influence in leading to the formation of similar organizations in all parts of our country. For the first fifteen years of its existence her own house was the headquarters of the society, and contained all its machinery. Besides her personal inter- course with missionaries, she maintained an extensive correspondence with them while in the field, and frequently sent them books and peri- odicals, such as would cheer them in their toils or enable them better to fulfil their calling. So active and assiduous was she in these vari- ous forms of aiding the missionary enterprise, that it is not easy even for those acquainted with all its details to mention or conceive any- thing that she left undone. She habitually did more than anyone be- forehand would have deemed possible. And. this, too, through sum- mer's heat and winter's cold, and often in periods of great physical debility.
Yet with all this intense devotion there was no one-sidedness; least of all, was there any neglect of home or domestic duties. No hint of Mrs. J ellaby could be seen in her well-ordered household, where cheerfulness always reigned, and love was the mainspring of every word and act. I remember her telling me once, that when she was married she and her husband elltered into an arrangement, according to which he was never to disturb her with any mention of his business troubles, . and she was not to disturb him by recounting any housekeeping worries. She was the mother of nine children, not one of whom was ever forgotten or neglected for an hour. Their home was always made bright and attractive. She habitually dispensed a cordial and generous hospitality, of which very many besides the writer retain a lively recollection. Her delight seemed to be in doing good, and not a few can recall little kindnesses, the omission of which would have excited 110 attention, but which it was a real pleasure for her to render and others to receive. This was particularly the case in regard to ministers .of the Gospel, all of whom she highly esteemed in love for their work's sake.
At a meeting recently held in this city with the view of procuring playgrounds for the children of tenement houseR, a lady of repute made a speech in which she said: "She was of the opinion that the hundreds of thousands of dollars sent out of this country for foreigrimission work might be better spent in educating physically, mentally and morally the children who dwell in the slums of New York, and who are going to be men and women of the coming generation."* The good lady only expressed a common misapprehension in suggesting the thought that the funds given for Foreign Missions are just so much subtracted from what would otherwise be given to philanthropic work at home. Intelligent observation shows just the contrary. One species of work reacts favorably upon another. Friends· of the foreign work are usually as much interested in the domestic. Certainly this was the case with Mrs. Doremus, as the merest mention of her course will show. For very many years she did the marketing *Reported in the New York Tribune September za, 1890. twice a week, for two and sometimes three benevolent 'institutions with which she was connected. For more than a generation she was an active member of the Woman's Prison Association. She assisted in founding and maintaining the Nursery and Child's Hospital. She did so much toward the establishment of the Women's Hospital that it may truly be said to owe its existence to her. The Presbyterian Home for Aged Women had her for one of its active managers, alld she was personally interested in the Gould Memorial for the Italo- American schools. Nor were her untiring energy and far.seeing saga- city confined to public institutions. In every good w.ork conducted by the City Church, of which she was a member, she took part, besides ministering in a private way to the needs of individuals and house- holds, suffering froll?- sickness or bereavement, or the manifold ills of narrow means.
Now, considering the character and course of Mrs. Doremus, het' varied and constant activity in every form of usefulness, it is not pre- sumptous to claim for her what the Apostle said of the bright orna- ment of the Roman communion," She labored much in the Lord.'r Her voice was not heard in the streets, nor did she ever attract public attention. She never transgressed the proprieties of her sex, yet her influence was felt from one end of New York to the other, as well as far off on the sea. She was a woman of pleasing form and features, of graceful mien, and with a bright eye and a winning smile. She had a good mind and the best culture that was attainable in her youth. And with her social surroundings she might have shone in any g~ 01' fashionable circle, but her taste did not run in that direction. She preferred to bestow her pleasant presence and gracious fellowship .where they would most contribute to human comfort and the honor of Christ. Her piety, while deep and earnest, was intelligent and genial; never obtrusive, and always simple and natural in its mode of ex- pression. She was a strong believer, and obstacles which overpowered the weak faith of others only roused her to more persevering effort. She had a passion for doing good, which grew with het· years, but there was nothing quixotic or fanciful in its manifestations. It was simply a determined purpose to enter every door of usefulness which Providence opened before her. The cause of missions doubtless lay nearest her heart, but it never stood in the way of anything else that promised to do honor to God or service to man. Her heart was large, her temper was sweet, and her tongue under constant control. Nor is there any reason to think that outward activity took the place of in- ward communion with God; on the contrary it was the deep sense of things divine and spiritual, the pervading love of an unseen Saviour .that prompted her numerous and unceasing toils. She had trials of various kinds, some of them quite severe, but they were borne with unquestioning submission, and her frequent remark that" cheerfulness is a Christian dnty" was illustrated by her own example, even amid weakness and pain.
Further details of her character and course might be given, but ~mough has been said to answer the purpose of this record, which has no other end in view than to expose. the emptiness and folly of such caricatures as Mr. Dickens drew in his account of Mrs. J ellaby, and to do this simply by a faithful and unvarnished account of a recent life spent in this .great metropolis-such a life as shows convincingly how consistent may be the most intense devotion to the conversion of the heathen world, with a perfect balance of character and a strict regard to the proprieties of woman and the claims of home.
The illustrious galaxy of holy women mentioned in the New 'restament-Lydia, Phrebe, Tryphena and Triphosa, Persis, Euodia and Syntyche, did not exhaust the possibilities of feminine excellence and usefulness. In every age they have been rivaled; in none more certainly than our own, as is seen in the consecrated career of Mrs. Doremus.
EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS.
MR. MEIGS finely said at the late National Missionary Convention, in Indianapolis, that the object of that gathering was to "work down the missionary spiIit." He explained that usually missionary interest first· struck the head, and after a while got as far as the mouth, then the heart, conscience and will, and by and by the pocket, and last of all the legs and feet! Blessed are they on whom the missionary spirit works down far enough to produce those winged sandals-the alacrity of a messenger of the Gospel!
" IF the salt have lost his savor it is thenceforth good for nothmg but to he cast out and trodden under foot," etc. Bishop Thoburn says: "If the church should so lose sight of God's purpose concerning her, as deliberately to determine not to carry the Gospel to the world, in one second God's judgments would sweep such a church away from the earth, as no longer of any more use than savorless salt."
FRUITS OF MISSIONS.-When Rev. James Calvert was asked to give in one sentence a proof of the success of missions, he said: "When I arrived at the Fiji group, my first duty was to bury the hands, arms, feet and heads of eighty victims whose bodies had heen roasted and eaten in a Cannibal feast. I lived to see those very Cannibals, who had taken part in that inhuman feast, gathered about the Lord's table." Truly, the gospel is still the Power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth!
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK IN FRA;>cr:. 139'1
'fHE PRESENT OUTLOOK IN FRANCE.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] France is just now the eynosure of all eyes. N atiolls are marvel- tlUsly attracted toward her in these days. The last year, 1889, was the centennial year of the French Revolution. On the 5th of May, of that year, was reached the full completion of the hundredth year since the "States-General" assembled, and tbe Revolution was inau- gurated-the Revolution, that for ten years was busy, through ear- nage, through many forms of severe trial and disorder, inlaying the foundations of the present Freneh nationality. That was a remark- able year of our Lord, that year 1789; and anyone who has been familiar with that most significant series of events, which we group together under the name of the "Freneh Revolution," will believe that it is no exaggeration to say that no more stupendous 'series of events, in the magnitude of the interests involved, the magnitude of the permanent results secured, and the magnitude of the sufferings and sacrifices undergone-no more stupendous series of events, in all that goes to make occurrences memorable, has been known in modern history, than those whieh oecurred between the assembling of the States-General and the first consulship of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Who could have believed that in the space of one hundred years our eyes would be looking upon a scene so vastly different in all its aspects, interests, struggles, achievements, promises. The writer confesses that he feels a peculiar interest in the French nation. It has been hinted to him that his own ancestry is Huguenot; and he is sure that he is a Huguenot in religious faith, and more than half a Frenchman in temperament.
A great deal has been said about the fickleness and excitability of the Freneh people. Some like to quote that famous saying of Daniel O'Connell's, "The Irishman's blood is quicksilver," and transfer it to the Frenchman. But quicksilver has been put to many very important uses, and it is especially noticeable that it has a remarkable affinity for the preeious metals. All people that are faithless, i. e., without a true religious faith) are fickle. If you want to insure steadiness, you must give a ship a star to steel' by, and a rudder to steer with. It may be doubted whether to-day there are any more faithful, persistent, and steady-going people than the French, when you lodge in a Frenchman's heart a pure evangelical faith. It is not certainly for those to depreciate the French, who remember the Huguenots. Where shall we find a more faithful and steadfast people than the Huguenot martyrs of France?
As to this "quicksilver"-this mercurial temperament-we COIlfess that we have a strong liking for fire. 'When fire is subdued it gets to be fervor, and if there is anything we hate it is apathy, indifference, stagnation. Electricity may do damage DOW and then, but what. should we do without it when we want motive power, and mes- sage-power, and mJminating power. There is something fascinating about enthusiasm. Weare not sure but that the old derivation of that word may be the true one-en-theism-God working in us. And the Frenchman is enthusiastic; there is nothing stolid about him and nothing stupid, and we have known some Americans who were both stolid and stupid. The.natures, or characteristic qualities of men, dif- fer according to the circumstances of their development. If you would give "staying qualities" to the character, you must give character that upon which it can stay itself.
In India, a-few years ago, a human being was found in a wolf's den. He had been carried away a suckling baby, and, instead of de- vouring him, the beast chose to nourish him. From this den was that strange creature taken, foaming and frothing at the mouth, and tear- ing at the chains with which it was found necessary to bind him; but, while they were the chains of bondage, they were the signal and the symbol of liberty. You may take a human being, born of the gentle1':t mother, and rear that human being into a wolf, if you suckle him at a wolf's breast and rear him in a wolf's den ! We must never attempt to measure character without considering also environment. It is unfair to judge of a nationality without remembering the influences that have moulded a nationality. There is no people on the face of the earth that, if you give them the pure Gospel, will receive it more readily, will incorporate it more rapidly, will exemplify it more gloriously, than the French.
We have already said that we deprecate stagnation. Intellec- "rtual stagnation is bad, but moral and spiritual stagnation is criminal. e remember, in boyhood's days, hearing the petition go up, over and over again, that God would "open the doors to the nations." It was Jlever anticipated then that France, the oldest daughter, and the right arm of the papacy, would, in the year 1871, welcome an Englishman to come and teach the pure and simple Gospel of the Huguenots, even with governmental sanction and protection. In those early days Christians were praying for the doors of access to be opened. Now our missionary boards are crying, "Retrench," which is virtually saying to God, "Close these open cl001'S! " "Ve refuse to enter the doors that we prayed might be opened. Take, for example, the Presbyterian Church -which we may refer to with the less hesitation, as we belong to that body; it has great difficulty in raising less than one-third of acent a.
day per member, through twelve months, to send the Gospel into foreign countries. The question should be not, how little I can spare for God, but how much I can sacrifice for God; not, how little can I give and satisfy my conscience, but, how little can I keep and satisfy my actual reasonable necessities.
France furnishes illustration of what we have said about open I doors and unused opportunitie~. There has not been, perhaps, in all the eighteen hundred years of Christian history anyone missionary enterprise that has been more signally commended of God, blessed of God, crowned with success, and invested with holy and divine promise, than the missio~ of Robert W. McAll and his helpers in France; and yet he says: "If I had 500 laborers and $500,000 I could place every laborer and invest every dollar within six months." There is nothing more beautiful and more sublime than a certain solitariness in labors for Christ-a certain sublime aloneness with God.We see this man going across the channel, with his beloved wife, to take up, as one laborer in the midst of a great field, the work of French evan- gelization. Marvelous man and woman, those two! When we think of McAll we think of George Schmidt, when, as pioneer, he was the only missionary in the Dark Continent; we think of Robert Mor- l·ison, when, as pioneer, he was the only missionary in China; we think of Judson, when, as pioneer, he stood alone in Burmah. '1'0 furnish Dr. McAll plenty of helpers and plenty of money is one of the sub- limest privileges ever accorded to the Christian Church in these days of world-wide missions; and so it is of all missionary enterprises. If we realized our opportunity we should shout" Advance! " all along the lines and never dare to sound the signal for retreat.
If we want to invest capital, what shall we do with it? Put it where it will yield the largest investment consistent with safety.
Will you tell us any investment in American railways, in American manufactures, that compares, either for safety or certainty of large profit, with an iuvestment in such a work as that of missions? To give to these eager multitudes a simple open Bible, to give to these mercurial Frenchmen something to turn this fire into fervor, something to transform this temperamental he~t into energy and holy enthusiasm; to make it sure that in Papal lands Jesus Christ may'be held up as a crucified, risen, all-sufficient Saviour; that the authority of the ,"Vord of God may be exalted over tradition, over Pope and College of Car- dinals, and hosts of designing priests; and to make sure that, to those who know not the simple Gospel, may be revealed the secret of salva- tion and sanctification in Christ-is not that an enterprise worth all our zeal? ,"Vhat are we doing when, with such doors open, we even l}Csitate? ,"Vhat are we doing that our gifts are not multiplied a hundred, a thousand fold? Who of us has ever come down to the actual experience of bitter self-denial, while, in every way limiting our own expenditure, we sought to increase what shall be absolutely at the disposal of the Lord ? We are honestly afraid that the finan- cial basis of evangelization is rotten; the two great Protestant na- tions, America and England, uniting with all evangelical christendom, give less than twelve million dollars annually to the regeneration of a lo~t wodd. 'l'here is but little consecration. A most godly man said to the writer on one occasion: " You never will be fit to go to Heaven ~mtil for the sake of dying souls you are willing to stay Ottt of it." There is a heavenly-mlndedness that is just as selfish in its way as the mind that is fixed on earthly gains or intellectual treasures. We ought to lose sight even of our spiritual advancement, in comparison with the uplifting and salvation of a thousand million of the human race that have never even heard of Christ. If, by prevailing prayer, we could pray about twenty years back into a life that is already past its meridian, the writer would gladly go and help Dr. McAll. No field in Papal Europe is parallel to France in attractiveness and promise.
But there is a wider question that concerns a wider field, and that question absorbs and engrosses our thoughts more and more. The Church of Christ has the world open before the Missionary Band, and yet the number of laborers is inadquate to enter and take possession. There is the problem compressed in one sentence. It is the problem of the ages. To its solution the whole church of Christ should turn prayerful attention. Something is wrong. God would not open such doors, great and effectual, if He did not mean occupation. He would not lay a duty upon us without giving us ability to do it. 'l'he blootl of a thousand million souls must crimson the skirts of the church of this generation unless that guilt is avoided by fidelity to our duty. We may avoid it by preaching the gospel to every creature. All OUt' excuses, apologies, insinuations only evade it, they cannot avoid thi" guilt. There are men and women, treasllres of wealth, resources of all sorts, abundant for the work, if there were only the disposition and determination to do it. And let us try to imagine the boundless satisfaction and joy that would thrill and expand our bosoms if at the end of this century we could look abroad over the whole earth and see not one district of territory, '01' fraction of a world's population, entirely destitute of the Gospel! 'Yhat a beginning, or at least fortaste of millennial blessedness, when at least once, to every creature, the gospel of salvation has been faithfully and lov!ngly proclaimetl !
A great German defined the difference between Socialism and Christianity in a very clever epigram :-Socialism says. " What is thine is mine." Christianity says, "vYhat is mine is thine." The difference is infinite. But the epigram needs correction. Christianity really teaches us to say, " What seems thine is not thine, what seem>! mine is not mine; whatever thou hast belongs to God, and whateyer I have belongs to God; you and I mnst use what we have accor<1ing to God's will."-Dr. E. W. Dale.
Here Dr. Dale has struck the root of the matter. vVe must have a revival of the doctrine of divine stewardship.-ED.
THE CHINESE ~IISSION,,"RY PROBLE!!
THE CHINESE :MISSIONARY PROBLEM.
• BY REV. JOHN ROSS, MOOKDEN, NORTH CHINA.
In the confusion arising from the conllicting opinions bandied about as to the value of mission work and the wisdom of missionary methods, men's mind:; have been diverted from that aspect of the misRion-problem, which appears to me, as a practical missionary, to be, beyond all others, important. The materialistic spirit of the age is the only apology I ca~ cOllceive for the extraordinary attitude assumed by many of the representatives of the wealthy Christian churches on the questions of the income, honsing, clothing and food of the missionary, while they ignore or treat as a matter of indifference the qualifications of the man, and show a lamentable ignorance of the work he has to carryon.
In order to satisfactorily undertake any work, and to wisely select the best workers, we must understand the nature of the work and the conditions under which it is to be conducted. "Vhat, then, is the work the Church of Christ has to accomplish in China? It is the introduction of Christianity to a people which was an ancient nation when Nehuchadnezzar was building the walls of his proud Babylon, which was highly cultivated when the Romans found our forefathers savages, and which, even as recently as three centuries ago, was more civilized than their contemporaneous European nations. The Chinese are a proud, conservative, Relf-sufficing, intellectual and learned race. They have the religious system of Buddhism-not the attenuated ghost believed in by some eccentric London folks-but this religion exercises no real authority over them, and the system of Taoism possesses a still more shadowy power. But the ethical and political system called Confucianism wields an unchallengable inlluence over the whole land, and among all classes-an inlluence comparable only to that of :Moses o,er Jewry. The authority of C<llfucianism is so universally paramount because of its high-toned system of morals, the excellence of its maxims on the relations between governor and governed, and the remarkable purity and unapproachable terseness of its literary style.
It may be taken for granted that before a non-Christian people is likely to pay any regard to the preaching of a stranger, he must gain their confidence and command their respect. It is also evident that what is adequate to secure the respect of one nationality may appear despicable in the estimation of another. From w1!at I have been able to learn of the world's nations, excepting the Jews and Mohammedans, whose knowledge of religious truth is more extensive and accurate than that of any other non-Christian people, lJO nationality is so difficult to gain over to Christianity as the Chinese. Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and other surrounding peoples, borrowed from the Chinese their literature, their manners, their arts, laws, customs, and whatever -other factors went to compose their present civilization. All borrowed from China, none lent to her. Hence, if we consider the 8e1£- complacent pride of the Chinese~a somewhat unpleasant and repel- lant characteristic-we can scarcely deny h a basis of justification.
Knowledge of literature and literary ability is the most highly prized acquisition in China. Civil service competitive examinatioTls have for twelve centuries been the means of filtering out candidates for official employment. To this proud, conservative people, who so highly esteem knowledge and attach such importallce to literature, what sort of man will you send to gain them over to Christianity? What must that man be who will command their attention, and com- pel from a contemptuous people a respectful hearing for the doctrines ofthe Cross?
The number of those who have gone forth to combat the evils' in- herent in heathenism, is so insignificant compared to those who min- ister to con~regations in Christian lands, that some good people are in despair of overtaking, by ordinary methods, the needs of the world. But the argument based upon the comparative number of missiona- ries and ministers is fallacious. The missionary is not a pastor and should never sink into one. The work which he goes to perform is very different from the work of the pastorate. The missionary is the mop.ern representative of the Apostles. He is the only real suc- cessor of the Apostles. If the name "apostle" is Greek and the name . "missionary" Latin, there is no difference in the signification of the terms. The "apostle" was the "sent" of the Church and the Holy Spirit-sent from a Christian community to gather in converts, plant churches and raise up pastors among non-Christian peoples. So is now the "missionary" the "sent" of the Church and of the Holy Spirit, to· accomplish exactly the same purpose. Though the work of gathering in a few converts is his first, and though the duty of ministering to them is one the neglect of which Awould be criminal, yet these do not constitute the most important parts of his missionary life. His great work is, like that of the Apostles, to·found churches, and to train pas- tors; not to plant a tree which is to stand alone, but to sow seed which will become self-propagating. The proportion, therefore, of missionaries to the numbers of the people to whom they are sent, ~s a matter of very subordinate consequence. '1'he one outstanding subject which should demand thj most serious attention of all interested in mission work, which should indeed hold so largely in their esteem that every other consideration should be relegated to a position of comparative unimportance, is the qualifications of the man sent. The question which should, like Moses' rod, swallow up every other, is whether YOll send the men who are in all respects the best fitted for the end in view: that of gaining the confidence and respect of the people, of planting churches and raising and training pastors.
All the more important will this subject appear when it is stated that the Chinese people must be brought within the Christian fold by Chinese converts. It may be taken as axiomatic that every success- ful mission in China has been succesRful in proportion to the earnest- ness, knowledge and zeal of its first converts. In our own Manchurian mission, out of a hostile population, over a thousand converts have been baptized. Many thousands know and respect the doctrines of Christianity. The work of preaching the Gospel is widely spread and rapidly extending in all directions over this large district of country.
The literary classes are many of them our ,best friends, and officials have, in most cases, ceased opposition. Within the past eight years, a couple of hundred of the inhabitants of Korea have been baptized.
A congregation has been formed in the Korean capital. Thousands of Koreans are reported to be believers and applicants for baptism.
How have these results been attained within little more than a dozen years? Of all those converts not more than a couple of dozen can be traced to the immediate agency of the foreign missionary. The others are the converts of converts. 'l'lie only claim to credit-if it be one-which the European can make, is that of careful and constant instruction of the converts. And it may be noted, by-the-way, that here is the only satisfactory method of attaining to really cheap mis- sions.
We must not lose sight of anotl1er fact bearing on this subject.
,The Chinese convert who is the most useful in defending the truth against opponents, in instructing enquirers in tlle tenets of Christianity and in rousing interest among the indifferent and the careless, is he who has the most accurate knowledge of Christian and cognate truth. He is the best qualified to "exhort by sound doctrine" the attentive listener, and to "convince the gainsayer;" wllO "holds fast the faithful word"
which he has been carefully taught, and who is ready to give an in- telligent answer to him who asks for a reason of the hope that is in him. Now, this implies diligent, thoughtful, and long-continued edu- cation in holy things. Such education was insisted on and practised by our Saviour and by His apostleR. And, among a people like the Chi- nese, who are iii. intellect equal to, and in civilization more advanced than, the ancient Greeks and Romans, is a mere slipshod fashion of planting Christianity desirable? Will it be successful even if desir- able? History emphatically proclaims against the possibility of such • success.
More important, more difficult, and demanding more varied talents than the work of any minister in the church or the duties of any pro- fessorial chair in Christian countries, is the work of establishing Chris- tianity in China. Who, then, is sufficient for these things? Who is the man best fitted for this work? Virere the conversion of the world a task now initiated, it might be perhaps more difficult to return a definite reply to this question. But the war against the kingdom of darkness is as old as the Church of God. Ve must, therefore, listeJl to the teachings of the past experience of that Church to guide us i. our action for the future.
When the Lord's people were brought out of Egypt, the choseD leader was Moses-a man learned in all the learning of the Egyptians, a man whose courage was as unshaken as his intellect was powerful, whose knowledge was as great as his faith was free from doubt. If we examine the character of the men who were moved by the Holy . Ghost to rebuke, and to undertake the reclamation of, the back-sliding J ews-rulers, pri~sts and people-we find that each is prominent in courage, eminent for knowledge of the truth, of outstanding ability combined with that humility which is the twin-brother of real great- ness. Our lesson from Old Testament history is that God, to accom- plish His great work, chooses men few in number, but this number the choicest of their race and generation.
It is stated that the New Testament lays down a different standard. The Lord Jesus is said to have sent forth a band of illiterate fisber- men to establish His Kingdom upon earth. Is this an accurate repre- sentation of the case? Of the apostles first selected some were cer- tainly educated men. Two men attained to special eminence. Peter and John were originally men who did not lack force of character, and the writers of the Gospel of John, and the Epistles of Peter and John cannot be called illiterate. Compared to the Rabbi who knew the jots and tittles of every word in every book of the Old Testament alld who could learnedly discuss the structure of sentences, alld ex- . tract wonderful meanings from the form of letters, the apostles may have been ignorant of literature. But true learning does not consist in the knowledge of roots and words, or the syntax and grammar of languages. These are but the instruments for acquiring or imparting some truth or truths. Real learning consists in the knowledge of that truth itself. And did the public appearances of the apostles not prove them possessed of more real learning than the Rabbinical book-worms ever knew or could comprehend? During a lengthened period did not the disciples pass through a system of close daily and hourly educa- tion such as no other men ever had, and under the greatest teacher the world ever saw, before they were commissioned to be "apostles" or "sent" ones? Can such men be said to have been unlearned or un- trained when they ;'ere sent forth to their work? They were, on the contrary, men thoroughly trained and carefully selected.
The apostle Paul still further emphasizes my contention that in the history of the Church of Old and New Testament times God employeo a select few to initiate the work of training men to be preachers of righteousness to tlleir fellow-countrymen. And does not the history of the church, subsequent to the Apostolic Period, 811ell out the same lesson? A strong Luther appears in Germany, and the couutlT escapes entirely from the broken shackles of Rome. An €qually robust Knox preaches in Scotland, and the Reformation is completed. Men not less learned, but of weaker character, led the movement in England, and the Reformation is still unfinished. Be- llind every great movement in the church since that time, and behind all important progress in the mission world, you will invariably find .a man of decided force of char.lcter, of soulld common sense, of good natural abilitie~, frequently of learning, and of a warmly sympathiz- ing disposition; and by devoted earnestness these qualities are all con~ecrated to the service of God. These are all select men, chosen hy God because of the necessary qualifications given to them by Himself, to adapt them for the work to which they have heen called.
To briefly recapitulate. Because of their ancient civilization and their excellent system of education the Chinese regard Westerns with contempt. Therefore, to gain their respect you must have men of prominent mental endowments, sharpened and refined by educational advantages. From political considerations and social customs there ,exist serious obstacles to friendly intercourse with Christian people. IrrespectiYe, therefore, of the argument from their enormous numbers, it is indispensahle that native converts be employed to pl:each the Gospel to the Chinese. In order to be the best possible laborers in this work the converts must he well instructed, to enable them to exhort the heliever and to convince the gainsayer. And to properly instruct these converts, to make them fit instruments for the establishment of a strong, healthy, aggressive form of Christianity, we learn from the history of God's dealings with man in the ancient and mod- >ern times, that the church must send forth to this work in China her .ablest and noblest sons, the most talented and earnest of her mem- Lers. Thus history declares the church to be shirking her most saCl'ed duty when she is satisfied with ordinary or inferior representatives to do a work which demands the greatest skill, the greatest wis- .dom, the greatest piety at her disposal. "Quality, not quantity," was the conclusion of the late Norman McLeod from his Indian experi- >ence. 'l'his conclusion is justified by Scripture, by history, and by .common sense.
Critics of missionary methods, who apparently believe themselves freed from all respoll!dbility in connection with the propagation of the Gospel, shout out in pompous tones or in hysterical screams, "Revert to apostolic methods." This is exactly what is required, and these critics would have deserved commendation had they defined" apostolic methods." What were the methods of apostolic times? Those methods did not hinge on the qnestion of money, more or less. They ignored discussions on dress. They laid no special emphasis on the kinds of food and drink to he used. Unavoidable hardships were faced with calmness and without boasting; asceticism was scornfully repudiated with the heathenism, out of whose ignorance it sprang. The essential features of the "apostolic method" are clearly un- folded in the brief account we possess of the first foreign missionary meeting held in the primitive church.
A few fugitive Christians had successfully preached the doctrines of the Cross in Antioch. The church in Jerusalem found it difficult to believe the good news, and sent the experienced Barnabas to ex- amine the facts. His soul was overjoyed. He preached, and th'e cause grew. He bethought him of his friend, Saul, then in Tarsus, whom he believed specially fitted to reason with the numerous types of humanity congregated in Antioch. The eloquence of the older Barnabas, and the keen logical reasoning of the ynung Saul overcame all opposition. Other preachers and teachers, eminent men there wer~, but these two, the oldest and the YOllngest, stood out conspicu- ous for ability, for earnestness, and for success. In the congrega- tional prayer meeting the needs of those who were destitute of the Gospel were not forgotten. And as the believers were practical men, their prayers were followed by steps taken to proclaim the Gospel where it was unknown. 'fhe claims of Antioch, one of the three largest and most influential citieR, wealthy and active, of which onlja fraction had as yet heard the Gospel, were not overlooked. But it was decided that the work of preaching there should be left to private members and the less powerful of the preachers. But their two ablest preachers-the one the most experienced and eloquent, the other the most learned and logical-they resolved to solemnly set apart to go forth to preach the Gospel where its voice had not been he:1I"'1.. These two men, therefore, who would probably not have presumed tooffer themselves for that work, were called by the Ohurch and the Spirit to become" Apostles" or " Sent" ones. That was the Ap",;- tolic method.
Need it be pointed out how very fal: all churches and all societies have departed from that method? Instead of solemnly calling tried men to this most difficult work .of the church, the Societies wait for offers of service from young men, who are perhaps all the more ready to undertake the task because they are unaware of the conditions under which it is to be carried out. The Church now makes its Pauls professors of theology, or some cognate study, and calls its Barnabases to be the pastors of fashionable congregations. One Paul did greatel' service to the Church of Christ than a hundred of the YOllng, inexperienced, and partially educated Christians of Antioch could have effected had they offered themselves or gone of their own accord. Revert, then, to the Apostolic method if you desire the Gospel to spread as it should and as it can.
Mere intellectual ability is proud, and leans upon the" wisdom of words." }Iere sentimental spirituality is weak, despising the wisdom
A LIFE THAT TOLD
of which it possesses so little. "Zeal without knowledge" is equally dangerous with ability without spirituality. Your missionaries, to be useful, must be of the Paul type, well educated, well trained, of conspicuous talent, of unquestioning faith; men whose spirituality of mind is as pronounced as their intellectual abilities are prominent.
A LIFE- THAT 'rOLD.
Thirty years ago th" region about London Docks contained as large a heathen population as any district in Africa, a rendezvous for the lowest types of humanity." The wealthy and influential class in this settlement were the l'Ilmsellers and keepers of gambling-hells. Children were born and grew to middle age in these precincts who never had heard the name of Christ, except in an oath. Thirty thousand neglected souls were included in one parish here.
A young man, named Charles Lowder, belonging to an old English family, happened to pass through the district just after leaving Oxford. He heard" A cry of mingled ago~y, suffering, laughter and blasphemy coming from these depths, that rang in his ears, go where he would." He resolved to give up all other .work in the world to help these people. He took a house in one of the lowest slums, and lived in it. "It is only one of themselves that they will hear; not patronizing visitors." He preached every day in the streets, and for months was pelted with brickbats, shot at, and driven back with curses. He was a slow, stammering speaker, but bold, patient and in earnest. The worst ruffians learned to respect the curate, whom they saw &topping the worst street fights, facing mobs, or nursing the victims of cholera.
Mr. Lowder lived in London Docks for twenty-three years. Night schools were opened, industrial schools, and refuge for drunkards, discharged prisoners and fallen women. A large church was built and several mission chapels. His chief assistants were the men and women whom he had rescued. A visitor said, "The congregation differs from others in that they are all in such dead earnest."
Mr. Lowder broke down under his work, and rapidly grew into an old, careworn man. He died in a village in the Tyrol, whither he had gone for a month's rest. He was brought back to the Docks where he had worked so long. Across the bridge, where he had once· been chased by a mob bent on his murder, his body was· reverently carried, while the police were obliged to keep back the crowd of sobbing people, who pressed forward to get a glimpse of "Father Lowder." " No such a funeral, had ever been seen in England." The whole population of East London turned out; stopping work for that day. The speciai trains were filled, and thousanils followed on foot, ",hom he had lifted up from barbarism to life and hope.:– .&change.
90S CAN WE TRUtir THE MORMON SAINTS?
CAN WE TRUST 'rHE MORMON SAINTS?
ltE'. DJeLAVAN L. LEONARD, D.D., BELLEVUE, OHIO.
'Ve mean those dwelling out in Utah, and where they seem to })l"omise puhlicly and most unreservedly to obey from henceforth the law of the land. Without much doubt the reply should be, not fully, alia neither now, nor for some years to come.
Te may admit that, at length, after a long and bitter struggle, t,he leaders of the ~Iormon Church begin to feel deeply the effect of vigorous action on the part of Congress and the courts, that they have grown weary of walking in the path of transgression,which has landed a t.housand or so in the penitentiary, and that they therefore feel compelled to change their tactics, to appear at least to yield, lest a worse thing come upon them, in the shape of legislation disfranchising the €ntire membership of the church. And further, there can be no loeasonable doubt that a large and influential element in Mormondom is heartily convinced of the blunder and folly of polygamy, and is more than willing to throw overboard both the practice and the doctrine. But these further and significant facts cannot be forgotten.
The poison of polygamy has been at work for more than a half century, and so has entered into the blood and bone of the system. The beginnings were away back in Illinois, in Missouri, and even in Ohio. Almost two generations have grown up under the amazing perversions of Scripture and reason and conscience. "Plurality" has been glorified, and fiercely defended against all Christendom.
Then, too, from first to last the iniquitous practice has led to the most wholesale and shameless lying the world has ever seen. 'rhe duplicity of the Jesuits has been altogether outdone. For some twenty yearf', for nearly ten years after the famous" revelation" in Nauvoo, it was repeatedly and most solemnly denied in pulpit and in press that polygamy was eyer known or heard of in the Latter-day Zion, and then, when it was finally proclaimed, the same was forced upon an unwilling people ruthlessly and even to the shedding of blood.
And further, from the beginning it has stood as a fundamental doctrine, whose acceptance was essential to salvation. 'Vho so rejected it should be damned. Up to a date very recent it was taught everywhere that by the strict command of God the Saints must go on multiplying wives, regardless of the law, and though they faced prisons and death. And, therefore, it does not appear how the ~udden apparent face-about can be real, how they can give the lie to all the teachings of the past, or how they can now protest–" It is of no use to fight sixty milllions." One familiar with the facts cannot but be amused by the unctious talk about being compelled by their principles to yield obedience to all" constitutional" laws. Polygamy w~s always illegal, was forbidden by Congress in 1862, again in 18'74, and yet again in 1882, and the Supreme Court has sustained the legislation. But it was not until October of 1890, forsooth, that the llews reached Salt Lake! Whence came this new light, and why?
And, finally, the way this so-called repudiation of polygamy came about is so queer as to lay the whole matter open to gravest suspicion. It is evident that a panic fell from some source upon the Utah Zion, and that under its irresistible impulse the action was taken. And the profession of repentance, the promise of amendment was made, not as all other great things have uniformly been done, to the brethren in conference assembled, but to the wieked Gentile world, the foe of Israel, and, strangest of all, by telegraph to the Associated Press! It is the first ease on record of a revelation reaching the earth by wire. And even then the high and mighty head of the Mormon Church does not command, but only" advises" the Saints to submit. Then at the conference, held a fortnight later, by a show of hands the people only own that dispatch as genuine, and agree to give due heed to the" advice." That the vote was taken, and that it was unanimous, has ~o significance whatsoever. Had the motion been directly the opposite every hand would have gone in its favor just the same, for voting against what the priesthood proposes is not tolerated in Utah, and has never been known.
And so it is very certain that we are not called upon to assume that the saints are sincere. Weare not at all at liberty to interpret their words or their deeds, as in reason and charity, we must those of almost all others professing godliness. Their ways have been much too crooked, and they have sinned in too many ways, and by far too long. Time only can prove that the leaders really mean what they say. And, hence, they must be tested, kept on probation for ten years-for five years at least-with no repeal of laws and no let-up of prosecutions. In particular, let us see if the law-breakers, now under indictment and conviction, when brought up for sentence, will promise to yield and obey-something which, hitherto, scarcely one of all the hundreds would consent to do.
The danger is that the wily and slippery hierarchs are simply dodging, juggling with words, staving off the imminent peril, hoping for better times. They would merely prevent, it may be, the passage of stringent bills now pending in Washington. They hope now to secme statehood by this cry of peccavi, and, once a sovereign State in the Union, who shall hinder the restoration of "Celestial ~Iarrilge ?"
THE MISSION IN BASUTO LAND
THE MISSION IN BASUTO LAND.-II.
REV. DR. ANDREW THOMSON, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.
In this second paper I shall give a short account of the settlement ()f M. Casalis and his congenial associates in Basuto Land, of the in- itial steps and first fruits of their mission, and of their rich harvest, after an interval of little more than fifty years. After a prolonged search for a. locality which should be the first centre and base of their ()perations, their choice finally rested on a spot which seemed to offer the advantages which they sought, particularly in abundant water, fertile land, wood for building and for fuel, with charming scenery of which the eye never grew weary. It was twenty miles southward from Maba Bossiou, the king's city, at the entrance of a deep valley stretch- ing away to one of the most remarkable peaks in Basuto Land, which rose, like steps, into a l,ligher world. They reached this place on the 9th of July, 1833. There they raised their "Ebenezer," with devout gratitizde, naming the spot Moriah, in remembrance of the difficul- ties through which they had passed, and of the Providential guidance which had been to them a.s a pillar of cloud and fire.
It took them the better part of three years to get fairly settled, and to bring themselves into circumstances in which they should be able to give undivided attention to the great work to which they had consecrated themselves, of evangelizing the heathen multitudes around them. And they lost no time in commencing the needed pre- l)aratory measures. Of different temperament, their hearts were one and their devotedness intense, so that they grudged no kind of labor, however uncongenial in itself, which brought them nearer to their ministry of love. At first they had nothing but their' tents to shelter them from the wind, and the wagon was their common sleeping place. But a little cabin, timber for the building of which had been obtained from the neighboring wood, was improvised in a week. It proved so miserable a domicile that, with all their French vivacity, nothing could have reconciled them to it but the prospect of 1)y-and:by rearing a more stable and spacious building which should give ample scope to the masonry of Gosselin. As they were finishing this first attempt in architecture, a company of youths suddenly ap- peared, commanded by Molapo, the king's second son, who had been Rent by the king to·assist them in their preparatory work, and, per- haps,. with the further friendly design of helping to protect them against unfriendly tribes and vagrant thieves. They were not long in erecting huts for themselves after their own fashion. The provi- dent king had supplied them with bagfuls of sorgho and millet, and if the hungry youths desired at times a change of fare they had only to walk into the neighboring wood, with javelin in hand, to find ante- lopes and winged game in abundance. .
Having seen his companions lodged and protected, M. Casalis proceeded to Philippolis to bring the wagons amI effects which he had left there when he set forth in search of the local habitation which he had now found. The list of "effects" was very miscellane- {Jus and may best be stated in his own words: "Tools of all kinds, vine-shoots, slips of peach, aprocot, fig, apple, quince and other trees; a herd of heifers which had cost me only 17s 6d each, and a flock of sheep 3s per head, a fine mare in foal and two horses, some wheat, some vegetable seeds, and, above all, potatoes." It is easy to see in this list that it was not so much the wants of his companions in the mission, but the civilization of the Basutos alongside of their Chris- tianization, that 1I. Casalis had in view in returning to Moriah with those carefully selected "good things." Moreover, when the wonder- ing people saw the uses to which such things could be turned-the wheat in that virgin soil bringing forth a hundred fold, and the toolM capable of being turned every day to a hundred uses, and when they were i~vited to share in the benefits, it would all tend to disarm their prejudices and to draw out their confidence and att.achment to the mISSIOnaries. In such circumstances as these, believing in the men has often been a most important step towards J:>elieving in God. .
The adventures of M. Casalis and his teamsters, on their return to Moriah, were not always of the most pleasant kind, especially when night fell and the wild beasts were attracted to them for prey, by the scent of the cattle and the flocks. On the whole, however, their precautions and attempts to frIghten ravening brutes kept them at bay, their loss consisting of a few sheep which were snatched by the prowling hyenas. One inoident shows how great their dangers must sometimes have been, and illustrates the strange methods by which a watchful Providence may at times give deliverance. Let the grateful missionary himself describe one scene: "I had one evening a proof of what a surprise will do in the way of disconcerting lions. It was about ten o'clock at night; I had gathered the whole company around the fire for worship. Just as I was about to commence, we heard very distinctly, close to us, the kind of convulsive. hiccough which the lion makes as he creeps towards his prey ready to spring. Instinctively, or rather inspired by God, I started a hymn, the air of which was brisk and lively. The men at once caught it up, there was quite a fusilade of voices-contralto, tenor, bass-nothing was missing, and we have already said what the Hottentot lungs are ~apable of. After it was over we listened, but nothing was heard. We armed {Jurselves with firebrands and scoured the neighborhood of the camp; the brute had disappeared. Perhaps, we had deceived ourselves and there had been none after all. The more experienced of our party, however, persisted we had been in great danger. In fact, the next day we discovered, twenty paces off, the still fresh track of the formidable paws which had already been bent to spring upon arid tear us." The welcome return of :M. Casalis to :Moriah, after six weeks of absence, was the signal for setting to work in right earnest. The first service to fill their hands was the planting of the young trees and sap- lings which had been brought from Philippolis, and the sowing of vegetables and wheat. Which being done, they next proceeded to prepare the materials for erecting a solid and spacious house and also a chapel. For many a week to come these followers of "Him who knew how to be abased," were engaged "from morn till eve," in hewing stones, shaping lumps of clay for bricks, felling trees in the' neighboring woods and sawing them into beams and planks. And, though the youths who had been sent from the king could not quite understand the reason of all this incessant and exhaustless toil on the part of the white men, they were always ready to lend a helping hand when it was asked; their Hot un frequent blunderings, through misunderstanding the directions given them, producing no worse effect upon them, with their overflow of animal spirits, than boisterous shouts of laughter. They were handy, however, in the use of the spade and in rearing mud walls for the cattle enclosnre and the garden. These services were rewarde~ by gifts of sheep-skins, knives, small hatchets and other useful articles, which they soon knew how to appreciate. In this way these good men escaped the one great blunder of the devoted Vanderkemp in returning labor for labor, which would haye kept them down at their original level and marred their civiliilatioll.
In the matter of food, they were obliged to content themselves with the rudest fare. But when they saw the wheat which they hall sown beginning to sprout into the blade and the ear, they were cheered by the prospect of soon eating in abundance the wholesome bread, which would remind them of theIr far-off home. As for their wardrobe, it certainly had an unmistakable look of savagisIll about it. But it was serviceable for their present circumstances. Their colony jackets made of a thick material, and trousers made of hides sewn together, were not suitable for polite society, but what was more to the purp?se, they were strong enough to resist all the thorns and briars of the country. It is quite true that a mimosa spine was sometimes all they could get to do the work of a pin or a button. And in the matter of shoes, they had not disdained to learn from their OWIl Hottentots to protect their feet by a kind of "half-shoe, half-~andal, made aut of antelope skins."
One is apt to surmise that, as a matter of course, labors and HlIrroundings like these continued through weeks and months mllst have been alike unfavorable to intellectual action and depressing to religiious life. But not so necessarily, when the men who are willing t(} live thus for a time are actuated by holy and benignant motives. The testimony of these good men themsel yes, speaking from their own expel'ience, assures us of this: ",Ve were not conscious," they tell u,;~ "of intellectual loss. "Ve preserved ourselves from decline in this re- spect by the observations of all kinds which we were making, as well as by the study of languages and of the standard works which we had brought with us. The religious side of our nature also was not too sorely tried. The daily experience we had of God's protec- tion, and the sweet'visitations of His Spirit did more than maintain our faith. There was, indeed, something, singularly strengthening to our spiritual life in the thought that we were there in virtue of a direct ordel' from Christ, that we were the representatives of his Church in places which had been closed against it up to our arrival."
One thing, however, did depress their spirits, and this was the long delay of communication from their far-off home. There was, in this way, at times a painful sense of loneliness and exile. Alas, when a letter did come at last, after a lapse of more than twelve months, it was to announce the death of the venerable father of M. Casalis. It is easy to imagine the profound sorrow which the letter bearing such tidings would: produce; but it brought with it rays of consolation also, for it mentioned that the last name which lingered on the lips of the dying old man, was that of his missionary son, when, with beaming eyes, he declared his confidence of meeting him again in the blessed world. The effect of the intelligence, when it became known among the poor people, was touchingly suggestive. "A lively sympathy," the sorrowing missionary tells us, "painted itself on their features as they saw him weep." Having only as yet a few words of their language at his command, he contented himself with saying to them, "God has done it;" "My father is in heaven." This was a surprise and a revelation to them. In their darkness and simplicity, they had imagined that people, when they died, went down into the bowels of the earth. But how great was their astonishment when told by their teacher tha,t when he died he expected to see his father again, and to dwell with him in a world into which no sorrow and suffering could ever come. They were shrewd enough, moreover, to notice that this hope of an eternal reunion with those whom they loved, calmed their grief and that death had not the same terrors to those wh:te men from the far-off land as to them. It was thus that those pOOl' people were receiving new impressions and instructions from their missionaries' lives, which brought them nearer to the Kingdom of God, and were as the first streaks in the sky before the sunrise.
In their earlier attempts to convey religious instruction to the natives, those good evangelists had bljen sorely tried and deceived by a man who had undertaken to be their interpreter. With the Basuto as his native language, he had picked up some knowledge of Dutch while serving on the borders of the colony, and, with this scanty qualification, which he posseesed in common with the missionaries, he had engaged to be their medium of communication with the people whom they had come to teach. It turned out, however, that he had no supply of words with which to convey religious ideas. Moreover, the levity of his manner, as seen in his looks and gestures, naturally produced the impression that he had no sympathy with the lessons which he professed to translate. They even found out at length that he often substituted his own inventions for their instructions and that he was, in fact, not only hindering but betraying them. It was a bitter disappointment to those patient workers, carrying with it one of the hard lessons of experience "written in dark print." Of course, the vassal was dismissed in the end with little ceremony.
But there was a way which Providence had in store for bringing these good men and their sacred lessons into direct contact with the native mind. It happened in this wise. From the time of their settlement at Moriah, they had been accustomed to hold regular religious services in Dutch for the benefit of the ten or twelve Hottentot drivers who had come up with them from Philippolis. These men, having been brought up in the missionary stations of the colony, were familiar with Christian worship. They had Dutch Bibles in which they could follow the expositions of the missionary, and they knew many Dutch hymns which they sang with taste. The natives were attracted by the singing and were accustomed to squat in considerable numbers around the worshippers. They were also impressed by what they witnessed in the solemnity and seriousness with which the missionaries, looking upward, seemed to address an invisible being. Those good men set themselves, with renewed earnestness, to qualify themselves for speaking to poor Basutos in their own -tongue "of the wonderful works of God." How great was their delight when, after no very long interval, they began to find themselves understood. 'l'heir sphere of usefulness from that moment was almost indefinitely widened.
All time which those devoted men could spare from planting and building was now spent in the preparation, in the Basuto tongue, of short Bible stories, "word pictures" and little addresses. They even ventured to compose a few hymns, which, when [<uug by the natives, formed a new attraction to the services and a new link of connection between them and the missionaries. But by-and-by it was not so easy to induce them to join in the prayers. So long as they were addressed, they were attentive. But as in the prayer the missionaries were no longer addressing them, they could not see any reason for listening. Even this difficulty, however, was not long in being overcome, by inducing them to repeat, all together and word for word, the thanksgivings and petitions that were addressed to God. For one thing, they liked to hear their voices ringing and rising in unison, and, judging from the expression of their countenances, there was something deeper at work in those dark minds than this. It was .another step forward. In that awakened interest they saw the fields ripening for the harvest.
In the midst of all these multiplying labors,and with the consciousness that in the power of addressing the people in their own Basuto tongue, a new weapon had been put into their hand, the thought began to arise in the minds of the missionaries that they should now begin religious serviceB in the king's own city. It became the subject of repeated conference and prayer, and, in no long time, ended in the conviction that the time for this new departure had fully come. They had been favored with frequent visits from Moshesh,but was it not the fact that it was to him they owed their liberty of entrance into his country and for protection and help in many forms ever since; and should not the benefit of their teaching be brought more completely and continuously within his reach? Their proposal was at once received by the friendly monarch with approving welcome, his kindly looks expressing even more than his words. For a time the work was shared by the missionaries in rotation, but ere long it ended in the permanent location at Maba Bossiou of M. Casalis, the acknowledged leader of the little band. Everything was done by the king to facilitate and encourage the man of God. The services were held in a grand courtyard called the khotla, surrounded by an enclosure of bamboos and reeds, from an elevated platform the public crier, with stentorian voice, summoned the people to worship-"To prayer, to prayer! Everybody, everybody! Women and children as well!" The king 'himself was one of the most regular and attentive listeners, and strangers and messengers from other tribes were uniformly brought to listen to the astonishing words of the white man, and charged to tell what they had heard when they returned to their own land. The simple repast, ()f clilrdled milk and sorgho leaf preceded by more solid food, regularly provided for the preacher, expressed more than a common hospitality. The notes of conversations between the missionary and the monarch are among the most interesting things which M. Casalis has placed on record, and gives us a pleasing impression of the intellectual strength, penetration, simplicity and candor of this remarkable man. We quote two instances which remind us ef Paul's description of some among the heathen in his days, as "feeling after God if haply they might find Him." "You believe, then," said the king one evening to the missionary, pointing to the stars, "that in the midst of and beyond all these, there is an all-powerful lIaster, who has (4reated all, and is our Father? Our ancestors used, in fact, to speak of a Lord of Heaven, and we still call these great shining spots (the Milky Way) you see above, the way of the godB; but it seemed to us that the world must have existed forever, except, however, men and animals, who, according to us, have had a beginning-animals having come first and men after-wards. But we did not know who- gave them existence. We adored the spirits of our ancestors, and we asked of them rain, abundant harvests, good health, and a good reception amongst them after death."
"You were in darkness," was the answer, "and we have brought you the light. All these visible things, and a multitude of others which we cannot see, have been created and are preserved by a Being, all-wise and all-good, who is the God of us all, and who has made us to be born of one blood."
Moshesh was greatly struck when he heard the missionaries enumerate the commandments of the decalogue. "That," said he, "is written in all our hearts. We did not know the God you announce to us, and we had no idea of the Sabbath; but in all the rest of your law we find nothing new. We knew it was very wicked to be ungrateful and disobedient to parents, to rob, to kill, to commit adultry, to covet the property of another, and to bear false witness."
It is also noted by M. Casalis that it was as Redeemer that the mission of Christ most appealed to the mind of this anxious enquirer and learner, and in which he was most interested-"a striking proof, surely, of the indestructibility of conscience in all lands."
Returning in thought to Moriah, we may imagine those devoted evangelists, now that they had become able to address the people in their own tongue, longing for instances of conversion among them, which should be the seal of Heaven upon their ministry. This thirst for the Spirit's blessing became all the more intense, when the colony of natives around them had increased to the number of between three and four hundred souls. They saw the wheat and other seeds which had been sown in the earth springing up into harvest, they had alsotasted the luscious fruits of the peach and other trees which they had planted, but how had their hearts begun to weary for the first cry of repentance unto life which would make the angels rejoice. At length the happy day arrived, and 1-1. Casalis, who was at Moriah at the time, was the first to hear the welcome notes of a genuine contrition. "On the 9th of January, 1836, we overheard one of our young men spontaneously offering a fervent prayer. It was towards nine o'clock in the evening, at a little distance from our house. Thinking we heard the accents of contrition, we approached in the darkness, without uttering a word. It was really so! Astonished, moved beyond expression, we fell on our knees and burst into tears. We were the witnesses of a very genuine conversion, for Sikhesa, from that day to his death, in 1881, never ceased to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. "
The first fruits were soon followed by a harvel-lt of _conversions. The sacred fire which had been kindled not only continued to burn, but circulated from heart to heart. There was no suspension of the blessing. NeT stations were opened; churches were built; day and Sabbath-schools were organized; new missionaries arrived from France and from the Cape. Native evangelists ,were trained and sent forth on the right hand and the left. Among those who at length. cast in their lot with the early disciples was Moshesh, the king, who had long been held back from the decided step by the en- tanglements of Polygamy, which was the last link in the chain from which he succeeded in shaking himself free. '.rhe missionaries well knew that'a reformation in this matter could only be the natural and Hpontaneous fruit of a cordial adoption of the great Christian prin- ,ciples. And they waited for this before they could receive him into the fellowship of the believers. But the triumph came. He openly declared himself a. Christian in a very touching way, after having proofs of profound repentance and a living faith. He died with this filial cry upon his lips, "Let me go to my Father, I am already very near to him."
The missionaries continued, in those infant years of the mission, to assist in promoting the material prosperity of the people, especially in teaching them to improve in their mothods of agriculture, and in adding to their stock of domestic animals. Among these were a. bet. tel' breed of dogs, the cat, the pig, the duck, the goose and the tur- key. They knew the hen already. The cat, especially, we Are told, was regarded by them as a godsend, for their huts were infested with rats and mice, and it was only when this favorite domestic animal was introduced by the missionary that the people succeeded in ridding themselves of this veritable scourge. Were it only for the secondary blessings that the Christian missionary bears with him into heathen lands, he would deserve a welcome.
Restricting ourselves within the limits which we had fixed for our narrative, nothing remains for us but to call from the latest mission- <try intelligence that has come into our hands, the statistics of the French Protestant Mission in Basuto Land. Our information brings us up to 1888. Out of a population of 200,000, 25,000 are adherents of the Mission, and 35,000 are under Christian influences. Of these 9,500' are members of the church, either in full communion or as candidates, and 4,500 children are in attendance on the mission schools.
'.rhe mission staff consists of 18 ordained missionaries, 1 lay worker, 15 wives of missionaries, and 7 unmarried ladies engaged in teaching. There are 176 paid native agents engaged at work, beside a gOOdly band of voluntary helpers. The central stations occupied by Europeans are 14 in number, and 94 out-stations are under the care of evangelists.
These simple figures, especially when read in the light of the previous narrative, present before us Basuto Land as one of the bright- .est spots on that "Dark Continent," to which the interest and the
A SPIRITUAL BAROMETER FOR THE CHURCH. (Dec
prayers of all Christendom are now turning. The snccess which has followed and rewarded the labors of missionaries in that part of Africa within a period of little more than half a century, would not have been unworthy of apostolic times. See how the little leaven is leavening the whole lump. The Basuto Mission is indeed a bright jewel in the crown of the French Protestant Church.
A SPIRITUAL BAROMETER FOR THE CHURCH.
REV. RUFUS W. CLARK, DETROIT, MICH.
It is the annual collection taken in the church for Foreign Missions,because· it registers as far as any visible instrument can, the climatic changes and the atmospheric influences about the pulpit and every pew. A glance at the col- lection plate will show you.
(1). As accurate an index as you have of the measure of Christian intelligence in your church. The question is inevitably raised as to whether men have been taught there the requirement of their Lord to carry the Gospel to a perishing world, and the extent to which they have been informed as to the work being done by the faithful toilers in far-off lands.
(2). It is the most infallible test as to the genuineness of the Christian profession, in owning the requirements of the Master and in not disowning or treating them lightly. It is a fair test to put to the value of redemption for one's own soul, to ask the efforts made to secure the same benefit for others. Some qualities of faith bear transportation, else we had not known of Christ.
(3). It is conspicuous above most forms of Christian benefaCtion, in the horwr paid to (Jhrist. "Yes," some may say" I help missions, but of the city and of my native land. Their utility, I see, and foreigners are here and paganism at our doors." But utility is not the motive of the Gospel. It is obedience. The same Master who said" Jerusalem and Samaria," said also, "And to the uttermost part of the earth." Christ did not consult with His Church, He commanded it.
(4). It discloses above many forms of beneficence, unselfishne88. "Charity begins at home" is well. But local and personal ends may be served here. One may help on a cause or an institution, a civilization in which an immediate advantage is realized to one's self or to one's own. But there is no giving so free from the suspicion of self-interest, and unmixed with lower purposes as that which is for those we have never seen, and for which no requital is expected here.
(5). .As an act of worship it indicates with marked explicitness the hold a Church has upon the power and promises of God.
Some give to head a subscription list, some to gratify a friend. Many calls there are in street and in the office. But the offering to the Lord comes first, if he is the dearest friend. It is made in His house, if the best gifts come from Him there, and it is for His altar where His eye alone can see it. The Lord sees it on a subscription book; but is there not a peculiar sanctity to an offering where it is from the individual for his eye alone.
THE MARVEL OF MODERN MEDICAL MISSIONS
THE MARVEL OF MODERN MEDICAL MISSIONS.
BY REV. A. M'ELROYWYLIE, BROOKLYN, N. Y.
In the illustrations of romance there is nothing more surprising than the wonders wrought by the consecrated agency of medical missionaries in heathen lands. Missionaries were not slow in learning that the order pursued by the Saviour and the disciples was the right order for the present day. The Master first healed the sick and then preached the Gospel. The same order he also en- joined the disciples to observe: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils; freely ye have received, freely give."
Everywhere the most appalling need confronted the missionary worker. In every land he found the horrors of heathenism intensified by the cruel prac- tices of ignorant and superstitious medicine-men.
In China public opinion will not permit the dissection of human subjects, consequently the Chinese doctor is left to sheer guess-work, and to him "every- thing below the skin is a terra incognita." He locates the intellect in the stomach, and, so, enormous rotundity in the equatorial regions is indicative of mental greatness. Many of their favorite prescriptions are compounded from the dried carcasses of snakes, insects and ground bones of the tiger, or other strong animals, while it is a mark of filial devotion for a child to cut pieces of flesh from his or her body, cook them and give to parents who are afflicted with disease.
The Siamese believe that sickness is caused by evil spirits, and medical at- tendants are seen brandishing huge knives and commanding the spirits to de- part, and in other cases the bodies of the sick are pierced by long needles "with the view of locating the spot where the evil spirit has lodged itself. The main remedies in Syria are bleeding and the cautery, practiced chiefly "by barbers and muleteers.
In western Africa Dr. Summers found many sick children who had been horribly cut with knives, and Bishop Taylor saw, after the cruel incantations of a medicine man, a little girl killed, stabbed to the heart, by the side of her suffering mother, because it was believed she had bewitched her parent into a fit of sickness.
Illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied to show that the "tender mer- cies" of the heathen are cruel; that even when they set out to relieve those whom they love, their remedies are worse than the disease; and that myriads of the sick die beneath the miseries of their maladies and the far worse tortures of a treatment conceived in ignorance and applied by unfeeling superstition.
We need not wonder, then, that when the skilled medical missionary applies his scientific principles,_uses his well proved remedies, and directs his keen blade by an unerring knowledge of a true anatomy, he is able to work won- ders which are pron9unced miraculous by the densely ignorant heathen around him, and that everywhere he finds that the exercise of his healing power is the open sesame, and pioneer of the message of salvation to sinning and sinking men. Volumes might be written to set forth, in romantic and thrilling story, the ways in which the healing art has been blessed to the opening of huts, ze- 'nanas, courts, palaces, towns, cities, and entire provinces tothe unrestricted and welcomed proclamation of the Word, followed, also, by expressions of grati- tude and munificence in giving, which would prove illustrious examples in Christian England or America.
The Rev. Dr. Colin S. Valentine, on a journey to the hill country for his health, learned of the serious illness of her Highness, Maharani, the wife of the Maharajah Ram Singh, Prince and Governor of Jeypore. Calling upon the Prince, he was invited to an examination of the case, remained to treat her Highness, who had been given up by the native physicians, and the doctor was soon able to pronounce her recovery as complete.
The Maharajah expressed his gratitude in warmest terms, insisted upon Dr. Yalentine remaining as his physician, made over the colleges and educational institutions to the doctor, and added a grant of 10,000 rupees for a college library and philosophical instruments. The doctor replied that he was a missionary, and could accept of his Highnt~~'::: r:>T01!OSalS only upon the distinct understanding that, as such, he would be allowed, without let or hindrance, to teach the doctrines of the Christian Religion. His conditions were accepted and the Europeans were formed into a Church, and during the whole time Dr. Valentine was at Jeypore he enjoyed the confidence and friendship of the Maharajah, and was enabled to establish several institutions for the physical and moral advancement of the people; such as the School of Arts, the Public Library, the Philosophical Institute, a Museum, a Medical Hall, branch dispensaries, jail discipline, the instruction of prison works, etc,.
It has been said of Dr. Peter Parker, who was the real founder of medical missions, a man of singular beauty of character and eminent ability, that " he opened China to the Gospel at the point of his lancet." Thousands flocked to him for the recovery of their sight, and for healing of every sort of disease, until it was quite impossible for him to attend to the multitudes who claimed his care.
His skill became known extensively throughout the Chinese Empire, and the hospital that he opened in Canton in November, 1885, has brought not only physical relief, but spiritual blessings, to many thousands. The labors of this remarkable man were not confined to China alone, but extended to other countries. He was instrumental in the founding of the Edinburgh Medical :Missionary Society, which has sent forth scores of noble young men to bless humanity, and has been the means of founding many Home Medical Missions, in addition to those established in foreign lands.
The gre~t city of Tien-tsin, on the river Peiho, and the terminus of the Grand Canal, furnishes us another marvel among the victories achieved by medical missions. ' On a certain day the late Dr. J. K. Mackenzie was present with the native converts at prayer. At the same time a member of the English Legation, who was closeted with the Viceroy, learned that his wife was seriously ill, indeed was in a dying condition. The Englishman asked, " Why don't YOlil secure the help of the foreign doctors? " He was induced to send a courier with a message summoning Dr. Mackenzie. In a few weeks (Miss Howard, of Peking undertaking the local treatment) Lady Li was quite recovered. The news of her restoration to health spread throughout the city, and daily Dr. Mackenzie, as he entered the vice-regal palace, was beset by crowds seeking medical or surgical help. In the presence of a large number of officials, in the court facing the reception room, chloroform was administered to a patient afflicted with a tumoras large as a child's head, which the doCtor successfully removed. This operation, with others performed in the presence of the Court, exci1ied the surprise and admiration of the Viceroy and his friends, and heightened the effect produced by Lady Li's recovery. The Viceroy set apart, with great good will, a portion o{a very fine memorial temple, to be used as a dispensary, advanced the money for the immediate purchase of drugs and necessaries, and ordered that subsequent bills should be sent to him for settlement. Dr. Mackenzie, keenly alive to the value of a hospital in aid of Gospel work, recommended the founding of such an institution. The first subscription was given by a military mandarin, who was a patient, had been a Tai-ping rebel, and was bitterly opposed to Christianity. Others, all Chinese, followed, and soon the ,sum reached $4,500 (a large amount in China), and this without help from the Viceroy, who, however, assumed the expenses of the hospital as well as those <Jf the dispensary. In six months wards for thirty patients were in use, and subsequently wards for thirty patients more were added, and also other need- ful rooms and appliances, over $10,000 having been given during fifteen months, by the Chinese alone. The military mandarin returned a year later, bringing a friend with him, to whom he said, after Dr. Mackenzie had shown them through the institutions, " I will repeat my former subscription if you will give the same." "All right," promptly replied his friend, and oh that day $1,500 were added to the flinds.
'Vhat is still more remarkable, the Viceroy, now thoroughly believing in the 'Vestern medicine, was anxious that some of the Chinese should study it, .and the doctor was allowed to select-from over 100 young men, who had been recalled, in 1881, from America, where they had been pursuing their education- eight of the most promising, to enter upon a three years' course of medic!'l and ;surgical training. The Viceroy built a house for them in the mission compound, .and all .being able to read and speak English, their studies were conducted in <Jur language. The Government undertook all expenses for the support of the students, and for such apparatus as was necessary for their instruction. Rec- <Jgnizing that here was a means which, if rightly used, might, through God's blessing, secure an entrance for the Gospel among the upper classes, the mis- :sionary's one stipulation was that he should be whoily untrammeled in his Christian intercourse with these young men.
Thus did the Lord use this good and skillful man in a great heathen city, and .amongst a class of men peculiarly difficult to reach, and to overthrow a great barrier of prejudice against Western medical science, and to initiate changes, the practical issue of which are now showing themselves in the formation of various semi-recognized schools of medicine within China itself.
In Korea access to the very throne itself was achieved purely through the .skill and success of Drs. Allen and Heron, the former of whom (sent out in 1884 lly the Presbyterian Board) happened to arrive just before the emeute which ocoCurred that year. He attended the wounded prince, Min Yong Ik, and was also given charge of a score of wounded Chinese soldiers. Saving the life of the prince and treating with success the wounded soldiers, prepared the way for the erection of buildings by the Government for medical purposes, and the appropriation of money for medicines and all needed appliances. The king, gracious and kindly disposed, at once caused orders to be issued for the puroChase of a compound,of buildings adjoining the hospital in Seoul, and the fit- ting up of the same for a school-house, where young men are to be educated for the practice of medicine. In a single year 10,460 cases have been treated, and 394 operations performed. These medical missionaries have been able, during a single year, to remit to the Board some thousands of dollars beyond their salaries received. And, when it is borne in mind, that in all the heathen lands the rule adopted by the missionaries requires that preaching and Gospelinstruction shall be carried on in intimate connection with their medical work, it must at once be seen that multitudes will be reached by saving truth who <Jtherwise had never heard the terms of salvation; and let it also be borne in mind, that patients come from all classes and from distant and munerous towns .and cities. In a single hospital are found, as a missionary writes, afflicted ones from 500 villages and towns during a single year. A great work is being done hv traiuing medical missionaries in the institution at 118 East 45th Street, Ner York, under the able and devoted superintendency of Dr. George D. Dowkontt, from whom most inspiring and encouraging f~ts ca~ ~ obtained as ~ the pressing need and wonderful successes of medIcal mISSIOnary labors m the Unit3d States and foreign fields throughout the world.
ORIENTAL
ORIENTAL MISSIONS.
DR. E. P. THWING, BROOKLYN.
There is in the East a prescient fear that heathenism is doomed. You find hints of it in sacred books and traditions. You hear confessions as to the tyrannizing influence of the priesthood, its opposition to education, sanitary science, social improvement, by intrigue or violence. You find, as in India, printed appeals to the faithful not to forsake their gods; in Japan, efforts of ecclesiastics to gain a footing in the Imperial Diet-happily futile-where they hope legislation may some day exclude Christians from Japan, as we exclude Chinese from America. They feel that their case is desperate.
Over against this I find a growing assurance among Christians that the-' acceleration of God's providential movements, promised in these latter daysto eventuate, we believe, in the conversion of the world-has already begun. To the mherent weight and momentum of truth, God seems to be giving, as it were, an added pnsh, for .• A short work will the Lord make upon the earth." The plowman will overtake the reaper. The earth brings forth in a day, a na– tion is born at once. We have new auxiliaries. Science is making splendid leaps. The talking phonograph is heard in the palace of the Son of Heaven. Native papers advise their use in criminal courts, and in ordering executions. One blue button Mandarin at Shanghai, while I was there, bought four. It sr. amazed him that he, 61 years of age, began the study of English. The point is this: Science, at a startling rate, is multiplying delicate and powerful adjuncts to hearing, vision, tonch and locomotion. Hampering limitations are removed. So in the pers,onal, spiritual efficiency of the church there is to be a. marvelons reduplication of power. The lame will leap; the dumb sing; the feeble become as David; the house of David as God. Moonlight is sunlight; sunlight becomes sevenfold intense. In view of these two factA,_ there is- A third-an imperative necessity for men at the front, not of piety and consecration merely, but of intellectual breadth and sagacity, able to act in affairs of great complexity and perplexity, wisely, promptly. We have such. W" need more. A prominent New York business man listened with me at th~ great Shanghai Conference to argument and eloquence that would have honored the United States Senate, not alone on religious themes, but as to the right of the missionary to be protected by the Imperial Government from misrepresentation, calumny and violence. For the first time my friend got the true missionary perspective. He saw things at a new angle. He returned home a new man. He said to me yesterday, "I went out with prejudices. I thought mi;;- sionaries were a crotchety set, but I have been amazed at what I saw and heard." The calibre and quality of Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries, he said, were notable, though he belongs to neither communion himself. This is il1J.partial ami valuable testimony. Missionaries cannot speak thus, the Board cannot nor could an inspector, going in their interests, sharing their hospitality, speak without bias; but those of us can, who are independent in movement, action and utterance, with no pecuniary, official relation to any society. Yes, we have men and women of sterling worth at work. They are appreciated by men of intelligence ,who are not Christians. One whom I met writes: "I am speaking, I believe, the sentiments of my own nation when I tell you we care more for earnestness and conviction than for views. We would see men who love us and give themselves for our sakes, as the Saviour of men did; men who have had spiritual experiences as practical realities, and treat the things of the Spirit just as definitely as that they have touched and felt. Japan is already tired of soothsayers, theorizers, baptizers; we only need men and women of moral earnestness, who can give fruits of their own experience, taught through discipline and mental struggles of many years.
,A fourth conviction, derived from observation and the testimony of our brethren, is this: the advisability of a visit by the secretaries of various boards to the three empires of India, China and Japan, which include about one-half the world's population. Time and rates of travel are 'reduced. I have been in Europe and America the same week; but to be in Asia one week and in America the next week, was an illustration of the acceleration of the movements of steamers in these latter days. A day from Nagasaki to Shanghai, three more to Hong Kong, a dozen more to Bombay-these are present possibilities. Our native Christans, ps well as our missionaries, would warmly welcome such an apostolic visitation.
Finally, I have been impressed during tIns long journey in the East, with the fruitfulness of medical missionary work. It is having a wholesome, uplifting, moral influence on the medical profession outside the missionary ranks. It is opening the eyes of heathen to the capabilities of woman, revealed in our female physicians and in the native nurses trained by them. A Chinese admiral, grateful for the restoration to health of his aged mother, gave a gold medal ta- Dr. Mary Fulton. For the successful treatment of another lady of the household, another decoration was ordered. During a stay of a fortnight, ancient etiquette was ignored, and this American lady, and a female missionary with her, sat with the gentlemen of this millionaire's family at a table served in elegant European style. They had permission to hold Christian worship in their apartments, attended by heathen as well as believers. Continued gifts followed Dr. Fulton to Canton, suGh ,as a thousand oranges at a time. A young man from this fanlily-clan of 400 came to Canton Hospital to study medicine. The Hong Kong dailies refer to this as honoring Western ideas as truly as an individual physician. Medical service to the blind, diseased, injured-soon to the insane, we hope-is directly antidotal to the dislike awakened by the greedy, unscrupulous spirit often shown in our commerce, legislation and personal contact with China and other Eastern people. Heathenism believes in the survinl of the fittest and the removal of the helpless from the world. Our hospitals and dispensaries teach a nobler conception of existence. Our standard works ill medicine and surgery are stndied by native students. Otherscientific books are called for by officials. I found that in eight years over 84,000 copies of English and German works had been translated and sold from the Arsenal at Shanghai alone. These are on railways, military science, engineering, medicine, politics and religion. China is not aSleep. The intellectual ferment is not as visible as in India and Japan, but it is surely at work. With the blessing comes the bane; with new economic conditions unrest, discontent; with freer thought specUlative infidelity. The heart of an atheist is often found under the robe of an idolater. In no more vivid form is the true spirit of Christianity shown than in the tender, toilful nlinistry of the doctor and his nurses. The missionary is respected but the physician is worshipped. His person and work are sacred. "This hospital is safer than a gunboat," said a British consul, at Canton, in troublous times. One class of sufferers has for centuries been neglected in China. May I not, therefore, bespeak a hearty and immediate response from thf" friends of humanity everywhere to the efforts we are making at Canton? It is: a pathetic appeal to all nationalities. The consummati"n of this humane purpose for the relief of the insane cannot fail to unite the East and West in closer friendly international relations.
'924 T1LXSLATIOXS ~WM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICAL"
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The Allgemeine Mi.~sions-Zeitschrijt, speaking of the Dutch Mission in Borneo, remarks: "It is a matter of joy that the government of Holla)1d begins to comprehend the blessing which redounds to itself in its colonies from misf;ions, and urgently desires the strongest possible augmentation of missionary force. When the president of the Bornean Mission informed the Dutch presi- ·dent at Bandjermassin that he had solicited 7 missionaries from Barmen, the president replied: 'What does that amount to? You had better have asked for 70, for here there is a terrible heap of work to be done. These missions are doing a good work.' We hope to be on our guard against making flesh our arm, and founding any great hopes on such utterances of colonial officers; but we rejoice and thank God that the missionary work at last begins to be recognized, even by the Dutch colonial. statesmen, in its great significance." It must be remembered that until lately the feelings of the Dutch government towards missions were very much such as those of the East India Company eighty years .ago. Indeed, it formally encouraged the Moslem propaganda in its eastern -colonies, until at last it discovered itself to be warming deadly disloyalty into life on its own bosom.
-The Zeitschrijt for last March remarks that in China the successful introduction of railways would completely subvert that fundamental Chinese superfltition-the "wind-and-water-doctrine"-which has thus far successfully reflisted it. "Yet Old China will strive in vain against the railroad. The vast, thickly peopled land is destitute of highways, and the want of communication during the oft-recurring famines, costs the lives of hundreds of thousands, indeed of millions. Moreover, railways are a military necessity for the extensive ttirritory," which now lies between the hammer and the anvil-between the -constant advances of England on the south, and of Russia on the north. "But, whether Europe has so much reason to exult over the progress of China, is .quite another question. China is a g:iant, who, when he is once fairly awake, will become a rival of the Occident with the means of civilization learned of the Occident, such a rival as may well embarrass Western life in a fashion as yet undreamed of. Moreover, we may be allowed to warn against building too sanguine hopes for the progress of missions upon the extension of I ailways."
-The Missions-Zeitschrijt gives the official reports of Roman Catholic misflions in China for 1889, as follows (including Mantchuria, Mongolia, Thibet .and Yunnan): 623 European missionaries, 329 native priests, and 544,370 Catholics. At the end of 1887 the latter were given as 541,358. Taking account, therefore, of the natural increase of the population, there appears to have been n relative decline.
-The Zeitschrijt says of the new Japanese constitution: "Matters seem to l)e going rather too jast in the kingdom of the Rising Sun, and forms are not of necessity realities." It points out also that the guarantee of religious freedom is couched in an ambiguousness of phrase which might easily give a handle to ..Japanese reaction, a possibility by no means to be neglected. "Advancing ..Japan by no means lacks discontented elements, especially among those young people whose fathers belonged to the warrior and the literate classes, and that ..Japanese feeling can not only surge high but surge wildly against the favor flhown to foreigners and foreign ways, is sufficiently shown by the excitement .occasioned by the revision of the treaties."
-The Zeitschrijt remarks: "Even the striving for ecclesiastical independencl', which distinguishes the Japanese Christians, praisworthyand delightful nat~nal as it is, is impelled and supported by a mighty under-current, which is, perhaps, not wholly free from national vanity. In the missionary reports there is a perpetual recurrence to the idea, that in Japan it is not the natives that are the helpers of the foreigners, but the foreigners that are the helpers of the natives. All honor to the Japanese leaders of the Christian movement, to· the native teachers, pastors, elders; but it is hard to resist;.the impression that in this strong emphasis laid upon Japanese leadership there is involved an over-valuation by the Japanese of their own knowledge and strength. To Protestant missions there can be nothing dearer than to reach as soon as possible their goal, the establishment of an independent evangelical church in Japan. Yet, with full acknowledgm~t of Japanese gifts and of the Christian maturity of individual Japanese, it will be quite a while yet before they will be able to dispense with Western help, and also with Western guidance in the work of the Christianization and the Christian training of the gifted Japanese people. In Christian knowledge and experience, moreover, Japan is very young, and if history, especially missionary history, is to be a guide, the great present need of Japan is that of the largest possible multiplication of European and American missionaries, as indeed is urged by all sober judges of the actual state of things, among them the English bishop. The larger the staff of competent Western missionaries, so much the more speedily and certainly will Japan attain to a healthy ecclesiastical independence. "
".Besides all that is done for education by churches and individuals, tIlC" Japanese government spends yearly more than $600,000 upon schools. But what avail all these seats of culture, if, as too many testimonies seem to show, there is. growing up in them a mass of youth inclined to break all the bonds of natural piety and of youthful modesty and docility? And yet, with many leading representatives of progress in general, all(~ especially in the daily press, it is not the blessed and regenerating JlOwer of Christianity upon the hearts of men which secures it favor, but the ;'egard to it as 'an intellectual force in Japan.' They are, therefore, bewitched with the notion that culture regenerates' and knowledge is religion. . . . What the great apostle of the Gentiles wrote' aforetime to the Greeks, in their pride of wisdom, and what the Heavenly Master declared to Nicodemus, is no less opportune for the cultured heathen peoples of to-day. These are depressing shadows; but, notwithstanding these the number of those Christians in Japan, who apprehend the Gospel as a power' • of God for salvation, grows from year to year."
-In these days, when Mohammedanism is so glorified,the following notice of Kolle's" Mohammed and Mohammedanism Critically Considered,'.' from the Missions Zeitschrift for March, 1890, is well worth reading. Although the work is in English this independent summary and estimate of it from the Ger~ man is none the less valuable. We give but a part: "The author, who has made himself for decades practically familiar with the various aspects of Islam, as a Protestant missionary, first in West Africa, then in Turkey, felt the need 'of also setting it forth theoretically in this book. In his Introduction he solicits the reader's attention to the following points, which we are entitled to regard as the ripe fruit of exhaustive studies: (1) The- Prophetic Development of Mohammed; (2) the demonstration of a complete inner accord between the two great stages in Mohammed's prophetic career; (3) the demonstration that in Mohammedan legend the ground thoughts areantichristian; finally, the assignment, in the history of the world and of the church, of its proper place, as a specific form and phase of Antichristianity.
"Over against the half-and-half, in which most of Mohammed's later biographers have become involved, Kolle, like Arnold before him, holds the old Christian view, that Mahartmeli was through and through an instrument of the Archfiend. Mohammed, in Kolle's judgment, had thoroughly good oppor- tunities of knowing the Lord. He of set purpose withstood the Father's drawing, that would have led him to the Son, and thereby came under the power of the Prince of this world, and allowed himself to be fashioned by Him into an Anti-Christ, and tl1at in the very beginning of his prophetic activity. This, then, reveals itself most distinctly in Mohammedan legend,which has developed his .portrait, trait for trait, to the counterpart of God-man, and it becomes certain, beyond all doubt, when we see, how in the history of the Kingdom of God, the Anti-christianity ofMohammed comes in at the very point, at which the contest against the Lord's Anointed was j;o be carried on, after the earlier resistance had not been able to maintain itself against them.
" Kolle's argumentations for these positions, of course, claims evidence only for Ohristian readers. But to such it commends itself by clearness, inner coherence, solid historical proofs, and agreement, in fact, with the present attitude of the Mohammedan world toward Christendom. In essential points Kolle might have appealed to no less a witness for the justice of his view than to our past master of conscientious historical inqury, Leopold Von Ranke. Ranke also emphasizes these points: 'the original monotheistic conviction was already existent in Mohammed;' the assertion of immediate illumination is only the second step in the construction of the doctrine of Islam;' 'Mohammed was intent upon creating a national centre for the scattered Arab tribes,' and, therefore, ' on cleansing the Kaaba from idolatry' and' reforming the supreme .authority by the monotheistic idea.' , His ideas were from the beginning at the same time of a political nature.' When now we see how, in his later development, it becomes more and more evident that his' revelations' come 'at his call' to serve his political and, personal, often very vulgar, interests, we do not weH see how we can help ascribing to him a similar course of proceeding from the beginning. If it is alleged against this, how much enthusiasm we find at his first coming forward, in him and his adherents, really religious enthusiasm for the one compassionate God, the Judge Of the world, the answer is, that all this is just as apparent in him in the later stage of his prophetic career. Even to the last he apprehends religiously all his personal destinies (including his moral sickness), sees everything in the light thrown on it by his belief in God and his assumption of his own prophetic calling, and remaius to the last religious also in his behavior and conduct, not only in zealous asceticism, but also in temperance and self-control (except in puncto sexti septimt), and in his ever more arrogant claims of authority over others, as well as in absolute surrendering of all earthly possessions for the professed cause of God representeli by him, which, indeed, he sought to further by his great and prodigal liberality. That a man could remain so religious as Mohammed remained, when he had already times without number burdened his conscience with criminal imposture and bloody persecution, nay, with the assassination of adversaries, and that, despite the scandal which this now and then occasioned his adherents, these latter were ready, in growing enthusiasm, to offer up life and limu for him and his cause, and at his word to go to death with undoubting and joyful confidence, is just as wonderful, and in a certain sense inexplicable, as that he, at the very beginning of his prophetic course,had been an impostor, and yet had shown some traits of the genuine prophet, and gradually acquired .a faithfully devoted body of adherents.
" The magic formula of a gradual alteration, which is used in the sphere of natural science to bridge over the chasm between the inorganic and the organic, and then again between the brute and man, is yet more illusive in the sphere of , £piritualllfe, where a moral apostasy is to be psychologically explained. Add to this the prevailing tendency of our age, to make out that moral portents are not so monstrous after all, nor so far removed from' the kindly race of man,'
.and it is anything but a wonder that Mohammed finds his advantage in this .among our contemporaries. But Christians should not be bewildered by all 1Jris. Careful historical inquiry demonstrates that Mohamm~d, before he ap- peared as a prophet, besides Hanifism and Talmudism,was likewise acquainted with Christianity, and that as a monotheistic religion. He, morever, steadily .acknowledged Christianity as resting upon Divine revelation, yet he did not ()onnt it worth'while to explore it more thoroughly. He knew that the revela- tions of Jesus were documentarily attested in sacred writings, in the Gospel, yet he contented himself with an altogether superficial acquaintance with some Christian Apocrypha. He might have become an Ulphilas to his people, but in that event the Emperor, as a Christian, would have attained to a certain supremacy over the Arabs. Here the national and egoistic interest proves it- .self stronger than the religious. Here is his FALL. He presses the Divine, as .a means, into the service of the national and personal end. The want of the ()raving for truth, of the full and clear recognition of truth, surrenders him as .a victim to the temptation to untruthfulness. Henceforth he becomes more .and more a liar, more and more a murderer. Whose is the ,image and super- scription? And ever more decidedly does he, out of national and personal in· terests, set himself against Christ, and the legend of his person follows the im- . pulse which he himself gave to it-and yet, forsooth, he is to be accounted' a schoolmaster unto Christ for the peoples! ' "
-The Macedonier for 1890' (2d No.) gives an estimate of the Dutch East Indies, whose extent and population sufficiently explain the fact that the mis· llionaryefforts of Netherlands Christians are confined to these, and that they have, moreover, to call in the help of their German brethren for Sumatra and Borneo. From Upper Sumatra to New Guinea is farther than from Gibraltar to Archangel. From Batavia to Amborgna is as far as from Lisbon to Christi- ania. The land area is fifty times as great as the Netherlands. The population is estimated at about 30,000,000. Deducting some 350,000 Chinese, 15,000 Arabs, 45,000 Europeans, or such as are classed with them, the rest is divided between the Malay and the Papuan races.
The great island of Java has 20,000,000 of the 30,000,000, with undeveloped capacities for a good many more.
-Missionary Wolff, of the Leipsic Mission in South India, having removed to Sidambaram, a bigoted city of temples, avowed that at first he shrank from preaching in the streets, doubting, moreover, whether it would avail anything.
But one night a man appeared to him in a dream, in whom he recognized the Lord Christ, who asked him: "Have you to-day been among the heathen?"
This question, which he could not answer affirmatively, went through bone and marrow. After that, during the nineteen years that he spent in Sidambaram, until his death, in 1883, he made i~ his rule to let no day pass without preaching in some one of the 132 streets of the city or in some neighboring yillage. He left behind a Christian congregation of 893.
-The Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt, under the heading, "Signs of the Times," describes a recent judicial investigation in Tirumalei, South India, of a case of embezzlement, the offender being the superior of the temple. Some $80,000 or more having been discovered in ancient gold coins, the Mahant, or superior, proposed to his suffragan priests, to have them buried, for special se- curity, under the great flag-staff of the temple. They consented, and accord- ingly six copper vessels, filled to the brim with gold coins were so disposed of. Soon, however, the superior's1avish outlays of gold coins in Bombay and elsewhere were tracked out, and, as his imperiousness had exasperated his pupils and colleagues, they overcame their awe of his sacerdotal holiness, and brought him before the courts.
"Accordingly, July 20th, 1889, one of the seven Atschari Purushas (chief priests) accused him before the nearest English court, demanding examination of the buried pots. There was a prodigious and universal commotion of men's minds. Bring so holy, inviolable a personage before the courts! Shall any one venture to desecrate the sacred place which no European foot has ever trodden, and dig up the treasure? The Mahant left no stone unturned to hin- der this. The best lawyers, at the highest prices, were retained as his advo- cates in both lower and higher court. These represented that the disinterment of the treasure would wound the feelings of the Hindus, that the flag-staff was the holiest thing about the temple, that there resided in it a peculiar magical efficacy, that the god was wont to sit on it, that the next festival would be dis- turbed, etc. The judges unquestionably treated the accused with the greatest consideration and patience, but the suspicion was too strong-the excavation could not be dispensed with, yet it was executed with all respect and forbear- ance. A European engineer was put in charge, but not being allowed to cross, the temple-threshold, he gave his orders sitting at the door. One hundred and twenty heathen pqIicemen, with fixed bayone1B, guarded the temple day and night. Yet first the Balalijam ceremony was performed, i. e., the flag-staff was for the time voided of i1B magic force, and a prayer addressed to the Swami, to leave his seat on the flag-staff for awhile, yet without going quite away from the temple. During this time the temple-service, which had been uninterrupted for centuries had to be suspended. A great throng assembled around the temple" but it displayed not the slightest sign of opposition or counter-demonstration: Also a sign of the times! In a few days the six pots were dug up, and opened in the presence of many witnesses and of the Mahant himself. At the top was found a thin layer of gold coins, and beneath nothing but worthless old copper pieces."
-Missionary Herre of the Leipsic Society, speaking of the imitative, and by no means prosperous,'attempts of a worthy Brahmin of Bangalore, to establish some charitable institutions, remarks: "We cannot concede to the Hindus the capacity of supporting such charities. Their benefits are intended for the upper classes, not for the poor Pariahs. So, also, in all such matters as temperance societies, etc., the Hindus leave the Pariahs quite out of the que,stion. They think: What have we to do with these? Are we to be their keepers? Of brotherly feeling toward them no one thinks. It is only the Christian that has, pity on all the poor; he concerns himself even for the meanest and most despised. Only once in the year (at the Saturnalia)did the old Roman heathenism enforce the equality of all (or rather reversed the inequalit}, subjecting the masters for eight or ten days to the slaves); only once, and that in the night, does a sect of the Hindus acknowledge this equality by unutterable abominations of all with all. Then, in bestial irrationality, 'the depths of Satan' are sounded, and the cup of impurity emptied to the dregs. At sunrise the distinctions of caste stand once more as frowningly repellent towards each other as before."
This Brahmin having courteously invited Mr. Herre to make use of his hall for English addresses which would be well understood by the educated Hindus, "begged me to speak cautiously, and not to repel the audience by laying a strong emphasis on Christian ideas, especially to be prudent in using the name of Jesus. I promised to keep in mind the rules of the hall, but begged him to remark that I could not leave the missionary at home-could not deny or con-, eeal Jesus Christ. I declared that, as He is the centre of the whole history of the world, so He must be the centre of all my addresses. I reminded him that it was well understood by everyone, why we missionaries had come to India. With this he expressed himself content. Accordingly I hope to have there a frequent opportunity of scattering some seed of divine truth among educated hearers. Such an opportunity for preaching is the more welcome as street- preaching in this city has to contend with especial obstacles. It encounters every- where hired bawlers, heathen and Mohammedan. Regular opposition societies have been formed for this end. We cannot but await, with growing interest, the things that shall come to pass. But we may well expect to be able to say, and that perhaps shortly, as Athanasius said of Julian's persecution: 'It is but a passing cloud.'"
-It appears that Buddhism is not inclined to yield the field to the Gospel without some various attempts (with the help of Schopeuhauer, Hartmann, and lesser adepts) to carry the war into Africa, or rather into Europe and America. The Missionsblatt remarks: "What a challenge to a thorough refu- tation is given by the Buddhist catechism of 'Subhadra Bickshu,' which has already reached its second edition in Bruuswick? In this he declares creation out of nothing a lunacy, and, with bold presumption, denying the being of God, he gains audacity for the insane declaration that 'everything originates through ¥-d out c4 itself by nature of its own will.' And now many unbelieving scholars are extoling this senseless talk to our people as the higher wisdom that is to save their despairing souls! How the theosophists and a part of the the spiritists work mischief with the so-called Esoteric Buddhism is well known. Is it not high time to intervene with some word of knowledge that shall bring the light?"
-Speaking of the late Bishop Sargent, the editor of the Missionsblatt, who had met him in India, says: "If he did not belong to the pioneer missionaries like Rhenius, into whose inheritance he entered, he yet must be reckoned among the more significant missionary names of India-men whose lives are so thoroughly interwoven with the missionary history of their field of labor, that we cannot separate the one from the other. What a singular growth of missions he has been permitted to see with his own eyes! This appears by a -:lOmparison of the state of the work of the Church Missionary Society in 1835, when he began in Tinnevelly (South India) as a lay helper, with 1888. The increase hasbeen: Places occupied, 224-1018; native adherents, 8,693-55,853; communicants, 114-12,112; native pastors, 1-67; schools, 112-456; scholars, 2,404-13,219.
"It was under him, and principally at his instance, that the home committee took the momentous step of recalling almost all the European missionaries from Tinnevelly, and committing the care of the youthful congregations tonanve pastors, to be supported wholly or partly by the contributions of the people, which, in 1888, amounted to 27,643 rupees. That this somewhat premature step could be taken without injuring the work more and endangering all the interests of the churches, may well be regarded as chiefly the merit of Sargent. What secured him his great influence over the natives (and here is so commonly the main ground of missionary success) was his personal amiability. ~iousness and friendliness in intercourse with them-he was loved by them _ a father by his children. He is especially noted for having completely mastered the Tamil Ianguage and become perfectly acquainted with the Tamil .ustoms and habits of thought. He was, it is true, greatly assisted in this by 1I1e fact of having been born and brought up in Madras, though of European parents.
"An Indian journal says of him: 'Not as a great administrative genius, or as a scholar, like his friend, Bishop Caldwell, will Sargent be remembered among us, but rather as a man of a strong character, of a broad and loving heart, as a prince aniong the Tamil preachers, as a great missionary, who gave to India his whole heart for Christ's sake, who made India his home, and with joy was willing to die among the people of his choice. He was a GREAT MIS- SIONARY, and this showed itself, not so much in extraordinary endowments as in this, that he, without suffering himself to be discouraged, believed unswerv- ingly on God's counsels touching India, and with all his energy co-operated for their realization,without sparing himself, until he could labor no longer. May the generation of such ' great' men never die out in this land! "
-The Dansk Missionsblad, in a detailed accoUnt of the stations of the China Inland Mission, has some vivid descriptions of regions and towns very little familiar to Christendom. Thus:" Eastward of the province of Szechuen lies that of Hoo-pih, which is only half as large, but more thickly peopled than its neighbor on the west." Here lies China's greatest lake, and perhaps the world's greatest city. It has commonly been supposed and taught that London was this world's hugest. But here, in the heart of China, lies a great city, consisting of three divisions, on both sides of the Yang-tse-Kiang, which here is about half a mile broad, and navigable even for great ships. It is given as having 5,000,000 inhabitants, and is called after the name of one of the three divisions, Vouchang. It is the greatest mart in Asia, and the throng and traffic found here both on land and water, are set forth as unique and beyond description. This city, like Tientsin, is one of the headquarters of the China Inland Mission, from which communications are maintained with the missionaries in the west and northwest. As a result of this the brethren stationed here have their hands full with the affairs of their scattered colleagues, and have therefore but little time and strength for missionary work proper. Yet there exists in the mighty city a little church of about half a hundred members, and another of'the same size in the city Fan-cheng, in the northern, mountainous part of the province. There are in all only 17 missionaries in this important province, whose inhabitants, taken as a whole, are so taken up with 'the struggle for existence' or the acquisition of riches, that they seem but slightly receptive for the message of peace, and but little desirous of the treasure which moth and rust cannot consume.
" Between Cwan-hwing and the sea stretches Keang-soo, one of the most remarkable and most important provinces of China. I~ has no fewer than three cities of a million each,which, moreover, lie close together. There is Nanking, whose former glory seems in great part to have sunk in ruins along with the fac-renowned Porcelain Tower, which the Tai-ping rebels laid waste. Here i,s Sou-tchou, the most beautiful city in the whole realm of China, of which the saying goes: 'In Heaven there is Paradise, and on earth Sou-tchou,' and, , To be happy on earth one must be born in Sou-tchou.' There is Shanghai, with its gloomy environs and filthy streets,.but with a mighty stir of traffic and diversified popular life."
-Missionary Van Eendenburg, in the Orgaan der Nederlandsche Zendingsverceniging, (organ of the Netherlands Missionary Society) for March, 1890, speaks of having baptized a Javanese gentleman of rank, Atman Oesman,who, by a pilgrimage to Mecca in his boyhood, in the company of his father, had gained the exalted standing of a Hadji, or Saint. Such a change of religion in the case of a Hadji being a thing unheard of, his baptism has created excitement far and wide. It is to be hoped that it will be a saving shock to others besides his own family.
Mr. Van Eendenburg reports having been not long since waited on by a Chinese (of whom there seem to be a good many in Java) with the request for medicine. The sick mim promised that if the missionary would cure him he .would pay him by becoming a Christian. Mr. Van Eedenburg took occasion to explain to him on which side the benefit would lie, if he became a Christian, and dismissed him with medicines, promising to send more after him through the native helper. The conversations of the latter have resulted in the estab- lishment of a stated congregation of from 30 to 50, served regularly by Mr. Van Eendenburg or his helper. The missionary has already baptized 8 adults and 5 children among them. But the Chinese, whose sickness has been the oocasion of such blessed results, still remains aloof. God grant that he may n@t save others and fail to be saved himself.
It is known that the restless, atheistic demagogue, Bradlaugh, besides the -capital which he is endeavoring to make for himself and his designs (including, I understand, the legislative suppression of religion) by throwing himself into the fullest current of extreme democracy at home, has b~en traversing India with the same purpose. He proposes giving to every male Hindu over 21, who has certain qualifications as yet undetermined, the right of voting for <E!lectors, who s~ll in turn choose Legislative .Councils, for the different Presi- -dencies, and a Supreme Council to control the vice-regal administration. Upon this the Evangelisches-Lutherisches Missionsblatt for March, 1890, remarks: "This proposition was received by the national congress with exultation, and accepted without change. The wine of democracy had intoxicated them .all. Otherwise this resolution would be hardly intelligible. We are tempted to ask whether these 2,000 'educated' men are really in earnest with their proposition. Do they really believe that in an empire whose present population is estimated at 270,000,000, and in which far more than nine-tenths of the population cannot read, and cannot form any conception of what is properly meant by a 'Legislative Council;' a country in which, during thousands of years, not so much as a shadow of a parliamentary government has had a being, now, on a sudden, the way can be opened for a popular administration? To which of the .diversified castes and religions of the Indian population would the lion's share fall-castes and communions which in part are absolutely alien to each other? To whom but to the crafty BRAHMINS, who are far in advance of all others in assimilation of Western culture, and in the most difficult university examina- tions, and, who, through intellectual superiority and their great skilfulness of speech and readiness in the appropriation of forms of action, have already a dominant position in the official world of India? But woe to the poor Gov- €rnors, who shall be obliged to expose themselves to the cross-fire of these tongues? They would soon realize Bradlaugh's explanation of the word 'loyalty.' The latter said in Bombay: 'True loyalty consists in this, that the subject shall so support the Governors as to leave but little for the government to do !"
–Several members of the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrijt have been largely oocupied with an account of the work of the missionaries of the American Board and the Hawaiian Missionary Society, in Micronesia, both in the Gilbert and the Caroline and the Marshall Islands, drawn up with true German thoroughness. The writer, after speaking of the steady progress in the work on the Marshall Islands, speaks of the temporary disturbance occasioned by ~he German occupancy in 1885. The first thing which the German commander, Captain ROt~er, did, was to fine the Ebon Church 2,000 marks, because they had refused £0 trade with two German merchants who had brought in liquor contrary to law. This outrageous measure, taken on the mere representation of the two dealers, without any opportunity given to the missionaries or the people to speak, was severely commented on in the Zeitschrijt, whereupon the German admiralty brought suit for libel. The court, however, decided that the charge against Captain Rotger was made out. Against the somewhat han;h imperiousness of the German officers is to be set off the independence and equity of the German tribunals.
The Zeitschrwijt commends the German protectorate for its efforts to bring to an end the frequent civil wars on these islands. On the whole, however, the German editors represent the influence of their countrymen upon the work of missions on the Marshall Islands as being the reverse of sympathetic. Th~ German dealers-with the single exception of Herr A. Cappelle, on Ebon-are hostile; and the Commissary seems to side with them. Everything done for missions is viewed, apparently, as so much withdrawn from the gains of German covetousness. The Commissary, like the Czar with the Protestants of his dominion, actually undertakes to control the liberality of the people, for- bidding them to giv/i "excessively," and, of, course, reserving to himself the" interpretation of the term. On the limited resoul'Ces of the coral group he imposes a tax of 2,000 marks. To the American missionaries he continues peremptorily to refuse permission to lease land for churches 0; schoolhouses. And, most unhandsome of all, he will not allow the " Morning Star" to go on her rounds of mercy among the islands of the group, without paying a yeady license of 1,000 marks! All these things, of course, are known in this country through the Missionary Herald .. but it is a comfort to see them so thoroughl,. and severely exposed by the great German missionary magazine. If these things are done in the green tree, what may be looked for in the dry? If II. great Teutonic Protestant power, like Germany, allows greed and love of dominion to mislead her to such treatment of a kindred race and religion,what. wonder if France persecutes both in the Pacific? With this German churlishness in the Marshall group the courtesy and equity of the present Spanish Governor of the Caroline Islands contrasts most honorably. But let us hope tha.t, as the young Emperor seems in various particulars to have come to a better" mind at home, the fruits of his growing largeness of sympathies will yet extend even to the Marshall Islands.
Dr. Warneck, or rather Mr. Kurze, who writes the article, is decidedly of opinion, now that the work is so burdened and threatened, that an American missionary, besides Dr. Pease, ought to take up his residence on Jaluit-now the seat of government-and make much more frequent rounds among the islands, procuring a special schooner for the purpose.
-The same number of the Missions-Zeitschrijt gives statistics of the work of the Rhenish Missionary Societyamong the Battas Qf Sumatra. The work is now twenty.,seven years old. It embraces 13 stations and 56 outstations. There are 13,135 baptized Christians. In 1888 there were 1,244 adult baptisms. Having advanced to the inland sea, Lake Toba, it is making ready to cross it into independent territory, its present stations being all under Dutch suzerainty. The Bat~ elders are peculiarly helpful to the missionary, both at home and as evangelists. The mission has now its first unmarried female missionary (an English lady, self-supporting) and its first medical missionary.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
H.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Africa.-The Bishop of Cape Town areas of rich deposits of wonderful lias been administering the rite of con- fertility.
firmation to the lepers within his -M. Chaudoin, one of the hostages jurisdiction. Says the Evangelical seized by the King of Dahomey, was Ohurchman, of Toronto, Canada: "He kept three months in captivity, tirst confirmed nine, using the English chained, for the greater part of the language, and, using the Dutch lan- time, to his fellow prisoners. On one guage, he laid hands on 5 chronic sick occasion they were present at a sort of persons, 44 male and 17 female lepers. review of 15,000 of the king's war- His addresses, which were very ear- riors. The sight of the body of Ama- nest and touching, were interpreted zons, the 4,000 black virgins who form by a clergyman. One poor boy was the royal bodyguard, and who, armed wheeled up to the altar, and. several with rifle and knife, "stand ready to -eQuld not kneel. The ages of the can- attack at the slightest signal of their didates ranged from 11 to 90. . The master," greatly impressed him.
bishop subsequently went to the l~per -Rev. Dr. Johnston, a Jamaica mis- wards of the house and confirmed an sionary, has been for eome time train- English sailor who was too ill to attend ing as missionaries a number of ne- the church." groes belonging to his church, in Ja- -Under the name of the Independ- maica, and is about to start a mission ,ent State of Congo, its government in Africa of colored men for their ,organized after the most approved own race. This movement will be methods of Belgian administration, watched with interest, and, if success- it entered fully equipped into the ful, will greatly help to solve the ques- family of nations. There is within its tion of reaching Africa's millions with area, which is 33 times that of Bel- the Gospel. The cry may some day gium, a population of 450 white, about be, "Africans-ministerial and medi- ,one-half State officials and employees, cal-for Africa." In such a case the and the estimated number of natives negro institutions and churches of within its borders is about 40,000,000, America should train and furnish and, in the whole Congo basin, is esti- their full quota.
mated at about 50,000,QOO. -American Board of Com. F. M.
Africa is about three times the area -The following statistical summary, ,of Europe, or 12,000,000 square miles, presented at Minneapolis, shows what and some writers estimate it to con- has been done: Number of mission- tain about an equal population- aries increased from 514 to 533; places 325,000,000 souls. The enormous trade opened for stated preaching, 1,069 to developing there comes mainly from 1,402; new churches, 27; membersre- the narrow selvage which separates ceived in confession, 4,554; aggregate the mountains from the sea. It is a churches, 387; members, 36,256; at- great basin composed of plateaux, tendance at 122 high-schools and gradually ascending to 7,000 feet at colleges, 7,780; native pastors, 173; some of the central lakes. It has four amount contributed by mISSIOn great river systems: on the west, the churches for self-support, $117,000.
Congo, second only to the Amazon in The whole number of church members the volume of its water, and the Ni- secured since the Board began work, ger; on the north, the Nile; on the 81 years ago, is 114,953. The number east, the Zambesi. These rivers once of pupils under instruction is 47,329.
formed vast internal seas, which, fin- The donations, during 1889-1890, ally breaking through the mountain were $417,921.84, a gain in one year of barriers, descended by cataracts and $22,876.84. Of this, $169,2*6.37 came ,canyons to the ocean, leaving great frOln the three woman's boards, an increase of $16,450.86. Legacies re- union. The statistics of missionary ceived,$199,802.11, again of $46,148.39. Presbyterianism in China show 589 This, with the income of the general Inissionaries; wives of missionaries, permanent fund and the income of 390; single women, 316; ordained na- special bequests,. made the total tive ministers, 209; unordained help- amount of money available for the ers, 1,260; female helpers, 180; hos- Board $763,434.07. The expenditures pitals, 61; dispensaries, 43; patients in were $762,946.98, leaving a balance of 1889, 348,439; organized churches, 520; $487.09. It was stated that an income communicants, 37,287; pupils in of $1,000,000 a year is needed. schools, 16,816; contributions by na- Armenia.- The Armenian Patri- tive Christians, $36,884,64.
arch has recently secured a decree -According to recent calculations from the Sultan, granting important made by the Russian authorities,which concessions to the Armenians of that are regarded very trustworthy, the country. Among these is a restora- population of the Chinese Empire is tion to the Armenian Church of the 382,000,000. The annual increase is important privileges and immunities placed at 4,000,000. But not .one in of which it waa deprived by the pro- 10,000 of these millions ever heard of visions of a recent decree, and im- Jesus Christ.
portant concessions for the improve- -There are 109 medical mission- ment of the condition of the Armeni- aries in China, of whom 38 are women, ans of Asia Minor. and of these last 36 are Americans.
-Catholicism. – The sixteenth an- In all but four of the provinces medi- nual session of the Catholic Young cal missions have been established.
Men's National Union, 300 delegates – Churches Disbanded. In the present, met lately in Carroll Hall, Minutes of the General Assembly of Washington, for business, after hear- the Presbyterian Church for 1889, page ing a sermon in one of the churches 149, it is stated that 36 per cent. as by Bishop Keane, rector of the Catho- many churches are annually disbanded lic University. The Union is com- as new ones organized; that the ratio posed of 111 societies, coming from of disbandments is gradually increas- nearly all the States and Canada, and ing, and last year was greater than there are applications in hand from ever before. In the Congregational seventy-five other Unions or Societied Year Book, giving the statistics for for membership. They asked for, and 1889, it is stated that 241 new churches.
received by cable, the Pope's blessing. were organizad during the year, and The Cardinal delivered an address, in 121 disbanded. For every three which, among other things, he said: churches organized by the Presbyteri- •• Love. to God and His Church, love of ans one is disbanded; a~d among the country, and love for one another, are Congregationalists, for every two new the three great principles of the churches organized one is disbanded.
Union." France.-There are three principal China. – The missionaries con- French societies for the spread of Pro- nected with the Presbyterian churches testantism in France: The Societe Cen- in the United States, the United Pres- trale Protestante d'Evangelisation, the byterian Church of Scotland, the Union des Eglises E"t'angeliques libres· Irish and the Canadian Presbyterian de France, and the Societe Evange- Churches, have agreed upon a plan of lique de France; the last is the oldest, union to form the Presbyterian Church undenominational, and founded i:n of China. . The representatives of the 1833. Each society is self-supporting.
English Presbyterian and the Re- Much work is done by the American formed (Dutch) Church of America McAll Association and the Methodist are expected also to accede to the and Baptist churches. Their forms. of labor are manifold. There are in parison with these countries is not Paris alone, Bible societies, tract so- very bright or assuring. In Italy the cieties, and societies for the promotion birth-rate is 6.7 per thousand inhabit- of the circulation of Protestant books. ants, in Germany, 10; in Russia, 12.9, A work of evangelization among the and in England, 12.9, while in France sailors is carried on by M. H. Cook, it does not exceed 1.19.
with the boats Mystery and Herald of Great Britain.-ANational Pro- Mercy. There are societies to work testant Congress was held in London, among shop-girls, young washer- October 27-29. The following sub- women, coachmen, and priests who jects were selected for consideration: have left the Catholic Church. There 1. Union of Protestant Churches-(a) are temperance societies, with re.stau- common grounds of union; (b) differ- rants, where food of good quality, at ences which hinder union; (c) sug- low prices is supplied; no wine, but gested schemes of union and inter- tea and coffee. There are homes for communion. 2. The Public Worship workingmen, working girls, and for of God–{a} its true nature and char- those out of work; also societies to find acter; (b) its helps and its hindrances.
employment for them. There are day 3. Systematic Instruction in Refor- homes for young children whose par- mation Principles–{a) the plenary in- ents are at work, and homes for chil- spiration and sole authority of holy dren whose parents are in the hospital Scripture; (b) the right of private or prison. There are societies for work- judgment; (c) justification by faith ing among women and men in prison, only. 4. Conventual and Monastic £lnd to assist them when discharged; Systeins, with special reference to there are stores where the poor can the attempted revival of brother- buy at wholesale rates, and savings hoods and sisterhoods. 5. Home and banks for them; there are homes at Foreign Protestant Missions, with spe- the seashore and in the country for the cial reference to the dangers arising delicate to spend some time every sum- from Romanizing influences, and the mer. Protestant schools, lectures in best means of counteracting them.
pleasant rooms, Bible-readings, chari- Devotional-opening meeting-sub- table associations for every want, ject: "One Body, One Spirit ;" closing asylums for every age and infirmity, meeting-subject: "The Priesthood of belong also to the vast work carried Christ, and the Priesthood of Believ- on by Protestants in Paris. ers." Among those who were ap- -France is declining in population, pointed to take part, were Sir. Arthur and seems to be rapidly approaching Blackwood, K.C.B., Rev. E. W. Bul- the fearful period when the deaths linger, D.D., Rev. A. A. Isaacs, M.A., will exceed the births among her citi- Mr. James Inskip, H. Sinclair Pater- zens. She has not kept pace ingrowth son, M.D., Colonel Sandys, M.P., Rev.
relatively with competitive nations. Hiles Hitchens, D.D., Pastor Fuller A century a.go she had the lead; now Gooch, Professor Radford Thomson, she is amazingly falling in the rear. M. A., Bishop Sugden, D.D., Rev. F.
For instance, a century ago her popu- B. Meyer, Rev. Dr. Grattan Guinness, lation numbered 26,000,000, while Rev. John WilkinsOn, the Dean of Russia had only 25,000,000; Austria, Achonry, Rev. C. H. H. Wright, D.D., 17,000,000; Prussia, 15,000,000, and Rev. Marcus Rainsford, M.A., and Mr.
England, 12,000,000. Now, however, William Johnston, M.P.
Russia has 90,000,000 inhabitants; Ger- India.-The late Sir Bartle Frere, many, 46,000,000; Austria, 38,000,000, ex-governor of Bombay, tells how, in while France has only 36,000,000. 1835, he was taken by the Rev. James Then, if we consider the birth-rates, Mitchell to visit the first school opened the promise of future increase in com- in Poona forthe education of Marathi girls. He was enjoined to keep what the specific appropriation for Hampton he saw to himself, lest he should ex- and Lincoln Institutes. pose to persecution the Brahmin who had lent his house for such a purpose. Italy.-A new law has passed th.. ~ow schools for girls are to be seen Italian Parliament, and has received in all the large towns of India, and the royal sanction, which restores a. their number is continually increasing large sum of money, the accumula- -not only without opposition from the tions of beneficence in the past, to the Brallmins, but often with their con- purposes for which it was originally currence. given. An income of nearly $25,000,- 000 has hitherto been under the con- -Missionaries for India. Eleven trol of ecclesiastics, and by them di- missionaries, who started on the 30th verted to their interests, though orig- October for India, received a public inally intended for the poor. This fat'ewell on the previous evening at great income is hereafter to be placed the University Place Presbyterian in the hands of laymen, to expend in Church. Their names are Rev. J. M. homes for orphans and the aged, and Irwin and Miss Rachel Irwin, Rev. the relief of the distressed and helpand Mrs. W. N. Hannum, Miss Esther less. It is to be no more under eccle- Patton, Rev. and Mrs. A. H. Ewing, siastical control, but the civil admin- Rev. and Mrs. H. D. Griswold, Miss istration. The process of separating Jennie L. Colman and Miss Margaret Church and State in Italy has steadily Morrow. At a meeting of the Presby- been going on since Rome became the tery of New York, held previous to capital of the kingdom. the farewell services, Mr. Griswold was examined as to his qualifications Japan.-A writer in The Ohristiau for the ministry, and was afterwards at Work reports that" the Russian ordained in the presence of the large orthodox missionaries in Japan are congregation, the charge being de- said to be the most successful of all livered by Rev. Dr. George Alexan- the missionaries in that empire." But der, pastor of the University Place they receive scarce a quarter as many Church. The address to the mission- converts per year as do the Protestaries was made by Rev. Dr. Arthur ants, who have far overtaken the :Mitchell. Greek Church, and are rapidly over- taking the Roman Catholic. -N. A. Indians. The discussions in Congress over, Indian contract -The" Hochi Shimbun," a leading schools have brought to view where Japanese newspaper, says the progthe most money goes. The Catholics ress of Christianity in Japan is slow have had the lion's share of the funds, but sure. There is nothing striking and, of course, the largest opportani- about the numbe,' of converts added ties for influence over the Indians. each year to the roll of Japanese The amount set apart for the support Christians, or about the increase of of Catholic schools, for the education propagandists' ministrations. But, on of the Indian youth, has grown in five the other hand, the foreign faith ad- vances surely and steadily, planting years from $118,343 to $347,689 for its feet firmly as it goes, and never re- 1891. The whole amount appro- trograding for an instant. Those who priated for church contract schools estimate its development by the rehas grown, in the same period, from sults attained in a week or a day can $228,259 to $554,558. The Catholic form no true idea. They must watch Church had a little more than half of it for half a year or more, and they the whole appropriation in 1886, and will then discover that what it lacks it will have a good deal more than in extent it gains in stability. Opporhalf in 1891, leaving $206,869 for all tunities to test the influence it has ex- Protestant Church schools, including ercised upon the public mind are, of ~urse. few and far between. Its ing the expenses of transporting theili. to the points where they are to work, diligence in the cause of female educa- and in some cases tools have bee. given them." tion, and its untiring efforts to im- -Persecution of Jews in Russia.- prove the status of Japanese women It was recently announced that aD. edict had been published expelling are also quoted as easily discernible Jews from Russia. Official inquiry at St. Petersburg was met by denial that evidences of the progress it is making. any law on the subject had been pro- mulgated or was likely to be. But fill"- "In short," the Hochi Shin~bun con- ther investigation reveals the fact that the law was passed in 1882, but has cludes, "that Christianity will ulti- not been enforced; that it is now pro- posed to enforce it; and that when the mately attain to power by gradual Russian officials denied the enactment of anyrecent legislationon the subject, and steady accumulation of merits is they were simply juggling with words. According to the edict, ' 'No Jew is any a fact of which we are convinced by longer permitted to own or even farm land." All Jewishland-owners,farmers long observation. If it progresses at and agricultural laborers are thus ex- pelled from their village homes. Unless its present rate its future is assured." they have saved means enough for their subsistence they will be reduced 'The writer calls upon Buddhists to tobeggary. AIlJews,numberingmany thousand families, settled outside the bestir themselves in the cause of their sixteen specified counties, shall be ex- pelled. An equally large number of faith. DR. MUTCHMORE. the artisan class will be rendered homeless by the enforcement. Mr. -Jews.-Baron Hirsch gives $10,000 Benjamin Lewis Cohen, one of the most influential and respected Jews in a month toward the relief of theJews London, declares that the immediate effect will be to till"n adrift hundreds <€xiled from Russia and seeking homes of thousands of innocent and law- abiding citizens, many of whom must in the United States. Of the use made inevitably enter the already crowded labor markets in Europe. ,of this provision, the American He- -The increasing spirit of antagobrew says: nism to the Jews, of which the edicts of the Russian Czar are outwafd "A census taken of the district south manifestations, is disclosing itself in other ways. It is stated that an anti- ·of Houston Street and east of Broad- Semitic congress is to be held in Ger- many about the close of the present way, [New York], shows a population year. A congress in which every speech and every resolution will be ·.,f Russian and Roumanian Jews far levelled against one people, isolating them for the purpose of denunciation, in excess of 100,000, and the average and holding them up publicly to scorn- increase by immigration is about ful depreciation, is a novelty not to be 20,000 per annum. The committee anticipatted without pair and regret.
propose using the fund so far as pos- ,sible in educating these people so as to become self-sustaining by entering trades or occupations which are new to them, and to enable them to amal- gamate as rapidly as can be with the people among whom they work or ·dwell. To this end, classes have been .opened for teaching children sufficient English to prepare them to attend the public schools; for instructing adults in English, in American history, meth- ·ods and customs; for fitting girls for <lther occupations than tailoring; for making men handy with tools, where- by they can more rapidly obtain re- munerative employment. It has been proposed to teach them various trades and put some at agriculture, and so .soa.tter them in different v~ations.
With the aid of the employment bu- reau of the United Hebrew Charities, positions have been found for a large number of men, the Hirsch Fund pay- But the "Czar" and the "congress" morning till latest eve, and every de– may both be fulfilling that Divine pur- scription of work, every model of pose which is to make Palestine again worker, and every class of convert the possession of the Jews, and the was at this great review; nay, almost final abode of the long-wandering sons every nation under the sun was repre- of Israel. Meanwhile, better councils sented. It is claimed that 85,000 were concerning the Jew prevail elsewhere. on the grounds. Yet, though a quar- Mr. Reginald Radcliffe lately an- ter of a century has elapsed since nounced that a single donor, whose William Booth resigned his post as name is not given, had paid, through Methodist New-Connection Minister, the Bank of England, the sum of and commenced his "Christian Mis- $125,000 for a new edition of the He- sion," it was only in 1878 that the brew Testament. The editor of The name "Salvation Army" was adopted.
Christian (London) says that an ad- Two special features of our modern ditional sum of $25,000 has been given life the General has been quick to rec- for the purpose of distributing the ognize and to utilize: the musical Hebrew Testament by agencies not education of England, and England's now employed. This is better far passion for social philanthropy. We than imperial edicts and "anti-Sem- shall presently have to add to this the itic" leagues. effect upon the masses of the elemen- -Mormons abolish Polygamy.-At tary drawing, which is everywhere to- the general conference of the Church be insisted upon under the New Code.
of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, Spain.- The conversion of Rev.
in Salt Lake, the official declaration Rafael de Zafra Menendez, ex-Roman of President Woodruff, forbidding, in Catholic priest, has greatly cheered the future, any marriage in violation Pastor Lopez Rodriguez and his de- of the law, was read before an audi- voted wife in their important work in ence numbering -10,000 persons. The Northeast Spain. Having been friar, apostles and bishops and leading eld- Jesuit, professor, apostolic mission- ers of the church, by unanimous vote, ary, parochial rector, and mission recognized the authority of the Presi- teacher in Spain, France and Af· dent to issue the manifesto and ac- rica, Father Zafra has had a varied cepted it as authoritative, and George experience. He is a Doctor of Divin- O. Cannon publicly announced his en- ity and an el<JllUeHL speake!". His dorsement of the manifesto and his public recantation of the errors of recognition of the supremacy of the Rome, and confession of faith in laws that had been declared constitu- Christ as the one Mediator, caused tional by the Supreme Court of the considerable excitement throughout United States. The conference also the province of Gerona, and a copy of re-adopted the original articles of his letter _of abjuration was sent to faith, among which is this: "We be- every priest and mayor.
lieve in being subject to kings, presi- The occasion of the recantation was dents, rulers and magistrates, in obey- admirably improved. In words of ing, honoring and sustaining the truth, lovingly expressed, Father law." This action settles the vexed Zafra declared how ardently he had question, and places an effectual bar devoted himself to all that is enjoined against future polygamous marriages by the Church of Rome, animated by in Utah. It is the most important step the hope of thereby gaining salvation, taken by the Church in more than a and ultimate glory. But he had failed quarter of a century. to find the peace and satisfaction he -Salvation Army.-"The Silver Ju- longed for. All was doubt and un- bilee," at the Crystal Palace, at Syden- rest. Like Luther, he imagined that ham, occupied the day from earliest surely in the" Eternal City," where dwells his Holiness, "God's Repre- powerful Gospel addresses to crowded sentative," he would obtain that which audiences in theatres and ball-rooms.
he so fervently desired. 'Sad decep- There can be no doubt about the sin- tion! Instead of purity and godliness cerity of the convert; for he has ex- he found a revolting mass of world- changed a position of influence and liness and hollow ceremonial. Al- pecuniary advantage for that of a most crushed in spirit, he sought a humble preacher of the Gospel, and a copy of the Scriptures, but found the mission-school teacher, with a small sacred volume distorted, and soiled . living allowance. Such of our readers, with human additions and subtrac- as desire more details of this very in- tions. At last he obtained a true teresting case are recommended to'
(Protestant) version, and as a traveler procure copies of recent "Letters in the dark seizes a torch to guide his from Spain," by Madame Lopez Rod- benighted steps, so he grasped the riguez, from Rev. J. C. Stewart precious " lamp" of God's Holy Mathias, Theberton Rectory, Sax- Word, the entrance of which gave him mundham, Suffolk, who is honorable light. In it he found all, and more treasurer of the Figueras Mission.- than he had for a lifetime so eagerly The Christian.
sought. Thibet.- The Moravians have a Satisfied that the simple Gospel is mission in this most inaccessible re- the truth, Father Zafra resolved at all gion. The mission premises lie about costs to throw off the chains of error 9,400- feet above sea level, and 1,000.'
and superstition which had so long feet above the narrow ravine, down bound him, and openly to leave the which the foaming torrent of the Church of Rome. But who was there Sutlej rushes. The village of Poo is to extend a helping hand? To have the largest in that remote district, bu.t disclosed his secret to personal friends the high passes leading to it are very or ecclesiastical brethren would have difficult at all times, and impassable for been fatal to his safety. In the dis- a good part of the year. Here live and guise of a peasant he went to the labor a missionary pair, occupying a as depot of the Religious Tract Society post about as isolated any mission in Barcelona, and inquired for a Pro- field on the face of the ea.-th. Their testant pastor. At that moment, nearest post-office is fourteen days Pastor Lopez Rodriguez, on business distant over Himalayan mountain from Figueras, entered the shop, and paths. 'Ten years or more may pass was introduced to the inquirer. Shown without their receiving a single visit into a private room, Father Zafra told from a European. But for thirty-two his story, and after answering search- years this outpost has been faithfully ing questions, the interview, which held, as a centre for evangelistic was long and interesting, closed with labors.
united prayer for grace and guidance. Turkey.-Dr. Farnsworth writes Having narrated these matters, Father of a revival in Cesarea: "We are en- Zafra solemnly recalled all the vows joying much more than our ordinary and oaths which, in days of darkness, prosperity. Rev. M. H. Jenenyan, of he had made and taken. Being thus Tarsus, is the Moody of Turkey. He free from Romish ties, he promised, is yet a young man, about 32 or 33 by God's help, in future" not to know years old, a native of Marash. He'
anything among men butJesus Christ spent some four years in America, and Him crucified." and returned to Turkey in 1888. Both Since his recantation, Father Zafra before he went and since his return, has accompanied Pastor Lopez Rod- he has been very successful in revival riguez to various towns apd villages work. The great revival at Aintab, a in the province, and has delivered year ago, was in connection with his, labors. In the spring of 1889 I spent Japan and India are there in direct 8everal days in Tarsus and met Mr. response to the call of the missiona- ..Jenenyan, and did what I could to in- ries, and are working in the closest re- terest him in ourgreat missionary field, lations with them. In Mr. Wishard's and he promised to come here when he presentation of the proposed associ- could and help gather in the harvest. ation work at the recent Chinese Mis- The result is that he has been with us sionary Conference at Shanghai, his seven weeks, and his labors have been assurance that the present missionary ~ven more successful than he had uprising in our American associationll -dared to hope. The first four weeks is 'being carefully guarded from the were spent in Cesarea, and, though organization of an independent s0- the season was very unfavorable, ciety, and is being directed into the many of the people being away, still channels of the regular denomina- he had very much larger congrega- tional boards, was received by the tions than we had ever before seen, Conference with hearty expressions of and an excellent impression was made. approval. About 175 expressed a desire to begin a new life." -Another step in the bringing of the ends of the world together is the -Dr. Cyrus Hamlin says: "Money, survey now being made for a railway not men, is what we want now. In through .Alaska, across Behring Strait, Turkey there is a large force of edu- and through Siberia into Russia. The .cated young men, one of whom, on enterprise, aside from its cost, is said -some lines, is worth two missionaries. to be entirely feasible. The Northern 'Yes,' said a missionary, 'there are Pacific and other trans-continental 400 young men and women fitted for a lines, "constitute the first American vast extension of the work, who can division of the proposed railroad. The now hardly earn their daily bread, plateaux and valleys along the base of and whom, at small comparative out- the Rocky Mountains offer a natural lay, we might send into the white route through Alaska to Behring harvest-fields. The Lord give His Strait. Bridging the Strait, the line people grace to know the times. I would cross over into Siberia and -still enjoy speaking twice on the Sab- thence running in a southwesterly di- bath, but I decline three times.' " rection, connect with the lines of rail- way now under construction, to giV61 -Yo M. C. A. and Missions.-_·-s to the Young Men's Christian Associ- the Russian government an outlet to ation sending out foreign missionaries independent of the denominational the sea at the mouth of the Amoor missionary societies, Mr. L. D. Wish- River. From this point of connection, ard, who has had so much to do with south and west, the lines would proassociations, especially in connection ject through the Chinese Empire, Inwith colleges and universities, and dian Arabia, and thence across the has lately spent much time in similar Isthmus of Suez into the Moroccos, work in Japan and other countries, and coastwise around the continent strongly urges the necessity of carrying on this work "in perfect harmony is of Africa. It proposed to bridge with the missionary societies." The action of the last IntP.rnational Con- Behring Strait, which is only 48 miles vention authorizing the International in width, with the Diomede Islands Committee to establish foreign asso- nearly midway. Bridges a little ciations, and the principles of action more than 20 miles long on either side soon afterward adopted by them, are of this island would make this conin full harmony with the policy, and nection. The water has a shallow, the secretaries already located in solid bottom in no place exceeding a depth of 40 feet.
-The mixed company at Pentecost finds its duplicate in the America».
MISSION A.RY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS. !J-H
republic. Swedes and Danes and Nor- is not an adherent. In Berlin, too, a wegians, and the dwellers in France, similar agitation has been in progress and Germany and Bulgaria, in B0- for some time, and has managed to, hemia and Poland, Italy and Russia attract a good deal of attention. and Portugal, and in the parts about Buddhism is the most highly de- Wales, and strangers from China and veloped and philosophical of heathen Japan, unbelievers and heathen, have religions, or rather ethical systems, congregatedinAmerica. Andnowthey for it is such rather than a religion. should hear, everyman, in the tongue' But with all that it is heathen and not wherein he was born, the wonderful Christian; and this is everything. works of God. Ten million souls of foreign birth are here. Nineteen mil- -Scientific fact, Among the nulion souls are here of foreign parent- merous facts interesting to science in age. The most of these are in the Mr. Stanley's "In Darkest Africa." northwest. They make up almost are some in relation to the effect of two-fifths of the population of these elevation upon the prevalence of mala- United States. Enough come to us rial fevers in Africa. This effect a pyearly to colonize new territory equiv- peared to be nil, as fevers attacked alent in extent to Arizona, Idaho, different members of the party at Montana, Nevada, Wyoming and places at sea-level, and a series of lo- Washington, peopling it as densely as calities whose altitudes varied from til} that district now is. to 4,500 feet. Mr. Stanley further observed that while ascending the Miscellaneons-Buddhism seems Congo and Aruwimi Rivers, with the to be becoming the fashionable folly winds astern, the party was unusually among religious dilletants at present. free from ague; but while descending In Paris the Orientalist, Professor de these streams, with the wind facing Rosmy, has been delivering a series of them, they were smitten with the lectures on this subject, at public ex. most severe attacks. He infers from pense, in the old university building. these facts that trees, tall shrubbery, The Paris papers report that not only a high wall or close screen interposed students and young people in general, between a dwelling and the wind curbut also men of all classes, esproially rent will mitigate the malarial infrom educated circles, were eager fluence of the latter, and suggests that listeners. They further claim that not a vail or face-screen of muslin might a few have accepted the Buddhistic prove a useful protection to travelers faith, although the professor himself against malarial exhalations.
III.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
OharleBton, 8. C. house of Judah are called in Scripture the- Ens. MISSIONARY REVIBW:-In your August Jews, a word derived from Judah and occurnumber there is a translation by Prof. Schodde ring for the first time II. Kings, xvi.: 6. The of an article by the late Dr. DeIltzsch, which people of the house of Israel are never soappears to me open to much criticism. styled, except in the case of those who ad- 1. In theflrst place this whole article is writ· hered to the family of David, as Benjamin, ten under the totally inadequate conception which was temporarily associated with Judah_ that all of Israel were Jews, and that the two Hence the Apostle Paul calls himself a Jew_ terms are in fact convertible. The one feature But the rest of the tribes can in no sense bemore prominent than any otherjnthe historyof called Jews. any more than we Americans can God's chosen people, is their division Into two be called Welshmen. houses, ofone of which Judah was head, and Joseph head of the other; the house of Judah One fact in the history of these two peopl~ and the house of Israel, called also by way of separates them as the poles assunder. The pre-eminence, Israel; also, Joseph and Ephra- Jews it was who crucified our Saviour, but im. After the separation the people of the Israel. i. e., the house of Israel, was not pres- ent, and had no hand in~e dark transaction. But, if in hi~tory,thesetwodivisions ofGod's prize such a useful gift, which some one will ancient people are seen to be so distinct, it is surely delight to send him.
not less so in prophecy. For we find from the The valuable, yet cheap gift, which he needs blessing of Joseph and his two sons by his is the writing-tablet known as the Edson father Jacob, in Gen. xlviii.; throughout the Mimeograph, manufactured by A. B. Dick Psalms and the Prophets, that this distinction Company, Chicago, TIl. I have one which I is always maintained, and that a future of find just the instrument I needed In my India widely dift'erent character is indicated for mission work. Producing hundreds of good Judah and for Israel-see Giln. xlviii., Ps.lxxx., copies from one writing, It saves much ex- Is. pasiUm, Jer. III. and xxxi.. Ezek. xi. and pense of printing, engraving, etc. In mission xvi., the books of Hosea, Amos, etc., etc. work it will prove especially valuable In re- In I. Chr. v: 2,we read that "Judah prevailed producing In the vernaculars all circulars, les- above his brethren, and of him came the chief sons, notices, etc., and even for printing small ruler, but the birthright was Joseph's." Has tracts. Native style of writing can be imi- God revoked His word? Or shaH we, because tated by this Instrument in a way that type the Almighty has hid his Rervant Israel in the cannot eITect.
flhadow of his hand, proceed to divide his Realizing the great, need of missionaries in name and his inheritance among Jews and this IIn~, and knowing of no other instrument Gentiles? to meet it like the mimeograph (1 have tried 2. Dr. Delitzsch's remarks on p. 576, that the other processes), I would urge that friends of Bible is "a book which is not less human missionaries see that they are snpplied with than it is divine, in which the human side is this most useful Instrument. Churches, Sun- flOmetimes more prominent than the divine, day-schools, mission boards, and Individual etc. " If this be so, how are we to separate the Christians, can help their foreign work greatly gold from the clay? This view of Scripture by carrying out this suggestion.
will lead toany length of infidelity and doubt, Yours, for the promotion of the great mis- and has indeed led the learned author Into sionwork, WALLACEJ. GUDWIN.
further and more questionable positions, as, 3. On p. 578 he says, that" In Old Testament Korea.
times the clear light of this divine Idea (1) (the Seoul, Korea, SepttJrnber 1, 1890.
restoration of Israel) Is obscured In rising In DEATH OF DR. HERON -THE NEED OF HORE the hearts of the prophets, In SO far as it Is HELPERS IN THIS FIELD.
colored by a national and ceremonial method You, of course, have heard of the sad death of Dr. Heron, one of the pioneers of our young of thought, which is inseparable from a re- mission; not sad for him, but only as we think of the lonely wife and fatherless little ones, vealed religion in its preparatory .stage," etc., and, as we look with wondering eyes, on the great fields, white for the harvest, from which etc. reaper after reaper has been removed, In the strange providence of God, who knows best, If we are to believe that prophetic truth has, and to whom we can only bow in submission with the words of His Son, "Thy will be done. " in ever so slight a degree, been sacrificed to No less than eight helpers have been removed from the field within a year and a half,. some national and ceremonial methods of thought, of whom were with us but a few months. We have now In our own Immediate mission Mr. or otherwise hangs upon human imperfection, and Mrs. GitTord, Mrs. Heron, Miss Doty, Mr. MolTett, Mr. Underwood and myself. Mr. simply because we cannot understand how MolTett and Miss Doty have been here only seven or eight months, and, of course, have certain prophecies can be fulfilled, then the only made a beginning as yet in the language, and even Mr. and Mrs. GiITord have scarcely bottom will SOOn be knocked out of all Scrip- been two years on the field. With this hand- ful of people what are the demands and prosture, and we shaJl find ourselves in a raging pects of the country1 Three new stations, Eni- ju, Pyng Yang and Fusan, are callingloudly for sea of rationalism, doubt and despair. foreign helpers, to take up the work which has been started by transient visits from our mis- Israel, in history and prophecy, is a subject sionaries and by the work of natives. In two of these towns a large harvest is ripe,and not only I should like very much to see thoroughly so, but they are all three great centres, and by settling some foreign missionaries In them the studied, as it deserves to be, for it is now very work could be carried through the country in every direction. As it is we receive reports from imperfectly understood. J. F.
The editor would add that, after our Lord's crucifixion the word Israel seems to be used In a larger sense to comprehend all Hebrew remnants. Compare Acts Ii : 36, II. Cor. iii : 13-15 Romans xi : 25-26, etc. We expect shortly to publish an article by the Rev. David Baron, himself a "prince of the Hou~ of Judah."
Miles, Iowa, SepttJrnber 15, 1890.
DEAR DR. PIERSON:-It would be a great boon to the many missionaries to have a mimeograph. How I have wished for an in- Iltrument of this sort during my long service in India. Any brother far away from home, t9i1ing diligently In • hard field, will greatly 'the colporteursthatvillageaftervillageisgoing the homes they are to fill, and we only seek to .over to the Romanists, who have their priests make Christian Koreans of them, not Ameri. scattered everywhere, and it hegins to look as can ladies. though the battle was to be waged between Romanism and Protestantism in this country, I wish I had ttme to tell you partiCUlarly of rather than between US and heathenism. We all Our work. • Dr. Scranton, of the Methodist . are expecting the arrival of a missionary and Episcopal Mission, and Mr. Underwood, until his wife this fall, and are intending to divide Dr. Heron's illness, were busily working over our little force, sending one man and his wife, the translation of the New Testament, which with one single gentleman, to a new station, work will soon be resumed, thOllghon account leaving two men with the ladies here at the of the severe illness of Dr. Scranton's dear chief centre, with two schools, two or more little girl, he may not he able to take up his classes of women, a church, with five native work for some time. Mr. Underwood has also services a week, the translation of Scripture, translated a number of tracts during the sum· tracts and hymns, the oversight of Bible and mer and finished the Shorter Catechism, and tract colporteurs (not to mention medical hopes ere long to publish some hymns, "Pil· work, which has for the present been dropped), • grim's Progress" and various other tracts. A ,all to be taken care of; and only one of us tract society has been established during the with any command of the language. summer, consisting of the memhers of the Presbyterian, Canadian and Methodist mis· The Canadian Presbyterians here are two in sions, and other Christian foreigners. Dur- number, and are working in harmony with us, Ing the extreme heat of summer, just after and often lending US most substantial assist- the death of our neighbor and fellow-worker, .aIlce. Mr. Fenwick has heen a year on the Dr. Heron, some of us ,took a ten,days va- ground, and is devoting his ttme to the lan- cation and trip to Nam Ham, "Southern For- guage. Mr. Gale has become already quite tress, " and found not only fresh air and reo proficient in the latter, and has undertaken newed strengtb, but a rich field for Chris· for a few months the entire charge of our tian work. Dally we were besieged by ear- orphanage. Mr. Gale has been stationed nest, interested inquirers, who, if other busi· alone at Fusan for nearly a year, and will ness detained us, would wait hours to hear and probably return there. There are about question about our religion, and who bought twenty-five boys in the orphanage, and they and carefully read many of our books and, .do a great deal of the work necessary for run- tracts. The woman's work is, perhaps, the ning the school, taking care of their rooms most promising of all, for a number of women and preparing most of their food. They rise of the higher classes have been studying the .at 5.304. )I., and after putting themselves and Bible Sabbath evenings with Mrs. Heron. I their rooms in good order for the day, study have scarcely given you thus an outline of <ihinese until eight, wb,en they have morning some of our work. prayers with one of the Foreign teachers, after which they have breakfast. Perhaps As a personal news, every member of our this will seem a very late breakfast after so mission has been more or less ill during the much work, but most Koreans breakfast be- summer, Mr. and Mrs. Gifford, perhaps more tween ten and eleven, and take only two meals seriously so than any, except Dr. Heron. Mr. a day, especially the poorer classes from Moll'ett started three days ago for the north, whom these boys come. After breakfast fol- in company with Mr. A. of the Methodist Epis· low a few English lessons (we have decided to copal Mission, and Mr. Hulbert., they will be 1;each very little English, as the best experi- gone probably six weeks at least. Mr. Moffett ence of the oldest missionaries in the field is hopes not only to scatter good seed, but to against it) and a Bible lesson. These recita- familiarize htmseJf more quickly with the Ian· tions are interspersed with short recesses and guage and customs of the people by this so· the afternoons are given to play and study journ in the country. hours, and Chinese, which is a most important factor in the education of Koreans. The board But now I must bring this long letter to a have been obliged to cut down so largely in close. If it will only interest our ladies some· , the appropriations for this school that the what in our work and make it seem more possihilltyof carrying It on at all has hecome closely their own, I shall be so thankful. I fear a very serious question. The girl's school, in the hurry of our work we do not take time now under Miss Doty's charge, consists of nine enough to make you so intimately acquainted, little girls, most of whom are about eight years as you have a right to be, with the work which ·old. They also do as much as possible of their you, as much as we, ar~ doing and are re- own work, learn to cook and sew in Korean sponsible for. fashion, are taught no English, but to read <ihinese and their own native "Erumun" lan- Yours, with love, guage, and, above all, are taught the Gospel LlLLIAsH. UNDERWOOD. and Gospel living. It is a great mistake to unfit these girls, by a foreign education for [Our readers may rememher that the great Saturday afternoon Bible Class, taught in Y. M. C. A. Hall in Philadelphia, by the Editor, has given about $700 to help publish the Pil- grim's Progress in Korean. The money is ready upon call.-ED.•
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. [Dec_
Native Missionaries. shown to native as to foreigu missionaries_ Eight papers on subjects previously assigned. DEAR DR. SRERWOOD:-In Dr. Pierson's let- were read by them. The same liberty w"" ters from abroad (August number of THE given to them as to foreign missionaries, to REvIEW. p. 572), occurs this. sentence, found- speak upon questions presented for discused on the statement of Dr. Lunn~ "At the Ben- sion. Nine act';aIly spoke, though obliged to galore Conference of 1889, not one native speak in English-to them a foreign language minister had a place in the assembly" (italics -and some of these more than once.~' his). As there is nothing to indicate that this had reference to any particular mission, It Madras, Sept. 15, 1390. gives a wrong impression in regard to the general custom among the missionaries of South DEAR DR. PIERSON:-I call attention to the India. misstatement which occurs in the printed I attended a missionary conference at the same place in 1879, representing some twenty form of my letter at the top of the second societies in South India and Ceylon. In its reports, published in Madras and London, these colunm, page 69:3, September number. I wrote facts are given: "There were present, as members of the conference, 3 ordained native min- "This doe. not include," etc., but the senisters from the missions of the Church Missionary Society, 4 from the Wesleyan Mission ~nce has been changed to read .. This inary Society,3 from a mission of the American Board, 1 from the Free Church of Scotland cludes not more,~' etc. }fission, 1 from the Madras Auxiliary Bible Society, and 7 ordained native ministers, with 1 The inIpression would be made that of 131 evangelist not ordained, from missions of the London Missionary Society"-in aij, nineteen members, not more than 100 were "sustainordained native miniBters and one evangelist not ordained. And the same i'espect was ing" (i. e. merely contributors), which would not indicate that the young men were being reached to any great extent-ahout 30. The fact is, that we now have, in addition to lS0 sustaining members, 172 yO'Ung men enrolled (of whom 118are natives, 35 Eurasian and 111'
European). So, you see, we are growing COIl- stantly. DAVID MCCoNAUGHV.
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY SECRETARY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
The Faith Element in Missions. ance of the law of averages, as in a The whole work of foreign missions life insurance company, for while that is in a peculiar sense, a work of faith. regards merely the natural laws of So far as'its supporters are concerned life and death, this confidence deit is a work out of sight, far away be- pends upon the free action of human yond the sea, :tmong unknown races, wills, on the degree of missionary people who do not welcome our effort spirit which may exist in the church, and from whom we expect no return. on the efforts which may be made by It is a work done for Christ and those pastors and teachers, by woman's sofor whom he died, and it is the best cieties and young people's associpossible evidence of a belief in His be- ations, and, above all and through all, ing, character and work. on the Spirit of God moving upon the It is by faith that mission boards hearts of His people. and societies make large appropriations at the beginning of their fiscal Over and above all human elements. years, when no funds are in the treas- there is certainly a divine element in ury and when possibly they are al- the case, as seen in favoring proviready borrowing the means by which dences, great spiritual movements, unto support their work. Often a half looked-for responses to missionary efor three-quarters of a million of dol- forts, revivals wrought by the Spirit lars are thus appropriated with all of God in the churches at home on the the implied obligation of a solemn mission fields. pledge. 'This is a work of faith-faith in God This faith element in missions and in His Church. It is not sufficient should never be forgotten. It needs to say that this is limply an observ- constantly to be emphasized. Instead of less pra.yer and more organization, less trust in God and greater reliance- -on skillful management, there should ing condemnations, for I recognize be cultivated a feeling of almost des- the ardent devotion of many who dif- perate recourse to that Divine Spirit, fer from me. I honor some of those- who alone can touch the dead heart of noble organizations which, while heathenism to life, on the one hand, promising partial support, have de- ;and arouse, on the other, a careless, pended in part upon the faith prin- ~asy-going church that is ever forget- ciple in fixing the amount. I believe ting its duty. that a great spiritual impulse has been given to the cause of missions by those One of the most melancholy facts in who hold that view. the history of missions is the decline of the Monthly Concert. In very many But I wish to present a few prac- ~{)aSeil pastors have not faithfully tried tical points which bear on this impor- to maintain it! but in others where tant question in its present phases: faithful efforts have been made, they have been disheartened by unmistak- (1.) It seems desirable that the for- ,ableproofsthattheircongregations are eign missionary enterprise shall be so loath to pray for anybody but them- administered as to quicken the faith selves. Perhaps itisthisgeneralapathy and arouse the zeal of the whole and the aversion of Christian men to Church, rather than to encourage the ·contribute of their substance for mis- idea that it is to be carried on by the sionary work that have led to the inau- conspicuous self-denial and self-im- guration of what are known as "Faith molation of a few. Missions." The meaning of the term, .as it is generally understood, is not a There is needed a faith which, in- work WhICh expects a greater Divine stead of dispensing with the use of blessing on the use of means, but one means, shall lead to a great increase of which dispenses with certain means means; which shall, on all hands, call which are ordinarily employed on the forth more praying and more gener- part of missionary boards and the ous giving; which shall inspire self- -churches which support them. So far denial not merely in some sicklyswamp as appears in the public discussions of Africa but in the wealthyand com- "Faith Missions" are those in which fortable Christian homes of America. stipulated salaries are dispensed with. "The missionaries depend for support The world cannot be converted by a ·on some kind of secular employment few startling' object lessons in t<>il or on the voluntary gifts of God's and suffering. We are not encamped people. before Philistines, whom it is God's plJiPose to conquer by the faith and It is fair to recognize honest differ- valor of a few young Davids,while the ences of opinion on a subject like this, hosts of Israel simply stand still and "and to welcome a "variety of opera- see the salvation of the LOld. Instead tions," but the recent death of three of a benefit there may be positive inmissionaries in Africa, who, to all ap- jury in such examples. They involve pearances, died from insufficient sup- a false theory of Christian duty; they port, and from a persistent reliance on excuse the avaricious and ease-loving; faith instead of medicine in extreme they seem to remove the burden of sickness, brings this whole subject to responsibility from the Church as a the attention of the Christian Church whole. Not only do the missionaries and demands for it a candid and dis- need fixed and reliable salaries, to free passionate discussion. them from anxiety and keep them in health and secure their success, but I shall not here appeal to scriptural the Church needs topay these salaries; authority, for that is varionsly inter- its own spiritual life demands at least preted by"thbse who are at issue on that small share of the common burthe subject. I shall not deal in sweep- den, and any theory which maintains that a fixed support is not necessary for foreign missionaries, and which so far ing for themselves, and even collect- removes responsibility from those who ing their own fuel in the rainy season, stay at home, is a downright injury to hoping thus to gain the confidence of the whole spiritual life of Christian the natives. On the 9th of July tw~· lands, and in the end will retard the of the party died, both of whom had conversion of the world instead of been such stanch believers .in faith hastening it. cure that they had taken no medicine. Two days after a third died of ex- (2). Such theories do harm upon the haustion, from neglected fever, havmission fields as well as at home. I ing been ill for nine days. As the am aware that the plea has been made fourth patient in the list refused the that Orientals are accustomed to asso- services of the physician, the latter ciate habits of self-mortification with reported to the Governor that the misreligion, and that they will be more sionaries, by the course pursued, had readIly influenced by men who are originated a malignant type of fever, in / a sense ascetics, but there is which endangered the whole comanother side to this matter. Asceti- munity. He therefore quarantined cism has for ages proved useless and the house, and advised that the surabortive, and what is now needed is vivors of the party be sent back to the plain, unostentatious and vigorous America. Upon this the patient condevotion of an alert and healthy Chris- sented to be treated. tian life. The Gospel of common sense is inwoven with the Gospel of Nothing could possibly produce a Redemption, and where this is want- more unfavorable impression upon a ing positive harm is done. community of foreign residents, in re- gard to the whole work of missions, What are the recent facts in this than an event of this kind. oonp.ection, and what has been their influence? Nine missionaries sent And public sentiment throughout out in connection with what is known Christendom will condemn not so as the "Kansas nlovement," were much the misguided young missionlanded, some months since, at Sierra aries as that self-excusing sentiment Leone. None can doubt the sincerity in the Church, which seems to call for' of their devotion. such sacrifices. So long as a mission- ary cannot receive a modest salary They had doubtless been pained by without being exposed to criticism by the criticisms of a worldly church those who ought to be his cheerful upon the " luxuries of foreign mis- supporters, so long as there are thousionaries," and they resolved to cast sands of money-getting Christians who· themselves on the Lord, and without are ready to say of the faith missionsalary, and without even medical care, ary, "There is the man that I believe' devote themselves to the establish- in; he is not after the loaves and ment of a mission in Western Soudan. fishes; he is not going abroad to live in luxury, etc."-so long will sensitive For the sequel we refer the reader you~g men be found who would rather to the statements recently published brave danger, and even death itself. by the authorities at Sierra Leone. than to depend on such grudging sup- The British Minister at Washington has porters. At Sierra Leone starvation lately transmitted to the Department led to fever and death, and by all acof State a letter from the Governor of counts came ileal' to breeding a pes- Sierra Leone, including a report from tilence, yet people will soon forget it, the Colonial Surgeon at Freetown, and the plea of "cheap missionaries'~ relative to the case of the nine Ameri- will be renewed. can missionaries at that place. The report states that upon their arrival (3). Is it quite Bound, either as thethey began to live in native fashion, ology or as fact, to assume that God. eating native food, cooking and washintends a different measure of faith plies, and the means of preserving and a less regard to means on the health. foreign fields than in the work at home? Is there any more reason to It may be safe to assume that no suppose that a fortuitous Efupport can man has a right to expose a young be relied upon for missionaries than wife to the perils of such a situation, for our own pastors? The whole subject as she must be to the incidents theory of " faith missions" proves too of married life, and with all the ad- much; for, unless it be assumed that ditional burdens and trials which tt God has two different economies for woman must encounter. the work of the Church, then every department and every interest ought Fifteen years ago, while visiting to be conducted upon trust, and all missions on all sides of the globe, I salaries, all pledges, all contracts had opportunity to call upon one who should be dispensed with. was living with a wife and small child in a locality less than five de- The intervention of broad oceans grees from the equator, close upon the d.oes not change the general laws of sea-shore,with an environment·of hills, Christian service nor invalidate any- which made the place an oven. He where the divinely authorized prin- had no fixed salary, but was partially ciples that" the laborer is worthy of supported. on the faith principle. His his hire." abode was the upper part of a ware- house, and directly under a tiled roof, Nay, a guaranteed support is even the hottest, I believe, that architecture more indispensable on the foreign has yet devised. The low-necked antI field than at home. If one is to carry short-sleeved dresses of the' mother economy to the verge of starvation and child revealed numerous boils and anywhere in Christ's service, a savage scars of boils, of which, the missioncommunity in a malarious country is ary told me, they had had ninety. To the very last place for the experiment. the intense heat there was evidently If the ministry cannot be self-sup- added a serious want of nutrition, and ported in this country, where they are a consequent poverty of blood. The surrounded by friends and abundant missionary informed me that his salresources of every kind and a great ary was irregular and insufficient, and variety of occupations which open be- that but for his personal appeals to fore them, how much less in an A.fri- friends at home it was difficult to see can community, where labor of every how they could have survived. I kind can be secured for a pittance, have no comments to make on the where few comforts of life can be case, but these are the facts. I think found ·at the best, and where no busi- it right to publish them for the beneness enterprise presents itself as a fit of those well-to-do and luxurious possibility, and where any missionary, Christians who think that virtual selfundertaking to live asthe natives live, immolation is the duty of the foreign must be almost certain of sickness and missionary. death. A.bout a year ago a letter was re- The worst of all in these rash ex- ceived from a young missionary, who periments is the sending out of mar- felt that he must yield to popular ried men, with the increased hazards criticism, and live on a much smaller that must come to a family. Ifsingle salary than that which was assigned men were disposed to take such· risks to him, which was about $700. He alone, as an explorer would venture proposed to dissolve his connection into an unknown region, the case with the Board and throw himself for would be somewhat less serious- support upon the students of one of though no explorer ever proceeds our colleges. I urged him.to consider without a thorough outfit of sup- carefully the subject, since, irrespec(;- ive of the question of amount in sal- comes still worse, for nothing so ex- ary, it would tend to dissever the stu- cites the animosity of a business com- dents' movement from the regular munity as to be brought in competi- organized boards of the different de- tion with men whose stipends from nominations, which would be a cal- home enable them to underbid all rivals in business, or in professional amity. Many months passed before a services. This is a difficulty to which a medical missionary is especially ex- reply came, at the end of which time, posed.
he informed me that he had tried the There is still another difficulty. One or two missionaries engaged in trade experiment thoroughly of living on or other secular pursuits will be likely half salary, native food and in native to convey the general impression that . houses, and had given it up. all missionaries are in one way or another engaged in some sort of busi- He had tried honestly and earnestly ness for their own emolument. Very to commend himself to the people, widely the impression prevails in the who, as he supposed, would be in- East that this is true, as a rule, and fluenced by one who came nearer to sometimes this impression is madQ their ideas of what a religious man here at home. A commission merchant should be. But he found he wasanly of New York, doing business in South despised, and that he really made no America, expressed great surprise impression for good. He lived too when I told him that the rules of all well to pass for a fakir, and not well the great mission boards prohibited enough to claim respect as a mission- engaging in any kind of secular work ary. He was neither one thing nor on the mission fields lest the impresthe other. By the Hindu community sion of a mercenary spirit should be he was looked upon as a foreign made. The facts in his case were that tramp. He had made a conscientious he had sent invoices of goods to a and heroic effort, and his experience missionary working upon the plan of should inspire the young men of our self-support, and he had formed his country with zeal, coupled with just own generalization. Whatever of views of the missionary work. real good this self – supported mis- sionary may have accomplished, he (5). With regard to the question of had unwittingly done injustice to the supporting one's self by secular pur- great body of foreign missionaries and suits on mission fields-for example, to the societies which employ them. in some of the coast cities of South America or in Africa, I would say, let I am persuaded that the whole subthis be done by consecrated men and ject of missionary methods demands women who are willing to engage in at this time a fair, courteous and business for the sake of advancing thorough discussion. Among the Christ's kingdom, but let them go young especially there is a deep interest without missionary labels; let them in the subject, and it is essential that appear simply as Christians in the sound and Scriptural views should be communities to which they go. What- adopted, applicable alike to the foreign ever Christian work they may do, they field and to all forms of Christian will find no advantages ill being work at home. While it is well that known as missionaries; on the other there should be such variety of organihand, there are positive disadvan- zation and method as shall meet all tages. The incongruous mixture of views and utilize all resources, one secularities with what professes to be missionary work, will excite sus- thing seems certain: if the world is to picion and distrust, especially with foreign residents, and more or less be evangelized the burden of duty with the natives. If the so-called must rest upon all those who go and missionaries are partially supported by funds from home, the case be-
EDITORIAL ~OTES ON CURRE~T TOPICS
those who stay. The support of the majority of Christian people are exformer must devolve upon the latter, empt from any duty in the case, for it and it is the only way in which they is impossible that all shall go, and the can bear a substantial part. If the question, "How shall they preach missionary's salary is a needless or except they be sent?" is without questionable device, then the great meaning.
V.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS..
Our beloved Associate Editor, Rev. Madagascar.
James M. Sherwood, D.D., died on [With profound sadness we print Wednesday afternoon, October 22, at the last Editorial paragraph that will his lateresidence in Brooklyn, having ever appear from the pen of our"be- been stricken with paralysis just one loved but departed Associate Editor.- week before. We reserve for the A. T. P.] January number a fuller notice of An arrangement whereby France will this most valued friend and co-worker, be at liberty to assume control of and have only to say at present that Madagascar has been assented to by his death was as beautiful as his life Great Britain, with a proviso, ho,,,_ has been, and a fitting close to his ever, that the rights of all resident career of abundant and varied service. British subjects are to be preserved and perfect freedom for missionary Our readers will understand that, as work guaranteed. While from a misthis suddenly devolves on the sU~'dv sionary stand – point this guarantee ing editor the entire charge of this may be satisfactory, yet in view of REVIEW, there will necessarily be some the former bloody struggle of the delay and difficulty in the adjustment Malagasies to maintain their political of the large amount of correspondence .freedom we cannot but be apprehenand manuscript matter now to be ex- sive of a repetition of the struggle amined and arranged. Contributors and correspondents must exercise pa- should the French attempt to take adtience and forbearance. Some manu~ scripts which would have been used vantage of the concession they have gained.
The Christian (London) says: "It is with something like consternation that British Christians learned a few days ago that Madagascar was to pass nnder the protec- may now be returned to the writers. torate of France. This refers to the appre- Some letters may have to wait many hension of hostility to Protestant missions, days for replies. Meanwhile, all cor- such as the action of the French in the South respondence referring to the business seas naturally awakens. It begins to be evi- dent that Protestant Christians in many Jands affairs of THE REVIEW may be ad- may have to help French Protestauts in their dressed to Funk & Wagnalls,18 and 20 foreign mission work by money appropria- Astor Place, New York City, and all tions to them for work like this thrust upon communications referring to the edi- them in Madagascar now, as in Gaboon and elsewhere yesterday." torial department to Rev. Arthur T. We share in these fears. The policy Pierson,2320 Spruce Street, Philaiel- – of the French colonial authorities is phia, Pa. inimical to Protestant missions. There We ask all those interested in THE are many ways in which Jesuit art REVIEW and its work to remember in and trickery can subvert this proviso prayer the surviving editor, that he and hinder, and in the end drive out, .
may be made strong for the heavy re- the English missionaries. J. M. S.
sponsibilities suddenly thrown upon his hands and heart; and, likewise, The more we study that last great may we not invoke God's blessing missionary conference at Shanghai.
and the reader's sympathies and sup- the more we are pursuaded that it was plications in behalf of the famiry left like some great Ecumenical Council, without husband and father? and marked an epoch in missionary his- A. T. P. tory. There was something apostolic about it. It exemplified the unity of two at work where one now bears the the Spirit in the practical obliteration burden alone, and twelve would be of denominational lines; gray-headed none too many, is the easy problem of fathers and warm-blooded young men, utilizing the additional band if the disciples of every sect and class and Church supplies the workers.
clime, met to confer together over the Moreover, in this great field all great problem of Chinese Evangeliza- sorts of work are to be done and all tion. Then a remarkable spirit of sorts of workers are in demand.
prayer prevailed. There was mighty Preachers and teachers, evangelists pleading with God, and a certain con- and pastors, printers and carpenters, sciQusness, at times oppressive, of the doctors and nurses, men and women, Divine Presence. And withal, there every willing heart and skillful l~and was an apostolic fervor and zeal for can find employment for the Lord; the evangelization not of China only, the highest culture and the most mod- but of the world. Faith in the Word erate intelligence, sanctified unto the of God in its entirety, confidence in Lord, can be used in this" Middle the Divine leadership in missions, Kingdom." Why do not disciples ap- and in the ultimate success of the preciate the grandeur of the oppor- work, breathed in all the proceedings. tunity! Would that reinforcements Nothing was more remarkable than might pour in until proclamation the recommendation for union ver- should almost need to be made re- sions of the Bible, which, as a demon- straining the people from bringing!
stration of Christian unity, passed all the bounds of most sanguine expec- The China Inland Mission, met with tation. distrust and even ridicule at first, But nothing stood out more boldly, seems to be meeting with phenomenal like a headland at sea, than the over- success. It has several definite princi- whelming conviction that the SOO,OOO- pIes: 000 of unevangelized Chinese must 1. It allows no debt, and conse- have more messengers of the Cross quently guarantees no fixed salary.
sent among them, and that at once. It asks everything and promises noth- Hence the urgent and impressive call ing.
for 1,000 addititional mlsslOnari"s 2. It insists on the gift of God as in the next five years. There is some- the basis of qualification in candidates thing very vividly impressive in this rather than the acquisitions of men.
call. It reminds us of Mr. Lincoln's Compo I. Cor. iv:6 (R. V.); Ephes. iv: second call for reinforcements, and 7,11. Hence no uniform educational the prompt response of the nation, standard.
"We are cOming, Father Abraham, S. It holds that there is room in 600,000 more! " missionary work for all variety of The command of our king is more gifts, and hence welcomes artisans and imperial and more imperative; why mechanics, and unordained laymen.
should not the church respond as Compo I. Chron. xxviii:21. .
readily! The number was fixed at 4. It maguifies the great funda- 1,000, not because that number was mentals of doctrine and not denomi- considered at all adequate,but because national features;' hence all disciples it was regarded as practicable to put welcomed to work on same basis.
the supply immediately required at 5. It. emphasizes prayer-definite, this number as the lowest possible constant-for individrutls. E very mis- limit. As our friend, Rev. B. C. sionary and his work remembered by Henry, remarks, even this number name in the weekly meeting at would scarcely more than double the London.
present u'orking force. And to put 6. It makes no direct appeal for money; but leaves to the free will of than a thousand ten years hence. God's people, especially encouraging Hence there ought to be a full surrenno appeal to ungodly people. der of self and subshnce.
7. It lays stress on evangelization, not Now, granting many errors and exconversion-teaching that th.. Church Ceffies needing correction and restraint, is to bear witness among all nations how can any spiritually-minded disciat once and leave all results to God. ple look at seven such principles as these and not feel that they mark the Notwithstanding this high standard, Holy Ghost's leadership, and, in fact, this mission has 383 workers in the imply a very high spiritual level , Are field, and the money and the men and we to antagonize such a movement? women are still being freely offered. Should we not rather sympathize with it, and seek to guide and control it The Soudan Pioneer Movement in with wise counsel and restraint. If God has given the spirit of power and Kansas, to which we have several of love, may we not also prav for a sound mind to be added? Some good times referred, has awakened much and wise men have felt that the Y. M. C. A. was drifting toward a certain adverse criticism on the part of the exclusiveness and in danger of becom- ing a sort of religious club, with , Y. M. C. A. Central Committee and athletic culture and good fellowship, but a lack of the evangelistic and missome pastors as well, who think THE siomtry spirit. If there be any such tendency may not God permit this REVIEW at fault in giving this move- very movement to arouse missionary consecration and infuse a more heroic ment any countenance. The editor evangelism into one of the most won- derful and world-wide institutions of would only say that in so doing he the age? The death of Warren J. Harris, Frank Gates and Mrs. Kinghas not approved whatever is unwise man, when they had only just reached the field, may be God's way of restraincor excessive in the movement, but ing all excess of zeal and deepening all real consecration. only what, notwithstanding errors of Mormonism, if we are to trust judgment or excess of Gzoeda.lc, seems President Woodruff's edict, has offimarked by the spirit of When cially renounced polygamy. The ground of this action and proclamalately we heard a plain and simple tion is not any change of either prin- ciple or practice in the Church of statement of the way the whole matter Latter Day Saints, but the necessity of compliance with the law of the cdeveloped, it was somewhat thus: land. Those who ar(' familiar with the inside of Mormonism have no 1. A willingness to go anywhere, confidence in this measure. They re- gard it as nominal, and, in fact, hypo- "especially to the most destitute parts critical-a mere Jesuitical pretense. Polygamy, though not an original and ·of the regions beyond. essential element of this system, has become inwo,en with its whole tex- 2. A resolving the duty into the ture, and cannot be separated from it question of individual obligation to a lost world.
8. A conviction that the presump- tion is in favor of the darkest regions, :and that there ought to be a plain call to justify staying at home.
4. An impulse toward associated .labor; that all ought to go, one after .another, to give mutual help.
5. A determination to serve one's ·own generation by the will of God, so that the world in our lifetime may hear the Gospel; and to choose one's .calling supremely for service.
6. The command to go means going forth and not staying-aggressive .evangelism for Christ.
7. Our privilege is to give all, not ·enly interest or income, but capital as well. Ten dollars will go farther no' without uisintpgration. Not a few 4. Can one choose his field. or must he go as sagacious observers say that, like a the Boards direct ? compulsory celibacy, which is a cover to a promiscuous concubinage, this 5. Must one wait till the Boards of the renunciation of .polygamous mar- church are ready to send him out! riages means a secret and systematic concubinage without the seal of decent 6. What steps must one take who desires forms. We hope that this surrender to go! to the law may be a genuine step in the right direction, and we hope so 7. What preparation is necessary, or is there 'the more because we are satisfied that any special preparation needful, any pre- Mormonism will not long survive if scribed course of study, etc_? Is a theological this, the head and front of its offend- course a necessity? ing, be cut off. 8. Could a graduate from a high school, who All eyes are now turned toward the has a thorough training in the higher mathe- Jews. Russia seems fast fulfilling the matics, calculus, mechanics. architecture, prophecies which are believed to out- besides a general knowledge of the sciences, line her futUl'e, in a malicious and un- find a useful field abroad? justifiable persecution of the Israelite. The edict of 1882 she is now enforcing 9. Is there a demand for teachers, and if so, mercilessly, and the result will be the what kind ? expulsion from her territory of a mil- lion or more of this proscribed people. 10. Does the Y. ~I. C. A., in foreign lands, They seem to have no rights which a open a sphere for such as feel specially inter- Russian is bound to respect; to be lim- ested in, and qualified for, work among young ited tocertain Jew's quarters; and to men? be denied the privilege of owning or hiring land except u.nder outrageous 11. Where is there a field to begin work, and restrictious. Meanwhile Bishop Blythe that has the following characteristics: 1, un- calls attention to the litera~ fulfillment occupied by any other missionaries; 2, a lanof prophecies which indicate their ulti- guage that one who is a little tongue-tied mate regathering in their own land. cou1d master; 8, where missionaries have a Whereas in 1843 there were but 800 legal permit to euter? Jews in Palestine, now, 47 years later, the number is multiplied nearly ten- 12. What books would you suggest to read? fold, and is constantly increasing; and 13. 'What part of India would you advise as they have come to stay and are build- a field? What fields could you recommend ing extensively in the vicinity of espeCially as promising and inviting? Jerusalem.-ED. 14. Would the expenses of husband and wife be less than those of two single persons sepa- Replies to Oorrespondents. rately? Should one go married or single?
The editor is constantly receiving These inquiries will give some idea letters of the following, or similar im- of the catechising process to which port and purport, end as he has to handle many thousand letters a year, we are subjected. We have numbered individual answers are impossible. the questions, and the answers will be We therefore reply to such correspondents in one general communication. found under corresponding numbers. The letters to which' we refer propound such inquiries as these: 1. The first matter to be settled with any man or woman is this: Am I cordially willing 1. Having given myself to the Lord as a for- to put myself absolutely at the disposal of the eign missionary, I wish to know how to go, Lord? The more our own will is merged and and where? lost in His will, the more usable we are. God does not allow an instrument long to be idle, 2. In volnnteering, does a person place him- which is thoroughly prepared for His uses. self under a mission Board ? And He has ways of His own of indicating both the field of labor and the path by which 3. Do the Boards pay expenses ? it is to be reached. Were there a truer self- surrender and less self-reserve; were there more believIng prayer, and less dependence on man, God's workmen would sooner get at work where He would have them. and be more suc- cessful in their spheres. This primary depend- ence on God's providential and spiritual guid- ance being assumed, ,,'e may take counsel of anyone who is presumably able to advise.
2. Mission Boards are merely the represen-' tatives of the various denominations in carry- ing forward their missionary schemes. If a volunteer wishes to go out to a field in connec- tion with any particular denomination he places himself at the disposal of the particular' Board of that denomination. There are SOllle . independent missionaries, and the field is large true preparation and for indications of His, will. Then it may be weIl to consult one's. enou«h for workmen who choose to goon their pastor, and .the secretary of the Board of too church, and learn vhat farther fitness is need,- own responsibility7 or in connection with a 10- ful, and so be guided in study and preparatory work. In our opinion, nothing is more needcal church. ful, however, than at once to enter upon Christian work at home, in the field nearest at 3. When missionaries are accepted by any hand. There is no more fatal mistake than to, postpone direct work for souls until one enters. Board, and sent forth by that Board, the sup· upon his permanent field. The most import· ant test of the reality of the missionary spirit, port of the parties is assumed by the Board, and the most important school for other work abroad is found in present, personal and direct together with expenses of transportation, and endeavor to save the lost. Actual experience in evangelistic work, especially among th.,. a certain reasonable allowance' for outfit. non-church-going classes in our towns and cities, will soon show whether a man or wo- The sum allowed for salary and outfit is de- man has any adaptation for the missionary field, and is worth more than any teaching in termined by each Board according t.o its own the class-room as a training for wider service.
scale, and sometimes differs according t.o the 7. As to general preparation, we can only say that the more complete the intellectual field chosen. Direct correspondence with the furnishing of a man or woman the better. Preaching and teaching the Gospel is a great secretaries will elicit all needful details of in- calling, and no fitness for it can be too amplH. Here, above all fields, there is no place fo,' formation. novices. Often, as in India, there is the severoot tax upon the intellectual resources of the mis- 4. Ordinarily, the Boards choose the field sionary. He finds himself confronting intelli- gent, subtle, sophistical Brahmans, and need;;, and locate the workers, according to their a well-trained and furnished mind. God is not in a hurry. Better come late to your life work judgment of comparative need of the various and come fit for it than hurry into it prema- turely. It cannot be said, however, that any fields; otherwise one field might be overstocked course, collegiate or theological, is a " neces~ sity. " God has called men into very SUCcesRand the others totally neglected. But, if for ful service, like Johnson in Sierra Leone, who have had nO scholarship or learning. But any reason a party is especially drawn to- it is foolish to neglect any intellectual pre- paration that is possible and practicable. ward, or fitted for any special field, the Board Ordinarily the churches ask of candidates for the foreign field just what they ask of will take all this into consideration, and it is candidates for the home pulpits, a school- ing in college and theolo.::ical seminary, or,its, well to state frankly to the secretaries the equivalent in private study. Exceptional cases are dealt with exceptionally. If a IQlJ.ll whole case. Sometimes a party offers to go feels Impelled to go abroad, and his age, his poverty, or other obstacles make an extended to a certain field, and others offer to support course impracticable, he should at least see that he Is grounded in a thorough knowledge him or her in that field; these proposals will of the Bible and of Christian doctrine. If he can familiarize himself with the great outlines always get a courteous hearing from the sec- of church history and learn to read the New Testament in the original Greek, and by pracretaries if they are true men, and not "wooden tice acquire facility of expressing himself in public, and by perscnal work learn how t~ perfunctorians." The best way is, ordinarily, counsel and comfort inquiring &ouls, he will have but little difficulty in getting an appointto offer oneself to go wherever the greatest ment to the fie!d. S. There is room on the foreign field for as. • need exists, • lIUtny varieties of workmen as on any other field at home. Graduates from high schools, 5. If a candidate nuts himself at the dis- normal schools, schools of technology, special- ists of all sorts, may find opportunity among' posal of a Board, of course he must wait uutil the Board is ready to send him, having a place for him, and money to pay his expenses and salary. If one is ready to go and provide for himself, as thousands should who are abund- antlyable, let bim go. We see no reason why men and women should not, at their own charges, go and undertake the work of teach- ing and evangelizing. As the lack of money is the principal embarrassment, the Boards woul4 gladly commission hundreds more workmen, if they would relieve the Boards of pecuniary obligation.
6. One who wishes to go to a foreign field would best begin by a close self-examination.
lIissions have in these days not a little ro- mance investing them. The fascination of foreign travel, the appetite for sight-seeing, the enchantment lent by distance to the view, the contagion of enthusiasm, and many other things surround mission work with a halo; and when this is dissipated, it is not easy to settle down to the real hard monotonons work of mastering a foreign tongue, and getting into closecontact with superstitious, degraded, and often dirty peopl… It is well to count the cost before choosing the foreign field, and ask whether the motive is really love to Christ and to souls, and whether there is a spirit of self-denial. Then the next step is, as already hinted, devout and belie!}ing prayer for divine guidance, and a proper waiting on God for a the papal, heathen and 110hammetbln popula- Turks" are invaluable. One would hardly go tion abroad for ample usefulness if conse- to Southern Africa without reading Living- crated to God's work. The nations of the stone and Moffat; or to China without reading ()rient are awakening to' the superiority of S. Wells Williams and Doolittle. R. N. Cust ()ccidental civilization. They are beginning has written most valOable works on philology, to demand the introduction of the improve- etc.; Dr. George Smith on the "History of ments and inventions of the most Christian Missions" and the biography of eminent men peoples, and consequently all knowledge like Duff and Wilson and Carey.
gained in our schools can be utilized in con- 13. As to fields. Every part of India has its nection with mission work abroad. Dr. Ham- attractions and obstacles. The southern part lin, when in Turkey, was known as the man has been most fruitful in missionary labor; of a hundred trades, and it is surprising how but the northern has probably the strongest his versatile genius and varied knowledge elements of popular character, and when found scope for exercise. thoroughly evangelized, will exercise more 9. Ifeachers are in great demand, and of all power in the Christian church. We question kinds, and everywhere. Japan offers to sup- very much whether it be best to select fields port them while learning the langnage if they according to the comparative attractions and will come and aid in the work of education. promise. We grow more and more into the Africa needs nothing more to-day than Chris- unalterable conviction that comparative desti- tian schools to train up a new generation from tution is the only law of choice. Fields that her millions of little children. The colleges we regard most hopeful God may see to be .and universities of Japan and India olfer most hopeless and contrariwise. Mary Lyons ·chairs to well-furnished teachers. used to say to her pupils: "If you would 10. The Y. 111. C. A. is spreading all over the serve God most successfully be prepared to go world. There are now formed upwards of where no one else 'v-ill." That deserves to be -4,000 associations, and of these 1,000 are in engraved as the motto of .a consecrated life.
papal lands. and nearly 300 in Mohammedan The most heroic missionaries have been the .and heathen countries. There are 21 in India men and women who went to those most .and Ceylon, 12 in Turkey, 6 in Syria, 12 in hopelessly lost to God without the Gospel.
Africa, 5 in China, 7 in Persia and 200 in 14. The expenses of a married couple are .Japan. There are going to be openings in generally less than those of two separate par- >every quarter for the young men who have a ties, abroad as at home. We believe that the fitness for secretaries and evangelists in con- question whether one should go married or nection with these associations. The same single must be settled in each individual case.
·conditions seem likely to prevail within There is certainly room for thousands of twenty-five years in China, India. Japan, single women; and as for men, it depends Korea, Africa, as in New York city, foraggres- largely on the field and the character of the .sive Christian work. work. If the work be largely itinerary, a wife 11. There are plenty of unoccupied fields. and family would be an incumbrance; if' the Districts 500 miles square in Africa, China, condition of society is very unsettled, as it .etc., without one missionary. Some countrieS; was in the South Sea Islands fifty years ago, a like Arabia and Thibet, have yet to be entered. man would best go single. But when a mis- Languages differ in difficulty of acqnisition. sionary settles down to a local work, among The Chinese is probably the most difficult on es..'!entially the same people, the family relation ·the whole to master; the languages of South- is a vast help, not to him only, but to his work, ·ern Europe the easiest. Missionaries have a as showing what Christianity can do for the l~al permit to enter most countries, but in household. A. T. P.
some cases the law is not adequate protection, not being enforced or restraining the popular Monster projects are now maturing prejudices. Yet in China, Japan, India, to bring the whole world into neigh- Persia, Turkey, Syria, Africa, the life of a borhood. The public mind is startled prudent missionary is ordinarily safe. to hear of the practical annihilation of all barriers to national communica- 12. The list of useful books for candidates for the mission field is very large. See the bibliography of the recent conference in – tion. London, which is the most complete list of missionary library ever published. But the Witness the new survey now in proreading ought largely to be determined by the gress to layout a route for a railway field chosen. One should have a general idea through Alaska, across Behring Strait <If the whole field and the history of missions, • by a colossal bridge fifty miles long, . .and then study the particular field where his divided in twain at the Diomede Islands, and so southwest through labor is llkely to be cast. For example, if one Siberia, the Chinese Empire, Indian is likely to go to Turkey, such volumes as Dr. <-loodell's " Forty Years in the Turkish Elnpire" and Dr. Hamlin's "Arnone' the Arabia, the Isthmus of Suez, the Moroc- {;OR, and around the African coast. would not withhold praise where it is For such a world-encircling railway due, even though we may be still the Northern Pacific and kindred' compelled to "protest" against idola- lines that span the continent furnish trous rites and iniquitous corruption the first division and the base of the and a formalism that obscures the Rocky Mountains offer a natural' vital truths of the Word of God.
route to connect them with Alaska. There is a catholicity which rises far Meanwhile three locomotives are above even our Protestantism, how- ~hipped to Joppa for the new railway ever conscientious our opposition to now building to Jerusalem, and bear the mass, the adoration of the virgin, the strange names of "Jerusalem," the intercession of saints, the supre- "Jaffa," and" Ramlehl" macy of the Pope, and the denial of the Bible to the common people.
The Editor has received an anony- mous communication deprecating, in The Presbyterian Board of Foreign .severe terms, the language of the Missions has had a deficiency of $158,- article in the October issue of THE 000 to face during the last two years.
REVIEW on the Roman Catholic move- This we regard as defying any reason- ment in Korea, as apologetic toward able justification or explanation. Here the Roman Catholic church. And our is a church with a membership of ~orrespondent thinks the article has nearly 800,000, whose adherents repre- all the appearance of being in sym- sent as high an average of intelligence, p~thy with Catholic propagandism, piety, culture, wealth and liberality as -etc. The editor wishes to say: any other body of Christians the 1. That he has not much respect for world over. All that the General mwnymOtt8 communications. When- Assembly has asked for its foreign ~ver a correspondent desires to offer mission work has been a trifle over suggestions, or even strictures, a frank one dollar a year per member-less and open letter will be welcomed, and than a half cent per day, and yet even the name will be kept in confidence if this has not been forthcoming! To desired. But no man is entitled to a make the problem the more perplex- hearing who has not the noble frank- ing, the Presbyterian Board of For- ness to avow himself the writer of a eign Missions is conceded to be com- letter. posed of the most intelligent and 2. The editor cannot be responsible sagacious ministers and elders iri the for every sentiment in a correspond- whole body, and at its head as secre- ent's paper, even though published in taries are men believed to have no THE REVIEW. We are not "censors," superiors in the world in their spe- to cut and carve communications un- cialty. Not to speak of Dr. Lowrie, til they are rid of every objectionable the senior secretary, and Dr. Gillespie, word or phrase. There is a certain the junior secretary, in order of ap- freedom of thought and speech that pointment, where can be found in any must be conceded to our contributors. church men more widely recognized Our Editorial Notes alone represent as qualified in every respect to lead the views for all of which the editor the van of the missionary host than .stands responsible. Drs. Ellinwood and Mitchell? When 3. While we have our individual the General Assembly of 1890 author- <opinions about the serious and radical ized the further employment of a field .errors of the Roman Church, we are secretary, it was hard to say how disposed to concede to many of its such a quartette of missionary generals adherents,and especially mi.ssionaries, could well find or need any addition a zeal and consecration that few Pro- to their number. We do not believe testants can hope to surpass, and we that the Preshyterian Church requires any added force at its mission house necessary that retrenchment that cuts on Fifth avenue. We are persuaded, down supplies, recalls work9rs ami and recent intimate contact with the closes schools and mission stations t churches confirms the impression, Pastors, the coming era of reform in that what is now imperatively needed missions may, after all, depend on is, that e:very pastor shall regard him- you! self as the representative of missions in his own congregation; shall take The Board of Foreign Missions of the pains to inform himself of the wants Presbyterian Ohurch in the U. S. A. of the world-wide field; shall familiarize himself with the history and 53 Fifth Avenue, biography of missions, and instruct, arouse and educate his own people on NEW YORK, October 29, 1890. the subject. The pastor is the natural organ of sympathetic connection To EDITOR OF MISSIONARY REVIEW between the Boards and the church. OF THE WORLD ;-In your Novemb(·r His advocacy costs nothing but a little number, on page 870, is an article systematic labor. His flock will hear headed" A Remonstrance that Shoul(l and follow his voice while they flee be Heard." It is heard, and will you from strangers. His appeals impress kindly endorse the response with emhis own people as unselfish, unofficial phasis equal to that used over y01l1" and genuine, while they may some- signature in the article. times think the official representative Js perfunctory and, like other special- Will you kindly say to your corn's– ists, prone to overestimate the com- pondent that the Presbyterian Board parative importance of his own work. of Foreign Missions has not and does, After no little observation, we are not " cut down the meagre salaries of prepared to affirm that no outside its missionaries?" appeals, however powerful, can accomplish a tithe of the lasting influ- The men and women who have left ence of a pastor who is full of intelli- home and kindred to carry the truth gent zeal for missions, and that in abroad are not to pay the debt of the every case where a local church is church. They, one and all, alwaysfound to be a leader in missionary receive their salaries in full, according activity and liberality such a pastor is to agreement, and with absolute regunow or has been at its head. Give larity. The burden of the debt is carthe Church such men to instruct and ried at home, and it is only fair to the inftPire its memJ.iers and 'there will be Foreign Board to have this'iactclearly an end of debts and deficiencies in the known. Boards; missionary secretaries will be left to do their proper work, to act as As treasurer of the Board I can the channels of communication make this assertion with full knowlbetween the churches and the foreign edge of the facts, and can only regret fields, while the pastors themselves that so incorrect a statement should shall become a grand body of home have become current in the Church. secretaries, supplying the channels of It has probably been occasioned by communication between the churches the unfortunate habit of thinking of and the Boards. What new intelli- the Boards of the Church as, in a gence, zeal and liberality will be way, pursuing one and thfl same evoked when such a state of things methods, and, of course, liable to tne obtains. What cheerful self-denial sa~e criticisms. Both from necessity will meet every increased demand for and on principle each Board has its men and money, instead of making own methods. Each has problems enough of its own, without being held responsible for those of the others.
We are in debt; we must have larger gifts or abandon the work. But we will not, I know, allow one farthing encouraging them when converted to unite with Gospel churches. -w be exacted from the missionaries. "We will support our public schoolfl Yours sincerely, and seek to keep in them the Bible, "YILLlAM DULLES, JR., Treasurer. and exclude from their management those who are opposed to its being the If Tetzel did not sell indulgences in the 16th century, the present Pope, it guide to our youth. '" is admitted, granted a "dispensation" "We will oppose using public funds to the Duke of Aosta to marry his own niece. Fifty thousand dollars was the for the sectarian purposes. price paid to the poor man of the Va- "We will seek to induce our Roman tican for this last quoted "indulgence." How long shall Rome rule Catholic fellow-citizens to take their Boston? and New York? and "Yash- church property out of the hands of ington ? If the spirit shown by J esuitism in Boston is a fair specimen of this the bishops, and place it in the hands upas tree, it is lligh time that every of trustees, in accordance with the Protestant in the country should pre- general law that governs other pare to uproot it utterly. churches. The Pauline Propaganda, of which "We heartily endorse the sentiment, Rev. J. D. Fulton, D.D., is president, publish, as a circular: 'In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity,' and so "This Society shall be known as the it shall be our aim to aid the brother- Pauline Propaganda. hood by any means at our command, and advance the interests of the true "The object of this Society shall be and good, so that the state may be built the conversion to Christ of Roman up in the faith of our fathers, and that Catholics and others, the calling at- God may he glorified as our rightful tention of the people to the aggressions of Romanism, the opposing by Ruler." all legitimate means the elevation to civil, political or military positions, The critics of missions are like Oscar <>f men who owe allegiance to any for- Wilde, who found fault with the -eign potentate or power. Atlantic Ocean, and thought Niagara "We pledge ourselves to pray for Falls defective in Hogarth's line the conversion of this people, and of beauty; and, like him, they are work fal' it by speaking, in love, to those whom we meet, by seeing that fast sinking into a well-merited obthey are supplied with a copy of God's scurity. Canon Taylor sought to ex- Word, and with such literature as alt Mohammedanism, and even to ahall be helpful in building them up make it appear that the late Alexander in the knowledge and grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Mackay upheld his encomiums of this end we will support the preach- Islam. But Rev. R. P. Ashe, speaking ing of the Gospel to those now shroud- -ed in the darkness of Papal night. from personal knowledge, affirms that "We will strive to gather children the devoted missionary hero of.Uganda into Sabbath-schools, promote the oh- held that, to allow Islam to occupy aervance of God's holy day, and se- the field before the Gospel of Christ <:ure places of worship (such as tents, halls and meeting-houses), as shall be was preached would be fatal; and best suited to the necessities of the that to represent Mackay as encouragj)flople among whom Wol are to work, ing the Mohammedan Propaganda as a preparation for Christianity is out- rageously to distort the views of the plucky and energetic Scotchman. Wherever the green cloak of Mo- hammed is spread it brings men to the dead level of semi-barbarism, and beneath its folds hides a social " cancer," which, whether it develops slowlv or rapidly, is " never cured or curable except by entire extirpation of the poiaon."
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS–MONTHLY BULLETIN
VI.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa.-A formida ble religious movement these men are written in English and are well executed. against the Sultan of Morocco has broken -In Denver, Col., a Chinese mission school out. The Sheik Shereef, belonging to the has been carried on for some years, and as· the fruit of their labors, they have on the powerful fanatical tribe of Eldrissi, has raised churcb roll of the Central Church the names of 25 Chinese converts. the standard of insnrrection, and proclaimed -Rev. Dr. S. L. Baldwin, formerly a mishimself appointed by Allah to the throne of sionary in China, gives in The Independent instauces of thl) disgraceful absurdities occathe Snltanate. . sioned by our iniquitous anti-Chinese legisla.- tion. For example, a Chinese merchant, who. -The Country of the Oil Rivers comprises was in San Francisco before the passage of a large part of the Niger Delta, south of the the Exclusion Act, is takeu ill and must die. territory of the Royal Niger Company. It. ex- His wife and children are summoned to come tends from the principal month of the Niger to him from British Columbia. They reach (known also as the Nun), east to lohe German San Francisco, but it requires a telegram from boundary of the German Cameroons. It has the Custom House authorities to Washington a dense population. This is also under and a special session of the President and "British influence," with a capital of $10,000,- his Cabinet in order to make it possible for- 000, and the power to increase this to $25,000,- the family of the dying man to go to his bed· 000. The interest is largely in manufactnring. side "under agnard from the Custom House" It is a kind of pooling or trust of 25 or 30 Eng- and remain in this "glorious land of freelish manufacturing corporations; many of dom" only till after the funeral. them have factories in the territory. They have applied to the English Government for a France•….:.ln Paris, a few months ago, there charter similar to that of the Logos Company was formed a " national leagne against and the Royal Niger Company. Their trade atheism." Every member of the league must with the -natives is already enormons, being engage to oppose with tongne and pen, and last year $9,000,000, and their exports $5,000,- by every legitimate means, all forms of 000. In this, and the territory of the Royal atheism. The league is open to any person Niger Company. the resources of the country of either sex, of any religion, and of any increase as we pass into the interior. philosophical opinion who affirms the exist· ence of God. -Four thousand reading tablets in Uganda were shipped from London in May. They were Japan.-The old edict was, "So long as printed under the control of Missionary Ashe, the sun shall shine upon the earth, let no Chrisand contain, besides the Uganda alphabet and tian be so bold as to come to Japa.h, and letall a few exercises in reading, the Creed, the know that the King of Spain himself, or the Lord's Prayer, and a concise "Way of Salva- Christian's God, or the great God of all, if he tion." violates this commandment. shall pay for it wit" his head." Thus it is taught in Japan, -Efforts are making by the Congo Free after the delay of 200 years, "that man only State to introduce copper and silver money; proposes, and the Christian'S God .disposes." but, except at Banana and Boma, where the natives see many whites, it is almost impos- Jews.-Dr. Edward Bendeman, the direcsible to get them to touch tbe new money. In tor of the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, from the cataract region the natives will take the whose brush proceeded the celebrated pictures coins in trade if they may give them their own -" Boaz and Ruth," "The Jews before Babystandard of valne. The amount of provisions, IODt " "Jeremiah upon the Ruins of Jerusafor instance, which they sell for a dollar's lem "-lately died as a Christian Jew. worth of blue beads, they will not part with for less than $2.50 each. This has settled the -There seems to be a decline of orthocurrenc~- question thus far, and strings of blue doxy among the Je";s in this country. Those beads continue to be' the only acceptable in favor of changing their forms of religious medium of exchange. worship to correspond more nearly with the- altered condition of Jews under the liberal Chinese.-The first Chinese corporation American laws are rapidly increasing in num· of New York city is the Chinese Charitable ber and influence. A prominent rabbi refers and Benevolent Association of the City of to the movement in several cities to build New York, whose certificat.e has been filed houses of worship on a grander scale than has and recorded by the Secretary of State. The ever heretofore been attempted. In New York, objects set. forth are to ameliorate the con- a synagogne is Boon to be erected by the dition of the Chinese poor in New York city. Temple Beth-el, at Fifth avenue and 77th The trustees for the first year are Leung street, which will cost more than $500,000, and Jum, No.8 Mott Street; Mon Lee, No. 5~ }fott Street; Wong He Chong, No. 19 Bowery; Tom L. Lee, No.4 Mott Street, and William A. Hang, No. 13 Pell Street. The signatures of is designed to be the handsomest building of bands, and an aggregate income of more th!1~ its kind in America. Schoolrooms, large $1,730,000. enough to accommodate 500 children, will be arranged in an adjoining building. The Ken· -The Origin of Zenana Work. Dr. Pier- eseth Israel congregation, of Philadelphia, son, in the July number of the MISSIONARY and the Anshe Maarh' congregation, in Chi· REVIEW OF THE WORLn, prints an interestinlr cago, intend to invest large sums in new syna- note from Mrs. Sale, of Helensburgh, briefiy gogues. In addition to these, handsome syna-' describing the earliest movement in Zenana gogues are now building, or soon will be, in work, which that lady, inaugurated in 1856. Dayton, 0., Chattanooga, Tenno) Brunswick, Our readers will recollect that we published a Ga., and Providence, R. 1. All these belong to full account of Mrs. Sale's pioneer Zenana the reform wing of the Jews, and the rabbi work in an early number of the Leader. who mentioned them challenged the orthodox Before Mrs. Mullens arrived in India in 1860, to point to a single house of worship recently Mrs. Sale had obtained an entrance to three erected by them.-The Examiner. Zenanas, where the ladies were daily hearing the Scriptures read, and' some had so far -In Russia a special commission, com~ broken through their fears that they were' prising members of the Government and the learning to read. "In 1860," says Mrs. Sale, governors of the provinces which the Jews in- H my husband was ordered to Europe, when I heard of the arrival of Mrs. Mullens and her .habit, has beeh appointed to consider the daughters. . I wrote to her of this opening, position of the Jews in Russia. when she came and was introduced to the ladies of the three Zena.nas. And from that Palestine.-Jaffa and Jerusalem Railway. time the work spread rapidly. Now there is On the 21st of March the first sod of t,he new no need of work as a bribe to learn to read; Jaffa railway was cut in the presence of the so anxious are the ladies in the Zenanas for governor of Jerusalem, and the works will instruction that where we have one female DOW be actively pushed until they are com- missionary we ought to have a hundred, and pleted. It is expected, also, that steps will would if the Christian Church were alive to- immediately be taken to improve the harbor its responsibilities." – Christian Leaderof Jaffa, so that visitors to the Holy Land will (London). be able to land with comfort and proceed to the capital without delay, unless they choose -Mr. Gladstone is credited with the followto stop a train to see the house of Simon the ing: "Talk about the questions of the day: tanner. It is a striking circumstance that there is but one question, and that is the gosduring the last two years the early and latter pel. It can and will correct everything need- rains have returned-a visitation which has iDg correction. All men at the head of great been unknown for generations previously. movements are Christian men. During the One consequence of this is a revival in agri- many years I was in the Cabinet, I wasbrought culture. What it means is not clear, but into association with sixty master minds, and Russia is manifesting an extraordinary inter- all but five of them were Christians. My onl)' est at present in Palestine. She is said to hope for the world is in bringing the human have secured all the best building sites in mind into contact with Divine revelation." the hill country of Judea. -The Roman Catholic papers have a gr"air -Denominational strength. Methodism deal to say of the success of the Catholic, and in this country has over four and a half the failure of Protestant missions. We may million members led by over 30,000 preachers; prick that bubble with a few figures. The- Baptists nearly four million followers, led Catholics have been at work in India for three by over 28,000 ministers; Presbyterianism a hundred years, the Protestants for one hunmillion and a half, led by ministry of 11,500; dred. According to Marshall's "Christian Lutherans 1,023,000, headed by over 4,200 Missions, " which Catholics swear by: Vol. II., preachers, beside a host of smaller denomi- p. 147, the Catholics of British India in 1857 nations, and a band of Sabbath-school schol- numbered 895,000. By the census in 1872 they ars, numbering over 9,000,000. In the whole were 914,691, and in 1888 they were 963,958. country there is a gain to the Christian They had increased in 26 years by 68,058, or churches the past year of 1,089,853 members, 2,596 ann<Ially. The statistics of Protestant 4,867 ministers, and 8,494 churches. missions gave 102,951 adherents in 1851; 213,57~ in 1861; 318,363 in 1871, and 528,590 in 1881. This Miscellane;'us.-Less than 100 years ago gives an increase of 425,539 in 30 years, 0'- the first Protestant foreign miSSionary society 14,184 per year, or more than five times as. wa.~organized. Now there are more than 200 much as the Catholics. The Catholics have such societies. These have a force of more 701 European mission priests in India; the than 7,000 missionaries and assistant mission- Protestants, in 1881, had 658 male missionarip.8 aries, and more than 35,000 native helpers, of in India (including Burmah), and may now whom 3,000 are ordained. Thirty years ago have 760, while their decennial statistics fo.- there was nota woman's foreign missionary 1891 will show 700,000 native adherents. Now.
society in America. Now there are 00, with 25,000 auxiliaries, more than 8.000 children's let our Catholic contmnporaries muse on these that the report that these two organizations facts just a little. and try to explain them.- are about to unite, has no truth for its basis.- The Independent. J.M.S.
-As a proof that Japan is not £he only field -Those who may have chancedto seea most ~here rapid progress is made by missions, unreasonable and astonishing onslaught upon read Mr. Parmelee's letter from Trebizond, on a missionary of the American Board, in a let- the Black Sea, just where the Russians are ter from Robert Louis Stevenson, probably trying to crowd in and seize the country. discovered the antidote to ita venom in the Since 1882 the Protestant adherents have in- letter itself, and no serious reply is called for. • -creased from 170 to 697; communicants from Mr. Stevenson's own statements in regard to 26 to 125, and contributions from $97 to $800. the character of the late Father Damien $800 is not bad. furnish ample warrant for what Dr. Hyde had said in refere~ce to the matter. The Hawaiian -Moravian Mission in Alaska.-The wife Gazette well says of the letter, "It seems in- -of Bishop Bachman, who so heroically went credible t-hat Robert Louis Stevenson should be to the rescue of the missionaries on the Kus- its author. In the attempt to fiay Dr. Hyde, did kokwin in the Spring of 1889, has returned to the author fail to see that he was laying bare the states, and has brought with her two his own narrow, bitter, and pr.e;udiced soul ?" Alaskan Eskimo boys-the first fruits of the -Missionary Herald. mission-to be educated if possible for mis- -sionary work amoug their fellow-country- -Mrs. Osborn's Missionary Training Insti- men. tute, Brooklyn, N. Y., opened September 1(th -The following missionaries, under ap- pointment of the Presbyterian Board, were to with about 40 students and with increased adsail for India September 30: Rev. J. M. Irwin, Miss Rachael Irwin, Rev. and Mrs. Harrison, vantages. The students represent, as usual, Miss Esther R. Patton, Rev. and Mrs. A. H. Ewing, Rev. H. D. Griswold, Miss Jennie L. Col- various denominations and several nationali- man, and Miss Margaret Morrow. Miss Patton, who has spent ten years in India, returns after ties. Ten languages will be taught as required. .a rest in the United states. The new rooms add much to the comfort and -The American Baptist Missionary Union has just sent out about 40 missionaries to Bur- convenience of the Institute. • mail, Assam and India. We believe this is the largest number of missionaries ever sent from -The Bryant School, a flourishing instituthis country at one time by any denomina- tion at Roslyn, Long Island, N. Y., one of the tion. prettiest villages near New York city, makes a very kind o/fer to the children of mission- -Rev. Dr. Gulian Lansing, of the United aries. It will educate them as far as the close Presbyterian Church, and for 40 years a mis- of the sophomore year, so that they can enter sionary in Egypt, Is now in this country, and the junior class at college at half price. In is enjoying a season of well-earned rest at his case ,of a few ministers, who, on account of -old home, now the residence of his brother, small salary may be unable to educate their Visscher Lansing, Esq., of Lisha's Hill, N. Y. children, the same privilege will be extended. Dr. Lansing Is the father of Professor J. G. Lansing, D.D., of the Reformed Dutch Theo- -The Inter-seminary Missionary Alliance logical seminary, and one of the most useful held Its eleventh annual session in AUeglleny -()f missionaries. last month. There were about one hundred and forty young men in attendance, repre- -The great International Sabbath-school senting the theological seminaries of the Convention, at Pittsburg, reported a total of Evangelical Protestant churches in Eastern, 10,328,298 persons attending the Sabbath- Southern and Central Western States, belongschools of the United States and Canada. Of ing to the Presbyterian, Methodist, United this numher 609,014 are in Canadian schools, Presbyterian, Baptist, Disciples, and Reformed leaving 9,719,284 in the Sabbath-schools of the Presbyterian and possibly other churches. United States. -The revival influence in Turkey has -The Woman's Christian Temperance reached Cesarea. At Mardin, on the first Union and the Salvation Army. We are re- Sunday of June, thirty Persons were receivM .quested by Miss. Frances E. Willard to say into the church on confession of faith.
-There are one hundred and nine medical missionaries in China, of whom thirty-eight are women, and of these last thirty-six are Americans. In all but four of the provinces medical missioml ha.ve beeu established•
The Missionary Review of the World — October 1890
CARDINAL LAVIGERIE AND HIS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIII. No. lO.-Old Series.–OCTOBER.–voL. ill. No. lO.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
CARDINAL LAVIGERIE AND HIS ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.
BY REV. J. C. BRACQ, PHILADELPHIA.
The statements of both the colleagues and the opponents of Cardinal Lavigerie remind us that mankind always inclines to ex- aggerate the qualities or the vices of men before it is willing to bestow upon them admiration or contempt. The friends and the foes of th~ Cardinal have each from their own standpoint enlarged upon his merits and demerits, and overrated or minimized the importance of the services which he has rendered to the anti-slavery cause. Their utterances have much value, as they are mutually corrective. Weare not, however, left to these partisans for our information on the Cardinal and his anti-slavery work. The Grey Book, prepared for the Conference of Brussels, gives us an impartial resume of what had been done to destroy slavery prior to the conference. Mgr.
Lavigerie has favored us with a volume of documents, * giving not only his own estimate of his work, but also the means of ascertaining the measure of the (Euvre Antiesclavagiste and of the man whose name is so intimately associated with it. The historical part of the documents is decidedly unfair to the world at large in relation to its share of efforts for African emancipation. The work of Wilberforce, of Granville-Sharpe, of Zachary Macaulay, of Buxton, of Livingstone, of Stanley, of Gordon, of the Anti-Slavery Society of England, the appeals of Englishmen before the Parliament, the patient negotiations of the Powers with Eastern potentates, the work of Protestant missionaries whose eye-witness reports stirred their respective countries-all this is overlooked; or, if referred to, has but an incidental or minifying allusion. The Cardinal speaks too disdainfully of the work of his predecessors, and too triumphantly of his own. He mentions, indeed, the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Conference of Verona in 1822, the Congress of Berlin in 1884; but he says that up to this time "everything remained in the official world. " Then he adds: "It is true that the first explorers, and particularly Livingstone and Stanley, had begun to inspire learned societies and chancelleries with a feeling of horror and pity which the evils of Africa could but excite. The missionaries in their turn, the * Documents sur ia Fondation de I' <Euvre Antiesciavagiste. witnesses of so much infamy, have not waited, by their letters, to rend the veil." (Documents, p. 9.) According to Cardinal Lavigerie the reports of Livingstone and Stanley did not go beyond the range of learned, societies and the precincts of chancelleries. The multi- tude of their books and reports, which had a circulation a hundred times wider than any of the verbal or written utterances of the Cardinal, and to which he constantly refers for statistical purposes, or fo~ broad surveys of the African evil, count for naught among the powers that have brought to light the African horrors. Again, the "mis- sionaries" to~whom he makes allusion are Roman Catholic, and notably his own. The half century of heroic efforts of Protestant missionaries in Africa before his advent does not seem to trouble him in the least when he calls himself" the pastor of Africa," or when he speaks of" my missionaries" as the only Christian workers on the Dark Continent.
All this represents 'but one aspect of the historical unfairness of the prelate. There is a more serious historical defect: it is his abortive exertions to cause the Pope to appear as the prime mover in the anti-slavery crusade. A careful reading of the encyclical letter to the bishops of Brazil (pp. 1 to 27), of the allocution of the Cardinal to the Pope (pp. 30 to 37), of the answer of the Pope (pp. 38 to 41), of the Cardinal's expression, "daigna 8e rendre d ma priere" (p. 495), and of many similar passages, will convince one that, prior to the first success of the African prelate in this campaign, the Pope had no especial interest in this cause. All through the documents we find exaggerated, irrelevant and unhistorical praises of the Pope of the same unreal order as the statements that make Leo XIII. "the prisoner of the Vatican." Weare far from unwilling to recognize the rare qualities of the present Pope or his co-operation in the present anti-slavery movement; we only contend that neither he nor'the Cardinal, nor the Roman Catholic Church, ought to monopolize the credit of a movement to which Protestant missionaries, explorers, tradesmen, statesmen, and all the great factors of civilization, have been the most important contributors.
Cardinal Lavigerie has certainly aroused the Catholic nations of Europe to the importance of eradicating the slave trade from Africa; he has led Protestant nations to take up with new ardor and in a more practical way a cause dear to them; he has set earnest men to devise. means to destroy African slavery; he has inspired several thousand young men to go as volunteers to Africa; he has so affected public opinion in France that the French Government receives popular support in its campaign of Dahomey, where one of the greatest strongholds of slavery.is being overturned; he has done much to bring anti-slavery men of different countries to act in concert; he has organized the different anti-slavery societies in Europe into the large society, L' (Euvre Antiesclavagiste. These re- sults are remarkable, but they were secured by appealing to Catho- lics, Protestants and Free Thinkers alike. For a long time the work was presented as unsectarian, but it is no longer so. At the height of enthusiasm, Mgr. Lavigede announced the convocation of an im- mense Anti-Slavery Congress on August 5, 1889, in Lucerne. All the anti-slavery societies of the world were to be represented. The greatest anti-slavery orators were to be heard. This was to be the Ecumenical Council of the friends of negro deliverance. A few weeks before the opening of the congress, the Cardinal suddenly and arbitrarily postponed it, and then adjourned it indefinitely. He gave different reasons for this. rrhose made official were tha~ the coming French elections would prevent France from being fairly represented; but how could that be, as the elections were still at least six weeks distant? At a later date he announced, not his immense gathering, but a small conference with four delegates from each society. This was to all a conclusive proof that the "French elections" were but a pretext. The general interpretation of the Cardinal's action is that he clearly saw that, with such a large assemblage and so many Protestants present, it would be impossible to bring the movement within Catholic channels. N ow the organization is not only completed, but the Catholic Church holds command over it. Every friend of anti-slavery will lament this course. Why did the Cardinal appeal to Protestants and Free Thinkers upon a broad humanitarian platform and then put the whole organization underthe control of the Pope? Can those who thought that they were joining an unsectarian philanthropic organization now see it, without indignation, become the appanage of the narrowest sectarianism? That the work' has become thoroughly Roman Catholic is plain enough from pages 490, 497 and 498 of $e documents. It is not astonishing that the Swiss Anti-Slavery Society has already sent the Cardinal a note which is tantamount to a threat of separation.
One of the special features of Cardinal Lavigerie's work is the bold endeavor to stop slave-hunting by the sword. He proposes for Africa the revival of some of the old religious military orders of former days, such as the Knights of Malta, the Knights of Saint Lazarus and the Knights of Alcantara. These bodies of knights, placed under the authority of the Church, would be moving about, interrupting the work of slave-traders. Whether or not this part of the programme is reaHzed, the campaign will take place and volunteers are preparing for it. Will not these volunteers be a danger to Protestant establishments in Africa? As a minority, the Catholic missionaries have done much to wreck our Protestant missions; will not this corps be animated by the same spirit? This is a question which the past of Catholicism brings home to ns with increasing intensity. Another question forces itself upon us. What could not the (Euvre Antiesclavagiste have done, had it remained unsectarian, to destroy slavery in Africa, to improve the relations between all bodies of Christendom, to uphold some of the best interests of mankind and of civilization? It is with irrepressible melancholy that we contemplate possibilities that have been thwarted by unscrupulous sectarianism.
Cardinal Lavigerie is a great man, an adroit leader, one of the most distinguished representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, and one of the most liberal-though honest liberalism is no longer possible in that church. Few bishops have revealed more independence in reference to the Holy See, and probably none have burned more incense before it. His education, more rhetorical than scientific or philosophical, has prepared him for quick rather than ·prolonged action upon intelligent audiences. His addresses in England, Belgium, France and Switzerland sent a thrill of horror through his audiences as he related the harrowing scenes of carnage and barbarism attending the slave trade. The Cardinal stirs up the feelings of his hearers by the appropriateness ()f his utterances, the sympathetic glow that warms them, and the felicitous use of his surroundings. Still, his pictures of slavery are from documents rather than observation; it is easy to see that he has not witnessed the curse of manhunting and man-selling that desolates Africa. His addresses are' full of repetitions, not only of facts but of forms. Even his beaua; mots are ever the same. Compare him with another anti-slavery orator whose voice was heard in England a quarter of a century ago. How witty, brilliant, quick and spontan~ous was the American; how elaborate in method and restrained by religious forms is the French. How matter-of-fact was the Brooklyn preacher; how poetical and emotional is the primate of Africa. What singleness of purpose in the Plymouth pastor; what constant effort on the part of "the pastor of Africa" to win sympathy for the Church, the Pope and his mis-' sionaries. What absence of personal concern in the American patriot; what frequent allusions to age, to fatigue and self-sacrifice on the part c;>f the Catholic philanthropist. The one, how modern in address, how fond of democratic simplicity; the other, how riveted to the past by his ideals; his ecclesiastical rank, his delight in high-sounding titles and aristocratic pretensions. The one must be humanitarian because he is a Christian; the other a Romanist because he 'is humanitarian. Both men have in common great popularity and great zeal for the highest interests of the colored race.
There are traits in Mgr. Lavigerie that we would not discuss. His shrewd diplomacy, his extensive land speculations, and his lotteries, permitted by the French Government on conditions that were not fulfilled, need no comment. His love of personal mise
A FOREIGN MISSIONARY OF OLD TESTAMENT TIMES
en scene is known to all. He had arranged to have eighty of the pupils of his schools go to the famous Congress of Lucerne to sing. One of his priests in Algiers had composed a cantata in which the Cardinal was constantly praised, and several times called "the Liberator. " We do not say that the Cardinal ordered this cantata, but he accepted it. He even invited Gounod to write the music, but this distinguished composer could not comply with the request. Mgr. Lavigerie offered two prizes, one of a thousand francs and one of five hundred, for the best musical composition. When his anti-slavery lectures were published he sent them to the Catholic prelates of France, who acknowledged them in letters of excessive praise. One of the bishops places him among "the illustrious apostles of the Church and the unspeakable benefactors of mankind." Another would make him an "Urban II.," a "Peter the Hermit." Th~se letters, which even a vain man would read stealthily in his closet, the Cardinal published among the documents. While he gave scarcely two pages to what others had done before him to destroy slavery, he devoted more than one hundred and thirty to letters as flattering to him as they were irrelevant. Lately his tomb was finished in the Cathedral of Carthage. He gathered all his clergy and with them marched in procession to bless his last resting-place. That he should have withdrawn from his usual work to go and meditate and pray near it would have been natural enough, but all this ceremonial display reveals a nature which, on the border of the grave, is too self-absorbed. Great as his services have been to the anti-slavery cause, his anxiety to give the history of a work in which he is one of the chief factors; his parsimony in dealing with those that preceded him and prepttred the ground for him; his .finesse in making his (Euvre AntiesclavCtgiste Roman Catholic; his self-glorification in the cases mentioned, have led us to ask ourselves if this modern Urban II., this contemporary Peter the H~rmit, has not much of Loyola in his spirit and something of Boulanger in his methods? Be that as it may, it is certain that Protestants would do well to reflect before giving the Cardinal their money or their praises. Had he continued ashe began he wouldhave deserved both.
A FOREIGN MISSIONARY OF OLD TESTAMENT TIMES.
BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK.
It is believed that the first missionary to the heathen of whom we have any knowledge was Jonah, and he was far enough from being a model. To show that the cause then, as well as now, was a divine and not a mere human enterprise, the impulse came from the infinite compassion of Jehovah. Jonah was reluctant, evasive, disobedient. Even at the last he was churlish and took his allotted task at the hardest. This brief sketch of him which we find among the minor prophe, cies of the Old rrestament, constitutes an interesting and most in, structive object lesson.
First of all, it shows how much broader and grander is God's com. passion for the heathen than that of his select prophets and apostles. It also reveals a wise and tender discrimination, even in the midst of dire judgments. And it affords another proof that a plan of aU-embracing mercy and salvation was in force long bffore Christ came to be offered once for an for human redemption.
As we shall see, this illustrative picture was placed in the very darkest setting. The scene was laid in the thickest gloom of the old world apostasy; the heathenism which Jonah confronted was of the very worst type that the world has seen, either in ancient or in modern times; and even the witnessing power of the Church of God, as represented by His chosen people, was at its very lowest and most ineffectual stage. Out of this widespread and manifold darkness shines forth this prophetic light of the Divine pity for the worst of sinners.
It is scarcely necessary to discuss the mooted question whether the story of Jonah is real history, or only a parable like that of the prodigal son, since, in either case, the lesson taught concerning the mercy of God is the same. No words could portray a father's forgiving love more impressively than the story of the Prodigal; no greater proof could be given of God's compassion to the heathen than is found in His plea for the repentant Ninevites against the peevish remonstrances of Jonah.
I prefer to consider the story a real narrative and to take it as it stands. Miracles are miracles-and nothing is gained by explaining away one and leaving another equally great and extraordinary. All nature is God's handiwork, and He is not limited by our conceptions of law. To accept the Divine Incarnation, the Resurrection and the Ascension, and yet reject the miracles of the Old Testament, has aI– ways seemed to me illogical and capricious. It is a species of discrimination which can rest on no firmer basis than mere human fancy or conjecture.
The mere incidents of Jonah's commission and his flight are very simple. He had been commanded of God to go to the great and wicked city of Nineveh with a definite message of warning. It was not a pleasant errand to be the bearer of evil tidings-in fact, to pronounce upon the city a sentence of doom which would in all human probability cost him his life. He was afraid, and unquestionably that was the secret of his flight. Where he erred was in failing to realize that He who had commissioned could also protect him. "Be not afraid; have not I commanded thee?" expresses the real logic of all Divine commissions. Jonah not merely failed to respond-he proceeded in the very op- posite direction. He labored under the absurd infatuation of suppos- ing that he could be safer and more comfortable in far-off Tarshish than at home, or, as we sometimes express it-that he could gain something by putting the sea between him and the unwelcome com- mand. He proceeded therefore to embark; with a business-like bravado he paid his fare; he would have no issue with any but God. Yet withal he was not so brave as he would seem; he half smuggled himself on board and hid away and went to sleep "in the sides of the ship. "
'l'heJ'e are admirable touches of nature in the part taken by the crew of the ship when under the terrible pressure of the storm. They began to suspect that they had "some Jonah on board." They had labored at the oar and they had prayed, but evidently the case did not belong to any of their gods. They made inquiry therefore concern- ing the mysterious stranger who alone seemed unconcerned enough to sleep. They cross-examined him: "What is thine occupation and whence comest thou? What is thy country and of what people art thou ?"
It is interesting to observe the awe which filled all minds when the judgments of Jehovah were named. These seamen evinced it, and afterward the people of "Nineveh were equaayawe-stricken. Their apostasy could not quite obliterate their fear of that omnipotence which belonged to the God of Israel. When Jonah said, "I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God- of Heaven, which made the sea and the dry land," they were "exceedingly afraid."
Then there followed some tokens of humane consideration on both sides. On the one hand Jonah frankly avowed his belief that he was the sole occasion of the tempest, and advised that he be sacrificed. On the other hand the seamen were loath to adopt extreme measures, and they struggled hard to reach the land; and when they found that they had no other alternative, they themselves prayed to God that the dire necessity which confronted them might not be laid to their charge. The recalcitrant missionary was thrown overboard and was swallowed by "a great fish."
One might have stIPposed that after his candid acknowledgement of his wrong, and especially after God had mercifully heard the prayer wllich he had offered out of the depths, Jonah would prove thenceforth most grateful and submissive; that he w(luld be fearless also, since God had signally delivered him, and that above all ],e would be forgiving, even as he had been forgiven. He ought to have been, after ~uch a discipline, a model missionary to the Nillevite~. But instead of this he showed peculiar weaklless-the gospel designed for the Ninevites was in an earthen vPRsel.
Jonah prayed fervently in his affliction, and he indicted what seems to be a psalm of thanksgiving for his deliverance. He made solemn vows and was very sure that he would fulfill them. He did obey when the second summons came, "Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee," but his obedience was not well sustained. He had a higher opinion of his own righteousness than Paul had of his, and he was not willing to "pluck out his eye" or "be accursed" for the salvation of any man or any number of men.
The solemn message which he bore was that after forty days Nineveh was to be destroyed. God intended it as a warning, involving a chance for repentance; Jonah understood it as a sentence of irreversible doom, and he was piqued at the idea that his prediction was not to be literally fulfilled.
How far the Ninevites repented is an interesting question. The advocates of the theory that the book of Jonah is only an allegorical poem, ask with much emphasis, "Where is the evidence that Nineveh was ever reclaimed? What historic proof appears that it became a God-fearing city?" It is not necessary to suppose that the repentance here referred to was that Godly sorrow which needeth not to be repented of; it was more probably a turning from the specific and unpardonable wickedness which had brought the judgment of God upon it. It. was at le&st a temporary reform of intolerable offenses.
Of all the types of heathenism that the world has witnessed, that of Nineveh and of the Euphrates'vaHey-that which spread westward to Sodom and overran the land of Canaan and Phoenicia-was the worst. It made universal prostitution a religious duty; from this it proceeded still further and spread everywhere the unnatural vice of Sodom; still further revolting cruelty was added to revolting vice, and children were burned alive by thousands a8 sacrifices to MoLoch.
These were the sins that caused the destruction of the cities of the Plain, and all the severest judgments recorded in the Old Testament.
Ebrard has shown how these terrible sins followed all the Phenician colonies on the Mediterranean; and when one contemplates the alternative of allowing the eorrupting influence of such a people to spread everywhere westward till all Europe and the world should be brought under its power, he can better understand the justice-nay, the humanity-of those wars of extermination by which Jehovah swept the land of the Canaanites and planted in their stead a better seed, in which all nations should be blessed.
The preaching of Jonah seems to have operated only as a cheek. Even in judgment God remembered mercy. He would never destroy till patience could no longer forbear, or till the cup of iniquity was fulL ,Vars of extermination waged by divine behest are hard for us to contemplate who see not the end from the beginning, and cannot say whether in the long run this or that may prove more merciful. But the mission of Jonah to the Ninevites throws a bright and pleasing light upon the dark mystery of divine judgments. It shows that in a :sense God loves to repent-we may say 'Waits to repent-of His threatenings; that, notwithstanding all the carping of men against His severities, He is more forgiving than man, and earnestly remonstrates against the hot – headed zeal of His prophet, who, having spoken, would carry out to the letter all that has been threatened.
The most difficult thing to understand in the authorized wars of ·extermination is the destruction of the innocent with the guilty-even little children. But there is a single sentence' in God's appeal to .Jonah which shows that even in that sad extremity God is not without tender consideration. "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein there are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and .also much cattle."
We cannot compass the broad and far-reaching considerations which affect the divine mind, with whom one day is as a th6usand years and a thousand years as one day. We know not in the case of .any infant whether it were better to die than to live. Certainly the death of the innocent were better than a long life of inevitable wickedness like that of Nineveh or Sodom.
Yet no opportunity for repentance is to be withholden, and the ,one thing which is conspicuous in this beautiful glimpse of the divine -character is the compassion-the considerateness-which, in pleading with the indignant prophet, points to the hundred and twenty thousand little children and the multitude of dumb beasts. The attributes of God here present a symmetry which is in strong contrast with the -caprice of man.
The late Dr. Horace Bushnell, in his incomparable chapter on the .divine character of Christ, calls attention to the fact that while men are always losing the balance of truth and verging to one extreme or another, the Christ rests ever in divine poise and harmony. Men talk ,of mercy so soft and limp as to sacrifice all law and order and fill the universe with anarchy, and yet what a history of intolerance and relentless cruelty do the records of mankind present!
So God threatened the Ninevites and held His prophet to the faithful discharge of his duty in warning them, yet how wonderful were His expostulations with that prophet when they had shown signs of repentance! There was no false estimate of their sincerity or their probable stability, yet there was a whole city in sackcloth, from the king to the lowest menial, and by royal decree everyone was" commanded to turn from his evil ways and from the violence that was in .his hands!" A respite must be given. Sentence was suspended and
A SKETCH OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MOVEMENT IN KOREA
the door of mercy was thrown wide open, and who can say how many souls in that great city found the repentance which is unto life?
We love to think that this remonstrance with Jonah in favor of the Ninevites was kindred with that which Christ made with His disciples when they asked that fire should descend from heaven on the heads of those whose acts they condemned, and with that other lesson of similar intent which was set forth in the parable of the barren fig tree. Doubtless, it was He, the same-" the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world "-that interceded for sinners both in the Old Testmnent and in the New.
The scheme of redemption was in His mind even when the wickedness of the world was at its height. Others outside of the Abrahamic Church, and even the chief of sinners, were objects of divine compassion; J·onah's missionary commission was a part of the great commission which in the fullness of time was given to. the apostles and to the whole Church.
A SKETCH OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MOVEMENT IN KOREA.
BY PROFESSOR H. B. HULBERT, SEOUL, KOREA.
Weare accustomed to speak of the missionary movement as one which had its origin during the second quarter of this century, and this js quite natural, because the missionary movement among Protestant peoples did have its origin about that time; but what of the missionaries of the Roman Church? Is it not remarkable that at the very time when the missionary movement was being decried in England and Scotland, and had not so much as been broached in America, the Roman Church had its missionaries in a large proportion of the Eastern countries? The seminary of the Societe des Missions Etrangeres had long been founded in France, and was sending out scores of men to India, Siam, China and Japan. Their great central station in the East was at Macao, near Hong Kong. This place was granted to the Portuguese in ]557 by the Chinese, and became one of the important ports of the East. It made a splendid centre for evangelistic work-a fact which the Roman Church was Dot long in percelvmg. From that point it sent out missionaries into all parts of China, which was at that time violently opposed to evangelistic work. To that place missionaries retired when times of special persecution and hardship came. 'l'here they brought some of their most. promising converts, and tat{ght them in a seminary specially endowed for this purpose.
But I desire to speak more especially of the work of the Roman Church in Korea. I make bold to say that in no country has Christianity been founded under circumstances more peculiar-more romantic, I might alrno~t ~a.". The l'tpry of it, as detailed by one of its workers, is fascinating-bloody almost beyond parallel, to be sure, resume but it was the blood of true men. Let me give a short and entirely inadequate of that story; for, although we differ in some im- portant particulars from our brothers of the Roman Church, it is as well that we should note the truly great qualities which have made them 80 tremendously powerful for good in many parts of the would.
In the winter of 1784, at about the end of our war for independ- ence, the annual Embassy from the court of the king of Korea en- tered the gates of Peking to present the customary compliments and gifts to the Emperor of China. Among their number was a young man of great honesty of character and of high culture, judged by the standard of the East. While in Peking this young man fell in with some Chinese Christians and was brought in contact with the Vicar Apostolic of that city. It resulted in his embracing the Ohristian religion and carrying it back with him to Korea, which before'that time had not so much as heard of the existence of Christ.
It was not long before he had gathered about him a small company of men who found no answer to their religious nature in the Confu- cian cult and, before a year had passed, the Church was an established fact in Korea; not, to be sure, after the Roman idea of establishment, but the seed had taken root and the true church was there. For sev- eral successive years one or other of this band accompanied the Em- bassy to Peking in order to receive baptism and to try to induce the Vicar Apostolic to send a missionary to Korea. But this was impos- sible, for the constant state of uncertainty as to the fate of the work in China rendered additional work impossible. It was just preced- ing the time of the Revolution in France, and the Church found it difficult to send men even to supply the urgent demand in China.
But each time the Embassy went, the Christian who accompanied it brought back books and religious objects, and gradually the band of Christians acquired a good knowledge of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
Of course these visits to the missionaries in Peking were unsus- pected by the Korean Government, but the fact of the presence of Christianity in Korea could not be long concealed. In 1791 it was remarked that certain men did not worship at the graves of their"
parents according to the Confucian code. It led to an inquiry, and the open confession and profession of Christ. Then began the first of the persecutions, which have followed each other at short intervals almost to the present day. The methods of torture in Korea are al- most too horrible to be believed. It consisted generally in be.ating the victim with huge paddles about the size and weight of a heavy oar. The victim lying on his face received from twenty to a hundred blows of this murderous instrument, every blow of which was suf- ficient to break the bones of his limbs, and reduce his flesh to a pulp_ Again thongs were put through the wrists and ankles between the tendons and the bone, and the sufferer was drawn back until his wrists and ankles came together, and in this posture he was left for hours. Others had chains put around their necks so heavy that they could scarcely lift them from the ground. They were literally devoured by vermin in the wretched prisons. They died of cold and hunger. Widows who professed faith in Christ and were arrested, suffered treatment a thousand times worse than delth at the hands of the majesterial agents.
In 1794, the Church in Peking, being unable to send a European missionary, put the Korean Mission into the hands of Father Tsiou, a Chinese preacher. But how to enter Korea was a question very difficult to solve. Between the northern boundary of Korea and the eastern boundary of China was a belt of land called neutral. It was forbidden to all men to reside on this belt of land, because it was considered that it was for the mutual benefit of Korea and China that an uninhabited tract of land should separate the two States. This belt of land was overrun by outlaws and refugees from justice of both countries, and they formed powerful bands, rendering it extremely dangerous for anyone to cross it in either direction. At the same time, the points where one could enter Korea were very strictly guarded, and everyone who passed had to undergo a minute examination. Many were the expedients adopted by missionaries from time to time in order to evade the examination. Sometimes they came to the place in the dead of night and made a dash past the sentries and gained the mountai,ns, where pursuit was impossible, but where they had to undergo untold suffering and privation before they could reach a place of comparative safety. Sometimes they would hide among a drove of cattle and thus pass through without being detected. At a later date missionaries all came by the way of the sea, ,crossing from China to a certain island on the coast of Korea, where they had to rendezvous with the Korean Christians. 'l'heir password, or rather signal, was a white cross on a red flag, and whenever such a flag was seen on the horizon a small boat put off to the island rendez- VOIlS, where the transfer was made and letters interchanged. Many a time a boat bearing a new missionary to Korea has hovered about for weeks waiting for its signal to be seen, and not a few times have they made three or four trips from China to the Korean coast before being able to effect a landing. The stories of these adventuresome journeys are as exciting as the most lively fiction.
But to return to the narrative.' Father Tsiou hovered about the boundary of Korea for a long time before he was able to enter. In the month of December, one bitterly cold night, he crossed the Ya- Lou River and was smuggled across the line, and finally arrived in Seoul and began the administration of affairs. From 1794 until 1801 there was a steady growth in the Church, but then broke out the first great persecution. It was not only the hatred of Christianity which made such havoc among the Christians, but it was intensified by party animosity.
There are four great parties in Korea, named from the four points of the compass. Two of these held about equal power, bat a large number of the Christians belonged to one of these, and the other naturally made Christianity the handle by which to exterminate their rivals. The persecution raged with frightful force. The agents of the magistrates sought for the evidences of Christianity with the instinct of bloodhounds. The whole Christian population, amounting to several thousands, was totally uprooted. All who did not renounce their religion and curse J esue were put to death, after the most cruel sufferings, and their relatives, whether Christian or heathen, were banished to distant islands. The detailed account of this persecution is enough to make the blood run cold. The sight of little children and aged men plodding along barefooted through the snow of winter or" the intolerable heat of summer is enough to fill the beholder with the deepest pity. This persecution seemed to have destroyed the Church, root and branch, but it was not so. Those who had been sent into different corners of the land began the work of reorganization immediately, and eventually their banishment caused the spread of the faith into the remotest parts of the country. Persecutions contin,ued at short intervals from that time on. Father Tsiou had been seized and decapitated in the beginning of 1801, and the Christians sent every year to Peking imploring the Church to send some one to administer the sacraments, and meanwhile they struggled on as best they could. The severest persecutions took place in 1815 and in 1827.
Finally, in the year 1830, after the Pope had received an urgent and touching letter from the church in Korea, Father Bruguiere was commissioned to make his way into Korea and take charge of matters there. From 1831 until October, 1835, Father Bruguiere was working his way overland through China to the borders of Korea. The hairbreadth escapes which he had during this journey and the suffering which he underwent would form a volume iu themselves. And no sooner had he reached the borders of Korea than he was stricken with fever and died. Soon after Father Maubaut, a missionary of Manchouria, was appointed Bishop of Korea, and in January, 1836, he arrived in Seoul and began his labors. Soon he was joined by two other workers, and the work was pushed with vigor. But in 1839 the Government became aware of the presence of foreign preachers in the country and a persecution began which bade fair to surpass in violence all that had preceded it. Not one of the native Christians that were seized would divulge the secret as to the dwelling place of the foreign preachers, and suffered death in consequence. Father" Maubaut, seeing that the Government would not stop the persecution until the foreigners had been apprehended, made the determination to give himself up to the authorities, and going quietly to the magis- tracy he announced hi~self. He sent to his two fellow-workers asking them to follow his example, which they did, and the three together, after many severe beatings, were taken out of the south gate of tpe city and beheaded. The persecution gradually died out, and the work again went on. Soon more missionaries came; 1841 saw a terrible persecution, and each year saw its martyrs. In 1855 there were several missionaries stationed at different points throughout the coun- try, and at their head was Bishop Berneux, perhaps the most remarkable of all the Latin fathers Korea had seen. At that time there were about 12,000 communicants in the whole land, but the Christian population numbered nearly 20,000. Steadily the Church increased in spite of opposition from all sides. It has always been poor from the fact that the majesterial agents, or as they are called in the East, " eja~en runners," made Christianity a pretext for seizing a man and demanding a heavy fine before they would release him. In this way the Christian population has always been reduced to the lowest reach of poverty. , And so matters went on until about the time of our civil war in America. At that time the heir to the throne was yet so young that the government was administered at the hands of a regent. It was about the time that the Russians had obtained possession of the territory north of Korea, extending to the Tumen river. Russia was demanding of Korea freedom of trade for her merchants in Wensau, the eastern port of Korea, but at no time has the Korean Government been more averse to the opening of the country to foreigners than it was then. It is said that Bishop Berneux had considerable influence among a certain class of officials in Korea, and that at one time he had it in his power to aid the Koreans in their negotiations with the Russians, and that he refused to do so. Be this as it may, the Regent and ~he Government formed the sudden determination to destroy all the foreign missionaries and to annihilate the whole native church, and then began the great persecution of 1866. First, all the missionaries that the Government could lay hands on were seized and thrown into prison. Two made good their escape after weeks of hiding and starving among the mountains, but Bishop Berneux and eight other missionaries were seized.
Allow me to describe briefly the trial and execution of Bishop Berneux, and that will suffice for all. Being seized in his house, he was bound hand and foot' and cast into the prison reserved for those who had been condemned to death. On the next day he was brought before the high tribunal and was put to the question: "What is your name?" "Berneux." " What is your nationality?" "French." "Why have you come to this country?" "To save your souls." "How long ha,:e you been here? " "Ten years." "Will you apostatize?" "No, indeed, I came here to teach Christ, and I never will renounce Him." " If you do not you shall be beaten to death." " Do what you wish, I am in your hands." " Will you leave the country if we give you a chance?" " No, I will not leave unless you carry me away by force." Then he was stripped and laid upon the ground and beaten with the great paddle-like implement of torture until his flesh actually hung in strips along his limbs. He was also punctured all over the body with sharp sticks. His limbs were thrown out of joint, and in this plight he was thrown into the prison again. The next day he was brought out again to be questioned, but he was too weak to articulate. All the other missionaries went through the same ordeal. On the day of execution a cortege of soldiers bore the prisoners in litters or carts to the place of execution, about three miles from the city to the south, near the river. There a great circle was formed, and the execution commenced. Bishop Berneux was placed in .the circle, cords were passed through his ears and under his arms, and, suspended on a pole, he was carried three times around the circle. Then he was placed on his knees in the center, his limbs securely tied and his head extended forward by means of a cord tied to his hair and held by a soldier. 1'hen half a dozen soldiers, sword in hand, began a savage dance around the victim, uttering horrible cries and brandishing their heavy weapons, and as each soldier passed in front of the victim he delivered a blow at the neck. At the third blow the head fell, and one of the most horrible massacres of modern times was perpetrated. So fell that whole band of noble men. Is it easy to believe that this ghastly work was done in the nineteenth century, nay, within a quarter of a century of the present day? And yet it is true. The persecution, among native Christians, which followed, carried off between six and ten thousand men, women and children. Whole villages were blotted from the face of the country. Whole districts were decimated. The powers of hell seemed to have risen in revolt against the Cross of Christ. Ingenuity, little short of Satanic, was exer.cised in the detection and slaught.er of Christ's followers, until a half of their whole number were added to the list of martyrs. The Church has recovered in large part from that persecution, and its work is being actively pushed by a force of eighteen fathers. The statement that the work in Korea is being carried on by Jesuits is incorrect. It is carried on by the Societe des Missions-Etrangeres of Paris.
UNDENOMINATIONAL MISSION WORK
UNDENOMINATIONAL MISSION WORK.
BY REV. JAMES F. RIGGS, BAYONNE, N. J.
It is a charming theory: Let them go everywhere preaching the- word. Let this new crusade be introduced at once, and let thousands. and tens of thousands of individual missionaries go to all lands,. carrying the knowledge of Christ to gladden the world. Now, if this means that we rejoice in the personal influence of Christian men in every city and town, and further, that we wonld multiply such holy influences without limit, then, of course, we can all say Amen with all our hearts. A noble life, whether it be of tea merchant, ship captain, or railway engineer, can not fail t~ tell in the end. God knoweth them that are His, and the power of a pure, honest, and de- voted life is always a matter of congratulation to us. Especially do, we insist on this high and sacred responsibility in the case of all physicians, editors, and men who employ labor on a large scale in heathen lands.
But observe one important qualifying fact: Such men are not called missionaries; they do not refer to themselves in such terms, and they claim no privileges or exemptions on any such ground. Each man of this class is self-supporting, and he does not fall back on the sympathy or material aid of the home churches. Hence we shut out all such at once from our inquiry. Our aid is not asked for them, nor do they defer to our technical ecclesiastical authority. But there is a class of men to whom we must call attention. They claim, and actually assume, the entire liberty of a wanderer, who may come and go at pleasure, yet they call themselves missionaries, and demand the moral sympathy and the material support of the home churches. To this we do object. They are superior persons, they have discovered the spiritual elixir of life, and they alone possess the secret. Their discourse is based on the general principle that the laborer is worthy of his hire, but they decline all ecclesiastical direction. Even a word of inquiry as to their theological position is often resented. Unfortunately, the supply of such persons is inexhaustible. Hercules cut off one head of the hydra, only to see two heads spring up in place of it. We read in scripture that Jonah's gourd came up in a night and perished in a night. And in the moral world there is a parallel. Such a city as Constantinople is a sort of perennial gourd-garden. The prospectus of each gourd is set forth in great confidence, but the result is not such as to justify the promise.
In these remarks we have no reference to the great established charities of the world, such as the Bible Society. That is not what we call undenominational-it is rather pan-denominational. The Bible Society occupies a position wholly unique, and its agents are like other recognized missionaries. They constitute in real life a body that may be fitly compared with any denomination, and their confession of faith is the Bible itself. But in actual praotioe it is a business enterprise, and so far from coming into collision with any other mi,s- sion, it is the right arm of all missions. Very little enduring work can be done in any place until the Bible Society lends its aid.
Again, special emergencies demand special forms of activity. The Christian Commission, which did a noble work in war times, and other colossal enterprises of that nature, are simply the outcome of a sudden demand that can be met in no other way. So, too, we would set aside the China Inland Mission, which is often called undenomi- national, simply denying that it is in any way a model for general jmitation.
Having thus briefly indioated what we are not discussing, we oan take up the undenominational mission itself. What is it? It is a mistake from beginning to end. It is poor eoonomy in the use of ma- terial, it is poor economy in the collection and transmission of funds, and the individual free-lance, who sallies forth to destroy the works of the devil without assistance, usually stumbles into a trap before he has accomplished very much.
It would astonish and amuse the friends of real mission work if they could listen to the talk of some of these men, and note the nature of their propositions. The most wild, vague and impracticable schemes are suggested by them, in perfect innocence. They know nothing of systematic mission work. They come at a bound into an Asiatic community, knowing nothing of customs, prejudices, and lines of effort that are already familiar to the people. They give needless offense at many points, and they fail to take advantage of points that might be utilized. They have no definite notion as to the possibility or impossibility of any given thing. Many years ago a famous Spanish monk, Raimundus Lullius, proposed to the leaders of Christendom the notion of dialectics as a weapon of universal religious warfare. He proposed to overthrow all forms of error, paganism, Mohammedanism, all schismatics and infidels, by his acuteness in· word-fencing, in dialectics. Roger Bacon proposed to the Pope, Nicholas IV. (who was greatly interested in the crusades), that he should erect large focal mirrors near the great Mohammedan cities, and so set them on fire by the conoentrated rays of solar heat. We are reminded of these beautiful but impracticable plans by the very simplicityof some inexperienced zealots in our own day. Even the young missionaries, who come out to join our regular systematized working force, fall into these inconsistences; how much more the mere religions adventurer who goes out to the field without any allied forces on his flanks.
It will probably be said in defenc'e of this guerilla method, that the regular missionaries have made mistakes. So they have; but their mistakes are noted, recorded, and when all the testimony is gathered into a body of doctrine it becomes the science of mission enterprise. l1issionaries do make mistakes, and what hope do we have that it will ever be otherwise? Only this; that the systematic development of the work, not under a despotic superintendent, but on the true fraternal principle of mutual aid and brotherly co-operation-in a word, the vital denominational system will obviate disorder and provide a trustworthy, scientific method, built up out of the experience which has been so dearly bought.
The common system, known as the denominational method, is the true method for many years to come. Why? Because men are not perfect, and because the only way we can approach perfection is by a mutual system of aid and of encouragement. We must here protest against a little bit of pure theorizing that is certainly thrust in and made a basis of error in this discussion. Weare told, the missionary should preach only the great outline truths of the gospel, in which the entire mass of Christendom is agreed. All minor matters ought to be left in the native churches, that they may develop a local system of ecclesiastical life and manners that shall suit the place and the times. This is a sheer dead-lift of theory. '1'he man who can preach effectively the great cardinal doctrines will be the man who has a well-worked-out theory of systematic theology, complete in all its parts. Who are the successful preachers? Are they not the men of clear-cut and well-matured views? We need the consciousness of reserve force. Denominational details are not trifles, but they are the solid backing of an immovable conviction. The denominational clutch on the sword of the Spirit is simply a confident clutch. Better work with a man who is left-handed than with one who says that there is no appreciable difference between one hand and the other.
In order to teach well, the teacher must know a vast deal more than he actually imparts, and the missiona.ry who is cut off from denominational sympathy has suffered a loss that no personal genius can ever make up.
Very little good solid enduring work is accomplished without the co-operation of a number of departments. Look at any given mission. It has its educational department, training up a native ministry. It has its publication department, providing a religious literature. It has its evangelistic department, the visitation of villages for the purpose of preaching. And, finally, it has its properly episcopal department, or department of superintendence, which is absolutely neceBsary for the proper co-ordinating of these diverse branches. No individual, however highly endowed, can. keep up all these various activities any more than a solitary individual could maintain a complex civilization all by himself. The fatal objection to these sporadic mission enterprises will be found just at this point. But we are told that if we would sustain them, these feeble missions would grow as the others have grown. Yes; then let us humbly ask, What Cate- chism would they use in their schools? How would they examine their candidates for the ministry? Where would they draw their supply of religious literature? There are a thousand practical diffi- culties in the way of all mission work that is not identified with some strong, well-defined denomination. No such worker is content to be always a mere tract-distributor. He will not tolerate the idea of oc- cupying permanently the lowest position in religious life. Every workman longs to see his superstructure rise to its proper eminence, and if this is to be done there must be a foundation, not only deep, but broad. There is a process known in electrical science as " completing the circuit," and in our active work for Christ we .need to do the same. We are not content with a mere piece of wire, or a strip of zinc, or a few drops of acid; we may not stop till we have completed the circuit. Nor are we afraid of denominational zeal. What if the battery is highly charged? What if men do speak unadvisedly with their lips? Have we not a check on such mistakes?
Why do men desire to organize any such efforts? Is it not generally because they wish to shake off responsibility? They are impatient of control. They are not willing to be advised. They find the exact, inexorable character of theology a yoke and a bondage. 'l'hey prefer to abandon themselves to the action of the centrifugal force. They are willing to wander alone, misled by the moral mirage which shows them facts, indeed, but facts turned upside down. Setting out in such a spirit, .it is not strange if they find this world a trackless wilderness.
It may be urged, perhaps, in reply to tp.is, that there is already friction and jealousy between the rival denominations. This is a VfYy unfortunate exaggeration. As a rule the large societies are friendly and sympathetic. A beginning has been made. Now let each society press its work to the utmost, and let the individuals ally themselves as they best can.
Just before the great battfe of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson stood on the quarter-deck of his flag-ship, the Victory, and his fleet-captains, who had been summoned on board, stood around him. It was an anxious moment. They would soon be enveloped in battle-smoke, and one of the captains expressed the fear that one of them might make a mistake. The reply of Lord Nelson is worthy of a permanent place in the mind of every servant of Christ. It was the very utterance of genius. He said gravely, "No' captain can make a mistake if he lays his ship alongside a French ship."
A SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.
The exception only illustrates and enforces the general law. The world is familiar with some' remarkable examples of noble, honest, and successful mission enterprise, conducted outside the lines of our regular denominational boards. The present writer has no wish to be unjust, nor would he withhold an iota of the praise due in any case. But mark the facts as they are in real life, not as they are in the dreams of unbalanced courage. Men have crossed the Atlantic in open skiffs; would you therefore advise anyone to go and do like- wise? Men have crossed the Andes alone, without any guide; would you assume from this fact that such a mode of travel is to be com- mended?
A very common mistake in modern times is the undervaluing of system, because somebody got along without any. Mr. Moody never went to college, hence a college course is superfluous. That mode of reasoning would do away with almost every blessing in civilization, because at one time or another some person was compelled to do with- out it. 'fhe independent or undenominational mission is a mission conducted under extraordinary difficulties, and the aim of this plea is to induce men to avoid those difficulties which are now quite needless.
There was a time when each and every mission was an experiment. Methods were uncertain-experience limited. Men who gave their lives in those days to the determination of grave questions in the policy of evangelism, did not throwaway the opportunity, for there was a cause. Now many things are entirely different. Experience is ample, and we know what can be done and what cannot. Let not the old rash ventures be made again to no purpose. We praise Dr. Joseph Wolff, but it would be very foolish for any person now to llndertake to repeat his journeys in the disguise of a dervish. It is not necessary to do so.
The enthusiast who sets forth on an independent mission, is not always to be blamed, but he ought to be instructed. He does not . know the facts in regard to the foundations already laid, and the tunnels already driven far into the rock. It is easy to point to a man of genius, and to imagine that all further debate is shut off. On the contrary, we ought not to be guided too exclusively by the triumphs of genius, because a mighty man may do what a man of ordinary force and consecration could never do. And failure is not simply failure, it is disaster in the foreign field, making the whole region sterile to those who follow.
If the question be put as to our immediate duty toward the scattered forces now in the field, the present writer would suggest: 1. That those persons who can influence any enterprise of this nature should concentrate their men just so fast as may be possible. Missionary power is like the mathematical law of the cube. 'fhe cube of two is eight; but the cube of three is twenty-seven. By all means gather the men into organic missions rather than depend on isolated units at long intervals.
2. Let those missions that are already denominational in substance
THE PRAYER FOR LABORERS
become such also in name and honest avowal. If this involves some criticism and official inspection, so much the better. The tendency will be to weed out errors, to correct bad methods, to bring about harmony in all sorts of questions, and it will prove a check that we greatly need on the reckless waste of money in some places.
The one point on which we insist is that success renders denominational boundaries absolutely necessary. Just so soon as the missionary is able to lead men to the Saviour, then immediately the questions of organization and education come up, and cannot be set aside unless there be such vigor and nerve in the leader as to make of his work, practically, a new denominatio,n.
THE PRAYER FOR LABORERS.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the Harvest that He would thrust forth laborers into His Harvest."
How long shall it take us to learn that the grand inspiration to all missions, the world over, and to all missionary spirit and sacrifice in the Church, is PRAYER? not appeal to men, but appeal to God.
This is but one of those injunctions and promises which fix our eyes upon Prayer as the great motor in the kingdom of God. Again we affirm it: Prayer has turned every great crisis in the kingdom. It can bring' men, it can furnish money, it can supply all the means and materiel of war. Yet, we sadly but seriously affirm that this, the grandest of all the sprhIgs of missionary activity, is that on which the least practical dependence is placed in our missionary machinery.
Let us look at the bearing of believing supplication upon our supply of laborers for the harvest field.
The fascination about all true Christian work is that, first of all, it is God's work. The true child of God longs to find his place and 1'!phere in that grander sphere of divine activity where he is permitted to share co-operation with God. Now all true adaptation to our work depends on a higher plan than ours. God's work reaches through the ages and spans even the eternities. Every workman must have hisfltness for his particular work, and that fitness must be (If God, for the workman cannot know what peculiar demands that :t work will make upon him until he gets at work, and then it is too late to prepare. Preparation must be carried on earlier, and, be- -cause no man can tell with certainty what he is to be called to do, or where he is to be placed, the only hope and faith that can solve the, perplexity must fasten on the Providence of God. He who foresees and foreknows what the work is to be must predestine and prepare the worker to do it.
Does He not? 'Who that studies history-which is the mere record (If God's dealings with humanity-cannot see that a divine plan is at work? that in the great crisis of affairs He brings forth some man or woman singularly prepared, unconsciously' prepared, often unwill- ingly prepared, for the work and the sphere? so that, as, in the build- ing of the te:nple, no sound of axe, hammer or tool of iron was heard while it was in building,-so again there is no need of any adaptation after the man and his work meet-they mutually fit as stone does, stone, or timber does timber, where the work has been properly done in the quarry and in the shops.
Many a man has no chance or need to adapt himself to his" en- vironment." One of the great objections to "evolution" is found in the frequent examples of preadaptation with which nature abounds. A caterpillar that lives on the earth, crawls on its own belly, eats leaves and refuse,-at a certain stage of its history enters the chrysa- lis state. It is to emerge from its cocoon a winged butterfly, hence- forth to soar, not creep or crawl, to sip the honey from the dainty nectaries of flowers. Here is a wholly new' experience, of which the' life of the worm furnished no earnest. Now if you run a sharp blade down the length of the cocoon, and cut through the cuticle of the animal while yet in the chrysalis state, you will find all the peculiar' organs of the future butterfly 01' moth mysteriously enfolded beneath that skin. How are they to be accounted for? That caterpillar nO" more knew its future state and needs than the unborn infant knew its coming wants. It could not be said to adapt its organs to its new life after its emergence from the cocoon, for those organs were all there- long before the moment of that new birth. And so the reverent Christian scientist accounts for the preadaptation by a higher evolu- tion in the plan of a Creator.
Just so we discern in history preadaptations that defy any ex- planation without faith in the providence of God. M~n themselves have been undergoing a peculiar training for ten, twenty, thirty" forty years, which has found its explanation only when God has brought' them and their preordained work together! Moses, in the- palace and court of Pharaoh, from the hour when he was taken out of the basket of bulrushes, was unconsciously preparing to become , God's great agent in Israel's deliverance and organization: the fitness of that man as leader and law giver, poet and prophet, organizer and administrator, is so exact and marvellous that it compels belief in God. Luther at Erfurt and W urtemberg, Knox in Scotland, Calvin in Switzerland, J ohn Wesley and Charles Wesley in England, J ona- than Edwards in New England, William Carey at Hackleton, Adoni- ram Judson in 'Villiamstown, John Hunt at Hykeham Moor, John E. Clough studying civil engineering, David Livingstone poring over Dick's "Siderial Heavens," Henry M. Stanley reporting for the New York Herald-these are examples of men whom God was unconsciously making ready for a special work of which they had no conception, and for which they could make no intelligent preparation.
Who was it that not only raised up those six remarkable men and missionaries-Schwartz, Carey, Judson, Morrison, Wilson and Duffbut raised them up in the same age and epoch of missions? All of them from humble life, but of varied nationalities, of different denominations, Lutheran, Baptist, Independent, Presbyterian; who was it gave to all of them essentially the tastes and the training of scholars, though their early surroundings in several cases specially forbade; who was it that singularly fitted them to be theologians, translators, philologists, scientists and teachers? Who was it that so singularly adjusted the plan of these several lives that each spent some forty years among the natives of India, Burmah or China; passed the advanced limit of three-score years and ten, and died rejoicing not * only in their labors but in the fruit of their labors?
Sometimes, indeed, it suddenly appears to the man himself that the adaptation somehow exists; but it is only the consciousness of a pre-fitness. John Hunt has been compared to the forest bird, which, hatc'hed in the nest of some common domestic fowl, moves about restless among the pullets and ducks in the barnyard, until some day, finding its pinions grown long and strong, and instinctively conscious that the air, not the earth or the water, is its native element, suddenly soars from the ground and makes straight and swift flight toward the freedom of the woods and the higher realms of the atmosphere! Of how many of God's workmen might similar words be written? And what new hope does it impart to missiolls as the enterprise of the Church to know that while God buries the workmen He carries on the work ! No gap ever occurs that He cannot fill. How often a desponding spirit cries, when such a man falls as John Williams of Erromanga, or Mackay of Uganda, or Livingstone at Lake Bangweolo, or Keith Falconer at Aden, "How shall that man's place be filled?" But God has another man ready, and sometimes two to take the place of one. And so the work goes on.
The subject will bear indefinite expansion; but our object is only to sound once again the grand key-note of all missions: Believing Prayer. The field is wide-world wide. The Harvest is great, but the laborers are few. How are they to be supplied? There is but one way authorized in Scripture: "PRAY ye therefore the Lord of the Harvest that HE would send forth laborers into His Harvest." Nothing else can fill these vacant fields with an adequate supply of workmen. Education cannot do it. A great deal of our education is leading young men and women away from mission fields. "The spectacles of the intellect," says Dr. David Brown, "are binocular." 'l'here is a tendency in all intellectual culture, as in the gathering of earthly * See Dr. George Smith. riches, to make us practically Godless. Men become purse-proud by accumulating wealth, and brain-proud by accumulating learning. If God does not hear prayer and give learning and culture a divine direction, a heavenly anointing, our colleges will only raise up a generation of sceptics. Our appeals and arguments will not give the Church missionaries; unless the demonstration of the Spirit is added to the demonstration of logic, no conviction will result that leads to consecration-that higher logic of life.
And, when workmen are on the fleld, it is the same prayer that must secure to the word they preach" free course," so that it is glori- fied. When the Church at Antioch, praying and fasting, sent forth Barnabas and Saul on that first missionary' tour, the Church kept praying; and, in answer to prayer, doors, great and effectual, opened before them, and repentance unto life was granted unto the Gentiles, and mighty signs and wonders were wrought by the hands of those primitive pioneer missionaries.
We have heard many things said in depreciation of J. Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission. We have he~rd his whole work stigmatized as" without a foundation," a " wild scheme," "im- practicable," "lacking all elements of stability and permanence;" we have heard said of it, that it " gets men and women into Inland China, and then leaves them there to starve," etc. One thing is very remarkable about it: it sets us all an example of faith in God and power in prayer. It has been the writer's privilege to meet frequently and in circumstances·favorable for confidential intercourse, this be- loved man of God-this" Paul, the little "-and from his own lips to hear the history of the China Inland Mission. It is a wonderful story; it sounds like new chapters in the Acts of the Apostles. Mr. Taylor was at the little Conferences of Believers at Niagara-on-the-Lake in July 1888 and 1889. At the first, he made a precious address, fra- grant with the anointing of God-unpretentious, modest, simple, childlike. It took us all captive by a divine fascination. He simply unfolded the word of God, made no appeal, would, in fact, have no "collection. "But that little company of believers, mostly poor, con- strained him to accept a freewill offering of some $2,500. To our surprise he was rather anxious than pleased. And in 1889 he told us the source of his perplexity. As nearly as we can recall, these were his words: " When that money was put into my hands, I felt burdened; when the Lord sends me workers I feel no anxiety, for I know that He who .provides laborers for His harvest-field will provide the means to put them into the field. But when the Lord gives me money and not the workmen to use the monsy, I know not what to do with it. When from the Conference of 1888 tMrteen volunteers subsequently offered • themselves for the great field of China, I said, ' Now the Lord has .solved my perplexity.' But, 'you see, we sometimes reckon too fast. And so it was with me. For when I went to the places from which these beloved laborers were to go forth to the harvest-field, the churches to which they belonged insisted on paying all the expenses .of their outfit and journey; and so I had this money still on hanel, and my perplexity was increased. Now, dear friends, don't give me any more money unless you give me the men and women to use it! "
We have made and heard thousands of missionary addresses, but never any like that! For once we have found the l1ead of a great missionary movement whose main care is not money at all, and who is more an';£ious to have workmen than funds; who, in fact, begs us not to give him any more money until we first provide the workers to use it. The ordinary conditions seem somehow reversed. We hear on all sides frantic appeals for money. To-day, it is said, scores of young men and women are coming forward, offering to go, but there is no money to send them. Brethren told me in Scotland that they were compelled to stop appealing for workmen, because the appeals were so much more enthusiastically responded to than the Church responds to the needs of an over-taxed treasury!
We have no thought of using invidious comparisons; but we are compelled to ask whether we have not, in our missionary work, fallen into the snare of worldly care-whether missions do not stand in our thought too much as an enterprise of the Ohurc.h, and too little as the work of God, of which the Church is the commissioned agent. We feel conscious, like all others that have passed their meridian hour, that our day of labor slants toward its western horizon and its setting-hour. We desire to make every utterance of tongue or pen as serious, solemn, candid, and conscientious, as though it were, as it may be, the last. And, with fnll consciousness that no othel' "Editorial" may ever issue from the pen and hand which write these lines, we here record the profound conviction that, back of all otl.!-er causes ·of the present perplexity in our mission work; behind all the apathy of individuals and the inactivity of churches; behind all the lack of enthusiasm and the lack of funds; behind all the deficiency of m,en and of means, of intelligence and of consecration, of readiness to send and alacrity in going, there lies one lack deeper and more radical and more fundamental-viz.: THE LACK OF BELIEVING PRAYER. Until that lack is supplied the doors now opened will not be entered, and the .doors now shut will not be opened; laborers of the right sort will not be forthcoming, nor the money forthcoming to put them at work and sustain them in it; until that lack is Rupplied the churches in the mis-. sion field will not be largely blessed with conversions, nor the churches in the home field largely blessed with ~utpourings and anointings of zeal for God and passion for souls.
The first necessity for the Church and the world is also the first
THE RESULTS OF MODERN MISSIONS PERMANENT
central petition of the Lord's Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come! of which the hallowing of God's name is the preparation and the doing of God's . will is the consequence. And that Kingdom comes only in answer to . expectant prayer. We need, first of all, a revival of the praying spirit which moved Jonathan Edwards to publish his appeal in 1747, and led 'William Carey and John Sutcliffe to republish it in 1787. Modern missions had their birth in prayer; all their progress is due to prayer. A few souls that have close access to the Mercy Seat, like Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Daniel, have kept up the apostolic succession of prayer. And because of this, and of this alone, doors have been opened, workmen thrust forth into the open fields, and money has been provided. But suppose the 'Whole Church would get down before God! What if, where one now prays, a hundred were bowed on the face like Elijah on Carmel! What, if in place of the naturalism that. is eating at the vitals of spiritual life there might be a revival of faith in the supernatural, a new and universal awakening to the fact. that God is a present, living, faithful, prayer-hearing God; that the closet is his ante-room, nay, his audience-chamber, where, to the sup- pliant soul, he extends his sceptre and says, "Ask what thou wilt in Jesus name, and it shall be given unto thee !"
The late Mr. Neeshima, of Japan, said to his fellow-countrymen when planning an evangelistic tour-"Advance on your knees!" To· work without praying is practical atheism; to pray without working is idle presumption. But to pray and work together, to baptize all work with prayer and to follow all prayer with work-that is an ideal life. Of such a life we may reverently say, labo1'are est orare- work is worship and worship is work.
In the vision of Isaiah (vi.) the seraphim have six wings, and four of them are used in the office of humble and reverent worship, while only two are reserved for flying. As Dr. Gordon beautifully says, " Let us learn a lesson on the proportion to be observed between supplica- tion and service." Better twice as much devout preparation as work~ than a hurried and superficial communion with God, and an unpre- pared and hasty dash and rush into activity. Let us linger before God until we get power, and then life becomes grand. It shines with the glory of His Face, and it moves with the might of His omni- potence.
THE RESULTS OF MODERN MISSIONS PERMANENT.
BY REV. THOMAS LAURIE, PROVIDENCE, R. I.
The American Board began its work in Western Asia by sending missionaries to Palestine. In other words, the new world sent the gospel to that part of the old world whence that same gospel first went forth to bless the rac~-to the city where our redemption was wrought out and where the first Christian church was formed. That fact starts the inquiry, whether the power of the gospel, like that of mere human influences, is short lived? As earthly kingdoms rise from obscurity, flourish for a season, and then decay, does the kingdom of God in like manner have its era of growth and harvest, and then leave nothing but stubble to be ploughed under by new laborers in their preparations for another crop? Missionaries from New England occupied chUl'Ch edifices in Ceylon that had been built centuries before by Papal missionaries from Portugal. Shall missionaries to China a millenium hence find no trace of the work being performed in that empire to·day save some stone like that at Singan Fil, which records the labors of N estorians eleven centuries ago? Or shall future evangelists from Central Africa find such wrecks of churches in New England as we have found in Tarsus, Smyrna and Thessalonica? On the one hand it may be said that our country has not been in existence so long as the time between the visit of Xavier to Ceylon (1544) and the present; but on the other, we can say with the prophet, "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever" (Isa. xl:8), and that word has .been translated into the language of China, "and it shall not return to Him void, but shall prosper in the thing whereto He sent it" (Isa. Iv: 11).
These questions present a very interesting topic for discussion. The writer sincerely wishes that he were able to do justice to so grand a. theme, and ventures to submit these few thoughts only as a starting point whence others may advance further into a land flowing with milk and honey, and bring back far richer clusters.
First of all then let us keep in mind that in this discussion we are not inquiring as to the certainty of the conversion of the world to God. He settled that forever when in His word He put the certainty of that result alongside of the certainty of His own existence. The old version of Numbers, xiv:21, read thus: "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord," but the new revision translates it more accurately, "In very deed, as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." At first sight this seems a weaker statement, but it is in fact much stronger, for while the old rendering made the existence of God a pledge of the conversion of the world, this more correct one co-ordinates the two things as alike certain and incapable of change. How could it be otherwise, when it is written (Daniel vii:14): "His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." And then this divine result is the work of God Himself, as He says (Isa. 1x:22), " I the Lord will hasten it in its time." We must never forget that it is "not by might or by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." And to this agrees Isa. liii:12, "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out His soul unto death: and was numbered with the transgl'essors; yet He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the trangressors. " Thus binding the redemption already achieved and this future triumph of that redemption in one inseparable bond. Well does the Holy Spirit say through Jeremiah xxxiii:20: "Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant (Jf the night, so that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant."
It is well that our hearts be established by recalling such words of God before we launch out on the more uncertain sea of human probabilitie!l, for what Christian can read such words of God and for (Jne moment doubt the final issue.
Still the fact remains that the gospel was once preached in Palestine by our Lord and His Apostles, and now missionaries from other lands are needed to restore to that land the knowledge of the truth, and the question is, "Have we any reason to think the present evangelization of that region will be more permanent than that which went before?"
We see at once that there is a difficulty here which does not exist in some nations whose nominal conversion to Christianity took place during the dark ages. Take France as a representative of many others. There Clovis, a fierce fighter, when Thor and Woden seemed to fail him in battIe, turned to Christ for help, vowing to be His follower if He gave him the victory. The bloody battle was decided in his favor, "and thousands of his wild warriors followed him to the font with as little thought as they would have followed him to death or victory." It was this conversion that won for the King of France the title of" the most Christian king." The historian adds: "It is from this robber, liar and murderer that France rightly dates her beginning." (Encyclopedia Brittanica, Ninth Ed., Vol. IX, p. 529). It is not at all surprising when nations whose conversion has been brought about by such methods fall away from the faith, for the tru~h is that they never had a faith to fall away from. If the church in Palestine had been brought iuto existence by such methods we might be grieved, but we could not be surprised by its fall; but when the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit lie at its foundation, we must look elsewhere for the explanation of its falling away_ Still no thoughtful reader of the New Testament ought to be surprised at it. The Apostle says to those among whom he had labored more than two years at Ephesus (Acts xX:29): "I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." It may be said that this does not anticipate so utter an overthrow as destroyed vital piety in all that region. True, and yet tha~ same Apostle strove to prevent in, his own lifetime an apostasy that would have been utterly subv~sive of the truth, for he says of some op'posers (Gal. ii:5) that he" gave place to them in the way of subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you," imply- ing that otherwise the truth had perished from among them. Then in 2 Thess. ii:3, he speaks of falling away and a revelation of the man of ,sin. "For," he adds in verse 7, "the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now,until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the Lawless One, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming."
Besides, over and above these warnings of the Apostles, how often did the Lord Jesus say to His churches: "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen [note it: already fallen] and repent, and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy candlestick out of its place." (Rev. ii:5). Surely such utterances ought to make surprise impossible when we look on the spiritual desolation 'of Bible lands, and their political and pecuniary desolations are only the consequences of the spiritual ruin that had gone before.
Another truth claims our notice in this connection. At no time in the past has any religious movement been either perfect in its nature or universal in extent. In other words, it has not thoroughly transformed the whole character, or pervaded the entire community. No one man has done good and not sinned at all, and there have always been those who have floated with the current whichever way it turned, but without any spiritual life of their own. Hence among the ancient people of God His kingdom did not move forward in one continuous advance, but rather by seasons of progress, interrupted by either lack of movement or positive retrocession. An advance under Samuel was followed by a backward movement under Saul. Another advance under David was succeeded by a retrograde movement that culminated under Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Again, light under J ehoshaphat was followed by darkness under his son, Jehoram, and so on to the captivity. That, however, was under a dispensation that was growing old and ready to vanish away.
Under the gospel, our Leader teaches us to aim at nothing less than the doing of the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven; and this, which involves complete obedience on the part of each, and the combined obedience of all, we are never to lose sight of. It is to be the object of our daily prayer and constant endeavor. Still, being so high an aim, it is not strange if its attainment be more difficult, but we trust that the morning has dawned that shall shine more and more unto this perfect day, for under the power of the Spirit of God, things shape themselves toward a higher standard of character throughout the Ohurch iu all lands. And here belougs one truth that is fuil of comfort. The work of the Spirit is not stationary, but progressive.
He began by brooding over material chaos. He insp~red Bezaleel and Aholiab for 'their work, and He now works a spiritual transformation in human hearts. Though He did this before Ohrist came, yet it was confined to EO few, that the evangelist could say (St. John vii:39), "The Holy Spirit was not yet given; because Jesns was not yet glorified." After that He wrought the wonders of the day of Pentecost; yet that was only one step in an advance that shall overcome the powers of evil with a continuous and unending victory. The same divine energy that overcomes for one moment is able to overcome forever. And it is in the line of the divine progress to show the power of the redemption that is in Ohrist Jesus, to conquer the causes that now render revivals temporary, as well as those that render them impossible at all to man unaided.
As the plan of God involves this progress, we should expect to find instrumentalities provided to carry it out, and we are not disappointed. The past history of the Ohurch has shown God working toward perfect ends through imperfect instrumentalities. At first there was a needs be for Apostles, lifted out of and above the rest of the Ohurch. Still they were not an unmixed good. Their presence involved the danger of depending too much on leaders, although one of the chief Apostles begged the prayers of the churches for a blessing on his labo.rs. This undue reliance on leaders led to the attempt to perpetuate the apostolic office without the apostolic gifts, hence ruinous ambition among the clergy, who forgot how the Master said, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant" (Math. xxiii:ll), and that" Whosoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (xviii:4). When we look back on the bitter fruits of ambition in the Ohurch, we are at no loss to explain the disappearance of spiritual life from Bible lands. Still this does not involve the failure of divine plans, for the same chastening that visited retribution 011 sin in the Ohurch, also prepared the way for a renovated sanctuary and a holy people who should carry out the glorious idea of a Ohurch, as it existed in the mind of God.
Look at some of the wonderful works of Him who is King in Zion. Once copies of the Holy Scriptures could be multiplied only by the slow labor of the pen. Then the common people could not possess them. Even churches could hardly secure a copy for their public worship. This left them dependent on the clergy for their knowledge of the truth, and it is humiliating to have to confess that this great power in the hands of ecclesiastics was not always used to make their people wise unto salvation, but rather to strengthen their own supremacy.
Even now good men look more to the preacher than to Ohrist. How much more when $ey had no Bible at home to correct that tendency, and everything in the Church magnified those who sought their own greatness at the expense of the edification of the people. Even now some true disciples are influenced more by the visible splendor of a church edifice and the audible music of the choir than by unseen spiritual virtues. How much more, when those who ought to have pointed them to the "Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world," claimed that they themselves had power to forgive sins and impart salvation! But now that the common people have the Bible in their own hands, which can make them wise unto salvation, they have a divine deliverance from this bondage to a clergy, and we may estimate the greatness of that deliverance from the frantic efforts put forth to-day to take away the Bible from the masses, or at least to prevent them availing themselves of its divine instructions.
The Master in his day preached the coming of the Kingdom of God, looking beyond the temporary thraldom of his people to that freedom wherewith the truth would make them free. And the Church has now come forth from that dark house of bondage to walk in the light of the truth of God.
The fact, then, that the Providence of God, by means of the press, has put the Bible into the hands of the common people, and stirred up His Church not only to see that it is distributed but that men are stimulated to engage in its study and assisted in that study, is one pledge that the waters of this flood of ignorance shall not return to destroy the Church and necessitate another replanting of those lands where the truth is taking root to-day.
Another fact which strengthens this conviction is the influence which the Bible exerts on those who receive it. It has already been intimated that something is needed to interest men in the truth, so that they shall feel its power, and that something is the Holy Spirit, who, Christ says, "Shall take of mine, and declare it unto you" (St. John xvi:14). It is not necessary to determine the minimum of truth essential to secure the work of the Spirit in a human heart. It is enough to know that He works through the truth. Anyone who has ever had opportunity to compare the working of Papal missionaries with those who go forth from our Puritan Churches, appreciates this fact as no language can describe it. There is a puny weakness in the adherents of the one, and a stalwart energy in the converts made by the other, to which words cannot do justice. On the one hand are Lilliputian superstitions and Brobdingnaggian legends of the Saints. On the other are a wonderful manliness and the fruit of the Spirit in all its v6riety and sweetness.
Some magnify education as a power to renovate persons and peoples; and no doubt education produces great results, but the highest style of education is seen where a soul, regenerated by the Spirit, studies that Word of God through which the Spirit sanctifies. NOl science can compare with the Bible. Other sciences deal with the, works of God, whether in the realm of matter or of mind; Scripture, deal~ with God Himself and our relations to him. No college can rise so high along any other line of study; no university can secure, such a large and well-proportioned mental development through the pursuit of all other sciences put together, and it is this highest style, of education that is given in our higher missionary schools. There,. whatever other line of science is pursued, the Bible is supreme, and_ that not only enmancipates from the bondage of ignorance, it lifts; the soul into the plane along which it is to advance forever, and on which they move in Heaven to-day. And the- men so trained will never degenerate as Bible lands have degenerated under an ecclesiasticism that ignored the Redeemer, and his great Redemption, and sent them to the priest for salvation, instead of sending them to the only name under heaven that is given among men whereby we must, be saved. Men do not go to Him and come back empty.
Some talk as though a new discovery in politics or in science was· lifting up the masses to-day and righting the wrongs of ages-upheaving society from its depths and creating all things new. It is neither a new discovery iu politics nor in science, but an old truth sung by a woman nineteen hundred years ago in connection with the incarnation of the Son of God. "He hath showed strength with His. arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart. He hath put down princes from their thrones, and hath exalted them of low degree. The hungry He hath filled with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away." (Luke i:51,53). It is that power of an Incarnate Saviour that was spoken of even a millenium before- Mary thus magnified the Lord, when the Psalmist said of Christ, "He shall deliver the needy when he cricth; aud the poor that hath. no helper. He shall spare the poor and nee(~y, and shall save the souls of the needy." (Ps.lxxii:12, 13).
In the labor questions that now vex society, we see this power grinding like Samson in the mills of the Philistines-a captive shorn of its strength; but in the missionary station we see it wielded by omnipotence, to shatter every hostile force that exalteth itself against God and human well being. There it asserts its divine energy, and there is one line of its working that calls for special notice. The heathen, like sinners at home, are selfish, and their selfishness has. found expression in a lazy looking ont for their own advantage, regardless of the interest of others. At first missionaries were made so happy by the sight of interest in spiritual things, in however small 8. degree, that they were in danger of hindering the work of God by doing everything for their converts and shielding them from every self-denial. They hrnished employment; they protected and coddled
MAHDISM AND MISSIONS IN THE SOUDAN
them till they were in danger of destroying all manly self-reliance. Now they have learned the love as well as wisdom of those words of Jesus (Luke iX:23): "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me," and they teach converted heathen that the work of the kingdom in their land belongs to them and not to the missionary. That to them belongs the support of the churches, and that their feet are to carry the goopel into the regions beyond. The consequence is a type of Christian zeal and self-denial that puts us at home to shame, and our churches are stimulated to new consecration by the example of those who yesterday were heathen. Here is another fact on which we build our assurance: that the present results of missionary labor have come to stay. The churches that lazily leaned on the store of merit which their clergy claimed to have at their disposal may pass away; but these Christian workers are only the vanguard of others who shall enter into their labors, and together press on in the service of the Lord till the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
It is said that even the most fervent zeal may grow cold and disappear. Yes, if its roots go no deeper than the heart, which is deceitful above all things; but if the zeal of the Lord of Hosts is performing this, if the life that is iu Christ as well as from Christ is the power at work in this matter, is anything too hard for the Lord? "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not> faint." (1sa. xl:28-31).
MAHDISM AND MISSIONS IN THE SOUDAN.
BY REV. LEWIS GROUT, WEST BRATTLEBORO, VT.
Among all the characteristics which mark the followers of the False Prophet in Beled-es-Soudan, "the country of the blacks," perhaps none is stronger or more peculiar than their faith in Mahdism. Nor can any organization or enterprise that may have in view a thought of promoting the essential well-being of that people, whether social, political or religious, afford to be indifferent to the opposition this religion would offer to its efforts. Least of all can any missionary, or missionary society, hope to succeed there without knowing something of the character of the Mahdic phase, of the Moslem faith, and something of the reasons why its devotees are so strongly attached to it. Should a study of the subject show that the Mahdism of the Soudan includes not only a purpose to see their faith extended and established throughout the continent, but also a desire to be relieved from crushing assessments for that which brings them no good, to be exempt from interference with their dealing in slaves, and be left free of every foreign yoke, whether military, political or financial, to govern themselves as of old, it would not be difficult to see why its friends and advocates are firm, active and aggressive. It will help to give some good idea of the hold Mahdism has upon the Soudanese, to take a brief look at the traditions of the people respecting the Mahdi, and at some of the reasons for the ready response they gave to the claims of Mohammed Achmet (or Ahmed) to be the true and very Mahdi for whom they had been long looking.
Soon after Ali, surnamed the Lion or God, married Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, whose doctrines he addpted and labored to enforce, his rival, Abu Bekr, being chosen calif in 632, the Mohammedans were divided into two sects, the Sunnites and the Shiites, the latter of which were the partisans of Ali. .Ali became calif in 655, but was assassinated in 661, and was succeeded by his son, Hassan. Under the auspices of the Fatimite dynasty, the Shiites soon spread over all Persia and a large part of Egypt, including the Soudan.' They believed Ali ranked equal, if not superior, to the Prophet himself. Some of them looked upon him as the incarnation of Divinity. He was counted the :first of the 12 Imams, or Pontiffs, of the Persian creed, who, one after another, without arms, treasures or subjects, enjoyed the veneration and provoked the jealousy of reigning califs. Their tombs are still visited by the devotees of the sect. For solitude, sanctity, and veneration paid him, the twelfth and last of these Imams surpassed all that went before him, and was made specially con- spicuous by being called EI Mahdi (Mehdi, or Mehedi), literally, "the guided"- that is, "the inspired one;" and hence, a spiritual guide, a deliverer invested with a supernatural mission. The time and place of his death were never known; indeed, it was believed that he never did die. For many generations his votaries pretended that he disappeared in a cavern, where he still lived, and from whence he would emerge before the coming 'of the last day, to overthrow the tyranny of Antichrist. Some of the Persian traditions taught that this Imam, EI Mahdi, would outrank all other prophets and divine messengers; that, being "well-guided," heaven-directed, sent of God to be the leader of His people, he would come out of his concealment in time to accomplish the last things, unite with Christ to consolidate the Christian and Mohammedan law, declare EI Islam the world's true religion, and convert Christians and idolaters alike to the Moslem faith. It is well known that for some years now past the Shiite Mohammedans were looking for the early coming of the last day, and for the speedy reappearirtg of the long-expected Mahdi. Nor can there be any doubt that the superstitious adventurer, Mohammed Achmet, or Ahmed, aware of these shadowy expectations, had endeavored to prepare himself in the seclusion and silence of a studied retreat, to answer the description which tradition had given to the coming EI Mahdi, and seize upon some auspicious occasion to declare himself the promised guide and deliverer.
He was born in Dongola, in 1843, the son of a carpenter, the grandson of a Moslem priest; dark-skinned, with .Arab blood, though he claimed to be a full-blooded Arab-a regular male descendent from Mohammed, through his daughter Fatima and her husband Ali. He is said to have been a strange and precocious child. His father apprenticed him to a boatman, an uncle, from whom,'he ran away, and joined himself to a priest or fakir, a dervish, who lived near Khartoum. Here he studied for several years and made such progress iQ. learning the Koran that, at the age of twelve years, he knew a large part of'it by heart. He lived for a time with a French surgeon-general, Dr. Peney. He attended a Mohammedan school for a few years, and then, for another term of years, studied under a famous saint, by whom he was ordained a priest. Having completed his studies of Mohammedan literature, at the age of 25 he betook himself to a cave on the island of Abba, above Khartoum, near Kana, on the White Nile, where, for fifteen years he lived an austere life, fasting, praying and meditating on the mission to which he would eventually give himself. By his unique personal appearance and mystic manner of life, he soon began to get a wide repute as a most devout and saintly man. Crowds eventually flocked in to ask his prayers and make him presents, and become his disciples. He cultivated the friendship of the influential Sheiks, selected wives from the families of the rich and powerful, and in that way increased his own wealth and power and laid a train for political influence. Having established a school of dervishes, he only needed a good opportunity to an- nounce himself as the Mahdi for whom the people were looking, to draw around him hordes of fanatical followers. Nor was it long before the desired opportunity came to hand.
The Soudan had now, for some years, suffered greatly from the onerous taxation and cruel Bashi-Bazouk system, while Egypt had been continuously imposing upon her, and was now ready to rise in her might and follow any leader who might promise deliverance. And the sad home-troubles to which Egypt herself was just now subject, were too many to admit of her giving any thought or care to her Soudan dependency.
Arabia's attempt to revolutionize the government, England's interference with affairs in Egypt, making the imbecile Pewfik Khedive in place of the enterprising Ismael, bombarding Alexandria, and claiming control over the revenues of Egypt, all conspired to give Mohammed Achmet all the opportun- ity he could wish to announce himself the Mahdi, the deliverer from oppres- sion, the long-expected redeemer of Islam, whom the past had promised. Gor- don, too, the Governor-General of the Soudan, had now, two years since, resigned his charge and left the country, after he had done much during his few years' administration to rouse the ire of the slave dealers, and prepare them to welcome any deliverer who should promise them protection or even tolerance, as the Mahdi would, in their nefarious pursuits. Announcing himself the true Mahdi, as he did in May 1881, a host of zealous emiASaries hastened to carry the news up and down through all the Nile country that Soudan was about to rise in rebellion, throw off the dominion of Egypt and the Turk, and make the triumph of freedom and of the Moslem faith universal and complete. His pretensions were at once reported to Raouf Pasha, Gordon's s~ccessor as Governor-General, at Khartoum, upon which he sent a band of 200 men to capture the prophet; but they were soon surrounded by his adherents, many of them massacred, and the rest put to flight. Upon this, Sennaar and other parts of the Soudan revolted, and the Mahdi soon found himself at the head of an army of 50,000 men. Several bands of Egyptian forces, one of them numbering 6,000 men, were sent against him in 1882, only to share the fate of the first and be annihilated. The city of El Obeid was taken and made the Mahdi's capital. In November 1883, a large Anglo-Egyptian army of about 10,000 men and 42 guns, in command of Hicks Pasha and his European staff, and many Egyptianofficersof high rank, undertaking to recover EI Obeid, were hemmed in among neighboring passes, and, after a most heroic struggle of three days, was overpowered and utterly destroyed-"not a man left to carry the fatal tidings to Khartoum."
To the Arab, these many and great successes of the Mahdi attested the butt of all his claims, and contributed greatly to the rapid increase of his popularity and power, doing more than all his asceticism had done to make him, in the eyes of the people, the very prophet and deli.erer, the religious teacher and political leader they had desired and expected. His. political importance, passing rapidly beyond the bounds of the Soudan and of Egypt also, had now begun to agitate the counsels of England, and trouble the Sultan of Turkey. The British Government which, at first, refused specifically and repeatedly to be accessory in any sense to the military do- ings undertaken by Egypt to subdue the Mahdi and hold the Soudan, had now entered upon a long and disastrous campaign in conjunction with Egypt against the impostor. Long and sad would be anything like a full account of the monies and men sent by England and Egypt to subdue that Soudanese re- bellion, of which the Mahdi and his general, Osman Digna, were distinguished and successful leaders. Nor should it be forgotten that the Premier of England admitted, claimed, that the Soudanese had a good reason for the revolt in which they were engaged, and were fighting for their rights. Gordon, too, was evidently of the same opinion. And yet, in one form or another, the cam- paign was continued till January 1885, when Khartoum was betrayed into the hands of the Arab host, Gordon slain, the English army ordered to withdraw, and the Prophet of Islam left to follow up his so-called mission.
With varied success the Mahdi's career was carried on till about the middle of June, when he fell a victim to the small-pox, which was then raging in the country. But it was not long ere another Mahdi, Khalifa Abdullah, was found to take up and prosecute the work to which Mohammed Achmet had devoted his energies. The long-continued war, and especially the blockading of Suakim and other ports on the Red Sea, bringing much annoyance and damage to the Soudanese, the new Mahdi sent Osman Digna with an axmyof dervishes. and others to lay siege to Suakim and drive the Egyptians into the sea. Upon this, near the close of 1888, the British Government sent troops and ships-ofwar in such numbers as to compel their foe to raise the seige. But the repulse was only local and temporary. Worsted at Suakim, the Mahdi undertook to invade Egypt, and was setting heavy guns, gun-boats and regiments of dervishes. along the southern border to this end, when British forces were sent to aid the Egyptians in repelling their foe. The leader of the dervishes being asked to surrender, replied: "I have been sent to conquer the world. I call on you to surrender. Remember Hicks and Gordon." On the 3d of August, 1889, the Anglo-Egyptian army engaged the derviShes, who made a gallant defense, and yet, losing 1,500 killed and wounded and having 1,000 taken captive, they were completely routed. But anything further, as a move on Dongola, was deemed useless, unless the Government would accept the views of the generals. that Berber should be taken and held as the key of the Soudan.
The Mahdism of Abdullah evidently makes more of the religious element than did that of his predecessor. Abdullah and his dervishes are working for the most extended triumphs of the Mohammedan faith. Some of the less religious of the Soudanese profess willingness to accept English rule, could they be rid of the Egyptian, be rid of exorbitant taxation, be rid of interference with their trade, and be at peace; and the reason of their making common cause with the Mahdi and dervishes is to secure these results. But the more devoted of the Mahdists would expel or subdue all that oppose their making Islam universal in Africa. To this end they invoke the aid of all classes in the Soudan, assail Christian missions in the equatorial provinces, intrigue with the Congo tribes, purpose to push their conquests to the Atlantic, and claim, indeed, already, nothing less than all that part of Africa which lies north of the Zambezi as Mohammedan territory. To this end have they pushed their arms into the equatorial provinces, made war upon the stations and forces under Emin Pasha, compelled him to move southward from time to time, till~ finally, with great reluctance, he has been persuaded to accept the opportunity Stanley's Relief Expedition offered, to abandon the field and leave the realm he had in charge to the undisputed control of the Mahdists.
To be sure, there are those who predict that the Mahdists may yet have trouble in their own camp. The Moslem society, called Sid-es-8enoussi, is reported to have said that Abdullah is only Calif of Khartoum, and not a real Mahdi. But this large and powerful sect of the Senoussi, having its headquarters in Northern Africa, west of Egypt, whose calif, or "divine lieutenant," has under him a complete hierarchy of subordinate officers, with a probable following of 1,500,000 fierce fanatics, is governed by the same spirit and committed to the same end as the Mahdists of the Soudan-all alikeaiming ata speedy, complete, universal triumph of Islam. However great, as between themselves, the jealousy or rivalry of these two califs and their respective followers, or whichever of them may be in the lead, they can but be in sympathy and united in the great end of their common faith, in their purpose to make their religion and their rule universal.
Here, then, is a great field for Christian missions-in some respects the largest and most important in the world. Taken in its largest dimensions, and in general terms, the Soudan extends from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, and from the Great Desert to Upper Guinea on the west, and to the equator on the east, making some 3,500 miles in length, and from 500 to 1,500 in width, with an estimated population of 50,000,000. Some make the Soudan to include more than the above territory, and put the population at 90,000,000, the larger part of whom, be they more 01' less, are in that part of the Soudan of which we have been speaking in the foregoing pages. Converting these millions to Christ is not only redeeming them from errol' and making them a truly civilized and Christian people, but it puts an end to one of the most cruel and nefarious of all traffics, and turns the most active and hostile foe of Christian missions into a friend and helper-believers in a fetish into believers in Christ, the priest of Islam into a preacher of the gospel. And yet it continues to be said there is not a single true missionary of the Cross of Christ in all that brO'ad realm, which, in both area and population, makes little, if any;less than a fourth part ()f the whole Dark Continent.
To be sure, good men and societies have been turning their thoughts and efforts in that direction, and will doubtless continue to do so till an entrance shall be made and a good work done. Some ten or more years ago Mr. Robert Arlington, of England, offered to give the American Missionary Association '$15,000 towards a mission in the Sobat region, and the association undertook to make it up to $50,000, and sent out two men in 1881 to explore the field. They were gone more than nine months, met with many obstacles, incurred many personal dangers, and returned just at the outbreaking of war in Egypt, and at·the uprising of the Arabs under the Mahdi in the Soudan. The exploration was counted a success, but the enterprise was postponed and finally abandoned.
For some years a young English layman, Mr. Graham Wilmot-Brooke, has been laboring to establish a Christian mission among the Moslem tribes of the Soudan. At one time he had hoped to reach some of the central tribes of that region by going up the Nile; at another, by going south from Algeria; at another, by way of the Senegal sources; and then, again, by the Mobangi river, one of the northern branches of the Congo. He is now hoping and working to reach that central region by way of the Niger and Sokoto. Commencing work in Sokoto, his plan is to move forward at an early date into the heart of the Soudan, and give himself to mission labor among the Mohammedans. Four of the general secretaries of the Young Men's Christian Association of Kansas have given themselves to mission work in the Soudan, one of whom has reached Africa; the others are on their way, and others, from both Kansas and Minnesota, are preparing to follow.
The Roman Catholics have several stations in the Soudan, as ~t Khartoum, EIObeid and Delen, where they have at least comfortable houses, hospitals and gardens, and workers trained in Arabic and in the negro dialects. Nor is their mission likely to fail for want of money or recruits. The Moslems, also, especially the religious society of the Sid-es-Senoussi, have schools in many parts of the Soudan, and for the blacks as well as the whites. The dominion of Nadai, the sultan of which is a fervid adherent of the sect, is said to be fairly overrun of Moslem workers. Manyof the blacks are drawn into the schools. Their influence is felt far and wide-" from Senegambia to Timbuctoo; to Lake Tchod, Bahr-el-Gharel, and even to the Danakils, the Gallas and the Somalis." Why should Protestant Christian missionaries be less interested, earnest, self- denying, or less successful in the Soudan than Roman Catholics or Moslems? Earnest Christian efforts to com-ert believers in the False Prophet into believers in Christ have been already successful enough to encourage other and greater efforts. Hitherto comparatively little has been done in this direction, and the methods adopted have generally savored too little of wisdom, faith and hope, and too much of prejudice or dislike for the Turk and Arab to insure the best results. Indeed, too little has been known, or at least too little advantage taken, of the common oneness there is on many points in the beliefs of Islam and Christianity. To those who contemplate laboring among the Mohamme- dans, the conclusions of this kind to which able students of the Koran, as Sir William Muir and Max Miiller, have come, should be of special interest, in that the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, as current in Mohammed's age, were by him held to be the genuine, and of divine authority. The 131 passages brougJat together and compared by Sir William to sho~e testimony which the Koran offers to the authority of the Scriptures, together with the great number of Biblical stories and incidents and passages quoted from the Bible in the Koran, with little or no change, 'give the true Christian missionary of this day much of common ground on which to approach and win the adherents of Islam. As has been said: "It is much that the Koran, despite all its errors, inculcates 'the divine unity, perfections and all-pervading Providence; the existence of good angels as well as of Satan and the fallen angels; the immortality of the soul; the resurrection and retribution of good and evil, and the sin of idola- try.''' And then, too, were we to consider the kind of Christians the Moslem has generally had before him, as in the decayed and corrupt churches of the East, whether Armenian, Nestorian, Greek or Coptic, with which he has been most in contact, we might doubtless make some good allowance for his preju- dice or hate toward the Christian. The debased systems of the so-called Christian faith, which have prevailed for so long in the Turkish empire, have been alike a reproach to the Christian name and a hindrance to any attempt to reach the believers in Islam with the grace and truth of the gospel of Christ. But in the great changes and interchanges of the day, the Moslem is having a . good opportunity to see the difference between a true and a corrupt Christian faith, and to modify his antipathies_ The successes which well-ordered mission work has achieved among the Moslems in other parts of Africa are a good index to what might be expected from such missionary labors among the Mahdists in Eastern Soudan. Rev. E. F. Baldwin, writing of his work in North Africa, speaks of frequent conver- • sions from the false to the true faith in South Morocco, notwithstanding the
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great persecutions to which the converts are subject. Under date of March 1889, he says: " For upwards of a year new accessions have been constant, and everyone baptized has renounced Mohammedanism." On one occasion he made a trip of twenty days into a part of the country where Europeans have seldo)Jl gone, and" enjoyed unusual facilities for preaching to the people, and was even admitted to the mosques and preached to the Mohammedan priests. A considerable numper of converts have been gathered, but they suffer great persecutiou." And again: "Tidings from different places in the interior, where the Word of Life has been carried from here, tell us of many turning from Mohammed's cold, hard, false faith, to the love and light the gospel brings them. May not all this encourage the zeal and faith of Scotland workers toiling in these hard }Ioslem fields?"
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS. My DEAR DR. SHERWOOD:-I send you the following letter, a translation of one which I have received from Nice. Willyou be so good as to publish it, and thereby relieve the feelings of our French brethren of what they feel as an injustice on my part? Sincerely yours, C. C. STARBUCK. "L'Eglise Libre," Journal de la Reforme Evangelique.
NICE, FRA."WE, July 21, 1890. SIR:-THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD, in its last May number, maintains that the Protestant journals of FraJW6.have not disapproved of the proceedings of the colonial govern- ment of the Loyalty Islands with regard to the Rev. Mr. Jones, miss;onary at Mare. One of our missionaries, in Informing us of the fact, says that he has addressed you a protest, begging us to furnish you the proof of your error. Nothing more easy, Mour journal has in at least a dozen articles remonstrating against the wrongs done to him and to the natives who remain attached to him. Indeed, our energetic protests against the exile of several teachers, supported by the Tahitian pastor who sits in the superior council of the colonies, have procured the recall of the exiles. I hope that you will, in a near issue of the REVIEW, rectify the involuntary but regrettable error into which you have fallen, and will be so kind as to address to me the number containing the rectification. Accept, Sir, our Christian salutations.
H. DRAUSSIN, Editor of L' Eglise Lib,·e.
-The last year's edict of the Russian Government, restraining Protestant Christians from holding missionary meetings, and sending abroad missionary gifts, has been modified as follows: "(1.) Pastors are not forbidden to take a text during worship and to preach from it on the extensionof Christianity. It is only such missionary gatherings as lack a warrant of law that are abolished. (2.) Collections for the benefit of foreign missions may be taken up, but every such collection must have previously been approved by the governor. Such contributions are to be sent only to the Leipsic and Danish missionary societies, and the 'amount raised in each parish and sent from it, is always to be notified to the governor." A grudging concession, but still a concession.
-The Paris Society, finding that the maintenance of the growing number of Basuto catechists and evangelists begins to weigh heavy on the limited means of the nativeI Christians and of the French Protestants, has decided to solicit the assistance of English Christians, Lessuto being under English authority. They find an encouraging response to their appeals.
-M. Ellenberger, French missionary at Massitissi, in Basuto Land (or, as the French call it, Lessuto),writes: "At the opening of this month (Nov., 1889), and on the occasion of the reception into the church of fifty-six neophytes, we had at Massitissi a very delightful Christian celebration, lasting three days. The Christians of the out-stations had been very cordially invited by those here, so that brotherly love has greatly contributed to a good understanding among them and to the joy of all. On Saturday morning we were called to bless nine mar- riages of persons who had been long united according to the customs of their fathers. On the same day, at the beginning of the service preparatory to the Holy Communion, forty children of Christians were baptized, and after a brief meditation upon John iv:19 several members of the church addressed fervent prayers to the Lord.
"On the morrow, Sunday, in an open-air meeting of 800 persons, the neo- phytes, conducted by one of the elders, came in procession, two and two, and were received by the assembly, which raised a hymn of thanksgiving. After a brief address from their missionary,45 of them were admitted to the church by baptism and 11 by confirmation. Several of the men received, edified us by the spontaneous account of their conversion, and one of them offered, with so much unction, a prayer in Zephuthi, his mother-tongue, that the whole as- sembly was deeply moved. My colleague, M. Bertschy, who took part at the reception of the neophytes, presided over the Communion service of the afternoon. Although the sickness, the rain, and the rivers, had made it impossible for many Christians to be with us, nevertheless 353 communicants approached the Lord's table." Deeply profitable meetings in the evening and morning, not unattended by conversions, closed the solemnity.
-The French brethren in the Upper Zambesi, in the country of King Le- wanika, have appeared about as far retired as any missionaries in the world from both the comforts and dangers of civilization. But the magic of gold supposed to be discovered has already begun to bring the world of white men upon them. Let us hope that the Barotsis will not be swept away before it.
But, indeed, from latest accounts, there appears to be more danger that the white race will disappear in South Africa before the blacks, than the blacks be- fore the whites. Many a hopeful tribe, however, has been trodden to pieces first.
-The following shows some of the accompaniments of missionary life in South Africa: "It …vas the season of rains; the country traversed resembled an immense sheet of water; the water-course to be passed had overflowed its banks and rolled along its yellow waters, enormous, impassable.
"They camped. Bushmen stole from us our two goats. Farewell, then, to the few drops of milk which we appreciated so much. Our horses began to die one after the other, and so suddenly that we could do nothing. . . . Our draught-oxen went on dropping like flies. Clouds of vultures, which no longer quitted us by night or day, struggled and fought over the carcasses. Bands of Ma-saroa (bushmen) came to dispute with our horrible guests the morsel of putrified flesh.' This lasted fifteen days. Dysentery and other maladies attacked our travelers, who, however, were at length relieved by the help of Knama, the Christian king or Shoshong."
-The JOurnal of March has the following remarks upon the projected en- terprise of Mr. Graham Wilmot-Brooke, and his three companions, for pene- trating into the Soudan by way of the Niger, under the general direction of the Church Missionary Society, and under the Episcopal superintendence of Bishop Crowther, but, as to details, being left very much to themselves, and renounc- ing the protection of the British Government: "We observe the distinctive traits of this evangelical enterprise: to act, above all, by spiritual means; tv enter into personal and intimate contact with the souls which one wishes to draw to God; for this end to place one's self on the level of those towards whom a pity, without lachr;vmose phrases, but so much the more intense, ought to draw the missionarIes, as Jesus Christ has descended to earth out of pity for our fallen race; finally, in a Moslem country, where to make profession of Christianity may have as its consequences persecution and death, not to cover one's self with the protection of a powerful European government, saying to converts: 'Be firm in suffering, I shall not be touched,' but to share with those whom God shall regenerate, the joy of suf- fering reproaches for the name of Jesus. We find here the alliance of apos- tolic principles with the sound and sobel' experience of a directing committee. The infinitesimal commission of missionary agencies is avoided by the humil- ity of men whose youth is equal to the boldness of great initiatives, and by the wisdom of men of age and established balance of character, but who do not fear the truth of the Spirit and who consent to second missionary essays which depart from the beaten tracks. Thus it is a sweet and vivifying breeze which conveys to us the fragrance of the simple and heroic times of primitive mis- sions."
"How," says the Journal, " when hearing of these projects, can we avoid thinking of our own Senegal? The upper river gives access to the upper course of the Niger and to all the great occidental region of the Soudan; the language of the llandingoes, who, with the Foullas, dwell in these countries, is of the same family with that of the Bambaras; the industrial Mandingoes and the pastoral Faullas are both Moslems; but they are at least as ac«essible as the motley and corrupted populations of the Lower Senegal. When shall the time come when, instead of leaving our mission in barracks amid the pernicious miasms of the Senegambian coast, we shall be able to dispatch men who shall . do, for the glory of Christ, what Captain Binger has just been doing for h~s earthly country, and march simply and resolutely to the conquest of the Afn- .can world, like David going forth toencounter the giant of Gath?"
-It is a matter of satisfaction and thanksgiving, not merely to the Unitas Fratrum, but to Christians generally, that with January of this year the Periodical Accounts of Moravian Missions entered upon its second century.
-11. Grandjean writes in the Bulletin Missionnaire (organ of the free .churches of French Switzerland): " The stay of M. Berthoud is extremely valuable during the Easter season. He has opportunity to give a thorough exposition of the fundamental facts of the work of salvation to' hundreds of souls, that possibly hear all this for the first time. It is not that our excellent Timothy does not well discharge his task, but the preaching of a native, especially of one who has not passed through a school course, cannot but be inadequate, and gradually become thinner, if the voice of the missionary is not sometimes heard. Last Sunday M. Berthoud preached in the morning on the death of Christ, and in the after- noon Timothy resumed the same subject, in order to bring it within the reach of the more ignorant and to drive the nail home. The missionary and the native evangelist admirably supplant one another. The preaching of the missionary is more complete, but it often remains unintelligible to a good many, in view of the immense distance which subsists between their manner of thinking and ours. The evangelist gives to the word of the missionary a form which the negro comprehends."
-Missionary G. Stosch says, in the Evangelische Lutherisches 1/1issionsblatt: " At the death of the venerated (Protestant) Abbot Thiele, in Brunswick, it was relat~d of this faithful witness of thE' Lord, that, from year to year, as the passion-tide returned, he came into new animation; for in the Cross of Christ lay his strength. That is what our Tamil Christians also feel. Should you ask, " What is the main thing in Christianity?" I doubt not by far the most, of high and low, would answer: " The Cross and the wounds of our Saviour." There- forE' they love Passion Week and the weeks preceding. Many a one looks up to the Southern Cross that, still and great, a Joseph among the constellations, is just at this time rising upon the horizon. The soft, luminous flood of the milky way flows down upon the crORS: a lovely- image, holding quiet watch over the pinnacles of India. But yonder cross IS only an image and symbol, impotent to allay India's wretchedness. The true power of the Cross is in Word and Sacrament."
-Tranquebar, on the Coromandel coast of South India, about 170 miles south of Madras, will be remembered as the seat of the Danish-Halle Mission, established about 1706. It is still a station of the Leipsic Society, which, how- ever, works chiefly in other towns. Mr. Stosch writes: "Outwardly Tranquebar is falling into ruin. Its houses are decaying; its :streets begin to look desolate. And yet it will retain its charm for every sensitive mind. It remains the city of a great past, and of earnest, quiet work in the present. There, in all stillness, many an earnest decision is passed. There our Church has won a right of citizenship, even in the consciousness of the heathen. Would that it might please God, through the spirit of revival, t(} bring yet many heathen there to living faith! There is yet much room in our Jerusalem church; nor, indeed, is Tranquebar wanting in outward attractiveness. There you hear, day and night, the thunder of the ocean. How peaceful is this monotonous melody! Our children, too, exclaim, full of delight, when they see the blue flood from the upper chamber of the mission house: , The sea! the sea!' How homelike have been the hours of chat at evening in the veranda of our house, when the white Jerusalem church opposite glittered so festively and yet mysteriously in the moonlight and the cool sea-breeze rustled through the palms.
"Whoever wishes to make studies in the observation of men finds in a· Hindu railway station a wealth of opportunity. Women in brilliant garments and golden ornaments, poor Pariah women wrapped in rags, naked children, gossipping men, all waiting for the late train. We recognize the proud face of the Brahmin; we recognize the Sudra by his more intelligent. countenance and his more elastic gait. People at home are far from imagining the difference between Sudras and Pariahs as great as it really is. It is a, deeper distinction than thatat home between rich and poor, between cultivated' and uncultivated. See this group of Pariahs. What deep furrows sin and superstition have ploughed in these faces. A gloomy trait remains in their features, even when they laugh. But through the influence of Christianity it is effaced. It is surprising how utterly different the expression of countenance' is in Christians from what it is in heathen. This comes out still more strongly in women than in men, and in children than in grown people."
-M. GeOl'ge Casalis, ordained last year in Paris, for the Basuto Mission.
gave, at his ordination, a very interesting address, of which we quote a part: "My brethren: I can well believe that no one among you is astonished to see me to-day occupying this place and ready to receive, ill the midst of this a5sembly, the imposition of hands. Son and grandson of missionaries as I am, it is natural, you think, that I should follow the footsteps of those who have preceded me; it was almost inevitable, you will say, that, being born in a mission field and having grown up in a thoroughly missionary atmosphere, I have felt· myself impelled, when once arrived at manhood and the use of reason, to embrace the missionary career.
"Unquestionably, if at this solemn hour one thought bears special sway in my soul, it is that of a profound thankfulness toward God for the €;race' which He has shown me in causing me to be born in a missionary fanuly; for it is· under the paternal roof, and thanks to the principles instilled into my mind from my earliest childhood, that I have learned to know and love the career which to-day is about to become definitively mine.
" But if, on one hand, I am bound to acknowledge the hereditary element of my vocation, I am bound also, and not less emphatically, to certify that this alone was not sufficient to make of me a true missionary. God has taught me in a very special manner that, to be a genuine messenger of His Word, it is needful to possess a personal faith, firm and immovable, such as alone has power to engender conviction.
" After a classical course pursued in France, I quitted France for Scotland. I was to take up medical studies there, and undertook these with a double aim of becoming both physician and missionary. I was thus fulfilling the prayers of my father and of my grandfather, and had the joy of hoping one day to· follow in their steps.
"Very soon, however, I began to chan~e my point of view. Drawn away by my new studies, I saw, in the shock WIth naturalistic theories, new to me' and whose novelty and appearance of science charmed me, my religious convictions go down one after the other; I abandoned the faith of my childhood, and with it all thought of ever becoming a missionary.
" It would be too Ion&" to recount the struggles which my soul had to sustain during the years followmg this defection. Suffice it to say that God was about to avail Himself of my studies themselves to bring me b;tck to the faith by confronting me, as a physician, with deathbeds which gave me to feel how false and void of consolation all human reasonings are against the remorse of a troubled conscience and the tears of the afflicted.
"The inward work, which at this period went on in my soul, was power-·
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
fully seconded by the l?resence in Edinburgh of a man whose livinO' faith, joined with profound SClence, has been for many students the means of arriv- mg at salvation. Henry Drummond was then giving his first lectures at the University. I went to hear him; I was touched by his ardent and persuasive words, and, thanks to his influence, I becaUle once more a Christian m the true sense of the word. Such were, my brethren, the means of which God made us.e, despite !lly i.ngr~ti:tude, despite my doubts, to reveal to me the. depth of HIS compaSSIOn, m aIdmg me to comprehend that, apart from Him, I could attain neither to the pardon of my sins nor to salvation as it is found in Jesus."
1I.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.
Of the 5,000 volunteers, 550 have The first pamphlet of the special completed their courses of study, 400 series is from the pen of John N. For- of whom have graduated this year man, and is entitled "The World's from colleges and professional Need," being Student Volunteer Series .. schools. It would be hard to guage No.7. In a single sentence he thus the value of the reflex influence on sums up the needs abroad: "'You the churchathome andon undergradu- know that multitudes are living and ate volunteers, if the men and women dying without hope; then just act on now equipped for their work become this knowledge." Of his own country established in their chosen fields this he writes: "As I write to you from year! Hence, it is of incalculably one of the mission fields of India, sur- great importance that the large major- rounded by multitudes whom we can ity of those whose studies are com- barely touch, how small look the fields pleted, go abroad at once. To the end in America? During the past winter that this exodus may be speedily ac- I have stood to witness for Christ in complished, appeals from various scores of towns, with population from parts of the unevangelized world 7,000 to 28,000, towns which, perhaps, have been written, and are issued in receive a brief visit once in one, two, pamphlet form in the Student Volun- or three years. There is a city of 60,000 teer Series. These appeals will be of which I had hoped to reach. It is un- service to undergraduates as well as occupied by Protestant workers, and to graduates. Those still engaged in hardly ever even visited. It is part ofan preparatory work will find in these immense tract containing 8,000,000 little pamphlets facts and figures on people, and in all this region there is which decisions for chosen fields in just one mission station."
many instances may be based; those There is hardly a paragraph in the who are ready and undecided can gain appeal in which the idea of consecra- much .practical information from tion does not occur-whether the con- them, because from no other single sideration as to time of going, or "fit- source, in so compact a form, can ness for the work" or " ·need for ser- such accurate and recent data be ob- vices at home." The writer's own tained. Furthermore, the peculiar attitude toward all questions requir- needs of different peoples are pictured ing decision is conveyed in the lines with graphic and spiritual power. It he quotes: will be profitable to all friends of "0 use me, Lord, use even me: foreign missions, whether volunteers Just as Thou wilt, and when and where."
or not, to read carefully these Again, in his replies to the personal pamphlets; statements contained of queries," Is now the time?" "Shall such absorbing interest, will give a I prolong my studies?" the thought of fresh incentive to special prayer for consecration is discerned throughout, missions and aids to a more 'intense "like a subtle ether pervading the and personal interest in the evangeli- whole." .
zation of the world. Because Mr. Forman writes from so high a spiritual plane, all that he says others, I look to our dear Lord Him- is characterized by eminently practi- self to show me. It is in His presence cal sense. To those who are thinking every word is written, and I would ·of engaging temporarily in home pray you, in His presence alone, and work, he says: "There is very great prayerfully, to read and ponder. Oh, danger of the work which is under- let us first of all draw so near to Him taken temporarily becoming a perma- in spirit that we may look on all nence. And I doubt whether it will, things with His eyes, feel with His in the majority of cases, prove any heart, love with His yearning com- real preparation for foreign work; at passion, and in His light see light least, not nearly enough to compen- upon these great and important sate for the time taken. As to pro- themes." longing one's studies after having completed the ordinary course for minis- She writes as one who has strong and ters, you must remember that there deep convictions; there is no faltering will be two years of preparation after or ambiguity in the statement of her reaching the foreign field, in the line position, while her language, always ' of language stndy.••. To be able to chaste and beautiful, sooms the true speak the vernacular like a native, will medium for thought so true and subbe worth vastly more than a post- lime. "Fourteen hundred every hour, graduate in philosophy, theology, or one million every month, they die in medicine. But do not understand the China-without God. Think over it; above as favoring your coming out be- weep over it; pray over it. Let the fore having completed the ordinary tears of Christ's compassion fall hot course in theology or medicine." and heavy upon the heart-tears of His anguish, of His love. Think how Miss Geraldine Guinness is the he loved and suffered, loved and gave author of "An Appeal from China," -gave all-until, constrained by the which is No. 8 of Student Volun- same spirit, you too can say with deepteer Series. Miss Guinness is the est reality: 'I haVE:> nothing too daughter of Rev. H. Graham Guinness, precious for my Jesus;' nothing too F. R. S., of London, and is becoming dear to lay down for Him, and for known in America through the His lost and perishing world." volume entitled, " In the Far East," which contains her own letters writ- The writer's method of representing ten from China-a book which has China is by a division into provinces been received with great favor in of which there are eighteen. " Six of Great Britain and America, and with these that border on the sea, and one signal blessing to many readers. inland province, Hunpeh, having been longer and more thoroughly evangel- There is a word which ought to be ized than the remaining eleven, in used with great caution – but which consequence of their having afforded conveys adequately the effect of this open ports and on earlier entrance to appeal-that word is "thrilling." No foreigners. " honest man or woman can thoughtfully read Miss Guinness' message Respecting the remaining eleven without being profoundly touched. provinces, she writes: "At a low es- She is dead in earnest and has com- timate there must be considerably passed her subject in a masterful way: over a hundred and fifty millions of "How to speak to you briefly enough, souls in the vast cities, busy market and ·yet adequately, upon a subject so towns, and thickly scattered villages great and so momentous, upon your of this region. To give some slight own individual treatment of which idea of how unreached these millions hang issues of such supreme and are, think for the present of the cities eternal importance to yourRelves and only-the important, walled cities, the governing cities of each province -where the cultured and ruling six such cities, and fifty-four utterly classes reside." unreached by the true Light.
Two instances will show in how flo-nan, Ton-nan, Kwong-si, and comprehensive a way the need is con- all the rest are similarly represented, veyed: "Shen-si, possessing eighty- giving one a complete picture of the eight such cities, has eighty-six with- whole-and a very black picture it is. out a missionary. Kiver-chon has lifty- MAX WOOD MOORHEAD.
Missionary Oorrespondence, by Rev. James Johnston, Bolton, England.
Zanzibar: Abolition of Slavery.- earnest worker for the extinquishing The decree which the Sultan of Zanzi- of the curseof infant female betrothals bar issued, August 1, prohibiting the and marriages. It is shown that the right of property in slaves, marks the supposition of any buttress resting on dawn of a brighter era in the history the VeWc sacred writings is an entire of' Eastern Africa. Within a com- misapprehension. More probably the paratively short period it is anticipated evil had its birth in the native Hindus.
that the "open sore" on the island ages back, desiring to protect their and coast of Zanzibar will be healed. offspring from the invading Mongols.
Meanwhile the Arabs acquiesce, But the origin is of secondary moment chiefly because of the weakness of in view of the disastrous misl:hief their position and the determined atti- attending it. No darker blot stains.
tude of the Sultan. By and by, when Indian social life, the exposure of the Arab masters recognize that their which becomes an obligation upon labor can only be obtained on terms the whole of Christendom. Girls· similar to what prevail in European whose ages average from five to seven countries, and, further, that polyga- years are universally married to boys mous customs may not be gratified, of scarcely higher age, and forthwith some friction may arise. To the mem- the relations of the married state bers of the Brussels Congress, which commenced. Although the usual age, the Sultan's envoys attended, hearty when the girls "marry" is seven, congratulations will be conveyed. they are pledged to boys by their The Sultan's edicts form the first fruits parents in veritable childhood. One· of the objects of that memorable abominable feature is the common gathering. As regards the influence habit of the parents of female children of the measure upon the interior of selling these to their destined hus- Africa, it is generally believed that the bands. A notorious case may serve· closing of slave outlets, as in Lower for illustration. At Bamundangah, Egypt, will gradually exterminate the near Ionai, in the Hooghly district, traffic throughout the central regions. the wedding of a young bride, whose Seyyid Ali, the Sultan, a monarch of age was registered" eight months,"
only six months' standing, and of was solemnized with a man twenty- thirty-five years in age, has a promis- eight years old. A sum of 200 rupees ing future. With considerable intelli- in cash formed the bride's dowry.
gence he unites good judgment, Such revelations bearing on the years.
honorable principles and strength of and contracts seldom come to the ears will. of American or British missionat;ies.
India: Child Marriages.-All who After parents have arranged the are in helpful communication with betrothal for a girl it is impossible for Hindu life will gratefully welcome her to get it cancelled. That dis- the pamphlet, " An Appeal from the graceful English doctrine of the Daughters of India," the latest publi- " restitution of conjugal rights"
cation emanating from Mr. Behramji woven into the administration of M. Malabari, a weli known Parsee and Indian law works in the most enslaving fashion. A female of tender forcible appeal for the missionary age united by her guardians or a for- cause in the Indian empire. Its tune-teller, to a boy, youth or man, is enormous population made the pro- compelled to make the best of the too gress of missions insignificant com_ frequent .degrading match. During pared with what was expected in the the lifetime of the husband or subse- near future. Twenty-five years since quent to his death her condition is there was not one lady working in the alike one of torture. The widow of a Zenanas, whereas there were now boy husband who may have died early over 100 in India, from Tinnevelly in is exposed to nameless cruelties. It the south to Peshawur in the .Pun- has even been seriously asked whether jaub in the north; and beginnings some kind of immolation is not pre- had been made by the Church of Eng- ferable for the victims than their sub- land at Foochow and in Japan. The jection to barbaric outrages. The bondage of their Indian sisters was British, too, have not by any means terrible, owing to the thraldom of stamped out Suttee. Evidence can caste and the blighting influences of be produced, if necessary, that it is infant marriages and child widow- practised to-day among several of the hood. These sad facts could' not fail less civilized States of India in de- to incite help for missions. The quiet- fiance of the law and, to many a ness of India was not a full guarantee brutally treated girl of eight or nine of security. When masses of super- years, death is a happy release. stitious natives congregated there was A greater knowledge of the cruelty the risk of the flame of revolution of child marriages is awakening the being enkindled and excesses com- spirit of reformation. Among edu- mitted, as in the days of the fearful cated Hindus endeavors are being mutiny. For the prevention of the made to check or abolish it. They recurrence of such a calamity, religious are asking for a prohibition of mar- education was the main safeguard.
riages under twelve years-low as The church society taught equally that will appear to Western minds. women and girls, men and boys. By In numbers of the Indian cities the recent development also of the devotea men and women are working Indian Widows' Union, industrial to mitigate the lamentable iniquity. schools were established with the One of the most efficient agencies is object of training widows to support located in Madras, and receivesgener- themselves. .
ous support. The labors of Mr. Mala- Testimony to Indian Missions.- bari, the voice of Ramabai and the At the complimentary banquet of wel- sufferings of Rukmabai have con- come which was given in July at the demned the social custom and moved Northbrook Indian Club, London, to not a little the world's sympathy. Lord Reay on his return to England Until native and foreign opinion is after five years' service as Governor of strong the viceroy declines to interfere the Presidency of Bombay, his lord- with a national religious (so-called) ship, in replying to the toast coupled privilege. Consequently many strenu- with his name, delivered an important ous advocates of amelioration have speech, in which he reviewed the been much disappointed. Hope is civil, military, judicial and commer- nevertheless growing that the viceroy cial factors associated in promoting having full provincial reports may the growth and unity of that empire.
shortly introduce long overdue bene- Concluding his remarks, he observed: ficial legislation. " Among my non-official allies I must Zenana Missions.-Mrs. Moorhouse, place all missionary bodies. The ad- wife of the eloquent Bishop of the mirable work they are doing is Manchester diocese, lately made a thoroughly appreciated by all the people of India, and I should willingly been accomplished there. Similarly dwell on this pleasant topic." the devoted young missionary, Rev. E. V. Cooper, of Huahine, South It should not pass unrecorded that Seas, feels the pressure of French rule the exertions of Lady Reay to benefit and Roman Catholic emissaries. Nor all classes of women in India were is it long ago that Madagascar was remembered in an unusual manner by the scene of high-handed proceedings the native ladies. Before her lady- on the part of France towards Mr. ship left the shores of India, the native Shaw and others, which are not for- ladies, who assembled for the first gotten. Now it is evident that the . time for such a purpose, presented her ambition of France will be gratified with a handsome testimonial. On by the announcement of a protectorate Lady Reay arriving in London, the over this " pearl of the Indian Ocean." Indian ladies of the metropolis gave a What the Hovas and other powerful similar tribute in recognition of her tribes will resolve upon remains to be ladyship's assistance to advance the seen. The political character of the admirable organization founded by transaction cannot stand investiga- Lady Dufferin. tion, otherwise its morality would be strongly censured. Numerical mis- Lepers in India.-Great attention sionary returns indicate that the Lon- is being given to the better protection don MissionarySocietyhas 31 male and vf the lepers, largely due to the agita- female missionaries, and adherents tion promoted by missionary and numbering a quarter of a million; the philanthropic bodies. At a public Society of Friends have 15 missionaries meeting in Bombay, their housing and and 32,000 adherents, and the Church care was discussed and a committee of England 12 missionaries, to whom appointed to frame a scheme to carry are attached 10,000 adherents. out such requirements of the subscrip- tions amounting to 12,000 rupees, the -A correspondent writing to one of Governor contributing 1,000 rupees. the London papers from the capital, Calcutta is similarly alive to the Antananarivo, respecting the gold necessity of State legislation in leper craze on the island, says, that in the asylums, and a new leper institution country thousands of natives are seek- is recommended by the Bengal Gov- ing gold on Government account, ernment for the city. Present accom- which demands forced labor, Sundays modation for the poor creatures is included. For the same purpose inadequate. Though 387 lepers were children are taken from school. Both registered in Calcutta at the last at Tamatave and the capital he obcensus, the number was below the served the domination of French mark. Probably not more than one- influence, which must be a dishearten- fifth of the leper population is within ing spectacle to the English and other asylum walls. Protestant missionaries, whose years of arduous work is seriously jeopard- Madagascar.-The constituents and ized. The writer continues: directors of the English missionary societies have been unexpectedly " One very noticeable change is in thrown into deep concern regarding the slave market. Formerly (three the position of their missions on the years back), not more than twenty, or island under the Anglo-French agree- at most thirty, slaves were ever exment'just signed. A number of Prot- posed there for sale, and transactions estant missionaries have no reason to took place in such a quiet way that look with satisfaction on France they were not noticed; indeed, the abroad. It seems only yesterday that natives appeared ashamed to acknowlthe Rev. John Jones, of Mare, in the edge complicity in slave trading. But Loyalty Islands, was ignominiously when I visited the market the other expelled after a grand life work had day over 200 slaves of both sexes, men, for English clergymen have kept him women and children, were on offer, incessantly occupied pleading the· and there was little or no reluctance cause of missions in the far East. He on the part of the owners to quote loudly complained, at a meeting of prices. Dancing, also, in European the English Society for the Propagafashion, is now the order of the day. tion of the Gospel, that he could not The French resident gives balls, invit- secure followers from the ranks of ing the Malayasy aristocracy, the the English clergy. In response, four prime minister and the queen's ladies- have promised to join him anda candiin-waiting taking a very active part, date for holy orders. In New York and giving balls themselves in return. he expected to have a young .Ameri.' What do the missionaries think of it, can physician as fellow traveler, to· I wonder?" assist in hospital work. It is intended to make this department a prominent Korea.-For his distant and unset- feature of the mission. The bishop tled diocese the .Bishop of Korea has deserves to be classed high in the recently sailed. Though consecrated annals of heroic missionary bishops. in November last, his engagements Atrica.-The British East African ficates were given tothem. They them- Company. Grave doubts have been selves paid nothing for their freedom. It was an absolutely free gift. No one expressed in some quarters, where controls them. They go and come as perhaps " the wish was father to the they please, and earn their daily wages thought," that the British East Afri- like other people. The second (b) can Company would not prove spec- class of these fu~tives who had ially zealous in the suppression of the sought refuge at mlssionary stations, slave trade, and in the emancipation had fled from masters who were not of slaves within its" sphere of influ- Arabs, and with whom no communience." Such fears may now be dis- cation could be secured. To these missed. The company has recently only a permit of residence was given. adopted measures which have secured While no payment whatever was the liberation of from 5,000 to 6,000 made by the company in their behalf, slaves within its territory, and has or by themselves, they are really on given satisfactory assurance that in the same footing in all respects as are that territory of 50,000 square miles, those of the class first mentioned. and bounded on the south by a line extending from the mouth of the The second general class are known Uniba river, about four degrees and as "the Fuladoyo Runaways," who, thirty minutes south latitude, to a forming a powerful settlement in the point on Lake Victoria Nyanza in interior by themselves, had no conabout latitude one degree south-the nection whatever with European missame being the line dividing the Ger- sionary mcieties, and whose freedom man and English "spheres of influ- depended upon their remaining a unitence"-African slavery will not be ed and compact body. Neither when allowed. "Slaves cannot breathe in their crops failed, as they frequently England," neither can they in the ter- did, nor in any other emergency, ritoryof the British East African Com- could they leave their strongholds to pany. earn money for self-support in the service of the company, or as porters That this work of emancipation has in caravans. These fugitives are also been judiciously and yet promptly registered, and after registry are at effected by the company, will be made liberty to go where they please, upon apparent by the following statement, undertaking to pay their former as to the three different classes of masters $15 per capita, which they can slaves already emancipated. These readily earn in the service of the comare first, the fugitives who have sought pany, and so secure a" freedom cerrefuge, and found it, at the different tificate," according to them all the missionary stations in the company's rights and privileges of free men. territory, and who form two distinct classes: (a) those belon@ng to coast The third general class embraces all Arabs of any African tnbe who were slaves belonging to tribes at the back redeemed by a cash payment of $25 of the British coast line, and for about per capita to their masters. They three hundred miles into the interior, werethenregistered andfreedom certi- who have treaties with the company, and have thus brought themselves sums of money for its colonization. under its protection. Caravans have He has sought to promote its moral heretofore captured these people, and improvement. He has been active in sold their captives as slaves upon measures to suppress the slave trade reaching the coast. The country of and the liquor iniquity. And recently these tribes is subject to fammes, his Premier introduced in the Chamwhen parents sell their children as ber of Representatives What is known slaves to coast-traders to secure food as the Congo State Bill, in which Belfor themselves. A proclamation by gium agrees to loan the Congo State the company has closed all this busi- 25,000,000 francs, without interest; ness, and now all slaves from the 5,000,000 to be advanced at once, and country promptly secure their free- 2,000,000 each year for ten years. It dom when they are discovered or is stipulated, however, that "Belmake themselves known, and without gium can annex the Congo State and remuneration to their purchaser and all its properties and rights, in connominal owner. formity with the acts signed in Berlin, on February 26, 1885, and in Brussels All this is matter for thanksgiving. on July 1, 1890, Belgium assuming all And now let us have something of responsibility toward other parties, the kind from the German " sphere." and King Leopold .renouncing his -The Evangelist (New York). claims for indemnity on account of sacrifices made by him. If, on the -The Congo River of To-day. On expiration of the term, Belgium does not desire to annex the Congo State, the Congo there are no beasts of bur- the loan will bear interest at 3~ per cent., and repayment can be deden, there existing merely a manual manded on the expiration of a further transport, the porters being the natives ten years." These are generous of the Bakongo tribe, inhabiting the propositions, and will likely be agreed cataract regions. In physique, these to by the legislative power. They are me~ are slight and only poorly devel- the result of the discussions and labors oped; but the fact of their carrying on of the Anti-Slavery Conference just their heads from 60 to 100 pounds closed at Brussels. weight twenty miles a day, for sometimes six consecutive days, their only Brazil.-Reaction. While the Re- publicans are wasting precious time food being each day a little manioc in the non-essentials of civil service,. root, an ear or two of maize, or a the arch enemy is organizing all his. handful of peanuts, pronounces them forces to resist the Republic by every' at once as men of singularly sound means known to Popery and Jesuitstamina. Small boys of eight and ism. Archbishop Don Antonio is en- deavoring, with apparent success, to nine years old are frequently met create a Catholic Party which will carrying loads of 25 pounds weight. adhere to the dogma of Roman Catho- lic Infallibility. Although the Gov- Throughout the cataract region the ernment has abolished the Saints:' general accepted money currency is days from the list of official holidays" Manchester cotton cloth nlade up into .he churches never before were so pieces of six yards each. The Euro- filled, nor the feasts so well attended, pean cost of the cloth, paid to these as during the month of May-" the month of Mary." Public departments natives for transporting a load to and the schools, are kept open on the ~tanley Pool from Matadi, including old''holy" days, but neither employees rations, amounts at the present day to nor scholars come; and teachers, in $5 for a load of 65 pounds. Five years ago the cost was only one-third of this amount; but it has increased on account of the competition of the various trading houses that have established stations at Stanley Pool for the ivory trade on the upper river.-Century.
-King Leopold, of Belgium, has manifested a remarkable interest in the development of the Congo State. He has personally advanced large defiance of the new law, take their ornament callf'd the Semboo. It is pupils to confession and the mass. -somewhat egg-shaped, and a foot in During the late persecution of Protes- height, tipped by an enormous dia- tants at Cruzeiro, the parish priest, mond, encircled by many smaller while denying complicityin theattack, . ones, crusted on like barnacles. All added that he had only to raise his over this exquisite oval object are finger to have every Protestant driven similar clumps of diamonds, no other from the village. stones being used for this part.
The Bishop's pastoral hasbeen sent England.-Dr. Bamardo, of Lon- all over the land; papers 'are pub- don, had his annual meeting this year lished in the interest of Rome; schools at the West End, in the Royal Albert are organized, and the priests are Hall. His aim was to take the children, teaching the people that they owe for whose interest he so diligently their duty to the Church first, and the labors, right into the midstof thericher Government afterwards. Civil mar- classes, that they might see and hear riage is proclaimed as no marriage at the little ones for whose welfare their all; and the rumor that the Synod of means and sympathy are solicited.
Bishops, lately held at Sao Paulo, had The experiment was a perfect success.
issued a secret circular instructing The Marquis of Lome presided, and the clergy to resist every measure between seven and eight thousand adopted by the Republic, is confirmed people were present. The speakers on by the defiant attitude taken by the occasion were the Rev. C. H.
priests of the interior. A hard fight Spurgeon, Canons Girdlestone and is before us, for Rome's old cunning Fleming, Sir Arthur Blackford, Lord and craft are still available. The Kinnaird and Mr. W. Fowler. Lady people are in her grasp, and the very Kinnaird distributed about 140 prizes ignorance and superstition she has to the girls and boys from the differ- fostered, are now powerful weapons ent Homes. The total number of in her hands. children rescued since Dr. Barnardo It is estimated that there are 500,000 beg'dn his work 23 years ago is 15,563, Protestants among whom iliteracy is and the income last year was £106,- rare; and there is about an equal 722. The work of last year is shown number of free thinkers, materialists, by the following figures: 1,893 were " indifferentists," and positivists, who, admitted to the Homes, 1,287 boys and if united with the Protestants, could 606 girls, which, with the 2,749 in control the electious. If this unum is residence, make up the total to 4,642 not effected, Rome is almost certain resident in the Homes during the year.
to control the first Congress.-Brazil- Great interest was excited in the ian Missions (August). meeting by the passing across the Burmah.-The Buddhists in Bur- platform of selections of the various mah do not consider the question of classes of children; especially was expense in beautifying their temples. this so when the deformed and crip- Here is the description of the new pled went by. The sight was a grand vane of the pagoda at Rangoon. The object lesson, and aroused the sympa- vane is about three by one and a thies of the audience to an unusual half feet broad, and thickly crusted extent. A collection of £1,850 was with precious stones and lovely fans taken up.
of red Burmese gold. One ruby alone India.-The Opium Curse. Canon is worth 6,000 rupees, and there are Wilberforce, who has returned from several hundred rubies alone on this a visit to India, was present at the beautiful thing. On the tip of the annual meeting in Exeter Hall of the iron rod on which works the vane is a Society for the Suppression of the richly carved and perforated gold Opium Trade, and moved a resolution -calling upon the Government of India many distinct races and religions, led to use the discretion conferred upon it to the same speculations. In India, by the Indian Opium Act of 1878, by long before the Brahmo Somaj, the dosing the licensed opium dens. The Emperor Akhbar tried to form a Canon, in the course of a fervid natural religion for this country by a speech, charged the English people "combination of. what is best" in with the responsibility of the degraded Christianity, Mohammedanism, Hin- social state of the people of India. He duism and Buddhism. In Europe, hadbeenalmoststifiedin opiumhouses, more than a century ago, the atheist where he had seen seventy, eighty, Volney's " Ruin of Empires" was full .and a hundred people in every phase of these ideas. There are some who of intoxication, with emaciated bodies think that this doctrine, made con- and lack-lustre looks. He had seen crete in the form of a great world- these people being slowly poisoned in religion, will be the final, form of ()rder to raise the Indian revenue. Anti-Christ. There are many facts There were ten thousand of these dens which seem to point in this direction.
in India, and he had satisfied himself The proclaiming the "truths" of that the practice of opium smoking Mohammedanism every week in a was spreading among all Classes there. mosque at Liverpool; the spread of It was a common thing, he said, for pseudo-Buddhism in France and the proceedings in one of the courts to America; the acceptance of Theoso- be stopped because the witness was phy with its lying wonders taken unable to proceed with his evidence from Brahminism; the growth of until he had had his pipe of opium. Unitarianism-all are signs of that Dealing with the financial question, he final darkness which is settling over maintained that the revenue of India the world prior to the rising of the might be secured by diminishing the Sun of Righteousness. – Bombay expenses of the administration. This Guardian.
might be effected by employing native Switzerland. – The religious condition of Switzerland pr~nts· -civil servants, so that not a single many interesting facts. According to the statistics of December, 1888, farthhdg of taxation need be put upon the country contained 1,750,000 Prot- estants, and 1,200,000 Roman Cathothe people by the suppression of the lics. There is perfect liberty of creed and of conscience. The person who ()pium traffic. The resolution was exercises paternal authority or acts as guardian can determine the religious seconded by Mr. Frederick Sessions, education of the children till the age of sixteen. TheJesuits are forbidden, ()f Gloucester, who also was able to but the priests are much more numer- ous than the Protestant ministers. As testify, from recent personal experi- is so often the case, the C1}urch in the minority is especially vigorous; in the ,ence, to the physical and moral de- ,Reformed cantons the Catholics are on the increase, while the Reformed pravation caused by the opium are gaining in the Catholic cantons. The Catholic Church is a unit and is traffic. ' domineered by ultramontanism; the Protestants are divided, fierce contro- -There is a strong tendency in this versies raging betweentheevangelical and the liberal parties. In point of ,country towards Brahmo Somajism, zeal the Catholics are far ahead of the Reformed. In the Catholic canton of even outside the cult, to the belief Uri I inquired into the attendance at church, and was told that, as a matter that in some sort of way all the differ- of course, everybody went except the little children and the infirm. In ,ent religions of India are sisters; that winter the people fill the church, even each and all contain sufficient truth to save those who have been born into them; and that the only true religion is to be found in a combina- tion of "what is best" in all. The ()rigin of these ideas is not with the Brahmo Somaj. In ancient Rome, as well as in modern India, the universal empire of one paramount power over on week days, coming from the number of the MISSIONARY REVIEW mountain-sides and the valleys, OF THE WORLD, a periodical which through the snow and over the ice, to continues to maintain its pre-emiattend divine services. I rode through nence in the field it cultivates, Dr. the Rhone valley on Corpus Christi Pierson gives an interesting account· Day. I saw not a person at work the of his mission tour among the Scotwhole day; even the cows were kept tish churches. He testifies that the in stables that their keepers might results every way, so far as they can attend service. Every village had its be now estimated, abundantly repay celebration. The processions were all the cost in time and toil. The large; the display was surprising, re- arrangements, thanks to Dr. John vealing a splendor which, under the Lowe in the east, and Dr. Pagan, of circumstances, seemed impossible, Bothwell, in the west, have been sinand contrasted strangely with the gularly complete, relieving him from ap,parent poverty and squalor of the all needless correspondence and pervlllages. plexity. "We have been met at trains," says Dr. Pierson, "and escorted to hos- Never before did I understand pitable homes; welcomed with a genu- Zwingli's iconoclasm. Of all the re- ine cordiality; we have found everyformers he was most intent on re- where warm hearts and exceptionally moving images and pictures from the generous co-operation. The whole· churches. One need but see the tour reminds me of Paul's testimony Catholic cantons to-day to appreciate to the Galatians. We have met abunhis iconoclastic zeal. Many of the dant hospitality and Christian generimages and pictures are worthy of osity elsewhere; but never any exsavages rather than of Christians, and perience of loving kindness that on the the devotion of them cannot but be whole quite equals this. The meetdebasing. This is true of the repre- ings have followed each other in so sentations of Christ, as well as of pic- well ordered a scheme that there has tures .of the virgin and the saints. In been neither loss of time nor retracing the Reuss valley I saw, in front of a of steps." chapel, the representation of a saint with a hog leaning against his legs, Dr. Pierson sees no reason why apparently rubbing its itching side. I similar campaignsmay not be planned asked for an explanation, but, of in America, so that such men as Dr. course, received none. Gordon of Boston and Dr. Taylor of New York-these are only two of a I can give but one instance of the long list he gives-may be brought superstitions, which are worthy of into living contact with large congre- Spain. In passing up the Rhone valley gations throughout the United States from Brieg to Fietsch, my companion, and Canada. He adds that Scotland a Catholic, proprietor of a hotel in the is a land of martyrs and missionaries. valley, called my attention to a church at our side. "The two naturally go together. The martyr spirit has survived the' "This church is peculiarly rich in martyr fires, and so the vital energy grace," he said. "Emblems of won- that once made martyrs now runs derful cures performed are hung into the channels of missionary enabout the altars. And the church has thusiasm. We go nowhere without this wonderful power: It often occurs feeling ourselves to be on holy ground." that children die without baptism. He seems to have been especially They are then brought to this church struck with that house at Strathaven for the rites of burial. Now it fre- from which have gone William and quently happens that during these Gavin Martin to India, James Martin exercises some sign is given by the to Jamaica, James Martin's son to deceased child. Then the priest im- India, and now Miss Martin, the sister, mediately baptizes it." to Jamaica. "What an outcome," he exclaims, "of one consecrated home! Thus the child is supposed to give Five missionaries almost from one some evidence of life, but just enough cradle! No marvel Scotland is into make it fit for baptism; then it is terested in missions. Instead of coming buried. What the sign is and how it across the sea to kindle a missionary ill recognized I could not learn. But revival, the flame was found already a rare chance is given to the priest, burning, and needing only the fuel of and to the credulous and excited par- facts, and the fanning of the breath ents, to establish a miracle which re- of the Spirit of God, to become a con- suming fire. Coti!d all this intelligent dounds to the glory of the church.- and aroused enthusiasm be effectually Dr. Stuckenberg in Homiletic Review.
MiscellaneouS.-Five Mission- aries from One Cradle. In the March
1890.J MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS•
.applied to action, the whole machinery fice. One lady sold a bracelet and of missions would move with greatly sent the proceeds; one young man increased rapidity and efficiency." took off a solid gold vest chain, and Dr. Pierson mentions the intel'esting another a diamond seraf-ring, and enfact that, although his meetings have closed them to Dr. Pierscn; others not been with immediate reference to sent the price of a pair of kid gloves, raising money, no collections being or a box of cigars, or a concert ticket, taken save for current local expenses, or various other gratifications and voluntary offerings have been sent in indulgences foregone for the sake of to him, some of them very significant, the perishing. – Chri8tian Leader because the fruit of evident s-elf–sac-ri–(-Lon-do-n).
III.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Ohina. in March, 1889, "to consider questions 0/ policy, methods o/work, extension or restric- [Our readers will remember that a tion 0/ fields o/labor," etc_ branch of the China Inland Mission, In view of recent criticisms of the work of representing North America, was re- Foreign Missions and general administration of Missionary Societies, a special importance cently established in Canada, of attached to their duty, and they entered upon which our friend and brother, Mr. their task with a desire to make thorough in- H. W. Frost, is the worthy secretary. vestigation. They appointed sub-committees -This brief letter from him shows that on home and foreign expenditure, and on the best means of bringing the 'lhurches into a good beginning has been made.- closer relation with the society. Rev. Pro- J. M. S.] fessor Anthony, reported on .. The Best Train- ing for Missionaries;" Rev. Dr. Macfadyen, on CHINA INLAND MISSION, } " Celibacy," and Rev. Dr. Mackennal, on Council for North America. "Education in India." Interviews with mis- sionaries supplied valuable information, and Toronto, Ont., July 3, 1890. their varied experience and high standing DEAR DR. PIERSON:-During the short time gave great weight to their opinions. -of our existence in this country we have had the privilege of helping forward 24 persons, The report of the committee was agreed and are hoping to send forward 10 more" ac- upon after much prayerful Inquiry; and sugcepted " ones in the early fall, with others to gests no material change as to the education follow. But this does not satisfy us, just of missionarycandidates, but that the study because we feel it does not satisfy the great of the history of Christian missions and of heart of Him who gave His life "to every comparative religions, form part of the pre- -creature." If, therefore, you can turn the paratory course, especiallyfor thoseappointed thoughts of any, who are not led otherwise, to India or Ohina. toward this mission we will be thankful to you, and shall count it a precious privilege to As to celibate life among the hedthen, the do all we can to help such ones to realize their missionaries all discountenanced making celi- .desires. bacya system in mission effort. The results, With warm Christian regards, In the native and Roman Catholic priesthoods, were declared to be bad. The Oxford experi- Yours faithfully in Christ, ment in Calcutta does not involve a lifetime H. W. FROST, Secretary.
England. of celibacy: In China, celibacy Is an almost [The following report of The Special insurmountable obstacle to the work of the Oommittee of Inve8tigation appointed by the London Mis8ionary Society, missionary, while in India.. it raises grave difll- culties. The unanimous testimony was that in ,should be incorporated in this REVIEW, every mission field the 0 hristian home and not only as a matter of current history, but as a testimony to the grand ohristian family are absolutely necessary as society at whose request the investigation was conducted. Our space makes factors of evangelization. necessary considerable abridgment, As to the proposed new departure, the combut the main conclnsions of the committee we are glad to put before our mittee approve the action of the directors who readers.-EDS_] recently decided to accept, under conditions, offers of service from men who have not A Special Committee of Investigation was appointed by the London Missionary Society passed through a course 0/ theological colle- giate training, and to send them out for a term of years as lay evangelists; not to en- courage any lower educational standard; nor to introduce Into the field workers who will labor for a smaller salary than that hitherto given to missionaries; but to open the door to foreign service to men of good education and who claim high respect are decidedly un- of proved experience as Christian workers, favorable to it. who have not been able to obtain special ministerial training, and to help supply the The committee ask that the following facts increasing demand for workers which the be borne in mind: theological colleges do not at present meet. (1.) The scholars in the schools receive a The committee believe the ultimate success cousiderable amount of regular Bible instruc- of this society, as an evangelistic agency, will tion from the missionary. (2.) Though con· largely depend on the employment of native versions are rare, they receive a degree of workers, and that the existing institutions for preparation, otherwise lacking, for hearing their training should therefore be fully sus- the Gospel and reading the Scriptures in after tained, and, where necessity arises, new insti- years. (3.) Nominally heathen teachers are tutions should be started. not always foes to Christianity; often they are convinced of its truth, though not prepared to They also hold that the existing policy of avow themselves Christians. In some cases, a working lrom centres, where churches and considerable proportion of both teachers and schools are set up, and evangelists trained for scholars voluntarily attend ChrIstian classes, the regions beyond, (as contrasted with a on the Lord's day. (4.) By means of Govern- Tague itineracy), is the method sanctioned by ment grants and fees these schools are to a Apostolic example, by divine authority, by considerable extent self-supporting. The experience, and by the nature of the kingdom committee do not recommend the discontinu- of Christ. ance of these schools, but urge the im- portance: 0.) Of exercising the utmost care· The committee report emphatic and hearty to maintain the distinctive Christian characexpressions from missionaries with whom ter 01 the school.; (2.) Of insisting that suffithey conferred, as to tbe methods and man- cient time daily be given to the Scripture' lesson throughout the schools, and in all theiragement 01 the 80ciety, and their cordial rela- classes alike; (3.) Of substituting Christian teachers in all schools supported by the tions with its directors and secretaries. society, as soon as possible; (4.) Of training, as speedily as possible, qualified Christian. .As to the paramount question of gravest im- teachers in all branches of instruction. ' portance, viz: the relation of Christian missions in general, and those of our own society They urge the noble opportunity which in particular, to education in India, the com- presents itself to wealthy Christians to meet mittee say: At present, such instruction as this great need, by founding Christian colwlIl prepare for university degrees and Gov- leges on unsectarian lines, in each great lanernment service, neceJJ8itates the employment guage area, for the training of such teachers- 01 non-Christian. teachers, as an adequate for the whole of India; and also to well-qualisupply of Christian teachers is not forthcom- fied university men, consecrated to the service ing. Dilference of language forbids the trans- of our Lord, to go out to India and becometerence 01 teachers from one part of India to teachers. another. Even the non-Christian teachers are, of course, contlned to secular subjects, With regard to the expenditure on the misand work under control of the missionary. sion house Btat!. the committee record com- Still their presence and influence detract plete agreement that the staff of assistant. in. from the Christian character of the schools, the foreign, home and accountant's offices is and may, in some cases, hinder the work and not larger than the work demands; that no inflnence of the missionary. Some devoted reduction Is practicable, and that the remunerfriends of missions deem this danger so seri- ation Is very moderate. In fact, the financial ous that they would abandon the educational position of the society has constrained those work llQOner than tolerate the presence of who serve it to contribute a large share of non-Christian teachers. Such a course would their own income. mean the reduction of the schools to the level of elementary vernacular schools-the sur- As to expenses of traveling deputations, anrender of the hold on the young mind of niversary services, etc., during the past ten India, in this crisis when the national mind is years considerable reductions have been beginning to be stirred, and 'old faiths are effected. The committee think this process tottering. It would mean the handing over of may be carried further without loss of effithe .cultured youth of India, the hope of the ciency, especially if neighboring churches and future, either to schools from which religion districts would arrange meetings in concert. is systematically excluded and where morality has therefore no firm footing, and where .As to the salaries of missionaries, etc., the there may be Agnostic and Positivist teachers committee conclude: (1.) The principle, acted as bitterly hostile to Christianity as the upon by the society, of regnlating payments heathen; 'or else to Rome and the Jesuits, to our missionaries by the claims of the several who eagerly-watch the opportunity to step in localities is the only sound one. (2.) Any reand fill the empty places. duction of the present scale of payment would be at the cost of efficiency. (3.) The fixed The great weight of opinion is in favor of scale of payments, as hitherto adopted, should. continuing the present sy.•te"" though some be strictly adhered to. (4.) The existing ar- Bordeaux, etc. The Berlin Conference has rangements for furlough after ten years' done a great deal in that respect. service; a second, afrer eight years'; a third, after seven years'; are the best in the Faithfully yours, interest both of the society and of the mis- E. LENOIR. sionaries. [NOTE:-This brother is one of the most de- As to methods for increasing contributions, voted men we met in our European tour dur- diffu8ing information and awakening and ing seven months. He not only conducts the 8'Ustaining interest in rnissions, throughout McAII work in Marseilles-teaching, preach- the churches, the committee suggest pas- ing, visiting, etc.-but he takes his violin and toral visitation for the purpose of reviving leads the Singing in person. His father is a the missionary spirit; the spread of informa- banker, and Mr. Lenoir gives ~p lucrative tion through lady visitors: that advantage be employment with prospective wealth for the taken of a fifth Sunday in the month to en- humble work of a McAII evangelist. What it force the claims of foreign missions; that the means for him and others like him to lead in a Sunday evening service sometimes take the total abstinence movement can only be underform of a missionary meeting; and that stood by those who know that the use of light special efforts be made to inrerest the young wines is almost as universal among the.French in missionary work, by lantern lectures, etc. people as ice water is on American tables.- A.T.P.] In summing up the result of this prolonged, painstaking, searching and impartial inquiry, India. conducred at the request of the directors and on behalf of the society's constituents, the Comilla, Eastern Bengal, July 19, 1890. committee, with intense satisfaction and DEAR DR. SHERwoon:-Rather more than a thankfulness, bear emphatic testimony to the year ago I wrote to Dr. Pierson, giving a slight wisdom, Belf-devotion, fidelity and executive sketch of our Australasian missions. Since ability with which the work of the society is then, sickness and overwork have made sad carried on, at home and abroad, and commend havoc amongst our laborers, Lutwe are exit to the unabated confidence and largely- pecting considerable additions next cold increased support of the churches. season. Oh, that God's people at home were aroused to the urgency of this work: Only to- The report is signed by J. Wycliffe Wilson, day, as Ilie on my bed, unable to rise, a Hindn- J .. P., Sheffield, chairman. and sixteen others, stani woman who received a little medical help well known in the Congregational body. some days ago, came to see me, and seemed loath to leave. Hitherto, it has seemed utterly France. hopeless to try and speak to her about Jesus, as she knows only one or two words ot Ben- Marseilles, July 9, 1890. gali, and I know only one or two of Hindu- stani; but, to-day, after finding out about her DEAR DR. PIERSON:-YOU will hear with physical stare, the desire to do something for satisfaction that your visit and that of Major her soul was overpowering. With many Whittle, in April last, has not been forgotten. signs and repetitions we managed to get at Every one of us remember, with thanks to the what is meant by hell, heaven and God. Then Lord, your speech on missions in the Y. M. C. coming to an understanding of what "sin" A. Hall; your powerful teaching on "Recon- signifies. the poor creature would have it that ciliation," in the Salle Repub/ique, has often I was siuless, and God to her. It was hard to been referred. to since, and with profit; and make her understand that! disowned to that. the young man whom Major Whittle brought Finding that all her children had died, and to Christ the same evening. We are glad to that one boy who lived to be four or five years say that the work goes on with ever so much old was specially remembered, I asked, joyful spirit. Our halls are both always "Where is he now!" She replied, "He is dead, croWded. I never should have believed that what more is there to say about it." She is we would soo such general desire in the south a strict Hindu, professedly, but is even too of France to hear the Gospel. What marvel- ignorant to think of transmigration. I You lous fervor the doctrtne of Atonement has on should have seen her poor face when she our working people I Long live evangeli- gathered that her child is in heaven and she zation! may go to see him. She tried vel'J:' hard to understand how she might get there, but I Larely, a friend from Switzerland spoke on fear it was beyond her. Oh, may God's Spirit temperance in our halls. We had about 25 enlighten the poor dark soul! May God's people who signed the pledge. I was obliged to people wake up to their duty! We have not join and to lead and take the head in the move- to go and seek for the work-it comes to our ment as there was nobody else to take it. We doors, to our very bedsides every day-and are encouraged on that point, and we hope to how many hundreds who invite us to their increase; there is a good spirit in the new so- houses have to be turned away I The desire ciety. Sabbath observance makes good pro- for more laborers comes to be the one desire gress too. Many shop-keepers enter that of my heart. door; I hear it is the same in Paris, Lyons, Did strength and time permit, I should so eastern :l.nd western extremes, as Arabia, like to tell you of what God has done for us Egypt, Tnnis, Tripoli, and Algeria, as well as poor, weak women, here, regarding the Mis- some lesser States. These all lie in great sion House, and land to build it on. Such darkness and almost wholly unevangelized. wonderful deliverances, such answers to The considerable and admirable educational prayer, and such tenderness. Now, that the mission-work of the American Presbyterians building is suspended for want of funds, our in Syria and in Egypt is confined almost society in debt (unknown to us until lately), wholly to the corrupt, native, nominal Chris- no "allowance" for ourselves, and many of tian sects, such as the Greeks, Latins and our friends in New South Wales bereft of all Maronites of Syria, and the Copts of Egypt. earthly possessions by heavy floods, it seems But Mohammedans are still fast bound in the as thongh our hearts grow lighter and chains of their religious delusions, and in the brighter. The house was so very certainly dense darkness that envelops them. The started at God's bidding and not mine, that I need, in several of these Arabic·speaking, can just rest and let Him manage His own Mohammedan countries is as great as the need business, even though the season for roof- of Morocco was five and a half years ago, making is fast slipping away, and I want the when I began as the only missionary to Mo- house to be ready for the new comers. He hammedans. Now, thank God, in both north- knows what He is about. ern Jllorocco, with Tangier as its base, and southern Morocco, with Mogador, there are Wishing still greater prosperity and useful- many devoted missionaries, over thirty in all. ness to the REVIEw. The desire to be used by God in similarly Yours in the work, opening up other parts of the vast Arabic- speaking Mohammedan world has been much ELLEN ARNOLD. on my mind. I feel my unworthiness for this, but if God deigns to thus use me, the glory Japan. shall all the more be His. It is with a view to this thatI have come East to Syria, and am now A CORRECTION. engaged in seeking to fit myself to be under- Arima, July 23, 1890. stood in Arabic wherever the Lord may lead me. May I ask your pr~ers that I may be EDITORS OF THE MISSIONARY REVIEw:-The helped in tillS language study,which is difficult article of Rev. F. S. Cnrtis, in July, 1890, No. to one who is past forty. Aggressive gospel 7, pp. 535-37, in speaking of Zamaguchi Ken, work, even when hampered by an imperfect and profesBing to give the numberof mission- knowledge of the Arabic, is much more to my aries west of Hiroshima, is unjust to the Bap- taste; but the present occupation is needful tist work there. The A. B. M. U. has two for the future. families now on that field, and they expect to be joined very soon by three ladies, already It is well known that I have advocated and appointed. sought to practise simple and self-denying methods of mission work, and such as seemed The A. B. M. U. had a missionary residing to be, for me, the most direct and effective, in ShinIonoseki two years before any mission- although hard to the flesh. I drew them from ary settled at Hiroshima, and it has never for the Lord's instructions to his first missiona moment withdrawn from that field. In the aries,as recorded in Matt. x. It has become a absence of the first missionary, the work was maxim with me, that while leaving all others carried on for eighteen months by r('gular to conduct their work as seems to them best, visits from Kobe, our men remaining from I must conform mine to the principles conone to four months at a tinIe, until the arrival tained in those instructions, read and underof some of the present workers, a year ago. stood in the light of "the great commission," in the end of Mark and Matthew, and of the It seems but just to the A. B. M. U., and to recorded practice of the Apostles in the men who are your subscribers, that correction preaching tours in Acts. Practically speaking, should be made, so that their work in this im- following out these principles leads those portant field should not be iguored. Asking pledged to them to live upon the level, in mathat you will kindly grant this, I am, terial things, of the people to whom they are sent, as far as is consistent with health and Yours sin('erely, cleanliness. So, when located among the people, such missionaries would live, out- T. E. SHOEMAKER. wardly, as they do; and when traveling, they would go, two by two, on foot, carrying only Syria. the Gospel message, unimpeded by anything to excite the envy or cupidity of the natives, Brumana, Near BeyrO'Ut, June 25, 1890. and, as a rule, depending on the hospitality of DEAR EDITORS:-I have recently come from those among whom they are at the time Morocco to this Lebanon village, where I am traveling. spending some months in close study of pure Arabic. Here, every facility exists for this, but Morocco furnished none. We there labored under the most difficult and discouraging circumstances in gaining so much knowledge of the Arabic tongue as we already possess. Arabic is the language, not only of Syria and Morocco, bnt also of the great Mohammedan nations lying between these two
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
These views of mISSIOn work have been may be better fitted to go out on repeated jour- greatly opposed, and sometimes with much neys for preaching among Moslems wherever I bitterness of feeling, in religious periodicals, may be led. especially in England, where, in The Christian (London), I published, week by week, a series When I left lIIogador the converts were of eighteen articles dealing with the question. greatly scattered and persecutions continued. Since then, some dear friends have become Some of the most true, who had endured both thereby alienated, while enemies have scruti- stripes and imprisonment, left the town to es- nized and criticised every move I have made_ cape further similar treatment, just before I Even fellow-workers, who had pledged them- came away. Others gave ns much concern by ,selves to stand with me in advocating and prac- lack of steadfastness. Through the American tising these methods,after awhile, fell back and Consul I was officially forbidden by the native left me almostalone. I now find myself obliged, governors to travel in either of the two large with barely a single associate, to go forward provinces adjoining Mogador, and through in the path of service to which I feel called, which I must pass to reach the interior. On ,and from which I dare not go back. It is this one visit I was arrested in consequence of this disappointment as to others standing with order, but released in answer to prayer, before me, especiallY, co-workers in the field, com- our captors had reached the governor's house. bined with lesser reasons, that has led me On another journey in the same part, we were to feel unwilling to encourage other young turned back with violent threatenlngs with men to join me. Therefore, I do not now pro- clubs. On stm another journey, in conse- pose, as I had thought to do when I arranged quence of being in some danger in a native to come here from Morocco, to become respon- sok or market, we were reported at home at ,sible for the guidance and support of others. first imprisoned and then killed. On still .such responsibility is a wearing and heavy another journey, we were arrested on two oc- burden indeed, as I have found, and I am not casions, once by being taken before the govsorry to be relieved of it, though I was not un- ernor, and only escaped from his soldiers by willing for It so long as I felt it was God-ap- stratagem. AS to the future of the work in pointed. Such friends as have written, olIer- Mogador and Southern Morocco, the presence ing to support workers with me will accept my of a number of new missionaries provides suf- thanks for their kindness, and will, from this, ficiently against its being neglected. understand how it is that I cannot, at present ,atleast, make nse of their olIers. A bi-monthly statement of the amounts sent toward my support to Mr. Eugene Levering, We are living here very simply Indeed, and No.2 Commerce street, Baltimore, 11M., ap- very much as the native Syrians do. Our pears regularly in The Baltimore Baptist. To organ is about the only article of European all who have kindly helped thus, I return furniture in our little native house of four , heartfelt thanks. The difficulties and trials of rooms and a kitchen. Our food is native. Mr. a life of faith, as to temporal supplies, are not Brading, my devoted co-worker, is at another few nor small, but the compensation in seeing Lebanon village for language study, where he the hand of the living Father in one's daily .only hears Arabic, and where, in his single life, is great indeed. Hence, after years of room with its earth fioor, is scarcely a single treading this pathway, I can recommend it article of all those found in even an humble heartily to such as have falth therefor. But home in America. Notwithstanding his being let none others attempt it. brought up in soft and easy surroundings, he gladly endures hardness, as a good soldier of As great difficulties and keen trials have of Jesus Christ. late thickened about me, may I not ask for an increase of prayer on my behalf. "Grace be From what llIave said, it will be seen that I with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ have not come to Beyrout to make this my in sincerity." ,sphere of work, but only temporarily, that I Yours, in Gospel service for Mohammedans, C. F. BALDWIN.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
'The Foreign Missions of the Moravian Lord and Master, it is that He has Church. caused it to be distinctively a Mission- BY REV. J. TAYLOR HAMILTON, ary Church. Through His grace the ,SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY FOR PROPAGATING Moravian brethren early realized that THE GOSPEL (MORAVIAN MISSIONARY the business of a Christian's life is not SOCIETY), BETHLEHEM, PA.
If there is one feature in the history to become one of a select coterie, a ,of the Moravian Church for which we clique banded together to luxuriate have cause to render heartfelt thanks selfishly. in the enjoyment of personal to the overruling providence of our religion, but that the express com~ mands of the Lord and the needs of- Scarcely has the first enterprise the times demand at the hands of be- been undertaken, in 1732, than a- lievers the most strenuous efforts for second is inaugurated. The cousins, the evangelization of the world and :Matthew and Christian Stach and the furtherance of Christ's kingdom. Christi!tn David, on January 19, 1733, I wish briefly to sketch the rise and leave Herrnhut to assist the Lutheran progress of Moravian Missions in sub- missionary, Hans Egede, in his appar- stantiation of this assertion. ently hopeless labors in bleak Green– Ten years after the renewal of that land. Negotiations are next begun at ancient Protestant Church which, in Amsterdam with the directors of the 1467, as a result of the teachings of Dutch Trading Company for Surinam, the martyred Hus, came out from or Dutch Guiana, and in 1735 three Rome, but which had been almost missionaries depart to explore its- blotted out of existence by the merci- rivers and lagoons. As the years pass less barbarity of the dragoons, and the by, other West Indian islands besides cunning procedure of the Jesuits, to St. Thomas are entered-8anta Cruz, whom the House of Austria turned San Jan, Jamaica, Auligna, St. Chris- over Bohemia and Moravia at the close topher and Barbadoes.
of the thirty years' war-ten years In 1735 the first colony of Moravians after the renewal of the Church of the destined for this continent of ours pro- Bohemian and Moravian brethren, ceeds to Savannah, Ga., to labor for- through the instrumentality of Count the Indians, and in 1740 Christian Zinzendorf, at Herrnhut in Saxony, in Henry Rauch preaches to the Mohi– the year 1722, when that settlement cans of New York State. In 1736 of religious exiles numbered only six George Schmidt, who had served an hundred souls, two of the Moravian apprenticeship at confessing the gospel~ immigrants, Leonard Dober and David by lying for six years, for the faith's Nitschmann, with about three dollars sake, in an Austrian dungeon, works apiece, setout on foot for Copenhagen, his way to Amsterdam to find ship for- thence to proceed by ship to St. Cape Colony; and although his success– Thomas, to bring the gospel to pegro fullabors amongst the Hottentots are- slaves. ere long harshly terminated by the- Since then unsuccessful attempts to Christian DutchJ)ettlers, in 1792, when found missions have been made byour missionaries are again sent out, they people in the following countries: in find Schmidt's garden at Guadendal..
Lapland, amongst the Srenoyedes, in his outpost amongst the heathen, with Algiers, Ceylon, Persia, the EastIndies a thrifty pear tree to mark the civiliz- and Demerara.; and the following were ing agencies he had introduced, and.
established but afterwards suspended: better yet, they find aged Magdalena, on the Guinea coast of Africa, amongst one of his converts, with the gospel the Tartars, in Abyssinia and in Tran- Schmidt had preached still fruitful in quebar. Concerning these I shall say her heart; and to-day our South Mri– next to nothing. In their zeal the can Mission has the care of 13,590'
brethren sometimes overestimated souls. In spite of the failure of a first their own resources; sometimes so- attempt to land on inhospitable· called Christian governments inter- Labrador in 1752, owing to the massa- fered, or unscrupulous trading com- cre of a boat's crew by the natives, in panies placed unsurmountable obsta- 1764 J ens Haven, after years of care- cles in their way; sometimes heathen ful preparation and the study of the savages refused to allow a permanent Eskimo language in Greenland, taking- residence amongst them. I shall his life in his hands, hazards a visit.
speak only of those fields which have and later the mission is permanently • been permanently occupied. established by fifteen Moravian colonists, of whom he is the leader. Themis- commenced amongst the Indians of sion amongst the Indians of New York, Southern California, and finally, this Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Ohio year, the negroes and coolies of Trini- having experienced various vicissi- dad hear the message of salvation tudes during the war with the French from our brethren. in colonial days, and during and after the struggle for Independence, notably Whilst there has been individual the massacre of more than ninety instances of failure and seasons of ap- Christian Indians at Guadenhuetten, parent standing still, on the whole Ohio, had found refuge in 1792 at New there has been ever a steady and Fairfield in Canada. Nevertheless, in general advance. The work comspite of the ruthless reduction of the menced 158 years ago has widened converts,who had once been numbered out into a vast series of missionary by hundreds, to a mere persecuted enterprises. In the foreign field our handful, in 1801 new operations are Church has now about 86,000 souls in commenced amongst the Cherokees. her care, ministered to by 343 mis- Again fourteen years elapse, and an sionaries, of whom 51 are native born, old field is re-entered. The Calmuck with 1,659 native assistants. There are Tartars are revisited, though they 135 stations and out-stations, with 140must later be once more abandoned. schools of all sorts, attended by about 20,000 scholars. The support of the Yet within the 'decade of this relin- work entails an annual outlay of quishment, namely in 1827, possession $300,000 in round numbers. is taken of a new outpost on the Island of Tobago. One year after that Kaf- It has been with deliberate purpose fraria is entered. Less than a decade that I have gone into this somewhat: passes when Demerara is invaded in tedious skeroh of the growth of the the name of Christ, to be temporarily operations of o~r Moravian Church, yielded, indeed, five years later. But which has ever been federated together in 1848 there is a new advance, the in the Continent of Europe, in Great coast of palmy Mosquitia in Central Britain and Ireland, and in our own America being claimed as a Moravian country, for work in the foreigu field. mission field, ere long to be one of its I have done so because three special most fruitful. In the following year features stand out from such a survey, attention is paid to the degraded state which are not without their signifiof the black fellows of Australia. And cance for tile Church of, Christ in in 1859 the eternal snows of the Hima- general. They are these: layas are pressed by the footprints of our brethren in Cashmere. In the First, the missionary activity of the sixties Hus' descendants in the faith renewed Moravian Church is seen to seek to revive vital godliness in their have been not spasmodic, but steady spiritual fatherland, and their light and on principle. It cannot be atnow shines amidst the dark supersti- tributed to an overwrought and temtions of Bohemia. In 1867 a mission porary excitement, but must 'be no less noble than that of Father ascribed to the intelligent recognition Damien is begun, one leper hospital in of the truth, that the Church cannot Jerusalem, that has been steadily discharge its duty to the Master withmaintained ever since, having at out steadfastly seeking to win the present twenty inmates. In 1878 the world for Him in accordance with His outpost in Demerara is won back. In command. 1884 we rejoice in the privilege of sending God's Word to Northwestern Secondly, there never has been a. Alaska, to the Eskimos along the time when the renewed Moravian Kuskoquin river. In 1889 a mission is Church has been dead to missionary work. It has a record of constant ac- tivity. Decade by decade new field" have steadily been added to the old. In the third place, the Moravian Of course we have our theological Church has often made grateful ac- seminaries and our institute for the knowledgment of the reflex influence training of missionaries; and we, no of the foreign work upon the home less than others, place a high value {)hurches. Itisactivity here-the being upon a medical education as a valubrought face to face with the needs of able element in a missionary's equipthe perishing heathen and the utter ment. Yet from the days when .abyss and sin into which these have Leonard Dober, the potter, we!lt to fallen, and it has been the steady the West Indies, and Christian David, drain upon the Church's strength to the carpenter, to Greenland, to the meet the demands of the hour abroad present, in which we have sent men that have preserved the home congre- who were farmers or carpenters by gations sound in vital faith, during occupation to Alaska, our Church has periods when enthusiasm within never hesitated to accept as volunteers, threatened to degenerate into fanati- or directly call for the services of cism, or when rationalism was abroad such who have been, if you are pleased outside and was rendering callous the to put it so, untrained laymen, pUl"e sense of responsibility in the souls of and simple, up to the time of their thousands of professed believers. going forth to the heathen. And in many a case these men have met with In considering the methods and gloriously fruitful success. principles according to which Morayian Missions have been conducted, I And again a second characteristic believe that the following are worthy of our work has been to manifest" less ·of attention. First of all, both in solicitude to bring a great number of theory and in practice, we have en- persons to a mere profession of the deavored to maintain that all the mem- Christian faith,"-again I quote the bers of our Church should feel that Synodal Results-" than by means of the responsibility for the success or the gospel preached with the demonfailure of our heeding the Lord's com- stration of the Spirit and of power to mand to go and preach the gospel rests turn souls from darkness unto light, upon everyone. Iquotefromthereso- andfrom thepower ofSatan unto God. lutions published in the "Results of For this purpose the preaching of the .ourGeneralSynod,"thehighest legisla- gospel must be accompanied by the tive body in our Church, as follows: specialcareofindividualsouls;periodi- clI,l conversations of the missionaries "The Brethren's Unity is a Mission- with the members of their congregaary Church. It finds its missionaries tions according to their several in the rank and file of its own mem- classes, and visits to the houses and bership, and there is no special class to the beds of the sick and dying, are out of whom they are to be selected. deemed of the utmost importance." Even if the majority do enjoy a .special preparation before their en- This principle is faithfully observed trance into the service, such prepara- in all our mission provinces. In order tion is not necessary in every case. tofacilitate itsapplication, theconverts The chief preparation for missionary are divided into the following classes: service must take place under the 1. New People, the lowest class, conteaching of the Holy Spirit, in order sisting of those who have applied to that it may be said of all missionaries, the mISSIonaries for instruction. ., They shall be taught of God.' All These are taught the rudiments of the human learning and external accom- Christian religion. 2. Oandidatesfor plishments will abide without influ- Baptism, a higher class, those who ence and result if inward enlighten- have passed the first stage and arenow ment and the training of the heart be being prepaJ:ed for baptism. 3. Bap- , -'tnting." tized Adults The term explains itself. 4. Communicants, those of the third managed by an elected board, repre_ class who have undergone probation, sentative of our entire Church, and and, having been confirmed, are ad- having its seat in Berthelsdorf, mitted to the Holy Communion. Saxony. I refer to the fact that There are besides, two other classes: about $25,000 a year come to our sup- Baptized Children, the children of port from the "London Association parents in fellowship with the Church, in Aid of the Missions of the United and the Excluded, those who, being Brethren," an association composed under church discipline, are deprived of members of the Church of England, of the privilege of sharing in the of Independents, of Baptists, of Metho- Lord's Supper, but who receive the dists, and of other Protestants, and particular attention of the mission- which was formed in, and has been aries. It must be remembered that supporting our operations ever since the position of a convert from the year 1817. On the continent of heathenism, or even that of a Chris- Europe, and particularly in Switzer- tian of a second generation, is far land, moreover, large sums are different from that of a man who has annually received from Christian grown up in a Christian land with the people who are not in immediate con- inherited tendencies of many genera- nection with our Church. In fact, tions of Christian ancestors. Hence without this noble assistance, our the need of special fidelity in watch- denomination, which numbers only ing over individual souls. about 33,000 at home, could never sus- And I may yet mention a third tain a work which embraces almost characteristic. For the· sake of the three times as many abroad. We may natives themselves, in order to teach be said, therefore, to stand a living them habits of thrift and to educate monument to the truth that Christian and civilize them, no less than in union for the Master's cause is a fact order to diminish the cost of the mis- that isreal, even in these days when sions, in many of the fields mercantile sectarianism seems sometimes to have concerns and trades are carried on, run mad.
the profits of which are for the benefit In the latest edition of his Church of the gospel work. In Labrador, for History, Professor Kurtz of Dorpat, instance, a considerable business is is pleased to pass judgment upon the done in furs and fish and cod-liver missions of the Moravians in the fol- oil. In Surinam the mission has in lowing words: "Their procedure was some years been almost or quite self- admirably suited to uncultured races, supporting with its various commer- and only for such. In the East Indies, cial operations. In South Africa the therefore, they were unsuccessful."
raising and preparation of arrowroot, Perhaps there is something in what under the guidance of the mission- he writes. Yet he overlooks much.
aries, has saved our native converts He forgets that they made their from extremest want in times of attempt in the East Indies at a con- scarcity or famine. Yet, it may well be siderably earlier date than Carey- understood that, with all the revenue namely, in the year 1759, and then, derived in favorable seasons from too, in spite of the fact that almost all such sources, the entire work has re- the colonists of a Danish commercial mained and will remain pre-emi- establishment on the Nicobar Islands, nently one of faith. north of Sumatra, whither the In as much as I have touched upon brethren proposed to go, had died one of the means of support, just here from the effects of the climate. He I may be permitted to draw attention forgets that when they first founded a to a unique feature in connection with settlement at Tranquebar, on the our work, which in the last instance is Coromandel coast of Ilindustan, for the purpose of preserving connection too, for the most insignificant, for with civilization and the home Church, whom also Christ did not disdain to the climate carried off one' of the die. And they belieTe that the living leaders and his wife in less than three Word of God is for the salvation of :years. He seems to forget that when these also-body and soul. They the brethren began to gain converts know well enough that the same .at Tranquebar, their Christian adver- amount of disinterested persistent saries among the colonists sought to fidelity would have produced possibly procure from the King of Denmark, richer harvests elsewhere; but they in whose territory the place was know also that these are the peoples <situated, a prohibition of all further who might otherwise say in the Judgoperations there. He further over- ment, "No man cared for our souls." looks the fact that when, in 1768, the They believe that even the most brethren were at length enabled to utterly degraded are still within the pass over to the Nicobar Islands, the reach of the Bible to Christianize and climate speedily carried off two of the civilize. And their success has warsix missionaries, and utterly pros- ranted a firm continuance of their trated the remaining four. He does traditional policy. Notoriously low not tell you that in 1781 the war ip. the scale, for example, are the between the French and the English black fellows of Australia. Yet it has hampered the missionary operations happened that amongst twelve hunat Tranquebar, and that in 1778 already dred colonial schools in Gippsland, the Nicobar Islanda were seized by one mission school for the natives at the Roman Catholic commanderof an Ramahyuk has gained the first prize lmperial frigate in the name of Joseph offered by the Government. The II. of Austria, and every hindrance Bush negroes of Surinam were savages placed by him in the way of our descended from the fugitive slaves of brethren. Finally, in less than twenty- the colony, brutal, fierce Ishmaelites, five years, forty missionaries were vic- finding a secure refuge amidst the tims to the East Indian climate. malarial swamps. Yet after conver- Christian charity would take these sion, our missionaries have so trained things into account. them as to awaken an appreciation for the grandest of sacred music-in Might not the true explanation of fact, themselves to sing with powerthe fact that our people have labored, ful effect choruses from the Oratorios, .as a rule, amongst those heathen who with orchestral accompaniment furare lowest.in the scale of humanity, nished by themselves. The Dutch be rather found in pursuance of a settlers of Cape Colony were wont to deliberate pm'pose to do something class the Hottentots with their own for those whom others might overlook? dogs. Overthe river Sonderend there It is probable that the conviction that is now a bridge one hundred and such is the true explanation, occa- eighty feet long, resting on five massioned the formation of that unique sive piers-the whole entirely the work auxiliary society in London in 1817. of Christianized, civilized natives. The Moravians are not so devoid of It is said that a farmer who was once judgment as to be blind to the policy just passing over the bridge, began to of seeking to convert to Christ rail at a Moravian Hottentot from the populous, cultured and influential Guadurdal near by, and to grumble nations of heathendom, whose con- at the laziness and worthlessness of version would insure a large IWcession Hottentots in general. The Hottentot to the capacity of the Church of Christ pointed to the bridge, and replied reto compass the whole globe. But spectfully: they seek to give testimony to their conviction of the necessity of caring, "Baas, I do not choose to answer. Let that bridge speak for us. If baas the day will surely dawn-sooner than had built it for me, and I could with- many anticipate, if the Church uni- out trouble walk and ride over it, I versal is permeated with the spirit of 8h~uld not venture to complain of service and is faithful to her calling- baas' laziness, for I should think it when" all shall know the Lord from required more diligence and labor to the least unto the greatest," and when build a bridge than to walk over it." " the earth shall be full of the knowl- edge of the Lord, as the waters cover Surely the Eskimos of Labrador, the sea." whose winter lasts from October almost to June, with a thermometer First Impres8ions in Brazil. sometimes forty degrees below zero, have very little to stimulate them to BY REV. THOMAS J. PORTER, CORYmake exertions for self-improvement. Yet the Rev. Benjamin La Trobe, of TIBA, PARANA, B~ London, England, who visited the country two years ago, thus depicts Among our very first impressions an Eskimo interior at one of our sta- is a painful one of the irreverence of tions: "It is furnished with the usual Romanists in their use of the names <louches spread with skins. One o. of God. For example, the square on two objects in the room testify to a which we live is known as "the refinement that is unusual. A guitar square of the Good Jesus." They call their children by the same sacred hangs on the wall near a cage with d. name, "Jesus." And they have in Rio the " Navigation Company of the bird in it, and against the partition Holy Spirit" and the "Brewery of stands a piano. Fancy such an instrn- the Holy Spirit." ment in a low turf hut, even though it be but an old square piano!" The Roman Church has made them so irreverent, ignorant and skeptical, Elsewhere he describes a native that the majority of Brazilians have church choir as accompanied by four practically no religion. Many writers native musicians, three of whom play for the press evidently do not know on violius and the fourth on a violon- what Christianity is. They have seen cello. There are natives, too, who it as belied by the lives of priests, of have cabinet organs in their homes. whose wickedness horrible stories are He speaks of Eskimo choristers as currently believed. No intelligent rendering chorals and anthems so man now send3 his wife or daughter difficult, that the ability of the average to the confessional. Old missionaries European church choir would have say they have never met a Brazilian been well tested in attempting them. who confessed belief in the infalli- bilityof the Pope. And now, since the If the missions of the Moravian separation of Church and State, the Church teach anything, they cer- only power of the priesthood is " the tainly demonstrate this in a way not power of the keys." But very few to be successfully controverted, that Brazilians ever confess, except at marthe gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is riage and at death. And very often the power of God unto salvation; that they are buried without the presence its sufficiency is dependent upon no of the priest. What effect civil marextraneous or accidental combination riage Iuay have on the influence of of circumstances and upon no purely Romanism remains to be seen. But mental qualities inherent, or, at least, evidently the even*s of the past year dormant in the race, whether favored have weakened that influence. Alor unfavored by those things which most nobody in this city attended the in and of theIUSelves incline to intel- services of Holy week. Yet it is scarcely lectual culture; and finally, that if four years since the vicar-general of the very lowest pagans can be thus the province of Parana, from tl$ savingly illumined by the light divine, same capital, dared to order the people neither a scholar nor a father to his to burn the Bibles the missionaries country. He left without a friend were selling. and without an enemy. I have heard Brazilians say "He was a bananf." On April 21 the hanging of Xavier He did much for his empire. But Tivadentes, in 1792, for conspiracy to why did he not stimulate his subjects create a republic, was celebrated with to develop their rich but uncultivated great show of attachment to the country? Why did he not educate Republic. You remember that after them to independence of foreign his execution, the Bishop of Rio had labor, capital and enterprise? What, the Te Deum sung in the churches. I has he done of late years, except at was glad that I could not discover a the monition of the coming event?' priest among the crowd. The speeches Since the martyrdom of Tivadentes, I heard were very weak and tame. republicanism has lived and thought The only man who made a goodspeech, and waited the fullness of time. The was promptly carried off to Rio de emperor knew this, and knew when the Janeiro to be tried for treason in time had come. mildly and justly criticising the provincial governor. The large portrait I will not lengthen this letter by of Tivadentes which appeared in the ~umerating facts to show the proleading daily paper of the city, bore a found ignorance of the people and striking resemblance to the head of the wretchedness of their schools; Christ, as drawn by Carracci. This such facts as these-there is no college fact was probably the resultant of in the American sense in the counjournalistic enterprise, infidel irrever- try; thirteen teachers of the public ence and republican spirit. schools in Pernambuco were dis- missed because they could neither read The eight men who form the present nor write-but, in view of the whole military dictatorship are considered to situation, it is evident that the imperial be intellectually the ablest in the coun- need of this country is Christian edutry. So far they have been wonder- cation, from primary schools to a fully wise, temperate and just. The Robert College. Such schools would preference expressed by many for be the right arm of the Church of adopting a national constitution by Christ in moulding the Republic of arbitrary methods, rather than by a Brazil. vote of the people, forcibly reminds us that this is not Saxon and Protest- Trinidad. ant America, but Latin and Roman Brazil. However, it should be re- A. NOTE FROM REV. JOHN MORTON, D.D. membered that more than four-fifths of the population cannot read nor Tunapuna, Trinidad, May 31, 1890. write, and, therefore, cannot vote. To the International Missionary Union, hold- And many voters are hardly fit for self-government, they are so ignorant ing its Seventh Annual Meeting at Clifton and destitute of patriotism. At best Springs, N. Y., June 11 to 18, 1890, Mr. and the Republic will be, for a time at Mrs. Morton, of Trinidad, send greeting: least, an oligarchy. Yet, if it accom- We returned December 5, 1SS1l, having seplishes the tithe of what Brazilian cured when in Canada one missionary and patriots hope from it, the abolition of two female teachers for vacancies, and the the monarchy will be justified. promise of a fifth missionary, who is already virtuallyunder appointment. These were the Contrary to the prevailing opinion objects for which, at the convention at Bing-' in the United States, Dom Pedro II. hamton, we asked the special prayers of the was not a remarkable ruler. It is said International Missionary Union. Our united here that he aimed to be thought prayers have been answered; let us praise scholarly and liberal, and was, in fact, the Lord together. At the close of 1SS1l our agency consisted of 4 Canadian missionaries, 2 ordained native ministers, 20 native cl'te- chists, 3 Cl'nadian female teachers and 34 native teachers. We had 2,060 children in our schools, 36 couples were married and 210 per- sons were baptized in 1889.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
We received from the Government for edu- Chinese who come to the United cation in 1889, $7,350; from proprietors of States and our treatment of a Treaty estates, $3,BOO, and from the native church with China or any other Government nearly $2,000. We began the year with a debt on earth. It is on the latter phase of of $300, and closed it with a balance to credit the subject that this deliverance was of $280. made by the Missionary Union.
The returns for 1889, just published, set the The following was adopted: total number of East Indians in Trinidad at 88,000. The increase by immigration alone in CHINESE RESOLUTION. 1888 and 1889, was 5,200. Of those who arrived in 1889, 537, or nearly one-sixth, had been Whereas, the United States of America. and in Trinidad before, and 131 had been in other the Empire of China are bound by solemn colonies. These figures show that our field is treaties, and whereas, unjust laws discriminafast widening. ting against Chinese subjects have been passed by our Government, and whereas, The work of enlightening and Christianizing missionary work, on account of this wanton this people goes steadily forward. We are insult to a friendly power, China is greatly with you in spirit, and wish to share in your retarded, and whereas, leading Chinese statesinterest and prayers. men, through a memorial presented to the throne, have petitioned for retaliation against Yours faithfully, Americans in China, and whereas, it is stated, on competent authority, that new treaties, as JOHN MORTON. strict in regard to Chinese immigration as may be desirable to our Government ca.n be nego- REV. DR. GRACEY, President International tiated; therefore, Missionary Union. Resolved, That we petition Congress to re- Our Oonduct in Relation to the Treaty peal that unjust and dishonorable Scott Bill, known as the "Chinese Exclusion Act of with Ohina. 1888," and at once. in a manner compatible We present herewith the action of with our honor and dignity as a Christian the International Missionary Union on nation, to commence negotiations with the the question of our treatment of the Chinese Government for the revision of former Chinese Government. There should treaties, or the making of a new one, as may be be a distinction kept in mind between deemed best. the treatment we should give the V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY SECRETARY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
Missions and Sects in the Turkish in controversies and often in open Empire. strife, are now too thoroughly under subjection to Turkish rulers to al- No other country presents such a low of conflict, and they have been medley of reljgions as the Empire of the Sultan-and the fact most re- too deeply humbled and dispirited to- markable of all ii!, that although hat- exercise any very aggressive characing each other most cordially, they all ter. For a long time the Patriarch- remain in a sort of trnce. That truce ate of the Greek Church was regularly has continued for centuries with com- sold to the highest bidder by the Sul-· paratively few religious outbreaks, tan, and that fact alone WIj.S enough to whatever may have been the political destroy all spiritual life in the church.
intrigues, and however great may Much the same policy has been ex- have been the oppressions visited by ercised by the dominant power to- the strong upon the weak. In the ward all other Christian sects. If one Turkish Empire, or at least the coun- would gain a realizing sense of the tries which it now dominates, the two moral condition of the Christian great 'Western religions had their de- Churches in the Turkish Empire, and velopment. They have both passed at the same time would see the hu- its boundaries, however, and have miliating subjection in which they are been characterized as "missionary held by Mohammedan authority, he religions. " has only to witness the services of The Christian sects, which in the Greeks, Maronites, Armenians, Jacob- early days were so constantly engaged ites, Copts, and Nestorians, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Je- of Constantinople, claimed supremacy rusalem on Easter Sabbath-all wor- over both the Eastern and the Western shipping at the same time, and all churches. Gregory the Great,of Rome; kept from quarreling with each other defended hiR See against this assump- . by the stern authority of a Moslem po- tion, by the scriptural doctrine that lice. It should be borne in mind, bishops are equal.
however, that this subjection to the The Greek Church agrees with the Turk, however it may have been ne- Church of Rome in reference to bap- cessitated centuries ago, is now only tismal regeneration, the worship of an accident of European diplomacy. Mary, prayers for the dead, the use of As for the humiliation of the Greek relics, the infallible authority of coun- Church in any part of Turkey, the cils, prayers to the saints, and the Russian power would make quick virtual substitution of their interces- work of it were it not for the political sions for those of Christ. It differs restraints of Protestant and Catholic from Rome in allowing the marriage Europe; and, on the other hand,Catho- of the clergy, in denying the supreme ·lic Europe would sweep away Moslem authority of Peter and his viceregents.
:tyranny from.. the Holy Land but for It rejects the doctrine of supereroga- _the fear of Russia and the armed pro- tion and the dispensing of indulgences.
test of England. So, from age to age, It does not accept the doc~rine of -the Turk continues to insult and hu- the immaculate conception of Mary, miliate all branches of the Christian though it does claim for her a miracu- Church within his dominion. lous resurrection like that of Christ.
Let us take a very brief glance at It rejects the ;worship of images, but some of the sects of the Turkish Em- (very illogically) it does worship the pire. flat paintedforms of saintscarved from THE GREEK CHURCH. boards. A Patriarch of the Greek This has its principal seat of power Church has great authority over his in Russia, and it is supreme in all bishops, but he alone is not infallible.
parts of Greece, but it is also found The Greek Church holds the unique in both European and Asiatic Turkey. doctrine that the souls of unbaptized It was formerly known as the Eastern infants, and of the ignorant heathen, Church, in distinction from that of go at death to a limbus which is Italy and Western Europe, or as the neither heaven nor hell, but a place Byzantine Church to distinguish it suited to their case.
from that of Rome. Its separation The history of the Greek Church from the Latin or Roman Church has shown far less moral corruption began with the removal of the throne in its average clergy than the Church .of Constantine to Constantinople and of Rome. It is, however, far more the division of the Empire between his torpid and inefficient than the Western sons. This led ultimately to the over- church, partly' from the repression .throw of the Eastern Empire by the suffered from the Turkish power, and .Turk, and it also facilitated the over- partly from differences of race. It throw of the Western Empire by the has never been, to any extent, a mis- Goths. sionary church. The missions of the The Eastern Church also began to Russo – Greek Church, as in Japan, diverge from the Western on doctrinal may owe their inspiration quite as .points, and especially on the question largely to political designs as to the of ecclesiastical supremacy. The coun- spirit of Christ. The Greek Church cil of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, decreed differs from the Papal in reckoning the equality of the Eastern and the the time for observing Easter accord- Western prelates, and about the close ing to the "old style" instead of adopt- of the sixth century, John, Patriarch ingthedates oftheGregorianCalendar. It also immerses its candidates for characteristics, however, a degree of baptism three times-once for each of independence has been maintained.
the persons of the Trinity. Maronite patriarchs and bishops The Greek Oatholic Church, num- must be Maronites by birth, and must bering thirty or forty thousand people be chosen by their own people; the in Syria, is simply a branch of the clergy may marry once; tHey may Greek Church which, after cen- also own private property, imless be- turies of proselyting and intrigue on longing to a monastic order. No the part of Rome, finally acknowl- Maronite can belong to a European edged the supremacy of the Pope. monastic society; the saCred language But it makes some reserves. It ap- used must be the Syriac, and not the points, or at least nominates, its own Latin. Scriptural lessons are printed patriarchs,who must always be chosen in Arabic. from among its own people, and its In their relation~ to the Turkish clergy may marty before ordination. Government the Maronite bishops Its formularies declare Christ to be hold a degree of political power-the the only intercessor for sinners, and governorships of their districts being yet, in consistent subserviency to subject generally to their choice. Mul- Rome, it proceeds at once to commend titudes of the Maronites have been the intercessions of Mary. The Greek won to an evangelical faith by the Catholic Church persists, against all Syrian Mission of the Presbyterian flatteries and threats of Rome, in ob- Church, and they have been found to serving the Eastern reckoning for the appreciate education to a remarkable time of Easter. degree.
THE MARONITE CHURCH. The lack of space forbids even a To speak very briefly, the Maronite brief notice of the Armenian and Church, which is found principally Jacobite Churches, also found in the on Mount Lebanon, is a branch of the Turkish empire, as we desire to pre- Roman Catholic Church, though ad- sent brief sketches of the sects of the mitting only a qualified adherence. Druzes and thE( NllI'sareyehs.
The fact that its ilartial dissent is Mohammedanism, the staple and allowed, is but another evidenceof the dominant faith of the empire, would tact, and, when necessary, the flexi- require a treatise instead of a sketch.
bility of the Papacy in adapting itself THE DRUZES.
to all possible conditions if only its The brave and desperate resistance supremacy is acknowledged. which the Druzes of Syria have re- The name Maronites is derived cently made against the Turkish from Maro, the name of their first Government, suggests a brief review bishop. In doctrinal controversy they of their singular religious faith and adopted the theory of the Monothe- their characteristics as a people. Even lites, a sect of heretics who, in refer- Mohammedans are scarcely more diffi- ence to the question whether Christ cult to be reached by the gospel than had two natures or one, settled upon these strange fanatics of the Lebanon.
the belief that He had two natures, They are generally reckoned at about but one will. The sixth council of 50,000. One half this number are on Constantinople, A. D. 680, condemned Mount Lebanon, and the remainder the doctrine, but it survived for a long are scattered through Hasbeyia, time. At length the persistence of Merj Ayun, Damascus and the Hau- Rome brought the Maronite Church ran. They do not consider themselves to abandon the Monothelite theory, Mohammedans, though the Govern- and in most other points to come into ment so far classifies them as such full subordination. On the side of as to include them i~ the military political sympathies and national conscriptions. The genesis of the Druze sect grew the Court of El Hakem, and to him is. out of the assumption that the de- to be ascribed the real authorship of scendants of Ali, the cousin of Moham- Druzism as it now exists. His name med, and husband of his daughter was Hamzeh Abu Ahmed. He con- Fatima, were the true successors of demned many of the teachings of EI the Kaliphate. Dorazy, but confirmed the divinity of EI Hakem. During the reign of the Abbassides, Mohammed Abdullah, who claimed This tyrant, after many atrocities, to be a descendant of Fatima, suc- was assassinated, probably at the in- ceeded in detaching from the Kaliphs stigation of his sister, Sit EI Mulook. of Bagdad, the Mohammedans of Hamzeh represented to the people Arabia, Syria and Egypt. The latter that the Kaliph had not been murder- became the seat of government. ed, but had mysteriously disappeared Early in the eleventh century, Abu to test the faith of his followers. And Aliel Hakem, the sixth of the Fatimite he claimed that a book which he had dynasty, came to the throne at the written, containing the Druze docearly age of eleven years, and began trines, had been" found at the gatea reign of folly and unparalleled op- of the great mosque at the disap-· pression. He fancied himself inspired, pearance of our Lord." and at length divine. His monstrous assumptions were encouraged by a Druzism was not the first system in Persian mystic, who came to Egypt which the old Persian philosophy had and succeeded in raising himself to a been mingled with the Monotheistic position of great influence and power. religion of Syria and Egypt. Mani- His name, EI Dorazy, was, with a cheism and Gnosticism had some cen~ slight change, given to the sect who, turies before greatly disturbed the under his teachings, came to regard peace and corrupted the doctrines of EI Hakem as divine. EI Dorazy con- the Christian Church. But a different ceived the idea of framing a system combination produced a different reof religion which shopId unite the sult. The allegorical tendencies of all mystic dualism of Persia, which had branches and products of Zoroastrianborrowed some admixture of Hindu- ism, engrafted upon the stock of stern ism, with the Monotheism of Islam. and dogmatic Islam, presented a weird EI Hakem aided this project by severe system which is altogether unique. persecution of non-Fatimite Mohammedans, and also of the Christians. The basal doctrine of the Druzes, as. He himself claimed to be an incarna- of the Mohammedans, is the unity tion of God. and supremacy of God. Theirs is the most strict and intense type of When EI Dorazy, having finished a Unitarianism, though with a panthebook designed to prove the divinity of istic notion of man's absorption into his master, undertook to read it in the that unity, and they virtually regard great mosque, the exasperated Mos- God (as the Hindu Brahm is regarded), lems rose in rebellion, and he was as destitute of attributes. Like the obliged to flee to the valley of EI Hindus, they insist that we cannot Teim, which lies between Lebanon predicate anything of the Infinite. and Hermon. There he won many Very inconsistently with this doctrine followers, by money furnished by his they contend that the Deity has often royal patron, and by the licentious- been incarnate in human form, though ness of his teachings. it is not quite clear that such incarna- tions are not merely phenomenal. After EI Dorazy's escape from Egypt, another Persian, of the same The Druzes attempt to reconcile Batemite sect of the Indo-Persian Islamic Monotheism with the Persian Mystics, was instated in his place at Dualism by the theory that the Su- preme created out of His own essence. an intelligent being known as the '. by the question" Did this man sin or Universal Mind, and that this being his parents, that he was born blind? ..
.sinned through his personal vanity. This doctrine of transmigration or Thereupon, as a punishment to him, metempsychosis was common in old God caused to spring from him another Egypt as well as in India. It was also we being-the Antagonist or the author held by Pythagoras and the Greeks, .()f evil. Here have the Persian and by the Pharisees, and it was one Ormazd and Ahriman as secondary of the heresies charged against Origin .()r created beings. The Antagonist by the fifth ecumenical council. The was not made evil by arbitrary cre- Druzes make it very prominent.
ation, but became so by his own rebel- When the souls of men first came to lion. Other beings were created, till inhabit human bodies they were with.
the moral antagonism of the world out bias toward goodor evil; theyhad ,came to be represented on the one no moral law and were not account.
hand by the Universal Mind, the Uni- able. But they were at once subjected versal Soul, the Word, the PrecedeI' to the influence respectively of the ,and the Succeeder-as ministers of ministers of truth and the ministers God, and on the other hand, by the of error above named, in order that Antagonist and the Foundation-as they might freely choose between the .ministers of evil. All human souls two. God Himself also then appeared were created at the same time-viz.: in human form and preached the .at the beginning of the world. No truth to men. The sun, moon and addition has ever been made to the stars and the winds were sent as ob- ,original number. All souls are im- ject-lessons or symbols, to reveal to mortal and pass from one bodily form men God's wisdom and power. Under ,to another according to the'Indian doc- this Divine manifestation, all men be- trine of transmigration. The dualism lieved and all were good; but after a ,of good and evil enters into all human time God withdrew from the world, life; every soul is a battle-ground for and then the ministersoferror succeed· the two conflicting principles. ed in leading a large part of the hu- The last of material creations was man race to apostasy. The choice once that of human bodies. The world was taken was final. No man has changed ,stocked at once with human beings in since that first decision, nor can he'
.all stages, from infancy to old age. ever' change in all his transmigrations.
.All the souls of the world's history It will be seen from this how utterly were thus variously and contempor- hopeless is the fatalism of this strange aneously embodied-some for a longer system. All Druzes, of course, are and some for a shorter term. The believers, and therefore are on the idea of Adam and Eve as progenitors side of the good; all the rest of man- is ridiculed. The world was fullypopu- kind are faithless and evil, and there- lated and in full tide of activity from fore in an utterly hopeless condition.
the outset. This is probably the farthest But from our standpoint it is the of all removes from the doctrine of hopelessness of the Druzes that pains Evolution. us. How are a people thus environed The Druzes defend the doctrine of and encased in conceit to be reached transmigration by the Hindu argu- by the gospel or by truth of any kind?
ment that the unequal allotments of Their creed leads them neither to the life can only be explained on the sup- conception of being converted them- position of sin in a previous existence. selves, nor to any desire to proselyte They meet the objections of Chris- others. All outside of their narrow tian!! by referring to the New Testa- sect were eternally doomed by the ment assertion that John the Baptist fatal choice made thousands of years "Was a transmigration of Elijah, and ago. These people are the most com-: When Ibrahim Pasha, taking them pletely isolated of all men; their or- at their own professions of faith in ganization is a secret society. Their Islam, compelled them to bear arms, dootrines are carefully withheld from multitudes became Christians, only to the rest of mankind. Every Druze is throw off the mask at the close of sworn to secrecy, and' it was only the war. Except in their many acts through the wars of Ibrahim Pasha, of kindness toward each other, Dr.
between 1837 and 1842, that their W ortabet, of Beyrout, from whom I sacred books first became known to have received many facts, regards the world. them as " the most fraudulent and de- The Druzes have many mythical ceptive of all peoples."
doctrines in regard to the successive They believe that the inhabitants of manifestations of God among men, in China are all Druzes, or, as they say, which Adam, Enoch, Noah and Shem "Unitarians," and that in a great playa part. The Deluge is treated alle- future conflict between Mohamme- gorically; honor is shown to Isaiah, dans and Christians, a great Druze David and Daniel, who "allegorized leader, with a vast army, will come the Law of Moses;" also to Pythagoras, • from the far East, and conquer both.
Plato and Aristotle. Jesus is said to EI Hakem will then reappear in visi- have been only a representative of the ble manifestation, and will reign for true Christ, who remained concealed ever from his throne in Egypt, attend- in the person of Lazarus. ed by five ministers! What can be Druzes reject the doctrine of the done with such a people? It is well Resurrection, but admit that the true to know their real character. Their Christ promulgated the story that the bitterness and ferocity was shown in son of Mary had risen, as a means the massacre which attempted the of establishing the Christian religion. extermination of the Maronites of This was done in order that, under Lebanon in 1860. Their system seems the foil of Christianity, the esoteric a master-piece of Satan. Only the Druze religion might be concealed. power of the Divine Spirit can trans- It was the real Christ, and not Jesus, form them. The work of missions that appeared to the Disciples after must be a work of faith and prayer.
the Resurrection. Discouraging as missionary labor God is represented as having pur- among the Druzes is, the Presbyterian posely misled one portion of the Mission in Syria has rejoiced in many human race and to have enlightened apparent conversions. It even num- and saved another. And this arbi- bers two or three Druze preachers.
trary and fatalistic doctrine has given The native Protestant Christians, how- a vitiating tendency to all Druze ever, look with great distrust upon ethics. For example: the sacred members of this sect who profess their books enjoin strict veracity in dealing faith. But all things are possible with with fellow Druzes, but justify false- God. His mean~ may be various.
hood toward all others. No confi- Education will effect changes. The dence, therefore, can be placed in the absurdities of the old system will be word of a Druze beyond the dictates seen. Prevailing Christian sentiment of his own interest. He is commanded will make itself felt.
to love the brethren of his sect, but no THE RELIGION OF THE NUSAIRIYEH.
others. An implacable hatred exists These strange people, found in the toward Mohammedans, and yet, as a extreme north of Syria, are even less matter of policy, the Druzes conform understood than the Druzes. Their to many outward requirements of mystical and mysterious faith has Islam. They are not greatly trusted as been kept a secret by the force of the soldiers, though they are enrolled. death penalty which awaits any man who shall divulge it. Yet glimpses in constant conflict with each other, discovered here and there seem to and are only united in their opposition favor the conclusion that the basisisthe to the gospel, missionary effort is by old Phrenician heathenism, to which no means in vain. additions have been made from time to time, from Persian Mysticism, Mo- As a result of the faithful labors of hammedanism, Druzism and Christi- its missionaries 213 native preachers anity. They believe in many incar- are now proclaiming the truth to their nations of God in human form. countrymen. There are 130 churches, with a membership of thousands. In this, as in the doctrine of trans- There are 16 colleges and high schools migration, they agree essentially with for young men and boys, 13 girls' the Druzes. There is, however, this boarding-schools and 235 primary or difference-that they believe that the common schools. The whole number souls of wise men, after many changes, of pupils of all grades is over 11,000. become at length stars in heaven, The number added to the churches while base men become incarnate in last year was 683. beasts. Like the Persian fire-worship- . pers, they associate God with the sun, Two generations of native Chris- and they turn toward the sun, morn- tians have spread their influence far ing and evening, when they pray. and near, and it would be scarcely too They seem to regard both J esut! and much to say that the whole Armenian Mohammed as prophets, and they race has been awakened to new life. favor Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed, as the true successor, and the Fati- The work of the American Board in mites as the lawful dynasty of Islam. Turkey cannot be measured by statis- They hate the opposite and prevail~ tics. Education has achieved a tre- ing party, the Sunnites, and some of mendous influence, whether we esti- them at least profess to honor Jesus. mate it from the standpoint of Rob- The element of doubt lies in the fact ert's College in Constantinople and that, like the Druzes, they recognize the other flourishing institutions in the no claim of trutl:t or veracity, except interior, or from that of the widely toward their own people. They believe scattered primary schools, each one of that women have no souls, and they which becomes an object-lesson and a treat them accordingly. They are powerful stimulus to a whole comcharged with domestic crimes of a re- munity. Home life has been raised volting character, and, in spite of some to a higher grade, all the wholesome mauly traits, they are a degraded peo- influences of a better public sentiment ple. Secluded from the world in their and a purer morality have been felt. wild mountain life, they have resisted A general thrift has been promoted, the civilization, such as it is, of the the common comforts of life have Turk, and the religious influence of been multiplied, and the oppressions Mohammedans and Christians alike. of a tyrannical government have at least been mitigated. Medical science The Reformed Presbyterian Church bas come in Turkey, as everywhere of America is trying to reach them else, as a handmaid of missions. The with missionary labor, and has had hopelessness with which Mohammesome success, but the field must be dan fatalism looks upon the unresistregarded as extremely difficult. ed ravages of disease has given place to a new confidence and a better esti- MISSIONS IN TURKEY. mate of human life. Not only are thousands saved by the direct efforts The success of the American Board of the missionaries, but a native mediof Foreign Missions in Western, Cen- cal corps is being raised up: the whole tral and Eastern Turkey furnishes treatment of disease is being revoluabundant proof that, even in a coun- tionized. try where gigantic forces of error are
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
In a purely economic view, the its true value. So great has been the Turkish missions have accomplished impression which it has made upon inan untold good. Fanning mills and telligent Englishmen that years ago other agricultural implements have a Turkish Missions Aid Society was gone forth in the train of the mis- formed for the purpose of increasing sionaries, and the mean and grudg- the funds of the American societies in ing spirit of those who complain at their work. Among those noble men the alleged robbery of our own coun- who, from their ownobservation, gave try by foreign missionary outlay, has it their cordial endorsement, was the been rebuked by the tens of thousands late Earl of Shaftesbury. of dollars which the enlightened districts of Turkey alone have paid Even the Turk appreciates if he for various lines of American manu- does not approve the work. He canfactures. not be indifferent to its educational influence or to the general enlighten- If there are American Christians ment and moral elevation which it is who, through a satisfied ignorance, promoting among the people. The fail to appreciate the missionary work apprehension which his restrictive accomplished in the Turkish Empire, measures imply is a proof that mis" there are others who estimate it at sions are a power.
VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
.The Soudan Pioneers. of petition was that the Kingdom of God might come; that the gospel Whatever may be said about the might be published to the world in this ., intemperate zeal" or the" mistaken generation, and that God would in methods" of the Kansas brethren, who, some remarkable way use us-the four. under the lead of Mr. George S. Fisher, men there bowed in prayer-to give a have organized this new Soudan new impulse to this work of a world's movement, we feel constrained to say evangelization. That prayer has been that we have never known any move- already most remarkably answered. ment that in its inception and pro- God laid on the heart of the then gress seemed to bear more distinctly pastor of the Philadelphia church, the the stamp and seal of God. In fact, burden of arousing the churches to the whole movement may be said to more intelligent zeal for missions, and have had its unexpected origin in the in June following he resigned his little prayer meeting, held on a Sab- pulpitand parishtospendsix monthsin bath morning in May, 1889, in the Great Britain in addressing the people study of one of the editors of this RE- of God on this great subject. Mean- VIEW. The International meetings of while, these brethren went to their the Young Men's Christian Association Western fields and could not layoff were at that time being held in Phila- this load of a world's destitution. Undelphia. Early on that Sabbath morn- expectedly to themselves they were ing, as by a common impulse, Messrs. led in a strange way: they found grow- Fishel' and Nash, Y. M. C. A. Secre- ing up about them a new foreign mistaries of the States of Kansas and sionary interest. It grew and spread Nebraska, and Rev. Thomas C. Hor- like a prairie fire, until it swept everyton, Y. M. C. A. Secretary from St. thing before it. Had they proposed Paul, Minn., came to unite in aseason at the outset to turn the Y. J..f. C. A. of prayer with the editor, then pastor into a foreign missionary organization, of Bethany Church, Philadelphia. they would have felt it at least a di- That prayer meeting, will ;never be version if not a perversion of the purforgotten by the four men that con- P?ses of the organization. But the stituted that gathering. The burden .movement took so sudden and rapid martyrs to follow in the steps of John .a progress, that it seemed to defy con- Williams, and Coleridge Patteson and trol. We have never felt otherwise James Harrington. than satisfied that the Y. M. C. A., be- ing, as it is, established for undenomi- At the same time, is not God speak- national work among young men, it ing to us a word of caution' Is it {)annot be turned into foreign mission- prudent to rush into Equatorial Africa ary work in such form as to interfere with no knowledge or experience of a with other established agencies with- torrid climate, to face unknown foes, ·out inevitable friction; and we believe peculiar forms of disease, and a thou- that if this Soudan Pioneer Mission is sand perils which, like the flora of the to be permanent, it must separate country, are indigenous to the soil, from the State associations where it without all adequate information and ·originated, and take a separate, inde- provision against such exposures ? We pendent fprm. are nOl to count our lives dear unto ourselves, but are we not to reckon At the same time we cannot see that them dear to our Master and for our any intentional perversion of Y. M. C. Master's sake? When this movement A. money or energy has been intended. began, we cautioned our brethren not 'This whole movement strikes us as to go into the Soudan without ex- -one of those rare and exceptional ris- perienced guides, without explorers ings of missionary interest which can- familiar with the country and its .not be accounted for by ordinary peculiar dangers and diseases, who causes, or confined within ordinary could also advise as to all proper prebounds. We simply wait for this cautions respecting dress, food, habits rushing torrent that has swept be- of life, and exposures to malarial in- .yond its banks, to scoop out a new and fluences . permanent channel, and we look with prayerful interest to see the final is- Those who have read Bishop Crow- .sue. We ca~ appreciate the emphatic ther's life, will remember the strange protest of the brethren of the Inter- fatality attending that first exploring national Committee, while we confi- party of which he was a member, be- .dently believe many of their fears are cause of the green wood that was groundless, and that if they patiently stowed in the barge. A simple wait and rather seek to guide sympa- precaution such as was afterward thetically than to arrest arbitrarily adopted, would have saved a score of .a movement so might.y, the ultimate most precious lives. Those who go to result will be advancement all along Africa or any other untried climate, the lines. should first get all the wisdom that ex- perience canfurnish, and go armed and Meanwhile, three of the Soudan Pio- equipped as the laws of prudence en.. neers are reported dead with African join, with all the panoply that a true fever; and a startling rumor in the science can supply. We may be called New York World, which has not been to martyrdom but not to suicide. We .confirmed, states that Mr. Kingman earnestly hope our Soudan Pioneers and others have been massacred. We will exercise unusual precautions, and wait with no little solicitude to hear advantage themselves of every prepafurther and authentic news. It would ration that the combined experience not be surprising if God should bap·· of all explorers and missionaries can tize this new mission in blood. If He supply, before venturing into such a has a really great future before these perilous district. Let us guard human devoted young men, it may be that a life in proportion to its priceless value, ~up of suffering is to precede thechal- and so make our offering to the Lord ice of joy. That is God's way. Let one of the more permanent service. us not hesitate if He calls for more A.T.P. Dr. Penteoost's Siege of Oaloutta. that in India, China, Japan, Syria, Our readers have, before this, this class who are familiar with the· learned of the scheme of our esteemed brother, the Evangelist, Rev. George English tongue, its literature, and its. F. Pentecost, D.D. He proposes to go to India, to be joined by volunteers gospel message, are the last to yield from Britain and .America, and to attempt evangelistic work among to the power of that gospel, and often English-speaking residents, Anglo- Indians and Eurasians, and native the most pertinacious foes of its prog- Indians who are familiar with the English tongue. He proposes to go as ress and the most malignant adversathough there was no concert of action, and as though the concurrence ries of its spirit. were merely accidental, and to have these pilgrims meet in Calcutta for a We say this not to cast any chill over stay of five months; then lay siege by Bible-readings and sermons and prayer the enthusiasm of our brother. We services, to the English-speaking population; and, having thoroughly bid him God speed, but we believe he aroused them, seek from this vantage ground to reach out and affect wider will need to be sustained by the prayers results. We hope for great results from this mission. It seems to us a of an unusually consecrated band mistake, however, to announce at the beginning of a programme, which in- of God's watchers. If this work can cludes a meeting of various parties at one centre, as though it were wholly be done and the English-speaking resiundesigned. Anything that produces an impression of disingenuousness can dents and natives can be aroused and hardly be according to God's will. And, besides, the rapid communication of quickened and consecrated, it may be· intelligence in these days makes sure that this sailing under sealed orders the signal for the Revolution of India. becomes an open secret. Tbe people of East Indies will already, before Dr. God grant it I A. T. P. Pentecost has landed at Calcutta, have been informed of the "un-designed The "New Herrnhut." coincidence. " A PROPOSED HOME-REST FOR RETURNED' We are persuaded that the work MISSIONARIES. undertaken by Dr. Pentecost and his co-laborers is not an easy one, but the Every reader of this REVIEW, and hardest job that could well be under- every friend of missions, will feel taken. No class of the community is warm interest in a new and unselfish so impervious to all impressions as project which has in view the comfort those who have been confronted with and welfare of returned missionaries, the gospel and have been accustomed who are seeking rest and recuperation to resist its power. Give us the most after years ofexhausting toil; and no hopeless Regions Beyond as our field, class of the Lord's servants are more rather than the gospel-hardened sin- deserving of our sympathy and gener-· ners whose eyes are blinded by the ous aid. very blaze of gospel light. 'We have the common testimony of missionaries Every year, at the great Northfield. gatherings, these dear brethren and sisters are to be found, sometimes by .the score, and, not infrequently, like our esteemed friend and correspond-· ent, Rev. George W. Chamberlain, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, they find Northfield a convenient place, not for their own rest and refreshment alone, but also for the education of their children during their furlough.
We have been impressed with a· growing depth of conviction that, if some adequate and permanent provis- ion covId be made for the accommo- dation of such missionaries and their families, it would be one of the noblest and most useful forms of benefaction. Just now, a farm of fifteen acres, beautiful for situation,' just border- • ing the grounds of the Northfield when our colored brethren of the Seminary, was found to be for sale, and at a very low price. One of the South, properly trained in medical editors ventured to purchase the property in behalf of the friends of science, could traverse and live in the missions, and we now desire the prayerful and sympathetic co-opera- "dark continent" with comparative tion of all willing hearts in the further- ance of what we believe" God has impunity. We believe that God will put into our own heart to do" for his own servants. force this question upon the considera- Letter to Henry M. Stanley. tion of the Church, North and South, We have been favored with the fol- and upon our missionary societies. lowing letter, with the request to give it to our readers, with such com- We shall wait with interest Mr. Stan- ment as it might suggest. We cheer- fully comply. The letter will speak ley's reply to Mrs. Ray's letter, which for itself. And sure we are that 1:11'. Stanley will give it due consideration, we introduce by a note from Miss and a fitting reply. The subject of the letter is one of profound interest to Frances E. Willard, who sends it to- the whole American people, as well'as to Africa. It is an important factor us:-J. M. S. in the stupendous unsolved problem of the future of the negro race. For "Evanston, Aug. 14, 1890. ourselves, we are more and more con- "DR. J. M. SHERWOOD: . fident that Divine Providence is shap- "ing events so as to use our rapidly-aug- "HONORED BaOTHER:-I am sending you 8c menting colored population to take a letter addressed to Henry M. Stanley, by 8c very important part in the occupa- tion, the civilization and the evangel- gifted Christian woman of the South. Would ization of the immense territories in Africa, so suddenly and wonderfully it not be well to publish this letter, with opened up and brought under the favorable commentary? It is not at all in- protectorate of the leading European tended to exploit the colored people, but in SO powers. We have in the South, abun- far as they desire to do it, to set before them dant material out of which to make, in due time, thousands of mission- this open door. Mrs. Ray says: 'Our South- aries, the peers of Bishop Crowther, ern women were, for a long time, unconscious who was a slave in his youth, and missionaries in the home for the foreign now a l~ding bishop in Africa, and field;' and if a great magazine, like the who commanded the homage and ad- ~EVIEW, would take up the subject, in its own miration of the W orId's 1:1issionary Conference, in London, in 1888, and wise and cautious way, immense good would whose striking photograph forms the come of it. A resolution, urging the National frontispiece in the January number of Women's Christian Temperance Union to give this REVIEW. Such being the case, attention to this feature of missionary work, why should such numbers of the choice young men and women of the was adopted at the Asheville Women's Chris- North fall victims to the climate of tian Temperance Union training-school, re- Africa (three of the Kansas band that sailed in May have already fallen), cently held. Please let me know how this· looks to you, and give me any ideas that you think will be helpful. " Yours, with best wishes, and grateful re- membrance of your kindness, "FRANCES E. WILLARD."
"HENRY 1:1. STANLEY: "HONORED SIR:-I write at a ven- ture, to ask how shall the Southern women of the United States co-operate for the evangelization of Africa ? You know the institution of slavery as it once existed in theSouth. You know Africa. You can contrast these con- ditions and determine what sort of an evangelical factor these colored peo- ple, once slaves, who still remain with us, might become to their own race in Africa. If the discipline of slavery, under superior moral condi- tions, should prove to have been the prinaary training-school for such work, now that the second step of preparation is opened to the race, through citizenship, with its atten- dant responsibilities and opportuni- ties, the last link in the chain, of out- going missionary effort by Africans in America for their own continent;. might soon be forged. Individuals, given, and simple ways were sug- great or small, have a measure of re- sponsibility. The thought, 'How gested for saving that small amount. shall we help these people to do this work?' has often stirred my heart. We observed that Mr. Wilkins ex- One way suggested to me (leaving the commercial view of the subject to plained the plan at Northfield, at one statesmen and publicists), has been to ·organize our Southern women, of Mr. Moody's conferences, and it thro~gh ohurch missionary societies, intO home missionary bands, for the seemed to meet with favor. In a purpose of aiding the willing-minded among the blacks to go out on such a note, just received from him, he holy errand, to which they are better ,suited than the Anglo-Saxons. I am says: anxious to present this feature of pos- sible Christian enterprise to our mis- " You were good enough to publish sionary boards, and a statement from in the July number of the MISSIONARY .you would have great weight. May I not hope for it, in the interest of the REVIEW my paper on the' Extra-Cent- , dark continent,' which you have done a-Day Band. I am sure that you and more than any other person to bring your readers will be very glad to know ;to light. that there are now 13 or more bands, ,, Yours, with high esteem, with aggregate membership of about " Mrs. J. E. RAY. 650. More bands will be started imme- ." Asheville, N. C." diately.
Grand Possibilities. "There is a widespread interest in We gave in our July issue the out- the movement. Among the letters of line of a plan, devised and put in inquiry that I have received, some have come from Maine, New York, {)peration by a leading banker of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and Boston, to increase the permanent re- even Oregon. I am more and more ceipts of all our missionary societies sanguine that the' Extra-Cent-a-Day Band' may be made a tremendous without interfering with already-es- missionary power. tablished agencies. Simple and unos- " Sincerely yours, tentatious as this plan is, it seems to "S. F. WILKINs."
us worthy of careful study, if not of This is a good beginning, and we see general adoption. In the nature of no reason why the plan should not things it is adapted to all churches, come into general use. We earnestly all lands, and all conditions of things. commend it to our churches of all It is systematic in principle; it en- denominations, and to the considera- courages self-denial; it is within the tion ofourmission-boardsandsocieties.
reach of every friend of missions; the A cent a day is but a trifle, but if the method costs nothing but a little thirteen million Protestant Christians ,effort; and while the gift is small, the in the United States would give at aggregate is likely to be large. Mr. that rate, yeady $47,450,000, instead of Wilkins' own experience, at Newton $6,000,000, would flow into the Lord's -Centre, Mass., in the church which treasury. Is the plan not worth a he attends, we regard as a fair speci- vigorous trial? J. M. S.
men of what the method is capable of In response to a recent statement in yielding, if a fair chance be given it. the REVIEW, that a church in Phila- The Extra-Cent-a-Day Band there delphia had undertaken the support of numbered, in July, 111. The ex- at three of the native helpers whom Rev.
pected receipts for the year will be R. M. Mateer has hired his own over $400, which will practically all be charge in Shantung Province, Shang- extra. It is not intended to interfere hai, we have received the following: with other ways of giving, but to -EDS.
supplement the usual methods or "The Willing Workers' Band, of the Broadway Presbyterian ,Church .agencies. So an extra cent only is of Rock Island, a band of some 25 lads, has assumed the support of another, and it has kindled great en- thusiasm to think of supporting a preacher for a year in China.
"Yours, "WM. S. MARQUIS, Pastor."
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN. 797'
VII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa.-The London Spectator reports a five Europeans superintend the work.-Afri..
recent decree issned by the Sultan of Zanzi- can News.
bar which is more immediately important as Brazil.-Protestant newspapers.-Brazil'
a blowto the African slave trade than the con- has at present six, to wit: ImprensaEvangeli- ference at Brussels. Zanzibar has heretofore ca,weekly; Evangelista, three times a month'
afforded the largest outlet for slaves from the Apologista Christao, weekly; Expositor fJhris: interior, Under the decree of the sultan, the tao, fortnightly; Arauto, monthly; Pulpito.
exchange, sale, or purchase of slaves is ab- Ji}vangelico, monthly. The representative'
solutely prohibited; all slave-dealing estab- Christian newspaper has not yet made its ap- lishments are closed; all slave-brokers carry- pearance in Brazil; a paper that is able to ing on the business made liable to heavy cover the whole ground. The capital and the penruties, and to deportation; all Arabs deal- men are both wanting. The present religious ing in domestic slaves are included in this press is in the hands of busy, overworked mis- provision, and any houses hereafter used for sionaries who edit their newspapers in the any purpose connected with the slave traffic hours stolen from rest.
are to be forfeited. Regarding slavery in Cbina.-Recent trustworthy calculations Zanzibar itself, the decree provides that on of the population of the Chinese Empire, by"
the death of their present owners slaves shall Russian antporities, reckon it at 382,000,000, be ipso facto free, unless the deceased leave and the annual increase at 4,000,000. Not one lawful children, who alone may inherit them. in 10,000 ever heard of the religion of Jesus, Slaves cannot be willed away or sold after the Christ.
death of their owner, and their ill-treatment -The China Inland Mission received last by their masters will be severely"punished, and, year £51,484, of which £33,642 were available"
in certain cases, involve the penalty of for- for general mission purposes.
feiture. Any Zanzibar subject married to a per- France.-The Rev. Dr. McAII, ofParis, in son under British jurisdiction is disabled from a recent letter, doolares his intention to have holding slaves, and all slaves now in the pos- anchored in the Seine a large missionary boat, session of such persons are declared free. Per- which has done service in many of the French sons who have themselves been slaves are pro- seaports. "It will be the first time," he says, hibited from owning slaves. Every slave is to "that this mode of evangelization has been at- have the absolute right to purchase his freedom tempted in Paris, but, though the popUlation· at a reasonable price; every slave is to have the is not seafaring, we have the impression that same rights as Arabs in courts of justice, and with God's blessing, the novelty of the method the sultan binds himself to accord them special will draw the attention of many hitherto ig- protection. These regulations will undoubt- norant of the Gospel. The cabin of the ship"
edly inflict a very heavy blow on a large sec- will contain nearly 200 persons, and we hope tion of the slave trade, besides involving a to have daily servi~ on board for two very serious social revolution in Zanzibar. If, months. The authorities have given us every as is reported, this decree has been secured by facility and protection."
English influence, the English protectorate in Formosa.-Rapid progress.-Some per- Zanzibar has made a most auspicious begin- sons complain that the missionary work ad- ning. vances so slowly, but God often shows that -Africa has now within her borders 10 He can accomplish His ends rapidly. One of American, 12 British, and 13 continental mis- the latest Instances of rapid progress is the sionary societies. There are more than 700 change wrought in the moral and religious ordained missionaries, and more than 7,000 condition of the inhabitants in Formosa, an native preachers. It is estimated that there island in the China Sea. The population here are, both white and native, about 175,ooocom- is mixed in character, being partly Chinese, municants, and 800,000 adherents.-North- and partly wild tribes. Among the latter western Ohristian Advocate. people, the missionary began some fourteen -Hamburg, July 23d.-The Reichstag, the years ago, to labor. At that time, idolatry first steamer in the new East African line, held sway, and hatred was felt and expressed sailed hence to-day with a full cargo and sev- for the foreigners. The diftlculties and ob- eral passengers. stacles in the way seemed almost insuper- -Congo Railway.-Over 1,000 Africans are able, but the workers had faith and energy, now at work on the Congo railroad. On April and God was with them. They gradually 12th, two miles of it had been completed; this found favor, and their labors proved success- portion begins at Matadi, which is at the ful. Now 12,000 conversions are reported, western end of the road, ninety miles from and churches are In full operation. Schools the sea. The principal difficulties lie in the have also been started, a native ministry is building of the first ten miles before the level being trained, and hospitals have been estab- plateau of the Congo hills is reached, Twenty- lished. Christianity has thus gained a strong footing. The next 14 years should,with such a Japan. – Murder of Mr. Large. Dr. wonderful foundation, manifest most remark- Thwing, our correspondent, who has just re- able gains in this island, and its complete turned from Tokyo, and who spent some time domination by Christ may be expected in the among the associates of the recently-murdered near future. GDd has his own way of work- missionary, w!'ites us that it was clearly a ing; but whether it be by slow or by speedy cltse of revenge, and not of cupidity. The processes, let us not despair of his final con- reply to the question, .. What is it?" which quest of the world, nor relax our efforts to met the two assassins as tbey entered the eircle the earth with His Gospel. chamber, was "Business," the euphemistic word for revenge. Mr. Large had not an Italy.-The Evangelical Church of Italy, enemy, but he and his wife were regarded as formerly called the Free Italian Church, is one in this savage, retaliatory action. There doing a noble work for Christ in that land. is a widespread feeling of unrest and of re- Its report for 1889 shows that it has many en- pugnance against the revolutionizing infiu- couragements attending its work. The ence of Western ideas, both in education, re- ehurches number 31, with 55 stations. There ligion and politics. are 2,305 communicants, and 1,374 school -It is a noteworthy circumstance that the ehildren. Evaugelist Spigno, of Genoa, one first Japanese Parliament, elected on the first of its agents, makes the following cheering of last July, contains ten Christians, or one in statement: .. The time is not mature for a thirty of the whole number of members. profound and general revival among the These Christians were elected in the face of Catholics, but it is certainly coming through much opposition to them on account of their the power of Christ. With pleasure, too, I religion. observe that the skeptical spirit, once so dominant, is gradually dying away, so that -It is reported that there are 3,000 Japan- the Gospel is no longer the object of scorn. ese in this country, of whom 2,000 have been In regard to Catholicism, it is morally de- baptized by missionaries in their own land, or molished. since they came to the United States.
India.-At a recent meeting in connection New Hebrides.-We have another strIk- with the C. M. S. in Salisbury square, a letter ing instance of the fact that the gifts of con- was read from Rev. H. J. Hoare, of Peshawar, verts from heathenism for the work of the Punjab. He speaks of it as a city of seventy Lord, put to shame the contributions of Chris- or eighty thousand inhabitants. The Afghans tians in better circumstances. The converts in it call themselves Bani-Israel- sons of on Aneityum, one of the New Hebrides Israel. They have a decidedly Hebraic cast Islands, volunteered the price of this season's of feature. Theyare great enemies of idola- crop of cocoanuts for the purpose of roofing try and higoted Mohammedans. The GDspel two churches with corrugated iron. The ean be freely preached; a handsome church copra, which is the dried fruit of the cocoanut, is built; and English-speaking natives attend is the chief source from which these islanders a literary institute. Before this wide door obtain their foreign goods, such as clothing, which is opened, the paucity of missionaries is ironware, tea, sugar, rice, etc. These Christhe pressing distress. "Fields white unto tians agreed to use for this purpose all their harvest" is the summons proceeding from copra for six months, so dispensing with every quarter. the comforts, not to say the necessaries of life. In this way they gave twenty-six tons of -Two Bengalee ladies, after a five-years' copra, valued at $574. While engaged in this course of study, received the degree of M.B. work of self-denial one of the churches was (Bachelor of Medicine), at the Calcutta Uni- destroyed by a hurricane, and so the people versity. They are both Christians. One has proposed, in addition to what they had already received an appointment under the Countess done, to devote the proceeds of the annual of Dufferin fund, and the other will open pri- arrowroot contribution toward this object. vate practice in Calcutta. Giving like this, were it practised among Christians generally, would make the Lord's -The baptism of Baboo Poresh Nath Sar- treasury overflow. kar, an interesting young Hindu, by Mr. Hector, principal of the Free Church College New Zealand.-The last census in New at Calcutta. which took place on a recent Zealand reveals the interesting fact of a pro- Sunday at Mahanad, has excited no little fession of religion on the part of no less interest. His relatives tried to prevent the than 95 per cent. of the whole population. baptism by detaining him in Calcutta, but he escaped from their toils, and reached the ap- Palestine.-Bishop Blythe, of Jernsalem, pointed place in time to meet Mr. Hector. He says there are now in Palestine double the has had to leave his wife and three children, number of Jews that returned from the Babywho have been taken possession of by his lonish captivity, and that the "latter rains" father, a bigoted Hindu. This persecuted which had been withheld since the times of disciple took his B.A. degree in 1884, and has the exile, had been granted again during the been head'master in a Christian school in last two years. Mahanad since 1887. -Colonization.-At a meeting of about '2,000 Jews in London, an address was given had done all in their power to dress the wounds by the Rev. H. Mackobe, on the new move- and sustain the patient. For a time good ment for the colonization of Palestine. It was hope was entertained of her recovery, but in stated that large numbers of Jews were be- the course of a few days inflammation set in, ing enrolled as members, and that the pro- and neither tender ministrations nor medical posed agricultural pursuits on the ground skill availed to save the precious life.
round Mount Zion were meeting with general As usual, the authorities were slow to take support. The allotments would be by ballot. measures for the arrest of the murderer, but Russla.-The Russian Minister of the In- through the vigorous efforts of Col. Stewart, terior has prdered the local authorities to pre- the English Consul, who stirred up the officers vent foreign missionaries from carrying on and himself offered a reward of $75 for the their religious propaganda among the Jews, capture of the murderer, the man was finally to the detriment of the exclusive right of con- arrested and imprisoned.
version possessed by the orthodox church. Mrs. Wright was an Armenian lady of most Scotland.-A society in Scotland, the Ayr- excellent Christian character, the daughter of shire Christian Union .has undertaken the a noble Christian mother who had been identi- work of sending out young men to Southern fied with our mission for ml;lny years. Mrs.
Morocco, to become missionaries after the .Wright visited this country with her husband plans advocated by Rev. E. F. Baldwin, going a few years ago, and won the confidence and forth two by two, without purse or scrip, ac- esteem of all with whom she came in contact.
cording to Matt. x: 9, 10. Although enjoying her visit to this Christian Switzerland.-The annual session of the land, she welcomed the day of her departure Switzerland Conference of the Methodist for her own land, that she might resume the Episcopal Church was recently held at La work which lay upon her heart, and to which Chaux de Fonds, with Bishop Warner presid- she had giTen her life. The bereaved husband ing. The Conference reports 5,109 members, and children and the mission so greatly 33 preachers, and 28 chapels. Formerly the afflicted are commended to the prayers of churches of this Conference were united with God's people. -Dr. Gillespie in New York those of Germany in one conference. Evangelist.
Turkey.-A·n extraordinary result of mis- -The Proportion of Missionaries to Popusion work in Turkey is the large Armenian lations. When the total statistics of missions emigration to America. The Armenians have are submitted one gets the notion that the learned that America is a paradise, next to . laborersaremanyratherthanfew. Butletthe heaven; and they are here, now, literally by number be placed side by side with the poputhe tens of thousands, all as the result of mis- ·Iations to whom they are sent and the imsion work. They do not go to Europe, but to pression is very different. America, and here they are industrious, respectable people. But this is a serious loss to China has one to 733,000 of population. the mission churches in Turkey. Siam " 6(X),OOO -The great revival which has taken place in connection with the Turco·American MIs- Korea 500,000 sion at Aintab, in Armenia, has resulted in the addition of 534 new members to the church. India 350,000 -Murder of a Missionary's Wife. A re- Africa 300,000 cent telegram in the newspapers has already announced the murder of Mrs. Wright, the In Central Africa and the Soudan the prowife of Rev. J. N. Wright, of Salmas, one of portion is one to each 5,000,000 of people. the stations of our Western Persia Mission. What are these among so many f Like the The facts, as they have reached the Board of five barley loaves, they must be multipled to Foreign Missions, are hriefly these: An Armen- supply the needs of the hungry multitude. ian teacher who had been employed in our We confess that it requires a miracle to make boys' school at Salmas was dismissed because the supply equal to the need. But nothing is of gross sin. As a maid servant iI'. the family too hard for God. Were His people as obediof Mr. Wright was involved, Mrs. Wright had ent to His will and as responsible to His comfelt constrained to reprove the young man, mand as were the loaves to the Lord Jesus, who in turn charged his dismissal entirely to there would soon be more than sufficient for the work of evangelizing these millions, and th~re would be no lack of funds, but the peo- ple, like the Israelites in the wilderness, would her, and took revenge by stabbing her five have to be told to cease from giving. Chris- times. Mr. Wright, who was in the adjoining tendom has the men and the means necessary room, immediately rushed to the rescue, but for the conversion of heathendom. Our chosen too late to avert the assault. A telegram was fields-China and India and Central Africa- a_ once sent to Tabriz for a physician, there are in especial need of more laborers. The being none nearer. Tabriz is thirty hours few converts call to us to come over and help from Salmas, but because of various delays, them. Let them be helped promptly, liberally, forty-nine hours elapsed before a physician and as if we are resolved soon to win China reached the bedside of Mrs. Wright. Mean- and India and the Congo for Christ.-The while her husband and associate missionaries Freeman (London).
INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE OCTOBER NUMBER. [Oct•
INDEX OF CONTENTS OCTOBER NUMBER.
PAGE PAGE· I.-LITmRATURE OF MISSIONS•••••• 721-759 mated population, 797: ChinaIulandMis· II.-GmNmRAL MISSIONARY INTICLLI' slon……………………………….. 797'
GENCE…………………… 763-778 ENGLAND.-Dr.Barnardo's annual meet- m.-MIssIONARY COaREBl'ONDENCE•• 773-777 ing of children, 770: Report of the Inves- IV.-INTmaNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.•• 777-785 tigating Committee of the London Mls- V.-MoNTHLY CONCER? OF MISSIONS 785-792 sionary Society…………………….. 773, Vl.-EDITORUt. NOTmS ON CuRRENT FRANCE,-Letter from our cOxTespon- TOPICS ………………… 792-796 dent at Marseilles, 775: a missionary boat on the Seine…………………… 797'
VII.-PRoGREss OF MISSIONS: MONTH- FORMOSA.-Rapid progress in mission t.Y BUUmTIN ……………. 797-799 work ……………………………… 797'
vm.-INDEX TO OONTmNTS ••••..• ••••• 800 INDIA.-Child marriages, 765: Zenana Authors. missions, 766; Testimony to Indian mis· sions, 766; Lepers in India, 767: The EDITORS. – A. T. Pierson. The Prayer opium curse, 770; Tendency toward Brahma Somajism, 771: Letter from for Laborers, 741; The Soudan Mission, Miss Ellen Arnold, 775; Hebraic race in the Punjab, 798; Baptism of an interest- 793: Dr. Pentecost's Siege of Calcutta, ing Hindu …………………………. 797 794: ~he "New Herrnhut," 794: J. M. ITALY.-The Evangelical Church Mis· sion……………………………….. 798- Sherwood, Editorial Notes…………… 795 Bracq, Rev. J. C., Cardinal Lavigerie and his Anti·slavery Work……. …. … 721 Ellinwood, F. F., D.D., A Foreign Mis- sionary of Old Testament Times, 725; JAPAN.-A correction of statement, Missions and Sects in the Turkish Em· 776; murder of Mr. Large, 797; First Jap· pire ……………………………… 785 anese parliament…………………… 798- Gracey, J. T., D.D., International Depart- KOREA.-RomanCatholic movement In. 730 ment……………………………… 777 Lavigerie, Cardinal, and his anti·slavery Grout, Rev. Lewis, Mahdism and Missions work ……………………………… 721 in the Soudan………………………. 753 MADAGASCAR.-Confcern of Eng. Hamilton, Rev. J. Taylor, The Foreign Mis- lish missionary societies, 767; The gold sions ofthe Moravian Church ………… 777 craze…………………………….. 767 Hulbert, Prof. H. B., A Sketch of the R0- Missions, modern, results of permanent. 767 man Catholic Movement in Korea …… 730 Mission work, undenominational…. •• …. 736 Missionaries, Five from one Cradle. . . . . .•. 772 Johnston, Rev. James, A. S. A., Missionary Moravian Church, Foreign Missions of the 777 Notes …………………………….. 765 NEW HEBRIDES.-Remarkable Liber· Laurie, Rev. Thomas, D.D., The Results of ality of the Converts …….. ………. 798- Modern Missions Permanent………… 746 NEW ZEALAND.-The Last Census..• 799 Moorhead, Max Wood, Student Volunteer PALESTINE.-The Number of Jews Movement…………………………. 768 there, 799; Colonization. …………… 799 Porter, Rev. Thomas J., First Impressions Prayer for Laborers, 741: The Bishop of in Brazil……… . ….. …………… 783 Korea……………………………… 768' Riggs, Rev. James F., Undenominational RUSSIA.-Repressing Missionary Work. 799 SCOTLAND.-Sending out Missionaries Mission Work ……………………… r.m to Morocco….. .. …………………. 799 Starbuck, Rev. Charles C., Translations SWITZERLAND.-The Religious Con· from Foreign Missionary Periodicals•••• 759 Countries and Subjects.
AFRICA.-Mahdism and Missions In the dition of, 771: Annual Meeting of M. E.
Soudan,753: Abolition of Slavery in Zan· Conference .. ,…………… .. …….. 799 zibar, 765; The British East African Co., SYRIA.-Letter from our African Cor· 768; The Congo river of to-day, 769; King respondent, now in Beyrout…………. 776 Leopold and the Congo State, 769; Zanzi- TRINIDAD.-Letter from Rev. John bar decree against slavery, 797; Number Morton, D.D……………………….. 784 of missionary societies in Africa, 797: TURKEY.-Large Armenian Exodus to Congo railway.. . .. …… • •.. .. .. .•• :. 797 America… … .. ………….. , …….. 799 BRAZIL.-Reaction, 769; First Impres- TURKISH EMPIRE. – Missions and sions in, 783: Protestant newspapers .••• 797 Sects, 785; The Greek Church, 786; The BURMAH.-Buddhist extravagance in Maronite Church, 787; The Druzes, 787: beautifying their temples…………… 770 Missions in Turkey, 791; The Religion of CHINA.-China Iuland Mission of North the Nusairiyeh…………………….. 799 America, 778: The treaty with China, 785; Note from Dr. Thwing, 798; Wright, Mrs.
Support of a missionary in, 796; Esti· J. N., of SaJmas, the Murder of……… 799