The Missionary Review of the World — April 1898
EXTRAXCE TO THE GREAT BURMESE PAGODA AT
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: VOl•. XXI. No. 4.-0ld &ries.- APRIL -VOL. XI. No.4.-New &ries.
SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS OF THE HALF OENTURY.- INDIVIDUAL LINKS BETWEEN GIVERS AND 'rUE MISSION FIELD.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
No practical problem, now occupying the wisest and best minds, is more engrossing than this: how to secure, from cheerful givers at home, a hearty and unfailing support for workers abroad, or on the borders of civilization in the home land. Great as is the need of a larger force in the field, the question pressing just now, with tremendous weight, is how to keep the laborers already in the field, and prevent disastrous retrenchment in the work already begun. On every side, and in every direction, the grand undertakings of the Church are at risk. Debts so enormous as almos~ to wreck boards representing home and foreign missions, and deficiencies so crippling to all aggressive action as to compel retrenchment instead of advance, have caused a chronic alarm and .apprehension that are paralyzing to all hopeful enterprise. It is only great faith in God that dares take one step forward and onward when the work presents such an aspect and prospect.
Devout souls stand in the presence of such a crisis in missions, with the deep conviction that it is both needless and shameful. 1'here is money enough, yea and piety enough, to remedy all these evils and supply all these deficiencies, were the money and the piety only made available. In nature, power and energy have always been present, but' have not al ways been properly applied. And so the cOllllPcting Jinks seem somehow wanting between Ohristians at home and the work and workers abroau. Dr. Thomas O. Upham has saiu,t that there is in every comrnonweatb, "a conservative hody of men who, in their freedom from passion, call estimate the just claims of tI'U th, and, in the strength of moral amI religious principle, will at all hazards do what is right." And hence," when great constitutional and moral ques- ':. This periodical ailopts the Ol'thcr;raphy of the folloiYing Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philolo,;;cal Association and the Philological Society of England :-Change d or ed final to t when ~() lll'ollonnced, except when the e affects a preceding sound.-PuBLISHERS.
t Life of Faith. 300 p.
SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS OF THE HALF CENTURY
tions are at stake, the results have generally been favorable to law and truth, in consequence of the accession at the precise moment of danger of those of all denominations of persons, wro, in their devotion to rectitude of principle, have declined to recognize the coercions of party discipline, and who constitute the genuine' Imperial Guard' or 'Macedonian Phalanx,' who strike only at the moment of imminent hazard, and whose moral strength renders them inYincible."
The Church of God is the hope of all good ellterprises, and within its sacred inclosure are the very" Body-guanl of the King." There is on the earth a vast company of prayerful, intelligent, consecrated men and women, amply sufficient ill lllllllbcr, amply ellieient ill faculty, and not at all deficiellt ill either sympathy for holy activity or in self-sacrifice for its promotion; and, if this Lody of God's dcar saints could Lc brought illto yital touch with the work of lIIissiotls, money and workers would bc continually forthcoming; there would be alike men in tIle field and" III pat in God's bOllse." It is the link of connection that is lacking. The majority of Cllrist's disciples know little. of the Wf1nts of the world-tield, and lmve never cOllie to feel the needs and claims of the work. Theil' milld" a1(1 hearts, eonsciences and sympathies, have not yet Leell really enlisted. If any impression has been made lljlOIl them, it bas been occasiollal alld incidental, and hence tllC respollse has beell spasmodic alld illlplllEil'e. But in them lie the latent pos~il)ilities of yast increase ill all that aids the Lest enterprises of the Church-the 'lI/otOi' which lIel'<ls ollly proper lJ1achinery t() conllect it with tbe work to be dOlle.
When all)' temporal tlisaster, like plague or falllill(', llIakes its appeal, mOlley flolVs ill streams, alld' sOllictiIII PS in floods. The difference lies bere: the appeal in the latter ease is lou(] and strollg, echoed by every llcwspaper, ('mphasi7.ecl ill CH'l"}" ~crlllOll and public meetillg for relief. '1'he ealamity that is presellt or threatellillg Lecollies everywhere the cnrrellt topic of COllYersatiOlI. There is 110 eluding its clamorolls dem:LlH] for help, 11lld knowlc(]ge d fIlets kill(lles sympathy alld sympathy loosells pnrse-strings alld lwart-strings. Can 1I0t the perishing millions who know !lot the Gospel, be so brought practically into proximity with the millions of disciples who really love the Master, and are ready to respond to His command llll(l to their claims, as that a constallt stream of cons('cmted gifts may be secnl'ed beyond the risk of all this ullcertainty ?
In reference to this matter, we desire to put once wore 011 record onr OWll deliberate, calm, prayerful, alld mature jndglll8nt, that no OIW tking would do 1IIore to secure a jlI'Oll/jJt, })(JI"l)l{lIleld, (lliil altogetltm' 1tnprecedented advance in missiolls, than this samc plan, whiclJ the writer has advocated for more than twenty-tire years-and which has been steadily growing ill flLvor aml ill success-oj ~llJiJiorting individual missionaries in tlte field by individ1Wl contributions.
LINKS BETWEEN GIVERS AND THE MISSION PIELD
Nothing is more needed in all missionary aggressive enterprise than three grand conditions: Knowledge of the field ~l/Oork, sympathy with the worker, and pmyc!:ful interest in tlie work. When these are secUl·ed, gifts pour ill without special appeals and without cessation. One method of supplying all these conditions readily suggests itself. Any man or woman of a family that is immediately linkt to the missionary cause by the support of a missionary, will naturally come to know the field, to feel Ollcness with the worker, and to pray interestedly for the work and its progress. In repeated visits to Britain, having crost the sea -now seven times and back, and having spent a large part of the last ten ycars in Great Britain, the writer has been urollght into contact with hundreds of families that, as such, support olle or more ll'.issionaries, in some cases of their own number, and in others of the church or denomination to which they uelong. And in such cases there are uniformly found an illtelligence as to missions, a deep personal sympathy with missionaries, an absorbing interest in the work and in the people among whom it is done, a high standard of giving, and a high level of praying, not commonly met with under any otiter circumstances.
:For example a Scottish family-a poor family-gave one, two, three sons to missions. One of them became disabled, and his sister went and took his place, and two of the grandchildren followed – six from one house. Need it be said that in that household the standard of knowledge, zeal, prayer, and giving was very high? Another family-that of a Scottish knigbt-sent a daughter to India as a fully cquipt medical missionary; the effect Oll. the whole family life was uplifting, and tliat family became itself a little missionary society, with all the cOlluitions of success. Again a family-comparatively wealthy-resol ved to give, pound for pound, and shilling for shilling, to the snpport of missiollaries, the amollnt spent on home expenses. That house is the gathering-place of missionaries ancI' a school of missionary information. Both the husband anu wife can discourse of missions in any part of the world with intelligence and power. There is a family in Liverpool, whose son is in India in the Civil Seryice, but himself practically a missionary. Letters pass to and fro, allll in that home allY of us may learn of the condition, especially of Indian missions, and a habitual giving is there to be found, which sho's a world-wide sympathy. A family in London supports not one but many mission workers, wholly or in part, in various fields. A.fraJilcd list of subjects for daily prayer is hung up in plain sight, and, as each new clay comes, the subject for that day is conspicuous. Of course, giving is bound to go with such praying, and the husband and wife, each one the independent possessor of a fortune, have given np all hoarding of mOltey that they may ell rich others, and frugally avoid needless expense that they may have more to uestow.
'M4 SPIRITUAL· MOVEMENTS OF THE HALF CENTURY
'l'hat home is another missionary training-school. Another family of eleven sons and daughters are all engaged in mission work of some sort; the city of London is their field. One of them is training for the foreign field and has offered himself; and there again all the conditions are met, high intelligence, earnest prayer, fervent sympathy, and habitual giving. Such examples might be multiplied without limit. But these justify alld illustrate the principle, which is all we Jleed to do.
Before being confronted with these and like examples, the writer, in the year 1870, proposed to a church, of which he was then pastor, that the young men should form themselves into a missionary circle, and undertake to support a young man abroad. The proposal proved a seed in a congenial soil and took root. A numLer of the young men thus associated undertook the support of a young man who was just going to Japan and who spent years there as a most efficient and acceptable missionary and educator. Need it be said that the standard of knowledge, praying, and giving in that church rose to an uncommon level? In 1869 the sum total of benevolent and missionary offerings reacht about $J ,800; in 18,9 they reacht about $18,000, for that church was one of the best organized in the country in the matter of its mission bands and societies, from the" Rhea Band -, of the Sunday-school up to the adult organizations.
In 1883 I settled in Philadelphia. There was a large body of people, numbering ill all from 3,000 to 4,000, more or less closely identified with Bethany church and its great Sunday-school. After some few years of education in missiolls, taking up country after country and missionary heroes and heroines, etc., there was a band of several young people who proposed to go out to some foreign field as a colony, and lIon. J Jhn ,Vanamaker offered a thousand dollars for tlle pastor to go and prospect and locate the field for the colony. It was then 11l'obaLle that the entire support of this mission band would have been attempted by the church, as Pastor Harms' church in IIermannsLurg had done, so long before. The head of this mission band was a young Welsh licentiate and his wife, others who offered Leing simple artizl1ns and traelesmell. At th~t time tllCl'e was prOSCll teel to the presbytery a printed statement cOHring all tIle facts, aIHl askillg only for encouragement. It was most graciously l'eeei red, and referred to a committee to confer with the board; and the result was that it was deemed by the boarn. ullwise to eneonrage any such irmovation, and so the whole mattcr fell through. On eallllly reviewing the whole matter, there is no (lollht that there would have Leen a large shrinkage had the theory beell reduced to practise. Some of this proposing mission band woulll proLably ha1'e "gone back" when the actlUlI work was undertaken. ~0 don bt much of the glamor of enthusiasm woul(l IH1ye faded away, like Ephraim's goodness, the
LINKS BETWEEN GIVERS AND THE lIfISSION FIELD
morning cloud, and early dew. No doubt the conserratiYe policy of presbytery and the board had much worldly wisrlom back of it. But, after all reductions and deductions have been made, it still remains true that, had that church sent one or more missionaries direct to the fleld, it might have become, with the generous and enterprising busi- Hess man who has from the beginning been practically at its head, one of the main feeders of missions!
Take the Presbyterian Church as one example of what could be done by the individual missionary plan. The board needs, let us say, $1,000,000 for the proper prosecution of its existing missions. It has all it can do to get this sum, tho there is a membership of as many souls as it asks <1o11ars annually. Of course, if this amount could be equally and proportionately di vided; if each member would give one dollar a year, one-third of a cent a day, the whole amount would be raised without allY self-denial-tho that is a damage rather than an advantage. But this result, simple as it is, can not be secmed. The bulk even of Presbyterian church-members give nothing! '''hat if out of the whole denominationflve hundred churches could be found from Maine to California that would give $2,000 each to the support of a missionary abroad, keeping in touch with him by letters, studying his field, and praying Imbitually for his work? We should have the $1,000,000 and all the rest of the denomination left to work on for surplus amounts. Or, let us suppose 1,000 churches to give $1,000 each, the same result is accomplisht.
In this vast membership of about 1,000,000 there are believed to be not less than twenty thousand millionaires. In one church, of which the writer was pastor, there were twenty men or women, anyone of whom could without self-sacrifice have maintained a missionary in the field. There are no less than two hundred and jifty men in this one denomination that represent an average of ten million each, or an aggregate slim of $2,500,000,000. How few of us know what that sum mealls! If piled up, in five dollar gold-pieces, that aggregate wealth would reach th)'ce fhousanll five hundred miles into space! But, of course, we know that millionaires are not always or generally selfdenying givers. But can not there be foun<1 1,000 men or women in this whole Presbyterian Church that will each undertake, at the cost annually of $1,000, to support a missionary in the field? And what llllspeakable advantage to tIle givers! What increase of knowledge of the field of work! What increasingly sympathetic touch with the missionary and through him or her with all other fields aJ..d workers; and what a stimulus to prayer, t.o giving, to personal consecration! 'Vhat has been shown to be possible in this one denomination in the United States furnishes only an example of general possibilities if the Church of God were in dead earnest.
Eighteen centuries )uLve sped since 0111' Lord gave his final com-
24G SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS OF THE HA":'F CENTURY
mission. To-day uhere remain at least 800,000.,000 of human beings to. he reacht with the Gospel message. And of these 2;5,000,0.00. will die during the year 1898, over 2,0.0.0,000 a month! At the present rate of mission prog:'ess the world willlleve1' be overtaken. III fact, at a time when every condition of the field demands advance and every condition of the Church justifies it, in seven out of ten of om missionary societies the decroe has gone forth for retrenchment from twenty to twenty-jive pel' cent! In other wor<1s, with the population increasing at the rate of 2,0.0.0,000 a month, and proportionately dying, the Church of Christ, that aggregates at least fifty million Protestant members with hoarded ,"oalth that defies computation, instoad of sounding the siher trumpet for the assemhling of the camps and tho forward march around the ark of the covenant, bids the ignominious drum of a worldly selfishness to heat a retreat; and wo rotire from positiolls, gained at the cost of hlood and of treasure, and of lives giyen for Christ; ,ye actually surrender frOlr one-fomth to one-fifth of our outposts and capturod fortrosses, and bid tho foo once more swoep hack npon tho territory claimed and possest for God!
And if ono nowadays raises the cry of alarm, amI thunders out a remonstrance; if one declares that missions have never beon in greater danger rf utter collapse through tltis lad,; (!f adequate giving, the answer, from somo fellow-believers, is ridicule, robuke, stigmatizing opithets, snch as "pessimist," "eroaker," ete.
Ono gravo cOllsideration should be beforo us as to individual resllonsiiJilit:,-. l~lItold disaster to Chnrch-work ~laS been entailed oy the withdrawing and withholding of offerings en tho part of those to whom the local church and the denomination have a right to 'look for finaIlCial snpport. A clmreh-mernber should hare very solid reasons-reasons ihat would stullcl not only the scrntiEy of an enlightened conscienee, but Lho searching inquiry of omniscience-who treats with lH'glect, indifferellce, or contempt tho mission work of the ehurch and donomination to which such individual member belongs.. A board, or other ropreseniatire committee, is hut [.n administrative body. It senus missionaries to the field under tho implied plod go of the church it represents, to stand oehilld it and to support them there; and to this implied covenant every church-member is a necessary party. '1'0 allow the missionary agency to be erippled hy an ompty troasury and half '1'('ckt by dobt, is something for ' hich, thereforf', overy church-momber is responsible, alHI will be held accountable by the Master of us all.
This plan of thus directly eonnecting home churehes, familios, and indivi(bal givers with the mission field hy these liying and personal ,r links, has beon growing in favor, and having increasing proof of Go,1'8 blossing, of late years. e lmve already >;een how that, ill connection with the Chureh 1fissionary Society of Britain, there are ahout 300
LINKS BETWEEN GIYERS AND THE :MISSION FIELD
missionaries maintained by special gifts of indiridual donors, without prejudice tlJ the general war!,;, which is a very important fact. The Presbyterian Board in this country is just now advocating a similar policy, encouraging indiyiduals to give to the support of special missions and missionaries, while they carefully caution such donors that they deem it unwise EoI' such gifts to be ,'imited to special objects in the mission i'leld, as it lias been found that interest is apt to decline, and support to be withdrawn, when such special object is no longer deemed auvisable or practicable.* Of comse, when gifts to missions are prompted by a truly Christ-like spirit, they will never be limited by too narrow a range of personal sympathies or individual preferences. The work is cosmopolitan, and demands a cosmopolitan soul behind it-catholic, impartial-universal sympathy, and support. When it ceases to he wise to pursue allY particular line of work, or to occupy any particular sphere of service, when allY form of effort ohviously lacks the divine sanction, consecrated gifts will not be withheld altogether, but only diyerted to some wiser, better channel; the work at large must never suffer because any local work fails to commend itself to our further approval awl cooperation. Otherwise we are moved by self-will and not the will of God.
We comlllend for consideration the foll0wing suggestions: 1. That every loar! r:ongl'egahnn shall at once organize with reference to the support of at least one f01'eigll 111 Isslona1'!J, to be associated with its own church life and work. Some congregations can do more than maintain one. Some may not feel equal to the support of even one; let such associate with themseln's Olle or Illore smaller churches. 2. Let eachfalllil.1j ask the question: Can we as a household support a missionary abroad? Many a family that lJas llever yet thought of such a thing as possible, will at once see that by a sIllall reduction of family outlay, or by consecratillg a certain precentage of family income, a missionary could represent them abroad. 3. Let every £ndividual Christian solemnly ask and answer this question: Conltl I not this year support a missionary? There is a man-known to the writer-who is alone in the world and spends at least $10,000 a year for his own kecping; another who pays $10,000 a year reut and has not a ch ild or dependent; another who spent $25,000 in one year's travel; another whose personal expenses are at least $15,000 exclu3i ~~e of house rent; another who, with one child, spends $1O,()00 anuually. 'rherc are others who retrench in eyery * A pertinent example of this method of supporting a missionary, and of enlisting the sympathies of a church is furnisht in the case of the late Dr. A. C. Good, who was sustained in his arduous work in Africa by the contributions of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montclair, N. J. This church askt the board that they might assume his entire support and salary, and regard him as their special representative abroad. The arrangement resulted most happily. His relation to the board was unaltered thereby, and a particular benefit. accrued, not only to that church, but to the Church at large: for never before had he allowed himself to write such full, leisurely letters. The pastor, Rev. Orville Reed, testifies to the blessed influence of these letters on the church, in the real interest awakened in foreign missions~ the warm attachment to the missionary. and the increase of prayerful giving. It was as tho the church lu.J a second" pa;)/.01' in Africa. "~_", A Life for Africa," p~. 14H, 149.
SPIRITUAL M.oVEMENTS .oF THE H.iLF CENTURY
directiQn, cheerfully and habitually, in .order tQ give, like that man who supPQrts an entire mission with its six wQrkers, paying .outfit, transPQrtatiQn, _salary, etc., .out .of his o'Wn PQcket; yet that man is not a rich man, but .one .of very moderate means, but whQ dQes busi- ness and makes mQney fQr Christ.
Mr. Luther D. Wishard is abQut tQ give a year tQ a special effQrt tQ interest individuals in fQreign missiQns. He has large qualificatiQns fQr such wQrk. TQ his life-IQng interest in missiQns is added his fQur years' visitatiQn .of the fQreign field, and SQ he is thQrQughly infQrmed .on these matters. His twenty years' service, first as CQllege Secretary, and then as FQreign Secretary .of the International Committee of Young Men's Christian AssociatiQns, has kept him in tQuch with the field, and given him wide acquaintance amQng missiQnary workers at hQme, fitting him tQ enlist the cQQperatiQn .of prQminent laymen.
He is an effective speaker, and deeply appreciates and strongly empha- sizes the vital relatiQn .of missiQns tQ the spiritual life. The Presby- terian BQard may well be cQngratulated .on securing his services. He accepts this work .only tempQrarily, and his appointment invQlves no additiQn to the bQard's executive fQrce, and nQ increase .of its adminis- trative expenditure, the entire CQst, including not .only his salary and travel, but even PQstage aud statiQnery, being met by a layman, whQ already himself supPQrts tWQ fQreign missiQnaries thrQugh the bQard, and believes that many .others might be induced to cOQperate in this way, if the matter were personally presented to them.
Alas! the Church of GQd as a bQdy is still asleep, .or, if awake, criminally apathetic and lethargic. And the Master of us all will have s.ome day an awful reck.oning with us f.or wasting His g.o.ods, and neglecting His scattered sheep, and dis.obeying His c.ommand. There is bl.o.odguiltiness t.o be required .of this generati.on. Let us abandQn the wQrk .of missiolls altogether if it be nQt Goel's work and ours by His appointment. Hut if it be His wQrk, then in the name .of G.od and .of Christ, and .of the GQspel, and .of Humanity let us do it, and dQ it with sQme such enthusiasm, prayerfulness, generQsity, sacrifice, giving of money, and giving of self, as the magnitude of the trust and the field, and the magnificence .of the wQrk and the reward, and the majesty of the Diville King and Captain demand!
The one thing which the Master i8 nQW pressing upon the attentiQn of all His disciples whQ have ears tQ. hear is the absolute necessity .of remembering, as befQre GQd, their individual duty and privilege. He sQlemnly challenges every disciple tQ face three great questi.ons, as .one whQ alone is tQ gi.ve accQunt .of himself untQ GQd. HQwever we may hide here behind the mass, .or lose .ourselves in the crQwd, at the judgment-seat of Christ everyone .of us, in awful alQneness, must cQnfrQnt these tremendous questiQns: "Hast thou wasted my gQQds ?" "Hast thQU neglected a dying wQrld ? " "Hast thQU shut thine hand and purse against thy needy and perishing brQther man?" And we need tQ meet these questions, nQW, with a practical answer which will stand this scrutiny, if we are not to be "ashamed befQre Him at His cQming."
THE CONDITION OF WOMEN IN INDIA
lIINDU WOMEN OF THE ZENANA.
THE OONDITION OF WOMEN IN INDIA.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
Strange social usages have prevailed in all ages. Some of them have had their origin in differences of religion and race, others in intellectual and physical superiority, and other8 again in pure prejudice and selfishness. Whatever their origin, they have generally wrought toward evil and oppression, ho,"ever innocent their origin or specious their aim. Of all these, there is probably not one which has had a more specious origin, endured for a longer time, extended its influence more widely, affected society more vitally, or produced as large an amount of suffering and degradation, as the low status of the Hindu women.
The main features which have given it this durable, far-reaching power are, that it assumes to be based on essentially natural distinctions, to have divine sanction, and rigidly defines what all women are morally and intellectually, and how they should be treated from the cradle to the grave. How this system originated, and the causes which led to its perpetuation, may be subsequently considered. Our first aim will be to describe the actual positioll of women early in this century, when their condition, according to native ideas, first came to be adequately understood by Europeans.
Happily now more wise and humane sentiments are beginning to prevail; but we wish to show wlwt Hinduism, when left to itself, did for the vast raee which came under its rule, to excite deeper interest and sympathy in the condition of women, and to encourage effort for their emancipation.
The deepest wish of a Hindu father has always been to have a son, since sons are an hOllor to a family, daughters a dishonor and a burden. The former alone is qualified to lead the funeral ceremonies, essential for the happy transmission of the soul. 'fhe birth of a son, therefore, was a welcome event; that of a daughter most unhappy, lowering the mother in the estimation of her family and neighbors, and possibly in her relations to her husband. Girls received no education. Even the art of reading and writing was regarded not only as unnecessary, but as positively dangerous, because likely to make women disobedient and eonceitecl, and putting in their power gifts more likely to be used for misehief and intrigue than for good purposes. Here and there a learned Brahmin taught his daughter, but such instances were rare, for ignorance was considered "the ornament of a woman," and there is no record of a school anywhEre for girls, tho education for boys was greatly valued. A quasi divine authority directed, and custom-the unchallenged despot in all Indian affairs-ruled that every girl should be married before her twelfth year of age. Probably the greater number were married much earlie~, and some when mere children of five and six. Marriage was not at these early ages followed immediately by its eonsummation, but usually-and always with those of high caste-was accompanied by three conditions: (1.) Strict seclusion in the zenana. (2.) Abject submission to the husband's authority, and the mother or sister-in-law, who ruled the zenana; and (3.) Perpetual widowhood in the event of the husband's death.
Dread of caste defilement, fear of the gods, and suspicion of women were the three ruling sentiments of all heads of families. The chastity of the women was assumed to be best secured by not allowing them freedom to walk abroad or to think or act for themselves. Even in her own family, she is not free to leave the zenana and penetrate into that side of the house exclusively given over to the use of her father-in-law, brothers-in-law, ul1cles, and male cousins.
Submission to her husband was absolute, and prest to the t):tent of abjectness. She must not sit in his presence until told to do so, 1101' begin a conversation, or eat with him, or express any opinion contrary to his. Silent submission, not only to his will, but to his reproaches, and even to his chastisement, was regarded as the duty of a wife.
H the husband died, the wife became a life-long widow. Even if they were mere children, who had never lived together, or seen each other but for a moment during the elaborate marriage ceremonies, her marriage was regarded as shameful to her and insulting to the memory of the husband and his family.
Widowhood had also to be associated with life-long austerities and humiliations. It was deemed fitting that all joy and brightness should pass forever out of her life. lIer plentiful and much-loved orna- ments and bordered attire had to be laid aside, and were often vio- lently torn from her ; her head was shaven, she had but one meal a day, and was obliged to fast for two days in the month; she was sub- ject to reproach, contempt, and abhorrence, and was forbidden to be present Oll any occasion of festivity. This was the prescribed usage, tho the poor widow might be a little child or a delicate woman.
There were bu t three escapes from this inferno: prostitution, death, and the suttee. 'l'hefirst was adopted by multitudes, and the last by many, especially in the great province of Bengal.
They sometimes adopted this course in despair, not seluom as an act eminently holy and meritorious, and frequently at the pm'sua- sion of relatives, who thus got rid of what was really an encumbrance and sup- posed to be a disgrace, which by this act was turned into a family honor.
Girls being unwelcome as a family reproach, a bur- den, and a cause of anxiety if not of shame, it is hardly surprising that infanticide was common. There is every reason to think that A LOW CA~TE HINDU WuMAN. some millions annually thus disappeared. It became a system, and was hardly held to be a disgrace. '1'he facilities for it were great. The father had only to give the sign, by a movement of the hand to say" It is nothing, take it away," when the pressure of the midwife's hand on top of the head or throat, or the pan of water, or the poisoned breast, or the adjoining jungle, or river, or tank rec:eived the unwanted one.
All these eustoms were sanctioned by public opinion, and prevailed, more or less, for many centuries among a people twi~e as numerous as now inhabit the United States, and over an area almost equal to all Europe, west of Russia. They centered into the common daily life of immense multitudes, as the following illustrations will show.
The prevalence of suttee was brought to tbe notice of the government early in the century. Careful inquiry Rhowed that while it was everywhere regarded as a most sacred and meritorious deed, it prevailed chiefly among Ragputs and in the large and populous districts near Calcutta. The Serampore Mission in 1804 sent ten agents to collect information as to its prevalence witl1in thirty miles around Calcutta. They reported that more than three hundred widows had been immolated within six months.
Subsequently government inquiry showed that in twelve years, from 1815 to 1826, 7,154 thus died in the presidency of Bengal. In eight of these years, 287 Were bUl'lled in :Madras, and in nine years 248 in Bombay. In 1818 there were at least 839 suttees in British India. Child-wives were often disposed of thns, and sometimes several women thus died at one time. In the parliamentary papers there is given a list -of 61 widows, all under eighteen years of age, who thus perisht between 1815 and 1820.
A Brahmin had married forty wives. Twenty-two died before him, but the remainder all became suttees, leaving more than forty children. In another instance a Brahmin, who had married one hundred wives, died, and twenty-two of his widows became suttees, the fire being kept burning for three days.
Infanticide was yet more common and was confined to girls. It was seldom caused by poverty and want, and was most prevalent among the Ragput and other superior classes. The blue-books abound with such evidence as the following: "The far greater part of the Sharijas in Kutch followed the practise. In Kathiawar the lowest estimate was that 1,000 were annually destroyed, and in Kutch 2,000."
In many large districts government officials malie such reports as the following: " In 157 families there were 32 daughters, but 189 sons. In 13 villages, with 654 families, 429 boys and 100 girls. Elsewhere 350 boys and 90 girls. It was admitted that in one tribe the proportions were 118 boys and 16 girls; in a second, 240 and 98; a third, 131 and 61; and a fourth, 14 and 4; a fifth, 39 and 7," etc.
It was estimated, on good authority, that in Malway 'Lnd Rajputana not less than 20,000 infants were annually destroyed.
The British Government has made this practice a penal offense and used its grcat influence with the native states for its suppression; bn t feminine life is little valued, and, as the natives say," Nothing is so eaeily destroyed as a flower." Therefore, the crime, tho abated, yet goes on, as some curious facts reveal, especially this very obvious one: the government census tables for 1891 state the entire population to be 146,727,296 males and 140,496,135 females-proportions the reverse of those which nature produces.
The early age of marriage, the cruel and repressive usage to which widows are subjected, and the stern hostility to their remarriage, are among the greatest evils of India. Usage and quasi divine authority, enjoin that if the marriage of girls is delayed beyond the age of twelve, the parents neglect a great duty and commit a great sin. There were, when the census was taken in 1891, 22,657,000 widows, almost one-sixth of the entire female population. Of these 13,870 were under four years of age, 60,040 between five and nine, 174,500 between fifteen and thirty-four. The manifold evils of this state of society may be imagined, but can not be described. It offers great temptations to vice. It burdens a large number of families. It constrains wiuowers, if they marry, to take ollild wives, for oihers are not to be had, and it is 110 unusual thing for men of thirty or even fifty years of age to have wives of eight or ten.
In such a condition of society the education of women found no place; tho highly valued for men, and carried by some very high in literature and philosophy, it was, as we have said, even in its simplest elements, regarded not only as unnecessary bnt dangerous for women. A pundit here and there taught a bright and favorite cllild, but probably not one girl in 2G,000 was over in any sense educated.
0+ This was the condition female society when England, with sur- prise, found herself mistress of this magnificent empire, and when missionaries uegan their di rine 'i'e]'].;:. Tho actual condition of things eame uut slowly to be understood, and yet more slowly to be dealt with, for their hands were fnll of prossing preliminary work. Theil' course was most difficult and dangerous, and native sentiment was snspicious, reticent, and hostile to ehange. Happily, in spite of all this, a good beginning in every direction has been made, and gives great promise for the future. It is as when the sweet and gracious inflneilcos of springtime have begull siowly to work ie, nature toward the beauty alld fruitfulness of sultlmer.
By what slow and even painful processes the missionaries tried to trach girls as well as boys; how, meeting with little success, their wives tried girls' schools. and by feminine wi tchery and all mann er of gentle devices, could only induce a few small children of the lowest castes to venture all a precarious attendance; how they tried boardingschools, and finally zenana instruction-all this can not now be told. It is a pathetic story, and one full of interest and importance; a story of quiet, persistent, unobtrusive love in which angels would delight. This on ly can here be stated. Three great factors have mainly CO Iltribl! ted to the change: 1. The usages and policy of tho English r ace as a n ohject lesson to a ;;ingularly in tellectual and observant p eople.
2. The gen eral influence of Christianity as taught by lllissionaries. 3. And above all, the highest education given in a ll tho Anglo-Indian colleges and schools to the el-ite of the upper classes and castes in a ll t h e m ost important cities of the empire.
The carly meth ods employee: fo r reachin g women up to the middle ..'. . of the cCllt ury have grad ually been elllarged in a manner surprising even to the natives them- selves, and hardly expected by the missionaries.
The moyement is n ot general, but where mis- sionaries have labored for a few years, aud the kind of schools named have been active, the condition of women has been greatly improved.
For instan ce : 1. Some of the worst usages have been abolisht, or greatly restricted. Infanticide was I If prohibited in 1802. Suttee in 1829. Female education was undertaken by the government A CHRISTIAN HINDU GIRL. in 1850. 'rhe remarriage of widows legalized in 1806. The age of consent raised in 1891.
Ou questions on which public opinion rather than legislative action mu st bri'ng abollt a change, there is a markt advance. '1'he most influen tial classes are now advocating the r estriction, if not abolition, of child marriage; the encouragemell t of female cducation, morc respect, and greater freedom for women; the humane treatment of widows anu their r emarriage, and the prohibition at least of Rulin polygamy. Each one of these steps points to a beneficent revolution affecting t he happiness of many millions of women, with reflex advan- tages to the male population.
2. It is a hopeful sign that in spite of t he force of ancient cnstoms, the suspicion and distrust so general, [mel t he r estraining influ ence of large masses of the population, there is It great desire on the part of so many to respond to Christian cffort. :For instance, common seho018for girls are better attended and are often carnestly desired. Schools of a better class are here and th ere formod. Natives spontaneously form and man 'lge girls' schools. Native Christian Bible-women and Emopean ludies usually find free access to read the Scriptures, to explain Christiull truth alike in towns and villages, and are doubly welcome if possessing medical skill.
3. The greutest sign of change is in the zenana movement. No dwellings were ever more jealously guarded. No women were ever kept in such bitter, dreary ignorance. I remember the time, even in Caleutta with its immense populution, and many thousands of welleducated alld highly intellectuulnative gentlemen, with the graciolls status of Ellglishwomen before their keen and observant eyes, when no missionary's wife could have gained access to a siugle zenana to A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL FOR GIRLS AT ALLABABAD, INDIA.
instruct the ladies and teach Christian truth. N ow there and else- where 40,500 such homes aJ'e open; in many of them several women as well as children are taught. N or is this all. In a large number of similar honses missionary instruction is now given by native women, and by men to their wives.
4. The advance of education will be seen from the following figures, altho all information previous to the middle of the contu"!')' is approximate only. In 1855 the Hev. J. Fordyee, the actual founder of zenana visitation, estimated the number of girls at school through- .out India to be about 5,000 or 6,000, one in every 15,000 females! In 18'78, the number was '78,6'78; in 1887, ~li3,4~S; and in the government ce11sns roport Jor 1BD! woro (Vowell):-
THE KNIGHTS OF THE BROOM
Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 197,662 Literate……………. ……………….. ……….. 543,495 Illiterate ………………………………………. 127,726,768 The movement for the elevation of women had its origin chiefly in the exertions of the missionaries, ana they have been the leaders in every subsequent forward movement. The advance they have made in recent years will be seen in the following table; for before 1870 lady missionaries, and the zenanas open to them, were very few.
1871 1890 Foreign Female Teachers ………………… . 370 Native Christian Female Teachers ………… . 837 711 Girls' Day Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . '" 664 3,278 Day Scholars …………………………… . 24,078 1,507 Orphans………………………………… . 2905 62,414 Zenanas visited …………… , …… , " ……. . 1;300 1,784 40,513 'rhe advance thus far made is gratifying, especially if the diffieul- ties in the way of all progress be considered.
5. But how much remains to be accomplisht!
The females under instruction are 197,662, but the illiterate are 127,72(:,000. There is but one Prote~tant lady missionary to about 190,000 of her sex! Probably not one zenana in a hundred is open to Christian visitation. Not one-fourth of the 715,000 of the villages of the empire have ever been visited by a Christian lady; or one-half the entire population ever heard the Gospel message! Yet within the range of Christian beneficence no one sphere is so vast and important as the elevation of these despised and long-suffering women.
THE KNIGH'rs OF THE BROOM.* BY RE". T. J. SCOTT, D.D., llAREILI.Y, I~DLL Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Board (North).
It is creditable to the scientific and enlightened spirit of British rule in India that, from the beginning, many officers of the government, both civil and military, have devoted much time and labor to the study of the natural history, ethnology, archeology, and religions of India. Senants of the government have thus rendered valuable aid to all iuterested in this great country. Olle of the most recent examples of such research is that recorded in a pamphlet by Mr. H. 'Greeven on the origin, history, and customs of the" sweeper" caste of India. These people are especially interesting to missionaries as repreEenting a large and most hopeful field of work. They are now yielding converts by the tens of thousands.
The people of this caste, num boring about 100,000,000 in north and central Iudia, are commonly called sweepers, from the fact that, * The title of this article is the name of a fair-sized pamphlet on the sweeper caste in India by Mr. R. Greeven (Oxon), in charge of one of the civil districts of the Northwest Provinces, into which India is divided for revenue and magisterial purposes. from time immemorial to them has been relegated the sweeping of houses and street,s, and the general removal of filth. This not very genteel employment-this battle with dirt-has gained for them the facetious title of "Knights of the Broom." These sweepers are scattered over a large part of northern and central Illdia, being settled more thickly in some places, where they often constitute a ward in the city, or a large section of the town or village, while in other places only a few houses of isolated families will be found. The caste is not always confined to the traditional work of the scavenger, for in many places they are occupied in agnculture, or are the village watchmen; some even belong to the police force, or are trusty soldiers in the queen's service. Nevertheless, on account of the filthy drudgery assigned to the caste, the books of the higher classes refer to the sweeper with loathing, and the most stringent rules have been formed 00 prevent contamination by even his shadow falling upon one of higher caste.
There is generally nothing in the appearance of this people to mark them as a low, ignoble, outcaste race. One would often be puzzled to distinguish them from the proud Brahmin priest, or the lordly warrior, with many generations of heroic blood coursing through his veins. In the northwest provinces the fairest children and prettiest women in the villages and city wards belong to the sweeper's class.
Mr. Greeven found, to his surprise, that this despised caste" possesses a military organization, follows a secret and mysterious religion, interlinkt with a poesy of tradition at once sublime and pathetic."
It is still a mystery how this caste arose. They are manifestly Aryan in race, like the proud castes that claim their most menial service, while shrinking from their touch. Their folk-lore gives an account of their origin, which traces them to the best blood of the Hindu race. The story goes that early in the Hindu history certain princesses had invited their friends to a feast, but before the guests arrived, a calf fell dead within the sacred space consecrated for the banquet. In their perplexity they disputed as to who should defile himself by privily removing the carcass. The great warrior Arjun entreated the young Prince Nakul to save them from dishonor by removing it, but when the young prince had accomplisht his task, Arjun immediately withdrew from him in disgust, swearing by the Vedas and Shasters that he never again would associate with him. This led to Nakul's. separation from his caste and retirement to a forest, where he united with a wild woman, from whom descended the race of scavengers, whose work since then has been the toil of the sweeper and remover of dirt.
After the entrance of the Mohammedan conquerors into India, the sweepers, in the performance of their menial duties for Moslem masters, gradually absorbed something of the Moslem faith and traditions, from which they elaborated another version of the manner in which they became involved in their degrading service. '1'he legend, as gathered by Mr. Greeven, ran thus: "Adam and Eve, tho clothed in flesh, were innocent as yet of the grosser needs of the body. They had no wants, save to contemplate the glory of the Almighty, singing, 'There is no God, save God.' The Lord was pleased with His handiwork, and commanded all His angels to worship Adam and Eve as their masters. All the angels obeyed save Satan, who refused, saying adroitly, 'Hast thou not taught me that there is no God save God? Thee will I worship, but none other.' Then the Almighty was angered, and sternly charged Satan to kneel down before Adam on pain of everlasting punishment. Satan was afraid, and affected to submit. Nevertheless guile and rancor were in his heart as he entered Paradise, where the seraph hosts were adoring Adam. 'Give ear, ye dullards,' cried Satan; 'how long will ye be content to continue fasting? Behold the ears of corn how they ripen and grow yellow I Shall we ever despise God's bounty? Nay, rather let us eat that the ears wither not, neither fall to the ground, serving no man.' Then Satan gave the ears of corn to Adam and Eve and all the angels, and all ate. The earthly food turned to ordure in their bodies. So it was that the earth and steps of heaven were defiled."
In consequence of all this, according to the legend, the Lord created scavengers to cleanse the earth and steps of heaven.
From these legends of the sweepers the true origin of the caste may be inferred. At a very early period in the history of the Hindus the caste system was developt. Menu, the Moses of the Hindus, about SOO B. C., laid down emite niles of remarkable severity. The repugnance of the early Aryan invaders against the aborigines is seen in a social code of bitter severity against the children of marriages with the aborigines. Menu speaks of sllch as the" lowest of mortals"- "a foul race." 'rhey were to dwell apart from others, and their shadow even was held to be defiling. 'The most menial and degrading service was .~.::siglled to them. The sweeper legends indicate that the caste arose from such infringement of the social code as forever excluded the condemned to an outcast life of great severity. Untold generations have past, hut no atonement has bridged the gulf of social degradation. As outcastes the sweepers in time organized their own caste rules and customs, and acquired a belief peculiar to themselves, drawn from many sources. From their legends various stages may be traced by which the sweepers past under the influence of other religions. In the earlier days, separated from the Hindu community, they retained much of the old helief, and praetist such ceremonies as were convenient to their situation. In more recent times, as lVIr. Greeven shows, when the Mohammedans invaded India, the sweepers borrowed from them, and wove into their belief scraps suiti.ng their fancy, so far as to be recognized as proselytes, but they never have acquired any social position among Mohammedans. Still later, when the Sikh power developt, which was a kind of Hindu military movement in northwest India, a large number of sweepers joined it under Kanak Shah, the hero of a revolt against Moslem tyranny. The martial followers of the Kanak adopted the tenets of their chief, and abandoned the menial duties of sweepers.
As stated, the sweepers have an elaborate system of their own, with secret ceremonies and esoteric teaching. 'rhey have more open ceremonies for births, weddings, and deaths. The following quotation from our author will indicate some of the caste rules of this outcaste class: "Only Lalbegis and Rawats eat food left by Europeans, but all eat food left by Hindus or .M:ussulmans. The shaikh mehters (sweepers), as lfussulmans, alone circumcise, and reject pig's flesh. Each sub-caste eats uncookt food with all the others, but cookt food alone. Only Helas refuse to touch dogs. Shaikhs and Lalbegis alone admit proselytes. No sweeper touches the corpse of any other caste, nor, within his caste, of any sub-caste except his own. While to the west of Delhi they are willing, and regard as their function, to sweep streets and burn corpses, in Benares they profess, on the authority of a legend, to abandon streets to chamars (tadners) and corpses to dams. In fact, sweepers by no means indorse the humble opinion entertained with respect to them."
These people, in some places, have a remarkable clan organization, which seems to have been adopted in this form since the introduction of British power. It consists of a curious mingling of civil and military offices, with an order of procedure in clan council, and there are establisht punishments in case of offense against the rules of the tribe. Punishments consist of (a) fines, (b) dinners furnisht by the offender to the clan, (c) outcasting in case of non-compliance with the demand for fines and dinners. • Some branches of the sweepers add to their number by making proselytes. This is especially so of those who have taken on some form of the great proselyting ::'loslem faith. One tribe, the Lalbegis, or followers of the "red prince "-a semi-mythical personage-after a long ritual at night, cause the candidate to drink a goblet of sweet- ened water, toucht in such a way by each member of the brotherhood present that the fingers are wet in the finid. This is said to inspire him with lowliness and contentment in the degrading service of his life. 'rhe convert, ge~lerally an outcast from some of the Hindu clans, is entitled to sit on the tribal mat in assemblages, and smoke the common pipe. Cases are known of higher caste persons joining them for a coveted wife.
The special point of interest in this numerous class of people at the present time, is a mass-movement among them toward Christianity in many places. And this is no hasty impulse. A third of a century ago, where now tens of thousands are turning to Christ, they seemed as difficult to reach as any caste. When I first went to India, in 18G2, an earnest missionary of the English Church Mission had been working among the sweepers for years, but with small success. His thought was that surely this people, with really no caste, and socially everything to gain, could easily adopt the new religion. After years of labor the missionary retired from India in broken health and hope unrealized. I heard that, like Paul, in the deep interest of his heart, he had said, "I could wish that myself were accurst from Christ for my brethren, the sweepers." He saw it not, but the time of refreshing came, and the labors of miesionaries among this deprest class now bear wonderful fruit. Within a few years, more than a hundred thousand souls from among them have been gathered into the Christian community. Some missionaries have hesitated to push work among them, lest it might prejudice effort among the higher castes. Others, recognizing the opening, and believing that now, as of old, it is the glory of the Gospel that it is preacht to the poor, have pusht the work among these broken-hearted, socially ostracized, and imprisoned multitudes. Many churches have been organized among them and pastors raised up. And it is noteworthy that, after all, this movement does not hinder the work among other castes, for the missionaries who are seeking these poor people secure more converts among other castes than those who shun the sweepers. Able men have been raised up from among them who, as preachers and teachers, are nobly pushing evangelism, not only among people of their own clans, but among higher castes also. Others are taking their places in respectable reI?unerative secular employment.
In the days of American slavery, the songs and aspirations of the enslaved were prophetic of the great deliverance to come. It is remarkable that the sweepers, in their outcast and downtrodden condition, have adopted an ancient prophecy of the Mahabharat, the great heroic poem of the Hindus, as in some way meaning restoration to honor and position for their tribe. The passage in the Mahabharat predicts a coming millennium for the proud Brahmins, the priestly caste. A wonderful incarnation as a" blazing Brahmin of mighty intellect haying appearfld, will destroy all things," that he may prepare the way for a new order. "Surrounded by Brahmins, that Brahmin will exterminate all the rulechas (outcastes) wherever those low and despicable persolls may take refuge." But the sweeper has read into this ancient prophesy hope for himself. For centuries the llame of Jesus and something of His teaching have been known in India apart from the direct work of missionaries. There is a tradition that a sweeper was the means of restoring to life a hero of the Sikhs, Guru Goyind Sing. 'I'he hero saint immediately said: " Come thou Savior of the world, Jesus. Under Thy sway shall flowers and betel leaf fall from heaven. All men shall gather together and cry in joy: All hail thou Ruler of t.he universe, Vanquisher of foes and fosterer of the poor."
DEVOTEES-HINDU AND CHRISTIAN
In thc millennium of the sweeper, as Mr. Greeven expresses it, "The prophecy of the rule of Jesus has been fulfilled by the empire of the British. That empire has proved as gentle and kindly as the dying said foretold." But Jesus one day will appear as the final Restorer of all things. « All shall join hands in paying Him honor. When the last stain of impurity shall have been cleansed away, all shall be alike pure and holy. The distinction between clean and unclean shall disappear. All castes shall be blended. All men shall eat together." Our author then contrasts the aspiration and hope of this lowly stratum of despised Indian humanity with the idea of the Brahmin, to whom his touch is pollution: "Thus the lordly Brahmin and the despised scavenger each in his way contemplates the approach of the millennium. Which is the fairer picture, the Brahmin gloating over the subjection and the exterminaticn of all races, except his own, or the scavenger yearning for the hour when there shall be peace and good-will upon earth, and all men shall be alike, pure and holy? "
DEVOTEES – HINDU AND CHIUSTIAN.
BY LUCY E. GUINNESS, HARLEY HO"CSE, LO:-lDON. Editor of Regions Beyond, and author of "The Neglected Continent:'
The holiest place in all Bombay is the beautiful" tank," down to whose clear waters lead flights of wide shelving steps, and where bathers and little children play among reflections of the cloudless skies and picturesque masonry. To the minds of multitudes this is a sanctuary, a shrine. Round it a group of little temples rise among odd buildings, priests' houses, pilgrims' lodgings, and native homes. From time immemorial Valkeshwar has been a sacred spot. Many pilgrims have trampt through weary journeys to reach these shining wa.ters, many anxious, clouded lives have been strained to the utmost to seek what here they seek, but never find.
Four or five fakirs, covered with filth and ashes, sit at one end in the hot sun, looking almost more like beasts than men. There they sit, almost naked, on the rough ground, surrounded by the various little pots and bowls and odds and ends which they employ for life and worship. One or two are smoking a powerful drug, which partly stupefies them. One talks to us by translation, and another, the most hideous of all, an animal-looking creature, with masses of matted hair full of dust and ashes, who seems really half insane, makes us a great oration all in his unknown tongue. Louder and louder he talks, preaching at last at the top of his voice, and pausing now and then amid his eloquence to blow shrill blasts on Ii cow's horn by his side.
"Why does he do that?" we ask our boy. "Whenever the holy man is hungry he blows his horn, mem Sahib, and the people come out and bring him food."
What must bL the character of the faith whose ideal is before us? We stand beVildered in the sunshine, trying to realize that it is not a dream-that to these men, our brothers, thie filth, this degradation, this naked idleness, is the embodiment of sanctity-and our hearts go out to India, the first example of whose greatest faith meets us in such a form. 'fhis is Hinduism, hoary JIinclnism, three thonsand years old, and rnling to-day more than two lHllldred million men and women. The spectacle before us is the Oll tcome of her teachings. This is the highest life one can lead. To their minds existence is an evil; emancipation from it in this life, and in countless future lives, is the one hope. Detach yourself from earth, go without clothes; have no home, no friends, no people; do no work; take no interest in anything at all; enjoy nothing, feel nothing, hope for nothing. Detach yourselfto do this, suffer pain, sleep on spikes, starve yourself, or eat carrion and nameless abominations; hold your arms up till they wither and the nails grow through the hand; do anything and everything to get rid of your supreme curse-conscious existence.
It is difficult for us under the influence of J esns Christ to understand and grasp this Hindu theory. 1'0 those who know and follow Him, Christ makes sheer Ii ving beautiful, life on earth a pri vilege, and everlasting life beyond the gift of God to men. But to the Hindn living without Christ-as to many, alas! in our own lands who live without Him-mere existcnce seems a curse. These poor son Is THE SACRED TANK AT MADURA, INDIA. A HINDU DEVOTEE-LYING ON A BED OF SPIKEs..
believe themselves burdened with being because they are not good enough not to be. Hence they must accumulate merit, raise themselves laboriously by weary years of good works until they can at last escape existence.
"The Hindu devotee," writes Bishop Thoburn, * "flatters himself that he can, by his penances of various kinds, accumulate merit. The word penance, to his mind, conveys no idea of repentance, but solely that of a means of acquiring personal merit. In the next place, he is possest with the idea that matter is inherently evil, and that since his union with a material body is the source of most of his misfortunes, he must make war on the body in order to liberate the soul. • No doubt a large number of both sexes choose a life of asceticism because they find it the simplest and easiest way of securing their daily bread; •..
but many of them show abundant evidence that they are sincere in their purpose, and persist, through long lives of severe suffering and privation, in faithfully following the course which they have chosen.
"At nearly every great fair a number of men will be seen going through the self-inflicted torture of what is called the' five fires.' Foul'
fires are kept burning constantly around the devotee, while the sun, which makes the fifth, pours down his burning rays upon the head of the sufferer. Others, for months at a time, never allow themselves to lie down to rest, but permit themselves to be supported in a half-reclining position, or sometimes suspended upon a cushion, with their feet dangling down at a distance from the ground. Some sleep on beds made of broken stone, others on spikes, while others again seek torture for the body by abstaining frolH sleep altogether, or at least reduce their sleeping hours to the narrowest possible limits."
This nightmare dread of existence is the natural outcome of the transmigration theory-that saddest and most hopeless of all human ~ "India and Malaysia." Bishop Thoburn, pp. 124-6. See also "Hinduism, Past and Present." Murray Mitchell, R. T. S. explanations of life. Think for one moment of what it would mean to you to believe that every Ii Vil1g thing on the face of the earth was the body of some soul- birds, beasts, insects, reptiles, men – all alike son I-houses ; alld that human souls were ceaselessly shifting through countless lives, and must forever shift among these, according to their merits or demerits? rrrans~igration we call it, and dismiss the idea with it word. But to believe that idea, to think that the souls you love uest, and that death has called away, are pent up in some body-a jackal's, a cow's, it serpent's, perbaps-and will be bound there, feeling, suffering, enjoying if they can, until death smites them once again, and once again they change th ei r house and pass into some other form, as coolies, kings, or what not-to believe that idea, what must it mean? Think of the burden of it, the end- less, restless, weary round, from which is no escape; the grip of fate that holds you ano. drives you on and on; the inexorable sentence, from which is no appeal, consigning you to groveling reptile life or loathsome being. Yon may be born to-morrow it A HOLY IIAN OF INDIA. leper, an idiot, it mur- derer, anything-Karma, your fate determines what shall be, and your fate depends entirely on your merits. There is no pity anywhere, there is no forgiveness.
Trouble comes to you to-day? Ah, you earned it yesterday, back in your last body. Then you sinned, now you are punisht. This theory apparently explains everything so satisfactorily-all the crook- cdness and inequalities of life, all the strange chance of destiny.
But it is so hard, so hopeless. Eighty-six million times yon will be born and reborn, to suffer, live, and die.
What more natural than to wish to shorten the period? Become a devotee, perhaps even a fakir. By so d~ing you detach yourself.
You gradu ally escape reincarnation. You stand a faint and far off chance of sooner finding rest-the oblivion of Nirvana-" not to be."
Standing in the snnshin c, looking flown on the spectacle before ns,
1898.J BIBLE STUDY FOR NA.TIVE AGENTS
on these scarcely human creatures, in their filthiness and ashes, realize the burden of belief that makes them what they are! Let your heart go out to the 26,000,000 people living in the Bombay Presidency only, in this one strip of country along the western coast of India, a land larger than Spain. Think of the waiting harvest in this one presidency. Look on her fields. And look beyond-away across the continent of India with its 290,000,000 souls. Two hundred and eight millions of them are Hindus, living in the darkness of the faith whose devotees are before us, 60,000,000 more than the whole Protestant population of the world.
You have been thinking of the devotees of the Eastern world. Where are the devotees of the West? Thank God there are many of them toiling here for the salvation of India, and many more scattered in every heathen land, besides many who are sleeping in missionary graves, and many working bravely on at home. But had we but onehalf the devotion to Jesus Christ that the Hindu fakirs have to their gloomy faith, should we not do more to reach India's waiting millions? Should we not hasten to give Him our time, our means, our strength, ourselves-to suffer daily loss in that devotion, and to sacrifice it may be all that we hold most dear, that we may help to bring these hearts the knowledge of His love?
BIBLE STUDY FOR NATIVE AGENTS.
BY REV. ALONZO BUNKER, D.D., TOUNGOO, BL'RlfA. lIIissionaryof the American Baptist lIIissionary Union.
Since we can not depend entirely on foreign missionaries to meet the needs of the heathen world, we must lean more and more on the native helpers Hence the best method of preparing these workers for their mission is worthy of the closest study. The efficiency of their preparation will depend very largely upon their spiritual grasp and experimental knowledge of the truths which they teach. They must also have some skill in the mode of presentation, and especially must their teachings be accompanied with that patient, melting love with which Jesus always taught. The doctrines, so disliked by the natural heart, if proclaimed in any other way than with such love, even tho it be with the eloquence of an Apollos, will have very little power over heathen audiences or individual hearts.
Again, the progress of the Kingdom of Christ in these lands will depend largely on the quality of the native preachers. Besides ability to proclaim the Wor<1 with power, they must have spiritunl insight to enable them to distinguish the true from the false, and to decide on fit subjects for baptism and church membership. They will have much to do in training young men for service. '1'he church-life will also take its type from their teachings. Hence these leaders should be most carefully trailled and prepared by the missionary himself befOl'e they are entrusted with snch vast interests in the Kiugdom of Christ. It is trne that these native helpers, as well as the missionary, have the promise of the Spirit to lead them into all truth, and that He will use thern to the measure of their knowledge and consecration. But we read in the Acts that tho Apollos was" mighty in the Scriptures," yet it was necessary that he should have expounded to him "the way of God mere perfectly." How mnch more, theil, do these native brethren, recently called out of heathenism, need to have the way of God very carefully and frequently expounded Lo them to insure their highest efficiency.
In such a work of instrnction the Bible is, undoubtedly, the most powerful and important factor. General education is well, and in some directions necess&ry. The more mental discipline the worker can obtain, the better able will he be to exercise his reasor.ing powers. However, even here, our native Christians often astonish us by their wisdom in stating difficult questions, and in the simplicity and force of their illustrations. The school of life has done much for them. So we belieye that. there lies just here a great danger, not only in the preparation of workers recently redeemed from heathenism, but of the missionaries themselves before entering their work in foreign lands. lIow often we have heard experienced missionaries declare that they have been ooliged to reconstrnct their theology since reaching their fields. The mind may be very richly stockt with knowledge, but in the work of preaching Jesus to the lost ollly that knowledge which has been wrought out experimentally, and so comes from the heart, will avail in leading souls to the Savior. Knowledge is power, but in this spiritual work for the Master only that knowledge which has been gained by those who have been with Jesus will preyail.
At the first thought, it might seem that as all spiritual and experimental knowle(1ge are acquired, the oue a gift from the Holy Spirit and the other by the learner himself, under the guidance of the Spirit, the missionary has little to do with the supply of such knowledge. More careful thought, however, will show that he may and ought to ,,,ill have very much to do in this work, and that he fail in his devel- opment of a native instrumentality by so much as he fails at this point in his teaching.
The missionary may well pause here and ask how he can best aid his native brother in the acquirement of such knowledge. We may safely say that the best aid will not be found in a secular education, however helpful that may be, nor will it be found in moral and ethical teaching, nor in sacred geography or Ilistory, ]]01' in any mere intelIectual study of the Bible. It is true that all such knowledge may be among the approap,hes to the Holy of Holies, but they are not the place where God dwells, and where the soul comes into immediate COlltact with its Lord.
It is clear that the first requisite of a successful missionary teacher must be, above all things else, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, whereby he lllay have His help in teaching. Here then we should gi ve fullest recognition to the office of the Holy Spirit, as a Teacher of the things of our Lord. No part of the responsible duties of the ambassador of the Cross needs His help more than that of preparing a native agent for His work.
As Paul preacht with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, so must the missionary teach, if he wOllJd secure success. May he not boldly claim here that help which was given to the Apostle, when he spake" not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power? " How is it possible to deal with the spiritual lives of others, save as we have the enlightening influences of the Spirit in our own? 'rhis is the more necessary, if possible, in dealing with these souls recently saved from heathen ignorance and superstition. We find them (speaking now of the Karens of Burma) without any adequate apprehension of the heinousness of sin in the sight of God, even, in most cases, after their conversion; or of God's great love in Jesus Christ, or of the love of our blessed Lord for lost men in His sufferings and death on the cross. All these wonderful truths are, at first, largely a theory. They do not enter into their experience, or move their sentiments very much. It is only by repeated teaching by their missionary, and the miraculous work of the Spirit, that these verities in our faith get hold of their hearts and begin to be felt by them in their experience.
The Holy Spirit works in many channels, but one of His appointed ways is through the Holy Scriptures, and perhaps the best method of reaching the hearts and consciences of our people is in Bible exegesis. Certainly there is no other method of teaching that gives such opportunities for personal dealing with our people as does this. The Word of God is the peculiar instrument of the Spirit. "Sanctify them through Thy truth; 'rhy Word is truth." Here, if anywhere, we may come into close contact with the hearts and lives of onr pupils. In practise we have this method peculiarly adapted to the spiritual wants of the native disciples, as well as to their growth in grace. As they stmggle up out of the superstition of heathenism, along the way· of the new life, they are daily beset with troops of trials which arise f:'om want of early training, from close contact of their heathen neighbors, and from lack of such helps as abound in Christian lands.
In Bible exegesis we have a most ready instrument for encouragement or rebuke, which may be applied to any need, at any time. Here also a little experience 011 the part of a lcal'ller becomes a key, by which, under the hand of the teacher, the way Illay be opened into larger experimental knowledge. It is also a ready means of correcting any misapprehension of divine truth. For example, it is difficult for a native Christian to learn how trial and snffering can be a proof of the love of God, rather than a judgment for the punishment of sins; but the exegetical study of the twelfth of Hebrews makes it all plain to him, and his doubt is turned to certainty. The little experience he has in discipline of God's love may be used to unlock for him this mystery of human trial.
Again, the exegetical study of the life of Christ, His sufferings, temptations, and trials, His lowly life among the poor, and His wonderful teachings, discloses, as nothing else can do, the loving fellowship of Jesus, the Son of God. His life is so unlike anything they have ever seen in heathen lands, that it is almost too much for them to grasp, and too often they realize it only as a dream which one can not expect to experience or imitate in this life. Blessed, thrice blessed, is the missionary who is able so to live the Christ-life before them, as to give a practical illustration of this loving fellowship of Jesus. In this study, the native Christian is gradually to apprehend the love of God for the world, in the gift of His Son, and also that which is a never-failing source of wonder and astonishment to him-the love of Christ to His enemies.
Again, there is a strong tendency among our native Christians to worship God as do the heathen their idols. That is, they too readily adopt a form of worship without its spirit. 'l'bis may also be true of some in ChriRtian lands, but they have less excuse than those who were born and reared in superstition and ignorance. 'rhey are slow to realize that the living God, whom they are taught to worship bnt can not see, is a real prayer-hearing and prayer-answering Person. Karen Christians are especially gifted with fluency of speech, yet they are not the only ones in this fallen world who seek fine words which shall please the ear rather than a plain talk with God. Too many pray as if they were reciting a piece before an iUol. But Scripture exegesis brings the worshiper repeatedly face to face with God in the Bible. He there hears God speak and learns to realize Him as a living, loving, and interested Person, and that His worship does not consist in forms and ceremonies, however beautiful and elaborate they may be, but in reverent approach to Him in confession and petition.
Again, while almost all other forms of knowledge acquired by the disciple will fade from his memory, spiritual knowledge, which becomes more or less experimental by such practical study and teaching of God's Word, will never fail, but will increase by use and be always available. It becomes, too, the most powerful weapon, when backt by a gentle spirit, one can use in these dark lands, in dealing with heathen superstitions.
In this connection we should notice the necessity of emphasizing certain doctrines of the Bible in our training of a native ministry. The first and most important of these is the doctrine of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. They are very slow to recognize the church or the body as the temple of the Spirit, or His personalty or presence with the believer. Continucd teaching on this point is necessary, but ihe marvelously added power of those who apprehend the great truth, and experience the fellowship of the Divine Comforter and Helper, compensates a thousand-fold the time and strength expended in teaching. As the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, enduing the missionary with power for service is all-important, so in an native workers; the Spirit is one for all.
Native Christians have not a little difficulty ill divesting themselves of the idea that their salvation depends much on their good deeds instead of solely on the merits of J esns. They are so accustomed to think of judgment following sin, as "the cart-wheel follows the ox," that the doctrine of grace is too often a mystery to them. Moreover, the doctrine of vicarious suffering is so foreign to all their experience, that the atonement is very hard to apprehend, tho they readily profess to understalld it. Hence the necessity of emphasizing this doctrine. The doctrine of "constraining love," also, should al ways be taught side by side with the atonement, for in this we get the true and highest motive to right thinking, acting, and living. '1'he transformation of character under the teaching of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, atonement, and constraining love, is sometimes most remarkable.
Again, there is seldom any family discipline among these Eastern peoples. Hence it is difficult for a native Christian to make the love and justice of God agree. He is always asking, "If God loves me as the Bible says, why does He let me suffer?" The strict discipline of our training-schools, and careful teaching on this point are necessary.
The pupils must learn that absolute loyalty to Christ is founded on absolute obedience to Him, not even connting their lives dear to themselves. It is a matter of constant surprise to see how many of our disciples endure hardness as good soldiers of the Cross, trials which would seriously test the faith of any missionary himself, and some even suffering martyrdom for Jesns' sake.
Finally, it is wise to keep before the native learner the joys and rewards of heaven. IVe have found the Revelation one of the most popular books of the Bible on this account. He can readily understand the triumphs of the Gospel there depicted, and as he delights in figures and symbols leading up to these trinmphs, he quickly responds to these riches of hope. He accepts these foretold victories of the Cross
THE GREAT BURMESE PAGODA
with a child-like faith, and brings them into his daily life as a comfort and support under the many trials he must meet with in his efforts to live a Christian life amidst his heathen surroundings.
In summing up what we believe to be the best method of Bible preparation for our native w.orkers we would say:- First.-The missionary can not prepare himself too carefully by daily study of the Vord of God, meditation on the portion he is to teach, and prayer for the help of the Holy Spirit, and he should assiduously teaeh his pupils to practise the same method.
Second.-Let the method of teaching be largely one of Bible exegesis. 'l'hird.-Always apply the teachings which arise in daily lessons experimentally and to specific cases, as far as possible. Fourth.-Always keep the love of Christ to the front, for love begets love, and thus the pupil may be led to love and know Him more immediately, "whom to know is life." Fifth.-Encourage the learners by all means to ask questions, and so educate by drawing out rather than by pouring in. Sixth.-Patiently meet every diffieulty presented by the pupil, however trivial. It is only a pebble that sometimes turns the beginning of a mighty river to the east or to the west. Finally.-Let the spiritual and experimental he always in advance. This is all important and indispensable to a successful worker. All other knowledge is subsidiary.
'rHE GREAT BURMESE ·PAGODA.
BY HEY. II. mUTTA~ m:rXXESS, D.])., LOXDOX, EXGLAXD. Founder of the East London Missionary Institute.
Crowning a hill near Hangoon the.Swe-Dagon Pagoda, the greatest and most venerable pagoda in Indo-China, lifts its golden pinnacles into the clear blue sky, towering to a height above that of St. Paul's Cathedral in Lonuon. A host of smaller pagouas surround it, whose walls and roofs are carved into fantastic shapes, while within them sit countless statues of Buddha, in white marhle, in gilded wood, in black metal, in glittering brass; the sitting figure being always the same in form, the legs crost beneath, the right hand recumbent, the left hand open in the lap, to receive the gifts of worshipers, with an aspect of imperturbable calm upon the countenance, the look of a heing who has reacht the rest of ~irvana.
Shaven, bare-headed, yellow-robed priests attend in every shrine of this vast pagoda; they lead the devotions, they light the taper~ they chant the prayers, they take the gifts, candles, rice, flowers, money, they supervise the ceremonies. Crowds of gaily-drest Burmese move through the wide courts, or stand aroulld the stalls, or listen to the fortune-tellers, or kneel before the statnes of Gautama Buddha,. With hands prest together they repeat their prayers, a rosary depending from their fingers; or reverently bow before the idol till the forehead touches the ground.
Statues innumerable adorn the pagoda, from the gigantic leogryphs, or dragon-like lions, which guard the entrance, to the legendary figures of Gautama on the lofty roofs and pinnacles. On this spot a nation has lavisht its wealth through long centuries, to adorn the worship of Buduha with the utmost magnificence. That wealth has built these terraces, these long ascents, these countless shrines, these glittering spires; generations of pilgrims have filled these imagehouses with their gifts; have burnt the illeense, and scattered the flowers, and chanted the prayers in a worship never intermitted day or uight. Anu this has gone on for ages. As long ago as in the time of the Maccabees and of the Babylonish captivity, a pagoda to Gautama Buduha was stanuing here. One pagoda has' followeu another; as one has decayed another has been built; larger pagodas have been built over smaller ones; shrines and statues of Buddha have been multiplied, roof has been added to roof, spire to spire, and pinnacle to pinnacle, until now this wonder of the Eastern world, containing, as it is said, not only actual relics of Gautama, but of the three Buddhas who preeeded him, stands on this spot in unrivaled splendor, attracting pilgrims from every province in Burma, from Cambodia, Siam, Korea, and Ceylon.
And yet there is about it all a look of mental and moral poverty, and even of barbarism. The carvings are grotesque. There is a wearisome sameness of idea. Buddha sits in the same posture in every shrine. There are whole rows of Buddhas, pagodas filled with nothing but statues of Buddha. On that one form all this wealth has been lavisht. To that one figure every eye, every thought has been direeted. The calm, abstracted look of a reputed saint who has attained, as the reward of personal merit, a fixt unsuffering state, rivets the gaze of worshiping thousands; the hope of etemal quietude, of a waking slumber untroubled oven by a passing dream, of a sort of living death, an existence wrapt in the stillness aIlli. silence of Nirvana, fascinates the mind of every worshiper. Gautama Buddha is the great object of their adoration and guide of their hopes. This is that ancient idolatry which holds half Asia in its grip. Day by day the cloudless sun pours its splendor on the material adjuncts of this scene of spiritual darkness. Here millions adore the dead. Here the living God is all unknown. To Him nOlle bow the knee. None fear Him, or praise Him, or proclaim His truth. His glory fills heaven and earth, but none behold it here. All bow to Buddha in this holy of holies of the Eastern world, this center of ten thousand times ten thousand pagodas lifting up to-day their spires over half the world, from the palms of Ceylon and the peaks of the Himalayas, to the rivers of Burma and Ohina" and the shores of Korea and Japan.
DAYS IX MADAGASCAR
A religion which ignores the existence of God, which denies the existence of the soul, which affirms transmigration and the reign of fate, which proclaims pain and punishment, but knows nothing of grace and pardon, which holds forth no prospect of immortality, which offers no hope for the present life, and none worthy of acceptance for the future, is still, and has been for ages, the dominant religion of Asia. Under the veil of astrology, devil worship, or witchcraft, the powers of nature are adored. The s'eli-denial of the ascetic is magnified as the highest art of virtue. The doctrine is believed that man holds himself the keys of heaven and hell; a hell of sevenfold horrors, and a heaven of sensual or dreamy delights. The golden statne of Gantama Buddha has practically been placl>d upon the throne of God, and is there to-day; not to listen to the prayers which are addrest to it, for it is deaf; not to stretch forth a helping hand to the mass of misery at its feet, for it is paralyzed; not to feel for the woes of humanity, for it is soulless and dead; but to fix the gaze of benighted millions, to direct their vain and deluded hopes, and to hide from them in life and death the character, presence, and glory of Him who alone is the Creator, the Ruler, and Redeemer of the world.
BRIGHTER DAYS IN MADAGASCAR.
BY REV. 'Y)I. C. COUSIKS, ~I.A. Missionary of the London Missionary Society at Autananarivo.
A special deputation* from the directors of the London Missionary Society has for eight weeks past (Oct. 15-Dec. 10) been engaged in a careful revision of the society's work here, in making arrallgements with the missionaries of the Paris society, and in endeavoring to convince the French authorities that the aims of the society are pm'ely religious, and not political. The visit of the deputation had long been lookt forward to, and their special mission has been the object of much prayer. Now we look back upon it with a deep feeling of thankfulness, and with a belief that all has been wisely ordered.
'rhe first nlatter demanding the efforts of the deputation was to try and remove from General GalliEmi's mind the strong prejudice he has felt against the work of the society. The men chosen as its special representatives were admirably fitted for this task. Mr. Thompson's full knowledge of all the facts, and his courteous, yet firm, manner, cou pled with Mr. Spicer's bright and hopeful spirit and evident wish to be on friendly terms with all mell, proved a most *The two members of the deputation were the Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson. the well-known Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society. and Mr. Evan Spicer. a member of the London County Conncil. and a broad-minded, energetic. and earnest supporter of the general aims and work of the society. happy and successful combination. 'rhe general affirmed his belief in the loyalty of the missionaries; but said that many of the native adhercnttl of thc society regarded it as a spccial representative of British power and influence. These still hoped that through its inter- vention some help against French rule might be forthcoming. To convince the natives that Frallce is master here, he seized our build- ings and took other harsh steps. The deputation offered to issue a letter to the native Christians under our care stating clearly that such hopes were utterly groundless, that the aims of the society were entirely moral and spiritual, and that if any adherents of the society indulged in such foolish talk, they might render it impossiblc to con- tinue to work in Madagascar. Sncll a letter was issucd both in Malagasy and in French, signed by Mes3rs. Thompson and Spicer, and by all the London missionaries in and around Antananarivo.* The growth of confidencc on the part of General Gallieni has been very markt, and he has, during the last few days, given unmistakable evidence of his sincerity. He has allowed the society to reengage Hova evangelists who were banisht from Betsileo, and has given us permission to buy a house in Ambohimahasoa, from which town its missionary was evicted a year ago, simply because of his connection with the London Missionary Society. Furthermore, on Monday (Dec. 6th), he paiu a personal visit to the girls' school in Ambodin Anuohalo in order to show the people that he diu not in any way oppose our work. In his address he said that tho it had been agreed that the building was soon to pass into the hands of the French Government, he should now recommend the colonial minister to allow it to remain as a girls' school under the care of the London Missionary Society. He also said to the parents and others: "You see I am helping these missionaries and you must do the same." 'rhis visit of the general has given great delight to our many native friends, and they begin to see that the days of repression are passing away.
'rhe next important matter for the consideration of the deputation was the arrangements to be entered into with the Paris society. As a result of the conference eight large districts have been placed nnder the care of that society. These districts contained in 1895 (before the war) 550 congregations. Elementary education throughout the whole of Imerina and Betsileo remains under the care of the Paris society, altho General Gallielli told the deputation that the London Missionary Society was at perfect liberty to resume control of the schools if it desired. When, early in 1897, the schools past under the care of the Paris society, they were 438, and contained 30,955 scholars, and the number has largely increast since the transfer was made. It is thought wise to allow all thcse elementary schools to remain under Frooch care, as they will more readily understand and fall in with the views • The letter has since been reprinted by the general's order in the Journal Official. of the government. Full liberty is, at the same time, accorded to the L. M. S. missionaries in the various districts (either in person or through properly appointed representatives), to give religious instruction in the schools.
The general results of the visit of the deputation to Betsileo are eminently satisfactory. 'fwo districts (Ambosib-o and Isandra) are placed under the care of the Paris society, as well as all the elementary education. 'fhe girls' school at Fianarantsoa, which had for a time been taken over by the Paris society, will now revert to the London Missionary Society. M. Benezesch, who represents the Paris society in Betsileo, has shown great earnestness and activity, and has done much to restore confidence among our native adherents. lIe has made it clear to all that Protestants are not to be considered the enemies of France. The missions on the east coast, at Tamatave and Ambahy, will no longer be carried on by the London Missionary Society, but there is reason to hope that either the Norwegian society, or some French or Swiss society will enter into this work.
The net result of recent changes is that about half the territory formerly workt by the London Missionary SociE'ty has now been given up, and that whereas, when the last statistics were gathered, we had 1,445 congregations under our care, we now have less than 700. In this smaller area and among the 700 churches still under our care, it is believed that much good work may still be carried 011. The districts formerly under the care of individual missionaries were too extensive to allow of eflicient superintendence, and with Rmaller districts and more native helpers, it is hoped that much may be done to strengthen the churches that have been so sadly weakened by the events of the past two years. Already there are signs of returning confidence and hope. The reign of terror seems to be drawing to an end. The state of siege has been raised, and we are once more under civil rule. The Jesuits appear to have gone too far, and to have tried the patience of the government. They have evidently received some caution or check, and are far quieter than a year ago. The government has begun to see how much harm was done by stirring up religious strife all over the cOllntry. At the same time we can not shut onr eyes to the fact that the Roman Catholics are growing in number and influence. 'l'he Roman Catholic religion is regarded as the French religion, and many flock to their churches. The most distressing aspect of the question is that many Protestant children have been sent to the Roman Catholic schools for the sake of the French language. The Protestant churches of the future may be less in number and may have far smaller congregations, but we must work and pray in the hope that there may still exist a vigorous body of Protestant Christians who, by their intelligence, their religious earnestness, and the testimony of pure lives, may do much to promote the highest interests of their native land.
"THE RUIN OF INDIA" BY BRITISH RULE
II.-MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
"THE RUIN OF INDIA" BY BRITISH RULE. * BY S. H. KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D.
I have read with equal pain and astonishment an article by Professor Des Islets, entitled" The Ruin of India," t wherein various assertions are made which, were they justified by facts, would show this government to be one of the most pitiless tyrannies on the face of the earth. But I rejoice to be able, to the credit of our common civilization and Christianity, to assure the professor that, from whatsoever source he has derived his supposed information, he has been in this matter most egregiously deceived.
In his very first sentences the writer shows that he is under a total misapprehension of the facts regarding the riots in Calcutta and the assassinations in Poona during this last summer, which he intimates to have been due to the" frightful oppression" which India is enduring at the hands of her British rulers. In reality, however, both the riots and assassinations were occasioned, not by the ill-doing, but by the conspicuous well-doing of the government.
In the case of the riots an appeal had been taken to the High Court by a certain Bengali gentleman of rank, regarding the ownership of a certain piece of land on which stood a Mohammedan place of prayer. The High Court on reviewing the evidence sustained the appeal, and ordered the premises to be vacated by the Mohammedans. When they refused to do this, the government officer proceeded to remove their building. Hence the riot. Where in all this was the" frightful oppression ?"
In Poona and Bombay the terrible black plague has been raging for months. As the only means known to modern science of combating the pestilence with any hope of success, the government ordered the segregation of all that were stricken in speeial hospitals, either provided by government, or, wherever preferred, by the members of the different castes and religions, each for themselves. But the people generally would not let cases be known, and constantly secreted the sick in close and poisonous quarters, thereby intensifying the infection and spreading the disease. Under these circumstances the government ordered a compulsory house to house inspection of such infected cities, the compulsory cleaning of filthy houses, the removal and burial or burning of the corpses frequently found in them, the forcible removal of all in them found sick with the plague to the hospitals provided, where all who chose might have the best treatment known to modern seience. These searches were carried out by organized parties made up of native gentlemen, British soldiers, and English ladies who volunteered for the purpose. But all this, instead of moving the people to gratitude, excited a fierce tempest of angry hate, of which the deepest secret doubtless was to be found in the intense caste pride and superstition of the ,Mahratta Brahmins, who were thus compelled to admit into the sacredness of their houses these unclean foreigners, whose very shadow falling on their food is supposed to render it so unclean that it must be thrown away. Those who have been engaged in this work have been threatened with death, sometimes violently assaulted, assailed both in India and even at home, by radical members of Parliament, with the most atrocious al}d unmentionable calumnies, and * From the Presbyterian Review, Toronto, t Presbyteriqn Messenger, Sept, 30, iS97.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
at last this culminated on the Queen's Jubilee day in the Poona assassinations, wherein the officer in charge of these plague operations was shot at night by one of these same Mahratta Brahmins, as now confest by the assassin himself.
Again Professor Des Islets makes this astounding assertion-that from the wretched millions of India" England extorts every year, without any compensation, the enormous sum of $150,000,000." * Without any compensation! How any intelligent man can say that England gives" no compensation" to the people of India for the taxes she takes, passes comprehension. In the first place, in return for these, she has given the people, from one end of India to the other, a system of government which, in so far as it is administered, not by natives, but by the members of Her Majesty's Covenanted Civil Service, stands to-day as a model to the whole world for purity and incorruptibility, and magnificent labors f,)r the help of the poverty-stricken millions of this over-crowded country. In the days of the Mohammedan rule of India, Tavernier wrote that a traveler in India" ought always to take with him twenty or thirty armed lnen." Is the present security no "compensation" for revenues taken from the people?
Again, the British rulers of India have during a comparatively short period developt a system of education which has planted schools, colleges, and universities in every part of the land. These are supported in large part by revenues taken fro~n the people. Is a great educational system like this, supervised by cultivated university men from home, no "compensation" for the taxes taken from the people?
Again, out of the revenues gathered from the people the government has constructed-to illustrate-in the Northwest Provinces alone, and within the lifetime of the present generation, 10,173 miles of irrigation canals, which last year supplied water to 11,437 villages and watered over 2,000,000 acres. Similar figures might be given for the Punjab and other parts of British India; and the government is at present planning another magnificent system of irrigation for Oudh and Rohilkhand which, when carried out, will be of even greater magnitude JCtnd irrigate over two and a quarter million acres. Except for the tens of thousands of miles of irrigation canals which have been built and are still being constructed by the British government, this last year would have witnest a famine here, in comparison with which the horrors of that now drawing to an end would have seemed insignificant and for the like of which ,ve should have to go back to the happily by-gone days of independent native rule.
To these instances of the return given to India by her British rulers for the taxes taken from the p30ple may be added many others, due exclusively to British rule, which space forbids me more than to mention. Such are e. g., a most complete postal system, with the unit of postage, to all parts of India and Burma, a half-anna, or one cent; a postal telegraph, by which a message can be wired anywhere in India or Burma for as low as sixteen cents; connected with the post-office, also, a government savings-bank by which, in any post-office in the empire, may be deposited, at interest, so small a sum as eight cents-a favorite form cf investment with thousands of the very natives who most vigorously denounce the government; hospitals and dispensaries scattered all over the land where the poorest may have enlightened European treat- * An average of fifty cents per capita a year.
"THE RUIN OF INDIA" BY BRITISH RULE. 2'i''i'
ment gratis; permanent security-no doubt, sometimes, at the expense of one of those "useless frontier wars," for which the professor blamEs the government-against the fearful Mohammedan raids and invasions by which, previous to British rule, large parts of India had been repeatedly laid desolate; magnificently graded macadamized roads, connecting all important places in India, not to speak of steamboat lines, and railways with fares so low that one can go, if he please, from Calcutta to Peshawar, near the Afghan frontier, 1,M2 miles, for about $6.00, etc., etc. This enumeration is far from complete, but it will suffice to enable the average reader to judge with how ITuch of truth and justice it is charged in the article review~ed that England" extorts" her" enormous" revenues from the Indian people" without any compensation."
Professor Des Islets strangely regards the railways of India not as works of enlightened beneficence, but" as immense siphons to drain the resources of the country toward England." The truth, again, is the exact opposite. Even with the vast irrigation system, except for the railways little could be done to mitigate famine, simply for lack of tramportation. And yet the professor can only see in the railways of India another evidence of the greedy tyranny of its British rulers, and de pite tens of thousands of miles of these railways and irrigation canals he can write: " The famine in India is a famine of which the English are the cause." But what he calls a "proof of this," is, if possible, more astounding than the original assertion; namely, that" the great native vassal states, with 50,000,000 of population, do not suffer from famine." I never heard such a statement made before, and no wonder, for it is utterly incorrect. Given the same conditions of soil and climate, the native states suffer from famine precisely as do the contiguous British districts.
It is, indeed, true that a very large proportion of the people are distressingly poor; but there is only one sense in which it can be said with unqualified truth that this is due to the British domination. India is enormously over-populated. In the Ganges valley the population ranges from 500 to 700 to the square mile. Before the British rule began almost incessant wars helpt to keep the population down, and when famine or cholera or deadly fever would sweep through the country, the native rulers as a rule did nothing to save life, millions perisht, and the congestion was relieved. But now it is different. The Pax Brit!'~nnica has now long ruled; intestine wars are at an end; cholera is checkt; famine is relieved, and mortality is otherwise diminisht. The velY excellence and beneficence of the government becomes the direct occasion of increasing that over-population which is the necessary cause of the extreme poverty of the mass of the people. In this sense only is there any truth in the statement that "the English are the cause of this famine."
I am far from maintaining that every British official is a saint, or that there have been and are no grave mistakes in government policy, and no great moral wrongs which are still unrighted. But on the whole, despite tremendous difficulties, it is probable that no existing government has ever shown such a grand example of the application of the Golden Rule to the administration of the affairs of a people as the British government in India has been exhibiting, especially during this past year of terrible disast8r and trouble. If an impartiality in justice between the various subject peoples, so absolute and colorless that it causes the government to be cordially hated by millions of the adherents of both the chief religions of the country; if the expenditure of mi!-
27$ MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
lions continually for the amelioration of poverty, th~ prevention of famine, and the spread of education, latterly under repeated threats of a bloody return for their kindness and beneficence, be Christian; if it be right and Christian to put an end to suttee, thuggism, infanticide, and-as in parts of South India-the compulsory nakedness of low-caste women; if it be a high Christian duty, in the interest alike of India and the whole world to invade, at whatsoever risk, even the sanctity of a proud Brahmin's or Mohammedan's house, rather than to allow the" Black Death" to rage unrestrained; then I may without fear avow my settled conviction, the growth of more than thirty years' intimate acquaintance with India, that notwithstanding sometimes failures and grave mistakes, and sometimes even great moral wrong, in administering or supervising the government of these 287,000,000; yet, on the whole, the present British administration of India is probably 'more practically Christian than that of any other country in the world.
RAMABAI'S FAMINE WIDOWS.
In our September (1897) number we gave some account of the rescue of child-widows carried on by Pundita Ramabai in Poona, Bombay Residency, India. Since that time the blessing of God and the generous contributions of Christians at home and abroad have caused markt progress in the work, and many of the girls and young women in Sharada Sadan have given their hearts to God. We gather the fol- lowing items of interest in regard to the work from Ramabai's re- ports and from articles in the Bom- bay GUa1'dianandlndian Witness. Ramabai is now in America, and is being warmly welcomed by those who have heard of her work for the Master. We hope soon to have a satisfactory paper on the condition of the child-widows of India a.nd what is being done for them. In her publisht report Ramabai writes as follows (Oct., 1897): "In April, 1896, I attended a camp-meeting at Lanowlee, accom- paniedby fifteen of my own girls who were believers in the Lord Jesus. My heart was full of joy and peace, and I offered thanks to the Heavenly Father for having giYen me fifteen children, and I was l'ARA. A DESTITUTE CHILD WIDOW, AS SHE by the Spirit led to pray that the Lord would be so gracious as to F.:-01'ERED RAMABAi' s HOME, 1892.
square the number of my spiritual children before the next camp-meeting takes place. Every circumstance was against the very thought. For in the first place not more than sixty or sixty-five girls at the most could be admitted in my school. Then the number of my schoolgirls was but forty-nine, and some of them were to leave during the summer holidays.
RAMABAI'S FAMI!'E WIDOWS. 2')'9
"Six months past away from that time, and our work went on as usual. There was no increase in the number of my pupils, on the con- trary, the number went down to forty-one. I knew nothing of the famine in Central India, nor that I could get any girls from that part of the country. In October I heard of the terrible famine in the Central Prov- inces, and received my call from God to go there and rescue some of the young widows who were starving to death. It was not until the last week of December that I had the courage to obey the call.
I was doubtful whether I could get any of the kind of girl widows that I could admit into my school. The chief difficulty was the want of place to shelter the girls and of money to maintain them. The Lord put it in my mind to rescue three hundred girls; and in less than ten months from the time when I began the rescue work, the Lord has given me nearly three hundred girls from the famine districts. These are my own girls, and I am free to bring them up in the fear of God; praise the Lord!
No one of them is compelled to become a Christian, and yet most of these new girls delight to attend prayer and to hear the Word of God. About ninety new girls have accepted the Lord Jesus as their TARA, A CHRISTIAN WIFE, AS SHE LEFT Savior, and I believe that before RAMABAI'S HOME, 1897.
the next camp-meeting the numher of my spiritual children will increase to 225, and my prayer to square the number fifteen will be answered.
" I had no human sources to depend upon, but the Lord raised friends for me, and money was poured into our treasury, and the blessings of the Lord came down like a shower, and His promise as recorded in Ps. lxxxii.
10 has been literally fulfilled. I must here record heartfelt gratitude and give thanks to the dear children of God who have so generously sent donations from all parts of the world. Most of the girls who had been nothing but skeletons and wild like the beasts of the jungle, are now looking fat and humanized. Many of them show great intelligence and eagerness to learn. Those who have profest faith ,in Christ are showing signs of a real change of hcart by serving and helping other girls, by their self-forgetfulness and love toward one another.
"The Lord gave me so many blessings in the shape of girls that there was 'not room enough to receive' them in our fornler schoolhouse.
So I was obliged to add a wing to our school building in Poona; to build another large house in our farm at Kedgaum, and, finding those insuf- ficient to shelter all the girls who are in my charge, I have hired another Lungalow for a period of ten months until the other large buildings now
mISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
under construction at Kedgaum are finisht. They will shelter over two hundred and fifty girls. * There we shall have primary industrial schools to train the girls according to their abilities. The most intelligent of these girls will be placed in the higher standards in our school at Poona.
" The famine relief work has been taken up as a Christian work, and it shall be so to the last. The Holy Spirit has now put it in my heart to pray for starting a Christian mission in the village where our famine girls' school is to be. I request my Christian friends to pray especially for the true conversion of my famine children and for this mission which is to be started shortly."
Rev. D. O. Fox, who has audited Ramabai's accounts, writes: "Kedgaum is thirty-four miles from Poona east on the railway. The farm joins the railway station, and has one hundred and twenty acres, all under cultivation. Three wells have been dug, which will yield abundance of water for the use of the Home and for the cultivation of the farm. Things about the farm look as if the Pundita is likely to be as good a manager of a farm as she is of the Home.
"We went through her accounts and gathered up the totals of her expenditures for eight months ending with the 9th of September. The cost of caring for an average of two hundred and fifty girls, including a few women, is a little over eight rupees per month per head. This includes all expenditures of food, clothing, salaries of teachers, and other workers in the Home, washing, cooking, and other household utensils, furniture, school books, and other expenses connected with the Home."
Miss Baird, of the American Friends' Mission, Nowgong, Central India, says: "At the beginning of our work of gathering children from the famine sufferers to send to different mission-schools and orphanages, we were met with a difficult question, namely, what shall we do with the young widows who come to us perfectly destitute? They could not be admitted into the mission-schools, and many of them were too young and pretty to be kept with safety upon our open compound. After praying for guidance Miss Fistler wrote to Pundita Ramabai, asking her if she had room for any such girls. With her usual promptness she dispatcht – , coming.' Since then she has visited Central India four times, and has taken about three hundred young famine widows to Poona and Kedgaum.
"A month ago, when I visited Poona and Kedgaum, I could but exclaim, 'What hath God wrought amongst the heathen hy the ministry of one woman!' Our starved, emaciated girls of three months before had become round and rosy beyond all recognition, and were singing hymns as lustily as tho they had always been familiar with them, many had learned to read, and there have already been thirty real heart conversions in the home at Kedgaum, where the work among the girls is thoroughly evangelical, unhampered by any promises to caste-keeping relatives.t • The annual expenses of this new establishment-where three hundred girls and workers are to be maintained – will amount to fifty thousand rupees (about sixteen thousand dollars).
t Many have askt why Ramabai estimates for more money for the support of her girls than the missionaries do for the same number of children kept in mission·schools and orphanages Ramabai makes a real home for the girls, while missionaries are usually contented to give children simply a boarding-school. She lives with her girls, and gives to each that which she considers necessary for her own health and strength.
1898.J RAMABAI'S FAMINE WIDOWS
" I think the most beautiful work of grace I have ever Been in any child's heart was the following: A few evenings ago we were late in going to have prayers with the girls, so when we got to the door we found dear little Anandi had gathered all the women and children together and was praying aloud with them and they repeating the prayer after her. How the heart of our Father God must have rejoiced as He heard such requests and thanksgiving as ascended from that room. 'Our kind heavenly Father, we do thank You for bringing us here, giving us such deal' friends, and especially for Ramabai. Oh! our kind Father, those of us who love You, we want You to keep our hearts very clean, and those who don't love You, quickly clean their hearts, and keep them clean by YOUI' Holy Spirit dwelling in them. Oh! our kind Father, take care of all us in this Home and the Poona Home to-night; bless all who look after us, and abundantly bless Ramabai and Sundrabai who take such care of us. Now, Father, we thank You for Jesus and for what Jesus promises to do for us. Take care of us to-night, and forgive us wherein we have given You pain to-day, for Jesus' sake. Amen.'''
Miss A. Parsons, of the" Poona and Indian Village Mission," gives an interesting picture of days spent with Ramabai's famine widows at Kedgaum. She says in part: "They are a sad pitiful sight when first they come! Some almost too weak to move, some throngh want of cleanliness and propel' food are covered with sores, that it is painful to look at them, others through sheer poverty have been reduced to wearing the same article of clothing for such a very long time that it is impossible to stand neal' them without feeling faint through the very unhealthy odor proceeding therefrom. Praise the Lord for what a few months in the Home have done for such! They are not only clean, and the majority of them strong and healthy, but they have wonderfully toned down through the Ohrist-influence that has been exerted over them, and now instead of quarreling and fighting, they gladly do anything for one another, or for those who are in charge of them. Some have accepted Ohrist as their Savior, and many of us who are older in the Ohristian life, might well envy them their simple faith in a God whom they believe not only has made a way of salvation from sin for them, but one who cares for them and promises to supply their every need."
Rev. 'V. 'V. Bruere held ten days' special services in the Poona Home last year, and at the close 116 women and child-widows were baptized. Later he went to Kedgaum to hold a mission. The women had been prepared for these services by constant daily religious teaching ever since they entered the Home. At the close of three !;lays' services sixty-seven had been converted. The meetings were continued, Mr. Bruere returned, and as the crowning event on November 15, the baptismal service took place. It was a rare sight when seventeen bullock carts, crowded with seven and eight women in each, started out for the Bheema River, five and a half miles distant from the farm. Songs of joy arose one after another as they slowly went along, methinks mingled themselves with the joy around the throne when sinners are converted. A tent was· pitcht on the bank of the river, which served as a dressingroom. A short service was held by Rev. W. W. Bruere, after which the haptisms took place. The happy faces and frequent expressions of praise showed that the Spirit teaches His children alike the world over, for these women had never come in contact with many Ohristians, revivals,
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
or baptismal services. One hundred and eight women and girls and one boy of twelve years of age were baptized.
The chief thing that imprest one in the meetings was the real working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the girls, producing real sorrow for sin and an earnest search for salvation. Then when the light would break in, there would be the spontaneous utterance of such notes of praise as the one Spirit alone can teach. We all know how timid the women of this country are about speaking in public, but when Jesus comes into the heart, the joy of salvation drives out fear. One after another they would rise and tell of forgiveness of sins, yet in language peculiarly their own.
On Sunday "something new" came into existence-a church of widows. Connected with the church a Sunday-school was organized, with regular officers and teachers. The older girls (those under Ramabai's care prior to the famine) have a chance to prove that salvation is not a selfish acquirement, for they are given a class in Sunday-school as well as appointed class-leaders to instruct those in their charge.
THE LIVINGSTONIA MISSION IN AFRICA. * BY RIGHT HON. LORD OVERTOUN.
Twenty-four years have past away since David Livingstone died on his knees at Ilala, near Lake Bangweolo. While his body was brought home by loving hands and laid to rest among the luighty dead in Westminster Abbey, his heart rests near the spot where, in suffering, he spent the last night of his life, among the people he loved so well.
His death rang the great bell for the evangelization of the Dark Continent, and the Livingstonia Mission, advocated by Dr. Stewart, of Lovedale, Livingstone's fellow-traveler, was founded in 1874, and stands to-day a nobler monument to the great missionary than crumbling marble. The following year the Ilala steamed into Lake Nyassa, bearing a company of pioneer missionaries, headed by Dr. Laws, who for a quarter of a century has ably directed the Livingstonia Mission. During all these years a battle has been steadily waged of Light against Darkness; the Gospel against Heathenism; Liberty against Slavery; Civilization against Barbarism; Righteousness and Truth against Vice, Cruelty, and Superstition.
By God's good hand upon us the small band of 1875 now numbers 28 Scottish missionaries and 112 native evangelists, while there has been formed a native church, with seven congregations, 12 elder~ and deacons, and 291 members. There are now 85 schools, with 354 native teachers and monitors, and with a daily attendance of 11,510 pupils.
The great purpose of the Livingstonia Mission is to win Central Africa for Christ. The work is carried on on four great lines: 1. Ecl'angeHzai'ion by the direct proclamation of the Gospel at the various mission centers. At Bandawe the attendance at church on Sabbath numbers upward of 1,000, and from each center native evangelists go out every Sabbath with the Gospel message to surrounding villages, some as much as ten miles distant. The church building has become too * From The Ftee Church of Scotland Monthly.
1898·1 'tHE LJVINGSTONIA MISSION IN
small, and the session and congregation have petitioned for help to build a new church, seated for 1,400, to which they are to contribute £200, ($1,000). Not only the adults are reacht, but the children are specially cared for and taught in Sunday-schools out of God's Vord in their own tongue. They have a great talent for music, and delight in the hymns which are on the lips and hearts of our bairns at home. The printing and circulation of the Bible in the native dialects have greatly helpt the work, and the people are gladly paying for the VVord of God and Chris- tian literature, which are now spreading through the country.
2. Medical lIfissions.-As in all lands, so in Africa, this work has arrested and won the people, and given them perhaps their first idea of what Christianity is. That men better, wiser, stronger than they should come, not to destroy or rob them, but to heal and help, is a mystery beyond their comprehension. Vhen they see men and women healed and cured by those who are constrained by love of God, and learn that the Son of God lived and died on the earth to save them, is it to be wondered at that their confidence and then their hearts were won? At Bandawe alone more than 10,000 cases have been treated in the past year.
3. Educai'ion.-No thoughtful or observant man now questions the policy of educating the natives, for in the march of civilization and commerce, the demand is steadily on the increase for trained and intelligent natives, and the daily attendance at the eighty-five schools is very large. There are a large number at the elementary stages, hut many, especially at the Institute, are in the fifth and sixth standards. The diversity of tongues-nine different languages being spoken in Nyassaland-greatly increases the difficulty of school-work. Ve are feeling more and more the desirability of having a uniform language, and are trying to adopt tltt Nyanja language, enricht by such words as may be adapted from others.
4. Industrial Work.-The experience gained, and the success achieved at Lovedale under the able guiding hand of Dr. James Stewart, satisfied us at the outset of the mission that we must seek not only to take the Gospel of Christ to the people of N yassaland by direct preaching and medical missions, but also to educate them-not only in ordinary school instruction, but to train them in industrial pursuits-so that some occupation might be given which would take the place of their one occupation, warfare, and also prove beneficial to the people by training them in the arts of peace. Ve therefore, at all our stations, have more or less given instruction by Christian tradesmen in carpentery, brickmaking, agriculture, building, and latterly printing, telegraphy, and tailoring, as well as elementary ambulance work. A central training institute receives the more promising pupils, and makes them inh mechanics and tradpsmen who will do much to develop thp country. The demand for admission from all the stations is three times as great as our accommodation, staff, and funds allow us to receive.
The work of the Livingstonia :Mission is changing the country and the people. Slave-raiding, with its horrors, is almost a thing of the past. Poison-drinking is ceasing. Superstition is dying out. Fields are planted with coffee, wheat, and potatoes, and gardens with vegetables. New fruit and timber trees are being planted, and cattle are being raised and tended. All this has been wrought hy God through the Gospel, through the labors of our noble band of workers. But Africa is to be
MISSIONARY DIGEST trE]PAR1'lIfENT
won by her own sons and daughters, and for this end we are laboring. Within the last six months 285 men and women have confest their faith in Christ. The field is great, and there are openings around us, which for lack of men and money we can not yet enter, while they are calling us to come.
———- REV. PROFESSOR JAMES LEGGE, M.A., D.D., LL.D.* 1. HIS WORK IN CHINA.-The fame of Dr. Legge as a Chinese scholar of the very first rank has traveled throughout the world. He was of such a scholarly turn of mind, that he might have risen to high eminence in the university in which he was trained, but his mind, however, was set upon becoming a missionary. Accordingly, in the year 1839, t he was appointed to labor in the great empire of China.
In those early days China sternly and haughtily refused to allow foreigners free access into the country. Dr. Legge, therefore, began his missionary life at Malacca, where he became the presiding spirit in the college which had been establisht there for the higher education of Chinese young men, who, it was hoped, would play an important part in the elevation of their country.
After the conclusion of the war between England and China, and the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, by which Hongkong was ceded to the former country, Dr. Legge hastened to take up his residence there. He was not content with being able simply to acquire the spoken language of the Chinese, but determined to study the written characters in which the books are printed, Thus he would be able to read for himself the writings of the ancient sages of China. Dr. Legge was a hard student. As his knowledge of the language grew, and his acquaintance with the writ;ngs of Confucius and Mencius became more thorough, the purpose to translate these into English gradually fixt itself in his mind. Those who would understand the Chinese, must study their sacred writings. Dr. Legge determined that this should be made possible by translating them into English. The Chinese classics reveal the mincl of China more than any other books that have ever been written in that great empire. They stand, in fact, in very much the same relation to the people of China as the Bible does to the English. They have had to do with the molding and development of the Chinese character. From early times down to the present they have been the only school-books that would be tolerated in any school throughout the eighteen provinces. Every man that professes to be a scholar knows them off by heart, and even those whose education is most imperfect will assume an appearance of culture by quoting sentences that they have learned from them on all possible occasions. They are the royal road to distinction and honors in the State, for only the men that have received their degrees by passing examinations in them can hope for high official appointments. Every man in China is a Confucianist first, no matter what else he may be after.
To perform this great task one would naturally suppose that Dr.
* From the L. M. S. Chronicle.
t James Legge was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire. on Dec. 20, 1814, and studied first at King's College and University, Aberdeen, and then at Highbury College, London. He was a member of the church assembling at Trevor Chapel. Brompton, then under the pastorate of Dr. John Morrison, whose daughter, Mary Isahella, was his first wife She died in 1852. Subsequently he married Mrs. Willets, the widow of the Rev. G. Willets, of Salisbury.
REV. PROFESSOR JAMES LEGGE, M.A., D.D., LL.D
Legge would have had to devote all his energies to it, to the exclusion of almost eyery other work. But when he was most busy with the classics, he seemed also to be fully occupied in preaching. He was, besides, pastor of Union Church, in Hongkong, and as a public-spirited man and a loyal citizen, was always ready to expend brain and time for the furtherance of any plan that had at heart the welfare either of his countrymen or of the Chinese. The one thing, however, that has given him a world-wide fame is the profound scholarship that enabled him to translate the sacred books of China, and thus bring them within the reach of every student. In doing this he has broken down the great wall that hid that nation from the West, and has given thinkers an opportunity of studying the ethical principles upon which Chinese society has been built.
II. PROFESSOR LEGGE IN OXFoRD.-In 1876, after the labors of an average lifetime, he left China for England to become professor of Chinese at Oxford. But since that time he has been no less the Chinese missionary than in the earlier days at Hongkong. He has made it his chief concern to toil at the Chinese language and literature in such a way as to bring the West into a fuller and more sympathetic knowledge of the East, and we have had further translations of Chinese classics and treatises on Chinese religions from his prolific pen. He has also trained here in Oxford many able and competent missionaries. But of almost equal importance, we seem to lose in him a great Christian ambassador-to whom men from the far East were ever welcome, and who was unceasingly sought out in his Oxford home by all who were interested in China from whatever cause.
His belief in the necessity for Christian missions was never dimmed. When a paper was to be read before a Nonconformist society upon "Missions: their Use and Abuse," he discovered that some of the members were inclined to be somewhat critical and unsympathetic. He therefor.e wrote a long letter to the secretary, giving the arguments which he would have used had he been able to be present. One paragraph deserves quotation: "From the time that I began to think of what might be my own = course in life-long before I was ten years old-it was as clear to me as that 2 + 2 4 that if I could not find a good reason, which Christ would admit, for not becoming a missionary, I must go as one to some foreign field. For nearly ten years the search for such a reason went on in my mind, until every sophistical excuse which I proposed to myself was gradually disposed of, and, in 1839, I went as a missionary to the Chinese. I thank God to-day that I was finally constrained to adopt that course, and when I look back on the more than thirty years that I spent among that people, I venture to think that it was to me 'a I!race given to teach and preach among them the unsearchable riches of Christ.'''
In this spirit he lived and workt in Oxford, and his abundant services in the churches are to-day remembered with gratitude. His funeral service in Mansfield Chapel was a veritable grammarian's funeral-for Eastern and Western learning were there amply represented. But it was more than that. Our greatest scholars were there to do honor to the man of learning; but there were many also present from far Hankow, and distant Amoy, and elsewhere, whose presence bore eloquent witness to his great achievements as a pioneer worker in the great Middle Kingdom. On the special hymn sheet was the apt quotation from his own translation of Confucius: "If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret."
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
Ill.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDl:"CTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Impressions Made by the Student icies, methods, so that no little re- adjustment is required. But church Volunteer Oonvention. leaders and judicators may well make haste to square themselves to REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D. OBER- the changed situation, and at once proceed to put in harness the po- LIN, o. tent celestial forces here found al- ready massed and waiting to be All things considered, including wielded. the theme continually uppermost in every mind and heart, the great Or, the late convention stood for a l'eligious movement represented, phase of the most marvelous and the intellectual and spiritual char- impressive modern uprising of the acter of the delegates with the stu- youth of our churches, to take their dent bodies which se'nt them, the share of toil and responsibility, eminently business-like manage- eager to learn, rcady to fit themment of affairs, the well thought selves for efficient service. The through and comprehensive pro- Sunday – school and the publicgram, the remarkable high average school systems were prophecies of excellence of the numerous addres- good things to come; later the ses, the ruling spirit and motive Young Men's Christian Associafrom first to last, the really tre- tion with its kindred Young Womendous tho quiet and controlled men's Christian Association gave a enthusiasm everywhere manifest, broad hint of what was in store for it is to be counted a remarkable the Kingdom of forces auxiliary, and significant gathering, and one as well as the more general movenot often, if ever, equaled. Re- ment for the enlargement of woduced to a sentence, the meaning men's sphere, with the Society of of the convention was, world-wide Christian Endeavor and its adaptamissions at the very soonest pos- tion to well-nigh every denominasible constitute the supreme and tion, and the Student Volunteer exigent business of the entire Chris- ~Iovement to cap the climax. All tian Church; but, alas, only the which means that from henceforth f"w are fully awake and possest of not one sex only, but both are to intelligent, burning zeal. be represented in the vast mission- field both at home and abroad, and Among the characteristic feat- not merely by the older half of the ures were such as these: Here was Lord's host, but by the youth and a movement most clearly providen- the children as well. These latter tial in origin and inspiration, that are to be enlisted into the service is, springing up outside of all eccle- of the Great Captain in earliest siastical planning and manage- years. And this well nigh startling ment, spontaneous, fairly leaping innovation upon all hoary preceinto life, irresistible, like Christian- dent is to be accepted heartily and ity itself, the Reformation, modern with thanksgiving. These "irregmissions in Carey's day, or the Sal- ular" undertakings are not to be vation Army. Not strangely some lookt at askance, opposed, represt, confusion results, some revolution in certain well-establisht ideas, polbut rather to be encouraged, guided, culties standing in the way of the and utilized to the utmost. world's speedy evangelization, like the vast m ultitudes of the unreacht, One could hut notice the blessed the strength of the great false reand perfect unity which pervaded ligions, lack of money at home, every session. Here were brought etc., are excuse not the least for together old and young, great and discouragement, for giving up in small, black and white, male and disgust or despair, but are rather female, British, Canadian, and to be made a spur to faith, prayer, American, from every section of aggressive effort. This point was the land, North, South, East, West, made emphatic. If the missionary denominations by the score- societies are afflicted with empty Methodist bishops and Episcopal treasuries, and so can not send the hishops, Presbyterians and Bap- volunteers who are ready to go, tists, from hoth sides of Mason and then let the latter proceed to seek Dixon'::; line; Lutherans of divers needed funds from relatives, from kinds, and many others, hut nohody the local church to which they becared for the difference or stopt to long, or from neighboring churches. think of it. The one weighty, all- Such is the impulse of a soul dead in absorbing fact was, we are Christ's, earnest, of genuine faith and heroand are here to learn how we can, ism. Like Britain's greatest prime at the soonest, crown Him King of minister, the Lord's servant is kings and Lord of lords to the very called to "tread on impossibilities." ends of the earth; and that fellowship of the Spirit in the honds of No word more true, more weighty, peace was possest of a celestial or more solemn was spoken during quality as tho Pentecost had come those five notable days than that of again. Dr. Hall, when he said in substance that, as a rule, with very few ex- 'Vhat divine power went forth on ceptions, in our Christian colleges, Saturday from those five-and- and even our theological seminaries, twenty denominational rallies in as the students do not have afforded many sanctuaries; in sonle cases as them, either in the curriculum or many as twenty or thirty returned in aught that their instructors say missionaries sitting upon the plat- or do, a fair opport1~nity to face form, ready to bear witness to the the all-important q1.wstion, whether world's perishing need and of the they shall consecrate their lives to power of the Gospel to save. The some form of strictly missionary aggregate of these audiences could toil in the foreign field or at home. not have been much short of ]5,000, He would have in both seminary and on Sunday, when practically and college at least a two hours' every church in Cleveland and course required, and another two vicinity was addrest both morning hours' course elective, fitted to supand evening by missionary secreta- ply a chance to settle rationally ries, returned missionaries, student this great matter. Surely no man volunteers, presidents, or profes- or woman can claim to have sesors, and all upon the one theme: cu.red a liberal education who cares Let us arise at once and gird our- nothing about the world's evangeliselves to the mighty task of making zation, and because he knows Jesus King. nothing about the appalling spirit- ual needs of humanity and the ob- Two thoughts in particular may ligation resting upon every renewed be specified as having made a deep soul in every possible way to carry impression upon at least one au- the glad tidings of salvation. ditor. Again and again it was urged with earnestness that diffi- Autonomy of Native Mission Ohurches. dIe their own affairs and push on A great many questions of policy their aggressive work, if the opporin the conduct of foreign missions are forcing themselves to the front tunityof trying to do so is denied simultaneously in a way to demand, as they ought to command, wide them? "Vhat is the result of a and profound consideration. The missionary societies have counted century of cautiousness in throwing their successes at the close of the first century of Protestant move- on them responsibility? ment in non-Christian lands, and cheered their supporters on to new The native churches in West endeavor, but the crisis of the hour calls for a general frank acknowl- Africa in 1893, in a debate with edgment of the seriousness of the situation confronting them in the their home authorities in England twentieth century, and for concerted consideration about how to over the proposal to make a Eurograpple with the problems which experience shows them to have left pean successor to Bishop Crowther untoucht, or about which they have made mistakes. 'Vhen the Ecu- in the Niger See of the Church of menical Conference convenes in 1900 in New York, is it to spend its England, made a deliverance, signed energy in formulating its past achievements chiefly, or will it by forty-six of their clergy and mass its forces to some businesslike investigation of what a century laity as representatives of the body, has taught them they ought to seek to correct in fundamental and in which the following occurred: far-reaching principles of economy? "Christianity has seen about a A graver problem than even century in West Africa generally, "self-support" in foreign missions and yet it to this day wears the is that of self-control, self-propaga- character of an exotic. It has not tion, and leadership of native com- succeeded to root itself in the soil ; mittees by natives. If self-sup- to get the people generally to idenport is considered a prerequisite to tify their interest and their lives autonomy, may it not also be pos- with its existence and that of its sihle that autonomy is the short institutions, and exercise toward cut to self-support? The ultimate it that devotion which they or their goal being a self-acting and self- ancestors had exhibited toward developing native church, how early heathenism. ought snch Christian community to be left to bear the responsibility " There is no strong guarantee for of its own development? What permanence and continuity in this responsibility have the missionaries exotic character, and Africans who and mission boards entrusted them believe in the regenerating power with? Have these churches been of the religion and wish to see it kept in leading-strings from over- cover the whole country, who have caution, to the detriment of their some knowledge of its fate in North growth in tearing responsibility? Africa, after many centuries of ex- How are they ever to learn to han- istence, and of the complete failure of even its Homan Catholic form in comparatively more recent times after over two centuries of exist- ence, and who are not altogether ignorant of the causes of these re- peated and signal failures, are nat- urally anxious to see a repetition of the sad Lud terdble calamity avoided.
"It is our conviction that one of the reasons for the character which Christianity now manifests in Africa is the fact that it has been held too long in a state of de- pendence; and that it has been too long in the habit of looking to its foreign parent for immediate guid- ance and direction in almost every- thing, and this you will admit, does not make much for the development of that manly independence and self-reliance which are so essential for the development of a strong people and a vigorous institution.
"We are not blaming our teachers, who have sacrificed themselves Church-an experiment whose sucon the altar of love for us. vVe do cess was very generally desired in not underrate any of their achieve- England, especially on account of ments, for which we are, and ever the very heavy mortality which hope to be, grateful. 'Ve are not had always prevailed among Euimpatient of the presence of Euro- ropean missionaries in the African peans a,mongst us, as we have un- mission all through its long course. fortunately been too often mis- The clergy and lay agents that takenly represented by some of our workt under this episcopate, which foreign friends to be, but are invi- was often exercised amidst circumting attention to a state of things stances of peculiar difficulty and which we are persuaded they would trial, were almost, always natives." like to see changed." They did not attempt to claim They argued that the episcopate any perfection of administration. of Bishop Crowther demonstrated They were only endeavoring to their ability to conduct their own show that even when handicapt affairs successfully, tho that had by the semi-control of the church the drawback of sensitiveness about authorities in England, they had the control of their affairs being done well enough to justify further only one remove further back, be- enlargement of their independence. cause Bishop Crowther himself was They argued thus: kept under such limitations from "But attempts have been made direction by the authorities in the last few years-on account of moral weakness discovered in England. They believed that the some of the infant churchee that have been gat.hered in, and serious bishop and the native churches faults in some of the agents and the like-to pronounce the experiwould have made a much better ment a failure and the negro inca- pable for a responsible trust and for showing had the entire responsibil- an independent life ; and in spite of the century of training and teachity of administration, uncontrolled ing he has had, unfit still to be set free from his pupilage and the leadby Europeans altogether, been en- ing-strings of European superin- tendence. trusted to them. They might have " We, on our part, do not find made mistakes, but they would ourselves able to subscribe to this pronouncement with the facts of the have learned by experience, and mission to which we have already referred before us, and also the fact would have developt a governing that some of the apostolic churches of which we read in Scripture were faculty all the more rapidly. Yet not exempt from serious faults, and that the churches even in Europe, they believed the episcopacy of which have been in possession of Christianity many centuries, and Bishop Crowther, as a negro those in other parts of the world, do not, many of theIn, form an exbishqp, itself showed that they were ceDtion."
capable of self-direction and devel- This was not said in any "iu opment under absolute autononlY. quoque" spirit, but was a plain That episcopacy covered the space reference to the history of all be- of twenty-seven years. They said: ginnings, and the incipient stage of "The elevation of the late Bishop all church organizations. Crowther to the episcopate in 186! was declared by the Church Mis- The report of that able and spirsionary Society-which, under God, was mainly instrumental in bring- ited discussion reacht the writer at ing it about, and whose servant he was, and which has, from. the fact the time, not through any missionof its being the honored founder of the 'Vest African churches, held ary periodicals, in which it might the patronage of these churches in its own hands-to he an experi- properly have been lookt for, but ment to prove the capacity of negroes for evangelizing important through the local secular press in sections of the African Continent by themselves and without the stJmulus 6f the presence and supervision of Europeans, and for exercising the higher offices in the 'Vest Africa, and was preserved as Work Among Syrian Ohristians, India. a valuable contribution to the per- manent tliscussion of this funda- BY J. G. GREGSON, MANCHESTER, mental feature of missionary eco- nomics. He did not present the sub- ENGLAND. ject at the time in these columns, partly through delicacy lest such For over thirty years I labored course might be esteemed unfriend- in India without any knowledge of ly to the missionary administra- the power of the Holy Ghost work- tion, whose action provokt a ing within me. Recently I re- heated controversy. It is doubt- visited the country and was invited ful if the caution was justified. to hold meetings among the Syrian That discussion was educative, and Christians, in Travancore, South- ought to have had wide attention ern India. of the churches generally. Unfor- tunately, there is no provision for These people belong to the re- a common council of missionary form party in the Syrian Church, administrators and missionaries for which they believe was founded by the consideration of questions St. Thomas, at Quilon, on the which, like this, affect all missions. Malabar coast, in the year 52 A. D. The reform took place ahout twenty It is certainly desirable that this years ago, by the bishop renouncing Ecumenical Conference of 1900 shall the confessional, prayer to the consider whether it can not provide saints and Virgin Mary, prayers for the erection of some common for the dead and masses, but until representative body to meet, say recently they knew nothing of spiribiennially, to deal with questions of tual truth and power through the fundamental nature, like this, in baptism of the Holy Spirit. The which they have all common inter- reform had been more in outward est. What these African brethren ceremonies than in spiritual living. assert about the failure of a century of missions to produce an indige- The center of this movement is nous type of Christianity in their Aiyroon, on the river Ranee, where country is, there is room to fear, the people came night after night not peculiar to their locality. The in vast crowds of between two and episcopal churches have not ele- three thousand persons.. The servated natives to the episcopacy, vices were far too short to satisfy and they only represent what the their desire to hear and learn more non-episcopal churches have failed about spiritual things. At the close to do within their several econo- of the meetings we usually waited mies. It may be quite true that upon God, in silence, for a few the native churches have not exhih- moments, and then one after anited the qualities for such responsi- other of the audience would pray bility and leadership, but the deeper aloud. It would be impossible to question is whether this condition conceive of anything more moving is not attributable largely to their than to listen to these vast crowds, never having had responsibility in which each individual prayed thrust upon them. Men grow under aloud to God to guide him into all responsibility, just as lads do, or as truth, and very specially to reveal peoples do in new territory, where the possibilities of a holy life, lived they can not avoid assuming lead- out by His Spirit. ership. This problem deserves attention. Its discu);sion ought to be ad- My second mission was one of vanced on the calendar. constant traveling through the churches and living amongst the people. I found them simple- minded, hospitable, and earnest. In some parishes, where they were beginning their rice harvest, they an evangelistic movement among gave up work and often came miles the heathen, who are their farm to attend the meetings. In many servants. The Syrian Christians places the churches were too small are the farnlers of Travancore, and, to hold the crowds, so that we had in many instances, cultivate their to meet outside in the open air. own lands. The chief products are When the meeting was over, many rice, tapioca, sugar-cane, and cocoawould remain to a late hour, asking nuts. questions and carefully examining the Scriptures concerning the Another encouraging evidence truths they had heard. of their desire to know more fully what God has in store for them, Christmas day is kept on January is to be found in the eagerness with 6th, and a great festival it is. The which the women attend the meet- Christmas service begins just be- ings. They are taken up with fore dawn, a little after three household cares and duties, and o'clock, when the explosion of have but little time to attend to bombs and the clanging of bells spiritual things. Several of the arouse the sleepers to the con- elderly women were deeply consciousness that it is Christmas cerned about living a holy life in morning. The first ceremony is the power of the Holy Spirit. Tho around a camp-fire in front of the the Syrian women are not shut up church, where they sing and pray, in zenanas, they have a life of like the shepherds who kept watch drudgery, and are treated more by their fires at night. The service like household servants than as in the church begins about four wives. They are married when o'clock, and goes on without a they are quite children, through arpause till eleven or twelve o'clock. rangements made by their parents, At the invitation of the priest, I and submit to the position in which preacht the sermon on Christmas they live, according to the customs day, and in the afternoon had a of their forefathers. meeting with the Sunday-school children. The boys and girls were For this work men and money remarkably bright and happy, tho are needed, and my belief is, that one little lad greatly surprised me when He calls forth His laborers with a text, which was given in re- He will provide the means required sponse to my request. He rose and to send them forth. The need is for said very gravely: "Oh, wretched sanctified messengers who have reman that I am, who shall deliver ceived the baptism of the Holy me from the body of this death?" Ghost, and are thereby endued with I felt that my young friend must the power of the Holy Ghost, and go home with a brighter text than divinely qualified to go as living the one he had given me, so I gave witnesses to the uttermost parts of him instead: "Rejoice in the Lord the earth.* always." Does the Roman Catholic Church Want One of the most encouraging an" Open" Bible in Roman signs in connection with the mis- Catholio Countries? sion has been in having a good many young men attending the Weare furnisht with fresh evimeetings who have been educated dence of the antagonism of the in English and read our literature. Roman Catholic Church to a free These young men have formed a and open Bible, in an episode which Young Men's Christian Association, and are deeply interested in * Mr. Gregson returned to Travancore in November, in response to a request to con- duct a three years' mission among the Syrians.-ED. has occurred in the order of " Free Dam shall hereafter be removed and Accepted Masons." 'Vhat the and repudiated." merits or demerits of Free Masons or of Free Masonry may be, lies The New York Freeman's Jouroutside of the purview of this peri- nal, noticing this expulsion and odical. But Wm. A. Sutherland, repudiation of the Grand Lodge of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge Peru, asks: Vhat will be the result of Free and Accepted Masons of if the Grand Lodge of Peru in turn the State of New York, has entered expels the Grand Lodge of New the arena as a champion of an open York from the order of Free and Bible as against one Christian Accepted Masons? Of the whole Dam, Grand Master of Masons in matter as an inter-Masonic affair, Peru. It appears from the recital whatever its merits pro or can, this in a circular, which we judge is not periodical knows nothing, and with esoteric to Masonry, that this it has nothing to do. But, assum- Grand Master of Masons in Peru ing that Mr. Sutherland is well acannounces to those under his juris- quainted with the facts in the case, diction that" according to Catho- and aware of his ability, and that licism the Bible is a sacred book in he is an eminent and authorized which the revealed word is depos- attorney in the State of New York, ited and as snch can not be freely we take it for granted that what he examined and criticized; that the affirms of the authoritative expul- Bible can not be considered as a sion of the Bible from the so-called fountain of scientific knowledge " Masonic altars" of Peru, and the or history, nor as a basis of moral- reasons for it, are matters of fact, ity; " and he does" decree that on and we make reference to it only all Masonic altars the Bible shall in evidence of the general spirit be removed and replaced by the of the Roman Catholic Church to- Constitution of the order of Free ward the Bible in every land it Masonry, and that in all our ritu- dominates, and as a fresh illustraals the word' Bible' shall be strick- tion of the need of the presence and en out and the words, 'the Con- power of Protestant missions in stitution of the Grand Lodge of countries dominated, as is Peru, by Peru' put in its place." the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
The circular signed by William The Freeman's Journal volun- A. Sutherland as Grand Master teers in explanation of the course proceeds to affirm, " By virtue of of the Peru lodge, that it is in evithe powers and prerogatives in me dence of and a part of the lamenvested as Grand lYlaster of Masons table infidelity of the times. But in the State of New York, I do will the Journal tell us in what announce and declare that the said Roman Catholic country the eccleedict and the decree of the said siastics of the church have not Christian Dam has terminated all antagonized the circulation of the relations heretofore existing be- Scriptures among the people, or tween the Grand Lodge of Peru in which of these countries it and the Grand Lodge of New has taught that the Scriptures York;" and as Grand Master Mr. might be "freely examined" by Sutherland commands all under the the laity? The Plenary Counjurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of cil of Baltimore may have said New York to "abstain from all that they desired to see the Bible Masonic intercourse with the so- (pl'esumably the Douay edition) in called Grand Lodge of Peru until every home, but that is in a strong the said edict of the said Christian Protestant country, and amidst tendencies which they did not originate, and is not in evidence for believe that to be true, not because, Roman communities which they as the Journal says, it expresses overshadow. Does it not occur also the infidelity of Masons in South to the Journal that it is dealing America, France, and Italy, but in with the product of three centuries that it plainly blurts out as the of unrestricted domination of the basis of its action, that" accord'ing Roman Catholic Church in Mexico to Cathoi'icis1n" the Bible is too and in South American communi- " sacred" to be "freely examined." ties, when it speaks of infidelity It is that policy which has resulted which results from Roman Catholic in the revolt against the Roman administration? We have long Catholic religion which the Freeknown that the Roman hierarchy man's Jonrnal styles infidelity, wasted no affection on Free Mason- and which it alleges the Masonic ry in Roman Catholic countries, orders of Roman Catholic lands repbut we had supposed that that resent. hatred was toward it in common with all other secret societies. It Uniformity in Missionary Statistics. seems very probahIe, however, that it is in accord with the spirit of the It was mentioned in the report of Roman Catholic Church, that the the Missionary Officers' Sixth An- Peru lodge excluded the Bible from nual Conference, that a committee its altar, and not because of infidel- which has been patiently working ity, since the ground of the expul- for some years to mature a formula sion, and the argument based on it, for statistical reports fwm the sevis that the Bible is a "sacred book in eral forE'ign fields, has been successwhich the revealed word is deposit- ful in preparing snch a schedule as ed. " There does not seem to be ar- the American and Canadian socierant infidelity in that, but there ties had generally agreed upon, and is a prononncement of what the this conference called attention to Grand Lodge of Peru understands it as possibly affording a sufficiently to be the permanent policy of the comprehensive and yet analytical Roman Catholic Church in all Ro- formula for general use over the man Catholic lands, in the assertion missionary world. We make room that the reason for the expulsion for the headings of these several is that" accor&ing to Catholicism" columns that missionaries everythe Bible is too "sacred" to be where may take note of the same, " freely exalnined," we assunle, by and if the brotherly spirit which the laity. dominated the American Officers' Conference shall prevail in attempt- There will not be much zeal for ing to work it, this or something the circulation of the Scriptures, better will greatly aid in reducing by any church or people holding the present confusion, which makes this theory concerning the Scrip- the foreign churches, at least in one tures. If the republics of South respect, not unlike heaven, in be.ing America and Mexico ever get this a company which "no 1nan can Bible in "every home," they will number." The formula has blanks probably only have that blessing for returns in the following order: through the Protestant Bible societies and the Protestant missions "TABLES OF STATISTICS FOR THE of those lands. YEAR ENDING – – The Free1nan's Journal says: Nmne of Stai'ion, Town or Vil- "Christian Dam has simply been lage-When establisht ; population more frank than his South Amer- of field. Missionar'ies-Ordained; ican confreres." 'Ve admit and unordained (not physicians); phY- sicians (men); physicians (women·) ; s~ngle women; wives; total mis- daily average attendance during sIOnaries. Native Helpers – Or- the year, not total enrolment. All dained preachers; unordained salaries, contributions, and so- preachers; teachers (men); teachers ciety grants should be stated in na- (women) ; Bible women; other na- tive currency. Expenses 01' contri- tive helpers; total native helpers. butions entered in one column Chu~rch Statistics – Out-stations; should not be entered in another places of regular meeting; organ- column. The salary of a preacher ized churches; churches entirely engaged in teaching during the self-supporting; communicants; week should be divided between con- added by confession (year); adher- gregational expenses and school ents; average attendance; Sunday-* expenses, in the proportion to schools; Sunday-school member- which he devotes his time to each. ship. Educai'ional Stat~istics-The Meeting places should include or- ological schools; students in theo- ganized churches. It is desirable logical training for the ministry; to group towns and villages by students in collegiate training; their relations to an organized boarding and high schools; pupils church, or by circuits, rather than (boys) ; pupils (girls) ; other schools, to enter them alphabetically. pupils. (boys); pupils (girls); total number under instruction; schools (This excellent table is by far the entirely self-supporting; united most complete and satisfactory with church during year. Native thus far issued, and much would be ContribuNons, Churches and Chap- gained by its universal adoption by els-For church and Ctmgregational missionary boards. There are, howexpenses; for education; fer build- ever, some headings which may ing and repairs; for home and for- still permit' misunderstanding. eign missions; total native contri- "Vhenever such possibility exists butions; appropriated by board; some are sure to make use of it: for churches and education (natiYe work). Medical Summwl'Y – The 1. Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyitems suggested are, number of hos- terian, and other organizations may pitals ; number of beds; number of put different interpretations on the in-patients; number of dispensa- word ordained. ries; number of out-patients; total expenses, including assist- 2. It would be well to distinguish ants ;t receipts in fees. Under the between paid and unpaid, Christian department of Pr'inl>ing Press the and non-Christian, native helpers. items are-number of printing establishments; number of pages 3. Communicants should include printed during the year; number only full members, and should be of pages printed from beginning; distinguisht from those who join number of Scripture portions; num- on probation. ber of other books; total expense of running press, including sup- 4. Added by confession might by plies; total sales for the year. some be more clearly understood if defined as meaning those "received This formula is accompanied with into full comnlunion."
the following suggestive notes: 5. It would be helpful to have a distinction made between Christian This blank can be used for station and non-Christian pupils. reports, or to make up the totals of a mission, comprising the statistics 6. Total (pupils) under instl'1wfrom a number of stations. (,ion should be stated not to include those in Sunday-schools. Adherents include all communicants, baptized children,::: inquirers 7. Un'ited with the ch1Lrch during under instruction or received on the year is, we suppose, intended to probation, and regular church at- refer only to pupils under instructendants. All contributions, fees, tion, and not to include those 01' society grants are understood to merely baptized or received on promean for the year closing the re- bation.-D.] port. Day-schools should allow Protestant Missionaries in Turkey. • The word "Sabbath" was suggested as a substitute for H Sunday." "Ve admire the frankness of the t Not including salaries of foreign mission- New York Freeman's Journal, a aries. Roman Catholic paper, in the fol- t Or baptized non·communicants. lowing, which it says under the caption of "A Correction: "
" Some weeks ago we commented
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
on reports, sent from Washington Rescue Work in India.
to the New York press, concerning Rev. J. O. Denning, M.A., prin- Protestant missionaries in Ar- cipal of the Hardwicke Christian menia. These reports represented Boys' School, Narsinghpur, India, the missionaries as encouraging the Dec. 22, 1897, acknowledges a dona- revolt against the Turkish govern- tion for the support of his orphan ment, and as presenting exorbi- boys, and communicates some facts tant bills of damages for property of interest, which we give in sub- destroyed by the Turks. vVeight stance: was given to these reports by repre- "Narsinghpur is one of the four districts of the central provinces senting them as based on official suffering worst by famine.
information from Dr. Angell, "Over two years ago a mother brought her three children, want- American Minister to Turkey. As- ing to sell the girl of twelve years for ten rupees ($3.25), but suppossuming the correctness of the re- ing no one would take the two boys, younger, at any price, after ports, and seeing no contradiction, a little talk, she gave me all three for nothing. From that time till we made our comments. now, two years, hundreds of people have been dying all around us; the " Concerning the crediting of ghastly looks of the living skele- tons crying for bread; the sores these reports to our minister to and other diseases resulting from hunger; children sucking empty Turkey, the Rev. John Lee, of breasts or crying beside a dead mother; the pitiful appeals for Chicago, sends us the following let- food, which we were unable to meet, were enough to make Dne's hair ter, which, in answer to an inquiry, turn gray.
he received from the Assistant " "Ve rescued over seven hundred children, nearly all orphans, and Secretary of State: sent them to various mission- schools. Our boys' school here "Rev. JOHN LEE, 57 vVashington soon filled up to about sixty, but Street, Chicago, Ill.: having no more room, we sent others away. Last February we "Sir: I have to acknowledge the bought a large building here, nearly receipt of your letter of the 21st new, for about two-fifths of its inst., in which you say that a cost, and put the boys in it. Last prominent New York paper states March we began relief work. A that complaint was made some lady gave money to employ people time ago that much of the trouble -hungry, yet able to work. Others in Armenia was caused by the con- did likewise. For six months I had duct of Protestant missionaries, about 300 of these working people, and that our minister at Constan- and have 100 yet. They have greatly tinople, in his report to the State enlarged and improved the school Department giving details of the buildings, and there is room now recent attack on Turkish villages for 400 or 500 boys. by Armenian brigands, justifies the complaint. You request a copy of " Everyone on entering the school said report. leaves off his heathenism and be- gins Christian form. Many of the "In reply I have to inform you older boys have really found the that no report of the character Savior. stated has been received from our minister to Constantinople, and Most of the boys will probably the statement that you have quoted, follow trades or some business, but which has been persistently current no small per cent. will be preachers in the press, has been repeatedly and teachers to their people. In the denied. Respectfully yours, first English class, a sweeper-boy stands first; in the second, a Brah- "WILLIAM R. DAY, min, while a Mussulman is proba- " A.s.si.stant Secretary. bly first on a general average.
"As the author of the reports falsely attributes them to our min- ister, no reliance can be placed on what he says. His statement is detrimental to the character of the missionaries, and must be considered as worthless. And any remarks of ours based on those false reports are, of course, withdrawn."
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
IV. -FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
India,* Burma,t Ceylon,+ Hinduism,§ Woman's Work,11 Native Agents.f1 BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
The Awakening of India. Christians, and second in the birth of souls into the Kingdom. More earnest believing prayer, and more absolute self-surrender 'Ve rejoice and give thanks for and dependence upon the power the blessing already received and and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the p'i"OgTCSS already made. At the great need of the Church to-day the beginning of this century Prctfor the work both at home and estant missions had only just been abroad. The Church of Christ has cOInmenced in India, and were on the money and the men; what is a very small scale. In 1851 the needed is the consecration and ener- native Christians numbered 91,100; gizing of these forces. More prayer in 1861 they had increast to 138,700; is of greater importance than more in 1871 there were 224,300; in 1881, work. India is possest of a legion 417,400; and in 1800 they were reof devils which can not be cast turned as 559,700. At the present forth but by prayer and fasting. time there are probably more than The missionaries are awakening to 750,000. There were very few chila realization of this, and observed dren in mission-schools at the be- December 12th last as a day of prayer ginning of the century. In 1851 for India. The fruits are already there were 64,000; in 1861, 76,000; being made manifest, first in the in 1871, 122,400; in 1881, 187,700; in quickening of the spiritual lives of 1890, 290,700. There are now 300,- the missionaries and of the native 000 children under Christian in- struction. A writer in the Harvest * See also pp. 368 (May, 1897); 517, 541 (July); Field summarizes the present work in India as follows: 579, 591 (August); 669, 682, 687 (September); 13, 36 (January, 18981; 119, 139 (FebruarYI; "There are to-day nearly three- 197 (March); 249,256,260,275 (present issue). fourths of a million of Protestant Christians; half a million of chil- NEW BOOKS: H India, the Horror Stricken dren are under Christian instruc- Empire'" II Twelve I ndian Sta tPeisomneeen~sII tion; there are also 1,000 European George Smith, LL.D ; •• Missio n ary and Eurasian preachers, another in India," John Rutherford, D.D ; H Life of 1,000 lady workers, 5,000 native preachers, and 10,000 native teach- Valpy French," Hubert Birke; .. Christian ers at work spreading Christian truth among the people." Services Among Educated Bengalese." R. P. Wilder; I< Life and Travels in India," The growth indicated in these figures is cheering, but when we re- A.nna Leonowenj H British India," R. 'V. Fra- member that in London alone there zer; II Hindu Manners, Customs, and Cere- are six times as many ordained preachers of the Gospel and probamonies," Abbe dn Bois. bly twice as many other workers as in the whole of India, the need of RECENT A.RTICLES: U Indian Discontent and more laborers in this great field Frontier Risings," Quarterly Review (Octo- will be apparent. ber, '97); "England and the Famine in India," Forum (November, '97); H Bubonic Bishop Thoburn writes of the present opportunii'ies in India, as Plague in India," Chautauquan (March). contrasted with 40 years ago: t See also pp. 264, 270 (present issue). "It was no longer necessary to NEW BOOKS: .. Picturesque Burma," Mrs. E. Hart.
t See also pp. 583 (August, 1897).
NEW BOOKS: •• Letters from Ceylon," Fannie Gregson.
§ See also pp. 445 (June, 1897), 579 (August).
NEW BOOKS: "The Upanishads," F. M. Miiller.
RECENT ARTICLES; "Early Religion of the Hindus," Bibliotheca Sacra (January).
II See also pp. 643, 669 (September, 1897); 197 (March, 1898); 249, 278 (present issue).
'[ See also pp. 264 (present issue). go to the jungles to find inquirers. all believe in the power. Spirit- Tn many parts of India thousands are manifesting a practical interest filled workers are the missing link, in the Christian religion. Thirty years ago the great difficulty but they need not be mbsing long. was to find converts who desired instruction. To-day enough Chris- Hindu Social Reform. tian teachers can not be found to instruct the applicants for bap- The following are the resolutions tism. This is not the time for discouragements, but for prayer, past by reform Hindus at the faith, and fidelity. May God inspire His people to rise up in their eleventh social conference at Amspiritual might and meet the stupendous responsibilities of the raoti. * They are suggestive of present hour." much thought, showing that Chris- As to the need of an awakening tian aims and principles are being Rev. G. H. Parsons cites the fact foisted on to Hinduism in many that in his own society (the C. M. directions. Resolved: S.) there was in one year an average I. That in the opinion of this of but two adult baptisms to every conference no perrnanent improve- rnent of our social arrangements three European and native workers. is possible, without a wider spread of female education and the elevation And this he takes to be a fair ex- of the standards at present taught in our public schools; and that the ample of the state of affairs in In- best way to attain this end is (1) the larger employment of qualified dia. No wonder that he calls upon female teachers trained in special his brethren for more 1caiting until normal schools; (2) the continua- tion of the school education in they be endued with power. private houses by means of home classes; and (3) the taking steps to Hev. V. B. Boggs, D.D., of Se- secure a body of self-sacrificing In- dian sisters, who will devote their cunderabad, indicates the following lives to the cause-sacrificing in the manner of Christian sisters of nquisites for the awakening of the charity and mercy.
missionaries and a new outpouring II. The conference notices with satisfaction that in promoting the of spiritual power: cause of temperance, the associa- tions should make common cause 1. A renewed and deepened con- with the temperance workers till viction of the unfailing power of we succeed in securing for the mathe old Gospel, and its perfect jority of the total abstainers the adaptation to India's need. Faith power of determining the number is the first requisite in the over- and locality of licensed liquorthrow of Satan's strongholds. shops in each. large town, or some adaptation of the principle of local 2. A new evangelistic crusade. option. Faith without works is dead. More loving, faithful, patient devotion V. That the conference notes to the work of saving souls will with satisfaction that the reports not fail to be rewarded. of most of the associations furnish evidence of an earnest desire to 3. A new era of prayer. In postpone the lIwr'1'iages of children closet communion lies the secret of to twelve at least in the case of Christian life and spiritual power. girls, and eighteen in the case of May God give us a new knowledge boys, and it recommends • . . of the power of prayer! that the consummation be post- poned till at least 14 and 20 in the It is always easier to recognize case of girls and boys respectively.
a mighty manifestation of God's VI. That in the opinion of the conference th~ practise of men of power in the past, or to believe that more than 50 years of age marrying young girls below 12, is opposed to it may come in the future, than it the spirit of the Shastras, and is is to expect that He will do great * Condenst from The Bombay Gttardian.
things in the present. There is nothing too hard for God. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and forever. All acknowledge the need, extremely prejudicial to the inter- industry so that they may attain est of the community. positions which will remedy the disadvantages of their condition, VII. That the experience of the and not to induce them to join last 40 years' working of the Widow other faiths. Marriage Act of 1856 has establisht the fact that the act fails to XIV. That the conference is of opinion that the imprisonment of secure to the remarrying widow women in execution of decrees for the full enjoyment of her natural the restitution of conjugal rights rights in the following respects: (1) should be abolisht, as such coercive That such widow is made to forfeit process is not sanctioned by any her life interest in her husband's enlightened code of laws, and as immovable property for doing a the legislature has already abolisht imprisonment of women in execulawful act, when such forfeiture tion of decrees for money. would not have resulted if she had misconducted herself; (2) that there XVI. That as the law at present is a general impression that she loses stands, there is apparently no proproprietary right over her mov- tection to a widow or an unmarried girl living under her guardian's proables in favor of her husband's tection, above 12 or below 16, who relatives; (3) in many cases she is a consenting party to an act and her second husband are not of personal dishonor at the hands only excommunicated, but their of strangers. In the opinion of the conference the consent of such right of worship in public temples a girl between 12 and 16 should, as and access to public places has been in the case of kidnapping, be held denied to them; (4) in some parts of to be inoperative to protect the man who violat.es her honor. the country she is subjected to disfigurement without any freedom to Prize Essay on India's Religion.* her to exercise her choice. The conference is of opinion that steps The Saxon Missionary Confer- should be taken by the social reform ence, whose object is to arouse and associations to adopt remedies to relax the stringency of caste usages, maintain interest and intelligence and to secure a reconsideration of at home respecting missions among the principles of the act with a view to remedy its defects. the heathen, proposes, in union VIII. The conference notes with with the Preachers' Conference of satisfaction that in several prov- the Lower Erzgebirge, a prize of a inces, notably in Bengal, Gujerat, and the Punjab a few attempts thousand marks ($250 or £50) for have been made to bring about the fusion of sub-castes, and the con- an essay in furtherance of the ference recommends that all castes missionary cause in India. This and sub-castes who can dine together, should, as a rule, strive to essay is to have the form of a promote intermarriage among their scientific dissertation of the followmenlbers. ing tenor: IX. The conference records with satisfaction that in nearly all parts "A presentation of the fundaof India efforts are being made to mental views of the Hindus, relig- ious and philosophical, according discourage Nautch and indecent to the Vedas, Upanishads, and of songs and obscene festivities at the the Brahmanic (especially the Ve- Holi. This is only one department danta) philosophy, and an estimate of the purity movement, and the of the same from the Christian conference is of opinion that a wider point of view." scope should be given and greater emphasis laid on the claims of this 1. This prize has been proposed movement in all matters of per- in view of three facts: sonal, family, and public life. (1.) The observation that, in the X. The conference notes with intellectual struggle which has been evokt by missions in India, satisfaction the efforts made by the the cultivated Hindus are, indeed, Maharastra Village Education So- ready to throw over the popular ciety at Baramati, and the Prar- religion, but cling so much the thaua Samaj at Satara, to educate the low castes, and to raise their * Translated by Rev. C. C. Starbuck. status in Hindu society, and it recommends that every effort be made to secure their education and more tenaciously to "the primeval Bhagavad Gita. Special presenta- Aryan religion" contained in the tion must be made on this basis of Vedas, the Vedanta, and the the following: Doctrine of God, Bhagavad Gita, and endeavor to cosmogony, lnan, transmigration, and, above all, redemption. strengthen themselves and others in the fancy that in this" primeval (4.) A further limitation of this religion" the fundamental concep- wealth of material may be made by lll;ying chief weight on the .final tions of Christianity are also to be a~ms (the practical results) of Brahmanism (especially Nirwana) found. against those of Christianity. (2.) The assertion, continually There the extinction of the person- ality, here life eternal; there the reiterated in the journals of India, contemptuous abandonment of the great masses, here the "seeking that this position of the Hindus is to save the lost," etc. confirmed by the comprehensive labors of European scholars in the (0.) The author, however, must take great pains to throw into the domain of Sanskrit literature and light the elements uj truth in those comparative religion. writings on which he founds his course of argument, and which, (3.) The observation, tbat many moreover, may render this better tendencies of the circles in Europe intelligible to Hindu readers.
and America which are estranged (6.) It is desirable that there from Christianity, as, for instance, should be the greatest possible ac- commodation to the Indian manspiritism and theosophy, have, in ners of thought. Whether the some measure, allied themselves author shall even use the form of with "young India," and al'e en- the dialogue, such a favorite form deavoring to make propaganda at of Hindu composition, it is for him home for the Brahmanic doc- to decide.
trines. (7.) The judgment past upon the In view of these phenomena the Hindu religion must be given from the positively Christian point of prize essay must be addrest to view, from that of faith in revelaserve a double end: nt h01ne to in- tion. The counter presentation of struct educated friends of missions the Christian truth will of itself be indispensable for the illustration of in the true genius of the Hindu the labyrinthine aberrations of Hinreligion, and its fundamental dis- duism. tinction from Christianity, as well as abroad to sustain the missionary (8.) The essay, which may be in his conflict with the giant might written either in German or Eng- lish, should not go beyond 20 of Hindu heathenism. printed sheets (about the size of Oldenberg's Religion der Veda). II. As respects the contents and Copyright is reserved to the author. jorm of the prize essay, it is meant: (9.) The manuscript must be (1.) To afford the proof (a) that easily legible, and superscribed this so-called "Aryan religion," with a motto, answering to the neither in itself nor in its histor- superscription of a sealed letter acical evolution is a homogeneous companying, giving the exact name of the writer, as well as of his callsystem, capable of satisfying the ing and dwelling-place. It must be religious needs of a people, not to sent in before June 30, 1899, addrest say of taking the place of Chris- An den Vorstand der Siichsischen Missionskonjerenz, z. H. des Mistianity. (b) That it is an error to sionsseniors R. Handmann, Leipassume that Christian Indologue zig, Arndtstrasse 22, Germnny. as a body would favor a "renais- (10.) The judges are: Professors sance " Brahmanism, now half dead. Dr. Windisch and Dr. Lindner at (c) That Christianity alone is, in its Leipsic, and Dr. von Schroeder at scheme, essence, and destiny, suited Innsbruck.
to become the world's religion. Die Siichsische Missionskonjerenz: (2.) The prize essay must rest P. DR. KLEINPAUL, Vorsitzender. upon a knowledge of sources and Brockwitz bei Coswig, July, 1897. literature corresponding to the present stage of Indological inquiries, and demonstrate this ade- quate knowledge by citations frugally and carefully selected and illustrated on all sides. (3.) It should limit itself to the main points of the religious view of Brahmanism, as it has especially defined itself in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Vedanta, and has modified itself in the
300 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
V.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The "Dizciples" of Madison Oounty. men, seeking to know God's Word, and to follow it. This REVIEW aims to stand for "One with whom I talkt, said: truth and righteousness, without 'There might be here and there an ignorant preacher who preaches fear or favor, and to deal justly error, but the church should not with all parties and questions, irre- be held responsible for such teach- ing.' spective of creed or conoition. But "I was told that the church bejustice is sometimes necessarily lieves in three persons and one God, tardy, for it takes time to secure and that candidates for admission to the church are askt: 'Do you besatisfactory evidence. In our No- lieve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and your Savior?' Another vember (1897) issue certain state- told me that candidates are adments appeared imputing to the mitted by 'faith, repentance, con- fession, and baptism.' Repentance, Disciples of Madison County, N. C., he further stated, must be 'not from the teeth, but from the heart.' certain beliefs and benumbing in- A man must also break off from evil habits, and give evidence of fluences, which, upon further in- true repentance. 'Of course,' he vestigation, we are pleased to find said, 'we have members who are a reproach to the church. But the are untrue. The article was written lives of these do not represent the teachings of the church.' by one unconnected with any mission board, but who has a sincere " I am glad of this investigation, as it has convinced me of the earand sympathetic desire for God's nestness of the leaders of the church in question, and has shown to me blessing upon the people of that that, as a people, they honor the district, and the information was, Vord of God. . . . I am further convinced of the loyalty of these for the most part, gained from va- people to the Lord Jesus Christ.
rious residents there. Our inform- "It is, however, my honest conant, * in regard to the "Campbel- viction that somewhere among the lites," as they were inadvertently people is a great failure to honor the Spirit of God. * They affirm called, is one in whose Christian their belief in the personal Holy charadeI' and spirit we have the Spirit, and say, 'Vhere the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible utmost confidence-a confidence is silent, let a solemn hush prevail,' which is strengthened by further to which I say AUten. But there are great truths about which God communication on the subject. is not 'silent' regarding the per- sonality, character, office, and After a careful investigation our works of the Holy Spirit, which, tho they may be articles of belief, correspondent writes: nre not prominent subjects of preaching, " "The terms 'Campbellite' and 'CampbeJIislIl' were used simply 'Ve have a further communicato make myself more clearly understood, and to distinguish them from tion from one of the "Christians" Christians and disciples in the other churches. I now regret having of Madison County on the doctrinal used terms displeasing to these people, whom I would not willingly position of the "Disciples of wound. Christ" in that district,t and froUl "Regarding this church in the Bluff district I made somewhat this we make copious extracts: broad statements which were founded on hearsay rather than on • This is, unfortunately, only too true of personal knowledge of facts. At many other churches1 even where not traceyour request, I have gone among able to erroneous doctrines. It is often a these people to inquire into their failure of emphasis more than of faith. beliefs. I have interviewed members and adherents of this church in t Henry Clay Ammons. this distrkt, and my inquiries have convinced me that they are earnest • We withhold the name of our correspondent, not by request, but according to our own judgment. "(1.) Our church is known by the as to have unwillingly caused ofname 'Chur~h of Christ,' or 'Chris- fense, and so have given currency tian Church.' Ve regard the nick- to unjust reports. * This may serve, name' Campbellites' as an insult, however, to vindicate them more because we absolutely refuse to thoroughly than if they had not bear any human name, . . . . been accused. Our one aim is glory and we claim that no mortal has to God, and peace among men. any right to apply a name to God's May the Lord more closely unite church other than that found in the the Christians of all creeds to Him- Bible. self, to the end that they may be more closely linkt together, in loy- "(2). If there is a disciple in this alty of heart, and lahors of love. county who does not hold most firmly to the doetrine of the Trin- D. L. P. ity, it is unknown to me. Ve believe in God the Father, and in Dangerous Teaching. Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. We believe in the Holy Vith no little surprise and sor- Spirit as that Holy Personal Spirit row we have noticed, not only in sent forth from God to convict, the daily and secular papers, but in convert, and save sinners, and to some of the religious weeklies the dwell in all saints, to comfort and reported opinions concerning the guide them unto the end. question "Can an agnostic enter heaven?" with the favorable "(3). Ve believe that all sinners answers, not only of Dr. Lyman must be regenerated by the word Abbott and Dr. Heber Newton, hut and Spirit of God in order that one of Drs. Faunce and McArthur (Bapshould enter the Lord's kingdom, tist), Lloyd (Congregationalist), and and that regeneration is the divid- North and Upham (Methodists), the ing line between the saved and un- last a professor in a Methodist saved. . . . Theological Seminary. The quota- tion of such opinions does not sanc- "(5). The only salvation that we tion them, but to qUfJte without ever heard of, conditioned on the comment is to give currency to mis- Gospel, is pCl'sonnl salvation. Each chievous sentiments. At risk of person must hear the Gospel for seeming illiberal and narrow, we himself, believe it for himself, re- feel constrained to say that in our pent for himself, and obey for him- opinion such exprest views tend self, and then he can rejoice that he only to encourage infidelity and is personally saved in Christ…. promote indifference to even the 8earch after the highest truth. On "All we ask is to have our doc- snbjects concerning which a Christrine clearly understood. . . . Ve tian minister and teacher has no are poor in this county, but, for the revelation, even if he ventures to glorious doctrines set forth above, have an o}yin'ion, it behooves him to there is not one of us who would be silent. It is a question whether, not go to the stake with songs if indeed, it is safe to form even an need be. Perse~utions have knit op'in'ion where there is no Bihlical us togethet as one man. Ve hate basis. " Preach the preaching that no one, we love all men who love I bid thee "-" preach The JVord"- our one Lord. Ve love peace- these are the Divine guides for us we even court it. . .. And now, brother, 'Vith charity for all, * The editorial note in our February with malice toward none,' let us go on to finish the work in which issue was printed before we received specific we are engaged, to bind up all denials of the reports as touching Madison needless wounds, and to stand by County, and oefore we had time to investievery hero of our common cross, gate. to the end that the world shall be taken for Christ, and our rightful, glorious King shall reign in all hearts."
This testimony is fully corrobo- rated by other witnesses from whom we have not space to quote. Ve rejoice at this vindication of our brethren in North Carolina, and regret that we were so misinformed in the solemn work of dealing with missionary bishops of the Church souls. The foremost preacher of Missionary Society, William Carey to-day is, perhaps, Dr. Alexander and Adoniram Judson, Dr. Duff Maclaren, of Manchester. If he and Dr. John Wilson, Griffith John, has any private opinions that go David Livingstone, Bishop Thobeyond the express teaching of Holy burn, and a host of others. If" by Scripture, his sermons, reaching their fruits ye shall know them," it through ahalf century, have never, is a proof that the modern lax views in a single case, betrayed them. He of Scriptures and human peril are has dared to confine his preaching to not of God, for they undermine the the Scriptures, and has helpt to very basis of missions. As Dr. mold more Biblical teachers than Ewing has said, "'Ve cannot afford any other living man. Beyond the to export doubt to the foreign clear revelation of the Word, we, as field." "Ve write in no conscious God's witnesses, can not safely go. intolerant spirit, but from pro- It is possible that agnostics are found conviction that those who often " willingly ignorant," and do would be loyal to God must preach not even care to examine into not a negative but a positive Christian truth. It has been well Gospel. Goethe said, "Give us said that" if it is of no consequence your convictions; as for doubt.s, we what a man's opinions are, pro- have enough of our own." With vided he be sincere, it is not worth tenderness, but faithfulness, we while to search for truth, or when would exhort our brethren not to found, to embrace it." And we have go beyond the Word of the Lord, no hesitation in saying that such as the only course whereby we shall sentiments, when not only pri- "save ourselves or them that hear vately held, but publicly declared, us." tend to knock the bottom out of all missions, both home and foreign. Our friend, A. R. Cavalier, of the If men are in no danger without Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, Christ, all missions become at best or Indian Female Normal School only a philanthropic and humani- and Instruction Society, writes tarian scheme, and we feel con- from London: strained in loyalty to God to ask whether in the judgment ofthe great " Our society is the first establisht day one would prefer to stand mission specially to reach the woamong those who have gone beyond men in the zenanas, and has for up· the ,Vord of the Lord, or with such men as Dr. Maclaren, C. H. Spur- ward of 40 years devoted its atten· geon, Archibald Brown, Andrew tion to work amongst women and Thomson, D.D., "Villiam Fleming girls in India." Mr. Cavalier, re- Stevenson, D.D., and men of this ferring to statements, page 643 of class across the sea, and with such as Drs. R. S. Storrs, Theodore L. the September REVIEW, that one- Cuyler, A. J. Gordon, Stephen H. twelfth of the women in India are Tyng, and Bishop Simpson, on this side the water. And as for foreign widows, says: "The actual nUInber, missions, the men who have most at the last census of 1891 was 22,- vigorously and nobly prosecuted 657,429; the proportion of widows is theln are, everyone of them, men therefore nearly one-sixth." who hold by thd old Bible. Witness Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, George The number, 8,000, for widows Miiller, the grand missionaries and under ten was a typographical er- ror, intended for SO,()(){); and in- stead of 175,000 under 14, it should have read" between 10 and 14."
The census is as follows: Widows under 4 years of age. . . . . . . . . .. 13,878 •• between 5 and 9 years ……… 64 040 H 10" 14 ~……….. 174,1582 U Total number under 14 is …………. 252,450 "According to the same census there were 38,047,354 girls under 15 There was no saying, 'I am of years of age, and of these, includ- Paul,' and 'I am of Apollos;' all ing all girls' schools, both govern- said, 'I am of Christ '-and they ment and missionary, only 313,777 helpt each other. If they had known were under instruction, so that for that I should be honored by being every girl who is being educated, 99 askt to speak at this meeting at least are growing up without to-night, I am sure they would education. " have sent a warm greeting to all here connected with the Alliance. At the Cambridge Conference of I think I may well say that the the Evangelical Alliance in Septem- missionary bond and the missionber, Mrs. Bishop, bearing witness to ary brotherhood are two of the the harmony of spirit and brotherly brightest examples of keeping that union which exist among Protes- unity of the Spirit in the bond of tant missionaries, said; "I shall peace which the Alliance for these be happy to say what I have fifty years has been striving to proseen of the Alliance spirit among mote." Mrs. Bishop has made a missionaries in various parts of the donation to the society of £100 for world. I have traveled for seven a mission hospital at Mien-cheo, and a half years in Asia, and have West China. visited in that time, I think, about 170 mission-stations between the The Student Volunteer Conveneastern shores of Japan and the tion, which met in Cleveland, Feb. Sandwich Islands, and those wil- 23-27th, was the largest and most low-shaded streams by which the representative ever held. Over Jewish exiles wept over memories 1,700 students gathered for prayer of Zion; from the snows of Sibe- and conference as to ways and ria to the fierce glow of the Equator means of carrying the Gospel to in the Malay Archipelago. In the "regions beyond." Earnest- Central Asia, China, Persia, Asia ness, waiting on God for guidance Minor, Arabia-wherever I have and power, calm consideration of met with missionaries in all these difficulties in the field, and the lands, I have met with the Alliance need of thorough spiritual, pracspirit, with work for the good of tical, and intellectual preparation man, carried out in faithful obe- on the part of workers, the emdience to the last command of our phasis on whole-hearted conse- Lord, while the workers have been cration, and the n:ed of beginning holding' one Lord, one faith, one one's life-work at home-these and baptism, one hope of their call- other characteristics markt the ing,' and one hope of eternal life. gathering and made it one of great I have found them meeting to- power and promise. A report will gether for prayer and Scripture- appear in our next issue. reading in all the mission-st.ations, loving each other as brethren; A British theological students' holding their own denominational conference is to be held at Birmingviews, many of them very strongly ham, England, April ]2-16 for the -but these denominational views purpose (1) of determining the renever, except in one particular case, lation of the British theological interfering with that bond of students to the student Christian brotherhood in which all were movement of Britain; (2) to deepen work·ing for the welfare of man- the spiritual life in theological colkind. It was instructive to see this leges, and (3) to stimulate missionbond of brotherhood so markt that ary enthusiasm among theological one never knew to what church or students generally. Two hundred society these devot.ed men and and fifty student delegates are exwomen belonged. All met together pected, and the earnest prayers of in love and harmony, seeking the God's people are sought to the end same aims and loving the same Lord. This Alliance spirit, this blessed observance of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, was communicated by these workers to their converts. One of the brightest features among the Christian converts, and, perhaps, especially in China, was this spirit of unity. that this conference may be di- must be ground between lions' rected throughout by God's spirit, teeth to make bread for God's peo- and that the results may be mani- ple." fest in spirit-filled men going forth to labor in all parts of the Lord's When our personal friend, Rev. vineyard. Archibald G. Brown, so long pastor of the great East London Taber- FmnCES E. Willard. nacle, went to the Chatsworth Road Baptist church, West Croydon, his The death of Miss Frances E. new field, he told his new flock Willard in her 60th year (born 1838), why he had left the London taber- which occurred in New York, Feb. nacle. For twenty-eight years he 18, is one of the most not::.ble events went to his work singing, and, as of this year thus far. She was long as that continued, there was no an extraordinary woman, probably need to stop; but then came a unsurpast by any woman of her sense of weariness and ill-health, generation in the symmetry of her and he recognized that he was no womanhood and the complete con- longer young, and that the strain trol of her really unusual powers. must be eased. But, after the rest, She is one of perhaps six women he could now say: "There is work who have most influenced her gen- in me yet." The Norwood deacons eration for good, and this death had said: "We have a chapel and strikes a chord in many lands. For hundreds of empty seats." "That's ten years she has been at the head a great attraction, and that has of the women's crusade against brought me," concluded he, with strong drink, and for this cause has the spirit of a true missionary. sacrificed everything with rare selfabnegation. Later on she became Errata. a strenuous advocate of the movement in favor of social purity. P~~re~;t. (Nov., 1897) for Unitarian read She was preeminent as a public Page 9~ (Feb., 1898) for Universalist read unispeaker, and will be remembered as versities. a model of sim~le, fluent, persuasive speech. Of her address in the Donations Acknowledged. great "Free-Trade Hall, Manchester, England, a competent judge has No. 106-Indian famine sufferers……. $1.00 said: "It was the finest speech I ever " lOB-Jerry McAuley Mission……. 5.00 heard." Her style as a public ., l09-Jerry MCAuley Mission……. 29.80 speaker reminded one of Wendell " l09-Pundita Ramabai…………. 80.00 Phillips. She was, first and last " 110-Jerry McAuley Mission……. 5.00 and always, a devoted Christian, " 111-Jerry McAuley Mission……. 80.00 and her death was such as fitly " 112-PunditaRamabai. ……….. _ 15.00 crowns a consecrated life. Her last words were: "How beautiful to be Books Received. with God!" This is not the place for a biographical sketch. But the AFRICA WAITING; or, The Problem of Africa's writer heard her years ago before Evangelization. By Douglas M. Thorna mass-meeting in the auditorium ton. 16mo, 148 pp. Map. Student Volof the university at Ann Arbor, unteer Movemeut, New York. 25c. where her closing historic reference was the key to her life. She quoted PICTURES OF SOUTH CHINA. Rev. J. Mac- Ignatius, the martyr, in the arena, Gowan Illustrated. 8vo, 320 pp. Refacing the Numidian lion, and say- ligious Tract Society, London. Bs. ing calmly: " I am grain of God; I ApOSTOLIC ANn MonERN MISSIONS. Student Lectures at Princeton, 1895. Rev. Chal- mers liartin, M.A. 12mo, 235 pp. Flem: ing H. Revell Co. $1.00.
WHETHER "WHITE OR BLACK, A MAN. A Plea for the Civil Rights and Social Privileges for the Negro. Edith Smith Davis. Il- lustrated. 12mo. Fleming H. Revell Co. 75c JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE MrSSION OFCHUROH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 12mo, 220 pp. 28.
18913.1 EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
VI.- GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign German Protestantism' at large. Periodicals. Even the authorities of the estab- lisht churches, particularly the BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, Prussian Church, entangled as they are in the depressing influences of MASS. Oresaropapism, begin to awake under this reviving breath. THE PRUSSIAN CHURCH AND MIS- SIONS. In the January number of the Missions-F1·eund, the Rev. A. Me- At the Reformation, in order to rensky has an article entitled escape the domination of the priest- " Signs of the Times," in which he hood, the Protestants deemed it remarks on this encouraging fact. necessary to allow to the State an He observes that we hear an infininordinate share of power in the ity of complaints about peoples and administration of the Church. In governments, and above all, and England, we know, the sovereign, that often with only too good tho not assuming the immediate ground, over growing frivolity and functions of the priesthood (which ungodliness. Yet all is not dark. European sovereigns have claimed These are exactly opposite signs, for nowhere), called himself Head of which we ought to thank God with the Church, and from the time of all our heart. The Gospel of Christ Elizabeth on has exchanged this has again become a power. It for the title of Supreme Governor. stands on the candlestick, and the In Protestant Germany and in time is here of which St. John Scandinavia, the sovereign is styled writes (as in Luther's Bible): "I Sun~mus Episcoplls, Suprerne saw an angel flying through the Bishop, and seems to trench more midst of heaven, who had an eterdeeply and far more arrogantly nal gospel to proclaim to those that upon the spiritual sphere than in sit and dwell upon earth, and to all England. The bonds of the Conti- heathen and races and languages nental state, as we know, are very and peoples." That man unquesheavy anyhow. The Old Catholic tionably forfeits a great part of his movement, which promist so well warranted Christian joy who does at first, has languisht in Germany not in our days look into the results for nearly a generation, in part on of Christian missions, which are, account of the feeble power of ini- without doubt, the greatest and tiative in the German laity, which, fairest object that our age has to moreover, has never formed the offer and that which is most worthy habit of spontaneous contributions of thanks. "Vhen the Kingdom of for ecclesiastical ends. Cresar may God begins to show itself at the have defended the Reformation, ends of the earth we know that it but he has very nearly suffocated it. is the herald of yet more glorious times, for" this Gospel of the King- Yet the Unitas Fratrum shows dom shall be preacht in all the what depth of spiritual energy and world for a witness unto all nations; of self-devotion is latent in German and then shall the end come." Protestantism. So, also, do the Hermannsburg missions. The in- Protestant missions originated in spiring, broadening, and strength- Germany, altho it was the maritime ening power which lies in missions begins also now to show itself in
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Denmark that sent out the first more than ever bent on exercising German missionaries. Considering wherever possible in Protestant the far greater numbers and energy missions, and of which we are now of the free churches in England having so aggravated and heartand America, and the far greater rending an example in Madagascar. freedom of the establisht churches, To be sure, the Jesuits would beand the far more extensive com- have in this way, even if Rome formerce of these countries, and the bade them ever so strenuously. wide colonial empire of Great Brit- However, she appears comfortably ain, it is not strange that these few to close her eyes to all their domissions in Germany make but a ings there. As Herr Merensky reweaker show in comparison, altho, marks, the encroachments of Rome what Herr Merensky does not abroad and the contumeliousness chance to mention – they are dis- of Rome at home are closely continguisht for thoroughness and joined. She seems determined that thought. Yet missionary interest if the heathen receive the Gospel it is steadily growing in Germany, shall not be in the brightness and aided, tho at the same time en- simplicity of the Reformation, but dangered, by the feverish zeal for under the cloud of medieval schocolonial extension. lasticism. There is ample field for both churches, and why must she, As to contributions, Germany, by unscrupulous interference, rewhich, moreover, is comparatively mind us so irresistibly of the early a poor country, stands relatively Judaizers? The Synod, therefore, thus. In England and Scotland did well to handle the two matters gifts amount to a mark (24 cents) together. We have not seen the for each Protestant. In France 55 Canisius encyclical, but we undercentimes (11 cents) and in Germany stand it to have past all bounds of 12 pfennig (3 cents). The large city courteous controversy. Indeed, it congregations are peculiarly back- is reported that the Curia itself has ward. In Berlin, for instance, the been forced into a sort of apology contributions are only 4 pfennig for it. (1 cent) a head. If Germany were as rich as France or the two Anglo- The Synod has directed the fol- Saxon countries, it would be dif- lowing protest to be read from all ferent, altho, perhaps, the Celtic pulpits of the Prussian Church, at and Anglo-Celtic nature is more home and abroad: free-handed than the unmixt Teutonic. "(1). What the Pope describes as malignant poison is, in truth, the "Another attractive sign of the saving gospel of the free grace of times is the favor which missions God in Christ Jesus. We must have found at this year's meeting never cease admonishing the Pope of the General Synod of the Estab- anew to give admission finally to lisht Church of Prussia. This.has this. (2). Luther, whom the Pope been shown at every opportunity invidiously styles a rebel, has, in of speaking for the cause. The reality, only in straightforward voice of the Synod in its advocacy simplicity, given the honor to God, has been as that of one man. Forty in bidding defiance to the papal or fifty years ago such an acknowl- authority, founded as it was upon edgment of its value would have the traditions of men, and in opappeared impossible." posing to it the authority of the Divine Word. (3). The secular Herr Merensky complains, with authority has first been recognized righteous displeasure, of the dis- again as an independent ordinance turbing influence which Rome is
– 1898
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
of God, since the usurpt supremacy to two or three pfennig a head; in of the Pope over the civil govern- Westphalia and on the Rhine, to ment no longer found credence 17 pfennig (4 cents) or more.
with evaD.gelical believers. History Professor Dr. Warneck, the well- bears witness that the dismal fire of known student of missions, added revolutionary rebellion has found valuable suggestions and warnings.
more abundant fuel and effected Especial1y: "Colonial history will greater ravages in the Roman Cath- ever be one of the darkest and dirt- olic lands than among Protestant iest pages of universal history. In nations. (4). Against the asserted the Kongo State these nightsides connection between the Reforma- are revealed in their most hideous tion and dissoluteness of morals we form. But let us, at all events, re- appeal to the witness of God. The joice that these colonial acquisi- Reformation, by its presenting of tions are a new missionary oppor- the unadulterated "Vordof God has tunity, It new missionary signal."
awakened the conscience, and has Director Gensichen then urged a been, from age to age, the spring of wider circulation of missionary Christian culture and morality literature.
alike for the individual, the family, The General Synod has not been and the nation. But, against all deterred by the effusively exprest calumnies, the incarnate Son of friendship of its Summus Episco- God, our Mediator, remains our pus for the Sultan from adopting a Refuge and Fortress. The field He resolution expressing- the utmost still shall hold." abhorrence and distress in view of The Synod has also occupied it- the pitiless and still-continuing per- self with the missionary work more secution of our Armenian brethren immediately. It had caused a re- in Christ. It warmly commends port to be drawn up which turned those that are still in the lion's den especially on the extent of the Ger- to the prayers and active help and lHan rnissions. There are 16 socie- liberality of German evangelical ties engaged in these, which have Christians. This liberality it im- altogether some 700 missionaries in plores, above all, for the children of their service, of whom nearly 100 the martyrs. ' , We exhort all the 3,re in the German colonies. They members of our Evangelical Prus- proclaim the Gospel in some 40 sian Church to pray that those who languages and have translated the are still under the trial may exhibit Bible, or parts of it, into about 30. a faithful constancy, and to suppli- They have gathered some 300.000 cate the King of all kings and the Christians from among the heathen, Lord of all hosts, that He will turn and almost 70,000 once heathen the hearts of the persecutors, and children go daily into German mis- give a gracious consummation to sion schools. It is a great matter the time of suffering."
of rejoicing that, as appears by the 'There is, indeed, more probability report, the income of these societies of a sudden conversion of the Mo- has, in ten years, increast by a mil- hammedan murderers than of their lion of marks. It now amounts to Western accomplices and apolo- about 4,000,000 marks. The colonial gists.
extension of the Empire is, it is The Synod calls attention to the true, in part to thank for this. The imperious need of providing ample various provinces, however, differ pastol'al care for the Germans in greatly in the amount of their con- East Africa, that while the Gospel tributions. In West Prussia, Po- is preacht to the natives, these may sen, and East Prussia, these amollnt not be set against the Gospel by the
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
virtual heathenism of the Euro- .. English Notes.
peans. The admirable influence ex- BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M.A. erted OIl the natives by the flourishing South African communities of The Society for the Relief of Germa,n peasants around the Her- Persectded Jews has recently held mannsburg missions gives special a meeting at the house of Lady point to this admonition. Louisa Ashburton, Kingsbridge.
Hitherto German missionaries, An interesting account was given few of whom have gone through the by Mrs. Tinn as to the amount and prescribed course for a pastorate at value of the work being done by home, have been incapable, if com- the society, which is not forty pelled to return, of holding a posi- years old. It was started in 1857 tion in the home church. The under the auspices of Lord Salis- Synod, however, has past a resolu- bury, in order to aid poor Jews tion greatly modifying this restric- returned to the land of their fation. thers from Russia, Rumania, and other countries, and yet utterly The modest, but admirable Ger- destitute. In order to get work for man hospitals, schools, and other these poor refugees a plot of land evangelical establishments in the known as "Abraharn's Vineyard," Holy Land were also commended was bought and cultivated. Soloto the effective interest of German, mon's quarries were again workt, immediately of Prussian Protes- and an olive-oil soap manufacture tants. started. In this way many Jews have been helpt to gain an honest Finally, the General Synod unani- livelihood, the soap manufacture mously adopted the following being specially prosperous. vote: "The General Synod has, with thankful joy, taken account of the Missionar'ies in Trainin[J..-On fact that results in the German Thursday, December 23rd, a most mission-fields have, of late years, enjoyable meeting was held at Har- been decidedly more encouraging, ley House, Bow. The gathering and that the home contributions was the last of the session, was, in have also increast, and a larger fact, the breaking-up meeting be- measure of trained theologians also fore the holidays. The new princi- have been added to the practically pal, Rev. Silas Mead, M.A., LL.B., trained force. Yet the Synod can has evidently alrtlady establisht not close its eyes to the fact that himself in the esteem of the stu- the increase of missionary gifts is dents; he was received with great still far from corresponding to the applause and his words of counsel increasing missionary responsibil- listened to and appreciated, coming ities opening before Protestant as they did from one so well verst Germany. The Synod, therefore, in wisdom and experience.
would address to all organs of the The Rev. J. Douglas, M.A., of Church a cordial and earnest en- Brixton, now for the third year as- treaty to persevere in extending sisting in the work at Harley missionary knowledge, and in using House-spoke a few words on the all means to kindle a warmer love right equipment for the faithful for missions, such as shall express missionary; dwelling mainly on itself in a larger liberality, that the the value of the study of the 'Vord efforts of our missionary societies of God-a library in itself-a study may not be lamed for want of the which, if properly undertaken, requisite means."-Redaction by would make the missionary a Di- Rev. C. C. STA.RBUCK. vine messenger' to the heathen.
ENGLISH NOTES
Mr. Crosby Brown, B.A., the by the Rev. F. B. Meyer of Christ resident art tutor, did not publicly Church, London. Addresses were address the meeting. Reference was given by Mr. C. T. Studd, Mr. made, however, to his great help- V. B. Sloan, and Rev. Arnold fulness in the work by most of the Streuli, the pastor. speakers. The London City Mission held The Rev. G. D. Hooper of Luton, their annual meeting at Exeter who during the two years previous Hall, as usual on New Year's Day. to Mr. Mead's appointment, had Between four and five hundred been theological tutor, added coun- workers were gathered under the sel mingled with dry humor re- presidency of Rev. Robert Dawson, specting the course of study for the one of the secretaries of the misfuture at Harley. sion.
Throughout the evening songs The meeting was stimulating and and recitations varied the proceed- energizing, and the toilers were ings. helpt by Rev. J. Campbell Morgan's address on "The compassion of The special feature of the even- Jesus for the perishing multiing was the introduction of the tudes." The workers were urged foreign students by Mr. F. Z. to manifest a Christlike compas- Hodge, who with true humor char- sion in their work among the acterized each foreigner as he in- sunken and degraded, and while troduced him. Palestine, Armenia, hating the sin, to love the sinner. Korea, and France were all represented, and ably represented, by THE KINGDOM. students now residing at Harley House, thankful for this land of -Revelation xiv. 6. "And I saw Christian freedom, and the privi- another angel fly in the midst of leges enjoyed here. heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that Dr. Harry Guinness was unable dwell on the earth, and to every to be present at this most pleasant nation, and kindred, and tongue, evening with the students, as he and people." was then worki~ in Peru, organizing the new branch of missionary -Referring to the fact that in all work there. churches the Ten Commandments are frequently heard, the Church One could not but feel thankful, Missionary IntelUgencer suggests as one left the college after the that in missionary meetings ten meeting was concluded, that such commandments from the New Tesa college exists, where men of all tament be read, the people being nations may gather together with invited to make after each the reone object, namely (after special sponse, "Lord, have Inercy upon training), the fulfilment of our us, and incline our hearts to keep Lord's great command, to go and this law." The following are menpreach the Gospel to every crea- tioned as suitable for this purpose' ture. Matt. v. 16; Matt. vi. 19, 20, 33; Matt. vii. 1; John xiii. 3t; John The Christian Endeavor Society, v. 39; John iv. 35; Matt. ix. 36, 37 ; in connection with Moss Side Bap- 1 Cor. xi. 23-25; Matt. xxviii. 19, tist Church, Manchester, has de- 20. The Intelligencer adds that one cided to support its own missionary advantage of the adoption of this in China, Mr. Charles Fairclough. plan, which has been successfully The ordination meeting was held in the last week of December, and the charge of the missionary given
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
tried, is that it puts foreign missions tians do; I have seen it in Agra, on the right ground; it teaches the and I've seen it in Ahmedabad and people to confess that they have been Surat, and I've seen it in Bombay.' guilty of failure, and to pray for Perna laughed, and his happy face grace to amend; and it shows that shone the more as he said, 'Yes, the real Christian has no option as I'll tell you the medicine; it is to whether or not he will take part happiness of heart.' 'The external in the evangelization of the world. appearance of our people,' said -Church At Horne and Abroad. Bishop Caldwell (Tinnevelly) 'is so much more respectable than that -The experience of George Miil- of their heathen neighbors; they leI' in regard to "Answered Pray- are so much cleaner and brighter er," is related in the Sunday Mag- looking.' "- Church Missionary azine. The whole of the money in- Gleaner. vested in the building of his orphanages, amounting to £115,000, -In suggesting what would be was obtained thus. For sixty-two proportionate giving for various years he has never askt man for a benevolent objects, the Mission penny, while he has received for Field, of the Reformed (Dutch) the carrying on of his work £1,400,- Church, indicates the following 000. Further, he has been enabled amounts on a basis of 10 per cent. to send £257,000 to his missionary on each $1,000 of income: Local brethren. His method has been in- church, $50; foreign missions, $13.- variably to go on praying till the 50; home missions, $9.00; church answer has come. In a recent ad- erection, $6.75; ministerial relief, dress to a Y. M. C. A. meeting, in $4.50; widows' fund, $2.25; publicahis ninety-third year, he said that tion, $2.25; and miscellaneous, he took up his orphan work espe- $5.00. cially with the object of giving a visible demonstration to the whole -Rev. John McNeil is back in world and to the Church of God of London girding at the Pharisees. what prayer could do. The whole "It is nothing to give one-tenth world is familial' with the result. when there are nine-tenths lying -London Chr'istian. snugly behind. Call such a man a pillar of the church! He is a cater- -On an Alaskan steamer the pillar." A good many church passengers were proving that an treasurers would be glad to have a Indian could not be civilized. So few such caterpillars in their con- Dr. Hill, of Portland, called up a gregation, all the same.-North graduate of Marietta and Lane, a and West. native Alaskan with bronze skin and black hair, who told the story -A whole Christ for my salvaof what the Gospel had done for his tion, a whole Bible for my staff, people. Skepticism was impossible a whole church fnr my fellowship, on deck after that demonstration. and the whole world for my parish. -North and West. -Au.gustine.
-" A Hindu trader in Kherwara -We shall be glad to see the Parmarket once askt Perna, 'What liament of Religions of the Paris medicine do you put on your face World's Fair in 1900 justify its to make it shine so?' Perna an- being; but it is at least not easy to swered, 'I don't put anything on.' see how it can serve any real good. 'No; but what do you put on?' It avowedly seeks "in default of 'Nothing. I don't put anything doctrinal unity, the fraternal unity on.' , Yes, you do. All you Chris- of all men only as being religious, and to raise above the differences resented by columns in church of sects the principles in which they papers; of 26 boards, 11 issue a are all united." But all people are children's periodical, and 2 have a religious; but what can the parlia- departmf'nt for children in the ment prom·ote that is held in com- senior organ; about 9,000,000 of mon between the fetish worshiper pages in leaflets and tracts are of India and the Protestant? Men issued each year, besides books and believe in God, indeed, but there is pamphlets; of 30 women's boards, nothing in that unless the concep- 14 pay all expenses, sometimes with tion of God in each case bears a surplus, 10 are subsidized, and 6 some show of approachment. The are in debt; in 30 boards, 23 find Jews and the Samaritans had a interest in m;ssionary literature good deal in common, as the Chris- increasing. tians and Mohammedans have. But will anyone tell us what work in -To Queen Victoria has recently common Christians and Moham- been sent a memorial signed by medans can do ?-Christian Work, 336,350 women of the realm, not a few of them of noble blood, setting -Rev. 'Villiam Ashmore names forth the fact that since her reign these" three mistakes to be a voided began 800 convents have been esin China," but all missionaries in tablisht in England, with 20,000 all countries will do well to take women now in them, but with no note and give good heed: (1) Build- sort of supervision except from ing their meeting-houses for them; Rome, and praying that the gov- (2) paying the salaries of their pas- ernment will take speedy measures tors for them; (3) educating their to inspect their condition, managechildren for them. ment, etc.
-Worse and worse. There seems -The British Syrian Mission to be no doubt that Hermann Schools and Bible Work Society at Warszawiak drew frqm an Edin- its 37th anniversary reported 29 burgh bank $20,000, which had schools in Beirut, Tyre, Damascus, been deposited for use in building etc., with 3,312 pupils, of whom his New York "Christ's Syna- 1,245 are Greeks, 315 are Moslems, gogue," and declines to give any 441 Roman Catholics, 399 Druses, account of it, tho one has been de- and 133 Maronites, Syrians, etc. manded. The number of European and na- tive teachers is 91. WOMEN'S WORK. YOUNG PEOPLE. -The following figures presented at the union missionary meeting in -The Chicago Inler-Ocean is New York by the chairman of the probably unique among large daily literature committee, show: That papers in the fact that it employs the number of members represented an experienced reporter, who deby the churches of 22 women's votes all his time and thought to boards is 7,324,924; the number the interests of young people's rewho are members of the mission- ligious societies, giving generous ary organizations of these churches space to his work. This reporter, is 611,237, or about 1 in 12; the Mr. Oscar E. Roecker, puts into his number in the missionary organi- writing much vigor and skill. zations subscribing to missionary periodicals is 191,565, or about 1 in -Miss Carrie A. Holbrook, secre- 3; of 30 boards, 26 publish a mis- tary of the Minnesota Christian sionary periodical, and 4 are rep- Endeavor Union, mentions a society in an Episcopal school which holding British degrees or diplois phenomenal in its realization of mas. They number 251, an increase the interdenominational and inter- of 11 since last year. India has ,national ideas. It is made up of 50 76, China 69, and Africa 36. The members, among whom are Scotch, Church Missionary Society leads Norwegian, Swede,Dane, Austrian, with 44, the Scottish Free Church Swiss, English, German, Polander, has 29, the London Society has 24. and American. The following denominations are reported: Presby- -Womankind is represented in terian, Baptist, Methodist, Epis- the foreign field by 116 medical copal, Church of Christ, Roman missionaries, who are scattered far Catholic, Lutheran, and Congrega- and wide through 11 countries: in tional. There might be a reminder China, 44; India, 41; Japan, 6; of Babel in the meetings, but on Africa, Persia, Burma, and Ceythe whole they must saVOl' far more lon, 4 each; Borneo, 3, etc. of Pentecost. -Americans in London, as a last- -Rev. "Villiam Carey, of Dhaka, ing memento of the Jubilee, raised East Bengal, India, the great grand- £5,000 and endowed in perpetuity a son of the famous missionary, writes bed in each of the 5 principal hosto the Christian Endeavor World pitals of London, for the use of of a special visit to Calcutta, and a Americans primarily, but when not tour through Assam, which were needed for these they can be used fruitful of results for the Endeavor for others. movement in which he is so greatly interested. "A fine opening has -Hindus of the Madura district been found for Christian Endeavor have subscribed about $13,000 for a among the Hindu girls in our mis- hospital, which has been given, sion day-schools. "Ve have 3 socie- nearly completed and free of cost, ties among them in Dhaka, and 3 to the American Board, with dismore in Calcutta. My Assam trip tinct consent to have the Gospel was very encouraging. In one preacht in its waiting-room every place 70 of the hill Christians (Kha- day. This hospital, called the third sis) signed the pledge at one meeting handsomest building in the city, on a cold, rainy morning." may be contrasted with the great Madura temple to Siva, adorned -The Endeavor society in the with the finest sculptures of South Cook county poorho1Lse, Dunning, India, and built 450 years ago, at a Ill., has just celebrated its fourth cost of $4,000,000. birthday. It receives hardly any help from outside in carrying on -The Church Missionary Society its meetings. It is now in the pas- has in its hospitals 1,030 beds, aml toral charge of the Moody Institute, to snpport each of these £5 are rehaving been transferred from the quired annually in China, and £10 Chicago Commons. elsewhere.
-The largest Junior Endeavor so- UNITED STATES. ciety in the New York City Union is at Five Points House of Industry. -If one is inclined to marvel and It numbers 200. wax indignant over the situation in New York City, it will be well to MEDICAL MISSIONS. remember that of the population 1,250,000 are foreign born, or with -Medical Missions at Home and their children, 2,500,000, that is, Abroad, for January, gives a com- two-thirds of all. The Germans, plete list of medical missionaries children included, number 700,000, which is more than any German
GENERAL MISSIONARY
city contains, save Berlin; the 000 souls have been saved through Irish, 850,000, tho Dublin has not the instrumentality of this society; half so many; 170,000 English; (2) to-day there are over 200,000 105,000 Russians; 100,000 Italians, "living monuments of God's 50,000 Scotch, etc. mercy" who have been brought to the Savior through the same agency; -Chicago, eminent for so many (3) each year, on an average, about things, good and bad, may properly 12,000 are baptized by the missionbe termed the Seminary City, since aries; (4) 475 American missionit holds 4 schools of the prophets,and aries, men and women, are now Moody Bible Training Instituf"ion fighting the powers of darkness; besides. In these are 865 theolog- (5) about 3,000 native preachers and ical students, distributed as fol- other workers are cooperating with lows: Garrett Biblical Institute (M. them; (6) during the last four years, E.) has 150 students. Of these only even in the face of accumulating 50 are college graduates; 20 are debt and diininisht resources, there in the Scandinavian department. have been nearly 50,000 additional The Chicago Theological Seminary converts; (7) the Union is working (Congregational) has 165. Of these, in 22 different countries, namely: 130 are college graduates; 45 are in Burma, Assam, India, Siam, China, the Scandinavian department. Mc- Japan, Africa, Sweden, Norway, Cormick (Presbyterian) has 150, all Germany, Austria, Hungary, Ruscollege graduates. The University sia, Finland, Poland, Denmark, of Chicago (Baptist) has 329 in the France, Spain, Bulgaria, Rumania, divinity department. Of these, 227 Belgium, and Switzerland. are college graduates, and 55 are in the Scandinavian department. -The distribution of the missions of the Presbyterian Church and its -Princeton Seminary in all has force are as follows: sent 208 men to the fo'.'eign field, located as follows: India, 48 ; China, .. ~.~~ ~ ,; ~~ 41; Japan, 20; Africa, 17; Brazil, 13; Siam, 12; Persia, 8; Hawaii, 7; '~.~d~ ;l" {'i:l Mexico and Chile, each 6; Syria, ~8 5; Colombia and West Indies, each ~~ c3 ~.§ 4; Ceylon, Korea, and New Hebrides, each 2 ; and Burma, Afghan- Africa …………… 33 50 8 (.)~ istan, and Formosa, 1 each. There China ……………. 185 511 72 are now in the seminary about 35 India …………….. 141 334 28 1,267 proposing to devote themselves to Japan ……………. 58 100 35 7,990 the foreign field. Korea ………….. _. 33 30 10 3,093 Persia……………. 60 276 29 5,269 – During the last ten years the Siam and Laos ……. 63 92 24 Brooklyn Union Missionary a~1d Mexico …………… 23 104 42 530 Training Institute has sent 62 to Cen. and S America. 63 79 52 2,404 the foreign field. The number in Syria .. ,. , … , ……. 39 215 28 2,496 attendance averages from 40 to 50. Chinese in U. S …… 10 11 3 2,191 1,854 -The number of Indian church 2,247 members in the United States is 28,663. 303 -The Baptist Missionary Union Totals ………… 708 1,802 331 30,644 is able to give this splendid account of itself: (1) Since 1819, when the -The Evangelical Lutheran first baptism took place, some 300,- Church (General Council) has one mission field in the Madras Presi- dency, India, in which are 7 mis- sionaries with their wives, 1 native pastor, and enough of other toilers to make a total force of 160. The principal stations number 7, schools have been establisht in 113 villages with 2,719 pupils, and preaching is sustained in 191 villages. The -In the St. Thomas Church communicants are 2,002, and native choir, at Ryde, Isle of Wight, a Christian (adherents) 5,036, an in- lady of eighty-five years of age is crease of the latter of 552 in two leader of the choir, of which she years, and of school children 826. has been a member for seventy- eight years. She walks to and EUROPE. from the church (from the alms- house, where she is one of the in- Great Britain.-An immense con- mates) to the services regularly. fraternity has been formed in France and England to pray and -The Evangelical Churchman work for the conversion of Eng- (Toronto) for Jan. 27, has a fineporland to the R. C. faith, and com- trait of Eugene Stock, editorial plete submission to the pope. This secretary of the Church Missionary is all right; it is a better way of Society, and an article which tells trying to conquer England then by of his gifts and work. These words sending " invincible armadas" are well justified by the patent facts against her. But the effort to in the case: "He has raised the C. convert England into dependence M. S. publications to be easily the upon an Italian priest for religious first in the world. He has done and moral guidance is a very fruit- more. He has managed to create less enterprise. The popes could an ever-growing circle of people not hold the English or the Scotch who read them. Missionary rein their harness when they had ports and papers are no longer dull them fairly well tied up; much less and uninteresting. They claim and can they recall a free people into secure attention." bondage to the ways and devices of the dark ages. The Continent. – The French Catholics seem to be alarmed over -Well does the New York Times the number of priests who are insay of the position Great Britain scribing their names at the Faculty has taken in China with regard to of Protestant Theology in Paris, free trade: She is the champion of and a leading French paper says civilization and humanity. She is that such a desertion from the the champion of democracy and Catholic ranks has never been witprogress against the reactionary nest as at the present time. autocracies of Europe. She deserves the support of all mankind, -The French Lutherans have and especially does she deserve the formed themselves into a society support of the United States. for helping the Norwegian Lutheran Mission in Madagascar.
-Gratifying progress seems to be -It is said that the Italian Govmade by a movement initiated by ernment has on foot the founding the Calvinistic Methodists to raise of a public library at Florence for a fund of £10,000 toward helping to the purpose of collecting all the make up the loss caused by the re- books which ha1'e been banned by cent earthquake in India. The Rev. the Vatican. There will be no spe- Josiah Thomas, the secretary of cial expense connected with the the foreign missionary society, has publication of the catalogue, as exreceived information as to the ex- isting copies of the Index Expurtent of the destruction in the Khas- gatorius are accessible and can be sia and Jaintia Hill, and in Sylhet, procured at a reasonable price. and it amounts to 207,124 rupees, or Expurgated truth will be thus given at least £12,000. public recognition, preservation, and circulation. A free state thus band of apostles, martyrs, and offsets an intolerant church. saints that have preceded them, they are, at least most of them, -The late Baron de Hirsch gave dull preachers of dogmas that bring away during his life, or devised, neither light nor life to our nation. nearly $22,000,000; for Jewish colonization, $10,000,000; for the Jews o Lord, if they have come to benein the United States, $5,000,000; for their education in Galicia, $5,000,- fit us, may their lives show more 000, etc. Vhat wealthy Christian earnestness, self-denial, and prayerhas done better? fulness. Make them worthy of Christ and acceptable to the people ASIA. among whom they labor by imbu- ing their hearts largely with that India.-Bishop Thoburn believes simplicity of faith, sweetness of it a fact that tens of thousands of devotion, and lowliness of ascetipoor people can be found in India cism without which preaching is t~-day who are willing to embrace sure to be ineffectual. Lord, teach the Christian religion if teachers them to be humble and poor, and can be found who, in the language turn more to the spirit than to of the inquirers themselves, can empty forms, so that they m::Ly " show them how to be Christians." prove truly helpful in leading our countrymen to purity of life and. -In the Wesleyan Work and godliness."-Indian Witness. Workers the question is discust of why there is often such an un- -How strange! During the apsatisfactory state of feeling be- palling calamities which have retween the races in India. ~'he cently befallen India from plague writer admits that color prejudices and famine, almost the entire may h~ve something to do with it, amount of financial assistance has and also the imperiousness begotten come from Christian Britain and hy the position of the rulers; hut America, and next to none from the he ascribes it largely to the moral thousands of wealthy Hindus and defects of even the best educated Mohammedans. natives, which make it difficult to work with them, and also to the -R. Chandra Chandra, a caste social entanglements by which the Hindu, was converted to Christ in natives are beset, and which cause the Duff College, and baptized by them often to live a double life the late Rev. Dr. Mackay. Hepast hardly compatible with honesty. into the Bengal medical service, and distinguisht himself both as a regi- -Christian missionaries are al- mental surgeon and a medical ways glad to have prayer offered in professor. When on furlough, their behalf. It may interest them Surgeon-Major R. Chandra Chanand stimulate their flagging zeal dra married the late sister of the and declining energies to learn present Lord Chancellor, Earl Halswhat their Bramho Somaj brethren bury. On her death, and his reare asking. We find this prayer in turn to India, Dr. Chandra Chanthe World and the New Dispensa- dra made a will, under which, after tion: "Cause Thy light, Almighty providing for his Hindu brother God, to shine on all ,Christian mis- and sister and three sister's sons, sionaries working in this land. Do and for a small hospital in memory Thou revive, we earnestly beseech of his wife, he bequeathed £500 to Thee, their declining zeal and ener- our foreign missions, and a capital gies, and increase their spirituality Chandra fund of Rs. 3,750 (say £235), and devotion. Unlike the noble the interest to go to our Calcutta Bengali Church's Sustentation -Hindu widow remarriages are Fund, to the mission, and to the increasing in number. One of the girls' school. The will was deelared latest recently took place at Hai- informal by the court, and the darabad, Scinde, under the auspices whole past to the nearest Hindu of the Arya Samaj there. The heirs. They have most generously bride, Valli Bai, was aged about 22 resolved to carry out their Chris- years. She is the head mistress in tian brother's intentions, and have the Thatta Vernacular Girls' paid over the amounts left for our School. The bridegroom was Lala missionary purposes.-Free Church Dewan Chand, a Punjabi employed Monthly. in the storekeeper's office, N. W. Railway at Kotri. The parents of -Among the 1,000 temples in the bride are living, and it is with Brindaban there is one built by their consent that the marriage two rich bankers of Mathra at a was contracted. The ceremony cost of $2,250,000. The food of the was performed according to Vedic idols costs $15,000 yearly, and other rites. expenses amount to $12,500. The managers of the temples were de- -John R. Mott visited a college termined that no Christian place of in Ceylon where he found a band worship should ever be built there. of students so poor that 16 of them They kept out the Mohammedan occupied one room. Near the build- mosque during the 800 years of ing was a garden, in which they Mussulman rule. Six years ago spent their spare time cultivating the Methodist Church began work bananas. When Mr. Mott inquired, in Brindaban, and now the presi- "What do you do with the mon- ding elder of Agra District, Dr. J. ey?" they took him to the shore E. Scott, of which it is a part, has and pointed to an island off in the 15 appointments. sea. "Two years ago," they said, "we sent one of our graduates -A member of the Bareilly M. there. He started a school, and it E. District Conference writes thus has developt now into a church. to the Indian Witness: "Ve have We are going to send him to an- 242 members, of whom about 180 other island this year." They also . are paid workers. We have 20 said they had instructed their cook circuits, 112 sub-circuits, with a that every tenth handful of rice sub-pastor and pastor-teacher for should be laid aside that they each of 1,222 villages in which might sell it in order to have Christians live, 1,088 baptisms this Christ preacht a little more widely. year, with 1,924 under special in- struction for baptism, 3,786 full China.-It is stated that from the members, 5,652 probationers, 4,335 Peking Government strict orders Christian children; giving a Chris- have been issued to each of the tiancommunityof 13,773. Number governors of the eighteen provinces of leaders, 688; Christian pupils in to open in the capital city schools day-schools, 2,026; pupils of all of Western learning. Of course, ages in Sunday-schools, 7,152." for teachers resort must be had to the missionaries and their Christian -When Dr. Duff began work in pupils. Calcutta, he found that a cow had more rights and higher rank than -Rev. V. B. Hamilton writes a woman, and he said that to try thus vigorously in the Independent: "to educate a woman in India was "China at present is like a sitting as vain as to attempt to Bcale a 'wall hen. She has sat and sat so long, jive hundred/eet high." and in her sitting has so mismanaged, that most of her eggs have there was a cart with a mule to pull become addled. Attempt to move it; paper servants to do all sorts of her and she ruffles her feathers, work, paper houses, flowers, tables, futilely pecks at the intruder, and chairs, a pig, and even an image of at times cackles incontinently. her pet cat. These all were sent up Poke a stick at her, in appearance in smoke, and supposed to go to like a gun, and away she runs in her wherever she is. Several bowlH temporary fright, in her awkward of real food that she liked best were haste perhaps breaking one or two burned too. Ugly paper lions were of her ill-smelling eggs. Sitting burned to guard her door and keep hens are sometimes cured by break- thieves away, for the Chinese have ing up their nests. To accomplish no treasures in heaven where this, external force must be applied. thieves can not break through and This process China is now under- steal. At her grave two huge going. Under foreign influence an- paper giants were burned-one tiquated methods in war and diplo- black and the other white. Their Inacy, in commerce, industry, and faces were terribly fierce, and they education are being abandoned. were expected to drive evil spirits But China's corrupt government avay." still remains untoucht. How long will the imperious powers of the -Rev. J. A. Silsby gives these fig- West continue to have their pa- ures as to the number of Christians tience thus abused? Already the in China, which he estimates at temptation is strong to wring the 80,000 communicttnts, and 20,000 old hen's neck and gather to feast applicants for baptism in addition. upon her toothsome body. But He finds them scattered through will our symbolic hen lend herself all the 18 provinces, Fukien leadto neat dissection? This is the Chi- ing with 17,000 communicants, nese puzzle of the day. In China Kwangtung following with 12,700; carving is often performed with Shangtung,12,000; Chehkiang, 9,000; a meat-cleaver. 'Vhack! whack! Manchuria, 7,200; Chili, 7,000; etc;, whack! down comes the blade, and down to Honan, 300; Hunan, 100; backbone and legs, breast and wing Yunnan, 60; and Kwangsi but 20. are served up in one shattered, shapeless mass. Snch carving, -Dr. Baldwin in a letter to the however, is very distracting to an New York Advocate describes the order-loving world. Undeniably, new M. E. church at Peking. It is China does present some lines of the largest church edifice in the emcleavage." pire, having comfortable seats for 1,300 people, and it is possible to -Miss Anna Pruitt gives this ac- accommorlate an audience of 2,000. count of a Chinese funeral: "The At night the church is lighted by old lady across the street has just 40 electric lights arranged in a cirdied. Her sons are rich, and think cle around the center of an auditheir money can buy happiness for ence room. The electric plant in their mother's soul. They burn the Methodist University building make-believe money, and say that near by furnishes the lighting powit turns into real gold and silver for er. The church was built in accordher to use. I can't tell you all the ance with architectural plans from things they have burned for her. the United States. Bishop Joyce There was a paper horse for her to dedicated the building a few weeks ride, tho the old lady never even ago. Mandarins of high rank were trusted herself on a donkey here; officially deputed by the Tsung-li Yamen, or Board of Foreign Affairs, to attend the service, who -At the Rhenish missionary stalistened with close attention to the tion of Omupanda, in German Methodist bishop'S earnest sermon, Southwest Africa, 13 converts have in which he held up Jesus Christ lately been baptized, the firstfruits as the only Savior of sinful men. of four years of preparatory work. In Great Namaland considerable -Bishop Joyce tells of an exhil- desire after the Word of God is aparating Methodist lovefeast at parent now that more peaceful Hinghua, in which 228 natives, as times have come round. At Keet- Inany women as men, and 11 for- mannshoop a new church has been eigners testified for Christ in .fifty built at a cost of £10,000, and anminutes. In that conference are other is about to be built at Betha- 40 members and 60 local preachers, nien. The total number of baptized whose whole time and energies are converts in German Southwest given to the work, at a cost of only Africa now reaches 9,370. – Allge- $3,500, and of which the people meine Missionszeitschrift. raise about half. That is, the average cost is but $35. -The churches of the Rhenish Missi9nary Society in Cape Colony -Dr. C. R. Hager, of Hongkong, numbered 14,335 souls, according to has charge Gf 10 stations with 9 the last annual report. It is an im schools and 226 pupils, treated 1,046 portant point that these congregapatients last year, made 98 visits to tions themselves pay the whole cost the sick, pulled 124 teeth, performed for the maintenance of their 53 operations in minor surgery, churches and schools, and in 1894 baptized 131, and received 122 they even paid 4,300 marks as a adults to the church; and all at voluntary offering to missions. In the expenditure of $590. The South Natal also the work is making de- China Mission received only $850 cided progress. The humbel' of nato sustain 11 chapels, 11 day-schools, tive Christians has increast in a and a training school. striking manner during the last seven years. In 1888 there were AFRICA. 5,000 baptized adults, last year there were 15,000. -The United Presbyterians have in Asyut, Egypt, a college and a -Says the Mission Field (Society girls' school, and the two institu- for the Propagation of the Gospel) tions seem to be enjoying abundant under the heading of "A Zulu Stusuccess under the management of dent:" Gregory Mpiwa Ngcobo, a Rev. J. A. Alexander and Miss Zulu, baptized at Isandhlwana, is a Jessie Hogg. There were about 590 student at St. Augustine's College, students enrolled in the college dur- Canterbury. He is the first Zulu ing the past year, and about 240 in who ever past the Universities' prethe girls' school. These numbers liminary examination of candidates are quite in excess of the reason- for holy orders. At that examinaable capacity of the institutions, tion an average of one-third of the and the students are simply crowd- candidates are rejected. Ngcobo ed in the study and sleeping-rooms. not only past, but did well in Latin, It is, indeed, fortunate that the ex- Greek, and elementary Hebrew. cellent climate of Egypt allows the The examiners were very much students to do a considerable part pleased with him. He is going back of their studying out of doors, or it to work in his own country under could never be done, with the pres- the Bishop of Zululand. There is, ent insufficient accommodations. indeed, good hope for the native church when it can have such men three years ago we had 1,600; two of the Zulu race for its clergy. years ago we had 3,400, and the past year nearly 7,000." -M. JulIa has been successful in preventing a war which was about -A missionary in Uganda tells to break out between the Barotsi us that once converted the people and the Mashikulumbue. The king are anxious to evangelize their feland chiefs being present at a ser- low-countrymen, and that one out vice, M. JulIa exhorted them to re- of every 5 communicants has gone nounce this iniquitous enterprise. to proclaim the Word of God to the They were astonisht at his bold- heathen. The natives are not enness, and some of the chiefs were couraged to adopt European habits, furious; but in a few days they all as the missionaries believe in the agreed to give up the war. This is formation of a strong native church. the first time that the Barotsi have renounced a war for which they had ISLANDS OF THE SEA. already made all the preparations.- Journal deslJfissions Evangeliques. -At the beginning of the century the population of Java was 3,500,- -A remarkable story of enter- 000. In 1826, it was 5,500,000. In prise, illustrating the rapid opening 1850, 9,500,000. In 1865, 14,000,000. of Africa, comes from Bulawayo, In 1890, 24,000,000. It is 600 miles the capital of Matabeleland. In long, and from 60 to 120 miles wide. April of 1896 the first rail of the Borneo and New Guinea are much new line north of Mafeking was larger, but, nevertheless, have poplaid, and on October 19 the first en- ulations of only 800,000 and 600,000. gine entered Bulawayo, completing The difference is the Dutch system the construction of 500 miles of of colonization in Java. There are railway in 400 working days. This about 13,000 Christians in the haste in construction was occasion- island, and the Bible is printed in ed by the ravages of the rinderpest, Javanese. which had rendered the transportation of goods in South Africa almost -General GalliEmi, the French impossible. We can have little con- resident in Madagascar, has deception of the immense losses manded for the current expenses of caused by this cattle disease. I t is the present year an additional sum estimated that in the district over of no less than £760,000, so that the which the Christian chieftain Kha- total expenditure for 1897 will rna rules, 750,000 cattle have died. amount to £1,220,000. It is calcu- The Christian Express, of Love- lated that in future the yearly outdale, estimates this loss as amount- lay will be at least £720,000. Most ing to $7,500,000, which, comparing of the unforeseen cost has been inthe condition of the people in South curred, not by reproductive works, Africa with that of the people in but by military expeditions, and by Great Britain, would be like taking what was otherwise necessary for $750,000,000 from British savings.- insuring the pacification of the J"Iissiona1'Y Herald. island. France, therefore, has not yet made much of its new conquest. -Mr. John R. Mott reports that last summer he met an old friend in M. Delord, who has been ap- England, just home on a furlough pointed by the Paris Missionary from his work in Uganda, who said: Society, after conference with the "Five years ago we had 400 bap- representatives of the L. M. S., to tisms; four years ago we had 800 ; two large districts in Imerina, writes thus of his charge: "From the material, as well as the spiritual point of view, it is a 'despoiled ety, just publisht, shows that this heritage' which has fallen to me, society numbers now as regular atand, some exceptions apart, I only tendants on public worship, on the meet with ruins. The schools are island of Samoa, 6,192 persons; Fiji, disorganized; about 50 have only a 96,421; New Guinea, 9,318; New Britnominal existence, not having been ain, 8,812, making a total of 120,- able as yet to find any teachers. 743. The first missionaries were The churches, in many cases, have sent to New Britain only 20 years no reality to answer to the name; ago, and the New Guinea mission the flocks, more heathen than was establisht only 6 years ago. 21 Christian, having only just come European missionaries, 73 native out of the forest to which they had ministers, 1,250 native teachers, and fled, are in such a state that one 2,778 day-school teachers are emfeels that everything has to be ployed in these fields. Of the nadone or to be redone."-Journal tive agents 3,763 are Fijians. The des Mis8ions Evangelique8. total cost of the work is about $50,000, about half of which is -In the three districts which borne by the natives. formerly belonged to Mr. Pearse, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Huckett, -The following are the latest stamore than 1,000 children and 1,200 tistics of the Fiji district: grown-up persons have come back to us. At Fianarantsoa I am told Churches and preaching places…. 1,293 that more than 300 children have left the Catholic church and begun European or Australian ministers. 11 again to attend the Protestant service, after having remained several Fijian ministers. … ……………. 67 months without appearing anywhere. The Malagasy judge, of Catechists and teachers………… 3,756 whom I wrote to you, has come back. This movement will grow, Local preachers………….. …… 2,051 I hope, when I have a church. And I am happy to tell you that I shall Class leaders. . . . . . . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,521 have one in about ten days, from what Commandant Claret tells me." Native members ………………. , 30,794 -Ibid. on trial….. …… 4,291 -From the Betafo district of the Norwegian Missionary Society in Catechumens …………………. 11,081 Madagascar, Pastor Engh writes: "Capt. Durand (the French offi- Sunday·school teachers………… 2,631 cial) keeps his word faithfully, and the greatest civil and religious free- H H scholars ………… 33,590 dom is allowed within the bounds of ·law. People can be Protestants, Day scholars…………………… 35,141 Catholics, or heathens, just as they like, without any influen!;Oe being Attendants on public worship …… 96,421 used by the authorities in one direction or another.-Norsk Mi8- – Rarotonga, the South Sea ission8tidende. land, which John Williams first visited, has a most interesting ar- -The annual report of the Aus- ticle devoted to it in the December tralasian Wesleyan Mission Soci- Chronicle of the London Mission- ary Society. It has a population of over 2,000, and has been a Chris- tian island for more than seventy years. Each village (there are 5 of them) has a church, school-house, and manse of its own. The people maintain their own pastors, and make an annual contribution to the London Society. They have stone hbuses, with chairs and tables; they use buggies, and have a bicycle club .. they have a local parliament, in which all the islands of the group are represented.
The Missionary Review of the World — October 1897
LISTENING TO A PASSION PLAY OF THE SHIAH MOSLEMS DURING THE MUHARRAM OH TIME OF MOUHNIN(i'
M,SSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: VOL. Xx. No. D.-Old &rie8.-00TOBER-YoL. X. No. D.-NMI' &riel.
GLIMPSES O}~ LIFE ON A PERSIAN HIGHWAY. t BY ROBERT E. SPEER.
There are two prevailing modes of travel in Persia, on foot and astride. The former is not popular. It is amazing to see what endurance the apparently indolent Persian, who will move when he must, and will work on the same terms, possesses, and with what untiring, unresting zeal he will work in some occupations, such as that of chavadar, which bring small remuneration, involve great risks, are full of hardships and can force no man to choose them. The chavadar is the Persian freight-car conductor. He owns a number of horses, and carries freight of all sorts, human and inanimate, to any part of Persia or even into Turkey. But no Persian will walk when he can ride, even tho to ride he must heap himself above a load borne by a patient, staggering donkey, one of those animals which make a mute, almost heart-breaking. appeal for a belief in the immortality of brutes. " Anything to do my work, to keep my feet off the ground," is the motto of the Persian traveling. Those who ride go astride, women and all. The camel drivers oft~n ride with both feet on one side, and when Dr. Vanneman accompanied the Shah's harem from Tabriz to Teheran, much of his work was to patch up camel drivers, who had fallen off in their sleep. The donkey riders sometimes ride with both legs dangling on one side within a few inches of the ground. All this is ultra laziness, however. The trowsered women r.ide alone, or sit behind the men. The side-saddle of one of the ladies of onr party was a sonrce of constant amazement in the country and villages. "Why she has no legs," cried the people on one side. " Yes, she has," cried those on the other, "they are both on this side of her." And so she rode along, a Frangee monstrosity.
Not all Persians go a-traveling, but all do, who can. .The four vit~l elements of Islam are the prayers, the fasting, the sacred. fifth • ThII periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule. recommended.by the jo.lnt aetioIl of the American Philological Msociatlon and the Philological Society of England :-Change d or ed lInal to , when 80 pronounced. except when the e affects. pn!CedlDg IOUUd.-PulILrBmrBI. .
t A letter from Kangaver, Persfa, January 25. 1897.
GLIMPSES OF LIFE ON A PERSIAN mGHWAT
of the income, and the pilgrimages. A more consistent religion of works, as the matter has turned out in practice, could scarcely be invented, so on pilgrimages go all who can. There are many reasoqs for a Persian's remaining a settled part of one community, and for his children's standing in his place after him, but the traveling instinct has been cultivated by centuries of Islamic influence, and the highways are full of life and movement, fuller than such a thin population would justify, were it not for the religious obligation that drives thousands to waste in this way what has been painfully earned and is direfully needed at home. The travelers bound lor the. religious shrines, Kerbela, Meshed, Kum, converge into the great roads running thither, and the student of the people's life sees it unbared here.
Down one of these great highways from Tabriz to Ramadan, we traveled last October. Next to Teheran, Tabriz is the largest and most important city in Persia. It is the distributing point to northwestern and much of western Persia of the importations from Europe, especially Russia, which though commercially lethargic, would fain control the trade from the north. Russian oil, candles, and sugar pour down from the north and practically monopolize the north-western Persia markets at least. From the south great caravans bring rugs, tobacco, dates, honey, etc., and show the traveler the name of Bagdad in good Roman letters on the bales, if they have come from afar. Of all these caravans on this highway Tabriz is the point of departure or destination.
A Persian highway is not a manufactured road. It owes nothing to the hand of man. His foot treads it, if he is so mean as to walk, but he spends on it neither an effort nor a copper coin, and the functions of national and local government in the country do not include the construction or maintenance of either bridges or roads. Accordingly there are, in one sense, almost no roads. The highways, untoucht by wheels, save when some Khan or civilized traveler makes the painful attempt, or on Teheran-Kasv'in or Teheran-Kum roads, are simply a congeries of paths, diminishing to one in a constricted place, and increasing to a hundred or more on a broad plain, where a caravan of donkeys will move along abreast, like a regiment of dumb Sancho Panzas. No one digs a ditch. No one drains a bog. No one removes a stone. The road was unsurveyed, ungraded, and is uncared for save by a kind Providence, who makes his rain and frost, and snow and wind to come alike npon the Telford road and upon the Persian track.
The roads of Azerbijan, the north-western province of Persia, of which Tabriz is the capital, are infested by three kinds of thieves; the regular robbers, who have pluck to attack travelers, the authorized guards, who are often ex-robbers, or robbers who have lost theit pluck, and been appointed guards, so as to have legal authority to extort a small fee from a larger number, and the vampire customshouse rascals. Azerbijan is a fertile, populous country, and there are customs-houses on all its important roadll. Baggage or freight is not examined, but a small fee is levied. Some one finds a road much used -they are all found now in Azerbijan-and offers the governor so much for the privilege of establishing a customs-house. This helps to line the governor's purse, and so fulfil the purpose for which he is governor and paid for his office, and it fastens the leeches upon the roads to bleed a little each passer-by who has baggage or goods. No service is rendered in return, either by the leech or the government. The traveler must be-or pay for-his own police, and make his own roads, or be satisfied with the uncorrupted face of nature. The people do not love the customs-houses. Their ruins are to be found on many highways. Soldiers returning home, or marching by, love to demolish the impositions, and not infrequently their exactions become so great that some angry popular demonstration forces the government to interpose a. check. Near Taswich we passed a great building in ruins, thanks to the momentary flare of a sense of power and justice in a crowd of ragged, discharged soldiers, who, having served a government which takes and never gives, returning home without pay, took vengeance on the legalized throttlers of travel and trade. On the Tabriz highway, which runs into Persian Kurdistan, below Mianduab, there are no customs-houses. The government does not call all these establishments for the destruction of prosperity" customs-houses." When complaints are made, it will say, "Oh, that is not a customs-house; the man simply has a right to collect a small sum for each box or bale carried by." For that right some government official received his p6sklcas7t, or bribe.
The dread of the Evil Eye is heavy upon the Persian. He shudders at the evil which a complimentary word about his child will bring. Be puts the bone of an animal, a horse or a donkey, in the wall of a new house. A skull, or a jaw-bone, or a leg is over the door-way of many a village gate, or stable, vineyard, or house. In one wall I saw the whole skeleton of a donkey, buried in this public and ghastly way that the Evil Eye might not affect the garden within. Among the ignorant the cold, still eye of the camera lens is a terrifying thing. At Khokhurt, before its silent gaze, a group of children clung together, and then fied in shivering terror lest the glittering brass ring in the black box were the Evil Eye. The camera is often a safer defence than fire-arms. A crowd of naked, savage beggars fell upon us once ready for supplication or theft, as might be most expedient. The whole crowd fied in fear, running like deer across the desert, cry,ing, "Oh, he's killing us, he's killing us," when the clear, steady camera eye was pointed at them.
Bartimreus sits by the wayside, blind and begging, as he did when Jesus saw him and gave him vision. Often his home is in a pile of stones and he will rise as the sound of the horses' steps comes near and walk out into the road lifting up his sightless eyes and asking in Allah's name. But the lepers are most pitiable of all. Many cities and towns have each its little group of these representatives of uncleanness and sin. They sit at the gate or by the side of the road or against the wall of a bridge, wrapped about, desolate, only awaiting deliverance. Near Tabriz there is a little settlement at the foot of "Leper Hill." The lepers do not cry out complaints. Many of them do not ask with words, but the poor hand is stretcht out. for alms and the marred and wreckt visage, the ruin of a human face is lifted up with the piteous cry," 0 Oreator God! 0 Oreator God I" The appeal is to Him, the Oreator God, with whom is mercy and from whom is all deliverance. That leper cry sounds the depths of all power and peace, "0 Oreator God! "
Another denizen of the highway who arouses feelings not of pity and sympathy, but of intense loathing and disgust, is the dervish. No one who has not been in the East, where holiness is synonymous with asceticism, can understand the full force of the motives, which led Jesus to lay himself open to the epithets, "a gluttonous man and a wine bibber." It was absolutely necessary that he should make it plain that asceticism is not holiness. But Jesus' ideals do not prevail here, and the ascetic is the holy man. E,ery man who aspires to religious repu- tation or influence must present at least the external appearance of an ascetic life. The beerun or public apartment of the mollahs must be bare and unadorned, rich and effeminate as their anderun or inner apartment may be, and the supposed ascetic life of the dervish secures for him the greatest reverence on the part of the religious. The more • ascetic he is, the more ascetic he appears to be, the greater his reputation for holiness. As a result the dervish is the most blasphemous and loath- some thing I have seen in this land. He is the denial of God in more points than the open sinners. He is the personification of that which God detests. He is so unclean as to be foul and diseased. He does not work. He has no divine virility. " Quit you like men" are meaning- less words to him. His ambition is to attain to the utter uselessness of the life of a dog, who is a filth breeder, not even a scavenger. He whines and cringes and holding a faith which proclaims the Ohristian abject and unclean, sneaks at the Christian's heel and begs from the unclean hand! I have never seen anything to which it seemed more just and fitting that the Son of God, who loved cleanness and worked till his friends said he was beside himself, should say, "I will spue thee out of my mouth."
Apart from the representatives of human need and suffering on one hand and of putrid religiosity on the other, the highways have their multitude of beggars, traveling or coming out from village and town to beg from the pilgrims. With some begging is a supplement- ary means of increasing their income, with others it is a profession. A physical deformity is an aid but it is not indispensable, while a vigor- ous frame and full ability to earn an honest living are no impediments. The pilgrims have money. All their earnings many of them carry with them. They are going to Kerbela to accumulate merit, and all the merit that can be accumulated on the way by deeds of charity- whether the charity is a curse and a sin matters not-is so much gain. In the midst of these beggars and remembering that Jesus lived in just the same conditions, it is easy to understand the perplexity of those who stumble at Jesus' words, "From him that taketh away thy cloak withhold not thy coat also. Give to everyone that asketh thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again!'
The pilgrim caravans are of all sorts. Some are collections of poor laborers trndging on foot in a crowd. Now and then a man of sufficient standing to have "retainers," curious sycophantic parasites fostered by the peculiar conditions here, rides along, followed by his satellites. Often a man with his harem is passed. The women ride in the main in kajavas or cage-like boxes, covered with red and green cloth, and balanced one on either side of a strong, sure-footed mule or horse. It is hard for the horse and it is hard for the women who ride cramped up and roughly joggled. Many of the pilgrims on the Tabriz- Ramadan highway are from Russia. The territory taken from Persia by Russia two generations ago remains Persian in its customs and religions, and multitudes of poor and rich take the long journey (at least thirty-six days continuous travel by caravan time) to Kerbela. We saw these caravans going gaily and well equipt, and other caravans which had once been like them, returning drearily, foot-sore, and weary, ragged and plundered. ]'or the pilgrims are pillaged by every one. They have not been accustomed to have money or to travel, and at every stopping-place they are imposed upon and defrauded. About the shrines a great crowd of harpies hovers, mollahs and adventurers, and the poor pilgrims come away at last with one of the great obligations imposed by their religion met, and with much merit laid up on high, but with money gone, new vices learned, new fanaticism developt for the defense of new superstitions. The sight of one returning pilgrimage of Russian peasants I shall never forget, as begrimed and exhausted it toiled up a steep and rocky mountain. Two horses were left and were ridden by the women. One man led an old blind man by a rope, the rabble crept along in rags. " That is the way they come back," said one of the Persian servants with us. The sophisticated come back differently, but as Mecca spreads the cholera over the whole area from which its pilgrimage is fed, so Kerbela and Meshed especially spread poverty, vice, and superstition over Persia.
The pilgrims on this highway are all traveling to Kerbela, two days' journey south-west of Bagdad, where Hassan, the son of Ali, who was Mohammed's uncle, and married his daughter Fatima, was killed. Ali is the great prophet of Shiah Mohammedanism, and the Shiahs hold that both temporal and spiritual power should have descended in the hands of his posterity. Hassan and Hosein, his two sons, Shiahs regard as its martyrs, and celebrate their deaths each year in the month of Moharrem. Kerbela, accordingly, is its great shrine. Tho in Turkish and so Sunni territory, it is the center of the Shiah faith. Its great theological center is here. Here its dead desire to be buried. Hither its disciples come on their arduous pilgrimages, bearing the bones of the dead in long, suggestive boxes tied on the caravan horses, and distinguishable at once.
The pilgrimage is not productive of humility. On approaching a village the travelers will set up a long wail to let the people know they are passing through, and the simple people will run out to kiss their hands and ask for their blessing, or a little share in the great merit the pilgrimage earns. Coming out of the city of Khoi one fine morning, we saw the long, broad road filled with people bidding a large party of holy pilgrims farewell. Returning, laden with sanctity, the pilgrims have yet greater blessings to bestow. A company of welldrest Russian Moslems past us yesterday, the women clad in men's clothes, even to the Russian boots, and riding astride, and at each village the hands of this company were kist repeatedly. Raymond Lull's words are suggested at every turn: " We see the pilgrims traveling away into distant lands to seek Thee, while Thou art so near that every man, if he would, might find Thee in his own house and chamber. . . The pilgrims are so deceived by false men whom they meet in taverns and churches, that many of them, when they return home, show themselves to be far worse than they were when they set out on their pilgrimage." Men who have visited one of the Shiah shrines are called thereafter, as a title of honor, by the name of the shrine, "Meshedi," "Kerbelai," while those who have made the great pilgrimage to Mecca are called" Hadji," or "pilgrim."
One day, on the Tabriz road, near Ticon-tappeh, we met a large mollah, well clad, riding a fine horse, who greeted us cordially, and said in reply to our greeting that he was going to Kerbela for the seventh time. We askt why the arduous pilgrimages were undertaken. "They bring great holiness," he replied. We observed respectfully that he must be a very holy man, to which he assented with a deprecating nod of the head. "What good will the pilgrimage do," we inquired, "if the heart be wrong within?" "That is true," he said, " it would do no good," and he quoted a Persian ode about the two shrines, Medina-Mecca without, and the heart within, and the futility of visiting the former unless the latter be made holy and sweet. We askt him of the cost of the pilgrimages. He admitted that they drained the country of money, that they took the life-time savings of many and squandered them, that the money wasted would suffice to make good roads, drain the bogs, irrigate the desert plains, care for the diseased and the poor. " Our religion," he added, "provides for all these things, too." "Yes," rejoined Mr. Coan, of Oroomiah, who was with us, "it may provide for them, but where are they? Our book says a tree is to be judged by its fruits. Your religion produces unhappy homes, bad roads, poverty, waste, desert, swamps, and desolation. If it does not produce, it tolerates all these, with no attempt at all at remedy. Have you ever heard of the fruits of a pure Christianity? They are happy homes, commerce, and close social relations of peace, and progress among nations, comfort, thrift, prosperity and love." "Yes, Sahib," replied the moHah, "it is a great subject." The open mind was as absent as the open heart.
Other Mussulmans have two replies to this argument, however. Some say that the Christians being the devil's children, and the devil being the god of this world, he gives his children all present and carnal comforts, while the Moslem looks for his reward in the world to come. But this is the complete abandonment of the teachings of Mohammed and the practice of Moslems from his day until now. Mohammed had no more consuming conviction than that there is one God, the living and true, and that He is the world's sovereign. With him there had been no atheistic abdication of the sovereignty in favor of the evil one. And as for carnal comforts, the prospect and promise of them have been the life-power of Islam. Others meet the appeal to the fruits of religion by saying, "These are the dark ages of Islam. There was a time when Mussulmans held the learning of the world, and carried light everywhere, but now the reaction has come, and the light of Islam is shaded for a time, just as in the Dark Ages of Christianity the light of Christianity was obscured. Oompare the fruits of Islam in its luminous days with the fruits of the contemporary Christianity." To this there are obvious replies, but they do not always convince a man who knows just enough to know nothing of lucid reasoning or historic verity.
The Persian dislikes to grow gray. He is especially averse to a white beard. The shaved head saves him from gray hair. Accordingly when a man of long, lustrous black beard finds it turning silver, he suddenly appears with it dyed a glorious red with the dye of the blood plant, which is also used to color the finger nails and hands, with a stain that resembles the stain of nicotine or of the juice of walnut husks, tho it is less temporary than the latter. One of the most common and unfailingly ludicrous sights of the highway is an old red-bearded man, clad in rags, riding a small donkey, and keeping the little beast on a trot by working his half-naked legs, ending in great ark·like shoes, .in and out like two pu~p-handles. The feet do not touch the donkey at all, but the swinging motion is understood, and so long as it is kept up the swinging red-bearded patriarch and the wee, patient beast skip along merrily.
Bread and cheese are the staple articles of food on the highway or at home. The cheese is white and sour. The brel!.d is often delicious, if made of clean flour and well baked. It is almost invariably eaten damp, however, so that it may be easily bent and serve as spoon and fork. Pocket-knife or none is the rule as to knives•. Sometimes there are wooden spoons. As a rule all dip into a common dish, as our Lord and His disciples did in the Upper Room. The bread is thin and baked in the north in long, oblong" loaves," two feet or less in length and half as broad, and the thickness of extra heavy, coarse wrapping paper. In the south these sheets are round. There are other kinds of bread baked as cakes, or on hot pebbles, each of which leaves its indentation, but this is the common bread baked inurn-like, upright earthen jars, submerged in the ground, similar in name I}.D.d character,.and like to the ovens used by the Jews in Old Testament times (Lev. ii.4; 1 Kings xvii. 2; Isa. xliv. 15).
At Khokhurt, journeying south, the appearance of the houses sud- denly changes. Only flat roofs, used in the summer· as .the sleeping places of the village folk, were seen before. Here the roofs are all domed. There is no wood for use as rafters, so each roof is made up of one, two, three, or more domes, each with a small hole at the top, serving as the only entrance of light and air, save the door. In Bag- dad and other southern cities the spaces between the domes are filled up, making the roofs level and the houses warm in the cold and cool in the warm weather.· In the villages the domes remain, resembli:n,g a great community of gray ant hills. The single room of such a house gives no impression of the number of occupants. From subterranean caverns, through narrow and low-roofed passage ways, sheep; horses, cows, oxen emerge, and in the early morning march past the bed of the traveler, who has come in belated and been given shelter for the night.
As the traveler through Poland is surprised to see so few churches in the villages· through which the railroad runs, so the absence of mosques iii the villages of Persia is a constant surprise. To be sure, a Shiah mosque, which is never adorned with minarets, is not so con- spicuous .as the Sunni mos·que, but in most of the villages through which we past ,there seemed· to be no prayer-house, nor was the voice of the muezzin heard, calling the faithful to prayer; but Islam is evident 'in· the coarse conduct and words which greet European women, iIi the fidelity· of some bellevers to the hours of morning and .evening prayer wherever they may be, and in the general prevalence everywhere of that demoralization of life, that decay of fiber and sinew which one would expect in a country where Islam, on the con-
U ANYTHING TO KEEP MY FEET OFF THE GROUND
2. THREE HOLY MEN (DERVISBES) OF PERSIA. 3. MOBLEM WOMEN DRESSED FOR THE STREET.
GLIKP8ES O~ LIn ON A PERSIAN IDGHWAY
tention of its most intelligent defenders, and in spite of the blazing Christian light about it, is in its" Dark Ages."
One sees no drunkenness on the highways. Much may be justly said regarding the absurd plea that Itllam precluded the use of intoxicants, but the highway people are sober and its life a cheery, social, mutually helpful life. One cbavadar helps another out of a bog or a drift. If one man lies to you about the road or distance, another may possibly tell you the truth. While the majority follow the command given to the seventy, and salute no man by the way, many give a cheerfnl greeting and wish God's blessing even on the life and journey of an infidel. One Persian was able to go so far as "Bon jour. monsieur," but he answered the reply in his native tongue. The wealthier Persians, who have traveled at all, usually know French, but the native speech or speeches-Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Syriac, Hebrew, Kurdish-are the languages of the road.
']'he Persian fields and hills are absolutely devoid of trees, save where they grow by the water courses or in the semi-tropical districts. I could count on one hand, I think, the isolated trees seen on the highway to Ramadan. In the fall all is sere and brown, and the great flocks of sheep and goats dri ven out from some village or from some camp of the black huts of Kedar, crop over what the civilized eye sees only as a waste lacking any green herb or nutritious thing. Children of foreigners, born in Persia, look with surprise and amusement at the little, worthless tails of the sheep at home. They have been used to seeing sheep whose tails hang down behind as heavy and large often as a ham. The tail is wholly fat, and in a good sheep gives enough_ fat for the cooking of the mutton, and in Persia meat is served swimming in grease. Sometimes, tho seldom, the tail grows so heavy that, as in Palestine, a little cart must be attacht behind on which the sheep can carry around its tail. What a mighty moral is hidden here! Goats are cheaper than chickens for food. We bought one at Khaswayam for .fifty cents. A man came into the yard, and before our door killed it with his pocket-knife. Without other implements he cleaned it. A man stole its head and feet while the servant was not looking. The dogs came in and lickt up the blood and cleared off all traces of the butcher. An old woman came and prayed for the skin. The butcher brought the goat in on a tray. In a quarter of an hour our fifty cents was served before our eyes into a tray ?f fresh goat meat, and there was no evidence of the process of transformation.
One of the missionaries at home from Persia on furlough, was once' reported in a local paper's account of an address to have said that an unveiled woman was never seen in Persia. The local reporter knew no better, and he printed his ignorance. The missionary had seen more women's faces unveiled than veiled. In the cities and fanatical places the women of well-to-do homes are veiled upon the streets, but
ION KEITH-FALCONER, PIONEER IN ARABIA
the poorer women of the cities, and the great multitudes of village women, while occasionally drawing their head-coverings over their mouths, go about with open face. But this emancipation is no evidence of liberty. We stopt one night at the village of Tikontappeh, on the southern border of Persian Kurdistan. It. was a new town, built up in what here would be an enterprizing way. As we got ready our beds for the night, the woman of the house looked on with interest, and admired especially a coverlet made by Mrs. Coan, which led her to ask whether both the ladies of our party were my wives. We told her that our religion was different from hers; and askt whether her home was a happy one, whether her religion made her life sweet and desirable to her. "My husband is about to take another wife, Sahibs," she said; "0, Sahibs, our life is hell!" It is not hell with all, and many do not know that it is hell, because they.have grown up into a stolid endurance of its repression and its littleness.
The day before reaching Hamadan, the interYening ridges slip away and the snow clad peaks of the Elvend Mountains, which overlook Hamadan, and the wide, fertile plain, where Ecbatana lay of old, rise up cool, white and, in the warm weather, inviting and promising. But they are many miles away. The Persian highway gives the traveler many a far away vision. Above all others, there is one of a far away glory, before which the radiance of the Elvend peaks under the sunlight pales and dies away, when Persia even shall be full of the great glory, not of snow peak, fertile valley and quiet village, but of the Lord; and, after all, it is not very far away.
ION KEITH-FALCONER, PIONEER IN ARABIA.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
History, biography and philosophy teach by examples; they reduae precept to practice, and sometimes present the Book of Life in an illustrated and illuminated edition.
This heroic young man represented the flower of British civilization; and the lesson of his life is that the best is not too good for God's work, and the length of life is to be measured by service.
Oliver Wendell Holmes quaintly said that the training of the child begins a hundred years before its birth. Character has its heredity; it transmits its aptitudes. Something depends on blood as well as breeding; and Keith-Falconer might well have been proud of his noble lineage, which he could trace back through eight centuries. In 1010, when Malcolm II. was King of Scotland, Robert Keith, his remote ancestor, by valor and prowess in battle with Danish invaders, won the title of Hereditary Great Marischal of Scotland; and what he did for the Scottish crown, his descendant, long after, did for the crown and covenant of the King of kings-as a standard-bearer on the battlefield where Moslem and Christian powers contend, he won a higher honor and title as a Knight of the. Cross.
When, a little over forty years since, Ion Keith-Falconer was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, there began an eventful era, when more new doors were suddenly thrown open for missionary labor than in any previous decade of years since Christ gave his last command. Born in 1856, and dying in 1887, his life-story covers only about thirty years. Yet, in a higher sense these thirty years span eternity, for they wrought out God's eternal purpose, and left a lasting legacy of blessing to the young men of all generations, the true wealth and worth of which only eternity can compute.
His life may be viewed from four points: his boyhood, his college life, his home work, and his pioneer enterprise on the shores of the Red Sea. He was markt, as a boy, by four conspicuous qualities: manliness, magnanimity, piety, and unselfishness-rare traits in a lad. He loved outdoor sports and excelled in athletics, and grew to be six feet and three inches tall, and well formed, always conspicuous among his fellows. At twenty, President of the London Bicycle Club, and at twenty-two the champion racer of Britain, four years later he was the first to go on his wheel from Land's End to John O'Groat's Housevery nearly one thousand miles; and he accomplisht that feat in thirteen days-an average of nearly eighty miles a day.
If his stalwart manhood won applause, much more his sterling worth. He had inward strength and symmetry, and was too strong and brave in soul to be overcome of his own lusts, or enticed. He loved truth and had no patience with shams or frauds; and reminds one of the statue, which represents Veracity standing with open face, the mask of dissimulation lying at its feet, cleft with the sword of Sincerity. The Bible was the one book he loved; from the dawn of his intelligence he was its faithful and loyal student, and sought by obedience to get new knowleuge of its true spirit and meaning. .
Better than all were his unselfish piety and charity. To impart is the highest blessedness, tho few learn the bliss of giving, if at all, until late in life. Yet as a lad he showed deep sympathy with sorrow and suffering, and is remembered for his simple ministries to those who needed help. He went about, a boy of seven, reading and explaining the Bible in the cottages of poor peasants; and on one occasion having spent his pocket money for some baker's choice cakes, he bestowed them all, untasted, upon a hungry boy. The child thus forecast the man who gave his short life to teaching the ignorant, and himself became one of God's barley loaves to feed dying souls!
In college life, Keith-Falioner was an example of a fine quality of brains as well as brawn. He mastered "short-hand," and rivaled Pitman himself, and wrote the article, "Shorthand," in the Encyclopcedia Britannica. He had the genius of industry, and like William Carey, could plod. Conscientious in his curriculum, he applied himself to hard tasks, and overcame pbsiacles, until he rose to an enviable rank and won honors and prizes which the indolenhnd indifferent never secure, mastering not only the regular studies, but theology, Hebrew, and the Semitic languages, and the Tonic sol-fa system of music.
The missionary spirit burned in him, even in college days, tho the atmosphere of a university is not always stimulating to aggressive and evangelistic piety. He who at Harrow School, not yet fourteen years old, was, by the testimony of the masters, "energetic, manly, and vigorous," altho" neither a prig nor a Pharisee," was, during his career at Oambridge, which began in 1874, not only fearless in the avowal of his faith, but was moved by that passion for souls which compels unselfish utterance and effort. In temperance and mission work he both used and tested his powers and adaptations for a wider field of service. He led a band of students who, in an old theater, carried ou ragged school work and similar Gospel evangelism. Together they gave or· raised about eight thousand dollars to purchase the building, and there began a wide-reaching service, whose harvest is not yet wholly gathered and garnered.
A field in London next drew him. When yet but a lad of fifteen he had met F. N. Oharrington, then twenty-one, who was visiting at the house of his father, the Earl of Kintore. Between these two, notwithstanding six years' difference in age, an intimate friendship at once sprang up, which bore that blessed fruit of fellowship in holy work. Mr. Oharrington, now known as the founder and leader of the Tower Hamlets Mission in the East End of London, had, two years before, consecrated his life, at the cost of surrendering a princely fortune as a brewer, to uplifting and redeeming the East End drunkards and outcasts. When, late at night, he watched wretched wives and mothers anxiously waiting for their husbands outside the drinkshops over which waS the name of "Oharrington, Head & 00.", he felt a noble impulse to break off the yoke of the drink traffic; and, resiguing the eldest son's share in the business, accepted a smaller portion, which he laid on the altar of humanity, resolved that what was largely coined out of human woe, should be dedicated to human weal, in raising the very classes that the beershop had dragged down. Charrington began his work in a hayloft, was crowded into a larger hall, and then into a big tent; until an Assembly Hall was opened-now twenty years ago-where two thousand people were gathered night a.fter night fQr nine years.
Keith-Falconer's name is so inseparable from the work of Charrington, that it is no digression to give that noble enterprise ample mention. The two young men, moved by a similar impulse, were knit together, like David and Jonathan. During his Cambridge days Keith-Falconer often went to LondOll' to watch his friend's work, and give it help. He shared the opposition. and persecution that made Charrington its target, and the "mobbing" which rewarded .unselfish service to the slaves of drink, going with him to the police office, when he was arrested on false charges, as one that was turning the world upside down. Like Charrington, also, he had his reward in seeing drunkards reformed, gangs of thieves broken up, public houses deserted and for sale at half their cost, and homes redeemed from rum and crime.
During the fearful winter of 1879 the feeding of hungry multitudes occupied the attention of Charrington and his helpers, and led ultimately to the erection of that new hall which, with its buildings, cost $200,000, and is a perpetual benediction to the neighborhood. There, for over ten years, untold blessing has been imparted to thousands and even millions. In that grand audience room on Mile End Road five thousand people may gather under the sound of one voice; there, every night, a Gospel service is held; the days of mob violence are over; Mr. Charrington finds stalwart defenders in the poor victims whose yoke he has been the means of breaking, and the whole East End is being redeemed from its social curse.
In all this work Keith-Falconer has a share, as in its eternal reward. He, as honorary secretary, issued the necessary appeals, himself becoming a beggar for funds, and a donor to the extent of $10,000. As a college student he would hurry off to the metropolis for a week at a time, lend hand and voice as needed, visit the poor, teach the word, aid in administrative details, and then hurry back to his studies. His biographer, Mr. Sinker, says: "I could not but be struck with the similar expression on the faces of the two men. It was one in which joy and keen resolve alid humble thankfulness were strangely blended. One great work for God which Keith-Falconer had striven hard to further, he was allowed to see in its full completeness, carried on by men working there with heartiest and purest zeal. Not while anyof the present generation of workers survive will the name of Keith-Falconer fade out of loving remembrauce in the great building in Mile End Road."
All this work he did as a layman, who seldom spoke in public, but had learned the secret of "having a talk with a man "-and with one at a time-as Jesus talkt with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. While on a bicycle tour with a friend in Slltherlandshire, in 1884, he wrote to his wife, " We had a talk with the boatman on the Kyle, who said he had been praying and searching for years, but couldn't find Him." This form- of evangelistic and missionary work, getting in touch with an individual soul, and finding the key that unlocks the heart-a personal, private conversation about the most important matters-courts no publicity and escapes observation, but does not fail of recognition in God's Book of Remembrance, written for those who" think upon His name" and" speak often one to another."
The closing period of his life is forever linkt with Arabia. After he past his last examination at Cambridge, in 1880, Keith-Falconer gave himself to the study of the Arabic, including the Koran. He got from books what preparatory knowledge of that tongue he could, and then went to the Nile, and resided for some months with the missionary, Dr. D. W. Hogg, to acquire the colloquial language, learn the temper of the Arabic mind, and study the Moslem faith. Then in university halls for three years longer he carried on his research, translating the Kalilah and Dimnalt,* and meanwhile filling the post of Hebrew Lecturer at Clare College and of Theological Examiner.
This young man, not yet thirty, was married to a charming woman, Miss Bevan. In the midst of the finest classical surroundings, everything was calculated to root him at Cambridge, where before him lay a futuro of almost unlimited possibilities. He might have grown in such a soil until, like the palm, he overtopt others, and blossomed into a surpassing fruitfulness as well as a scholarly symmetry. Fame had her goal and laurel wreath in sight, but a holier calling and a higher crown absorbed him. He left all else to carry the Gospel message to distant Aden.
The life of Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, had opened his eyes to the possibilities of a missionary career, and about the same time General Haig had called attention to neglected Arabia, and to the strategic importance of this particular point of approach and occupation. Aden as a military position controls tho Red Sea, and in a mercantile and nautical point of view sustains a relation to Asia and Africa similar to that of Gibraltar to Europe and Africa. In the year of Victoria's coronation-l838-the Sultan ceded the peninsula to England, and Aden was made a free port. It is but five hundred miles from Mecca and six hundred and fifty from Medina. Thousands from all parts of Arabia, entering the British territory every year, must see how the peaco, order, freedom, and good government, there prevalent, contrast with the tyranny and anarchy elsewhere found.
Keith-Falconer had an interview with General Haig, and in the autumn of 1885 went to Aden to prospect. On his way he began inducting his wife into the mysteries of Arabic, and quaintly wrote: "Arabic grammars should be strongly bound, because learners are so often found to dash them frantically on the ground."
• These were the so-called" Fables of Bldpai," or Pilpsl, an Indian Brahman and gyninoSOo phlst, of great antiquity. &arcely any book but the Bible has been translated into so many tongues, and its history is a part of the history of human development. Bidpsi has been . called chief of the philosophers of India. He determined to fix on Sheikh-Othman as his station, leaving. Aden to the Ohurch Missiouary Society. He explored the neighbQrhood, and thus proved to the inhabitants that not all Europeans are " clever people who get drunk and have no religion to speak of."
In the spring of 1886 he and his wife were again in England, and, on Easter Day, in the Assembly Hall at Mile End, he delivered, on " Temptation," the most striking address of his life. Did it reflect his inward struggle with the parting of the ways before him-nobility, wealth, distinction, on the one hand; seclusion, self-denial, obscurity on the other? Before the General Assembly of the Free Ohurch of Scotland, he gave, on Mohammedan missions, an address equally impressive in its way, which reveals his purpose and conception of the possibilities of service in Arabia. He said that he had been again and again urged to go to Arabia and set up a school, and that one day a Mohammedan wrote in a mysterious fashion: "If you want the people to walk in your way, then set up schools." The man was a Hadjee, returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he had been stript of all his money. Being offered a copy of John's gospel, he would not accept it; and, being further questioned, acknowledged that he liked the historical parts, but other parts made him fearful. He pointed to the talk between Christ and the woman at Jacob's well, "If thou knewest the gift of God," etc., and said" That verse makes my heart tremble, lest I be made to follow in the way of the Messiah."
'.rhis young Semitic scholar of Cambridge, already the greatest living orientalist, laid out a great w,ork at Sheik-Othman. He would have a school, a medical mission, and a depot for distributing the Holy Scriptures. He would study medicine himself and secure a Christian physician as coworker. He would work under the Board of the Scottish Ohurch, but pay all costs of the mission himself.
Just at this point, and greatly to his surprise, he was made Pro· fessor of Arabic at Oambridge. The position was partly honorary, its active teaching depending mostly on an associate; and it was accepted, with no divided purpose, for his mind was set on Arabia, but because his Cambridge work would augment his power to turn public attention to its needs. After a course of three lectures on "The Pilgrimage to Mecca," he again left at once for Aden, with his wife, and colleague, Dr. Stewart Oowen.
Thus in November, 1886, he laid the foundation for his mission premises and work. His character made such impression on the Moslem mind, that, within a few months, but few who came in touch with this Christlike man were willing to admit that they were followers of Mohammed, but were wont to say," There are no Moslems here!" The Gospel in Arabic found both purchasers and readers in those who ha:d read in this man the living epistle of God.
But the Aden fever proved a fatal foe. Both Keith-Falconer and 736 [October ION XlIlITH-J'ALCCNER. PIONEER IN ,ABAlIIA.
his wife were stricken in February, 1887, and fresh attacks rapidly weakened his stalwart constitution until, on May 11, he sank into quiet slumber and could no more be awaked. His biographer writes: "It was indeed the end. Quietly he past away. God's finger touched him and he slept. Slept? nay, rather awakened, not in the close, heated room where he had so long lain helpless-the weary nurse, overcome with heat and watching, slumbering near-the young wife, widowed ere she knew her loss, lying in an adjoining room, her- self broken down with illness as well as anxiety-the loyal doctor, resting after his two nights' vigil-not on theBe do Ion Keith-Fal- coner's eyes open. He is in the presence of his Lord; the life which is the life indeed has begun."
After five months of labor in his chosen field his body was lovingly laid to rest in the cemetery at Aden by British officers and soldiers- fitting burial for a soldier of Christ, who, with armor on and courage undaunted, fell with face to the foe. The martyr of Aden had entered God's Eden. And so Great Britain made her first offering- a costly sacrifice-to Arabia's evangelization. '
No doubt some will exclaim, '" To what purpose is this waste I'
for this flask of costly ointment, broken and poured out amid Arabia's arid sands, might have been kept in the classic halls of Cambridge, and even yet be breathing its perfume where scholars tread and heroes are made." To all such cavils of unbelief there is one reply, and it is all-sufficient, for it is God's answer: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
The Free Church, whose missionary he was, declares: "The faIl- ing asleep, iu the first months of fervent service, of the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, in the extreme Asian outpost in South Arabia, gives solemn urgency to his last appeal to the cultured, the wealthy, and the unselfish, whom that devoted volunteer for Christ represented when he addrest them in these words: '" While vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, and hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism or Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in whic"h God has placed you were meant by Him to hep you out of the foreign mission field.'''
God makes no mistakes, and we are "immortal till our work is done," if we are fully in His plan. We may not penetrate the arcana of His secret purposes to learn the final issue, but, as Dr. J. W.
Dulles used to say, our disappointments are, rightly read, "His appointments." The short career of Keith-Falconer teaches a lesson -never more impressively taur,1,t-that nothing is too good to be given to God ou the altar of r ssions. His death sent an electric shock through the British kingdom and the wider Church of Christ.
But his distinction and accomplishments made it impossible for his
10K XEITH-lI'ALCOKBIt, PIOliBBlt Ili AlUlIU
life's lesson to remain unread. His fame gave a trumpet voice to his words and made his life vocal with witness. Admiration and love drew others to follgw in the steps of a heroism so divinely self-oblivious. The Church askt for one volunteer to step into the breach, and thirteen of the graduating class of the New College at once responded; but the response did not end then or there. In the very year of Keith- Falconer's death Robert P. Wilder and John N. Forman were going about among the colleges and theological schools of the United States and Canada, secnring from the best educated young men, volunteers for the foreign field. And now, during the ten years that have past since this martyr spirit of Aden went up to God, ten thousand lives of young men and women in Britain and America have been ofiered to God, quicken~d by this example of consecration. The Henry Martyn Memorial Hall at Canbridge, the: Hannington Memorial Hall at Oxford, and many other monuments of dead and living mission heroes enforce the testimony of the Cambridge orientalist. lIe, being dead, yet speaketh, and no voice of the last half century is heard more widely by the young men of the Church of Christ.
He sought to " call attention to Arabia;" and has done it in a way and to an extent that he never imagined. The workman fell, but the work goes on. Under Rev. W. R. W. Gardner and Dr. Young new currents of influence are flowing into and through Aden. In· 1888 a large number of Abyssinian children carried into Arabia from ruined homes and massacred families, for enslavement, were rescued by a British man-of-war and put into school in this mission for Christian training, to be sent back to Abyssinia as missionaries. Christian teachers, evangelists, and physicians have since gone to take up the work Keith-Falconer laid down. And, on both sides of the Red Sea, in Africa and Asia, the mission which he begun is likely to be the seed of other enterprises, looking to the evangelization of both conti- nents. The mission to Arabia has not come to its grave because its founder sleeps in the cemetery at Aden. On these southern shores of Arabia is a Church of England edifice, largely built from collections made in the mail steamers that ply across those waters. The Scots Church, partly paid for by money raised by the children of the Free Church of Scotland, is now building under an Arab contractor and workmen, some of whom are Jews. And so, curiously enough, Christians, Arabs, and Jews unite to erect Christ's houses of prayer in the land of Ishmael! Dr. George Smith, who recently visited Aden, testifies to the prosperityand hopefulness of the congregation there worshiping in connection with the Scots Church, and says that in the pioneering stage of the Arab mission it snpplies the spiritual life and enthusiasm of common worship and evangelical efiort. Dr. Young acts as military chaplain for the British infantry and artillery located at Aden, and he and
ION lUilITlI-lI'ALCOmm, PIONBEl IN AIUliIA
hill colleague undertake not only to furnish two sermons a week, but as medical missionariea to meet the demands of Arab and Somali, Jew and Paraee; thus, while nourishing piety in British resi- dents, reaching out to the varioua foreign populationil that need Gospel effort.
The British camp and the native town of Aden lie in the crater of an extinct volcano. What a typical place in which to plant God's tree of knowledge and of life! And the Bible is planted there. On a busy corner of the main street stands the British and Foreign Bible Society's depot, with Mr. and Mrs. Lethaby as its devoted workGra; and near by is the reating place of the body of Keith-Falconer. In the middle of a row of graves of British officers and men, each with Ito single cross above it, may be aeen the tomb of the first missionary that Scotland gave to Arabia.
Dr. Smith aaya of him: " He died at thirty, one yea.r younger than Henry Martyn, and was followed by the aged bishop, Valpy French, on the eastern shore at Muscat. A massive block of white Egyptian m~rble covers the grave, while there rises at its head an exquisitely pure slab, with an inscription, under a coronet which might well represent the martyr's crown. 'Ihere Dr. Cowen, who was then his medical colleague, and several officers and men of her British majesty's Ninety-eighth Regiment, as the sun set, laid all that was mortal of the young Scottish noble, scholar, and self-consecrated missionary of the Free Church of Scotland. The sacred spot is the first missionary milestone into Arabia.
"As the Keith-Falconer Mission, bearing its founder's name and generally supported by his family, this first modern mission to the Arab may be said to have begun anew in the year 1889. First of all, Principal Mackichan, when on his return to Bombay, after furlough, carefully inspected the Sheikh-Othman headquarters, and, with the local medical authorities, reported in favor of continuing and extending the plans of its founder. The mission is now, as a result of past experience, conducted by two fully qualified men, one of whom is married, who are working in most brotherly harmony, preaching the Gospel in Arabic as well as healing the sick. Its Arabic and English school is taught by Alexander Aabud, a married member of the Syrian Evangelical Church, from the Lebanon, but trained in the American mission in Egypt.
"All pver this neighborhood the medical mission founded by Keith-Falconer ill makin~ for it!!elf a name, and its doctors are received or visited at theIr dispensary, as the messengers of God. European and native alike, nat.ives from India and Africa, as well as the Arab camel driver!! and !!ubjects of the Sultan of Lahej-himself and hi!! family patient!! of the mission-turn to the missionaries with ~ratitude and hope, and will do them any service. Nowhere has the mfluence of medical mission!! in this early stage, of course preparatory, been !!o remarkable 81! in this Yemen corner of Arabia during the past !!even years." …
• Letter to the Free Ohurch oJ lYcotland M01-.thly, by George Smith, LL.D. In this man – one of the finest, brightest, and noblest young men of the century, some special traits shone which provoke to emulation.
First, his simplicity. The childlike. character, refined of what is merely childish, is the divine ideal of human perfection. We must not outgrow the simple artlessness, humility, docility of childhood, but rather grow backward toward it perpetually. The ideal child is inseparable in our minds from faith, love, truth, and trust; and these are the cardinal virtues of Christian character. To learn to doubt, to hate, to lie, to suspect, is to learn the devil's lessons, and any approach to these is just so much progress in Satan's school. This pioneer to Arabia never lost his simple childlikeness. His manhood was not an outgrowing of his boyhood, in all that makes a child beautiful and attractive. He never put on airs of any sort, but hated all hollow pretense and empty professions. His was that high art of artlessness; in his most careful work he did not lose naturalness, and in his most studied performances there was no affectation. He acted out himself, a genuine, honest, sincere man, who concealed nothing and had nothing to conceal.
Second, his eccentricHy. This word has a new meaning by his interpretation of it. He was wont to say that a true disciple must not fear to be called "eccentric." "Eccentric," said he, "means {out of center,' and you will be out of center with the world if you are in centllr with Christ." He dared to be one of God's" peculiar people, zealous of good works." While we are content to live on the low level of the average" professor of religion" we shall exhibit no peculiarity, for there is no peculiarity about a dead level. But if, like a mountain rising from a plain, we dare to aspire to higher and better things, to get nearer to God, to live in a loftier altitude and atmosphere, we shall, like the mountain, be singular and exceptional; we can not escape observation, and may not escape hostile criticism. Blessed is the man who, like Caleb and Joshua, ventures to stand comparatively alone in testimony to God; for it is such as these who go over into the inheritance of peculiar privileges and rewards.
Third, his unselfishness. Few of us appreciate the deformity and enormity of the sin of simply beiug absorbed in our own things. One may be a monster of repulsiveness in God's eyes through qualities that exhibit little outward hatefulness and ugliness to the common eye. Greed, lust, ambition, pride, envy and jealousy, malice and uncharity, may not be forbidden in man's decalogue, but they eat away the core of character like the worm in the apple's heart. Balzac, in one of his stories, revives the old myth of the magic skin which enabled the wearer to get his wish, but with every new gratification of selfish desire shrank and held him in closer embrace, until it squeezed the breath of life out of him. And the myth is an open mystery, to be seen in daily life. Every time that we seek something for. our-
ION ltltlTl[-PALCOl'fElt. PlonKa Ilf· AlLllSU
selves only, without regard to God's glory or man's good, our very success is defeat; we may get what we want, but we shrink in capacity for the highest joy and the noblest life.
l!~ourth, his concentraUon. Paul writes to the Philippians, "This one thing I do." In the original it is far more terse and dense with meaning. He uses two little Greek words, the shortest in the language (EY 8E), "But one!" an exclamation that no words can interpret. All his energies were directed toward and converged in one. Our lives are a waste because they lack unity of aim and effort. We seek too many things to attain anything great or achieve anything grand. Our energies are divided, scattered, dissipated. We follow impulse, which is variable and unsteady, while principle is constant, like the pole . star. We are too much controlled by opinions which change with the hour, instead of by convictions which, being intelligently formed, hold us, like the girdle of truth in the Ohristian armor, instead of our merely holding them. It is possible for a man or woman to gain almost any goal, if the whole energy be concentrated. How immense the importance, then, of getting a right purpose to command the soul, and then making everything else bend and bow before it!
God speaks to the young men and women of our day as in trumpet tones: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear! " An example, like that set before us in this life story, is one of God's voices. In Keith- Falconer the Holy Ghost saith, "Stop and consider!" What way is your life stream running? Are you living for yourself or for God and for man? Every man is his brother's keeper, and it is fitting that the first one who questioned this was Oain, his brother's mur- derer! Everyone is either his brother's keeper or slayer, for every life is saving or destroying other lives. We lift men up or we drag them down; there is no escape from responsibility.
No man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself. Life is bound up in a bundle with all other life. We are none of us inde- pendent of the others, and we can not escape the necessity of influen- cing them for good or evil. Eternity alone can measure the capacity for such influence, for eternity alone can give the vision and the revelation of what life covers in the reach and range of its mighty forces. It is a solemn and august thought that, to-day, each one of us is projecting lines of influence into the unending hereafter. The life span is infinite. So lookt upon, this short career of thirty years did not end at Aden ten years ago. The building whose basis was thus laid is rising unseen and silently, and its spires will yet pierce the clouds. A seed was planted on the shores of the Red Sea whose branches will yet shake like Lebanon, and wave in beauty and fertility when the everlasting mountains are no more. The career of Keith-Falconer is still going on, but the cloud which is between hides its onward, upward path.
POLITICS AND lU8SIONS IN PERSIA
Once more we turn to that grave at Aden and read its simple inscription: TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF THE HON. ION KEITH-FALCONER, THIRD SON OF THE EARL AND COUNTESS OF KINTORE, WHO ENTERED INTO REST AT SHEIKH-OTHMAN, MAY 11, 1887, AGED 30 YEARS.
"If any man serve me, let him follow me; and, where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honor."
POLITICS AND MISSIONS IN PERSIA.
BY REV. S. G. WILSON, TABRIZ, PERSIA.
Muzaffir-id-Din Shah has now occupied the throne of the Kajars about a year. During this time the condition of the country and its sovereign has been far from satisfactory. The Shah is the victim of a chronic disease, and his tenure of the scepter is destined to be short. Several times it has been announced that he had the intention to go to Europe for medical treatment. Rumors of his death have been circul~ted. At one time the bazaars in Teheran were closed, business suspended, and riots imminent, owing to such rumors. Only the appearance of the Shah in public quieted popular apprehension. Not ouly illness, but fear of assassination, seems to keep the Shah in retirement.
Shortly after his accession, the Shah removed the prime minister who had served his father for so many years, and had shown great energy in holding the turbulent elements in check until His Majesty reooht his capital. The Sadr-Azam retired in disgrace to Kum, and the cabinet was reorganized, many of the old ministers retaining their portfolios. After a few months another reorganization was effected, the Amin-i-Doulah being recalled from the governorship of Azerbijan and made grand vizier. He is an enlighteneq ma.n, a great admirer / of European civilization, the patron of the Ferry Hospital in Teheran, and friendly to missionaries.
There has been a noticeable increase in Russian influence during the year. A consulate has been establisht at Ispahan. A wagon-road from the Caspian to Kasvin, leading to Teheran, is being constructed by Russian capital. The boundary between Moghan-and Ardebil has been pusht forward. A governor of Ardebil is said to have been induced, by a bribe of 50,000 rubles, to report to the government that a certain territory in question was of no value, and that Russia's desire for it might as well be gratified. Afterwards the inhabitants of twelve villages came to the Shah to protest against being expatriated in so summary a way. When the Shah learned the truth, the governor was divorced from the Shah's daughter, his property confiscated, and he was banisht on a pilgrimage to Kerbela.
Russia naturally desires to reap advantage from the disturbed condition of the country. Indeed, the vice-consul, who was at Tabriz during the bread-riots, is reported to have been censured for not having scored some points when the rioters fled to the consnlate for protection, and profest a desire to become subjects of the Czar. In Meshed;the consul showed a better knowledge of his duty, and made the local disturbance a pretext for calling in a band of Cossacks to guard the consulate. But the greatest show of Russian power has been at Tabriz. A servant of the Russian consulate was reported to have insulted a Mohammedan woman, the wife of a prominent mollah. A crowd quickly gathered to punish him. He took refuge at the consulate, and the mob turned to plundering Armenian houses. Four houses were looted, and many men robbed and beaten on the streets, before the government got control of the mob.' Then demands were made on the consul that the man be given up for punishment. The consul maintained his innocence, and refused to give him over to certain death. Popular excitement rose high. The mob threatened to return to looting the Armenian quarters, and even to attack the consulate. Armenians, to the number of 700, fled to the Russian and French consulates, and remained there for three weeks; the rest of them were confined to their houses; their schools, 8S well 8S those of the mission, were closed. It was uncertain what 8 day might bring forth. The consul told the government plainly that if order W8S not kept, he would call for the Cossacks in 48 hours. They came to the border at JuUa to be in readiness. The government took alarm, and made strenuous efforts to control the populace. Guards of soldiers were placed in the Armenian quarters. The mollahs exhorted their followers to be quiet, saying that otherwise the Russians would conquer the country, take off their turbans, and prohibit their call to prayer. So the Persians were cowed, and restrained their fanatical and plundering passions. The Shah's government, at the demand of the Czar, paid indemnity to the plundered, arrested and imprisoned the ringleaders of the riot, and gave a written promise of security for the Christian popUlation. The results wer.e a great increase of the already predominant power of Russia, and an improved position for Nestorians and Armenians, and greater security for all foreigners.
The Jews, too, have been passing through trials. Shortly after the above event, a renegade, Jewin Urumia, accused his brethren of having sacrificed a Mohammedan child at the Passover. A mob quickly gath. ered, and were about to take summary vengeance on the defenseless Jews, when the government, fearing further disturbance would give. Russia a coveted opportunity, exerted unusual energy, and restrained the crowd before they had injured anyone. In Teheran, moreover, It. mollaq gave a decree that the Jews should wear a distinctive dress, and have a badge of red on their coats, that they could be recognized, and Mohammedans not be contaminated by contact with them. The Jews appealed to the Shah, who answered them favorably. Still the populace was determined to attack them, and the Shah had a silver badge, of the value of a franc, struck off, to be hung about the neck of each Jew. In Ramadan, too, the Jew8 were in "reat danger during Maharren.
These riotoUl!! demonstration! against Christian! r.nd Jew! are, in part, the result of the bigotry excited among the Persians by the events in Turkey, for though Shiah Mohammedans, they show It. fellow feeling for their Sunni brethren, which was not anticipated, and glory in the victories over the Greeks a! those of Islam over Christianity. They had come to feel that there was no protection for Christians, and they could be plundered with impunity. Only the fear of Russia excited the government to a prudent activity, and prevented a. repeti. tion of the scene enacted in Turkey. This serie! of riots shows what the condition of life is in Persia at preeent.
During the past. year thousands of refugeee from Turkey have past into Persia. Not only have Armeniane from the villages along the border fled hither, but thousands of Nestorians abandoned their lands, their homes, their all to the Kurde, and took refuge in Urumia. The dangers to which they were exposed was tragically illustrated in the murder of the Nestorian Bishop of Ulumia, Mar Gabriel, three priests, and two deacons of the old church and their attendants. They were proceeding to the Metropolitan of Nochea. A party of Kurds, by command of a sheikh, murdered this band of harmless clergy, muti· lated their bodies, cutting their ears and noses, and ripping them up. Their bodiee were then dragged more than" mile and thrown over the Persian border, where they were found after ten days by a search· ing party. Much hM been done to relieve these del!titute refugees in Urumia., more than $10,000 having come from England and America for th.t purpose. Many were furnisht with passports to emigrate to Russia. Clothing and food have been distributed in Salmas, and now Pastor Fisher and wife, with the Misses Pollock, have come from Germany to establish an orphanage and perhaps a colony for the refugees. One scheme of ait! was to purchase cattle in Persia for the plundered villagers in Turkey. For this purpose the Rev. Mr. Allen, of Van, came to Persia, and purchased several thousand head of cattle. Diffi- culties were, however, put in the way of exporting them. It was found to be against Persian law to export cattle and grain. The price of meat was also raised by the extra demand, and the people of Khoi became clamorous against the exportation. Their opposition took the form of an extensively signed petition against Deacon Werda, the preacher at Khoi, who had negotiated for the cattle. He was accused of preaching the Gospel to Mohammedans, and baptizing converts, and his expulsion was demanded. The petition was ready to be sent to the Amir-i-Uizam, the governor-general, when Dr. Cochran waif fortunately called to Khoi, to attend a patient, and was able to procure the destruction of the document. The feeling against the export of cattle was so strong that the plan was abandoned. At present some anxiety is felt regarding the bands of Armenian revolntionists who are gathering in Salmos with the intention of attacking Kurdish vil- lages across the border. It is feared that they may provoke reprisals and lead to further massacres, without accomplishing any good. The Armenian bishop has endeavored to dissuade them from the enter- prise.
A reccnt event of importance to mission work in Persia has been, the visit of Secretary Robert E. Speer. It was the first visit ever made by an official of the board to the Persia Mission in the sixty years of its existence. Now that a Secretary has once ventured to take this ride of 1,500 miles over the rough mountains of Persia, and escapeiJ so successfully from an attack of typhoid, we hope he may quickly find courage to come again, and be followed by a rapid succession of official representatives. Mr. Speer's visit was a spiritual blessing to many of the missionaries.
Retrenchment has been the order of the past year, and greater cur- tailment is ordered for the present year. With this there has been ,.unusual spiritual activity. In 'fabriz there has been a markt friend- liness on the part of the Armenians, and an unprecedented readiness to hear the truth. In connection with the Memorial Boys' School a series of evangelistic services were held for three months after the week of prayer, which were attended as never before, and were the means of removing many prejudices and made a strong impression for evangelical truth. Hearts that had resisted all appeals during many years were brought to a decision to serve Christ. In Urumia a gracious blessing has been experienced in a number of the churches. The winter campaign, conducted largely by Mr. Coan, was one of the most remarkable in the history of the station. Large congregations of revived church members and inquiring siuners attended the services. The churches would not hold the numbers who desired to be present. The attendance of Old Nestorians and Catholics was specially large. Many of the refugees, too, received a blessing and the interest extended to the Armenian villagers as never before. Five hundred accessions were expected as the result of the campaign.
Quickly following this evidence of God's blessing came not only an order for an unparalleled retrenchment in the work, but another event which clouds the prospect for the future evangelization of the Nestorians. Prieste from the Russian Church arrived in Urumia in May. They had been invited by the Nestorians in an extensively signed petition to the Czar. The motive of the signers was to obtain political and civil protection. The insecurity of life and property in these parts has well nigh led the Christian population to despair. They felt sure of protection if they could come under the regis of the Czar. Hence the same people who some years ago invited the mission of the Archbishop of Canterbury now turn to the Orthodox Synod. The coming of the Russian mission was anticipated with intense interest. As one exprest it, the Nestorians had their horses saddled for months in anticipation of their advent. The missionaries arrived in 'fabriz under guard of a band of Cossacks, just after the Tabriz riots. When they arrived near Urumia, Nestorians and some Armenians, in all to the number of 8,000, came out to meet and welcome them. 1.'hey strewed their garments in the way, kist their hands, and even the dust of their shoes, prostratiug themselves before them and greeting them as "Our Saviors." Their reception was a grand ovation. They quickly followed up their triumphal entry by special visits to villages. At the edge of the village they would plant the standards-the holy Eikons-aud hold religious services. The people flockt to the services and all who desired were invited to partake of the Eucharist, after which their names were enrolled as members of the Orthodox Russian Church. Some whole villages have been thus enrolled. Among the leaders in this headlong rush to ;forsake Nestorians and the Syrian Fathers are Bishop Mol' Yohannan and Yoseph Arsenious, who has traveled extensively in America. These with the zeal of new converts are persuading and cajoling all they can to join the Russians. The movement is chiefly confined to Old Nestorians, who seem about to be swept out of existence, as far as Persia is concerned. Oh, degenerate sons of steadfast sires, who suffered exile and loss of all rather than call Mary the Mother of God, and you now run in hot haste to bow down to her image and pray to her as mediator. Not a few even of the converts of the Catholic and Protestant mis- sions are borne along by the flood, and the missionaries stand amazed. at the power of political and worldly motives to uproot conscientious convictions. Th~ mission is interpreted by the Persians to mean that the Russians are about to make a movement to occupy Persia.
The results affect most peculiarly the Anglican Mission (Ritualistic), whioh was establisht at the request of the Nestorians, and whose aim has been to bring the Nestorian Ohurch to acknowledge the first six councils. Now, after years of self-denying effort, they see their hosts flying to the refuge of Orthodoxy, but under the Russian banner. As their object to make the Ohurqh orthodox, is thus accomplisht in a way they could never have anticipated, they can rejoice even in tribulations. They will probably "fold their tents like the Arabs and silently steal away." Indeed, most of them are already taking vacations. That clergy who have subscribed to the XXXIX Articles, should be better satisfied to see their flock go to the Russian Ohurch than to the Evangelical Ohurch, must excite amazement.
As for the Protestant community, we yet confidently hope that the great majority of its adherents will stand firm and receive the blessing of those who endure temptation and come forth purified. When the chaff is blown away, the pure wheat will be all the more worthy to be garnered with care. .But it is a question whether it will be possible to do missionary work among the Russianized community, for should any repent at leisure, they will leave their new confession at their peril, and make themselves liable to temporal penalties, means of inflicting which will be found, tho they do not reside in the dominions of the Ozar.
The Ohurch mission at Ispahan shows aggressiveness and progress and at the same time is compast with difficulties and persecutions. The force of missionaries has been much enlarged, dispensary and hospital work increast, and a new station establisht at Kerman, and Bishop Stuart, the first English bishop in Persia, has been active in visiting the cities of southern and central Persia. As a natural result of this aggressiveness, opposition has increast, especially directed against the school of fifty Persian boys and the medical work for women. In January a mob collected in Jalfa, and drew off to prison three Persian pupils, one of whom had been baptized, and the other two were sons of a convert. Other converts were beaten, some were tortured and fined for sending their sons to the school. During the mob the colporteur, Benjamin Badal, who had been so efficient in distributing the Bible, was severely beaten. At the same time a stone, thrown at him by a Mohammedan, struck another Mohammedan and slightly injured him. Benjamin was charged with throwing the stone. Seventeen days afterwards the man died or was killed, and his death was laid at the door of Benjamin. A mob assembled to murder him. He fled to the protection of the Prince Governor, where he Wall kept from the mob; but, to appease them, he was chained and placed in the stocks. He afterwards fled the country. In the last of February the Mujtehid, Agha Najifi, ordered tha.t women should not attend the dispensary, aud that hospital in-patients should leave, and that a woman who was supposed to have become a Christian, should be thrown down a well and have stones heapt upon her. One mob against the hospital was dispersed by the British vice-consul. Subsequently a definite plan was made to attack the hospital, but a fall of snow of a foot and a half, the heaviest snow known since the mission was establisht, blocked the streets and deterred the mob. These persecutions continued through the spring, and, as usual, will give the work a back-set for a considerable time.
In January a document was sent by the Persian Foreign Office to all the legations which (omitting titles and abbreviations) reads as follows: SUOHAN, 16, 1314,. Year of the Monkey.
To tM Legation of tM United States, etc., etc.
According to the will of his high majesty, the glorious and mighty, the holy and illustrious king of kings (may his government and reign be forever), and according to his enlightened mind, it is determined in regard to all kinds of books whether heavenly, sacred, religious, or otherwise, that when foreign subjects wish to bring them to the countries of Iran to buy and sell, their purchase and sale shall be conditioned on the permission of the Department of Arts and Science of the High Government. Again, the transfer of such books from one city to another shall only be done after obtaining a permit from the department in which the names and number of the books must be stated. Otherwise they will be seized and detained, and the man who carries them sball be answerable to the courts. After thirty·three days this order will go into execution.
United States Minister, Mr. Alex. McDonald, protested against this order, and was informed that "the trouble had grown out of the free distribution of religious books by English missionaries in southern Persia; that the mollahs were much excited, and serious trouble was feared, for which the government could not be responsible. This step had been taken to quiet them and to preserve peace." After wards the government sent a modified order "that books of science, literature, and history, and such like, for instruction and learning, are free and, after obtaining a permit from the Department of Arts and Science, will in no way be interfered with. Religio!ls and heavenly books, even such as are necessary for the believers of such religions, shall also be by permission; but all books that are brought in for the propagation of foreign religions, and are giveu without charge to }{ussulmen, are prohibited. This prohibition is strict, so that if they come to hand, they shall be seized and destroyed. The government will not be answerable for their value."
Since the order was issued, nothing further has developt, tho Bibles ha.ve been imported and transported from one city to another. We trust nothing further may be heard of the order.
lD:SSION WORlt nt A.lAlIIA
THE DIFFICULTIES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS OF MIS- SION WORK IN ARABIA.
BY REV. S. Y. ZWEMER, F. R. G. S., BAHREIN, ARABIA.
When a large building is not yet in process of construction, and the foundations only are being laid, the p1an of the architect can best be seen from the model, and not amid the digging and stone-breaking and loose material. How much more is this true when the Great Architect is laying the foundations for His spiritual temple in Eastern Arabia? Even now, ten years after the death of Ion Keith Falconer at Aden, the foundations of mission work are only beginning to be laid in the peninsula, and there is so much rubbish about (the desolations of former generations), that it is hard for those who are at a distance to see much progress from year to year in the superstructure.
While other mission-fields can speak of harvest time, and give statistics of churches, schools and baptisms, Arabia, like most Moslem lands, is yet in the midst of early sowing, and the figures we can give all refer to the seed-tim~ of the written or spoken word.
But of difficulties and encouragements in this work it is easy to write, for there are enough of both to dishearten the boldest and to encourage the weakest. And lest our writing prove a stumblingblock to those who already have little faith in work for Mohammedans generally (altho that work has been signally blest within the last decade), we speak first of the difficulties; difficulties which, tho formidable, persistent and arduous, are not worthy to be compared with the glorious encouragements we meet in this same field of work.
Among the difficulties, those that occur first to the mind are: 1. Moslem Prej1tdice.-Some three years ago I received a letter from the Rev. W. A. Essery, honorary secretary of the Bible Lands Mission Aid Society, in which he wrote: "A word as to the task your mission attempts. It is to me the hardest in the whole mission field. To conquer Mohammedanism is to capture Satan's throne, and I think it involves the greatest conflict Christianity has ever known. In attacking Arabia, you aim at the citadel of supreme error occupied by the last enemy that shnll bow to the kingship of Christ." This is true; and yet the difficulty of work among Moslems has been emphasized more than sufficiently in proportion to the efforts made by the Church 10r their evange};zation. That the Mohammedan world is harder to reach, humanly speaking, than the heathen world, no one denies. But that the work for Moslems is a hopeless task, the recent history of missions in Sumatra, the Punjaub, Algiers, and Egypt emphatically disproves. Professor Lansing, of New Brunswick, one of the founders of the Arabian Mission, wrote in 1890: "If the smallness of the
KI88ION WOll': IN ,UUlSIA
number of converts from Islam to Christianity be pointed out, thil!l argues not so much the unapproachability of Moslems as the indifference and inactivity of Christians. The doctrine of fatalism, commonly accredited to Islam, is not one-half so fatalistic in its spirit and operation as that which for thirteen centuries has been practically held by the Christian Church as to the hope of bringing the hosts of Islam into the following of Jesus Christ." This also is true. But Moslem prejudice and Ishmaelitic intolerance are real, and must be faced. Our colporteurs meet this difficulty on their travels along the coast and up the river country. In some places, especially by the Shiah sect, bread and shelter are refused them, and religion discredits the justly famous hospitality of the Arab. Sometimes Bibles and other books that have been sold to villagers are collected by a fanatic mullah and consigned to the flames or the oblivion of an upper shelf in his house. A Wahabee from inner Oman, infuriated because he was worsted in argument at our Muscat Bible depot, attempted to give the colporteur a beating. At Amara, on the Tigris, the attempt was made to wear out our patience and good-feeling by repeated insult and annoyance. Books were stolen, torn, burned; dead vermin cast into our quarters, and the rabble hooted us in the street, until God gave us the victory and peace. At Bahrein a petition, signed by many of the merchants, w,as sent to the Kadi, asking permission to murder the missionary, but nothing came of it. Nearly everywhere in Arabia the prejudice against certain aspects of Christian doctrine are so strong, that without previous explanation, it would be unwise and unsafe to use the words Son of God, death oj Christ, Trim:ty, etc" in a coffee-shop.
2. (Jlimate.-A second difficulty to mission work in Arabia, at present, is climate. At present, we write, because those who have studied the geography of the peninsula know that in the mountain ranges of Oman and Yemen, as well as in some of the Nejd-lands, a healthful, bracing climate is the rule. Now, alas, while all work is still confined to the coast, we have perhaps one of the most trying climates in the world. The intense heat of summer (often 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade) is aggravated by the humidity of the atmosphere, and the dust raised by every wind. Nor are there rains or clouds to temper the excessive heat. In the winter, from December to March, the winds are often cold and cutting, and altho the temperature is then more suited to Europeans (35 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit) it appears to be the less healthy season. The so-called Gulf-fever of the remittant type is very dangerous and convalescence is only possible sometimes by leaving the Gulf. Cholera and smallpox are not uncommon. Ophthalmia is rife. Prickly heat, in aggravated form, boils, and all the insect plagues of Egypt are a cause of suffering in their season.
3. Iso1atio1l.-"The work is great and large, and we are separated
HII!!SION WORX IN AIU.BlA
upon the wall, one far from another." There are only two missions at work in Arabia proper. The Keith-Falconer Mission at Aden (Sheikh Othman) is fifteen hundred miles from Muscat, our southern- most station. Muscat is six hundred and thirty-five miles from Bahrein, and the latter three hundred and sixty-seven miles from Busrah, as ships travel. The Scotch Mission has two missionaries, one of whom is married. At Muscat, whose" hinterland" has a population of more than 500,000, there is only one missionary. In the whole penins1lia, with a population of ten millions, there are at present eight missionaries, not including the C. M. S. Mission at Bagdad. All the vantage points hitherto occupied on the coast are painfully, shamefully undermanned, and the whole of the interior is without any missionary. This isolation, this loneliness, is often a discouragement, and therefore a real difficulty. Hope of reinforcements so often deferred makes the heart sick. It is not good for man that he should be alone. "The Lord sent them tUJO and two before his face into every city and place whither He Himself would come."
Of yet other difficulties it would be easy to write. The Arabic language, so rich in its vocabulary, grammatical intricacies, impossible gutturals, extensive literature and dialects-this language is a difficulty. In Turkish Arabia we meet with the Turkish system of misrule and oppression, which often adds difficulty to the work.
But we will turn to the brighter side of the picture, and note encouragements: 1. Political Ohanges.-This last of the nations and hindmost in the march of civilization is beginning to awaken to nineteenth-century life. When Phillips Brooks was on his eastern travels, he wrote to his children, " Last Tuesday we past Aden, and stopt there about six hours. I went on shore and took a drive through the town and up into the country. If you had been with me you would have seen the solemn-looking camels stalking along with solemn-looking Arabs on their backs, looking as if they had been riding on and on that way ever since the days of Abraham. I think I met Isaac and Jacob on two skinny camels, just outside the gates of Aden. I askt them how Esau was, but Jacob lookt mad and wouldn't answer, and hurried the old man on, so that I had no talk with them; but I feel quit~ sure it was they, for they lookt just like the pictures in the Bible."
And the greater part of Arabia is still wholly patriarchal. But Isaac and Jacob would be perplexed had they seen Aden harbor with its warships and commerce from every land, with electric lights and hotels and forts. Since this oriental Gibraltar became English territory, in 1839, rapid political changes have taken place in t;,,, p"u~u !mla, which have all tended to open doors for the Kingdom. Here again the hand of God is evident in history. To-day less than onefifth of the area of Arabia is under Turkish rule; and tha.t one-fifth
1!07.] KIllION WOHl!: IN ARAllIA
is gra8pt, not held, by the Sublime Porte, for it ill in continual rebellion.
The British protectorate at Aden has grown until it now embraces a tract two hundred miles long by forty broad, with a popUlation of 130,000. All the tribes on the coast from Aden to Muscat are subsidized by annual payments. Muscat became practically a British protectorate last year at the conclusion of the tribal war of the Sultan of Oman. The island of Bahrein became English some years ago, and the Union Jack flies over this center of the Gulf pearl-fisheries. English consulates or agencies exist at Jiddah, Hodeidah, Makallah, Muscat, Sharkeh, Bahrein, Busrah, and Bagdad. The slave-trade is interfered with. Cables and commerce stretch from Suez, around the peninsula, to Busrah. The postage of the Persian Gulf is Indian, not Turkish, and the rupee is forcing the piastre out of the market, since ninety-eight per cent. of the imports and exports are in English snips. English and American merchants are developing the resources of the country. Last year 150,000 tons of dates were exported from Busrah alone, and date-culture is a growing industry.
The interior of Arabia, always independent of Tnrkey, comes in contact more with Christian and occidental civilization, than with Ottoman. The Arab youth on the coast begins to read English, and looks towa.rd Bombay rather than Mecca. There has long been talk and now there is a proposition for a railway to India from Port Said, eastward along the thirtieth parallel to Busrah, to cost £12,000,000. (See the London Times, May 7th, 1897.) All this commercial activity and these political changes are full of encouragement to the missionary. There is a stirring among the dead bones.
2. Growing FriendUness of the Arabs.-This is in part occasioned by the contrast, now so plainly evident, between English and Ottoman rule, a contrast acknowledged by eVen the dullest fisherman of the Persian Gulf. And this friendliness extends to the missionary. Where on our first arrival we met with rebuff or prohibition to preach, we ndw find opened doors and hospitality. The village judge at Bahrein, once our bitter enemy, now rents us the building used for our Bible-shop. Where formerly the missionary was avoided, his house is now often a rendezvous for all sorts and conditions of men. To this result our dispensary work has naturally largely contributed. Controversial books (mentioned in a whisper in some parts of the Moslem world) are read, purchased, and in some cases have been eagerly sought for by inquiring minds. At Mnscat open-air preaching is now entirely possible, and at Sheikh Othman there is a small Moslem boys' school, where the Bible is taught. Arabian fanaticism has been exaggerated. Where it exists it is dne to ignorance and not to ill-will.
3. Increased Demand for the Word of God.-This is a great encouragement; "for as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and retnrneth not thither, but watereth the eartL and maketh it bring forth and bud . . • so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void."
The increase of the sale of Scriptures in the eastern part of Arabia (not to mention that in the Red Sea litoral, of which I have no statis- tics at hand) has been ·encouraging. This table shows it at a glance: I I I _I __ __~1892 __ ~~ 1894 ~_5 l~~ Less than 500 825 1760 2313 2805 Of these sales eighty-seven per cent. were to Moslems, the remainder to Jews, Sabeans, and Eastern Ohristians. From each of our three stations as a center, and from the northernmost limit of the Busrah vilayet for more than a thousand miles along the coast of Arabia to Ras-el-Had, our colporteurs offer God's Word to ull who will receive it, and speak with all who will hear. They are the real pioneer evangelists, and their work breaks down prejudice and opens the way for work of all kinds in .the future. It is especially hopeful that the sale of compZete Bibles and Testaments is on the increase where earlier sales of smaller portions have prepared the way. Besides the Scriptures, 947 religious and educational books were also sold last year. The letter of the Oman Arab, reproduced in the picture, is another illustration, how even in out-of-the-way corners they seek to possess themselves of the book of the Christians. In Oman the ship of the desert was in the service of the king once and again to carry boxes of Bibles over the mountain passes to the distant villages.
4. Strengthened Stakes.-Not only have the cords of our missiontent been lengthened since last you heard from Arabia in these pages, but our stakes have been strengthencd also. This is encouraging. The Scotch Mission in Yemen has received reenforcement, and has a more vigorous poHey than heretofore. Their hospital and dispensary at Sheikh Othman exert influence far inland, and receive patients from every part of Yemen. This work is even a better memorial to Ion Keith Falconer, than the pretty chapel built to his memory at Steamer Point. On a good site, behind the post-office, the building is used on Sundays and in the week for services in behalf of the soldiers and sailors of Aden. The children of the Scotch Free Ohurch supplied the means to build it.
At Muscat a rescued..slave school was opened last year, and now eighteen boys are receiving industrial training. The building formerly rented has been purchased, and, after some improvements, will be a suitable mission-house in this trying tropical climate. It is built of undrest stone, plastered over, and with the usual flat roof, and has a small garden surrounding it, outside the city walls of Muscat. With all its simplicity and smallness, it is the first" House of God" in all Oman. and will be a house of rest to those who seek Ohrist there.
C1IUKClI AND ST.A.Tl!I IN BUSI!I.A
From Bnsrah, as a center, the Bible work has extended until now branch-depots have been opened at Amara, on the Tigris and Nasariyeh on the Euphrates, at the latter place under specially auspicious circumstances. At our Busrah dispensary, under charge of Dr. H. R. L. Worrall, 4,345 cases were treated last year, of whom 2,670 were Moslems. The waiting-room of the dispensary is a daily pulpit, where we enjoy every freedom to preach Christ.
5. First .Fruits.-This is the crowning encouragement. During the year past we have had the joy of witnessing the ascent of at least two souls out of darkness into the light of life. A Turkish soldier first heard the word of the Gospel at Amara in the midst of all the fanatical disturbance there when our work was begun. By reading the Bible, and in conversation with the missionaries, he has come to accept Christ, and walks in the fellowship of the Spirit. His escape from all interference seems inexplicable, except it be that his position as petty officer in the army protects him. He has askt for baptism, but is first to receive more instruction.
'l'he other Moslem, of whom we know that he believed in Christ, was a llliddle-aged Persian, conversant with Arabic and a seal-engraver' by profession. He came to the Busrah dispensary suffering from consumption, and was a frequent visitor. Reading a copy of Luke's Gospel, he was deeply convicted of sin, and when we prayed with him in the house he wept like a child. A day or two later he found peace, and kept repeating the name of Christ. His disease was too far advanced to promise cure, and so he left Busrah to try and reach his family at Shiraz. We have not heard from him since. We accompanied him to the ship, and knelt between decks to commend him to God. Doubtless he fell asleep in Jesus ere he completed his long journey. But we shall see his face again when the harvest is gathered in, and full sheaves from Arabia, as well as first fruits, fill the garner of God on the great day.
CHURCH AND STATE IN RUSSIA.-L * BY VLADIMIR SOLOVIEF.
In the time of St. Vladimir (972-1010), by changing its national idolatry for a universal faith for which there is "neither Greek nor Jew," Russia freed itself from its heathenish isolation and exclusiveness, and acknowledging itself part of the one humanity, accepted its • One of RU88Ia's foremost living philosophers, BOn of the great hiMorlan1 and ~ melI~ qf ~1l~ ~1}.IH!~1 QhW<?h, 4~i,,11l tralsl~ted br Mrs, A, S, H.o….4!, true position and fulfilled its universal-historical fate. But the adoption of Christianity, if it is the real thing, does not ouly imply the performance 'of pious ceremonies, or the verbal confession of certain accepted dogmas. This adoption of Christianity laid on the converted people practical duties also; to reform their lives according to the principles of the true religion, and to direct their actions by its char- acter and spirit. Kiefian Russia * really marcht on this path, but naturally the first steps could neither be firm nor steady. In the life of the people remained much of barbarism and paganism, but there were also to be seen clear traces of the new spiritual principle. The moral disposition evinced by those converted under Vladimir, as in their care for the poor and unfortunate; their benevolent conduct towards their European neighbors, their horror of barbarous tortures was really Christian. These were the feelings aud opinions which a hundred years later were set forth in the "instructions" of Vladimir Monomachus. This disposition was nothing extraordinary or accidental; though not everyone lived so well as Vladimir, everyone thought as he. The quarrels of the dukes were lookt upon by the people as bad and sinful, they never agreed with them. As Kiefian Russia was placed between Byzantium and Western Europe, it easily accepted in addition to the truly universal principles of the Christian oivilization, the immaterial and passing forms. Western feudalism and the despotic centralization of the half-Asiatic Byzantium, were exceedingly strange to Russian life. In Kiefian Russia the obstacles to the formation of a Christian c~mmunity were less than in any other country; but these good external conditions were not sufficient to secure the fulfilment of this task. Being right in the way of the Asiatic hordes, which never ceased to press on the Christian world, Kiefian Russia had first of all to struggle for its own existence. This struggle had but little success, as the organization of the State was very weak. The young nation was in danger of perishing by violence before having developt its spiritual power, and it became an urgent necessity to create a strong state. The happy realization of this vital question was not achieved by Kiefian Russia, but it was the triumph of the Moscoyite Empire.t Giving themselves up to this national political task, the Russian people in the Moscovite epoch easily took the needed power (the strong state) as the aim of their political life; on this followed consequently a lowered and darkened religious and moral ideal. Most of the sins of the Moscovite Empire were accidentally committed; they depended upon outward historical circumstances. The Russian people in the far northeastern corner of Europe were in the thirteenth century physically isolated from the Christian world, and they concentrated all their forces on the ungrateful task of 0< Russia WI It then was, a dukedom centered at Klet. t Datlnl( trom the time when Moscow succeeded Klef as the capital, when Empire began.
OllURCH AND IIT…TB IN KUIlIlIA
!lolidifying the State, which brought about also a spiritual isolation, and the development of national pride and egotism. The linking of Kiefian Russia with other Christian nations, besides securing their cultural influence, had the advantage of obliging our people to feel themselves part of the European concert, and of holding up, tho at the beginning very feebly-some feeling of uuiversal solidarity. Opposed to this beneficial reaction, connection with the barbarous Mongolian hordes humiliated and opprest the Moscovite State. The iufluence of that connection was twofold, and a doubly bad one. From one side, subjection to a lower race, and permanent commingling with it, had a deadening effect on the Russians, especially as they were entirely cut off from Europe. It lowered both their spiritual and their political standards. On the other hand, it developt in the Moscovite Russians a national self-consciousness and pride, since they, tho lowered, retained the superiority of a Christian and historical nation. The permanent cousciousness of superiority in comparison with the Mongols was not abated by international relations in the other direction. With the Russian people, it was as with a man whose sole intercourse is with p{lrsons of a lower spiritual standard, through which he gets too high an opiniou of his own importance and value.
The national pride of the Moscovite Empire increased, especially in the first half of the fifteenth century; first, because through the burden of the Mongolian yoke, the feeling of their inward superiority over the Mohammedans was combined with a consciousness of outward power, and secondly, because their deliverance from the Tatars, and the final defeat of Byzantium, under the Turks, happened at the same time. .As payment for the Moscovite assistance, traveling Greek monks gave to Moscow the title of a third Rome, with the claim of an absolute importance in the Christian world. In ,this, our national self-consciousness found something like an ideal justification. In the Moscovite epoch, the Greeks, being independent and possessing a relatively high civilization, had a beneficial influence over the Russians. This influence imposed upon the young nation a historical discipline, by forcing it to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of another nation, and to honor the foreigners for their ideal superiority. The erroneous extremes of Byzantinism were not dangerous, as they were counterbalanced by the reaction of the West. Matters acquired another aspect in the Moscovite epoch. The Greeks were no longer representatives of a spiritual enlightenment, or of a great Christian empire, or of a high civilization, but they were slaves of the infidels, beggars: and flatterers.
Thanks to these qualities, they could but strengthen the national self-consciousness of the Moscovite people. Thus through the spiritual isolation of the Moscovite Empire, Byzantian ideas were readily accepted by the people. Iu the power of theso historical conditions a spiritual and social organization which can not be called a truly Christian one, took its rise in the Moscovite Empire. Tho this organization had a religious ground, all its religion was reduced to "orthodoxy" in ceremonial worship, which laid upon no one any moral duties. It happened that this formal religiousness was united with benevolence and piousness, as well as with the utmost wickedness. St. Sergius was God-fearing and "orthodox," but as God-fearing and firm in faith was Tzar Ivan IV.-the Terrible. "Even devils believe," says the Apostle. According to Byzantian notions, nothing more than such a faith was expected from the majority of Christian people. The few who were not satisfied with this were obliged to leave, society, to go into the deserts or to become fools. The highest ideal of holiness, represented by hermits or fools, was essentially ascetic, and therefore could not raise the social morality to a higher level. The average life lay between those of such holy warriors as Sergius and Nil, and of God-fearing monsters like I van IV. The notion of an ideal perfection of the individual was retained in the national consciousness, but the principal conditions for real perfection, for moral progress, active, religion, the ideal of a common truth, was entirely absent. In the Moscovite Empire, as before in Byzantium, the religious and moral principles were entirely excluded from the sphere of political or social life. In this sphere, instead of the universal Christian ideal, something altogether opposite appeared. To the national empire was restored the absolute nature which was taken from it by Christianity. In consequence of the extreme separation of the Moscovite Empire from the civilized world, the former reaction against Christian universalism showed itself in its full power. Our forefathers believed themselves to be the only one Ohristian nation and empirej all others they called non-Christian, being unconscious that by this they deprived themselves of the essential unity of Christianity. The Byzantian Greeks, thanks to whom the national self-satisfaction was ingrafted in Moscow, became themselves its victims. With all their might they magnified the pretensions of the Moscovite Empire as sole defender and protector of the true faith, and the God-fearing land; tho then the question arose, could the Greeks, having lost the supremacy of Christian empire, and having become the slaves of infidels, guard the purity of doctrine and the fullness of faith? The answer to this question waR unfavorable for the Greeks; it decided that Russia was the only Christian and God-fearing country!
(To be continued.)
1897.J HAS lSLAM BEEN A RELIGION OF PROGRESS t 18 IT NOW?
HAS ISLAM BEEN A RELIGION OF PROGRESS? IS IT NOW?
BY BEV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., LL.D.
A high authority on the doctrines and philosophy of Islam is Rel'. Edward Sell, Fellow of the University of Madras, etc., etc. Some years ago he puhlisht the Faith of Islam. * There is now a second and improved edition, the result of fifteen years of additional study of Islam in its own Arabic sources. Mr. Sell is a missionary to the Mohammedans in Madras, and while faithful to his commission he has shown so much of tact as well as intellectual ability as to win for himself the confidence of all classes of the community, EuroI)eanS, Hindus, and even Mohammedans. His scholarship, his insight into the social and religious questions of India, and his fairness in discussing them are generally recognized. In these times when on the one hand so many apologists are lauding the benevolent and enlightened spirit of Islam, and on the other hand, the worst atrocities known' to history since the seventh century, are being perpetrated in the Turkish Empire, any new light which can be thrown upon this most potent and formidable of the world's man-made religions should be welcomed.
"I rest my case entirely," says Mr. Sell, "upon Mussulman authorities themselves; still more, I have ascertained from living witnesses that the principles I have tried to show 8S existing in Islam, are really at work now and are as potent as at any previous period."
The author contends that the more recent Fetvas delivered by the Ulema in Constantinople, show how firmly a Moslem state is bound in the fetters of an unchangeable law, and that the present practice of Orthodox Moslems, all the world over, is a constant carrying out of precepts given in the Koran and the Sunnat centuries ago.
There has been no change if indeed change is possible. The author explains how it is that travelers and casual observers, like Canon Taylor and Hopkinson Smith, gain the roseate impressions which they proclaim. They take individual exceptions as exponents of the character of whole communities. "In India," says Mr. Sell, " there are a number of enlightened Mohammedans, ornaments to native society, social servants of the state, men who show a laudable zeal in all social reforms so far as is consistent with orthodoxy. Theil nUinber is far too few, and they do not in many cases representorthodox Islam. These exceptio,nal individuals have felt the wave of west. em influence, modern science, social progress, and their highest virtues exist in spite of, and not as a result of Islam."
• TM Faith 01r.la….. J!y the ReT. 'Edward Sell, B. D., M. R. A. S. Pellow of the UniTereity of Madru: London, KelrAD Paul, Trench, Trubner &; Co. Second edition, revised and eniarced. From other sources we find evidence that intelligent Meslems in ' India have become aware that their cast-iron system has retarded the progress of Mohammedans, even as compared with their Hindu neighbors.
lIr. Sell's book is especially valuable for the light which it throws upon the period following the first bloody sweep of Mohammedan conquest. The history of Mohammed himself, his struggles to gain a footing by persuasion, his later militaryachierements, his private charseter so far as it is revealed, the production of the Koran with its civil and religious teachings, all these are well-known, and the remarkable military achievements of Omar, Omru, Othman, and others are also familiar to most readers. But at a later date, and especially during the Kalifates of the Abbassides of Bagdad, and the Omyades in Spain, endless discussions upon the interpretation of the Koran and the Sunnat, or traditional sayings of Mohammed, were rife, and new phases of Islam appeared which are not so well understood. There was also at Bagdad in the east, and at Oordova in the west, a revival of interest in Greek philosophy, which contrasted strangely with the antecedent history and the well-known spirit of Islam.
The apologists of Mohammedanism have made so much of the advanced learning of Bagdad and of Spain, and have so exaggerated the debt which the Ohristianity of the dark ages owed to the intellectuallight borrowed from Islam, that the discriminations which Mr. Sell has pointed out, will be highly valued. The truth is that philosophy and science were always exotic in even those Moslem nations which tolerated them at all.
" There never was any Arabian science strictly speaking," says G. H. Lewes,.in his History of Philosophy. "In the first place, all the philosophy and science of the Mohammedans was Greek, Jewish, and Persian. It really designates a reaction against Islam which arose in the distant parts of the Empire."
Ernest Renan, in an address delivered before the Oollege of France, uttered the same sentiments as follows: "Arabian science and Arabian philosophy are often alluded to, and in fact during one or two centuries in the Middle Ages, the Arabs were our teachers, but it was only until we were acquainted with the Greek originals. When closely examined, moreover, this Arabian science has nothing Arabian in it. Its foundation is purely Greek; amongst its originators there. is not a single pure Shemite; they were all Spaniards and Persians who wrote in Arabic."
Mr. Sell quotes even from a Moslem author (Musinir Mulk), the following frank confession: "It must always be borne in mind that in spite of the enormous progress made by the Mohammedans in the early centuries of their power, learning has never been popular among them as a nation, and science only flourisht when there happened to be a willing man to protect it." Such protectors were found in the Abbas- side rulers, AI Mammun and Harun Al Rachid of Bagdad, and" that great free thinker the Mogul Akbar of India." The philosophy of Aristotle had been translated into Syliac and Persian before the Mohammedan conquest, and under the protection and encouragement of the Abbassides, it was translated from these languages into Arabic by Nestorian physicians residing at their courts. The most eminent of these was Housin Ibn Ishak. Through the influence of these translations the study of philosophy spread rapidly in the ninth and tenth centuries. Books on grammar, rhetoric, medicine, logic, etc., etc., were multiplied only to be condemned a century or two later. The only true Arabic philosopher whose name has been transmitted was Al Kendi, born at Bosrah, on the Persian Gulf, A. D. 870; and he wa;; a rationalist.
A careful study of the list of eminent Mohammedan philosophers will show that they were not Arabs, and that they were not. Orthodox Moslems. Farabi, who lived in the tenth century, and was educated at Bagdad, denied not only the inspirations of the Koran, but all objective revelation of any kind. '
Avicenna, born near Bokhara, 980 A. D., was regarded with disfavor as a heretic. Ibn Badjah (Avempace), born near Saragossa, toward the end of the eleventh century, was violently persecuted by Orthodox lIIoslems. Al Gazzali, born in Khorassan, A. D.I059, was a famous scholastic; but becoming at length sceptical with regard to both religion and philosophy, he ended by embracing Sufiisn'l.
Averhoes, the last of the Moslem philosophers of note, was born at Cordova, A. D. 1126. He vas the most profound of all Mohammedan scholars, and a great admirer and exponnder of Aristotle. He was condemned as an arch-heretic by the Moslem doctors and by the Moorish King Al Mansur, and was banisht first to Lucena and finally to Morocco, where he died in 1198.
Philosophic inquiry had already been effectually supprest in the East, and now it thus received its death blow from the Moslems of Spain. Experience had shown that liberal studies of any kind transcended the narrowness of the Koran, and were at eternal warfare with the whole spirit of Islam. Since the twelfth century, intellectual progre!ls has rested under the most uncompromising ban in all Mohammedan countries.
It is an interesting fact, however, that what Spain lost iu suppressing the teachings of Averhoes, the Christian nations of Europe gained. It was from the schools of Cordova, that France, Italy, and England received the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, which the bigotry of the Eastern Church and the fury of the Moslem conquests had conspired to withhold from Christendom. Just as philosophy was about to go into fin'a. banishment from all Mohammedan countries, the Benedictine and Dominican scholastics, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Albertulil Magnus, and others welcomed it. And in spite of all the intellectual vagaries of these men, the Ohristianity of Europe received substantial benefit. It began to shake off the repression of four cen- turies of ecclesiastical tyranny and to show its real spirit. Islam recoiling from the light which its institutions could no longer endure, showed also its true spirit; the two changed places.
ETen Hinduism has shown greater progress than Islam. Within the last five years a Mohammedan newspaper in Oalcutta has striven to arouse the Moslem population of India to the fact, that in all the higher official appointments, Hindus far outnumber the Mohammedans in·proportion to their respective populations. This is a hard confes- sion for the conquering Islamic race; and the writer did not hesitate to charge the responsibility upon the neglect of Mohammedan society to keep pace with the movement of the times. On the other hand, Moslem papers of the extreme conservative stamp maintain that the fundamental principles and the essential spirit of Islam can not change. For example, Mr. Sell quotes certain criticisms of a Moslem paper in Oairo, of February, 1896, upon the sp!leches made by two Moslem speakers, at the dedication of a new Mosque in London, with reference to the adaptation of Islam to European ideas. Says the Egyptian editor, "I do not know what meaning they (the two speakers) attach to the phrase, but 1 do know that no adaptation or alteration of Islam will be accepted by any Moslem people. Islam as a religion, as a guide to man m life, in hIS duties to God and men, is divine and perfect. To say that it needs adaptation, is to say that it is neither divine nor pedect, and no Moslem can or will admit either assnmption. Islam as it is, is pedect, and is as wondl'dully adapted to the needs of man in England, or in the Arctic regions, as it is to the Bedouins of the African desert; and the fact that it is so, is one of the striking pToofs of its Divine origin." (Splendid instance iu which one gratuitous assertion may serve as proof positive for another!) Altho Greck philosophy had been !!upprest in all Mohammedan countries by the close of the twelfth century, yet various heresies and !!chisms haTe continued to arise through all the centuries, down to the present time. But everywhere the Mohammedan sects are alike in their repression of all that the world calls progress. The Shias of Persia, who maintain that the descendants of Ali, the cousin and sonin-law of Mohammed, are the only lawful imams, have developt various sects, known as Sufis, Karmathians, Fatimites, Ismailians (including the order of the Assassins), Babis, and Wahhabis. The one thing which these sects shared in common, was an element of Persian mysticism, tinged with Indian pantheism, which reacted against the hard and fast objectivism of Koranic authority, and at the same time weakened the moral sense and the feeling of personal responsibilit.y. With Sufis and Babis, the idea that the one only self lives and acta within us, led to ecstasies and fanatical fancies and fioul'isht most in quiet ascetic life. It was comparatively harmless, but it was destitute of any power.to regenerate S?Clety, or any elemen~ of prolZresil. With the Karmathlans, the AsS8SS111S, and the Wahhabis, on the contrary, the exemption which it offered from moral responsibility, gave free rein to those savage instincts which had prompted wars of extermina- tion in all ages of Mohammedan history. "If," they reasoned, "there is but the One Supreme Self, then practically, so far as human life and conduct are concerned, all distinction between good and evil disappears, and each man's passion or ambition is his only law." Such were the ethics of the Karmathians, a sect which arose in Mesopotamia toward the close of the ninth century, but finally found its home in Egypt, where it establisht the Fatimite dynasty. The Karmathians represented a combination of Islam, Persian Magism, and Ohristianity. Their leader even claimed to be an apostle of Jesus. But the spirit of the sect was an intensification of Islamic fanaticism and intolerance, tho chiefly visited on Islam itself. Mecca was attackt and conquered 920 A. D., the Kaaba was plundered and the sacred black stone was carried off to be ransomed, twenty-two years later, for fifty thousand ducats. 'rhe Karmathian or Fatimite power was broken alter a century and a half (909-11'71), but it was still represented for more than a century longer, by a form of religious fanaticism, which embodied its worst elements and became the terror of all the East. This was the order of the Assassins. Mr. Sell gives us only a glimpse of the early history of its founder, Hassan bin Sabbah, who was born in 1035. Professor Harvey Porter, D.D., of the Syrian Protestant Oollege at Beirut, in an interesting article publisht in the Bibliotkeca Sacra, of January, 1895, presents a much fuller account of the order-its long continued atrocities and its well merited fate. About the middle of the eleventh century, three schoolmates in a city of Khorassan, entered into an agreement, that whichever of the three should first rise to fortune should aid the others. One of the three, Nizumu'l Mulk, on becoming grand vizier of Alp Arslan, and later of Malik Shah, secured to the second, Om'r Khyyam, author of the famous Ruba'iyat, a liberal pension that he might give himself to his favorite literary pursuits. To the third, Hassan bin Sabbah, he offered the governorship of a province, with which, however, he was not satisfied. At the famous Fatimite University in Oairo was taught the extreme Shia pantheism of Babek, who had proclaimed the moral indifference of all actions, and the perfect freedom of men to give free course to their passions. These diabolical doctrines, strengthened by the Karmathian disloyalty to Islam as taught at Baghdad, opened the way for more than one strange sect. El Hakem, the sixth of the Fatimlte Kaliphs, encouraged by the Shia mystics, EI Dorazy and EI Hamsoh, founded the sect of the Druzes, who still exist in Syria, and who revere the name of El Hakem, as an incarnation of the Supreme Being. Aud to this day they observe the fatal ethics of Babek toward all mankind, except the members of their own order. None but Druzes have any rights which they are bound to respect. Hassan bin Sabbah had imbibed these reckless atheistic principles in Oairo, and when he founded the order of the Assassins in the year 1088, he cast aside all moral obligation toward God or man. And yet for effect he posed as a saint. He preacht a crusade, not only against the Abba.ssides of .Baghdad, but against all rulers .:Llld all government and social order. By m3!l.:J.S of the assassins' dagger he aimed to bring the nations tohis feet. He establisht himself in a remote fortress in the mountains, south of the Oaspian Sea, from which he sent forth his secret emissaries and which he never left during the thirty-seven years of hi. power. Upon the common ranks of his ordt'r, he enjoined a strict adherence to the Koran, and the traditions of orthodox Islam, but a select and limited number were initiated into his esoteric doctrines, which rejected all re.elation and all moral restraint. The only recognized law in the universe was his command. His ambition did not project a visible kingdom upholding armies, but a reign of terror in which by secret and murderous emissaries, hE; might control all king- doms. .K0 errand of death was too dangerous to be undertaken by his minions; no distance was too great for his avenging arm to reach. Among his victims was Nizam ul Mulk, his early friend and benefactor, and Nizam's master, Malik Shah, died probably through poison from the same source. These murders were continued for more than a century and a half. In 1102, the Governor of Hums fell a victim, and in 1119 the Governor of Aleppo and his son. In Persia large numbers who held various official positions, shared the same fate. Others were compelled by terror to advance the tyrant's interests.
At a later day, branches of the order extended into Syria and elsewhere. Some of Hassan's own kindred fell by llis order. At length " the old man ofthe mounta.ins," as he had long been called, died inl1is fortress, at the age of ninety, but a line of successors followed and the work of death w.as.con!inued. Thrice was the life of th~ great Saladin attempted, and It IS saId, that he finally made terms WIth the Assussins. Two Kaliphs, one a Fatimite ruler of Egypt, the other a Kaliph of Baghdad, were numbered among the scores and hundreds of distinguisht victims.
The Mohammedan rulers of the East seemed powerless, either single handed or in alliance. There was no visible army to be met upon the field. They were dealing with a treacherous unseen foe, like the pestilence which wasteth at noonday. Members of the order were lurking in their courts and were frequently found among their trusted servants. It is one of the many strange overrulings of Divine Providence that when the whole Mohammedan world was paralyzed and helpless before this extreme development of its own teachmgs, the reign of terror which had ruled Persia and all Western Asia for a hundred and seventy years, was finally broken by the sweeping invasion of the heathen Mongol Hulagu Khan. By him the order was entirely crippled in the East, tho it survived for many years in Syria. Among the Nusairi of Northern Syria, who also call themselves Ismailians, is still a small but wf'ak and harmless remnant. And the history of these strange Nusairi of Northern Syria, or that of the Druzes of the Lebanon, may equally well answer the question whether this type of Islam has aided the world's progress.
The Wahhabis of Arabia and India constitute another prominent and influential sect. It is comparatively modern, having existed only about one hundred and fifty yeurs. Most of its career has lain in this nineteenth century, and yet so far from giving any progressive impulse to the Mohammedan cult, it has proved the most reactionary element in the history of Islam. Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, from whom the sect takes its name, was a native of Nej'd in Arabia. He was alarmed at the lUDt; which had crept into the worship of profest Moslems, and even 0 devout pilgrims. He thought he discoyered in tlle prac- tical worship of the sacred tombs of Mohammed and Ali a veritable idolatry. And the pilgrims worshipt relics as truly and disgracefully as the early Christian idolaters whom the prophet had condemned to death. Winning to his support· a powerful chief,whose son married his daughter, Wahhab establisht at Ryadh the Wahhabi dynasty A. D. 1742. The sword wus now iurned against lax and idolatrous Moslems as they had used it against the infidels. Never was Mohammedan warfare more remorseless. " As soon as you seize a place" said the allied chief Mohammed Ibn Sa'ud to his soldiers, "put the males to the sword; plunder and pillage at your pleasure, but spare the women and do not strike at their modesty." According to Burkhart, the Wahhabi chief on the day of battle would give to his men each a passport to heaven, or more strictly an order on the treasurer of paradise. "Plunder if you succeed, and paradise if you fall. Female captives in the one case, celestial houris in the other." This has been the religious (?) motto of conquest in Arabia from the seventh century to the nineteenth. And with half savage men of an unquestioning and fanatical faith, it has always been a spur to reckless daring and an element of success. It was no new device of Wahhab, except that he employed it against men of his own faith. It is all in the Koran. It wail so nnderstood and acted upon some months since by the army of the Sultan in Armenia, and if a different procedure was since observed in Thessaly and in Crete, it war; only out of regard to the full gaze of adjacent nations, and a wholesome dread of the indignation of mankind., Wahhabism had by the end of the last century extended over Oentral and Eastern Arabia. In 1803 the ruling Wahhabi chief made an armed pilgrimage to Mecca. Both Mecca and Medina fell into his hands, and a perfect wreck was made of all ihat seemed inconsistent with the high Wahhabi standards. Seven years later another chief, succeeding to his father's scepter, plundered the tomb of the prophet, and distributed its jewels and relics among his soldiers. This aroused the faithful of the West. The armies of Turkey and Egypt joined in a crusade for the rescue of the" Holy Sepulchre" of Islam, and after nine years of undisputed sway, the Wahhabis were driven out of Mecca, and the sacrilegious young chief was taken to Oonstantinople and beheaded (A. D. 1818).
In 1827, Seyed Ahmad, a Wahhabi of India, having gained many followers, ordered a jehs,d (war of extermination) against the Sikhs. But five years later the Wahhabis were attackt by the Sikh, Sher Singh, and Seyed Ahmad was slain.
Wahhabism has ceast to figure as a political power of any consequence, even in Arabia, but its :principles are still maintained and have a large following. Palgrave gIves interesting accounts of its strict requirements and its tyrannical espionage and censorship over all social, domestic, and even personal life. There is no other place on the earth where liberty of thought is so absolutely extinct, as in the Arabian province of Nej'd, and especially at Ryadh, the capital.
Mr. Sell, while reco~nizing the progressive spirit of such native Mohammedan authors lU India, as -:Maulavi Cheragh Ali and Seyed Amir Ali, whom he calls "Modern Mutazilas," after the old free thinkers of Baghdad, quotes even them in support of the statement that Orthodox Islam-islam is as moveless now as in the middle ages. The old Mutazilas were supprest and it is only the protection of British power that renders liberal Mohammedanism possible in India. and Egypt.
LOctober
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
mUTED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GlU.CEY, D.D.
Hymn of Sukkat or Patricius, (St. China. The" Higher Classes" in Patriok). China as shown by Mr.·Walker's article following this, are not an aristocracy of Patrlcius 80 witnessed for Christ one Easter blood, but of brains; they are only the morn, that the tlre·worshipers would have ruling class in the government and put him to death. They "liailed him before these are recruited from every part of King Leugeire, at Taral:i, the center of Druid- the social order of the Empire. Specifiism. He mused and prayed, and tbe follow- cally these" Higher Classes" which it ing are a ~rt of the verses he wrote on the is aimed to reach are named in the reoccasion.' Every miSSionary everywhere in port of the Society for the Diffusion of ~rll among heathen m~ht adopt the prayer. Christian and General Knowledge for lJ. T. G.] 1891, as follows: The Chief Civil llan- darins of the rank of Mayor and up- "May Christ, I pray, wards, estimated to number 2,289 ; the Protect me to-day Chief Military Mandarins of the rank of Captain and upwards would be 1,987; Against poison and fire, the Educational Mandarins of the rank Against drowning and 'wounding; of Inspectors of Counties and upwards, That so, in His grace aboundin&" 1,760; Professors of Colleges about 2,000; Leading Expectant Mandarins I may earn the preacher's hIre. who reside in each of the provincial capitals and who resemble members of "Christ, as a light, Parliament at home, as they are ad- Illumine and guide me. visers to the provincial government, and assist it in various other ways, about Christ, as a shield, o'ershadow and 2,000: Five per cent. of the Literati, cover me. (1) when examined for the degree of Literary Doctor at Pekin, (2) when ex- Christ be under me. Christ be over amined for the degree of Master of Arts me. (KIl-jen) in each of the twenty pro- vinces, (3) when examined for the de- Christ be beside me gree of Bachelor of Arts (Siu-tsai) in On left hand and right. the 253 prefectures and sub-prefectures. Christ be before me, behind me, about The last three classes combined are variously estimated from half a million me, to a million, say 600,000, and five per Christ this day be within and without cent. of these would make 30,000. Ten per cent. of tho ladies and children of me. the selected families of Mandarins and Literati, say 4,000. All these specified "Christ, the lowly and meek, and thus estimated would make in round Christ, the All-Powerful, be numbers 44,000 whom it is proposed to reach. In the heart of each to whom I speak, In the mouth of each who speaks to During the past period of Protestant missionary work, it has been considered me. useless to attempt to reach these cl&S8e8. In all who draw near me, They are the governing classes in a Or see me, or hear me. highly organized political structure, systematically opposed to all intercourao "At Tarah to-day. in this awful hour, I call on the Holy Trinity.
Glory to Him who reigneth in power, The God of the elements-Father, and Son, And Paraclete Spirit-which Three are the One, The ever-existing Divin~ty.
" Salvation dwells with the Lord, With Christ the Omnipotent word, From generation to generation- Grant Uj, 0 Lord, thy grace and sal- vation."
The Higher Olasses in Ohins..
J. T. G.
We devote the International Depart- ment thi. month to the consideration of 'he comparatively recent movement, specially designed directly and indirectly, to reach the hi~her classes in
INTlIlN.A.TION.A.L DEP.A.lTlDIN'l'
with foreigners 118 perilous to the na- it years ago, the higher classes could be tional peace, prosperity, and perpetuity. reacht if proper methods were pursued.
For thousands of years the Chinese have The importance of this branch of work esteemed themselves superior to every lies not in that these classes are more other people, and this entire body of worthy in the sight of God, but no mandarins, gentry, and educated classes nation can be saved unlesa all classes has been ignorant and prejudiced ate saved, whether high or low; and against innovations of any kind in any there should be concurrent effort to department of the social or political reach all as rapidly as possible. This order. The genius of the Chinese gov- "Society for the Diffusion of Christian ernment is paternal, and the people are and General Knowledge" publishes accustomed to pay deference to their two monthly magazines, the" Review rulers in a very uncommon degree. of the Times," edited by Rev. Young What the rulers disapprove is sure to J. Allen, D.D., and the" Missionary be treated at least with suspicion and Review," edited by Rev. E. T. Wil- distrust. Thus these " Higher Classes" liams. These periodicals make free have not been accessible to missionary use of the MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE effort, but the lower classes, the" com- WORLD, which is furnisht them gratuit- mon people," whom Lincoln is quoted ously by us to help on this good work.
as saying, God must love "because he The society named publishes also had made so many of them," have quite a large number of works, the heard the missionary and forty thou- tiLles filling fourteen pages, treating of sand or more of them are enrolled as religion and missions, biography of Christian communicants with possibly great reformers who became converts double that number as "adherents." to Christianity, and historical and scien- The purpose to reach these " Higher tific treatises. One of these publica- Classes" has, however, never be enab- tions has been placed in the hands of sent from the missionary heart. As every civil mandarin throughout the early as 1877 the China Missionary Empire of the rank of county mayor Conference entertained the project of and upwards. Special efforts are put producing a literature specially adapt- . forth to circulate these pUblications at ed to reach these literary classes. the triennial examinations. 'fhey have Little was done, however, but, in 1887, met with favor at the hands of some of Dr _Williamson started the movement the prominent Chinese, one vice- which resulted in the organization of roy sending a donation of a thousand the "Society for the Diffusion of Chris- taels. The Educational Aseociation of tian and General Knowledge Among China has fur some years, specially since the Chinese," supported by the Book 1890, sought to aid in the production of and Tract Society of Scotland. The suitable text-books for schools. These immediate aim was to provide books of are not only designed for mission comparatively high order for the most schools, but to promote the general intelligent classes in China, and books educational interests of China. They illustrated with chromos for families. recognize that this is no small task In 1891, Rev. Timothy Richard was amongst an ancient people with tradi- askt to become its secretary, and the tional respect for the learning it pos- English Baptist Mission, of which he sesses and a well-organized system of , was a member, generously voted to schools. The task is to introduce new continue his support in this new rela- method.s into their present linguistic tion. This met with special sympathy studies, lind to create a demand for of missionaries who were successful on mathematical and scientific knowledge.
other lines among the masses of the 'l'his society says China has as yet pro- people, who had hope, and some faith, duced no statesman or philanthropist ~hat. as Bishop Schereschewsky exprest interested in or equal to the needed reform; it must come from foreigners. only plan yet rati1led by the Chinese They hope that the changing conditions Government, and in a vast empire, im- DOW being forced on the nation may mobile, self-satisfied, and proud, it. is a develop such native talent to aid in this great triumph that even a beginning reform. Tpey have issued valuable should have included so much. works, covering almost the whole field of mathematics, natural science, mental That the failure of China in the conand moral philosophy, and other de- flict with Japan has put the nation into partments of western learning, until an attitude of inquiry as to .. how it there is no reason why a Chinese pupil happened, " is abundantly evidenced may not be given a general education, throughout the empire. To a degree, through the medium of his own lan- perhaps never known before, China is guage, equivalent to a college educa- willing to take a seat on the schooltion in Europe or America. No mis- forms of western nations. The higher sionary body in the world, it is said, classes, as defined at the beginning of can point to a more complete list of this writing, are accessible by indirect books which it has prepared for the methods as never before since the Taipeople among whom it labors. ping rebellion. Western nations, wisely or unwisely, supported .the dynasty On the same general line of friendli- then; they should not throwaway this ness and interest in reform among new opportunity to help the whole Chinese, Rev. Gilbert Reid has been nation to a higher civilization, and laboring for the past six years, pre- place her in the way of Christian reforeminently influencing the upper classes mation. through friendly, social intercourse, winning their confidence and coopera- On Dr. Martin's return to China, tion. He is warmly commended by Li whither he was invited to resume the Hung Chang, who, as senior guardian duties of president of the Imperial of the heir apparent; classical reader to Tungw~n College, he halted at Shang. his majesty, the emperor; senior grand hai and delivered an address before the secretary of state; minister of the missionary association at that city, a foreign office and earl of the first rank, copy of which he kindly furnisht us besides being viceroy of the province of for pUblication in this periodical. Other Chihli, exercises an infiuence second to matters have obliged us to layover the that of no man in the empire. General copy till now, but it will have aptitude Li acknowledges the difficulties of the in the present discussion of this departsituation because of the "suspicion, ment, and the more so, as Dr. Martin, prejudice, and self.sufficiency," which, since his return, has taken an active he says, are peculiar traits of educated part in the "forward movement" for Chinese, especially noticeable in their reaching the higher classes, assuming estimation of other countries-perhaps the direction of Rev. Gilbert Reid's because of the isolation of China from project in his absence, and otherwise western influence for many centuries. being urgent in the special efforts now Mr. Reid has obtained official sanction being made for the reform and inde. for the establishment of a hall or insti- pendenee of the Chinese Government, tute, on an international basis, to and the cultivation of friendliness beadvance the general enlightenment and tween Christians and the upper infiuenprosperity of the country, and to tial classes of Chinese, together with increase religious toleration as well as the promotion of western ch·ilization to teach truth. This institute, as pro- in' China. For forty-five years Dr. posed, includes an auditorium, a mu- Martin has been a resident in China; seum, a library, reception rooms, and over thirty years he was in government class rooms. Mr. Reid's scheme is not employ as president of the Imperial all that he desires it to be, but it is the College, Pekin; "learned not only in western scholarship, but, to a remarkable degree, in the Chinese books, hold.a high office in some region re- literature, history, language, thought, mote from home; and he will notbe and characteristics; highly respected as actually in office, but must await his an adviser and friend by Prince Kung turn or use money. If poor, he must and other' distinguisht officials," his meanwhile support himself the best he influence must necessarily be greatly can, perhaps do unworthy work for helpful along these indirect and direct his supmiors, or even let his wife sell Unes for conciliating the literati. He her charms to them. There ar~ also is a trusted friend of China, and will military examinations and degrees cor· throw himself zealously into any pro- responding to the lite>:-ary, but inferior gressive measures for China's good. to them in honor.
These litemti with the military and Conversion ofthe Upper ffiaBBesin Ohins.. the wealthy,constitute the upper classes.
But when a family once attains power REV. J. E. WALKER, FOOCHOW, CHINA. and wealth, it often perpetuates them; When missionaries began work in for fuere are short cuts for the rich and China, it was thrown up to them for strong; and wealthy and influential rel- several years that they were making no atives can advance a student both by converts; and when this ceast to be legitimate and illegitimate means.
true, it was urged against them 'that Hence leading families are apt to mo- their converts were all from the lower nopolize the honors with the usual classes, which tho not wholly true was increment of pride IUld self-importance.
largely so. But then, who and what Such are the upper classes in China.
are these upper classes? One might imagine them to be more In China, mnk and power are not accessible than like classes in other hereditary. The descendants of a very lands, and perhaps they are relatively distinguisht statesman may be ennobled so, but not as compared with the lower by special edict for aUmited number of classes of their own ~ce. What are generations, and the head man of the the obstacles in the way of reaching descendants of Confucius inherits a them? Superior intelligence? No.
title in perpetuity. But, in general, Better morals ? No. Pride and apathy rank and authority have to be acquired; are two main obstacles. The Chinese and the son of a laborer may attain are rather deficient in religious senti· high rank through success at the Utero ment and conscience; while as we go ary e:raminations. The successful' upward, there is an increasing addiction scholars at the prefectural examinations to sloth, gluttony, and sexual excesses.
receive the degree of "Cultivated Tal· The people with all their industry and ents," become privileged characters, frugality do not love these virtues, but and begin to lord it over their fellow· regard ease and abundance as the envied men. Next success at the provincial lot of a favored few. A Chinese girl examination wins the degree of " Pro- once said to the restless child of a mis· moted Men," which carries with it more sionary, " Why don't you just sit down lofty privileges and eligibility to the and do nothing, I think it's real nice? h office of county magistrate. Success in And a earpenter when told that a for· the imperial examinations at Pekin, se· eign mechanic's tools would cost a cures quite high distinction. At all hundred dollars, exclaimed, "If I had these examinations only certain fixt a hundred dollars would I be a carpen- numbers can pass; and of course it is ter? No, I would open a storeI " One much more honorable to stand at the thing which makes opium smoking so head of the list than at the foot. The fascinating is its pleasumble sloth.
man who stands first at the Imperial The Chinese distinguish four classes examinations wins thereby quite high of society, viz., scholars, farmers, arti· rank. But he will, perhaps, be sent to sans, traders. The scholar is especially
IK'I'JlJUU.TIONAL DEPABTlDIJ{T
distinct from the other three, a very characters on which they wish to state genteel person of weak physique with their money, paying so much for each Anger-nails half an inch long, to show pair thus markt. The lottery is illegal; that he does nothing rough enough to but if. the police interfere, they And endanger such fragile growths. Closely only leaves of a good book which limited as to what occupations he may apparently some idle pupil has been follow, he yet regards himself as one to daubing with red ink:. whom the world owes both special honor and afiluence. His legal priv- Missionaries hire literary men to be ileges are perverted into the privilege their teachers; and then teachers And to do as he will with any thing or any us ignorant of what they regard as the body in his power. He studies the essentials of scholarship. It would take ancient sages, not to cultivate virtue us several years of hard study to bebut to gain rank, power, wealth, and come even passably good Chinese thus becomes habituated to a sordid use scholars; and unless one is specially of high sentiments. It is truly said gifted with a remarkable memory and that .. there is some honesty among the skillful fingers, he can not hope to common people; but the literati and equal his Chinese teacher. So, as a the officials who are derived from them rule, we hire Chinese scholars at a few are the biggest rascals." They have dollars a month to do our literary work; been educated into the pride and hypoc- and few attempt to equal them on their risy of the Pharisee, yet withal are own ground. This further pu1fs up usually Sadducees; holding that death their pride. is extinction. A Chinese preacher said to a scholar who ,interrupted him, "I Finally, the literati haTe the upper am not talking to you; you have no hand under the present order of things. soul, you know you have not. I am and wish no change. They look upon talking to you common folks; you have the missionaries as their natural enesouls, you know you have." mies. Some years ago the United States consul at Foochow askt the' governor The literati owe their honors to a why it was that the literati were so system of education which is blind to hostile to the missionaries? He repUed: anything outside of itself. Its difficulty, ,, The scholar is accustomed to regard which confers distinction on the suc- the common people almost as his beasts cessful student, makes him seem half of burden and receive from them prodivine in the eyes of the masses; and found reverence; but as soon as they this is heightened by teaching all become Christians, they cease to respect classes to regard .. lettered paper" him. " This is in a measure true. To as something sacred. It is a sin even the enslaved mind that fears images of to light a fire with it; and the scholar wood and clay, the literary man is an at every stroke of his pen is producing awesome personage, but there is little something which the whole nation about him to command the respect of must reverence. Yet this is no barrier the disciple of Christ, who learns to fear to the use of "lettered paper" for bad God and work righteousness. Hence purposes. When a scholar is operating the missionary will sometimes reply to a lottery, he takes a page from some the charge that he has no converts from classic, and writes the characters by the upper classes, "No, the Chinese pairs on slips of paper, which he puts literary man is hard to convert, and not in his pocket. Then he takes out one worth much lifter he is converted." slip at random, and puts it in a box Yet we do make converts from this which Is then sealed up in a bag, and class, some of whom become very valuthe bag hung in the top of a tree. Then able helpers. all hands receive copies of the page, Shaowu, which has been my Aeld of aJld ~r~ Oil it the pair or pairs Qf labor, was half depopulated at the time Qf the Taipin~ rebellion, ret th~
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
number of gr.lduates was not decreast. ing of Peter's vision in Acts, 80 weak- Hence they are rather too common to ened his faith in it, that one day Mrs.
win markt distinction. Almost every B. easily induced him to eat meat.
family has its graduate, and there is less After he had been with us about four of pride and exclusiveness. When we years he profest to embrace Christianity began work there the literati laughed and was received into the church. But at the idea of "foreign spooks" coming we were disappointed in him. He to teach them. But now we have showed no inclination or ability as a several efficient workers from their preacher; while vague rumors troubled number. I will briefly outline the us as to his life and talk outside. He history of one such converted man with was still a Taoist at heart, and profest the degree of "Cultivated Talents." conversion to Christianity merely to Chang Sien-sen, Senior Chang, when please us. His real conversion came an orphan boy had been apprenticed to three years or more after he joined the learn a trade; but an uncle, perceiving church. As he afterward described it that he had talent, sent him to school; to us: we had set him to teach a boy's and while still quite young, he took his school, and every evening he would sit degree. In order to eke out his earn- down to look over the Scripture to be ings he If.arned the art of selecting taught the next day; and, as he read, lucky sites for graves, etc. He was a it was just as if some one stood at his man of genial temper, and more than side and would now and then give his average religious susceptibilities, but sleeve a twitch and say, "Now is not not over scrupulous as to truthfulness. that good? " He became genuinely He stood in high repute as a medium converted, and when a suitable occa- with the "divining pen." When no sion offered, he publicly confest his one else could make it work he could. past hypocrisy. He is now an eloquent If he could see a sensible answer to the preacher, skillful and sometimes severe question put to the god or spirit, he in handling proud disputers, but plain would make the pen write it; otherwise spoken and yet gentle in addressing an he would make the pen produce illegi- average audience. He owes it largely ble marks. But his mind was not at to him and a friend of his who was be- rest; and he plunged into the specula- fore him in the Gospel that we have a tions of the Taoists, and also joined a number of the literati among our vegetarian sect. Not finding satisfac- Shaowu Christians.
tion in this, he tried a stricter sect, and The defeat of China in her late war at last joined the sect of "The Former with Japan was preeminently the defeat Heaven," which is an eclectic combi- of the upper classes; and there is noth- nation of Confucianism, Taoism, and ing before her but defeat, until there is Buddhism, and aims to restore the a decided improvement among these Former Heaven, i. e. the Golden Age. same upper classes. If they really can Its members abstain from animal food not be reacht, woe be to China. But and practice celibacy, but live at home the task of reaching them, though hard, and follow secular pursuits. For over is not hopeless.
two years Senior Chang spent most of his earnings on this sect; and all this Western Science as Auxiliary to the time he never touched his wife; but Spread of the GospeL neither did he properly feed and clothe BY DR. W. A. P. MARTIN, her. Pr68ident Emeritus of the Imperial Soon after we opened work at Tungwen Oollege, Peking, Ohina.
Shaowu, he was employed by Rev. J. Among those interested in the en- B. Blakely as his personal teacher. He lightenment of these Eastern nations had not found satisfaction in all his there are two extreme views. Some vegetarianism, and the incidental read- there are who hold that the native raligions are good enough for the people, of my subject, missionaries are so far and that all they require for their up- from being agreed that they need to lifting is the intellectual culture and compare views, in order to attain that material civilization of the West. unity of action which is indispensable Others hold that with intellectual cul- to strength. ture and material civilization, we, as missionaries, have nothing to do-that In advocating a vastly extended use our business is with the heart alone, of education in sciences and arts, I re- that to implant there the hope of eter- pudiate the idea that education must nalUfe is the object we should pursue, in all cases precede the Gospel, or that exclusive of all side issues. Christianity is not in itself the most effective of all instruments for enlighten- With the latter I find myself in ing the human mind. "The man," fullest sympathy so far as feeling is said Tse Hsia, "who has learned what concerned. But when it comes to the he owes to his parents and brothers at question a8 to the mode of procedure, I home, and what he owes to his supemaintain that in order to win the world riors and fellow-Bubjects, tho you may to Christ, a vast variety of subsidiary call him unlearned, is, I say, an edu- .influences must go along with the cated man." If this is true of the Gospel. The commerce of Christian social and political ethics taught by nations in seeking new fields for its the Chinese sages, how much higher enormous expansion opens wider and and broader the education imparted by wider areas to the heralds of the Cross, the Gospel, even in its simplest form ! and where our governments extend protection to their merchants, they, In its ethics, faith in God imparts also, throw their shields over the work vitality to the human conscience, and of their missionaries. the conception of God implies that of the unity of the universe. The lofty Is it not meet that the political power .generalization which the philosopher and commercial predominance which 'slowly arrives at by a translation of spring from Christianity should co- the laws of nature the Christian conoperate in extending its blessings to all vert reaches at a bound through the the nations of the earth? open door of faith. The Gospel comes to him, moreover, associated with All things are overruled of God for something of history and geographythe furtherance of his spiritual king- lifting his mind above the limits of the dom; we have but to look back through "four seas" by revealing the unity the long ages of the past to see how the and fraternity of the human race, stars in their courses have fought wakes up the dormant imagination and against the powers of darkness. But sheds a glory over this common-place the question is not what agencies may existence by introducing us to an un- God employ, for it is His prerogative seen world, of boundless extent and to employ all agencies great and small unspeakable grandeur. -according to that power by which he is able to subdue all things to Himself. What but the simple Gospel was it The thing for us to ascertain is what that elevated the tinker of Bedford to auxiliary agencies we, as missionaries, a place alongside of Milton and Dante? may properly employ for the conver- The immortal pilgrim, while commandsion of men to the faith of Christ. In- ing the homage of such an erudite critic strumentalities many and varied as the as Lord Macaulay, shows no trace of gifts of the Spirit enumerated in the learning beyond the literature of the epistle to the Corinthians have, as a Old and New Testaments, accompanied matter of fact, been employed in all by a rich religious experience. Yet ages. In regard to many of them there was its. author by no means an ignoris no difference of opinion. But in re- ant or unlearned man-tho like Shakgard to those specified in the wording speare, he knew little Latin and less Greek. No! The man who with a ally when I was about to leave for the soul kindled into adoring love takes in United States, he handed me a paper the doctrines of the New Testament is implying that he was ready to become not uneducated, however humble his a Christian, provided he was not re- social condition. quired to renounce the worship of his ancestors. He won the coveted degree, I once heard Pastor Fisch of Paris but I have not since heard from him. relate how he had taken the learned but sceptical J ouffroy de St. Hilaire to But why refer to my own experience talk with a devout cobbler on tlle when we have on record the world- knotty questions raised in the epistle to renowned instance of Matteo Ricci? At the Romans. The professor was amazed a time when tlle interior of the Empire at the exhibition of a wisdom not de- was sealed against foreigners and rived from the schools, and went away against the Gospel the learned Italian with a strongedaith, saying to himself: made his way by the help of sciencc to "Out of the mouth of babes and suck- Nanking and then to Peking, where lings, Thou hast ordained strength." he and his successors were installed as Christianity then, where it is not mere- professors of astronomy-securing for ly preacht but taught, occupies in my their religion the favor of the Emperor, opinion, the very forefront among all and the adhesion of multitudes of the the varied appliances for enlightening people. But for their mathematics the popular mind. Let the Chinese those early missionaries might never embrace it and it alone will do more have penetrated beyond the confines of than anything else to place them on an the province of Kuangtung. intellectual level with the people of Europe. It was a Bible in thc hands Vastly greater are the demands for of a blood·stained mutineer, that trans· science at the present day. The Emformed the little colony of Pitcairn in- peror, like Kang Hi, makes himself to a Christian commonwealth; whose the patron of science, and he has done virtues and intelligence were the aston- what Kang Hi never ventured to do, ishment of the world. What the Bible introduced a scientific element into the did for that Island it might do even un- competitions for the civil service. The aided for the people of China; if they scholars of the Empire are awake as were first brought to accept It. But never before to the defects of their extraneous aids are often required to antiquated style of education. It was open tlle way for it. D'Aubigne tells not new arms, or numbers, but the UB the Waldensian pedlars in the,South new education tllat enabled the Japanof France made use of their attractive ese to gain the victory of thc recent wares to draw attention to the New war. This the Chinese are beginning Testament, which they drew from the to perceive, and in every direction we bottom of their baskets and offered as hear of fresh openings for the teachtheir choicest treasure. Not many ing of Western languages and science. years ago, a Szechuan scholar who had come to Peking to compete for the This state of feeling is well exhibited third degree, presented himself at my in a preface to a new translation of a house with a letter of introduction from work on Political Economy, from the a high mandarin. His object was to pen of a mandarin. .. Of what use," ask questions on physical seience; and he asks, .. are the metaphysical subtlehe repeated his visits many times, in ties of Buddhism? Buddha's native the course of which I gave him reo land has been three times conquered ligious books and talked to him on re- by foreigners-first by thc Afghans, ligious subjects. As the weeks went next by the Mongols, and lastly abon he had fewer questions to ask on sorbed by England. In China the science, and more about religion. Fin- higher principles of government have been handed down from the sages of antiquity, but such common matter as the production and distribution of audience and desired to know the wealth are not among them. Doubt- source of the wealth and power of her less their treatises on these subjects, Empire, she pointed to the Bible, and (he says with perceptible irony) per- placed in his hands a copy of the sacred ished in the flames of the Book Burner. volume. So the missionary should not The consequence is that a vast and fail to lead his learned inquirers to the magnificent empire has been left to run true source of that prosperity, which down into poverty and weakness until distinguishes Christian from non-Chris- it has become helpless in the presence tian nations. In this he is the more of its foreign foes. The people of the likely to meet with success if he is able West, when they know a thing, always in some degree to satisfy their thirst for put it in practice. They have courage secular knowledge by oral teaching, by to advance in the path of progress. But books, or by object lessons, in the form if we Chinese read their books as we of machinery and scientific apparatus.
read the liturgies of Buddha and dis- Let it not be imagined that I am ex- cuss their principles as we discuss the horting missionaries to enter on a new abstractions of metaphysics; what good policy. These three things have aU is to be lookt forY" been resorted to as aids to awaken at- What this writer feels and confesses tention and to impress the mind from is felt, if not confest, by hundreds of the very dawn of Protestant missions.
thousands of the literati of this land. Away back in the "forties" Dr. 8. R.
For us, I should say the present is a Brown, then in charge of the Morrison golden opportunity-were it not that school in Hongkong, prepared a little the word golden contains a suggestion book on political economy, in Chinese.
of harvest-whereas all that we dis- Who can tell the extent of the salutary cover is the breaking up of a hitherto infiuences proceeding from that now for- frozen soil. It is not harvest but seed gotten publication? One of his PUpilS time, the period of the year-the sea- was Tong King-sing, who organized the son-which decides whether the coming China Merchants' Steamship Company crop is to consist of grain or of tares. and opened the tlrst coal mine, which When Mencius was askt by the was workt with foreign machinery.
Prince of Liang, what he had brought Another was Dr. Yung Wing, who to enrich his kingdom, he replied, after having created an era in the edu- .. Humanity and justice; nothing cational progress of this country still more." In fact, there was nothing lives to aid in shaping the new enter- more that he was competent to teach. prises of the present day.
When the Christian missionary is greet- In the "fifties" Dr. Hobson com- ed with the same question he might menced the publication of a series of give the same reply – righteousness little books on natural philosophy, and humanity-and something more. chemistry, and medicine. Some of U Yes," he might say, .. I bring with these were the very tlrst to revcal to me all the forces necessary for the re- the Chinese the existence of those generation of the individual and the world·transforming sciences and to renovation of the State. " point them to something better in med- It is a great thing to have haughty ical practice than the quackery of their scholars like the writer just quoted, native doctors.
pocket their pride and sit as learners at Mr. Alex. Wylie about the same the feet of men of the West. They time while printing Bibles by the mU· begin of course with the externals of lion, found time to translate a complete modern civilization; but it is the mis- course of modern mathematics, and a sionary's own fault if they stop there. text book of modern astronomy.
It is related of Queen Victoria that Prior to the publication of these works, when a Maori chieftain was received in which mark an epoch in the history of China, the Chinese possest no mathe- 2. That a series of science primers matics beyond the first six books of might be prepared under the auspices Euclid, and no astronomy beyond that of some Tract Society with the special of the middle ages, when our little aim of imparting some knowledge of planet was believed to be the center of science to general readers. Science the Universe. might wing the arrow, but religion should be its point. Think you, that the Chinese, who emerging from the old school, has S. That each mission should be prolearned to place the sun on the Cen- vided with a museum, illustrating the tral Throne, will not be better prepared arts and sciences of the West. than before to accept Jesus Christ as the Sun of Righteousness? 4. That those missionaries who have a taste for such things be supplied I shall not follow out the history of with scientific toys of an inexpensive the educational and scientific work be- kind such as the magic lantern, graphgun by those three immortals. ophone or phonograph, optical, electric and steam apparatus. Suffice it to say that they were followed by an army of workers in the Finally that lectures on scientific field of education, and by a period of subjects for the general public be deorganized effort in the production of livered in chapels or schools, illustrated scientific text- books. To these earlier by objects, and always made to have and later workers whose names I can· a bearing on religion. not begin to enumerate are due nearly all the text books of modern sciences, By these means, as it seems to me, to be found In the Chinese language. the educated classes may be reacht and How these works are appreciated by by God's blessing be brought to the the more advanced thinkers among the knowledge of Christ and his great Sal- Chinese you may judge by a single in- vation. stance. Some years ago, a Chinese lit· erary man who afterwards became a Huber put a dozen bumble bees high official published an essay, in under a bell-glass, with a comb of some which he compared the benefits of commerce and Christian missions. Re- ten silken cocoons, so unequal in height ferring to the various sciences intro- that they would not stand steadily. To duced by missionaries from the arrival remedy this two or three bees got on of the Jesuits three centuries ago down the comb, stretched themselves over its to the recent period of renewed mis- edge, and with heads downward, fixt sionary activity, he declared that China owes more to missions than to their forefeet on the table on which the commerce. comb rested, and so with their hind feet kept the comb from falling. When Before I take my seat, I wish to sug- they were weary others took their gest four things that I deem of great places. In this constrained posture, importance, tho it is probable that most fresh bees at intervals relieving their of you have already taken them into comrades, and each taking its turn, consideration. they supported the comb for nearly three days, till they could get ready wax 1. That constant efforts should be made to supply the Chinese with more enough to build pillars with it. And and better text-books, adapted to the the first pillars having got displaced, demands of the new education-now the bees in the same manner rebuilt being called for in all the provinces of the supports. What an example and the empire-and that religion while it lesson to us, as the duty and privi1e~e should not be injudiciously lugged of coming to each other's support m in ought not to be excluded from emergencies I What a lesson for the them. friends of missions, in these days when the great organizations are at risk of tumbling into financial distress if not ruin, of giving up ourselves to the joint effort of holding up the cause until safer supports may be prepared for it to rest upon, and that we should all work together that the burden may not fall wt haeysB, eaen4thboeu unequally. Go to slug- gard! consider her wise ,
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
I1I.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
The Turkish Empire,* Persia,t Russian Empire,t Arabia,§ Mohammedanism,' Oriental Ohurches.
BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
CONDITIONS IN Tt.'RKEY. success. But the difficulties have been by no means settled, and it is well un- Armenia is having a comparative derstood that the Turks are not yet rest from the sword of the "unspeak- satisfied with the results ~of their past able Turk," but persecution has by no work, and still are bent upon the exmeans ceased, nor have the effects of pulsion of the missionaries and thE> the "year of shame" past away. An extermination of all non-Moslem suboccasional report of some massacre jects. or outrage comes to our ears, and there is untold suffering and distress, the knowl- The American Board has now about edge of which never reaches us. The 175 missionaries in Armenia, with some missionaries still stand nobly by their 800 native helpers; over 125 churches posts, and carryon the work of caring containing over 12,000 members. The for the needy, sheltering the orphan adherents number about 80,000. and teaching those who still seek Chris· tian instruction in the missionary 'OF HINTS ON THE STUDY ISLAH. schools and colleges. Blessed spiritual awakenings have followed the The Student Volunteer (British) gives persecutions in Harpoot, Aintab, Oorfa, and elsewhere-even Turks the following helpful suggestions as to being deeply imprest in some in- the study of Mohammedanism: stances. Schools are filling up, farmers are again going to their work with I. Some explanations of Mohammore confidence of reaping their crops, and general quiet is restored, except on med's success. the Persian frontier. The time is ripe for new advances in missionary work, (1). Mohammed's personality and his with more encouraging prospects of use of truths gained from Jews, Christ- .. See pp. 50, 51, 57 (January); 610 (August). NEW BooKS: "Letters from Armenia," ians and Hanifs. (2). Use of the Harris; "The Sultan and His Subjects," Davey. sword. (8). Paradise promist to dying RECENT ARTICLES: " Armenia and the forward movement," CO'fItemporary Review warriors. (4). Appeal to the passions (January); "The Armenian Church," New of men. World (March); "Turkish Reform," Cosmopolitan (March). II. Christian and Mohammedan doc- t See pp. 422, 463 (June); 506 (July); 721. 740 (present issue). trine of Divine sovereignty. ~ See pp. 754 (present issue). NEW BOOKS: "Russia Incarnate," Wab- (1). Mohammed's conception imper. zewski; "The Empire of the Tsar." RECENT ARTICLES: "Life in Russia." Frank feet, yet better than that of his con- Leslie's Monthly (February); "Prisons of Siberia." Blackwood (April); "Russia as it temporaries. (2). Both doctrines is," Conte'''porary Review (May). § See pp. 730, 748 (present issue). contrasted-Christian provision for fel· , See pp. 39 (January); 375 (May); 422 (June); 506 (July) ; 757 (present Issue). lowship and progress; progress of NEW BoOKS: "Islam," E. M. Wherry; .. Faith of Islam," EdWard Sell. Mohammedanism not well founded nor continuous; submission and fate '118. submission and faith; results seen in the history of both systems.
III. Doctrine of the Trinity and the two faiths.
(1). Mohammed's relatively superior apprehension of God, but only of God's umty and sovereignty. (2). Christian- ity's view of the Divine Man. (8). The Koran's inconsistency concerning Di- vine attributes, without our idea of Son and Spirit. .
IV. Mohammedan and Christian view of man.
(1). Results of Mohammed's view of man-Man a slave; Womanhood de- based; Home life a failure; Society without woman's elevating influence, and she a slave and plaything; yet Mohammed improved the condition of women in his day. (2). The Moslem's This is a specimen of Russian religious- defense-Polygamy in the Old Testa- ness.
ment; Social evils in Christian lands; Some years ago, when the compulsory Intemperance of Christian nations. conversion in mass of Protestant peas- V. How TO COMJllEND CHRISTIANITY ants in Livonia to the church of Russia TO MOSLEMS: was in process, a Greek Catholic superior pope exprest his surprise that (1.) Act along lines of least resist- Protestants were opposed to this change ance-Old and New Testament Script- of base. There was no ground for this ures ; Brotherhood due to this common opposition, he thought; for had not heritage; Superiol' character of our Luther at one time been the court.
Scriptures. (2). Christendom's atti- preacher of Queen Catharine of Russia?
tude should be changed and the Church This is a specimen of theological train- do her duty. ing in Russia.
THE PRESENT PROBLlllM OF ISLAM. At Warsaw the Emperor Nicholas I. Unfavorab~ feature8 .- was taking part in a religious ser- (1). Union between the temporal and vice in which, according to custom, spiritual power. (2). Divorce between the worshiper was to kiss the hand of morality and religion. (3). Ishmaelitic the officiating priest. The latter, in intolerance. (4). Destruction of the his confllsion at the presence of the family through polygamy and concu- visible head of the state church, failed binage. (5). The degradation of wom- to offer his hand. Thereupon the Eman. (6). Gross immorality. (7). Un- peror cried out: "Give me your hand, truthfulness. (8). Misrepresentation of you dog; I want to kiss it." This is a the person and teachings of Christ. characteristic trait in Russian church (9). Aggressive spirit in Islam. The life.
Wahabees. The religiousness of the Russian II. Tlte favorable features .- Church is an odd combination of ele- (1). Belief in the Unity of God. (2). ments. In it are remnants of the oldest times of Christianity, a certain barbar- Reverence for the Old and New Testa- iim nai1J6te, a lifeless formality from ment. (3). Reverence for Christ as the times of Byzantine sterility, and a prophet. (4). Respect for Christians wilderness of confused ideas. The and Jews as the 'people of the book.' Russian will not pass by a beggar with- (5). Hatred of idolatry. (6). Rever- out having either given him alms or ence for law. (7). Abstinence from in- having excused himself for not aoing toxicants. (8). Doctrine of absolute so. The duty of charity has found an surrender. (9). Growing infiuence of entrance into his very marrow and Christian nations in Mohammedan bones. Yet this same man will go to countries. (10). Islam completely en- his house, cross himself in front of the circled by Anglo-Saxon Christian pol- ikon, or saint's image, hang a piece of itical and civil power. (11). Moham- cloth before it. so that his patron saint medan belief in the purity of the Clll not see what he is doing, and then Protestant faith. (12). Confidence in enter upon a carousal that would dismissionaries. (13). Civilization must supplant Islam. (14). The superior grace a beast. Again, this typical facilities in the hands of Christians. Russian will on another day go to his (15). The Bible translated into the Ara- church, strike the fioor fifty times with his forehead, and two hundred times bic language. repeat the words: "0 Lord, have mercy on me ; " and then depart and as a wit- Piotures of the Russian Religion. ness take a false oath before the courts because his friend the day before had A strange and oppressive picture of secured his promise to do so for a drink religious life in Russia comes to us of 'IJOska, and considers himself satis- from a Leipsic paper, Oltristliche Welt, factorily justified when he tells the whose picture is drawn largely from judge that "even God Himself will Russian sources. It is condenst in the accept a bribe," meaning by this his Literary Digest as follows: accepting wax candles and paternosters for certain sins. The man himself is In a Russian court in Odessa some not conscious of his self-contradiction, years ago there was a trial between two and it would be useless to try to demonpeasants, one of whom had bodily mal- strate this to him. His conduct is treated the other. The injured party typical of the religiousness of the aver- had claimed that Almighty God was age peasant in Russia.
superior to St. Nicholas. The other The whole genius and character of resented this and abused his neighbor. ,Russian life, is steeped in passivity. It is characterized by a flight to escape the outcome of that most unfortunate struggle for existence, a fatalistic stand- struggle. The evangelical work, under point, which accepts everything, the leadership of Dr. M. D. Kalopowhether the result of one's own doings thakes, of Athens, has, ever since its or not, with the words, "It is God's inception, been suffering under the will. " Neither in Roman Catholicism false charge of being hostile to Greece nor in Protestantism have we a basis as a nation. So close is the union befrom which we can thoroughly under- tween the orthodox church and the stand the soul of the Russian people. state, that anything aiming at reform It can be understood onlv from its in the one was interpreted as disloyalty origin, precedents, and historical de- to the other. This feeling has been velopment. The curse which, from strong enough to cut off the little conthe time that Russia was Christianized gregations of the evangelical churches down to our own day and generation, in Athens, V010, and elsewhere, from has rested upon the Russian Church, is all social relations with their fellow its moral sterility; the fact that its countrymen, thus making progress a religion has no regenerative and pro- very difficult matter. But the part ductive power. which the evangelicals were able to play in the recent campaign has soft- The inability of the Orthodox Church ened the hearts of their opponents and spiritually to regenerate the people has restored confidence in their loyalty and been characteristic of it from the be- patriotism. For several weeks Dr. ginning. And DOW since Russia puts Kalopothakes traveled from point to forth the claim of representing a cer- point, along the army outposts, distain type of culture and civilization, it tributing to the eager soldiers and is well to take note of this historical officers Bibles or portions of the Scripand present fact. A prominent Russian tures, and comforting them with kind official some time ago spoke of himself words and deeds. His son, too, a as an "orthodox atheist." and this was journalist of no mean reputation, went no less a person than Prince Tscher- to the front repeatedly to secure accukassy. The possibility of such a posi- rate news for the European press, and, tion is deeply suggestive. sharing the hardships of Greek camp life, endeared himself to the heart of "Russia is not yet overrun with evan- many a soldier, while the name he gelists. There is room for the grand gained of being the most reliable old Gospel in all parts of the big empire. reporter on the frontier was a just If persecuted in one city, God's ser- tribute to his energies. Dr. Kalopovants would flee to another, witnessing thakes' daughter first spent, some as tlley go. Sowing precious seed they time in training hospital nurses at would find open doors and open hearts Athens, and then went to the front and throughout the vast dominions of Rus- was tireless in her care for the wounded, sia. It is yet virgin soil, and the various the sick, and the dying. Such proofs one-sided and superficial opinions of of loyalty could not but bear fruit; and Nihilists, Tolstoyists, Dukobortzis, and words of gratitude and praise have such like, are 8 proof that there are taken the place of slander and envy. searchers for the way of salvation who "Now we know," say the old church need to be told the old, old story of Greeks, "that our estimate' of you Jesus and His love. evangelicals was wrong; you are more patriotic than our own leaders." One I. Our brethren, the Stundists, are still soldier, who lay for some time in a persecuted and banisht. There is no hospital at the front, wrote to an change, nor is there any hope of a Athens newspaper: "While lying change as long as the present ruling wounded in the hospital, I have seen powers aim to hold church and state the king and queen, princes and foreign in one inseparable body. A Russian nobles, reporters and philanthropists; subject dissenting from the orthodox and the evangeUcal workers have Church is considered an alien; loses his right of citizenship, and is often banisht cheered us b'l their visits; there is only to remote parts of the empire." one class 0 men I have never seen darken the door, and that is our own The Evangelical Ohurch in Greece. priesthood. Those who should be our comforters and counsellors at all times CHARLES T. RIGGS, B.A. have completely deserted us in our last extremity. The only true spiritual Sad as is the condition of Greece, after the war, there is cause for joy in one friends we have are the evangelicals."
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Northfield and Missions. -vention was that thllre might be a prac- tical outcome of the interest awakened, At the Northfield Conference this and that the Convention might be prac- year, the missionary interest on Thurs- tically in close touch with some specific day and Friday, August 12th and 13th, missionaries on the field. It was pro- rose unusually high. Dr. Harry posed to appoint a committee, with Mr. Guinness was in the chair and a num- Moody as chairman, to whom the ber of most earnest and thrilling ad- boards might refer the case of any dedresses were delivered. The blessed serving candidate whom they desired teaching of the London brethren, Rev. to send forth but were unable to sup- G. Campbell Morgan and Rev. G. H. C. port. It was thought moreover that, McGregor, which has never been sur- instead of dilliinishing the ordinary past on the Northfield platform, for gifts to the boards, it would tend to spirit.ual power, had led up to the point stimulate giving by availing ourselves where there was eminent fitness in of the quickened spiritual life due to missionary appeal, and the seed fell the helpful teaching always received at into a prepared soil. these conventions.
On Friday afternoon Dr. Mabie in- Mr. Moody felt constrained to oppose vited all missionaries present, and II. the measure, not because it was in confew others, to hold a garden party at flict with the boards, as the proposal his .. chltlet .. for conference and prayer expressly made them the channels of on the present emergency in missions; disbursement, but because he felt quite and the outcome of the meeting was a unequal to any new responsibilities, deep conviction that the time was ripe and because of difficulties that must for the starting of a fund, at Northfield, attend the administration of any such to aid young men who were approved fund. The proposal was accordingly by the boards, but whom the boards withdrawn and a modified resolution had not sufficient money to send forth presented in its place which had Mr. to the field. This conviction was deep- Moody's sanction. ened by the thought that it was at Mt. Hermon, just across the river, that in Some of the friends thought, and 1886, it pleased God to set in motion the they are many, that had Mr. Moody student volunteer enterprise, and that it simply declined to act in the matter, was at the Northfield Convention fol- but allowed the measure to go forward, lowing in the same year that the call throwing all responsibility for it on the for a world's convention on missions Convention, and practically adjusting was issued, which was realized two the whole matter so as to make it tribuyears later in the great Exeter Hall tary to the establisht agencies for con- Convention in London, in 1888. ducting missions, it might have been a blessing to the Convention and a Everything in the evening meeting great stimulus to consecrated giving. of Friday seemed to lead up to the pro- Within a half hour, $2,500 had been posal which was made by the editor of subscribed and some of it with pledges the REVIEW, that the Convention of annual payments for five and ten should start a fund for the purpose of years, which is a sufficient forecast of helping the boards to send out volun- the possible ultimate results. teers, whom the ordinary appropriations would not enable them to send forth, But our friend Mr. Moody was 80 but whom they approved as worthy seriously in doubt as to the expediency and suitable. of the measure, and so apprehensive that the spirit prompting it might be The reason for creating such a fund misunderstood, that it was abandoned in connection with the Northfield Con- in its original form, and donors were advised to turn their offerings into the natural and doubly.blest. And if such church channels directly and without opportunity is allowed to pass, there is a positive loss, not only of money, but any intermediate Northfield committee. of stimulus to higher standards of stewardship. While we would not Theabove simple statement will show encourage the idea that impulsive giv- ing is the truest sort of giving, Mr. how ab8Qlutely witlwut joundation was Finney used to say that aroused feeling is the winding up of the windlass, and such a version of the matter as has that action on the spot is the rachet that holds the windlass from unwind- been floating through the press. We ing. Yearby yearat Northfield, we feel that an offering, made under the influ- quote from the New York Obserur: ence of awakened spiritual life, would seal the impressions made, and help "Mr. D. L. Moody's common sense to fasten holy resolve and fix the soul and good judgment were manifested in God. And that was all the thought last week in his decision not to estab- and purpose of the mover and sup- lish an emergency fund to send out porters of this proposal for an emer- missionaries who can not go abroad gency fund. It is very certain that the through the regular missionary boards brethren who so advised "meant well," of the denominations for lack of funds. and equally certain that they did not Mr. Moody determines that money propose to displace the present mission- raised at Northfield for foreign mis- ary boards by "creating new ones with sions shall go to the boards already no particular moorings." Such state- establisht. The brethren who advised ments should not be carelessly made, Mr. Moody differently meant well, but as they do harm and injustice to such so did Peter when he askt the Lord if men as Dr. Mabie, himself one of the he and James and John should not most consecrated of all our missionary make three tabernacles on the Mount of secretaries. not to speak of the Editor Transfiguration. It is better to of this REVIEW, who has all his life strengthen the present efficient mission- advocated and aided the establisht ary organizations thlln to create new agencies of the Church, and two of ones with no particular moorings. whose daughters, with a son-in-law, These might soon drift into the control are on the mission field in connection of irresponsible persons and fail of with the Presbyterian boards. their original purpose." The Ohristian Missionary Alliance. So far is this paragraph from the In the September issue of this REtruth that it misapprehends the posi- VIEW, at the editor's request, Dr. Wil- son gave our readers a brief account of tion in toto. That the purpose was in the nearly a quarter of million dollars subscribed-in one day, Aug. 9, 1896, no wise to divert money from the some $101,500 being obtained, and $122,000 on Oct. 11 following-for the Boards into "irresponsible" channels, Alliance purposes. We were especially interested in what Dr. Wilson says in is sufficiently obvious from the fact that paper about the economy oj expen- diture in the administration of these that the Editor of this REVIEW made funds, that, except about $2,000 for the propo8al and Dr. Mabie 8econded it! rent, printing, etc., the whole of the money pledged goes straight to the Our purpose was distinctly to give the boards additional help. This is an ex- ample of how, without any intentiop.
to misrepresent, the public press may give a totally wrong impression.
The Keswick Convention in England, feeling the need of some annual offer- ing to give practical force to increast devotion to Christ, instituted a Keswick Mission Fund, and now there are in the fleld some fifteen missionaries, supported by the money subscribed at these gatherings. Every year the cul- mination of the meetings is found in this missionary offering. There is no doubt that, when hearts are deeply moved by the truths of the Word and the presence of God, an offering to God for mission work seelllS both field; and that, from one misssonaryon men; but to receive and disburse large the field eight years since, the number sums of money in benevolent and now exceeds three hundred, the income mission work without stated and ample having correspondingly increast from accounts rendered of the way in which ,5,000 in 1888 to $140,000 in 1896. this money is used, is to establish a These facts need to be pondered precedent dangerous in the extreme, prayerfully and conscientiously. We under cover of which gigantic public frauds may be perpetrated. have no official reports of this year's Rev. A. B. Simpson, about seventeen' meetings at Old Orchard as yet; but years ago, came out from existing the daily press, which the Alliance church organizations, and establisht a organ credits with both "kind and a people's tabernacle, about which has truthful " accounts, may be trusted for grown up a large and useful work. the main facts. It appears that on About midway in the intervening Aug. 8th were raised $71,000 for foreign .missions, some thirty thousand less period he was led out Into the estab· than last year, indeed, but a very large lishing of a missionary organization,· sum nevertheless, and indicating a very which has grown with almost unex- high flood-mark of enthusiasm. Also ampled rapidity. What was at first some fifty young people responded to simply a modest enterprise, seeking to the call for volunteers. Mr. Simpson link his work in New York city with affirmed that, almost without excep- foreign lands, has developt into a world· tion, the pledges of 1896 have been re- wide scheme, which may yet have a deemod-another very remarkable sign thousand missionaries in the field and a in its way. million of money a year for their sup- In the Boston Herald it is stated that port. But thus far we never have seen "W. H. McLaughlin, of North Scar· boro, has sent to the Portland papers one financial report of the money refor publication an open letter, in which he asks Rev. Dr. Simpson to render an ceived and of the manner of its diIJbur86· account of the disbursements of the ment. When, at times, the attention $100,000 raised at Old Orchard last year for the cause of missions." The of our friend, Mr. Simpson, has been letteraskt that such account be rendered before the taking up of the offerings called to this deficiency of annual statethis year. The writer of that letter justifies his demand on the ground that ments, his reply-the only one so far "from apostolic days the solicitors of money in the name of the Church have of which we have knowledge-was the been expected to render an account of their stewardship; and that the present following, which, to do him the amplest practice in some quarters, of making no public statement of the disbursement of justice, we now reprint verbatim from funds is an innovation that should be checkt." the editorial colulIlllS of the Alliance Whether the writer of this challenge organ. He says: be friend or foe, it is well to hearken to " Our attention has recently been called to an old falsehood circulated his suggestion, as both sensible and in several years ago from an unfriendly source to the effect that the accounts accord with the highest principles of of the International Missionary Alli- ance are loosely kept and thst the Treas· ethics. It is no imputation upon the urer's Annual Reports have not been properly audited. This old story has honesty or integrity of any man to recently been repeated in a most unfair manner and we feel it propcr therefore claim that he should render to the pub- to meet it promptly by the following certificate from the Auditors of the lic an account of money given by them accounts for the past two years and from an expert accountant whose stateand received by him in trust for certain ment is added: benevolent purposes. He may be not NEW YORK, February 27th, 1897. We hereby certify that we have careonly conscientious and capable and fully examined the accounts and the Treasurer's Annual Reports of the Inhonest, but the most self-sacrificing of ternational Missionary Alliance with all the necessary vouchers appertaining pIe and having their books examined to the business of the society in the annually by professional accountants, past two years of 1895 and 1896, and and they do well, for there can be no we find that in every respect they are reason why any secresy should be obaccurately and carefully kept. served in religious or benevolent work.
S. E. FURRY, Where such an annual exhib!t is E. G. SELCHOW, made, it closes the mouths of enemies and stills the doubts of friends. In- Audit0'l"8. deed, so convinced are we of the valne of this course, that we are of the opin- NEW YORK, February 27th, 1897. ion that no organization which does As a professsional bookkeeper I de- not adopt it has any right to appeal for sire to say that I have examined with public help. minute care the accounts and books of the International Missionary Alliance A clear financial statement, which and the Treasurer's Report for the past can be understood by ordinary people, two years, and I find that the books are such as Bishop Stevens makes annually kept in a most careful manner and by of the operations in the Special Juristhe most approved method of double diction of the South, is what is always entry and will compare favorably with needed, and should be always lookt the accounts of any good commercial for. We believe it is one of the reahouse. sons which has inspired our Church with entire confidence in that mission S. E. FURRY." work, and we believe that the example of Bishop Stevens should be followed So far, so good-but does this at all by all who depend upon outside help."
meet the conditions? The auditors do If to any it may seem that the Editor unequivocally testify to the fact that of this REVIEW is moved by any spirit the accounts are" accurately and care- of hypercriticism, let such look for a fully kept," of which no one who knows moment at the whole question both of these gentlemen have any doubt. But ethical obligation and of rational ex- they give us no conception of the pediency.
amounts of money represented as re- Suppose the Editor himself to be ceived and disbursed, nor of the actual made by his readers the receiver of channels in which they have found hundreds of thousands of dollars, to be their distribution. by him, and according to his best judg- At this very time, other paragraphs ment, used in connection with needy appear in other papers, evidently aimed Christian enterprises at home Jlnd at the correction of the same great abroad. And to make the case still defect as that which, as candid review- more emphatic, let us suppose that he ers, having in trust the education of has no restrictions laid on him as to the the public conscience, we feel bound io exact direction in which these monies insist ought at once to be remedied. are to be spent. Let us suppose on the We quote again, from The Episcopal one hand that no report is made to the :&corder: public, beyond the statement of two "A gentleman, in whose judgment well-known business men that his books we have the utmost confidence, writes to us concerning the importance of are perfectly kept and balanced; and, on missionaries making clear financial statements for the information of their the other hand, that every individual friends and others. Especially is this caution important for those who are gift is acknowledged by a number also acting independently and not under the direction of a board, which re- attached to the receipt sent to the conceives, acknowledges and pays out all funds.' tributor, and that, at least once a year, General Booth has shown his good a full publisht account is rendered, so sense in doing this with the large sums entrusted to him, and by this precau- that every giver may trace his gift to tion he has utterly foiled the attacks made upon his management of the its desired use, and that the public may financial affairs of the Salvation Army. We notice that some of the large Mis- know the sum total of all money resionary Boards are following his exam- ceived, and the exact purposes to which it is applied-can anyone question which is the immeasurably better and more proper way to administer tian village of freed slaves and other public funds? It will be observed that natives, who shall be taught in farming all money thus sent to this REVIEW and industrial arts; a village from for benevolent use is in these columns which the evils of slavery, polygamy, publicly acknowledged and accounted witchcraft, and vicious foreigners shall for. be excluded. The Roman Catholics and European planters have already lir. George Mllller and Mr. Hudson proved the feasibility of conducting Taylor are examples of men whose such a settlement on a self-supporting honesty is too indisputable to be ques- basis. This enterprise will be carried tioned. And yet each of these men forward on business principles, amI only publicly accounts for every farthing consecrated men and women will have entrusted to them for God's cause. a hand in it. Mr. Chatelain is well Every man and woman who sends to acquainted with the country and the either of them an offering, may know people where the colony is to be estab- exactly how much money is by them lisht, and has long studied the ques- received in any given year and just how tion of the physical, mental, and spirit- much goes to any particular purpose. ual emancipation of the fifty million We are not imputing to our brother slaves of the Dark Continent. Funds Simpson or his co-workers, any lack of are sadly :q.eeded to carry forward the honesty, self-denial, or any other high enterprize. Three hundred dollars will quality. But we do most earnestly plead send out and support a worker for one that no man who accepts a trusteeship year; fifty dollars will constitute a for benevolent funds shall set an share in the equipment of the station example that can be quoted by others and twelve dollars a year will support, who are simply using a too easily per- an adopted slave. All contributors will suaded public to carry on fraud. be kept informed of the progress of the work, and those supporting boys There is a very simple method, and or girls will be put in communication only one, for supplying all proper con- with them. Send contributions to Hon. ditions: Let every man or woman who Thomas L. James, United Charities is expending money for others, see Building, New York. that for every gift a receipt shall be sent promptly to the giver, and that The Tibetan Pioneer MiMion, under every such amount be in some recog- the leadership of Miss Annie Taylor, nizable form publicly acknowledged, has entered Tibet, and is located at so that the whole transaction of receiv- Gatong, across the border from Sikkim. ing and disbursing shall be open to the Here Miss Taylor has opened a shop public eye. This both increases con- and medical dispensary, by which she fidence in the administration, and puts is enabled to come into contact with a check on any dishonest, careless, or many Tibetans and Chinese. The fraudulent use of consecrated money. prejudice of the people is breaking down and many have become most The Pltil-African League, of which friendly. About one thousand copies Mr. Heli Chatelain is the able and con- of the Gospel in Tibetan have been dis- 'secrated Secretary and Manager, has tributed, besides many in Chinese. By for its object, the overthrow of the slave- means of traders, etc., these have been trade in Africa, and the establishment scattered far and wide throughout the of a Christian colony for the indus- country. Prayer is earnestly askt that trial, intellectual, and spiritual educa- the doors of this closed land may be tion of the natives on the table land opened wider to receivll the heralds of East of Bugola in South Central Africa. the Cross who are waiting on the Mr. Chatelain with four others expects threshold. to start for the field immediately, there to estll.blish a model unsectarlan Chris- The news which has been dropping At a meeting in Shanghai, under the in about the late earthquake in India, shows that the visitation was much auspices of the British and Foreign more serious than at first imagined. An entire railroad has disappeared, and Bible Society, it was stated that last it is reckoned that damage has been done over a wide area which it will year some 540,000 books were printed; take two years to repair. Between 4,000 and 6,000 natives were killed in 366,000 books were put into circulation, Assam. of which 358,000 were sold and 8,000 Mr. Booth-Tucker, commander of the Salvation Army, wants to raise given away. The books w.ere nearly $500,000 with which to establish what he calls a "Poor Man's Paradise," on always sold at a price to pay for the lands to be bought in Arizona or else· where on the line of the Santa Fe Rail- paper, and it is an indication of the road. His plan is to divide these lands into ten-acre lots, build houses upon remarkable progress of Christianity them, and remove to them faJpilies of the very poor from New York. that last year no fewer than 11,000 The indifference with which the were New Testaments in excellent Christian Church regarded foreign missions in the first quarter of this century binding. Some 210 colporteurs were was most astonishing. According to Mr. F. W. Hewes, during the decade at work, ~ving either part or the whole ending 1820, the contributions to foreign of their time, and they were very effecmissions were four-tenths of a cent tive means for the evangelization of the for every inhabitant of this country. people. Since then, excepting in times of financial disaster and during the Civil War, "And now the Rev. W. H. Noyes, there has been a steady increase, until who was sent to Japan a few years ago in the ten years ending with 1890, the by the American Board of Missions, at contributions amounted to twenty-two the demand of the 'liberal' party, has and two-tenths cents per head of total left the mission and returned to Amerpopulation. 1ca. He has become rationalized out of his old-time convictions. It is .. pity In 1870 William Rankin, Esq., now he could not have seen the end from the venerable ex-Treasurer of the Board the beginning." The sending out of of Foreign Missions, in referring to the this man who openly declared his befirst contribution under the new move- lief in a post-humorous "probation," ment of the Presbyterian women in our was in our judgment the most serious beloved Church wrote: "There rolled mistake our friends of the A. B. C. F. M. into the treasury a little cake of barley ever made, and the like of which we bread labeled 'Woman's Work for pray may never be repeated. Women' $7,000." What marvellous progress in these seven and twenty As one of the saddest events of 1897 years! The little barley cake has in- will be remembered, the death by creast more than forty fold, the figure drowning, in the wreck of the Aden, last year aggregated not far from June 9th, of Florence Mary Lloyd, $303,000. dearly beloved daughter of T. H. and E. Lloyd, of Leicester, England. She had been four and a half years a mis- sionary of tIle C. E. Z. M. S. in the Fuh-Kien province, China. She perisht off the Island of Boeotra, at the age of thirty years. We quote from a Leicester paper, Y. M. O. A. Echoes: She had ever been a devoted Chris- tian, and in 1892 testified the strength of her devotion, courage, and determi- nation by proceeding to far away China in the interests of her beloved Master. Letters have been received from her from time to time, bearing evidence of the assiduous way in which she was going about her Father's busi- ness, and was expected home for a rest. No human mind can account for the sudden removal from this earth of one who was so much beloved, and who had laborcd so carnestly in good works.
Before she' departed for the mission field, Miss F. M. Lloyd had done else, and sold for $40,000. This he much good work in Leicester. When spent in stock speculation, and finally she reacht adult age she became ex- died in an insane asylum." With all it ceedingly active in Christian service. was a fascination to get something to Her father being president of the spend, and in the getting and the spend- Y.:M. C. A., a good deal of her energy ing they bartered body, intellect, charwas naturally devoted to work in con- acter, and soul; and before what might nection with that institution. When have been their allotted time, they went she departed for China, the members of into eternity, bankrupt. the Y. M. C. A. felt they were losing a devoted friend, and presented her We have received, through Miss with Eadie's Biblical Encllalopredia, etc. Clara B. Hatch, $61 for the widows of • India under the care of Pandita Rama- Before proceeding to China, she spent bai, from the Boydton Institute Mistwelve months at a training institution sionary Society, of Boydton, Va. We at Stoke Newington, anu then joined rejoice to have our readers lend a hand the Fuh-Kien Mission of the Church of in this important and worthy work for England Zenana Missionary Society. the Master. She was stationed at Seingin, in the Hing Hwa district.
The following from The Paaijie may The following letter is from one of act as a deterrent to some infected with the Editor's most cherisht friends, the beloved young man who presided over the Klondike gold craze: In his' 'Story the Liverpool Conference of student of the Mine," Mr. C. H. Shinn says the volunteers in 1896. The letter is a site of what in later years has been private one, yet we venture to print it known as the "Big Bonanza" was for the sake of the thousands of young once in the undisputed possession of men who feel the keenest interest in all four men. Two were the original dis- that concerns Donald Fraser. coverers of tJ'J.e mine, and the other two were admitted as partners because EKWENDENI, Angoniland, ther had a prior claim to a spring West Nyasa, Brit. Cent. Africa, WhIch furnisht the only available water to wash the gold. At first the pans of 17th May, '97. surface dirt yielded on an average from Dear DR. PIERSON :-The hill air $40 to $50 apiece. Underneath was of Aogoniland is very bracing. I have the great quartz lode which during one had wonderful freedom from fever. later period of five years, yielded $105,- Indeed, tho I am now six months in 000,000. :Mr. Shinn says of one of the Central Africa, I have not had one four, what has been true of thousands hour's sickness. This is an answer to of others grasping for money: "Com- the many prayers that follow me. stock was wildly avaricious when For months past I have been silent, mining, and as wildly extravagant with unable to speak or understand. God his gold when obtained. He bought has been compelling rest that He may whatever took his fancy, and gave it do His work in me, before He begins away the next minute. His only pleas- to do it thlrough me. But now I have ure seemed to be in the spending of begun in a limited fashion. Yet surely money, and the most of his comrades never has missionary had a more were very much like him in this partic- thrilling introduction to active work. ular." Penrod, who held the title to We have seen the clouds break in this the spring, "sold his claim in the mine land during the past four months, and for $8,500 toward the close of the year, the Lord is pouring out a great rain. and soon spent all his money." Com- First there was the six-weeks'visit to stock, the bombastic boss of the camp, the out-stations when I could do little "two months after the ledge was but administer the sign, and 239 w,ere struck, sold all his interest for ,11,000. baptized. A fortnight afterwards I He loat every dollar he had, wandered started out again to talk in simple fashoff on lonely prospecting tours in Ne- ion with those who desired to make vada and the Rockies, and finally com- profession of faith, and in little more mitted suicide in :Montana." " :Mc- than two weeks I had spoken person- Laughlin (one of the original discover- ally with nearly 500 who came to see ers) sold for $3,500, and a few years me. later was cooking for a gang of men These things compel one to pray, and for forty dollars a month. He died a pauper, and was buried at public to hope. The vision of the coming expense." O'Riley, the other discov- Lord, and the sound of His footsteps erer, "hung on longer than anyone seem 91earer in this time of dawning.
Yours very warmly, DONALD FRASER.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D., OBERLIN, omo.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign our educated people are full of such Periodicals. contradictions.-EvangelueheJj M~na Magazine (quoted in the Chronillle). BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, -" Both the classes I have spoken MASS. about are fond of talking about the Fatherhood of God and the brother- INDIA. hood of men, and assure us that they believe in it as firmly as we Christians -Thousa.nds a.nd thousa.nds in India do. But the sa.me people go almost out now regard Christ as the greatest and of their minds when a conversion to most perfect man that ever lived, but Christianity takes place. Lately, when they continue heathen. They adapt a certain Brahman was converted, they the Gospel to their natural way of excited the mob, and lay in wait for thinking, and in life and character they weeks to murder both him and the remain unchanged. They will not missionary. The intolerance of the make any sacrifice for this ideal Christ, Liberals in India is often not a hair they will give up no heathen custom, better than the dark fanaticism of the however bad, still less will they sacri- orthodox Hindu. All parties are fice money or life. It is remarkable united in this, we will not have this how these people, who often appear so Jesus of Nazareth to reign over us, and hopeful, can not break loose from he who chooses Jesus for his Savior heathendom. They often lead a strange- and Lord does .not deserve to exist. A ly double life. There is a complete Hindu may be an atheist, a. drunkard, cleavage between the education which or a rascal; his friends may be sorry they have received at school and the for it, but it does not separate him from home life, where old tradition reigns. them; but if he becomes a Christian, a There are many who suffer under this gulf opens between them which never double life, others who hardly feel it, can be bridged over. As long as we and never attempt to fit their two points accomplish nothing, they speak of us of view into each other. The same as that noble army of missionaries, man will in the forenoon, in the midst whose courage, self-renunciation, and , of some enlightened companions, de- irresistible power is unique in the ,clare that superstition is the curse of world's history; but if one of them be- India, and that an end must be made of comes converted, then we are 'miserable it; and in the afternoon he will creep proselytizers, narrow-minded Philis- seventy times round a temple, dripping tines.' And to what low abuse the with perspiration, and muttering the polite Hindu can then descend. When names of the gods, in order to get rid a Brahman woman was baptized last of a cold in the chest. Or a man who year in Talacheri, her highly educated is in the middle of a university exami- brother came from Madras and rated nation, and does not know what to sa.y the missionary's wife as one of the on a certain subject, writes several seducers of his sister. When he was pages full of the name of Rama, and answered that no one had seduced his hopes that that will preserve him from sister, but that she had sought and being pluckt 1 A man in a similar po- found peace for her soul in Christ, he sition once wrote to me that he appealed cried in rage: 'Her soul indeed 1 I never to my good heart as a missionary, and observed that she had a soull she is if I would give him the highest num- only a beast!' "-ibid. ber of marks, he would daily worship me as his family god. The lives of
EXTRACTS AND TlUNSLATIONS
-" A remarkable man, named David, We see plainly a long survival of has arisen in Southern India, where so Gnosticism in the statement given to many unusual phenomena spring up. Mr. Schlesch by a Mohammedan, that He goes about preaching the Gospel, before the foundation of the world God and thousands flock around him. India created Mohammed and set him at his has never seen such crowds surrounding side in the form of a brilliant light. a preacher of the Gospel, and especially Mohammed then had manifested hima colored preacher; we hear of 8,000 or self many times on earth, before he was even 10.000 people being present. And finally born as a man. It was by the he has found out that what is essential concurrence of Mohammed in this is that a new spirit should. first of all. luminous form that the earlier prophets come over our native churches, in order spoke, and the Holy Ghost, mentioned that thousands of witnesses should arise in the Acts, is also one of his earlier for their Savior, instead of one. He manifestations. This representation, has recently gone through most of the of course, has not the least foundation great towns of India, and everywhere in the Koran, nor, apparently, in the his message has been with power. •Is authentic Bunna, or Tradition. Yet as there nothing unsound in the move- Mohammed, from sheer ignorance, has ment?' I hear many anxiously ask. fused Judaism and Christianity more We do not trouble ourselves greatly or less with Gnosticism, so the later thereat. We know by experience at Islam has from its doctrinal exigencies, home that, when God sends a blessing, volatilized Mohammed himself into a people spin out discussion about how sort of Gnostic dean. This tendency much per cent. of It is sound and how seems to prevail especially in the Permuch unsound, till all has gone happily man Bhilsm, which is deeply imbued to sleep again, and the question of with the pantheizing tendencies of the soundness often first of all." Aryan race.
-Our native brother Visuvasam, at a HERlIANNSBURG MISSION. late meeting of our mission, exprest his belief that as Paul had declared The present writer recalls, with some that blindness had in part happened to pride, that in 1853, when in Union Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles Seminary, New York, he met with an should come in, so it might be said that account of the launching of the missionblindness had in part happened to the ary ship Candace, by Ludwig Harms, caste people. until the fulness of the and translated it for his fellow-students, Pariahs should have been gathered in. who were not less profoundly inter- To this I was impelled to remark, that ested in it than he. Thirty-four years on the other hand it must be assumed have past, and that modest beginning that the Sudras were the wheel on has broadened out into results beyond which the Hindu community could be all that he and his fellow-students exmoved, and that therefore it behooved pected. In the January number of the us to set our shoulder to the wheel. Allgemeine Mi88WIUJ Zeitschrf/t is a full Missionary Schlesch, in Damk NiB- account of the present state of this siam Blad. mission, by Director Haccius, from which we extract a few facts. These two views, tho antithetical, do not seem to be necessarily opposed. Five years ago the native Christians of the missions numbered 14,799. At It is well known that Mohammed the end of 1896 they numbered 32,015. was very ignorant of both Judaism This increase of 17,216 in five years and Christianity, and that the little implies an average yearly growth of that he did know was largely derived 3,443. This remarkable growth, as from Apocryphal, or even from Herr Haccius, with good warrant, says, Gnostic and Manichean distortions. has been abundantly shown to be no
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
hothouse forcing. It has been sober, have heard that one of the most emi- regular and well advised, above all, nent Congregational ministers and . as respects the instructions required teachers of the United States-we for admission to baptism. Indeed, the ought rather to say the most eminent- Hermannsburg brothers have been once spent a Sunday at Hermannsburg charged with excessive cautiousness in during the lifetime of Louis Harms. this respect. If they have erred at all, At the morning service he was not a it has been on the safe side. They little dismayed at the energy with have a true German and Lutheran dis- which Harms attackt both the doctrinal like of shallowness in religious knowl- and the political opinions to which the edge. The abundant blessing which visitor was devoted, namely Calvinism they have received seems to imply that and Democracy. After ilie second ser- their carefulness has not diepleased the vice, however, he had a private inter- Lord of the harvest. The three mis· view with Pastor Harms, and came sions now occupied are the Zulu. the away from it feeling, as he said, that Bechuana in Africa, and the Telugu he had been conversing with an angel in South India. . of God. No wonder that such a bless- ing follows the work begun by such a The Zulu Mission has 3,170 members, man I 2,357 being communicants. The breth- ren are greatly helped, instead of being, MISCELLANEOUS. as so often in similar relations, thwarted and baffied by the neighboring Euro- -The words, directed from the island pean colonists. These are godly Ger- of Malas to the still inaccessible China: man peasants from our Saxon kinsmen "0 Rock I Rock I when wilt thou of the northern plain of Germany. open ?" commonly ascribed to St. This, it will be remembered, is the Francis Xavier, are not his, tho they original Saxony,. not the middle Ger- fully express his spirit and yearnings. man kingdom, which has, in some way They are actually, it appears, the words (we believe through an early acceptance of his successor, Alexander Valignani, of Saxon dukes), attracted the name visitor General of the Jesuit missions to itself. Of these German colonists in China and Japan. See IJamk Mia- Director Haccius says: "We can not siom-Blad for March, 1896.
forbear acknowledging. with thankful- -The Oalwer MiaBiomblatt relates an . ness, that most of these communities, amusing story. given by a missionary.
by their Christian life, by their living He was at home, and with a friend interest in the services and their love stopped to dinner with a wealthy, for their church, and by the strict childless farmer-pair, who had been morality of their conduct, give a good present at the previous missionary example to the young native congrega- meeting, and seemed much interested tions and to the heathen. How refresh- in it. The missionary's friend informed ing a picture in contrast with the matter him that this couple had formerly been of offense and the scandalous example active and liberal Christians, but had which in other regions is given by of late years seemed wholly taken up colonists; nay, by colonial officials, in money-making. However, they re- who have thereby injured the Chris- ceived the two gentlemen with great tian name and raised the greatest hin- cordiality, took their admonition as to drances to Christian Missions I " the danger of woxldliness in excellent The Bechuana Mission has now 26,- part, and inquired eagerly after addi- 979 members, having more than tional missionary news. At last, when doubled in five years. The number of the farmer chanced to be out of the communicants is 17,100. room, his wife slipped a gold piece into Of the Telugu members there are their hands, whispering: "Take this, 1,866, 1,515 being communicants. We but don't let my husband know, he is so
ENGLISH NOTES
close." When they took leave, the full, altho they are frequently enabled husband went with them a way, and to minister to the spiritual needs while on parting, put a gold piece in their healing the bodies of their many pahands, saying: II Don't let my wife tients. know of this, she is so close." Let us hope that when they found each other There have been one hundred and out they resolved to keep on crucifying fourteen baptisms in connection with the Mammon. C. I. M. since last Christmas, and many probationers are waiting to obey the -It seems, from the MisMim8blatt, that command and follow the example of the first money which Bishop Whipple, the Lord Jesus. after his consecration, received for his Indian missions, in Minnesota and Bapti8t MiBsioMlrll 8ocietll.-Many Dakota, came from negro converts in of the B. M. S. stations in India, north Africa. It is given as "300 marks," of Madras, have been severely affected by the recent earthquake. Telegrams i.' e., about '72. pour in from these stations, and infor- mation by letters is anxiously awaited. English Note& The plight of thousands of the poorer Europeans and Eurasians is pitiable, BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M.A. and many are perishing through ex- posure to the monsoon which is just The China Inland MiBBion has com- beginning. pleted thirty-one years of service among China's millions, and now at the com- The district south of Agra suffers mencement of a new year of loving still most acutely because of the conactivity desires to thank God for His tinued famine. It is estimated that in manifold blessings, and to trust Him Agra alone 2,000 people are daily being for direction in the future. Loving relieved by the Baptist missionaries. kindness has been manifest all along It is important that the suffering peothe line, andfaith is the watchword for ple be helped to help themselves, and the future. A generation has past away to this end different work has been since the "Lammermuir" sailed with organized and divided among the the first missionary band to China, and people. during this time the promises of God have been proved again und again, no A most destructive fire at Russell room left for doubt or disbelief. Kondah has completely destroyed the mission bungalow at that station. In Mr. T. James, writes from Lu-Chau: ten minutes the fire had spread from .. We have many indications that the end to end, and in less than an hour Lord is about to give us a great bless- the whole building and its belongings ing. Just lately five new probationers were reduced to a condition of ashes; were received, and they all seem sincere not a trace of them remained. Some and earnest in their affection for the very valuable manuscripts of Mr. Wil- Lord Jesus. Of the fourteen baptized kinson's, in the Kondh language, were here since we opened in 1890, eight are destroyed. A very heavy loss, as there still with us, four are with the Lord are no other copies existing. and two left by transfer to Ch'ung- K'ing. Weare still a feeble people, -The Anuual meeting of the Women', mostly old and illiterate. Our prayer Missionary .488ociation in connection is that God may raise up some from with the Presbyterian Church of Engamong the young and intelligent. land was held recently in Sunderland. Help us by prayer in all our manifold The Rev. W. L. Mackenzie presided, need." and the church was filled with a sym- pathetic audience. This association has Medical work is very-much blessed completed its eighteenth year, and full and used in China. The doctors en- of hope and faith is beginning another gaged in it find their hands quite
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
year. The labors in China have been ter from the native Governor-General and are being abundantly blest, and was read, ordering the chapel to be the Lord of the living harvest is show- .. opened for worship according to the ing the field laborers how to work for faith of the Independent Protestants in His own glory. Miss Lecky, from connection with the London Mi8sionary Amoy, writes, stating the encourage- Society," the evangelist who read the ment arising from work in the schools letter said, ., I wish you all to join for girls and women. with me in saying' Long live France.' .. To this there was an immediate and In 1889 there was only one school in hearty response, and the people simulthis district-now, in 1897, there are taneously gave their acclamation in three, and about three hundred pupils their own language. It was· perfectly are at the present time being taught in spontaneous and illustrates how the those schools. Malagasy appreciates that simple act of justice on the part of the French Gov- There is never any lack of pupils, the ernment. girls are eager to come into the schools, and the influence is good and becoming A largely attended valedictory meet· widespread. At Chang-poo atone are ing was held on May 25th, at Union two hundred, who have past through Chapel, Islington, to bid farewell to the schools during the last five years. twelve missionaries, six of whom were returning to their respective spheres The Jubilee Mi8sionary Meeting8 of and the remaining six going out for the the PI'68byterian Olturch of England have 1I.rst time. recently been celebrated. Fifty years ago there were only six native Christ- 2he lVorth-~rican Mission.-Mr. ians in the great empire of China-now Reid of Tripoli writes encouragingly of there are 5,000 communicants in the the son of a Sheikh, who is a -teacher small part workt in by tllis mission. amongst the Moslems, who has been coming for some time to him, and who The young people of the various so- now privately professes faith in Christ cieties of Cluistian Endeavor and Sun- and asks prayer that he may have more day-schools have taken up the work in faith. He is entirely dependent on his Formosa, and purpose by God's help to father, who is a prominent Mohammeraise the workers and annual income dan; it is therefore extremely di1ficult needed. for him to make a public stand.
The mission in Wu-ring-fu is like an Mr. J. Edwards and Mr. Mott ate oasis in the desert-all around is dark- continuing the mIssIOnary journey, ness, heathenism, infanticide, crime, preaching the Gospel between Casasuperstition of the grossest kind and blanca and Tangier. The felt need in there this little band of worshipers of this part is very great, and the scarcity the true God are leading lives which of workers is sadly evident. The medwould not do discredit to English icinal part of Mr. Edwards' work opens Christians. a way for him, which would otherwise be a closed door; and from sunrise to Tl18 London Mi88ionary 80ciety.-The sunset preaching and practicing are besituation with regard to the society's ing carried on in full swing. The chapels in 1!Iadagascar scems in some habit of drinking among the Jews of aspects to have distinctly improved. this part is very common, many being Some chapels in the Betsileo province, quite intoxicated early in the morning, that had been claimed by the Jesuit so that by evening the greater number mi.ssi.onaries, have already been restored of Jews are under the influence of to the Protestants. strong drink. To reach these people, the missionaries must work early in In the Monthly Record for July is an interesting account of the reopening of a place of worship which had been taken from the people. When the letthe morning. This has been found ben- penses of 5 persons to go as substitutes; eficial and helpful. but Mr. Champion felt that the Lord called him. When this generoua. old The dry weather which has con- man· found that he could not turn his tinued throughout the months of grandson from his purpose, he paid all spring in Morocco is causing much his expenses while in Africa, and gave suffering amongst the poor. The crops money to the work besides. are failing and there is nothing left over from last year. The news, how- -The Earl of Shaftesbury was a ever, bas just come to hand, that splen- man of high ideals. He wrote in his did rains are falling this week, and it Is diary: "0 God, bless our land to Thy hoped that most of the crops will be service, and make every ship an ark of saved." Noah to bear the Church of Christ and the tidings of salvation over all the THE KINGDOM. waters of the ocean." "Every ship" on "all the waters;" not each carry- -Miss Helen Culver, when she form- ing a converted sailor or two, but each ally handed over to the University of a church of Christ. The Church is mis- Chicago her gift of four biological lab- sions, as a cause contains the reason of oratories, costing $325,000, and an en- its effect. A true Christian has the dowment fund of $700,000, said: missionary spirit by necessary conse- " This is the happiest moment of my quence, and true Christianity abhors life. I believe this money could not the sentiment that sailors are "too bad have been utilized to a nobler purpose to be noticed." Its true motto Is, than to devote it to that science whose "Every sailor for Christ and every object Is to assuage the sufferings of ship a church."-Sailor's Magazine. humanity and to make life endurable and enjoyable here on earth." -In the Dublin Re'Diew, Mr. E. H. Parker, who has served as a consul in -A story is told that when George China, Korea, Burma, etc., approves Selwyn accepted the Bishopric of New the method of medical missions as Zealand, a great ecclesiastical potentate mitigating the contempt exprest for exprest his surprise that one living Europeans. Were he askt, " What under the shadow of Windsor, and shall we missionaries do to save the with every prospect of the highest Eng· souls of the Chinese ?" his reply would lish promotion, was willing to go out be, "Fill your pockets with quinine, to a distant colony. "Perhaps," was stomach-pumps, and eye-ointments." the reply, -Julian Hawthorne, sent to India as "' He hears a voice you can not hear, special correspondent of the Oosmopoli- Which will not let him stay; tan Magazine, says this of the mission- aries there: "They are the only per- He sees a Hand you can not see, sons who know what Is actually going Which beckons him away.''' on in that land of misery, for they go about quietly everywhere, see every- "AllI" said he to whom the words thing, can not be deceived or put off were spoken, I II suppose that is it." the scent by the native subordinates. How infinitely blest above the puerile It was my great good fortune to be elevations of earthly preferment are thrown with the missionaries from the they who are accounted worthy to hear start, and I was able to compare their this Voice, and to see those beckoning methods and knowledge with those of Hands I the government people. "
-One of the pioneer missionaries of -One of the fruits of Li Hung the American Board to the Zulus, was Chang's visit to this country Is an order the Rev. George Champion. His decision to go to Africa came like a thunderbolt upon his grandfather, who offered him all his wealth if he would give it up, or he would pay the exfor 10,000 tons of steel rails for China's converts are added to the mission railroads. This 1irst shipment has been churches e'DM"1lllllllr, and more than 60,- made from the Carnegie Steel Com- 000 missionaries, native and foreign, pany's mill at Braddock, Pa. Japan are engaged in heralding the Glad Tid- has sent an order to the same company ings.
for 5,000 tons of •• T " rails, for light -Two-thirds of all the letters which railroading and horse cars. pass through the postoffices of the -What will Mr. Lummis say for world are written by and sent to peohimself, when he reads this arraign- ple who speak English.
ment in Life and Light from the pen of WOMAN'S WORK. Mrs. Gertrude C. Eaton, missionary in the city named: "We who have lived -A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, The more they're beaten, the better here for 1ifteen years, who have seen they be.-IndianPr01lerb. such great changes in so short a time, marvel that a man of Mr. Lummis's -Folded within the fragrant bud of keen observation of material things the Crusade movement of 1873-4 was could have deliberately shut his eyes a many-petaled rose, whose gradual to the share that Christian in1iuences effiorescence has revealed a flower of have had in this • Awakening of a wondrous complexity and detail, of Nation.' That he could have become such beauty and perfection as to make so familiar with the streets of Chihua- it the marvel of the closing century's hua, aud yet have ignored completely reform organizations. To persuade the stately church that crowns the men not to drink and not to sell was brow of the hill on the principal street the one method and purpose of the leading,to the Alameda, which he must Crusade Praying Bands; but they sOon have past many times on Sunday learnt that the vice of intemperance Is afternoons, and where he might have correlated with all other vices !.nd seen, any Sunday morning, a company miseries, and that it is deeply rooted in of 125 Mexicans, of all ages, engaged all social, political, and even religious in studying the word of God. We thought and life. The inevitable wonder that in his minute study of the sequence was the II do-everything pol- excellent public schools of our cit.y, he icy" of the Woman's Christian Tem- should not have inquired even for the perance Union, which aims to reach only 2 Christian schools in the place; and cut off every source of supply of that he should not have informed him- the alcoholic habit, and to extend a self and his readers that the 1irst school helping, healing hand to its helpless in the city to introduce modern desks, victims. Of about 50 departments of maps, text-books, and English, now in work which compose the petals of this demand in all the schools, was the mIs- rose of reform, and which are repre- sion school, known as the Oolegio Ohi- sented in the policy of the parent so- huakueme, and that at least four or 1ive ciety, the National W. C. T. 'U. of the schools in the State, where no schools United States, the World's W. C. T.
for girls existed, have been started, and U. has adopted 31. These are grouped carried on by girls educated in the in the general classes: Organization, same school." Evangelistic, Prevention, Educational, -In 1825, or about seventy years Social and Legal.
ago, there were iii connection with for- -An interesting letter about Pundita eign mission churches about 60,000 Ramabai's famine people, publisht in persons, ineluding all then known to The Outlook, mentions that older in- be converts from heathenism. In the mates of her Home in Poona volun- closing years of the century we are teered to mother the little new-comers.
able to count that more than 65,000 "One scrawny mite was adopted by a lassie of fourteen who had herself in -At the recent Christian Alliance infancy been cast out to die. When th& Convention at Old Orchard Beach cash other girls twitted her on the' monkey gifts for missions were received, face' of her portege~, she calmly re- amounting to $71,000, and about 50 plied: 'To adopt a nice and pretty young men and women volunteered for child is good, but to take an ugly one foreign mission service. is love.'" EUROPE. -The Canadian Church Missionary Society have sent Miss Louy Thomas Great Britain.-The Encyclical of to assist Mr. Sadleir in work among the the late Lambeth Conference points out Araucanlan Indians in South America. that-" The Book of Common Prayer Miss Thomas, who has been trained in contains very few prayers for missionary the Deaconess' Home, sailed for Eng- work. It hardly sceIDS to have been land in July and went from there to present to the minds of our great au- Chile. She will be the first South thorities and leaders in compiling that American Missionary supported entirely book that the matter should be in the by the Canadian Episcopal Church. thoughts of every one who calls him- self a Christiau, and that no ordinary UNITED STATES. service should be considered complete, which did not plead among other -The Baptist Missionary Union has things for the spread of the Gospel. 97 stations in heathen lands, and 1,026 Weare beginning, tho only beginning, out·stations; 165 missionaries, all but" to see what the Lord would have us with wives, 102 single women, 24 do. He is opening the whole world to physicians; 283 ordained native preach- our easy access, and as he opens the ers and 822 unordained, with 590 other way, he is opening our eyes to see it, native helpers; 99,564 chqrch mem- and to see his beckoning hand." bers, of whom 5,174 were baptized last year; 1,235 schools with 28,997 pupils. -Great Britain has raised by popu- lar SUbscription $10,000,000 for the re- -The African Methodist Episcopal lief of the starving in India. Such a Church has work in Haiti, Sierra fact is food for Christian optimism. Leone and Liberia, and is represented by 25 ~inisters, 30 teachers, and about -Within a stone's throw of White- 500 church members. chapel, surrounded by some of the very worst slums, stands the largest -The General Missionary Board of school in the world. It is presided the Episcopal Church supports a bishop over by a peer of the realm, tord in China, Japan, Africa, and Haiti, Rothschild, who is regarded with love whose combined staffs number 87 and admiration by every pupil. This clergymen, 8 physicians, besides lay- school educates 3,500 children, belong. readers, catechists, teachers, and Bible- ing mostly to the poorest foreign Jews, readers, to the number of 409. There and has a staff of a hundred teachers. are 973 scholars in boarding-schools It is' well-known that this is Lord and 8,625 in day.schools. The num- Rothschild's pet institution, and that ber of patients treated last year in were it not for his munificent support, the hospitals and dispensaries was the school would be unable to meet its 28,579; 4,600 were under daily in- vast expenditure. Free breakfasts are struction in schools, nearly 1,000 of given every morning to all children whom are in boarding-schools; and who wish to take them, no questions there were held during the year a total being askt. Again, he presents every of 23,174 services of public worship boy with a suit of clothes and a pair of and preaching of the Word of God. boots, and every girl with a dress, and The baptisms numbered 782, and the a pair of boots in the month of April, confirmations 851. near the Jewish Pa!lsover. A second his harness. A well;deserved tribute pair of boots is offered in the month of is paid to his high-toned character, his October to every child wbose boots are great business aptitude, and his largenot likely to last during the approach- hearted catholicity. ing winter. A very popular feature in the school is the savings-bank depart- -The Contineni:.-For Jll&ny years ment, instituted by the kindly presi- Pastor Fritz Fliedner, son of the famdent. In order to encourage habits of ous Kaiserswerth reviver of the order thrift, an interest of ten per cent. per of deaconesses, has been the leading annum is allowed on all savings. missionary of .Protestantism in Spain. Among his successful operations has -The Church Missionary Society been the establishment of a Protestant has medical missions in Egypt and College in Madrid, costing $50,000, East Equatorial Africa, Palestine and which is now under roof and rapidly Persia, Bengal and the Punjab, South approaching completion. This success and Mid-China and British Columbia, hIlS aroused the opposition of the with a total of 1,005 beds, 7,741 in- clericals, and the bishops of Vitoria, patients last year, and 500,874 visits of Santander, Leon and Valencia, together out-patients. with the archbishop of Burgos; have united in a strong appeal to the Govern- -The Twenty-second Annual Re- ment, demanding that this insult to the port of the Mission to Lepers iu Iudia religion of the State.be stopt, and that and the East mentions that more than the noble sacrifices of the people for 200 of the inmates of the di1fllrent leper the preservation of the integrity of the asylums have profest their faith in State be rewarded by such protection Jesus Christ and have been baptized. to their religious rights. At latest There are now over 1000 professing reports the Government has ignored Christians in the various asylums. this appeal.-lndepend6nt. There are about 900 adults and children in the: homes, and about 1,700 in -The" German Students' Union for institutions which the mission aids. Foreign Missions" conventld at Halle, The field of its operations embraces some days in April. Rev. Dr. War- India, Burmah, Ceylon, China, and neck, the newly-elected professor of Japan. The work is steadily increas- the science of missions in the university ing, and a steady income of £6,000 is of Halle, delivered an inapiring address needed to carry it on. on the question, .. Why ought foreign missions to be specially attractive to :'-The Annual Report of the National students? " Missionaries from India, Bible Society of Scotland has been Africa and Greenland were also present issued-a record of excellent service and gave the students interesting talks rendered to the cause of Bible circula- on foreign mission subjects. tion. It tells of 705,610 Bibles, Testaments, or portions, distlibuted by more -The Rhenish (Barmen) Mission than 500 colporteurs and agents in takes rank with the greatest of German 80 different countries of the globe. The organizations, having an income of income – for 1896 was £81,070, an nearly 500,000 marks ($125,000), 80 staadvance of more than £2,000 upon last tions and 168 out stations in South year. The most notable incident of the Africa, the East Indies (Sumatra, report is the retirement of the Rev. W. Borneo, New Guinea), and China; 109 H. Goold, from the secretaryship, missionaries (not including wives), and which he had occupied with distin- 18 UDJll&rried women, 18 ordained naguished ability and acceptance for 86 tives; 10,982 pupils in the schools, years. It is sad now to have to notice 27,464 communicants and 64,817 native his death, so soon after he had put off Christians (adherents). Last year 781 were confirmed. -Even from Russia good news re- can society has accorded during the lating to the Kingdom comes oc.casion- last sixteen years. This help has enally. Thus a friend of the society abled the Russian Bible Society to exnamed, writes from St. Petersburg: tend considerably its sphere of action. " For many years past the British and The propagation of the Scriptures: in Foreign Bible Society, by generous Asiatic Russia was the ardent deBire of activity and earnest prayer, has done a the Russian Bible Society, but the large work in the circulation of the want of means prevented its accom- Scriptures in Russia. The Gospels plishment. Now this has been atand Psalms would not be found in the tained. The colporteurs of the Rushands of the people everywhere as they sian Bible Society have borne the hardare to-day, if it were not for the untir- ships and perils of long journeys ing zeal of this Society. There is a through desert and forest, traveling Russian Bible Society which also through Siberia on horseback or in maintains a very successful work in river boats, across its steppes and along the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, its mighty rivers, visiting not only the but by far the larger share of the labor towns, but also the settlements, gold has from various causes fallen on the diggings, and convict prisons. In this British Society, which every year cir- manner 171,000 copies of the Scriptures culates many thousands of copies of the were distributed in Asiatic RusRia on Gospels throughout the Empire. Con the subsidy of the American Bible Sosidering this, the friends of the Society ciety in the course of sixteen years. will be encouraged by the following The Russian society has sold at a very statement made by an independent in- low price or gratuitously distributed quirer on the subject of religion in Bibles (to the amount of about $1,000 Russia, and lately publisht by him. annually) on the account of the subsidy 'The New Testament is probably in of the American Bible Society. In greater demand there than in any other this manner over 500,000 copies of the part of Europe, except the Protestant Scriptures were sold at reduced prices countries. The Gospels are undoubted- and given away in the period above ly the book dearest to the Russian. It mentioned, in both Asiatic and Eurois to be found in the workingman's pean Russia. room as well as in the peasant's cabin. Those who can read, read it to those ASIA. who can not read for themselves. Every new step gained by popular instruction Islam.-Rev. S. M. Zwemer, misbrings new readers. All that the peo- sionary in Arabia, supplies these cheerple have in the way of religious and ing facts in relation to work among moral training they get there. The Mohammedans :-Dr. Wherry says in influence of the book on the Russian his book on Islam: "In India many soul is not to be denied; in spite of hundreds of the followers of Islam ignorance and superstition the faith of have publicly abjured that faith and the people deserves the name of •evan- been received into the church." Dr. gelical,' if to be that it is enough to be Martyn Clark, of Amsitsar, writes: nourished upon the very marrow of "I should say quite one-half of the the Gospels.' " converts from among the higher classes in the Punjab are from amongst Mos- -The American Bible Society, which lems. Half of the Church Missionary has aided the St. Petersburg Society Society's native clergy are ex-Moslems. for the Propagation of the Holy Scrip- Exact numbers I cannot give you, but tures in Russia, has received a special I believe our next census will be startreport, expressing its high appreciation ling. Never was there such a spirit of of the generous help which the Ameri- inquiry, shakin~ of the dry bones and raging of Satan as nowadays." Rev. St. Clair Tisdall, of Persia, writes: .. Con- flowing by a crowd of English-speakversions from among Moslems are not ing Mohammedans. In North Africa, few. In the Punjab they may be num- a remarkable movement is in progress bered by hundreds, taken from almost amo~g Mohammedans and very many every position in life. In Turkey, a con- have accepted Christ, but I am pled~ gregation was gathered by Dr. Koene, to secresy concerning the particulars. but man after man vanisht-murdered for his faith, no doubt-and was never -The orphanages which have been heard of more. I have myself been established in Turkey seem to be fairly privileged to baptize Moslems of sev- provided for, at least for the present. eral different races; one an Afghan, Many friends from the continent of several Persians, one Turk and not a Europe have contributed liberally for few natives of India." In the C. M. S. the founding of these institutions at Intelligencer, we read of some Moslem different points. Mr. Hubbard, of converts in Persia imprisoned for con- Sivas, writes that in that city there are fessing Christ, and of a company of 5 orphanages, besides 2 at Gurun, con- Moslem women who read the Gospel by taining in all 280 orphans. of whom 230 night for fear of detection. At Bag- are supported by the Swiss committee, dad, there are converted Moslems in at the head of which is Professor Godet the Turkish army reserve, and at of NeucMtel. These Swiss friends Busrah, there is one awaiting baptism. expressly stipulated that the orphan- In Egypt, there have been scores of ages should be under the control of the baptisms, and last year a student at Al American missionaries. – Mia8ionary Azhar University and also a Bey's son Herald. confest Christ. Kamil Abd El Messia, who preacht Christ in Arabia, was a India.-We together, in England and Syrian Moslem convert. I know of others like him whose names, because America, 100,000,000 strong, with the they are stillliTing, it would be unsafe to mention." From Palestine we just same origin, the same history, the same hear that" the mother of the keeper of the Great Mosque at Jerusalem, lis- tongue, the same literature, the same tened to the Gospel attentively and rrpeatedly on hcr dying bed;" and faith, and therefore the same Christother women of the city have also believed. At Delhi, one in the royal commanded duty and 88sured hope, family, a Mohammedan Eurasian lady, was baptized last year. The Imam'of are set over the 300,000,000 of India in the village mosque at Batala and 2 learned Moslems of Bannu'werepublic- the providence of God. ' 1y baptized in the spring of 1896. Rev. Ihsan mlah, a converted Mohamme- -Several of the recent Indian papers dan, held revival services at Peshawur mention the matter of baptism as the last year and baptized 3 Mohammedans. chief test of an inquirer's sincerity. Rev. A_ E. Ball, of Kerachi, baptized The organ of one of the new sects, 2 Mohammedans, brothers, from the which aim at whitewashing the abomi- Khairpur state the same year. At nations of Hinduism, says: "The Bombay, 3 Mohammedan inquirers preachers of the Roman Catholic creed were awaiting baptism last autumn. have now adopted a more liberal line Rev. M. S. Goldsmith baptized 3 Mos- of policy in their conversion work. lems at Hydrabad in 1896, and the 'We have nothing to do with your special services held in that district last caste,' 88y they to the non Christians ; 'we only want to take care of your year were said to be attended to over- soul.' We commend this mode of con- version; and we hope the other Chris- tian sects in the country will follow in the footsteps of the Roman Catholics, and give up the baptidng affair. That sprin~ling of water does more injury to a Hindu than anything else. As long as 110 Hindu does not get himself sprinkled over with •holy water" so answer. Instead, he threw down his long, whatever his beliefs, there is basket and shovel, and away he went every hope of his effecting his escape for the jungle as hard as he could go. from the clutches of the Christians; He was afraid of the white face. Then but when he has once been baptized, they are exceedingly superstitious. I and has eaten with them, his reclama- thought we knew something about suption to the ancestral faith becomes a erstition in England. I have heard comparatively more difficult matter." something about thirteen at table, and spilling salt, but I never knew what sup- -Rev. C. B. Ward, for nearly twenty erstition was until I got to the jungles years a missionary, says: "One of the of Bankura. These people are full Of first things that we see when a famine l!uperstition. Their very religion itself strikes India Is the heartlessness with is nothing but superstition. They have which the heathen forsake their own no idea of a beneficent God. Their children. Some forsake them, thinking only idea of the Omnipotent Father is that If found deserted, it will be this. "Sir, what if that Almighty One thought that they are parentless, and should eat me ? .. That is what a man they will be cared for out of pity by actually said. Of spirits who may some one. Other parents give their work them harm they have any numchildren away, and still others sell ber.-Rev. G. W. OLVER. them for trifies to get something to eat with. One of the saddest sights of the -At Tanjore, in South India, where famine is the hordes of these starving the great missionary Schwartz lies children on the roads, in bazaars, in buried, the Leipzig Society has a large famine camps, and elsewhere. Since congregation worshipping in a fine the missionary came to India, thousands church, and a number of fiourishing of such have found a rescue from death educational institutions. The .. Bible and heathenism at such a time. Not Union of Young Lutherans" is much many of them ever find a hand of like a Y. M. C. A., or a Luther League charity among their own countrymen. of men only. Once every month all It is a dismal comment on the religion the teachers and evangelists of the disof some of the gentlemen who spoke so trict gather at the station to report to loudly over in Chicago a few years ago, the missionary and to be instructed in but facts are grim things. I doubt if it the Word. They are required to decan be shown that in all the famines of vote much time to mental improve- India for the last century, the Hindus, ment. All the teachers are expected . Mohammedans, or other religionists of also to improve their health by taking this land have ever succored 2,000 gymnastic exercise every evening. orphans, but up to date in the present famine that number has been received -The Indian Witnes8 in laudatory into orphanages, and are now being fed terms sets forth the advantages of and cared for by missionaries. I doubt the Wellesley Girls' High School at not before this year shall end, there Naini Tal, the Darjeeling School, the will be need that 10,000 be taken and High School at Cawnpore and Rancared for by missionaries or be left to goon, Burma. Such a resume gladdens die or grow up to worse if by chance patrons at home. they live." -The Lutheran Mission (General -It is ditlicult to get hold of a Synod) at Guntur, has recently opened Santal, because he iS6xceedinglytimid. a hospital at a cost of nearly $20,000 The first time I was travelling along for building and appointments. Of one of the jungle roads I called to a this sum Hindu and Mohammedan man who was tilling his field, and friends contributed $2,500. askt him the way, but did not get an -The whole of North India from the upper Ganges to A.ssa~ was rudely right, mister, you won't disturb me in shaken by the recent earthquake, said the least; you talk away and I'll stay to be the worst of the century. Tho outside here." For a while all was various missions suffered greatly the well tUl another stranger appeared who Welsh Mission in the Khasi Hills seems evidently had not breakfasted to his to have been most damaged. For it is satisfaction, for he at once proceeded stated that .. Every building belonging to purchase, and called aloud to !1 to the mission is in~ ruins and all the friend within the chapel to join him in churches built by the native Christians, eating fried cakes. This settled the many of which were large and built of business, for cakes and their owner stone with corrugated iron roof, are in were at once ordered off the premises. the same condition. The same is true The sermon is 8gain under way when of the station in Sylhet. The cost of an ominous scratching and the smell of erecting the buildings which have been sulphur from one of the back corners levelled was not much if anything gives warning of an intended smoke. under two lakhs of rupees. Besides all That too is nipped in the bud-the inthis scores of pukkha houses belonging tention-and again the sermon proto the native Christians have shared the ceeds. A little later another man same fate. There is hardly a stone comes in who recently lost his mother left upon a stone in the whole of the by death and so at once he proceeds to Khasi and Naintia Hills district, every prostrate himself before the preacher. building, both private and public, -Presbyterian Rec<ml. being in ruins. It would be difficult te exaggerate the extent of the damage -A campaign has been begun by done. It is marvellous that the mor· the Christians against the educated tality is so small. But as far as build- classes of China-a battle not with the Ings are concerned the mission is just sword, but with 25 letters. It Is well where it was when it began operations known what !l. difficult task it is to fifty.six years ago." learn to read and write even a small part of the 40,000 Chinese characters. Cbina.-In the Celestial Empire The various missions in China have there are medical missionaries as fol- long striven to Introduce the Roman lows: There are 100 male and 50 fe- alphabet, but these letters are awkward male physicians, 150 male native medi- to the Chinese, who are accustomed to cal students and 30 female students, 71 write with a paint brush and Indian hospitals treating many thousands of ink, and those who have learned writpatients, and the physicians attending ing in our Christian schools do not tind yet other thousands at their homes; it easy to get firm paper, pens, and ink. 'and 111 dispensaries, in which over Lately Mr. Wong, the pastor of the 223,000 patients are treated. About self-supporting Chinese church in Hong $70,000 was spent in medical work Kong, a brother of our ordained helper last year. Wong, has invented a new alphabet which, like the Chinese signs, can be -Last Sabbath's service had more written on Chinese paper with paint than the ordinary number of interrup- brush and Indian ink. Many of the most tions at Chang-te.Fu. The preacher distinguisht Chinese Christians build had scarcely announced his text when great hopes on the introduction of this before the open door appeared a fried character. They think the people will cake pedlar, evidently desirous during soon find out that they can learn it in a a lull in business of hearing what was very short time, they will no longer being said. He was promptly askt to need the old complicated signs, and go elsewhere to conduct his business the Confucian schools wbere these are where he would not disturb the meet- taught will become deserted. Tbus ing. He coolly replied," That's all the influence of the half-educated were New Testaments in excellent heathen teachers will fall away, the binding. Some 210 colporteurs were worship of Confucius will dwindle, and at work, giving either a part or the the study of his writings will be left to whole of their time, and they made the learned. School books and Christ- very effective means for the evangeliian tracts are to be immediately printed zation of the people. in the new character and circulated among the people.-Berichtt! der -The Basle Society will shortly RMiniahen MiBBiona Ge8eZlBchaft. celebrate the jubilee of its fifty years' work in China. The fouuder of its -Dr. O. L. Kilborn writes from Chinese mission, Herr Lechler, in spite Chen-tu: "Following a good Chinese of his seventy-three years of age, is custom, we have during this hot weath- still in the mission field and comparaer placed at our compound gate a tively vigorous, along with his wife. large crock. It takes two large pails The mission was preserved in the midst of tea to fill it, and it is usually filled of serious dangers during the troubles twice in the day. The passing poor resulting from the Chinese war, withman, laborer, or carrier, toiling under out the loss of any life, tho the mission his heavy load, stops to refresh himself station of Moilim was plundered by the with a drink ~f tea. And, while rebels. drinking, he often reads the Christian tracts pasted on the wall immediately AFRICA. before him." According to his diary, Brother Nye -The Quarterll(M888age (Episcopal), of the Congo Balolo Mission has a says: We have received from Mr. and varied experience. He is at Lulanga, Mrs. Felix R. Brunot, two devoted busy at brick-making, carpentry. friends of missions, the sum of $13,000, blacksmithing, housebuilding, etc., tor the purpose of building and endow- etc.• and realizes the "need of paing a Home for Lepers in connection tience." For example, a rubber with the medical work of our mission steamer stays the night at the landing, in China. The Home is to be estab- and the Belgian officer is entertained in llsht at Ngan-king, on the Yang-tse the mission house, and is apparently river, about midway between Shanghai interested in the worship and service of and Hankow. Dr. Edward M. Merrins praise, at which he is present. The 25 is already stationed at Ngan-king_ soldiers who accompany him are This generous gift is made with the allowed· to sleep in the brick-making devout wish .. that the blessing of our shed; but in the morning, after they Heavenly Father may rest upon the have gone, it is discovered that they Home that shall be erected for our suf- overturned the board upon which the fering fellow-creatures. " tiles he is drying were put preparatory to burning as an experiment, and all are -The British and Foreign Bible smashed save two I He says they had Society distributes throughout the been having a Bible reading that morn- Chinese-Empire the Bible in classical ing about the possibilities of a life un· Mandarin, 10 colloquial, Kalmuck, distracted by outward circumstances, Mongolian and Tibetan languages. and here was a test I Oh, theSe broken Last year some 540,000 books were tiles I "I did feel annoyed about it printed; 366,000 books were put into after all the trouble I had taken. It is circulation, of which 358,000 were sold, hard at these times to smile and feel and 8,000 given away. The books are happy_" Certainly; and much harder nearly always sold at a price to pay for on the Kongo, amid the nerve·strain of the paper, and it was an indication of fever and climate, than it would be at the remarkable progress of Christianity home. An attempt to vary our diet by that last year no fewer than 11,000 fish is equally unsuccessful. "I only caught one," writes Mr. Nye: "the forward as fit and proper persons to be fish were too artful for me and received as full members of the church, would keep sneaking the bait, and I who cannot read a verse of the New could not feel the bite, so I gave it up Testament, and are often otherwise as a bad'job." utterly unworthy. Whilst money is pretty easily earned, and comparatively -An English Weslayan missionary plentiful, and often squandered on the writes: We have in Johannesburg a merest trifles, the support of the relignative church that will seat 1,000 ion which they are so eager ,to profess people, and on a Sunday, as we enterthe is a thing which they are very slow building, it will be full. There will to take in as a Christian duty. Anothonly be about 30 women there, the rest er most unsatisfactory thing among will be young men,and half of them will professing Christians is the utter indifbe men who have come there to learn- ference which exists with regard to the heathen men, unbaptized men. The education of their children.-O. M. S. service has to be conducted in three languages-Dutch, Susutu, and Zulu. Ohronicle. We begin with a hymn in the Zulu language, follow with a prayer in Su· -English Friends are opening an sutu. and then the Lord's Prayer in Zulu industrial mission on the island of and Susutu. First, the congregation Pemba, off the east coast of Africa. join in Susutu. Then we have a hymn This mission is under the care of their in the Susutu language, and after that Meeting for Sufferings, and Theodore the lessons are read-1irst of all in Burtt and Herbert Armitage have the Dutch, then in Susutu, and then in the management of it. This mission is for Zulu. Then we have another hymn in the benefit of the 140,000 slaves living the Zulu language. Let us take a there who have recently been set free. service when a Zulu man is preaching. Twenty thousand dollars is the esti- We have him in the centre. He mate for the Initial expenditures of the speaks, and on the right of him is a work, of which $15,000 have, been conman who speaks Susutu, and on the tributed. This is a new field, but one left of hiIp. a man who speaks Dutch. of much promise. As he speaks in the Zulu, sentence by sentence, it is taken over-1irst of all -Rev. H. Bleicken, of the Leipsic by the man speaking S~sutu, and then Society, on his long journey from the by the man speaking Dutch, and thus coast of East Africa to the region of through three tongues the Word is snow-capt Kilima Njaro, and while delivered to the people. sleeping in his tent on the banks of the Pangani river, was suddenly awak- -Self-denial in any shape or form is ened by the furious barking of his dog. a very rare quality among the Bechu- Rising quickly, he saw a huge body anas. The grati1ication of the appe- turn away from the tent and plunge tites and passions of their animal into the river. A crocodile had innature is, alas, all too prominent every- tended to make his acquaintance. The where. Great as is the value they set evening before, while resting in the upon a profession of religion, and upon door of his tent, he was watcht by a being full members of the church, the leopard hiding in the grass near by. low estimate which they have of the The beast was suddenly ronsed and importance of such a profession, and of slunk away. the qualification demanded by it, is most painful to contemplate. Deacons -R. J. D. McAlister has lately reand other prominent members of our turned from Uganda and writes: Bicychurches have no hesitation Of shame cles are seen every day in the streets, in bringing young men and women and one of the missionaries has ridden all the way from the coast to Mengo on a pneumatic-tyre machine. This is certainly a remarkable trip, as he per- the Church of Rome have adopted the formed the entire journey in about version and have publisht an edition of three weeks. The matter of communi· the Gospel of Matthew, with some cations is one of the highest importance slight ,modifications, for use among and rapid strides are being made in their own catechumens and converts, this direction. The railway has now with numerous woodcuts and a' few advanced some 60 or 70 miles into the notes. The text of the Gospel occu-. interior, and on my way down I was pies 107 pages of the volume, and is enabled to travel in a comfortable 1irst- substantially that pUblisht by Dr. Hiram class carriage to Mombasa, along an Bingham in his edition of 1880. Of excellent line at a speed of 20 miles an the changes which have been made, hour. The line is being built on a some are due to a different system of thoroughly permanent basis, and excel- transliterating foreign words, a few to lent stations are being constructed. the adoption of a different textual There are 2 trains daily, each consisting reading, and many are of no account. of first and third-class carriages, and at "Father Edwlrd," the responsible lIombasa, which is the terminus, the editor, appears to be a careful scholar station consists of a series of fine stone familiar with lhe original Greek, and buildings with a large acreage of Jines earnestly desirous of supplying the and goods yards. The trains are Gilbert Islanders with the means of acalready being used by caravans, and quiring a knowledge of the Gospel. It the distance to Uganda is being re- is reported that 5,000 copies of this duced daily. Until the line gets within volume has been taken to the islands, a short distance of the Lake, the cost together with 3,000 copies of a book of of transport is too heavy to allow of Bible stories based upon a life of any great agncultural development, Christ, and other elementary works. but meantime the experiment of coffee- His adoption of Dr. Bingham's transplanting is proceeding satisfactorily. lation is an unlooked-for testimony to Another grcat development in the Pro- the fidelity of the version which the tectorate is the completion of a splendid Bible Society is now supplying, and wagon-road, right from the coast to which is not limited to a single Gospel, Uganda. This is now in full working or- but embraces the entire Scriptures of der, and before I left bullock-wagons had the Old and New Testament.-Bible arrived on the Lake shore. This will Society Record. not shorten the journey, but it permits of the transport of heavy material, -The newspapers announce a conmachinery, etc. Captain Sclater is tribution to the Mansion House Indian now preparing to take up by bullock- Famine Fund of £844 from Fiji. Let wagon from Mombasa a new screw- the fact be noted, and its significance steamer of 70 tons, for service on the be taken to heart. Sixty years ago, at Lake. the time of Her Majesty's accession to the throne, the entire Fiji group was ISLANDS OF THE SEA. inhabited by pagan cannibals. Its heathen darkness was unbroken by any Te Evagkerio Are Tapu. The Gospel ray of Christian religion or civilization. of St. Matthew in the language of Two Wesleyan missionaries, who had the Gilbert Islands. Printed at the already labored for some years in the Pontifical Press in Freiburg, Ger- Friendly Islands, had landed on the many, with the imprimatur of the island of Lakemba a few months pre- Archbishop, 1895. viously, and were the first messengers of the Gospel to the Fijian people. It is the unexpected that happens. The Missionary Report of the follow- The American Bible Society having ing year (1838) speaks of "that distant undertaken fo publish the Bible in the language spoken on the Gilbert Islands in the central Pacific, the authorities of part of the world, which, on account of small. It is true we stm meet with the peculiarly ferocious character of its opposition. The heir to the chiefinhabitants, is as yet but little known taincy came one day into one of our to Europeans. Before the sailor and schools, and said with an arrogant and the merchant will dare to frequent spiteful look, 'I hate to see these those" now inhospitable shores, the mis- Christians teaching anything.' This is sionary must prosecute his labor of natural, for this fine young prince love amidst privations and hardships; cares for nothing but brandy and evil and when he shall have' succeedcd in ways. Yet God's Pentecost will come ~aming and humanizing the people, to this region some day, and I see signs Fiji may then become what the once of it already."-Norslc MiBBionatitknde. savage New Zealand has already been made by a course of missionary labor -The Honolulu Friend publishes a and suffering-a place of safe resort." letter from Henry Nanpei showing a change of policy on the part of the -The natives of the island of Papua Spanish Government relative to ~ur have no concern about gold, silver, and missionary work on the island of Ponbimetalism. They have the single rum ape. Last October the Morning Star standard. The basis of barter and ex- entered one of the harbors and the change in arrack (Java rum), one-half missionaries on board were allowed to gallon of which is reckoned equal to land for the first time since 1890. one day's work at fishing or rattan cut- Crowds of their old friends met Mrs. ting. No money is used. When the Logan and Miss Foss at the wharf. native Papuan receives his rum salary, '( You cannot imagine," writes the nahe and his family drop all other occu- tive evangelist, " how delighted our poor pations, and devote every energy to its people were to shake hands with and consumption. The resulting stupefac- be embraced by those good people tion lasts for days, but, on recovery, whom they never expected to see again the family cheerfully proceeds by per- on Ponape." Captain Garland and his severing industry to acquire more rum. associates paid a visit to the governor, Of course, in a country where there is who has shown such kind consideration 100,000 gallons of rum to every mis- for the Christians on the island, and sionary, civilization makes slow pro- they were received and entertained gress. with the utmost courtesy. The gover- nor visited the Morning Star in com- -The Sultan of Johore has made a pany with Henry Nanpei and brought grant to Rev. J. A. B. Cook, one of ashore three cases of New Testaments the Presbyterian Church of England's in the Ponape language. It is a nota.- missionaries at Singapore, of a plot of ble fact that many of these books were land 300 acres in extent, for the purchased by Spanish officers. purpose of a Christian Chinese settlement. The grant is for 999 years. -The MiBsionary Herald has seldom given a more remarkable story than that -In spite of the troublous times in told by Mr. Price in his journal of the Madagascar, the Norwegian Missionary tour made in November last through Society is able to report progress from the Mortiock group. Here are separits West Coast Mission. "We have ate islands, with no resident missionary had a fruitful year and great peace," upon them, where gross heathenism writes missionary Fagereng from Tul- has been dominant, but the Spirit of lear. "The people have been more God has wrought upon the hearts of well-disposed. Many new places have these islanders and transformed the sobeen occupied during the year and sup- cial life of many of these little complied with schools. The church at- munities. No less than 5011 were retendance has been good, and the ceived into the churches of the islands church at the station has often been too during this tour, while the reception of others wail postponed til! after further testing.
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1892
NARAYAN
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No.l.-0ld Series.–JANUARY..–VOL.V. No.1.-New 8erie3.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSlONS.-NO. XXI.
[EDITORIAL, A. T. P.] THE BEGINNING OF MODERN WONDERS.
The Society Islands were so called by Cook in honor of the" Royal Society j" and the largest, having a circuit of one hundred and forty miles and containing about six hundred square miles, is known as Tahiti. It consists of two rounded peninsulas joined by a narrow isthmus, and is crowned with a majestic peak called The Diadem. The name was a prophecy, for this island furnished the first conspicuous diadem of modern missionary labors.
It was first seen by an English Captain-Wallis-in 1767. The inhabitants were tall, stout, brown skinned, with dark eyes, and seemed unusually good.natured and playful j but they were thieves, liars, and murderers.
When the knowledge of the Tahitians reached England, the directors of the London Missionary Sooiety determined to send the Gospel to this island, and at last found thirty men who were willing to go, four of whom were ministers, the rest tradesmen ; and six of them were married. A ship called the Duff was bought, and pious Captain Wilson took charge of it.
This memorable missionary band left the Thame.s on August 10th, 1796. A purple flag waved in the wind, with three' doves bearing olivQ branches as its device; and as they set sail they sang the hymn, " Jesus, at Thy command we launch into the deep."
A seven months' voyage brought them to the shores of Tahiti. and they were welcomed by about seventy-five canoes, whose natives clambered over the ship's side, and in various ways expressed their joy, hoping for knives and axes and other useful implements. They had brought with them hogs and fruit for the purpose of barter; but as it was the Sabbath day the missionaries tried to make them understlOlnd that they neither sold nor bought upon the Day of Rest. Most of the natives returned in their canoes, but about forty stayed on deck, and the missionaries had a service. While they prayed and sang the natives looked on in silence.
Two white men were already at Tahiti, one of whom had been shipwrecked, and the other left on shore a few years previous. Their names were Peter and Andrew, and they were. clad like savages. Being able to speak some Tahitian, they served at first as interpreters between the mis-
MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
sionaries and the natives, but they turned out to be very wicked men, though born in a Christian land.
An old man, Mane-mane, was high-priest to the idol gods, and was held to be some great one. A chief showed the missionaries an empty house about one hundred feet long, but unfurnished, which he said should be given to them. 'Upon thsir arrival on the beach they were met at once by strange customs. They found the king, Otu, and his queen both riding on men's shoulders. Wben those that carried them changed the burden to other shoulders, the royal feet were not permitted to touch the ground, because whatever land they touched would become their own, so they jumped over the head of one man upon the shoulders of another. For the same reason, when the king and queen visitcd the ship, they refused to go on deck, because if they touched the ship it would be theirs, and none but their own servants might dwell there or eat there henceforward. Afterward, when Mr. Lewis unfolded his umbrella, they warned him not to hold it over their heads, as it would thenceforth become sacred to their exclusive ust'.
Thc missionaries found dancers on these i~lands called Areois, who were a most wicked set of people. Their bodies were blackened with charcoal and their faces dyed red. They committed murders, killing their little children as soon as they were born. They had no occupation but dancing, boxing, wrestling, and sporting.
The first night, in presence of the natives, the missionaries sang and prayed and thanked God for inclining these strangers to receive them so kindly; and the first Sabbath they turned their dwelling into a chapel and Mr. Jefferson preached, being interpreted by Andrew, the Swede; and so through the vehicle of an ungodly man the first impressions of the Gospel were made upon these natives.
The father of Otu was called Pomare. He was a very wise man; had formerly been not only a chief, but the supreme king of the chiefs of the island. He had, however, many fauIts. He was a liar, a glutton, covetous, and pre-eminently selfish. On the second Sabbath, however, he attended the service of worship, when Mr. Cover preached from that text which has been probably the subject of more sermons than any other in the Bible-John 3 : 16-and after the service Pomare pronounced what he had understood very good.
The favorite g')d, Oro, was simply a log of wood about the size of a man, kept in a shed among trees surrounded by a stone wall. . In this place were altars on which lay pigs that had been dead for months, and it was called a Marro, and was a habitation of cruelty. Men were sacrificed and their flesh hung in large baskets on the trees around till it decayed. No woman was counted worthy of the honor either of approaching the Marre or being sacrificed in it. The priests used to roll themselves up in a great bundle of cloth, and in a squeaking voice pretend to represent the gods; and though tlw people knew that it was the priest that was speaking, they dared not disobey. They kept in their houses some of their gods, and fancied them to be in disposition like unto themselves. Hiro was the pro- tector of thieves, and when they went out to steal, they promised Hiro a part of the booty if he would not expose them ; and the missionaries found that the natives were very much like the god th'ey worshipped. Nothing was safe within their reach. Murder was quite as common as stealing; and one Sunday Mr. Lewis preached upon the commandment, " Thou shalt not kill." Mane-mane advised the people to leave off their wicked ways, yet he had not left off his own; and when he wanted to kill a man, drank wine to keep up his courage for his horrible work. His own wife killed her offspring, and when remonstrated with, said she would keep the customs of the country and defy the missionaries' displeasure.
Some of the idols were made of stone, but most of them of wood, or of a kind of string made from the outside of the cocoanut. Sharks and birds were worshipped, and there were more than one hundred gods. When 9 sacrifice was demanded for Oro, it might be the guest who was eatir.g beneath the roof of a chief. If one man of a family were offered, the people of the same household were usually chosen until the whole was destroyed. When the beating of the sacred drum gave the signal that II human sacrifice was required, the natives would flee to the mountain dens and caves for refuge. The Tahitians believed that at death their spirits went to cruel gods, who first devoured them three times over, after which they passed into the body of a beast, bird, or man, and lived again on earth.
If thus cruel to their friends, their cruelty to enemies may be inferred; their bodies were left unburied to be devoured by beasts and birds. Sometimes a hole was made through an enemy's body, and he was worn as a Tiputa by the man who slew him. The conquerors destroyed all the women and children of their foes, and taught their own little children to kill those of whom they would naturally have made playmates; and sometimes these little children of conquered foes were strung on a spear like beads.
Among such a people these missionaries began their apparently hopeless labors. Three weeks had not passed before they were robbed, and, because they did not punish the offenders when detected, they were regarded as cowards; but they sought to win by kindness, and determined they would not seek to defend themselves, but confide themselves entirely to the keeping of Jehovah. They placed near their house a hospital, and offered to nurse all who would come. Though many natives were suffering from terrible diseases, they would not accept the proposition. Satisfied with food and raiment, the missionaries gave up their blacksmith shop and store room to Pomare, and even offered to surrender to him all their own private property, but he would not accept it. During the first year there was a quarrel between Pomare and Otu, and, as Mane-mane had stirred up the rebellion, Pomare order~d him to be killed. Thus perished the wicked old priest, the great man of the Tahitians. The more the missionaries saw of Otu the more wicked he was found to be ; and the continued unbelief of the peo~le was a source of much heavi- ness to these servants of God. Nothing offended the natives more than to rebuke their wicked customs. rdia, the queen, bad destroyed three chil- dren of her own within three years after the missionaries had arrived.
On March 5th, 1800, three years to a day from that when the mis- sionaries first saw the island, the first wooden posts or pillars of a Christian chapel were reared; and they besought God that these, like the pillar that Jacob set up at Bethel, might be a memor.ial of the presence of God.
The next June, in the Royal .Admiral, eight new missionaries arrived, and were welcomed by Pomare. It was agreed by the brethren that Mr. Nott should go around Tahiti to preach to all the inhabitants. He was accompanied by Mr. Elder. Sometimes Mr. Nott preached three or four times a day. They lodged in the houses of the natives, and took with them on the journey some of the Tahitians themselves, who thus had the advantage of hearing him preach during a five weeks' tour, and UpOll his return he found that they were able to give a clear account of the Gospel truths they had heard. Constant prayer went up to God that He would pour down His Rpirit from on high. The missionaries endured great suffering for the natives' sake, especially in consequence of desolating wars. When the natives were entreated to believe in Jesus Christ, like ancient unbelievers, they asked, " Has Pornare or any of the chiefs believed 1" They were, in fact, the greatest enemies of Christ, and discouraged the natives from attending to the Gospel. The tenacity of idolatry seemed to make preaching a hopeless task.
The natives had great confidence in the power of red feathers, attributing large success in fishing to their presence on the canoes, but had little conception of the soul or of duty, and while faithless toward God they were credulous toward the most absurd imposture, placing their trust in fortune. tellers, dreams, and signs of good or ill luck.
While Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Scott were travelling in Tahiti and lay down to rest, a chief invited a guest to go with him to the beach, killed him with stones, put his body in a basket of cocoanut leaves, and sent him to Pomare as calm and unconcerned as if he had only killed a hog.
In 1803 Pomare himself suddenly died, and the wicked Otu had more power than during his father's lifetime. He styled himself Pomare II. It was he who was destined to be the first convert of the Gospel work at Tahiti. He had taken pains to learn to read and write. He was greatly feared, and it was believed that he could kill a man by his prayers and imprecations. In the spring his queen had a child, and he himself was privy to its death. The queen died in 1806.
In May of this year a day of fasting and prayer was appointed by the missionaries, and particular pains were now taken to teach the children. They learned to repeat a short catechism by heart, and in November Mr. Davies opened a school in the new houee, and invited the boys who lived near by to attend it on three afternoons in the week. A month afterward they asked to be taught oftener, and were instructed daily. They learned to read and write, being first taught to make letters on the sand. Spelling- books !lnd Bible histories were made for them and sent to England to be printed. A!I the missionaries began to be 'familiar with the language, they discovered that it was unfitted for the expression of Christian ideas. There was, for instance, no word for "thanks," and no proper expression for " God."
A vessel arrived from the directors of the London Missionary Society, bearing a letter in English for Pomare. He was pleased with it, answered it courteously, and consented to the request of the directors, and promised to banish Oro from the island. He acknowledged that his land was a bad land, a foolish land, and one that knew not the true God ; asked for a large number of men, women, and children from England, and said he would adopt English customs. This letter appears to have been insincere, for shortly afterward he desired thai a man might be killed at Atehuru as a sacrifice, and taken in a canoe to another place ; and he sought to conceal it from the missionaries. He seems to have made his fair promises only as a "loak for his covetousness.
In 1807 another war broke out at Tahiti, which lasted about three years. The missionaries were obliged to leave the island, Mr. Nott and Mr. Hayward going to Huahine near by, and all the rest to Port Jackson in New South Wales.
The king, who had. gone to Eimeo, invited the missionaries to come to that island. There were now seven missionaries in Eimeo-Nott, Hayward, Bicknell, Scott, Wilson, Davies, Henry. They had settled at Papetoai, and built a small chapel and opened a school. Events occurred which inclined them to stay in Eimeo, and they observed that the king appeared £0 regard idols less than he had done in times past. For instance, in 1812, when a sacred turtle was caught, instead of Rending it to the idol's temple, he had it dressed in an oven in his own kitchen, and served for his dinner, which was an ast.ounding blow at idol customs; and as no harm befell him, he was confirmed in his contempt of idols, and the power of the popular superstitions was greatly weakened. Pahi, the brother of the King of Raiatea. made a still bolder experiment-destroying in an oven a sacred log which had been worshipped, and then ate bread fruit that had been baked in its ashes.
Pomare declared that he would now have henceforth but one wife. He married Teara, daughter of the Raiatean king, and on the birth of her little daughter the customs of the ages were disregarded, which permitted no fires to be lighted for many days, nobody to leave the shore, and no persons to approach the child except sacred persons in sacred garments.
On July 18th, 1812, Pomare asked to be baptized, and declared his fixed purpose to cleave to Jehovah and His people. He said, " I wish you to pray for me," and proposed to build a larger chapel. He declared that he had tried to persuade the kings of other islands to do as he intended to do, and when they answered that they would cleave to Oro, he told them that was cleaving to Satan. The missionaries, full of joy, waited anxiously to see whether Pomare was really a converted man. Subsequently his grief for his sins, his observance of the Sabbath, and his efforts to persuade his friends to turn to God, convinced them that he had been changed by the .grace of God.
When the missionaries found the people in Eimeo ready to attend their instructions they heard that the people in Tahiti were likewise inquiring after Jehovah, and Mr. Scott and Mr. Hayward were sent to see whether the joyful report was true.
Missionary labor at Tahiti was apparently in vain for from fourteen to sixteen years, and, notwithstanding untiring, earnest, and faithful effort, but one solitary instance of conversion had taken place. The wars of desolation continued, and abominable idolatries and iniquities reigned. " The heavens seemed as brass and the earth as iron i" and when God's time to favor the work in Polynesia came, the beginning was such as to turn all attention to Himself. For at the time the war had driven the missionaries from the island and cut off all communication. Two native servants, formerly employed in the missionaries' families, had, unknown to them, received favorable impressions, and had united together for prayer. They had been joined by others, and at the return of the missionaries to Tahiti, at the termination of the war, they found a number of praying people, and had little to do but to aid in a work which God had thus singularly begun.
These years of fruitless and apparently hopeless toil had almost determined the directors of the London Missionary Society to abandon altogether the work at Tahiti. Dr. Haweis, chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, one of the founders of the society, and the father and liberal supporter of the South Sea Mission, earnestly opposed such abandonment of the field, and backed his arguments by a further donation of a thousand dollars. The Rev. Matthew Wilb, the pastor of Mr. Williams, declared with great emphasis that he would sell the clothes from his back rather than give up the mission, and proposed, instead of abandonment, that a season of special prayer should be observed for the divine blessing. Such a season was observed i letters of encouragement were written to the missionaries, andmark it I-while the vessel w~s on her way to carry these letters to Tahiti, another ship passed her in mid-ocean, which conveyed to Great Britain, October, 1813, the news that idolatry was entirely overthrown in the island, and bore back to London the rejected idols of the people; and so was fulfilled literally the Divine promise, " Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear."
We have already mentioned the fact that, while the missionaries were driven away from Tahiti, two natives had begun to call upon the Lord Jesus in prayer. One of these lads was named Tuahine. Another native, impressed by some remarks from Pomare, had gone to make some inquiries of Tuahine, who had lived for some time in the missionaries' families. Finding his mind was in a similar state they resolved to retire to some secret place to talk and pray, and after a little while several young persons united with them ; and this little band, without the guidance of any missionary, determined to abandon idols and the wicked practices of their countrymen, keep the Sabbath, and worship Jehovah alone. As Christianity spread, Tuahine helped the missionaries by directing inquirers, teaching in the schools, and translating the Scriptures. Sometimes he spent from eight to ten hours a day in this last work, and rendered invaluable counsel and aid to the missionaries. He proved himself to be a Barnabas and an Apollos both in one, and had a surprising gift in prayer. He discharged the office of a deacon with great faithfulness, and died about forty-five years old, a model of a converted native.
The chapel that Pomare had desired to be built at Eimeo was opened for worship July 25th, 1813, and the next evening thirty-one natives cast away idols, and their names were written among the disciples of Jehovah. Shortly after, the number had risen to above three hundred. embracing, among others, a priest called Patii, who led the way in the burning of idols. He brought out the gods one at a time, tore off the sacred garments and ornaments, threw them one by one into the flames, pronouncing their names, repeating their foolish histories, and challenging the people to observe what helpless logs they were. The joy of the missionaries may be imagined. The queen's sister about the same time publicly showed her contempt for the idol gods; and Pomare himself, though gnilty of many things inconsistent with the character of a Christian, made a tour of Eimeo, seeking to persuade the heathen to turn from idols.
Meanwhile at Tahiti persecution arose against the native Christians. They took refuge in the woods and lonely vaUeys at midnight for prayer. One young man suffered martyrdom, and another bore a lifelong sear received at their hands. The year 1815 was the most remarkable that had ever been known at Tahiti. A plan was laid to destroy the Christian natives entirely, and the night of July 7th was fixed upon, when the Christians were to be assembled for prayer. Having been adTised, however, of this conspiracy, they sailed for Eimeo, and their departure was the cause of a quarrel among their enemies themselves, in which they largely destroyed each other.
The missionaries at Eimeo received the Tahitians with great affection, but feared that the heathen might rise up in both islands and destroy all the worshippers of Jehovah. July 14th was set apart as a day of fasting and prayer. Soon afterward two chiefs from Tahiti came to Eimeo, inviting the Christian chiefs who had fled to return. The invitation was, however, a mere cover for a plan to destroy the king and his friends. A battle ensued in November, 1815, in which Pomare and his little army were victors. Instead of killing his enemies the king determined to destroy their idols. The multitude stood astonished, both at the helplessness of their gods and the audacity of their destroyers j and when the great god Oro was carried to Pomare's feet, he set it up as a post in his kitchen, fixing pegs upon it on which to hang baskets for food, and subsequently burned it as fuel. Such was the end of the great war god.
Mr. Nott and Mr. Hayward soon went to Tahiti, and made a tour of the island. They found the people busy in destroying Marres and build- ing little chapels. Pomare himself had written a prayer, which he often read in these places of worship-a prayer worthy of any Christian author.
The missionaries found the people very anxious to learn to read, and the king had not only destroyed his public idols, but now wished to part with the family gods, always kept in his house. He sent about twelve of these frightful little images to the missionaries in Eimeo, with a letter ask- ing that they might be sent to the Missionary Society in England, that they might know the likeness of the gods that had been worshipped in the island. The idols were accordingly nailed up in a wooden case and sent to the directors of the London Missionary Society. Family prayer became common, and the people retired to the bushes for private supplication.
The missionaries could scarcely get any rest, so continually were they besieged with inquiry. In every place they found chapels-sixty-six in all -in which the people assembled four times a week.
About this time a printing-press was brought to Eimeo, and from a neighboring Marre, polished stones-pieces of pavement upon which worshippers had knelt before the altars-were dug up and placed where God's Word was to be printed. Satan was robbed that God might be honored. The first book printed was the Baba, or spelling-book, and Pomare was permitted to aid in setting up the first page, and to strike off the first impression. The Tahitians were very anxious to have these printed.
books, and sent to the missionaries plantain leaves rolled up, with the request for spelling-books written on the leaves. This was the beginning of the spreading of the knowledge of God from isle to isle by the power of a sanctified literature. Catechisms followed, and little books containing col- lections of texts j schools were multiplied, converts increased, and there was a general spirit of inquiry. .
For years Mr. Nott had been translating the Gospel of Luke into Tahitian, assisted by Pomare, and while the book was in press the natives often constrained Mr. Ellis to stop printing to explain to them what they read. The missionaries wished to bind the books before they were dis- tributed, but the impatience of the people compelled them to give up wait- ing for proper binding materials. The natives, however, did not suffer these precious books to remain without proper protection j dogs and cats and goats were killed that their skins might be prepared for covers, and the greatest anxiety was manifested to obtain these new copies of the Gospel. Five men from Tahiti landed at Afareaita, and did not go into any house to lodge lest some one might anticipate them in the morning and buy up all the books, so that they should be compelled to return without any. Mr. Ellis gladly gave them copies of the precious Gospel, which they wrapped in bark, put in their bosoms, and set sail for Tahiti without having taken food or drink during their stay at Eimeo.
And now the brethren determined to form a missionary society in Eimeo, and on May 13th a great meeting was held, and numbers of natives came from Tahiti. The prayers began at sunrise, and long before the chapel service at three 0' clock they were obliged to leave the chapel for the grove outside to accommodate the crowds. The king was seated with the queen, her ladies, and many chiefs, and Mr. Nott preached from the words, "Understandest thou what thou readest~" (Acts 8 : 30,31.) 'An address from Pornare hims.elf followed, advocating the formation of the. Missionary Society, and hundreds of 4ark arms were lifted toward heaven in assent.
The" Royal Mission Chapel" at Tahiti, so called, was finished in the spring of 1819. It contained 133 windows, 29 doors, and was 712 feet long and 54 feet wide-212 feet longer than St. Paul's in London. As no preacher could speak loud enough to be heard to the end of the chapel during a whole sermon, three pulpits were placed in it, with a minister in each. Six thousand people joined in singing God's praise in this new place of worship, and three sermons were preached simultaneously.
The next day after the dedication service in May, 1819, laws were publicly given to the people, condemning murder, rebellion, theft, Sabbath breaking, these prohibitions being followed with becoming sanctions. After the law was read the king asked the chiefs, " Do you agree to this law~" and Tati, a ringleader among the rebels, held up both hands, and called upon the people to do the same. At the close of the Sabbath service, Pomare solemnly pronounced his faith in a crucified Redeemer. Let any reader consider how different were these assemblies from the feasts at which Pomare and his father had distributed the bleeding limbs of human victims as offerings to the gods.
The rest of the year was full of rejoicing; new customs obtained, and the preaching of the Word was greatly blessed. Pornare was shut up whole days with Mr. Nott, helping him to correct the translations of the Gospel of John and the Acts.
We can give no further space to this wonderful story. The king himself was a leader in all good works, and on December 7th, 1821, died in the faith of Christ at the age of forty-seven years. Though naturally proud, covetous, deceitful, intemperate, and treacherous, he not only believed the Word of God himself, but persuaded many others, while he forced none to turn from their idols, and we cannot but believe that, not- ,withstanding his many faults, he sincerely belonged to Christ.
A fitting conclusion to this narrative may be found in the coronation of the young king, four years old, on April 21st, 1824. He was dressed in his coronatiou robes in Mr. Nott's house, and borne to the church on the highest platform. A hymn was sung, a prayer was offered. and Mr. Nott
lIONQR OF' A MISSIONARY
made an effective address. The laws of the country were placed upon the table, and the young king was asked whether he would promise to govern the people in justice, and mercy, and obedience to these laws and to the Word of God; and he replied, "I do, God being my helper." Oil was then poured upon his head, and a blessing pronounced upon him by Mr. Davies. The crown was placed upon his brow while Mr. Nott spoke words of benediction, and the Bible was presented to him as the most priceless treasure in the world. From the platform of coronation, the procession went to the " Royal Mission Chapel," and the young king sat in the royal pew.
Contrast this scene with the coronation of Pomare II., who had been declared king according to the heathen fashion, robed in a girdle covered with red feathers, the ceremony attended by the slaughter of men and followed by the worship of the god Oro. Now a little prince began his reign with the sweet sacrifice of prayer and praise to the living God.
In the end of the summer of 1835 many people in various parts of the island were converted, especially by the preaching of Mr. Nott, at Papao, and in July, 1836, the queen found that only two openly ungodly persons were to be found in the whole district of Pare; and Mr. Davies was almost as much blessed at Papare as Mr. Nott was at Papao. The translation of the whole Bible into Tahitian was completed in 1836, the greatest part of the work having been done by Mr. Nott; and in February of this year Mr. Nott set sail for England. He presented the translation to the directors of the London Missionary Society, and remained in England for two years. He appeared at Exeter Hall at the great anniversary in 1838, and after showing the Ailsembly a copy of the Tahitian Bible, bade them a last though not an everlasting farewell, and returned to Tahiti, rejoicing in the privilege of spending the remainder of his days in the service of Christ in the South Seas.
HONOR OF A MISSIONARY.
I should not like you, if meant by the gifts of God for a great missionary, to die a millionnaire. I should not like it, were you fitted to be a miRsionary, that you should drivel down into a king. What are all your kings, all your nobles, all your stars, all your diadems and your tiaras, when you put them altogether, compared with the dignity of winning souls for Christ, with the special honor of building for Christ, not on another man's foundation, but preaching Christ's gospel in regions far beyond ~ I reckon him to be a man honored of men who can do a foreign work for Christ; but he who shall go farthest in self-annihilation and in the furtherance of the glory of Christ shall be a king among men, though he wear a crown no carnal eyes can see.-Spurgeon.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND THE HIGHEST USE OF WEALTH
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND THE HIGHEST USE OF WEALTH.
B. C. AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE A. F. M. AT PITTSFIKLD, MASS., OCTOBER 14TH, 1891.
BY PRESIDENT MERRILL EDWARDS GATES, LL.D., OF AMHERST.
The incarnation of the living God as the Redeemer of man has made it forever necessary that the man who would know God must see something of God in his fellow-men. In all ages the men whose hearts God has touched, whose eyes God has opened that they may see Him and make others see Him, have been men mightily moved in soul and heart toward their fellow-men. The nearer we come to God's view of human life, the purer and deeper and mightier will be our love of human souls and our pity for wasted. sinful. and benighted human lives.
LOVE OF GOD AND WORK FOR MEN.
There is a Divine revelation of the very heart of God Himself in the description Christ gives us of the scenes of division at the judgment. Our Master takes as His own not those who selfishly cry, "Lord, Lord!" and boast familiarity with God's power and achievements of their own in cast- ing out devils; but the men who have shown" the mind which was in Christ Jesus, " and under the constraining power of Christ's love have served Him by serving" in His name" their fellow-men for whom He died. It is by the faith that is in Christ Jesus that we stand; but the absolutely vital, the indissoluble connection of faith with love and with works of love and help- fulness and mercy, is made startlingly clear in this revelation by Christ of the things whi.ch shall be made manifest at that day. It is only by living out a vital principle of life to its issues that we can come to know it thoroughly. True Christians are men and women who are bent upon reducing right theories of life to right living. Life-power and moral truth are the mightiest forces in the universe. In Christian character these two forces are combined. God is life and truth ; godlikeness worked out in life is character; into sound character has entered the " omnipotence of a • principle," and the almightiness of God Himself is pledged to make char- acter, which is vitalized truth, the mightiest power within the control of man. And since God is Jove, and God in Christ is the supreme revelation of that holy and infinitely attractive love which spared not His own Son that He might be just and yet might Jove us out of our sins into lives of holiness, Christians can never Jearn large lessons of God's love in Christ without sharing in Christ's love for their fellow-men THE TEST-OUR FEELING TOWARD MULTITUDES OF UNSHEPHERDED MEN.
Always, then, for the individual Christian, and for any body of Christians who are acting together, there is a supreme test in the question, How deep a concern do you feel for the welfare of the great body of your fellowmen ~ What are your feelings, what are your purposes, what is your attitude of soul t.oward the benighted ones, 'our brothers and sisters, who are ignorant, debased, sin-burdened, and hopeless in the world ~ Sharp and clear is the contrast between the spirit of the Pharisees and the spirit of Christ in this matter of caring for crowds of the commou people. When their returning officers said, " Never man spake as this man speaks," and when "the common people heard Him gladly," the Pharisees waved aside the divine meaning of the message with that contemptuous phrase, the essence of selfish vanity and arrogant pride, " This people that knoweth not the law is accursed." But" the mind that was in Christ Jesus," the mind that dwells in every true child of God in richer fulness as the Holy Spirit shows him the things of Christ, is revealed in the words, " But when He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion upon them, because they fainted aud were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. " In those words speaks from the heart of God the loving voice of the Good Shepherd j and "His sheep know His voice and follow Him."
This mind that was in Christ, this deep yearning love for lost men, has always marked the true Church. It began its growth among men with the growth of the early Church at Jerusalem, and it had to break its way through that intense spirit of exclusiveness which, with the Jewish Church, had been a cult for centuries. For generations God had walled in His chosen people, had separated them from the rest of the world, that their knowledge of Him and their realization of His presence might be intensified by exclusion. In the fulness of time, when the Word was made flesh, when the love of God was poured into the life of men through the life and the words of Christ, this spirit of love for all mankind burst the cerements of the old dispensation, and the Christian Church began its wondrous growth on earth. It came into life, it grew and prospered under the teaching and guidance of the Third Person of the Trinity, the ever-living Holy Spirit, whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and show them to His followers, who is with us here to-day guiding His Church. Peter first felt the power of this mission-spirit of love for all mankind. Then the heavenly vision came to Paul, and flaming with the spirit of Christ's love he went through all the provinces, fiery-hearted with the spirit of missions. With the growth of the Church this spirit has increasingly prevailed; the walls of separation between nationil have been broken down by it. It is to the growing spirit of Christ, not to the evolution of a perception of a subtly selfish interest for the individual to be attained by the promotion of the we)£are of the whole-it is to the spirit of Christ and not to "enlightened self-interest," that we owe the deepening sense of the solidarity of the race which binds men together the world around.
In the history of the Church it is the men whose hearts have'received this spirit in the largest measure whose names illumine the annals of the Church and the pages of universal history. In their hearts was condensed so much of the thrilling force of Christ's love that heat passed into fiery rays of light, and they became beacons to men for all time. From Paul, longing to visit Spain, yearning over the Romans, melted with love for the Galatians, holding all Greece and all Asia in his heart, down through the glorious roll of saints and martyrs and missionary heroes till we reach the names of the missionaries whom we have seen in the flesh, and whom we love, hearts and lives on fire with the love of lost and benighted men have been the evidence of the spirit of life in the Church of Christ.
IN A LIVING CHURCH, ALWAYS A LOVE OF MISSIONS.
There can be no living Church without a glowing love for mlSSlOns. Christ has made this very clesr to us. In the glimpse He gives us of the judgment. in His parting words as He ascended, "Go ye and make disciples of all nations," and, ,. Lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world," we find the very essence of His teaching, the flowering of His spirit of service. To seek and to save that which was lost, was the mission that brought our Divine Redeemer from heaven to earth j and to seek and to save the lost is the Divine commission, from the glorified Christ in heaven to each believer who looks up to a Divine Redeemer for direction in a life of grateful service.
What has this to do with the question of money and its use ~ Let us ask ourselves this question thoughtfully.
MEN AND MEANS.
As members of the Church of Christ set to do Christ's work in the world, assembled here in the interest of one of the most important agencies in that work of evangelizing the world, which is pre-eminently the one work given by Christ to His people to do in His name, we are brought face to face with the question of the means to carry out this important work. Here, as in every other important undertaking which is to influence many lives, men and means are the essential requirements. Men never were offered to a praying Church in such numbers as stand confronting us today, saying, ' • We are ready, send us." Under the influence of the spirit of God, the immeasurable importance of bearing the glad tidings to the dark places of the earth has dawned upon young men and women in our· land with a vividness and a power never before seen or known in the history of the Church. Do you who are past middle age remember the " missionary concerts" of your youth, when prayers were regularly offered that God would" break down the walls" that shut Christians out of China and Japtm V That prayer has been answered. This year the Emperor of China issues a royal edict calling upon the governors of his provinces to protect the missionaries against misrepresentation and violence, and declaring that the object of Christian teaching is to make men better. We have been witnesses of this marvellous change. We have seen Japan rise suddenly to highest standards in civilization 'and ih government-a nation born in a day. Japanese Christians are setting the Christian world an exam- ple of unity and loving fellowship in work. The testimony of all observers is that never was a great nation in a more receptive mood for Christian truth than is Japan to-day. In India there is a special call for laborers.
Another generati0n of educated men, broken loose from the old faith, will soon be anarchic in morals unless Christianity shall supply the basis of morality in life. Ve need not raise any questions of a future hell; there will be hell let loose upon the earth unless Christian truth gets hold upon India, unless the love of Christ cherished in the heart shall more than make good the loss of restraints of the old order. In unharvested fields the grain, ripe and ready, falls to the earth in rich, decaying masses, un- garnered. Unless these years that are now upon us be used, the oppor- tunity is forever lost. It i~ now or never, for India! .
"TIME-VALUE" AND" PLACE-VALUE."
Political economists talk of a " time-value," which belongs to a commodity that is ready precisely when it is wanted, like seed corn in spring, and of a " place-value," which is the result of the presence of an instrument or a commodity at the precise place where it is needed, and at precisely the time when it is needed. The time-utility of missionary effort just now is immense. Who can estimate the place-utility of Christian effort DOW in Japan and in India ~ Of Africa I hardly dare to speak. Africa, no longer the totally" Dark Continent," first pierced through by the rays of love and light where Livingstone carried his well-read Bible that rayed out life for him and made his path a trail of love and light until that night when he knelt alone beside his cot under the great tree in the wilderness and, kneeling, met his God; Mrica, now slowly rising to a place in the world's history, but still as booty to be struggled for in a contest of diplomacy, if not of arms-to save and uplift Africa, what need of Christian giving, what a call for help from Christian America, who owes the heaviest debt to that continent which is mother of the race, long fettered and beaten with many stripes, whose unrequited toil made" cotton king" !
We see these open doors. We hear these calls from perishing men. We see the" time-value" and the " place-value" of efforts now put forth for Christ. Loyal subjects of Christ our King, we see clearly the importance of these strategic points to be seized now for the advancement of His kingdom among men. The old walls about the isolated nations, which our fathers and mothers prayed to have thrown down, lie flat before us. The opportunity 'is ample. The need is pressing. The demand from the field is imperative. The loss of life, the loss of souls, is deadly. WHAT HINDERS THE WORK ~ In those monthly concerts, when the walls about China and.Tapan had fallen, the petitions began to take on this stereotyped form : "Lord, raise up men and women who shall be uJilling to go into these opening fields.," The sacrifice involved in foreign mission work has always been immense, but the fruit of it has been abundant and rich. Partings with kindred and friends, departures into strange lands-these have always been essential to the propagation of the. truth since the time when God said to Abraham, the father of the faithful, " Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I will show you." By such self-sacrificing obedience to God's commands have new nations learned of that brotherhood of man which has no meaning, no power, save as all nations learn that they have a commGn 'Father, even God. Much of what is called the " spirit of the nineteenth century," this awakening of the world to the conviction that all men are of one blood, and that property in man is impossible, is the manifest result of mission work done by strangers who, for Christ's sake and at God's call, have sojourned in strange lands among despised peoples preaching peace and brotherhood through Christ. But the cost of leaving home and friends and native land, the sacrifice involved in expatriating one's self and one's children, has always been so serious 8 matter to contemplate that those who love their own ease have always wondered when the call of God has been potent enough to carry His consecrated servants as missionaries to foreign fields. The supply of men and women willing to go has never been equal to the need of the field, seldom to tbe means at the disposal of the missionary boards. It has been taken for granted by the Church for the last two generations, first, that the walls that shut in mighty nations could not be broken down short of centuries to come; and then, that laborers willing to go could not be found in sufficient numbers.
FACE TO FACE WITH ANSWERED PRAYERS.
But what is time to our God, when He wills to send His kingdom forward by a mighty unfolding into the growing season, into the flowering time! A thousand years are as a day with Him. He laid the walls level. He opened the way. His will and wisdom' brought in the age of steam. Railroads and steamship lines girdle His globe to make ready a highway for his messengers, " speaking peace to the nations." He sets a Stepherason and a Fulton, a Morse and a Bell and an Edison at His tasks when they know it not. Corporations of selfish men do His work, as heedless of the plan of God as are the stones which are framed into the mighty arch of the cathedral, or the liquid elements that are seized upon by the growing plant and drawn up into a place in the beauty of its unfolded blossom by a power utterly beyond their ken! Mission fields are open. The world is the field. AU fences are down. A Christian Church, the Church of America, stands to-day face to face with its answered prayers. It is as if a throng of men and women had been standing in the ante-room of the King's chamber, half drearily telling eachother in monotonous voices what they wished to ask for if the King would only give them audience. Suddenly the King steps in among them and declares, " I know your wishes j you have them now!" And with stammering voices and uncertain gestures the would-be petitioners stand abashed in the presence of a royal Giver, whose readiness to give exceeds their readiness to receive!
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEERS FOR MISSIONS.
For a generation the Church has been praying for men and women who were ready to go. The Holy Spirit hae tried the hearts and searched the spirits of young men and women at our higher institutions of learning. No one who bas been among them, as I have been, and has seen this searching work of the Lord, can fail to recognize it as God's doing, and as altogether wonderful and like His mighty power and the gracious constraining force of His own love, that to-day over six thousand young Christians of America are volunteers for Christian mission-work.
The years when young students look out upon life from the· mountain heights of youth are favorable to a clear vision of comparative values. While the wish is eager to make one's life count for the utmost possible in the service of God by serving one's feHow-men, those whose eyes God touches that they may truly see discern the truth that no other work compares in potent possibility for good with this light-bearing in dark places. Our" young men see visions;" and this is the fulfilment of God's glorious promise of rich blessing fO,r any nation. They see that the Holy Spirit describes the highest object of a liberal education, when He speaks of one who" has tbe tongue of the'learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary." And the spirit of God has so moved upon the young people in the Church of God in this land, that as a class of Christians they say today to the Church of God, " Weare ready to go. Weare eager to try within this next generation to fulfil the glorious command of Christ and , make disciples of all nations.' "
THE ALMIGHTY BANKER CALLS IN HIS LOANS.
Since the work is Christ's work intrusted to us, since the would.be workers are ready and call upon our mission boards to send them, since the great, the rapidly growing wealth of this Christian nation is in the hands of Christian men and women of mature years, my brothers, what answer can we give for ourselves before the jndgment throne of God, if this glorious work of preaching the Gospel of light to dying men is checked and dwarfed, and fails of its glorious pORsibility, because we who are God's stewards hold fast to God's money for our own selfish uses 1 There is a time when the Almighty Banker of the Universe calls in His lo~n81 There is a time when the Master, about to return from far countries, Himself makes rigid yet loving inquiry of every steward concerning the talents, be they one or ten, intrusted to his use. Are we so using the money God has given us as to give to Him" His own with interest" 1 But, some one will say, this is an unnatural view which you present. Christians are to use their money as do other men, subject to the laws of. political economy and in accordance with the general spirit of the time in which they dwell and with the standards that prevail in the grades of society where their lot is cast. Let us look at the question for a moment.
HIS PROPERTY IS.A MAN'S" OBJECTIFIED WILL."
A man's property has been said to be his" objectified will." Mere things, which apart from man are impersonal and utterly outside of moral and jural considerations, enter into the domain of rights, of justice, of morality, through their relation to the will of their owner. The object into which you have introduced your will, which you have willed and worked to make your own. has become in a sense a part of you. There is a true sense in which the man who touches your property toltches you. Property that is truly owned and used becomes in a sense a part of the owner and user. His intelligence permeates it, his will directs its use. Since wealth is often labor stored up in portable form, it has in it a man's life. It partakes of his personality. A man's wealth, through his acting in it. becomes a personal force in social life which may be used for the noblest ends or prostituted to the bagest uses.
No man can escape the fullest responsibility for the use he makes of his wealth, which is potential power of service. Every man holds all his powers in trust j for the use he makes or fails to make of each power, he must auswer at the judgment-seat of God. Our divine Teacher has warned us that in wealth there is a subtle and dangerous tendency which leads it to seek to escape this law of service. Wealth, whkh should be a useful servant, seeks to become a tyrannical master. Christ in His warnings to His followers personifies but one power in the universe as likely to become a dangerous rival for that throne in man's heart and life which belongs to God Himself. The subtle power against which He thus warns us is Mammon, the love of money. Between the mad pursuit of gain and the service of the living God, He warns us that every man must choose. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. " The property that you have must be as fully and entirely subject to the Jaw of the service of God in serving your fellow-men, as must your powers of heart and will and hand and head.
THE CONVERTED HEART INVOLVES THE CONVERTED POCKET-BoOK.
Talk of men as converted, as Christian men, who con~ciously and deliberately allow their property to be used for debasing and ruining their fellow-men! Imagine that a man'M heart and will can be converted to the service of God, and his property remain in the service 0" the devIl! 'Tis an utter imposRibility !
The cOllversion that does not reach a mall's use of his property is no true conversion. There is no truly Christian man who keeps an unconverted pocket-book or bank account. God'~ universal law of unselfish service is as supreme in the domain of material possessions-in the realm of that wealth which extends a man's power" to bring things to pass"-as it is in any other department of man's possible efforts. The unvarying law of God, which uttachcs an obligation to every opportunity and places a duty over against every right, makes no exception of wealth with its vast powers of service. God has so ordered the tiocial life of our race that no man can make the most of his powers of mind and heart and will until he employs those powers in the service of his fellow-men. This is an accepted law in the realm of mind and spirit. It is no less binding upon the power which material wealth places at a man's disposal. No man has the slightest light to say of his wealth, " It is mine; I may nse it selfi&hly if I will." No man has arrived at a true conception of the responsibility that attaches to the possession of property, until his relations through it to his fellowmen fill a larger place in his views of life than does his ability by his wealth to serve his own selfish ends. No man is free to make an option as to whether he or his property shall come under God's law of service. He and his property are under that law, of necessity, as he is of necessity a member of society and of the State, without his leave having been asked. In the use of his property, as of all his other powers, he olVes steady allegiance to that law of 5ervice, by virtue of the solidarity of God's universe of law; and though in managing his property he may disregard this obligation, he can never escape it.
Now, wealth must be used for service according to its own laws. Wealth is productive only as it is used. as capital-that is, as wealth employed in the production of new wealth, of new values. Since wealth is " the usufruct of skill, intelligence, and morality," it places its owner under obligation steadily so to use it as to reproduce morality, intelligence, and skill.
RESTRIOTED SERVICE, TO GAIN WEALTH.
My brothers, Christian men who have put much of your life into money-winning, as you remember how much of time and effort have been withheld by you from more definite Christian work that you might concentrate yourself upon money-winning, is there not an especial call upon you that you redeem (" buy back") the time that was withheld from God's work by you while you were making money ~ Take the case of a man who has won his wealth by years of concentrated effort. Often it is true that he has gained it by a constant withdrawal of his time and his strength from other occupations in which a generous, public-spirited man wuuld like to engage. "Follow this line of study with me," said a friend, in his early mallhood. " No; business demands all my time," was the answer. "Take hold and help us in thi.; effort at political reform in our city," said his public-spirIted neighbor. " I haven't the time, business claims me." "Will you undertake part of the work of special visitiqg to be done by our church people this winter ~" " Really, you must find some one else, my dear pastor, I am so pressed by business." It was by such restrictions of effort, by such exclusions of everything that did not tend directly to the winning of money, that he made his way to wealth.
But clearly, God meant that man to cultivate his mind, to be a useful citizen and a Christian worker. In some way, then, the time and strength withdrawn from other duties and from public service should be given back to serving the public, to the enriching of the life of others.
LET THE LIFE INVOLVED IN WEALTH-WINNING BE EVOLVED IN THE RIGHT USE OF WEALTH.
The time owed to distinctively Christian effort, to work for the good of his fellow-men, may be in part made good, if the wealth into which his efforts and time were coined is used nobly and wisely. And while no giving for Christian work can take the place of personal interest in Christian activity, yet many men could do infinitely more by free and consecrated gifts of large sums of money than they now do by formal expressions of their sense of unworthiness and lack of effort in the past, unaccompanied even now by any large use of their wealth for Christ's cause.
"Redeem the time" that was withheld from God's service by you while you were making money. Redeem it, buy it back, by using your money conscientiously and generously for God's work.
If you have inherited wealth, let the time and labor that were involved ill the rolling up and the transmission of a fortune, be evolved again in days and years of active philanthropic and Christian work, done by the Christian workers whom your money supports in mission fields.
" PECUNIA ALTER SANGUIS."
For everyone of us, a part of his life-effort is stored up in money-in his possessions. It is the clear perception of this fact that gives significance to the old phrase, " pecunia alter sanguis. " In the money your life acquires is stored up the life-blood of your effort; not because gold is as precious as one's life, but because the power acquired by past effort, stored up in money, enables you to set the efforts of others in motion to carry out your purpose and your will. How shall this life-blood of your past effort be kept pure and noble? How will you use it?
Wealth is concentrated power of service. Whether our wealth be great or small, it is still concentrated power of service. Is the wealth that is in the hunds of Christians also 0/ co.ns~cmted power service? Upon thi.~ blood of your past life, which has in it a life-giving power if used for noble ends, has there fallen the touch of consecration ~ Is it not an awful danger of our times, the greatest peril that threatens professedly Christian people, that though we are Christians, we 80 persistently ignore all true ends in the use of our money 1 Is it not too much our habit of thought to regard only those as people of wealth who have much more money than have we ~ When we read upon page after page of the New Testament the most searching warnings as to the use of wealth, is it not our habit to pass them on to the very wealthy, whose fortunes far exceed the means at our disposal ~ MAMMON MAY BE WORSHIPPED BY THE POOR AS TRULY AS BY THE RICH.
Yet the essential nature of wealth does not lie in its quantity, in the amount of money at a man's disposal. The god Mammon may be worshipped with a man's whole heart, though his business transactions be petty and his savings small. Some rich men give to good causes small contributions, with a hypocritical allusion to "the widow's mite i" but our Lord bestowed His regal blessing upon the widow's mite not because it was small, but because she gave her whole living to the Lord. And in the countless warnings addressed by Him who is the Truth to Hill followers, cautioning them as to the deceitfulness of riches, as to tho difficulties that those who trust in riches will find in entering the Kingdom of Heaven, the word used is one that does not lay stress upon great wealthis one that may be used of very small possessions. The essential meaning of the word is usable values embodied in material things. The warning is against trusting in material things for our happiness, our security, our power. Rather are we to trust in the living God, to use for the glory of God all the powers we have of body, soul and mind, every means by which we may bring things to pass in our life here. The warning is against the comfortable sense of safety that comes from" having means behind you." large or small. Whatever possession is capable of standing between a man's soul, and a vital living dependence upon God day by day, is to be suspected, dreaded, and used with fear and trembling as in the sight of a jealous God, who has personified this love of possessions as His great rival in the hearts of men.
" DECEITFULNESS."
The peculiarity of riches, great or small, ·lies in their deceitfulness. They that trust in possessions cannot enter into the kingdom, even in their conception of what that kingdom is, and of what are its powers. And the awful danger in dealing with riches is, that the material advantages they secure are so obvious. so universally recognized, that most men never get beyond these advantages in thought, desire, or fear. How lightly and apologetically we Christians are accustomed to deal with the awfu! emphasis which our Master has laid upon the perpetual, essential danger that lies in the use of wealth! Our Lord has spoken of this danger again and again, in words that stand out luminous with such lurid light as burns in His warnings against the unpardonable sin. Yet too often we hear these warnings tossed aside with a half smile, even by preachers of the Gospel who are accustomed to preach to the rich, as though they would say, " Of course, Christ said this j but what He meant was so essentially different from this that it need not for a momeut make you gentlemen with large bank accounts uncomfortable, especially if you respond kindly to the special appeal I make this morning, and drop into the box a contribution a little larger than usual." Let us, who believe in the living Word of the living God, take time to read together a few of the many utterances in God's Word which bear directly upon this point. Who c~n doubt that the iteration and reiteration of these warnings is, for us and for all Christians, profoundly significant ~ THE TESTIMONY OF THE WORD OF GOD.
" The rich man is wise in his own conceit" (Prov. 28 : 11). " Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12 : 20). "The deceitfulness of riches chokes the word" (Matt. 13 : 22). "But they that will to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition" (1 Tim. 6: 9), "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after, have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim. 6: 10). " Let not the rich man glory in his riches." " Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly" (the Greek is [duskolos] dVC1,,6A.wS, meaning literally that his diet and his digestion are such as to put his life entirely out of harmony with the heavenly life j it " goes against his stomach j" before he can enter in, he must be fed upon other food !)-" shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19 : 23). " How hardly shall they that have riches" (the Greek is [chremata] xpf]/LaTrJ." not necessarily great riches, but possessions enough to trust in) "enter into the kingdom of God" (Luke 18 : 24). "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God j that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate-that they may lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. 6: 17, 18). "Go to, now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted; your gold and your silver are rusted, and their rust shall be for a testimony against you" (James 5 : 1-3). It is the rust, not the gold, that is the witness against them. Their means are not used for Christ, and the selfish rust on them" shall eat your flesh as it were fire." "There is a grievous evil which I ha,"e seen under the sun-namely, riches kept by the owner there9f to his hurt j and those riches perish by evil adventure" (Eccl. 5 : 13).
Can there be any question that these clear declarations of God cut sharply across the tacit assumptions of many of the Christian congregations of our times 1 CHRIST TEACHES CHRISTIANS TO USE ~~EALTJI, BUT NOT TO "TRUST" IT.
Yet this awfully dangerous power of wealth is entrusted to Christians. The parables and teachings of our Lord, time after time. hold up the property relation as the basis of a lesson in Christian living. The great majority of His parables deal with this relation in one form or another. Nothing can be clearer than that He holds every Christian responsible for the right use of all his possessions, however small, however large, they may be. For the right use of the ten talents and tho two talents, there is tht' same commendation, the same relative reward j while 1he awful stress of contrast is laid upon him who had but one talent heeause ho declined to use that one for his master. There is no one of us here present, then, who can feel that the warnings and the responsibilities that attend the possession of wealth for a Christian do not concern himself. For the right use of all his powers of service, God holds each one of us responsible; and certainly the income that each one of us receives, the property that each one of us possesses, has in it latent power of service for the promotion of the Master's kingdom.
Now the divine law of political economy applies to this whole matter. Dangerous as is the use of wealth, God calls upon Christians to URe all they have of it, be it little or much, in His service and for His glory. We sing in moments of devotion, " All that I havo I 0'11'0 to Thee, I hold it for the Giver."
The proportion which each man of us is free to spend upon his own personal gratification, upon the personal pleasures of his family, upon the embellishments of his home, we cannot determine for each other j but everyone of us is bound conscientiously to determine it before God, and under the searching vision of the Spirit of all Truth, whom no detail and no selfish motive can escape. The Holy Spirit in the heart of Christians can and does make " sumptuary laws" for us.
To HELP MEN TO HELP THEMSELVES.
When we become convinced that there is in our hands as stewards money to be used for our absent Lord-for om Lord in bodily presence withdrawn, in spirit dwelling in us-then how gloriously does the scope of this mission work open out before us ns wo look at the money in our hands! Wealth must be used for unselfish ends, or it cannot be used as the Lord wills. To help others, we must help them to help themselvcs. The greatest work which Christian wealth can do in the world is to bring men one by one under the sway of that one Supreme Personality, the Lord .Tesus Christ !
HELP THEM TO CHRIST.
The only hope for men is in a close personal relation with a personal Saviour. Not in masses will men be Iiftf~d out of vice and sin. Society will be purified, institutions will be made better and kept better, only as men are drawn one by one to IIim "Who has been lifted up." The grellt social discontent of our time, whose hoarse warning voice comes to our ear from every continent on the globe, finds its canse in thp. Jack of a true centre for each man's life in Christ. The pitiable, blind yearnings of socialism must touch the hearts of true Christians, because they are the gropings of men after that true brotherhood which men find only when they see the Fatherhood of God. Christ is the" Desire of the Nations," though they know Him not. The truest, wisest use of wealth is in promoting efforts to bring the Gospel of Christ home to the hearts of the people, and to bring the people home to Christ. "They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ranEOm for him." But the power of the Holy Spirit can transmute these money gift!;, wllich we here and now before God pledge ourselves to make for the promotion of His kingdom, into Christian influences which will win souls for Christ. Oh, what a glorious thought, that dead and wasted years, which have been coined into money, if that money be laid at the feet of Christ, may be made to live over again, His Spirit touching the dead past and quickening it into living service, as this money shall send to the dark places of the earth souls fired with the wish to preach Christ!
" Defer not charities till death," says Bacon, " for certainly if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth 80 is rather liberal of another man's than of his own." Be your wealth great or small, use it for Christ while you can yourself direct its use, while you ~an yourself see and enjoy the mighty moral and spiritnal values which are produced from the right use of wealth. Where is the man or the woman of large wealth who will set tlle world a Christian example of that free, cheerful, joyous giving which God loves (" God loveth a cheerfnl giver") by taking a whole mission station to snpport from his abundant means, as a rich man keeps a yacht" for his own pleasure" 1 vVho will thus prayerfully "rcde~m" large sections of his great wealth, of his coined time, by prayerfully using it for these noble ends 1 Vie look for the speedy appearing of such great benefactions, as the re-
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT
sponsibility of wealth comes to be more clearly felt. Meanwhile, let us see to it that by loving and free giving until we feel it in the sweet deprivations that we are willing to meet for Christ's sake, we each one of us show to the world something of that spirit that brings a blessing from the Lord, Who still" sits over against the treasury. "
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT. (With .Map.) BY REV. ROBERT W. :/d,ALL, D.D., PARIS, FRANCE.
[NOTE.-At the Editor's request Dr. McAll has sent to the REVIEW an account of the new enterprise for French waters, and a plate of the proposed boat.- EDITOR.] Not long since there WaS issued the following appeal for a McAll mission boat for river and canal-work throughout France.
Each summer, for many years past. the boats lent to the mission by Mr. Henry Cook (Seamen's Friend), of Portsmouth and Gosport, have visited various French seaports, and a remarkable blessing has resulted.
Last summer immense interest was awakened during the sojourn of the boat in Paris, moored for two months in the Seine, beside the celebrated Pont de la Concorde.
Henco has arisen our intense desire to have our own boat adapted to the system of rivers and canals which is spread like a network all over France, and which consequently could be used at all seasons of the year. By this means hundreds of hitherto umisited places can be reached with the Gospel message. The estimated cost of such a vessel, containing a saloon for meetings and seating 120 to 140 persons, with lodging for those in' charge, is estimated at £1000. Captain and Mrs. Pim, of Valence, members of the Society of Friends, generously offer to give their services during seven months of each year to carry out this enterprise. The annual outlay for dues, watermen, lighting, warming, etc., and the expense of an evangelist sent to aid in the services, will amount to about £200.
We plead earnestly for special donations toward building the boat, and annual subscriptions toward working it. Without these, this most desirable undertaking cannot be accomplished, the ordinary income being already taxed to the utmost.
While we were using Mr. Cook's boat, Le Bon .Messager, one writer, in a popular French daily newspaper, professing to be very friendly, asked, " What is to be done when, in a few days, this little ship.has to quit the Seine and put to sea again ~ A happy thought occurs to us, which we submit to the promoters of this effort. "Ve recommend them to engage a
I,S,SIonRB.Y
anal~ tn 'l1RllCeI J • f–'—I IIan -:i- + -+– 'ecHon + PARIS – FEBRY 1891 H. R~&. It€'Y.
H(!c;~itecf D. by I~( ;;tale
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT
balloon and hold meetings in the air, high above the Tour Eiffel. The audience being thus already part way to heaven, it will be easier to guide them upward for the remainder of the journey."
This and similar pleasantries clearly attracted thousands to the boat, and numbers who came expecting to be amused remained as earnest listeners. It would be difficult to compute in how far we are indebted even for the new, permanen.t boat to the popular interest thus awakened, evidencing how especially this novel mode of evangelization is adapted to reach the French people.
When the ship was about to leave Paris, a pleasing little incident occurred. Mr. Henry Cook, of the Portsmouth Seamen's Society (who lent us the vessel), and our missionary, the Rev. S. R. Brown, had to go from one marine office to another to carry out some formalities. The distances were considerable, so they hired a small carriage, and were directed from bureau to bureau, a wearisome round. When it was finished Mr. Brown asked the driver what extra sum (beyond the small legal fare for a single drive) was due, on account of the many calls and long waiting. " Gentlemen," he said, his countenance brightening, " I will not receive one sou extra. It has been a pleasure and privilege to conduct you. I and my son have attended the boat meetings whenever we could, and have found great benefit there. I am only too happy to offer this small mark of my gratitude."
The new boat is now in process of building; the special donations have warranted ordering it, but there will be the annual cost of working it, river and canal dues, mariners' support and cost of sending evangeliststhough the good captain and his wife will receive nothing, not even their own support. We tried to believe the annual cost would not surpass £200, but to work well we must rather reckon on £300. It certainly promises to be the means of sending far and wide the Gospel message in France to numbers of places in which it is as yet never heard. We hope to launch it about the end of October.
From the Nineteenth Annual Report of the McAIl Mission we append a few statements which will interest all who are watching the new developments of this work. The missionary boat on the Seine has found the door open wider than ever in France. This was a new experiment in the heart of the vast city. Moored at the well-known Pont de la Concorde, it was wonde~ful to descend into the cabin on a summer afternoon, and find everything orderly as in a regular place of worship, and hear the hearty singing, and mark the reverent attention pervading the crowded assembly, composed chiefly of men; then, so soon as one meeting was ended, to see a new audience eagerly rushing in and filling the cabin a second, third, and even fourth time. What a resistless evidence of a widespread desire to listen to the Gospel message! The gross attendance, during the seven weeks, was 23,500, comprising all classes of society, and many, evidently, hearing the Gospel for the first time in their lives. By a vessel permanently connected with our work the G08pel could be conveyed not only to the cities and towns, but to ~ multitude of remote places where, as yet, its glad sound is never heard.
Every ycar brings new proofs that, so long aR the workers, whether for young or old, keep strictly to the faithful declaration of the Gospel, and the direct effort to win souls to Christ, the people will ncver grow weary of listening to them. Our special work during the" Exposition Universelle" evidenced this anew j each of our two temporary halls at the gate!! has ceased to be temporary. In each a little permanent cl)ngregation of residents in Par'is remained after the Exposition had closed. Were-entered the large salle of Avenue Rapp with the New Year, the influx of these new-comers having rendered the neighboring one of Avenue Bosquet too small, while the little room at the Trocadero has bcen retained. In both "We have the joy of recognizing a certain number of true converts.
Another striking indication that the present i~ a peculiarly favorable time for Gospel work here is found in the fact that in two of our central llalls in Paris-those of Rue Royale and Boulevard Bonue Nouvelle-the gross attendance during 1890 (omitting all extra mcetings) exceeded that of 1889 by 24,300, and this without any novelty of procedure or 8pecial attempt at publicity.
Mr. M. L. Dodds has written: "Never before did this 'Salvation Navy,' as the new~papers call it, attempt to take Paris hy storm, nor dare to cast anchor and hoist flag just below the Pont de la Concorde. Soon, however, the curious crowd gathered, and were welcomed to the nicely fitted-up saloon. The hours of meeting were at first from three to four and from eis-ht to nine. They were gradually extended, till three meetings occupied the afternoon, the saloon emptying and refilling each hourhardly emptying, for often there were a dozen or more people who did not stir, and whom the longest discourse did not frighten away; people who seemed rooted to the spot-both sexes. The greater number are men -men of all classes. One quite young fellow sat in his place from halfpast two till six, and again from eight to nine, magnetized, as it were, by what he was hearing. He was a Catholic, from the North) and had never been to meetings of this sort before. Many took the thing less seriously; they like to whet their intellects on the discourse. 'These are good things,' said a young man to his companion, as they went out, ' but one takes and leaves.'
" Anything like steadiness of attention did not, of course, come all lit once. At the first there was a grcat dcal of coming and going, ~ometimes II little staring and laughing; some were amused at the faint sickly swing of the boat IU! other vessels passed it. Some found the steep companionladder ridiculous-' fit for English people,' they said-these Parisians do not see these ladders as often as they do in England. Some tried to join in the hymns, and sang out of tune, amusing the others. Some came only frOID curiosity, which being satisfied, they retired, never to return. h short, the meetings on the boat began exactly as those first meetings in 1872 began. If anyone wanted to stand again, in imagination, at the cradle of the miRsion, he could have seen the same curiosity, the same criticism, the same bewildered qnestions, the same falling off of wayside hearers, the same process of selection by whieh others stayed, and returned, and listened, and wondered, and often received life for their souls. .
" The French daily papers, describing the work, gave us lengthy advertisements for nothing! Think of it! Advertisements are expensive in France. 'With what gold should we have bought a column and a half of the Figaro .2 " All the French papers were talking about our Bon Messa,qer. Under some such title as 'Le bon Dieu .~ur l' eau ' – ' La religion Ii voiles'- , Une cJwpeUe flottante,' they gave a piece of clever and not ill-natured banter, and llometimes of not too inaccurate description, which helped to send hundrcd~ on board. Le Monde Illustre had some capital comic ,;l:etehes. The crowd pressing down 'en queue '-the saloon filled with peopll1-the lady open-mouthed at the harmonium-the orator keeping time with his llymn-book-were all represented. Even the texts eould be deciphered in full in the pictures. Le Monde made a mistake, however, in giving us too many old ladies in the front seats j but that may be passed over.
" The Rappel said : •• • A yacht is moored below the Pont de la Concorde. To its masts is attached a large ensign, white, on a blue gronnd, " Evangelical meetings every day, free entry." A fixed gangway gives access to the yacht j by a steep staircase we reach the cabin, transformed into a meeting hall. " , A dignified English lady, a little leather bag hangin"g on her arm, gives you a red book. The title is" Popular Hymns." You are warned, by a notice on the cover, that the book is not for you. Comfort yourself -you will get other presents! There are tracts for all tastes.' Butenough. The speakers and players are in turn described or caricatured. Thc singing and reading is carefully described, then the address by M. Mabboux. Then it is naIvely remarked, 'The meeting is closed with a prayer, which must be said with the eyes shut j , for to elose the eyes during prayer strikes these people as a new and peculiar action. "The Figaro also describes the steep ladder, and the hall, 'which might contain about two hundred persons. It is a meeting hall, with a reading. desk at one end j wooden benches arranged in order, and all round the walls are little sentences setting forth the adyantages of having to do with God (commerce avec Dieu), such as "God is your refuge." Jesus Christ said, " Venez d moi vous tous qui etes travailtes et charges, et je vous s01dagerai. " " The Lord is my Shepherd," etc. These' go all along the cabin, in French and English.' "One tract was given down-stairs, and one Gospel on deck. The tract was usually offered by a lady to each one going out, and within its cover was placed a complete list of the mission halls in town, so that any one could choose the hall nearest to his place of residence if he wished to attend. On deck a young man offered a copy of a gospel. Some!imes curious but too rapid conversations took place with those going out.
" A lady, being offered the Gospel of John, said she wi&hed that of Matthew too. ' It is not here to-day, madam, but would you not like to buy a New Testament g, '" A New Testament g What is it g, " , It contains all the four Gospels, and other matter. ' " Ah ! then I should like that j is it expensive ~ , " , Four sous.' " And it was bought. "Miss B– gave a tract to a lady, who stopped, and said abruptly; " , Then, what must one do to get to heaven g, " , Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. His death saves you.' " , Yes-but what must I do g, " , Just what I have told you-believe.' " , And then ~ , " , Then you must read His Word and do His will.' " , Do you believe in hell and in purgatory? ' " , In hell I do, not purgatory.' " , According to that, we are all condemned.' " , We are. Only Christ saves us.' " , Are you saved g , "But a rush of people through the narrow doorway, up the ladder, separated the two. Others had to be attended to. Will she come back again and inq~ire further ~ Who knows !
" They get good speaking on the bateau, and they get plain speaking, too. These Frenchmen make a noble use of a noble language. Some came from the country to help, as Messrs. Mabboux, Vernier, and Sainton. When possible, four or five took turns in the course of the afternoon. And they rose to the occasion. The best gave their best here. I suppose the sight of those wistful faces appealed to them, and they , stirred up their gift.' What the people got was the simple Gospel, suited to their needs. Christ was exalted as Saviour and as King of kings."
M. J. Sainton, who labored very earnestly in the meetings, adds: "The audiences were very mixed, from the consequential lady and gentleman to the street urchin j but, with few exceptions, after the first moments of surprise, our listeners were respectful, attentive, and even sympathetic. By these meetings on the boat we have reached a new contingent of sinners in the midst of our Parisian society, till then strangers to the Gospel. lIad this been the only result, thc work carried on had been a real success, for we should have been carrying out the commandment of our Master, , Preach the Gospel to every creature.'
" But, besides this, we can say that from this time the work of God has begun in very many hearts, a work which the Holy Spirit will deepen unto salvation, "One day a young man, with a fine open face and well dressed, said to me, 'For several days I have been without work, my savings permitting me to wait and look out for a good place. Meanwhile, I am profiting by your good conferences, where I am glad to hear, in regard to religion, things quite new to me, and which I desire to know more about.' Since then I have seen this young man several times at our evening meetings. He has become one of onr regular attendants.
" Another young man, whom I had noticed at different times, and who always appeared most serious, said to me in reply to a question, • Yes, sir, I begin to understand that what you say is the truth.' Later on, I spoke to him again, and he said, 'Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. I want to live according to the Gospel, and not only that,' added he, with as much seriousness as naIve simplicity, " but I should wish to become a preacher like you. '
" Another day a young man came, accompanied by some companions, and with a mocking smile on his lips. By degrees his expression changed. After two or three meetings his companions dropped off, but he returned alone. He always sat in the same place, and sang and listened quite earnestly. I asked him one day about his spiritual state. He could not answer, bllt I felt that a good work was going on in his heart. He told me that since coming to our meetings he has ventured into II Protestant church, and that the simplicity and beauty of our religion had greatly impressed him. I gave him the address of the hall near which he lived, and he said to me that he would certainly attend the meetings there.
" Another time a gentleman, a merchant from the Provinces, waited for me at the door. That day we had to some extent touched on controversy on the subject of 'confession of sins.' • It is the first time,' said this gentleman, ' that I have been present at your meetings, and I wish to tell you with how much interest I have listened to you and your colleagues; but,' added he, • I should have liked to see our Catholic priests defend their points, and to know what you would have replied to them. ' , If the priests,' said I to him, • do not accept the Word of God as the common ground of discussion, we would not argue with them, for God has not given any other foundation for our faith in the doctrines of the truth. If, on the contrary, they accept it, all discussion is quickly settled, for not only can they not base the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the Word 'of God, but they have against them numerous and striking texts.' Then followed a most interesting conversation, which ended in the gentleman declaring: 'I also have had religious convictions from my childhood. In youth I rejected certain ordinances of my Church without abandoning the faith, and I see to-day that I am much more Protestant at heart than Catholic.'
SOME HINDRANCES '1'0 THE WORK 01' FOREIGN MISSIONS
"Unfortunately I did not think of taking his address, and he has probably returned to the provinces, for I have not seen him again."
Pastor Aubanel, of PariiO, says of the missionary ship at Fecamp : " The meetings held at Fecamp during August, 1890, on board The Herald of Mercy, were specially noteworthy because of the number of hearers, and the earne:;t attention with which they listened to the fundamental truth of the Gospel. For some days they were led by Pastor Cresseil, of Paris, but he had to leave, to conduct the evangelistic work at Trouville during the bathing season. The committee sent me to replace him. Every day, aided by the captain and Mlle. M–, I held a meeting and proclaimed a free salvation through repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to a number of sailors and their families.
•, Perfect order reigned on board during the whole time. The missionroom was constantly full of attentive and interested hearers-often too slIlall to hold all who wished to come, so that the deck also was crowded with persons eager to hear the glad tidings-which they could do, as the skylights were open; many also stood on the edge of the quay. On those days it is estimated that as many as 250 were present. The average was 180.
" A plentiful distribution of tracts and Scripture portions was made at the end of each meeting. New Te:;taments were on sale at the low price of one penny for the small edition. The people were so eager to buy that the stock on board was soon exhaustcd.
" When I took leave of the audience after the last meeting, very many of them, with a warm shake of the hand, said how sorry they were that the meet.ing" were over, and how much they hoped that they would be begun agaiu in a ncar future. "
SOME IIINDRANCES TO THE WORK OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY REV. GEORGE W. NORTHRUP, D.D., LL.D.
[We venture to reprint from the Baptist Missionary Magazine the masterly address of President Northrup before the Se;"entv-seventh Anniversary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, held in Cincinnati, May 25th, 1891, hoping thus to bring it to the attention of some who may not have !lad an opportunity of reading it. -ED.] I purpose to speak of some of the hindrances at home to the work of foreign missions, or some of the causes of the comparative failure of the Church to evangelize the pagan nations. Before expres5ing my thoughts on this subject, I beg leave to uttcr a word of a personal nature. It is possible that my remarks may not Eecure the approval of all ; may, in fact, give offence to some who hear me. If such shall be the case, let me assure you that I am not mored by a pcssimi6tic spirit, nor by a disposition to disparage the missionary history of our people. I am not willing to admit that I am inferior to any of my brethren in loyalty to the denomination with which I have Leen identified for fifty years, and which I have served, in a public way, for more than a third of a century. The feeling which I am most distinctly conscious of, as I stand before you to· day, is that of heartache in view of the apathy of Christian people, and especially the apathy of our denomination, in regard to the temporal and eternal salvation of the vast population of the pagan nations. I have put the question to myself once and again, within a few weeks past: " What can be done to change this state of things-to awaken the feelinl! of love and compassion which ought to exist for the hundreds of millions of our felloW'.men involved in the darkness, degradation and misery of heathenism g I speak in behalf of a billion human beings, for everyone of whom Christ died, every ODO of whom has a place in the heart of God, everyone of whom is of as much worth in His sight as any citizen of the great republic. It is certain that God has done all that He could wisely do in bestowing grace UpOll His people. It is also certain that, if they would use the grace bestowed with greater fidelity, He would give more and still more-, " opening the windows of heaven and pouring out a blessing, that there would not be 100m enough to receive it." The speedy eVaI;gelization of the pagan world, and shall we not also Bay, their salvation, is, in a real and profound sense, in the hands of the Church.
1. Among the causes referred to, we notice, first, the departure from the method of Christ, in laying chief stress, not on salvation here and now, the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, but upon salvation in a narrower seuse of the term, as escape from the retrihutions of hell. To use the words of another: "It has been too much the habit of Christian people, in looking abroad upon the heathen world, to regard it, Dot as a kingdom to be congucred for Jesus Christ, but rather as a seething sea of drowning men, a few of whom might bo saved from the general wreck by those whom the Church sent out on her gallant life-boat service." But certainly this is not the conception which Christ empllasizes when He sets before men the object of their immediate aud supreme devotion. He hegan His ministry by preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye, and bclieve tho Gospel." He frequently called the kingdom which He came to establish the" kingdom of heaven." not because it is in heaven, but because of its heavenly origin and nature. The prayer given by our Lord indicates plainly the location ned nature of tho kingdom for tho establishment of which He enjoined His disciples to labor ~and pray: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done"-where g in heaven? " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The objects presented in these two clauses are identical; the petition, "Thy kingdom come," means" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The end here presented-universal obedience among men to the will of God-is the burden of the Gospel which Christ preached, and which He commanded His disciples to preach to " all nations," "to every creature;" an end which includes the whole duty of man, and in the accomplishment of which the earth will reflect, in II degree beyond buman conception, the love, purity and blessedness of the heavenly world. True, in a few instances, Christ spoke of the infinitely diverse destinies of men in the future world; "but for once that He spoke about tho ';;iVing of the soul, lIe spoke fifty times about the kingdom." Since Christ's method is the wisest and best, in the measure that the Church has departed from this method, it must have lost in reli~ious power, llow much power, in the way of missionary appeal,' has the doctrine of the eternal perdition of the great majority of the pagan world 1 I received, a few months ago, a letter from a missionary in India, accompanied by a printed appeal to all evangelical churches, in which he states that, while last year (1890) fifty thousand heathen had been rescued, twenty millions had died, few of whom had heard of the love of God in Christ. And he exclaims- " Twenty millions of immortal souls swept into hell in a single year I"
It is probably an approximately correct estimate that, during the missionary year just closed, twenty millions of pagans, who had reached the age of moral accountability, have passed away, the great majority of whom never heard of the Gospel of the grace of God. Is there not, in this fact, considered in the light of the commonly received view of the Bible relation to the final doom of the heathen world, a power of appeal to the people of God sufficient to impel them to all possible labors and sufferings necessary to make known the way of eternal life to every pagan on the face of the globe 1 Rave they been greatly moved by this fact of overwhelming importance 1 Row much have the Baptists of the Northern States, numbering eight hnndred thousand, contributed to aid in sending the Gospel to the vast multitude who have passed to the awards of the eternal world since the Union met in Chicago, one year ago 1 If we allow to these twenty millions their due share of our contributions according to their number, it will appear that the members of our churches have given, on an average, not to exceed two cents for rescuing from hell a number of our race equal to one third of the population of the United States. Is not this an amazing fact 1 Does it not ~eem incredible 1 Does it not furnish a moral demonstration that the idea of the exposure to everlasting puni8hment of the pagan world has but an almost inappreciable influence upon the great body of Christian people 1 Brethren, I would submit the matter to you j I would ask you, each one, to state, clearly and fully, to his own mind, the considerations which render it credible that the Baptists, represented by the Union, believe what they profess to believe in regard to the final doom of the heathen world, and yet give, on an average, not to exceed one cent a week, to send the knowledge of the way of eternal life to a billion heathen, and not to exceed two cents to rescue from perdition the twenty millions whose day of probation has closed since the last anniversary of the Union. Would it not seem difficult to find eight hundred thousand non-Christian men, of average natural benevolence, who would not give as much, if necessary, to prevent the everlasting misery of an equal number of irrational creatures ~ 18 it a matter of wonder that the world does not believe in hell, or that it does not believe that the orthodox churches believe that the heathen" shall go away into eternal punishment'" Do you say that for the world to deny that Christians believe what they profess to believe on this point is to charge them with the most culpable insincerity-a charge which involveR, logically, universal historical scepticism, rendering it irrational to believe in the existence of faith and goodness among men 1 True, but we would inquire if the charge involved in the other alternative is less damaging-the charge, well grounded, of continued practical indifference, on the part of the great majority of the members of all evangelical churches, to the eternal welfare of a thousand million of their fellow-men, whom they profess to love, and whom they are bound, by the most saered obligations, to love as they do themselves.
We would not have you misunderstand us at this point-to regard us as doubting the reality or under-valuing the importance of salvation as escape from the retributions of the future world. We believe that everlasting punishment will last forever; and we believe this awful truth because it iii taught in the Bible; and we believe it is taught in the Bible because it is a fact in the universe; and we believe it is a fact in the universe because the infinite God, in the plenitude of His resources, conld not prevent its existence, acting, as it behooves Him to act, in accordance with the immutable principle of His holy nature; and we believe that this truth ought to have the same place of relative importance in the instruc- tions of the pulpit which it has in the Bible. And yet we affirm that Christ did not dwell chiefly upon salvation as pertaining to the future world, but as a good to be realized here, through the reign of love in the souls of men, constraining them to grateful and self-sacrificing labors that the will of God might be done everywhere on earth as in heaven. Salva- tion is deliverance from sin, and sin is of all evils the essence and the sum. "It brings present disgrace and ruin to body and soul, to home and country ; it breeds distrust; it enervates manhood and womanhood; it incitp.s to murderous revenge; it arrays class against class; it kindles the fires of volcanic social hate; it is a menace to peace, to social order, and to international amity; and from all this there is salvation only by that personal integrity and "ocial righteousness which are the gifts of God to man through Jesus Christ." Salvation in this world involves salvation in the world to come ; the kingdom of God on earth is the foundation of the everlasting kingdom of God in the heavens; and in the measure that salvation is wrought out here, and the kingdom of God extends among men, will the end be accomplished which Christ set before His disciples as the object of constant and paramount devotion. The whole ministry of Christ was a ministry of love to all the sinful, sorrowful, lost sons of men. He was moved with compassion for the multitude because He saw them "in distress," "scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd," living mean, ignoble, wicked lives, ignorant of God and of the place which they occupy in His infinite heart, with latent spiritnal powers capable of development, with solemn re!!>ponsibilities of moral agents, with features of the divine image not yet wholly effaced and that might he restored. How strongly did He nrge, by word and deed, in life and death, the duty of self-sacrificing love for men, not merely for the souls of men, but for men, women and children, in all the relations of life; and how impressively did He emphasize, in the sublime programme of the judgment day, the decisive importance of deeds of love and mercy. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, y0 did' it unto Me." " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto Me." "Come, ye blessed of My Father." "Depart, ye cursed." Who are the brethren of Christ in this judgment programme? His disciples ~ Yes, but not these alone. For the event which He describes is that of the general judgment, when all nations, all the generations which shall have thronged the globe, will stand before His judgment seat, among whom there will be countless millions who never saw one of His disciples. The brethren of the Son of Man are "the poor, suffering, sorrow-laden sons of men, and the principle on which the judgment proceeds is that as men treat those, they would have treated the Judge had they had the opportunity. "
Are not the heathen among those who are in greatest need of the offices of love? Are they not hungry, famishing for lack of the Bread of Life q Are they not sick, consumed by the fever and leprosy of sin! Are they not poor, bankrupt in estate and character? Are they not in prison, compassed about by walls which they can neither scale, nor dig beneath, nor break through? If this great passage does not teach that men are saved by works of love, it certainly does teach that a faith, which does not produce these works, is vain and dead, and that those and those only who possess the spirit aud do the works described by Christ, are justified in regarding themselves, or in believing that He regards them, as His true disciples. The question for us to answer, as Mr. Spurgeon is reported to have suggested, is not, May the heathen be saved without the Gospel, but, Will we be saved if we do not carry the Gospel to the heathen ~ And it may be confidently affirmed that those who cannot be moved with compassion, in view of the wrath of God which has come upon the heathen, will not be moved with compassion in view of that which is to come upon them; that those who will not make sacrifices to rescue the heathen from the hells in which they are in this world, will not make sacrifices to rescue them from the hell of the future world, which seems far off, vague, unreal.
What, 'then, is the greatest need of the Church to-day ~ We answer, A divine enthusiasm; a mighty passion for the kingdom of God on earth, embracing all the populations of the globe":"'all China, all India, all Africa, all Enrope, all America, and all the islands of all the oceans; a kingdom as wide-reaching as the manifold life of man, involving obedience to the will of God in all positions and relations-in the sphere of the family, of social life, of business life, of political life; a kingdom whose progress shall be marked by the growing consecration of the people of God, the preaching of the Gospel to the poor, the overthrow of oppression, the extermination of drunkenness and the passions of lust and the greed of gain, the destruc,tion. of superstition, idolatry and all forms of infidelity, the sway of truth, and love, and righteousness over all the earth, a divine enthusiasm-a mighty passion of love and loyalty, impelling the soldiers of Jesus Christ to conquer for Him all the kingdoms of the globe on which His cross of shame and agony was set up, and from which He uttered the cry of expiring and redeeming love.
II. We mention, as a second cause, the failure of the evangelical churches to apply at home the principle of comity which they recognize in their foreign mission work. .
It is estimated that there is, on an average, one ordained minister to every three hundred thousand of the pagan population of the world.
There is good authority for the statement that in China, and t.he popula- tion accessible to the American Board, there is only one missionary for every six hundred thousand people. Moreover, there are whole nations, numbering scores of millions, in which no disciples have been made. We are confident that all who have any adequate conception of the interests involved will admit that the two following statements are thoroughly reasonable : 1. "That the Christian churches of the world should be satisfied with nothing less than sending out one ordained missionary for every fifty thonsand of the accessible pagan population of the world."
2. "That no church ought to call itself thoroughly aggressive and evangelical that does not expend, for the support of missions at large, at least one dollar for every five it expends for itself. "
What would compliance with these propositions require of the evan- gelical churches of the world ~ Twenty thousand ordained missionaries instead of four thousand, as at present; an immediate reinforcement of sixteen thousand, of which the quota of our denomination at the North should be not less than twtlve lmndred, making our foreign force of ordained ministers at least fifteen hundred. This would require our churches to give annually five times as much as the committee planned for expending during the current year, as authorized at the last annual meeting of the Union, or $2,500,000, a sum which, large as it may seem, is $400,000 less thau would come, annually, into the treasury of the Union if. the members of our churches should give, on an average, one cent a day for the cause of foreign missions.
We ask you to consider most seriously the vast relative waste, in men and money, involved in the condition of things existing in all the Northern States-the part of the country represented by the Union.
To illustrate the matter which we have in mind, let us take an example of numberless cases, with many of which everyone is familiar. Here are five fields, each having a population of fifteen hundred, and five evangelical ministers-one Baptist, one Presbyterian, one Congregationalist, one Episcopalian, and one Methodist-twenty-five ordained ministers preaching the Gospel to seven thousand five hundred people. while on the other side of the globe there are twenty-five fields, each having a population of three hundred thousand, and but one ordained minister; twenty-five men preaching the Word to seven million five hundred thousand people-one thousand times as many as are under the care of the same number of religious teachers at home. We ask now, in all earnestness, Would it not be infinitely more reasonable and Christian, if these several denominations would apply at home the principle of comity which they recognize abroad, keeping five of these ministers here and sending twenty to aid their brethren, each of whom is confronted by nearly a third of a million pagans? If it would be wrong in the sight of God to put five ministers of different evangelical denominations in a village of fifteen hundred people in China, or Africa, or Burmah, restricting their labors to that locality, is it not wrong and equally wrong, yea, wrong in a greater degree, to do the same thing here, while hundreds of millions o£ our fellow-men are living and dying in the darkness and misery of heathenism ~ The field is the world. The whole world is missionary ground. Every city, every village, every neighborhood, in which there is one man, or woman, or child who is not a citizen of the kingdom of God, is a missionary field. We challenge any man to adduce reasons which will approach to a justification of the course of the Christian churches in distributing their forcet! over this common missionary ground-the whole world-in such an extraordinarily uneven way, putting one minister in charge of three hundred people, many of whom are Christians, and another, of no greater ability, in charge of three hundred thousand, of whom all, or nearly all, are pagans. If the great evangelical denominations would act on the principle of comity here suggested, it would be an easy matter for them to send an immediate reinforcement of sixteen thousand men, so that there might be one minister to every fifty thousand pagans; and it would be an undertaking of no difficulty for us to send our quota of twelve hundred, and to furnish them with adequate support.
Is it a violation of truth or charity to say that the existing state of things is a great religious scandal, an offence against God, and a crime against our brethren of the heathen world, sit.ting in the region and shadow of death, perishing for the lack of the Light of Life?
What are the lessons taught by these facts? What are the duties which they should impress upon us? One duty, and that of paramount importance, as clear to our mind as if it were written on the heavens in words of fire, is this: That the evangelical churches ought to emphasize strongly all points of doctrinal agreement and all methods of Christian work in which they can unite, coming as closely together as possible, and presenting a united front to the enemies of God. Consider, we beseech you, the most obvious facts of our condition. Here are the evangelical churches, in all but a few millions, confronted at home by three hundred million members of two powerful and thoroughly corrupt organizationsthe Roman and Greek hierarchies-and by vast masses of men connected with no churches, dominated by sensuality, greed of gain, lust of powcr, and social distrust and hate, tremendous principles of evil which have brought to untimely destruction cities and nations, many and great, all down the ages; and abroad, confronted by a billion heathen, all involved in deepest moral ignorance and most debasing superstition, and half of them held in the thraldom of false philosophical systems of extraordinary power; and joined with these forces, both at home and abroad, the spiritual hosts of wickedness, nnder the leadership of the god of this world. In such a war as this, fighting the organized evil forces of earth and hell, the combined powers of "the world, the flesh, and the devil, ,. united in the strongest compacts, shall we not, all soldiers of Jesus Christ, stand together in the closest relations possible, help each other heartily on the march and in the deadly assanlt, cheer each other amid the fire and storm of battle, knowing that the Leader is one, the army one, the foe one, the final triumph one, the eternal glory one-the glory due unto Him who is " worthy to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and blessing" ~ But we hear objections, many and plausible, urged against what some may be pleased to call an impracticable and fanatical appeal.
1. It is said that we, as a denomination, hold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; that it is of supreme importance that we secure the widest possible acceptance of onr views at home; that we dare not compromise with error by consenting to give up any community, however smail, to the care of Predobaptist churches, etc.
The question, then, for us to consider is reduced to this: Shall we give over more of the population of our country to the Predobaptists, or more of the heathen world to the devil ~ Are we to regard the errors of all Christian churches, other than our own, as more destructive than the errors of heathenism ~ And, then, if we have the truth, in its purity and fulness, are we not, of all Christian bodies in the world, under the greatest obligation to go to the regions beyond ~ Surely, the very fact of the purity of our creed immensely engances the claims of duty resting upon us to secure its worldwide acceptance. What an inspiring and uplifting event it would be to the whole Christian world, if we should send out, at once, the number of missionaries suggested-twelve hundred-moved by the spirit of apostolic self-sacrifice and heroism, whose labors might be the means, under the blessing of God, of winning to our pure faith tens and hundreds of thousands in heathen lands, creating at many points, as among the Telugus, Baptist communities numbering fifty thousand! Furthermore, is it not evident that the fundamental principle of our people ought to constrain them to go, in large and increasing numbers, to the nations of the pagan world ~ For the fundamental principle of our churches, that of which. we boast and in which we glory, is loyalty to Jesus Christ, implicit obedience to His commands. We discard and repudiate all assumed authority of a human source, whether of popes, or councils, or traditions, or creeds. But loyalty to Christ, in order to be such in truth and not in name only, must include obedience to all His commands, especially to those which are of supreme importance, among which stands the Great Commission. Does our action, as a denomination, justify or contradict our profession of loyalty ~ What is the command of Jesus Christ, as distinct and imperative as if we heard His words ringing out from the height of heaven ~ Is it not, "Go ye, Baptists, preach the Gospel to every creature, make disciples of all nations~" Is it not the belief of our churches, that the Great Commission was given originally, not to Presbyterians, or Congre- gationalists, or Episcopalians, or Methodists, but exclusively to Baptists- the very people of whom we claim to be the only living representatives ~ The first body of Baptists were right loyal to their Lord; they went every- where preaching the Word; they carried the good news to aU quarters of the known worM. How is it with the people known as Baptists in the last quarter of the nineteenth century ~ Is their obedience such as to justify their claim to be the true successors of those early disciples of Christ ~ Have they discharged, are they now discharging, in any true and worthy sense, the high and imperative duty imposed by the risen and glorified Redeemer, loyalty to whom they claim as their distinction and horlor ~ Is it obedience to the command, "Go, make disciples of all nations," for a people, numbering eight hundred thousand, to contribute $400,000 a year-on an average, one cent a week-to give to a billion pagans a knowledge of the incarnate Son of God, who loved them and gave Himself for them, and through whom alone they can attain eternal life ~ Brethren, mere profession will not justify our claim of special loyalty to Christ, nor ~ill obedience to His requirements in the matters of baptism, communion and church government justify it while the great majority of the members of our churches are in a state of mutiny against the Great Commission, saying, if not in words, yet practically, We will not ourselves preach the Gospel to the pagan nations, nor will we make sacrifices to aid others in the work of preaching to them. .
How is it that the belief has come to prevail so widely, among all Christian people, that there is au enormous difference, in culpability and danger, between disobedience to Christ in rejecting what He requires them to believe, and disobedience to Christ in disregarding what He commands them to do ~ Why is it that the heresy of unbelief is regarded with such apprehension or alarm, while the heresy of inaction is viewed with comparative indiffer- ence ~ Is faith without works any better than works without faith ~ Are they not alike dead and displeasing to God-equally vain and perilous 1 To the heresy of inaction, far more than to the heresy of unbelief, is due the deplorable fact that the midnight darkness of heathenism still envelops nearly two thirds of the population of the globe. What, then, shall we do 1 The alternatives are: Either cease to claim to be the true successors of the earliest Baptist churches, or obey, with the devotion which char- acterized them, the Lord's command, "Go, preach the Gospel to the whole creation."
2. But we hear another objection urged with great frequency and confidence. It is said that the United States is destined to be the leading I nation of the future, that it occupies a position of immeasurable importance in the world's history; so that whatever we do, or fail to do, in relation to the evangelization of the pagan nations, we must seck, by all means in our power, to make our nation thoroughly Christian. What shall we say of this utterance, heard everywhere, especially on anniversary occasions, in the pulpit and on the platform ~ Is it not largely an utterance of national conceit, inspired by national pride and selfishness, and utterly opposed to thll example and teaching of Christ and His apostles 1 1. The ruling motive force of Christianity is love j and it is the nature, the irrepressible instinct, of Christian love to help the most helpless, the deformed in body, the feeble-minded, the moral refuse of. society for whom none care.
2. Jesus gathered around Him the weakest, the lowest, the" publicans and harlots," the social outcasts-the nobodies of ilis time, according to the prevailing standards of the world.
3. Does the Great Commission read, Go ye, therefore, make disciples of the leading nations, preach the Gospel to those who hold positions of great stategic importance? . This would seem to be the form of the Lord's final command as given in the English version most widely current in our churches. But the oldest manuscripts, beyond question substan- tially identical with the "Original Autographs" of Matthew and Mark, read very differently, as follows: "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations;" "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. "
4. The history of the Church justifies the method of Christ. Chris- tianity has won its most notable victories among peopla of little account in the judgment of the civilized nations, as among the Karens, the Telugus, the Sandwich Islanders, the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, who, though they were regarded by the Romans as too stupid and brutish to serve as slaves, have built up the most magnificent empire known to his- tory-an empire upon which the sun never sets, which has endured for a thousand years, and is influencing now, as never before, the thought, and life, and movements of the world. .
5. The only principle of missionary strategy recognized by Paul, the foremost missionary of all the ages-as appears from the inspired record of his life-was to preach the Gospel where men were thickest. And for the adoption of this principle he had divine warraut j for when he was at Corinth, the Lord said unto him in the night by a vision: . " Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace j for I alll with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee; for" -what did the Lord say? Corinth is a city of culture, the eye of Greece, occupying a position of great strategic importance? No, no ; but, " no man shall set on thee to harm thee, for I have much people in this city."
o brethren, can we not hear our Lord calling us one uy one, by name, and saying, " I have much people in China, much people in Africa, much people on all the continents and islands of the globe?" Let us take deeply into our minds and hearts Christ's idea of the people! the people! the people! He accounted man transcendently great, not because of the external distinctions which gain for him recognition and honor in the world, but because of what he is as man, the divine image in him, his inherent powers of intellect, heart and will, which have revealed but an insignificant fraction of their latent energy, even in the case of those who stand forth in history as the greatest of the sons of men, and to whose expansion and growth there is no goal this side of the infinitude of God.
In Christ's esteem, all men, of whatever race, or rank, or condition, ar~ of equal worth in virtue of their divine endowments and immortal destination.
The people have been of but little account in the past. It has been the great ones of the earth-emperors, kings and nobles, the rich and the powerful j for these it has seemed that all things were made; for these the people have labored, and suffered, and died like the beasts of the field; but thanks be unto God for the signs, multiplying on every side, betokening the growing power of Christ's idea of the greatness of man as man, the worth and dignity of the people. It cannot be doubted that one of the chief causes of the agitations and revolutions which are taking place in all Christian nations, working the di&integration and overthrow of institutions of social and political wrong which have survived the destruction of dynasties not a few, is the growing conscionsness, on the part of the people, of their divine rights and powers of manhood; their dignity as moral agents-deep calling unto deep-the strivings and aspirations of the human soul, like the ceaseless ground-swell of the ocean, in response to the presence and quickening touch of the Spirit of God. And as the Christian idea, which is Christ's idea of the people, shall grow in power and splendor, it will mould more and more profoundly all social and political institutions, and will constrain all the true disciples of Christ to labor with equal love, devotion and joy for the temporal and eternal wellbeing of all men, irrespective of race, or nationality, or color, or sex, or social condition.
But who knows that the United States is destined to be the leading nation of the future, that the Anglo-Saxon race will rule the coming ages ~ To whom has the assurance been given that God will not build up in China a kingdom far surpassing, in intellectual and moral power, the British Empire or the great republic 'I Where is the prophet who can foretell the destiny of the " Dark Continent," having at the present time a population of two hundred and fifty millions-four times that of the United States ~ Who can forecast the turnings and overturnings which shall precede the coming of Him whose right it is to reign, and who shall reign over all the nations of the earth ~ Is it nrged that certain of the pagan nations and races have no future, that they are worn out, their powers of expansion and growth exhausted? We reply that the judgment of those who thus speak is certainly shallow, and probably false, because they fail to estimate adequately the restorative and re-creative power of Christianity. The error is like that involved in the conception of "a mechanical world and an outside God." The idea has widely prevailed that the material universe is a " closed system"-a system of finite forces, acting and reacting upon each other, excluding all divine causality-its goal quiescence and death. The conception is fundamentally false, because it does not include, as it should include, God as the universal and abiding ground of all being and all life, as immanent and active in all chemical forces, in all vital forces, in all souls-to His almighty will energizing throughout creation from the atom to the archangel." This view compels us to reject, as irrational and incredible, the notion that the goal of the material universe is quiescence and death, and to affirm that, through the immanent and energizing power of God, it will abide, and pass on from lower to higher stages, " from the nebulous matter to the glory of the new heavens and the new earth."
But God is in history in a sense infinitely more real and profound than He is in the realm of physical nature; and hence we believe that there are no effete and worn-out peoples, no races whose powers of expansion and growth are permanently exhausted. For though the words of the apostle that" all live and move, and have their being in God" declare a universal fact of history, yet, in these last times, God has entered, in Jesns Christ, into new and more vital relations with mankind, and is creating them anew by His spirit. awakening and invigorating their dormant and paralyzed powers, thus enabling nations and races, as well as individuals, to enter upon a new career, far higher and grander than would have been possible to them before the Advent.
In concluding these remarks, we desire to say, that we have spoken as truly and earnestly in beha!f of the work of missions at home as of the work of missions abroad. The cause of home missions and the cause of
MISSIONS AND THEm RESULTS
foreign missions are one in principle and one in interest. And, therefore, along with the motto, " America for Christ," but high above it, we should place the motto, "The World for Christ:" And the speediest and the only infallible way to gain America for Christ is to give to the world's evangelization the place of supremacy, in labors and gifts, which it holds of right. This our churches, this the churches of other denominations, have lamentably failed to do. The most general and conspicuous act of disobedience to Christ, on the part of the Christian people of the United States, is their deliherate and persistent refusal to discharge the high and imperative duty to evangelize the pagan nations-a work for the accomplishment of which, within the period of the past twenty-five years, their resources, in men and money, have been ample. It is, in our judgment, no exaggeration to say, that the Baptist churches of the Northern States could have done and ought to have done, during the past year, as much for the cause of foreign missions as has been done by all the evangelical churches embraced in the same portion of our country.
Brethren, I would that one half of the Baptist ministers at the North would give themselves to the work of evangelizing the heathen. Disastrous to our denomination at home, do you say ~ Impossible. It would bring to our churches an unparalleled degree of prosperity; the places left vacant would be filled by men called of God from the ranks of the laity; ministers of other denominations would be won to us, convinced that we were holding the truth in its purity, and living it with apostolic fidelity ; Christians of other names, moved by the power of our example, would obey in a worthy manner the Lord's final command; and this powerful missionary "movement" .would confound infidelity at home, would convince the world that Christianity is, indeed, what it claims to be, and would mightily advance the Kingdom of God in all parts of our country.
May the Divine Spirit enable us to penetrate to the heart of these great paradoxes in the kingdom of Grace-that we saVtl our life, not by seeking, but by losing it; that we become rich, not by keeping, but by giving; that we become great in moral power among men, not by self-assertion, but by self-abnegation, by self. sacrifice from love to others; that it is through our poverty that we are to enrich the world, according to the way of Him who, " though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich."
APOSTOLIC MISSIONS AND THEIR RESULTS.
BY REV. JOHN RUTHERFORD, ROTHE SAY, SCOTLAND.
" Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." Such was the word of the Holy Ghost which came to the church in Antioch as they ministered to the Lord and fasted.
This was the actual beginning of Chris.tian missions; those two men were the pioneers of all in every age who have gone forth to carry the Word of Christ " far hence unto the Gentiles."
It was a vast work that lay before them. As Paul afterward wrote, " Who is sufficient for these things~" so would he feel now. Alone and single handed they were to attack the ignorance and superstition and vice of the world. Their difficulties could hardly be overestimated. What amount of credence were they likely to meet with from hostile Jews, from subtle Greeks, or from tl1e military Romans ? Was it probable that the minds of the heathen could be easily turned from the saturnalia and idol festivals to which for generations they had been addicted? Systems of priestcraft, of degrading mythologies, of widespread epicureanis~, of an utterly debased home life, of slavery and of revolting games and pleasures kept the world crushed beneath corruption and sensuality. And who, then, were Barnabas and Paul, to attempt to overthrow institutions venerable with the traditions of centuries? who were they to try to change the religions and social face of the world? "Two Jews of obscure name, of no position, without rank, without wealth, without influence, without either literary, political, or military genius, without any culture but such as a Roman noble would have despised as useless and grotesque." Yes, and even after years of working at this their chosen work, they did not find it either popular or remunerative, for it fell to their lot to approve themselves the ministers of God in affiictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in prisons, in deaths, being beaten, being stoned, being shipwrecked, Iiving in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.
Were they sufficient for these things? sufficient to cope with false philosophy, with heathenism, with abounding moral pollution, with a world which knew not God? They realized that their sufficiency was of God j they had been called by the Holy Ghost.
And so Barnabas and Saul went forth from Antioch, taking with them as an attendant and companion John Mark. Barnabas was one of the noblest, most manly, gentlest, and most effective of all the apostolic band. A Christian of the highest type, he had already been of the greatest service to Paul on more than one memorable occasion, a man of large heart, of wide sympathy, of great generosity and liberality j devoted and earnest and Joving, a " son of consolation," a good man, who rejoiced iu all good by whomsoever wrought, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.
And Paul, still known by his early name of Saul, was a man whose character towers far above that of ordinary men j a gentleman in the true sense of the word j a Christian, devoted, body, soul, and spirit, to Christ; courteous and orave, tender-hearted and true, full of enthusiasm and of sobriety of mind j a man of the deepest power of thought, eloquent, persuasive, able to organize and to manage, able to bear with weaknesses and prejudices, a man whose life was yielded without reserve to the glory of Jesus Christ and the welfare of men.
These, then, were the first Christian missionaries. After a farewell meeting with the church in Antioch they made their way to the port of Seleucia, where there stretched at their feet the waters of the great welltern sea. Here they found a splendidly built harbor in which the ships were lying protected from the swell of the waves outside. The ruins of this harbor remain in great perfection to our own day, only silted up with mud. From just such a harbor and such piers as we are acquainted with in any of our great shipping centres, the first New Testament missionaries set sail. It was the noblest use to which the masonry of the port of Seleucia had been ever put, when it sheltered the ship into which Paul and Barnabas stepped as they went at the divine bidding to evangelize the nations. Their vessel sailed out into the west-westward was the call of God to the Christian Church for many a century, until Europe and America should have received the Gospel-and soon arrived at Cyprus. Arrived at length in this, the first country to which God had led them, what would the results be? What would be the results of discussions with unbelieving Jews and with opposing philosophers? of weary journeys on foot-journeys continued for weeks together, while the preachers endured hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and had no certain dwelling-place? what would be the result of their residence in foreign cities among neVI' faces, all of whom were alike ignorant of" this Jesus whom Paul preached"? 'Would the results be commensurate with the time and labor expended V Modern critics would say, No ; for upon their principles Paul would have done better if he had not interfered with other people's religion, if he had let the world alone, for the religion of Greeks and Romans, of Celts and Britons was no doubt good enough for them, and they would somehow or another all turn out right enough in the next world. It was not after this fashion that Paul reasoned or acted. No ; he had a gospel to make known'-" woe is me if I preach not the Gospel." To make all men know the mystery of Christ he was willing to be buffeted and reviled, willing to undergo abuse and bodily injury, willing to be scourged, to be stoned and left for dead, as he was at Lystra. What, it is asked, are men to undergo treatment like ihis for the sake of propagating the Christian religion? Here is his reply : "I count not my life dear unto me, that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I received of the Lord Jesus."
But what were the results? A handful of converts in each of half a dozen or a dozen towns, and those converts by no means the mature, well-informed, experienced Christians who are to be seen in modern congregations. It is difficult to realize how inexperienced those converts were, how crude their ideas, how imperfect their morality ; they required mIlch patient teaching and exhortation; and even the best of them, who were appoicted deacons and deaconesses and elders, knew very little, for they had but recently turned from idols to serve the living and true God. All their previous life had the dead weight of heathen custom, heathen ideas, heathen morality, heathen vice; and it took long years of patient labor on the part of the apostles to raise their converts to anything like a proper appreciation of the behavior that is beeoming a Christian. Were ,OJ these results, then, worth the labor ~ WaR it worth while to have gained these new churches in heathen countries, when the gain had been achieved at the expense of such bodily injury to an apostle as had made him prematurely old and taken many years from his lif,e 1 Similar objections are constantly made against modern mission work-Is the conversion of a handful of Jews or of a few thousands of negroes or Hindoos or South Sea Islanders worth the life and the moncy that are spent in the process ~ and the verdict of many is in the negative.
But surely the actions of a divinely inspired apostle are a safer guide than any negative or hostile theories. Look again at Paul as he is returning from the second of his great missionary journeys. He has been away, from Antioch and his friends there for perhaps three years, and years and,hard work are telling upon him; he is not the same strong man he once was; no, he bears in his body the branding marks of the Lord Jesus. Since he and Silas set out-for Silas is now his companion-they have undergone the" shameful handling" which fell to their lot at Philippi; and violence of that kind no man can ever fully recover from. But Paul has a brave heart j none was ever braver than he. The devotion of his whole being to the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him, this personal affection to the Lord Jesus ever urges him on to spend and be spent for the glory of Christ and the salvation of man. He feels himself debtor to all–to slave and freeman, to Jew and Greek; and therefore as Jesus Christ's minister he is abundant in labors; life is too short and too precious to waste; eternity will give him rest. Therefore. does his heart bound onward to the work, although even in this second journey he has been in stripes above measure, in prison, in deaths oft, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness.
Yes, this was the kind of life Paul chose for Christ's sake. There was then no other educated man of his position who was acting in this fashion. They looked on him as a fool, and regarded those journeyings of his as fanaticism. He knew that this was the estimate formed of him by his former associates, " Weare fools for Christ's sake j" but he had counted the cost, and Christendom of to-day thanks God for the sufferings, the journeyings, the fearless enterprise, the manly Christian resolution of St. Paul-a resolution to live not for applause either in the Church or outside of it; but to live for Jesus Christ alone and for mankind of every nation, for slaves and outcasts, for little children and for women, for those whom the world despised. One thing this Paul ever does, one thing engages his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, that Christ be glorified in his body whether by life or by death.
Was it worth while ~ Would Paul and Barnabas and Silas not have done better to have stayed at home and taught the home church ~ Suppose they had, where, then, would our European and American churches have been to-day ~ Simply nowhere. Had there been no apostolic missions, Anglo-Saxon Christianity would have been non-existent.
Are missions worth the money ~ Do they pay? Alas! that such a question should even be asked by a worldly church. Ask Christ, and listen to His answer, " Make disciples of all nations." Ask Paul, " I am debtor to all men." Ask the martyrs, they counted not their lives dear to them for the name of Jesus. Go with me to Central Africa, to Lake Victoria Nyassa, and see what divine grace can do for the most benighted races. One of the missionaries, Rev. Mr. Ashe, writes as follows: "Picture the tyrant playing the first act in the tragedy. One of the elder storekeepers, a Christian page, is brought into the royal presence. 'Can YOIl read 1 ' asks his majesty. 'Yes,' boldly answers the page. 'I'll teach you to read!' cries the king, catching up a spear and laying it about the lad's shoulders till it broke in two ; then, taking up the blade, he gashed the head of his faithful servant and kicked him, till in a state of exhaustion he handed the weapon to one of his chiefs nearly as cruel as himself, to continue the lesson. He then sent and had fifty of his pages arrested and cast into prison. After being imprisoned for a week thirty-two of them were burned in one huge funeral pile. "
The spirit which animated these martyrs was the same which inspired the early Christians, who endured a similar death, as Tacitus narrates, in the time of Nero. Wrapped up in sacking which had been previously smeared with pitch, they were hung upon trees in the royal gardens and then set fire to, there to burn to death, blazing as lamps in the darkness of evening; or again, encased in the skins of wild beasts, they were thrown to dogs and worried till they died. The early martyrs and the martyrs of the nineteenth century in Madagascar and China and Africa were faithful to Christ, faithful unto death. Most assuredly work which God blesses with results such as these is worth the while.
The work is Christ's. The command to carry the Gospel to every creature is Christ's command. It is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Jesus, who still breathes into His people something of the compassion of Christ for those who are even to-day sitting in the shadow of death; and the results of Christian ,missions are Christ's. The handful of converts in Cyprus, in Pisidia, in Derbe, and Lystra, and Iconium, a]ld Athens, and Corinth, and Rome, and Spain, and Egypt, and Gaul, and Britain continues to increase throughout the centuries, until in this year of grace, 1891, we have Christian churches everywhere, the prelude to the timc when the earth itself shall be full of the knowledge of God, when sin shall be made to cease out of God's world, when in the fulness of the joy of the wholo human race ccnsciously redeemed, the shout shall. rend the skies, " The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever."
NARAYAN BHESHADRI, D.D
NARAYAN SHESHADRI, D.D., THE BRAHMAN APOSTLE OF THE OUT-CASTE MANGS.
BY GEORGE SMITH, LL.D., EDINBURGH, SNTLAND.
[We venture to reproduce from the Free Church of Scotland Monthly a superb paper which many readers have not seen.-ED.] The same Scottish newspaper announced the death of two remarkable Asiatic converts of Dr.. John Wilson of Bombay-the Parsi, Rev. Hor- mazdji Pestonji, and the Brahman, Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, Doctor of Divinity of the University of Montreal. There still survives the oldest of all, the Rev. Dhanjibhai Naoroji, at the head of the native Christian community of Western India.
Vilhen, in 1839, Dhanjibhai and Hormazdji left the fire-worship of Zoroaster for the only Name given under heaven whereby men may be saved, Parsi and Hindu society was moved to its centre. In vain was the civil court appealed to. But the Institution was almost emptied. .tmong the few sons of caste and superstition who clung to it through ill.report were two Brahman brothers-Narayan and Shripat. What Dr. John 'Wilson and Mr. Nesbit began, Dr. Murray Mitchell continued, and the good work resulted in their determination to put on Christ by baptism. Narayan, who was confessedly of age and could not be hindered, became the first convert of the Church of Scotland, Free, in the year 1843, when Dr. Wilson and Dhanjibhai were in Scotland founding the home organization of the missions anew. Shripat was not sixteen years of age, and Sir Erskine Perry handed him over to the Brahman priests, with a sneer at the plea of the age of discretion. He was torn from Mr. Nesbit's arms, as he sobbed forth the question, "Am I to be compelled to worship idols ~"
While the younger brother was thus driven back by a Christian judge into Brahmanism, and submitted to the humiliation of swallowing the five products of the cow, that he might be restored to caste, the elder began that apostolic career which, for this life, ended in the committing of his body to the Atlantic on the 21st July last, in the hope of a glorious resurrection in Christ Jesus, at the very hour when the Foreign Missions Committee in Edinburgh, all unknowing of the fact, were discussing the arrangements by which Dr. Mowat was to share his toils next October.
After spending some years as a missionary teacher in the Institution and preacher to his countrymen, Narayan Sheshadri was ordained by the Presbytery of Bombay, and the highly educated Brahman became for the rest of his life the apostle of the Mangs, the out-caste poor of the Deccan centre of India. Leaving ordinary British territory, he resolved to annex the great native state of Haidarabad to the kingdom of Christ.
The year was 1863. As his base, he worked from Jalna, a military cantonment, in which mission buildings were easily acquired. Three miles south he gradually obtained three hundred acres of land, which forms the centre of the mission to the Mangs. As the Spirit of God blessed his incessant evangelizing, he made that spot the centre of what grew to be his extensive mission to the out-caste. He formed a Christian church and a Christian community, calling both" the House of God," but using the Hebrew" Bethel" rather than one of his own beautiful Marathi words. After ten years of blessed toil he visited Scotland and America, to tell the churches of his work and to raise funds for the necessary buildings. His winning face and irresistible personality, his native eloquence alike in English and the vernaculars, and his contagious earnestness, captivated not only Christians in all the lands he visited, but the Parsi official of the district, and even the proud Arab prime-minister of the Nawab, Sir Salar Jung. For the mission he received three hundred acres of gautan, or chnrch land, free of tax, and never to be cultivated save as a grass common; for the Christian peasants he was installed as patel, or headman, over six hundred acres, in which office his son Yeshwant-rao, lately agricultural professor in Nagpore College, has succeeded him.
Year by year the work went on increasing, when he paid a second visit to America and Scotland. The writer was with him a deputy to the Presbyterian Alliance at Philadelphia in 1880, and went up and down Scotland with him, pleading alternately for the Livingstonia and for the Bethel Mission. After his first visit some of our generous Glasgow elders, led by Mr. William Mitchell, formed a committee to' help his village mission. Congregations specially charged themselves with the support of his catechists. The children of the Free Church, above all, built him his church, and year by year supported some of his schools. By 1886-87 the work had so far extended that we published this appeal for him : " Before we pass away from these earthly scenes, we should like to see the thirty villages, wherein our Christians reside, supplied with pastors duly qualified, called, ordained, and settled over their respective congregations.. How is this to be accomplished 1 However, we have most encouraging promises in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. , I shall take out of them (namely, Gentile nations) for priests and Levites, saith the Lord.' Has He not given a full realization of this promise in the experience of once heathen European nations; and what He has done with respect to European and American nations, lIe is able and willing to do with reference to the Gentile nations of India, China, Burma, Japan, and all Eastern nations. We mean to submit to the Free Presbytery of Bombay a scheme of studies to train up village pastors in connection with our Bethel Mission. Last year we had the pleasure to dedicate a new church at Rewagao, two miles to the south of Bethel, to the worship of the only living and true God."
In 1888-89 our deputies visited the Deccan Village Mission, and Rev. Dr. Lindsay made this report to the children of the church: " First, there was a most interesting series of baptisms, with an address to the baptized; then the nsual service, when I preached and Dr. Sheshadri interpreted; and lastly, the communion service, at which I had the privilege of presiding. No pews exist in the Bethel churcb. The congregation sit on the floor in row after row, devout and attentive; and th,e babies, most of them without a stitch of clothing on, crawl about everywhere. An bour or so after service the catechists and Bible-women met in the church, and we had an interesting interview with them. A great number were present besides Bible-women and catechists, and I could only get at which was which by act.ually taking hold of each and finding out by question whether the person I had hold of was a catechist or a Bible-woman, and separating them from the rest.
" One or two of the Bible-women made a very great impression on us. Their story of work was simple, clear, and interesting. 'Have you made many converts ~' one of our number asked. 'There is one,' she replied, pointing to one of the men among the catechists. Mrs. Mackichan and Mrs. Daly examined these Bible-women, and their questions drew out very interesting answers. Mrs. Daly gave them some very sound practical advice, which produced more immediate results than longer sermons usually do. All the small children came to the Monday village family worship clothed, although most of them spent the hour of service in getting rid of their inconvenient garment. One small urchin, having divested himself, to his own evident satisfa~tion, of every vestige of garment, toddled to the church door, carefully put on the largest pair of shoes he could find, and then tumbled down the steps in them. When he reached the bottom he picked himself up, got into the shoes again, and shuffied off out of sight-a happy child 1 "Dr. Sheshadri sends his men out in small bands to preach in the villages round about Bethel, and in this way has formed small Christian communities in most of them. One sees at Bethel genuine native Christians, who preserve all their primitive habits, and who are not Anglicized by their Christianity. The evangelists all collect at Bethel on the first Monday of every month, and are regularly instructed by Dr. Sheshadri, who is a born teacher (to hear him give a Bible lesson to school children, and to see the small eyes twinkle with eagerness, is a sight not to be soon forgotten), in the interpretation of Scripture, and in the best ways of meeting the various objections commonly brought by Hindus and Moslems against Christianity.
" In the afternoon we started for the neighboring village of Rewagao. It possesses the first of those village churches which Dr. Sheshadri proposes to build in the principal hamlets in his district. A congregation of about ninety people gathered, and three baptisms took place at the close of the service.
"Dr. Mackichan and Mr. Daly returned in the evening from their visit, and reported a cheerful little Christian community in the far-off village they had gone to see. These Christians lived in a distinct quarter of the village,- and though greatly outnumbered by the heathen, were full of hope and courage.
" I hope that Dr. Sheshadri's plan of building ten or twelve village churches will .be carried out, and that each church will have attached a prophet's chamber, in which the missionary may reside when on his rounds. The great defects of our mission in the Bethel district appeared to be the want of adequate provision for the training of the children, and the wide extent of country which Dr. Sheshadri has to superintend."
Of converts still living in 1890, Dr. Sheshadri reported 1062 as the number, besides 649 adherents. Mr. A. G•.Mowat, M. B., C.M., was sent ont from Glasgow last year to work the northern division of the mission from Jalna, after learning Marathi with Mr. Small at Poona. He has just been instructed to repor~ on the whole mission, after a year's survey.
Accompanied by his son, Dr. Sheshadri left Bombay for Japan last February on sick leave, proceeded thence to America, preached almost daily, and addressed the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. He sailed for Glasgow in the (Jircassia very well,* even at his age; but as the result of a storm on leaving. New York, he succumbed to bowel disease, and was buried in mid-Atlantic.
It is a strange story from man's point of view. The Brahman lad, fruit of our educational Institution, who confessed Christ before thc Supreme Court of Bombay, was enabled by the Spirit of God to bring, from first to last, some two thousand of his countrymen to Christ, notwithstanding defects of a purely secular kind, which he was ready to acknowledge and bewail. He has left a goodly heritage to the Church of India.
Do we ask what is missionary work g Rather ask what is not missionary work g for wherever there are Bouls to be saved, ignorance to be enlightened, human wrong to be righted, vice to be uprooted, and woes to heal; wherever the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, is obscured by reason of darkness, there is missionary work; and wherever in the homes of Christendom there are hearts unrenewed, lives wasted in folly and trifling, God-given powers dying for want of holy exercise, money, time, influence and example diverted to unworthy objects, there is missionary work.
* This was his last letter to Dr. Graham, of Edinburgh, now ninety years of age : – " WALNUT STREET, PHILADE~pmA, July 14, '91.
"My DEAR FATHER GRAHAM: I see that in all probability you'll have me once more in my temporary home, Ashfield Villa, Greenhill Gardens, 1 Chamberlain Road.
"You and your dear minister, Dr. Wilson, and all inquiring friends in your beautiful city, will be gratified to hear that I have been restored to health and strength. I have been travelling from San Francisco to New York, and thence to Chicago, Washington, and Bostoll, very often preaching twice on the Lord's-day, and once or twice on week-days.
"We leave New York on the 18th instant by the Circassia, on or about the 29th in Glasgow. I shall let you know when we-that is, my son Yeshwant-rao and myself-will be at Edinburgh.
Morningside. With warmest love to you, Miss Graham, and Miss Martha, and all Inquiring friends, ever afi'ectionately yours, NARAYAN SHESH~DRI."
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The census just taken shows India to have a population of 285,- 000,000.
-The Report of the Free Church of Scotland remarks: "A work on which Dr. Duff laid great stress in connection with all educational operations in the country, from the lowest indigenous vernacular primary school up to the highest college class, was the compiling or selecting of good, pure text-books, thus superseding the impure, immoral rubbish which at one time prevailed to so large an extent in all schools in India. Of course a good deal of this work has been accomplished, but a good deal remains to be done. The Government of India has put itself in communication with all the local governments on this subject of pure text-books, passed resolutions and laid down principles for the guidance of the various educational departments throughout the country. One of these principles is to the effect that at least one half of every school-book used as a reader in English or in vernacular teaching should consist of lessons having a direct bearing on conduct, either by way of precept or of example. The fact is becoming more patent to missionaries every year that the progress of Christianity rests on a sensitiveness of conscience as to conduct. Wherever there is an indifference as to conduct, there can be no conviction of sin. Wherever I God or the Supreme Authority is regarded as indifferent as to whether actions are good or bad, and also wherever men are regarded as under the compulsion of fate, so that they can do nothing of themselves and are therefore blameless as to bad conduct, there can be no conviction of sin. Now these are two of the fuudamental principles of Hinduism, and taught in most of their school.books. Hindus are trained from their infancy on these Ii nes.' '
-Mr. F. N. Farquhar, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, has lately gone out to take up work in the London Missionary Society College at Bhowanipur, Bengal. He writes: "Nothing impresses me so deeply as the extreme difficulty of the work of leading the class of men we have to deal with-educated Bengalis-to become Christians. They are not only proud of their own hoary cult, and filled full of arguments drawn from the purer and nobler parts of its teaching, but their want of physical vigor and moral greatness makes them far more difficult to rouse than stndents at home; and the fear which is now felt by Hindus concerning the advance of Christianity has led them to form almost a sacred dread of allowing any shred of Christian teaching to find a place in their heart.
"Yet though this seems to be true of a very large number of these young Babus, there are many whose hearts have been touched, and who are anxious to learn more about Christ.
" My little experience and few scraps of observation since I came here confirm my belief that the educational work done here is of extreme value and importance. That these young Christians should be taught by earnest Christians rather than by careless Christians or by Hindus is of immense importance, o,'en if we do not consider the actual Scripture work and direct Gospel teaching. And the magnificent set of educated native Christians dependent upon our mission here is a proof of the power of Christian educational work. The native pastors and other educated natives have impressed me deeply; they are kings among the ordinary Bengalis here, and their Christian character seems far advanced, and is most beautiful, most helpful, and most encouraging."
-The English Baptists, in their Annnal Report, announce as their policy" Aggressive Concentration." "Ooncentration and consolidation of missionary effort, rather than unwise diffusion, are the methods most ownea and blessed by God in Indian mission enterprise." The report of their deputation says: "vVe have in India to-day just one thin long line of stations, in most instances with extensive distances between. We have located our brethren in great cities far distant from each other, and by so doing removed from them the strength and inspiration that come from working in touch and contact in mutual sympathy and brotherly counsel. We ha'e set one or two brethren down in a vast and densely peopled city, and written' Occupied' over the entire district stretching far away, until we have treated a similar centre hundreds of miles distant in precisely the same manner. • . , 'Spread the Light!' 'Spread the Light !' is a cry in which we would all thankfully join j but it is surely well to remember that the light of missionary zeal and usefulness resembles that of live coals, which if kept together may long continue to burn brightly and diffuse a genial warmth, but which if unwisely scattered will soon become dim and cold."
Says the deputation: "Even putting all distinctive missionary effort out of the question, the mere contact of Western thought, culture, and education is inevitably breaking up the older forms of Hindu thought. But it lies with us to say whether that contact shall be charged with infinite blessing, leading them on to a higher, deeper, truer faith, and a new national life j or whether, cutting them adrift from their old moorings, we leave them without Christ, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, to be ravaged by intoxicating drinks and made imbecile by opium."
-The Rev. L. P. Weinberg, of Jaffa, quoted in the Jewish Intelligencer for February, writes: "The general topic of conversation among Jews at the present time is Palest.ine, and almost every Jewish newspaper speaks of this country as ' the only place of refuge' for them." , Arias, missionary of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews, reports a significant remark of some Italian Jews: "Till the Chris- tians treat the Jews well, we shall never beliE)ve that Jesus is our Messiah."
Most of the Italian Jews that he has met with seem to be in the dregs of Judaism, with few signs of longing for anything better.
-Professor A. R. Simpson, President of the Edinburgh Mediclll Missionary Society, says, most aptly, that in the Old Testament the" place of God's feet" is the Temple, but that the feet of the God-man are found most often "where the sick lay and the bereaved were weeping." ,. These were the places of His feet, who Himself bore our sicknesses and carried our infirmities; and these are· what He would seek our wealth to make glorious." Brave encouragement, Professor Simpson well says, to the medical missionary, to show him that he is in the track of the Saviour of the world.
-The West Himalaya Mission of the Unitas Fratrum was begun in 1853. Not until 1890 has a meeting of all the missionaries of the three stations been found practicable. Compared with the giant heights among which theY' live, saY's the Missions-Blatf, the Alps seem mere ranges of hills. And hardly had they broken up from their first meeting, when a veritable deluge converted the whole valley of Leh into a sea, swept away every bridge over the Upper Indus except one, and swept many persons out of the world. The Brethren do not seem to remit their ancient passion, " To plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose On icy rocks, and 'mid eternal snows."
– " See," said a sick child in India, "the goddess Kali's bloody tongue, wicked face, cruel hands. necklace of skulls; our gods are terrible; I cannot help screaming when I see them."-Canadian Church Magazine.
-Whether the late English reviewer, who is greatly displeased that Christians should endeavor to disturb the sweet calm of Buddhism, would be equally displeased that they endeavor to discredit the worship of the venerable goddess Kali, is not certain. Perhaps he would grudgingly allow this one exception.
-The Missions-Berichte gives a stinging remark of a South African Caffre, that among the whites they became acquainted with two thingsthe Bible, to save their souls, and brandy, to destroy their bodies. Butt he added, he was content with the former.
-In China, it appears, at least in some hospitals, wherever a patient. on returning home, expresses interest in spiritual things, an evangelist is sent after him, and thus, says Dr. ~iain, of Hangchow, much fruit has been gathered unto life eternal. E,'ery year there pass through that one medical mission 10,000 patients.
-The China Central Mission of the Presbyterian Church makes a very strong appeal for reinforcement. The field immediately accessible to them includes the whole great valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the" Son of Ocean." The four provinces of Kiangsu, Kiangsi, Nganhui, and Chehkiang have 121,000,000 inhabitants within an area of 204,287 square miles.
There are signs of a sudden breaking-up of the fallow ground of general indifference. They want to be ready to answer spontaneous calls from all parts. The accession of a new emperor, and an uneasy expectancy of political change, join with an extraordinary frequency of natural calamities, of flood or drought, famine or pestilence, at once to unsettle and humble men's minds.
The province of Szechuen, on the Upper Yangtse, with some 45,000,000 of people. ought to be occupied in force. Untouched by the 'l'ai-ping insurrection, it retains all the glory and prosperity of ante-rebellion times.
The people are a hardy, straightforward, enterprising race, as is shown by their various and productive industries. For centuries they have been boring salt and gas wells from three to five thousand feet deep, and using natural gas for evaporating the brine pumped from the bowels of the earth.
Their bronze, silk, and white wax industries are noted over the empire.
Their language is Mandarin, in which a Christian literature is already prepared.
The Central China Mission statistics for last year show an increase of a little over eight per cent. Five of their fifteen churches pay their own pastors. Everything is encouraging. "Come .over and help us," they say. The great Church to which they speak wlll /.Issuredly not be heed- !es~! .
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Week of Prayer. begun; all the Protestant churches can scarcely muster 7000 men and women as [EDITORIAL.-J. T. G.] ,. witnesses to the uttermost parts of the It was at the request of a smr.ll band earth;" the members of the Church of of missionaries in the Panjab that the England in its richer portion alone have Evangelical Alliance originally appoint- an income of $1,750,000,000 annually, ed a Week of Prayer for supplication for but last year, 'gave only $1,450,000 to for.
the conversion of the world. Since eign mlSSlOns. What is true of them is then there have been many other weeks relatively true of the rest of the churches.
and special days set apart for the same The circular appeals for a fuller recog- purpose. The Church of England Mis- nition of the principle of the missionary sionary Society, for instance, has a entel'prise: ,. Missionary work is not a Day of Special Prayer, or, as they phrase voluntary, supererogatory work of a few it, of "Intercession for Foreign Mis- more devoted souls. It is a charge sions," and many other churches have which is given to all as Christians."
adopted more or less regularly, the cus- It also mentions as a matter of special om of a set time for united prayer for thanksgiving the altered tone of the pub- the same object. We note with pleas- lic press toward missions. It reads: ure several statements in the introduc- ., Since the death of Bishop Hanning- tion to the week's programme of the ton, slowly but surely much of the Eng- Evangelical Alliance this year, such lish press has changed its tone with re- as these: ,. The privilege of prayer rises spect to the missionary enterprise. How to the topmost height attainable on often now have we thankfully to ac- earth, when, in common with believers knowledge that current literature brings of every name the wide world over, the missionary subject before house- we agree to hold a concert of prayer, holds who otherwise would remain ab- so that the globe may be girdled with solutely ignorant of the work! How assemblies of believers of one heart often of late has the public press done and of one mind, interceding with signal service in defence of missionary God for each other, for the Church agency – notably regarding work in of Christ, and for the spread of the China, India, and Uganda! In this, Gospel. • .• Looking abroad on the with profound gratitude, let us distinct- world in the light of the Word, we see ly acknowledge God's gracious hand."
the predictions in the Holy Book being All this can be readily transferred to fulfilled all around us. Be it ours to the Universal Week of Prayer, and a wait on God and to v.ait for Him in holy study should be made of the topics concord of faith and prayer, 'looking named in the programme of the Evangel- for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus ical Alliance, and'illustrations searched Christ.' . •. Wherefore,' holy breth- for of the special topics mentioned in it.
ren, partakers of the heavenly calling,' To these suggestions we venture to as in the opening year we gird ourselves add that the Church of God on earth has anew for fresh service and faithful testi- good realmn to render praise for the mony, let us invite each ot'her again to workmen God has raised up. We ought gather unitedly before the Eternal to pause to shed a tear at the grave of the Throne in praise and prayer." missionary dead of 1891. The list is but The Church of England circular names an appendix to the eleventh chapter of groundlifor humiliation, as found in the Hebrews. Bishop French ascended from fact that nearly nineteen hundred years Arabia; Bishop Boone, ha.,-ing only for have rolled by since the Head of the a short time been enrobed in the mantle Church gave the great missionary com- of his father, the renowned missionary, mis!lion, and yet the work ill !lcarcely died in China; Newton, "the beloved,"
of the Panjab-" a man sent from God, Harmony and Proportion in Missions.* whose name was John"-was followed to beUer than India's palaces by Winter, REV. CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D., LEXINGTON, of the Delhi Mission, who loved his special work more than he did a bishopric. MASS. Amid the lamentations of thousands, that" good servant of the Lord," Bishop The foreign missions of the Church Caldwell, was laid to rest after fifty-four of Christ are becoming numerous and years of labor in India for India; Dr. complicated. Many missionary socie- Luther H. Gulick. the founder of a large ties are in the field, separated from each missionary family, went up to the other by differences of nationality, lan- "bosom" of the" Father of the faith- guage, and church organization. ful ;" and dear and great John Inglis dropped his finished transhtion of the When these different organizations ocvisions of him of Patmos to open cupy the same field there is, there must his eyes on the beatific vision of the be, more or less of denominational fric- Ancient of days; Red slob, the Mora- tion, sometimes of antagonism even, vian sentinel of the outer patrol limit of and generally there will be a want of Chri~tendom on the edge of Thibet, that co-operation that always constitutes awoke to know the richer meaning of strength and progress. In that wonder- Nam Thang Song, and to find it "all ful prayer in ?hich the Son of God bright again" forever; Mrs. Bennett, poured out His soul as His hour drew more than sixty years in Burmah, went near, He prayed most earnestly that the to join again the Judsons and the Father would keep His disciples" that Boardmans; Sheshadri, the first Asi- they may be one, as we are." .. Neither atic whom America ever honored with pray I for these alone, but for them also a doctorate of divinity, found a fit- which shall believe on Me through their ting sepulchre in the sea for his body, word, that they all may be one, as Thou, while his soul went to the .. sea of Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that glass;" and Goloknath of Jalander was they may be one, that the world may becarried to his burial by .. devout men," lieve that Thou hast sent Me." and honored by the presence at his funeral of European officials and a thou- The missionary work has given birth sand Hindus and Mohammedans. Time to a great measure of the true spi~it of would fail us to tell of others who have unity for which the Saviour prayed-a I gone from remotest mountains and val- unity which exists between true discileys, from the habitations of cruelty and ples, notwithstanding all this diversit;,r. spiritual solitude, to the .. general as- The existence of this International Missembly" and the" Church of the First- sionary"Cnio-n is an answer to the Reborn" on high. But surely in the crowd deemer"s prayer, and must be an object of our on-rushing thoughts at a season of His approving regard. like this, we can pause long enough to thank God for such examples of the In order to remove so far as pOBsible highest missionary spirit and loftiest the occasions of conflicting views and spiritual achievement, and to ask that measures which perplex and scandalize their tribe may increase, and the Church the heathen, it has been generally agreed universal catch the radiance of their that one society shall not interfere with lives and be inspired to emulate their another society's legitimate sphere of devotion and their deeds. labor, marked out by actual occupation. And as surely, turning from this missionary nave in the great Westminster Where the different societies are alof the Church, we cannot fail of interest ready intermingled on the same terriin prayer for the great host of stillliv- tory, there is danger of injury to the spiring missionaries, both men and women. itual element. One will say, ., I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos." It requires of the missionaries thus divided, great wisdom, prudence, and brotherly love. There is evidently a growing *ltead before the International Missionary Union at Clifton Springs, N. Y., Jnne, 1891.
ht-rERN.A.-rtONAL DEPARTMlllNT
spirit of unity on mission fields, and fields that some of them are a law unto those who intrude upon fields already themselves. 'rheyhavenotroubleabout occupied are guilty of a great sin. They proportion in their work. We have: become the authors of a great wrong and 1. The sslf-supporting missionary, injury to the Master's cause. The grow- who has property that makes him inde- ing spirit of harmony will make such in- pendent of missionary bodies and Bocie- trusions more and more difficult. De- ties. He may be a very happy, useful nominational friction will be avoided, man. If his means enable him to call and denominational comity as to enter- to his aid native helpers, he is equal to ing each other's field is becoming, or a whole station. In prosecuting his rather, I would say. has become a recog- work he is sole judge of the depart- nized international and interdenomina- ments of his work, and in what relation tionallaw of missionary strategy. to each other he will develop them. It Japan is now a field of special tempta- is impossible to work only in one.
tion, so many societies are earnestly 2. There are self-supporting missiona· engaged in the work. The Holy Spirit, ries, who depend upon their own indus- the Guide unto all truth, the Paraclete, try or upon some secular employment He alone can deliver the work from this for support. Their object is to exhibit danger of divided counsels and of weak- the example of an honest, industrious ened efficiency. Christian life, and lead the heathen both The law of proportion in the mission- by precept and example into the same ary work must be regarded as well as life. They would show them and help the law of harmony. them also to experience that disciple- There are many departments of this ship to Christ has the promise both of work, as preaching, education, the press, the present life and of that which is to the formation of churches, the erection come. Thls scheme of missionary work of buildings, the care for the poor and can be fruitful of much good only by suffering, anyone of which may be put combination. The Inland Mission in forward out of proportion and to the in- China is partly of this nature, but it re- jury of the rest. It requires great wis- quires the oversight and management of dom and judgment to develop all the in- gifted men, like Hudson Taylor and his terests of a mission so that no one shall compeers, to gu~e its affairs, direct its be neglected and no one shall overtop labors, and provide for expenses that the others. The missionaty needs to every progressive work will demand.
have" an unction from the Holy One, Bishop Taylor's mission in Africa is and to know all things." He must neg- of this partially self-supporting kind.
lect nothing, he must push nothing be- He gathers from Christian friends at yond its value. I think to a very re- ·home what is needed for the complete- markable degree this wisdom has been ness and efficiency of the work beyond given. the productive results of the laborers.
Where there is Episcbpal government I would bid God-speed to all such efforts, a great responsibility falls upon the and yet they must be exposed to certain 'bishop. He can more readily remedy infelicities. Untrained men and women mistakes and harmonize the depart- will be found in them who, when they ments, or, if he should lack wisdom, he encounter the grave difficulties of a for- may get them into a muddle. eign language and find the native proud But many missions are more demo- and contemptuous, will Boon be dis· cratic in their organization. They are couraged, and retire in black despair.
largely self-governed, although the home Such cases have too frequently occurred.
societies fix upon the general principles In future they may be avoided.
upon which they must proceed. 3. By far the greater number of mis· Let us not forget, however, that there sionaries on the field are supported by are so many kinds of agents in different _.. mi s -s-i-o–n-'a. ry s o c i e t ie s , The operatiDZ and ~ ";"' :' largely apportioliating power is in those established, and for a time, it may-be, societies. But the officers, being far chiefly officered by the best-educated from the fields of labor, must depend missionaries. But from the very begin- upon the missionaries for the facts, and ning the object to be aimed at is the upon their judgment as to the meaning raising of native laborers for every de- of the facts. WhilE! here is an oppor- partment of the work_ tunity for difference of opinion between ]'or a time the native agency, in press- the officers and the missionaries, which ing forward into new fields, must be perhaps sometimes occurs, yet there has supported in whole or in part by the been remarkable harmony on the whole. mission, otherwise it cannot exist at all.
When earnest discussion has arisen it A mission is prosperous only so far as it has been conducted in a Christian raises up an efficient, well-trained na- spirit, and has resulted in the advance- tive agency. One missionary with four ment of the work and in the settlement well-qualified native preachers will reach of important principles. Sometimes the people more widely and efficiently education has been too much pushed, by far, than five missionaries with no and sometimes preaching. In Buresal, nath's assistant, and the expense will India, preaching was almost the only not be half so great. The work will be- work attempted. Education was left come in this way self-developing and entirely to the native Christians. In self- perpetuating.
consequence the children were growing It follows then by necessity that when up in such deplorable ignorance that a the funds of a mission do not keep prog- general meeting of missionaries took up ress with the missionary work, the for- the subject and demanded that Chris- eign missionary should be withdrawn, tian education should accompany the that the native work m~y go on. If dur- Christian native Church. ing the past year the societies that have But the subject which is most exposed been compelled to cut down their ap- to disproportion has regard to the work propriations had, instead of doing so, of the native Church, with its pastors, refused to send out a single missionary, teachers, and helpers. Generally in all they would have saved their work from departments of the missionary work in a calamitous set-back. Some missiona- the ministry, in education, in editing ries have seriously contemplated resign_ and translating, the native factors must ing and leaviDg the field in order to be our chief reliance for ultimate suc- avoid this great evil.
cess. Fifty years ago the prevailing An early movement in the missionary idea was that the world is to be convert- work of sending ou~ laymen to teach the ed by the preaching of missionaries. various arts of ci vilized life proved a That idea is no longer held by anybody. failure; but the time has now come The nati ve Ohurch is to be the true mis- when there is a call for such co-opera- sionary Ohurch. Native preachers and bon. The converts from heathendom helpers are to go everywhere preaching must live by their own labor. The the Word. They are to do the chief sooner they are emancipated from many work of evangelization. The great work of the filthy modes in which all heathen. – of the missionaries is to bring forward, dam, including even the Chinese, live to educate, to train the native laborers the better for a pure and honest Chris- and native churches unto this work, and tian life. The glorious example and life give the whole over to them as soon as of Mackay of Uganda have taught us possible. This is the only way in which what a lay missionary-a mechanic, a the great work of the world's redemp- civiI-engineer-can achieve for Christ tion from sin and darkness can be ac- under the darkest prospects. The Lord complished. It is the most effective will have many Mackays ready when the and the most economical way. Ohurch shall really call for them. Mis- Schools, colleges, seminaries must be sionary societies must learn that CODverts must have daily bread not by hundred dollars a year for the support charit.y, but by their own labor. And of each one, three millions of dollars 8 all missionaries, men and women, year will be needed for their bare sup· should have that practical knowledge port, and certainly not less than nine of the common arts and activities of life millions more for the prOilecution of the which will enable them to gnide the work through native agency. Then the porsecuted and boycotted into inde. six thousand would soon be one hun. pendent self-support. dred thousand, and that number a mill- ion of native preachers.. By that time, There is great danger at the present moreover, the million would be mainly time of looking more to the number supported by native churches, and the than the quality of the laborers. Men promise of the Almighty Father to the of mere sentiment are sure to fail. Son, "Ask of Me and I will give Thee They find themselves confronted with the heathen for thine inheritance, and the difficulties. of an unknown, strange, the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy barbarous language, and by a proud, in. posse~sions," would approach its glori. solent, contemptuous people. After a ous fulfilment. year or two of heartless effort they reo treat in black despair or sink into a list. Ohinese "Blue-Books." [J. T. G.] less :Mfe. None but men who are strong in the Lord and in the power of His Whoever has carefully studied the might are needed in this work. splendid volume containing the Records of the Missionary Conference which met It follows, from all we have read, that at Shanghai in 1890 will have noticed in this great and marvellous movement the essay of Rev. Timothy Richards on among the youth of our colleges is " The Relation of Christian Missions to in danger of involving the Christian the Chinese Government," his reference Church in an unexpected embarrass- (pp. 407-10) to what he .is pleased to ment. To send out all who are willing style" Blue Books." It is a collection to go and are fitted for great usefulness of public documents on all State queswould necessitate the entire abandon. tions published in 1826, in one hundred ment of the element of native co-opera. and twenty books. It was republished tive help, of pastors, teachers, trans. by the Shaghai publishers in 1889; a lators, common schools, and, to some supplement to the same, also in one extent, of colleges and seminaries. A hundred and twenty books, bringing the greater catastrophe could not befall the subject down to date, was published in work. 1888. These books, he says, are in the catalogue of the books for sale in the What, then, is the meaning of this Government book.shop at Tientsin, and wonderful movement? probably in all the provinces. Two books of the supplement are devoted to It brings before the Church the tre. Christian missions. mendous reality of the missionary work. It cries aloud to all Christians, Aban. Mr. Richards proceeds to give some don your luxurious living, your piling idea of their "scandalous" contents. up of millions. Pour your millions into First, a history of the way in which the missionary work, und see if the Lord Christianity has gradually corrupted will not pour you out a blessing that China. This is followed by an attempt there shall not be room to receive it. to stamp out Christianity in the provo inces of Hlman, the source of the pres. But these six thousand crusaders must ent Ohinese riots, and Kiang Suo Sun. not be encouraged to go forth while the dry other documents follow. Mr. Rich. Church stands back and refuses to de- ards proceeds to recite that the books velop the work already in progress, having the evident blessing of God and the co-operating work of the Holy Spirit. Their going forth must be to aid, not retard the work. At an average of five affirm that six hundred years after Bud- able books translated; of the tens of dha all India followed the Christian thousands of youllg and old taught; ot'
religion. Among the statements are the hundreds of thousands saved from found assertions that the founder of death during famines, and of'the tomb- Christianity was a criminal, and Joseph stones of those who have given their was not his father. lives for the good of China, this collec- The great rebellions in the Ming tion of obscenities and lies is their dynasty and of the various secret lOects version of what we have done for in the present dynasty, with all their them."
, horrors, are attributed to these Western The relation of the State to these so- religions. It is an insult, the author called" Blue-Books," and of their rela- says, to suggest that all these vile here- tion to the present disturbed state of the tics could have 'had the same origin as country, as it originates in hatred of the Chinese. The writer says that four foreigners, has become the subject of taels were given to each convert, and considerable discussion in China. It is that the books of the Roman Catholics well known that the riots have been in- were full of obscenity, and that the Gov- cited by the literati and gentry of ernor Man of Chi Kiang memorialized China ; and it is this class that read the throne regarding their evil deeds, such statements as are contained in requesting to have their churches turned these books, Which, be it borne in into charity schools for a hundred years, mind, are for sale at the Government to cleanse away their moral filth. book-stores. It would seem, therefore, "After this," says Mr. Richards, of little avail that the imperial authority "follow scandalous quotations from Wei at the Peking Yemen should by royal Yuen, who says that men and women edict declare that Christianity was a re- sleep promiscuously together in the ligion of good moral influence, so long churches; that one hundred and thirty as it permits these documents to be taels of silver are given in three instal- placed on sale under its auspices. To be ments to the converts to help them to sure. it might be claimed that the edict do business; that the Christians' eyes counteracts their influence, and even are scooped out by the priest after that it was so intended. It is much death; that when these eyes are melted more probable that the Government up with lead, eight per cent of the lead chooses to blow hot and cold at the same is turned to silver; that a pill is given, time, for whatever else the West mlly which makes the convert pledge him- teach China, it is not likely to set it any self for life, and so bewitched is he that lesson in the duplicity of diplomacy.
the first thing he does is to destroy the In the North China Herald the vener.
ancestral tablets; that several other able and highly esteemed missionary, things are practised by Christians which Rev. Griffith John, calls upon the for- I consider too vile to print… Mr. Rich- eign powers to demand the suppression ards closes his remarks on the" Blue- of these books. He says that it is to be Books" with the following grave reflec- hoped that some one will take these tion: Ie Thus end the 'Blue·Books' books in hand and bring their vileness without the slightest acknowledgment of and falsehood to the light. He has any benefit derived from modern mis- afresh examined them, and declares that sionaries. They wish to convince their " anything more false, disgraceful, and people that Christian missionaries only inflammatory it would be difficult to come here for mischief, and that the find, even among the vile placards of converts are the scum of society! In Hunan." He deems it of the utmost im· face of about a million taels spent an- portance that their publication, as they nually for the good of China; in face of now stand, should be suppressed. He tens of thousands of patients gratuitous- concludes by saying that the Hunan ly healed annually; of the many valu- placards are intended for the multitude;
JartUBl'j'
these books are intellded for the officials out-patients belong to the Syongtn, or and literary classes. 'rhey are to be low-class people, many of whose wom- round in every yamen, and in thousands en, except the newly married or those of private libraries. The foreign powers of marriageable age, go out upon the have decided that the Hunan publica- street in the daytime. I would like to tions shall cease, because they poison open an evening olinic for those Korean the minds of the people. For a still women who must not be seen upon the stronger reason they ought to decide street in the daytime, and I want to that these" blue books" shall cease in open a dispensary in another part of their present form, because they poison the city, and perhaps one outside.
the minds of the officials and scholars. Quite often at my morning clinic I have Just how far the foreign powers had women from the higher class who should go in aUempting an " Index" of have come in closed chairs. They al- literature that must be expurgated in ways inform me that it is a great ell.cep- China, or whether they should attempt tion for them to go out, but their dis- at all to coerce the Government to cause ease was difficult, and they had heard certain parts of current literature to be that I was a very wise doctor, and there- suppressed, may be grave questions. fore came.
But that they might demand that their .. My out-calls have, many of them, sale should be prohibited in Govern- been to people of quite high rank-from ment book stalls would not appear alto- the daughter of a ' Chusa' to the moth- gether unreasonable as a political meas- er of the late Prime-Minister-but others ure or as a war measure, if you please. have been to those most miserably low We have not called attention to the mat· and poor. I, have visited a niece of the ter with a view to second the call to the late queen-dowager, living in a large foreign powers to demand their suppres- stone house built within two or three sion, but rather to show some of the court-yards, with foreign lamp-posts sources by which the prejudices of the here and there ; nice-sized rooms, easily literati and gentry are stirred against made larger by pushing back the Korean Christian missionaries. Perhaps we shove-doors and throwing two rooms may even come into greater charity into one ; large Korean screens here and toward some of those whose minds have there ; a fine mirror and Korean dress- been thus poisoned ; and perhaps we ing-case ; the patient and her attendants may come to better apprehension of clothed in spotless white, in mourning why the literati and gentry, rather than for tho Queen; the under-garments of the common people and the coolies, dis- the patient made of soft white Korean like foreigners and missionaries. At silk. She was covered with light downy any rate, if we are to proceed with judg- comfortables of colored silk, and lay ment, it is manifest we must become upon a soft mattress with a beautifully more closely acquainted with the in- embroidered Korean pillow on the warm· digenous influences affecting the people est part of a highly polished 'Rang'
of Ohina. floor.
" In the same afternoon I have visit- ed a poor sick woman of the Coolie class Medical Work for Women in Korea, in her little tive-by-eight room, with ceiling so low I could not stand up- We know so little of the" Land of right, one small window covered with the Morning Calm" that it is with inter- oiled paper, the patient lying on a small est we quote from a long oommunication mat and covered with a coarse cotton from Miss Rosetta Sherwood, M.D., of comfortable. The history of many of the MethodistEpiscopal MissilJll in that the wretched cases one meets with in a country, the following paragraphs: practice like this are appalling and "The majority of the hospital and heart.sickening. "
" Why is the Ohina Inland Mission Suo- mission in China, suggests that a longer period of time is required before we cessful?" can predicate success or failure of the mission in its evangelical enterprise. The editor of the lIarvest Field, the Wesleyan magazine published in India, " That it has heen a wonderful suc. some while since addressed the above cess at home everybody must admit. question to the Rev. David Hill, the The rapid pouring into one field of so Britisb President of the Shanghai Con. large a number of missionaries is un. ference of Missionaries laboring in exampled in modern times as far liS I India. We have so long heard and know, and demands close study. Two read conflicting statements of the effi. or three reasons for this success have ciencyand value of Mr. Hudson Tay. occurred to me : lor's methods, and those of his associ. ates, that it was with rather more than "1. The mission is steeped in prayer, usual interest we read Mr. Hill's reply, and its founders and followers have Ilnd we are so confident of a wide inter. boldly made the grand experiment of est in the subject that we quote the testing and trusting the promi~es of article bodily. Mr. Hill says: God.
"You inquire as to the reasons of the " 2. Appeals for men have been made success of the China Inland Mission. at meetings for entire consecration to The assumption implied in such in. God. This consecration has been quiry some would question, if it refer urged home first of all-then the de. to the work of the mission in China, mand to show cause why this consecra. and the number of members gathered tion should not flow in China cbannels into the Church. This is not large as has been made. Full surrender has compared with that of several other opened the ear to China's claims. missions having a much smaller staff of missionaries, and does not demon. "3. Speedy entrance on the work. strate Ilny very marked success. No protracted waiting for examination after examination, or for a long college "On the other hand, 2000 and odd course. This attracts men. Christians gathered into the Church in twenty-five years does tell of success, "4. Then the offer of a life of sacri. and that Mr. Hudson Taylor should fice rather than one of ease has a great have been used of God to this end is deal to do with winning the right sort matter for profound thankfulness. of men. Faith, too, fascinates. That it is not large may be accounted for by the perpetual pioneering of "5. Besides Mr. Taylor's magnetio many missionaries. In opening the influence, Mr. Broomhall's untiring way to regions beyond they have been energy and the broadcast sowing of llbundantly successful, hut this per. China's millions have marvellously aided petual" motion has not favored large the progress of the mission. harvests of converts. Where steady, persevering work has been the order of "These have appeared to me the the day, conversions have been most chief causes of success, and I as II numerous. Methodist feel I may learn a good deal from them." " Then the genius of the mission is so largely that of witnessing rather -Mrs. Maria T. True, of Tokyo, tem· than winning, of sowing rather than of porarily in tbis country, in writing to reaping, that that doubtless has had us says: "Some Japanese ladies have something to do with the comparatively purchased an acre of ground and built small ingathering. And the very large a small house for an industrial school proportion of new men occupying new for young women. About forty pupils places, as compared with any other are enrolled, and during tbe little more than one year since the school was opened they have by their own labor
liTElRNATlONAL :l)Et'Alt'I'MEN'l'
earned their board, and in some cases ful, as it is certainly entertaining, other expenses. The main industry is called" In Brightest Asia," which Mr. silk embroidery, but they also have in- Corthell, of Tremont Temple, publishes. troduced various other kinds of work, Its 127 illustrations are a panorama of and have still more comprehensive the trip and much besides. plans, to be carried out when the fund for another building have been secured. -Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., Corre· This is a Ohristian school, and is blessing sponding Secretary of the Board of those who have established it and are Foreign Missions of the Reformed carrying it on as well as those who are Church in America, has started to make taught in it. a visit to their missions in India, China, and Japan. Rev. J. N. Conklin, "One of the native pastorR has also of the Arcot Mission, temporarily in been the means of opening an indus- this country, has assumed Dr. Cobb's trial home for young men. I know both official duties in his absence. We of these enterprises well, Bnd am sure learn from him that the native Christhey are worthy of our warm sympathy tians of this Arcot Mission are suffering terribly from food scarcity, and cholera " A letter just received from a Japan. is likely to follow. The report about esc minister contains the following: the cholera at Amoy, Mr. Conklin says, • This is my strong conviction: we can· has been greatly exaggerated. not evangelize Japan with a method like child's play; if we evangelize such a -Our Baptist friends are getting heathen country as Japan we must take ready for the observance of the great a gigantic method. The Bible and the Carey Centennial this year. A good Holy Spirit are the only weapons needed deal of literature will doubtless be forth. in our battle.field.' coming, which will be helpful to them, and to all of us. The American Baptist , • Then he goes on to outline a meth- Publication Society, Philadephia, has od by which he thinks work could be just issued ., A Century of Baptist For. carried on in every town and village in eign Missions," by Mrs. Titterington. Japan. He asks advice concerning It is an outline of annals, briefly stated, leaving one of the best churches in and with a list of questions at the close Tokyo in order to give his time to this of each chapter, suggestive of its being country work. used as a text·book. It is confined to American Baptist missions in Asia, .. It is ~ard to realize how heavily Africa, Europe, and South America. burdened the few earnest workers in Japan are, unless one has seen the con- -The Congregational missions in ditions there." South Africa have been the subject of many an inquiry with other than mis. -The Rev. Dr. Mabie, Home Corre- sionary intent. Ethn ologists, :philol. sponding Secretary of the American ogists, and others have found the mis. Baptist Missionary Union, presently sionary's arcana of knowledge the after getting well seated in his position, most valuable and resourceful that started on a trip round the world, chiefly could be investigated. There have to visit the Baptist missions in Asia. been heroes and statesmen among the About two hundred Baptist mission· missionaries of that country. Rev. aries were visited. They must have Josiah Tyler furnishes a fresh fund of enjoyed his calls, for there was nothing knowledge for mllny classes in " Forty of the bugbear of a .. deputation" in Years Among the ZulUB" in autobjothem. He did not go to make official examinations into their larders or their learning, nor with any authority to upset their plans. Dr. Mabie tells his side of the cheery journey in a sketchy way in a book that must be very help. graphical form of narrative. (Congrega- ent at the celebration of the sacrament tional House, Boston.) in a church other than their own; to have inter-mission discipline, by which -In April, 1890. Rev. Mr. Large, of an agent of one mission should not be the Canada Methodist Mission, in Japan, engaged by another until after mutual was murdered. The murderer has been, consultation, and strangers coming from as is supposed. found out, and on Au- another station should be provided with gust 25th was arrested. He is described letters, of commendation from the as a youth about twenty years of age. church which they had left; to foster At first it was supposed he was insane, social advancement by means of obtainbut fuller investigation does not sup- ing grants of land from the Government, port the theory. He is a native of the the endeavor to have Christian regiprovince of Kazuza. ments formed, the adoption of technieal pursuits, the encouragement of capital- -Rev. Dr. T. J. Scott, President of ists among Christians, the institution of panchayats among them, and the pur- chase of land in the villages as sites for schools and churches which should be the property of the missions."
the Methodist Theological Seminary at Bareilly, India, writes us: "God is -We have received the following com- wonderfully blessing the work in this munication from a representative of the part of India. Just think of a thousand Protestant native congregation at Bag- baptisms a month! At least ten thou- dad: sand will be added to the Christian •• I beg to inform you that there are community during the' year. What a work in supplying pastors and evange- about twenty houses of Evangelical Protlists! In places of course the devil estants here in Bagdad, reaching from rages. In AImorah, while a young man sixty to seventy persons, male and was being baptized in the London Mis- female. You will be very glad, of course, sionary Society's church, a mob smashed to know that there is such a light and salt the windows and doorl!. Dr. Butcher in such a. big city of Turkish-Arabia, had his "coat tOfn off, and would have where thousands of people are living in been brained by the mob had not Dr. darkness and the shadow of death. How Parker seized the ringleader and got Dr. many difficulties are on the way of the Butcher into the church. The colonel Lord's laborers in such places! But commanding the station got word, and faith, patience, and perseverance over- • doubled quicked' the Sepoys down; come everything that hinders the extenthe magistrate arrived, and the mob sion of the kingdom of our Heavenly quailed. The young man stands firm. Father. We hope we shall never fail in We may expect more mobs and more fulfilling our sacred duties toward our victory. Pray for us." God, ourseIve~, and our neighbors. For the establishment of this, our Protestant -Apropos of Dr. Hamlin's admirable native congregation in Bagdad, we need article, which we present this month, on to have soon registration, cemetery, "Mission Comity," we take the follow- school and church, without which we ing from the Report of the Church of cannot enjoy success and progress in Scotland Mission, setting forth an agree- such lands. To get what is mentioned ment to which the missionaries of the we must apply to the Sublime Porte in various societies in the Panjab came Constantinople and the Turkish auin a Conference of their members, held thorities here to get the necessary orders, last April : that we may possess all our national " At this Conference it was resolved rights. I am very glad to say that we to adopt a common course of instruction have already got orders for registration for inquirers before baptism; to admit and cemetery, so there is firm hope that and welcome to the communion mem- we shall get an order for school and bers of the various churches when pres- church too. Our registration was partly made by the local Government here; but I am sorry to say that burial-ground has not yet been given to us for ceme- tery, as we have not enough money to buy a piece of ground, to pay official fees, and all expenses concerning such serious matters, for our Protestants here are unable to provide the necessary SUUlS."
·EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
I1I.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The Editor's Salutation. himself one of the tery foremost mis- sionary biographers of the age, the au- METBOPOLITAW TABEBWACLE, thor of the 'standard classic on Carey's life, will contribute a series of papers NEWINGTON, S. E., on the great cobbler of Hackleton, and LONDON, ENGLAND.
The editor salutes all readers of the other writers of scarcely inferior merit REVIEW and friends of missions with will take a part in this symphony of the most cordial good wishes for the testimony to the work of a world's new year! May it be indeed a Happy evangelization, and the duty and priv- New Year to us all individually and to ilege of the Church to push her COD- the whole Church of God! flicts and conquests to the extremities The year 1892 ought to be a year of of the globe.
grand advance all along the line. It is Once more we emphatically call our the centennial year of modern missions, readers and all who are linked with the • for it marks the hundredth anniversary work of missions to a new consecration of William Carey's great movement, the to prayer. Here lies the hope of the organization of the first distinctively Church and the world, in a new spirit foreign missionary society of Britain, of gracious supplication. God will be at Kettering, May 31st, 1792, and will be inquired of when He is to do great observed all over Britain, if not all over things. Our hope must be in no com the wider realm of Christendom, as the pleteness of organization, no abundance ~ completion of the grand century of of gifts, no sufficiency of laborers, no modem missions. multitude of agencies, but first of all But it ought also to mark the begin- in God, in the Providence that opens ning of a new century of far more in- doors and keeps them open, that pro tense Christian zeal and far more self- tects workers, that rrues even rulers and denying missionary effort. The open controls all things; and in the grace doors now before the Church, the sin- that works even mightier marvels in gularly complete equipment providen- anointing the messengers of Christ and tially given for world-wide work, the inclining lost sinners to hear and heed amazing successes of the century past. the message. Let us remember those the strange withholding of laborers and two wonderful words of promise: Matt.
gifts from the service of the Lord-how 17 : 20 and 18: 19, 20. One of them ought such considerations as these to reminds us that in faith there is the stimulate the whole Church of God to seed of God, the secret of divine life undertake new enterprises for Him, to and power to upheave even mountain lengthen her cords and strengthen her obstacles; the other teaches us the 8takes until the canopy of her mission- power of a symphony of prayer, when ary effort shall stretch over the Whole believers who live in the secret of God area of the unevangelized world.! are like keys of a musical instrument The pages of this REvrnw will be that the hand of God touches, and largely given up during the year to the which give forth a sweet chord in har- rehearsal of William Carey's life and mony with His will. To abide in God, work, and to the exhibition of its mag- and so have power in united prayer, is nificent results; While it will be our the first and last secret of missionary aim to suggest and inspire far larger success. This is one of the essential hopes, stronger faith, and wider en- truths to be impressed by perpetual deavor, in behalf of the coming of the repetition.
kingdom of our God! May the prayers Here in the great Tabernacle we have of every devout reader be with us! had an exhibition and illustration of ~eor~e Smith, LL.D., of Edinbur?h, the power of importunate and believing prayer. In May last pastor Charles H. 8th, to propose another union of prayer Spurgeon was attacked with a violent in tbat place. for the greatest outpour. and virulent influenza. After partial ing of the Holy Spirit ever yet known, recovery, in June he was the victim of upon all flesh. If this spectacle has a relapse that brought him to the very been sublime to angels and men, who jaws of death. His recovery was pro. can describe the sublimity of a holy nounced impossible by human means, agreement of all disciples in supplica. and this great congregation of six thou. tion for a worldwide effusion of the sand souls united in daily prayer to Spirit of all grace! God for him. For twenty.one weeks This Metropolitan Tabernacle is a daily meetings for prayer assembled in house of prayer most emphatically. the Tabernacle, early in the morning, Here are numerous rooms, under and at 7 o'clock, and again at the same hour around the great audience.room, where, in the evening. They were thronged, for almost forty years, this one servant and not only by Mr. Spurgeon's own of God has held forth the Word of Life; people, but by Christians of every name. and in these rooms prayer is almost No sublimer spectacle has appeared to ceaselessly gomg up. When one meeting human eyes since apostolic days than is not in progress another is. This is a this union of discipIes, in believing hive of bees, where there are campara. prayer. As for Peter when in prison tively few drones. There are prayer· awaiting Herod's axe prayer was made meetings before preaching and others without ceasing of the Church unto God after preaching; evangelistic associa· for him. Baptists of every "grade;" tions, zenana societies-all sorts of work Methodists, Primitive, Wesleyan, and for God find here a centre and all can· Episcopal; Congregationalists and Inde. secrated by prayer. Before I go upon pendents ; Presbyterians and Plymouth the platform to address these thousands, Brethren; even the members and clergy the officers of this great church meet of the Anglican communion were pres· me and each other for prayer as to the ent and participated. Meanwhile Mr. service; and one feels upborns on these Spurgeon was overwhelmed with per· strong arms of prayer while preaching. sonal and official attentions from all No marvel that Mr. Spurgeon's ministry classes and conditions of men. Up to has been so blessed. He himself at· the time of his departure for Mentone, tributes it mainly to the prevailing on October 26th, he told me that over prayers of his people. Why may not seven thousand messages of condolence the whole Church of God learn some· and sympathy, resolutions of various thing from the Metropolitan Tabernacle religious bodies, etc., and other docu. of London as to the power of simple ments, from the lowest and highest in Gospel preaching backed by believing society, had reached him. Fifty tele. supplication! grams of inquiry a day came to Beulah Referring to this great church, one Hill, until clerks were unequal to the cannot forget also its divine mission as reading of and the replying to these a standing protest against the secular. messages and inquiries. Even bishops izing of the house of God by the attrac· and archbish~ps called to offer not only tions of worldly art and restheticism. sympathy, but service, if such were Here is nothing to divert the mind from possible; and Jewish rabbis called to the simplicity of worship and the Gas· assure the sick man that all Israel was pel. No attempt at elaborate architec. praying to Jehovah for his restorl't· ture, furniture, garniture. A precentor tion! What wonder he was raised as leads con"gregational song without even from the dead-taken out of the jaws the help of a cornet; prayer and praise of the lion! In view of all this, I ven· and the reading of the Word of God, tured, in presence of a great congrega· with plain putting of Gospel trnthtion i:Q. t4e Tabernacle, on November these 4nve been Mr. StJur~eon's lifelon~ " means of grace" and weapons of war. a year of praise also, a new year of mis- And yet this remains to.day the largest sions, introducing a new century of mis- congregation in the world, even when a sion triumph and glory to God!
stranger attempts to fill the place left vacant by the pastor's withdrawal to a -The editors of American newspapers place of rest and recuperation. are, as a rule, a sagaeious folk. They This lesson has, in my opinion, a beating on all work for Christ, at home cannot be hoaxed. But not all of those and abroad. Our reliance is too much on the charms of this world, in drawing who have the l'equisite " nose for news" souls to the Gospel and to the Saviour. The Holy Spirit will not tolerate our are favored with the reciprocity of the idols. If we will have artistic and secular type of music, substituting unsancti- senses by which they" know news when :lied art for simple praise; if we will have elaborate ritual in place of simple, they see it." An instance is at han~. believing prayer; if we will have eloquent lectures in place of simple, ear- In, the summary of Dr. Pierson's open. nest Gospel preaching, we must not wonder if no shekinah fires burn in our ing sermon at the Tabernacle, made by sanctuaries. If Ahaz is allowed to dis· place God's plain altar by the carved, the Christian, we :find the following: idolatrous altar fro!ll Damascus, we need not be surprised if God withdraws " The Holy Ghost never tolerates idols His power. Perhaps the reason why the work of God abroad shows more in his courts. The success of this great signs of His presence and power than our sanctuary services at home is in Tabernacle is owing to nothing more part this, that our foreign mission work has never been embarrassed as yet by than to this-that the paster has preachthose elaborate attempts at resthetic attraction which turn many of our home ed the Gospel, and has never preached churches into concert halls and lecture saloons and costly club-houses. May anything else, for well.nigh forty years, God grant us to learn once for all, that nothing in our mission work can make He prayed God that some calamity might up for Holy Spirit power, and that Holy Spirit power itself makes up for the happen to the building itself before it lack of all else. If the angel troubles the pool, there is healing in the waters ; was ever prostituted by unsanctified and but if God's angel comes not down 'all the doctors in Jerusalem, with all'the secularizing methods of attracting the drugs in creation, cannot impart healing virtue. people. We want to keep out of our v.orship everything that turns away at- tention from God, or hinders the power of the Holy Ghost."
An irate reporter, by whom the" in_ terim" pastor declined to be interviewed rushed off and cabled to this countr; that Dr. Pierson had most wantonly and uncharitably attacked Mr. Spurgeon in his absence, and had ~harged his con- gregation with doing the very things which he had commended them for not doing. We extend our sympathy to so much of the secular press as became tho victim of this hoax and falsehood. Yet on its face they should have been able to recognize its improbability_ Even a caricature must be a likeness. But to present one who is '
LET us PRU! Oh, for a new spirit of " the president Of nobleness and chevalree" prayer to God! Oh, for a whole Church on its face before the throne, with in snch a roll was too much out of align- mighty pleading for a blessing as wide- ment to afford amusement or to do spread as the race of man, and as deep- harm. The editor.in· chief of this RE- reaching as man's depravity and degra- VIEW answers too closely to the en- dation, guilt and need! Let the year comium on Sir Philip Sydney, in hav- now opening be-whatever else it may ing ., mildness which is associated with not be-a year of prayer; so shall it be courage, erudition modified by refinement, and courtliness dignified by There is one preacher to eight hun. truth "to render it necessary to correct dred inhabitants in the home land; so m:mifestly gross a canard. It may one preacher to four hundred thousand be that he will not so much as thank us in non-Christian countries. for an allusion to it. [J. T. G.]. Estimated wealth of Evangelical Christians in United States•… $13,000,000,000 Increase of wealth last :year (sur- plus after paying all expenses Facts and Figures. of living and contributions for benevofent purposes)….••…. 450,000,000 REV. c. R. BELL, D.D. Contributions for Foreign Mis- sions during the year……… . Population of the world ……….. 1,500,000,000 Total foreign missionary contri- 5,000,000 Living in Asia •••.••.. 800,000,000 Living in Africa •.. •. 210,000,000 butions during the century …. 90,000,000 Living in Europe……. 350,000,000 Annual expenditure for home Living in America, churches….. .. •.. .. … …. .. .. 80,000,000 North and South ….. 110,000,000 Average per member. . •. . . . . • .• •• $6.00 Living in Island World 30,000,000 Annual expenditure for Foreign M.issions, per member (average) .37 – – – 1,500,000,090 Evangelical Christian Commnni- The annual increase of wealth was' ninety times more than the foreign cants………… …………… 35,000,000 missionary offerings during the year. Adherents.. … .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. . .. . 105,000,000 The estimated increase of wealth of Total Communicants and Adher- 140,000,000 the evangelical Christian population of ents………………………. . 90.000.000 the United States last year was more 205,000,000 than four times greater than all the Greek Church……………. . .. .. 8,000,000 foreign contributions by all American Romanists…………………… . 175,000,000 Christians d~ring the entire century. Jews……………………… .. 882,000,000 Startling statements I M.ohammedans ……………….. . Pagan and Heathen………….. ..
Converts to Christianity in heathen 1,500,000,000 lands one hundred years ago did not exceed…… …. … …. .. .. .. 300 Communicants now………….. . 800,000 Adherents ………………….. .. 2,200,000 Total Communicants and Adhe- Signs of the Times. rents…….. ………… …….. 3,000,000 There are signs of a general upheaval Then there were very few Christian all through the pagan, papal, and Mosworkers abroad. and they were chiefly lem world. Japan has suffered from a peasants and artisans who accompanied recent earthquake, in which thousands enterprising merchants. Then the are said to have perished. China was Church for the first time began the visited by most destructive floods, and great enterprise of organized foreign now is the scene of widespread riot and missionary work. not a little bloodshed. South America -Brazil, Chili, and the Argentine Re. Now there are 170 missionary boards public-has been and is undergoing and societies directed by men, and 110 civil and political disturbances, which by women-all actively in service as in some cases amount to a convulsion. agents for their respective Christian Russia is expelling the Jews and preconstituencies. Now at work in non· paring for war, and all Europe is either Christian lands 7700 missionaries, male in a state of ferment or of uncertainty and female, consisting of and apprehension. No one on the con. tinent feels sure of the peace of Europe Ordained…………………… .. 3,482 for thirty days ahead, and a European La,Ylllen …………………….. . 829 war means a world's upheaval. Africa WlVes of missionaries…………. . has been the scene of almost continual Umnarried women…………… .. 2.005 conflict since the Zulu and Soudan 1,384 wars. Turkey is on the verge of per. petual disturbance. The isles of the Native workers ………………. . 7,700 sea are the scenes of repeated and some· Of whom 4,250 are ordained 36,000 times widespread antagonisms, either preachers within their own coasts or with foreign 43,700 foes. No one can predict how long Total force …………………. .. 13,500,000 UNITED STATES ALONE. 80,000 Evangelical church-members..•… Ordained preachers …………… .
Ordained preachers abroad……. . 1,000 Unordained missionaries, male and 1,750 female, abroad…………….. ..
2,750 Mexico and Central America, Burmah Pierson has met with the warm welcome /lJld India, Thibet and Korea will keep and hearty support of the officiary and their uncertain quiet. There are some congregation of Mr. Spurgeon's Taber- sagacious students of affairs who boldly nacle. Our English exchanges make say that never within this century has kindly mention of his entrance upon his there been such a general murmur of new responsibilities. The Ohristian says approaching conflict; and that only the of the opening service: "The great destructiveness of modern engines of building was thronged with worshippers war prevents its outbreak. In the re- in every part. At the opening of the cent naval exhibition, we saw a fac- service the crush was not BO great as we simile of a trial target upon which one have generally seen it, when Mr. Spur- of the largest of modern English ord- geon was the preacher; but before the nance, a HO-ton Armstrong gun, had commencement of the sermon there expended its explosive force, aud the were very few vacant seats." After giv.
ball-a conical one-had been driven ing a column to a synopsis of the in- through six feet of steel and iron, tell terim pastor's sermon from the admir- feet of oak timbers, five feet of solid ably chosen text Acts 10 : 29: .' There- granite, fifteen£eetof concrete, and six of fore came I unto you without gainsay- brick masonry, in all penetrating forty- ing as soon as I was sent for; I ask, two feet before its progress was arrested! therefore, for what intent ye have sent Meanwhile, let it be recorded with for me?" the editor says: "His brief thanksgiving that never has such a ministry at the Tabernacle has open.
spirit of benevolence been exhibited as ed auspiciously." He further quotes now among God's true children. For from a Tabernacle correspondent, who example, Mr. Thomas M. Russell, a writes: Scotchman, has just willed £60,000 ster- " • With the hour the man' is a prov- ling to Rev. John Wilkinson for his erb which hail received a very happy work among the Jews ; £8000 were con· illustration in the presence and minis- tributed by a. single donor in Australia try of Dr. Pierson as Mr. Spurgeon's to modern missions, and we hear almost locum tenens at the Metrollolitan Taber- every week of large gifts to home and nacle. The arrangement is according to foreign evangelizatIOn. A prominent Mr. Spurgeon's mind and heart; and, lady, a well-known countess, has sold judging from the welcome which has all her jewelry and ornaments except been accorded to our American brother, heir-looms, that she may send her valu- the indorsement of the church and con- ables to minister to God's kingdom ; gregation has been assured. Possessed and amid all modern apostasies in doc- of the rare qualifications necessary, there trine and inconsistencies in practice, is every reason to believe that Dr. Pier- there is a practioal protest of conse. son will fully justify Mr. Spurgeon's crated souls in the more complete self. choice, and his own acceptance of the surrender that includes property. Oh, appointment, and that the happiest re- for the new spirit of war for the Lord! sults may be expected from his three When will the world be convulsed not months' ministry. An enthusiast for by the preparations for gigantic de- missions, the aggressive work at the structive conflicts of arms, but by the Tabernacle is not likely to flag; an ear· universal uprising of the Church of nest and an able exponent of the Gospel, God in behalf of the world's conquest the living ministry which has been car· for Christ! ried on so long by Mr. Spurgeon is sure to be maintained."
On Sunday evening, November 1st, The Editor-in-Ohief Abroad. the audience numbered some 6000 per- Our readers will not bE' surprised, bu!; sons, 2500 of whom remained to the the,}' will be gratified to know that Dr. after-meeting. [J. T. G.)
18112.] THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY J. R. MILLER, D.D.
The World-Field-Hints for Prayer and Our very life must be in it, in the tem. Work. per of the divine self-sacrifice. But what a privilege and joy thus to work -An artist was asked, "What is your in it, with God Himself and all the best .picture?" He replied, "My saintliest spirits of the earth, now and next. " That was a good answer for an aforetime! Is it not the grandest testi. artist to make. When a man looks mony to the magnificence of human na. back for his life's best work in any ture that God made us co-workers, not line, his feeling should be that of the in the primary work of creation, but in other artist, who wept when he saw his the far grander work of redeeming the completed masterpiece, because his sat- world? In this work we can make isfaction with it marked the climax of our lives luminous in this world, and his lifework. It should be the same bright forever with a celestial glory in with 1>ur years; we should always look the next." to the next as our best. This is a good thought, too, for every Christian and -For a good while the burden of the every church with regard to the work prayers at monthly concerts was for the of missions-our next year should be opening of doors, the breaking down of our best. We should surpass our best barriers. Now from all the fields comes past in praying, doing, and giving. We the cry that the dOOTS are open everyshould make our monthly concerts for where, and that the want is for men to 1892 the best we have ever had. We go in and occupy them. Later the should become more familiar with the prayers were for men and women who needs of the mission·fields, and with would go to the opening fields. These the nature and extent of the work that prayers have been answered, too, in the Church is doing. We should seek most wonderful manner, and to.day to kindle missionary interest among there are 6000 young Christians in our our friends as in no former year. We country alone who have volunteered should pray as never before for the for mission work, and are ready to go cause of missions. We should give wherever they are sent; and now the more than in any former year. cry from all societies is for money. Thus the responsibility for the work is -One of the address!ls of President thrown back upon Christian people Storrs at the recent meeting of the themselves. God has done His part in American Board closed with these opening doors and inclining men and strong words: "It is a vastly critical women to be willing to go as mission.
time in the progress of Christ's king- aries; He has answered our prayers.
dom, with all the world uprising before Are we going to fail him now? Said us, with wealth enough and men President Gates, in an address at the enough to meet the need, with only last meeting of the American Board: the spirit to use them wanting. Let us .. Oh, my brothers, what answer can settle it in our minds that the world is we give for ourselves before the judg.
not to be converted to God by good ment-throne of God, if this glorious people sitting in pews and listening to work of preaching the Gospel of light sermons, even the best, or sitting in to dying men is checked and dwarfed, rocking-chairs and reading good books. and fails of its glorious possibility, be.
The work is vast, difficult, possible-a cause we who are God's stewards hold work that calls for the labor of enthu- fast to God's money for our own selfish siasm, for prayer and tears, for sweat· uses? There is a time when the AI.
drops, and, perhaps, for blood-drops. mighty Banker of the universe calls in Contributions of money are not enough. His loans. " 68 THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. [January -There are indications that the time mooring from all its past, and is emis at hand for a great blessing in India. barking upon a movement that must This " slow old land" is beginning to lead on to the greatest of revolutions in arouse from her sleep of centuries and its internal life and external relations." respond to the tender touch of a faith He adds: "The time is most opporthat regenerates. Dr. Phillips writes tune for the pressing of missionary almost enthusiastically of the outlook. work at every point, in every. form, There are open doors on every side. with all our power. The present dis- Prayers are being answered and long, turbances, while not without elements patient labor is having its reward. All of anxiety, are rather symptoms of the India is ready for a forward movement. general ferment that is spreading than In Life and Light we are told of a wide- of a reaction, and will doubtless in the spread restlessness and a spirit of in- end lead to a far more open door for all quiry in India. In a Madras paper eTangelistic work. " these lines are given as the cry of a multitude to-day: -The condition of things in Japan is such as calls for much earnest prayer "We are weary of empty creeds, at the opening of a new year. The Of guides who show no man the way, country is undergoing a wonderful Of worship linked with lust and shame; transformation. Great progress is Life is an iiI, the sea of births is wide, being made in all departments of na- And we are weary-who shall be our guide 1" tional life. The influences of Chris- tianity and of civilization have swept Thank God for those consciously weary through the country in the last few and heavy laden, to whom the mission- years with marvellous rapidity, The aries may carry the pitying, "Come new empire with its constitutional govunto Me, and ye shall find rest for your ernment takes its place almost alongsouls." side the most enlightened European governments in its freedom and liber- -It is to be hoped that the troubles ality. In the Parliament of 300 memin China are not altogether discourag- bers, 13 are professedly Christian men. ing. May there not be an indication The work of Christian missions in that in them of the beginning of a change land has been prospered beyo'nd the in that wonderful country which shall most sanguine hopes of the Church. leave it a new China? Western thought is breaking in among the peo- But in the midRt of all this progress ple. Modern science is forcing itself and success there are dangers besetting through the old walls, and the country the interests of Christianity and of the is feeling its power. Telegraph wires empire, through which only the hand are stretching everywhere. Western in- of God can guide the country. Says ventions are revolutionizing everything. Dr. Ellinwood: "At the present time China is about breaking its old bonds. the forces which array themselves This is the fruit of Christian missions. against the missionary work in Japan The Bible is doing it. There is unrest are entering into a strong alliance, with for the time; there are persecutions a determination to resist the aggressive of missionaries; but while these things influence of Christianity. Very natuare disheartening in a sense, yet there rally the advocates of the old systems is in them an element of victorious- of Japan, as well as the converts to ness. The leaven of Christianity is various types of western infidelity, are working. Says one of the mission sec- alarmed at the influence which Chris· retaries: "Internal changes of striking tianity is gaining in Japan. . • . Books character assure us that this nation of also have recently been published by venerable antiquity and proverbial con- native authors, which earnestly advo· servatism, almost without its knowledge oate a union of all Buddhist sects and and against its will, is in reality unan alliance with the philosophies (in- worship and schools in their own fidel) of the West, in resistance to the dwellings, this order, whioh has not yet missionary efforts of the Christian been executed, but which at any time Church. Evidently Japan is now the might be, is one which may cause serio theatre of one of the most active con- ous trouble. These outcroppings of a flicts of religious and philosophical persecuting and intolerant spirit show thought that the world has known, and a disposition at least to trouble and in. the Christian Church needs to regard terfere with the work of missions in it the more seriously, from the fact that that old country_ Christian truth has no such advantage there as in countries where the momen- -Africa is wide open now to the tum of many generations of Christian Gospel. The explorations of the last influence constitutes an immense con- thirty years have revealed a heretofore servative force. All questions in Japan, terra incognita, and where the old maps to a generation which has had only the had" Great Afrioan Desert," the newer' antecedents of error, are open ques- maps have rivers, lakes, and mountains tions ; and Christianity must take its and great peoples. Rnilroads are being even chances with every other form of built to supplement the splendid water belief or unbelief, save as the omnip- highways whioh nature has provided. otent Spirit of God shall prompt and The doorl;! of language are also being direct the work in answer to the pray- opened ahd mainly by missionaries ers and efforts of His people. " themselves. Four hundred and thirty. eight languages and 143 dialects have There should. therefore, be earnest been oatalogued. Thus a new world is and importunate prayer for Japan, that open to the Gospel. In the Congo Val. wisdom may be given to the men called ley alone is a population equal to that to direct in missionary work; that the of the United States. Stanley travelled Christian Churoh there may be kept in 999 days 7000 miles and never saw from yielding to worldly influences or the face of a Christian, nor of a man counsels, and from all divisions and who had had the opportunity to become dissensions; that the cause of Christ one. Yet he moved among a populamay be advanced until the empire shall tion of fifty millions. What will the be indeed Christian. Church do to send the Gospel through these wide open doors into Afrioa in -There is trouble also in Turkey, 1892? appealing to the prayers of Christian people everywhere. The government -It used to be said that in India the seems desirous to check moral and intel- birds never sing, the flowers have. no lectual progress, and therefore is assum- fragrance, and the women never smile. ing an unfriendly attitude toward mis- No wonder the women of heathen lands sions. Several acts have been com- never smile. Their lot is sad beyond mitted whioh show this hostility. Mis. description, but a better day has come sionaries have been arrested without for them. The Christian women of cause and kept in close confinement, Christian lands are hastening to give as it they were guilty of some grave their sad sisters the blessed story of offenoe. The government also con· the Gospel. There are in the United fisoated a large number of hymn-books States 34 women's foreign missionary and Bible diotionaries belonging to the societies, 10 in Canada, 24 in Great Amerioan mission. In October last the Britain, 1 on the continent of Europe, Sublime Porte issued an order prohibit. and 1 in South Africa. The work that ing the holding of public worship or has been done by these societies, espe. conduoting of sohools in dwellinghouses. As many missionaries conduot cially for the women of heathen lands, only a desire to please white people in is one whose value and influence can- the awkward appointments of their not be estimated. It would be easy to home, they would be of little account; gather up and present here a table of but in many cases it is the outward sign atatistics (see page 954, December num- of a prooess of change which will eventber of REVIEW), but large as ,the figures ualIy rectify even their distorted family would be, they would give no adequate relationships-a heritage from their view of the resulta of the work which heathen ancestry. The desire for a woman, with her loving hear' and her better home life has somehow been imgentle touch, is doing for her sister planted in the young wife's heart during woman in darkened countries. One her school.life. looked at an opal as it lay on a jeweller's case, and it seemed cold and lustre- -Faraday showed that a drop of dew less. Then the jeweller held the stone oontains electrioity enough to rend a in his hand for a few moments, and rook. The Gospel of Christ has in it now it shone with all the colors of the all the power of God and can work marrainbow. It needed the touch of a hu- vels, as it has already wrought marvels man hand to bring out the iridescence. in saving men. Like that stone in its case are the millions of women in heathendom. Their -If we can do nothing else, or whatlives are dull and sad and without ever else we may do, we oan all pray beauty, but they require only the for the blessing of God upon the work warmth of the hands of Christian women of Christian missions, and prayer has to draw out all the beauty that.slumbers mighty power. The worship of Durga, in their nature. "Godly women have the blood.goddess of the Hindus, is atproved themselves the link, so long tended by the most terrible excesses of missing, to bring their sisters in East- sin. Some native converts have agreed ern lands to the feet of Jesus." that every evening this worship goes on they also will meet to pray to God to -The establishment of Christian put an end to the wicked practices. homes is one of the finest results of " Let us go on praying night after night missionary work in heathen lands, and year after year," they say, .. tm we hence the beauty of a picture which a have prayed down the Dllrga Puja. missionary draws of what is being done Let us pray it down. ' , Christians for Zulu girls in the Inanda Seminary: everywhere should join in all such The humble little home shows that the prayers. wife and mother has tried with the little means at her disposal to give a home- -Some idea of the difficulties of city like look to the place. There will be a evangelization may be gotten from a curtain at the window, a cushion on the statement, by the President of the wooden settee, and a bit of frilled cre- Methodist Church .Extension Society, tonne about the shelf which holds her that within one square mile of New lamp and a few books. If it be objected York City there are 20,000 people, nineby the wise in such matters that the teen twentieths of whom are foreign Turkey red and white of the window born and speak 30 different languages. decorations are not artistic, nor the Yet no work is more important just now friII of cheap cretonne, nor the patch- than that which needs to be done in work quilt whioh covers the bed, we our great cities if they are to be saved say, perhaps not, but the mark of the for Chrh!t. The real heathenism that woman's hand and care to our 'mind is found in many of them is appalling. make the dark little room much less One of the most hopeful of recent cheerless. If these things indicate movements is that which looks toward poses purely religious. Within the cen.
the regeneration of the slums. In Lon. tury now drawing to a close 150,000,000 don and now in New York there has copies of the Bible have been printed been an arousing of the people which in 226 different languages. Fifty years promises much. The work should go ago there were 502 mission stations in forward till all the cities have been foreign parts; there are now 5765.
cleansed. One of the saddest things Fifty years ago there were 653 ordained about the slums is that they are fed missionaries; to.day there are 6696 from the churches and Sunday-schools such servants of the Lord. Then there and from Christian homes. The peo. were but 1266 other laborers and help.
pIe there have fallen out and have ers abroad; now there are 50,552.
drifted downward to where they now are. Many of them have memories of -There is a view of the benefits of better days, even of holy things. In foreign missions which should appeal our prayers at the Monthly Concert, the even to worldly men. General Arm· efforts to evangelize our cities should strong says: "America, through the have a place. American Board, expended in fifty years a million and a quarter dollars to -As nearly as can be computed from evangelize Hawaii, and during that the reports of various societies, the fol. time has received about $4,000,000 a lowing summary of Protestant foreign year in trade. England's missions are missions is correct. From churches in said to bring back £10 in trade for United States, Canada, Great Britain, every pound given to convert the and Continental Europe there are in heathen. Christianity means a demand foreign lands 8048 stations and out- for clothing and utensils. The first stations, with 5594 missionaries, 35,343 sign of grace in a penitent savage is a native helpers, and 681,503 communi· request for a .shirt.- cants. The amount of money given last year was $11,429,588. Of COUlse -A writer in the Children's World this summary is incomplete, as there says: "Of every six infants in the are unreported missions and mission. world, one is born in India; of every aries. six orphan girls, one is wandering in India; of every six widows, one is -The reports of the Americsn Board mourning in India; of every six men give the following facts: The Board that die, one is passing into eternity in has under its care 21 central missions India. Think of it, and give India a with 97 stations, 1136 out·stations and part of your prayers•• , 1287 preaching places. A total of 538 missionaries are employed, with 2648 -After two missionary sermons in native laborers. There are 410 churches Melbourne recently a hard.working man with 38,226 church.members. During sent in thetitle·deeds of 93t acres offarmthe year the additions were 3554. In land, worth about $2500, to be divided schools of all kinds 46,403 pupils are between India and New Guinea. Being reported. Medical relief was given duro asked afterward about his gift, he said: ing the year to 100,000 patients. ." This is how I look at it. Supposing I were a boy and my father gave me $5, -The following figures are full of but afterward wanted part of the money interest. Seventy.five million dollars back again to help him in some work are contributed yearly in the United he was doing, and he came to me to States to the sustenance of the Church, help him, and I gave him a five·cent $31,000,000 more being given for pur. piece, what sort of a Bon should I be ?"
'12 GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Orga.nized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O. .
-Hermann Wagner and Alexander upon them as touching the redemption Supan have recently published a vol· of the world. All the more since they ume of statistics relating to the popula- are such inveterate and indomitable tion of the globe. Of course the figures travellers, traders, colonizers, and buildthey give for countries not a few are ers of States. Most of all is the call of but estimates, and sometimes are but Providence to British Christians to beguesses; but taken all in all are no stir themselves for the Master, since the doubt the best to be had. They fix the sway of their government is so supreme number of the human family at 1,480,- over so large a fraction of the human 000,000, Of these there are in Europe, race. 326,000,000; in Asia, 826,000,000; in Africa, 164,000,000; in America, 122,_ -India is ten times larger than Ja- 000,000 ; in Australia, 3,000,000; and pan, China nearly three times as large in the Oceanio Islands, 7,500,000. as India, and Africa twice as large as China has 350,000,000 and India 324,- India and China combined. The 000,000, of whom 286,000,000 belong to "Dark" Continent is of vast propor- British India_ Russia has 93,000,000 ; tions as well, and contains a vast multithe German Empire, 49,000,000; Aus- tude which is well-nigh altogether either tria-Hungary, 41,000,000 ; Franoe, and pagan or else Mohammedan. Call the Great Britain and Ireland, 38,000,000 population 164,000,000, acoording to eaoh; Italy, 30,000,000, and Spain, 17,- the latest estimate, that of Wagner and 000,000. But another authority, Pro- Supan, and what impression has been fessor Von Juraschek, gives 1,544,000,- made upon it by the Gospel? Accord- 000 as the population of the world, of ing to a Danish authority, the Rev. whioh Europe has 358,000,000 and the Dean Vahl, in 1890 there were laboring Americas 124,000,000. in Africa, and representing all Christen- dom, 1004 missionaries and 206 women, -" When Shakespeare lived and and 878 native missionaries with 8389 sang, 300 years ago, on the whole globe other native helpers, or a total force of there were less than a million more 10,477, and the fruit of their toil is English-speaking people than now in- found in 214,561 oonverts or communihabit London alone. There were be- cants; but the" Encyclopredia of Mistween 5,000,000 and 6,000,000. So re- sions" gives a list of 43 missionary socently as a century ago, even after this cieties at work between the Mediterrarepublic was founded, there were only nean and the Cape, with 611 ordained 15,000,000 English-speaking persons on men, 170 unordained, 387 women, 209 the globe. At the same date 30,000,000 ordained natives, 4891 native helpers, spoke French and 40,000,000 German. or a total of 6268 persons engaged in Now we find that While the French and bearing the glad tidings to the perish- German tongues are spoken by a rea- ing. Into 565 churches 101,212 souls sonably increased number of individ- have been gathered, 9439 were admitted uals in the world to-day, in Australasia, last year, and 53,235 pupils are receivthe British isles, and in America 115,- ing instruction in 861 schools. These 000,000 olaim English as their mother figures stand for what Protestant Christongue. This is 40 pel' oent of the in- tians are doing-that is, they have sent habitants of the oivilized world." If 1168 men and women to Africa, or such is the fact, it follows that Anglo- about one to every 150,000. Saxon, English-speaking Christians have a tremendous responsibility laid -Next see-one item from many- what the devil and his angels are doing to maintain his widespread and fear- single Christian of every denomination, fully well-established sovereignty over at least 2 Buddhist priests (not head- Africa. The following tabulated state- priests). So there is a population of ment, printed in the {!hristian Union and over 39,000,000 of Japanese without a obtained from the Boston Custom single Christian among them. Once House, shows the exportation of rum to more, if all the Christians in Japan were Africa from the Port of Boston during congregated· in the city of Osaka (500,- the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1891 : 000), there would be in that one city 4 times as many heathen as Christians, …. …. and not a single Christian in any other ;:~ :~ :: :: :: :. part of the country. No, Japan is not r … :: ::: yet a Christian country; and there is room and need for hundreds if not I thousands of missionaries and native evangelists, if this people is to be saved il ere the Lord come." Then ponder this concerning India: "Since 1881 the For two or three years this traffic, which population has increased by 29,000,000 partakes so largely of the inhuman and -that is to say, almost as many souls the hellish, was reported as steadily have been added to the people of India falling off, but now it has again reached in ten years as are comprised in the high-water mark. whole population of England and Wales. The total is now 286,000,000. India -More than one fourth of the earth's contains more people than all Africa inhabitants are crowded into China and and South America combined; more Japan, and more than one fifth into than all Europe, excluding Russia; India; but after all the phenomenal nearly ten times the popUlation of Engsuccess which the Gospel has had in land. Or take the provinces, Bengal Japan, but a trifling beginning has been alone has more souls than the United made. An English missionary states States and Canada combined; the Punthe following facts: "To-day there are jab more than Spain and Portugal ; the 40,000,000 in Japan, and not 40,000, Madras Presidency, equal to Italy and Protestant Christians-that is, one in Belgium together. Each missionary, 1000. For every 2 Christians there are on an average, has 250,000 Bouls to 5 Buddhist temples, not to mention reach." And then, as for China, "not Shinto temples. There are 10,000 more one in 10,000 has as yet ever even heard head-priests of Buddhism than there are of Jesus Christ." Among China's 350,- Protestant Christians, and for every 000,000, 30 ProtAstant societies sustain in all less than 1300 men and women (at the rate of one to 270,000 heathen), something more than 40,000 have been gathered into churches, and about 15,- 000 are receiving instruction in Chris- tian schools. Evidently the call for 1000 more missionaries to labor in China alone is a most modest and reasonable one.
-Or, glance at South America with 7,500,000 square miles and a popula- tion of about 35,500,000. Over almost the entire continent the papacy bears undisputed sway, and heathenism holds the rest. Including the American Bible committed to our trust-as contrasted Society, 8 societies are endeavoring to with the superabounding opportunities diffuse a pure Gospel-the Methodist of this Christian land, where one per- Episcopal Church, North and South, son in every 600 of its 63,000,000 is an the Presbyterian, North and South, the evangelical minister, and one in every Southern Baptist, -the Moravian, and 5 is a professed disciple of the Lord the South American Missionary Society Jesus Christ? Is $6 out of $100, $94 of England. The number of men and being retained for work at home, is $20 women at work is but about 325, and out of $100, $80 being retained for be- the number of communicants is less nevolent work at home, a fair propor- than 15,000. There remaineth yet very tion ?"
much land to be possessed. -0£ the 15,730,000 people of Hun- gary, 3,200,000 are Protestants. Of -Of course there should be some fair these again 2,030,000 are Reformed -that is, some truly Christian-propor- and 1,120,000 Lutherans. The latter tion established and maintained in our have 1195 pastors and 1433 congrega- churches between home expenses, home tions; the former 4241 congregations missions, and foreign missions; and served by 2283 pastors. The Unitarians hence these words of Secretary Alden, number about 1i0,000, organized into of the American Board, are well worthy 187 congregations with 107 pastors. of careful consideration. His figures The Protestants are very active in edu- relate to the Congregationalists. He cational and literary work. The num- says : " There are 4817 chnrches with ber of their schools is 3826, besides 14 a membership of 506,832, a Sunday- preparatory schools for teachers, 52 school membership of 613,810. The high schools, and 13 theological schools. reported contributions for 1890 for , home expenditures' in round numbers -Says Bishop Walden: "Italy has were $6,100,000, and for the several de- above 30,000,000 of people, of whom bepartments of home benevolence $1,900,- tween 25,000 and 30,000 are connected 000, a total of $8,000,000. The reported with some Protestant organization-not contributions for foreign missions were more than one in every thousand of the $350,000. Suppose we add the gener- population. In 1890, 6 Protestant bodies ous sum of $150,000, t6 represent possi- reported 23,452 members, but besides ble unreported contributions, and thus these there is the mission of the Plycall the contibutions to foreign missions mouth Brethren, a few small indepen- $500,000; we have then a total from dent missions, and the several Anglican benevolent contributions, excluding and other foreign churches. The entire legacies, of $2,400,000-that is, $80 out Protestant force, however, must fall beof every $100 is for work at home, $20 low 30,000. The Methodist contingent for work abroad. Bringing in, how- is about 2500, a little more than 1500 ever, the entire home expenditures, are found in the Wesleyan, and a little which is a proper thing to do, we have less than 1000 in the Methodist Episcoan aggregate of $8,500,000. On this pal Mission. The Waldensian Church basis, $94 out of every $100 is devoted began the work of evangelization in to the support of Christian institutions 1848, and reports 18,000; the Free and Christian bene,olence at home, and Church of Italy, united in one body in $6 for the corresponding work abroad. 1865, reports 1800; the Baptist less We ask, Is this a fair proportion? We than 900, and the 'Italian Catholic repeat the question, Is this a fair pro- Church' about 100. Such is the nuportion, particularly when we remem- merical strength of Protestantism in ber the perishing need of the unevan· Italy."
gelized nations-not less than 120,000,- -Belgium received its Roman Catho- 000 of their popUlation being specially lic impress under the iron rule of Philip of Spain, and is to-day, along with Agency, South Dakota, says: "We Spain, the country most devoted to the have just closed the convocation of our papacy, and is in the eyes of the Ro- Indian deanery, which, despite the late man Catholic Church, a true, ideal disturbances, was the largest in num- state. Among its 6,000,000 inhabitants bers and offerings we have ever had. not more than 20,000 are Protestant. Over 1500 people camped around an In 1837 a number of Protestants, among open circle. The women, representing • whom was the well-known Merle d' Au- 36 local branches of the Woman's Aux_ bigne and the church elder Mertens, of iliary, presented in cash $800, and the Breslau, founded the" Evangelical So· young men $170 for all sorts of chari- ciety of Belgium." In 1848 a church, ties, among them being work in Japan consisting of 49 converted Catholics, and China, missions in South Dakota, was organized upon a Presbyterian ba- the Episcopate fund, the native clergy sis, under the name of the" Christian fund, and other objects." Mission Church of Belgium." Accord ing to the statistics of 1889 it consisted -The secretaries of the Missionary of 2; churches, 22 ministers, 81 elders, Society of the Methodist Episcopal 104 deacons, 4 evangelists, 8 Bible Church have issued a circular letter readers, 5 colporteurs, and 4 students showing how the collections for mis- of theology, all under the direction of sions have been steadily advancing, bnt 3 local synods and one general Synod. calling attention to the fact that the In 1888 the number of communicants demand is advancing at a greater rate was 4396 ; Sabbath-schools, 59; schol- than the supply. The table appended ars, 2631. Besides this free church, gives a snmmary of the collections for there is also the Belgian National (Prot- the past seven years for the general estant) Church, whose ministers are work of the Society, both at home and paid by the State. abroad: -What a spectacle was beheld at the 3 … ""~~~o;~~&? :.''","e; Yankton Agency, S. D., a few weeks since, when 1000 Sioux, representing 0 8i~~~f8~~ 0~0 16 tribes-the Omahas, Santees, Yanktons, Yanktonnais, Brules, Ogalalas, E-< :l:g-o"o&'<5~ g,..f…,.t…§….,.,…g……,.,l……i…<is Minnecaujus, Two-kettles, Blackfeet, Hauhapapi, Sissetons, Wahpetons, As- … .,; &3~~8~~~ ~ siniboins, Rees, Mandans, and Gros … ~~E~~~~ <Xi Ventres-came together to hold an an- ~ ~'" nual meeting to tell and to hear the '" ~~~~"t:!~fi 0> story of the victories of the cross. And 0 Ui>""''''''''''' ,…. it was only a year before that the" Mes- c0>r siah crRZe" and the war were on. These were all Christian brethren and Presby- ~ terians and Congregationalists. Among the subjects in which the Indians took -"'" g;:ll~c;;188;g1~ an active and eloquent part were these: " How to Prevent the People from Being … .,S,-. ~_~_~_~_~_~.~_c:!~: Led Away by False Religions," " Should "'"::: 0 Mourners Refrain from Attending Pub- … ~ ":'g~<"o'&~5g"s'"'''','..'..'~'..S.'..;~lIo~ ~> lic Worship 1" "How to Make Prepara- 0 tion for the Sabbath," "The Proper 0 Uses which the Dakotas Should Make of Money Annuities." And further, Ii Bishop Hare, writing from the Rosebud ~ ~ E-< illi§JOCi§OJl&:51-2-O&O5~0g0 I ,…. ""'''''''''''''''''''"'''i?""t -The Presbyterian Church, North, is doing earnest work with excellent results in Western Persia, Rev. J, H. Shedd states: "Four of the churches, with professing Christians of the country.
an aggregate of 879 members, support The system of church polity, which has themselves, and 2 of them contribute slowly developed itself, is rather a com- largely for helping others; 5 other bination of Independency, Presbyteri- churches, with less than 100 members anism, and Episcopacy. An Anglican each, pay half or more of their ex- mission works chiefly on the East Coast, penses, and 28 others pay a less sum to with a bishop and cathedral at Antan- self-support. The tacit understanding anarivo. A Roman Catholic bishop is is that a church of 100 members ought also stationed at the capital. There to be self-supporting. There are some are about 28 missionaries of the London 20 other mission stations-for the nomi- Missionary Society in Madagascar, 10 nal Christians-home missions. One of the Friends' Mission, 10 of the Angli- fourth of this advance work is from the can Mission, 26 of the Norwegian Lu- native missionary fund, and three therans, and about 40 priests and fourths from our mission. The whole brothers of the Roman Catholic Mission.
of this agency cost the New York Board as well as sevflral Sisters of Mercy.
last year $3741, an average of $62 a The London Missionary Society has congregation, to help the development about 950 native pastors and about 100 of the native church and home mis- evangelists or native missionaries sta- sions. Last winter nearly 100 schools tioned in various parts of the country, and over 2000 pupils were cared for at many of them in quite heathen dis- an expense to the Board of $1582.50, an tricts. There are about 350,000 Protes- average of $16 to a school, about 75 tants and about 35,000 Roman Catho- cents to a pupil. To this should be lics. Five sixths of the Malagasy are added the sums given in self-support. still pagans. Schools have been estab- A few schools are entirely self-support- lished, and education is compulsory ing, and all pay some part of the ex- wherever the influence of the central pense, except in a few very peculiar government is effective. All the mis.
cases. In a few places Moslem pupils sionary societies at work in Madagascar attend. The higher education of the col- have colleges and high schools, the lat- lege or female seminary costs the Board ter both for boys and girls, in all of a larger sum. The number of pupils which education is given ~reely, with in the united schools, male and female, but nominal charges for books, etc. Al- was 337 the year past. Of these 202 most every congregation, except the were boarding pupils. The income smallest and the weakest, has its school.
from these is almost enough to pay for The London Missionary Society has their board. The charge to the Board also an industrial school for teaching aside from missionary salaries was handicrafts. Hospitals and medical $2200, which covers expenses of teach- schools are also connected with this So- ers, buildings, rooms, and some inci- ciety, as well as with the Friends, Lu.
dentals. It is about $11 a pupil for the theran and Anglican Missions, and boarding departments." there are now a number of trained doc- tors and surgeons. It is estimated there -A large portion of the Hova and of are about 1800 schools and about 170,- the other tribes in the central districts 000 children under instruction, but it is of Madagascar have been christianized, difficult to get the statistics of the Ro- and Christianity is acknowledged and man Catholic Mission.
protected by the government. There is no state church, although the queen -The Moravian (Bethlehem, Pa.) very and principal officers of the government properly, and in excellent spirit, calls are Qonnected with the churches formed attention to certain misstatements con- by the London Missionary Society, tained in the" October" number of THE which comprises the vast majority of MIsSIONARY REVIEW, "usually so accurate," relating both to the total expen- misstatement referred to is found not diture for missions made by that body in October, but in November instead.
of Christians aD.d the amount contrib- uted by friends from outside. Now, he who would knowingly offend in that way, and thus" belittle the liberality" Monthly Bulletin. of a church which just there comes nearest to the Gospel ideal, would by -News of the death of Miss Jennie the act prove himself the chief of sin- B. Small, a missionary of the Presbyteners. The mistake is deeply regretted, rian Board of Foreign Missions, at and originated wholly from partial and Petchaburee, Siam, on June 2, has been so defective information. However, received. Miss Small taught school for Borrow is not altogether unmingled several years in Mansfield, Allegheny with joy, since the opportunity is thus County, Pa.
afforded to present the facts, which for -The Zambesi Chief Lewanika has substance, The Moravian being author- sent his eldest son Litia to Morija, in ity, are as follows; "The total cost of Basutoland, to receive Christian inour missions in 1890 was $350,475. struction. The chief has many excel- The largest proportion of this-more lent parts, and for some time has been than two thirds-was raised in the mis- on terms of friendship with M. Coilsion fields themselves, through the con- lard, of the Paris Society of Missions, tributions of the converts and also from and Litia himself is a promising young the proceeds of trades carried on in man of Christian character. certain mission-provinces for the benefit of the missions. The sum of $24,060 -The London Christian says; "The is to be credited, as THE MISSIONARY Chinese Government is now taking very REVIEW puts it, to the ' Brethren's con- vigorous steps to suppress and to pregregations,' but this is not all. The vent attacks on missionaries. We may Labrador and the Alaska accounts do therefore reasonably trust that those not pass through our General Board. who are carrying the Word of God into Labrador entailed an outlay of $9800, that distant land will be in less danger Alaska of $8400. The gifts from friends than has recently been the case. This in Britain, including therefore those of is something to thank God for not only the London Association referred to were for the sake of the missionaries, but of $26,686 ; on the Continent of Europe, the future weal of China itself."
$22,656 ; in America, $285. [Total gifts -The work among the blind in Syria from friends, $49,627.] Mite societies is full of interest. The number of blind in the various Moravian congregations seen in the East is very distressing. contributed $3430. Legacies were receiv- There are blind schools at Beirut, Daed to the amount of $23,670, and the in- mascus and Tyre. Blind Scripture come from funded legacies was $37,264. readers have the entree of Moslem homes, How much of the last two items should a privilege which blindness confers. be credited to members, and how much One of the earliest pupils in the Beirut to friends of the Moravian Church, we Blind School, after completing his are not able to say. It may be added studies in Edinburgh University, has that the entire cost of administration been ordained pastor of the Presbytewas but $16,570, and that the total of rian church of Knox, in Brussels, Onadherents is now 90,020, while the tario. home churches number less than 35,- 000." It will be noticed that a portion -The first section of the little rail- of the $350,475 is derived from the road which is to connect Jaffa with Jern- " proceeds of trades." salem has been completed, and tourists Surely, humanum est errare, and the are now able to travel by rail from Jaffa to Ramleh, about one third the dis- Glasgow, said, at the annual meeting of tance. It will not be long before pil- the London Missionary Society, that grims to the Holy Land will be whisked missionaries did not sufficiently raise in an hour from the sea to Jerusalem, the veil and tell what Hinduism is.
to the ~reat disgust of camel owners One could not speak about it and and stage proprietors_ scarcely write about it. Almost every -Some of the Indian women on the temple in India had from 30 to 200 Yakama and Puyallup reservations have priestesses engaged in vice. That was asked that women evangelists be sent how Hinduism dealt with woman. to them, and in response Mrs. E. C. Miller has been sent to Yakama, and -The Bev. Allen Hazen, formerly a Mrs. Bell to Puyallup. The doing of missionary in India, and more recently Gospel work among Indian women will a pastor in New Zealand, has returned, result in great good. If they can be at the age of sixty-eight, accompanied taught the blessedness of peace, and be by his daughter, born in India, to re_ made to know the Prince of Peace, sume, at his own charges, his old work in the Marathi Mission.
Indian wars will soon come to an end. –In an interesting paper in a recent -At the "Keswick Convention," in number of The Church of Scotland Home England, there was a missionary meet- and Foreign XtSsian Record, Rev. Dr. ing, at which many addresses were Mackinnon, of Heidelberg, calls attenmade by missionaries from many lands tion to the thoroughness with which -among others, by Mrs. Grattan Guin- German missionaries are trained for ness, representing, as she said, mission- their work. Their systematic method aries on the Congo River, Mrica, and is said to be remarkable indeed in comby Mr. Robert Wilder, who described parison with the lax preparatory trainthe great volunteer missionary move- ing in some other countries largely enment in the United States_ A very gaged in missionary effort. After satispractical issue of the Convention was factory proof of their fitness for the the fact that a multitude of gifts, vary- life, the candidates in Germany are ading in amount from a few shillings to mitted to attend the Mission House one hundreds of pounds, and reaching the evening in the week for a year. They grand total of £1814, were sent in to be are then entered upon the books of the devoted to the cause of God at home preparatory school for two years for inand abroad. struction in Latin, etc. After this they have a course of instruction of a theo- -A Japanese converted to Christ logical nature, including the study of seems at once to betake himself to the the Bible in the original tongue, and a labor of teaching the truth to his friends few sessions of medical training in the at home and at a distance, and thus is hospital. The years thus spent are use- the way prepared for the minister of ful in developing in the future mission- Christ. No wonder that, with such ary many qualities which are of the ut- preparatory service, the truth is run- most value in the mission field. The ning in that land, and being glorified. rllsult is that men are sent out who are -Mrs. L. J. Newton, in a recent ad- in every way worthy of their work, and dress to the Missionary Conference held who undertake it thoroughly equipped at Chautauqua, speaking of progress in for the master's service. the Punjab, India, said: "We have $7000 invested in our church and hos- -The American Baptist Missionary pital at Ferozepore, every cent of which Union is supporting eighteen preachers was given by native converts." in Russia. One has been exiled to Si- beria for preaching the Gospel, and an- other sent out of the country with only -The Rev. Professor Lindsay, ..··of three hours' notice. -A Misil Agnew, of New York, it is cheerfully, 'and he lived there in the said, when only eight years old gave most frugal and primitive fashion. He her heart to· mission work. She went had no notion of being too valuable in to Ceylon, and spent forty-three un- Europe to be hidden away in the almost broken years. A thousand girls passed inaccessible uplands of Asia. He was through her school. She taught the a true Moravian.
children and the grandchildren of the first generation. The natives called -King Mwanga of Uganda has proher the mother of a thousand daughters. hibited slavery in his dominions.
IShe led six hundred girls to Christ. -The Queen of Madagascar, with They became the wives of the chief 200,000 of· her subjects, is ranged on men, and were shining lights. There the side of Christianity.
are also forty Bible women in India -At Oyamada, Japan, the church of who were trained in her school. 100 members has built a church costing -A few weeks ago a leading Brahman $1300, of which they paid $900 them· in Bombay, an official in the education selves.
department, married the widowed -England proudly boasts that the daughter of another Brahman prominent sun never sets on her dominions. The in the literary world. The ceremony United States may say as much, for was attended by many Hindoos of note. when the sun sets in Alaska it is an The other Sunday a Bombay pleader hour high in Maine. convened a meeting to get sentence of expulsion pronounced upon all the -A medical missionary in China reo Shenvi Brahmans who were present at cently treated fourteen men in one day the marriage. The temple was crowded, who represented eleven of the eighteen but it is a remarkable evidence of prog- provinces of the Empire.
ress that only nine persons voted with -The four gospels have been transthe convener of the gathering. The lated into Uzbek, the language of 2,250" Shenvi is one of the most powerful 000 people in Central Asia, and pub- Brahman castes in Western India. lished by the British and Foreign Bible -The Moravians are alive to their in- Society.
dividual responsibility concerning the -Tunis is under the protection of unevangelized nations of the world, and France. It has a population of 2,000,.
they hold themse~ves in readiness to go 000, mostly Mohammedans, among out as missionaries when called upon whom drunkenness is prevalent.
to do so. This is true of the most -The work of telegraph building in scholarly and distinguished among them South Africa is pushed far ahead of rail· as well as of others. Henry Augustus road enterprise. Savage Africa will Jaeschke, late Moravian missionary in thus be joined with civilization by elec. Northern India and Thibet, besides Ger- tric wire. man was master of Polish, Danish and Swedish, and was acquainted with Eng- -The first section of the Congo raillish, Hungarian, Bohemian, Latin and way has been completed, from Matadi Greek, and, after going to the East, al. to Leopold Ravine, and construction ready knowing Sanskrit, Persian and trains are running.
Arabic, and, no doubt, Hebrew, he -The Chinese Government has fully learned Hindustani and Urdu, and compensated the missionaries in Honan lastly Thibetan. He was likewise for the injury to their property by a versed in mathematics and natural sci. mob only three months ago. ence, especially botany. He obeyed the call of his Church to go to the -The Comber family will be noted Himalayan regions unquestioningly and ,. in the martyr list of Congo Missions, having given five lives already to that -The Rev. Mr. LeWis, of England, work: Dr. Sidney Comber, Thomas J. died recently. In 1842 he went to Comber, Mrs.' Hay, Mrs. Thomas J. India, and having reduced the language Comber, and Mrs. Percy Comber. of the Khassees to writing, he devoted himself to translations, and was able Ohina.-The 32,000 native Chinese without any help but that given by his Moravian Christians gave year before wife, to translate the whole of the New last $38,000 for missionary work. Testament into Khassei. From the work which he started have developed -It is reported that, as a result of 60 churches with a membership of 7000. the great assistance given to the faminestricken people of Shantung, in 1889, -The Rev. W. F. Bainbridge tells the when over $200,000 were distributed following touching story of a Brahmin and over 100,000 lives saved, a great convert hemet in India: .. Ashe talked many have been drawn to pay special of his work and urged me to labor hard attention to Christianity as the religion in the interests of heathen evangelizawhich influences people for such deeds tion, I felt that it was not he, but Christ of kindness and mercy; and during speaking through him. Last mgnth a 1890 it is said that over a thousand per- Conconada brother wrote me of his sons were baptized whose attention was death. He had just officiated at a weddrawn' to the religion of Christ by the ding. A sudden sickness came on befact that the missionaries were so promi- fore he had signed the marriage certifinent in securing this aid and distribut- cate. 'Just your name, brother,' they ing it. Not by any means were all these said, as they put the paper unner his recipients of aid, but they saw what was hand, and the pen between his fingers_ being done for their fellow.men, and , Name? • said the dying Brahmin, compared the fruits of Christianity with , name? There is none other name the fmits ,of heathenism. given under heaven among men where- by we must be saved.' • Yes; but we -It is stated by Dr. Joseph Simms, want your own name. Quick I Write it.' who has lately returned from China, , My name? I have none other name that at least 200,000 girl babies are than the lamb's name written in my brutally killed in various ways every forehead.' And the pen moved and the year in that empire, to get them out of hand dropped, and the spirit was gone; the way. In every large city there are and they looked, and he had written asylums for tl:ie care of orphans, sup- 'Jesus.' .. ported and conducted by foreigners, who save yearly from slaughter tens of thousands of female infants.
India_-Sir Charles A. Elliott, the new -The Methodist Episcopal Church Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, speak- has three conferences in India, North ing at Simla, has added his testimony India, South India, alild Bengal. The to the value of missions as judged from statistics have recently been published the standpoint of high Indian officials. of the three combined, together with cor- .. I make bold to say," were his words, responding figures for 1870, and the " that if missions did not exist it would growth of 20 years thus shown is most be our duty to invent them." This is cheering. The figures for two decades what was said by the famous men who ago are put in parenthesis: Missionbuilt up the administration of the Pun- aries, 72 (19) ; wives, 62 (17); Hindustani jab, and who, when it was !1nnexed in missionaries, 54 (5); Zenana mission- 1849, among their first requirements, aries, 33 (2); baptisms in 1890, 7661 along with courts, and codes, and roads, (471); native communicants, 11,991 and police, wrote home to the Church (600) ; day schools, 853 (117) ; scholars, Missionary Society for a supply of mis- 25,540 (4309) ; money collected in India sionaries. in 1890,217,287 rupees (24,478).
The Missionary Review of the World — November 1891
OUR DEBT, OUR DUTY, AND OUR DESTINY
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIV. No. 11.-0ldSeries.–NOVEMBER.–VoL. IV. No.l1.-NewSeries.
OUR DEBT, OUR DUTY, AND OUR DESTINY.
[EDITORIAL, A. T. P.] The obligation to prosecute home missions finds illustration in three important texts of Scripture, at which we shall glance, in their application to this great theme.
I. "If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith. and is V,'orse than an infidel" (1 Tim. 5 : 8).
II. "Thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men llIay bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles" (Isa. 60: 11).
Ill. "I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth" (Acts 13 : 47).
We do not claim that these passages refer to the subject to which we apply them; but they serve as biblical expressions of our threefold relation to home missions, or the evangelization of our land.
1. A DEBT owed to a national family and household. 2. A DuTY owed to a nation's guests-the strangers that are within our gates, destined to become children of the nation. 3. A DESTINY connected with our providential history and mission to the world as a missionary nation. 1. THE DEBT. The nation is a larger family, and of this larger family the household is the type. In an emphatic sense we have all one Father. We have as' a nation a common origin. The nation had its birth-hour and birth-throes. The history of its nativity is written in blood and tears, and we are proud of it. We are bound by peculiar ties that make the whole family one. The very configuration, conformation, and physical features of the republic's domain proclaim our unity. The great mountain ranges and river systems run north aud south like backbone and breastbone and nervous and circulatory systems, and forbid division such as was attempted in the Civil War of a quarter century ago. Our history is one, and our interests are common. Here is one great household, in one great home, with a common tongue, common wants, and a common supply. We are under one beneficent system of household laws, where due regard is had to the liberty and rights and development of each. A paternal government of mingled freedom and restraint is over the household.
However widely scattered, we shall find, literally, that we are all one family. The members of our households are spread over the wide territory, our sons and daughters may be found from Maine to Texas, and from Atlantic to Pacific shores. In the savannas of the South, by the great lakes, on the ranches of the remote 'West, on the plains beyond the Rocky Mountains, on the prairies where grows the corn, on the hills where they dig out gold and silver, our children and members of our households are even now living. We owe it to our own to provide for them all the means of grace and the institutions of our holy religion. To leave them where they are destitute of such blessings, and for the time unable properly to provide for themselves, is worse than to leave a son or daughter, brother or sister, to literal starvation, by as much as body is of leEs value than soul. Never shall we make adequate provision for our own land until we regard the nation as one household, each member of which has the right and claim upon us to provide proper religious advantages. Those who go beyond the Mississippi and leave the Sunday-school and church behind them, and find none where they go, are in danger of finding that they have practically 1eft GOD too on the other side of the river or the mountains. 1'1) set up Christian schools, churches, prayer-meetings, sacramental tables, Bibles, and family altars is virtually to set God in the midst of them again.
The force of this argument grows upon us as we study the conditions of our common country. Our magnificent railway system, with the vast network of telegraph and postal communication, brings the remotest parts of our vast land into practical neighborhood. This facile communication and rapid transportation encourages the wide dispersion of households wherever personal ambition or business prospects attract; and in consequence twenty years, and often a single year, will so scatter one original household that its members may be found represented in every quarter of the republic. The man or woman who helps to plant a Sunday-school, church, or religious centre of any sort in a remote Western State or territory may be making unconscious provision for a son or a daughter, who in a few years may be a resident in that quarter, dependent for spiritual life and growth on the very institutions which the generosity of the parent helped to found. A pastor and one of his church-members in Philadelphia helped to establish a school in Arizona, where two years later both of them had daughters.
II. Secondly, we owe a great DUTY to the great influx of foreigners on our shores.
The facts about Immigration are not generally known; certainly they make on very few a deep and lasting impression. From 1783 to 1847 there came to these shores 1,063,567 immigrants. From 1847 to 1873, 4,933,562. From 1873 to 1890, 4,910,864. In the single year 1881, 441,064 ; in 1882, 455,450 j and in one day-May 11th, 1887-10,000. These figures are very instructive, and ought to be very impressive. The first period given above covered sixty-four years, and the rate was about 17,000 a year ;. the next period covered twenty-six years, and the rate had increased over eleven-fold; the next period covered seventeen years, and the rate had increased over seventeen-fold upon the first period, and over even the second above fifty per cent j while in one d(i"y of 1887 there were nearly two thirds as many as each year averaged from 17Sa to 1S47 I The sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, though it has an undoubted dispensational meaning, and is primarily applicable to the chosen nation of the Hebrews, could scarcely have been more appropriate to our own country if it had been written for our encouragement and admonition. It is the great home missionary chapter. It challenges us to use the light we have from God to irradiate the darkness around us, and reflect and transmit the rays which selfishness would absorb. How true it is of this land that the nations are coming to our shores as doves in flocks to their windows j the sons of strangers build our walls and palaces. The question is, Shall all these heterogeneous elements be assimilated into homogeneity j shall we get national unity out of this diversity j shall the fir-tree, pine-tree, and boxtree tog~ther be wrought into the woodwork of the sanctuary 1 These foreignen come with" strange gods," with notions, prejudices, habits, customs, foreign to our own and at war with them. They are prolific, and increase with very great rapidity. 'What sort of an influence are they to exert over coming days! Mr. Ellis, in his remarkable book on "The Criminal," has again brought to our notice the amazing ruin to society wrought by one vicious progenitor. The" Jukes family," so called, proved a brood of vipers. The ancestor, born between 1 720 and 1740, llad a numerous progeny more or less illegitimate. Two sons married bastard sisters. Descendants, traced through five generations, number at least 709, and really aggregate 1200 j and, on the whole, form a body of criminals, prostitutes, paupers and vagabonds. Not twenty skilled workmen belonged to the whole number, and half of these learned whatever trade they knew within prison walls j ISO received out-of-door relief; 76 were open criminals, committing 115 offences j and over 52 per cent of the women were abandoned to a life of shame. What a future is before a country where foreigners, ignorant, superstitious, degraded, often the criminal refuse of other lands, are permitted to find a home and multiply without any really educating, uplifting and redeeming influences!
The only hope for America is found in the assimilation of these foreign elements. They must be brought into unity as parts of one body politic. And history shows that but one assimilating power is equal to such a tasknamely, a common religious faith. We must Christianize pagans, or they will paganize Christians. We must elevate this foreign population, or they will degrade us.
Colonies of Portuguese, driven out from Madeira in 1S49, took refuge in Springfield and Jacksonville, TIl., and there, about thirty miles apart, two essentially Portuguese colonies have existed now for over forty years. The streets have been wholly given up to them in their quarter, and they have at least four churches of their own. If we go to the Sandwich Islands, amid a total population of SO,OOO we shall find several thousand Japanese and 20,000 Chinese. :rhroughout all the lands of this hemisphere, and especially in the United States, all foreign peoples are found j and the question is how they are to be made a part of our American civilization and republicanism.
III. Thirdly, we owe it to our DESTINY to redeem this land for our Lord. The United States has from the beginning been divinely stamped as a COlD- mh!sioned missionary nation. Here not only the great problem is to be wrought out, of liberty civil and religious, of individualism independent of all abnormal restraints, even of aristocratic caste; but most important of all, here is to be the great supply of workers for the world· wide field. Heathen Asia cannot furnish them, because heathenism is the field needing mission work. Papal Europe cannot supply them, for Romanism itself needs reformation and purification of her corruptions. Where shall the great training school of missionaries be found if not in this land ~ Great Britain is doing nobly her share in a world's evangelization; but whare, if not here, shall her great ally be found ~ The work of home and of foreign missions runs together. W"hen Dr. John Hall was visiting in Scandinavia, he learned at a missionary meeting then in progress in Sweden that in Wisconsin and Minnesota alone were 140 Scandinavian ministers laboring among their own countrymen, sent out by the mother churches of Sweden and supported by their contributions until such time as the Scandinavians resident in this land could take care of their own pastors. The same distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, coming out of the Yosemite Valley, tarried over night in a village where there might have been perhaps 1200 people, and where there was no church of any denomination! So oppressed was he by the sight of such destitution that he went from house to house, inviting the people to meet for worship, and himself addressed them. These two facts, or classes of facts, illustrate the kinship of all missionary work at home and abroad. Dr. Pentecost goes to India to evangelize English residents ih that stronghold of Brahmanism. The heathen come to our shores. We have here from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 who came from African ancestry. The Chinese and Japanese are here by the thousands to learn our political system and our faith. If we do our duty we may on this very soil grow the seed of the kingdom to be planted the wide world over. Neglect of our own land makes all our future and the future of the world so far hopeless. To evangelize our country, to leave no part to desolation and degradation, to aband'on no class of the population to vice, crime, ignorance, infidelity, and irreligion j to build churches, gather Sunday-schools and Christian congregations everywhere, scatter Bibles, tracts and good books, to multiply all means of grace and bring them into contact with the entire population of the land-that is to root up evil growths and displace them by trees and plants of godliness, whose seed is in themselves after their kind. "We shall thus ge bread for the eater and seed for the sower. When the Lord by these means builds up our waste places and makes our deserts His gardens, we shall draw the eyes of the world to us, and we shall be prepared to send — into all the earth the sowers of the seed of the kingdom, and turn every other waste into an Eden.
RRJ,ATION OF MONEY TO PROGRESS OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM
THE RELATION OF MONEY TO THE PIWGRESS OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM.
BY REV. W. D. SEXTON, HILLSDALE, MICH.
In one of his sermons Horace Bushnell says: "The great problem we have now on hand is the Christianizing of the money power of the world. What we wait for and are looking hopefully to see is the consecration of the vast money power of the world to the work and cause and kingdom of Jesus Christ. For that day when it comes is the morning, so to speak, of the new creation. That tide-wave in the money power can as little be resisted, when God brings it on, as the tides of the sea; and like these also it will flow across the world in a day."
The day for which Bushnell longed has not yet come. We shall not see it until the power of money in the development of Christ's kingdom is more clearly understood. So far are we from the realization of this vision that Qven the money in the hands of Christ's own followers is not yet flllly consecrated to His service. The need of such a consecration is enforced by vastly more imperative claims to-day than ever before. How to bring about this consummation is one of the greatest questions which now confronts the Church of Christ.
The expression, " The progress of Christ's kingdom," which forms a part ofthe heading of this article, assumes that progress is the law of that kingdom. It assumes that great conquests are yet to be made in the name of the King. This assumption is both scriptural and in harmony with the clear indications of Providence. This progress of the kingdom is conditioned upon two things-Divine power and human agency. According to the Divine plan these are the two factors which combined are to work out the triumph of the Redeemer's kingdom. Both are embodied in the authoritative commission, "Go ye and teach; ]0, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. " We must not lose sight of either of these factors. It is ours to be the heralds of a world-wide evangelism; it is Christ's to furnish the power which alone can give success to our efforts. Christ gives to every believer the privilcge and the honor of being aSRoci. ated with Him in carrying out His far-reaching plans. "We must work the works of Him that sent me," said Ohrist in loving fellowship to His disciples.
Upon the side of human agency, what hinders the speedy fulfilment of command and prophecy! It is not distance and difficulty of access to the heathen world. Modern invention has brought the nations near to each other. With marvellous rapidity and in ways least expected God has removed the barriers which separated the Christian from the pagan world. Although there are many adversaries, yet with scarcely an exception great and effectual doors are everywhere open to the ambassador of Christ. Moreover, men and women are now coming forward in constantly increasing numbers, saying, " Here are we ; send us." The recent uprising of young men and women in our schools and colleges is putting an added weight of responsibility upon the whole Church. It should be remembered, further, that the agencies are now organized more fully and efficiently than ever before for carrying the Gospel to every creature. The experimental stage of missionary enterprise is past. While present methods are not to be considered as complete nor final, yet measurably permanent methods have been reached. What do all these things mean 1 He must be blind to the logic of events who does not see in them the manifest tokens that the hour is at hand when the Son of Man should be glorified. They are the heralds of God, proclaiming in unmistakable accents that new and rapid developments of God's kingdom are at hand.
At the present outlook one thing alone hinders an immediate, forward movement along the whole line. This one thing prevents the more rapid evangelization of our own country. In some measure it hinders the work and cause of Christ in almost every church. This one thing is the lack of money, absolutely needed to carry forward the work. Money is the factor most imperatively needed and most sadly lacking. Money is the greatest human power in modern civilization. This power has been applied in a very limited way to the extension of Christ's kingdom. It has been used mainly for purely secular purposes. It has come to pass that on this subject the god of this world has blinded the eyes even of the believing. We are brought face to face with a strange phenomenon: the whole world ready and waiting for deliverance through the Gospel of God's grace; the Boards of the Church organized and equipped for the work of meeting this need; men ready and offering themselves to be the messengers of this grace, but the treasuries empty, the officers compelled to call a halt, and the whole line of Christ's army forced to rest upon their arms. Napoleon used to say that soldiers fight upon their stomachs-a sententious way of saying that if you want a victorious army you must furnish supplies. As never before, the advance guard of Christ's host is ready for aggressive movement, but the commanders dare not move forward because the needed supplies are wanting. In sight of the fulfilment of great and precious promises, our Joahuas and Calebs are urging the Church to take the world for Christ; but the majority of God's people do not appreciate the greatness of the opportunity. While the opportunities are multiplying every day the resources for this work have come to a standstill. Something is wrong. God has not thrust this work and these opportunities upon ;His people to mock them. It is not inability which prevents the ample support of Christ's work. The income ofprofessing Christians is abundant to pour a continual stream into the mission treasuries, so large that everyone willing to be God's ambassador could be well supported. What we need is not more money in the hands of professing Christians, but, as Bushnell said, the " Christianizing of the money power," which they already possess. The question is not how can Christian people make more money, but how can they be Jed to understand and adopt the spirit and principles of their Master in the use made of what they now nave 1 The question, second to none which presses for solution is, How can the benevolence of God's people be brought up and made to keep pace with the opportunities of His provi- dence 1 We sometimes fear that this problem will not be solved by the present generation, which is so completely absorbed in material aim!!.
It is with a sincere desire to contribute something toward its solution that we present a few suggestions : The first thing-first in time and in importanc&o-which we need to do is to bring this matter before God in believing and importunate prayer. The whole movement of modern missions has been in answer to prayer. At first God's people prayed that the world might be opened for the mission- ary and the Gospel. So quickly and fully has God answered that prayer that His people are amazed at the answer to their own petitions. Then the prayer began to be urged for men and women to go as Christ's me!lsengers. That prayer too has been answered. Cannot God also touch the hearts of men so that they will re~pond to the calls for money 1 Assuredly He has not exhausted His power in this work. It ill possible that He has brought us to this emergency to teach us that even the gold and silver is to be forthcoming, not by the power of our own persuasion, but by the power of His might. We used very frequently to hear ministers pray.in their pulpit ministrations that God would give access to the pagan nations. We do not need to offer that prayer now; but do we hear as often the prayer that God would touch the hearts of Christian people and make them re!lponsive in gifts of money 1 We do need to offer that prayer. From every pulpit, from every family altar, from every closet, let this prayer go up, and then we may expect an equally ready answer.
But while we pray we must work. God has put a great responsibility in this matter upon ministers and teachers. The Church must be brought to a clearer understanding of the intended purpose of Christ's kingdom and of the Divine plan for executing thi!l purpose. Many Christiau people have very limited ideas of the real nature and purpose of this kingdom. It is really amazing how many there are who secretly do not believe in missions. They are not in sympathy with this idea of world-wide evangelism. This lack of sympathy is a result of gross ignorance. They do not understand the aim and spirit of Christ. The absolute need is a revival of personal loyalty to Christ, which will beget the spirit of enthusiasm for the progrells of His kingdom. The spirit and command of Christ must be presented as the fundamental motive for aggressive evangelism. It is a mistake to substitute the enthusiasm of humanity for the enthusiasm of Christ. The great need of the world ill an argument, but the greatest of all arguments is the constraining love of Chri~t. It is the businells of the Church to evangelize the world, and every Christian should be led to feel that he has a part in this business. Little permanent progress will be made in utilizing the money power of the Church until the aggressive nature of Christ's kingdom is more clearly understood and the spirit of His ministry is morl! widely
AN EXAMPJ.E OF SELF-SACRIFICE
diffused. It is the duty of ministers and teachers to iterate and reiterate these truths and to inspire the people with a high ideal of Christ's purpose and spirit. We fear that even the ministry has not yet risen to the high tide of interest in missions which the cause of Christ demands. The interest of the people will not rise higher than that of the ministry. Too man ministers are afraid to push the imperative claims of modern missions.
There is great. need also that the scriptural doctrine of the use of money should be set forth clearly. In brief this is the principle of stewardship. Growing out of this is the principle of systematic and proportionate giving. If these principles were applied fully and fearlessly the solution of the -great problem of evangelization would be at hand. People seem to consider their money as their own, to be used as they please. Such is not the teaching of the Word. Divine ownership and human stewardship is the sum and substance of that teaching. Each one is responsible, not merely for that part of his income which he use2 for benevolent uses, but for all that God has given him. He is bound to use all as one who must give an account.
Finally, the Church needs to be informed of, and impressed with, the greatness of the opportunity and emergency which now confront us. The opportunity is inspiring; the emergency thrills with its possibilities. We staO(~ upon the verge of unparalleled victories for the kingdom of God if the Church will only consecrate her gain to the Lord of the whole earth. That time is foretold in prophetic vision. If this generation does not realize its fulfilment and its corresponding blessing, some other will ; for the counsels and purpose of God shall stand. It is not a question of the ultimate success of the kingdom. That is assured. The question is whether this generation shall rise to the greatness of the opportunity and reap the blessing in store for those who fulfil the commands of the grea.t Head of the Church. Our opportunity and our responsibility are commensurate. Our reward or our condemnation is awaiting us.
AN EXAMPLE OF SELF-SACRIFICE.
The Missionary Herald tells of a Scotch woman whose practice it was to give a penny a day for missions, to whom a visitor gave a sixpence to procure some meat, on learning that she had not lately enjoyed that luxury. She thought for herself: /C I have long done very well on porridge; so I'll give the sixpence to God." This fact came to the knowledge of a missionary secretary, who narrated it at a missionary breakfast. The host and his guests were profoundly impressed by it, the host himself saying that he had never denied himself a chop for the cause of God. He therefore instantly subscribed $2500, and others of the party followed his example, till the sl1m of $11,000 was raised before they separated. This is a good illustration of the power of example. There is nothing so fruitful as self-sacrifice.
1891.1 LANGUAGES OF NYASA-LAND IN RELATION TO GOD'S WORD
THE LANGUAGES OF NYASA-LAND (BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA) IN RELATION TO THE SPREAD OF TIlE WORD OF GOD.
BY W. A. ELMSLIE, M.B., C.M., LIVINGSTONIA MISSION.
While Africa is geographically being opened up to our knowledge, the light thus kindled is revealing to us vast fields of knowledge yet unexplored. The various departments of science are at work, and all under God are bringing that great continent nearer our doors.
Among the various problems relating to Africa which now engage the mind of the country, the subject of the languages of Africa mnst be, to Bible and missionary societie~, and to all disciples of Christ interested in the spread of the Gospel, one of deep interest. As tribe after tribe is brought to light, each with a language of its own, our interest in these lan- guages must deepen when we consider that we owe them the Word of Life in their own tongue.
While we appreciate the results of travel and research in the many phases of the African problem, and feel grateful to God for those who, consciously or unconsciously, worked out His will in laying open to us the " Dark Continent, " it is to those faithful missionaries who have made their homes among the people that we must look for light on the great problem of how to give Africa the Word of Life in her own manifold speech.
The missionary feels, more t.han anyone not in actual contact with heathenism can do, that the Bible is the first and the best of all missionary agencies. Amid the varied occupations of a missionary's life in the field, his first and highest work is to make their language his own, so that he may give them the Gospel. It is a department of investigation in which no one can hurry. Patience and plodding are necessary, and so little by little is added to the knowledge acquired. In the linguistic field the missionary has the highest motive for careful and complete imestigation. He may benefit science by his labors, but he does not work for that, but for higller ends. He strives after that which shall be a correct vehicle through which to communicate Divine Truth to the benighted multitudes.
In many cases the general reader at home does not interest himself in this part of missionary work. lIe reads such a statement as this, and concludes that he need not trouble himself about it. "No one knows exactly who these people are. They belong, of course, to the great Bantu race; but their origin is obscure, their tribal boundaries are unmapped, even their names are unknown, and their languages-for there are manyare unintelligible" (Drummond's "Tropical Africa"). The confidence of ignorance is responsible for such a statement as that, which relates to the district to which the following remarks refer.
In 1883 Cust published his" Modern Languages of Africa," a marvellous work in two volumes, in which every language then known or heard of is referred to, and its locality indicated. The number of these is 438 Ian. guages and 153 dialects. Doubtless this is a difficulty, but by no means an insurmountable one. Each year diminishes the difficulty. With able men at work on all sides and pushing toward a central point, the field seems to contract and the number to lessen, as increased knowledge reveals what these languages are and to what others they are related.
All the languages of Africa fall into certain families or groups, each group having certain" marks common to each individual in the group.
In the present paper one of these groups calls for remark-viz., the Bantu group. Roughly, with a few exceptions, the languages spoken over the Bonthern half of Africa belong to this family. In all these the word " Bantu," or some form of it, signifies" people j" and so the word is taken to give name to that family of languages. We are not concerned with all the 168 languages and 55 dialects in this group. Confining our attention to the languages of Nyasa-Iand, we find they occupy a place in the eastern branch and in the southern sub-branch. It is not difficult in this way to go over the whole of Africa, since all that is known of these languages has been thus worked into a clear and scientific plan by Cust, who would not, like Drummond, speak of " unintelligible" languages.
In the locality of these languages the two Scottish missions-Blantyre and Livingstonia-and the Universities' Mission, are working. In 1875, when the Livingstonia Mission began work on Lake Nyasa, there were only a few words of the language known. It was not known what the Lake languages were. At present we know that in the territory of the Livingstonia Mission there are six in Ille j in Blantyre territory there are two ; and in connection with the Universities' Mission there are two. One language is common to all the missions j and we have therefore seven separate languages to deal with in Nyasa-land. In these there are now about thirty separate publications, ranging from an edition of the New Testament down to a school primer. For such a record of progress we owe hearty"thanks to God for help and success.
While the linguistic work of each mission is rightly reported by its own society, the work is a common work, in which all at home and abroad should bear a part. Let us now proceed to specify what we know of the languages of Nyasa-land. Of some we know more than of others, and we may, therefore, notice 1. LANGUAGES OF WHICH OUR KNOWLEDGE IS DEFINITE.
(1) Nyanja.-This is the most important language in Nyasa-land. It is spoken in all the district of Livingstonia, the Nkonde district at the head of Lake Nyasa excepted. It is at present, and will doubtless eontinue to be, the trade language of the Nyasa region. It not only covers a greater area, but reaches a larger popUlation than any other lake langnage. By means of it we have talked our way from Dandawc on Lake Nyasa to Quilimane on the coast.
All the tribes on the western shore of Nyasa from Dandawe southward use it. From the south end of Nyasa, along the right bank of the Shire to its junction with the Zambeze, it is spoken j and by those tribes on the hills to the west of the lake, from Mombera's, opposite Bandawe, to the country called Maravi on old maps on the south, where it runs into Nyungwe, the language of Sena and Tete on the Zambeze. With the exception of Mom- bera's Ngoni, all the Ngoni tribes on the high lands speak Nyanja. On the east side of Lake Nyasa it is in use on and near Likoma Island, where the Universities' Mission works. On the Shire Highlands around Blantyre and Mandala it is in use, and the Makololo and other tribes on the left bank of the Shire speak it also.
Its importance is further indicated when we mention that in this language the whole New Testament has been published by the Nationa: Bible Society of Scotland, and is to-day being sold not only by the missionaries on Lake Nyasa in connection with their work, but in the store of the African Lakes' Company at Mandala, and the language is used by that company's officials at the north end of Lake Nyasa, as well as by the boys left in charge of stations on the Stevenson Road.
Besides the ~ew Testament, there are editions of the Gospels, school books, and other works published in this language.
(2) Yao.-What Nyanja is on the west and south of the lake, Yao is on the east-an important language, destined to live and be the medium for communicating Divine truth to a numerous people. "The region over which is is spoken extends from near the coast on the east to the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa on the west, and from the latitude of the Rovuma sources on the north to tha Lujenda Ri~er on the south. Lately, however, a large district in the centre of this region has been devastated by the ravages of the Magwangwara, a powerful raiding tribe whose home lies to the north of the Rovuma River. Isolated villages and districts where the language is spoken are to be found on the western shore of Lake Nyasa and in the country lying interior to it. About 1860 one branch of the tribe forced its way into the Shire Hills, where now the mission stations of the Church of Scotland are situated, while another smaller offshoot established itself east of Mount Mlanji, on the trade route to the coast at Quilimane" (Hctherwick'8 "Yao Handbook").
It is therefore the language of the Blantyre Mission on the Shire Highlands and around Mount Zomba, and of the Universities' Mission on the southeastern shore of Lake Nyasa, and the left bank of the Upper Shire. Into it the Gospels and Acts have been translated and published.
(3) Ngoni.-This language is spoken by the people of the same name under Mombera on the plateau northwest from Bandawe. The area of it, use is not very great, as we know it to be a form of Zulu imported by the Ngoni who came north from Natal in the beginning of this century. The tribe is very powerful, and dominates the plateau for many miles around; but it has not impressed its language on those tribes who are enslaved by it, and its extinction.is only a question of time. Tshiwere and Mpiseni, who, with their people, live on the plateau farther south, broke away from Mom- bera. The people under the for~er now speak Nyanja; and nothing is definitely known regarding the present language of the latter. The so- called Ngoni in Tshikuse's country southwest of Lake Nyasa (Maravi on the older maps) also speak Nyanja. .
Meantime, as the rulers in Mombera's country speak the localized form of Zulu, a gospel and school-books have been issued in it for use in the mission.
The aforementioned three languages are the most important in the group regarding which we have definite 'know]edge, as the people speaking these cannot be evangelizpd meantime through any other.
(4) Tonga.-This language is spoken by those belonging to the tribe of the same name who are enslaved by the Ngoni, and by the remaining Tonga living in the vicinity of Bandawe. They are called Kamunga by the peo- ple on the east side of the lake opposite. The language is related to Nyanja, and more closely to Tumbuka. At Bandawe, Nyanja being the school language, and there being 4000 children in connection with the schools, it is quickly displacing Tonga without detrimellt to the people. The Gospel of Mark and a school primer have been issued in Tonga. '
2. LANGUAGES REGARDING WHICH OUR KNOWLEDGE IS INCOMPLETE.
(1) Tumbuka.-The existence of this language is definitely known, and an introductory grammar has been prepared. It has been placed in this group because the area over which it is spoken is not so well known. It is allied to Tonga, but may not be so easily displaced as that language. The numerous Tumbuka tribe, living under the Ngoni, have not only retained the use of their own tongue, but have impressed it on their masters. There are various forms of Tumbuka known to exist, but future investigation must show the position and relations of Tumbuka.
(2) Nkonde.-The district around the head of Lake Nyasa has been.
called the Nkonde district, and the name is applied tentatively to the language or languages there spoken. There are various tribes there speaking the same language with dialectical differences, and though there are some manuscript translations in one or two of these, we do not yet know what generic name should be applied.
(3) lVanda.-This is a language which is 5aid to llave a very limited area. It is spoken in the district of the chief Wanda on the Stevenson Road. Some Scripture portions have been i!lsned in it for use in the mission to those people. It bears ~ome resemblance to Tumbuka and also to Kongo, but further investigation is required.
3. LANGUAGES REGARDING WHICH WE HAVE ONLY HEARSAY AND CONFUSED INFORMATION.
West and north of Ngoniland there are tribes with whom little or no intercourse has been had, and whose language we are only familiar with through small collections of words or from hearsay. On the west the Bisu and Tsenga j on the northwest the Zingwa, Poka, and Henga have lan- guages which may be closely allied to Tumbuka or some more northerly tongue.
In the Stevenson Road country many names of people are given. The name is at times that of the chief, and at other times that of the country, but it has not been stated what language they speak. Accurate information regarding these is needed, and may be looked for from the Livingstonia Mission.
Having now classified our knowledge of the languages met with in the lake district, except that now in German territory on thc east side of the lake, we are able to coneider the work of gi"ing to the people the Word of God.
For large and populous districts on the east, west, and south of Nyasa we have Yao and Nyanja, in which already large portions of the Scriptures are issued. Two of the others named-Tonga and Ngoni-will be replaced by others in course of time, so that Tumbuka and Nkonde (the latter ab- Rorbing Wanda)· will complete the linguistic problem for the missions.
Thus the difficulties at first apparent are disappearing as our knowledge increases.
The workers in the field, by whose labors we are able to compile this paper, are Scott and lletherwick, of the Blantyre Mission j Maples, of the Universities' Mission j and Laws, Bain, Cross, and the writer, of the Living- stonia Mission.
As the work is being carried on at many points, it is necessary that all should be guided by certain principles, in order that the work may be syste~atized and presented on the same plan.
1. In writing or speaking in English of a language or tribe, the variable prefix of the word should be omitted, and the unvarying root form taken to indicate the language and people. .
Ordinary English readers do not always know that A-nyanja means the people, and Tshi-nyanja their language. It is a gain if confusion is pre- vented. If discarding the prefix both for the tribe and its language is con- sidered unscientific, I would remind African scholars that the profix does not' necessarily mean the language, as " tshi" may be applied to other things. Indeed, it is questionable whether the rude natiYe, unaffected by the white man, uses the prefix in that way at all. In Zulu the personal prefix is " ama" (Ama·Zulu), and there is said to be a language prefix "isi" (lsi-Zulu, the Zulu language) j but the native uses it in that way only because his teachers do so. The Ngoni do not speak of their language as "Tshi-Ngoni" except when following the white mau's error. Nyanja is named" Chimang'anja" on the Shire Highlands j but that is a Yao word, indicating people of the Nyanja sort, and inappropriate as a name for the Nyanja language. There is no difficulty in understanding what is meant wben we say, " English is spoken by the English j" and II Nyanja is spoken by the Nyanja" would be simpler than" Tshi·nyanja is spoken by the A-nyanja."
2. Tribal names adopted should be those by which tribes call themselves. Books of travel and maps of Africa are full of names which require to be revised. The Ngoni are variously named Mangone, Angoni, Bangoni, Wangoni, Maviti, and Mazitu, according to the district one may be in. Though it is right that we should call them Mazitu when we speak Tumbuka, or Wangoni if we are speaking Yao, there is no reason why all these forms should have to be acquired by ordinary English readers, if they happen to be attached to the work in the various mission districts, before they can intelligently follow the news from the field.
3. In order to hasten the spread of the Word we must economize in labor and means by avoiding needless versions of the Scriptures.
The three missions have presses from which are issuing portions of Scripture in the same language as that in which the whole New Testament is already published. The dialects of one language are thus being perpetuated where we think it ought not to be the case. As is pointed out by Cust, the vocabulary of an African language is continually changing j and the ease with which tribes can change their language makes it quite possible for all the Nyanja speaking tribes to uee the New Testament now in circulation. We have before us a few sheets of a " Harmony of the Four Uospels in Chimang'anja," which is being put forth at the Blantyre Mission press. The use of "ch" for" tsh," and some unimportant vowel differences are all that mark it as a separate language from Nyanja. In it the translator follows the Greek spelling of names, so that instead of one Rimple form for such names as Christ, Bethlehem, David, Jerusalem, we have three or more for each-a method which is more fanciful than useful.
4. Where two languages are spoken in a district, that one which has the widest range should be adopted. This seems self-evident. At first it was not possible iu some cases to act thus j but as we now know more of each language we are in a better position to carry it out. At Bandawe, where Nyanja and Tonga are both spoken, the former is made the school langnage, and, as we noticed, is taking the place of Tonga. There is no reason why the Livingstonia Mission should have to set apart a man to study Yao in order that the missiou may reach one or two isolated villages of Yao people who happen to be found in the centre of a Nyanja speaking district, while they can be reached by means of Nyanja. Even at Blantyre, where Nyanja is used, the people speak Yao.
Ol1r imperfect knowledge leads us often to attach a greater importance to a language than it warrants. We have not a native's power of speech, and where we see difficulty in introducing a slightly different form of speech, he has none in using it. Weare not warranted in seeking to prolong the life of small and unimportant differences where we hBVe such noble tongues as Yao and Nyanja with which to spread the Gospel of Grace.
Ve disclaim originality in these recommendations to our fellow-workers.
A MISSIONARY PRAYER
They are the wise results of earnest thought of one who loves Africans and has done much for them-Hobert Needham Cust-a quotat,ion from whose book, referred to, forms a fitting close to this paper: "When all are assembled before the great white throne, pleading with one voice in mutually unintelligible words the merits of the Saviour, One alone will understand all. There will be only one language then, the language of the angels. The imperfect coinage of wl.rds and marshalling of sentences will no longer be required. Language will have had its day. 'Lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, and they cried with a loud voice.' "
A MISSIONARY PRAYER.
BY REV. J. F. B. TINLING, B.A., LONDON, ENG.
Lord, whose glory is the song Of the sinlel:s worlds above, Heart and kingdom suffering wrong From the souls that do not love, Come and make Thy works rejoice, Marrying law with liberty j Righting each discordant voice In creation's harmony j Answering her sin-wrung groan, Lord of glory, claim Thine own !
Spring of every righteous power, Source of all authority, In Thy name, as in a tower, Hides our frail humanity.
Six millenniums have failed Christless order to maintain j Over all has sin prevailed, Man has toiled for peace in vain.
From Thy cloud-surrounded tllrone, King of nations, claim Thine own !
All the stores of earth are Thine, Thine the fulness of the sea, Thine alike in mart and mine, Lent, but owned eternally.
Thine the silver and the gold Lavished upon glittering toys, Thine the wealth the saints withhold From Thy cause, for carnal joys.
From Thy stewards, careless grown, Earth's Possessor, claim Thine own!
Saviour, from the dread abyss 'Who hast brought us nigh to God, Giver of eternal bliss, Through the merits of Thy blood.
All for all is love's confession, Less the Cross forbids to give, Of Thy Church take full possession, As Thy witness let her live.
Thou art worthy. Thou alone, ,~ Our Redeemer, claim Thine own I
REV. L. H. GULICK, M.D
REV. L. H. GULICK, M.D.
BY REV. S. P. LEEDS, D.D.
On November 3d, 1827, the Rev. Peter J. Gulick sailed from Bos- ton with his wife as a missionary to the Sandwich Islands. The ship took the second reinforcement to the mission, the first having gone five years earlier, and three years after the original establishment. MI'. Gulick was a native of New Jersey, born in 1797, and was one of a family of seven sons and a daughter. He was graduated at Princeton in 1825, and spent two years in the theological seminary there. Before leaving this latter he had decided to become a missionary, influenccd, as he afterward wrote, by " missionary intelligence portraying the wretchedness of the heathen." The same year he was ordained to the ministry, his kind friend, Rev. Dr. Luther Halsey, at that time a professor in the college at PIinceton, preaching the sermon and giving the charlre. The ncxt month he was on his way to Hawaii. Mrs. Gulick was from Lebanon, Conn. Mr. Finney, in his autobiography, speaks of hcr conversion under his ministry at Utica, N. Y. She had taught school before marriage.
Arriving at Honolulu the following spring, they labored at several points and in various islands for forty-six years. They" saw the Hawaiians in their nakedness and degradation, and they lived and wrought until they saw them a Christian nation." In 1874, when both had passed their seventy-fifth year, they removed to Japan, to be with a son and daughter, and lived to celebrate their" golden wedding" there. A little afterward the aged husband died, and it was not long before his wife rejoined him. What a career!
To them were born in the Sandwich Islands eight children, seven of whom reached maturity and survived them-six sons and a daughter. All of these have been engaged in missionary work, and five of them are so engaged at this time-three brothers and their SIster in Japan, and one brother in Spain. Of these the eldest was Luther Halsey Gulick, recontly deceased. He was born at Honolulll in June, 1828. At the age of twelve he was sent to this country for all education, " working his pas~age as cabin-boy around Cape Horn." His father's friend, Dr. Halsey, was his instructor at Auburn and in New York, in both of which places Dr. Halsey was connected with theological seminaries. The boy was full of zeal for knowledge, and a great reader-charact.eristics which marked his life in all situations to its end-and his tastes and longings were gratified in his friend's library. But inadequate health, or insufficient health and limited means together, forbade his taking a college course. He studied medicine at the University of the City of New York, increasing his small income hy lighting street lamps, and took his degree in 18.50-not yet twenty-two years old. Six months later he was ordained (in the old Broadway Tabernacle, New York), and in November of 1he following year sailed with his wife, LOUi!!a Lewjs, of Brooklyn, N. Y., for the Sandwich Islands, in company with the Rev. B. G. and Mrs. Snow, "the last sent from Boston around Cape Horn."
A new mission was then being projected for the Micronesian Islands, twenty.five hundred miles away from the Hawaiian, to be under the auspices of the mission in these last. What more natural· than that the son of a missionary, himself a native of Hawaii, should be selected as one of the party ~ Two Hawaiian missionaries and their wives went also, besides Mr. and Mrs. Snow, and the Rev. A. A. and Mrs. Sturges. They" were sent away from Honolulu with great enthusiasm." It was slow voyaging in those days, and what they found on arrival can easily be guessed. Doubtless the pithy description, recently given the writer by a venerable friend, of early neighbors of his, but partially Christianized, was still truer of these" children of nature" : "They were dirty, sensual, and without a thought worth entertaining." But this was not all. "Sea captains in Honoluhl had charged us," writes a survivor, " not to go to Ponape, be· cause wicked white men in large numbers had lived there, and they said they would not give a straw for ollr lives if we went. But it was the island most likely to be healthy, and we had no fear." There is scant room to tell of the seven years spent there, during which, among labors many and manifold, as physician, preacher, teacher, and even carpenter, Gulick-for a time certainly-read his Greek Testament daily, and the Hebrew also, and often studied such works as Edwards" On the Will" and Howe's " Living Temple"-room all too little to tell of trying experiences, among them a visitation of small-pox most wantonly brought there by a sea captain, and of the young doctor's incessant and heroic efforts for the natives. Narrowly escaping death from a wound received in dissecting a victim of the terrible disease, he was exposed also to the murderous plots of white men, whose iniquities he resisted, hut who were soon glad to save their own lives. The Ponapi language was reduced to writing, and the" Morning Star" was built for the Micronesian Mission.
A year in Ebon Island followed the seven in Ponapi; but the doctor was too broken in health to be benefited by the change, or by a year's residence in Hawaii. Accordingly he was recalled to America, where his great gifts in public address were put in requisition by the Board, and he visited many churches and conventions. Very many persons retain even now the memory of his powerful appeals at this and a subsequent period. Only last summer the writer was witness to an illustration of this, when a stranger, on hearing the doctor's name, spoke of an address he had when a boy heard from him nearly thirty years before. Returning to Hawaii in 1863, he was made Secretary of the Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, and remained in Honolulu until 1870. During this time he edited a weekly newspaper, and tm.velled much aIIlong the islands in con· nection with his work. But after eighteen ycars of labor in that part of the world, it was thought best that he should enter a new field, and he retul'neQ to Americl; with this in view. Japan was selected at first, but. the Board finally assigned him to Spain, as the pioneer in a new mission. This established, he was transferred to Italy. But the field was found to be well occupied, and it seemed best to both Dr. Gulich and the Board to concentrate its efforts. He made a protracted and fatiguing tour among the Board's missions ill Asiatic Turkey, and then returned to this country.
It might have seemed as if this were intended to be his home. Several circumstances-his power of popular address among them-pointed in this direction. But heathendom was his. chosen field. The American Bible Society wished for some one of experience to open up their work in China and Japan. To the latter country, then, he went in the winter of 1875-76. Here he soon established a Bible Depository, and supervised the publication of the Japanese version of the Scriptures, providing also for its distribution through the empire. But he travelled extensively in both countries, l'isiting missions, discovering and stimulating wiehes for new or improved versions, and scattering the Scriptures through various agencies. " Bible carriages" and, in the great rivers of China, boats, were employed. In the same interest he visited Siam once or twice, Formosa, Macao, and Manila. For three years, too, he filled the Union pulpit in Yokohama. The work grew till a new and distinct agency was needed in China. He transferred his home to that country, settling in Shanghai. From this point he " travelled the length and breadth of the empire in house-boats, wheelbarrows drawn by donkeys and sometimes helped by a sail, jinrickshas, mule-litters, palanquins. on horseback, in steamboats, and on foot." He edited the Missionary Recorder during his seven years' residence ill China, and started the Medical Missionary Journal. He also occupied the Union pulpit in Shanghai for nearly two years. Of his long service to the American Bible Society its secretary, the Rev. Dr. Gilman, writes: "During the whole, I have admired his promptness, efficiency, wisdom, and his fidelity to his trust. "
But (almost) forty years of a life so active, by one with so busy a brain and so sensitive an organization, wrought their inevitable effect. Intervals of change, not rest, could not avert it. Nearly or quite two years ago he began to break. It was hoped that another climate and other conditions would restore him to his wonted strength and energy, and he set forth accompanied by his devoted wife, who had gone out from native land to savage Ponape with him in his youth, and had been his companion in checkered experiences for two score years. The Bible Society treated him with a large and noble justice. and he came at length to this country. He was able for awhile to supervise the work by correspondence. But hopes and prayers and pains were all in vain. Slowly and intermittently he continued to sink, till on April 8th he quietly fell asleep, not quite sixty-three years old, at Springfield, Mass. It was remarkable that, after so long a residence in other lands and so many experiences by sea and shore, he should die in the home of his fathers, which he loved so well j for he was an earnest patriot as well as philanthropist, and everything which concerned A merica's welfare was of deep interest to him.
Dr. Gulick had a remarkable life. As Rev. Dr. Clark, Secretary of the American Board, has said, "Few men have had such a record in mis- sionary service, beginning at Ponape and Ebon, laying foundations there which have since been the basis of Christian institutions and Christian homes; then doing loyal work as Secretary of the Hawaiian Board; then serving for a time in this country as District Secretary, and oftentimes electrifying audiences by his eloquent and impassioned speeches; then called to organize a mission in Spain ; and last of all, for fifteen years more having charge of the distribution of the Holy Scriptures in Japan and China ; ever faithful to his trust, ever realizing the high expectations of his friends." But Dr. Gulick was also a remarkable man. First, there was in him a singular union of executive and intellectual powers. The vigorous thinker and diligent reader in many directions (his library was very large for one in almost any position, and time was given to books which it is to be feared should have been given to sleep) was most prompt and energetic in action. Some will recall his telegram a few years since to Mr. Doane, in Micronesia, when in the hands of Spanish invaders-the swiftness and decision with which he told him of money deposited to his order, and bade him stand firm. Hill manner, the quick and quiet way in which he turned his head toward this or that speaker, has reminded more than one of a military commander. But with this blending of executive and intel. lectual qualities Dr. Gulick combined rare courage and true devotion. He was the loyal son of an earnest Christian father and mother, parents who commemorated their fiftieth anniversary of married life and missionary service with thanksgivings for what they had been permitted to do and for the moral and religious qualities of their children, and by a liberal gift to the Board's treasury out of their little store. He kept the faith of his youth and the purpose of his bright, early manhood to the end. And now he has gone to join those parents, their eldest son. May their other children long be spared !
It only remains to be said that besides his wife Dr. Gulick left six chilo dren behind him-Mrs. Fanny F., wife of Professor F. P. Jewett, of Oberin; Mrs. Harriet M., wife of Rev. C. A. Clark, missionary to Japan; Rev. S. L. Gulick, also missionary to Japan; Rev. E. L. Gulick, pastor at Groton, Mass. ; L. H. Gulick, M.D., who is connected with the Institute for Christian Workers at Springfield, Mass., and Pierre J. Gulick, a young man now p,ursuing his studies.
Experience is a torch lighted in the ashes of our hopes and delusions. . It is an old saying that charity begins at home; but this is no reason it should not go abroad. A man should live with the world as a citizen of the world; he may have a preff>rence for the particular quarter, or square, or even alley in which he lives, but he should have a generous feeling for the welfare of the whole.-Olarendon.
FOREIGN MISSIONS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ART
FOREIGN MISSIONS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ART.
BY WILLIAM BRENTON GREENE, JR., D.D., PHILADELPHIA, PA.
We all delight in the beautiful. When we travel during the summer we go where there is beautiful scenery. When we build a country house we seek a beautiful site. When we see a beautiful piece of furniture or a beautiful picture we wish that we had it for the adornment of our home. A beautiful face attracts our attention and chains our admiration. A beautiful sentiment we never weary of repeating. A beautiful action gives us the keenest pleasure. A beautiful character fills us with holy joy.
Aud this joy is peculiar to itself. The beautiful is not necessarily the useful. and it is distinct from the good. Otherwise we should not be at so much pains to decorate our homes. They would be just as useful if their ceilings were not frescoed j and there are kinds of stone that would be more durable and less troublesome than the marble of which the fronts of many of them are inade. If the beautiful were not a quality different from, though doubtless in its highest forms depcndent on the good, we should not be so anxious to render the good also beautiful. We feel that a good book deserves a beautiful binding. We rejoice when a good man has beautiful surroundings. It is the natural desire of the pious heart to beautify the house of God. The beautiful is, therefore, a distinct quality, and one in which we all delight. Consequently it will be profitable and pleasing to consider that the foreign missionary work, in addition to being useful and good, is pre-eminently beautiful. ,. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things"!
That we may appreciate this let us try, in the first place, to form some conception of what beauty is, or, at least, of that ou which it depends. I say some conception; for the question is difficult. We do not seem to have any such necessary convictions in regard to beauty as we have in regard to certain fundamental intellectual truths and moral qualities. I must believe that the sun exists as an extended body. It would be apprehended as I see it by any inhabitant of Mars or Jupiter endowed with the capacity to perceive the object. I must believe that falsehood is a sin always and everywhere, in the star Sirius as well as on earth-in the case of men, of angels, of devils. But I am not to the same degree compelled to belie'e that the objects which appear beautiful to me have a beauty independent of my mind. It is, therefore, peculiarly difficult to tell in what beauty consists. We cannot be sure how far things are beautiful or how far we only think them so.
And yet some analysis of beauty is possible. The greatest of German metaphysicians discovers two kinds of beauty. Olle he calls free or absolute j the other, relative or depenaellt. In the case of the former it is not necessary to have an idea of whut the object ought to be or do before we pronounce it beautiful. Flowers, 811..118, arabesques, music, are absol.teIy bellutiful ; that is, they are beautiful in themselves. and without reference to any end that they may serve. If now we ask in what this beauty consists, the general opinion since Plato is that it is in some sort of proportion or harmony. At the basis of music, for example, there are certain fixed ratios. In poetry there are measures and correspondences. Complementary colors, when seen simultaneously, are felt to be beautiful. Regular features are essential to a truly handsome man or woman. Moral beauty is the radiance of the moral law. The mind is made to delight in the unities of God. Its activity is a tendency toward unity. It is satisfied only when such an object is presented as will enable it at once to perceive a law or controlling idea in the object. Hence, those objects the parts of which are thus harmonized we feel to be beautiful, and that without any reference to the purpose to be served.
In the case of relative or dependent beauty such a reference is always implied. Here the proportion required must be, not merely between the parts of the object itself, but also between it as a whole and its design. As before, it is the perception of unity which gives rise to the feeling of the beautiful, but it is a more comprehensive unity. For example, a Corinthian pillar is absolutely beautiful. We should think it so if we had not the least idea for what it was intended. But we feel it to be much more beautiful when we see it used to support a glorious temple. We appreciate the beautiful correspondence between it and itR purpose. The fitness of the thing, even apart from its usefulnes:!, would seem to delight us.
Sueh, then, is the explanation of the two kinda of beauty. The analysis is far from complete or satisfactory j but it will help us, in the second place, to realize " how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things."
First, foreign misRions are absolutely beautiful. They could not fail to be so, for they are the conception of Him" in whom all things consist," and who" worketh all things according to the coungel of His own will." They must, therefore, be characterized by that comprehensiveness and unity of purpose which marks all the thoughts of God. And it is not difficult to discern this unity. In method, foreign missions are one with God's method. They are seen to be beautifully in harmony with all His procedure j and that, too, without any reference to their design. Now the Divine method is that of means or second causes. God has to an infinite degree what we name executive ability. He called all things into being by the word of His power. In like manner He upholds all things in being. At certain critical epochs He has Himself put forth His hand and wrought signs and wonders. He is always guiding and controlling, and so working through His agents. But He ordinarily employs these, and multiplies them infinitely. The angels are His messengers. Men are His servants. The whole brute creation does His bidding. The forces of nature are His instruments. He uses the universe as a mirror to reflect and so manifest His glory, which in itself no man hath seen or can see. It is, therefore, in beautiful consistency with the Divine method that when out of His infinite love God gave His own Son to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, He should at the same time have commanded us to go into all the world and preach this Gospel to every creature. As the marble nose in some perfectly sculptured face is felt to be beautiful because of its harmony with the other features, so we may appreciate the beauty of foreign mis- sions when we study the consistency of their methods with God's pro- cedure everywhere in the manifestation of Himself.
Again, foreign missions are not only thus one with God's general method, but they themselves in all their activities are under the control of one idea. It is not simply their harmony with the other features of the Divine plan that i,!! beautiful, but also the harmony of their own various agencies. The nose of the sculptured face may be beautiful in itself and without any reference to the rest of the face. Indeed, this is the highest kind of absolute beauty. It is strikingly apparent in the case of foreign nnSSIOns. This is so, not so much because of the singleness of their pur- pose, as because of its unique comprehensiveness. Where else will you find so many and so diverse instrumentalities all subordinated to one end 1 The missionary himself is often a preacher, a teacher, an author, a trans- lator, a legislator, a mechanic, a physician, a scientist, an explorer i like Paul, " he is made all things to all men, that he may by all means save some.' , And then the missionary is but one of thousands of missionary agencies. The professorB who taught him in the theological school, the col- lege, and the academy; the pastor under who~e care his religious life and his missionary spirit were developed; his godly mother, whose uncllasing prayers for him and with him were the real means of quickening his divine life and purpose-all these were missionary instrumentalities, and were indispensable ones. And then we must not forget the rich men who founded and supported the institutions of learning in which he was trained, or the authors who wrote the books by which his mind was nourished, or the ancestors who left their piety as a precious heritage to his mother, or the thousands of men and women and little children who contributed to the Board which sent him out and maintained him. And we must remember, too, that the development of commerce, the progress of science, the policy of empires, home missions-all these have an essential bearing on his work. Thus under the foreign mission idea they are unified. Indeed, this is the only idea under which this can be done. Human history is a jumble until it is seen to be the record of events even the least important of which tends toward the universal establishment of the kingdom of Christ. If, then, beauty is in proportion to the diversity in unity, if a scene be beautiful in . proportion to the number of different objects harmonized in it, what. can be so beautiful as foreign missions, which subordinate to one divine purpose all human interests ~ Second, they are relatively beautiful. This is the more prominent truth in the Scriptures. It is the beauty of fitness, of opportuneness, which both the text cited and the passage of Isaiah whence it is quoted emphasize. And this relative beauty is easily discernible. It appears in the Divine adaptation of the missionary's message to those to whom he goes. They are under everlasting condemnation, and are" dead in trespasilcs and sins. " He tells them of One who bore their guilt in His own body on the cross, and who by His Spirit can quicken even their dead souls into newness of life. They are utterly and eternally lost, and He offers them the one absolutely certain and eternal salvat~on. What could be so opportune' Where else is their adaptation so needed or so perfect 1 "How beautiful, then, mnst be the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things"!
This appears again in the fact that the missionaries are men. There is a beautiful appropriateness in their selection as the heralds of salvation. No one can appeal to man with so much power as his brother man. The angels, though they are God's ministers, and though they rejoice over every sinner that repents, are not sent to preach to sinners. Even glorified men are not. Abraham eaid to the rich man concerning his brethren, " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Our Saviour, when He came to seek and to save them that are lost, was made in the likeness of men, and lived with men and as a man. He wa& "tempted in all points like as we are. " Hence He can be "touched with the feeling of all our infirmities." And in like manner the missionary, because he is a man, can be touched with the feeling of the infirmities of those to whom he goes. He appears among them as one of them. At once there is a bond of sympathy between Him and them. As no angel could, he can understand their condition. He is the one finite being who is qualified to bring to them the message of salva. tion. Is it not, therefore, beautifully appropriate that he is the very one whom God has appointed to " go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature" 1 Equal if not greater appropriateness appears in the multiplicity and diversity of foreign mi8sionary agencies. The great end of missions is the universal establishment of the Redeemer's kingdom. Now in order to this its subjects must be interested in it. The domain and power of the kingdom of God never exceed the hold that it has on tho hearts of its members. Their interest, however, will be proportioned to what they do for the kingdom. That this is so needs no proof. The great problem in every church is how to find work for all the congregation. It is generally recognized that the non-workers are likely to become non-attendants. How significant is it, therefore, that there is no one so young, or 110 poor, or so ignorant that he cannot do something for missions, cannot feel that he has a part in the advancement of God's kingdom, cannot pray for the growth of Jernsalem as for that in which he himself is personally concerned. Must there not be in all this a most beautiful appropriateness 1 This paper may not close without special reference to the highest form of beauty, both absolute and relative-viz., "the beauty of holiness," the beauty produced by conformity to the nat.ureand will of God. This is the gem of absolute beauty, becanse it is the reBection of the harmony of Him the characteristic of the relation between whose attributes is perfect pro- portion, anc. the law of whose being is that He cannot contradict or deny himself; and also because it is the expression of the all-embracing purpose of Him who is "the truth," and whose most comprehensive as well as highest manifestation of Himself, that in His Son as our Saviour, was in order that" He might bear witness unto the truth." It is, moreover, the gem of relative beauty because of its adaptation to its purpose to glorify God. Where else can adaptation so perfect be discerned ~ The heavens declare God's glory. The seasons, in their regular recurrence, chant His praise. What, however, can honor Him so directly and con- spicuously as good deeds, as right words, as a holy life, as a Christ-like character 1 The universe is the evidence of God's power, the revelation of His wisdom, the demonstration of His presence j but holiness is the repro- duction of Himself. In proportion as we become holy does God not merely support and guide us, but act by us, think through us, and live in Ull.
Nothing else, then, could glorify Him as holiness must. Other things may show us what God does; this cannot but show us what He is. In perfect holiness, therefore, would be the perfection of adaptation. No fitness can equal perfect fitness to its infinite end.
Now missions 8re the acme of " the beauty of holiness." Their one aim is that " all should he saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,"
and this is the wish of God. The life which they require is to leave home and kindred " to seek and to save that which was lost," and this was the life of the Son of God. Their result will be " a great multitude," which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, . . . who shall have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb j" and it will be at the sight of these, the fruit of missions, that from the whole angelic host will burst the magnificent ascrip- tion: "Amen. Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto our God forever and ever. Amen."
" How beautiful, then, must be the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" No other beauty is so Godlike j no other fitness equals its adaptation to glorify Him.
Do we recognize as we should the beauty of foreign mission" ~ We be- lieve them to be necessary. We know that Christ instituted them and charged His Church to prosecute them. We feel it to be our duty to do so. We wish to do so for our Saviour's sake. And all this is as it should be. No motive is so reliable as the sense of duty, and none is so high and noble as love for Christ. But would it not be helpful if we went to our work also with something of the artist's spirit ~ His appreciation of the beautiful throws a halo around all his toil. Life is to him a long sweet song, because he recognizes how much of beauty there is in it. This might be true of Christian service. In the strictest and highest sense is the mis- sionary work toward which all really Christian service tends beautiful.
Shall we not, then, so cultivate our taste that we may perceive" how beau- tiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things" 1
THE OAREY EPOCH IN MISI!IIONS
THE CAREY EPOCH IN MISSIONS.
BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, BELLEVUE, O.
The closing years of the eighteenth century constitute in the history of Protestant missions an epoch indeed, since they witnessed nothing less than a revolution, a renaissance, an effectual ending of tLe old, a substantial inauguration of the new. And 1792 is annus mirabilis, the famous date from which to reckon forward and backward. 'VeIl may it stand with 44 A.D., when the Holy Ghost said, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have caUed them j" or 53 A.D., when in vision Paul was called to lay the foundations of the Gospel in heathen Europe. Before attempts to evangelize the world had been few, feeble, and far apart j sporadic also and isolated, without connection or continuity, and hence the results had been superficial and hansient. No uprising and onset of the Christian Church had hitherto been seen. 'Kings or trading companies were movers and promoters, and political and commercial considerations held a prominent place. But now came an entire change of basis, of method, of idea. A general movement was started, a trend was taken, or a tide set in which ever since has been rising and spreading with force irresistible. Whatever has been accomplished since can be traced to forces which began to operate almost exactly a hundred years ago. And, furher, in all that momentous period William Carey is easily not only the chief figure, but the supreme personal force-yes, under God the efficient cause of the surprising changes brought to pass. We may speak of the Carey epoch with as much propriety as of the Luther-Reformation. We may as fitly term him the apostle of modern missions as Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, or Ulfilas the apostle to the Goths, or Augustine apostle to the Britons, or Boniface apoRtle to the Germans.
A preliminary glance is in order at what had already been achieved, and at the status existing when the Spirit of God began mightily to move upon the soul of this humble Baptist cobbler-preacher. Gustavus Vasa and his successors had undertaken something in behalf of the pagan Lapps. The Dutch in the East Indie!' had done superficial work, and with results numerically large. In the early years of the century King Frederick IV. of Denmark had sent Von Westen to Upper Norway, Hans Egede to Greenland, and Ziegenbalg and Plutscho to Southern India. And Tranquebar had become a name well known and held in honor, and especially while Schwartz (1750-96) wrought with such marked energy and wisdom. In the century following Eliot and the Mayhews toil in behalf of the American Indians had been carried on (1734-57) by Brainerd, Sergeant, Edwards and Zeisberger. Most of all and best of all was the sublime missionary movement inaugurated by Zinzendorf and the Moravian Church, which in a single generation had carried the heralds of the cross to Greenland, the West Indies, America, and South Africa, and led others to attempt an entrance inlo Egypt, Abyssinia, Persia, Ceylon, China and Siberia. But since that so effectual beginning at Herrnhut in 1732, unless we except the work of Coke and the Wesleyans begun in 1786 in Antigua, when driven thither by a furious storm, nothing new had bcen attempted. And the Dutch missions were now at death's door. The Danish undertaking in Southern India had also fallen into a serious decline. From the beginning the men had come altogether from Germany, and of late the monllY had been derived wholly from British sources. The Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel for well-nigh a century had been raising annually and expending small sums, though mainly upon English colonists, and the So- ciety for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge had been helping with its funds to spread the glad tidings in the Old Wurld and the New. But, taken as a whole, Protestant Christendom had no concern for the heathen j doubted if aught should be undertaken in their behalf j did not believe that aught for their betterment was possible. Whether Established or Dissenting, not a solitary representative of the churche., qf Great Britain was found upon earth preaching Christ to those who had never heard His name!
But yet, though the outlook from this point of vision was sufficiently forbidding, and could scarcely have been worse, all unobserved and out of sight a preparation for better things multiform and widespread had long been in progress, and the set time for the blessed revelation Waf! at hand. In particular the forces of thc Wesleyan revival had long been riRing and spreading, and had stirred Britain tremendously from centre to circumference. The national conscience had been quickened, and in many thousands the flame of the higher affections had begun to burn. And so Howard, and Raikes, and Clarkson, and Wilberforce had begun to agitate. Then just before an empire had been added in the East, and so a vast heathen population had been thrust upon the notice and the care of the nation j and, moreover, by the voyages of Captain Cook in the South Sea, Islands innumerable, with millions more of wretched pagans, had been brought under the gaze of English Christians. Great industrial and social and political changes had recently come to pass, or were at the door-such, for example, as the steam-cngine stands for, and the spinning-jenny, and the cotton gin. And the spirit of freedom, whether civil or ecclesiastical, was in the air of Europe as well as of America. " The age of reason," " the rights of man," and" human equality" were phrases full of inspiration to the civilized world, and stood for ideas and entities in behalf of which millions were ready and eager to venture fortune and life itself. And even now it was, and in the very nick of time, that a voice was heard in the wilderness proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.
Only a leader was lacking, some human spirit divinely endowed and called to inspire and guide, to supply II centre about which the spiritual forces of the time might crystallize. Nor h?d the same God, by whose ordinance the glorious work was at length to begin, failed to provide also the thoroughly furnished instrumentality; for, some thirty years before (August 17th, 1761), a babe WtlS born gifted among other things with a measureless hunger for knowledge, and a capacity seldom matched for end- less plodding and hard work. And a will·power was present able to push and persist without limit, but which could not by any means be allured or driven from the pursnit of any chosen object. To such fine qualities were joined later a stalwart faith and a zeal for righteousness so fervid and allconsummg that no difficulties or discouragcments could quench it. At the age of seventeen we find Carey a shoemaker's apprentice at Hackleton, nine miles from Paulerspury, his birthplace. Already he had commenced the study of birds, eggs, insects, and plants, and erelong had begun to delve into the mysteries of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French. And early and often was he called to take lessons in the stern discipline of life. When about twenty he was married to one who was" querulous, capricious, obstinate," and without sympathy with his life aims, and all this, perhaps in large part, because of a predisposition to meutal disease. He passed also through a protracted season of ill health, and for years was tried by the ills of extreme poverty. And, further, when the voice of the Lord began to cal1 in clear tones, " Go, preach the Gospel to the whole creation," year after year for the better part of a decade he stood almost utterly alone in disposition to obey.
It cannot but be interesting and profitable to note the various steps in the wondrous unfolding of the Divine plan. This future hero for the kingdom of heal"en was well on toward manhood before his spiritual nature was effectually and savingly aroused, and then, though reared in the Established Church, a little later hearing a sermon from the text, " Let us go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach," with characteristic decision and practical energy he joined himself to a little company of Baptists because theirs was a faith despised. Nor was it long before acceptable preaching gifts began to appear. In 1785 he joined the Olney church, by which he was called to the work of the ministry August lOth, and two years after was ordained as pastor of the Moulton church, four miles from North· Ilmpton, and upon a salary of but £15, of which £5 came from London. To eke out II living, shoemaking and school-teaching were added to his occupations. While here it was that his attention was first called to the moral desolation of the heathen world, and his heart began to be moved to hasten relief. And the fact seems to be established that it was the reading of Captain Cook's voyages (1769-79) which brought this great matter to his notice, "though if ever an idea was originated in any man by the Spirit of God, it was this idea of the evangelization of the world." From boyhood books of science and history and travel had been his delight, and now, from investigating the world's physical features, he turned to an examination of the religious condition of mankind. It was at Moulton that Andrew Fuller, visiting Carey's shop, saw upon the wall near his bench a roughly sketched map upon which he had set in order all manner of facts and figures to picture to the eye what needed to be done for the diffnsion of the Gospel, the salvation of the race. Already also had fuel been added to the heavenly flame by a sermon of Fuller's upon" The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation," which convinced him that, in spite of the current hyper-Calvinistic teaching to the contrary, it was the duty of all men to believe, and also the duty of Christians to tell the glad tidings to all. And a third impulse was supplied by Jonathan Edwards through his pamphlet, which exhorted God's people to union in " extraordinary prayer for the revival of religion and the advancement of Christ's kingdom upon earth." As a result of the reading of this the Baptist ministers in Northamptonshire resolved to set apart an hour for prayer on the first Monday in every month, that the power of the Cross might soon be felt to the most distant parts of the habitable globe. When with his brethren he could not but speak frequently upon the absorbing theme. but found few to listen with interest j while as for most, they thought him an idle dreamer. When once at a clerical gathering he was asked by Dr. Ryland, the chairman, to name a subject for discussion. and after much hesitation suggested, " Is not the command given to the apostles obligatory upon all ministers to the end of time~" as a reward he was dubbed" miserable enthusiast," and was reminded that at least nothing could be done until a second Pentecost should bring a return of the miraculous gifts j for as yet no one had begun to suspect that here was a man already possessed of the substance of that old-time enduement, even to the speaking with tongues!
But not in the least disheartened· or shaken in his purpose, Carey proceeded to prepare a paper of remarkable completeness and cogency, containing a tabular statement of thc size, population, etc., of the various coun~ tries of the globe, proving the Lord's commission to be perpetual, reciting the efforts which in each century had been put forth, and demonstrating the practicability of making further attempts. This great argument closed with an appeal for united prayer, and besides, since petition without effort to match would be but a mockery, for the gift regularly of a penny a week. In 1789 his ministry had bcen transferred from Moulton to Leicester j and, as revealing the burden whieh was upon his heart, the testimony comes that while there Carey was never heard to pray without making earnest supplication for the conversion of the heathen and the abolition of the slave trade. And that thc leaven of missionary zeal was spreading is shown by the fact that at thc association meetings held in 1791 the two preachers, Mr. Sutcliff and Mr. Fuller, chose kindred subjects, the former taking 1 Kings 1) : 10, "I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts," and the latter Haggai 1 : 2, "This people say, The time is not come that the Lord's house should be built." Noticing how deep and solemn was the impression produced by these discourses, Carey, in whom action as a matter of course must needs follow hard upon the heels of conviction, proposed to begin at once to organize and plan. But as yet for the others the vision was too dim, and he 8eemed to aim at objects too indefinite and out of reach. And so passed in inaction another year.
But May 31st, 1792, a date to be memorized by every lover of the kingdom, the ministers are again found together at Nottingham, and it wall the Leicester pastor's tUI'll to instruct with a sermon. And then it was that from Isaiah 54: 2, 3, "Enlarge the place of thy tent," etc, and with the two subdivisions, "Expect great things from God" and "At- tempt great things for God," was preached, judged by momentous and far- reaching results, one of the very greatest discourses ever heard in Christian history. The conclusions, the convictions, the desires, pent up for years, but steadily growing, now first found full expression, and not strangely the emotions of the audieuce were kindled with sympathy. But yet, though hearts were swayed and tears fell, large measures of doubt and hesitation still remained, and the assembly was about to separate without open commitment to any definite" attempt" in behalf of the speaker's "great things," but at his importunate suggestion finally resolved to adopt a plan for a society at the next meeting, to be hcld in six months. In due season the association came together at Kettering, October 2d, 1792, and no' doubt with slight conception of the magnitude of the matter in hand. In the evening of that most memorable day twelve men met in Mrs. Beeby Wallis's back parlor and fixed upon the constitution and by-laws of the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen, subscribed £13 2s. 6d. as a foundation for its funds, and accepted Carey's offer to add to this whatever profits might result from the publication of his pamphlet on missions which had lain in manuscript for years.
And how sublime was that act of faith, that venture far beyond the realm of sight! How exceedingly remote were the heathen, and what an uncounted host! And these Baptists were but a humble and feeble folk, one of the least of the sects, and with no famed men among them. And the movement started far from the metropolis, and only one London clergyman lent it his countenance. Hence the venture was vast and the issue doubtful. It was like the crossing of the Rubicon, putting forth from Palos, nailing the theses to the church doors, or burning the ships to make retreat impossible. However, it was easy to resolve and not so very difficult to subscribe, but now came the tug. The pertinent and very practical question was to be answered, Who shall be sent forth, and whither, in all the pagan world, shall they journey? A committee was chosen to investigate, and was not left long to wait, for the pillar of fire soon began to rise and move forward. A certain John Thomas, a surgeon in the employ of tho East India Company, had gone out to Bengal in 1783, had been led to engage in evangelistic work in behalf of the Hindus, had recently returned, and was now in London, endeavoring to raise money for further efforts. He was sent for, and was invited to return under the auspices of the new society, with the promise of a companion, " if a suitable one could be found." Accepting this offer, then at once Carey expressed his readiness to become the desired second person, only stipulating that, while he descended to explore what Fuller had termed the" gold-mine" in India, the brethren whQ remained at hOlne should" hold the ropes." Next an appeal was made for £500, and within a few weeks double that amount had been secured.
But trials and tribulations in plenty were yet in store. The Leicester church was loath to lose its beloved pastor, and touchingly alleged, " We have been praying for the spreaa of Christ's kingdom alIlong the heathen, and now God requires us to make the first sacrifice." Next Carey's wife, having no sort of sympathy with his aims, utterly refused to share in the risks and hardships of the undertaking; and though the thought cost a world of agony, imperative duty seemed to compel him to go without her, to remain at least for a season. And finally India was 15,000 miles away; the East India Company was in full possession; no Englishman could lawfully land upon its shores without a license, and, moreover, the Gospel was a contraband article. After the utmost influence possible had been brought to bear upon the company it became evident that no license could be had, and so, recalling that the apostles did not wait for permission from Rome or any earthly anthority, our hero resolved to set forth without the consent of the directors and take the consequences. Through the influence of Mr. Thomas passage was engaged and fare was paid upon one of the company's ships, but later, delayed long by storms under the Isle of Wight, the missionaries were ordered ashore. But fortunately a few days after a Danish East Indiaman lay in Dover Roads, npon which transportation was secured, and at the last moment, visiting his erratic wife, Mrs. Carey consented to accompany her husband. It was June 13th, 1793, that they finally set sail upon a voyage so pregnant with consequences to Christianity unspeakably great, and five months later arrived at Calcutta, and on the 9th of November.
Of course the passage of these events produced scarcely a ripple upon the snrface of the great social or political or even religious world, were almost altogether unnoticed and unknown. In those days the great stir over the American Revolution was quieting down, but only to be succeeded by a vastly more fearful commotion from across the English Channel. It will be instructive to set down a few dates which locate what many would even yet deem the great events of the period. In 1789 first burst forth the volcano of the French Revolution, and July 19th the Bastile fell. June 20th, 1791, King LouiR fled from Paris. August 18th of the next year, a few weeks after Carey's great sermon, the invasion of France by the allies began, and the next month followed the" September Massacres," and the republic was proclaimed. January 21st, 1793, the king ascended the scaffold; March 11th the Revolutionary Tribunal was set up and the Reign of Terror was inaugurated; and June 2d, a fortnight before Carey sailed, the Girondists fell; and as he was nearing his destination the hapless Marie Antoinette met her fate, the Girondists following hard after. As God, and angels, and glorified saints estimate human affairs, who will dare affirm that the Hackleton cobbler's part in history is not every way worthy to be compared with that of George III. and Burke, of Mirabeau and La'ayette ~ THE MELANESIAN MISSION.
BY REV. ROBERT STEEL, D.D., SYDNEY, N. S. W • •, The immense Pacific smiles Round a thousand little isles, Haunts of violence and wiles. But the powers of darkness yield, For the CROSS is in the field, And the LIGHT OF LIFE revealed."
The diocese of the apostolic Dishop of New Zealand, Dr. George Augustus Selwyn, embraced eighty-four degrees of latitude! It was made, by a mistake of the letters-patent issued by the British Crown, to extl:;nd from 540 south to 34 0 north. It embraced also 20 0 of longitude, and covered an area of 4800 miles by 1200. This is probably the rgest diocese ever marked out for a single bishop, and may truly be said to have included" a thousand little isles," almost all " haunts of cruelty and wiles." New Zealand itself wail an extensive enough diocese, and is now divided into six see8, though the Anglican Church has only a portion of the colonial population. Bishop Selwyn was equal to the occupancy of an extensive episcopate. He had been a famous oarsman in the University boat at Cambridge, and he could manage a schooner at sea. When roads were few and rough, he sailed along the coasts of New Zealand in the pursuit of his calling, and gained golden opinions among pioneering colonists for his courage and devoteuness. Meanwhile he cal!lt many a longing eye over the wide expanse of waters which the English Colonial Office had mapped out as his diocese. In 1847 he resolved upon a voyage of inspection, and fortunately got a passage in II. M. S. " Dido," when he had an opportunity of observing the insular groups in the southwestern Pacific, and the native population on them. In 1849 he got a small schooner of only twenty-one tOllS, the " Undine," with a crew of four men, and set sail alone on a trial Toyage. After ten days from Auckland, New Zealand, he reached Aneityum, a thousand miles away. This was the most southern island of the New Hebrides,' and where a mission had been started a year before by the Rev John Geddie, a Presbyterian missionary from Nova Scotia. The bishop met H. M. S. "Havannah," Captain Erskine, at this harbor, and in his company visited the islands of the New Hebrides and Loyalty groups, and also New Caledonia. His chief object at first was to endeavor to win the confidence of the natives. He had a rare art in this, and went unarmed among them, always keeping-his eye upon the cbief in each tribe, lest any mischief should arise. Like Van Amburgh among lions, Bishop Selwyn could tame cannibals for the time by the power of his eye! He was anxious also to get a few boys away to Auckland that he might attempt to educate them in the first principles of the Christian religion, and then return them to exercise some influence for good among their own people. The summer months were the most favorable for this training, while the winter was most favorable for voyaging in the tropic seas. Bishop Selwyn found a Babel of tongues among the dark savages of Melanesia-that portion of 'Western Polynesia in which he sailed. He endeavored to pick up a few words in each island, and carefully noted them down, along with the names of chiefs and others, so that when he returned he used these words and names again to the astonishment and delight of the natives. He thus pioneered missionary enterprise among heathen islands, as Dr. Livingstone did in Central Africa. He extended his voyages from year to year as his acquaintance with the islanders increased, and as he got a larger craft in which to sail. Most of the islands between New Zealand and the Solomon Islands were visited by him, and where there were no resident missionaries except on the Loyalty Islands, and on one of the New Hebrides group. He had zeal, wisdom, and courage for all his peculiar trials and difficulties. Few men have braved so many dangers with less means of defence in the service of Christ and His holy Gospel. In his first voyages he had no charts, and had to rely on his own drawings and on some old Spanish charts. He had, besides, to take observations, calculate distances, keep command, pull a rope, and manage natives on board speaking various languages. Some of the men had their wives occasionally with them, and as their clothing was very scanty, the bishop made dresses for the women, and when the mothers were sick he nursed their babies!
Thus he founded the M.elanesian"Mission. In 1850 he attended a meeting of bishops in Sydney, New South Wales, and got an Australasian Board of Missions established for the conversion and civilization of the aborigines of Australia and Western Polynesia. By contributions, given at the time, he was enabled to purchase and furnish the" Border Maid," a schooner of one hundred tons, and in 1851 the Bishop of Newcastle, N. S. W., who had been a comrade of Bishop Selwyn in the Cambridge University boat, accompanied him on a voyage. In 1852 he conveyed in his schooner to Aneityum a Presbyterian missionary and his wife free of expense. In England his powerful sermons at the University made a great impression, and he got Rev. John Coleridge Patteson, M.A., son of Mr. Justice Patteson, to go with him in 1855 expressly for mission work. This devoted man was trained by Dr. Selwyn to take complete charge of the mission, and he was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia in 1861. A fund of £5000 was raised by Bishop Selwyn to endow the see. Bishop Patteson followed in the steps of his great predecessor, and went annually on voyages among the islands, collecting boys for the missionary college established first at Auckland, New Zea1and, and afterward at Norfolk Island. He was joined by Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, who subsisted on his fellow~hip, and, like his bishop, gave his services gratuitously. Many youths were taught who, after they were baptized, became teachers in their native isles. New openings were constantly sought, new missionaries added, until the work spread as far as the Banks and the Solomon groups. After the labor traffic began, and the natives w~re il.lGel.lsed by some kidnapping scenes, Bishop Patteson and a native deacon, Stephen, fell in 1871 as martyrs to the cause of Christ by the savages of Nukapu, in the Santa Cruz group. Great was the lamentation over the early removal of the devoted Patteson. But the good work went on. The Rev. J. R. Selwyn, M.A., son of the Bishop of New Zealand, was selected for the island episcopate in 1877. Amid many difficulties and domestic trials Bishop Selwyn has carried on his work. He has had a mission schooner with auxiliary steam power for cruising among the islands. And now a larger steam vessel has been got for the expanding work. Bishop Patteson left his entire fortune of over £13,000 to the mission. Miss Yonge, the popular writer, and authoress of the" Life of Bishop J. C. Patteson," gave the entire profits of " The Daisy Chain," and many other sums to the funds. A thousand acres were purchased at Norfolk Island, and the necessary buildings have been erected for the accommodation and instruction of the scholars and for the residence of the bishop and missionaries. The trust funds amount to £40,000, the interelt of which is used for workini expenses. The total income wal £6380 in 1890. Of this about £4000 came from Australasia. The expenditure was more than the income by £833. The bishop surren.dered £200 of his moderate income to help the deficit. The new ship has cost £9200. At St. Barnabas College there are 124 male and 32 female scholars from many different islands. The mission is carried on throughout the islands during all the year by native teachers, and during the winter months European missionaries reside, to superintend the teachers, preach the Gospel, visit the schools and open up new spheres for labor.
The' bishop, who has been very unwell or late by malarial sciatica, takes a yearly voyage through his extensive diocese. Many islanders, once savages, have been admitted into the Christian Church by baptism, numbers have been taught to read, others trained to teach, and several ordained to the Christian ministry. Dr. Codrington, who has now retired, published a valuable book on the Melanesian languages, in which he gave vocabularies and grammars of some forty tongues. Portions of Scripture and the liturgy of the Church of England have been translated into different languages, and printed for the use of the natives. One language is usedthat of the island of Mota-in the college at Norfolk Island ; but the missionaries cultivate and speak the languages of the islands where they labor. To give a few specimens of the work carried on at present, it may be stated that on the island of Florida, where there is a population of 5508, a little over 2000 have been bapt.ized and 56 confirmed. There are 62 teachers and 1020 scholars there. In the Banks group the Rev. T. C. Culwick reports that in 1890 there were 41 schools in eight islands, 234 adult and 102 infant baptisms, and in one church there were 117 communicants. The Rev. Charles Bice, who has been employed twenty-five years in the Northern New Hebrid.es, spent several months during 1890 on the islands; he reports that much disquiet prevailed, that the population had been greatly thinned
IMPORTANT DEATHS
by the labor traffic. Difficulties have arisen in some cases from the Frenoh traders who have settled on the islands. A great work is being done throughout many islands by Bishop Selwyn and his missionaries and teachers. It is to be hoped that the bishop may be restored to health, and that by the blessing of God the enlarged efforts practicable with a larger steamer may result in the expansion of the Melanesian Mission, and the ingathering of many dusky islanders to the fold of Christ.
STATISTICS OF THE MISSION.
Staff.-The Right Rev. John R. Selwyn, D.D., Bishop j English clergy: Rev. Charles Biee, Arthur Brittain, R. B. Conrius, J. D. Branne, B.A., T. C. CuI wick, John Palmer, J. H. Plant, M.A., R. M. Turnbull. Native ordained mi~sionaries: Alfred Lobu, Clement Marau, Robert Pantutun, Mano Wandrokai, Walter Weser, deacons j George Sarawia, Henry Tagalad, priests. Native teachers, about 200. Mission steam vessel, Captain Bongard engineer, officers, doctor and crew. There are 31 scholars supported at Norfolk Island by congregations in New South Wales j 10 by those in Victoria, 11 by those in South Australia, 5 by those in New Zealand, and 27 by those in New Zealand. Thus between 80 and 90 are known by name to congregations supporting them. Parcels of clothing are annually sent by working parties of ladies. A sum of £1500 per annum is contributed by friends of the mission in England.
TWO IMPORTANT DEATHS.
The death of Narayan Sheshadri, on the ocean, last month, and the death of Hormazdji Peestonji, in India, during the previous month, recall the stormy scenes attending the .:lonversion and baptism of these men, more than fifty years ago. The preaching of Dr. John Wilson, one of the great Scotch missionaries, was followed by a special blessing. Four young men, two of them Parsees .and two of them Hindus, professed faith in Christianity. All the inten'le hatred of the heathen heart was turned against these men. Legal proceedings were instituted against them in the civil courts in Bombay. Two of these converts were Danjibhai Nouroji and Hormazdji Pestonji, Parsees j and two were the brothers Narayan and Shripat Sheshadri, Hindus, and, in addition, Brahmans. Shripat Sheshadri, brother of Narayan, was remanded to Hinduism, as he had not attained to his majority. The others were baptized in spite of the violence of the mob, which threatened the mission house, and was restrained only by the presence of the military force. Narayan Shcshadri did his work afterward in connection with Presbyterians of Scotland. Hormazdji Pestonji went into the service of the Irish Presbyterian Church, and afterward became a Baptist, and was the head of the Baptist Mission in Poona. In the past summer death came to them both-to one on the sea, to the other at home.-Presbyterian.
18IH.] CONGREGATIONALISTS AND
CONGREGATIONALISTS AND MISSIONS.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
A very important forward movement in foreign missions has just been inaugurated in England. The directors of the London Missionary Society have resolved, before the jubilee of the society in 1895, to add 100 more missionaries to its staff; a large increase, since the present number is only 192. The importance of this resolution will be apparent if it be observed': 1. That this is the oldest Foreign Missionary Society in England next to the Gospel Propagation and Baptist Societies, and has the largest purely foreign missionary income, with perhaps two exceptions.
2. Its basis is undenominational, but practically it has fallen into the hands of Congregationalists, and is the only Foreign Missionary Society which in any sense belongs to them.
3. It has a distinguished history, since it was the first Protestant society to Bend missionaries into Polynesia, China, Madagascar, Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa, and to begin work in New Guinea on an important scale j and in some of these fieldll it has had distinguished success.
4. It stands eminent for the number of its illustrious missionaries- Morison, Milne, Griffith John, Ellis, Williams, Moffat j Livingstone being also of the number.
5. It has a larger staff of native agents in proportion to its European missionaries than any other society, since its ordained native ministers number 1224, its other native preachers and evangelists over 4100, and its school·teachers more than 3000, a large proportion of these being well tried and carefully trained.
Various causes have led the more ardent friends of the society to desire that it should attempt greater things. Among these may be mentioned the splendid openings for aggressive work around many of its stations in India, China, Madagascar, and New Guinea; the painfully inadequate number of its missionaries in many important centres j the examples of faith and enterprise set by some other missionary agencies, and the growing consciousness among Congregationalists that they are not doing their full part in the splendid enterprise of giving the Gospel to the non-Christian world. Convictions of this· nature led four well-known ministers to issue a heartstirring appeal only a few weeks ago, entitled" Congregationalism and the Evangelization of the W orId," the main purport of which was that at least 100 additional missionaries tlhould be sent out: 40 more to India, 40 more to China, 10 more to Africa, 10 more to Polynesia, Madagascar, etc. This suggestion was embodied in the following resolution, which after most careful consideration was accepted by the board of directors at their first meeting in July : "That it is desirable that the Society should, notwithstanding the adverse balaQce with which the past year closed, at once proceed to provide
A NEW APPLICATION OF AN OLD HYMN
for the pressing needs which have already been recognized by the Board, and should further without hesitation enter upon the enlarged openings for work presented in connection with several of the great Mission fields in which the Society is laboring. And that an attempt be made to add One hundred additional Missionaries to the Society's staff before the Society's Centenary is celebrated in 1895."
The importance and gravity of this step is seen in the facts, that for some years the income of the society has not advanced as it should have done j that it has not found without difficulty the fifteen or twenty suitable men it has required year by year to keep up its present staff of missionaries; and that the proposal will necessitate an increase of £25,000 annually to the society's income. Nevertheless the resolve is wise, noble, and necessary; it has been made deliberately and with much faith and prayer, and it will probably elicit so enthusiastic a response from the Congregational churches and such a blessing from God that it will be carried to a most successful issue.
A NEW APPLICATION OF AN OLD HYMN.
To the Editor of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW: The old hymn of Thomas Scott might with a little alteration be ad- dressed to Christians j for in the mission work the wise, the merciful, the obedient the blessed thing to do is to haste.
Haste, 0 Christian ; now be wise j Stay not for the ml)rrow's sun j Wisdom if you thus despise, Harder is it to be won.
Haste, for many now "implore j Stay not for the morrow's sun, Lest the season should be o'er, Ere thii evening's stage be run.
Haste, 0 Christian j now obey j Stay not for the morrow's sun.
Haste, for many now do pray That salvation's work be done.
Haste, 0 Christian; now be blest; Stay not for the morrow's sun, Lest perdition souls arrest, Ere the morrow is begun.
VERSAILLES, Ky. PAUL V. BOMAR.
"NAlI: TRANG SONG."
." NAM THANG SONG."* BY REV. F. ELLIS, BRISTOL, ENGLAND.
NOTE.-The following verses were written some three or four years ago by the blind Moravian pastor lu Bristol, whose noble sister takes the part of eyes and hands for him. The inspiration of the poem is suffiriently indicated In the foot-notes, which also explain all references. It was originally printed In the Periodical Accounu, the English missionary qnarterly of the Moravian Ohnrch, but in the hope that the lines might prove a source of enconragement to other than Moravian missionary laborer., they have been offered for republication In this journal by permission of Rev. Benjamin La Trobe, editor of the Pmodical Accounts. We add that the Rev. Frederic Redslob, after 20 years nnremitting labor In the Tibetan Mountains, has been forced to retire on account of broken health, and his place has been supplied by the Rev. F. Becker Shawe, who has recently arrived in his far·off field of labor in the midst of the Himalayan Mountain., after a most adventuresome and arduous journey. In Alaska the work has progressed nobly since the fatal day recorded in the poem. Addi. tional volunteers have gone forth to this bleak and dreary field, and in spite of apparently insurmonntable obstacles, converts are slowly being gathered in.
NAZARETH, PA. PAUL DE SCHWEINITZ.
Cheerless in the evening hour is the prospect he commands, As at foot of Himalaya, wrapt in thought, our Redslob stands j Eighteen thousand feet of climbing is the task to-morrow brings, And he gauges all before him, and he thinks a llUndred things: Will the undertaking prosper' is the mountain pathway clear ~ Are the coolies to be trusted '-then a sudden sickening fear Seizes him, as gazing upwards he perceives that, lure and slow, Clouds, black heavy clouds, are gathering, ominous of falling snow. Let them but discharge their burden,-and they will, the coolies say, Then all hope of further progress must consume'in long delay. For a moment all is gloomy j blows the night wind bleak and chill : – Disappointment seems to crush him at the foot of Taglang hill j Yet it is but for a moment j soon regained his self-control, And the peace which passeth knowledge takes possession of his soul 1 For within his chamber kneeling, contrite, confident, and mild, Angels might have heard his breathing, " Lord, forgive thy anxious child j Pardon if for one brief instant I have sought to take from Thee What is Thine by right and promise j take it, take it, Lord, from me• • This Tibetan sentence, which implies, .. It has cleared np 1" or .. It is all bright again 1" was the cheering morning greeting of hiB coolies to the Rev. F. Redslob, snperintendent of the Moravian Mission in Oentral Asia, on the day when he intended to cross the Taglang Pass (18,000 feet in height) near the northern bonndary of British India. He was on his way to found a permanent mission at Leh, the capital of Ladak, when evening closed in with a dark and threatening cloud hanging far down the pass, portending snow and conseqnently enhanced difficulties and dangers amid those trackless wastes of rock and glacier if not protracted delay at the foot of the Taglang. .. The pass," says Mr. Redslob, .. seemed to my imagination an image of the future of our Ladak Mission, and my own immediate prospects. I felt dispirited, and lay down to rest with a weight of apprehension on my heart. But I endeavored to cast my care upon the Lord, and commended myself and onr whole mission work into His hand•.
.. How great WIlS my joy when the next morning I was awakened by the cry, 'NAJIl THANG SONG I' (' The weather is quit~ mght again. ') It was indeed a lovely morning. The clouds had vanished, and the snow, which had merely sprinkled the pass as with a thiu covering of sugar, had entirely disappeared before I reached the heights. I could not possibly have had more favorable weather for such an ascent and descent, and the exp.eriences of the following days were destined to fill me with deep gratitude and reveal very clearly how gracionsly the Lord had arranged all things tor me." Be to-morrow in Thy keeping; mine to follow, Thine to lead; Thine the wisdom and the power, mine the weakness and the need. Glad shall be my full submission whatsoever Thy decree, For my will with Thine is blended, and Thou, Lord, art all to me !"
With the daybreak rise the coolies, all expectant to behold Everywhere the sad fulfilment of the troubles they foretold. Scarce a flake of snow has fallen, not a cloud bedims the sky, And they shout for very gladness-" Nam thang song!" they loudly cry, As in eager haste they hurry to the sleeper where he lies; " Rouse thee quickly for the journey, ' Nam thang song, 'good Sahib, rise ; Gird thee for the upward journey ; bright the sky and clear the way; , Nam thang song,' good Padre Sahib, we shall cross Taglang to-day."
TPen with sanctified exertions Redslob and his coolies start, Every footstep fraught with danger, but there's music in his heart ; For the Master's smile is on him; this makes all his troubles light. Rocky shelving, mountain torrent, steep descent, and slippery height, Precipices, all he passes, till, by angel hand sustained, He haa left it all behind him, and his journey's end attained.
Work on, Redslob, with thy comrades in that hard Tibetan field; Ne'er despond, though scant the harvest which your labors seem to yield; For in God's own time the message ye so faithfully proclaim Shall be owned by tens of thousands to the honor of His name. And the wilderness shall blossom, and the desert place rejoice, At the brightness of His coming and the music of His voice.
Such the word to you, ye others, who on many a foreign soil Delve and sow, and yet know something of the fruitlessness of toil. COUl"dge, brothers! out in Greenland, and in ice-bound Labrador In the Western Indian islands; on the Nicaraguan shore i* On the rivers of Guiana, t or among the swart Fingoos it Or in Ramahyuck's § enclosure, tending the despised Papoos ; ,Or in Canada's dominions, serving out the Word of grace To the Delaware and Choctaw~ remnants of a fading race i Or like self-denying Miiller, II with his brave wife at his side, Tt:lling the in-gathered lepers how for them, too, Christ haa died,- Courage, one and all, ye brothers! no occasion for dismay i Let not " may be" come between you and the praises of .to day ; Ne'er anticipate the morrow, for ye cannot know its form ; Fretting never frightened thunder, sighing never stayed a stonn• • Mission in the Moskito Indian Reserve, Central America.
t i. e., Dutch Guiana or Surinam, and British Guiaua (Demerara). *MiBBions In South Africa to FingOOB, Hottentots and KaffirB. reserve § Ramah-yuck (Ramah. our home) is the second aboriginal nuder care of Moravian mis- sionaries in Victoria, Australia.
U.. House-father" of the Leper Home near the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem. But when clouds come darkling o'er you as ye face stern duty's height, Then remember He who sends them can disperse them in a night.
Work with patience, pray with trusting. each one faithful at his post, And erelong the wave of blessing which swept o'er Moskito Coast Shall reach your remotest borders, and refresh and gladden you.
Many a Daukra, and Quamwatla, Kukallaya, and Yulu,* Shall rise up to call you blessed, and to verify the words, There's success in David's battle, for the battle is the Lord's.
G'nadendal t shall yet burn brightly, as a lamp with freshened oil, Entumasi, Engotini, and Entwanazana'st soil Yet shall yield abundant harvest, and another Herald § soon Bear the Gospel's gladdening message over Mexican lagoon.
And you of this latest venture, who but yesterday went forth With your lives of consecration to the wild Alaskan II North, Take our heartfelt blessing with you, and amid your ice and snow On the drear Kuskokwim River let it comfort you to know That upon our hearts we bear you, and though miles may surge between, In the truest bond of union we are with you on the scene j We could understand your feelings as ye slowly sailed away From the harbor of Francisco on that eighteenth day of May, And we could but stand and wonder at those two of gentler form Who were thus prepared to join you in the solitude and storm j Spite of all your ocean-tossings, and the dangers that ye faced, Never once in spirit shrank ye from the cause ye had embraced. We could see you grouped together gazing on the outline blue, Till the mountains of Alaska shaped themselves to clearer view; We could see you, lone and wistful, by the warehouse on the land, Where the Lizzie Merrill l left you dazed, yet waving with the hand Towards the fast-receding vessel, bidding farewell to the last Of all things that seemed to link you with the brightness of the past.
Then ye nerved yourselves to action, though unused to rope and spar, Weighed the anchor, trimmed the sails, and launched your little Bethel Star >' Past the mu~banks safely guided,· up the river bravely bore Through those fifty leagues of sameness j saw the tundras** on the shore, Marked the pine-trees andgamutes tt sparsely set on either side, And the Eskimo bidarka tt swiftly floating o'er the tide j * Places affected by the recent awakening among the Moskito Indians.
t Genadendal, the oldest mission station in South Africa, commenced by George Schmidt in 1734.
~ Former and present stations among the Kaffirs. § New mission vessel for the Moskito Coast Mission. I Alaska, until 1867 Russian America. ,- The schooner which conveyed the Alaskan pioneers from San Francisco to the month of the Kuskokwim River.
** Tundras-H treeless, shrubless, mossy flats."
**tt Gamute-village. Bidarka-three-holed kayak, or skin-covered canoe.
CUBA AS A MISBION FIELD
Felt the rainfall, 'watched the nightfall, hailed the daybreak o'er the foam,- Till in Mumtreklagamute * ye arrived, and called it " Home !"
There, within your winter quarters, daily learning while ye teach, Slowly hinting at the Gospel which as yet ye cannot preach; We can see you striving, toiling, patient, yet withal so grave, As ye think upon the comrade lying low beneath the wave, t Which swept him to sudden glory, but left YOll to mourn a friend.
Patience, brothers! "Hope and Patience" be your watchword to the end.
Scant enough we thought your numbers, yet we read the lesson tme : God, who claims the victor's glory, ever wins by Gideon's few.
Feed upon the word He gave you on that fatal August day, And be sure that when in spirit you and we together pray, " God of Bethel, bless our mission on the bleak Alaskan shore,"
He will give the cheering answer, " Fear not; I have gone before. "t CUBA AS A MISSION FIELD.
BY w. J. MOMAN, CIENFUEGOS, CUBA.
Cuba is the largest of the West Indian Islands, and has been a Spanish colony ever since its discovery. It has an area of about 72,000 square miles, and the population is variously estimated at from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000. Its soil is most fertile, and the climate generally healthy except in some of the'towns, where the want of proper sanitary regulations is perhaps the chief cause of so much sickness at certain periods of the year.
The population is ~ixed up of Spaniards (natives of Spain), Cubans (natives of Cuba), and negroes. Among these classes the strongest prejudices exist. The pe.:>ple congregat"e mostly in cities and towns, but many live on and about the sugar plantations where they are employed. The chief towns are nearly all connected by rail or steamboat, so that travelling is not difficult, though somewhat expensive.
The whole country is divided into six provinces-viz.• Pinar del Rio,' Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, and Santiago de Cuba, each having a chief town of the same name.
The people are nominally Roman Catholics, but the majority, having lost faith in Rome, are drifting away into infidelity. While many have thus renounced belief in all religion, there iI!, on the other hand, a large number still fanatically devoted to Rome. Roma~ism was the religion of their • .The Alaskan missionaries have built their house near Mumtrekhlagamnte. a trading post of the Alaska Commercial Company, and called the ~tatlon Bethel. (Gen. 35: 1.) t Mr. Torgersen, one of the five pioneers, was drowned by accident on August 10th, 1885.
~ The text for August 10th, 1885, the day on which Mr. Torgersen was drowned, was Isaiah 52 : 12. fathers and grandfathers, and still possesses great power over them. These are generally ignorant people, who are entirely under the power of the priests, and render them a blind and unquestioning obedience. Betwe.en these two extremes there is another class-perhaps not a large one-who have ceased to believe in the Romish Church, but still believe in God, the Creator of all things, and feel the need of a religion which will elevate man's mind and pUIify his heart.
Until recently Protestant work could not be publicly done in Cuba. At present, however, all sects are tolerated and allowed to propagate themselves without disturbance, religious toleration having been granted under the revised Spanish Constitution. The whole island is therefore opened up to the Protestant missionary, and wherever he goes he may claim the protection of the authorities. I have already had a police officer accompany me home after conducting service in my chapel.
I wish to repeat and emphasize what I have already said about the amount of work which is being done here at present. It is in no way adequate to the pressing need of the field. The Southern Baptist Convention has missions in Havana and some neighboring towns, and a great work is being done by this soci~ty. There is an Episcopal mission in Matanzas, with a station in Havana, and recently a Presbyterian mission has heen started in Havana, with which I believe the Presbyterians of Mexico are identified. So far as I know, the only other mission work being done on the island is at CienfuegoB, a town on the south side, where the writer is laboring under the auspices of the Jamaica· Baptist Missionary Society. All these agencies together do not reach more than 500,000 persons, leaving more than 1,000,000 souls without the knowledge of the true way of salvation, and without any possible way of acquiring such a knowledge. Scattered all over the country are populous towns and villages without the light of the Gospel of Christ, where the people must either be satisfied with the dead forms and lying absurdities of Rome, or rellounce all religion. In the three southern provinces-namely, Santa Clara, Puerto Principe, and Santiago de Cuba, with a population of about 600,000, I am the only missionary. These hungry, starving souls are daily crying for the bread of life. Day by day the cry goes up from thousands of burdened hearts, "No man cares for my soul." Their religion consists of processions, masses, baptisms, and such ceremonies, which Rome has invented, and with whiCH she has replaced the Gospel. The priest is the only mediator they know between God and man, and although dissatisfied with his religion, and not unfrequently with his corrupt morals, they are afraid to abandon the Church, as union with it is their only hope of salvation. ' , No priest, no sacrament j no sacrament, no salvation," is a maxim of terrible power over the minds of those who have been brought up in the darkness and superstition of Rome.
Less than 120 miles away from the great American republic lies a country with more than 1,000,000 persons, "who sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death," waiting for the light of the Gospel. How long shall they thus wait? One cannot but feel that the answer to this ques- tion lies with the Christians of the United States. There can bl1 no question about money and men, for the churches have both the money and the men. Since writing the last sentence I took up the MISSIONARY REVIEW for Feb- ruary, and find that the Protestants of the United States are supposed to have a surplus wealth of about $500,000,000 a year. What to do with it ? Why not spend $500,000 a year in trying to evangelize Cuba ~ With so much money in their purses, and so many men willing to go out as mis- sionary worker~, we fail to see any reason why every town in Cuba should not be supplied with a missionary of the Cross.
The people are very favorably disposed toward Americans and American institutions. In every city and town, it might be said in every household, the products of American industry and manufacture are well known. Why should not this be the case also with the religon which has raised the United States to the proud position she occupies among the nations of the earth ~ There is urgent need that the work should be done at once. This feeling grows on one the more he knows of the people. As I have already said, many are embracing atheistic creeds and theories which involve a negation of all religion. It is not unlikely that this anti-Christian movement will gain strength in proportion as the intellectual faculties of the people are / awakened and developed apart from true religion. It seems that the Church is losing its opportunity with regard to Cuba. People are becoming infidels chiefly because they do not know the true Gospel, and are disgusted with the caricature of Christianity which the Roman Church exhibits. Now is the time to seek to check the growth of iufidelity which seems likely to overrun poor, priest.ridden Cuba.
But there is another reason why the neld should be taken hold of at once, even if we should not succeed in turning the tide of infidelity. The human mind cannot long be satisfied with a negation of all religion. To be religious belongs to man's nature, and the religious faculty will sooner or later make itself felt in the setting in of a strong reaction in favor of religion. I think this is clearly taught by the religious history of the world. Wherever infidelity has seemed to triumph for awhile a reaction has invaria- bly set in in favor of religion, and sometimes in favor of the most degrad- ing superstition under that name. One feels sure that it will be so in Cuba; and if the pure, true Gospel is not made known to the people, the reaction will be in favor of the degrading superstition and idolatry of the Church of Rome, and no one can tell how long this may delay the evan- gelization.01 Cuba.
SOIDe seem to think that there is no room for other missionary societies than those that are now laboring here. A gentleman officially connected with one of the great missionary societies said to me not long ago, " We have lost our chauce in Cuba." This is by no means true. The field is
THE PROTESTANT MOVEMENT IN MEXICO
large enough to receive Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbytpriansin short, all evangelical societies who will preach the Word of God. There is no reason why all should not unite in the grand work of giving the Gospel to this benighted people.
The difficulties of the work are numerous, and different stations throughout the island will present different difficulties; but I have already taken up too much space, and cannot now refer to the difficulties except to say that they are not insuperable, and patient, persevering, faithful work in Cuba will surely meet with large success, although the laborers may have to work hard and wait long.
THE PROTESTANT MOVEMENT IN MEXICO.
BY ELEANOR P. ALLEN, CINCINNATI, o.
The innate ideas of our Protestant heritage are that religious and civil freedom are both alike necessary to the highest development of our race. In order to measure the value of these great possessions to other countries that hitherto have not enjoyed their benefits, let us consider for a moment by what feeble means, against what odds, at how great cost, that heritage of blessing was won for our own-land. There is no more interesting period • of our history than those seventy-five years of struggle which decided whether this land should be another New Spain, like poor Mexico, or another New England, such as, thank God, it is; whether, accord- ing to the inscription upon the arms of Columbus, "To Castile and Leon (alone) Colon had given a new world," or whether he had found that treasure for a greater people made new and strong and free by -a truer and a purer faith; for whether this struggle is called in Europe the wars of the" Austrian and Spanish Successions," and in this new unsettled world the wars of "Queen Anne," "King George," or the " French and Indian War," the central point at issue was the same. How- ever complicated by the personal ambitions of the French Louis-es or the monarchs of stately Spain, and the other princes of Europe from the dates of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 'lnd the success of the revolution in England by which it was declared that thenceforth no Catholic prince should ever sit upon her throne, the relll struggle for dominion in Europe and for the consequent possession of this continent lay between the over- grown powers of the Papacy, on the one hand, and on the other, the giant infant of the Reformation, late born in the lap of Germany.
What had Spain done 1 Marching from the southern seas in gorgeous panoply of scarlet and gold, her fiery, intensely religious, always greedy hosts conquered South America and Mexico at about the same time, and pushing far to the north and west, founded town after town upon our Pacific frontier, the centre and chief interest of which town was always the parish church, till here and there and everywhpl"e, above the soft seas and in the upper mountain air, was heArd the tender toning of her mid- night bells of prayer. Have we not to-day Santa Fe, founded by Spanish priests, away up on the plateau of the Rocky Mountains, now deemed the oldest city of our country 1 and San Augustine, the next oldebt, also found- ed by them as they came to pour other hosts across the southern slopes of our country to the Mississippi 1 What did France do 1 Were not the white gleam and shimmer of her lily standard seen through the wild woods of the St. Lawrence from its gulf along its course, through the great lakes and down the Mississippi till they met the forces of Spain in Louisiana! Have we not the traces of this course in the names familiar to us all-of Marquette, Juliet, Sault Ste. Marie, and Detroit, besides many another 1 Then did she not strive to secure possession of our own fair valley of the Ohio, that she might use it as an entering wedge with which to split apart the claims of the few and feeble English colonies on the coast! How many of those colonies were there 1 When this struggle began in 1688 there were twelve, and one of them was Romish. When we group these facts together, and remember the splendor and resources of these Romish countries at that period, and the weakness of the forces of Protestantism that were set to oppose them, can we not imagine that the angels above watched the close of this conflict with high joy, and that they all, together with the Prince of our people, sang aloud, " But as for His own people, He led them forth like sheep. He carried them in the wilderness like a flock." " We give Thee thanks, 0 Lord God Almighty, that Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned !"
William Carey began work in India liS the firST; Protestant missionary only ninety-eight years ago. It was in 1'793 that he alone, the leader of a vast army that should follow, set foot on India's soil for the redemption of the millions of that race. He toiled on seven full years before he gained his first convert-seven years of struggle for one soul! In 1800 he baptized Krishna Chunda Pul, the first Hindu Protestant convert. When Carey died (the man whom God lifted from the cobbler's bench first to the English pulpit and then to the highest throne ever erected on the soil of India) he was honored throughout EnglanQ, India, and the civilized world. He had introduced a work into India that would ultimate in the moral regeneration of the people and the social and mental elevation of a race. Schools. books, newspapers, moral associations-these, and a thousand other blessings followed as the indirect fruit of Carey's sowing on Indian soil. He died in 1834, hut not until he had seen thousands follow his lone convert into the fold of Christ j and when the Church celebrated the semi-centennial of his death 500,000 converts could be counted in the vast field of work he had opened up. American growth of population does not exceed twenty-five per cent for the decade just past, but that of the Protestant family of India exceeded eighty-six per cent. How wonderfully God has honored the teachings of William Carey, the so-called Sanctified Cobbler!
1891.J EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The Rhenish Missionary Society complains that, for some reason or other, its COllverts in Bomeo are so decidedly inferior to the Mohammedans in industry as to be at a disadvantage in every way. Yet they are learning diligence in one way-they are showing increasing zeal in supporting their churches.
– The Maritime Presbyterian, in reference to the New Hebrides, says: " In regard to the heathen, our outlook was never anything like so hopeful as at present." But who" we" may be we are unable to say, as the magazine neither gives a place of publication, nor the name of the editor, nor tells of what church it is an organ; and the writer is not learned enough in the ecclesiastical affairs of the Dominion to know whether the maritime provinces have a Presbyterian Church of their own or not.
-The Spirit of Missions quotes Louis Agassiz: " Every friend of Brazil must wish to see its present priesthood replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent, and laborious clergy."
-The Missionary Reporter (M. E. C., South) says: "Last year the net increase of the membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, waR larger than the entire home membership of the Moravian Church; yet they have four times as many missionaries in the foreign field as are supported by Southern Methodists."
THE CONTINENT.
-The Amerzcan NcAll Record calls attention (as, curiously enough, the Catholic Irish Review had also done) to the fact that, out of the 600,000 Protestants of France, half the first Grevy cabinet were Protestants. They went out of office, if we remember right, rather than sanction the persecuting policy of the government toward the Catholics. The Protestants of France do not have divers weights and measures of religious liberty. The great Protestant who has just been called home was never wearied of lifting up his voice for Catholic rights, no less than Protestant, against atheistic malice. This shows French Protestantism to be of the true metal. The Huguenots were deeply tainted with the persecuting leaven, but they worked clear of it in the long school of suffering, and in the largeness of individual faith. Now, says the Record, "men with religious convictions, whether Catholic or Protestant, dare confess their faith, undeterred by fear of ridicule."
-The Record says: "The Universite de Paris (the organ of the Students' Association of Paris), the Figaro, the .Tournal des Debats, and the Temps have each asserted in their own way that French students as a whole have ceased to be Voltairians. There is an evident recoil from the fri volou8 scepticisms of the past, and a tendency tuward mysticism, although Dot toward Catholicism." Viscomte E. M. de Vogue shows that even in those schools which have been the citadels of irreligion, sympathetic investigation is taking the place of mere mockery. "Our predecessors," he says, "too ellsily threw aside an entire domain of ideas which they deemed anti-scientific,; but we must see." "In other words," says the Record, "French students are willing to read the credentials of Christianity j let us do our utmost to present them. "
-The Mission Populaire Evangelique, of Marseilles, has rendered its modest report, from which we see that it has at least nine branches of work, religiuus and charitable. It is interwoven, we do not exactly know how, with the McAll Mission, whose work it warmly commends to the support of its friends.
-The Bible sales have largely increased in Italy, though the sales of Bibles and New Testaments have diminished, owing to the increasing poverty of the peasantry, compelling them to take portions instead of the whole.
Also : "In entering into the missionary current a church lifts itself to the greatness of its vocation on the side of infinity. It knits anew the tradition of the grand apostolate, which has the world for its field and mankind for its object, lowering all the walls of partition. Nothing can be more invigorating than to breathe this air of the mountain-top, from which we survey the vastness of the world, provided we are borne aloft not by the fallen angel, and aspire to subdue to ourselves, but by the apocalyptic angel, who carries in his hands the everlasting gospel, that we may learn how to save it.
"Our mission has been, as it were, the supreme expression of our Protestant development. Scarcely has the religious awakening coma to pass which has followed our great national crises, when we see it originate spontaneously, so thoroughly is it a natural consequence of reillumined faith. It rallies all our living, which as yet form but a single aggregate; it is the time of joyous unanimity j no other question is asked but this, What must we do to be saved ~ What must we do to save that which is lost? All the churches, pastors, and laity are but one heart, one soul, one spirit.
" We ought to spare no pains to bring our brethr.en to see that the conquest of the world for Christ ought not only to take precedence of all earthly interests, but that it takes precedence none the less of the reorganiza- . tion of our forms of worship, of our ecclesiastical contests, of our theological quarrels. Indeed, what can so certainly restore life to our worship, to our churches, to our theology as to be simply obedient to the supreme command of our Great Captain by raising the gospel torch to serve as a lighthouse to those who are perishing in the darkness of heathenism, to carry the bread of life to those who lie dying of famine without God and without hope ?"-PROFESSOR KRUG"'l" Journal des Missions.
– " Doubtless the wonderful progress which French Protestantism has made during the past eighteen years would have been made sooner or later, in any case. The Spirit of God has been manifest in that church, inspiring and impelling it to a new and vigorous life. But its progress has been facilitated and in some degree directed by the work and example of Mr. McAll. He went before them with methods which to them were entirely new, and proved their practicability j more than that, he proved their fitness to the actually existing condition. He made evident the undreamedof fact that the mass of the people were waiting for a religion, ready to be taught, longing for they knew not what, but what the result has proved to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "-American McAll, Record.
-In two of the central halls of Paris the aggregate attendance for 1890 has exceeded that for 1889 by 24,300. AFRICA.
-The New York Evangelist gives the following account of the LiTingstonia Mission of the Free Church of Scotland. The first-fruits were seven young men and two young women. "These were recently followed by nine others, and these more recently by thirty-four, making a native church of fifty-two members, besides hundred~ of hopeful catechumens and inquirers of both sexes. All the converts are missionaries to their countrymen. Including these fifty-two, the number of natives teaching in the mission schools at the close of the year was 120, of whom seven were women; and the number of pupils on the roll was 3080, of whom 2422 were in attendance on a given day, besides the children in three schools at the north end" of Lake Nyassa.
-Bishop Smythies, of the Universities' Mission, seems to be a man of very broad and brotherly sympathies. His intimate friendship with the Presbyterians of Blantyre is a standing rebuke, not to High Church opinions, which he entertains, but to High Church arrogance. On the other hand, he gives an earnest warning that jf Protestants in Africa will insist more on the deep differences than on the deeper agreements between them and the Roman Catholics, " it will be impossible to avoid deadly feuds." In other words, he holds the language of Robert Leighton, of Thomas Chalmers, of Richard Baxter, of Philip Schaff, and of the editor of this REVIEW.
-The ])aily Graphic of February 11th, says the Ohristian, has a letter drawing a sharp contrast between the French city of St. Louis, in Senegambia, where the writer did not see a sign of intoxication, and the disgusting intemperance of the British possessions along thc coast.
-The Primitive Methodist Mission has a growing influence on the Spanish island of Fernando Po, but, unlike Ponape, is treated by the authorities with j~stice and toleration.
-Dr. Laws, in his special report of the Livingstonia Mission, besides an account of the medical, industrial, literary, and evangelistic work result- ing in a church of 53 members and 70 catechumens, adds: "The indirect results of mission work, though not so visible to a stranger, are none the less palpable to a resident in the country. Much of the faith in the efficacy of the Mwave poison has in some districts been broken down, petty wars are less frequent, and there is evidently a greater readiness to settle amicably the differences which often arise among them without recourse to the club and the spear, as formerly. Not that war has ceased or that quar- rels are infrequent, for snch is not the case; but there is a marked improve- ment upon the whole. Slaves are better treated, and more sympathy is shown toward sufferers, and help often given them. Work is sought after, '
and its wages oftener enjoyed by the laborer than in former days. '
" The nnion of the Reformed Dutch Church of South Africa with the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches of Scotland in Livingstonia is one in which we rejoice, and we trust that the proverbial ~trength of the threefold cord may be exemplified in the help of these churches thus happily sharing in a common work fraught with common difficulty, but with abundant scope for work in the future. Already the Reformed Dutch Church contemplates strengthening the contingent they have placed in the field, and Mr. Murray has localities in view where other helpers may be stationed. ' , The Livingstonia Mission has spread out from five centres, " while the populous village>! to the south and north of the head station, Bandawe, on the west shore of the lake, are being gradually annexed to the kingdom of Christ. "
-Really Lewanika, under whose regis the heroic Coillard and his colleagues are laboring on the Zambesi, is turning out a different king from Mwanga. This is what he writes to M. Coillard: "I am not afraid of a revolution; but if I remain alivll and king of this country, I must put a stop to witchcraft, robbery, fornication, and drunkenness." By witchcraft he doubtless means the pretence of magic artd, which is often fatal to its victims through their fears, at! well as through baleful drugs.
– " My heart is hungry for something, and I don't know what it is."- Words of a Congo Valley African, Church Missionary Gleaner.
-Central Africa for May has an interesting article, read at Oxford by Archdeacon Maples, on the relation of the Moral Law to the Idea of God among the East Africans, and the Bantus generally. It appears that these all, apparently in the pure use of logical deduction, have arrived at the distinct belief in the personal God, the Creator of all men and things. They do not worship Him, being singularly indevout, and seem to regard themselves as standing in no moral relation to Him. They have also a distinct, though neither deep nor wide, apprehension of the moral law, but" as human, not divine." Therefore they 4ave properly no sense of sin. Their belief in God and their belief in Right, having originated independently, have both remained stagnant. But when God, being personal, is presented to them as necessarily standing in a supreme moral relation to them as personal, their consciences, the archdeacon declares, never fail to respond affirmatively. And this awakening apprehension of Right and Wrong as being also Holiness and Sin is that which first gives fruitfulness and progressiveness to the previous immemorial stagnancy of their whole spiritual development.
-The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has, in the hope of future conversi~:ms, obtained the erection of Mashonaland, between the Limpopo and the Zambesi, into a diocese. Matebeland, where the London missionaries are working, will not be mcluded in it.
-The Rev. James Parlane, writing of the Congo missions in the Missionary Record of the U. P. Church, says: "Another witness says, 'Of the members of these churches a very large percentage, considerably more than half, are persevering, energetic, aggressive Christian workers, such as put to shame the feeble and childish efforts of many Chlistians in our own land. To them, black men or white, Btate official of however high degree or slave of ever so mean a degradation, is either a ' son of God' or a ' son of the devil.' They know but two classes; and if you are not avowedly of the first, they immediately pronounce you to be of the second; • . . and then they present the gospel to you with all the eloquence and clearness of which their incomparable language is capable."
-Bishop Tucker has at last reached Uganda, after great sufferings. The ophthalmia, he fears, will eventually render an operation necessary. His letter of December 30th is published in the May Intelligencer. The biRhop says: "Truly, the half was not told me. Exaggeratioo about the eagerness of the people here to be taught there has been none. No words can describe the emotion which filled my heart as, on Sunday the 28th, I stood up to speak to fully 1000 men and women, who crowdEd the church of Buganda. It was a wonderful sight! There, close beside me, was the Katikiro, the second man in the kingdom. There, on every hand, were chiefs of various degrees, all Christian men, and all in their demeanor devout and earnest to a high degree. The responses in their heartiness were beyond everything I have heard even in Africa. There was a second service in the afternoon, at which there must have been fully 800 present. The same earnest attention was apparent, and the same spirit of devotion. I can never be sufficiently thankful to God for the glorious privilege of being permitted to preach to these dear members of Christ's flock."
The bishop was as unfavorably impressed with the king, as everyone else has been. But the teeth of the tiger have been drawn.
" I should say," remarks the bishop, "that such anotJ:1er open door does not exist in any other part of the world. And I should say, moreover, that in no other part of the world is there to be found a native church which is so disposed to support itself and its ministry as the church of Buganda. The land occupied by the missionaries is a gift from the peopie; the houses occupied by Messrs. Gordon and Walker were built for them by the Christians without any expectation of payment. And, to crown all, a large house of three rooms has been built for myself, and two amaller houses for the other members of my party. I have said that this crowns all, but it does not. Every day the Christians bring us food in such quantities that we have more than enough for sustenance. I do not expect it will be necessary for me to buy any food during the period of my stay here. The people are only too anxious to keep one here."
Since the bishop's arrival, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Mission have held conferences, and have drawn out more fully the terms of the modus vivendi, mutually pledging themselves to see that it is thoroughly carried through, and that the scandal of contentions between the two forms of Christianity shall cease before the heathen.
The bishop has confirmed seventy persons, set apart six laymen as native evangelists, and advanced Messrs. Baskerville and Gordon from the diaconate to the priesthood.
– " In order to do justice to Mackay's real significance, we must go beyond his direct missionary work, and his technical and industrial achievements. What we must emphasize still more in his character are the fruitful thoughts which he casts into the discussion of the African problem, the grand points of view on which he insists for its solution, the glowing enthusiasm and indefatigable energy with which he interposes over against the IIpiritual and secular conquerors of Africa, for the healing of the woes of the Dark Continent." -C. BUSSE, Allgemeine MissionlJ-zeitschrijt.
-Zealous Christian young men of England seem to have their attention now strongly directed to the Central Soudan. We perceive from the Young Men's Magazine, the organ of the Y. M. C. A. of Newcastle-on- Tyne, that two Y. M. C. A. men have set oui on such ft mission. They are Hermann G. Harris, B.A., aged 30, and Edward White, under 20. Farewell services have been held in the former centres of Mr. Harris's Christian activity, at Bolton. Bath, London, Liverpool, and Weston. The two gentlemen have gone first to Tunis for preparation.
-The Women's Missionary Union of South Africa, closely connected with the Huguenot Female Seminary, which is a daughter of Mt. Holyoke, has affiliated with it twenty·five local societies, and supports eight workers in <Uf;terent parts of ~ol,ltb A,friQa. ~o~e are amon~ the Bechuanaa i SOIUQ are among the French brethren in Lessuto j and one, Madame Goy, is on the Zambesi.
.-The Sixty-first Report on Foreign Missions of the Free Church of Scotland remarks: "The postponement of a convention with the Portu- guese has interrupted postal and steamer communications. The free navi- I!ation of the Zambesi and Shire has, however, been secured, and a small British subsidy alone is required to make the Scottish settlements, mis- sionary and trading, in Zambesi and Nyassaland, independent of Portugal forever. "
-The Scottish Presbyterian, London Congregationalist, and Eng-lish Universities' Mission districts have been virtually formed into the consular colony of British Central Africa. Consul-General H. H. Johnston is first commissioner.
JAPAN.
-It appears that the German missionaries in Japan-personally most excellent men-occupy the extreme ground of the original Tiibingen . school, from which the great body of the modern critical school has far receded. But even·they are scandalized at some of the present tendencies of one wing of Japanese Christianity. Herr Munzinger is very apprehen- sive that it will bring over too much of its earlier paganism. "A single misstep now," says he, "might do incurable harm. . . , What could result from the endeavor to develop the Christian theology in connection with Buddhism and Confucianism ~ . . ' If youthful Christianity is not fully conscious of its essentially higher value above Buddhism, it will buy its seeming victory dear. At the present time it is not even advisable for Christianity so much as to ventilate the question of assuming a more con- ciliatory attitude toward Buddhism. Every word to that effect is inter- preted by the latter as weakness, and stimulates it to advance against the enemy with new courage and firmer confidence. The decisive conflict be- tween the two religions, which at this time is in its full heat, and is car- ried on by the Buddhists with the most passionate energy. would thereby take an unfavorable turn, and, in the best event, the vi~tory of Chris- tianity would be a good while postponed. Cold reserve is just now more suitable than affectionate coquetry." The Calw MonatsbliUter, from which we quote this, remarks: " We are glad to note that, in this respect at least, our countrymen see more clearly than some eminent ministers, who are blinded by self-confidence, national pride, and optimism."
-The noble impulse of patriotism seems likely to become, to a part of our Japanese brethren, as much a stone of stumbling as to Jewish Chris- tianity, a great fraction of which, perhaps the numerical majority, was ultimately led astray by national feeling to prune and pare its Christianity to such an extent as to leave in it scarcely anything that was distinctive of the Gospel.
-At the recent celebration of the tenth anniversary of Mr. Ischii's Orphan Hou~e, or rather of the church of which he is a member, warm expression was given to the sense of obligation felt toward the missiona- ries. This is described as exciting considerable surprise: but it does not appear that serious exception was taken to it. It will probably be some time yet before a Japanese Christian is actually put under thp, ban by his brethren for showing a measure of affection tow!lfd t1108e w40 brou~ht t11~ Gosrel to his land,
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT BDITlIID AND CONDUCTED BY BEv. 1. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Oauses of the Disturbanoe in Ohina. try of China, and, to 80me extent, the political unit, too, of the masses as [EDITORIAL, 1. T. GRACEY, D.D.] against all order as well as against the party in power in the Government. It is with trepid9tion that we venture They were lawless, and terrorized the to treat of this theme. and our modesty several communities where they were would make us prefer that it were pre- found. A great number of them took to sented by some one in China at this the Yangtsi valley, and were to be found time; but our own resources are so in all its great cities. It would 8eem full, and are from so widely separated that this disturbing element would, districts, that it is not easy to indicate however, be limited to the one generato any writer just what ground they sug- tion. Strangely enough, it has not been gest to us as desirable to be covered. so. When men have died substitutes We therefore endeavor to summarize have been found for them, and the corsomewhat of the result of our own pa- rupt distribution of the pension fund tient study of the situation, without has gone on. So powerful had these burdening our article with naming our didcharged soldiers become, and so capavarious authorities. ble of fomenting trouble, it was not easy for the Government to arrest the A PENSIONED ARMY. oorruption of its: funds in this way. Tseng Kuo-chuan was at one time It seems not possible to set forth the directed by the empress dowager to reunderground agencies which have been duce this pension list. He said, as he at work in the fomentation of the recent had maintained before, that it was imdisturbances, without going back to the possible. After his death the central Taiping Rebellion. At that time the Government undertook the task, and Chinese Government called into the this became' the occasion of wide disfield an extra military force of a million satisfaction fomented by these men. or so of men. At the close of the war the soldiers were pensioned. '.chere SECRET SOCIETIES. were other courses open to the Government which wisdom would certainly Another important factor in this rehave suggested rather than this course. view is the secret societies of China. China had vast tracts of country unde- We are not a little surprised in. searchveloped, and it would have been in ac- ing through the best books on China cordance with modern statesmanship in within our command to find that this the West to have assigned to these sol- element of Chinese society is conspicudiers these tracts rather than a money ously absent from them. The most income. China had also great public prominent political secret society in works, on which these men might have China was the White Lily Society, which been profitably employed. Neither originated in Hupeh, and spread into course was taken, however. The pen- other States. It was a Buddhist vegeta. sioned army was dismissed with suffi- rian society, which read Buddhist books cient financial resource from the na- and avoided animal food. But designing tional treasury to keep them in idleness men admitted to it converted it into a if they so chose, and the most of them political sect. Besides the societies did so choose. They became a restless having a Buddhist basis there are the community, wandering over the coun- PlanchBtte Societies of the Red Light try, and loafing at the opium ilen·-that I'~d, tl1f;} White Li~bt-a awo.~ bfQthe/i' up-it Qf 111 tbe or~lUlill<eq V~Cf;} 1!nd, <levUhood of men, which [mayor may not be to resist the continuance of this recog- political. They are Taoist rather than nized corruption. It has, however, re- Buddhist. They cut off the head of a cently brought pressure to bear on it, cock and drink the blood mixed with with the result of stirring up the opwine on taking the oath of fellowship. position of these men to the adminis- They afe subject to organic direction as tration. This is held by some to be the to when they are to resist civil or polit- chief cause of the present outbreak. ical authority, whether expressed in the military or police power. They are or- A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT. ganized for mutual protection. They may be patriotic. It is well known that the present rul- ing house of the Government is of Tar- One of these non-Buddhist societies tar origin. There is diversity of opincomes in for a prominent place in the ion as to how far this is offensive to the study of the present situation. It is people of China. There are those who known as the Kolao Hui, and is a mili- represent that the people are bitterly tary organization, originally benevolent opposed to this foreign administration.' only. It is recognized as the most dan. Others think that the dissatisfaction is gerous of the existing sects. It consists more with the administration than with exclusively of soldiers. It is a pro- its nationality. The charge is made of scribed society, being esteemed a secret universal corruption among the official conspiracy. It was found extensively class. Whether, therefore, the nationamong the army of the time of the Tai- ality of the party in power is offensive ping war. In that army were a great or not, its unpopularity can easily be number of men from the province of made to centre in objection to it as for- Honau. They had a constitutional fond- eign-Manchu, not Chinese. There is ness for a roving, restless life. They certainly serious complaint against the were naturally a turbulent community. Government among a large part of the They won a name in the time of the re- people, even if the better class are not bellion, and are still known as the solid against the nationality of the " Honan Braves." They had, to a good Peking authorities, and whether the degree, saved the country. They have people as a whole are indifferent on the been the centre of disaffection. During subject or not. the recent disturbance in Foochow, on account of which missionaries re- FOREIGN COMMERCE AND DISPLACEMENT. moved to a place of safety at the mouth of the Min River, under advice of those As to the foreign European element, in authority, there were from two to it is the occasion of serious disturbance three thousand of these discharged of increasingly large parts of the com· Houan soldiers from the Yangtsi valley mercial and industrial classes. The present in Foochow, and about eight trade of the entire Yangtse valley has, in thonsand men from Honan under arms truth, changed hands. Foreign-built in the employ of the Tartar· general. A steamers have displaced the old Chinese number of the regular standing army junks, and this has thrown out of emhave joined the Kolao Hui. Thus the ployment a very large number of people, army on which the Government has to who have not found any other means of rely is itself sown with organized con- livelihood to compensate for the loss. spirators. These cannot be relied on to It is not easy in the interior of China to subdue any disturbance fomented by make a new adjustment of industries. the Kolao Hui. These men have been The people are conservative in their among the most earnest antagonists of habits and set in their industrial the reduction of the total bulk of the grooves. Displacing a class does not original pension fund. Government open a corresponding avenue for their pail therefore beeu wellnigh powerless toil speedily enough. Naturally these people fall into the ways of thinkin6 of those who antagonize foreign aggression. When we remember, therefore, that the Naturally they drift toward parties who organized Kolao Hui honeycombs it, it are disaffected toward the dynasty, is readily seen that insllrgents led by which has suffered if not fostered this members of that order, or with which foreign trade. Naturally they come to they are in sympathy, are not to be have a dislike to the foreign commercial carelessly confronted with threats on the traveller, who is now everywhere in the part of the Government. In the Taipinterior, pushing the products of foreign ing rebellion the Government found itfactories. Naturally they do not dis- self unequal to the task of snbdning the criminate as between classes of foreign- insurgents without calling on European ers, whether missionary, scientific, po- aid. There is no reason to believe they litical, or commercial, in their dislike to are more able to cope with any widewhat is foreign. This feeling is liable spread resistance to their authority at to be fanned into fanatical fllry by bad this time. A combination of all the men. It can be made Ilse of by illlCh an forces and circumstances which we have organization as the .. Honan Braves" or feebly set forth might therefore result the Kolao Hui, when they are them- in a formidable attempt to overthrow the selves ready to foment disorder by which dynasty itself. The Kolao Hui would they certainly hope to profit. delight in the opportunity for plunder and possible other advance of their for- SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES. tunes, which this would open to them. Altogether it is easy to see that the peo- Now add to these combustible ele- ple are very feebly governed from the mentR the fact that the people are super- Imperial Yamen at Peking, and that stitious and ignorant about the habits dynasty itself may very readily come to and beliefs of foreigners, and it is easily be so dependent on European force as seen how these Kolao Hui, or the lead- to lead to the result in practical politics ers of disaffection toward the Govern- that the Chinese Government itself may ment, can rouse the people by appeal- exist at their will ; and another &stern ing to their ignorant sympathies. Some- Question may be about to be precipitated times they declare that the foreign into the heart of European politics. The building or telegraph wire interferes contmued existence of the empire itself with Feng Shui, that all-pervading sci- may come only to await the agreement ence of LucIe which permeates every among the great military powers of Eupart of the Chinese theory of 80cial as rope as to the manner of its partition well as religious practice. Sometimes among themselves. an appeal is made to the human sympathies, as has been done so extensively Missions to the Iberian Peoples. in this present disturbance, by declaring that the foreigners steal children, that J. M. CHALLIS, D.D., SANTIAGO, CHILI. they may obtain their eyes to send abroad to make medicine. In one case Iberia was the ancient name for the it is said that the rioters went into the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. From cemeteries and took the bodies of re- this peninsula have gone forth the milcently interred children and paraded lions who now occupy the West India with them on exhibition through the Islands, Mexico, Central and Sonth streets, affirming that they found them America. These peoples number some in the Roman Catholic Hospital. sixty millions of souls, and are all in countries where the Church of Rome THE IMPERIAL ARMY_ has dominated for many centuries. Un- happily for the development of religiolls Still further, to comprehend the whole and moral life, the impress made by the case, we must refer to the regnlar army. Church of Rome has not been in accord- It is said that it exists withal q nite too ance with the spiritual teaching of the largely only on paper and the pay.roll. Word of God, nor has it been after a Hence a Hottentot dressed in a rag, liv. very high order or type. ing in a grass hut, and eating food which to us is repugnant, is in far more In the matter of education, wherever need of the Gospel than could be a the schools have been under the control Spanish maiden dressed in the latest of Romish priests or of Jesuit fathers Parisian styles, living luxuriously in a the res~lts have been limited, narrow, beautiful home. But it should ever be and unsatisfactory, the chief aim being remembered that civilization is not to exalt the Church rather than to give Christianity, even though Christianity knowledge; to bind the student more is a chief cause and a large element in firmly under priestly power than to en. civilization. There are civilized heathen large and strengthen the intellect; to just as certainly as there are uncivilized make abject slaves of the hierarchy or barbarous heathen. rather than bring the aspiring learner to independence of thought, of feeling, The Iberian peoples are to a very large or of action. Only when pressed by lib- extent civilized-enlightened, if yon de· eral or by Protestant competition has sire the highest expression. When you there been any active effort to meet the consider dress, appearance, house ap. exigencies of the case, and then only to pointment, and many items of social the smallest possible extent. To-day life, especially among the upper classes, there is need of Gospel missions and of you at once say these things are all one Gospel schools among that entire popu- can desire. The lamentable fact which lation which may properly be called the should be emphasized, and which ap- Iberian peoples. peals to the Christian heart, is, these peoples are not evangelized. Such a We are accustomed to estimate the im· statement may seem to some a most portance and pressing need of any mis· damaging one to the Church which has sionary enterprise by the immensity of dominated these peoples these three the popUlation to which our attention is centuries, and which during all these called. Many denominations have mis- years has had undisputed and despotic sions here and there in South America sway in all these lands. This arrogant and in Mexico, and to the constituency Church has had unhindered opportunity of these missionary societies the work to apply, by all its boasted machinery, seems less pressing than that to Eastern the Gospel of Christ to the intellect end fields, simply because the number of in- heart of these submissive millions; and habitants in any single republic appears if the application has not been made, it comparatively small. But the true way must be either that a wrong work has to look at this matter is not at a small been attempted or that there has been a work among the few in Cuba or Guate. terrible criminal neglect. Those who mala or Chili, but to efforts as directed are familiar with the religious life of the to a vast number who speak the Span. Iberian peoples, whether revealed in ish and the Portuguese tongue, and that Madrid, in Mexico, in Rio Janeiro, or this vast work is one. When we plan in Santiago, uniformly testify that a for it, work for it, give to it, we should dead churchism is all that can be found plan, and work, and give with sixty mil. as the outcome of these centuries of lions of unevangelized men and women unobstructed domination. Those who as the object of OUf interest, our gifts, know the moral life of these peoples our efforts, and our prayers. testify that the beauty of innocency has departed, and that under the whited ex· Then, again, interest in any specific terior of fashion and style and elegance mission field is measured largely by the is the rottenness of vice and crime, degree of civilization of the people to which shows that conscience has been whom we go. The more degraded a foully debauched, and thatmoralst&nd. people are physically as well as morally, ards are gauged only by the world, the according to our standards of style and appearance, the more needy they are. :fiesh, and the devil. The priesthood we are disciples of Christ as well as immoral, corrupt, venal, and inactive in manufacturers, that we are missionaries promoting any moral or religious life of the cross as well as merchants, we among the people ; the better classes, shall not have fulfilled our whole duty. with many splendid exceptions, dissi· We should be as anxious to plant in pating, and in many cases grievously those lands the banner of the cross as sinning in velvet and broadcloth lind to establish business centres. We elegance; the lower classes, to a great should be as zealous to make known to extent, following the behests of a degrad. those peoples the fact of human redemp. ed appetite in homespun and COBrse at. tion as to tell them the story of onr tire and in unkempt surroundings. It American resources. We should be as must be said that while the general type eager to plant aU that immense region and trend of life is irreligious, and, ac. with Christian schools as to build their cording to American Christian stand· railroads and to open those vast rivers ards, immoral, yet in spite of bad exam· to American commerce. pIe, false teaching, and a corrupt priest. hood, there are some priests who are Until we have taken this view of onr pure and true in spite of their surround. responsibilities, and as honest disciples ings, and that among both upper and of Jesus Christ, and as genuine lovers lower classes are some who are better of our fellow·men have acted according. than their times, pnrer than their con· ly, we shall not have discharged our ditions wonld lead one to expect, and tremendous responsibility to millions worthy of all praise in their faithful of humanity who are our neighbors, effort to live above the prevailing type, and who are destined erelong to hold and to be noble and good in spite of the most intimate relations with our beloved hindrances which are so abundant and land. so strong. What may be true by excep· tion does not prevent the great fact that That we may adequately measure this the Christian Church needs to study vast work, let us place before us the im· with intense interest and consummate mensity of the region inhabited by the care the tremendous problem of evan· Iberian peoples, not to speak of Spain gelizing the Iberian peoples. and Portugal, since these countries are nearer our brethren in Great Britain; This mighty work interests Christianb although the American Board has mis· of Great Britain, who alroady have their sionaries there, let it be emphasized missions in Spain and Portugal. This that in the Western Hemisphere we vast work challenges the enthusiasm of have a region inhabited by these peo· American Christians of whatever organ. pIes equal to almost three times the size ized company, since the eyes of Ameri. of the United States. Mexico and Cen· can statesmen, manufacturers, and mer· tralAmerica have about 1,000,000 square chants look with peculiar interest to miles, South America has 7,250,000 Mexico and to'the republics of Central square miles, while the United States, and South America. We may plan for less Alaska, has but 3,400,000 square reciprocity, we may' subsidize steamers miles. In these countries are about and ships, we may endorse the canal 60,000,000 of souls, and toward these enterprise, we may prepare our sam· immense republics, especially in South pIes, we may establish business connec· America, a vast European immigration tions along the mighty rivers of South is tending. Before we shall be able ~rica and over her vast plains, we fairly to enter upon this tremendous may send our vessels to all ports, we work the population of these lands will may send our locomotives screeching be augmented by 50,000,000 more. It and puffing through all her wild fast. takes time to inform the mighty caval. nesses, but unless we remember that we cade of humanity now moving toward are Christians as well as statesmen, that her shores tbat the gates of the United States are being gradually closed. It
November
takes time to tell these restless hordes of all these countries should be consethat in the huge continent of South crated to God and not to Satan. It America the doors are opening wider means that the men and women and and wider to all who will come. It took children who are in these lands should many years to publish to the millions be taught the nature of that Gospel who have come to our shores what in- which will not keep them as slaves to ducements our great country offered an imbecile system, but will make them them. It will take years, though not so free men in Christ Jesus. It means that many, to tell those who are left behind those who are now there must be really how much greater and richer are the Christianized that they in turn may welnatural advantages South America offers come to Christian influences and condithem. Brazil had hardly declared her- tions the vast numbers whose coming is self a republic but thousands were ready so near. It means that the power of to leave the despotism and starvation of Divine truth shonld dominate the hearts the Old World and hasten to enjoy with of all, when the golden era dawns. It her the new-found freedom, to taste her means that these peoples should be led rich productions of fruit and grain, and to appreciate and possess the refined to bask in her welcoming sunshine, or gold of Divine riches better far than the rest under her luxuriant foliage. Brazil gold of Ophir, that they should know equals the United States in square miles. where to find the treasure hidden in a Already the immigration to the Argen- field, where can be secured the pearl of tine Republic is immense; and this coun- great price; how they can secure such a try is larger than the part of the United relation to Him who gives the corn and States east of the Mississippi River, and the olive, the silver and the gold, the every inch of it arable. With the Argen. emerald and the diamond, so as to betine, the other republics make an aggre- come sons and daughters to a King, and gate of square miles equal to the entire may possess not garments of silk and United States south of Canada, and the fine wool, but the robe of Christ's rightwhole is either available for agricultural eousness, and may not only become citipurposes or is rich in mineral wealth. zens of grand republics, but may be Mexico and Central America are begin- crowned as kings and priests unto God. ning to be known, and these contain a million or more square miles. Already To-day Brazil and the Argentine Remen of energy and foresight are seeking public, and Chili, Colombia, Mexico and out the more favored localities, and Central America, and Cuba are all open these lands will soon be as well under_ to Gospel preaching in churches and stood as our own States. Gospel instruction in schools. Peru is on the eve of unbarring the doors, so In all these republics are mUltiplying long closed by ignorance and superstiall active influences for a mighty devel- tion. Bolivia will soon follow in removopment. Railroads are in process of ing every legal obstruction to evangelical construction which will unite the three effort, and in due time Equador, the only Americas in bonds not only of steel, but country absolutely faithful to the papal of peace, fellowship, and brotherhood. see, will cast off her chains, and to the Capital from England and from America representative of the Gospel, to the is flowing into these lands, and the Word of God, will say, "Come in, thou mighty resources of the richest parts of blessed of the Lord; why standest thou the whole earth are about to be placed without ?" Across the sea Spain and in the hands of whoever will go and Portugal, the prolific fountain-head of take them. all these peoples, bids messengers of Christ enter and abide. Sixty millions And what does all this mean? Busi· of people now wait your coming, oh, ness, prosperity, wealth, comfort, lux- ~erald of the cross, and before your ury to many, yes; but it means vastly voice has penetrated the busy haunts of more. It means that the mighty wealth
INTERNATIONAL Dll:PARTMENT
present activity, sixty millions more, cheapness of American literature would from all nations under the sun, will have come to those favored lands, will be like the multiplied loaves from the have there established their homes, and will need your ministrations. hand of Christ as He fed the multitude Now is the time to send the preacher in the wilderness., of glad tidings and gather the people into the fold of Christ, and to instruct Sixty millions of people is no insig. the children in piety and truth. nificant constituency for some ambi- Now is the time to establish Christian schools in all the busy marts and in all tious and Christian publishing house. the widely scattered hamlets; now is the time to give a Christian education A Spanish or Portuguese edition of St. to those who are soon to be the men and women of action. The purpose of NicholaR, or of any of our beautiful illus. all this work ill to make homes of godli. ness, to purify business and social life trated magazines, not to speak of a refrom its false principles, and from all that is opposed to good morals, and to production in those languages of some permeate the public life with the reo straining and elevating power of that of the very beautiful, pure, and ele. wisdom that cometh from above. Now is the time to introduce into all these vating secular literature of our day, lands a Christian literature which, like the light of the morning sun, will scat· would be a blessing of untold value to ter the miasmas of ignorance and vice, and put in its place the pure air of those millions who are hungry for any truth, which, as it touches the brows of the youth, will preserve the bloom of kind of intellectual food, but who are innocence and give the strength of spiritual health. Oh, that some of our now largely supplied with the poison of great publishers could see the tremen· dous opportunity not only to establish error and with the death.giving pabu. a grand business, but to do an infinite amount of good in providing a pure lum of lowest vice. literature for sixty millions of the Iberiltn peoples! Poorly supplied now with The Iberian peoples wait the kindbooks that are costly for the poorer classes, abundantly supplied now with ness of American Christians. Business books that are full of error and im. morality, these peoples are hungry for men of Germany, of France, and of Eng. any intellectual food, because just be. ginning to taste the pleasures of educa. land are trying to introduce their prod· tion. Millions just learning to read! They have been starving for genera. ucts ; but from none of these landl are tions. Intellects have been dwarfed and repressed by Jesuitical restrictions missionary efforts put forth to save and and by the conditions which the Rom. ish Church has forced upon them. But elevate these peoples excepting in old now has come the hour of awakening. The new appetite is omnivorous, and Spain and Portugal, where British the devil is busy with his sweetly put poison. Good books of the quality and Christians, as ",ell as the American Board, are doing missionary work.
Americans are seeking by treaties, by plans for quick and cheap intercom· munication, to secure a part of the trade of these republics, and to American Christians has by a common consent been left the mighty work of evangeliz- ing these vast republics south of the United States, and of preparing influ- ences which shall receive and transform into good citizens the millions who are in the next half century to crowd in upon those nations now so ill prepared to receive them. .
So while we are seeking as Americans to secure commercial advantages, let us remember that in no way can we better discharge our neighborly responsibility and our duty to God than by respond.
ing to the opportunities God is opening to us by supplying these peoples with the elements of prosperity which have done so much for our land, and by help.
ing these peoples to the moral elements of a Christian citizenship. Let us take care lest. in our effort to secure the populous empire. At least that is as wealth that may come from closer na- we see it now.
tional and business relations without giving them of our precious spiritual JOINT PROCLAMATION OF THE TARTAR GENERAL HSI, AND THE VICEROY PmN. treasures. we take to ourselves a cancre that will eat and corrode rather than On the 6th day of the 6th moon of the bless. 17th year of Kuanghsii, we received a Then let American Christians push despatch from the Tsungli.Yamen to their Master's business among the Ibe- the following effect : rian peoples with a greater zeal than the " On the 7th day of the 5th moon of American manufacturer, business man, the 17th year of Kuanghsii, this Yamen or statesman shall push his schemes for memorialized the Throne re the fre· personal gain or for national aggrandize- quency of Church questions in the vari- ment. ous provinces and praying that ~trin· gent orders should be sent to the Vice· The Ohinese Government ana Ohristian roys and Governors to take prompt Missions. [J. T. G.] action. The Privy CmIDcil have this day received an Imperial Decree run- We have been favored with a copy in ning thus :" Chinese of the Edict of the Tartar General of China and the Vice.Emperor of " We have received a memorial from the Empire concerning the crisis in that the Tsungli-Yamen in reference to the country created by the uprising of cer- frequency of Church questions in the tain persons of " the baser sort." It is various provinces and praying that strinfortunate for our apprehension of it that gent orders should be issued to the Viceit is accompanined with a translation roys and Governors to take prompt into English, which we' now present to action. It is stated therein that some our readers. It is held in China to be time in the 4th moon of the present the most favorable State paper ever is. year, Churches at Wuhu, Anhui provsued in that country concerning foreign. ince, were burned down by mobs; ers and Christians, that at Tanyang district, Kisngsu, prov- ince, and at Wusueh, Hopek province, Apart from the immediate status of Churches were also destroyed in succesthe case, this is an historic document of sion ; that these villains should be at great interest and importance, and many once apprehended and stringent measwill be glad to have it preserved in this ures of precaution should be promptly form for future reference. It is certain· taken. It is provided in the treaties ly important as an index of the hold that foreign mispionaries may propagate Christianity has on the situation. There will be no real set.back to West· their religions. In Our previous Dpcree, ern influence owing to this movement, We ordered the provincial Authorities as this proclamation commits the Gov. ernment to the defence of Christians, to afford them protection at all times. both native and foreign. If it is ahle to For many years, Chinese and foreigners execute its own decrees it will be com_ have lived side by side in harmony. pelled to do so, and if unable, then it How is it that only recently, cases of burning and destruction of Churches have arisen (almost) simultaneously. This is really very astonishing. Evi- dently, there must have been principal perpetrators secretly plotting to secure accomplices and disseminating false rumors to unsettle the minds of the peo.
pIe, with a view to seizing an oppor- tunity to commit plunder. The worst is that even innocent people who had hitherto been peaceably attending to will be obliged to resort to forpign as- their duties were enticed to become their sistance as it did in the Taiping rebel. accomplices. Their actions brought lion, and thus come still more under about pregnant cases. Should these obligation to the foreign powers. In people be not rigorously dealt with, how either case. therefore, the result must can the majesty of the law be mainbe, on the whole, an advance of West· tained and the community enjoy tranern influence and increased opportunity quillity. for Christian work in that vast and "We now command the Viceroys of Liang-kiang and Hukuang and the Gov- ernors of Kiangau, Anhui and Hopeh at once, to direct proper officials, civil and Christians discriminatingly; and even military, to have the principal criminals if the Christians are guilty of unjust or arrested, and when tried and found lawless acts, let the people appeal to the guilty, decapitated as a warning for the authorities and await trial. When right future. The religions of the Weste::n and wrong are brought to the light, laws nations aim at teaching people to do will be duly administered.
good, and though people become adher- It has ever been our way to exercise ents of the religions, they are still Chi- our most unbiassed judgment, and when- nese subjects and continue to be sub- ever cases of lawsuits between the ordi- ject to tl>.e authority of Chinese offi- nary people and the Christians are re- cials. There is no reason why the' ported to us by our subordinates we al- Christians and the Non – Christians ways judge equitably and never in the shOUld not be able to live in harmonv least side with anyone party. Of late and the sole caUBe of the trouble may years they have got along fairly well; be attributed to lawless elements in. From and after the issuance of this venting groundless. stories in order to proclamation, let the people break off gain 0. chance to create disturbances. their further prejudices against, and be Such evil characters are everywhere to on friendly terms with the Christians.
be found. Do not give a ready ear to floating re- .. We hereby command the Tartar ports and wantonly cause trouble, thus Generals, Viceroys and Governors of incurring severe punishment. Injuring the various provinces to issue procla- others is to injure yourself, and repent- mations of notification warning the peo- ance will come too late, etc.
ple against giving ready credence to such idle reports and wantonly causing trouble. In case there be any evil·dis_ posed persons making anonymous placards and fabricating stories to excite the A Thousandfold More }fission Work people, no time should be lost in insti- Needed.
tuting strict and secret inquiries and Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop has for two apprehending and severely punishing them. The local officials must at all years past been making a tour of mis- times protect the persons and property sions in Asia. Beginning with the of foreign merchants and missionaries Keith..Falconer Mission at Sheikh Othand not suffer them to be disturbed or mann, Arabia, she passed on to India, harmed by evil characters. and thence to Kashmir, where she spent " Should the precautionary measures not be sufficiently stringent, and dis- three months. She visited the devoted turbanoes be the outcome, let the local Moravian missionaries in Thibet, of authorities be severely denounced and whose work she says "we hear so litcashiered. tle, and who need our pTayers so much."
•• We also command the Tartar Gen- erals, Viceroys and Governors to take Her tour through Persia intensified prompt measures for dealing with and her convictions .. of the absolute need of closing all outstanding cases and not to increasing missionary qJort a thousandallow their subordinates to shrink from old. ' , She says: •• Just think; from diiD.culty and delay the settlement. We proclaim this for general information." Karachi to Bagdad, among the populous "Having communicated with the various foreign ministers at Peking, this cities and villages of the Persian Gulf, Yamen has now respectfully copied out of the TigriR and Euphrates, throughout the a.bove Decree for your observance." Arabia, throughout south and southwest Besides sending separate instruc- Persia, not a missionary! From Bag. tions to our suboTdinate officials, civil and militaTY, ordering them to act in dad to Teheran-almost the most popuobedience thereto, we deem it proper to )ous district of Persia-'not a mission- immedia.tely proclaim this to you, so}. ary! The great oasis of Feraghan at 0.
dierli and people under our jurisdiction. height of 7000 feet; with 680 villages Know ye that the adherents of the Christian reli~ion are also Chinese sub- craving. medical advice, never visited, jects and continue to be amenable to scarcely mapped! Then Juifa and the jurisdiction of the local authorities. Ham"dan, with their few wOTkers, al.
In case of lawsuit, the merit of the case most powerless to itinerate, represent alone, and not the condition of per- the work of the Chur.ch for the remain. sons, is to be considered. Christians der of PeTsia! Two million nomads and non· Christians are to be treated alike. The people must not look on the never touched." .
EDITOlUAL NOTES ON CtlRRENT TOPICS
III.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The following is an extract of a letter himself may justify the hope that un- ceasing prayer may be offered in his berecently received from Rev. H. C. Velte, half that, in undertaking this great of Lahore, India: work of preaching to a congregation LA.HORE, PUNJA.B, INDIA., July 7,1891. singularly prepared by affliction and prayer for the sowing of the seed of the The editor of the MISSIONARY REVIEW kingdom, he may have a special anointwill have heard of the death of Rev. ing. For months daily supplication has John Newton, in Merrel, India, on July been offered for Mr. Spurgeon at the 2d. Tabernacle, and the whole people are in a very receptive frame; there is every " He was the oldest missionary of the indication of a great harvest. Will not Presbyterian Church, and the oldest the reader follow the writer of these lines missionary in India, having come to with devout and daily prayer, and ask India in 1836, and havbg been in mis· for Mr. Spurgeon himself full recovery sionary service for fifty·six years. and rapid restoration to his accustomed spheres of work with voice and pen? The Lahore station was opened by him immediately after the Punjab had ARTHUR T. PIERSON. been annexed by the British Government, and here he labored to the end A Solemn League and Oovena.nt. of his life. He died in his eighty.first year. These are days of alliances-alliances for prayer; the Anti.Opium League, A Personal W0rd. Personal Purity Covenant, organized opposition to rum, to tobacco, to Sun· Before this number reaches the read- day papers, and Sunday travel, etc. We er, the editor-in·chief expects to be on have recently heard of an organization the ocean, if not in London. By a in Great Britain whose members bind strange series of peculiar providential themselves each day to perform some lowly act in helping those who have the leadings, he has been guided to respond drudgery of life as their portion-to to a cordial invitation from Pastor help some burden-bearer with his load, sweep a crossing, drive a cart, saw a log, Spurgeon and his church officers to lay a wall-or in some other way iden. come and preach in the Metropolitan tify one's self with the honest Bons of Tabernacle for a few months, during the toil. From what threatened to be his convalescence of the beloved pastor. dying bed, the valiant soldier, Charles H. Spurgeon, dictates a solemn league No reference would be made to the and covenant to his brethren scattered matter here, but that it is perhaps due throughout the wide world, which is to the readers of the REVIEW to know meant to unite all who believe in the that. in the absence of the chief editor, full inspiration of the whole Bible, and there will be every provision made for in the old truths from which so many the proper supervision of this important are now departing, in one brotherhood work. Any communications for the first of closer affiliation ; and it is a sublime department, the Literature of Missions, document; it sounds like Paul the aged may be sent direct to Rev. A. J. Gar· writing from prison cell in Rome. We don, D.D., 182 West Brookline Street, venture to reproduce it here. Boston, Mass. Anything pertaining to the International Department to Rev. " Impelled by concern over increasing J. T. Gracey, D D., 161 Pearl Street, changes and defecthns among their Rochester, N. Y. And any Statistical brethren, and by the absance of any ao. Reports, Reports of Societies, etc., to Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, Ohio. The address of the editor.in.chief, until further notice, will be Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, London, England.
The editor announces this providential call in these pages, in hopes that the tie formed between the readers and cepted formulas of belief in their de- union. Yet, if there be any power in nomination, the Rev. Charles H. Spur. such close association, we know no rea· geon and other leading Baptist ministers son why it should not be utilized in reo in England recently drew up and signed spect to missions. It is manifest that the following confession of their faith, if this work of a world's evangelization which is being extensively circulated is to be accomplished, it must be, not for signatures: by dependence on the great body of church.members, but on the church " • We, the undersigned, banded to· within the Church, the .. soven thougether in fraternal union, observing sand" who have not bowed the knee to with growing pain and sorrow the the Baal of this world. So long as we 100Rening hold of many upon the truths judge the available force of the ChU!'ch of revelation, are constrmned to avow by numerical standards we deceive ourour firmest belief in the verbal inspira- selves. No calculations as to the numtion of all Holy Scripture as originally ber of workers who can be obt,ained, given. To us the Bible does not merely or the amount of money which can be contain the Word of God, but is the collected, can be other than misleading Word of God. From beginning to end so long as the church·rolls are the basis we accept it, believe it, and continue to of calculation. No one can deny that preach it. To us the Old Testament is millions of bad fish have been caught in no less inspired than the New. The the great drag.net, and that the tares book is an organic whole. Reverence are growing conspicuously and plentifor the New Testament, accompanied fully in the wheat field. by scepticism as to the Old, appears to us absurd. The two must stand or fall But there is a remnant, according to together. We accept Christ's own ver· the election of grace. Why should not dict concerning "Moses and all the that remnant draw closer and come to a prophets" in preference to any of the mutual understanding? Why should supposed discoveries of so·called higher not the Church of God learn what pro· criticism. portion of its members are really ready to receive aud obey the Lord's last com- … We hold and maintain the truths mand, and live as under some practical generally known as .. the doctrines of sense of obligation either to go, or send grace." The electing love of God the Bome one who can and will go, to the Father, the propitiatory and substitu' unsaved souls of heathendom? Just tionary Ilacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ, now these more consecrated livers and regeneration by the Holy Ghost, the im. givers are often met at the conventions putation of Christ's righteousness, the of believers, where the Word is studied justification of the sinner (once for all) and a higher type of piety is urged. by faith, his walk in newness of life and And they make these conventions what growth in grace by the active indwelling they are in power and interest. They of the Holy Ghost and the priestly in. give grandly when the Lord asks for tercession of our Lord Jesus, as also the money. At Niagara Conference, for some hopeless perdition of all who reject the years past, thousands of dollars have Saviour, according to the words of the been poured into the missionary treasu. Lord in Matthew 25 : 46, " 'rhese shall ries by a few humble givers, most of go away into eternal punishment," are, whom are poor in this world's goods. in our judgment, revealed and funda· At a recent meeting of believers at the mental truths. Our hope is the per· seaside, Pastor Simpson, of New York, sonal, premillennial return of the Lord received $30,000 for his independent Jesus in glory. mission work. At Keswick Convention, in Britain, not only have large offerings Signed ,. C. H. SPURGEON, A. G. been made to the Lord's work by a com- BROWN, J. DOUGLAS," and others. paratively few perlilQUIl, but from tbv.t It is possible, of course, to place undue relillnce on ft UOmillftl bond of annual gathering have issued some of evening in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the most inspiring and aggressive move- London, in behalf of C. H. Spurgeon, ments ever known in modern mission which, at the date of this writing, are in work, and in that most self-sacrificing of the eighth or ninth week of their con· all labor, the work in the slums of our tinuance. No wonder if, as Spurgeon great cities. says, he could not die -the prayers of his people would not let him die. What The Church of God, corrupted as it if God, angels, and men could see the is by worldliness and formalism, con- Church assembled daily for prayer from tains the saints of C}od-those who live seven o'clock A.M. to nine o'clock P.M., nearest to Him in holy love and walk; asking God to raise up and to thrust and if, instead of being separated from forth laborers, enlarge the liberality of e" ,h other, and so unconscious of the His people, open all closed doors, and deep sympathy and wide extent of this enable His Church to complete the carfellowship, they could be brought into rying of the Gospel to every creature! contact, and, above all, conference, what Who dares to doubt that grand results results might not issue! Why should would follow, the like of which liave not some closer compact bind those dis- never yet been seen! ciples who feel the privilege and power of intimate walk with God-to whom Many of God's people who may not the last command of Christ is all-im- join Mr. Spurgeon in his Calvinistic portant, and who arB ready both to give views, are ready to join in an agreement and pray, to go if God permit, or help of prayer to carry out some such solemp. to send if they cannot go? Suppose confession of duty, faith, and privilege that in the thirty or forty millions who as the following: are on the roll of Protestant churches there are thirty or forty thousand who •• We, the undersigned, deeply feeling would unite in daily and definite prayer, the reproach and dishonor of the at a certain hour, for the immediate Church of God in the long neglect of evangelization of the world, for a new the perishing millions of our race, and display of pentecostal grace and power, in the selfish hoarding and spending of for a new advance to the very outposts money which has been committed to of the globe; who would undertake to disciples as stewards; and painfnlly live a self-denying life, and give all they conscious that unbelief has led to the can save or spare from their reasonable still worse neglect of believing prayer wants to the spread of the kingdom ; in behait of a world's evangelization, do, who would offer their children to mis- in the name of Jesus, declare our deep sions, as Hannah gave Samuel; who conviction that it is the duty and priviwould covenant to live, without regard lege of the disciples of Christ to bear j;o the prevailing low type of piety, a the Gospel message to the whole race of biblical life-from such a band of men man with all possible promptness; that and women what new power might be every believer is responsible before God going forth! For ourselves, of nothing for the carrying ont of our Lord's last this side of God do we feel a greater command; that the avenues of self-in_ need than of this close contact and con- dulgence shonld be closed that we may verse with those throughout the world have the more to give to those that who feel the need of a new obedience need; that we ourselves should be ready to the whole spirit of the last commis- to go wherever we are sent, and to send sion. Can anyone help us to attain others where we may not go; that our this oloser bond? children should be consecrated, from the womb, unto God's service, and en- No more sublime spectacle has been couraged to cherish the spirit of mispresented to the world since apostolic sions. And we are especially impressed days than the daily prayer-meetings, ihat ilaily and believing prayer should coutinued fl"o~ e~ll ~ol"ninl;l to lat~ be o~efed fOf t:ie speedl eVln8eli2<at~oll of this world £ond the coming of the While the baron gracefully compli. kingdom of God. We believe it is the. ments Mr Carnegie for his benefactions privilege of all true believers to implore of "libraries, green parks, beautiful God for the speedy outpouring of His churches," etc., he prefers, for himself, spirit in a world-wide pentecost of to devote his wealth to the alleviation power. of suffering. He says: "And in this faith we do solemnly .. In relieving human suffering I never undertake, in holy agreement before ask whether the cry of necessity comes God, however widely separated from from a being who belongs to my own . each other, to meet each other at the faith or not; but what is more natural throne of grace in the early morning than that I should find my highest pur- hours of each day in earnest and im- pose in bringing to the followers of portunate prayer." Judaism, who have been oppressed for a thousand years, who are starving in Will not those who wish to join such misery, the possibility of a physical and an alliance send on their names? moral regeneration ?-than that I should try to free them, to build them up into A blunder in the October issue of this capable citizens, and thus furnish REVIEW, in some unaccountable way, humanity with much new and valuable placed at the head of the Monthly Con. material ?" cert matter, on pages 786-90, the name of J. T. Gracey, D.D. This part of, our This benefactor of his race begins at recent issue was contributed .by our as- the right end, and seeks, first of all, to sociate editor, Rev. D. L. Leonard, and make a new manhood, to change a tramp should have been credited to his accom· and a dependant and a consumer into a plished and versatile pen. man and a producer and a supporter, and so to prepare the way for the recon- Baron Hirsch has come to the front, structed man himself to reconstruct his and, in the Newth American Review, pre. surroundings. Baron Hirsch has learned sents his" Views on Philanthropy." A that the environment does not make the man that is perhaps the most munifi- man-he makes his environment, or cently liberal of all modern givers· has may, at least, modify it. 8, right to be heard on the philosophy of gIvmg. He modestly but positively Baron Hirsch's hopes as to success are puts forth his opinions. His funda- stimulated by the fact that several hun- mental proposition is very close akin to dred Russian Jewish families of wan- the doctrine of Christian stewardship, dering tradespeople, exiled to the Ar- and if practically adopted would over- gentine Republic some years ago. have turn completely the modern system-·or become thrifty farmers. "who with rather lack of system-in benQvolence. plough and hoe know how to farm as well as if they had never done anything ,. It is my inmost conviction," says else. They layout their farms in the the baron, "that I must consider my- best manner, and build themselves such self as only the temporary administrator pretty little houses that every one in the oj the wealth I have amassed, and that it vicinity employs them as carpenters in. is my duty to contribute in my own way house building. ,. In devoting himself to the relief of the suffering of those who to the same line of work, he feels cer- are hard pressed by fate. " He contends tain that" he who frees thousands of his that the old system of almsgiving only fellow·men from suffering and an op- makes so many more beggars ; and that pressed existence, and helps them to the greatest problem in philanthropy is become useful citizens, does a good .. to make human beings, who are capa- work for all humanity." pIe of work, out of those who otherwise must become paupers; and in this way The New York Times, September 11th, gives the details as follows: to c~eate useful w.e~bera of aociet;r." "lJafon Hirac4'li m~niii.ce~t licl1e~~ takes the form of a limited liability ing buildings, etc. The rest is to be company, called' The Jewish Coloniza-, applied to expenses of transport, and tion Association,' registered, the office otherwise to assisting emigrants.
of which will be in London. Its nom- Moneys not in active use will be invest- inal capital is £2,000,000, in 20,000 ed in public securities of England, shares of £100 each. Of these, Baron France. Belgium, Holland, Germany, or Maurice de Hirsch subscribes to 19,990. the United States. The governing body Seven Hebrew gentlemen are named in will be a Council of Administration, the articles as owning one share each- consisting of from three to six men, who Lord Rothschild, Sir Julian Goldsmid, need not necessarily be members of tho Earnest John Cassel, F. D. Mocatta, and company and who will be elected for Benjamin Louis Cohen, all of London, fi ve years. These will have no salaries, and Salomon Reinach and S. H. Gold. but will have their actual expenses.
schmidt of Paris. This leaves three This council will appoint directors, shares unallotted, and doubtless these three or less in number."
will be offered to representatives of the United States and Germany. The ob- There was a curious scene in St. jects of the association are : to assist the Paul's Cathedral, London, one Saturday emigration of Jews from countries in. afternoon not long since. A large con- Europe and Asia where they are sub· gregation, chiefly Jews, assembled under jected to special taxes and disabilities the dome to hear the Rev. GOl'don Cal· to other parts of the world, and estab. throp on "The Jewish Question." lish colonies in North and South Ameri. Converted and unconverted Jews minca for agricultural and commercial pur. gled in the audience, and joined at the poses. No colonies will be attempted close in singing the hymn" 0 praise our in Europe. The association takes to it. great and gracious Lord." self full rights to carryon trade, com- merce, and all industrial operations which may facilitate the objects of the Apologies for self-indulgence are hi company; to purchase property, nego. many and as specious as channels for tiate securities, etc. The whole prop. personal gratification are varied. Re- erty of the company and the income ferring recently to the deoease of a cer· arising from it are consecrated solely to tain lady worth forty millions of dollars, the work in view. None of it can ever whose life work and practical monument be taken, directly or indirectly, as a has been the erection of a sumptuous dividend or bonus. If upon the wind. and palatial residence which rivals the ing up or dissolution of the company royal homes of the Old World for mag.
any property remains, it is not to be nificence and munificence of outlay, distributed among the members, but the editor of a leading religious journal transferred to some other Jewish insti- remarks that if, in her dealing with the tution with similar objects, for the hundreds of workmen and skilled arti- benefit of the Jewish community resid- sans of America and from Europe, whom ing out of Europe and needing pecuniary she has employed, she has been consid.
aid. In the event of such dissolution erate and generous, her life and fortune all persons who at the time hold lands have not, perhaps, been wasted.
granted them or their predecessors in This reminds us of a pretext for this title by the company shall be released kind of self·indulgence which is becom· from further obligation of annual or ing more and more common. We had other payments to the company, and a friend who, like Mrs. Searles-Hop· the same is tru8 of those to whom ad- kins, built a palatial residence, and fur· Tances have been made. Not more than nished it with' all the comforts, con- half of the capital is to be applied to veniences, and luxurious appointments aclI!uirin~ propertr, buyinS lands, erect· which Illoder~ l!O~II:QO~ and art! co~- joined with vast wealth lavishly expend- spirit of Christ is to displace the spirit ed, could procure. And be was wont to of evil. say that all this vast expenditure was .. putting just so much money into poor A Jewish mission has been begun in men's pockets." New York City, under the City Mission' and Traot Society, at De Witt Memorial Grant it-that this keeps money in Churoh 280 Rivington Street, and Her. circulation which otherwise would lie mann Warszawiak has come from Eu. in coffers or in safety-deposit vaults; rope to take charge of it. On the Satur. grant it-that thus workmen are em. day in August, when the first chief meet. played and kept in food and raiment. ing was held, the chapel was not only What of the influence of such lavish filled, but many could not get inside, expense on the man spending? Is his and the earnestness of the Jewish listen. motive the helping of poverty and mis- ers was remarkable. The sermon was ery to a competency and a life of com· from Jeremiah 6: 16, as fulfilled in fort and happiness, or is it his own in- Matt. 11: 28-30. Many of the Jews dulgence of the lusts of the flesh, the present expressed willingness to follow lnsts of the eyes, and the pride of life? Jesus to get rest. Mr. Warszawiak Is this wholesale expenditure; that ends wishes to establish a " Home for Jews," onone's own home and its appointments, and some $500 toward the $3000 reo calculated to restrain and repress that quired have been subsoribed and paid. self-indulgence or give rapid develop- John Wilkinson, whose work in Lond{ln ment to that selfishness which needs is well known in the so-called" Mild. only to be fed to become gigantic and may Mission to the Jews," has presented monstrous and despotic! 20000 New Testaments in Hebrew and J;dica-German, and offers to pay for Balzac in his "Peau de Chagrin," their distribution in the United States. has used the myth of the magic skin as On this new effort to provide a GOSp61 the basis of a fiction not without a refuge for the poor perseouted convert· moral. This skin confers on the wearer ed Jews and Russian refugees, all of the power to gratify every wish and Q:od's dear children will de…outly in. whim; but with every such indulgence voke a blessing. the skin closes more tightly about the wearer, until he is hopelessly and fatally Rev. Robert Steel, D.D., of North embraced in the very means of his own Sydney, N. S. W., adds It note sup. gratification. We do not hesitate to say plemental to the letter .published in that of all the means whereby the best July last, p. 560, as to the mission to the impullles in us are quenched and the aborigines of Australia in Northern worst strengthened, we do not believe Queensland : anyone influenoe is for rapid and sure results equal to simple self·gratification. " The Federal Assembly of the Pres· To say, of all things, that I want to byterian churches of Australia:. which have or to do, 'I will have this' or' I will met at Brisbane, Queensland, m July, do this,' and to have the means to carry appointed two missionaries to labor out the selfish wish, is the most danger- among the aborigines. They were se· ous of all possibilities. It develops lected by the United Bret~ren o~ Herrn. oftentimes a monster of sel:qshness; hut, in Saxony, and arnved ln Mel" and the wisest of the wealthy recognize bourne in July. They are at present the peril, and antidote it by abundant under the care of the Rev. F_ A. Hage. cbarities and self denials unknown to nauer who has labored for more than the world. The rioh as well as the poor thirtyyears among the aborigines of Vic. may bear the oross after Christ, though toria, and who is able to give the new the spheres of self-renunciation may be missionarips valuable counsel. The different; but there must be self-denial Federal Assembly appointed two of its mernbers-Rev. Andrew Hardie, Conand self.abnegatioll 1I0meh.ow if th.e veller cit the ltijijllio&:l OOIDlIlittee, a&:Id
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
Rev. Samuel Robinson, both of Mel- sympathies and prayers of all interested bourne-to proceed to the proposed site in the welfare of the aboriginal races. for the mission and to inspect it. They The celebrated missionary of the New had an interview with the head of the Hebrides, Dr. J. G. Paton, was present Government, the Hon. Sir Samuel at the Federal Assembly in Brisbane, and delivered an address on the mission. Griffith, K.C. M.G., who promised all necessary aid in the matter of reserves, " The missionaries to the Queensland rations, and clothing for the blacks; aborigines are the Rev. J. G. Ward, an but the Church would have to pay the ordained minister, and Mr. Nicholas missionaries. The brethren referred to Hey, a young farmer from Herrnhut, have reported favorably of the site, who has been trained for mission work. which is on the Batavia River, on the The Fed"ralAssembly sanctiolled an apeast side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, in peal to the American Government and the Peninsula ot Cape York, the most churches to assist in having the restricnortherly point of Australia. The tions regarding the sale of intoxicating aborigines are numerous there, and are liquors and fire arms applied by all at some distance from settlers. It is countries, and urged the British Govhoped, therefore, that a fair opportunity ernment to provide for the settlement may be got for Christianizing some of of disputed land claims. them, if they can be induced to settle on the reserve. This race has not been •• It was· reported that the mission readily brought under Christian infiueDce, owing to their very migratory among the Kanakas on the sugar planta_ habits. Some, however, have been en- tion in Queensland was making encourlightened, converted to Christ. and have aging progress. The Rev. J. M. Macinexhibited the graces of Ohristian char. tyre had baptized 70, while 1336 had put on the blue ribbon. A great imacter. This new attempt deserves the provement has taken place among the laborers since the mission began."
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
South America is the smaller half of whom not less'than five per cent are the New World. Four fifths of it lies in European subjects. There are also the tropics. It has been remarked that about* a half million sa vage Indians, or, it is largest where North America is roughly, approaching twice as many as smallest, and smallest where it is largest. the totaI Indian population of the United Some have thought its physical posi- States, including Alaska. These are tion, so largely in the tropics, gave it a confined mostly to the interior of the great advantage prospectively over the continent of South America, with a few northern part of the hemisphere, which small tribes, numbering, perhaps, 5000, has so great a proportion lying in the in Central America. Three-tenths of cold of the far North. This is not to the population of South America is put be taken without some caution. It is down as pure white and one-tenth relatively deceptive when merely judged negro; others are of mixed blood. The from the map. Commercially, the most rapid immigration of Europeans of late largely productive part of South Ameri- years has, however, been materially ca, after all, is found within its temper. modifying these proportions. ate, not within its tropical districts. Brazil is the size of the United States, The physical resources vary much in but a small part of it is esteemed capa- the several States in relation to comble of agriculture. The equatorial val- merce. The Orinoco is navigable for ley is filled with dense forests. Yet '1000 miles, the Amazon for 2600 miles. South America is, as a whole, very in- From its base to the Andes, with its teresting and important. Fifty-some tributaries, it presents 6000 miles of say sixty-millions of people are the total population of Spanish America, in- * We are following the official docnment of cluding the West fudies and ;Brazil, of William Eleroy Cnrtis, printed at the Govern- ment Printing Office at Washington in 1889. Oth- ers will present divergellt ligures from these, navigable waters. The Upper Paraguay itually paralyzed by the Roman Church, and Southern Parana present an unin. which here has for 300 years laid the terrupted waterway north and south palsy·smiting hand of excessive Ilnd like the Mississippi. A United States heretical sacerdotalism on the people. Government document says that the river Platte offers a more extensive sys· Brazil presented three obstacles to tem of unobstructed navigation than progress to the mind of Agassiz-slavery, any river in the world, and, with the a corrupt clergy, and a lack of educa. exception of the Amazon, pours more tional institutions. Now slavery is water into tbe ocean. It affords more gone; but even with it Agassiz could miles of navigation than all the rivers say, in his" Journey to Brazil" : of Europe combined and more than the Mississippi, with its several tributaries. ".There is much also that is very It is tidal 260 miles from its mouth, cheering that leads me to believe that and ocean ships of 24 feet draught can her life as a nation will not belie her be floated all the year for 1000 miles, great gifts as a country. Should her and those of 16 to 20 feet can go 2700 moral and intellectual endowments grow miles into the interior of the continent, into harmony with her wonderful natuand a small expenditure of money and ral beauty and wealth the world will not labor would enable a 4000·ton ship from have seen a fairer land." New York or Liverpool to go direct into the. very heart of the continent in Brazil But now of her 14,000,000 people, by way of Buenos Ayres. The Amazon those who have made a careful study of is 0 ustructed, but the Orinoco is open to the most accurate statistics procurable large vessels, and the Rio Negro affords estimate that four·fifths are unable to accoss into Patagonia. read. Dr. Chamberlain, a very compe· tent authority, widely familiar with the An equal number of cattle can be pur. larger part of the entire Western world chased in Argentina and Uruguay for by personal residence in various parts half the money paid for them in Texas. of North and South America, says that There are 96 sheep, 18 cattle, and 4 South America offers one of the widest horses for each inhabitant in the river fields of the world.wide parish, homo. Platte country. The foreign commerce geneous in character to a wonderful ex. of Brazil is almost double that of Cuba. tent in language, customs, and institu. No less than five routes for an inter.con· tions, and hence affording peculiar ad. tinental railway have bee,n shown to be vantages to the work of the Gospel. It possible, and some of these have roads is, he says, the widest empire of Rome, surveyed or operated for one·third of and the conditions are such as to give the distance between Buenos Ayres and the best vantage ground from which to Bogota, and that within three years. brjng influence to break down that hoary system of error, fraud, and op. This is a larger proportion of our pression by scattering the seed of the space than would have been given to Word, and raising up a new people who these material matters but that they will walk in the right ways of the Lord. emphasize the prospective relations and Surely, he says, the Christian churches obligations of Protestant North America of North America have a grave responsi. to this south land, the spiritual care of bility toward the more than half pagan which devolves the more largely on us or less than half Christian multitudes in that European churches leave these of South America. papal and pagan peoples almost wholly to our labors, and they are coming CENTRAL AMERICA. nearer and nearer to us. They need the same care that we propose to bestow Central America is the nearest unoc· on the dead churches of the East, or on cupied field calling for evangelistic European communities which. are spir- agencies, in the world to the Christians in the United States or Canada. "Ex. cept the small Presbyterian mission in Guatemala, there is no organized effort as • virtual heathenism.' It would be for Christ's Gospel in all these lands, easy to fill pages with evidences of this, or so it was until" recently, when the and so to demonstrate that whatev~r Central American Mission was formed lukewarmness toward missions to the for carrying the Gospel to the Qnevan- papal countries of Europe Christians gelized lands of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, may tolerate in themselves, their argu- San Salvador, and Honduras. <rhe ments fall to the ground when applied Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society has to missions to Spanish America.
a missionary at Port Limon, which is " In Costa Rica, as in other Central exclusively among Jamaica negroes, em- American republics, the population is ployed as laborers at that place; and divided by the line of education. The that is all there was, until the Central uneducated masses adhere blindly to American Mission recently opened work the degrading superstitions in which by sending Mr. McConnell, from St. they have been reared; the educated Paul, Minn., to commence a mission at few, in the language of a diplomatic San Jose. Mr. C. I. Scofield, the secre- representative of this country, • are tary of this mission at Dallas, Texas, in- growing unmindful of their ancestral forms us that it is undenominational and religion, and the next generation will entirely in the hands of laymen. There see a more rapld deoline of the power are three classes of natives-of pure of the priest. Business and professional whites a few; of Indians about 3000 ; the men never attend mass.' "
remainder, composing the bulk of the population, are of mixed Indian and OUR YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG Spanish blood, the Spanish element WOMEN. predominating. These are distinguished above all other Spanish·American peo- Y. M. C. A. and Fbreign Missions.- ples by sobriety and simplicity. Indo- The Young Men's Christian Association lence, however, is a universal character- work on the foreign field developed istic, and their superstitions are of the spontaneously. The first organization in grossest form. Of late the wealth of the heathen lands was at the Jaffna College, country has increased greatly, develop- Ceylon. Syria followed with one at ing a tendency to I uxury, gambling, and Beirut, and Turkey with one at Aintab.
the use of in tDxicants. In 1885 an association was formed in " Besides those three native classes, the Methodist Anglo-Chinese College, there are about 2000 Europeans of the at Foochow, China, one' at the then better class, 300 North Americans, 1500 called •• Wiley Institute," now Peking Italian laborers, and 1500 Jamaica University, and one at the Methodist negroes. The population is mainly College at Tokyo. At the Student Vol- gathered upon the central plateau. The unteer Movement meeting in Inter- entire population is probably between national Convention at Cleveland, in last 225,000 and 250,000. March, Mr. McBurney illustrated the " Costa Rica is nominally Roman Cath- spontaneity in Japan. Mr. John Trum- olic. In writing of the religious state of bull Swift had gone to Japan. He.had any Spanish American country, it is not had experience as a secretary of the necessary to enter upon a consideration Y. M. C. A. in this country, and in of the Romishsystem as it is under- Japan was attached to the Union Col- stood by its more enlightened votaries lege of Tokyo. He thought to try to in Europe and America, for even they form a Y. M. C. A. society in the Impe- concede that in Spanish America it has rial University in Tokyo. Some people degenerated into sheer idolatry. The said there weI'e no Christian students in Abbe Dominec, chaplain to the Em- the institution. Quiet investigation re- peror Maximilian, denounced the form vealed the fact that there were a num- of Romauism which he found in Mexico be.r. and 50 were enrolled who were nominally Christians. Thirty of them deavor, JiJpworth Leagues, etc.-It is not came to a meeting, and not one of the 30 easy at first sight to perceive what direcpreviously knew that the others, or any tion ought to be given to the money quesof them, were Christians. They were tion in the new societies of young people all alike timid in making any profession whioh have risen all over the land like of their faith in these college relations. some magical creation of a fairy region. An association was thus formed in the That their practical working might inlargest university city, with the largest clude some form of financial expreg.. number of students in the world, there sion of consecration seems right enough being between 60,000 and 80,000 stu. in itself. Whether that ought to find a deuts there each year. This associa- separate place from the already existing tion was formed at the request of the plans and methods of the several mIssIOnaries. Two buildings at Tokyo, churches is a matter of opinion, or costing $60,000, have been erected- rather about which opinion should be one for students, 9ne for business men. judiciously formed. In 1885 $5000 was asked for a Y. M. C. A· building in Osaka. The United States A considerable effort has been made responded with $2500, Canada with to direct the contributions of these so- $1500, and Australia with $1000. cieties to some special object. In some cases only a general rousing of their Student Movement. – It . is given as interest for foreign missions has been authentic history that the Student Move- sought, leaving all contributions to flow ment grew out of the Y. M. C. A. working. in the channel of the regular denomina- Mr. Wishard asked Mr. Moody in 1886 to tion to which the society or individual give him an opportunity as secretary of is attached. It was after this excellent· the International Committee to meet spirited way that Rev. A. A. Fulton of some college students at Northfield for Canton, China, while in this country Bible study. It was at the gathering during the year, stirred the young that followed on this invitation that the Christian Endeavor people to give two Student Movement originated at Mt. cents a week for foreign missions. The Hermon. There were present 251 young result of that effort was the enrolment men from 89 colleges. of several thousands of persons pledged to give that sum. It was reported that This movement enrolls 6200 volun- in Philadelphia on one evening 6000 teers varying in age from 20 to 30 years, persons took that pledge, and within a and 2600 of whom are in institut.ions few months the number had increased pursuing their studies. About 1300 of to 50,000, and waf< rapidly pushed bethis list are, from various causes, count- yond that, with an appeal to make it at ed out of the probable force that will go once 100,000. We have not the statistics abroad. Some 320 have sailed for the up to date of writing, but the fact of the field. Of the entire force about three enthusiasm of these young Christians sevenths are ladies. The volunteers remains, and that other fact of the posrepresent denominationally seven of the sibilities of their properly directed enerprincipal churches and others, in the gies in the interest of missionaIY conratio of 27 p& cent Presbyterian, 24 tributions, and, what is equally of worth, per cent Methodist, 17 per cent each of the dissemination of missionary in- .Baptist and the Congregationalists, 3 telligence. per cent Lutheran, 2 per cent Protestant Episcopal, and 10 per cent Friends and Sunday Schools.-As allied with and others. Of those who have gone abroad contributive to all that we have written 33 have gone to Africa, 229 to Asia, 5 to about missionary zeal and work among Europe, 13 to Central and South Ameri- the young, it is vastly important that ca, 6 to the South Seas; 23 are miscel- we do not let slip the greatest factor of laneously grouped and " not located." all of them-the Sunday.school. Every Sunday-school in the land ought to be Young People's Society oj Christian En-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGll:NCE
a school for the study of missions, as most purpose and pleasure of the Roman well as for education in the grace of Catholic Germans. Here were a thou- benevolence represented by the mission- sand delegates, including men eminent ary offerings. The study here should in the professions and in public affairs, be systematic, and continued through a who decided to support the Triple Alli- .course of, say, three years. ance, and to urge upon the Government the recall of the Jesuits. 'fhey dealt But by one means and all means let boldly with the question of the restorathe young men and maidens, and along tion of the iemporal power of the Pope, with them the children, be inspired and appointed a committee to arrange with the privilege and obligation to tell for a congress to be held in Switzerland, out and push out the truth of salvation most likely, on the one hundredth annithrough Jesus versary of the birth of Pius IX., May 15th, 1892, for the gathering of repre- "Till earth's remotest nation has learned Mes- sentatives of the total Roman Catholic siah'8 name. " communities of the world, to see what can be done to secure the proposed THE PAPACY. restoration of the sword to the head of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The Roman Catholic Congress, which met in Berlin early in September, is supposed to have represented the fore- V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O.
-According to the extensive and ex- tIed the facts in the case. Omitting all haustive tables of statistics appended to over nine years of age, the number of the second volume of the "Encyclo- communicants is 6,250,045, or, if that predia of Mtssions," recently published class is included, the total will be inby Funk & Wagnalls, of societies doing creased by some 735,000. The organizadirect general missionary work in the tions are 10,227, and the church edifices foreign field, there are 47 in the united 8765, with a cash value of $118,382,000. States, 32 in Great Britain and Ireland, More than half of the Catholic popula- 10 in Germany, 6 in Holland, 105 in all tion is found within the limits of five Christian countries. In addition to States, New York leading with 1,153,- these, there are 51 women's societies, 26 000; Massachusetts following next with special, or publishing societies, 9 medical 614,600; and after this Pennsylvania societies, 35 doing work in behalf of the with 551,600; Illinois, 473,300; and Jews, and 39 which sre classed as indi- Ohio, 336,000. Wisconsin has 249,000. vidual or miscellaneous. Including all As illustrating to what an extent this of all the various kinds, the sum is 280. Church is polyglot, in !I. single diocese A complete bibliography is also given, in Pennsylvania confessions are heard in which are contained more than 5000 in German, French, Spanish, Italian. titles of books on missions and mission· Hungarian, Polish, Bohemian, and ary themes; and in the alphabetical Lithuanian. Ecclesiastical rule is in list of stations upward of 2400 are given the hands of 1 cardinal, 13 archbishops, from all continents and islands. and 66 bishops.
-Much speCUlation and many wild -The public schools of this land may guesses have found their way into print not improperly be set down among the concerninll; the strength of the Roman home missionary forces which work Catholic Church in the United States; mightily for tho public weal, and the but now the census seems to have set- figures are not far from stunning. The teachers alone are a great host, number. been baptized and 2032 children en- ing 361,273, while the scholars are 12,- rolled in the mission schools. 563,891. Of these, 1 327,822 are colored. Or if the 686,106 in private schools -The stated clerk of the Presbyterian and the 673,601 in parochial schools be Church (North) has issued a comparative include:l, a grand total of almost 14,000,. summary of the work or that denomina- 000 is reached. But even this leaves out tion during the past six years. The the thousands found in all our acade- following table partially shows the in- mies and schools of higher grade. crease: -The latest figures from Utah give Ministers………… .. 1886. 1891. this as the encouraging summary of Churches………….. .. Christian work done in the territory, 5,546 6,623 and representing what has been mainly Communicants .. . …. . 6,281 7,0;0 accomplished by 15 years of effort. The Sunday·school members. 666,909 806,796 71 ministers belong to 9 denominations 743,518 883,680 (including the Unitarians, but not in· cluding the Catholics, with 20 churches CONTRIBUTIONS. and 7893 members). The churches are 75, with a membership of 4500. In the Home missions, ……… $760,947 $995,625 85 schools scattered through 68 towns Foreign missions…….. 651,160 784,406 are 174 teachers and 6800 scholars. In Education…………… 97,954 154,518 these from the beginning not less than Sunday-school work….. 34,739 181,915 30,000 have received instruction, of Freedmen……………. 91,273 124,814 whom about 70 per cent were from Mor· Congregation •……….. 7,640,855 9,7'64,379 man families. This work is sustained at an annual cost of $200,000.. and in- Expressed in totals, the gifts for all purvolves the holding of $1,500,000 for poses in 1886 amounted to $10,592,231, church and school purposes in land, buildings, etc. or over $15 per member; in 1891 to $14,062,356, or over $17 per member. -One of the first two fields chosen and occupied by the American Board -The Hawaiian Kingdom is made up was among the American Indians, and of many nationalities. Numbering 80,- during the next 30 years more than half 000 six years ago, it has now a populaof its missionaries were sent to the same tion of 90,000, of whom 40,000 are napeople. As late as 1830, of 225 upon its tives and half· castes, and of the rest roll, 147, including 34 unmarried wom· about 20,000 are Japanese, one fifth en, were devoting their lives to the reo women ;'13,000 Chinese, 800 of them demption of the red men. In all 15 women; 9000 Portuguese, 2000 Ameritribes were reached, and 48 churches can (born in the United States), 1200 were gathered, with 3940 members. In English, German, and French. Protlater years, as calls from the foreign field estants number 30,000, Catholics 20,- became more numerous and urgent, and 000 ; the rest are Asiatics or indifferent. as other instrumentalities were fash- For the Asiatics and Portuguese earnest ioned, this part of its work was gradu. missionary work is being done, as well ally given up. as in some of the islands of the South- ern Paci fic by the Hawaiian Evangelical –Bishop Thoburn, of the Methodist Association. Of this society the income Episcopal Church, says that 90 "North. last year was $61,500, of which $13,900 field missions" have been established was expended upon the Japanese, Chiin India with the money so generously nese, and Portuguese. contributed at Northfield in 1890. In these new missions 1500 persons have -America, through the American Board, expended in 50 years $1,250,000 to evangelize Hawaii, and has during that time received about $4,000,000 a year in trade. England's missions are said to bring back ten pounds in trade for every pound given to convert the heathen. Christianity means a demand for clothing and utensils. The fitst sign of grace in a penitent savage is a request for a shirt. If only rum could be kept out! But rum and Bibles are apt to go contributions for home work were $6433, in the same ship for Polynesia and and for work outside, $713. Africa. -The Basel Society bas a prosperous -The Church of Scotland issues its mission upon the southwest coast of annual report in the form of a bound India, in which are found a total of 125 volume containing 1069 p.ages. The missionaries, including 52 ordained men members number 593,393, and the net with their wives, 18 laymen, and 2 unincrease last year was 5439. The in- married women, with 15 ordained nacome, omitting all endowments, etc., tives and 145 other native helpers-a standing for" by-gone liberality," was total of 285 toilers. To the churches 177 $1,813,265 from contributions, and were added last year, making a total of $339,520 from seat rents, or $2,152,785 5197 members. In the 121 schools 6372 in all. The receipts for foreign mis- are under instruction. The nat.ive consions, including $52,685 from women's tributions were $6372. societies, were $224,855. The missionaries number 70, of whom 22 are or- -A large proportion of the money exdained, with 7 ordained and 89 unor- pended in behalf of Moravian missions dained native helpers–a total force of is contributed by the benevolent of 166. The 29 churches have 951 mem- Great Britain and elsell'here, who ar:e bers, including 285 added last year. Of not members of that body. Thus ever schools there are 89, with 5287 scholars. since 1818 the London Association in The native contributions were $49,907 Aid of Moravian Missions has been in 1890. Among the" schemes" of this gathering funds, and the amount col- Church is a work in behalf of the Jews, lected last year amounted to $14,330, for which $28,700 were contributed. and legacies were received amounting to $8100, while but $24,060 were derived -Within 19 years the McAll Mission from the Brethren's congregations, etc., has grown from a single small room in in Europe and the United States. The Paris, with 40 chairs and 2 workers, to total expended upon the missions in 134 stations scattered all over France, 1890 was $100,115. and including suoh important cities as Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Nice, New -The British Society for the Propa Rochelle, Nantes, etc., and in Algeria gation of the Gospel among the Jews as well; 18,061 sittings, and more than has had an existence of 48 years, and 600 persons engaged in the work. Dur- its income, according to the last report, ing 1890 upward of 27,000 domiciliary has reached $31,620. The field of visits were made, and for adults alone operations includes not only the British 16,111 services were held. The total at- Isles, but Germany, Austria, Turkey, tendance was 1,237,688. The entire and Russin as well. In Wilna hospital cost of the miSSIon was $89,563, of 24,000 were treated last year. And in which sum $33,910 was derived from all, as the report states, " thousands of the United States, $19,909 from Eng- Jews have been drawn to the cross and land, $17,762 from Scotland, and $13,- throne of Jesus." In aid of this and 340 from France, Switzerland, etc. other similar societies, the British and Foreign Bible Society has issued in He.. -The Societe des Missions Evangeliques brew 404,000 Old Testaments and 490,. 000 portions, 8300 New Testaments anQ a Paris has prosperous missions both in 40,000 portions, and 204,000 diglot copies of the Scriptures, or those CCott. Tahiti and in Basutoland, South Africa, taining the Hebrew and some other la1J, with 3~ stations and 123 out-stations, 29 guage better known to the readers. missionaries, and 85 native preachers. The church members number 9111, the -The London Medical Missionary cateohumens 3781, and 222 were added Association has for its object the educato the church last yellr. The number under instruction is 8339. The native tion of physicians, as well as the found- -In the year 1855 there were in Briting and support of medical missions, ish India 430 schools, both government whether independent or otherwise. The and missionary, having 30,000 pupils, income last year was $11,530. In the chiefly boys. By the recent census it entire foreign field are found 139 medi- appears that there are 130,000 schools cal missionaries holding British diplo- of all grades, and over 4,000,000 pupils, mas-an increase of 14 in a year. China a goodly percentage of these pupils being alone is blessed with 104 devoted men girls. Marvellous as this growth is, we and women, who, like their Master be. have only to remember the enormous fore them, give themselves to healing population of India to see that there is the sick. a vast work. yet to be done; for though there are 4,000,000 pupils in the schools, -Although Bavaria has a population this is but one and one fourth per cent of only about 5,000,000, it has no fewer of the population. than 17,992 endowments of various kinds, the sums amounting to 421,996,- -The English Baptist Society is soon 035 marks. Of these 202,878,887 marks to have a new steamer upon the Upper are for charitable institutions and pur- Congo. The Peace has been in use poses, 159,757,226 for religious pur- since 1882, and has rendered invaluable poses, about 60,000,000 for educationa- service, but is not large enough nor purposes. Of the' sum total devoted to Iwift enough for present purposes. The religious purposes, 140,036,054 are for new v.essel, the Goodwill. is to be 84 the Catholic Church, and 18,242,767 for feet long and 13 feet beam. Every the Protestant; The former has 8474 particle of the vessel, hall, boiler. enendowments, the latter 1174. This is gines, and all, will have to be carried about in proportion to the population. on men's shoulders some 230 miles over a very hilly road. The work of this so- -The Christian Mission Church in ciety extends more than 900 miles from Belgium, organized 53 years ago, now the base, at Leopoldville. As yet more numbers about 8000 souls. The in- than 1000 miles of the waterways of the crease in the last three years has been Congo Valley have never been visited only a little over 500 ; but the only sur- by a missionary, and 2000 miles have prise is that there has been any gain at been traversed very hurriedly, so that all in this land, where both Roman there is a great work for these mission- Catholicism and MateriMism are equally ary vessels to do. ready to crush the Gospel. The number of Protestant churches is 93, served -Harput, in Eastern Turkey, accordby 21 pastors and evangelists, aided by ing to the thought of not a few, stands 9 Bible readers. The Evangelical So- I1.t least upon the outskirts of ancient ciety controls the Protestant work. and Eden. The field, of which this city is has founded the Evangelical Sunday- the mission centre, contains 59 stations schools, of which there are 52. The under the care of the American Board, last report of the society shows that the with 25 churches and 1717 members, income in the last year was 151,278 including 159 added last year, 10,330 francs. A large proportion Of this is adherents, 7000 hearing regularly the given' by the friends of the cause in word, and 5000 following the Interna- England and elsewhere. tional course of Sunday-school lessons. The various congregations contributed -Says The Mission Fwld: "In India $7200 last year, leaving only $3300 for a single 'church, Whose members have a the Board to raise outside of the salaries total income of $]800, gives annually of the American missionaries, and the $400 of that sum for religious objects. a parents paid besides $3550 for the board quarter of which is set apart for the and tuition of their children ill the support of a native missionary in an- schools. other district.·, Statistics of Missionary [THE following tables are intended to inclnde only Foreign Missions, that is, missions to foreign work of the Methodists and Baptists and others in Europe, as well as efforts for the evangelization from the published reports Of the various Societies, and, with rew exceptions, present the facts as has been received from the Encyclopredia of Missions and the Concise Dictionary of Religious desired, earnestly aimed at, and most diligently sought; but, as it always occurs in such nuder· Home Missionary _ _ _-"Cc::0.=n=stituency. Income.
II . ; I UNITED STATES ..~fs~i ~ – fi – – .~,; – ~'" ~ AND 2S CANADA. –~ – ..E.. =~:I Se~'" – -~Q) ~ ———–1– -Q – – -<Ij Baptist Missionary Union……… ….. 1814 6,138 7,786 717,640 $492,275 $51,038 Sonthern Baptist Convention'………. 1845 8,824 16,091 1,235,765 113,522 1,771 Free Baptist.. .. . .. .. . .. .. .. .. … .. .. 1836 1,531 1,314 82,683 25,497 400 Baptist General Association. . . . . . . .• .. 1873 560 200 50.000 500 Christian (Disciple)……………….. 1875 675,000 67,750 1 4,678 3,388! 1,023 American Christiau Connection. . . . . . . .. 1886 1,500 1,700 120,000 3,000 1,500 Seventh Day Baptist……. , …….. …. 1847 100 110 9,000 4,500 Congregationalist (A. B. C. F. M.}……. 1810 4,619 4,817 506,832 762,Q86 117,494 Methodist EpiscQpal, North……….. 1819 12,914 22,833 2,783,967 566,347 204,300 Methodist Episcopal, South… . . . . . . . . . . 1846 4,862 11,767 1,166,019 219,940 8,147 Methodist Protestant… . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 1882 1,441 2,003 147,604 13,32-3 460 African Methodist Episcopal.. . . . . .. . . . . 1886 2,500 3,000 100,000 7,000 1,600 Wesleyan Methodist …… , …………. 1887 300 600 18,000 2,000 440 Seventh Day Adventists…. …. …. . … 1874 930 26,112 1.485 Evangelical Association……………. 1876 3541 2,043 145,603 12,000 United Brethren………… … …….. 1853 1,864 I 4,203 197,123 10,000 1,467 I I 10,801 Protestant Episcopal…… .. .. …. .. .. 1835 4,163 2,435 508,292 189,184 6,800 Presbyterian, North .. .. 1837 6,158 6,894 775,903 942,691 49,423 Presbyterian, South … . 1862 1,200 1,144 169,000 112,952 3,976 782 902 United Presbyterian… . 1858 124 106,385 1,040,871 1 30,695 124 Reformed Presbyterian. . . .. .. ……. 1856 2,776 I I 1,646 11,289 . 19,614 Cumberland Presbyterian……….. …. 1852 165,940 22,260 1,812 Reformed Dutch.. … …………….. 1832 560 551 88,979 117,090 8,003 Reformed German…….. , ………… 1878 835 1,554 200,498 17,000 I 3,000 Associate Re.formed, South …………. 1879 81 117 8,534 I 3,Q.37 1 300 German Evangelical Synod… .. …. …. 1883 1,3,55 Lntheran General Synod. . . . . … . .. . . . . 1837 650 870 150,000 9,010 41,202 979 1,437 151,404 Lutheran General Council…. …. …. 1869 910 1,52'2 264,235 12,177 50 Methodist Episcopal, Canada……. …. 1873 1,285 1,268 233,868 27,503 6,491 Presbyterian, Canada…………….. 1844 972 1,920 160,105 105,525 4,172 Church of Englaud, Canada… … …. 1890 .~~ ..~~ 10',~57 ~~ 1:::: 1 . Congregationalist, Canada…….. .. …. 1886 Baptist, Ontario and Quebec ……….. 1873 532 550 77,247 36,0421 677 Totals 73,235104,888 -10,936~3171 4.180~602 507,s83 Societies for 1890-1.
countries under the care of missionaries other than natives. And hence is omitted the bulk of the of the Jews and the Freedmen, the Chinese and Indians. Of course the figures are derived mainly they existed during the last half of 1890, or the first half of the current year. 8ubstantial assistance Knowledge, which have appeared within a few months. The utmost of accuracy has been eagerly takings, the desired, earnestly aimed at, sources of error are numerous and most perplexing.] Missionaries. I Native !:' 1 g Helpers. oj 1 :g 1 ~Sg ·1;:I • .~; ".~ <1i ~ .is I .§; ~ I ~ l1-4l1~01 ~:zg j .;0) .~…. ] i~"''' ~ "" ~S ;"a.0 g'" >."-.<. "0 " .e; "wil. ~ ~ -<5- ->'"1 ~ w. 0 ->-<- -(5 – -(5 – – – – – . – -:5 – — – I 1,390 139 13 119 107 232 626 1,645 681 76,603 8,708 1,038 20,107 185 38 …. 31 17 23 53 161 67 2,377 402 21 823 12 9 1 9 6 5 13 43 11 646 55 105 3,619 6 1 1 1 …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. ….
41 17 …. 18 …. . … 25 60 12 1,418 158 10 817 32 2 …. 2 …. .. 7 11 3 92 35 …. . …
3 2 …. 2 2 2 7 18 1 30 5 2 29 1,058 183 17 181 152 174 2,243 2,980 387 36,256 4,554 1,025 47,319 373 169 10 160 126 1 447 2,571 3,483 334 52,956 5,747 1,090 33,844 516 52 2,000 169 50 …. 40 1 1 . … 99 224 60 4,944 6 256 . … 5 257 35 1 300 76 . … 3 5 …. 51 4 …. 12 29 2 203 12 . …
12 9 9 121 3 .. , 7 40 10 356 …. j2 2 2 …. 1 … 7 1 300 9 3 … 35 …. 5 5 17 882 31 5 …. 31 …. 5 24 :l7 5 378 …. 1 18 17 18 25 16 5 3 67 134 131 6,712 1,150 14 591 19 3,494 349 220 25 … 1 129 82 3,196 6 19 27 52 457 210 40 186 140 348 173. 1,097 377 28,494 2,87'5 605 27,813 100 33 3 26 18 15 12 107 25 1,284 246 16 1,300 28 1 21 25 24 495 554 39 9,832 735 252 10,480 21:1 1 5 6 …. 5 22 3 209 12 26 710 5 10 6 …. 6 6 2 171 37 11 63~ 63 4 298 155 23 4 23 12 30 283 375 51 5,326 552 113 4,069 24 3 …. 3:1 2 7 15 30 12 1,656 218 2 66 11 2 …. 2! 2 2 4 12 4 285 24 4 65 10 4 …. 41 1 . … 15 24 3 234 34 4 250 12 5 …. 4! 3 4 167 183 338 6,492 580 195 4,784 6 4 …. 31 …. 2 7 16 2 832 1 89 1,073 19 11 …. I … 45 71 10 1,538 578 4 485 15 ….
130 . ~j 324 1 24 6 152 220 87 8,172 711 141 4,100 1 1 …. …. ." …. …. …. …. . … .. . ….
—— _:;I_~l_~ 40 202 .. . 39 30 1,796 299 36[ 5,700 9 16 …. 141 187 22 2,493 415 41 350 -7218 4.649 1,066 145 966 736 1,341 11,946 129,806 8.625. 235-:-276 ! 4,867 1169,451 British Poreign Missions. By Rev. James hood a spiritual power. M. Coillard Johnston, Bulton, England. calls for a teacher of boys, and regrets that he has often to decline applications United Presbyterian Church of from dark little applicants because there Scotland's Foreign Mission.-This is no instructor. A young fellow· worker, vigorous denomination, so notably a Rev. A. Jalla, of the Waldensian valmissionary church, reports extended leys, described as worthy, active, and help on behalf of its continental and amiable, had just gone to Kimberley colonial mission stations. In foreign imd the Cape to meet his bride. The work it occupies 7 mission fields, on leader of the mission was taking the opwhich sened 117 fully trained agents, portunity of sending under his care of whom 57 were ordained European Litia. the eldest Bon of the king, to the missionaries; 20 ordained native teach- Morija High School, Basutoland. This ers, 10 medical missionaries, of whom 4 youth's intelligence, prepossessing manwere ordained; 5 European evangelists ner, and evident susceptibility war_ and 25 female missionaries. These rants M. Coillard in hoping that by and agents superintended 97 native evange- by he may become a trusted missionlists, 332 native teachers, 67 nati ve Ze- ary's friend. Upon a canal six miles nana workers, and 42 other helpers. long, connecting Sefula with the Zam- The native church membership last year besi River, M. Coillard had been busy showed an increase of 900 soula-the for two years. 'l'his year he hoped to greatest addition ever recorded. In the see its completion. Mr. and Mrs Goy year 1880 the members in the native had been laboring at Sesheke, and were churches numbered 9687, and ten years about to go (D. V.) to Seomaat the Gonge later, 15,799. The foreign mission in- Falls. The absence of a settled popucome in 1890, including the contribu- lation at Sesheke, which is used as a tions for Zenana work, was £40,592, meeting-place for some dozen or more and an additional sum of £13,605 was chiefs from far off villages, has natugiven by the natives themselves in sup- rally prevented systematic labor. At port of missions, schools, and hospitals. Kazungula, L. Jalla, an esteemed broth- United Presbyterian missionaries at er, had been struggling with fever. His present on furlough number among station, yet in the stage of infancy, is others Dr. John Husband, Rajputana; destined, from its topographical posi- Rev. Dr. William Z. Turner, .Tamaica; tion, to be an important centre. In the and Rev. Johu W. Stirling, Kaffraria. autumn another esteemed young broth- The Presbyterians are fulfilling the ex- er, Mons. Vollet, from Paris, was expecthort..tion of Dr. J. Monro Gibson in ed, accompanied by two (M. Coillard being both self-sustaining and self-sac- says, " we fain hope more") evangelists. rificlng. At these different centres the work is developing slowly,· the laborers having The Barotsi Mission (Central Af- the blessing of "good understanding rica).-In M. Coillard's earnest labors and union. " several Christian friends in Glasgow are deeply interested, and regular support- Very kmdly M. Coillard alludes to the ers. Amid difficulties in journeyings new missionary expedition of the Engand tribal negotiations the missionary lish Primitive Methodists to Mashikusteadfastly holds forth the Word of Life lomboe Land. Its leader, Rev. Mr. in these long-neglected regions. The Buckenham, rad accompanied M. Coilpoor state of health of Mrs. Coillard is lard to interview the king for the privia sore burden on this whole·souled toil- lege of establishing a station in his er. To his joy there recently arrived territory. To the joy of all, permission Miss Kiener, from Neuchatel. This was given. The arrival of the Primitive lady's consecration and affectionate Met·hoilist brethren after many perils disposition will make her in alllikeli- and hardships, M. Coillard observes, is the answer to many prayers. Help in ity were appreciated very warmly by sustaining the beloved :French pastor's philanthropic and missionary workers labors will be sent per Mr. William in West Africa. In reply to an address, Ewing, 7 Royal Bank Place, Glasgow, Sir Alfred observed that in regard to the Scotland. education of the nativel! great credit was due to the various self-sacrificing English Missions in Canada.-The missionaries, who had been and connomination of the Ven. William Day tinued to be the popular educators. Reeve to the bishopric of Mackenzie He spoke of the need of open and safe River, in succession to Bishop Bompas, roads for the onward progress of the recently translated to the new diocese country, and the value that the repatriaof Selkirk, has the approval of the Arch- tion of negroes would be to Africa. .The bishop of Canterbury. He was educat- question, he contended, should now be ed at the Church Missionary College, viewed in the Old and New World in Islington, ordained by the Bishop of the light of retributive justice to Africa Rupertsland in 1868, appointed bishop's for the wrongs inflicted on her in the chaplain in 1880, and archdeacon in past. His policy in befriending negro- 1883. He has done years of honored land had been guided by the three C's work in Northwest America, notably at –consideration, conciliation, and cul- :Forts Simpson and Chipewyan. In the ture. With a splendid record of sucprime of manhood, still under fifty, a cess, Sir Alfred Moloney has sailed to great career may be anticipated. He fulfil his new appointment as Governor was on furlough a little while ago. The of British Honduras. consecration will probably be performed by the Canadian bishops. Native Races and the Liquor Tra!- fic.-By the two envoys of Gungun- With the translation of the Bible into hana, chief of Gazaland, who have rethe Cree language, the Bishop of Moo- turned home after a visit to British sonee writes home that he is making shores, the United Committee have sent rapid progress. Next winter the task a letter expressing their pleasure that may probably be finished, when the be wishes to exclude the white man's Bishop of "The Great Lone Land," drink, which has recently been introwho has occupied his see since 1851, duced there, and assuring him that the will likely resign. The endurance of governments of Europe have agreed privations in an uninviting region, and that strong drink shall not be forced on cheerfully borne, have proved his mis- chiefs or people against their wishes. sionary character and secured him the The letter oncourages him to forbid the devoted attachment of the Indians. sale of this ruinous t~affic, and urges The Rev. J. A. Newnham, a Canadian, him, in conclusion, in these earnest has sailed for Moosonee, and should he words: "Keep it out of your country feel himself capable of bearing the of Gazaland entirely; it is a deadly strain of the work, his name may be enemy alike to the chief, to the head. submitted to the Archbishop of Canter- men, and to the common people." Rebury in succession to Dr. Horden as ports from abroad and by personal bishop. testimony unite in exposing the spread of this fearful evil. From Africa-east, The Aborigines' Protection Society. south, and west-from Madagascar, from -Always in close sympathy' with the India, from the South Seas, and from cause of missions, the society has lately .Alaska there is a great outcry against done honor to Sir Alfred Moloney,' a the foe which makes heathenism more pof-ular WeAt African governor since awful, and likewise paralyzes the growth 1867, and widely esteemed for his just of native converts. and politic dealing with the natives of the interior. His valuable services to Wesleyan Foreign Mission Fi· commerce,' civiliza'tion, and Christiannances.·-At the Nottingham Confer. Another aspE'ct of Catholic affairs was ence in July the present adverse balance presented by the Rev. L. C. Casartelli of £20,000 was the subject of a warm to the delegates attending the Catholic discussion. The representatives of the Conference held in London. The speak- Committee strongly repudiate the charge er, who is the editor of the English organ of blame which has been made. Much of Catholic foreign missions, stated that of the criticism and unrest the Rev. nothing was practically known in Eng· Marshall Randles considered to be the land of the Catholic Church Rsthe great. result of a ground swell following the est foreign missionary in the world, folevents of two yeal'S ago. No new policy lowing the observation with an extraor. was advocated for the removal of the dinary assertion-viz., that in India last debt save the appointment of adult col· year there were 841 Protestant mis. lectors, and the responsibility of district sionaries, whose reports indicated that sub·committees to a central committee, only 298 converts had been added to the and the arousing of fresh interest in the native churches at a cost of £48,000. claims of foreign missions. For the The Catholics, on the other hand, were fair name of the influential Wesleyan able to show in one diocese where they community, whose servants abroad and labored, which had a population of officials in London are not surpassed, 7,000,000, that their missionaries had the obligat.ion of extinguishing the received more than double that number heavy debt is an immediate duty. A of adult persons. The former part of communication was read to the Con- this statement is completely disproved ference announcing the death of the by the latest returns from three societies Rev. Thornley Smith, 6f London, for· alone in British India-the Church and merly a missionary pioneer in South Wesleyan Missionary Societies and the Africa, where he successfully labored American Baptists. half a century ago. He was the author of several works relating to missions. Miscellaneous.-Much uneasiness is felt by the London Missionary Society Roman Catholics in England and for the welfare of their converts, sta- India-a Contrast.-Much surprise tions, and training institution in Samoa, was caused at the Annual Conference of through the antagonism of Mataafa to Catholic Young Men's Societies of Great the rule of Malietoa. Business at Samoa Britain, lately assembled in Wigan, Lan. is stagnant.-The inquiry into the Pal· cashire, by a paper which the Rev. Aus· estine Mission is being conducted by the tin Powell read on ., Submerged Catho. Archbishop of Canterbury in London lics" who were lost to tho Church. He with closed doors.-A member of the said that never since Elizabeth ascended Calvinistic Methodist Missionary Sothe throne of England had the pros. ciety has promised a legacy of £30,000 pects in the country been darker. In to the Jubilee Fund.-In 1895 the Lon_ most parts of England the Catholics don Missionary Society will reach its cenwere losing in numbers both relatively tenary, an event which the directors wish and actually. Emigration to America, to anticipate by placing a hundred ad. which affected them, wasa non.prevent- ditional missionaries in the foreign field. able cause, whereas great and partially -Excellent patronage, including that of preventable causes were apostasy and the queen's, has been given to the South the aversion of young men to matrimony. African Choir, at present on a tour in In reply to his critics the essayist 0 b· England.-The General Assembly of served that figures could not be gain- Ireland reports successful work in India said. Liverpool was the only diocese and China, and among the jungle tribes, showing an increase, and even there it with a revived interest in missions at was not in proportion to the growth of home shown by a gratifying increased population. income. Monthly Bulletin. Baptist missionaries with their wives sailed from New York July 15th for Africa. -Susi, the last of those faithful Brazil. In 'Goyaz, there is a daily paper servants of Dr. Livingstone, who brought protesting against elections on Sundays, his body to the coast on that most reo as the Protestants will not vote on that markable journey, one of the grandest day. The influence of Sabbath.keeping funeral processions the world has ever is a mission and evangelization in itself. seen, died at Zanzibar on May 6th. Chili.-The Presbyterian Mission in -Along the West African coast there Chili has five organized churches, as are now 200 churches, 35,000 converts, well as preaching halls in the principal 100,000 adherents, 275 schools, and towns of the country. Evangelists make 30,000 pupils. Thirty.five dialects or long tours, scattering the bread of life. languages have been mastered, into There are two schools-an elementary which portions of the Scripture and reo one at Valparaiso, attended by 200 ligious books and tracts have been trans· scholars, and a superior institution at lated and printed, and some knowledge Santiago, with 80 scholars, some of of the Gospel has reached about 8,000,000 whom have come from homes in Peru of benighted Africans. and Balivia. A young Spanish pastor, -King Lewanika. the ruler of the M. Francesco Diez, who studied at great Barotse, on the Upper Zambesi, Lausanne, has recently settled at San· has been converted from human sacri· tiago in connection with the mission.
fices, the slave trad e, and alcoholism. -Mr. C. PolIhiIl Turner, one of the The king has not offered a human sacri. .. Cambridge TIand" which went to fice for three years, has become a tee· China in connection with the China In- totaler, and forbids the sale of liquor in land Mission, is studying the Thibetan his capital. He has sent his eldest son, language in Kansuh province, on the Litia, to Morija, in Basutoland, to reo borders of Thibet, preparatory to carry- ceive Christian instruction. The chief ing the Gospel into that country.
has many excellent parts, and for some -Li Hing Chang, Viceroy, and the time has been on terms of friendship most powerful man in China, has writ. with Mr.. Coillard, of the Paris Society ten a preface to a medical work by the of Missions; and Litia himself is a prom. Rev. S. A. Hunter, M.D., giving the ising young man of Christian character. sanction of his name to foreign thera- -The Church of England is begin. peutics and medical missionary work.
ning miSSion work in Mashonaland, -Dr. W. A. P. Martin has returned South Africa, in good earnest. Dr. to resume his important duties as Presi.
Knight Bruce has been called to the dent of the Imperial College of Pekin.
bishopric of that country, and has gone It is nearly forty.lrwo years since Dr.
there by way of the Pungwe River, ac· Martin first set out for China as a mis· companied by one clergyman. Previous· sionary. Then almost six months were ly six laymen had been sent, by the spent on the voyage; now in less than overland route, with supplies for the one month the same journey is made.
mlSSlOn. Among these is a carpenter Then there were sixty missionaries, now who was with Dr. Livingstone through there are more than a thousand.
his 'second African expedition. Three -The twenty.fifth anniversary of the Christian natives from Gazaland are with China Inland Mission was held at Mild· this party. An American layman pro. may Hall, May 26th. A full letter in poses to follow shortly, paying his own lieu of a I'eport was read from Mr. Hud· expenses, while guided by the rules of son Taylor. In this letter he spoke es· the mission. pecially of the new headquarters of an Brazil.-Dr. G. W. Chalnberlain and Australasian branch of the society. In family, Mr. Myron A. Clark, and three giving statements in regard to the work he showed that the number of baptisms bis large toleration for Christians who reported was 407 as against 536 last differed from him in forms of worsbip year. But the number of unbaptized or in forms of ecclesiastical order. converts reported is much larger than the year before, more than making up Japan.-Mrs. Large, widow of the the deficiency. The total number of missionary of the Canadian Methodist communicants is over 3000, more than Church, who was murdered in Japan 4500 having heen baptized from the over a year ago, and who was herself commencement of the work twenty· six severely wounded in trying to save her years ago. husband's life, after a year's visit in Ontario, is now returning to Japan to -The death is announced of the Rev. re-engage in mission work. Dr. Bissell, of the Marathi Mission of the American Board. Dr. Bissell has -The Hongo Church, in Tokyo-in. spent forty years in India, and was one tended specially for students, R9v. Mr. of the most able missionaries in that Yokio (Ise) pastor, a man well known in country. His departure was sudden, America-was dedicated a short while as he was in his usual health until about ago. It is a substantial brick building, two hours before his death. He leaves corresponding in style with the buildfour sons in the ministry. ings of the university and national schools, near which it is located. It -The Scotch missionaries in the seats about 700. The entire cost of lot Punjab rejoice over a rich harvest of and building, with a small native house souls. At the station of Sailkot they bap- for a parsonage, was about $11,000, and tized 30 converts four years ago; but it is paid for. Most of the money was last year the number was already 800, raised in this country. and the blessed work is going on increasingly. Papal Lands.-Four of the members of the first Christian Endeavor Society -The venerable Dr. John Newton, formed in Mexico, at Chihuahua, have who died at Merrel, in Northern India, left to study for the ministry at Juarez. on the second day of July, was in the They have started another society, and eighty-first year of his age, and had the societies in Spain plan to unite with been in the missionary work in India those in Mexico in publishing literature for fifty-six years. Very few men have in Spanish suited to their needs. been permitted to pass through so long a period of service, and few have Russia. – The Russian Orthodox wrought so diligently and so well. He Churr.h is doing mission work among was stationed first at Lodiana, but more the nomad tribes in South Siberia. than forty years ago!> was transferred to Over 3000 adults were baptized last year. Lahore, where his chief work was done. A magnificent cathedral will soon be He was well qualified in scholarship dedicated at Tokio, Japan, in which and in his linguistic acquirements for country the Russian missionaries are the tasks which were appointed to him. most successful. The Moscow Mission. He published the first grammar of the ary Society numbers 12,000 members; Panjabi language, and the first and only and receives $150,000 annually. The Panjabi English dictionary. He trans. seminary at Kasan prepares young men lated the New Testament, and wrote for work among the Siberian tribes, giv. numerous tracts and essays. His influ· ing them instruction in the native diaence with civilians and men in high lects. office in the Punjab was large, and always wielded for the advancement of -The King of Siam has settled an civilization and good morals. Men gave annual allowance of $1500 upon the him unfeigned veneration, and loved three young sons of the late Dwight Bradley, son of the early missionary, l;liJll for hi$ BweetIless of. temper and Dr. Bradley. Mr. Bradley was in the government. service at Bangkok.
The Missionary Review of the World — October 1889
THE EVANGELISTIC EARL
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XII. No. lO.-OldSerie.._-OOTOBER.–VoL. II. No.IO.-NewBerie..
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS. SHAF'l'ESBURY, THE EVANGELISTIO EARL.
[EDITORI.A.L.-A. T. p.] WREN Oonstantine, in 330, resolved to build the New Rome on tht> site of Byzantium, he was himself marking out the boundary lines on a scale of more than twice the magnitude of the old city. One of his followers ventured to remonstrate against so iDl.practicable a scheme as to inclose within walls such an extent of territory. But the founder of Oonstantinople replied, {( I am /ollowinJ Him who is leadinJ me."
When we laid down those two imperial volumes* in which Mr. Hodder has so graphically portrayed the most many-sided life of the century if not of history, we felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of the scheme on which that life's activities were projected. But the coster~ earl built more wisely than he knew. He followed One who led him, and who had for that life a sphere so wide and so varied in its service. The story of such a man is peculiarly valuable at this crisis of history. It illustrates what a single man can be to his own generation directly, and to all coming generations remotely, by simply giving himself to every work in the spirit of a true evangelism. We are reminded of Admiral Foote, who, when the King of Siam came on board his flagship to dine with him, asked a blessing on the food; and when the king said, "You do just like the missionaries," the Ohristian commander beautifully replied, "Yes, I, too, am a missionary."
It is well worth while to glanp~ at this career of an English nobleman, whose nobility was less that of the garter and the escutcheon than of the Ohristian and the universal benefactor. We may learn from it one grand lesson: that he who hallows life with a consecrated missionary spirit and purpose may work out a truly missionary service wherever he goes and whatever he does. Shaftesbury had the marvelous power of· turning every employment and environment into a new opportunity for evangelism. In even so unlikely a place as the Houses of Parliament he preached the gospel. His pen and his tongue were constant tonics and stimulants to the work of missions both at home and abroad. Robert Morrison in Ohina, William Oarey in India, Robert Moffat in Africa, Eli Smith in Syria, Justin Perkins (."Life of the E~rlof Shaftesbury." by Edwin Hodder. 2 vols•• 8vo. London.) in Persia, Adoniram Judson in Burmah, never did a more thorough missionary service than did Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.
During a public life spanning a period of more than fifty years he was identified with more organizations and measures for the uplifting–of humanitythan any other man who ever lived. Though heir to titles and estates, he found no man so poor and degraded, no child so filthy and repulsive, no place so dark and dismal, as to dishearten him in his errands of mercy. Wherever he went he found existing evils which were a disgrace to a Christian civilization. The condition of the insane patients in hospitals, of wage-workers in factories and mines, of dwellers in tenement-houses and lodging places for the poor, of the outcast population in towns and cities, of bootblacks and chimneysweeps, drew out the sympathies of his soul. But he neither wasted his energy in remonstrance, nor exhausted his emotions in sentiment, but he set himself personally to reform every abuse and to remedy every evil. Michael Angelo cQrrected one of Raphael's mistakes, not by criticising his work, but by simply sketching another wall-figure on a larger scale, and writing over it, "ampUus"-broader. Shaftesbury likewise criticised" by creation rather than by finding fault." And, in all his herculean labors, among the seats of the highest or in the slums of the lowest, one purpose moved him: loyalty to Christ and the gospel.
So absorbed and engrossed was he in his mission for humanity that he seems almost omnipresent. To-night he is at the vagrant's hidingplace, the Victoria Arches under Holborn Hill, rousing the poor sleepers from their damp bed of rotten straw filthy with vermin, and leading them to the Ragged School, to sit by their side and by loving counsel stir in them hopes and longings for a true life. To-morrow, at Exeter Hall, he takes the chair and thrills a host of veterans who are holding a council of war, in the interests of the life-long conflict with human wrongs; he inspires new zeal, kindles new enthusiasm, provokes new emulation. Again he stands in the midst of five hundred acknowledged criminals, without weapon or guard, and calmly and courteously advises them how to get out of the clutches of evil habits and into an honest livelihood. Yet again, in the House of Lords, he draws aside the veil, and discloses to the peers of the realm the actual, factual tragedies enacted daily within a few squares of Westminster Cathedral, or among the operatives in the foremost factories of the land. That tall, pale, thin, careworn man puts his shoulder to the wheel where others would think humanity hopelessly bemired, and instead of waiting for some Hercules to come and help him, lifts with all his might. And that one man carries through Parliament scores of relief bills, in the face of opposition, and what is worse-inertia. He shortens hours of labor, secures sanitary provisions and educational opportunities, better wages, better homes, and whatever else can improve the condition of the poor working-people. There is nothing, near or far, that is wrong, oppressive, unjust, unmerciful, in which he is not personally interested. He does not, like Mrs. Jellyby, look past the misery at his side to dream of some philanthropic scheme in Boorioboola Gha ; nor, like too many other small souls who claim that "charity begins at home," does he exemplify the sordid selfishness that begins at home and stays there.
No wonder that when, as the autumn leaves fell in 1885, his bier stood in Westminster Abbey, a nation wept. Throngs of the common folk leave scant room for the simple funeral cortege to pass through the streets. There they stand-the men with bared head and mourning badge on the coat-sleeve; the women with crape on the bonnet and tears in their eyes; artisans and seamstresses, factory hands and flower girls; they come -from homes, refuges, asylums, tmining-ships, ragged-schools; costermongers and bootblacks, reformed criminals and reclaimed women, stand without. Within the great Pantheon of England's dead, royalty and nobility, dignitaries of church and state, the leaders and the literati, lords and ladies, crowd to pay the last honors to the illustrious man, who, being human, like Terence, counted nothing human as alien to himself. When before was there ever such a burial sceue? where prince and peasant met in an equal sorrow, and where on the same coffin there lay side by side ~he flowers sent by a crown princess and by London's flower-girls!
To give a complete review of such a long and laborious life would consist neither with our space nor our aim. But, if we may get some point of view from which to command the whole horizon, we may get some conception of the bolder, more conspicuous features of an almost limitless landscape; and so we shall seek to discover some secrets of the power and success of this singularly consecrated life, which is perhaps the greatest lesson on missions which the nineteenth century has yet taught us. We incline to emphasize it the more because it illustrates the great fact that the sphere of our service is comparatively inconsequential. Not where we go, but how we go, is the all-im- . portant matter. He who has within him the love of Christ and the love of soul!':, the divine enthusiasm of humanity, the passion to do good, cannot be placed amiss. He will transform any work into a divine ca.lling.
Shaftesbury was a man of one idea. Early in his career he laid down the law which ruled his life, that the English nation's best policy was to declare Christia.n principles the basis of its government and the law of the land. That was his" one idea." He determined, whether that declaration was openly made or not, to regard it as a fact that Britain was a Christian land, and that everything unchristian and inhuman should, at leaFA, g~ I?ol!lvelled to face the light of investigation and exposure. One of the Erskines used to call God to witness that he had done his best to bring on a definite issue between Christ and the adversaries of the truth. Shaftesbury did the same in his parliamentary career. He compelled what was wrong to confront exposure; he tore away every curtain of concealment. He compelled those who claimed to be virtuous and defenders of right to see what was vicious and unrighteous, and then disregard it if they dareu. As Voltaire shamed papal France out of persecution for religious opinion, he shamed even political partisans and demagogues into righting great wrongs. He first went himself to explore abuses; then he set himself to expose them; and, with characteristic intensity, tenacity and pertinacity, he held on to his manly and godly purpose till he wrought reform. He believed in the double power of light-to reveal and heal, to expose and transform; and was confident that life would follow light.
Costermongers especially interested him. They constituted a community by themselves, and the donkey is a member of the family with family privileges. Poor and improvident and untidy, they needed help and comfort, and he called himself a coster, bought a barrow and donkey, and then lent them to those who had none. He mingled with the costers, joined their society, and insisted that, when they communicated with him by letter, they should not forget the honorary titles, "K. G." and" Coster!" He encouraged them to Sunday rest, and by donkey shows and prizes stimulated a wholesome pride in the care of their beasts. The costers loved him; and on one occasion presented him with a fine donkey duly decorated. With rare tact he rose to receive the gift, and, with arm around the donkey's neck, said that he would ask no epitaph beyond this, that "with a patience as great and a resignation as unmurmuring as his, he might have done his own duty;" then, as the donkey was led from the platform, he humorously begged the reporters to state, that" the donkey having vacated the chair, his place was taken by Lord Shaftesbury." This scene of itself is a revelation of the man: his singular simplicity, sagacity, tact, freedom from all lordly airs; his remarkable union of a dignified manhood with a flexible adaptation to his environment, are all here exhibited and exemplified.
The best part of such a life is found in what it stimuZates others to do. In 1861 he plead for an asylum for the middle classes. Thomas Holloway then formed a resolve to found such an institution; and twenty-five years later the" Holloway Sanatorium" was opened by the Prince of Wales. Another of Munchausen's "frozen tunes" had thawed out into the music of action.
Nothing is more important in this life of many-sided philanthropy than the fact of his soundness of doctrine. There is a current impression that laxity of doctrine and the '" enthusiasm of humanity" are somehow linked; that orthodoxy is narrow, unsympathetic, uncharitable; and that it is the liberal thinkers who a,re the liberal givers., Here is a standing refutation of the idea that a man must be a heretic to be a worker for men and a winner of men. The Earl was from deepest conviction an old-fashioned believer, and belonged to the extreme wing of that evangelical party from whom have sprung the great philanthropic movements of the century. His orthodoxy was of no compromise pattern. He held to the total depravity of the human heart, the need of the new birth and of simple faith in the inspired Word and the atoning blood; he believed in prayer and Providence, in the resurrection of the dead and a coming judgment. His theology had three vital points; a divine Christ, an atoning sacrifice, and a coming kingdom. Notwithstanding its unpopularity he believed in the literal return of Christ as the only hope of humanity. To him all things move toward that event. The world cannot be saved by human agency. We may and we must preach this gospel "for a witness in all the world; and then shall the end come." For all this misery "the only remedy is in His r6turn, for which we should plead every time the clock strikes! "
Shaftesbury's identification with the poor was not formal but real. When in 1860 the Ragged Schools of London presented him with their testimonial, he replied that he would rather preside over the Ragged School Union than command armies or sway empires.
Nothing in the character of this superb man attracts more than his habit of discriminating if at all in favor of the most degraded and destitute: To have seen him at St. Giles' Refuge, talking to ragged, barefoot, homeless boys, drawing out from them frank confessions as to their vicious and criminal habits, kindling in them new hopes of an honest and industrious life, and planning for them a way to such a goal-this was to see him at his best. For thirtytwo consecutive years he presided and spoke at the meetings of the Ragged School Union. It was his habit to look at every question from the point of view of the poor and the outcast. The shoeblacks, like the costers, called him" our Earl;" ragged urchins and half-starved gamins during one winter were fed with 10,000 basins of soup and bread, made in his own house and sent to supply their needs. He had boundless faith in the power ofthe gospel to uplift, save and sanctify. In the worst and lowest h(sawa genIi of good that could be made to grow into a heavenly plant.
He was an aristocrat by lineage but a democrat by principle. He believed with Burke that the condition of the common people is the condition of the commonwealth. We may call the great lower stratum of society "the masses," as though it were only an aggregation or conglomerate of dead matter, but these masses have marvelous powers to heave and shake and cleave the upper crust. There the volcanic fires burn and thence the earthquake shocks come: The base of the pyramid is much broader than the apex, but if it be laid in the marsh or the quicksand the whole structure sinks. Sbaftesbury's tastes, like F. W. Robertson's, were with the elect aristocracy; but, like him, his principles were with the mob. His great aim was to lift the common people to a higher level, and, because the only way to find a solid fulcrtlm for his lever was to get down to their plane, he would not accept any honor or office which put them at too great a distance. When, in 1855, Pal- merston urged him to take a place in the ministry of the realm, he answered: "I cannot satisfy myself that to accept office is a divine call; but I am satisfied that God has called me to labor among the poor." Of one-half of bis life that sentence is the key. When again, in 1866, Lord Derby urged him to accept a high office, he said, "1,600,000 operatives are still excluded from the benefits of the Factory acts, and~ so long as they are unprotected, I cannot take office. "
Much of his public work bore directly on evangelism. As late as 1855 he found an unrepealed law, forbidding gospel teaching and worship in private houses where, besides the family, over twenty per- sons were gathered. Under such an enactment any religious gathering, not under the protection of the established church, might be dispersed as an unlawful conventicle! Shaftesbury moved for the repeal of this relic of barbarism. He presented the facts: millions of non-church- goers; all the churches together unable to cope with prevailing immorality and infidelity; the need of using every agency to per- vade society with the gospel; and he showed now if literally construed that law would shut up every Bible class, Sunday school, cot- tage lecture and ragged school, and make the 25,000 annual meet- ings of the Oity Missio)1 unlawful.
Of course he met opposition. Indifferentism said the decree was a dead letter; he replied that a dormant reptile is not dead, and may be warmed into life when occasion serves. * Ecclesiasticism fought him, but he insisted that" permission" to breathe is no more absurd than permission to pray or praise, teach or preach; and that, with no limits save those demanded by public morality or safety, every Englishman . should enjoy his right to worship God when, where and how he pleased.
He was a man of many sympathies. The unity of his purpose was not more conspicuous than the multiplicity of his. labors and interests. If he was narrow at the point, he was broad at the blade. While he was fighting the "Improvement Oompanies," that, while displacing old tenements by newer houses, drove the poor into overcrowded dwellings or compelled them to lodge at a great distance from their workshops or else pay excessive rents, he could originate a sanitary commission in connection with the war in the far EaRt.
*Lord Brougham. Florence Nightingale equally with the sewing girl called llim " our leader." The tortures to which chimney sweeps were subjected in hot, sooty and narrow flues; the sufferings of children while training for the circus-shows; the snares lai'd for the vIrtue of young girls- all these drew out his sympathy. .
Shaftesbury's evangelism was of the individal sort, private and personal. Never did he lose a chance of bringing the subject of religion before either a community or an individual. There are some people who are forever talking about evangelizing the masses, but who never attempt the work of winning souls one by one. Somebody quaintly says that the priest and Levite who passed by the wounded man were on the way to preach to the masses and could not stop to take care of one man even if he were dying.
He protested that in a country where 100,000 souls were every year added to those who had neither church, pastor, nor sacraments, and 500,000 persons were absolutely without any religious instruction, the church that restricted evangelism, nay did not lead in evangelism, would soon die of dry rot, if not by divine judgment. .That sentiment is one text from the Earl's life that might well be cut in stone upon the walls of every church building in Christendom!
Of course such a man took the lead in every effort to evangelize the cities and gather in those who go to no church. He rejoiced when thousands thronged Exeter Hall and thousands more went away un- able to get in,' during the special services held there for non-attend- ants. When the metropolitan theaters were opened for Sunday even- ing meetings, he was there often, Bible in hand, facing the motley throng; and he, like Ezra, "read in the Book of the Law of God distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading."* The study of Scripture was his habit and delight. He searched the Word of God and knew how to use it. He was appalled at the prevailing spiritual destitution of the people, and put forth every effort to supply it.
His self-oblivion was the fruit of a cherished principle and a culti- vated habit of self-forgetfulness. He esteemed nothing his own, ex- cept his conscience. To pride he became b.,y simple habit an alien.
He helped a hobbling old woman to his place in the carriage while he mounted the box and drove up to receive military honors as Lord Lieu- tenant of his county; or bent to kiss the little girls who won the prizes at the hllillble flower shows; or went into the worst districts to carry toys to poor little children, or read and pray at the bedsides of the dying.
The Countess was a noble helper to the Earl. He said with tearful emotion that in every crisis of his life when timidity or infirmity • prompted him to hesitate, she always and promptly said, "Go for- "Neh. viii. ward and to victory!" From the time when in 1833, a few years after his marriage, he set before her, and in no rose-colored tints, the career of self-denying service to which God seemed to call him, she never wavered. She bade him follow his dnty, and resign honors of state and comforts of home, yea, even intellectual culture, to place himself on the side of the children of want and woe. And so he did!
One additional fact must be noted. The primal inspiration of all thIs heroically unselfish life came not from his parents, nor wife, but from Maria Millis, a humble nurse, who, before he was seven years old, taught him to pray, to study God's Word, and to love the poor. To her he attributed that first touch that set all the chords of his being vibrating at the story of the cross, and the old watch which she left him as her legacy was the only one he ever wore. When his heart was attuned to such a key, it needed only an occasion to waken life-long harmonies; and that occasion was furnished when, at fourteen years, he saw a pauper borne to burial in a rude coffin by staggering drunkards, who actually let their burden fall, and then cursed and swore. Not a mourner was following the bier, and the thought of flinging It human being into a hole without decency or humanity, simply because he was a friendless pauper, set his heart-chords trembling; and henceforth they never ceased vibrating in that minor key. Just before his death he said, « I feel age creeping on me, and I know I soon must die. I hope it is not wrong, but I cannot bear to leave this world, with all the suffering in it."
Of his activity in promoting the" Water-cress and Flower-girls' Mission;" the" Flower Shows," where prizes rewarded the faithful care of household plants; the reform of lunatic asylums, factory abuses and sanitary science; in espousing the cause of chimney-sweeps and workers in mines and collieries; in relieving the sufferings of the blind, the crippled, waifs and orphans; in fighting opium and Sabbath labor. we cannot speak in detail. His life illustrated the inexorable law of vicarious suffering. The disciple is not above his Mastel', who" saved others; Himself he could not save." His dedication to the cause of the friendless poor was costly; it cost pain of body, and more exquisite pain to his sensibilities; it left on his face the lines of care, it marked him as an old man when yet in life's prime. His was an alabaster flask of ointment very precious, bnt he broke it lavishly upon the feet of his Lord, and of His poorest and least creatures.
Of course Shaftesbury was tL habitual giver. He despised the selfishness that expends itself in ample indulgence and then seeks to atone for a life of luxury by "munificent bequests." He said there is no such thing, but there are munificent donations. He could not keep money in the face of human want, and only his frugal habits kept him from insolvency. He knew no value in money save its power to confer good; and he held that to put it to an unselfish purpose stamps
WILLIAM CAREY. '729
on human coin the image of God and makes it pass current for heaven's own merchandise.
Shaftesbury, in preparing addresses, always followed a few rules. He neither wrote nor trusted to notes. He gathered and arranged '~acts and quotations. By investigation and then rumination he made himself master of his theme and its great outlines, and then trusted to the inspiration 01 the occasion. In the House of Lords, where the very atmosphere stifles enthusiasm and affords no inspiration, he sometimes, though rarely, committed a speech to memory. But he used to say that how a speech begins is of little moment, but not so how it ends; and he often committed to memory his entire peroration. But his life was one grand oration. The golden pen of heroic action, held in the hand of sublime resolve, wrote out its sentences in living deeds. No wonder it was grandly effective. Its echoes may still be heard and will long stir to similar action like the clarion peal of a trumpet along the lines of battle.
WILLIAM CAREY.
B~ JAMES M. LUDLOW, D.D., EAST ORANGE, N. J.
ONE hundred years ago this sign hung over acottage in aNorth- amptonshiro village: "Second-hand..shoes bought and sold. William Carey." Within sat a cobbler, twenty-eight years of age, careworn, burdened with the support of himself and a sickly, half-crazed wife. On a pile of leather chips, the leaves held open by lasts and awls, were books in Hebrew, Latin, Greek and French, which languages he was trying to master. On the wall was a map which he had rudely draw~ and scribbled over with the statistics of the world. Some years later Lord Wellesley, the English Governor-General of India, hearing this man commend his course, said, "I esteem such a testimony from such a man a greater honor than the applause of courts and Parliaments."
The evolution of such a life from insignificant obscurity to worldfilling influence and renown is a subject of study for this age. It was an evolution, not a change through mere environment, for we can detect the germ of that great after-life in its earlier years.
Carey was born in 1761, the son of a poor weaver. His early education was such as, with his marvelous powers of observation, he picked up from men and things. When a mere lad his garret-room was stocked with specimens of bugs and botany. As Solomon in more elaborate address, so the ragged boy whose genius for discovery led his playmates to call him" Columbus," "spake to them of trees, even unto the flower that springeth out of the wall; he spake also of beasts and of lowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." He devoured the few books that came in his way. For language he had such a natural gift that he learned to read F'rench in three weeks from a French translation of an English work, and that without grammar or dic- tionary. But though a genius, he had no natural endowment of piety. He learned to lie, and once he stole. He was converted at eighteen; married at twenty; cobbled, peddled shoes and studied during the week'days, opened a school at night for those poorer than himself, and preached for the Baptists on Sunday.
There were no foreign missionary meetings, magazines, or interest in those days. But, bending over his Bible and his last, the cobbler student felt himself swayed by the conviction that the church must go to the heathen. At a meeting of preachers he brought up the subject. The presiding officer, as wise as his age in these matters, rebuked him: "You are a miserable enthusiast; nothing can be done before another Pentecost, when an effusion of miraculous gifts, including the gift of tongues, will give effect to the commission of Christ as at first." But the Pentecostal effusion was already in Carey's soul, and it almost took the form of the gift of tongues, such was his marvelous facility for acquiring languages. He sent out from his cobbler shop a pamphlet, which, as it was the first, is still about the best missionary prospectus in the English language. Its chief suggestions were united prayer and a penny a week from every communicant. His genius in putting the matter and his devotion to the idea soon won him some grand friends, among them the distinguished Andrew Fuller. They at once started the" monthly concert" of prayer for missions, which is still observed so largely in England and America. In 1792 Carey preached a grand sermon, a direct result of which was the fouuding of the Baptist Missionary Society. As the chief projector of this grand scheme, the devoted man did not hesitate to offer himself as its first missionary.
He stndied his maps. Iudia, with its hundreds of millions, seemed to be the most needy, and, at the same time, the most promising field accessible, in that the English flag was already there. Fnller eloquently'described the meeting where Carey volunteered. ,. We saw there was a gold mine in India, but it was as deep as the center of the . earth. Who will venture to explore it?" "I will go down," said Carey, "bnt remember that you must hold the ropes." "We solemnly engaged to him to do so, nor while we live shall we desert him," was the pledge with which the little band practically launched the scheme of modern English missions.
Taking John Thomas, who had once been in India, as a medical helper, Carey sailed in 1793. That vast land was then without a ray of clear Christian light, except that which lingered with the reme;nbrance of the German missionary Schwartz, and the glimmers in the homes of certain English army and civil officers. The land was divided between the various forms of Hinduism in its densest superstition, its most horrid crnelties, and the equal bigotry of Mohammedanism. The British influence being that of the camp, the trading station or the political office, showed the vices of Christian lands rather than the virtues of Christian life. The East India Company dreaded the attempt to evangelize the land lest It should awaken the religious prejudices of the people and imperil their gains. Such was the hostility of even English merchants that the missionaries were denied passage to India in an English boat, and sailed in a Danish ship. Arriving at Calcutta, they were not allowed by the East India Company to engage in religious' work. For five mohths they lived in abject poverty. Carey finally went inland, built a bamboo house in a neighborhood infested with tigers, hired out as an assistant in an indigo factory, and while thus engaged studied the Bengali language, talking the gospel in it as fast as he learned the equivalent of the sacred words. He set up in a corner of the factory a rude printing press, to which he was so devoted that the natives thought it was his god whom he worshiped. On this he printed with his own hands portions of the Bible as he translated it.
Able to earn some money in the factory, the self-sacrificing man declined to receive any salary from the friends in England. He soon fell a victim to the fever. His children sickened; one died. The insanity of his wife developed into actual mania. But he worked on without abatement of zeal. Beside his house he built a chapel and preached to the natives, though such multitudes came that they congregated outside more frequently than inside. He visited two hundred villages, everyone he could reach in his boat, which was his sleeping place and his library; for all the while he was studying Sanskrit, the mother tongue of the various Indian languages. He saw that the Bible must be laid beside the Shastras of the Hindus; that it, the divine light, could evangelize India-he could not. This great soul thus faced the immense problem of making himself to India what Ulphilas had been to the Goths, and Jerome to the Latin world, giving those vast millions the Bible in their own tongue. In the meantime the letters of Carey to friends in England electrified the home church with his own spirit. To his personal influence we trace the formation of three great missionary societies: the London Missionary Society, representing various denominations of dissenters; the Scottish Missionary Society, representing Presbyterianism, and the Chu1'ch Missionary Society in the Established Church. Individual Christians, too, caught Carey's enthusiasm. After reading the account of his project, Robert Haldane sold all his possessions, and gave $200,000 to establish a similar work in Benares, which, however, was prevented by the cruel timidity of the secular authorities.
Soon Carey was joined by those grand men, Marshman and Ward. The East India Company not allowing them in their bounds they settled in Danish territory at Seram,Pore. On Christmas day, 1800, after seven years'labor, Carey baptized his first native convert, Krishna Pal, whose hymn translated by Marshman has become an heirloom of aU the modern church: " 0 thou, my soul, forget no more The friend who all thy sorrows bore; Let every idol be forgot, But, 0 my soul, forget Him not."
Krishna was a high-caste Brahmin; he became a gifted preacher, and with his own private fortune built the first house of Ohristian worship for natives in Bengal.
The same year witnessed the publication of the entire New Testament in Bengali, a work which made Oarey's reputation as the foremost of Oriental scholars. The British Government now found it necessary to establish a college at Fort William for the instruction of their own officers in the languages and" literature of India. There was one man only in India, or the world.. if we except Lord Oolebrooke, who could fill its chief chair. Oarey became a professor, but really he became the university. One who had seen him at work writes: "Here was for nearly a whole generation a sublime spectacle-the Northamptonshire shoemaker training the governing class of India in Sanscrit, Bengali and Marathi all day, translating, too, the Raynayana and the Veda; and then, when the sun went down, returning to the society of the maimed, the halt, and the blind, and many with the leprosy; to preach in several tongues the glad tidmgs of the kingdom to the heathen of England as well as of India, and all with a loving tenderness and patient humility learned in the childlike school of Him who said, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' "
It was in lR04, when Oarey had thirty years of life still before him, that the Governor-General of India declared· that he esteemed the commendation of such a man a greater honor than the applanse of courts and Parliaments." The occasion of this praise was a notable one. In a brilliant assembly of European officers and native scholars Oarey had welcomed Lord Wellesley in a speech in Sanskrit, at the time an almost unknown tongue to Europeans. It was an exploit of a great genius, at which the Sanskrit scholars of to-day marvel, although they have the aid of Oarey's dictionaries and grammar, and more recent works based upon them, with which to acquire that language, while Oarey had to make these tools for himself. That the following thirty years of such a man's life would be of immens@ influence we could predict, but the full greatness of his work no man can estimate. With the corps of scholars he brought about him he rendered the gospel into between thirty and forty different tongues, and thus brought it within the reach of over three hundred millions of human beings to whom it had been unknown. It was a beautiful custom of these translators, when a volume was. completed, to place it on the communion table and dedicate it to the service of Ohrist. And why not? It was the offering of intellect and heart and body, of which the volume was the product. But Oarey's work was wider than this, although this alone would have warranted the praise given him at his death by Robert Hall, as "the instrument of diffusing more religious knowledge among his contemporaries than has fallen to the lot of any individual since the Reformation;" if not that of another who pronounces him "the most honored and the most successful missionary since the time of the Apostles." (Dr. John Wilson.) We can only indicate the side work of this wonderful man. He was distinguished as a botanist and edited the journal "Flora Indica." He founded the Agricultural Society of India. He made the first dictionary of Oriental languages. He translated parts of the Hindu sacred books and made Europe fa- miliar with the Eastern religious thought. He established the first dis- tinctly Ohristian college in heathen lands, having won the patronage of the King of Denmark. He started the first newspaper in the East, the Samaohar Darpam. His was the first clear and potent voice which the British authorities heeded, in suppressing the cruelties of infanticide, the murder of widow-burning, and the living sacrifice to Juggernaut.
Oarey died at the age of seventy-three. At that time English mis- sions had become established in India, and all sects recognized him as the divmely appointed pioneer. When on his sick bed the Metropolitan Bishop of India, the highest official of the English Ohurch in the land, visited him, and bowing his head by his pillow asked the dissenter's ben- ediction, feeling that no ecclesiastical honor could equal the blessing of one whom God had ordained to be the great apostle of modern mis- sions. The learned world went into mourning when the news floated to the universities of England, Germany and America that Oarey was no more. 'rhe secular authorities did .well to recognize his departure as if he had been one high in political or military life, by dropping the flag to half mast, for he had accomplished more for European influ- ence in India than any single man who represented only the State. But Oarey himself seemed during his life to be the only one who was ignorant of his greatness. The humility of this sublime iloul was beautifully illustrated during his last illness. Dr. Duff, then a young man, visited him. As he was leaving the chamber the sick man re- called him, and said, "Mr. Duff, you have been speaking about Dr. Oarey, Dr. Oarey; when I a~ gone say nothing about Dr. Oarey- speak about Oarey's Saviour."
Where ninety years ago Oarey was the only ordained Protestant missionary are now about seven thousand. That single convert, Khl'lshnu Pal, has a goodly following of two-thirds of a million. This is the commentary on Carey's early sermon that led to the establish- ment of the society which sent him out as its first missionary. His text was Isaiah liv.: 2, 3. "Enlarge the place of thy tent," etc. Un- . der this he made the two points-the heart lobes of his own life: 1. Exped great thing8 from God. 2. Attempt great things for God.
VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF THE ZULUS
RELIGIOUS VIEWS AND PRACTICES OF THE ZULUS.
BY REV. LEWIS GROUT, WEST BRATTLEBORO, VT.
WHEN I received my appointment to labor as a missionary among the Zulus in South Africa one of the Secretaries of the Board in Basion expressed to me the wish that I would give special attention to the language of that people, as little or nothing had been as yet done in that direction. In following out this request, I found it necessary to go directly to the more intelligent of the Zulus, if I would have genuine samples of the language as they speak it, since among themselves they had neither a book nor even an alphabet with which to write or print one. Having learned the language, as best I could, from their best speakers, I set about getting from them the needed material for preparing a Zulu grammar.
Among the extended sketches of various kinds which I wrote out verbatim from the lips of SGme of the older and best informed that I couid find among them, a good number had respect to their religious views, their divinities, their modes and objects of worship. These objects I found to be the spirits of their departed friends, the shades of their ancestors, and especially the ghosts of kings and other men of rank and renown. Of these they speak as the amahlozi (singular, ihlozi). To these they are wont to ascribe eyerything, good or. evil. For the good, they are praised; for the evil, they are propitiated by sacrifices. Sometimes the departed spirit is spoken of as reappearing in the form of a snake, whenever the departed thinks it necessary to commune with those he left on earth. Sometimes, or at least among some of the tribes, the divinity or shade is spoken of as an itonga (pI. amatonga), a defending or preserving power. And sometimes the departed spirit is spoken of as an isitunzi, a shade, the soul after it has left the body. Ask the people about the end of man, where he goes when he dies, and they generally reply that he becomes an ihZozi, and goes off to live somewhere under ground, there to build and abide with his ancestral friends.
The ordinary and more formal method by which the people are accustomed to communicate with their divinities, the spirits of the departed, is through the inyanga, doctor, medical priest, or diviner. It would take long to describe the way in which he prepares himself for this most important profession; nor is it necessary. From the artful, ambiguous language he employs, when his services are required, one would think he must have studied the ancient Delphic oracles. In case of sickness, death, loss of property or other great calamity, a deputation is sent, with a cow or other present, to consult this medical priest, the inyanga, and find out the cause and cure of the sickness or the calamity. If the present is wanting or insignificant, the doctor or medical diviner is quite likely to excuse himself by saying that the divinities are not at home to-day, and so nothing can be done till they return. If the deputation comes again, on the morrow, and brings the desired cow, they will find the divinities at home and the doctor ready for service.
The following is the substance of an account of going to inquire of the inyanga (priest), in a case of sickness, first taken, as above described, from one of the older and more intelligent of the Zulus, and then translated from his own words, with some condensation, into English: When sickness comes, someone takes something and goes to the priest to inquire about the sickness. When they arrive at the priest's, he comes out, sits down, passes the compliments, and remains silent for a time. Then he says, Come, let us go yonder. What have you brought? They say, Sir, we have brought nothing-here is a trifle. Then he says, Come, speak, that I may hear; smite (the earth with your rods), smite ye, that I may hear. They say, hear; he says, sickness. They say, hear. He says, it is in the chest; and the people say hear. He says, it is the lungs; they say, hear. H{f says, his paternal shade wants something. They say, hear. He says, it is the shades of his ancestors. His ancestral shades say, why is it that he (the sick man) does not care for us? Why does he no longer recognize us, since we have preserved him from his infancy? The people say, hear. Will he never build a large kraal for our sake? Why does he not recognize us? Then the people say, There, that is it. And he says, they ask, Why is it that no offering is made to them by the slaying of an animal? Then the people say. there, that is just it. Then he says, smite again, that I may hear; and they say, there, there, he is coming nearer to the seat of the difficulty. Then he says, his paternal shades are angry with him; he is diseased, he is sick; the shades are calling him. And the people say, Who told you?- hear. Then he says, Should an animal be slaughtered, he will recover. They say, hear; he says, the shades require that particular cow of theirs.
And so, when he has finished, the people give him the present which they brought, and go home. Arriving at home, the people there at home say, come now, tell us, that we may hear the words of the priest. What did he pretend to say? How did he inquire and perform? Oh! the priest performed thus: He came and followed the omen of the occasion; he came and said, he is sick, he has a disease, he is called by the shades of his ancestors, who reproach him, saying, Why is it that he acknowledges them no longer? since, long ago, they went and delivered him from great suffering, while other people died? and have they not delivered him from great evil? Why, then, does he not continue to acknowledge us and give us what we require?
And now the sick man admits it all, and says: Oh, since that which they require is thus required by themselves, who can refuse it?
then the people say: Oh, yes/ ~s lOU sa,!, who could refuse a thing when it is thus demanded by the owners themselves? How can the priest be mistaken, since he has gone so evidently according to the omen? Do not ye yourselves perceive that he has run according to the omen? Then let them have their cow, the very same which they have demanded, and then we will see whether sickness will leave me. To this they all assent. And now some one goes out, and when he has come abroad without the kraal, all who are within their houses. keep silence, while he goes round the kraal, the outer inclosure of the kraal, and says: Honor to thee, Lord. Offering prayer to the shades, he continues: A blessing, let a blessing come, then, since you have really demanded your cow; let sickness depart utterly. Thus we offer your animal. And, on our part, we say, let the sick man come out, come forth, be no longer sick, and slaughter your animal, then, since we have now consented that he may have it for his own use. Hail to ~hee, 0 King! glory! Come, then, let us see him going about like other people. Then he goes back into the house, takes a spear, goes out with it, enters the cattle-fold, comes up to the cow, gives it a stab, and as the cow bellows, saying y-e-h, he says, Yes, an animal for the shades ought to show signs of distress; it is all right, just what was required. Thus the offering is made. But if the sick man fails to recover, he goes to his neighbors and says; How is this, that I have slaughtered my cow, which was said to have been required by my pa~ ternal shades, and yet I have never recovered? And they say: It cannot be so; there must be some mistake; it must have been just a device of the lips to get a man's cow. If it had been required by the shades, then why has the sick man never recovered? The priest has been fabricating a lie. He does not know how to inquire of the oracle. Let us go to another priest.
So they go to another priest, salute him, and say: Hail, friend, good news. And he says: What present have you brought? And they say: We have brought a present, so and so. And he says: Oh, the shade is not willing; he is absent. Then the messengers return, and go to another, a.nd after the usual salutations the priest proceeds to inquire of the shades as to the trouble in hand, its nature, cause and cure, as did the other priest. After a long-continued consultation, much smiting, and hearing, and reporting, the priest comes out to say: The sick man's paternal shade is calling him to an account, saying, Why does he abuse me by acting in this manner? I am weary. The shade of }lis mother compla.i.ns also, and says to her son, What art thou doing there yonder? I am displeased with you. The deputation returns and reports to the sick man: The priest says your father demands that particular cow, thy favorite, and says, Since the cattle are mine, being given to you by myself, why have you never made me a decent offering? To this the sick inan replies: Oh, since the owners themselves decide thus, why, what can I say? so, then, let them have an offering, and then I will see whether or not I shall recover. Perhaps beer is included in the offering, with the understanding that some might like beef and beer. Then some one goes out, and there talks, while all within keep silence and listen to what he says, to wit: o ye dwellers below, shades, ye our fathers, there is your cow; we of- ferthe same. Now, then, let this your sick one recover, let disease depart from him; the cow is already your own. Then he goes back into the house, gets a spear, and stabs the cow; and when she bellows, he says, Let your cow ~ry, then, and bring out the evil which is in us; let it be known abroad, then, that it is your cow, which is reqUIred by yourselves. Thus it is slaughtered, thus it dies, and the rest of the cattle are put out to pasture, while this remains dead in the fold, and is left alone for a time. Then they dress it, cut it up, and put it away in a hut by itself for the night. The sick man takes the gall, pours it upon himself, and says: Yes, then, good work is this; let all evil come to an end. The contents of the larger stomach of the slaughtered animal are also strewn upon the house and the premises of the sick man. Noone is allowed to open the hut while the beef is there, until they are ready to take it out, lest the shades be disturbed in their feasting upon it. On opening the hut in the morning, a portion of the beef is said to have oeen consumed. The rest is brought out, cooked and eaten; all the neighbors having gathered to have a share in the feast. As they take their leave they thank the man for the rich entertainment they have had, assure him that it was a very fine animal, an offering with which the shades ought to be satisfied, and express the wish and hope that the sick man may soon recover.
One party, of whom the writer inquired, put it in this way: When they are sick they slaughter cattle to the shades, and say: Father, look on me, that this dise3se may cease from me; let me have health on the earth and live a long time. They have a long talk (with the shades) in the cattle-fold, and praise the spirits, saying: Hail, friend, thou of such a place, grant us a blessing, beholding what we have done, what an offering we have made. You see this distress; may you remove it, since we have given you our animal. We know not what more you want, whether you still require anything more or not. May you grant us grain, that it may be abundant, that we may eat, of course, and not be in need of anything, since now we have given you what you want. Yes, for a long time have you preserved me in all my going. Look here; you see I have just begun to have a kraal. This kraal was huilt hy yourself, father, and why should you now be willing to diminish your own kraal? Build on, as you have begun; let it be large, that your offspring, still here above, may increase, increasing in knowledge of you, whence cometh power.
If one is on the point of being injured by anything, and yet escapes, he says: I was preserved by our shade, which was still watching over
THE NEW ERA OF COLONIZATION
me. Perhaps he slaughters a goat in honor of the same, and puts the gall on his head; and when the goat cries'out for pain of being killed, he says: Yes, then, there is your animal; let it cry, that ye may hear, ye our gods (ye of ours) who have saved me. I myself am desirous of living on thus a long time here on the earth; why, then, do you call me to account, since I think I am all right in respect to you? And while I live I put my trust in you, our paternal and our maternal gods. The writer's informant says they slaughter only goats and cattle, and, not sheep, because sheep never cry when they are slain. They want something which will cry when it is about to be slaughtered.
THE NEW ERA OF COLONIZATION AND ITS BEARING ON CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY.
BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK. NONE can look upon the progress of civilization by the powers of Europe with greater interest than the friends of missions. The question how the dark places of the earth are to be brought under civil government, through what agencies this is to be done, and under what Christian or unchristian influences they are to be placed, is one of the greatest moment as affecting the progress of Christ's kingdom in the world. The spread of that kingdom has from the earliest ages been more or less connected with the great enterprises of colonization. The occupation by God's chosen people of the countries lying on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, considered as a radiating point of influence upon the nations of the world, was of vast consequence. The dispersion of the tribes of Israel through the Babyl~nian Empire, until in the time of Esther the exiled people, with their knowledge of the true God, were represented in aU its one hundred and twenty provinces, greatly enhanced their influence. The numerouS' Greek colonies that were formed in the East, carrying with them that language which became the vehicle of the New Testament revelation, became still another factor in the spread of Christianity. The enforced dispersion of the early Ohristian believers by persecutions at Jerusalem was in the same line. The extension of the Roman arm!:! over all Europe furnished also highways for the messengers of Ohrist, and the settlements which were extended to Spain, Gaul and Britain became centers al1d sources of Ohristian influence. The occupation of the North American Oontinent, and, later still, various portions of the East, by the Anglo-Saxon, has started great forces, whose results we are not even yet prepared to estimate. How, then, can the student of the Bible and of the history of Christian civilization look without deep interest upon the great movements which are being made just now by Britons, French, Germans, Italians, Portuguese and others for the possession of hitherto uncultivated regions of Africa and the Islands of the Sea. It is an encouraging consideration for all those who love the cause of missions that side by side with the small and inadequate work of prelchers and teachers are the great movements of God's providence. The most important element in the missionary work is the fact that by obeying the great commission of our Saviour the church comes into the sweep of those vast and omnipotent forces which move the world by divine behest.
We do not overlook the many and serious hindrances which have been interposed by commerce, especially the contact and influence of those evil-minded men who resort to all mission fields with sinister aims. We do not forget the almost disheartening discouragements of the opium trade, and the still more devastating liquor traffic; but rising high above all these are the supreme purposes and powers of Him who has promised to be with His people" alway, even unto the end of the world."
It has been a matter of just pride throughout Protestant Ohristendom that the Anglo-Saxon has had so prominent a place in the colonization of the waste places of the world. Leaving Southampton one finds the Briton dominant in the great natural Fortress of Gibraltar; he is also at Malta, and at Oyprus, with his stores and naval equipments. He is dominant in Egypt, in Natal, ,and Oape Oolony ; he has established a British Empire in the heart of the Asiatic Oontinent ; Australia, New, Zealand, Fiji, are under his power and influence, not to speak of Singapore, Hong Kong, and various smaller island groups of the Pacific. Wherever British power has obtained a footing a degree of permanence is found in the institutions of government. of education, of economic and political enterprises. The Bible, the school, the eleemosynary institution spring up ; the work of missions by Protestant or Oatholic is impartially protected, though it is fair to say that in India particularly it was by a long and hard lesson that British authorities were taught to deal justly with the missionaries and their converts as against the popular demands of prevailing heathemsm.
It has often enough been said' that the Spanish and the French have never proved to be good colonizers; that on this continent the Spani!3h saw their powers swept away as a result largely of their own blundering, and as a reaction against their remorseless rapacity and oppression. The French colonies on this North American Oontinent were largely lost by the mistakes or weaknesses of bigoted French sovereigns; and where their influence still prevails, as in Lower Oanada, stagnation, the handmaid of superstition, is still too palpable to be hidden.
But a change seems to have come, The Germans, not hitherto inclined to colonization, and the Italians, occupied until within a recent period with their struggles against French ambition, Austrian tyranny, and papal repression, have only just wakened to the spirit of 740 THE NEW ERA OF COLONIZATION. [OCT., colonial enterprise, and a good beginning certainly has been made in Abyssinia. Among those explorers who in the last two decades have helped to open the secrets of the Dark Continent are found names like Caserta and Piaggia, who are proving themselves worthy of the raceof Marco P<>lo and Carpini.
Some recent events have seemed to indicate that possibly Great Britain is in danger of losing her laurels. It is claimed that the splendid opening of Zanzibar, which was accomplished by the enterprise and humanity of Great Britain, under the lead of Sir Bartle Frere, has virtually been snatched from her grasp by Germany; not by force of arms but by a more vigorous utilization of the advantages which were gained when Sultan Borgash had been compelled to treat for the suppression of the slave trade. And now Germany is in possessian of a vast territory which is a key to the,Great Lake Region.
The Egyptian campaign of Great Britain five years since was brilliant and worthy of the British arms, so far as it went. But in the wretched delays and indecision which resulted in the sacrifice of General Gordon, and in much of the policy which has been pursued since that time, there seems to be a lack of that energetic and humane statesmanship which has so long been the glory of the British flag.
A recent editorial article in the New York Tribune condemns, very justly, we think, the short-sighted policy which has been pursued in connection with what it calls the massacre of the Dervishes in the Nile Valley. It justifies the measure as a necessity, but one which when once accomplished should have been followed up by such measures as would prevent a like necessity-for just as soon as another horde of blood-thirsty fanatics can be gather6ld in the desert, it may sweep down the Nile and again fill the whole country with disorder and alarm. It complains that Dongola, Khartoum and the Soudan are still left to govern themselves, and with such a rule one cannot tell what to expect. At the time of Gordon's death the capture of Khartoum would doubtless have been justified by the European powers; now it may be a question. But certainly some measures should be taken to establish authority and permanent peace along the upper Nile, and not only destroy the slave trade, but afford protection to those more peaceful tribes which have so long been devastated by fanatical raids. The fact that Massowah, and other coast towns of Abyssinia which have come under Italian rule, have increased their population more than tenfold in a half dozen years, affords evidence that what the people of all that vast region most desire is stable government and protection. What more significant refutation could be given to those recent pleas which have claimed that Africa should be given over to the superior control of Islam?
The article referred to gives English rule in Egypt much credit over against its failures and mistakes in the Soudan. It has done much to relieve the burdens of the Khedive's subjects; the fellaheen have been delivered from the injustice of arbitrary conscription; the military budget has been rescued from spoliation and extravagance ; taxation has been reduced, and the floating debt has been paid; the system of enforced labor on public works has been' abolished; progress has been, made in irrigation; prisons have been reformed, etc., etc.
But with all this a damaging contrast is still drawn between these results and those effected during a corresponding period of French occupation in 'l'unis. "There," says The Tribune, "the public debt has been refunded at a low rate and carried up to par; surplus revenues have been obtained; a new and radical land system has been introduced; new industries have been established and old occupations revived; commerce has been doubled; municipalities have been created and law courts opened; school-houses have been built and the French language is rapidly spreading through the country. All these results have been accomplished because the French Government, having conquered the country, has justified its continued occupation of it by governing it well, and civilizing it without delay." An important qualification of this contrast must be admitted in the fact that in Tunis capitulations have been withdrawn and a French protectorate has been construed as excluding other EUl'opean nations; while in Egypt the reverse is trne ; international complications have hampered the English at every turn, and the permanence of foreign occupation has been left in doubt.
But the question is : Are these evils insurmountable? In a strategic point of view Egypt is tenfold more essential to African civilization than Tunis. More important than all tho Barbary States together is the Nile; it is the key to the Soudan and all Eastern-Central Africa, and it is along the line of the Nile and the connecting links of navigation through the Lake Country that the fatal blow must be struck to the African slave trade. There is, therefore, a power of motive in connection with diplomatic progress in Egypt far greater than can be found in any other country now waiting the influence of humane I I statesmanship and philanthropy. When Cardinal Lavigerie appeared in London with his stirring appeal for an international movement aimed at the suppression of the African slave trade, whose atrocities he so eloquently portrayed, there appeared in some of the London papers an expression of surprise, amounting almost to a sneer, that a French Catholic should deem it necessary to exhort the countrymen of Wilberforce and Clarkson on the subject of human slavery. Nevertheless, the verdict of Christendom seems to be in favor of Lavigerie; it justifies the pertinence if not the necessity of his appeal. 'rhe horrible traffic goes on, and whoever may be to blame, it cannot be said that anything like adequate efforts are being made on the part of any of the great powers for its suppres-
INTEREST IN MISSIONs
sion. But individual efforts are being put forth, and men of benevolent impulse are associating and conferring with reference to the subject, and it is to be hoped that the sympathy of Christian people on both sides of the A.tlantic may be awakene(j. in this great matter.
There is now in this country a gentleman from London (Mr. Francis William Fox) who is most deeply interested in the establishment of a line of police stations extending from Suakim on the Red Sea to Berber, the most easterly'point of the Nile, thence to Khartoum, and up the Nile to the Lakes, Victoria, '.ranganyika, Nyassa, etc., to the' mouth of the Zambezi. This would complete a cincture which, it is believed, would sever the roots of that foul cancer which Livingstone caned the" great open sore of Africa." Mr. Fox is encouraged by the prospect that a meeting will be held in New York in October which will enlist some of our influential classes of citizens in favor of the project which he has at heart. There should be found a hearty sympathy with it on the part of all friends of missions and all others who love humanity.
'rhe time seems to have come when the Government and people of the United States should begin to cherish a more active interest in the great geueral movements of the world and should seek to exert an influence worthy of their power.
The policy of avoiding" entangling alliances" with other powers has been carried to the verge of absurdity and contempt. When Mr. Kasson in the Berlin International Congress on the affairs of the Congo cast his influence against the introduction of liquor into the African Free State, he was reprimanded by our Secretary of State. When Earl Granville, moved by the reports of devastation produced by the trade in liquor and firearms in the Pacific Islands, sent a circular note asking the great powers to unite in repressing it, France, Austria, and even Russia, gave a favorable response, while Secretary Bayard humiliated the United States by a shuffiing declinature.
It was doubtless well for the infant Republic when scarcely recovered from her long struggle with Great Britain to avoid an entangling alliance with France, over which the clouds of a European war soon gathered, but to parade that old threadbare doctrine as a pretext for standing aloof from every joint enterprise of humanity in these days of our security and strength is to bring on us the contempt of the na":' tions. We certainly have had something to do with slavery, and if now we can make atonement by helping to sweep it from the face of the earth it is worth the effort.
-~—- INTEREST IN MISSIONS.
[The following brief and pertinent thoughts come from a source which entitles them to more than ordinary consideration.-EDB.] THAT the interest in missions is on the increase is manifest in this country by many signs which cannot be mistaken, some of them of a character which may be called in question by the" wise and prudent," but all indicative of life and vigor. I have seen not fewer than five new missions to Africa alone started within the last twelve months by as many new organi- zations, besides fresh efforts by old societies. This tendency to start new and independent schemes is one of the signs of-vital energy welling up from the spiritual quickening of new life in numbers of the churches, too exuberant to be kept within the old limits and forms of church order, and too independent and self-conscious to be restricted by the rules of our old societies. That many of these enterprises will fail in accomplishing what their ardent but inexperienced originators so earnestly aim at is painfully cer- tain to anyone familial' with the history of missions. But we cannot but follow them with interest and not a little hope. They have a vitalizing ten. dency and are the signfl of a rising tide of missionary life inside the churches out of which they have sprung; and they help to get us out of the ruts in which all old institutions have a tendency to run. We shall learn many a lesson from the failure of some and the success of others.
Another hopeful sign of the increasing interest in missions is the interest with which not only enemies but friends are sifting and in no measured terms denouncing the missionary methods and operations of. the past and present. The impatience for tangible results, even where unreasonable, is hopeful and expresses the intensity of desire which gives rise to impatience.
The long series of lessons by "a missionary" in the Ohristian, and fol- lowed up by vigorous lessons in the Wesleyan Times by "A Friend of Mis- sions," have led to a great discussion in the recent meeting of The Wesleyan Oonference in Sheffield.
Neither of these writers, when stripped of the lions by means of which they made a loud voice widely heard through the important organs in which their strictures appeared, were found to be men of weight or experience', but both have arrested attention, and we doubt not good will come of their ill- advised utterances.
The charges brought against the missionaries of the writer's own church, as well as those of all societies, in the Wesleyan Times were so severe as to compel all the missionaries of the denominations in Southern India to sign a memorial to the Conference, demanding a searching investigation of the charges made, or that they might be recalled. The writer, who turned out to be a young man who had only been a little more than a year in the mission field, and had cost the society seven or eight hundred pounds and had never done a stroke of work, charged his brothel' missionaries with living in the greatest luxury and fashion; keeping their butler and coachman and fine -clothes for presentation at the mimic courts of the viceroy and governor, and with a retinue of servants which would outnumber those of a merchantprince in England or America. And this without any adequate explanation of the climatic and social conditions of life in a country like India, which compel and facilitate a mode of life very different from what they would desire, if life is to be maintained and health preserved for the Master's work.
Of course no man who knew anything of the facts of the case attached the slightest value to such baseless and cruel charges; but as there are many of the warmest friends of missions who knew little or nothing of these facts, the missionaries did well to demand an inquiry. They were ablv defended in the Conference and an unanimous vote of confidence pa;sed, but it remains to be seen whether they will be satisfied with the resolution. It is expected that they will insist on a thorough inquiry by an influential deputation, and it will be for the interest of missions that their demand be complied with.
One outcome of the discussion is most satisfactory. Mr. Hugh Price
THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF MONEY
Hughes,in whose paper the accusations appeared-a true-hearted missionary, equally able and ardent as an advocate of missions at home and abroad- urged the church then and there to resolve to raise £20,000 as an addition to the income of her foreign mission income.
One unpretentious outcome of the Missionary Conference in London of last year is the resolution of the" Christian Vernacular Education Society"
to devote its efforts in future to the preparation of a Chriatian literature for India. The great need for this was strongly expressed at the Conference by missionaries from all parts of the mission field. The constitution of the society precludes the extension of their operations beyond India, but as this includes a popUlation of 200,000,000 it is large enough for a beginning. The Secretary of the Conference, Mr. Johnston, has been induced to take the work in hand and important results are looked for. A WATCHMAN.
LONDON, Aug. 16, 1889.
THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF MONEY. BY REV. W. HARRISON, CHARLOTTETOWN, P. E. I., CANADA. THl? rapid increase of wealth among the present progressive peoples of the earth is a fact which stands broadly out in the times through which we are passing. In some of the leading nations this growth has assumed proportions of an extraordinary character, and is compelling recognition in quarters the most representative and infl.uential. Mr. Gladstone, everywhere recognized as one of the highest financial authorities of the age, stated recently that the present income of the English nation is more than five thousand million dollars a year, and that more money had been made in England and Scotland in the last century alone than from the days of Julius Cresar to the year 1800, and more money had been made from 1850 to 1870 than from 1800 to 1850. The annual savings of the country are estimated at six hundred and fifty millions of dollars.
In the United States the unprecedented expansion of the nation's money capacity has been one of the growing wonders of the times. The President of Rutgers College, Dr. M. E. Gates, from extensive and reliable data, reck- ons the wealth of the country at fifty billions of dollars, and the daily increase at six millions. The marvelous development of the wealth of the United States, by decades, has been officially reported as follows: 1850……………………………………………. $ 7,135,780,228 1860……………………………………………. 16,159,616,068 1870……………………………………………. 30,068,518,507 18BO…………………………………………… 43,642,000,000 1887, say ……………………………………….. 60,000,000,000 Government officials estimated some years ago that the annual income of the entire population was a little over seven billions of dollars. Having ascertained a fair and reliable showing as to the financial resources of the two leading nations of the world, it is now in order to approach more directly the subject which this paper has specially in view.
How far, then, has the process of converting some fair proportion of this enormous wealth to definitely Christian objects been achieved? What are the present demands, and the prospects for the future? As an example, we select the following statements, exhibiting as they do the present extent of Christian liberality in the United States. The figures have been carefully prepared, and are sufficiently correct to enable us to form a pretty definiteconelusion as to the present-day religious application of the wealth now in the hands of Protestant Christendom. Our firm opinion is that the current givings of the Christian popUlation of the American Republic to deflnitelyreJigious objects are above rather than below the average of the other nations coming under this classification. Bearing this in mind, the present attitude of Protestant Christendom toward this question of money comes into view and suggests considerations which will claim in the near future a deeper and wider attention than they have ~et received. Taking the total wealth of the UnIted States for 1887 at sixty billions of dollal's, it is in place to inquire as to what proportion of this vast wealth is now held by the members of the evangelical churches, and to what extent this proportion is applied to purely Christian uses and ends.
Dr. Dorchester, awidely recognized authority on the special lines we are now discussing, has stated the matter as follows: "Having submitted the above inquiry to many thoughtful persons, they all agree that the share of the nation's wealth possessed by the members of the evangelical churches may safely be estimated at their pro rata share numerically.
•• For instance, if the communicants of these churches in 1880 were one- fifth of the whole population of the United States, their wealth may be safely estimated at one-fifth of the total wealth of the country."
Figuring on this basis, the total pro rata wealth of the churches named would stand as follows: 1850………………………. : .•.••…•…………. $1,084,803,490 1860…………………………………………… 2,693,269,344 1870…………………………………………… 5,202,184,274 1880.. .. ………………………………………. 8,728,500,000 1887, say ……………………………………….. 12,000,000,000 Before pt'oceeding to inquire as to what proportion of this enormous wealth, now in professedly Christian hands, passes over in some form into the treasury of the Lord, we call attention to the powers and responsi- bilities of wealth in general. It is almost impossible to overestimate the immense influence which the money-power of the world carries within its strong and imperial gt·asp. To say that it constitutes one of the principal in- struments by which the aifait-s of the age are turned is simply to state a fact which is evident to all. This agency of wealth, which holds in its hands the golden scepter of such a wide and varied dominion, becomes increasingly powerful as the march of civilization proceeds j and, other things being equal, the people possessing this money-capacity in its largest • form, carry that by which they can make themselves a felt and command- ing figure among the nations of the earth. Without this universally- recognized and almost sovereign power very little of all the vast and com- plex machinery of the age can be worked a single day; the grand stimulus and attraction to the busy and toiling millions of the race would be re- moved, and one of the prime forces now pushing onward the material, political, social, and ever-multiplying improvements of the age would sink out of sight. The value of this one item of money in all the departments of this constantly expanding century is increasing with such marvelous rapidity that the financial condition of a people has become the index to their prosperity, and their influence and authority in the councils of the world are largely determined by it. National bankruptcy means na.tional impotency, deterioration and decay, and all the proud pages in the past history of that people suffering such financial ruin cannot save them from being stripped of those qualifications which are regarded as among the prime passports to honorable rank among the powerful, progressive nations of the time. Financial supremacy involves responsibilities of the most in- fluential kind; it may become a far-reaching and beneficent power, or a ruler of the most tyrannical and despotic kind. If, then, in the realm of • commerce, and in all the multiplied departments of national life, the money question is such a mighty engine in the way of motive, influence, and achievement, it is .surely worth while to inquire as to the moral bearings and possibilities of this universal and princely power. If the great secular .enterprises of the age and all the splendid lind myriad-sided machinery of this nineteenth century are bare impossibilities without the aid of gold, it is quite in place to ask as to what part God intends that this money-power of the age should take in the enlightenment and evangelization of the world.
It is safe to say that never before did the money question occupy so much of the attention and prayerful solicitude of the Christian Church as at present, and never before did the moral and religious capabilities of wealth stand out so distinctly and vividly as they do to-day. It is becoming more and more evident that the very agency which is the grand essential in all the secular movements of the world, and without which they would immediately collapse, is also one of the divinely-appointed instruments by which, in the hands of a consecrated church, many of the great spiritual undertakings of the period are to be sustained, perpetuated and brought to their predicted and beneficent consummation. The broad outline of that plan which contemplates the capture of this world for truth and righteousness is coming into greater clearness, and the responsibilities of wealth in connection with the realization of that plan cannot now for a single moment be pushed out of sight. Gradually the importance of money as a necessary power·in the establishment, support and universal diffusion of Christian agencies has been coming to the front; and, so far as the evangelization of the millions of heathendom are concerned, all at once, or nearly so, the financial question has rushed up to an unexpected, indisputable and burning climax. This climax is the undoubted result of God's providential hand in the history of His church, a searching test and challenge of His people's sincerity, and marks a comparatively new stage in the onward march of that kingdom which is yet to win for itself a final s~premacy over the mind and heart and conduct of this fallen but redeemed world. When we state that the Christianization of earth's 1,000,000,000 or hitherto unreached pagans has been 'educed largely to a matter of dollars and cents, we are but stating what is rapidly becoming the deep and powerful conviction of all branches of the Church of God. The appeals for a larger liberality, coming as they do from every quarter, and marked by such intense urgency and such a weight of sacred obligation, only confirm too well the somewhat startling statement just made. We now return to the inquiry raised in a previous part of this article as to the proportion of wealth now in Christian hands which is being applied to objects of a purely religious character.
Just here it is well to recognize the fact that the grasp of Ohristian principle on the money power of the world was never so great as at present. It is estimated that the amount contributed annually by the Christian population of all lands for religious purposes of every kind is about two thousand rnillionsoj dollars, being an average tribute of about $1.50 for every man, woman and child on the face of the earth to-day. At the Evangelical Alliance, held at Washington in 1887, it was affirmed that "Probably since 1850 more money has been raised by the Protestant churches of Christendom for purely evangelizing purposes, aside from current church expenses and local charities, than was raised for the same object in all the previous eighteen centuries." This is clear when it is remembered that the aggregate receipts of the Protestant Foreign Missionary Societies of Europe and America, from their origin to 1880, calculated on the basis of numerous data.. cannot be less than $270,000,000, of which nearly or quite $200,000,000 have probably been raised within the last 30 years. The increaiile in contributions to home missions and the various local charities is just as striking. Taking the givings for all pUl'poses of Chl:istian benevolence during the past 50 years, it will be found that there has been a very substantial improvement in this direction, and in this increase we have but the commencement of that process which must finally result in the Christianizing of those vast treasures of wealth in which there slumber moral and spiritual possibilities of the sublimest kind. Let the demands for a larger consecl'atioB of the money ability now possessed by the church be presented to the Christian intelligence of the age with all the force of an ever-increasing obligation, and let the issues be clearly stated, and our conviction is that the deeper fountains of generous and grateful emotion will be stirred and a new era of a more Christly appropriation of our temporal possessions will then be inaugurated. While, however, recognizing the marked advance in the amounts placed in the treasury of the church, and the wider and more earnest recognition of the doctrine of our individual stewardship, we must not overlook certain facts which still stand out with painful prominence and call loudly for the immediate and solemn consideration of the whole Church of God. The time for congratUlation over the victories of Christian principles as they relate to the capture of the money power of the church has not yet arrived, as the following statements will plainly show. That there is a lamentable deficiency in the givings of professing Christians ii clear when we look at theil· comparativelyinsignificant contributioni toward those divinely-appointed agencies which are. working for the evangelization of the world. The figures which are to follow will at once show this matter in its true light, and bring out the fact that large numbers of communicants are at present doing little or nothing in helping forward the most important undertaking in which the church is now engaged. It is from this cause of an utterly inadequate appropriation of the wealth now in possession of the evangelical churches that the highest designs of God are hindered, and the measureless blessings of the Christian redemption are being held back from the larger half of the human race today.
Lest we should be charged with a too passionate and extravagant statement as to the inferior response now made by the church at large to the pressing claims for foreign missionary effort, we ask attention to the following significant facts. We select, as fair examples, the amounts contributed by the Protestant churches in the United States for home and foreign missions during the past 30 years, viz.: FOREIGN MISSIONS. HOME MISSIONS. TOTAL.
1850………………… $ 675,000 $ 587,123 $1.232,123 1860………………… 1,075,070 1,450,479 2.525,549 1870………………… 1,753,T06 2.472,246 4.225,952 1880………… .. ……. 2.600,000 3.389,845 5,989,845 When we come to compare these figures with the membership of the evangelical churches, we find the amount per member very small indeed. Taking the averages for the same years and the givings for the two objects named will stand as follows: MEMBERS. AVEIU.GIll PER MEMBER.
1850………………………… . 8,529,988 3458 ce.n.ts. 5,240,554 68 .. ~~.:::::::::::.:::::::::::::::::: 6,673,396 59~ .. 10.000,000 1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It is, however, when we come to analyze the contributIons for foreign missions alone that we are almost startled by the infinitesimal giving in the dil'ection for which so much sympathy has been aroused, and apparently so much effort has been expended in recent years. We are at first incredulous and are ready to declare that there must be some serious miscalculation somewhere; but a little patient examination of the bare facts will convince tlul most skeptical that the money capacity of Christian communities has just been touched and nothing more. "The annual expenditures of the Protestant church members in the United States fOI' religious purposes of every description at home are about eighty millions of dollars, while for foreign missions the amount is about four millions of dollars. While the need is from five to six hundred and fifty times greater in the heathen world, we spend twenty times as much in our own work at home. This eighty million is expended for the Christianizing of sixty millions of people, 01' an average of one dollar and thirty-three cents each, while the four million dollars are expended for the spiritual welfare of eleven hundred millions of utter heathens, or one-third of a c~nt each." The average contribution per communicant, throughout Christendom, for the conversion of the myriads of totally unreached pagans does not amount to fifty cents each per annum. In some of the wealthy British churches it is as low as twenty-five cents each, and the Continental churches range from two to six cents per membet'-always excepting the little Moravian Church, which stands out a conspicuous example to all the world of the splendid results which may be achieved by a willing and consecrated people." In 1888 it was ascertained in England, that out of seven thousand titled members of the nobility, including all branches of the Royal family, only about five thousand dollars altogether was given for missions. (MISS. REV., April.) One-tenth of a cent per day, or one cent in ten days, is the present average contribution of the membership of the Christian Church throughout the world for the recovery of a thousand millions of heathen to a knowledge of that gospel which we deem to be the bearer of boundless blessings to our race. And the fact is that the real average is much less than one-tenth of a cent per day, foritis to be borne inmind that quite a number give to the cause of missions who are not included in the membel'ship of any of the churches. It is therefore evident that many professing Christians are doing absolutely nothing. or next to nothing, toward the advancement of those missionary agencies to which has been committed a duty and responsibility of the most momentous and solemn kind.
We have now reached a stage in our investigation which enables us to arrive at an estimate of the amount contributed to definitely religious objects, both at home and abroad, by the Evangelical communities in the United States for a single year.
Taking the aggregate wealth of thp. nation at sixty billions of dollars, and allowing that one-fifth of this amount is III the hands of evangelicalchurch members, and that the annual giving by this part of the population to Christian purposes of every description is something below one hundred millions of dollar8, we reach the conclusion that about one per cent. of the gross total of twelve billions of dollars is about the extent of the Christian liberality of one of the most religiously progressive nations of to-day. The percentage or church membership of the total population of the United States is larger, we think, than of any of the other great nations that can be named. We do not claim absolute cOl'rectness for our statements; but as an approximate showing of the present whereabouts of the gold power of the age in its relation to Christian influences and claims, we believe the representations here tabulated to be within sight of the facts as they now stand. We have selected the United States as a fair example of the other Protestant nations, and if there is a difference we are of the opinion that the higher average of Christian liberality will be in favor of the nation selected as the basis upon which our calculations and inferences in this article are largely drawn. From the above conclusions, drawn from a pretty wide outlook of the facts within our reach, it will be quite clear that the Christianization of the money ability of the professedly Protestant peoples of the century is a work only fairly commenced, and that extensive territories of wealth now in possession of the evangelical churches stil1remain to be brought into subjection to the dominion of the Son of God, whose suffering, hindered cause cries out as never before for that financial help which a thoroughly-consecrated church cannot long withhold.
'!'he present givings, especially to the work of foreign evangelization, are out of all proportion with the urgent, burning demands of the hour. There is no lack of money-our preceding statements have placed this beyond a doubt-but there is lack of deep, intelligent conviction respecting the claims which God has upon us and ours, and an apparent unwillingness to face the dollar-and-cents question upon which there is now laid in the religious opportunities of the age the solemn emphasis of unparalleled importance, and which the providence of God is every day pushing to the front. So evident and wonderful al'e the present day moral and religious possibilities of money that to ignore them is simply to come into collision with one of the plainest purposes and plans of God as to the means by which the message of redemption should be published to the race. No subtle reasoning, no manipulation of the conjurer's hand and no "paralyzing cant of an unfelt devotion" can for a moment substitute fOl' generous, enlarged Christian giving any other agency that can accomplish the work which a consecrated wealth alone is fitted to perform. The main difference between the financial position of Christian and heathen peoples is explained, very largely, on theological grounds alone. But for the undoubted and now grandly historic advantages secured by the movements of Chl'istianity among the leading nations of the world, is it probable that those nations would possess the unequaled money capacity they now enjoy? For what great cause, then, has God, through various means, poured this river of gold into the coffers of His peopIe? Is it that they may live only in pleasure and ease, transform the world into a brilliant saloon, and abandon themselves to selfish luxury, while teeming millions of their bl'ethren are dying for lack of knowlede:e and passing into an eternity for which they are ill-prepared? Surely the end to be a.ccomplished by this agency of wealth is something nobler than this. The finger of God points most distinctly to this higher object, and the most ordinary intelligence can now see what that object is. The citadel of human selfishness must be captured, 01' the mterests of Christ's kingdom must be cramped and betrayed before a perishing world. The battle has already commenced, and one of the grandest triumphs possible in the near future is the destruction of this giant of selfishness within the church and the consecration of some fair proportion of her immense treasures to the' cause of the gospel and a shipwrecked humanity. The sincerity of Christian men and women is being tested before the gaze of watching multitudes, and the religion of a spurious sentimentalism can no longer pass unchallenged in this time of reality and need. With the late Dr. Bushnell we may say that "the great problem we have now on our hands is the Christianizing of the money power of the world. What we wait fOJ' and are hope-
HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF MISSIONS AMONG THE JEWS
fully looking to see is the consecration of the vast money power of the world to the work aud cause and kingdom of Jesus Christ. For that day, when it comes, is the IJIorning, so to speak, of the new creation."
HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF MISSIONS AMONG THE JEWS.
BY RBV. B. PICK, PH.D., ALLEGHENY, PA.
(Concluded frOm page 673.) BUT we return again to Germany, where, with the eighteenth century, a 'new era commenced for the mission among the Jews. The first quarter of the eighteenth century was a period of great religious excitement in Germany, owing to the indefatigable labors of Spener and A. H. Franke (especially by the" collegia pietatis" of the former), which quickly spread far and wide, among high and low, poor and rich. The Bible, which had been entirely neglected and forgotten, was taken in hand and read again; and how extreme the desuetude into which the word of God had fallen may be gathered from the fact that Spener had to procure a special order from the elector for the practical explanation of some part of the Bible at the universities. A fruit of this new life in the church (for it was a complete regeneration) was the foundation of the University of Halle. Bible and missionary societies were also called into existence. Nor were God's ancient people forgotten. An interest for the Jews was evinced to a degree exceeding anything known in former periods of the church. It seems as if rulers, magistrates, professors, the clergy had been alike ani- mated with zeal for the conversion of Israel, for we find that Reineccius, in one of his works published 1713, says: "The general topic of conversation and discussion of the present day is about the conversion of the Jews." This new-born zeal for the Jewish cause was so great that we are told that many Christians learned to read Jewish-German in order to make them- selves better acquainted with Jewish books and more efficient for conversion with Jews. Prof. Callenberg lectured on that language and had an auditory of 150 persons. The Rev. John Muller of Gotha, who very often came in contact with trave~ing Jews, and took a lively interest in them, wrote a tract .for the Jews, entitled "The Light at Eventide," in dialogical form, which was in- tended to prepare the Jewish mind for the reception of Jesus Christ the Mes- siah; and through the extraordinary exertions of Dr. Frommann, a physician and Jewish convert, it was published in Jewish-German for wider circulation among the Jews. This tract produced the greatest sensation. For soon it was not only reprinted and translated into Hebrew, but also a German (1'736), Dutch (1735), Italian (1732), French (1748), and English translation was published, the lattel' by the" Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge" in the year 1734, and it is still used for missionary purposes. Even Roman Catholic priests took an intereflt in its circulation, and sent subscriptions for promoting it to Prof. Callenberg. This tra.ct is the more remarkable be- cause it became in fact the foundation stone for the well-known Oallenberg .Institution, or Institutum Judaicum, established in 1728, the object of WhICh was the conversion of the Jews, and also of Mohammedans. This institution, however, was closed in 1792. But the interest in behalf of God's ancient people was not confined to Germany alone; it also spread beyond the continent, for the well-known Jewish missionary, Stephen Schultz, tells us in his" Leitungen des Hochsten" (iv. : 74), that when he visited England in 1749, he was told that there were many laymen in London zealous for the conversion of the Jews. Next to Spener we must mention the early efforts made by the Moravian brethren. It was in the year 1738 that Leonhard Dober, who had established the first mission amongst the negroes in the West Indies, felt an ~arnest desire to labor for the conversion of the Jews. For this purpose he repaired to Amsterdam and hired a lodging in the so-called Juden-Hork. In 1739 Samuel Lieberkuhn succeeded Mr. Dober in Amsterdam, who devoted himself entirely to the service of the Jews. On account of his knowledge of Hebt'ewand his lov,e to Ist'ael the Jews called him "Rabbi." For 30 years Lieberkuhn labored among the Jews with great success.
The CallenbergInstitute, as we have seen, was closed in the year 1792, but in the providence of God, soon another way was to be opened for the mission among the Jews. It was only a few years after the first great thunder-clap of the French Revolution,. when three German stUdents, in whose hearts God had begun a work of grace, were assembled together, for mutual consultation and direction, in a room in the metropolis of northern Germany. They were pondering in their minds what they should do, and whither they should go, that they mig-ht be successfully employed inthe cause of missions. Berlin, their native metropolis, was at that time the stronghold of rationalism, the center of religious infidelity; and evangelical religIon, or pietism, was above all things hated and almost universally spoken against. Where, therefore, were the three German students to go? Pastor Jaenicke, and some few other pious Christians in Berlin, who had established a seminary where six or seven students were trained for missionary enterprise, were often in the greatest straits for want of funds. Their cause met with little sympathy, and they were almost in despair, when one day help came in time of need from another great metropolis, with a demand for three missionaries to occupy an important missionary post amongst the heathen tribes of Africa, This was in the autumn of 1801. Our three students went to London, in oi'der to enter the service of the London Missionary Society, and one of these was a Christian Israelite, C. G. Frey by name, who died some years ago in our country, a member of the Baptist denomination. During his stay in London it was put into his heart to visit his brethren after the flesh. He found them in a state of total darkness and bondage, worse than that of their fathers in Egypt. He spoke to them of Christ and His salvation. He engaged a few Christian friends to feel a concern for their spiritual welfare. He made known to thE' directors of the London Missionary Society his earnest deRire to be permitted to preach the gospel to hiS own brethren, This application was favorably considered by the directors; they acceded to his request, and some three years having been consumed in the needful preliminary preparation, we find him in 1805 commencing in earnest missionary work, under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. It was soon, however, discovered that the work required distinctive and peculiar machinery. Accordingly after the brief existence of a few years in 1808 a separate society which contemplated Jews exclusively as its object, the present "London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews" was founded in the begining of 1809. The main promoter of this society was the nobleman Lewis Way. It was in the year 1808 that Lewis Way, while riding with a friend of his in Devonshire, passed a park where some very fine trees attracted their attention. His friend told him that the owner of this park in her last will forbade the cutting down of these trees, until" the Jews would again have come to J erusalf)m." These words so deeply impressed themselves on the mind of Lewis Way that he never forgot them. From that day he devoted his large fortune as well as his talents to the conversion of the Jews. At first the newly constituted society was composed both of churchmen and dil:lsenters. In 1815. by an amicable arrangement, the dissenting members retired from its management, and its liabilities having been discharged by Way's munificent donation of £10,000, it entered on the present phase of its existence as a Church of England Society on the 11th of March, 1815. In the year 1814 the Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria of England, laid the foundation stone of the Episcopal Chapel, in Palestine place, in which up to this day divine service is held in different languages. This society, which was so small at the beginnin,!(" has not ouly its own printing establishment of Hebrew Bibles, tracts, etc., but has also its stations in Europe, Asia and Africa, occupying, according to the annual re- port for 1889, 37 stations,* with a staff of 138 laborers, of whom 84 are ~hris tian Israelites. We have now reached that period in the history of the Mission among the Jews from which time on the mission work is carried on systematically. In speaking of the missionary societies we must commence with England, as the mother-land of the present Protestant Jewish Mission.
A. Great Britain and Ireland.
1. The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. This society has stations as follows: in England 6, in Holland 2, in Germany 8, in Austria 3, in Russia 2, in France, Roumania, Italy, European Tur~ey, Persia 1 in each, in Asiatic Turkey 5, in North Africa 3.
Of the many missionaries of this society we mention some few Christian Israelites as Mich. Sol. Alexander, afterward first Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, Christ. F. Ewald, D.D., M. Marjoliouth, S. H. Deutsch, H. Popel', Henry A. Stern, D.D. (for many years a captive of King Theodor of Abyssinia), J. A. Pieritz, ChI'. W. H. Pauli, J. A. Hausmeister, F. J. Rosenfeldt, Joseph Wolff (father of Sir Drummond Wolff, the English states- man),tetc. 2. The British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, founded in 1842 by Ridley Herschell, a Christian Israelite, father of the present Lord Chancellor of England, with 6 stations in England, 5 in Germany, 3 in Russia, 2 in Austria, 1 in Italy, 1 in Turkey, 1 in Palestine.
3. The Jewish Mission of the Presbyterian Church of England, founded about 1871 with one station in London.
4. The Parochial Mission to the Jews' Fund, founded in 1879. 5. The London City Mission, which for the last twelve years also employs missionaries among the Jews. 6. The MildmayMiS'Sion to the Jews, organized in 1876, with the purpose of preaching Christ to the Jews everywhere, and of distributing the Hebl'ew New Testament (Salkinson's translation).t 7. The Barbican Mission to the Jews, located in the eastern centpr of London, and founded in 1879 by Rev. P. Warschawski, a. Christian Israelite. 8. The Jewish Mission of the Church of Scotland, founded in 1841, with stations in Constantinople, Salonichi, Beyrout, Smyrna, Alexandria. 9. The Jewish Mission of the Free Church of Scotland, founded in 1843, with stations in Amsterdam, Breslau, PI'ague, Budapest, Constantinople, Tiberias. One of the most prominent missionaries of this society was the Rev.
• For details concerning some of the stations, as Patestine, Poland, and Tunis, see my arts. in McClintock & Strong.
t With the exception of the first, compare my biographical sketches of these men in McClintock & Strong's Cyclop.
:I: On the different Hebrew versions of the New Testament see my arts. Hebrew Version a.nd Sa.lkinson in McClintock & Strong's Cyclop. Dr. Charles &hwarz,* who on Sunday morning, Aug. 1, 1858, while in silent prayer in a pulpit at Amstel'dam, was stabbed by a fanatical young Jew, without, however, being killed. • 10. The Jewish Mission of the United Presbyterian Church, founded in 1885.
11. The Scottish Missions to the Jews, founded in 1887.
12. The Jewish Mission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, founded in 1841, with stations- in Europe and Asia.
Altogether these societies have a staff of 312 missionaries scattered over 81 diffel'ent stations, as follows: England, 214 missionaries on 55 stations.
Scotland, 71 " "17"
Ireland, 27 '! "8"
312 81 B. Germany.
Owing to the influence of Lewis Way, who came to Berlin in 1818, there was founded in 1822 : 1. The Berlin Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. The late '
Prof. August Tholuck was for many years the secretary of the society; and one of its earliest missionaries was the Jewish Christian, Jacob Brerling.t Since the year 1859 this society receives the church collection taken up on the tenth Sunday after Trinity throughout the Kingdom of Prussia. It has 3 missionaries.
2. The Rhenish-Westphalia Society for Israel, founded in 1844, has 4 mis· sionaries.
3. The Evangelical-Lutheran Central Association for the Mission among the Jews in Saxony, Bavaria, Hessen, etc., founded in 1849. Its main seat is Leipsic, and the soul of this association is the venerable Dr. Franz Delitzsch, whose masterly Hebrew translation of the New Testament has become the best means for the mission among the Jews. Another means fOl' furthering the interest in God's ancient people are the so-called Instituta Judaica, ,first organized after the pattern of Callenberg's institute by Mr. Faber in 1880 while a student at Leipsic, and now to be found at almost all universities of Europe. In this" Instituta" the students hear of the Jews and the mission among the Jews, and thus the future ministers of the gospel are interested in behalf of Israel.
4. The Wirttemberg Society for Israel, founded in 1874. Altogether we have in Germany 13 missionaries on 6 stations.
C. Switzerland.
In Switzerland exists the Society of the Friends ofIsrael at Basle, founded in 1830. D. Netherlands.
In the year 1844 the missionary of the London Society, Mr. Pauli, inter- ested some friends of Amsterdam in behalf of the Jews, ,and a society was formed under the name: 1. De Nederlandsche vereenigung tot medewerkung aan de witbreiding van het Christendom ender de Joden. The object of this society is to care for the Jewish Christians of the London Society.
2. De Nederlandsche vereenigung voor Israel, founded at Amsterdam in 1861. It has 2 missionaries. 3. Christelijke Gereformeerde Zending onder Israel, founded in 1875. It em- ploys 1 missionary• .. See my art. in McOlintock & Strong's Cyclop.
t See my a.rt. in I. c. of E. France.
In 1885 the Rev. Gustave Krueger of Gauber, in the middle France, started a monthly, Le Relled d'l81"ael, and by means of this paper he reviv~d the interest in Israel. F. Scandinavia.
1. Centralkommitteen for Israelsmissionen, founded in 1844 at Stavanger, in Norway. This formed the nucleus of other societies. At the instance of Prof. Caspari, himself a Christian Israelite, a Central Committee was formed in 1865 at Christiania, which regulates the finances of the different auxilia- ries. Not having a missionary itself, the Committee supports the different 'missionary societies in Germany and Russia.
2. Foreningen for Israelsmission, founded in 1876, with its headquarters at Stockholm. It employs 4 missionaries at 2 different stations.
3. Svenska Missionsforbundel, founded in 1877, has 2 missionaries at 2 stations.
4. Forening fer Israelsmissionen, founded at Copenhagen in 1885.
Thus in Scandinavia 6 missionaries are directly employed at 4 stations to work among the Jews. G. RU8sia.
1. The Jewish Mission in St. Petersburg, founded in 1881.
BeSIdes, there is an asylum for Jewish girls at St. Petersburg, founded in 1884, where they receive a Christian education. Some of these girls are now employed as deaconesses.
2. The Baltic Mission among the Jews, founded in 1870.
3. The Mission of Paster Faltin in Kischinew, founded in 1860.
4. The Mission of Joseph Rabinowitsch at Kischinew, founded in 1883.
In Russia are directly employed in the mission among the Jews 8 mission- aries at 5 different stations. H. Nortk Am-ema.
In our country different societies exist for proclaiming the gospel to the Jews. The oldest is that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which com- menced missionary work as early as 1842. Since that time the work has been carried on directly and indirectly by differ,ent denominations or indi- viduals.
It may be safely stated that there exist at present about 50 missionary societies, with about 400 missionaries. Taking the number of Jews scat- tered over the world at about 6,400,000, we have 1 missionary to 16,000 Jews. We have thus far sketched the mission among the Jews as carried on by the Protestant Church, but our sketch would be incomplete were we not to speak in a few words of the mission of the Roman Catholic Church.
Starting from the prinCiple that" extra ecleaiam nulla eat salu8," i. e., outside the church (of Rome) there is no salvation, the Church of Rome re- garded the Jews also as an object of her special interest. But there were not wanting such Jews, strange as it may appear, to whom the Church of Rome had an especial attraction, and who, when once a member of that church, exerted their influence upon their former co-religionists. This cen- tury is especially rich in such conversions. Thus, in 1876, died at Prague Johann Emmanuel Veitk, * cathedral dean, who belonged to the order of the Redemptorists, and for some time one of the most celebrated preachers of St. Stephen's in Vienna. In France especially the Church of Rome re- ceived large accessions from thEe' synagogue at Paris. David Paul Drach,* a rabbi, joined the church in 1823 with his son and daughter. The son be- came a priest, the daughter a nun, while the father acted as Librarian at ~ See my a.rts. 1. c. the Propaganda in Rome, where he died in 1865, highly honored by popes – and the French Government. By word and writing he labored for the conversion of his former co-religionists. He was the ·means of bringing many Jews into the Church of Rome, and in 1828 Drach could write that" never since the destruction of Jerusalem so many Israelites have adopted the Catholic faith."
One of Drach's spiritual children was Jacob, afterward Maria Paul Francis Libermann, who was baptized in 1826, and received holy orders in 1841. He founded the" Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary" for the conversion of the negroes. Cardinal Pitra, his biographer, cannot speak highly enough of this priest, who died in 1853, and whose beatification the congregation of rites in Rome had decreed a few years ago. Especially important for the mission among the Jews was the conversion of Theodor, afterward Maria Theodor Ratisbonne, son qf the rich president of the Jewish Consistory at Strasburg, who. in 1827, joined the Church of Rome. His conversion he owed to Louis Bautain, author of "Philosphie du Chrisiianisme." Besides Ratisbonne, Bautain was also the means of the conversion of Isidor Goschler, afterwards director of the Collegium Stanislaus in Paris, and Jules Lewel, afterwards prelate and superior of St. Luigi dei Francesi at Rome. Ratisbonne received holy orders in 1830, and for many years he acted as director of the fraternity" of the Sacred and Immaculate Heart of Mary for the Conversion of Sinners," till the turning point in his life came in 1842, when his brother Alphons became a convert to the Church of Rome, owing his conversion, as it is said, to the; appearance of St. Mary. Alphons, who had joined the Jesuits soon after his baptism, wrote his brother, asking him to establish a Christian institute for Jewish children. On the very same day Theodor was notified of the sickness of a Jewish lady. He had the joy of converting her before she died. Her two daughters he took under his care. In the same week another Jewish lady brought her ,three daughters to him, and these five girls he put temporarily under the care of the Gray Sisters. Ratisbonne now went to Rome to get the papal authorty for his new activity. Pope Gregory XVI. blessed him and appointed him" Apostolic Missionary" for Israel. Pope Pius IX. granted to him in 184'7 important privileges. In the meantime his brother Alphons had received holy orders, and through the efforts of his brother he was permitted to leave the order of the Jesuits in order to assist Theodor. In 1855 Alphons conceived the idea of founding a similar society at Jerusalem. In 1856 he commenced his labors there; in 1862 the monastery and in 1868 the" Ecce Homo" church was completed. In 1874 he erected a similar institute for boys. Both brothers are dead. Theodor died in 1884, January 10, and a few months later, May 6, his brother died. Their work is still carried on in different parts of the world. Of those who were baptized by the Ratisbonne brothers, one Hermann Kohen, afterward Augustin Maria, joined the Carmelites in 1849, and died in London as prior of the Carmelite monastery. A sermon of Hermann Kohen was the means of converting the painter, Bernhard Bauer, who also joineti the Carmelites and became the confessor to the Empress Eugenie of France.
The noblest representatives of the Romish mission to the Jews are the two brothers Augustin and Joseph Le1nann, both converts from Judaism and both priests and canons at Lyons; the former doctor and professor of theology at the university; the latter apostolic missionary. Both joined the Roman Ca.tholic Church in 1857. Their special work is mainly literary, and by means of their writings which they publish from time to time to
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES
endeavor to impress upon the Jews the truth of Christianity. When the Vatican Council was assembled in 1870, the two brothers came before that assembly to plead the cause of their Jewish brethren. In fine, it may be said that whatever efforts the Church of Rome makes for the conversion of the Jews, they are to be traced back to France. It were an easy matter to bring before the reader a galaxy of Christian Israelites, who have distinguished themselves in church and State, t9 prove that the gospel is still the power unto salvation to the Jew first; but in spite of all it must be acknowledged, with a modern writer of the Church of England, when he says: "Missions to Jews I know are not popular; I suppose they never will be fashionable; but for men or women professing the faith of Jesus, the question' can never be, Are they popular? nor even, Are they what I like? The only question must be, • A~c they right?' Are they according to the mind of Christ? St. Peter and St. Paul must ever remain to us two of the greatest interpreters of Christian duty. Where they are both, there seems little room for us to differ from them. The whole life of one was spent in winning Jews to the Saviour; and if the whole life of the other received a different mission, it WaH from no lack of earnestness or zeal in thiS behalf. His most impassioned prayers were for this work, even when he was not in person permitted to take a leading part in it• .. Our own sweet church poet, George Herbert, has caught some little of this fervor of St. Paul, and in his own quaint way pleads earnestly to God for the welfare of Israel, the actual nation of the Jews. I cannot do better than close with his lines, which may appeal to some whom words of mine would hardly reach: ". Poor nation, WhOSA sweet sap and juice Our scions have purloined, and left you dry: Whose streams we got by the Apostle's sluice And use in baptism, while ye pine and die, Who by not keeping once became a debtor, And now by keeping lOSe the letter.
Oh that my prayers I mine, alas I o that some angel might a trumpet sound At which the Church, falling upon her face, Should cry so loud until the trump were drowned, And By that cry of her dear Lord obtain That your sweet sap might come again l' "
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES.
BY REV. CRAS. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
The Evangelisch.Lutherisches Missionsblatt says: "That the Hindus have, in fact, gone astray is proved by their religion, Brahmmism. This religion lays claJm to our deepest interests, not only because it is the most magnificent or the most huge and monstrous heathen system of religion that exists, but also because in it is revealed the greatest energy of heathen religiousness, consuming itself in seeking and striving after peace. The religiosity is a salient trait of the Hindu character. There again appears their relationship to the Germans, of whom the depth of feeling with its disposition to meditate and ponder, its longing for peace, is characteristic. Even yet, although the long dominion of heathenism has externalized aud ossified everything, the whole life of a Hindu, from his birth to his burial, nay, long after his burial, is controlled by his religion. And the whole people have devoted their energies to adorning their religion as magnificently as possible. The whole land which they inhabit bears the stamp of religion, it is a La.nd of Temples. If now we look away from the blinding glitter and noisy pomp of the idol worship and ask, • What is the real essence and aim of the Hindu l'eligion. the answer is: Self-redemption.' ..
"The ancient Greeks," says the Missionsblatt, "contended for their freedom, the Romans, for universal dominion-but the Hindus, for the prize of communion with God. The former two were great in combat with the outward foe, these took up the strife against the foe within, their' sin,' and set their life at stake, to control it, or as they express it, 'to bind the unruly ape in the heart.' True, the spiritual energy of the old penitents is now almost vanished, but yet there is in the people and in individual per. sonahties, a ~emnant of this intense impulse after self-redemption and the effacement of sin, which still breaks out afresh at the idol-feasts, under the force of great calamities, 01' at other times. Indeed, in this our own time, when the preaching oCthe word of God knocks at their hearts, when the youth of India have been brought in contact with European education, this religiou8 spirit of the Hindus has first-since of old-come to a revival. There is stirring among the people a spirit of inquiry and seeking, which implies a longing for something better. In some places, especially in the larger towns, the religious question has become so burning a question that it is dealt with even by the heathen.. in lectures, discussions and dissertations. And thus the missionary in India, almost everywhere, where he opens his mouth to bear testimony, in the markets, as in the streets, on journeys, as at home, in shops and offices, by day and night, finds people who are ready to enter with eager interest upon a religious conversation, even though it were only to ad'ance objections.
.. What a mission, to bring to so religiOUS a people the gospel, which alone has the power to bring to wounded souls refreshment, which sets forth the true whole burnt-offering of the God-man as the only way to redemption, and offers the true and complete communion with God, without requiring the dissolution of the individual personality'"
The province of Tanjore, comprised in the Kauvery Delta, is the most fruitful province and the corn, 01' rather the rice, granary of South India. This" Waterla.nd" is, year by year, twice overflowed by the Kauvery and fertilized by its fine mud, so that it yields a rich double harvel'lt. Every spot of this belt is cultivated. Six thousand and twenty-five settlements lie strewn iIi the river delta, concealed in thick groups of trees, only the pagodas rising out of the dense green wood which surrounds them, for the land is full of pagodas and shrines, almost oeyond any other. "Water from above, water from beneath, and mountains neal' at hand," these according to the Tamil minstrels, are the choicest blessings of a land; their land, accol'dingly, belongs to the pre-eminently favored lands. Hot and yet free of fever; fruitful, yet only when irrigated and tilled in ihe sweat of the brow; rich in rice, cotton, sugar-cane, indigo and palms, in herds of cattle, but also in snakes and scorpions; covered with populous cities and villages, devoted to idols and serving them in numerous pagodas; securing to its inhabitants a certain seclusion, which favored the peculiar development of their national life, but yet more aCcessible to intercourse with the world abroad than most other regions of India; this is the character of the land of the Tamils.
.. The Tamils, a race highly endowed, of rich sensibilities, joyous, laborious, distributed into many branches. although, in the middle classes not belonging to the Aryan, but to the Turanian or Scythian stock, nevertheless, soon assimilated the Aryan culture in a remarkable degree. Although they hold fast to their ancestral usages and to the rigorous division of castes, yet. being the most mobile and mo~t disposed to wander of all the Hindus, being found diffused over all India, and indeed beyond it, they have the most quickly unclosed themselves to foreigners and the most generally appropriated the Englishculture. Among the 14 millions of this race Protestant missions soonest found entrance and bave had the greatest success."
Madras, the capital of South India, has 400,000 inhabitants, of whom 39,- 094 are Christians, and 50,000 Mohammedans..
Islam and'the gospel are rivals for the dominion of India, and this fact gives to Christian descriptions of Mohammedanism an occasional pungency which is a refreshing contrast to the fantastic idealizations of Canon Taylor. This, from Missionary Baierlpin, is much to the point. It is easily verifiable throughout, with some tempering down, and may fairly be styled" Moham- medanism in a nutshell."
"Mohammed became at last convinced that Abraham, at all events, must have had the right religion. But the Jews had corrupted his religion. Therefore God sent Jesus, to restor~ the religion ot Abraham. Bnt the Christians had not understood Christ, and had become idolaters 01 him.
Therefore God had now selected him to restore the religion of Abraham. He bimselfwas a proph· et of God and the last. God has no mother, no wife, and no son. He Is alone, a great unit. That the Divine being, One, can yet be Triune, as already Indian philosophers, lIf1teen hundred years before him, had dimly conceived. this high thougbt could find nO place in his unlearned hea!!. So then he made his God, his Allah. into a wooden unity, and therefore immovable. It is trne, he repeats Incessantly, in place and out of place, tbat God Is compassionate, but in fact there is no move· ment in the inner being of his God. Believers, i. e., those who believe his prophet "-more proper- ly his apostle -" Mohammed, and honor him according to the prophet's precepts, are rewarded by him with Paradise, which is full of shady trees, springing founts, and beautiful young women, named houris. All others go straight to hell. The women of the Mohammedans have no access to their mosques "-not true of all mosques-" and no" specified" place in Paradise; there are women there already. There i~ a Kismet, a Fate, and this is absolutely unalterable. With this fate man is born into this world. And in this neither prayer nor mercy makes a change. The service of God consists in the repetition of certain forms of praise and other sentences at certain precisely appointed times of the day, towards a certain point of the horizon, Mecca. the position at each prayer, whether standing, kneeling, crouching, or lying prostrate, being also imperative. Of a conversion of the heart to God there is no mention, no more than of a love of God to man, and therefore there can be no mention of a love of all the heart and all the mind to this stllf, cold cipher, one Allah. And therefore among the Mohammedans "-so far as respects any influence from their reUglon-" there is lacking all love to men, all true humanity, such as extends to whatever is called Man. Robbery and murder are the order of the day, and among no people do children so orten rise a/(ainst the parents, as among the adherents of this false prophet."
True, in the main, though needing here and there som.e softening down.
'fhe Journal des Mission8 Evangeliquea for November, 1888, has an interesting article on the various ways of training missionaries. Among us, of course, and largely in Great Britain, the ordinary colleges and seminaries. Buton the continent, where so few university men become missionaries, the societies have to depend on training-schools of their own. We select a few facts. The Moravians, who have sent out among the heath~n about 2,300 missionaries, male and female, have a theological college at Fairfield, near Manchester, in England, under the care of Rev. R. Elliott; a German seminary at Gnadenfeld, in Prussia, under care of Rev. P. Beckel'; at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a college and seminary under care of Rev. A. Schultze and Rev. J. F. Hamilton. "The great Moravian Society indicated its methods from its very beginning. Its purpose was to send, above all, into the bosom of the pagan world, faithful witnesses of the Saviour, capable of ~laking Him known and loved by the heathen, whether they were artisans, like its heroic pioneers, potters like Dober, or carpenters like Nitzschmann. The society, nevertheless, now lays out 9,000 francs a year for the }:reparation of its missionary workers."
The Baptist College in Regent's Park, London, appears to train indifferently pastors and missionaries, comprising the classical and divinity course into a shorter time than ours. The London Society has no training.school. Nor has the Wesleyan Board. The Church ·Missionary Society, of 1,000 missionaries sent abroad has received only 200 fl"om the universities, and has trained 500 in its own Islington College. Most of the lesser English societies get tkeir missionaries where they can, a good many, probably, from the East London Missionary Institute, founded in 1872 by Rev. Grattan Guinness. This has already received 800 pupils, of whom 506 are now at work.
.. On the continent of Europe the method followed has been altogether different; not only had Wala.eus, as early as 16%2, a missionary college at Leyden. and the Dutch Society one of its own at Berkel, in 1810, and a.fterward, since 1821, at Rotterdam; but the Basel80ciety, founded in 1815, and that of Paris, in 1822, were established in the expectation that their first duty was to train missionaries for the great societies which had arisen before them. The example of the aged Jaenike, of Berlin, whose missionary school was closed after hi. death, in 1826, doubtless infiuenced the Berlin Society, which opened it.. institute in 1829 or 1830. Pastor Gossner, finding the new mission hou!/> of the society too sumptuous,left it, and toward 1840 trained his laborers in his own seminary or missionary school. Barmen opened its house in 1833; that of Hermannsburg began in 1841l with 12 pupils; the school of Reval was opened in 1882, and in 1884 pastor Janssen commenced a prepara.tory school for the Lutherans of Eastern Friesla.nd. Leipsic, in fine, which had wished at first. to recruit its missionaries solely among the pastors graduated from the universities, has been obliged by the Ia.ck of laborers to reopen its missionary semInary in 1879. We do not speak of the seminary of Neuendeltelsau, which prepares pastors for the colonies• .. As to the High Church Society (S. P. G.), it maintains or assists 28 theological seminaries where ecclesiastics are trained either for home or abroad. The Danes, in 1875,amalga.mated the two semina.ries intended to supply native pa.stors to Greenland."
The Journal has a letter from M. Henri Bertschy, of South Africa. Speakmg of his school he says: .. My neighbors, the Ba-Thlokoa, have sent some boys, but turn a. deaf ear whenever I raise the question of girls. • They have no need of knowing how to read,' they say to me. 'Let them once get a better educa.tion tha.n their husbands, and they would soon refuse to be married to pagans.' The fear of these people is, that in learning to read theirdaughters might possibly come to be converted and no longer choose to be bought by a heathen for twenty or thirty head of cattle. • Our daughters,' they say, • they are our bauk; it is on them we reckon to brinll' us cattle.' From that position you cannot move them. The daughters of the Ba-Thlokoa, then, will not come to schoQI until their parents shall have been converted. Is not this an illustration of the fact that Christianity will have to precede civilization?
.. Twice this past year the chiefs, especially Nkoebe, have demanded that we should hold prayer-meetings to obtain rain. The first was in September, at sowing-time; then again about New Year's, when the intense heat seemed likely to spoil the crops which had been doing well thus far. Both times the rain came while we were assembled, which bas been a veritable benediction."
Our Moravian brethren are disturbed lest it should be supposed that their mission work has everywht're transformed itself into a simple pastoral care of converts already secured. M. E. A. Senft, in a letter addressed to the Journal des Missions for November, 1888, points out some inadvertences of statement in a recent artice of The Journal. "For instance, the article in question, speaking of Greenland, forgets to add that God, and tha~ very lately, has brought to our brethren a whole troop of pagans from the east coast, hitherto inaccessible to our missionaries." In South Africa, again, the work" at various points" has passed into a home missionary stage, but not at aU of them. So, inSurinam, the work has largely become one of purifying Christian communities from ayet remaining pagan taint. "Butanother vast missionary field remaiJ;ls open before us at Surinam, and we have this very year been using all our strength to meet this work. In the ranks of our missionaries this marching order is heard ever more resoundingly: 'The Bush country for the Saviour! Let each one strive his best to accomplish this end.'"
The West Indies are the eldest mission field of the Moravians. Here, as they themselves say, "the mission work, properly so called, has long since reached an end." "This mission, numbering 44 stations, is in a fair way of coming to ripeness of age, and of forming, by the side of Germany, England and the United States, a fourth province of the Church of the Unity. It already has its normal schools, and its school of theology; and a considerable number of its parishes are served by native pastors."
There ar€ at present 3S6 hrethren and sisters in the missionary service of
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
the Moravian Church, 28 being- natives. There are, besides, 145 native evangelists and 1,468 native helpel's of various kinds.
The Moravian missionary stations, by industry and commerce, have thus far been able to contribute toward the annual expenses of the work from $130,000 to $150,000. Friends at home have, therefore, only needed to contribute, at most, about $95.000.
H.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Afrlca.-At a recent enthusiastic gath- what is meant by Arab power in Africa., East ering in Liverpool to bid God speed to the and Central. For generations the Arabs have intrepid African missionary, Graham Wil- been the skilled traders with the natives; they mo~ Brooke, who has made three unsucceSS_ have traveled in powerful companies, and they ful attempts to reach the tribes in tbe Cen- have made some localities in the interior almost tral Soudan, and IS now en routefor the same entirely their own. It is they, not the natives, region, via the Niger and Sokoto, a stirring who are at the bottom of the opposition to re- address was made by Mr. J. Spencer Walton form work, western enterprise and the canse ou mission labor iu South Africa. This in- of civilizatiou generally ou the east coast and in defatigable herald of Christ, who is proceed- the interior. German policy on the east coast ing under the auspices of the Cape General has greatly irritated the Arab traders; and Mission, to undertake evangelization work they have been in various ways taking their re- in that portion of the globe, asserted that venge. Of conrse, they are opposed to the en- Englishmen in South Africa had been a tire movement which is represented by the greater curse than a blessing. The track blocka.de ; but somehow the British element of the white man has been followed by abom- contrived so to manage things that the peace inations in the garb of religion. It waR this was not seriously distnrbed. fact which rendered missionary effort abor- ti"e. Denominational rivalry was likewise The Arabs haveso long had things their own frequently a cause of hinderance. Every way in East and Central Africa that they takeit one seemed to be trying to plant his own ill to 1lnd themselves beset by a policy and by special little ftower in bis own littledenomi- forces which mean the extinction oC their nefar- national ftower-pot. For the success of ious trade. They are engaged in a kind of missions it was necessary to sink sects and death-strnggle. Germans. French and English multiply undenominational lines of action. on the east coast are all pledged to a. strict Missions were primarily for salvation and blockade. so far as slavery and the introdnction •. only secondarily for education. of 1lrearms and otber weapons of war are con- cerned. Tbe repressive force of this arrange- On the 9th of March last the Cape General ment can bardly be overestimated. Tbe Congo Mission was launched, which, without con- Free State schemes tend in the same direction. sideration of sect. was seeking to spread the The railroad, which is to connectthe lower and gospel thronghout every part of Cll.pe Col- the npper Congo, will have the effect of opening ony. In SWll.zilll.nd, where there was a up the whole interior of Africa to civilized splendid race of natives Il.nd a chief well trade, and to bring it under civilized in1lnences. di$poRed to white people, a visit from a mis- The African slave-trader is well aware that his sionary was unknown:· It was a deplorable special business is doomed. In a few years revelation that of the 12,000 nativesworking from now it will be dead. Hence his despera_ in the mines at Kimberley not a hundred tion; but his desperation will not prevent the were Christians. In that town alone in the inevitable. Tbe poor African has suffered long. year 1888 no less than 580 natives were picked We already seem to see the dawning of a better np dead by the slaughtering evil of intoxi- day for that unfortunate rsce.-Xnil and Ex- cating drink. Mr. Wll.lton himself had preBB. eounted by the side of the ra.ilwa.y from Cape Town to Kimberley a broken brandy -The Imperial British East African Com- ftask every 25 yards. The natives, who pany. The first general meeting of this com- ftocked to these mining industries compara- pany WIIS held In London, June 6, and from the tively sober in habit, returned to their reports then given we gather some definite krll.~ls drunken and irredeemll.bly depraved. statements in regard to what the company pur- In the gold-mining centers the same havoc poses to accomplish. As yet little trading has was being wrought among the native tribes. been attempted, and it Is not expected that any With pll.ssionate fervor the speaker ap- pecuniary proftts will be reallzed at once, but pealed for the sympathy and prayers of the the directors of the company are con1ldent entire Church of Christ.-Our Englisl. eorre- that in due time good returns will be secured. BpOfIdent. :Mr. Mackehzie. who has been in charge on the East Coast of Africa, declares that tralllc is -The Arab Traders In Centra,l Africa. It is capable of enormous development, and that it diftlcult for the reading public to understand is the purpose of the company to establisa itself by planting stations, first along the cORst, -Another African Hero. The heroes are and then toward the interior, so that the na- not all recognized by men. Some do ".reat tives shall be under kindly control, and be en- things out of sight. and the world is long in couraged to raise those prodnets which wlll discerning them. The following para;:-raph stimnlate trade. Mombasa will be the port. describes a man evidently of heroic mold, and it is amrmed that before long this place though it is not wise to make comparisons will rival Zanzibar in its commerce. The ad- to the disparagement of such men as Livdress of the president of the company shows ingstone and Stanley: plainly that it i. expected that Mr. Stanley on returning from the interior will come to the .. Rev. James Scott, Free Church mission- East Coast through the territory of the British ary of Natal. speaking in Edinburgh lately, company. A project has been presented for declared that the greatest African hero, the construction or a railway, to be built in surpassing Stanley and even Livingstone, sections, Victoria Nyanza being the objective is Mr. Alexander M. Mackay, of tbe Church point; several caraVans having already been Missionary Society, who thirteen years sent out to the north and northwest,one ofwhich since went out to Uganda, in Central Africa, will establish a station at Lake Baringo. This and though left long alone has never ceased East African Company is composed of leading to work. He has reduced the native language commercial and philanthropic men, who have to writing. and printed the 1J0spei of Mat.. in mind what has be<on accomplished for Brit- thew with his own hands." ish interests by trading companies in India and North America, and their hope is to open Chlna.-The Chnstian College in Can- Africa to British commerce. It is proposed to ton. Rev. A. P. Happel', D.D., writes us that increase the capital from £250,000 to£1,OOO,OOO. he has hopes that ground will soon be pro· -MiB8. Herald. cured for the college, as the Viceroy of Canton has at last designated a plot of gronnd which -Mahdists and Abyssinians. To the Lon- he was willing to have sold for that purpose. don Time. the Secretary of the British and The attendance on the college is BOW as great Foreign Anti·Slavery Society recently commn- as can be accommodated, there being 66 scholnicated a letter from Herr Flad, the well- ars in attendance, and the work is em inently known German missionarY, which fully con· satisfactory. Tbe hours for recitation lire from firms the fears that have been expressed that nine till four, and on Sabbath the scholars are the recent defeat of the Abyssinian army by expected to attend religious s.rvice In the Mohammedan Mahdists or dervishes, will be chapel. We notice that this latter requirement the early addition of Christian Abyssinia to the has been made the object of criticism by the list of countries desolated by the African slave Canton correspondent of The Ohina Mail, who trade, unless such a result is speedily averted says that this renglous featnre of the work wlli by the proposed Conference of the Powers. be likelv to cause suspicion and keep desirable The dereat and murder of the Abyssinian King, students from attending; in the same letter he as will be remembered, was one of the sad states that the college is fnll to overfiowing. events of the last year. It followed successful and thns proves the futility of the objection. invasions of Abyssinia, and the slaughter and As the college is avowedly a Ohristian one, we enslavement of large numbers of AbysslDians do not see how the "venerable Professor" can do in 1885 and 1886 by the Mabdists; and their de- otherwise than fu1fill the trnst placed In him by feat by King John and his people in 1887. With striving to do everything In his power to his own commuuication Herr Flad transmitted .. proselytize" the stndents who attend. a letter from Christian Abyssinians, which is a most earnest and pathetic appeal for help from In anSWer to nnmerous inqniries whicli have their fellow Christians, and such help as wUl been made of ns, as to the conrse of stndy prevent their enslavement and the entire deso- and expenses necessary for a stndent in the lation of their country. Very pertinently these college, we give the following facts: The 8es· people, whose liberties and lives are in such im- sions of the college co.nmence on the 15th of minent danger, inquire of ChrIstians in other the Chinese first month and close on th" 15th of lands, after depicting the desolation of their the twelfth month, with a vacation in summer own; the selJing of thousands of people into or not, as may seem best in the future. The slavery, and the cruel butchery of other thou- charge for tnition is $12 a year. The stndents sands," Why should fanatic and brutal Moslems form a club and board themselves, the cost of be allowed to turn,a Christian land like Abys- which is about $2 a month. The students bave sinia into a desert. and to extirpate Christi· to snpply their own bed-room fnrniture (in their anity from Ethiopia f" They close with this case very simple) and clothes and bOoks; the earnest plea: .. For Christ's sake make known cost of these varies according to taste, but $50 our sad lot to our brethren and sisters in Cbris- in gold wUl cover all these very comfortably. tian lands, who fear God and love the breth- The course of stndy inclndes three years of a ren." While Abyssinian Christianity may not preparatory conrse and the regular four years' be witsout spot, Abysslnians are God's men college course in addition. As soon as ground and women.-N. Y. EvangeUst. can be procured and the necessary buildings erected, the attendance on the college wlll easily be 200, as many have al'plied who cannot now be accommodated. In spite of the number. Unfortunately the year's accounts lack of accommodation, Dr. Happer writes that closed with an adverse balance of £1,500. he will always find a place for any of the students from the Sabbath schools in this country It appears from the return presented by the who may wish to return to continue their stud- Paris Council that the ladies conducting the Ies In this college.-Chi1le86 Evangeli8t. work In the various homes fulfill their duties with economy and marked efficiency. The home and France.-Miss Leigh's Paris Romes. institute, Washington-house, 18 Rue de "Milan, in- A shower of congratnlations greeted Miss Ada augurated with a view to befriend young men Leigh, the dlstingnished fonndress of the as they enter Paris had received 70 of these British and American mission homes and Chris- from Great Britain, the United States, Canada, tian associations in Paris, who was lately mar- and New Zealand. It is regrettable thatasnm of ried at the English Embassy in the French £8,000 has still to be paid to completl the paycapital to Dr. Tarver Lewis, the Bishop of On- ments upon the land. A special appeal Is being tario. It Is the intention of this esteemed made to raise £500 for the purpose of increasing Christian lady, so widely known in Europe and the accommodation for the Exhibition. The read- America, to visit annually the institutions ers of the MISSIONARY REVIEW Ol!' THE WORLD which have 00 long enjoyed her able superin- will not fall on visiting the World's Fair at tendence and direction. In her absence the or- Paris in 1889 to visit some of the Institutions, ganizations will be uuder the mauagement of including the British Free Episcopal Church, a an assistant who hasbeena co-worker with the Brlhsh Orphanage and Homes for British GovprinCIpal npward of fifteen years. The many ernesses established by the unremitting exerfriends who are acquainted with the noble work tions of Mrs. Lewis.-OurEnglish CO'I'reapondaccomplished by Mrs. Lewis will join in the ent. wish expressed by the Bishop of Ontario that her residence on the other side of the Atlantic may Indla.-Child Marriage. It is intended not Interfere with the progress and continued shortly to select a child-wife for Scindiah, who benefactions of the movements identified with is himself 8 mere child. The marriage will be her name. A pleasant feature in the bride's celebrated during the next cold weather. In cortege, and eminently characteristic of her life- the case of a feudal minor subject to direct mission, was the presence of a number of Government infinence it has been suggested bright-eyed, rosy-faced children from the Or that the Government shonld endeavor to disphanage. These little girls dressed in dark-blue countenance such a marriage. The antiCipated cloth frocks, mantles, and hoods, with posies In union will be nsed throughout India as the their breasts evoked a compliment on their strongest argument for maintaining such charming appearance from Lady Lytton, who abUSES. with her danghters attended the wedding cere mony. After the marriage, at which the Bishop A Times' Calcutta telegram of July 7th conof Quebec officiated, accompanied by the Hon. tains the following intelligence: "Application Hector Hare, the Canadian CommiSSioner in has been made to the Bombay High Court, on Paris, and other Canadians, the Bishop of behalf of the child-wife of Holkar's son-in-law, Ontario and Mrs. Lewis received their friends to direct a new trial on the cbarge of cruelty. at the Orphanage erected in the Boulevard The case was adjonrned. A Bombay news- Bineau. paper announces two marriages. In oue case the bride was aged two years and in the other The importance of the operations in which 15 months, while the bridegroom was 30 years Mrs. Lewis has been engaged may be realized old. Pundita Ramabai is giving a series oflecfrom the report which has just been read at the tures to thronged andlences on female educa- 17th annual gathering held at 77 Avenne Wa- tion." gram. Around the Chairman, the Bishop of ,Quebec, were observed the Countess of Lytton, -In May lastthe city of Bombay WaS honorthe Bishop ofOntario, the Revs. R. McAn, and ed with the first public lecture ever delivered in T. de Carteret, Drs. Chapman and Barnard, Mr. India by a native lady. Doctor Miss Ratanbai Sewell and other infiuential friends. The re- Ardeshir Malbarvala lootured in the FrlLmjee port stated that during 1888 no less than 401 Cowasjee Institnte to a crowded audience, young women had beeu received into the home, which IDcluded 200 native ladies. Lung phy~i making an aggregate of 5,229 since It was ology was the subject dlsconrsed upon in a opened. Situations to the number of 196 had modest, able, and Interesting manner. The been obtained by means of the free registry. lady's courage and ability were cordially The applications from governesses had been greeted. 3,080 and for governesses 912. The home for young women employed in' shops, 26 Faubourg -To meet the growing evil oCleprosy in India St. Honor6, had been full, while its outdoor the Government has decided to introduce a bill members numbered over 500. The governesses' giving district magistrates power to order the and artists' in~titute and home had been re- arrest ofany leper fouud begging or wandering moved to larger premises at 153 Faubourg St. about without means of subsistence. Such Honore, and Its members were more than 200 In lepers may be detained in a retreat for life or until their discharge Is sanctioned, and if they escape may be re-captured by the police. No rdlreat will be sanctioned unless provision is made for the segregation of the sexes. The every denomination in Bengal, the Pnnja!,., the local governments may establish retreats, make rules for the management, discipline, aud in· Dekkan, Bombay, and Madras Presidencid8. spection of them with any moneys placed at their disposal for hospitals, dispensaries, and We bave stayed in tbeir bouses, lived close to Innatic asylum., and complete religions freedom will be assnred to lepers in such institutions. them for many months, bave known the details Contrary to tbe returns made by the sanitar· of their expenditure, and I can bear unqnallfied ians of India that leprosy was decreasing, to which the past apathy of the Government is testimony to their self-denying economy and simtraoeable, the eminent civil service officer, the Hon. Sir H. Ramsay, of Kum;J.on, in the Hima- plicity of living, and to the ricbes of their liberlayas, considers that the outbreaks of leprosy are rapidly multiplying in that empire. ality to the poor'in times of famine. Nothing can The condition of these poor creatnres is mis- be more unjust or ungenerous than to charge erable, turned out from family, village, and all that makes life dear. "If there are objects on them with' self-indulgence,' 'luxury,' or 'worldearth;' writes Dr. Pringle,formerly for SOyears Surgeon-Major to Her Majesty's Bengal Army, liness,' of any kind. The' gulf' between them .. that claim Christian charity more than others it is theBe lepers. Now help has come, and the and the' station people' is tbe gulf between ~he Jubilee of the Empress of India, • The Maha- Ranee,' will ever be known as the 50th year of church and the world. Men like Dr. Duff, or the rule of her who desires to be known, not only as the defender of the faith, but'" the fol- Mr. Hislop, of Nagpur, may occasionally be lower of Him who had compassion on the leper and whose religion welcomes tbe leprous out- sought after by high otlicials fortheir knowledge cast cf otber religions with' Come unto me, and I will give you rest. ' or their gifts, but very few civil or military offi- " The last of the tbree great orders promul- cers, and .till fewer ladies, ever visit a missiongated in the Punjab of old, viz., • Burn not widows, kill not infant girls, bnry not (alive) ary's family unless they are one with them in lepers,' bas now not only its fulfillment, but adequate provision supplied for carrying It into the faith. Missionaries are not • in society.' effect with love and mercy, and henceforth tbe bomeless, friendless, religionless leper will find They have neither time nor inclination to be so. a home and a friend, and, if he will believe it and accept it, a religion which will take him I never met a missionary at Government House. just as he is." I never beard of one staying with a Governor, Dr. Pringle read a mastetly paper, Jnne 12th, before one of the most influential assemblies except Mrs. Ingalls, ortbe Burmah mi.sion,witb ever gathered in London on" The Increase of Leprosy in India, its Causes, Probable Conse- Lord and Lady Lawrence. At tbe same time, quences and Remedies." their own houses were always open to anyone In this connection we should not omit an expression' of gratitude to the promoters of mis- seeking their society, their bospitality genersions who bave sent ministrants to the 135,000 lepers in India, chiefly from Scotland and Ire- ally taking the'form of evening tea. They were land, for the last 15 years. The stations may be traced on the leper maps of India, and also on universally respected by the natives who knew those of Burmah and Ceylon. them, and hy all those Europeans who kept -From Bombay a painful case of suttee by opium is reported. The wife of a wealthy aloof from them. I have not spoken of tbe real Brahmin, in order not to survive her sick bus- band, whom sbe was ,nursing, committe!! sui- hardness they endure in teaching, hazaarpreach- cide by taking opium,-Our English {Jorre- spondent. ing in the hot winds, and in itinerating often on '
-Missionary Life. The widow of the late foot. As one instance, all the Basle missiona- ' General Colin Mackenzie writes to Tlte Ohm- tian (London) a8 follows: .. Dear Sir: Allow ries engaged in the revival among tke J nlus in me to confirm the testimony of Miss McInnes (in your issue of May 31), as to the' simplicity of 1870-71 were invalid from the hardships they life' and devotion to their great work of Indian missionaries. DUring more than thirty years went through. Faithfully yours, my busband (General Colin Mackenzie) and I were intimately acquainted with missionaries of I., HELEN C. MACKENZIE."
-India would seem to be practically unedu- cated. The total number ofscbolars in schools and colleges of all sorts is only three and a quarter millions, or one and a half per cent. of tbe entire population. These are mainly confined to the cities and towns; and out of 250,000,000 in all India,less than 11,000,000 can read and write. A census of tbe illiterates in the various conntries of the world, recently publisbed in the Statistische MonatsBchrift, places the three Slavic States of Roumauia, Servia and Russia at the head of the list, witb ahout 80 per cent. of the populatiou unable to read and write. Of the Latin-speaking races, Spain heads the list witb 63 per cent., followed by Italy witb4S per cent., France and Belgium having ahout 15 per cent. The Illiterates in Hungary number 43 per cent., in Austria 89, and in Ireland 21. In England we find 13 peT cent., Holland 10 per cent., United States (white population) 8 per cent., and Scotland 7 per cent" unable to read and write. When we come to the purely Teutonic States 'we find a marked reduction in the percentage of illit- erates. The bighest is in Switzerland, 2.5; in the whole German Empire it is 1 per cent. ; in Sweden, Denmark, Bavaria, Baden and Wur- temberg there is p~actically no one wbo cannot read aud write. -The latest and most baseless accusation humanity in the bresBts of their oppressors. brought against PrQtestant missions in India Debarred from carrying on the ordinary trades is found in a home paper. and is to the effect oflife, they have been compelled In many inthat the natives were so afraid of medical mis- stances to earn their living by debased occupa. sionary ladies that they would not admit them tions. Taught by bitter experience to feel how to their houses, and other ladies had to be sent unequal they Invarisbly are to cope with the for. The well-knowu truth is that missiouary aggressions of the Mnssnlman population, they ladies made the Lady Dnfferiu movement possi- adapt their speech and conduct to their unforble. They entered India when very many Enro- tunate condition. They passively submit to peans regarded them with disfavor. and proved the vilest Insults, whilst the petty acts of perseby successfal practice in many parts of India cution gradually become habitnal on the part of that the ladies in the zenana could be reached. the Mussulmans. A :Mussulman child may They were gladly received by the natives. The with impunity pull a Jew's beard snd spit into first lady doctor who came to India landed in his face. The poor Jew makes no complaint, 187(), and came to India as a missionary. So and his resignation, taken as cowardice, is not far from exciting fear or suspicion, she gained calculated to act as a deterrent. It is impossiimmediate access to royal houses, and when ble to form a conception of the sentiments of a Lady Dufferln landed In India this medical lady Persian toward a Jew. Taught by tradItion was established in the capital of a Rajpoot and custom to despise the Jew, as being an inprince, and was not only generously'supported by fidel and an impure and defiled creature, it is no him, but had full liberty to carryon her mission- wonder that the Mussulman acts toward him ary work in whatever way she chose. Here and in a disgraceful manner. The word "Jew" is there a noudescrlpt without missionary creden- considered as a term of disgrace, and is never tals may have failed, but as a class the medical used by a Persian without an apology for giving mlsslouary ladies have been eminently success- utterance to it. Their cry for help will assur- edly not fall ineffectually upon the ears of their ful, aud but for them neither India nor China brethren in lands where the blessings of educawoald have had a medical lady. or a female tion have rendered our co-religionists peaceful student in a medical school, to the present and prosperous. day.-India Witness (BmnlJall.) Russla.-Daybreak among the Kirghlz. -Christianity in India.-It is the peculiar To Russian civilization the varied tribes and distinction of India that it has beeu the peoples of Central Asia have readily assimilated; theater of four great religions-Hinduism, the Kirghiz alone have hitherto remained 0 b· Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christi- stinately wedded to their semi-barbarism. Evianity. The first three have each had many dence, if not overwhelmingly strong, indicates centuries of opportunity, and yet Christian. a tendency to adapt civllized customs and the itv has done more for the elevation of In- elements of education. 'A century and a half ago dian societ,, in the last fifty years than the Kirghiz, who at that time inhabited nearly duringall the long ages of their domination. one·half of Central Asia, surrendered them- Neither Buddhism nor Mohammedanism selves willingly and without bloodshed to the made any serious impression upon caste, domlnstlon of the White Czar. The Russians neither W80S 80ble to mitigate the wrongs have persistently, by every rational means, which h80d been.heaped on women; Moham- striven to remove antiquated prejndlces and the medanism rather aggravated them. The eradication of Kirghiz superstitions. Not until horrors of the suttee and the murder of fe- recent years have Ru.sian persuasions issued maleinfants, those bitterest fruits of super- in Imore than partial success. When the free stition, were left unchecked till the British schools were instituted and tolerance toward Government, Inspired by Christian senti- religion and language exercised the children ment, branded them infamous and made shunned the doors. As determinedly the Kirgthem crimes. Eveh the native sentiment of hlz declined to allow their young men to accept India. is now greatly changed, and the gen- vacancies offered to them in the Rnssian cadet eral morality of the better classes is raised corps. Latterly, however, the Rnssian authora.bove the teachings of their religion.-Dr. ities have overcome the scruples of the Kirghiz EUinwooa, in Ohurch at Home and Abroad. parent. by the gift of premiums. The induce- ment has been successfuf in attracting to the PerSla.-The Jews. Several representa- schools numbers of boys. An earnest endeavor is also being made to break through the pretives of the aggrieved have approached the Per- viously impenetrable wall of prejndice which sian Shah' now visiting in London. The Armin- excludes all female children from the advanians, the Engli.hJewsand the Parseesthere res- tages of educational training and discipline. It ident, have presented addresses. Thefollowing is reported that the wife of s Kirghiz chief i.interestlng just now touching the cruel op- named Galschevskaya has finally overborne all pressiou of the Jews in Persia: :Mr. Morris native opposition, and, with the permission of Cohen of Bsgdad writes in the last report of the Government, a few months ago opened a the Anglo-Jewish Association that centuries of school for young girls in the little town of Jrgis. persecution have not failed to stamp their effect Already she has succeeded In bringing together in deep. broad characters upon the Persian Jews. Despised and persecuted, they are unable to commaud respect, or to arouse feelings of 15 girls. These are entirely the daughters of United States.-From The Exa.miller native Sultans. There is likelihood of tAe we gather some facts respecting Rev. Grattan lady's example being followed shortly by the Guinness, head of the great London Institute establishment of similar schools in more popu- for the training of missionaries, who has been lous centers. The girls attending the Irgis • traveling for months through Mexico and the School are described as wonderfully good Southern States: pupils. In spite of much criticism abroad of the From MeXICO he went through Texas. Lonisi- Russian manner of treating the popular senti- ana, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and ments and traditions of the subjected Central others of the States. His purpose was to visit Asian races there is no donbt that the Rnssian the oolleges for colored students. In a single Government is becoming more permeated with month he addressed 3,000 colored stndents, re- the princjples of educational rights and relig- ceiving offers of service for the Congo missiou ious liberties. ·More acquaintance with the in- from thirty of them. Dr. Guinnes8 finds that ternallife of the Emph'e of the Czar as shown a new movement is begun among the million in Dr. Lansdell's writings proves that Russia colored Baptists-as he puts it: .. Africa in in her own way is a civilizing not less than a America is beginnin::- to move towards Africa conquering power in Central Asia.-Our Eng- beyond the seas." After seeing the colored lish Correspondent. I people, Mr. Gninness went among the white Syrla.-Dr. Lindsay, of the Free Church chnrches, taking with him his bright Congo ofScotland, is now visiting the missions of that boy, N'koiyo. N'koiyo nsed to be at Ilarley church in India, and he gives in The Free House nnder Mr. Gulnness, bnt is now stud,.
Ohurch Monthly an account of the Syrian Ing in one of our Sonthern institutions. Mr.
Christians who dwell chiefly in Travancore. Guinness's plea was that indlvidnal chnrches One authority states that there are about 100,000 should support each a miasionary on the Con- of these Syrian Christians. Dr. Lindsay re- go in connection with onr Missionary Union, gards them as probable descendants of the bnt in addition to what they at present are Nestorian Christians who were banished from doing for missions. Nine Baptist churches in the empire by Theodosius. The Church Mis- Phlladelphia promised to support ten fresh sionary Society of England has labored among missionaries on the Congo. The American them, and oftentimes with promise of much Colonlzation Society has promised to transport snccess, but while there has been a reforming all these missionaries free, and Mr. Guinness party among them, the majority hold very has secured a suitable house in Monrovia, LI- rigidly to some of their ancient tenets. Dr. beria, where the missionaries can wait until Lindsay now reports that the reform party, they can be sent to the Congo. He will be which is headed b~ the Bishop Mar Athana- bnsy:in September seeing to the start of these sius, has endeavored not to secede from the new miSSionaries, and In October is to be at aucient church, but to secnre an evan- the opening of the new missionary college In gelical reformation within it. The chiel Boston. Mr. GlJlnness shows how great pleas- points they insist upon are: The repudiation of nre he takes in thus forwarding the work of prayers to the Virgin or paints and tor the our missions on the Congo in all his letters.
dead; and of the doctrines of transubstantia- His is a crusade for missions wisely and eco- tion and the mass, and of compulsory fasting. nomically condncted, and carried on without They protest also against various superstitious any llourish of trumpets, or appeals (or help rites, such as kneeling before the cross, the for his personal expenses.
lighting of candles for forty days at the graves The first Congo-Balolo mission party sent of the dead, and the offering of sweetmeats at out by Mr. Gninness and the East London In- the temples. They demand that worship shal! stitnte to the Congo above our farthest sta- be in the vernacular, and that the old Syrian tion, arrived safely at the mouth of the Congo.
litnrgy be translated into Malayalam. They In 1878 the first Congo missionaries (establish- desire to be associated with other Christians, Ing the mission which has since been conveyed and especially with evangelical Protestants. to the American Baptists) arrived. There is a This reform party is engaged in a protracted wonderful contrast between then and now.
lawsuit with the nnreformed section for cer- As the missionary party reached the Congo'. tain property belonging to the chnrch, the mouth, they found every provision made for courts hitherto in their decisions having fa- the comfort oC arriving missionaries, wnereas vored the old party. The reformers are antici- ten years ago the pioneers had to endure many pating defeat in their suit, bot are building discomforts. Shortly after this party of Congochurches, and are resolnte in their purpose to Balolo missionaries arrived, they wlilre met by maintain evangelical Christianity. It seems a representative of Dr. Simpson's (ol New that the impulse that led to this reformation York) faith-healing missi01l". She talked in an is dne to the" work of the Church Missionary Indignant strain of the "awlul country," the Society, and to the Christian College at Ma- "terrible people," that '.' It was not right for dras. Mar Athanasius, the present leader, ladies to go to snch a place," and mnch more was a student in the Madras College-Miss. In the same strain. The next morning an Berald. Irish woman connected with the American
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
Methodist· (Bishop Taylor's) mission met the it wa.s committed in lta.ly a.gainst one Jew- party and gave them the bright side of the pic- ish child. Many become sick. and some die tnre. She was fnll of enthusiasm for the work in the school away from home and kindred.
on the Congo. After remaining five days at Those who live to gradnate become" camp Banana, the Congo State steamer took them up Indians" again,little better for· the" edu- to Boma. cation" they have received at the expense -The Indian political problem as viewed of the GovernmeQt.
by a missionary. A life of fifteen years Our present policy is unjust in pauperiz- among the Indians has shown me some light ing the Indians and then making their pau- on the Indian problem which it seems to me perism an excuse for invading family rights.
importa.nt to bring before the citizens of on the plea that their children must be the nation which is trying, vainly thus far, taught to support themselves. And the to solve it. I lived among the Ottawas in Indians' hearts are broken and our money Michigan more than two years before and is spent in vain. To educate Indians under nearly five years after their reservations present conditions is to enable a few of were opened to the white settlers. I have them to support themselves and to leave the been more than eight years among the rest to fall back into pauperism.
Sioux on reservations in Dakota and Mon- .I refer to the Government plan of whole- tana.. I have seen the working of both poli- sale education. There a.re mission schools cies a.nd become convinced that the follow- where a limited numberof Indian youth can lng truths contain the key to the solution of obtain a better educatiou than in Govern- the problem: ment schools. The supply of those who ob- I. The Indians are men and cannot be tain this higher education is not equal to saTed without recognizing the rights of the demand. But graduation at a Govern- ma.nhood. The longer they are trea.ted a.s ment school gives no assurance of self.sup- children the inore childish they become. port.
They are sinking deeper in pauperism. At The only wa.y in which the reservation this a.gency it costs the Government as system benefits the Indians is by enabling much to support them as it did when there the agent to keep liquor away from them.
were three times as many. If the traffic in liquor was suppressed 2. What they need is not speciallegisla- among white people, their settlement among tion in their behalf, but the protection of the Indians would not be an injury, but a laws securing equal justice to all men. The benefit.
Government appropriates money to feed 3. A homestead should be given to every them, but that does not teach them to earn Indian, and the rest of the reservations their own living. The Government under- should be open to other settlers. As far as I ta.kes to give their youth an education, both know their feelings, the Indians would be literary and industrial. A few learn to read glad of the change. There would be district and write English to a very limited extent. schools, a.nd their children would not be ar- Some have acquired considerable skill in rested like criminals and put into boarding some kind of work. The Government hires schools by force. Partly by cultivating a.
a few laborers, and the rest are left to eat little land for themselves, and partly by the bread of idleness, as before. Thefavored working for their white neighbors, they laborers receive wages, a.nd the rest get could sup·port themselves and dispense with …bout rations enough to save them from be- Government rations.
ing sta.rved to death. The Government sets 4. All distinctions of race should be abol- apart reservations to protect them from the ished and the laws a.dministered impa.r- intrusion of white people and keep out set- tially. A crime against an Indian should is tiers who would give them employment. meet with the same pnnishment as when the The India.ns are induced to scatter with a victim a white person.
view to farming, and the oilly result is that How will these principles solve the Indian their time and strength are consumed 10 problem? Apply them, and the Indiaus will coming to the agency for their rations. solve it themselves. They are made of Children are educated by forcibly kidnap- human nature as well as we, and all they ping them, in utter disregard of parental want is a fair chance, equally with our- rights, theanthorities thus repeatedly com- selTes. GEORGE W. WOOD, JR., mittin&" the crime which a.roused the indig- Presbyterian Missiona.ry. _, nation of all Europe a few years-a-g-o.-w-h-en—-F-OR-T-P-EC-It AGENCY, MONTANA. ilL-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Mrica· of May .49 converts were baptized at the A. B. M. U. Station of Ranza Mauteke. P ALABALA, CONGO FREE STATE, On the 4th of JUDe one young man was bap- 12 June,1889. tized at Underhill Station of the Eng. Rap.
EDITORS MISSIONARY ReVIEw.-On the 25th Missy. Socy. At Lukunga Station of A. B. M. I write the above notes about Bishop Union 4 were baptized on Jnne 9th. At Banza Manteke Station of A. B. M. Union 20 were Taylor's work, not to clog the wheels of the baptized on June 11th. gospel chariot, but rather that the truth By the steamship .Afrikaan the Congo Balo Mission party from London arrived lBay be known. I long to see chnrches essafely; there were two ladies and six gentlemen In the party, all of whom are new tablished-I care not by whom they a.re to the country except the leader, Rev. J. McKittrick, who was for some years in the built up-Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist A. B.M. Union and held the Equator Station of the A. B. M. U, for some time., or otherwise, so long a.s h the Kingdom"
By the same steamer three new mission_ comes, and men are led to follow Jesus. aries came for the A. B. M. U.-Misses Gordon and Royal and Rev. W. A. Hall. But people are giving" gospel money" to The Portuguese mail of 26th May brought what professes to be the cheapest and best four returning and six new missionariesone for A. B. M. U., five for the Eng. B.M. mode of spreading the knowledge of God, Socy. and four for the· Swedish M. Socy.- total for May,21. (3 American, 4 Swedish, and what can be seen at a glance tobe a tail- 1 German and 13 British.) ure on the Congo up till nolO. A new station has been opened by the A. B. 11. U. at Bwemba (Nchumbiri's) fully At Oivi. the base station, no school is es- 200 miles above Stanley Pool. tablished and no one can speak the' lan- Rev. J B. Murphy reports from Equator Sta.tioll that, though there are no known guage. Messrs. White and Ra.smnssenhave conversiuns, the people are inquiring about the gospel and seem very much interested. both worked hard and' are able to converse, There has been fighting amongst some of and to tell of Jesus, in the native language. the Interior tribes, the people themselves saying that since the white men sold them At Kimpoko, I believe, no practical knOWlguns there has been much more lighting. The Statewiselyforbids saleofrifleand capguns. edge of the language has been attained by Good reports as to health and work come any of those established there, yet they from all the A. B. M. U., B. M. S. and S. M. S. stations. have been there for over two years. Mr.
Bishop Taylor's steamer is still in transitu Burr works very hard and earns a good deal and will not probably fioat this year, and if things go on at present rate it will not float by hippopotamns shooting. The two ladies next year. at Banana no doubt do a good work; there In Congo Free State there are four points held by the Bishop's people: (1) Near Bana- the natives understand a good deal of Eng- ns-Misses Kildare and Collins. (2) Oivi (houses built by State)-held by Mr. and Mrs. lish and Portnguese languages. Mr. Burr Teter and Mr. Briggs. (3) lsangila-only a grass hut for temporary purposes-lIessrs. can almost support himself with his gnn, White and Rasmussen. (4) Kimpoko (State houses)-Messrs. Burr, Harrison and Elkins bitt nODe of the others attain "self support," and Mrs. Elkins. No other places are held by the Bishop'8people, though I see repeatedly and even if they were to do so, they, like longer lists of stations. Mr. Burr, wonld be almost completelY cut The list of,missionariesof the Bishop Tay- lor mission, as recently published in the olf from school work and evangelistic ef. pamphlet he edits, Is also incorrect. The names of two trader8 (Evans of Mayumba fort. Yours in the Lord's work, and Fontaine of Banana) are given as .. mis- slonaries;" and fnrther, the reason given JOSEPH CLARK, Missionary of A.B. M. U. for delay of trarurtt of the .Anne Paylor is in- complete and incorrect. LUCKUNGAN, CONGO, June 10, 1889. Forty-flve converts were baptized at It is now over nine years since I came to Banza Mantike (A. B. M. U.) on 2d of this this country, and I have no desire for a month. Fifteen new mission!l.ries and fonr ," better fleld." I love Africa and my desire returns arrived here during the past month. is to see the Cross of Christ planted In A new mission, to work among the Balolo, every village. I daily pray for the spread have arrived on the Congo under the leader- of the knowledge of the name of Jesus, and ship of Mr. J. McKittrick, who did elfect- 1 daily work for that end. ive work and ~ained considerable expe- rience a few years ago while working nn~er theL.E.M. Nearlyall members of the Bishop Taylor mission have either died, gone home, or connected themselves with other missions here. Self-supporting missions are regarded as a failure, and we are very sorry for this; the Bishop is going to !rive it another trial; we wonld rejoice greatly if he suc"eeds, but we ha.ve no ground to hope.
CHAS. JAMES LA1i'J'IN.
Ohile.
AN appeal to Christians for prayer in behalf of Chile: We, the Chile MisSion, assembled Cor oonsu!ttr tlon and prayer concerning our Master's work in Chile, unitedly call upon our fellow-cbrls- tians here and in other lands to join us In c0n- certed and continued prayer to the God of all grace for a special blesSing npon His work here. We gratefnlly acknowledge past blessings, The work of this latter is largely among the and are thankful for the achievements and cou· cesllions of a liberal government, for the marked Chilians. In connection with its work are five spirit of tolerance recently shown toward the propagation of a pure Christianity among this Chilian churches, three schools, one theolOgical people, for the preachim; of the gospel many years to the foreign communities on these department, seven foreign missionaries, three shores and more recently to the Chilians and to a few Indian trihes, for the many copies of the Chilian ministers, besides other helpers and Scriptures scattered among various classes, for the seed sown by tracts and papers in thousands teachers. Among the special indications of of human hearts, for the little companies of be: lievers here and there who have not been God's providence are the rapid movements of ashamed to own the name of Him who called them luto His own marvelous light, for those the past few years toward religious freedom in 'Who have been led by the Divine Spirit to consecrate themselves to Chr istian work in Chile the spirit of the people and in governmental for all the manifested tokeus of the presence and power of God in Christian life and work, acts. The Evangelical Union, which issues this and, finally, for the providence of our Father overall. appeal, has recently received articles ofincorpo- Yet, while mludful of these things, we cannot ration granting the right to hold property, libshut our eyes to the pressing needs around us, and we are constrained to ask you to become 'erty of worship and permission to propagate fellow-helpers In prayer with us in the work oC the gospel of Christ in Chile. Romanism has the Reformed faith throughout the country_ blighted these shores and Inthralled this people for centuries. A reaction is taking place; but, Other tokens of providential favor are seen in excepting In a few Instances, it is not toward the religion of the Bible. The great trend is the large number who now gIve the gospel a toward infidelity and indill'l'rentism. The naturaI'frnlts of hoth are seen in the confused and hearing, and in the Cact that sever..l ChllIans sad state of opinion and practice regarding religion and morals. It would be possible to men- have just entered upon or are in the active tion facts which would prove how important it I. to have a pure gospel preached in Chile. preparation for the gospel ministry. This progressive people, once brought to love and obey Jesus Christ, would show that divine The demands of the hour may be expressed trnth conquers slu and brings to a more perfect development qualities naturally excellent. In- by two wordS, immediate occupation qf the fiuences adverse to a true religious life are felt also by foreign Christians residing here. Yet entire j!eld and a gracious and mightll outit is cause for gratitude that so many avoid these dangers, and, by engaging in Christian pouring oj the HollI Spirit. Pray that the meswork, by consecrated giving, and by their sympathy and prayers do promote the blessed gospel sengers of Christ may be speedily sent to the in Chile. Stili let prayers ascend that their nnmber may be increased, that foreigners and large colonies of foreign peoples on these Chilians may become, under the blessing of our covenant God, trne sons and danghters of the shores, to the dominant Spanish Chillan race King. and to the untonched aboriginal tribes. Nor The present is a time of opportunity. A beginning has been made and special indications can we pass by the fields north ofus, the United of Providence have been vouchsafed. The agencies at work in Chile are the following, States of Colombia and Pern, in which there are viz.: thirteen Protestant churches among the foreign communities, five boarding and day very few laborers; also Bolivia, Ecuador and schools and three Spanish preaching stations under the Taylor Mission of the American Venezuela, almost entirely unoccupied. Plead Methodist Church, a seaman's mission in Valparaiso harbor, the ValparaiSO Bible Society with our God that these nllglected fields may employing several colportenrs, a mission to the natives of Terra del Fuego under the care or immediately hear the gospel. Pray that the the South American Missionary Society of England, and the Evangelical Union or Chile Mis- Spirit may convict of sin this whole people. .1011 of the American Presbyterian Church. Pray that He may make fruitful the widely scat- tered seed. Pray that he may give courage to confess Christ and to openly avow allegiance with.His chnrch. Pray God that He may conse- crate more Cully to Himself the Chilian and for- iegn Christians, that the testimony of a whole- handed and whole-hearted service may aid the witness of God's truth. Pray the Lord of the harvest for godly native ministers, teachers and other workers, and for a marked enduement of the spirit of Christ upon His mmisters here, both Chilian and foreign, for harmony, for wis- dom, for love, for power. Pray for the church of Christ in ChUe that it may be powerfully re- vived. Pray for the Christians of Protestant Europe and America that they may appreCiate their vast responsibilities for money, men and practical interest, also their wonderful oppor- tunities for 1WW undertaking and carrying out our Lord's gre..t command to disciple all na· tions. The one comprehensive blessing which we de&lre is the presence of the Holy Spirit working in all the plenitude of Hisl(race and power.
Dear brethren, what is to be done must, be done quickly. This generation is fast passing away. May we all quit ourselves like men, praYIng while we labor 'and laboring while we pray, as those who look for the Lord and His divine approval.
Those who are willing to nnite in a weekly observance of prayer in behalf of ChUe and the other darkened papal hnds of America are re- vations is to have nothjng to do with Christians as servants, when they can get Hindu or Moquested to send their names to any member of hammedan domestics. I do uot agree with the , Old Colonel' in his sweeping denunciations of the Evangelical Union. These are not Intended our native Christian brethren in. India. But I am compelled to admit, that he has often pracfor publication, but that we may be encouraged tical experience in support of his views.
by the knowledge that some are joining us in .. The low state, moral and social, of these • Portuguese Christians,' Is the direct historical this requeet, and that we may be able to com- result of a system of conversion without educa- tion. The Roman Catholic authorities have municate with them iu the future. themselves perceived this; and in our day they are second to none in their efforts to educa&e Rev. J. M. .Allis, Casilla 912, Santiago, Chile. the people. I would speak of the existing Catholic missions and missionaries in India " S. J. Christen, "6tH, " with the highest respect. • • • " W. H. Lester, 231, "The fact. however,remains that the low social and moral status of their converts is the histori_ " W. H. Dodge, 202, Valparaiso, " cal result of the old-world methods of conver- sion without corresponding efforts at education " J . .F. Garvin, 904, on an adequate scale. These methods have now been abandoned for more enllghteued ones " W. H. Robinsou," Copiapo, by the Roman CathOlics in India. "
" W. B. Boomer, Ooncepcion, " Iu comparing the number of converts'by the Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries we In session at Valparaiso, Chile, January, I88)' ought never to lose 'Sight of the fact that not only were the former 300 years sooner in the 1 These. iii: 1,2. field but that they had the Nestorlan Mis- sions on which to draw for many of their England. early converts. as all were called who left the weak and unprotected followers of the early FROM REV. JAMES JOHNSTON, F.S.S. church for the powerful church of their Portu- guese conqnerors who did not scrnple to nse Roman Catholic Missions in In- strong measnres for their conversion. dia. It is also necessary in speaking of the increase KDS. 011 THill MISSIONARY REVIEW 011 THE WORLD: of Roman Catholic converts in India, to em- Dear Sirs.-Your correspoudent in this Jlhasize the fact that the Increase is largely due to the natnrallncrease of the mnch larger numconntry, who happens to be a namesake of ber with which the comparison is made. mine, and for whose communications I find myself credited, has in your July Issue given the I am, dear sir, most truly yours, nnmber oC Roman Catholics in India derived JAMBS JOHNSTON, F. S. S. Cram their orgau, Illustrated Catholic Missions. The numbers are probably near the truth; but India. certain quotations from Sir W. W. Hunter as LETTER from a Methodist misslOnto the comparative cost ofPopish and Protestant ary in Monaffarpur, India: missions, and as to the self-denying way in which the agents of the former carryon their I read in THE REVIEW a short time ago an work, are apt to mislead, when not accompanied account of the Lady Dnfferin Hospital, by other passages from Sir William's writings. opened at Darthanga and built by the Ma.- harajah. I see the building often and enjoy The following passages are from one of his the hospitality of the lady in charge, who is most recent ntterance., as to the character an East Indian from Madras. Already the of the converts made by the Roman Catholic enterprise is a success; the wards are filled Chnrch ; and as they may not COme under your and much good is being done. Miss R., an correspondent's eye, and will certainly not be excellent Christian lady, told me of a very given In the nlustrated Oatholic Missions, I successful treatment in removing a cataherewith give them: ract from a native lady, who, after years of darkness, has returned to her home and Referring to the danger of the withdrawal of people. It is great misfortune that theladies Protestant schools and co~leges, Sir William engaged in these hospi tals, by a stipulatIOn says: accepted by Lady Dufferin, "annat converse with theIr patients on the subject of Chris- "The Roman Catholics in the sixteenth and tianity. Either these institntions in time seventeenth centuries made the great mistake must pass into the care of ladies of an of converting without educating. Their con- acknowledged creed or the Christian la,di!llil versions were on an enormous scale, and they must stullif,y tb/lm.,, VIIS, have left behind a hereditary caste of Christians, numbering abont one and one-third million of the two millions or native Christians in India. It is not too much to say that the native Christians thus left behind by the rapid conversions of Roman CatholiCIsm were for long a reproach to Chrlstiauity. It is these' Portnguese Christians' who have given rise to the popular idea in India, that a native Christian is a drunkard and a thief. There are many thousands of exceptions to this rule. But the rule Is so general that an 'Old Colonel' .when he Writes to the Time8, usnally speaks of it as universal. Yet the class of Englishmen represented by senior military officers are both truthful and accurate ~lls~rvers,. and the ~eneraI rllswt Of th,eit obse~- The field which our ehurch. the Methodist "The mission on which I started has proved successful beyond my expectations. Episcopal, has just entered has been occu- Our friends will be glad to know that we have begun a, mission in Jerusalem, and ba.ve -appied-for some years by the members of the pointed a missionary. Not only was I myself actively occupied during the whole period Gossner Mission. For want of men and of my stay at the ]'[oly City, but I also en- gaged a. Hebrew convert to continue the funds it ha.s for several years been almost work as an evangelist among the 30,000 Isra- elites at Jerusalem. I am sure that your at a standstill. The mission has bnt two earnest prayers will go up for this new branch of our work. There are in other cities men, one of whom is to be removed to an- of Palestine 50,000 more of God's ancient peo- ple, making 80,000 in all, or more than in the other field. A 1l0urishing Zenana mission days of Ezra and Nehemiah, for then there Were only 50,000. 1 may add that the number a.nd a press, which aided the mission greatly, is constantly increasing and that there are signs of renewed prosperity. I believe the have both been abandoned. Lord is preparing the land for the people and the people for t{ie land; for just as the Provision has been made by which we curse haB been fulfilled so all the bleSSings foretold by Israel'" prophets shall assuredly hope soon to put half a dozen native helpers come to pass and be fully realized." From Paris he writes: "Many of you will know in this field. It will be something of an ex- that three years ago I was enabled, with the aid of Pastor Hirsch. to start a work among periment with us, as we have only one the Hebrews of this city. I am anxious While here to strengthen and enlarge the foreign missionary to represent the work. work." It has been assisted by the contri- butions of Mr. Freshman'S little Hebrew There is but one town in Lirhort, and that Christian Churoh and congregation of St. Mark's Place, from which have also ema· is where We have established ourselves. nated, directly or indirectly, missions to the Jews in Philadelphia and Chicago. besides Here we hope soon to have a dispensary incipient work in PIttsburgh, Des Moines. Toronto and other cities, as opportunities with a lady doctor in charge, a very mnch have offered, by Mr. Freshman personally,or by missionary converts from the little needed auxiliary to mission work. mother in St. Mark's Place, ten or more of whose sons are already in the field or pre- Your accounts of the increasing interest paring in theological seminaries.
taken in the Lord's work, and your own United States.
eO'orts to create and foster this interest, [COMMUNICATION from Dr. L. P. Brockett: Corrections in article on are very encouraging to us. We are satis- ·'Madagascar."] fied that the Lord will make known and EDS. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: I glorify Himself among the nat'ions, but we have received from foreign sources some communications in relation to my article on ask, When will the church be willing, nay, " Madagascar" in the May and June num- bers of your REVIEW, and I beg leave to make anxious, to give the millions of India an op- a few not very important corrections sug- /!rested by t,hese criticisms that your many portunity to see the light and enjoy the readers may not be led into even trivial er- roneous impressions. blessings of our glorious gospel? May article, p. 352, lines 22 and 23, for We have a station as near Mt. Everest as "lemurs" (which helong to the monkey fam- ily) read "'emeers" (which belong to the we can get in the plains of India. When not Same natura.l class and order as the monkey which they replace in Madagascar.) obscured by clouds and mist it can be dis- Page 858, line 28, for" the great province tinctly seen, and appears to be but a few of Imerina • • • is the larl!"est of all the provinces," read" which is the chief of aJl miles distant,while it is not less thau eighty. the provinces."
Bishop Thoburn, our recently appointed Page 858, line 8, for "and the Bt!tsileas"
bishop of India and Malaysia, has just ar- rived. On the 7th of January he presides at his first conference, to meet at Bareilly.
northwest provinces; on the 17th he will meet the Bengal Conference at Allahabad, and on the 31st the South India Conference at Bombay.
Hoping you may be Interested in a few items from these gatherings. I will endeavor to send them to vou as early as I can obtain them.
We trust you have every encouragement in your noble work. We join in prayiug that yOU may he aided, both by the Lord and by the church, for you need grace,and you cannot work without means. Tell the churches in America we are waiting on their prayers; our eyes are lifted unto Him who has promised to hear and answer prayer. Yours very sincerely, (Rev.) H. JACltSON.
Syria..
THE FRESHMAN JEWISH MISSIONS. [REV. JACOB FRESHMAN writes to his congregation in New York of the enterprise for Jerusalem for which he has been for some months absent, as follows:1 read .. the Betlmmena and the Betsimisa to be prepared. based on the best codes of raka." England and America.," read .. caused a re- vision of the MallloG"asy laws to be prepa.red. June article. p. 425. line 24, for "1863." read approximating them in some degree to the "1868." Sa.me line, for .. in Imerlna. " (the codes of Western nations." land of the Hovas) read" iu the island of llada.gasca.r. " Page 428. line 11. for" the Scriptures" read .. religious books." Same page. line 14. for Page 425. line 29, "they had only the New .. she greatly multiplied copies of the Scrip- Testament in their own langua&-e, and the tures " read" she greatly promoted the cirtranslation of'this was not perfect." The CUlation of the Scriptures." and refer to the following toot note should be appended to new note on page 425. this page : Page 428. line 25. for .. to the levying of * .. The New Testament and the Psalms taxes" add" to diminish the burden of the jarwmpoana or per90nal service." had been translated and circulated prior to 1834, and 5,000 copies of the former and 6,000 In the note at the foot of P. 428. line 12. of the latter had been put in the hands from the bottom. for" spent three and a of the natives. The Old Testament had half months." read .. spent thirty·eight also been translated and a small edition da.ys" printed in the summer of 1835; but in Februaryof that year the Queen (Ranavalona I believe these are the only pa.ssages or I.) had prohibited her subjects (under pen- phrasesrequiringcorrection or modification altyof death) from reading or having in to which my attention has been ca.lled. I their possession copies of the Scriptures or will add two verba.l substitutions which I any religious books, and had caused a vigor- ha.ve noticed. Page 433, line 21. from bottom ous search to be made for them, a.nd the of page, for U voice" substitute ., utterpenalty to be inforced fer the possession of auce." and eighteenth line from bottom. for even a ~ingle leaf. Under these orders "voice" substitute "sound." nearly every copy of the Old Testament and many thousands of the Psalms and New Tes- L. P. BROCKETT. tament were seized and sent to England and BROOKLYN. July 25. 1889. their retnrn prOhibited. No other New Testaments were to be had till 1869, when the Letter from New Jersey: British and Foreign Bible Society sent a revised edition of 5,000, and in 1871 an edition MARLTON, N. J., July 8; 1869. of the Old Testament. Even these editions, DEAR DR. PIERSON: I was greatly pleased with through revised, were not perfect. and a your suggestion that the church should undermore thorough revision ha.s just been com- take to evangelize the world within the present pleted. It was a stray copy of the first edi- generation. I have been impressed for seversl tion of the entire Scriptures which was years with the same thought. that the world placed at the side of the Queen when she could be evangelized before llJOO. Four years was crowned." ago I expressed this thought to Bishop Taylor of Africa. He replied: .. I think it can be Page 426, mnth line from the bottom, for done in 20 years." In conuectlon with this I .. the coronation oath was adminis$ered to have been forcibly and sometimes pa.infully imher with her hand on the sa.cred volume," pressed that the average church co,uld and rea.d .. as she a(!dressed her people, on this should support two pastors: one at home, her corona.tionday, she stood with her hand one abroad, and the weaker churches. paying upon the sacred volume." from $400 to $700 salaries, should unite, two or more of them, in supporting a foreign pastor, Page 427, second line. for" and united with whUe the richer churches should multiply one of the mission churches " read hand their pastors abroad as the Lord should prosper united with the Independent Palace them. And all this without diminishing in the Chnrch." least their annual contributions to the general cause. This cmdd be done if properly set before Pa.ge 427, line 6, for" the beautiful Mala- the churches and urged upon them. Their gasy marble" read u the massive Ma.laga.sy missionaries could be under the supervision of granite." Line 23, for" a beautiful marble the parent boards of their respective denomichurch " rea.d u. a bea.utifulgranite church." nations. But such a worl< needs a pioneer, like yourself.to travel amongthe churches, aud also A note may be appended as follows: through the press to stir them up. Why not. dear Doctor. tske this upon your shoulders as, *.. There is a very fine Malagasy white a part of the precious burdeu you are carrying for the swift subjectiou of the world to our marble, used to some extent n Madagascar Lord ? Very sincerely yours. for building, but the churches and palaces of the capital were either built of hard na· W. MaK. BRAY. tivewood,painted whlte,of a native granite Psstor M. E. Church. which.' from excess of felspar. is nearly white. or of tae native blue rock, a gra.y or [A remarkable movement is on bluish basalt abounding in that vicinity. foot in Kansas, in response to Dr. H. The fioors of some of the palaces are of white n&'tive marble."
Page 428. line 5, for" caused a code of laws
"'~' ;:"y"''''
7'12 INTERNATIOll'AL DEPARTMENT. [OcT.; Grattan Guinness's appeal for the and others carefuUy explain to the pastors and Soudan district. We willingly give business mell that the associations are not going place to this circular, and trust it into a general missionary work, but ouly take will lead to similar movements else- up the work of sending pionee~s to prepare the way of the Lord, and open up lIelds for the where.-EDS.] church societies and others.
TOPEKA, KANSAS, July 17, 1889. We advise that a committee of from three to DEAlI FmENDS: At the last meetiug ofthe State five be appointed from your association for Executive Committee, after careful aud prayer- the Soudan Pioneer Mission. That the officers ful consideration, the following resolution was be a chairman, set'retary and treasurer. unanimously adopted, viz: RetlolfJed, That the State Executive Commit- Sample blanks, with electro map of Africa, tee approves the appointment of missionary will be furnished at an early day. committees bylocal associations for the purpose of aiding the Soudan pioneer missionary move- A number of good men have volunteered to ment or other pioneer missionary enterprises. go, and Kansas will probably send from five It was also agreed that some member of the to eight men to the Sondan about October 22d State Committee should be designated as a -immediately after the State CODvention. member for the Soudan Pioneer Mi.ssion, who should act for and represent the missionary Asking your earnest prayers and hearty cobands ofour associations in this State. operation in this great work, we are, on be- We should be glad to have the secretaries half of •• every creature,"
Faithflllly yours, JAlIIES D. HUSTED. Chairman. GEO. S. FISHER, State Secretary.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
How Shall Returned Missionaries Render attentions for which he has, orshould the Best Service to the Oause of Mis- have, no desire as being more his sions While at Home? due than to home workers for Christ. Any seeming complacency in being BY REV. GEO. W. WOOD, D.D. lionized he should avoid by'a care- ful cherishing of his conSCIOusness FIRST by being in spirit, manners that many a laborer at home is more and conduct an honor in the highest approved of his Master than himself possible degree to the missionary deserves to be. name. The cause of missions receives damage from anything in the Secondly, if the missionary is at missionary which tends to excite home for nefded rest and restoration suspicion as to his motives, and of health, let him, next to spiritual lower respect for him as a man. culture, make it his first aim to be- Whatever helps to raise him in the come able to return speedily to his estimation of intelligent Christians work abroad. If he is at all an efand other candid observers as a man fective public speaker, the demands of intellectual ability, good sense, upon him will be incessant for labor firm principle, broad and generous beyond his strength. Whether the sympathy, charity and other traits call come from secretaries of socieof the best style of Christian char- ties and boards, or, in more numeracter, brings advantage in every way ous cases, from pastors and others to the object which he seeks to pro- in the churches, he must Jearn, when mote. A model missionary is a he ought, to say No, and insist upon crown of glory and a tower of it. If his desire to excite interest in s~rength to "the cause" which he miSSIOns, or his inability to resist represents. pressure. leads him to prevent the physical recovery for which he came Especially, and in all ways, should home, or much to delay it, he makes the foreign missionary show him- a mistake which is harmful to "the self in accord, as a fellow-worker, cause." with every form of evangelistic and benevolent activity in the great Thirdly, in order to render the best home field. He sometimes receives
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. 7'78
service to the cause of missions Butin respect to the pen, as also to while at home, the returned nlis- the voice, we do well to resolve that sionary must well consider his pecu- .. every missionary returned from liar adaptations and circumstances. his field, and so withheld from his work abroad on account of impaired "Not all men can do all things." health, should be subject explicitly to the advice of his physicians in ':!. witty correspondent of the New undertaking any missionary service York Evangelil;lf, "Ambrose," once at home." Giving lectures and wrote: "Missionaries are of two mll-king addresses from the pulpit, classes-those that can talk, and in Sunday-schools, and in missionary those that can't talk." Now, we and ecclesiastical meetings, may well know some scholarly and other men employ such measure of strength as in our own country who nevel' went a judicious physician will approve. abroad, who are very useful in their In rendering this service, let not own proper spheres, but who have zeal override judgment; and let care not the gift of eloquence; and some be taken not to harm by mistakes in who can be interesting and instruct- the manner and length of speaking. ive to auditors of'a certain kind, and Missionarielll are like other public yet fail when called to face audi- speakers, needing to know how to ences of a dIfferent sort under differ- begin, what to say and what not to ing circumstances. David Living- say, and how and when to stop. stone was not a Dr. Duff in speech, Painfully conscious of my own defibut hewas David Livingstone never- ciencies, and that I can present mytheless. Some men can do better self not so much an example as a than they can describe, and some beacon, may I not, nevertheless, recan use the pen more effectively than mind my brethren and sisters, with, the tongue. Ready writers may do myself, that the three s's are an exmuch for missions through the cellent general rule, viz. : "Be short, press. They may do this not only by spirited, spiritual" 'I " Spiritual," sketchy and more elaborate articles not in the way of cant, sanctimoniin magazines and the religious press, ousness, affectation of piety, faith, and by books, but by watching op- self-denial, but from the spirit of 'portunities for useful statements Christ in the soul of the speaker, that will be welcomed by conductors which cannot but pervade aU his utof local newspapers and secular city terances; "spirited," from depth of journals. Some missionaries abroad, conviction and feeling, not of a and some when re~urned, have, by spurious oratory, and this, though thei.r facile pens, communicated in- it may cost effort; for often the formation of great value to thinking missionary is so exhausted from minds, and, bringing honor to them- feebleness, the fatigue, it may' be, selves, have honored and aided" the of traveling. and the social intercause" to which they are or were course with kind Christian friends, devoted. The late Rev. Dr. Robert not always considerate in their de- Baird repoded that M. Guizot said sire to entertain and heal' from the in his hearing: "If ever the world visitor from a foreign land, how can is to be well informed respecting he help being dull? But let him be itself, it will be done through the as spirited in the best sense of the efforts of missionaries." Of the con- word as he can; and th€'n, unless he tributions of missIOnaries to several is to be the only speaker, and is debranches of science, and to general SIred to occupy more time, let him knowledge and literature, the most for the sake of his hearers and himgratifying appreciation has been ex- self, and efficient service "to the pressed by men of highest eminence in learning. cause," be short, above all; never The Anoient Ohuroh of Persia. a.nd its spoiling a meeting, and vexing the Reform. arrangers of a programme and those who are to follow him by overrun- BY REV. J. H. SHEDD, D.D. ningthetimeallowed to him I Learn THERE were present on the day of to speak, if, you must, with your Pentecost, Parthians and Medes and watch in your left hand, and don't Elamites and the dwellers in Mesoforget to look at it in season and potamia, devout men from the Car obey its monitions I East and forerunners of the great church of Pt'rsia that flourished from Unless one is a Christian Daniel the days of the Apostles for twelve Webster, like Alexander Duff, he centuries, and that planted its misdoes well not to occupy much time sioJ:s in Eastern Persia, Turkestan, in a missionary address by discussing China and India, while Europe was scriptural principles of missions; still a wilderness. The fruits of these this may better be reserved for other missions were all destroyed 600 years times or left to other speakers. Mis- ago by the exterminating sword of sionary facts are eagerly asked from Tameriane, except the Syrian Chrismissionaries. Let these be selected tian community on the Malabar to illustrate principles. The most coast in India; the monument of unprofitable thing that a mission- Singan fu in China and a few similar ary can do is to scold the churches. relics. There are extensive grave_ He can quicken consciences by yards on the western borders of touching hearts in well-selected, China, recording on the tombstones truthful narrations concerning con- the fact that they buried their dead verts in missionary fields or Chris- in Christian hope. tian supporters at home. The church which sent out these missions, now commonly called the Much of the returned missionary's Nestorian, has dwindled, from Mosmost effective service when at home lem oppressions and inward decay, to may be rendered in prayer-meetings a little more than a hundred thouand social circles, in which, without sand souls. Half as many more of obtrusion, he may, by suggestions, the same race and language are anecdotes and illustrations, give en- united to the Church of Rome. largement of thought, and make a This remnant of the oLd Syrian 01' favorable impression in relation to Nestorian Church was first reported missionary topics. He will some- to the Protestant world in 1830 by times find himself in company with Messrs. Smith and Dwight, Ameridisbelievers in missiom; and thus, can exploring missionaries. Their by exhibition of the Christian spirit, report was so favorable that the tact in parrying an objection or a American Board soon after began a sneer, self-respecting dignity and mission to the Nestorians. The first knowledge, refuting assertions of missionaries were Rev. Justin Perignorance, he may worthily defend kins and Asahel Grant, M.D., very the cause against assailants. By noble and enthusiastic pioneers. communication of information in an Others of like spirit followed them, easy and natural way he may, in and since the mission was begun in personal intercourse, be useful in in- 1835 a strong station has been maincreasing interest in the cause in pas- tained at Oroomiah, and unwearied tors and private Christians, and es- efforts have been made to promote. pecially in helping the young to be- a revival of pure Christianity. The come recruits for its service abroad means used are the translation of or at home, and "he that winneth the Bible into the spoken language souls is wise." of the people. the introduction of a. Christian literature, the teaching of ~ possible nearer the currup.t churches thousands to read in schools and of Greece and Rome. .
Sabbath schools, the training of But we anticipate. Let us llrst teachers and ministers, the preach- mention the nature and history of ing of the gospel everywhere and the the reform in progress and then planting of a reformed church with add a few thoughts on the opposi- its congregations and schemes of tion, difficulties and hopes that at- beneficence. tend it.
In 1841, thefirstpl·inting-press ever The Nestorian controversy carries seen in Persia began its work at us back to' the decisions of the coun- Oroomiah in printing the Bible. From cil of Ephesus, A.D. 431. Nestorius 1846 to 1851 there were remarkable was condemned on two charges. (1.) revivals in the mission schools and For refusing to call Mary theMo- in some of the village cong-regations ; ther of God. In this certainly no also severe persecutIOns by the Nes- Protestant would accuse him of torian Patriarch and the Persian heresy. (2.) For saying that there Governor. In 1855 the Reformed com- are not only two natul·es, but also munion was begun, twentyyears after two persons in Christ. Students in the founding of the mission. In 1870 church history recall to what con- the name of the mission was changed troversies the Greek words uVUla, to The Mis8ion to Per8ia. In 1871 the lJ1r6U'T'autu, and 'TrpOUoJ1rov and the corre- work was transferred to the care of sponding terms in Syriac gave rise.
the Presbyterian Board. Since then The difficulty of definition and of ad- it has enlarged its sphere to embrace justing their meanings to each other not only Nestorians, but all the other gave the opportunityfor endless mis- peoples-Armenians, Jews and Mos- understandings. Nestorians have al- • lems in half of Persia and a large ways held to the true diTinity, the part of Kurdistan in Turkey. Sta- true humanity and the true incarna- tions have been established in Tabriz, tion of our Lord. In their contro- Teheran, Ramadan and Salmas, and versy with other churches on the a station in the mountains of Kurdis- term Mother of God we are their al- tan undertaken. lies. The same is true of many In 1838, three years after the Amer- other points at issue between them ican missionaries, French monks be- and the papacy. The unscrlptural gan their work on the same field. dogmas and practices of the Greek, They have for the basis of their opera- Armenian or Latin churches, such tions several thousands of the Syri- as the refusal of the cup to the laity, ac-Persians who are nominally at- purgatory, confession, the mass as a tached to the Church of Rome. They real sacrifice of Christ and image have fought the Protestant reform worship never entered this church.
at every step and with all the weap- The errors of the fourth century ons that the Romish hierarchy know and some later ones are found, but so well how to use. In 1885, fifty the people are not bound by the years after the Americans entered councils and traditions nor are they the field, the Archbishop of Canter- under a hierarchy as the other cor- bury, at the request of some ecclesi- rupt churches. They hold the Bible astics and in pity for the old Syriac as the full and only rule of faith.
Church, determined on an Anglican They have a liberal spirit toward all mission, and in 1886 he sent out his who teach the Word of God. They agents from Protestant England to- confess that the teachings of the oppose the Protestant mission in American missionaries agree with Persia and to confirm the people in the primitive doctrines of· their their formalism and bring them if church and that errors have crept 776 INTERNATIONkL DEPARTMENT. [OcT., into their system inlater times which deacons, all of whom had received orshould be reformed. dination in the oldchurch, metin con- ference with the -missionaries. The The missionaries in 1835 were wel- first of these conferences was held in comed by the people, and for many 1862, and adopted a brief confessiml, years an honest effort was made form of government and discipline. to reform the old body without de- Some things were taken from the stroying its organism. This effort canons and rituals of the old church, failed. God was pleased to pour out others from the usages of Protestant His spirit, many souls were renewed, churches. The confession and rules and a new church was gradually were enlarged in 1878, and the name formed for the following I'ea- adopted was" The Evangelical Syrisons: (1) Per8ecutions. The patriarch ac Church." The missioitaries and did all in his power to destroy the the evangelical bishops have someevangelical work. He threatened, times joined in the ordination serbeat and imprisoned the teachers vice and it would be difficult to draw and converts, and thus did his ut- the time when the Episcopal ordinamost to alienate the spiritually mind- tion ceased and the Presbyterial beed and to drive them from his fold. gan in the Reformed body. (2.) Lack of discipline. Theconverts could no longer accept unscriptu- The relation of the American misral practices and rank abuses that sionaries to the old ecclesiastics has prevailed, and it became evident been somewhat different from that that there' was no method of reform- found in other missions to Eastern ing those abuses and practices. The Christians. The patriarch in office missionaries and converts alike gave fifty years ago was at first very up the hope of such reform. (3.) Lack friendly to the missionaries. and perof teaching. The converts asked for sonally aided them. Later he did all better care and for purer and better in his power to break up the mission. instruction and means of grace than His most able brother, DeaconIsaac, they found in the dead language and however, accepted the evangelical rituals of the old church. The sepa- doctrines, and till his death, in 1Be5, ration, however, was made in no spir- was the foremost man in the Reformit of hostility or controversy. There ed communion. The Patriarch now was no violent disruption. The mis- in office h&8 taken the attitude of sionaries published nothing against neutrality, with frequent indications the policy or ecclesiastics of the old of fairness and friendliness to the church. Their efforts were not to mission work. proselyte, but leaven the whole people with the Scripture truth. The The next in ecclesiastical rank is new life was not forced into a western the Metropolitan, the only one left of mold, but left to adapt itself to the the twenty-five mentioned in the peculiar character and wants of the thirteenth century. The present inpeople. cumbent, recently made distinct avowa16f the scriptural character of The method was guided by Provi- the Evangelical Church, and expressdence. The conveJ't:;, were first in- ed a strong desire to come to an unvited to unite with the missionaries derstanding with it. Of the bishops, in celebrating the Lord's Supper. As three have united with the reform the numbers increased, and societies and died in the Evangelical Church_ were formed in the sevel'al villages, Of those remaining, the two in 01'00native pastors were placed oVll'r miah, to the extent of their ability, them. In time these pastors and oppose th,e light, beca.use their deeds their elders, and the other preachers, are evil. The three bshops in Kurdincluding bishops, presbyters and istan are friendly, and give their influence in favor of the mission instructed in Bible truth by a l'eg'eu- schools. Alarge numberof the priests erate church that rescues what is.
or presbyters of the old church, in most precIOus :from a system that Persia. at least, joined the reform decayeth and waxeth old and is movement, aRd as large a proportion ready to pass away. The members of the deacons. In Kurdistan, fur- of the Reformed Church revere and ther from the mission station and in- love much the history of their fath- fluence, the number is smaller. In ers and appeal to their examples of all, nearly seventy of the presbyters zeal and piety; and desire to conserve have labored with the mission as their true doctrines and their virtues.
teachers, preachers or pastors, more The preaching p~aces vary some- than half of whom continue. Many what with the season of the year, others acknowledge that the reforms numbering about 120 in the winter of the Evangelical Church are scrip- and somewhat less in summer. The tural and sal.utary, but for worldly roll of ministers shows 40 fully or- reasons adhere to the old party. dained, several of whom are mission- These facts as to ecclesiastics (and aries iII distant parts of Persia and similar facts might be giveIl: as to in Russia. There are 30 licentiates or the leading laymen) show that many preaching deacons, 87 elders and 91 leading minds of the people have been deaconesses of the congregations.
enlightened by the missionaries and In some places the reform has gath- toiled with them for the reform of ered nearly all the population with- the whole people. Still more has in its influence, and in many places the work been for the common peo- it is not unusual to find half the pop- ple. The mission has been true to its ulation in the winter services. Many aims to embrace the whole people in blessed seasons of awakening and its plans for spiritual and temporal refreshing from the Holy Spirit have improvement. The medical work been enjoyed. In all, over3,300 have has been for all, and also the relief been received to church fellowship, in time of famine. In civil affairs of whom two-thirds are living and there is no Protestant community, the others passed beyond the veil.
alld any relief obtained through mis- The people are poor in worldly sionary influence is shared by all. goods but are able to do much for The schools are open to all alike, and their own support and to spread the as barriers have given way before the gospel. In a few congregations all increasing light, whole villages, and the expenses are paid by the people every house in them, have been open and in all they share according to to the Christian workers as truly as their grace and ability_ All con- can be said of any community in tribute to a missionary fund from America. which the native board pays one- The Evangelical Church has its fou'rth of the expenses for advance Mission Board that meets mont~ly, work. Thus the foreign work has and by combining funds and counsels become to the church of Persia a with the missionaries a system of home work and upon this native pastoral care and itinerant labor isin church is laid the responsibility of operation which enables the forty- winning the land for Christ a.nd of five preachers in the Persian por- preaching the gospel to every crea- tion of the field to carry the gos- ture. The American missionaries pel statedly to every hamlet. In go hand in hand in helping the na- Kurdistan the same system is ex- tive Christians to realize their re- tending,annually. The earnest hope sponsibilities and privileges, to plant and aim is to see this people brought and train self-supporting and ag- fully under evangelical influlO'nce and gressive local churches. There is a system of education that Mussulmans have regarded Chrisembraces 120 village schools, in- tians as unclean infidels, worthy only creasing in number as the demand of contempt and violence. After all increases, an orphanage,. a female the ages of contact with nominal seminary and a. college with indus- Christians, the true religion of Christ trial department and medical class, is now, for the first time, revealed to as well as the COUl'ses in science, Persian Mohammedans. This revelanguages and theology. To fro-, lation is made in the translated Word vide books a printing press is con- of God, and still more truly in the stantly at work, and to meet the lives and worship of true Christians. needs of the sick and needy, a dis- There is a purity in Protestant worpensary and hospital have long been ship, and a manhood and intelligence attended annually by thousands. and character of love and integrity To complete the agencies needed to in Protestant Christians WhICh IS inevangelize the Nestorian field a new deed a revelation. Christians are no station for the mountains has been longer to be despised, but they are to organized and the labors of a tnedical be respected and trusted, and it is and an ordained missionary begun, the turn now for Mussulmans to assisted by native helpers, and these stand on the defensive and to listen, labors much blessed in the winter and of some to accept of Christ in the past. face of persecution and threatened death. From the door of the sepul- The question is often asked, What cher the stone of a corrupt and idolis the effect of this reformation on atrous Christianity is rolled away. the faiths and peoples about us? In The way is fast preparing and the reply the reflex influence on the old evangelical Christians in the midst of church is as marked as upon the Ar-. the Moslems are the leaven for the menians in Turkey. The leaven is rapid dissemination of the gospel. working in the old body and some of the congregations have preaching For fifty years this work of Amerand Sunday schools, and we may ican missionaries, in the reformation hope, many truly enlightened and of the Syriac-Persian Christians, has renewed souls. been recognized with gratitude by all who look for the kingdom of The tide of Roman influence was God in Persia. In one of the leading fast overwhelming this remnant of cyclop::edias the opinion is expressed Nestorians a generation ago. Now that" probably no Christian mission the tide is turned and Protestants of modern times has been so satisfacare on the aggressive everywhere. torily conducted and so decidedly A large body of living Christians, happy in its influence and results." with the Bible in their hands, are not This is an extreme statement, for the only able to hold their own but are missionaries are fallible and have constantly advancing, and thus is made many mistakes; but notwithsecured to the true faith a body of standing all mistakes the Great Head Christians as important to Persia of the church has wonderfully owned and Kurdistan as the Waldenses are and blessed the effort. Multitudes of to Italy. It is planting the batteries souls have been saved and a true and of the ChristIan faith at a strategic lasting reformation begun. point far within the enemies' country. An awakening among God's It was to be expected that the Roancient people in the land of their man Church would oppose such a long captivity has already begun in work and would set up her rival mismany places. sions. But it was not to be expected, and is greatly to be lamented, that The effect on Islam is more impor- the Archcishop of Canterbury has tant still. For hundreds of years the followed in the s~eps of Rome, and ',zation. ~he Ritualists have l'allied has sent his mission, consisting of the opposition to close the mountain foul' English priests, to arrest the valleys against aU missionary work, Protestant reformation in this old and exclude evangelical teaching Eastern" church, to turn back the from every church and house. The progress of free thought and turn all effect is to stir up a great deal: of bad movement, not to the New Testa- feeling and some violence, that ren- ment type of Christianity, but to the der very difficult a work that before corrupt church of the sixth and sev- was easy and to retard the true enth centuries which God permitted reformatIOn, that was so rapidly and Islam to smite. quietly advancing before the Angli"
This new mission of the Archbishop cans came. What an infatuation of Canterbury, planted by the side of and fatal errol' to array missionaries the American mission, and in rivalry of the same race and speech against with it, is greatly to be deplored for each other before Moslem rulers I many reasons. In trying to drive back the evangel- 1. It disregards aU mIsslOnary ical work, this is done. It is equal comity. If the English Church had folly to expect to affect Islam favor- led the way half a century ago in ably by perpetuating the corrupt and exploring the field and planting a semi-idolatrous forms of Christian- mission for the Nestorians, Ameri- ity in the East. There is no hope can Christians would not be there that the Moslem will ever turn to to-day. But in God's providence the that Christianity he has abhorred in pioneers were Americans; and now the Eastern churches. There must the toil, the meeting of the brunt be a purer and more spiritual religion of Roman and Moslem opposition, than worshiping- of crosses and the work accomplished, and the keeping of fasts. No greater dam- blessings God has given are not re- age can be done to Christianity in garded in the least. The Anglicans the eyes of Moslems, and no greater coolly step in and claim the field. advantage given" to Islam, than for The American mission is an obstacle Englishmen to come to Persia in the to be brushed away, otherwise the interests of the formalism and idol- field is entirely unoccupied and open atry of Oriental churches.
to a mission from the Anglican 3. 1t is an effort in thE! direction of Church to the "Old Syrian Church. Rome. The Nestorians in their an- England has been known through- cient books and modern thought out the East as the bulwark of fail' know nothing of the exclusive play and of Protestant missions; yet claims of prelacy and apostolic suc- here the agents of England's primate cession, nor do they accept the coun- are using the power of England to cils after the first General Council of trample on the claims of a Protest- Nicea. They in some sense have ant mission and to destroy its work. been the Protestants of the East in Protestant Episcopalians" of New greater sympathy with Protestant York are aiding the archbishop in teaching than With Roman. Now this great mistake and wrong to the come these Anglicans to warn them cause of Christ in Persia and Kurd- against all Protestant heresy, to tell istan. them that Presbyterians have no 2. It is an effort of obstruction and church, nor ordination nor ordin- reaction, and must do great harm to ances, and to teach and exhort them the real missionary work. Painful to drive out all such heresy, to mul- discussions and the clash of hostile tiply their prayers and ritualistic parties take the place of the peaceful worship in a dead language"; to en- work of enlightenment and evangeli- force the binding nature of fasts and traditions and saints' days; to teach Both papist and Anglicans ask them the efficacy of baptism to secure re- to regard NestorlUs as an arch-heregeneration,of the Eucharist to convey tIc and the patriarchs and fathers of atonement, of the priests to sacrifice, theil' church in Persia as outside the and of the bishops to convey special true church and faith. The efforts apostolic grace; and of the councils to change the fossil churches of the to pronounce the creed which it is East or to revive them in any way necessary for aU Christians to be- but by the simple gospel have been lieve. This mild form of Romanism failures. They have a tenacious has really the very essence of the conservatism that clings to the tragreat apostasy of all the corrupt ditions of the past and renders illuchurchel!<-the ap~stolic succession; sive the dream of the reunion of the priestly nature of the New Christendom by any method of con- Testament ministry; the sacraments cessions. The effort of Rome for as necessary and initial means of centuries, and of the Anglicans saving grace; and the councils as among the Copts and in other parts authoritative interpreters of the Holy of the East, tell the same story. A Scriptures, whose dogmas are bind- case in point is that of the Syrian ing. On this basis they wish to re- Church in Travancore, South India. form the Nestorians away from the Rome tried her hand of persecution real faith of their fathers and lead and failed. This church is a branch them to accept what is called the 01' offshoot of the old Nestorian Catholic Apostolic Church. But Church, using the same rituals and such unscriptural teaching, so fal' as language, and like the Nestorians it is accepted, has the same effect in lapsed into corrupt practices and was Persia as elsewhere. It lulls the dead to all spirituality rather than sou1 to trust in forms instead of deeply heretical in doctrine. Prior Christ, blunts the conscience and to 1886 the Church Missionary Sohardens the heart. It is the same ciety persisted in trying for eighteen old story: "My people have com- years to resuscitate this old church, mitted two evils; they have fOl'- and the effort ended in complete saken me, the fountain of living failure. Then the plan was adopted waters, and hewed them out cisterns of separating from the corrupt body, that can hold no water." and since then a true Protestant church of thousands of members has· 4. The effort in the end must be in been gathered. vain. After all the evil it may accomplish, or the goad, if God so over- Thus, in Persia, the current evanrule it, it must result in failure. It gelical reform may be obstructed lacks the vital elements of true very seriously but cannot be stopped, evangelism as found in the Word of by the ritualists. The words of Dr. God. The theory is very seductive Perkins, written twenty-one years no doubt to the Archbishop and ago, are still true. "The progress of those of like mind, that the true om' work is steadilyonward,and prob- method is to preserve the old organi- ably as rapid as would consist witb zation, and that gradually thepeopJe its highest prosperity. Theprogress may be taught to express their creed is not always a uniform current. It in the same words as other churches resembles a succession of circling of apostolic succession and all at last eddies caused generally by obstacles become one. But beautiful as the in the stream, but sometimes by the theory is, the practice is full of dIffi- accelerated speed of the current, culties. The Anglicans are so near which but for these self-regulating the papists that the people fail to see checks might bring' on the work the difference in their teaching. serious disaster. Such eddies are
THE J(ONTHLY CONCERT 01' lIUSSloNs. '181
often the best missiona.ry regulators, the true evangetic~ refOlim has correcting mistakes and undue haste doubled itself in the past ten years. and giving our converts occasion and We may expect history to repeat i ttime to examine the foundations of self, and the time to be near when the their faith." One of these eddies is heralds of salvation from Persia will now formed, but the river of salva- again evangelize theTartartribes,and tion flows on. Under God's blessing enter Thibet or China from the We8t.
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.
Persia. a.nd its Missions. Koords, between Semnite and Shi- PERSIA and Assyria in Eastern hite sects of Moslems-victims of Turkey-the country occupied by the rapacity and persecution on every Nestorians-constitut(>s one of the hand-seem to represent the tradi- most interesting mIssion fields in the tional lot of suffering and outrage world. It is the Original cradle of which for centuries have character- the human race. If it does not in- ized the country. 4-nd yet there is clude the site of Eden, it certainly nowhere a more beautiful land.
embraces the resting-place of the .. About two-thirds of the country," sa.ys Ark of Noah; and it still has repre- the late Justin Perkins, D.D., .. the westsentatives of the descendants of ern portion, lies In Turkey, cOlllprlsing Shem, Ham, and Japheth in the much of AssyrIa. or modern Koordista.n ; various nationalities now found in and the eastern third is in old Media, the the country. It is the land of northwestern province of modern Persia.. Abraham, and of Job, and of Jonah. now called Azerbijan. The forlller portion The ashes of Mordecai and Esther is physically one of the wildestand roughest lie buried at Hamadan. It was in regions on the globe, abounding in scene'll this land that Daniel became instru- of llt&rpall8ing grandeur and sublimity, and mental in one of the greatest moral ts inhabited by the not less wild Koords, revolutions ever wrought in any among whom, and in proximity to WhOlll, nation by a single man. The Magi are many of the Nestorlans dwell. till lately believed to have come from there to subject to lawless extortion and violent Bethlehem, and according to tradi- plunder from those redoubtable neighbors. tion are buried there. The evangeliza- The Nestorians betook thelllseives to these tion of Persia began with Daniel. mountams at an early period, as'an asylum Nebuchadnezzar IS held to have been from deadlypersecution,havlng less to fear. a true believer. Great empires and a.dvanced civilizations ha.ve arisen in the violent outbursts ot Pagan and Moand passed away on this broad field. Nineveh and Khorsabad are repre- hammedan fanaticism, from the savages of sentatives of their buried grandeur, the mountain" than from the 1II0re civilized while thousands of ancient inscrip- inhabitants of the plains on either side. In tionsfound on rocks and tablets con- the lull of persecution, during the few past stitute their epitaph. centuries,they have gradually spread them- selves down into Persia. The Persian part The country has been rendered of their country is one of the most beautimetnorable by many of the great ful on which the sun ever shone,consisting conquests which have affected the of several of the most charming Persian destiny of the whole human race, plains; bounded on the east by the Lake of and it has been invested with pathetic Oroomiah, which is ninety miles long and interest by mournful captivities of thirty miles broad, while the towering Jew~ and others, in various ages. ranges of Koordistan rear a lofty. snflW- Even in our day the Nestorians, liv- capped barrier on the west. Oroomiah, ing between Persians and Turkish lying on the middle section of the lake, and separated from other plains by bold ridges that run transversely from the higher moun- tain ranges quite to its margin, is the larg- est district occupied by the Nestorian•• and is the principal seat of our missionary operations. The atmosphere of all that region is so clear that the naked eye with ease traces objects distinctly, at th", dis- tance of a hundred miles, which woul4 ha.rdly be visible one-fourth that distance best, and when drought is added, in America, and'readlly descries 'Celestial thousands must perish. bodies, seen elsewhere only by the aid of a telescope. Indeed much of Persia, under "Still worse," says Rev. J. H. its brilliant sky, is so fair a .. to be al- Shedd, " there is no Joseph in Persia most fairy; abounding in luxuriant fields, to make any systematic provision for vineyards, and orchards, and smiling with such a crisis. There is no public chantasteful gardens of bright and fragrant flow- nel of supply. On the contrary, the ers,studded wlthgurglingfountainsand sha- tender mercies of the wicked are dy arbors, and vocal with the notes of warb- cruel. The king sets the example Iiug nightingales and other musical birds." -locks up his granaries, and with- holds every kernel of wheat except Famine often wastes the land, es- at famine prices. Every nabob and pecially the Moslem districts, and its land-owner who has a stock on havoc must ever recur at intervals hand follows this example. Rapacuntil there shall be such a govern- ity and cupidity rule. Money is ment as shall protect and encourage coined out of the sufferings of the irrigation, instead of speculating in poor. The imbecility, avarice, crubreadstuffs while the people perish. elty of the ruling class are sometimes The government is an absolute des- beyond belief. Depravity is satanic. potism, in the hands of a Sultan or Persia is ruined by depotism, mis- Shah. He has two chief ministers rule and cruel feudal oppression. -one a sort of deputy executive in peace and in war, and the other a "No lover of humanity can regard lord high treasurer. The latter of such a land but with feelings of these is much more diligent than the profound pity. We long for the day' former. There is vastly more of tax when civilization will build highgathering t.han of civil or military wa:ys and railroads by which charity protection. The sole end for which at least can be conveyed to the famthe Persian Government exists is the ishing. A proper system of roads, collection of the revenue-the fleec- and one or two railroads in Persia, ing of the people. Large portions would make such famine impossiof the land, confiscated from time to ble. The country has natural retime, belong to the sovereign, and sources which only need developing are farmed out on terms well-nigh to make her, as in ancient times, a ruinous to the tenant. Even where great nation. Places supplied with property belongs to the subject, itis water yield every kind of fruit and taxed to the last degree as a starting grain in abundance. These beautipoint, while the successions of sub- ful, favored districts can be exrulers and collectors make still fur- tended. By opening again the anther drains upon the moiety that cient water-course, by sinking artemust save the laborer's family from sian wells, by proper aqueducts for absolute want. The whole burden the mountain streams, irrigation can of taxation thus comes really upon be greatly extended, and the rain the laboring class. Added to this supply increased. But before this extortion is the constant uncertainty physical renovation comes, and war as to whether the planter will be and famine cease, there must be a pe"mitted to reap his crop at moral renovation. At present the all. Downright "o1:Jbe"y of fields or earth itself, under a despotic govel'nhouseholds by the retainers of petty ment and false religion, is cursed for chiefs is of frequent occurrence, and man's sake. It refuses to yield its the poor are liable any day to be de- harvest for the use of man, because prived of their very last resource. man refuses to yield himself to the Agriculture and other industries so glory of God." discouraged and paralyzed, barely sustain the lives of the people at the There is reason for the degradation and real moral darkness of to the fteld that she was ftJled with love but she could not 10Te these women, and' these people for the last three had to be converted over again. and hum- ble herself before God to labor with them. centuries. They have been crushed They act like monkeys, chatter and gig_ gle, and take hold of every part of one's by invasion and slaughter and con- dress without any sense of shame. When- ever a son marries he brings his wife tolais stant tyranny, and subjected to the father's house. If a man have twelve sons. all the families will be under one root, and immediate contact of all the sen- as there isbut one room under that roof the suality and debasement of the domi- in state of affairs may be imagined. No won- nant Moslem races. der the word home is unknowB Persia. When the women gathered in she asked We add a few words as to the per- them if they could read. They a.nswered, • We are women.' She told them she was sonal and domestic life of the Per- a woman, but could read, and might she read to them? Arter reading one of the sians. Mud or clay huts are their parables, she asked them if she should sing. They had never heard anyone sing, and did houses; with one room, the oven in not know what it meant. She sang.' Hap_ py Day,' and they laughed and giggled and the center, a hole in the roof to let feU down and rolled, but when their children laughed, the mothers took their sandals. out smoke. Privacy and cleanliness shod with iron, from their feet, and drove them from the house. Surely this was a are impossible. hard place, hnt she did not give it up. A school was established there. She visited Mrs. Rhea, many years a mission- it after some time, and found the children able to reply to her questions, heard them ary in Persia, thus graphically de- sing sweet sacred songs, and the ·bright boys in one winter learned to read. There scribes social life : were openings for sixty such schools, and the entire outfit. books, house and al1 of .. The mud-wall houses, wit.hout windows each would not cost more than 560. She visited the villages,. meeting from two ot or chimneys, would not be used by Chris- six hundred women. When she looked these women in the faces and found them han~ tians for pig-cities. The children are so ing on her words, she felt herresponsihilit;. and not daring to use the words she ha.d prescantily clad that less clothing would ren- pared for them, she instead would read from the New Testament without comment. der them more comely. what they have Whole days they would stay and listen to the talk, and linger late Into the night, and serving onlyas a nest for vermin. The sad- when exhausted she told them to go for she eyed. depressed women are beasts of bur- must sleep; they went saying,' We'll come a.ga.in in the morning.'" den, and are classed with t.he donkeys,and as The Nestorians are of the old Sethey pass by. donkey and woman alike hid- miticstock. Dr. Gl;antbelieved them den by their loads, it Is only a glance at the relics of the lost ten tribes. They rep- feet that tells which is the beast and resent the oldest 8eet of Christians, which the human. Oroomiah is a walled and claim origin from Thoma8, the city and the ditch about it filled with stag- Apostle, and an army of 160,000 marnant water poisons the air so that nearly tyrs In one province 1,500 years since. all the children die, and yet the heathen governor, when a. missionary suggested They have a remarkable missionary history-patiently enduring persecuthe draining of the ditch, said it should tion, and remaining spiritual in the midst of prevailing worldliness. be done • to-morrow,' and has let years pass with it still untouched. The traveler Gibbon says, once theirl¥1mbers exsees by the way the desolate Mohammedan ceeded that of the Greek and Latin graveyards, with never a trace of love in communions. They derive their name them, the tombstones bearing the emblem from Nestorius,$ho was condemned· of whatever craft the sleeper followed, the mud-walled vel{etable fields and unfenced grain fields, the plows of the pattern found on Egyptian monuments, and drawn by twelve yoke of oxen.
.. Entering the first house we found an earthen fioor, a bit of mattinp for a sbeyat~ and a woman baking bread. She sits hole in the ground the size of a barrel, with coals at the bottom. She takes a piece of the leavened dough. passes it from hand to hand, and kneads it on a cushiouat her side until she has a cake three-fourths of a yard long, half a yard wide, and half an inch thick. Then she throws It into the hole, it catches on the sides. and is baked in an in- stant. The baking done, the missionary can have religious services, a.nd sends out for the women to come in. These women are not attractive."
Mrs. Rhea thought when she went out for heresy by the Council of Ephesus gospel from Persia, Syria and India.
A. D. 431, and who died in painful among the barbarous nations inhabit– exile in Lybia. Though holding some ing the deserts and remotest shores peculiar vie",s in regard to the of Asia. In particular the vast em- '
Trinity, his real offense was'his early pire of China was partially enlight- Protestantism. He refused to call ened by their zeal and industry, with the Virgin Mary the "Mother of the light of Christianity." From the God," and he opposed many of the fifth to the ninth century the Nesto_ corruptions of the church. " His rians had churches among the moun- followers, though greatly debased, tains of Malabar in India, and in the stIll reject all image worship, con- vast regions of Tartary from the fession to priests, the doctrine of Caspian Sea to Mount Imans and purgatory, etc. Altogether the Nes- beyond, through Chinese Tartary, torians number about one hundred and even in China itself.
and fifty thousand, of whom one- Early in the eleventh century a third are in Persia and two-thirds Mogul Prince in Cathay (Northern in Turkish Koordistan. They stand China) was converted to the faith, in the rela.tion of oppressed ten- and taking at his baptism the name ants toward the Mohammedans of John, gave his royal influence to among whom they dwell, being cul- the Christian cause. Some of his tivators of the soil, and artisans in successors also were at least nomi"
the more common and useful me- nally Christian, a son-in-law of Pres- chanical trades. One continuous tel' John, the well-known Ghengi8 people, while living in the two con- Khan, gave his support to the Chris- tiguous Empires of Turkey and Per- tians as late as the early part of the sia, they partake much of the re- thirteenth century. But toward the spective local peculiarities of the two close of the fourteenth century the parts of their country; those in the sword of the Moslem Tamerlane de- Turkish portion, Koordistan, being stroyed the Tartar churches and rude, untutored, bold and defiant, overthrew the Nestorian Christianity and those in the mild and sunny in the principal seat of its power.
clime of Persia possessing nlUch of It was not till thec1oseof the fifteenth the blandness and suavity common century, howe vel', that some un- to all classes in that ~enial country. kndwn persecution and massacre de- They are a noole race of men; manly stroyed the Nestorians in China.
and, athletic, having fine form8 and good There is still found at Si-ngau-fu, in complexions. They are al80 naturally a Northwestern China, a large stone 8hrewd, aeti'IJe, and intelligent people, tablet, giving an account of the faith yet remarkably artleH3, affable, and, 11,08- and history of the Nestorians. It pitable, and peculiarly accesswle for presents their doctrine of the Trin- mi8sionary purp08es." ity, and some account of the books of That which gives to the Nestorians the Old and New Testaments, and a peculiar interest is the missionary records their progress for 140 years.
character which they have once The ancient glory of the Nestorian borne, and which it is to be hoped Church is gone. "Ichabod" is written they may bear again. The Oriental upon it. Tamerlane in the fifteenth churches as a whole were not as act- century slaughtered them. Seven- ive in the spread of the gospel as the • ty thousand heads were piled up at Latin Church; but the Nestorians Ispahan and 90,000 more in the city were an exception. "In the East," of Bagdad. The church itself became says Mosheim, "the· Nestorians, locked up in death spiritually.
with incredible industry and perse- Messrs. Smith and Dwight found verance labored to propagate the among them: 1. Liberality to othet sects. 2. Rejection of confessional. ran, Ispahan and Hamadan are in this 3. Reverence for Scripture-though, district. locked up in Syriac, they knew little of its contents – but endless fasts Henry Martyn was the pioneer in and the doctrine of baptismal regen- this land of Esther. In June, 1811, eration, etc. Christian work in Per- he rode into Shiraz, already broken sia must begin with Nestorians, for in health, for eleven months work- Mohammedans could not be led to ing at a Persian translation of the Christ while a dead church is among New Testament and Psalms, subsethem. But the early history of the quently, for four months at Tabriz, Nestorians of Persia bears upon the with raging fever he then ~tartedfor question of their future relations England, and died at Tocat; but that to Tartary, and even China. Why New Te.tament is still doing service may they not again be useful in car- for the Master. rying the gospel even to Mongolia and Korea? They have physical Rev. Justin Perkins and wife were energy and hardihood; they are the first missionaries of the American capable of a high civilization; and Board, and reached Tabreez August their susceptibility to the power of 23, 1834; in October, 1835, joined by religious truth has had numerous Dr. and Mrs. Grant, all together proattestations in modern as well as in ceeded to Oroomiah : ancien t times. "We arrived," says Mr. Perkins, It is this view of their character " in a furious rainstorm. The tardy and position that gives to the mis- jomers had no place ready for us to sion among the Persians a peculiar lodge; so we sat down among them interest. They are at the western in an open room, upon the shavings, gateway of China and India. They of which we soon kindled a fire to I are stationed along a great high- dry our drippmg garments; and, way of nations which must ere long Bending to the market for bread and be opened. They are, moreover, kebab (boiled meat) we ate our repast in the center of Asiatic Mohamme- there, and afterwards laid our8elfJes danism, where they only wait in sore downfor the night on the same shafJings, dIstreSS for some great overturnillg with as lively gratitude and joy as often in the providence of God which shall swell the hearts of mortals. The 20th give them ~overnmental protection of November was long observed by and tHe conditions of prosperity. us as our Pilgrim8' Day. Meanwhile it is our duty and privilege to promote among them the "Having the broad, common resurrection of a dead and buried ground of Scripture on which to meet Christianity. the Nestorians, and the most ready access to them, we at once addressed We need greatly to extend the ourselves to the work of their ameliwork among the Armenians as well as oration and salvation. For, while among the Nestorians. They have their knowledge of the Bible was so elsewhere shown themselves pecu- vague and meager, they cherished liarly accessible. The largest com- for the sacred oracles a reverence pact body of the Armenians, about amounting almost to adoration. Dr. 10,000, is found in the district of Grant soon acquired a commanding Salmas. Its center is Tabreez, where influence over all classes, by his skill- 5,000 Armenians reside among 130,- ful practice of medicine and his ac- 000 Mohammedans. The other great tive devotion to their welfare. At·menian region is 400 miles farther east. This is a captive colony whose "The missionary work soon took history has been most tragic. Tehe- the three-fold form of education, the press, and last, but pre-eminent, oral preaching.
"The first missionary school was commenced in January, 1836, in a 92 whom she had led to· Ohrist! _ cellar (apt emblem of the moral state In 1845 a revival simultaneously al·ound), for the want of a more broke out in the boys' and girls' comfortable place, it being winter, schools. Mr. Stoddard, the boys' with seven small boys. It was the teacher, called to say to Miss germ of our flourishing Male Semi- Fiske that four or five boys were nary. The number of pupils soon seeking Jesus and found her with increased to fifty; and from learning jive girl8 who were in the same spir- theiralphabeton manuscript cards at itual condition. the beginning they rapidly advanced, till they have long graduated with The conversion of Deacon Guergis very respectable attainments in lit- took place in this revival; and he be- erature and science, a remarkably gan the work of an evangelist among familiar knowledge of the Holy the Koords,continued uptohisdeath. Scriptures, and most of them with His history-converted while on a considerable acquaintance with the- visit to his daughter at the girls' ology as a system. From this semi- school-is a religious romance. His nary have gone forth nearly a hun- spontaneous, self-denying, and per- dred graduates, about sixty of whom severing labors among the cabins of are able and faithful preacher8 of the the Koordish Mountains deserve to g08pel, not a few of them partaking stand high on the annals of Christian much of the holy unction of the sainted devotedness. In 1849 another revival Stoddard, under whose self-consuming blessed the mil!lsion, which spread to toil8 and prayers they were trained. the village of Seir. I have" never Other8 have gone forth hopefully pious, seen even in Holyoke such scenes," who, in other avocations, are hardly l688 wrote Miss Fiske. usefulco-laborer3 in the work of evan- gelization. Dr. Grant came from Utica, N. Y., and his wife was pioneer of female " About two years after open- education in Persia. She began with ing the male seminary, a few little four girls in a barn; after two and a girls formed the nucleus of a female half years of labor, she died at 25 seminary. The term Topsy would years of age, so revered that she was then not inaptly have described the char- "buried by the bishops in the church acter and appearance of th08e little girls; and they dug her grave with their not that they were black, the people are own hands." Dr. Grant then gave nearly as light as ourselves; but for un- himself up to journeys, going unat- cleanline88, disorder, and propen8ity to tended among the Koords, daring mischief. Yet in a few short years all perils, and surviving the great those same individuals appeared edu- slaughter of 10,000 mountaineers cated, intelligent, refined young la- only a year or two, he died, leaving dies; and what is yet far more, de- a name like precious spiees for its voted, active Christians. About a fragrance. Ten years later came the hundred pious young women have harvest, which was in part owing to gone forth, who, in the various re- the power of Mrs. Grant's death, as a . lations of wives, and mothers, and testimony to the pure faith of Christ. teachers, are doing a work not at all second to that of the graduates of the Justin Perkins was a tutor in Am- Male Seminary, for advancing the herst, and was carried to the vessel gospel among their people. 20 miles on a bed. "We shall soon throw him overboard," said the cap.- Miss Fidelia Fiske left South Had- tain. But the Lord had for him 36 ley, Mass., to found this new" Hol- years of work yet. After wintering yoke" in Persia; and 13 years after at Constantinople he arrived at Ta- she sat down to the Lord's table with bris and was welcomed by Patriarch Mar Johanan, the earnest friend of
EDITORIAL NOTES
the mission. Next year he, with the church, and constitute an exam- Dr. Grant, was stationed at Oroo- ple of great encouragement to those miah, birthplace of Zoroaster, and whose future labor shall be bestowed seat of ancient fire worship. Oroo- on the same field. The work of grace miah is like Salt Lake Valley in fea- in Persia in connection with missiontures, with a salt sea and a clear air, ary effort has been very remarkable. through which Jupiter's moons are Eleven or twelve revivals of great seen. Dr. Perkins' dying words were, power have been experienced in the " How will even Heaven be Heaven, high schools at Orcromiah and Seir: where there are no Nestorians to be Some of the most apostolic men and led to Christ." What passion/or souls! women have been numbered among the native preachers and other This mission to the Nestorians has Christians. The work of Mr. Stockbeen favored by the presence and la- ing, Miss Fiske and others in the bors of some of the most devoted of schools was pre-eminently a work of all the laborers who have gone to the prayer. It constituted a power beforeign field. The names of Stod- fore which even the ~ild Koorddard, Stocking, Lobdell, Crane,Coch- armed to the teeth and "breathing ran, Rhea, with a goodly number of threatheningand slaughter," became heroic and devoted women, must transformed to a lamb. ever be embalmed in the memory of VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
ONE of the editors was calle,d to sity has ta.ken a great stride onsit as a member of the Examining Committee when, in May last, Dr. ward. P. F. Ellinwood conducted in the chambers of the N. Y. University These classes are not composed of his examination of his classes in comparative religions. This chair ordinary men. They include pastors, as is generally known has recently been erected and when it was deter- professors and students in theologimined to have such a department, the Regents could find no man in cal seminaries and medical colleges, this country more admirably adapted to fill it than its present accom- etc. In ten years similar courses of plished incumbent. study will be established in all the Dr. Ellinwood had for years been a close and careful student of the theological sohools, and perhaps uni- Oriental religions when called to this new lectureship in the university. versities. It would be well if the Thus far he has had splendid men in his classes and may well feel proud younger ministers would take up of their attainments and his own success. He has two courses of these studies, not only as a means of perhaps twenty-five lectures each. At the late commencement ten men re- qualifying them for service, but as a ceived the degree of Ph.D. in consequence of their attainments; and diversion, for the subjects are fascifrom what we heard of their recitations we were satisfied that in the nating in interest. Dr. Ellinwood erection of this chair and the election of this instructor, the univer- has had rour professors in his classes, taught by correspondence. He fur- nishes copies of abtracts of lectures, references to books, etc., for cognate reading, etc.
One of the best features of the course is the requirement that each student present a weeldymonograph on some salient matter of the course.
This makes all the knowledge his own, and gives it fixedness of im-!
pression and crystalline form. We have asked Dr. Ellinwood to furnish for these pages a series of articles on BuddhiSm, etc. A. T. P. MR. MOODY has issued an "AN- the English Bible, and all matters NOUNCEMENT " to the public of his pertaining to practical evangelism new training school at Chicago. and missions; and, by offering abun- dant opportunities for actual work There is a. very marked growth among the neglected masses of the of interest in mission work both at people, to apply the practical test of home and abroad. The problem of both fitness and willingness to serve evangelizing our great cities is espe- God and souls; and so sift out the cially coming to the front and de- chaff from the pure grain. manding a practical solution. The Lord of the harvest is likewise send- Applicants for admission to the ing forth laborers into His harvest. Training School must furnish writ- Never has there been so·wide-spread ten certificates of their church mema desire among both young men and bership and character, and forward women to get at work for Christ and them to F. G. Ensign, Esq. Much souls; and we are glad of this new attention will be paid to musie as a. training school. most important help to evangeliza- tion, and the aim will be to furnish All workmen need training, both evangelists, home and foreign mis-. inthe theoryand practiceoftheircall- sionaries, lay readers and parish vising. No demand of our times is more itors and pastoral helpers to train imperative than the need of a train- more efficient Sunday school teaching school for Christian workers, ers, consecrated singers, and workwhere they can learn how to work ers in every department. We see and at the same time put their knowl- no reason why every great sectIOn edge to the test by engaging in of this country, if not every great work. Doing is one way of learn- city, should not be furnished with ing. such Training Schools. Chicago is the metropolis of our great Nortb- Our colleges and theological semi- west, easily reached from all parts of naries are sending out mer;. equipped the United States and Canada, and is for leadership, fitted to plan and a grand place to make a start. conduct the campaign. But hundreds of volunteers, who have nei- A.T.P. ther time nor money for a full course of education, are asking how they The Turkish Government and American can get ready to do the humbler but Schools; equally needful work of the common soldier in the ranks. THE following is a translation of the order we referred to in O1,lr last To help meet this want this train- issue, for which we are indebted to ing school for both men and women The Missionary Herald.-EDS.] will open in Chic3go, on Sept. 26, and continue the year through. In- TRANSLATION OF VEZIRIAL CIRCULAR OF RAMAstruction will be furnished free to all students, who will be thus at no ex· ZAN 16,1306 (MAY 16. 1889) • pense except for board, which wili .. The American Legation has made comcost from $4 to $6 a week. Every plaint that although the programmes and morning will be spent in study under the ~eachers' certificates of the American the best trainers which this country schools in the Vilayets were transmitted in and the world can supply. The af- accordance with the special law at the time ternoons will be spent in visiting the schools were opened, yet the offi cial pafrom house to house, and the even- pers containing authorization have not been ings in evangelistic meetings of va- given, and the teachers' certificates have rious kinds. It is the purpose of this also been detained at the Government of- Evangelistic Training School to fur- fices; and that on the occasion of investinish the best practical instruction in gations after eight or ten years had passed, nothing contrary to law having been ob- served in the schools, the schools have been closed solely on account of the absence of permits or of teachers' certificates, and further. that the reopening of suchlschools en sionaries to such wild and troubled counters much difficulty. regions. Assigned first to the most northern outpost of the Livingstonia. .. Although it is known that some of these Mi.ssion of the Free Church, he conschools have been closed fol'lawful reasons. quered the difficuties of a warlike it is not permissible for schools opened of tribe with a strange language, reold to be closed arbitr!trlly and when no cir- ducing it to writing and giving them cumstance or conduct contrary to law pro· a literature, building and teaching' duces a necessity. Hence, hereafter, when them to build, suffering with the >!chools newly to be opened have conformed hardships of inferior food and cloth. to the special law, permits will be given to ing, tramping the wilderness baretheir directors by the ViJayet Government. foot, rising from the bed of fever to and the certificates of the teachers, after bury a dead companion. Yet his letverification, will be returned to them to be ters are always cheerful, and often kept. And it there is a reason which de- even humorous, and he was always mands the closing of schools which have on the lookout for an advance movebeeuopened of old, the matter will be report- ment of some kind. ed to the Ministry of Public Instruction a,nd the necessary steps will be taken in accord- A year and a half ago the Arabs ance with the answer which is received. raided Lake Nyassa. Mr. Bain and This course will .be pursued toward other six other Europeans defended Kaforeigll schools also." ronga for a week against the'heavy Arab fire. Durmg a lull in the Arab James Alexander Bain. war came the time for his first fur- lough. He was terribly weakened ANOTHER of the brave young pi- by the pain and anxiety of fever, oneers in Central Africa has finished pestilence and war, and started for his course. He has laid down his home; but a few days' I'est at the life fora bottom foundation-stone for mission headquarters before starting a future civilization to rest upon. improved him so much that he de- The' names· of such men should be termined to let others have the furmentioned with honor among us, al- lough and stand by the natives though their fields of labor may be another year in answer to their far from sight and sound of our pitiful pleading as they knelt upon busy, noisy marts. Such names as the shore after he and his baggage Rev. James A. Bain will be sought were on board the steamer. He out and prized by those who a ought to have come homll, as It century or two hence shall search seems, for that year of fever and for the forces which molded the anxiety for the poor people forced states and institutions which shall him to confess in his last letter that then be the pride of Central Africa. he was "shattered in mind and A half-dozen great names are known body"; and the end followed very and honored by all, but after these soon. are a company of missionary pioneers, not so very numerous, by With God and a few such men as whom the early, diflicult and re- this to fight with them, the poor sponsible work is done. Among Africans will soon be able to rise out these may properly be named this of their deep woe and make peace to eighth in a line of north-of·Scotland be their government and righteousministers, who has justsuccumbed to ness their magistrates. the fever at Bandawe, Lake Nyassa. W.J.MUTCH He was educated at thl' Gymnasium, Old Aberdeen, at Glasgow A Misa.pprehension. University, and at the Free Church D~nity School in the latter place. "A MISSIONARY" takes to task one He was ordained in 1883, and soon of the editors, on the ground that in sd out for Lake Nyassa.'
His life was a heroic one, even beyond the measure o~ ordinary mishis little book, "The Crisis of Mis- Christian!!, not even the Moravians, sions," he "ignores the place and are brought into prominence, much power of intellect in missionary less any individual. God alone is ex- efforts," and suggests that, "won- alted. To have magnified the power derful though the results of the last of educated intellect or denomina- half century of missionary opera- tional organizations, or sanctified lit- tions have been, there is little rea- erature, would have been to call at- son to doubt that if all the mission- tention away from the glodous Cen- aries" were men who stood on a ter about whom all the history of higher intellectual plane, etc., the modern missions so conspicuously results would have been much revolves. . greater. ,The writer of that book-more conscious of its defects than any of Now the author of that book, with- its critics-still feels confident that out caring to defend either .himself the God whom he specially sought to or his book, would simply say to "A glorify in that sketch of missionary Missionary" that nothing was far- developments has especially owned ther from his thought than to ignore the humble effort. Only so can he or depreciate the power of sanctified account for the unusual sale, which intellect in missions. So long as must now have reached some twenty William Carey, Dr. Duff, Dr. Liv- thousand. There has been an undue ingstone, as well as Mrs. Grant, tendency to write up missions as the Fidelia Fiske, Drs. Riggs, Stoddard, work of the church and the triumph Fiske, Eli Smith, Bishops Patteson of organization. This may glorify and Hannington, Schwartz, Cyrus the church, but it dishonors the Hamlin, William Goodell and a Master. And it is strange that any legend of others are inseparable from of us can forget how little a time has missionary history, such ignoring elapsed since Dr. Ryland rebuked and depreciation are out of the ques- Carey for his holy enthusiasm; since tion. Sydney Smith shot his arrows of rid- icule into the nest of sanctified cob- But it is a little surprising to the lers; since the Scotch Assembly de- author of this book to find so many nounced missions as impracticable intelligent brethren who have appa- and absurd and dangerous, and the rently read" The Crisis of Missions" A. B. C. F. M. timidly ventured to without discovering the main object, send foul' men to the foreign field. which, like a thread, runs through We can only say: "What hath GOD the entire argument, viz. : to demon- wrought!" strate that the whole work of modern missions is conspicuously a work of Weighty Words. God'8 providence and grace. The purpose of the writer was to show NEARLY fifty years ago the vener- that when the whole church was able Heman Humphrey, D. D., wrote asleep and practically denied all obli- these stirring words to one of the gation to a dying world, God moved three sons whom he gave to the in a most remarkable manner and ranks of the Presbyterian ministry. aroused a sluggish Christendom- The names of these sons were John, that by astounding developments He Zephaniah M. and Edward P. We precipitated a crisis upon the church, echo the wish that these words could and prepared the church for that be copied. framed and hung on the crisis in a measure, and that now, wall of every pastor's study through· by marvelous signs and signals, He out the church. They describe the is inciting to a new spirit of holy en· one great want, the one hope, also, terprise. With such a motive guid- of the cause of Foreign Missions in ing the writer, no denomination of our time, and show the quarter from galion, and will make the salvation of the heathen a subject of prayer every Sabbath which deliverance must arise: day, from the beginning of the year to the end of it. Tnese, my son, are some of the "Those great Christhn enterprises which ways in which you can make your influence are the glory of the present age will have felt to the ends of the earth. to the end of imperative claims upon you as a, minister time, and through everlasting ages. and a Christian. You may not be called upon by your Divine Master to go and set IN the June REVIEW the editors up the standard of the cross on a heathen shore, and the utmost you can give will be published a letter from Rev. Fred. S. but a· mite in comparison to what is de- manded for the conversion of the world. Curtis, of Japan, that he says was But remember, my dear son, that God will hold you responsible for whatever influence intended to be a private letter, and in you can exert to bring up the church to the standard of her duty. The ministers of which he wrote with the freedom of that glorious gospel which they are com- missioned to preach at home, and which first impressions, unguarded as they must be preached to all nations before they can be converted, have it in their power to would not have been if meantforthe do more toward raising the necessarll funds than any other class of men-might I not add, public eye. We had supposed the more than all other classes put together. Perhaps this would be extravagant; but let letter to be at our disposal, and beg anyone consider the position which pastors occupy, the access which they have to the pardon if we have overstepped the hearts and consciences of the whole Christian community, and the influence which bounds of privacy. Mr. Curtis says they actually wield in all the religIOus movements of the age, and he may perhaps that at the time theJapanese tongue be convinced that I should not be far out of the way. Point me to the churches which did not seem to him so difficult to atare doing most in proportion to their abllity for the spread of the gospel and, without tain as he had supposed; but that knowing the names of their pastors, or ever having heard of their moving a finger, I am further study shows him that the preparejl to say that it is greatly through their influence, or that of those who imme- language is no easy one to master. diately preceded them in the sameofllce. If ministers were to do their whole duty, and He was then studying under a bright exert all their inflnence, I have no doubt that the contributions of the church would young Japanese, who proved very be doubled in a skort time. much more helpful than the average .. Do you ask me how this mighty influence is to be exerted? I will tell you. If you teacher, and what had seemed before have a truly benevolent and missionary s!,irit yourself, you will infuse it into others. an ini?urmountable barrier began to You will press the subject upon tlie members of your church inprivate conversation; seem a comparatively easy task to you will advise and persuade them to take religious magazines and newspapers; you overcome, and in this somewhat will Induce as many of them as you can to attend the monthly concert; and in order to elated frame of mind he wrote, but make it as interesting as possible, you will diligently collect and arrange the latest not for the somewhat critical pubmissionary intelligence; will exhibit maps of various countries and stations where the lic eye. He says the language is light begins to shine, and will lay yourself out so thoroughly in preparing for the con- hard, and requires very close study cert, as not only to show how deeply your own to g~t hold of it, and th~t his use of' heart i. interested in the cause, but to make wery Christian feel that he sustains a great it thus far has been confined to cerlos8 tn staying away. You will also frequently plead the cause of the Bible and of tain formulre for baptism, etc., and missions, with all the eloquence of which you are master. before your 'IdIole congre- a moderate use of it in colloquial forms. We owe this explanation to one who is a soncin-Iaw, and who therefore wrote with family free- dom. A. T. P.
Dr. Dorohester on Romanism.
DR. DORCHESTER presents figures to prove that While the Catholics in the sixteen years from 1870 to 1886 increased four-tenths of one per cent., the evangelical population- by which it is presumed he means the Protestant-increasedtwelveand five-tenths per cent. He believes that, instead of the 20,000,000 Cath- olics which the Sun predicts will be
lIlISSIOSARY wORK AND S'I'A'I'ISTlCS. [OC1'
found in this country in 1900, the used very carelessly and actually evangelical population will then be mislead and deceive. For instance, eighty pel' cent. of all the inhabi- take this paragraph: "One hun· tants. Dr'. Dorchester calls atten- dred years ago the world's population to the amazing discrepancies be- tion was rated at 731,OOO,000,ofwhoro tween the figures of two Catholic 174,000,00:) were Chdstians. No IV Year-Books, one published in New the population has doubled, anu the York and the other in Mil waukee. Christians trebled." According to Sadlier's, for instance, estimates the that there are now 522,000,000 Chris- VathoIic population ofthe diocese of Hans in the world. In other words Hartford at 35,000, while Hoffman's every third person, taking the whole puts it at 200,000. population together, is a Chris- tian! Speaking of figures, they may be VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
Moravian Missions.
THE Moravian Almanac for 1889 gi~'es the Cull statl~tics only for the year closing Dec. 31. 1887.
Receipts.
I.-FROM MORAVIAN CONGREGATIONS AND SOCIETIES.
1. In fne German Province ………………………………. £ 924 110 2. British ……………………………….. 1.177 8 7 3. •• American" ………………………………. , 2,252 Ii 1 4. West Indies and Surinam.. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. . .. .. 229 6 2 £ 4,582 16 e n.-FROM: FRIENDS OF OTHER CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.
1. In the German Province ………………………………. £5,124 1 7 2. British….. …………………………… . 1,995 9 3 3. American…. ………………………. :…. .. 68 17 5 £1,188 8 3 m.-Legacles ……………………………………………………………. 2,205 2 2 IV.-InteiestCromendowments …………………………………………….. 2,009 5 11 V.-From mite societies…………………………………………………… 707 9 10 VI.-Interests. more received than paid… …………………………………… 109 18 6 Total receipts………………….. .. ………………………………..£16,808 1 4 Balance deficiency on the year's account…………………………. ….. …. …. a,390 4 8 Total. ………………………………………………………………£20.193 6 0 Expenditures.
I.-For the several missions ………………………………………………..£ 8,948 10 10 n.-Tralning of missionaries……………………………………………….. 868 6 3 m-Snstentatlon.
Pensions to 150 recipients ……………………………….£5,975 I) I) Less interest of sustentation Culids……………………….. 3,759 17 8 £11,215 l~ 1 lV.-For edncation.
1. For 239 children at school. …………………………….£5,880 15 I) 2. Apprenticing. etc. (65 youths, 48 girls). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. 1,417 2 1 – – – £6,797 17 10 'V.-Expenses oC management……………………………………………… 1.707 0 6 'VI.-Grants in aid and offtcial journeys. .. .. .. .. .. .. …. .. .. . .. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. . .. .. 165 18 6 Total expenditure ………………………………………………….. £20,193 6 0
OF MORAVIAN MISSIONS. =~
~ o~ !£ :o=~..~~ -~"-"aJt;.::::~. ~• . Z~ ;g ~ IS 5 ~'t1 rn !R f g ~ ~-g tI:: ~~ ~ :§ ~.£a: gtt3 . -5 .
cq g : : . 1 MISSIONS. ~.9 ~.a ~ -g . E~ :o~ § g ~00 t .g ~E ~ ~ C':I W .~ = = :=.~~ ~~ ~ ~ :g. ;g g :g. ~ :=§. ~ CD ~ d< ….. 0 ~ e!P-c. ~ ~ Go) l;tl 00 421-771 -az – -6- -17 –.-.- Greenland……………………………… ·d Z A d .::I "0 :;:: Z ~ 0 ill 0 ~ Il< Eo< ttl .0~ ..: Eo< 396 -1091-2tl2- —a4 – -"- . – -.-:::- –.-.- E: Labrador.. .. .. … .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 6 40 60 480 223 121 427 6 208 4 Eo< ~ Alaska………………………………….. 16 2 Ul North America………………………….. . 5 9 12 80 31 6 108 17 19 s· 4 .<:i 27 12 275 5,792 I 2,739 215 I 7,259 68 6,459 68 23 2,6g4 I 2,020 860 ~ West Indies (West) Jamaica ……………… . 20 ~ West Indies (East) ………………………. .. 5 .2 6 50 1,239 125 59 ' 824 7 388 7 5 511 488 70 ~ St. Thomas and St. Jan …………………. .. 3 3 3 73 1,363 340 63 661 3 460 365 87 :>0 St. Croix……………………………… ..
~ Antigua…………………………….. , .. .. 9 13 6 136 3,482 ] ,220 127 2,634 14 1,629 23 15 1,316 1,160 175 Zo St. Kitts ……………………………….. .. 4 3 .2 70 1,480 841 146 1,572 7 354 16 6 707 1,309 98 til i'" Barbados ………………………………… . 4 4 2 47 1,525 242 59 1,415 20 2,362 29 9 598 175 61 3 2 ~ Tobago ……………………………….. .. 2 62 1,124 336 27 1,257 5 437 5 7 267 883 50 I'il :Demerara ……………………………… .. 2 2 27 341 34 4 293 .2 179 3 2 111 126 28 N ~ Moskito Coast………………………….. . 12 20 4 33 490 1,036 320 1,448 10 545 10 10 630 50 36 ~ Surinam ……………………………….. .. H n m ~~ ~~ U~ 46 3 271 6 South Africa (West) …………………….. . U ~ 6 ~ ~ ~ ~~ m~ 42 6 45 174 9 South Africa (East)……………………… .. 12 18 3 123 877 294 1,117 1,007 15 683 21 6 220 20 Australia……………………………….. . 2 6 31 10 23 48 2 24 2 24 23 2 j .
~ C_e_ntr_al_A.s_ia_…………………………….. – -3- – -8- – -.-. – -.-. – – -11- – -4-.-.-..- – -2-7 – 18 – – -661 – _ 1 – – 1 – – – 1 – – – ~ Total……………… ………………….. 127 288 48 1,613 29,707 16,722 5,908 31,869 223 18.280 310 ~8 7,653 I 6,446 I 1,006
ORGANIZED :MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTIOS
The statistics tor the North American Indian Mission and of that in St:Thomas and St. .Tan ~ essentially those of the previous year on account ofincomplete returns.
Each number of tbe Moravian Almanac contaius an account of some special branch of work That for '89 describes tbe work among the lepers, wbicb has been carried on for 67 years. It commenced at Cape Colony in 1822. and was continued until 1867, when it was handed over to the care of the Government Chaplain of the English Church. .Tust before that, in 1865, the Leper Home at .Terusalem was established and that is still continued under the special care of ten German and two English sisters.
Seventh Day Baptist Missionary Society.
BlIPORT FOR YEAR ENDING SEPT. 20. 1888.
Receipt•• Balance Sept. 12, 1887 …………. .. $24735 Donations and interest………… . M,633 01 Received on Loans•…••……….. 3,800 00 Total. .. .. .. .. .. .. . ….. .. …. $12.680 36 ExpenliitureB.
:Mission expenses………………. $9,700 98 Paid loans ………… , .. . .. ….. . .. 2,800 00 Cash in hand,Sept. 20, 1888………. 179 38 Total……………………. $12,680 36 The foreign work of the society is carried on in China. by one missionary and wife with a la.dy physician at Shanghai, reinforced during the past year by another missionary. There are 5 native teachers and helpers, 2 schools with 36 scholars, 3 preaching pla.ces, 1 church with 2S members, 5 of whom were added during the year. Total number of patients treated 4,220, of whom more than half paid their fees.
There is a.lso some work in Holland and among the .Tews in New York City.
American Baptist Missionary Union. J I -~..:~..:":~"?:~..:~..~..:I . "
REPORT FOR THill YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1389. This year closes 75 years of the organic Receipts. life of this society. and the report makes special reference to the fact that the society Balance on hand April 1, 1838…… $248 91 was founded and celebrated its jubilee a.mid Donations……………………… 183,475 83 scenes of distress and anxiety, in marked Woman's Bap. For. Miss. Societies 96,754 4S contrast with this a.nniversary. Then Lega.cies ………………………. 51,60827 follows a retrospect over the last 25 years. Judson Centennial Fnnd……….. 38,000 00 Income of Funds………………. 19,773 75 :Miscellaneons…………………. 6,465 07 Government grants in aid, etc., India and Africa……………… 7,068 51 Total receipts………….. $398,394 77 Ballnce against the Union April 1,1389……………………… 8,173 56 Tota.l. ………………….. $406,568 38 Expenditures.
For the Missions………………. $355,197 79 Annuities from Funds. •.•.•.•…. 11,486 97 Publlca.tions ………………….. 2,261 75 Executive and Agf'ncy Dept…… 32,971 12 General Expenses. Rent, etc…… 4,650 70 Total …………………..$406,568 33 Special attention has been paid to educa- Liabilities. Loans on call…….. 82.150 21 tiou, and the founding of high-grade colle- Less cash on hand…………….. 814 97 giate and theological schools in Burmah. Siam, Japan a.nd Europe. Four new mis- Total deficit……….. $1.335 24 'sions in Sweden, Spain, Japan and Africa The statistics are 00 in<;omplete that it is Ihave been started. Among the more notice- scarcely just to give them. So far as can able items in the growth of the work are the be made ont from the report they are as increase of the members in the South China follows: Mission from 30 to 1,150; in the Telugu Mission from 31 to 30,659. The number of mis- I ~!!:~:s: sionaries actually sent to the foreign field during the time has been 347, including mis- g0,31=.~… ~1_'.~1"~ gCtlD. sionaries' wives and unmarried women. I···.~ II ….~ ….j…..~ …~. .German Baptist Brethren. I ~ ~t-l~~ Sta.tions. REPORT FOR YEAR E~DING Al'RIL 2, 1889. THE Missionary Committee report in regard I . . I ~ ~ "'~ Outstations. to foreign work that the expenses have been $1,055.54, expended entirely in Denmark and ""I ~ I ~ 0) ~P'J..:( 1 M l,SSi onar.les Sweden, where 5 evangelists have labored, holding 75t meetings. TwentY-illght conver- !.1l1 CO"",.", I Missionaries' Wives. sions are reported. The same committee have charge of Home I I a; :=~ …'" Other Female Missionaries Mission work and church erection. The total income for the three pnrposes was I.. "'''' I <;:Ordained Native Preachers. $6,237.16. I ..: ! ~ ~"' Other Preachers and Helpers. Baptist General Associa.tion of the Western States and Territories. I"'… I ~s: Churches.
THIS society carries on its foreign work in I ~~I,8i«1i81i ,Members. Africa in connection with the Baptist Mission- ary Union. It bas two missionaries on the I I i «1",~~ Baptized. Congo, who act under general superintendence of the Mission of the Union, but receive their I lSI ~~: ~ Pupils. support from and make their reports to their own Society. IIContribntions.
The Oonsolidated American Baptist The report calls special attention to the Missionary Oonvention fact that one-third of the annual receipts came in during the last months of the year. is engaged in no active work at present, Simply and nearly one half of that during the last holding on' to its legal existeuce and guarding two days. The result has been that tile its ouly foreign interest at Port au Prince, Board has had to borrow money and carry Hayti. A native Haytian, a man thoroughly' a heavy interest account. This ought not trained in this country and Paris, is ready to to be. Better late than never, but better take charge of the work there as soon as the still, never late. way may open. An earnest appeal is made for the re-es- Southern Baptist Oonvention. tablishment of the Japan Mission inaugn- rated in 1859 but never really established on REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 30. 1889. account of the death of the first mission- Receipt,.. aries by the loss of the ship in which they .ailed. Balance of April 30. 1888.. ., •….• $3.609 63 Donations (total income)…….. .. 99,023 75 Bills payable (borrowed money).. . 46,50000 Loans and interest…………… . 45126 Total………………. $149,584 64 Expenditures. For Missions………………….. $87.188 32 Executive and Agency Depts….. 14,931 35 Borrowed money repaid.. . . .• . . . .• 46,500 00 Loans.. .. .. .. .. .. …. .. … .. …. .. . • 150 00 Balance cash In Bank…………. 814 97 Total……………….$149,584 64
PltoGRESS OF 1l1SSlONS-MONTllLY BULLETIN. [OCT., r
VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BU~LETIN.
Afrlca.-Arabs in East Central Africa. prospering at Nyassa.. The Free Church of Scotland has opened a. new station at Mal- Tidings from a mission of the Free Church indu, on a high plain at the north olthe of Scotland in Nyassaland indicate that lake. Malindu is surrounded by 17 villages, though the Arabs are by no means over- embosomed in gardens of magnificent bacome, their vower is decreasing. These Ar- nanas. abs are cruel and treacherous; they shoot down the natives without any compunc- -Along the valley of the Nile from Alexan· tions; villages have been destroyed and drla to the first cstaract are 79 mission stations parents and children killed; but at the lat- and 70 Sabbath-schools. numbering 4,017 ter part of April matters were quiet. No scholars, while the day and boarding-schools news bas been received from missionaries have over 5,200 pupils. There has been an in· on Lake Tanganyika, the road between that creasing demand for Bibles, 6,651 having been lake and Nyass.. having bAen closed by tbe sold the last year, with 8,933 volumes of relig' Arabs. A letter from Dr. Kerr Cross at ious literature and 17,179 educational books. Karonga. April 20, gives much credit to Captain Lugard, who has so managed his 150 – TheCongo Railway. Th~Beglan Chambers poorly armed natives tbat they had pre· have voted a snbscrlption of ten million francs vented the Arabs from advancing, and had toward the cost oCthe Congo railway. This does saved many natives from massacre. Dr. not mean that Belgium and the Congo Free Cross had been driven from his home in the State are to come into any political relations, highlands, but at Karonga they were hold- bnt the subscription is made iu the luterests of ing two services on the Sabbath, at one of Belgian commerce. A Zanzibar mercirant has which they had 600 people present. contracted for the transport along the Congo of the material for the construction of the rail· -Congo MiSSIOn. Mr. Richards, of the way.- AmericanBa.ptistMissionary Union, reports that the work at Ba.nza Manteke, the place -A new station on the upper Congo River whereso many converts have been baptized, has been opened by the American Baptist Mis· is still prospering. The young church has sion. It Is 170 miles above Stanley Pool. Lieut. been greatly tried by persecution as well as enant Taunt, U. S. commercial agent on the by sickness and death. Notless than twenty Congo, says this is the only mis&ion oli. the river of those baptized have died, and the fatality which has been successful. has been a great stumbling-block to the heathen,whohave asserted that the sickness -A navigable channel has been discovered was sent by their gods because t,hey have in the delta of the Zambezi River, Southeast been neglected. This has prevented many Africa, by which vessels can enter the main from accepting the Christian faith. The river. This will greatly faciliate the advance of heathen are bitterly opposed, and would missions and civilization in that region. take the lives of the Christians if they could. Recently 17 were baptized, and others are Chlna.-One of the missionaries of the asking for the ordinance, and the knowledge of the truth is spreading'far and wide. China Inland Mission, a Scotch gentleman worth a million, is living in China on twenty·five cents -Mr. F. S. Selous, the South African trav- a week, using all his fortune in the work. eler, in his recent expedition. visited the French mission on the Zambezi, where he -In Pang-Chuang, a missionary from North found the families of Messrs. Jeanmairet America teUs the story of a mission there, al· and Jalla at Sesheke. He says that the most entirely depending on the work of a mission has passed through the greatest slugle woman. She seemed to have inspired the difficulties, and that their situation is rar women, for some of them are said to sit up half from agreeable. They are shut out from the night working, in order to rsise sufficient communication with the outward world, funds to build 8 chape. .They have already col· t"" receipt of letters depending entirely lected $15. upon chance travelers or merchants. The crocodiles devour all thAir domestic ani· -American Citizens. Our miulster in China mal… The kindness of the missionaries is officially reports that there are in China 1,022 having great effect upon the people. but American citizens resident within the empire, Mr. Selous says that the Barotse valley is of whom 506 are entered as missionaries, though in a deplorable condition on account of the the 400 resident in Shanghai are not classified as periodical inundations of the Zambezi, and to their occupation. The extension of the Tient· the fevers Which reeult therefrom. sin and Tonshan railroad to Tung·cho has reo ceived the imperial sanction, and It is expected -Stanley puts the population of Africa at thst notwithstanding aU opposition to Its con· 250,000,000. strnction work will be Immediately begun. The journey from Tientsin to Peking can then -In the midst ofserious dangers, says the be accomplished by rail in,three hOUrs, instead Presbyterian Messenger, the missions are of as many days, as now.
-Work among the Hakkas In Southeru China Is very encouraging. Says a missionary : " The Hakkas will be evangelized sooner than
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN. 797 any other Chinese." Tbeyare devoted to let- quelled the riotous spirit, and the Car was pulled ters, and are opposed to foot-binding. as usual. .
-The English Presbyterian missionaries in -In addition to the number of convertD China, after 17 years' persistent effort, have which are reported, and the considerable number Becured an eutrance into the important city of of secret disciples among the men, it is believed Chiang-pu, and arrangements have been made that there are thousands of women in the zena- for building a church there, the cost of which nas ofIndia who are Christians. They are un- (about $3,000) is to be met by Rev. A. Gregory, able to declare their faith, but the inlluence of one of the missionaries to occupy the new their Christian lives will be powerfnlly felt in station. , their homes.
Cuba.-The Roman Catholic Bishop of -The income of the British Government In Havana appealed to the Governor of the Island to close the cemetery which the Baptists had India last year from the opium monopoly was opened in that city, but the Goverument in Spain has decided that the Baptists were acting $30,000,000. according to the laws, and may have their place ofburiaI. -Mr. George Muller is stUI In India, where he has been preaching and addressing a large number of meetings, calling upon the uncon- verted to turn unto the Lord, and inciting England.-The report read at the ninth Christians to increased love and good works. annual meetiug of the Church ofEngland Zenana Missionary Society held on May 3d stated that the -A wonderful work of grace is in progress European missionaries of that society in home connection number 105, that there are 57 assist- at Sealkot. Some four years ago the Scotch ant missionaries in local connection, and 507 native agents. Four new stations have been Mission began to baptize inquirers among the opened during the year. The Committee reported also the acceptance of the following calls low caste people In the villages. The IIrst year for new work: A normal school for female teachers at Amritsar ; a boarding school for the the missionaries registered about 80 baptisms, village girls in the Krishnagar district; a boarding-school for Christian girls at Kandy, in Cey- the following year about 400, the next year near Ion; and the establishment, in conjunction with the Church Missionary Society, of the Buchanan 700, the next nearly 800-that is to say, about Institution for training female workers in the Diocese of Travancore and Cochin. The gen- 1,900 baptisms in less than four years, all in one eralillcome of the society is the largest ever received, being 24,866l., an increase of 1,688l. district. Neither is there any abatement of the The total expenditure was 25,802l., an increase of 1,240l., 28. 2d. In addition to the general in- wonderful movement now. The opening month come, there was 2,7861. from various sources. of the year witnessed nearly 200 baptisms, and -Great Cities and their Dangers. Thirty years ago in Great Britain 24per cent. of the it is hoped that a harvest of 2,000 will be gathwhole population were occupied in agricultural pursuits. Now, ouly 14 per cent. of the ered in before a new decade opens on us. population are so occupied. -The Moslems of Delhi have opened a sem- inary in which preachers are taught all the ob- jections of Western infidels against Chri.tianity that they may go forth to oppose the Christian preachers in town and country.
-A few years ago the offerings at the temple at Monghyor, India, amounted to $50,000, dur- ing the two days of the annual festival; now they are only $20,000. The priests say to the missionaries, H You are the reason. Your preaching and your books have taken the fear of us and of our gods from the hearts of the people."
Ireland.-High Ritualism is not con:/in- -The Madras Bible Society, the largest of ed to England. The" Protestant" rector of Donegore,Ireiand, Rev. J. Hunt, has recently the Indian auxiliaries, was established in 1820. advocated the efficacy of the masses for the living and the dead, the supremacy of the Under its auspices the entire Bible has been trans- Pope, and has stated that he believes that the only church in the country which has lated into the Canarese, MalayaJam and Telugu real orders is the church of the Roman obedience. languages, the New and parts of the Old Tesla- ment into Decanl Hindustani, and the Tamil Bible has undergoue revision. It also publishes the New Testament in Tolu, and portions in Koi, Konkani, Badaga and Sanscrit. In t888 it distributed by sale over 130,000 copies. In ad- I ndia;-A fact ofsignificance in India is the dition to the central depot at Madras branch appointment oftwo native Christians in Travancore as magistrates by the Maharajah. Former- depots are maintained in the principal Mofnssil ly magistrates had religions as well as secular duties, and conservative Hindus raised an out- towns, while some 60 colporteurs either supcry against the innovation. A protest was signed and seut to the Maharajah, stating that ported or aided by the society's fonds are emunless the Christians were dismissed the petitioners, who were of the high castes, wonld not ployed to sell the Scriptnres chielly in the pull the car at the coming car-festival in Padmarabapuram. Ii. serions revolt was threatened. country districts. Distribution is also effected but the native sovereign held his ground and among the natives of South India, resideut in Burmah, Ceylon, South Africa, the Mauritins, the Straits Settlements, the West Indies, British and Dutch Guiana.
-Mr. Caine, M.P., sends a letter which speaks of a most remarkable movement in
'798
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN. [OCT., Banares. A meeting was summoned In that tures concerning the trne Messiah are exgreat center of Idolatry in consequence of what pounded to them. Some Rabbis, says Mr. had been said In the British House of Commons Feingold, have become convinced of the trnth on the liquor traffic in India. A distinguished of the New Testament. Brahmin, who had been trained in a mission college, and is the head of a large Hindu Judaism and Ethics.-There isno doubt that brotherhood, took the chair. Throughhis pow- the more thonghtfo1 adherents of Judaism are erfnl inlluence the caste of Ahlrs, and other gradually drifting away. They do not care to smaller castes, have, as the result of t·he strong carry out the ceremonlallawbecauge it does not feeling of the meeting, decided to prohibit all speak to their hearts. and since this Is all they liquor drinking in their caste regulations. By have been tanght of their religion, if they neglect the inexorableness of such regulations from 40,- it, there seems to he nothing left. Their souls 000 to 50,000 of the people of Benares have be- cry aloud for truths that shall sustain them in come total abstainers. The drink-sellers are their hour of trial and temptation, that shall now appealing for a reductiou in the price of teach them how to live and how to die; and all their licenses on the ground that the sale of that is given them is more or less unmeaning liquor is stopped. Such a unique movement rites. Will not those who love their ancient among idolaters ought to furnish a lessou to our faith, who feel that its doctrines embody all the statesmen. elements of a morally beautiful life, come for- ward now when ,danger threatens it, and zeal· Japan.-" The Independent" says: "A ously labor to show forth its more spiritual trnths P-Jewish Messenger. Japanese Christian church In Seto recently had occasion to build a house of worship. The -There are 47 organizations engaged In the building was completed in May; then it be- evangelization of the Jews, with 377 workers came necessary to report It to the Government and 195 stations. At least 150 of the mission· for registration. Hitherto every church build- aries are converted Jews. ing in Japan has been registered as private Kore~.-Progress of the Gospel. The property in which Christian service would be work in Korea has been abundantly blessed of held. No recognitiou being given to Christi- God. The country was opened to the world by anity, its churches could not be registered as treaty in 1882. Dr. Allen, the first missionary, arrived in 1884. Others, Including the two Chisuch. But as the Constitution makes all re- nese missionaries from the Fnh·Kien native ligious equally lawful the pastor, Mr. Kato, church, followed In 1885. In July, 1886, the and the local omcial, agreed that there was no first convert was baptized. In the autnmn of reasou for not registering this as a Christian 1887 the first church, a Presbyterian, waS orchurch, exempt from taxation, with all the ganized with ten members. In February, 1888, rights and privileges of a Buddhist temple. a union week of prayer among the natives was Such a request had never gone up to the Gov- held. In May, 1888, "the check In Korea" apernment before, but they decided to try it. It peared. In J o1y, 1888, all signs of the .. check, • was granted immediately. So this little coun- as far as the land Is concerned, have disaptry chapel is the first building ever registered peared, and it is stated that during the past year in Japan as a Christian church." (1888) the chnrch in Korea has mo1tiplied five- fold-there are now over 100 Christians In the -In Japan, in 1714, the number of temples laud. Ei~ht native Korean workers spent a was 395,087. The latest enumeration, made month just before the close of the year at two years ago, showed that the whole number Seoul, in receiving instrnction and praying for had been reduced to 57,842. the power of the Holy Ghost, before returning to their homes and work. Doring their month's -Bishop Fowler has just made an extensive stay there were 28 applicants for baptism, 19 omcial tour of Japau. He reports an encouraging vitality in missions, and a disposition on the helng received. part of leading men to embrace, or at least encourage, Christianity. Russla.-Twelve hundred converts have -In Nagoya, with a population of 350,000, heen baptized in the Baptist Mission in Russia he found 8 vigorous church only three years the past two years. The mission is principally old, and in tbe past year Increased from 35 to among the German colonists in South Russia. 70 members. One of these is an eminent law_ There is also B snccessful mission in Roumania yer' another 8 physician trained in German methods, and a third is an in1luentlal editor. and Bnlgaria. The Mayor of the city said to him: "I have observed the reform wrought III Christians. I Scotland.-The mission of the Free think if Christianity were established over the city, and accepted by the people, it wonld Church of Scotland on the Lake of Gallilee, make government easy, and the people much in Palestine, IS prospering. A liberal friend better. I will do all I can to help yonr work." of the ca.use in Scotland has promised $6,500 to build another house for the mis- JeWS.-Jews in Paris. Mr. Solomon Fein- sionaries at Tiberias. This is chiefly a med· gold, Jewish missionary in Paris, writes that ical mission. his work is marked by tokens of encouragement. Many Jews visiting the Exhibition find Syrla.-Dr. George E. Post, in an article their way to the mission room, where the Scrip- on the outlook in Syria, says: .. Little by little the light is stealing in. Men of all re- ligious opinions are inclining to toleration.
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
The Bible is being circulated among the bodies-Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalilln. masses. The number of readers is multI- Quaker, Roman Catholic-which have received plied. Those who believe are bolder, but at Government support since General Grant's first the same time more discreet. Those who administration under the contract system. This do not believe are forced to concede that is done on the ground that the Government canthe Bihle is the source of religious knowl- not sustain sectarian institutions. The system edge, and the referee in all cases of donbt was a mere makeshift, and it must be abandoned. or dispute. Those who are far from the The purpose to abandon it, however, is not spirit of the New Testameut claim to be original with General Morgan. It was broached evangelical. Everything is ripening for a under the Cleveland administration and was grand demonstration of the power of the one of the things for which Mr. Cleveland was Holy Spirit." roundly abused. The Government cannot, of course, abolish the mission schools of these re- Tu rkey.-A concession has been gran ted ligious bodies. Tiley have a perfect and equal by the Sultan of Turkey for the constrnc- right to maintain them, but not under cont~act tion of a railway between Jaffa and J eru- with the United States.-Springjield RepubUsalem; and a still more important railway scheme has been approved by the Imperial can~ Conncil, and only waits the sanction of the Chancellary and the signature of the -The Indian Industrial School recently Snltan. That scheme includes a line from established in Tucson is one of the most Acre (Ptolemais) to Damascus, running pro:nising Institutions in Arizona, and althrough Galilee, crossing the Jordan near though it has been organized only about the waters of Merom, and passing by the one year it has 70 Indian boys and girls. all at>cient Cresarea – Philippi, leaviI!g Mt. of whom appear to be making remarkable Hermon on the left. The projector craves, progress in conforming to the habits of civalso, the sole right to run steamers on the ilized life. Sea of Tiberias. -The Roman Catholic Plenary Council ot1884 authorized a revision and rearrangement of the -The total imports of Damascus for 1888 Catholic prayer-book. This work has just been were 83,056,670, against $1,991.215 for the pre- finished, and will shortly take the place of the vious year; and the total trade rose to $4.- books which have been in use hitherto. It is so 746.825, against 83.698,585 for 1887. The only arranged that the entire service of the mass for industries intheprovince worth noticing are every Sunday iu the year can be followed by the bitumen wells on the western slopes ot the congregation just as it is said by the clergy- Mt. Hermon. for which a concession has man. Every page in proof sheets was sent to been granted netting 65 per cent. to Govern- every Catholic bishop and archbishop in the ment, and 35 per cent. to the contractor. United States, and, 8S issued, it will have the unauimous indorsement of the hierarchy.-The United States.-Departure of Mis- Independent.
sionaries.-A memorable meeting, on the oc- -There are 1,000 Christian Cbinamen concasion of the departnre of a large number of nected with the Congregational missions in Calimissionaries to different parts of the world fornia and Oregon.-Spirito! Missions. under the care of the A. B. C. F. M.. was held in Boston August 29th. The missionaries -Chan Chu Sing, a converted Chinaman, has number 49 in all, of whom 19 are return- been licensed as a local preacher in the Methoing to fields of labor which they have already dist Episcopal Church, and will engage in misoccupied, some of them for a long term of years, sion work among his own people in Los Anwhile 30 are going out for the first time, several geles, Cal. of them 'being chUdren of missionaries. Of the whole number, 20 are going to Turkey, 8 to -Missi.mary Interest in America. Rev. Japau, 17 to China and 4 to India. One of the H. Grattan Guinness is still in the United new mi.sionaries is a granddaughter of the Rev. States, and (writes Mrs. Guinnees) is being William Goodell, D.D., of Constantinople, graciously prospered in his efforts to belp whose life was spent in planting the institutions poor Africa. After completing his tour in of the gospel in the Turkish Empire. Ohio, with Dr. Ashmore, he traveled 'West to Kansas, taking Nkoiyo, the Congo -The appropriations of the American Bap- youth. with him, and held missionary tist Missionary Union for the year ending March meetings in the towns of Marion, Pea- 31, 1890, amount to $402,785.71. Much new body, Newton, Arkansas City, Wellwork is provided for, and the schedule is more ing-ton. Wichita, Hutchinson, Florence.. nearly in accordance with the estimates from Emporia, Aveline and Topeka. Many the missionaries than for many years. noble-hearte<l Western pioneers were led in these meetings to volunteer for mis- -Non-partisan Indian SChools.-It is an- siona.l"Y work in Africa. A neW mission nounced that Commissioner Morgan has deter· was founded, bearing the name of .. The mined to substitute as rapidly as possible on the Soudan Pioneer lIission." and a branch es- Indian reservations non-partisan puhlic 8chools tablished, with enrolled members, secreunder the supervision of the Indian Bureau, for the schools under charge of several rrligions ta.ry ll~ treasurer. ¥>. ~Qh Wwn. This work promise~ to spread over the entire of the press is a. significant element In the State of Kansas. Arrangements have been advance of Christianity. made for Mr. Guinness to visit Kansas City, and also to address the assembled sec- -The Home Mlasionaryworkwhlchlssusretaries'lf the Y. M. C. A., in the States of tained by the women of the Presbyteria.n Nebraska and Minneseta. There is an church, and which consists largely in the earnest missionary spirit awaking in the eataltlishment of Christian schools, is meet- West, and the prospect of the utilization of ing with great favor. The new buildings at its pioneer energies in the work of opening Tucson, Arizona, a.nd Albuquerque, 'New the dark Soudan to the light of the gospel. Mexico, aJ:e complete a.nd in use. The work among the" Mountain Whites" in Western Miscellaneous.-The iastissue 'lethe North Carolina is rapidly developing, and annuaistatement in regard to Roman Cath- just now promises great enlargement. The olic missions has just been sent out from school nea.r Asheville has done good work, the Propaganda press, and from it we but the necessity has constantly been felt gather that in Ireland the Roman Catholic for,one of a higher grade, where girls of fine estimated number of Romanists is 3,792,357, promise might continue their education. with 3,251 priests and 2,547 chapels. In This is now made possible by special England the Roman Catholic population is gifts from parties who have visited the stated to be 1,353,455, with 2,340 priests and region and examined the work done. The 1,261 chapels, and in Scotland 338,643 Ro- gifts already made are as follows: One manists, with 329 priests and 295 chapels. of $35,000, two others of $10,000 each, and It is not by any means likely that these fig- several of $2,000 and $1,000 eacb. A beauures have been understated, and they may, therefore, be taken as a fair basis for any .0 tiful and extensive property, now known as comparative statement with reference to the spread of- Rowanism in these islands. the Oakland Inn," just Ioutslde the And yet many Christians" see no cause to limits of the city of Asheville, has been fear that Popery will ever gain ground in secured and will be devoted to the pur- England again"! poses of a higher Christian education.
-In heathen countries Protestants occupy -john Newcombe, of the English army, 500 separate mission fields, containing 20,- went out to Cumbam as a missionary of the ()()() mission stations, supplied by 40,000 mis- American Baptists, unordained, and unsionaries. In these 20,000 mission stations trained as a clergyman. La.st year he bapthere are 500,000 Sunday-school scholars- tized 1,400 converts. In three or four years an average of 25 to each station. In the he has gone over a. circuit of 3,400 miles 20,000 Protestant mission stations there are preaching a.nd baptizing. 1,000,000 of native communicants, or an average of 50 to each station. There are -The Bishep of Moosonee (says The Church., also 2,000,000 of adherents who are friends Worker) exercises jurisdiction over an area of the evangelical faith and hearers of the as large as Europe, extending all round the gospel preached from the Bible-an average Hudson's Bay territory a.nd reaching up to of 100 to each station. the North Pole. The distances are enor- mous, and the shortest way to the northern -Missiens and the Eastern question. An part of the diocese is to come to England English' officer of distinction said: .. The first, and then go out in the yearly ship American missions alone are doing more for which enterslHudson's Bay. The Bishop the satisfactory settlement of the Eastern has everything to do for himself, and Is a question than all our governments. By their &,ood printer, bootmaker, carpenter, brickcontact with peoples of all nations they are layer, etc. He ha.Il been a worker in that teaching them mutua.l interest, respect and far-away locality for nearly forty years. confidence, and so doing mOre than any other force to make the whole world one." -These are years ofdAstiny. We aremak- ing history. The first century of Christian- -The mission press is a. power rea.ching ity was proved by miracles. This latest cenfar beyond the personal infiuence of ihe tury of Christianity is proved by achievemissionaries. Portions of the Bible, .. Peep ments. We must work faster or we wil gQ of Day," hymn books, tracts, and sermons down. God haa planted this nation and translated and circulated among the na- gil'en Christianity here the J:'l'eatest opportives give evidence of the patient study of tunity. The way to bring more money to intricate languages, and these will bear this society is to plant wider. Fill the land fruit an hundred fold. The Religious Tract with your publications. Money must come Society also has a part in the foreign field; or the missionaries ca.nnot &,0 out. W. want besides scattering the good seed abroad, men equal to the work. We want strong, its own enormous circulation is largely in- earnest men. God is here working out the creased by the issues from foreign depots. problem of the ages with us. If we trust in In Java the" Union for SpreadingChristaln the Lord God omnipotent all will be well.- Literature" aids in the propagation of the Dr. Goodell on. Home Mission•• sospel, and in most mission fields the work -Persecution ofdissenting Christians seems to be increasing in ali the countries of Cen- tral and Eastern Europe. Their rapid prog- ress has alarmed the clergy of the estab- lished churches, and they are putting forth every ell'ort possible to suppress them.
The Missionary Review of the World — February 1889
THE VINDICATION OF MISSIONS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD~ VOL. XI. No.2-Old series.–FEBRUARY.–VoL. II. No. 2.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS. THE VINDIOATION OF MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] ALL along the lines Satan seems to sound the signal for an assault on mISSIOns. Perchance the day has dawned, foreseen in apocalyptic vision, when" the devil is come down, having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time'" (Rev. xii: 12). Oertainly there is, just now, a very unusual commotion among the foes of Ohrist and His Ohurch, and it is manifestly caused by the unparalleled progress of Ohristian missions.
Satan is a master strategist. His favorite device is to employ respect~ able agents, and, best of all, professing disciples, to do his business. He disguises the personnel of the attack by getting them to hold the bow while he directs and discharges the venomous arrow. And so we find leading journals of America and Great Britain, and even a Oanon of the Anglican Ohurch, indulging in unfair and unfriendly criticism, and actually trying to prove" Ohristian missions a great failure" !
As to that" distinguished clergyman of the Ohurch of England," too much notice has been taken of him already. lIe has bought a cheap notoriety by his antagonism to missions, without ever earning a costly reputation by his defense of the faith. In the November issue of the Ohurch Missionary Intelligencer our friend" K." has given him and his paper an examination and an exposure so searching, so skillful, so analytic, so critical, that it leaves nothing for any other reviewer to do., . That scholarly article we wish everyone might read. It is at once a dissection and a castigation, reminding us both of the scalpel and of the scourge. The accomplished writer, with keen analysis of character and thorough knowledge of missions, cuts quick and deep beneath the cuticle of snperficial information and professed impartiality, and reveals the real ignorance of facts and perversion of the truth which vitiate th':) Oanon's essay. lIe calmly and coolly exposes and elucidates the entire structure of that misleading, if not malicious, paper, and justifies the judgment already pronounced upon its author by a very competent observer, that the" like of him for pretentious inaccuracy was hardly ever seen." In another aspect that reply isa terrible castigation. Long before "K." gets through, his victim is, figuratively speaking, dead under the scourge; and we wonder why the whipping goes on, unless it be on the principle of the boy who kept on beating a dead dog, because, as he said, "he wanted to show all living dogs that there is punishment after death." We hesitate to refer further to the Canon's essay, for it is not magnanimous to kick a foe who is already hors du combat, not to say lifeless. But while an author may not be worth notice, his false and fallacious statements and inferences may demand contradiction and exposure. 'Ve may not hope to overtake error, which" runs around the earth while truth is pulling on his boots," but we will do what we canto undo the mischief already wrought. Even out of the bramble may come a fire which, jf not quenched, sha1l devour the cedars of Lebanon; and so we undertake to address to candid minds some of the mighty facts and weighty considerations which, to every careful observer, are a triumphant vindication of missions.
It needs but little learning and less logic to see that the basis, on which the Canon rests the great missionary failure, is unsound. It will not bear investigation. First, as to the facts, so far as they are facts, there is nothing new. No intelligent student of Christian missions is taken by surprise or trembles with alarm. The main body of the. statements, based on comparative statistics, the most ardent advocates of missions, and even missionaries themselves, have not only conceded but furnished. He who has read Christlieb and Croil, Anderson and Stevenson, George Smith and Thomas Smith, Gammell and Goodell, Laurie and Livingstone, Bainbridge and Bartlett, Doolittle and Dorchester, Warneck and Wilder, Gordon Cumming and James Johnston, has seen these" vital statistics," facts and figures, fully set forth; indeed to Dorchester's" Religious Progress" and Johnston's" Century of Christian Progress," Canon Taylor probably owes no little of his own material. But while we concede the facts we dispute the inferences. Many a good scientist or statistician proves a poor philosopher or logician ; and even those who have gathered and classified these very facts follow them with no such induction, as is plain from their attitude toward missions, some of them being the foremost leaders and most eloquent pleaders of the whole mission host!
That is a false maxim that" facts and figures cannot lie." They may be arrayed in a garb so delusive, and arranged in a relation so deceptive, as to justify the quaint counter-saying, that "nothing can be made to lie so badly as figures, unless it be facts." For instance, the increase of popUlation is contrasted with the increase of Christian converts, and the former is shown to outstrip the)atter by ten millions a year; and this is one of this Canon's shots, by which he proposes to demolish Christian missions. But look at the comparative agencies producing these respccyve results. Suppose we estimate the unevan· gelized population of the Eastern Hemisphere at 1,000,000,000, and their annual net increase at 10,000,000, or one per cent. The whole Christian Ohurch at home sends into the mission field only some 6,000 men and women, and last year the "Ohurch 1-fissionary Society" alone reported 4,000 converts, or sixty-seven per cent. upon this whole force; while the entire gain from the whole mission field, in the last fully reported year, was more than 150,000, or tlOenty-five hundred per cent. If now we count into the working force the 30,000 laborers who .. are converts from heathenism, even yet the results are amazing; for, while the popUlation of these non-OhI'istian countries grew by one per cent., the number of converts advanced by over jour hundred per cent. upon the whole number of workers in the 'field! Does that look like failure?
But while we find fault with Oanon Taylor's figures and his worse .inferences, we most of all find fault with his sinking the Ohristian in the mathematician. Figures cannot exhaust facts. ~'here are results that cannot be reckoned by numbers or reported in figures, and the greater part of the actual fruits of missions cannot be thus estimated . or tabulated. Think of the direct results in the elevation of man as man, and in the creation of Ohristian communities in the very heart of heathenism and paganism! The gospel lever has lifted whole peo- ples to a higher level during this century of modern missions: new dignity has been given to manhood and womanhood and honest toil; new sanctity to marriage and family ties; new security to life and liberty, property, and happiness; cruel customs, degrading supersti- tions, caste distinctions, have been modified and even abolished; and there has been a wide diffusion of snch ennobling conceptions as the Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of man!
To. all tbese and many other direct results, we must still add the indirect influence of the gospel-refining, subduing, civilizing, even where it does not renew, sanctify, Ohristianize. There are many changes which stop sbort of conversion, which are both invaluable and inestimable. Dr. Lindley declared that when a naked Zulu got so far toward Ohristianity as to put on duck pants and a calico shirt and sit on a three-legged stool nine inches high, he was about nine thousand miles above his nude neighbors. Before Ohristianity entered India, lepers were treated with shocking inhumanity, many of them being buried alive. Not only has a stop been put to this cruelty, but for fourteen years there has beon a special Ohristian mission to the 135,000 lepers of India. Rev. James Ohalmers, the veteran missionary, after twenty-one years of experience among cannibals; after visits to the Loyalty, Samoan, Society, and New Hebrides groups; after ten years of life in the Hervey Islands, and almost tcn more among the savages of New Guinea, declares that he has never yet seen a single mall or woman that has been civilized without Ohristianity's influence; and he declares that the gospel is the only true civilizer, and that if this wel,"e all, it is worth while to send Christian missionaries to the field.
If Canon Taylor thinks missions a failure, he ought to have been wrecked, like a certain Scotcl~ seaman, on that islanl! in the South Sea, where, eight years before, a whole ship's crew were thrown ashore, escaping the devourillg jaws of an angry sea only to be roasted in can- nibal ovens and eaten by remorseless savages; yet here natives in English dress and with English words of welcome now. pulled their canoes toward htohsepitsainblkeinCgl~'isshtiipal, l eager to reseue the perishing and invite them tG homes. lIas CarlOn Ta,ylor heard Mr. Calvert and Mr. 'Yebb tell the story of Fijian missions? How heathenism has been so swept awuy that the visitor canllot believe that those people, polite as Parisians and honest as Norwegians, were wild cannibals a generation ago! How, out of less than 112,000 Fijians, over 100,000 are attendants on Christian worship! How, where fifty years ago there was not one Christian, there is to· day not one avowed hcathen 1 How there are over 1,200 placcs of ChriRtian yorship and not one cannibal oven or heathen temple! And yet Christian mi~sions are « a great failure"! Is it not rather the Canon himself?
ThG argument by which the Canon wonle1 reduce CIJristian missions to an absurdity is itself capable of an easy reductio ad absurdum. He calculates that at the present rate it would take from 300,000 to 1,000,- 000 years to convert the worh1-a result 'rather remote for any of us now living to hope to see! What a shallow argument against missions!
Shall we haul down the flag of the cross before this noisy cannonade?
Beholl! the logical inference as to all other work-reformatory, benevo- lent, philanthropic. 'Yhat if it can be demonstrated that, notwith- standillg the Herculean labor of temperance reformers, it would take, at the present rate, 1t million years to male every man a total abstainer or even to clear the world of drunlmrds, ronld that prove the temper- ance work a failure or lessen the value of mdivjdnals already rescned and homes already redeemed from this curse? Give the Canon's argu- ment a broad enough application, and all existing philanthropies would cease to-morrow! There arc in operation a thousand forms in which unselfishness ministers to want or woe-asylums for the blind and deaf, the incurable, the cripple, the insane; refnges for homeless orphans and midl11ght missions for lost women; soup-houses and cof- fee-rooms for the poor, lllght-schools and lodging-houses for bootblacks and newsboys. Blindness, prostitution, crime are said to be on the increase. All our best efforts canJlot overtake human poverty and misery. Shall we then pronounce all beneficent work a failure and abandon all eleemosynary institutions?
'fhis is a "distinguished clergyman of the Church of England."
'VeIl, how does he measure values? After the law of a carnal com- mandment, or after the power of an endless life? Hesults that affect a human soul-its character, history, destiny-are not to be gauged by quantity, but by quality; not to be counted by numbers, but weighed in the scales of God. Who shall measure the worth of one human being, of one human life, of one home redeemed from poverty and misery, lust and filth, rum and ruin? One child's possibilities for evil or gooel suggest a profound heig1lt alH1 depth which even the mind of a cherub and the heart of a seraph could not sound or explore. Even if eternity be left out of account, for the sake of benefits accruing in this life we shall still run the uneqm>l race with human sin and suffering, though we never supply all nleds or banish all crime and wretchedness.
Oanon Taylor's preaching, it is to be hoped, saves here and there one out of the thousands about him. Does he consider his ministry a failure? If so, why not doff his canon's robes and take up some work that pays better than preaching? The fact is, if he be a true disciple, his heart is better than his head, his love is sounder than his logic, and so he goes on patiently, rescuing here and there one soul from the awful wreek of faith and hope and love and life- because he cannot help, it. And so Ohristian missions are the necessary vent to a pent-up fire in our bones which makes us "weary with forbearing, so that we cannot stay" from the telling of the old story. It is because love, the expansive, expulsive, explosive law of the new life, will work to save, though the more abundantly it be lavished the less we be loved!
This question, "Do missions pay?" is a characteristic sign of our materialistic and commercial age. We have a supreme contempt for such methods of measuring duty and responsibility. A dIvine command is our authority for Ohristian missions, and their sufficient vindication. With results we have nothing to do, however discouraging. But since this Canon and oth~rs like him set up such standards of measurement, we cannot forbear to show that even on this basis mis- &ions are triumphantly vindicated. The witnesses that testify to the magnificent successes of missionary labor are legion. They may not, in the Oanon's eyes, be men of the highest learning, but they speak what they know and testify what they have seen; and their knowledge, however limited, cannot be offset by his ignorance, however extensive.
This paper in the Fortnightly Review hints that the quality of converts on mission fields scarcely justifies the expenditure in lives and treasure. Is the m'erage very high in the home churches? Where is the pastor who does not mourn over the dead driftwood that somehow gets into the current and then lodges in some bend of the stream to block all progress? Half of our church members give no sign of vital godliness. In a land wher~ the yery "atmosphere" is Ohristian, professing disciples trample on the whole decalogue, and even the churches are the shrines of idols. Oan we reasonably e:xpect a higher average of genuine a~d steadfast l)iety where the whole atmosphere is poisoned with paganism? But what are the facts? Whether judged by holy living or by ample giving, by faith or by works, the average convert in Turkey and Persia, Siam and Burmah, Ohina and Oaffraria, is far beyond the home standard, as the best missionaries testify with re- markable unanimity. Out of their poverty they give with an abun- dance of liberality that }mts to shame the gifts of our richest and most generous donors; and while Protestant Ohristendom sends to the direct mission work abroad only one out of every 5,000 members, these small churches, gathered on heathen soil, give at least one out of every hundred. .
In all.Oanon Taylor's comparisons of Ohristian life on these differ4 ent fields, there is the same obvious warping of facts by the determina- tion to make out his case. He repeats the common error of those who would applaud morality at the expense of piety, and who uniformly appropriate for the contrast the best specimens of the former with the worst of the latter. If the converts in the home and foreign fields are to be compared, we insist upon fairness and equity. Let us take for our examples those whose education, capacity, environment, oppor- tunity, most nearly correspond; and even then let us take into consid- eration every circumstance to which charity would accord a hearing in the court of reason and conscience. For a plant to live at all in a desert is a greater proof of vitality than for the same plant to thrive with lux.
uriance in a well-watered garden; and only they who, on pagan soil, where even the language has no terms for spiritual ideas, have seen the plants of godliness grow like flowers of Eden, can feel the full force of the proof that a divine Husbandman has been at work I But here, again, something besides numbers is to be taken into ac- count.. '1'he most subtle substances evade analysis, and the most im- portant results defy representation in the crude colors· of the mathe- matician or statistician. Theodore Parker rose from reading Judson's life to declare that if missions had produced but one such hero, all costs were repaid. With as profound persuasion do we affirm the same of multitudes of single converts in the foreign field. Foreign missions would be a grand success had they produced no results beyond creating, out of materials found in such soil, such men as Asaad Shidiak in Syria, .
Deacon Guergis in Persia, Kho-Thah-Byu and Sau Quala in Burmah, Africaner in Namaqualand, Kamehameha III. in Hawaii and Rona- valona II. in Madagascar, Tawai and Miti in New Zealand, Tubou and Bulu in Raabai and Finau in Vavau, Motele and Moshesh in Basuto- land, Pomare in Tahiti and Papeiha in Raratonga, Kayarnak in Green- land, Aquilar in Mexico, Leong-on-Tong in Ohina, and Brindelbund and Das Maitra in India; not to mention hundreds of others who are not individually named, like the converts of Uganda, who sang of Jesus till their tongues were crisped in their martyr fires! One might as well try to weigh in a scale the worth of a sunbeam as to estimate by mere arithmetic the value of transformed men and women, who in the ceuters o.f pagau, papal, heathen and M()hammedan communities shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life. The unconverted pagans themselves often confess amazement at transformations of character so radical, and, with Pharaoh's magicians, are compelled to say, "This is the finger of God!" When the vindictive Indian learns to forgive, the brutal cannibal to be compassionate, the cruel savage to be gentle, the treacherous Turk to be faithful, the sordid Ohinaman to be unselfish, the vile Hottentot to be chaste, there is a creat-ive energy at work. This is more than ;eformation or transformation' it is a miracle. It contradicts nature and natural law, and argues a new nature, a new birth, a new creation. He who does not know how repeatedly and unmistakably such transfigurations have been realized, even amid the habitations of cruelty and the shadow of death, is not a competent witness as to the value of missions, and no man who does know these facts can or will pronounce missions a failure.
Moreover, when a man writes on the great missionary failure, first of all we would like him to settle the meaning of terms. What is a failure? Manifestly the opposite of success. And what is success? This is the accomplishment of a plan or purpose. In the last analysis, the success or failure of Ohristian missions must depend upon the real purpose of Ohristian missions.
Weare constrained therefore to raise the question, What is the purpose of the gospel in this dispensation? There is a grand distinction which even students of the Word and advocates of missions often overlook. With the work of conversion we have nothing to do, and for that we are not responsible. Our mission is one of evangelization. "Go ye into aU the world and evangelize-preach the gospel to every creature." Our Lord Ohrist never said that it was our duty to convert everybody, nor did He promise such a result. We give the community a free school, though not every boy that goes to school will turn out a scholar. Weare to give the community a free 'gospel, though not every hearer does turn out a convert.
"This gospel must first be preached for a witness in all the world." This means no superficial, hasty, formal proclamation of the good news of grace. It means thorough work, the implanting and erection of all the institutions of Ohristianity. Everywhere men are to be confronted with the Ohristian church and home, school and college, society and civilization. They are to see demonstrated before their eyes, and by the logic of events, what the gospel of Ohrist can do for the man, the woman, the child; what it can do to elevate labor, dignify humanity, abolish cruelty and eve!! discourtesy, supplant caste by a true equality, and lift all society to a higher level. The contrast will thus be made to appear between the religion of the Nazarene 'and all other faiths. The Mohammedan, heathen, pagan, will be compelled to confess the I immense superiority of a gospel that is not satisfied with mere evolu.
tion, but demands revolution; and that, not out of ruins but upon them, rears a temple to God, in which unselfishness, benevolence, ch:J.rity and purity arl' the white-robed priests. That is pr~aching the gospel as a witness, and it gives to all men a fair chance for intel- ligent choice. Such is the purpose of the gospel in the present age, and such is the commission of the church during this dispensation, viz., worrd-wide evangelization; and so far and so fast as the church accomplishes that mission, however few or many be the professed con- verts, so far and so fast does the church succeed in missions, for she is doing the very work her Lord has given her to do.
While it is not promised that everybody who hears the gospel shall be converted during thIS age of gospel wItness, great reAUlts have accompanied, and greater WIll follow, the missionary efforts of the church of God. Already results that rival Pentecostal wonders have been realized. McKay at Formosa gathered 1,200 converts at the Lord's table on the twelfth anmversaryof his advent to that island,.
William Johnson saw Sierra Leone transformed into a Ohristian state within seven years. Dr. Clough, at Ongole, baptized 10,000 converts in three months in 1878. The South Seas were Ohristiamzed in forty years, from TahIti to New Gumea. A thousand spires dIsplaced can- nibal ovens, in the Fiji group, in less than half a century Transfor- mations have taken place within the memory of men still living, that are as inexplicable by any human philosophy as the creation ·of a world out of nothing. Madagascar, Polynesia, the Karens, the Zulus, the Maoris, even the Japanese in our own day, furnish modern miracles as astounding as the cleansmg of a leper, the empowermg of the Impo- tent, the exorcising of the demoniac, or the raIsmg of the dead.
The fuller exhibition of the fruits of missionary enterpnse must be left to a future paper on the "ExpOSItion of Missions." But, as a specimen both of the success of missionary labor and of the witness of impartial observers, we refer the reader to the recently published" Life and Letters of Oharles Darwin." In contrast with Oanon Taylor's as- sault, let us OLce more summon this apostle of materialIsm from his grave, to give his testimony. Mr. Darwm, though not a Ohristian, had the. greatest reflpect for the good in Ohristianity, and was great enough to.acknowledge it. 'l'his isthe way in which he answered some shal- low critics of foreign missionaries. We give space to his testimony be- cause it deserves to be quoted in full. After his visit to Terra del .Fuego, he wrote : "The Fuegians are III a more miserable state of barbarism than I had expectpd eyer to have seen a human being. In this inclement country they are ahsolutely naked, and their temporary houses are like what children make in summer with boughs of trees. I do not think 'any spectacle can be more interesting than the first sight of man in his primitive wildness. It is an interest whioh cannot well be imagined until it is experienced. I shall never forget this when entering' Good Success Bay'-the veIl with which a party received us. They were seated on a rocky p~int, sur~'ounded by the dark forest of beech; as they threw their at'ms wildly around th,eir heads, and their long hair streaming, they seemed the ;troubled spirits of another world. . • . There is in their countenance an expresion which I believe, to those who have not seen it, JlJust be inconceivably wild. Standing on a rock they uttered tones and made gesticulations than which the cries of domestic animals are far more intelligible."
'Admiral Sir James Sullivan testifies that JUl'. Darwin" often ex- pressed to him his conviction that it was lltterly useless to send missionaries t~ such a set of savages as the Fuegians, probably the very lowest of the human race." But subsequently, about 1869, he wrote to the Admiral" that the recent accounts of the mission proved to him that he had been wrong in his estimates of the native character and of the possibility of doing them good through the missionaries, and he requested the Admiral to forward to the society an inclosed check for £5, as a testimony of the interest he took in their good work." Yet later, in 1874, 187'9, and 1880, he wrote: "I am glad to hear so good an account of the Fuegians, and it is wonderful; the progress of the Fuegians is. wonderful, and had it not occurred, would have been ,to me incredible. I have often said that the progress of Japan was the greatest wonder III the world, but I declare that the progress of Fuegia is almost equally wonderfu1. It is truly 'wonderful about their h<?nesty and their l::tnguage. I certainly should have predicted that not all the missionaries in the world could have done what has been done." * Again Mr. Darwin writes: "In our passage across the Pacific we only touched at Tahiti and New Zealand. Tahiti is a most charming spot. Delicious scenery, climate, manner of the people, all in harmony. It is moreover admirable to behold what the missionaries both here and at New Zealand huyc effected. I firmly believe they are good men working for the sake of a good cause. I much suspect that those who have abused or sneered at the missionaries have generally been such as were not very anxious to find the natives 71w1'al and intelligible beings. They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifice and the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a consequence of that system; bloody wars, where the conquerors spared neither women nor children-that all these things, have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced hy the introduc- tion of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is a base ingrati- tude; fOJ' should he chance to be at the pointof shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will mo~t devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far."
Weare compelled to leave the "pretentiously inaccurate" paper of Canon 'I'aylor with these brief comments on the" facts" it presents and the inferences it draws. Its answer must be found in the mis- * Vol. ii. 307, 308.
MISSIONS TO THE LEVANT
sionary annals of the entire century since the pioneer English mis- sionary went to India. There is not a true worker on'the field who will for a moment be disturbed by the recklelOs shots from this eccle- siastical gun. Nor will the missionary enterprises of the ch,urch be for one hour arrested or delayed. Infidels have been trying for cen- turies to overthrow the Word of God by scientific speculations. So soon as some new "fact" or "law" is discovered, they make haste to load up their guns and fire, expecting to see the defenses of the Christian faith totter and tumble under the tremendous shock of this scientific artillery. But 10 ! the 'fortress stands, with not even a hole or breach in the wall. And when we come to examine what was hurled against the walls, we find not some huge, heavy shot of solid fact, but a mere paper-wad of fanciful theory that took fire from the powder before it was out of the mouth of the gun!
We seriously apprehend that in this noisy assault on missions there is more flash and roar than force and nre. This gun kicks so badly that it were better to be before it than behind it. And when the smoke c1ears away and the effect of the assault is seen, this" distin- guished clergyman" will find himself famous only for his blunders, while his inexact statements and illogical conclusions may have led many a reader, like Nathanael, to come and see whether any good thing can come out of Nazareth, and to confess that the despised Nazarene is the Son of God and the miracle worker among the nations! These attacks, whether from nominal friend or from pro- fessed foe, are like the wild dash of the birds of the night against the crystal inclosure of that superb light that shines on the colossal statue in New York harbor: the assailants beat themselves into insensibility, while the light shines on undimmed, and the grand statue, reared on granite pedestal, stands unmoved and immovable, still guiding the watching sailor to a peaceful harbor.
MISSIONS TO THE LEVANT: THEIR PROBLEMS, METHODS . AND RESULTS. .
BY REV. EDWIN M. BLISS. [Our readers will be interested to know that the writer of this int~resting series of papers has but recently returned from Constantinople, where he spent several years as assistant agent of the American Bible Society for the Levant. Hence his thorough knowledge of the subject which he dis- cusses.-EDs.] UI. THEIR RESULTS.
IN considering the results of missions in the LfJ,ant we note: 1.
The development of the agencies employed. 2. The direct· effect ot those agencies in the establishment of evangelical communities and churches. 3. Their indirect effect upon other communities in the line of intellectual, social, and religious life. 4. The type of character developed as a foundation for the future. 1. The development of the agencies employed. The success of an undertaking is often measured in a degtee by the amount invested in it. The work: of the American churches in the Levant, commenced by the little band who sailed from Boston under the auspices of the then infant American Board, is now carried on by seven organized American societies-six representing the Congregational, Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian, and Methodist denominations, and one, the American Bible Society, representing all, and helping to unite all upon the one foundation of the Word of God. There are also two colleges-Robert College at Constantinople, and the Syrian Protestant College at Beyroot-independent in endow)llent and management of the societies. Three more, at Harpoot, Aintab, and Marsovan, in Asia Minor, with endowments and boards of trustees, but practically under management of the societies. Two more, at Oroomiah, Persia, and Osiout, Egypt, under direct control of the' societies. There is also the Bible House at Constantinople, connected with no society, owned and managed by a board of trustees in New York, the income from which goes. toward Bible work, supplementing that of the societies. The Disciples of Christ and the Baptist Union are represented by a few native preachers, whose work has been, so far, almost entirely among the existing evangelical churches.
These different organizations are represented oy 133 American gentlemen, mostly ordained and married men, and 119 single ladies. They are located in 42 central stations, and have nearly 500 out-stations connected with them. Over 1,700 native preachers, teachers, and colporteurs work under their superinte·ndence. There are 185 churches with 15,226 communicants; 763 schools with nearly 33,000 scholars; 43,000 copies of the Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been distributed in one year. Unfortunately the statistics of religious and educational books are not kept distinct by the different societies. A general estimate of 50,000 books, 100,000 text-books, a.nd 400,000 tracts would perhaps represent the work of a year. Aside from these are the periodicals, 5 weeklies and 6 Ip.onthlies, the latter chiefly child's papers. One weekly in Bulgarian reached a circulation of over 4,000. '}'he medical work has assumed great proportions. Herc again no statistics arc given, but to say that 25,000 cases are attended yearly would probably be within the truth. These all involve an annual expenditure of Amel"ican funds amounting to nearly $500,000. How much the native communities contribute in salaries of preachers and teachers, tuition, cost of books, and general community and church expenses, it is impossible to say without better data than are furnished as yet. The value of property in land, buildings, school, printing and binding apparatus, stock of printed sheets, bound books, etc., is very great. In Constantinople alone it is over $400,000. These figures indicate the amount of the investment that the American churches have made in evangelical wo.rk in the Levant. The question then CDmes, Is this investment so. placed as to. secure the widest pDssible returns? The 42 central statiDns include nearly every city Df size and impDrtance in Bulgaria, RDumelia, Asiatic Turkey, NDrth Persia, Syria, and Egypt. AttentiDn has been paid especially to centers of pDpulation. There is prDbably no. country where the annual shifting Df the population is so great as in Turkey. Oonstantinople, Smyrna, Adana, even such interior places as Harpoot and 'Oesarea, are thronged by men who. leave their village homes for a few months or a few years to earn a little and then return. These are the peDple that are most easily reached, and there is scarcely a hamlet, frDm the Balkans to. the Persian Gulf, from the Oaucasus to. LuxDr, that has not some one or more Df those who have been reached by preacher, teacher, or colpor-. teur in the larger cities. There is also a regularly organized system by which the whole field is visited each year. The results are brought into. discussion III native presbyteries and uniDns, and then into annual meetings of the missionaries, where plans suggested on the field are scrutinized mDst carefully, matured, and put into. actiye operation. In fact, as a matter of business management Df the sums committed to their care, the missions of the American churches to the Levant have often won the highest encomiums from those who have taken the pains to examine into the matter.
2. The direct effect of these agencies in the establishment of evangelical communities and churches. The statistics already given show 185 churches with 15,226 communicants. Of these abDut 1,200 were added during the past year. If we follow the style of arithmetic in vogue with Oanon Taylor and others, this would give a cost to the American churches of about $400 per convert, tofay nothing of native contributions. Of course it is easy to say that this cost includes the expense of a vast school system, a large amDunt Df publication, etc. But as all these have for their aim the actual conversion of men, the number of such conversions must constitute, it is claimed, th(> real test of succelOs. Education, publication, etc., are all good, but are legitimate for a missionary society only as they have direct results in Ohristian life. What are these direct results, as shown by open connection with Protestant evangelical Ohristianity? Are they accurately measured by the membership in PrDtestant churches alone? NDt in the Levant, any more than in America. Hardly even as much. The position of the evangelical churches there, is not unlike that of the Puritans of two and three centuries ago. Membership in the old Oriental communions is a mere form, even more civil than religious in its character. A man partakes Df the sacrament very much, as he registers his name as a voter here. This, Df cDurse, is not true of all, but it is true to a great degree. When men leave the:se churches to CDnnect themselves with Protestants, they are actuated by differing mDtives. Some do it under the pressure of the longing fOl' a closer communion with God than is possible for them in the formalities of the old service; others from intellectual conviction that the Protestant worship is -purer an.d represents a truer faith than their own; others in disgust at the corruption of the priesthood; others in protest against ecclesiastical domination in civil as well as in church life. Were all these to be gathered into churches and enrolled as communicants, as they would have been by Xavier and the Moslem mis3ionaries over whom Canon Taylor waxes so eloquent, there would be 500 churches, and the communicants would be numbered not by tens but by hundreds of thousands. 'fhe missionaries in founding these churches have realized that the acceptance of Ohristian doctrine, the practice of Ohristian worship, amounts to nothing without Ohristian ll/e. With the exception, perhaps, of the first class referred to above, most have joined the new community with little or no conception of what Ohristian l~fe meant. They have come, for the most part, with old views, old practices, still in full sway. To bring them at once into the young, uneducated churches would have been to bind all to the level of those around them, with little or no hope of a pure, elevated Ohristian character. There have thus grown up around the churches large communities with many strong, intelligent men, accepting to the full, evangelical doctrine and worship, but remaining noncommunicants, because the heart does not seem yet to have accepted what is clear to the mind. 'fheyare passing through a process of education, and it is from their number chiefly that the additions to churches come. How to guide the churches so as to admit to thorn only those who have some conception, faint though it may be, of a true Ohristian life, and a genuijle purpose, however weak, to lead that life, has ever been a most difficult task, akin to that of Gideon in his assault upon the Midianites. 'fo gauge the direct effects of Ohristian missions by the membership of native churches alone would be as incorrect as to claim that Gideon's three hundred represented the whole result of Mosaic teaching.
3. The indirect effect of these agencies upon other communities-in the line of intellectual, social, and religious life.
At one time, Rev. Dr. Van Dyck, the veteran missionary to Syria, said, as he started for a village on Mt. Lebanon, "I am going to – – – to start three schools." "What do you want of three schools there?" "Oh, I am only going to manage one. But just as soon as I get mine started, the Maronites will start one and the Druses will start one. 'l'hat makes three." So it has been all over the Levant. Wherever the colporteur or evangelist has gone the teacher has followed. With the advent of text-books" things new and old" have been opened up out of the storehouses of ancient history and modern science. Ohildren have learned that the world is wider and older than they had supposed. Parents have learned from their children and have begun to
TO THE LEVANT
question the correctness of the views in which they have been trained. A very large percentage of the geographies, histories, and general text~ books have gone, not into schools but famllies, and families too not in any way connected with the Protestant communities. The result has been a general quickening of intellectual life. The old communi. ties found that men were beginning to think for themselves, and real~ ized that they must guide that thinking or it would wander far from their control. Hence, on every hand, schools have been started- Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Maronite, Moslem. These have been in some cases heavily endoweu, furnished with the best modern appli~ ances available, yet even so they have not been able to keep pace with the evangelical schools, as is shown by the fact that, periodically, anathemas are hurled from the old altars against those who dare to place their children under the baneful influence of Protestant teachers. Not long ago there was a most earnest appeal in the Turkish papers of Constantinople for teachers who could meet Protestantism on its own ground, could grapple intelligently and successfully with the questions of modern thought. They said, "The time is past when the dictum , of an Imam carries with it conviction. Men are thinking for them- selves, and if we would hold our young men true to the faith in which they were born, we must show them that we are the equals in thought of those who would entice them away." 'l'he result was a series 01 statements about Protestantism of much the same grade of accuracy as certain recent paragraphs on missions in the Evening Post of New York, and renewed press censorship so severe as almost to destroy the character of mission newspapers. No one can go through even the remoter sections of Turkey without seeing on every hand the signs of an intellectual life such as has not b8'en since the days when Byzan- tines fought over Greek prepositions in the baths of Constantinople; and there are few, even of those opposed to missions, but will admit that this is due primarily to them. The influence of Christian missiOl1E on the social life of the East has been most marked.
Scarcely, even under the caste systems of India, has the power of social custom been more severe than in the Levant. Fifty years ago ,there was little or no family life. The men during the day were at work, in the evening at the coffee-shop. rrhe wOmen bore children, cooked and served meals. The wife could not sit at the same table or tray with her husband, shared in no way the responsibilities and honor of the home. Marriage was a matter of barter and sale. Social entertainments were of the lowest grade. Oonver3ation turned almost solely on pyrsonal scanda1. Personal purity had not sunk as low as in some other countries, but it was by no means high. Business was purely a matter of keen wits, never of fair profit. He who could cheat most was the best man. This has not all changed. Else America might go to school to Asia. There has been, however, a wonderful
MISSIONS TO THE
improvement. There are comparatively few Turks now who would consider it an insult to receive inquiries after the health of wife or daughter, and the rigid, seclusion of the harem is more and more a thing of the past. In many a home the mother shares with the father the honor of receiving a passing guest, and the daughter feels free to express her feeling toward the suitor for her hand. The evening finds books and newspapers on the table, and the Vermont farmer who astonished Dr. Hamlin with his inquiries about Fuad "Pachy" finds his counterpart in the Koordish Sheik who talks intelligently about Bismarck and Giers, Gladstone and Boulanger.
The power of Ohristian missions over the religious thought and life of those who do not openly declare their adherence to evangelical Ohristianity is shown in many ways. Up to the present year there have been distributed by the Americ11ll Bible Society not less than 800,000 copies of the Scriptures. Add perhaps 700,000 by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and we have one and a half millions of copies put into the hands of the people. These have been in about the pro- portion of 1 Bible, 3 Testaments and 5 Portions, i.e., single Gospels, Psalms, and Proverbs. When it is remembered that the immense majority of these have been sold, and that certainly not more than one-half, if more than one-third, have gone into evangelical families; when it is remembered too that book-purchasing is not in the Levant what it is so often in America-that it almost uniformly represents a genuine earnest interest in the book-some idea may be gained of the unseen influence that is being exerted all over that great country.
A Bible Society colporteur in the inn of a small village on the Black Sea coast, was challenged to argument by a group of young men thoroughly versed in European infidelity. Being an uneducated man, he found it difficult to meet them. 'fo his utter surprise, a Turkish priest sitting by, asking him for a Testament, took up the argument, and utterly silenced the young men, who left acknowledging their defeat. To the colporteur who expressed his thanks for the timely aid, he said: "Go tell the gentleman at the Bible House not to be discouraged. There are many like myself who read this 'good Book, accept its faith, and are trying to lead the life of Ohrist. We do not openly confess Him, for we feel that the time has not yet come, but it will come, and then you will see the fruit of the seed you are sowing." Among the most significant facts in the religious life of the old Ohristian communities of the Levant are the changes that have been brought about in not a few places in the church services. Worship before pictures has been very generally discouraged, and in some cases the pictures have been taken down. It is becoming an increasing ambition on the part of the clergy to be known as good preachers, and many an earnest gospel sermon is given from pulpits where, until recently, nothin~ 'Yll,tlheard but an intoned liturgy in an unknown tongue. Sabbath-schools and Bible-claSiles have been established, and at the present time the Am~rican Bible Society is printing in Con- stantinople ail edition of the ancient Armenian Bible, at the com- bined earnest request of Gregorian and Papal as well as Evangelical Armenians.
4. 'rhe type of character developed as a foundation for the future. The en,rnest, thoughtful supporter of foreign missions will and must meet this question: What relation have these results to the ifuture? Weare glad of what has been and is being done; glad for every soul brought to a truly Christian life; glad for the growth in intellectual, , social, religious life of those who cannot see their way clear to join our numbers; but America cannot [tlways snpport the East. Foreign missions must inevitably have something of the exotic in their nature. A real live Christianity must be in a sense indigenous to the land where it lives. Is the character of t-qe native evangelical Christians such as to warrant the belief that in due time they will be able to develop their own life,' normally, successfully, and independently? For the answer to this we must not look to statistics of increasing or decreasing contributions. 'rhese are very apt to be misleading. Fam- ine, war, pe8tilence, emigration, taxation, all enter in as dlSturbing elements. In not a few cases increased missionary expenses are coin- cident with decreasing demands from native churches, because new doors are opened and new work commenced. Neither is the increase in church membership a very safe guide, as may easily be inferred from what has already been said. ,The correct flnswer can be funy gained only as we go into the churches, attend the meetings of pastors and helpers, learn their methods and their spirit, and this must be done, not only along the seaboard but in the interior. Anyone who will do this will find large churches managing all their affairs, financial, executive, religious, with skill-and success; local unions and presbyteries consulting earnestly and courteously in regard to the interests of the one great work; home missionary societies snpporting and conducting operations in outlying districts; Young Men's Christian Associations, not patterned after those here, but developed according to local needs and opportunities. Undoubtedly much is lacking. A single generation under such con- ditions as obtain in the Levant can hardly suffice to deyelop a Chris- tian people of the highest grade. There are not a few native pastors that are overfond of foreign money, seek unduly to copy foreign life. But they do not represent the great number of those who from pulpit and desk, by the roadside and in the home, are seeking men to lead in the life of Christ. There are church members who do not give of their substance as they shonld, but the proportion who give conscien- tiously the tithe, and even more, would put to shame many an Ameri- can congregation.
1889.J DELITZSCH'S HEBREW NEW TE:STAMENT
It.is easy for the chance traveler or" superficial observer to find occasion for legitimate criticism. Not so easy for even the carefnl sympathizer to judge accurately the forces that are working for the development of communities. 'fhose who know best and most intimately the local internal life of these communities and churches have the most faith in them. They recognize that mistakes are made, but they believe that throughout these lands dear to every Christian heart the life planted by the apostles, nourished by the church fathers, almost overwhelmed by the adhesion of an unconverted empire, held in bond for centuries by an ignorant ecclesiasticism, is now reasserting itself, and will erelong more than regain it.~ pristine purity and strength.
THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF DELITZSCH'S HEBREW NEW TESTAMENT.
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, O.
ALTOGETHER the most remarkable and unique work in modern mis- sion literature is Delitzsch's Hebrew translation of the New Testament. According to the latest reports, officially sent out from Leipzig, the modern headquarters of Jewish Christian enterprise, the British and Foreign Bible Society, since the first appearance of the new version in. 18'1'8, has published no less than nine editions, making a grand total of 80,000 copies. The literary success of the work, aside from its great merit as a mission agency, is indeed phenomenal. Fully 60,000 copies have been disposed of among the Jews of Southeastern Europe and Western Asia, and have all been employed in the gospel cause among the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 'The present is an exceedingly timely moment gratefully to call attention to this great literary monu- ment of modern mission enterprise.' It was in 1838, or just fifty years ago, that the first specimen chapters of the new translation were given to the world. For forty years the now venerable veteran labored incessantly and with characteristically German diligence, perseverance, and scholarly accuracy on his important task. In 1870 he published a translation of the Epistle to the Romans, with a full introduction on the history and present status of the Hebrew New Testament problem, together with extensive notes from the Talmud and the Midrashim! " in which he elucidated the methods and pri.nciples pursued in the work and gave the reader a clear insight into the intricacies 01 the problem and the thorough and scientific manner in which the author was solving it. It is accordingly now just one-half a century since the labor of love for Israel was undertaken by Delitzsch. It is proposed to celebrate this peculiar literary and mission semi-centennial in a manner suitable to the cause. An appeal has been published, addressed to the pupils and friends of Franz Delitzsch, asking for contributions toward the estab- lishment of a permanent fund, the income of which is to be used for the spread of this New Testament in Israel.. The appeal is signed by Pastor Wilhelm Faber; the energetic young leader of the Institutum Juda£curn of Leipzig, who has for the last six or eight years been giving his whole time and attention to this work, and has made eight long mission tours among the Jewish Diaspora of the East. A jubilee of this sort is certainly deserving of the sympathy and co-operatioh of active mission frienJs everywhere.
Another reason for drawing attention to this work now is_the fact that the version. is now to be issued in permanent shape and form. While the first nine editions were going through the press corrections of greater or less nnmber and extent were made in each edition. Hebrew scholars all over the world have taken a deep interest in the literary character, correctness, and finish of the work. Suggestions have been made by some of the best,specialists in this department, and these have been duly weighed and measured by the translator, who himself is doubtless the greatest Hebraist of this generation, if not of this century. How carefully this has been done by him is clear from a report, published in English by Delitzsch some six years ago, in / which he discussed some of the principal suggestions made, and made special acknowledgments to Professor Driver of Oxford for his valuable aid. In this way it can be candidly saia that probably no work issued within our day and date has been so searchingly examined under the critical microscope and has for so long a time been constantly before the eyes of our unofficial college of Hebrew scholars all over the world as has this Hebrew version of the New Testament. Accordingly it is a work of rare literary and critical correctness. It 1S now thought that it has reached the stage in which it can be given out in a permanent shape, and the coming tenth edition will be the first in that form.
The work is issued i.n two sizes. It ori.ginally apl)eared in a small 12mo form of 471 pages. The type was very small, but still clear-cut and easy to read. In this shape alone the first six or seven editions appeared. Later it became clear that its mission value would be enhanced if it could be published in the same type and size as the Old Testament Hebrew text and be bound with the latter, thus constituting the one Holy Writ of the two covenants in the sacred tongue of the chosen people. This was done, and it has proved to be a wise undertaking. The Jews in examining and studying the writings of the New 'l'estament do so solely with an eye to their relation to the Old, as the fulfillment and completion of the latter; To have the two together in ono cover naturally facilitated this work a good deal. As this edition of the t.wo Testaments in Hebrew can be had for about one dollar and· a half, no pastor able to understand this venerable tongue should be without a copy.
It would probably be hard to say from which side this noteworthy pUbhcation presents the greater number of attractive features-from its literary or its mIssionary. No doubt our readers are interested more in the latter, and these in themselves constitute an interesting chapter in the annals of this present mission century. On the face of matters it is certainly remarkable and almost beyond credence that a book written in Hebrew should be the most widely circulated specimen of the non-popular mission literature of the day. Jnd yet when certain facts, not all of which are generally known, are taken into consideration the strangeness of the phenomenon at least in part disappeared. It is generally accepted that the Hebrew is a dead language. This is one of the many popular mistakes of the times. It is true that for the Jew as we see him in America. and Western Europe the Hebrew is only a sacred language, which he uses pro forma in his synagogal worship and often does not understand any more than the Roman Catholic does the Latin of the mass. But the Jews of the western world and Western Europe are modernized, more or less superficially, and are by no means the representatives of genuine Judaism. These must be looked for further East. Of the six and one-half million Jews constituting the Jewish Dispersion, about four mil1:ons are found in the East, and for all of these the Hebrew is the only literary language in which they can be approached. They themselves generally speak not a pure Hebrew, but a jargon; but the pure Hebrew is the language of their books, papers, etc. It would be worse than a waste of effort or time to offer them a defense of the claims of the Ohristian faith in any other than their own literary tongue. They are a most peculiar people, and in the mission efforts among them this peculiarity must be taken into con-' sideration as a most important factor. They are the exact opposites of the Western Jew, who is ever willing to compromise with modern thought, if it only accrues to his social or financial benefit. The Eastern Jew is a conservative of the conservatives. The adherence to the ways of the fathers, so characteristic a feature of all Semitics, is especia~ly strong in him, and has made his system of religious beliefs and customs little better than a petrified formalism of the Talmudic centuries that have gone before. For them religion and religious instruction is unthinkable except in the sacred tongue.
It is for this peculiar people that the Hebrew translation of the New Testament has been made. The underlying principle in the undertaking was that the New Testament is the best commentary on the Old, and If the erring children of Abraham in the Orient could be persuaded to compare the words of the New Oovenant with those of thO Old they would, more readily than by any other way, learn that, as the Old is the necessary foundation of the New, so the latt~ is the necessary completion of the Old.
The adoption of this method of reaching these people was not a new discovery, nor is Delitzsch's the first Hebrew translation of the New Testament. Away back m the first Ohristian centuries there existed a Gospel for the Hebrews, which was doubtless a Hebrew translation (not the Hebrew original) of our present Matthew. During the Refor- matIon period a translation of this kind was made. Later portions were again translated, espeeially under the influence of the original InstUutum Judaicum of Callenberg, in Halle.. The present century witnessed repeated efforts in this direction. Especially was this true of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.
With much expense and labor edition after edition was issued, 'until the final issue of 1863. This last is in general a good production, but not by any means equal to the work of Delitzsch. Shortly after the pUblication of tHe latter, an entirely original Hebrew translation was published as a posthumous work of the Jewish missionary Salkinson, and was edited by the Jewish scholar Ginsburg, the editor of the Mas- sorah. This, however, has not proved a satisfactory work in all par- ticulars. It also is extensively used for mission purposes.
How wise it was to select the Hebrew as a literary language for the mission work among the Jews of the East is apparent when we lo~k at the extensive use made of this language for literary work in general.
8alkinson himself has published a magnificent Hebrew translation of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and also of Walker's" Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation"; S. Hoga, a Jewish convert, has translated in ele- gant style Bunyan's" Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Old Paths" into Hebrew. The Book of Enoch has been translated into this tongue, also the Koran, Goethe's "Faust," and even Sue's "Mysteres de Paris." Periodicals, both religious and secular, in large numbers are published in Hebrew; some of them, as the IIamelliz of St. Peters- burg, are very influential. .
Just what the extent of the blessing achieved through this New Tes- tament is and will be of course no man can tell. That it has done great good is certain. There are ministers in the Lutheran church of Ger- many and America now who were converted in Russia from Judaism through studying this translation. It is also certain that the demand for the book is great among the Jews, and that there are many Nico- demus souls there who come to Jesus by night, but fear publicly to proclaim their newly found faith. As no Testament is given or sold to a person unless the missionary or colporteur is reasonably satisfied that the person receiving it will read and study the book, it lS evident that there is a real and not an imaginary demand for It. And this willing- ness and eagerness to search for the truth in the New Covenant book is the most pro~ising feature ln Jewish mission work in the Oriental lands. Faber's reports, published under. the auspices of the Leipzig Institutum Judaicum, are filled with accounts of eager anxiety on the part of these people to read of the M9ssiah. To bring them this news in an acceptable manner has been and is the great mission of Delitzsch's Hebrew New Testament. He has aided materially in solvmg one of the most intricate of mission problems.
A PILLAR ON THE BORDER OF EGYPT
A PILLAR ON THE BORDER OF EGYPT.
BY CRAS. S. ROBINSON, D.D., NEW YORK.
"PEOPLE are SO wofully like sheep I" thus once wrote Thomas Carlyle's piquant wife: "all running where they see others run-all doing what they see others do; have you heard of the wonderful Bishop Colenso! Such a talk about him too! And he is not worth talking about for five minutes-except for the absurdity of a man's making arithmetical onslaughts upon the Pentateuch with a bishop's little black-silk apron on !" This outburst of the indignant woman, made twenty-five years ago about an almost forgotten prelate, reminds us of the French proverb so often quoted: "It is always the unexpected that happens." Only we now propose to parody it by saying tl,lat it is always the absurd that grows popular. Just now it is the wild attacks on the books of Moses, forced forward by a desperate skepticism, which are drawing the crowd. It is God's own wisdom which has snddenly unearthed the mummies of Rameses's dynasty, making Egypt for a while the most conspicuous of lands.
In a previous article we have spent some space in showing how an irresistible pressure of Western ideas and civilizations is continually changing the face of Egypt and turning the people away from Oriental customs and worship. At that time it was announced that some sort of illustration must be adopted to serve as proofs of the prophet's open prediction that evangelization would immediately follow in the advancing steps of civilization. New Testaments would soon begin to arrive upon the cars. t can make that my theme in the present paper.
Still it seems to me that I can reach my end more safely by taking my readers with me again in a kind of tourist's ramble. We are to think with our eyes now. Arguments are not to be spun for an indoors debate when the question is one of fact and not at all of philosophy. Let us take a railway trip, the first and the simplest the country has to offer, going up the usual course after landiI)g on the frontier. It is worth while to keep looking out of the car-windows, from the moment when an Arabian official receives us at Alexandria to that when an enthusiastic American missionary welcomes us into his home in Cairo.
Of all the unearthly-looking fellow beings you ever herded with, you may be sure the people, eastern and western, who throng the trains and pour forth at each station are the most inexplicable and the most indescribable. Dresses in most Oriental countries denote rank, lineal descent, nationality, and occupation. Bnt who can interpret the inexhaustible variety of shades and discriminations presented in even this one day upon such a thoroughfare as the overland route to India across Egypt I Persians, Armenians, Copts, Turks, Frenchmen, British, Syrians and Greeks, besides the aborigmes of the region itself-aU of these our careful dragoman pointed out one after another in the single crowd we saw at the midway station-I cannot put down the Arabic name they called it by-lazily watching our arrival, halt and departure.
Dean Stanley, in speaking of the usual presentations hereabout, uses a most apt similitud~. He compares the lines of camels, the solio tary traveler who shows himself now and then, the stiff trees, few and far between, to the rude views of a magic lantern. Anyone who has o in the old times before photographs came in vogue ever seen tilOse preposterous paintings on glass for the Sunday-school exhibitions which were offered during such historic years as Biblical illustrations, will recognize some original models immediately. So clear is the atmos- phere that any object in the wide reach of landscape seems startlingly vivid and plain, even at a great distance. Along the tops of the low ridges and swells of land caravans are outlined upon thl) blue sky with an almost miraculous distinctness; and ~o stately and rigid, so precise in step and so ungainly in proportion, are the camels especially, that an observer can hardly refram from imagining they are mere figures shaved along, like so many fancifully-colored slides, into the groove of a lantern poorly focussed and dimly lit. Occasionally a lonely Arab appears in the field of view; then a company of merchantmen, resem- bling perhaps the Ishmaelites of old who bought Joseph; then a big 'rurk upon a small donkey; and all are so angular and awkward that anyone (if he has ever Leen in the stereopticon line) feels like begin- ning a lecture.
We became commentators upon this ride as usual, receiving at many points a happy explanation of some Scriptural text. A new building attracted my attention, and as upon nearer inspection I found that the walls were filled with cut straw, it became worth our while to ask the question as to customs in such matters; this resulted afterward in our visiting a quite extensive and busy manufactory of brick rIose by the station. There we learned with the aid of our eyes all we needed to be told; for the men were at the moment molding the square blocks of wet clay and chopping the stubble with which to mix them, while stretched out over the field were great patches of levelland covered with those which were already drying in the sun. No one can know the thrill that comes over the mind of a tourist when he sees such things, until he is in the midst of surprises, all going to prove that the same processes, the same habits, the same traditions, are found now as in Moses's time.
The maidens were coming in as the blazing noon drew on, with an awkward weight of some sort of grain which they had been industriously gleaning, done up in huge bundles and carried on their heads. This we noticed had not been cut with scythe or sickle, but the damsels had in their own fashion pulled it up roots and all. 'l'hus the proper untitheses of the royal preacher was reached in exact language when he spoke of "a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is . planted."
We observed also that large areas of land which had evidently at no great time back been covered with water were now ,baking under sun- ' shine as hot as if it had been the glow of a blast-furnace. Some portions of the soil had hardened as it dried; workmen were actually cutting up the caked ground with axes, and the plow was following along behind. Then first we really appreciated the admonition of the man of God: "For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your {aUoio ground, and sow not among thorns." These are the words of Jeremiah, and no doubt he addressed them to the Jews; indeed; Hosea says the same thing under the same figure: "Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." But scholars have ;;ettled 10:J.g ago that Jeremiah wrote his prophecy in Egypt, in full sight of what he daily interwrought into the forcible rhetoric he was wont to employ.
These are good exercises for a weary railway ride in desolate Egypt, especially if one is really jammed up against the uncleanest sort of things most of the time! As the day waned we drew closer, evidelltly, to some great center of population. A grove of palms appeared now and then; a few tamarisks with feathery branches; occasionally a white tomb with a diminutive dome over it ; then a train of camels, or a Mussulman cn a donkey. Just before our tickets were taken preparatory to an arrival, far off upon the right our attention IYas arrested by three vast masses of majesty, pinnacling their triangular shapes against the clear blue heaven, silent yet speaking, tranquil yet fllll of exciting history. And he must be tame of heart and dull of spirit tvho can now without emotion look for the first time on the Pyramids of Ghizeh!
Piazzi Smyth, astronomer-royal for Scotland, has prefixed to his interesting book, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," a verse from Isaiah's prediction concerning this kingdom of the ancient Pharaohs-a verse which he makes the motto for the whole volume: "In that day shall there be an altar to the I.ord in the midst of the land of Egypt; and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord." He considers that the great pyramid is what the prophet intended by an "altar" or "pillar "-that is, a monument acknowledging the true God. The commentators do not agree with. him in this. Addison Alex- ander calls attention to the usage of the Hebrew language;. he the rather accepts the "altar" as a sign of devotion, and he does not refuse such a "pillar" as the sign of monumental or commemorative' acknowledgment. 'But he quotes other passages to show that an altar in the midst of the land, and a pillar at its border, denote altars and pillars throughout its whole extent. He translatesone· of the verses: "And Jehovah shall be known in Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day."
Josephus has been quoted as saying that he was the one who gained permission from ptolemy Philometor for Onias to erect the temple in Heliopolis for Jewish worship, and that he did this by showing him the passage from Isaiah under our study now, for this convinced thp, king.
At this point we must pause; thus much of the verse is absolutely fulfilled: Egypt is beginning to speak the language of Oanaan; civilization is changing the East into its own likeness. The rest of the prediction will be brought to pass soon: Egypt is to be converted unto God. The declaration of Isaiah is very explicit: there shall come one day when the land of Egypt shall change its form of religion, which is now that of the prophet of Islam, and receive the service of the Lord, the gospel of Ohristianity; then its life will be laid on God's altar. We have the fair permission to strengthen our faith with this prophetic promise that the cities of the Egyptian land will soon begin to see the true light that is shining for them; they will cry unto the Lord a great cry because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a Saviour.
Our illustration is just at hand. In witness of afact so specially welcome to every friend of foreign missions, and so honorable for a testj… mony to the zeal of one branch of our American Presbyterian d~nom ination, I shall close this article with a note lately received and published in the public prints, written by one who has been familiarly acquainted with Oairo itself and with its vicinity for many years: "Years ago, right opposite Shepheard's Hotel, was au open space, where dragomans piched their tents, so as to show travelers intending to take the trip across the desert to Sinai, or through Palestine, how the thing was done.; Now the dragoman's occupation is mostly gone; the railway and the steamship have made him a 'lost art.' Where the tents were pitched in front of and beyond Shepheard's are magnificent blocks of buildings, one of whichis the large edifice (covering a square) of the American United Presbyterian Mission.
" There is no thoughtful man but will rejoice when religious toleration, under the regis of England, shall cover this land as this day it covers India. Our United Presbyterian brethren hll.ve not awaited that time. Their works for the Lord here are already known in our own land. It is a proud sight for me to look upon the British soldiers flocking to the mission church in Cairo to attend the Sunday service, the week-day prayer-meetings, and the temperance meetings; but it is a grander sight to see the schools of these American United Presbyterians filled with Copt and Moslem children-to see large audiences of converted men and women on the Sabbath day come .up to the house of the Lord; and it is a thing of the moral sublime to find that now not a year goes by in this ancient land without more than two hundred souls converted to the Lord. What is especially encouraging is
A MISSIONARY l'OEM
that within a comparatively short time some forty Mohammedans havecome to the knowledge of the truth, through good report and evil report (mostly the l,atter), and some through persecution, and have taken their stand for the Master.
"Truly this work of our Benjamin among the American Presbyterian churches commends itself to all our brethren of the great Pan-Presbyterian band. We thank God and take courage when we think what He has accom- plished through His servants Lansing, Hogg, and their companions here. This day more than' five cities in the land .of Egypt speak the language of Canaan,' and the prophet's words have been fulfilled, which he pronounced 2,500 years ago: 'In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of'Egypt ' (Isa. xix: 19). The altar is erected, and thanks be to Him who has done this through the instrumentality of this faithful little . band of American Christian men and women."
A MISSIONARY POEM.
DEAR DR. SHERWOOD: It seems to me that the following, from Frederic Myers's "St.
Paul," is an exquisite description of the missionary work. It is put into the mouth of the A.posLle of the Gentiles. CHARLES C. STARBUCK.
EAST the forefront of habitations holy Gleamed to Engedi, shone to Eneglaim ; Softly thereout and from thereunder slowly Wandered the waters, and delayed, and came.
Then the gt'eat stream, which having seen he showeth, Hid from the wise but manifest to him, Flowed and arose, as when Euphrates floweth ; Rose from the ankles till a man might swim.
Even with so soft a surge and an increasing, Drunk of the sand and thwarted of the clod, Stilled and astir lind checked and never-ceasing, Spreadeth the great wave of the grace of God: Bears to the marishes and bitter places Healing for hurt and for their poisons balm'; Isle after isle in infinite embraces Floods and enfolds and fringes with the palm.
Ay, and afar to realms and to recesses Seen in a storm, discovered in a dream, Fields which no folk nor any power possesses, Oceans ungirdled of the ocean stream.
Yes, or if loose and free, as some are telling (Little I know it, and I little care), This my poor lodge, my transitory dwelling, Swings in the bright deep of the endless air.
Round it and round His prophets shall proclaim Him, Springing thenceforth and hurrying therethrough Each to the next the generations name Him, Honor unendingly and know anew.
MIRACLES 01l' :MISSIONS
MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.
MISSION TO THE HALF MILLION OF BLIND IN CHINA.f [EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] ANOTHER of those marvelous adaptations of history which so signally evince and evidence a divine plan has recently appeared in the Celestial Empire.
William H. Murray was bOl'n at Port Dundas, near Glasgow, and, as the only son in a family of ten children, would naturally have entered the saw- '
mill of his humble father but for the loss of his left al'm by accidental , contact with the machinery when only about nine years old. This occur- rence, which determined his future as outside the sawmill, was the begin- ning of a series of providential events which have made him the most conspicuous benefacbr of China's blind people that has ever appeared in that vast empire. With but one arm he could not labor physically to much purpose; but though he lacked bl'awn he had brain and he could study. He improved his mind, and before long' was employed in the l'llI'al districts neal'
Glasgow as a letter-carrier. His conscience was not asleep, and remon- sh'ated against the Sunday work which this occupation required. To avoid compromise with his moral sense and at the same time retain his position he surrendered two shillings out of each week's wages. His self-sacrifice was not only blest to himself, but sowed the seeds of that extensive reform now in progress to secure for government employes in the postal service a Sabbath respite ft'om work. , Brain and conscience thus being busy, young Murray found his heart awaking to a new longing to be of service, He felt witllin him a conscious- ness of a call to some mission among men, he knew not wllat. He applied to the National Bible Society of Scotland for work as a colporteur. The secretary felt drawn to the modest but persistent lad, but hesitated to have him give up a good position In government service for a venture which might prove a failure. But William lIfurray "pmyed himself" into the work of the society. His long daily walk he divided into three parts: a third of the way he studied the Scriptures in the original Hebrew; another third of his monotonous tramp he gave to New Testament Greek; and the last part of his walk was emphatically a walk with God, consecrated to daily prayer that he might be fitted for some sphere of personal, direct missionary service.
He longed to be pl'omoted from a royal mail-carrier to a messenger of good tidings to the King of kings. In 1864, now almost a quarter of a century ago, he was accepted as a colporteur of the Bible Society and began work on the Clyde, among the sailol's and seamen. Here was a new link in the chain which connected the sawmill in Scotland with this great work of opening the inner eyes of the blind in China.
The Bible Society soon found that" it neyer had such another colporteur"
as the quiet young man who, without any great mental endowments, graces of person or gifts of speech, was dmwing to himself the men that go down to the sea in ships to do business in great waters, and was rapidly picking up such phrases in various foreign tongues as enabled him to effect more sales of Bibles among sallors of all nations than any of his predecessors had done.
The colporteur was evidently a divinely called man.
As this work occupied him only in winter months, he was free in the sum- mer season to push his Bil;lle-cart along the rough roads of the Scotch Highlands. One-armed as he w~, he had two legs and a brave heart, and "''' Work.for the Blind in China." C. F. Gordon-Cnmming. Gilbert & Rivington, London, Eng. , so he patiently carried on his work, getting inured to hardness as became a good soldier of Jesus Christ. How many a mighty workman and winner of souls has been trained like Milne and Morrison and Curey and OnckeIJ, and Livingstone and McAuley and Johnson and Marshman and Buchanan and Clough, in a very strange school.
And now comes another link in this providential chain. William Mmray's unusual aptitude for languages attracted the notice of some of the directors of the Bible Society, and arrangements were made for him to attend morn- ing classes at the old college in H,igh Street. A friend hel ped to pay the necessary fees, and MUl'ray managed his studies so that they did not impinge upon other duties. He rose at 3 A. M. and studied till 8, then attended his classes till 10, then stood in the streets beside his Bible-cart till evening, .
when after a frugal meal he studied again till bedtime. .
Seven years of apprenticeship were accomplished, and in 1871 he was free to carry out his heart's desire. He sailed for China, where he was to spend half a year at Che[oo trying to learn to distinguish at sight the 4000 intri- cate, complicate characters by which the Chinese language is represented on paper. It has been quaintly said that he who would master the Chinese tongue needs a head of oak, a constitution of iron, lungs of brass, nerves of steel, the patience of Job, and the lifetime of Methusaleh. But Mr. Murray was not to be easily discouraged. He had tackled Greek and Hebrew char- acters, and· he was· not dismayed at the still more elaborate mysteries of Chinese words. He applied himself diligently, and in four months he acquired about 2000 characters. The Bible colporteur started on his work.
He devised a mule litter to carry his books, and ovel' mountain roads and facing cold winds made his first journey 250 miles in,to the interior of Shang- tu province.
Sixteen years of untiring work as a colporteur passed away, during which this one-armed man undertook journeys even into Mongolia and Manchuria, fording rivers, daring perils, enduring hardship, feeding on wretched fare, sleeping in rude sheds, or perhaps favored with more palatial accommoda- tions in the shape of the coffin which dutiful sons have with filial tenderness provided for their father in anticipation of h~s need, and which the generous host put at disposal of the traveler. Mr. Murray sometimes found himself in the midst of a riotous rabble, but again surrounded by those who clamored for the foreign" classic of Jesus," and on one occasion he found at evening that his sales had reached 3000 copies j then the people begged him to remain among them, and he did so for half a year. During his sixteen yeal's in China he has sold over 100,000 books, containing wholly or in part the Scriptures in the tongues of China and Tartary. These Bibles have found their way into humble huts of poverty, and even into the imperial palace j have been borne to gl'eatdistances by merchants and scholars who have bought them at fairs and public gatherings, and so this modest man has been permeating this vast empire with the Light of God.
But now we come to another link in this strange story of a useful life.
Mr. Murray saw in the thronged skeets hundreds of blind men, sometimes in groups or gangs of eight or ten, each one guided by another blind man in fl'ont, and the foremost guiding himself and all the others with a long stick- "the blind leading the blind." On one occasion a company of 600 blind beggars was seen waiting for a free distribution of rice! It is thought . that there are half a million of blind in China, and that this ,'ery nnusllal proportion of blind people is traceable to smallpox, leprosy, neglected ophthalmia, uncleanly habits, and the dense'smokecreated in their dwellings by the dried grass with which their ovens are heated. For generations these sights have been seen in the Celestial Empire-blind beggars, hungry and un. clad, beating gongs, singing songs, yelling in chorus, squeaking with flutes, or otherwise torturing the defenseless ears of bystanders until" cash" was given them simply to induce them to move on and torture somebody else.
These blind legions of China awaken a sort of pity and even reverence by their very infirmity and misery, and are addressed by title of "Teacher"~ Hsien-SMng-but the most of the adult blind are so hopelessly vile that Mr. Murray himself has never ventured into their night refuge in Peking, but seeks to isolate and educate the blind lads, beginning with them when but seven years old.
But we are anticipating. His soul was strangely drawn out in behalf of these thousands of blind children. His appeals to others in their behalf were met by the usual response, that the work already on their hands was too great to be done with the few helpers and slender means at their command. And so his only way was once more to " walk with God" in prayer for guidance and help. The Bible colporteur must himselfunderiake to help these sightless crowds.
Here we touch another link. Mr. Murray, before he left Scotland, had mastered Professor Melville Bell's "System of Visible Speech for the Deaf," and had found it so great a help in his Chinese studies that he had prepared a. pamphlet upon it for use of foreign students. The thought flashed on his mind that this system might be modified so as to become eyes to the blInd as well as ears to the deaf. He saw that the fingers of the blind must take the place of eyes, and that the first step was to reduce the sounds of the language to symbolic!orms. These he made in clay and baked, and from these the blind wei'e first taught to read. But two difficulties presented themselves: first, the system lacked simplicity, and, secondly, as the Chinese adore their written characters, they might worship these clay symbols.
While in Glasgow Mr. Murray had also studied Moon's "System of Embossed Alphabetic Symbols" and Braille's" Embossed Dots." Perhaps these might be adapted to the perplexing" tones" which make it possible for one word to mean a dozen different and absurdly contradictory things. How to bring all these linguistic mysteries within the touch of the blind was the problem over which William Murray thought by day and dreamed by night. One day, weary with work, he lay down for a noon nap, when, while yet awake though with closed eyes, he saw outspread before him the whole system he has since put in available form for use, and perceived that it would enable the blind to read accurately and in a short time the Word of God. He believes that vision to have been a revelation to him from above. He made no attempt at an alphabetic system. but employed numerals. He found that inst'ead of the ordinary 4,000 characters, a little over one-tenth of that number would suffice to represent the sounds of the language, viz., 408 dis· tinct syllables. Instead of figures he uses mnemonic letters, and ingeniously contrives that not more than three syllables shall be used to represent the longest word, corresponding to units, tens, and hundreds. He found Braille's system to be more helpful than Moon's, as being fitted both for writing and musica.l notation.
So pl'acticable has this method proved that a thorough acquaintance with both reading and writing may be acquired by a blind boy of average faculty in from six weeks to two months, whereas six yeal's of study would be required for seeing eyes to recognize the 4,000' distinct characters of the ordinary written language. For eight long years Mr. Murray worked to perfect the system which he saw in theory in that day-vision, and it must be remembered that he could devote only odd hours not already taken up with his Bible w<;>rk. His first practical test was upon "Wang," a rheumatic blind cripple, who soon learned to read for himself the blessed Word. Then a poor blind patient, who had been severely kicked by a mule, relieved the hours of suffering by studying the Murray system, and within two months even his callous fingers could feel the precious truth of God. Then a poor blind lad, left on a dunghill to die, after three months' nursing was restored to health and learned to read and write. Ne:Xt a blind beggar boy, an orphan taken in out ofthewinter's cold, within six weeks read more accurately and fluently without eyes than many do with eyes in a score of years.
Miss Constance F. Gordon-Cumming, to whose golden pen missionary literature owes so much, visiting Peking, was astonished as she stood at the door of a dark room to hear the Scriptures read by the touch by men who, not fOUl· months before, begged in the streets, half naked and balf starved. And the marvel is that this Bible colpodeur, this consecrated workingman, has been doing this work alone, from his slender income boarding, lodging, and clothing his poor blmd pupils! He seemed to hear the Master say once more, "Giveyetbem to eat," andsohe brought his barley loaves to Him to be blessed and multiplied, and they have strangely sufficed for others' wants as well as his own. One boy of twelve, left in his charge by an elder brother, and then left on his hands, though blind, not only rapidly learned to read and write, but became his main dependence in stereotyping and all other work, and developed such musical ability as to become the organist in the chapel of the London Mission.
The rumor of thlS wonderful school for blind pupils has spread far and wide, and some have come 300 miles to study the system. One pupil developed singular fitness for the ministry and was sent to Tien-Tsin as a candidate for the work. Another has undertaken to stereotype an embossed Gospel according to Matthcw, in the classical Mandarin dialect of scholars throughout the empire. The work is but at its beginning, for there must be at least eight different versions reduced to the dot system before the blind of the different provinces can find the system available to represent'the various colloquial dialects. The ingenuity of Mr. Murray reminds us of Bezaleel and Aholiab, whom God by His Spirit endowed for the mechanical work of the tabernacle. He has so simplified stereotyping in connection with his method of instruction that a Chinese lad will produce in a day more than three times as many pages as an ordinary London workman by the common method. Thus God is using the special sensitiveness of the fingers of the blind and their proverbial aptitude for music, to raise up blind readers of the Word and blind singers and players on instruments, who may make music the handmaid of evangelism. The system, as we have said, is singularly adapted to represent, not only the sounds used in speech, but in music too. The Peking pupils write out musical scores from dictation with such rapidity thlt an ordinary" gospel song" will be produced in· a quarter of an hour. By means of embossed symbols pasted to the keys they also learn to play the piano and organ. The written score being read with one hand and the music played with the other, the student soon learns both to sing and play by note. Then these Christian songs are made a means of attracting an audience, to whom one of the blind students tlien addresses his exhortation, and whom he recommends to buy and study the Bible for themselves. And-so a blind boy will often sell more books in a. day than the authorized agent Of the Bible Society.
Here we reach another link in this chain of providential purpose. We see why Mr. Murray was sent to China as a Bible colporteur. His bookselling and street preaching bring him and keep him on familiar and friendly terms with the natives and prevent his being thought a mere magician or conjur~r who by some weird power turns fingers into eyes. Moreover, the superl>titious respect felt for written characters and all who can read them, togeiner with the reverence and pity toward the blind, seem to open a new and wonderful avenue of usefulness to these blind Scripture readers and singir.g evangelists. Mr. Murray ought to be enabled to devote at least half his time to this work of instructing the blind, and abundant means ought to be given him to multiply his schools in every part of the empire. This new development in China suggests a key that may open the doors to 150,000,000 secluded Ohinese women. A blind woman taught to read the Scriptures may find her way to homes from which all missionaries are practically excluded. As yet popular prejudice has prevented Mr. Murray from teaching but one blind woman, who in a few months mastered reading, writing, and musical notation.
Mr. Murray, having often found genuine converts who had found salvation solely through reading the Word, and who sought of him Christian baptis,m, has been granted ordination and so returned from his visit to Scotland in 1887 empowered to do the whole work of a Christian minister, and will devote his time to the preparation of books for the use of the blind and instructing those to whom God has denied the girt of sight. Who can foresee to what extent the Providence that raised up this man for this unique work may be pleased to use him for the evangelization of the hundreds of millions in China, transforn:ing blind beggars into Scripture readers and teachers of others blind also, so that it shall be h;ue in a new sense that the blind lead the blind, but not into the ditch? The words of Isaiah shall be fulfilled: "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight." Isaiah xii: 16.
For the sake alike of completeness to this paper and for the information of those who are specially interested, we append a brief resume of Murray's "System for Teaching the Blind of China."
The plan that wonld most naturally commend itself to one wishing to teach the blind, would be to adopt phonetic spelling. I fonnd, however, that" numeral" spelling was greatly to be preferred.
Chinese, as a spoken language, may be reduced to 408 syllables. Now I take a representative written hieroglyphic of each of these 408 syllables, and for my own convenience place them in alphabetic order in a horizontal line. The Chinese know nothing of alphabetics.
Then in a line running parallel above that line of representative .sonnds, I write its equivalent in numerals; but instead of figures I use mnemonic lelters, viz. T or D represents 1, N .tands for 2, M is 3, R is 4, L stands for 5, 8h is 6,.;K is 7, F or V means 8, P or B is 9, and S stands forO.
Then, as the Chinese have no alphabet, I choose simple. syllables, as Ti for simple T or D, Ni or No for Q, etc. Therefore the two lines run thus: Ti Ni, Mi Rhi Li :-mnemonics. Gna Gnai Gnan Gnang Gnao :-Chinese. Shih Kei Fei Pei Tze:-mnemonics. Cha C'ha Chai C'hai Chan :-(Jhinese.
EXPLANATIoN • • These are the first ten mnemonic words. Chinese equivalents that stand for the numbers, and written in a large character, begin the sentence, which, according to the custom of ordinary Chinese bookS, is written perpendicularly, and is read from top to bottom.
The under line represents tell of the 408 Chinese syllables, and these, also in a larger character
WOMAN AND, WOMAN'S WORK
than the intermediary ones, are at the oottom, and finish the sentence. Thus: TI, sh1h, !lInan. tsai, t'ien, shang, che, hua, shih, nan, hsin, GNA.
There are thus 408 simple sentences. and the pnpll is reqnired to commit theAe to memory, a)ld thenceforth, to write the one, and read it as the other. This he does like a chain of events, and in a very short time, at the rate of aoout twenty sentences in a day. This is, in fact; his spelling lesson. I know that this description must appear complicated, but in daily practice it is found to oe qnite the reverse.
The superiority of this method over" spelling" is immense. As an example of its adyantages I would instance the Chinese word" C'huang Q" – a oed. It would require eight letters to spell this word, but by this plan I only need three, i.e. units, tens, and hundreds. There are no spaces or contractions to be a burden to the memory.
Then we only require. ten num erals for our "alpbaoet. '~_ But I saw the advantage of employing the other letters thus: namely, nSing the deep lettt!t's, as K, L, Y, N, in four sets of four to stand in the first space to represent tbe hundreds, and by that means they would answer a double purpose, namely, indicate also to which of the four" tones" the word belongs, each having a choice of four letters for each of the 408 sounds.
Let the sound and the number of its tone be indicated along with its aspirate, which is thus- C'huang Q, and be understood to be the hundredth iu the order of the syllabary; and as regards tbe four .. tones" to belong iu that sense (i.e., a bed) to the second. The letters K, L, M, N eqnal 100, and in that order indicate the 1st, 2d, 3d, or 4th tone. Then LOO equals C'huang Q. A person acquainted with the Braille alphabet will perceive that as only three letters are thus requit'ed, the L takes top, middle and lowest points, while the first line of Braille, which supplies tens and nnits, has only top and middle points, and consequently the word has always one deep letter and two hollow, making a wedge·like form; hence there is no need to separate the words in writing, and thus all space between words is saved, which of itself is no small gain, and at the same time greatly simplifies the fingering to the reader.
When time, material, expense, storage, and porterage are considered, it will be seen how important are all these points which tend to reduce the inevitable bulk of books for the blind. The fact lof each word being represented by three letters, and having thus a definite length and somewhat triangular form, is a great advantage in stereotyping.
It occurred to me that I could simplify the process of stereotyping; so instead of holding the punch in one hand, and having only the tip of the little fingEr to guide, while the other hand holds the mallet, I designed a table with a lever at one side, and a mallet to work by a treadle-the mallet always to strike the center of the table, and squared off the plain over which the block would have to describe. The treadle is of course worked by foot, and with side woods, the width of two words, and woods the width of a double line, which exaclly correspond in size with the latter; for the guide in shifting the block npward in the plain of the fixed mallet, as the other, the side woods keep the position sideways; the stereotyper moves these as he finishes two words at a time, the top piece, at the finishing of the double line, is taken from the top, and pushing up the block, he puts that wood at the next foot, and then the block is in proper position for striking the next, and is firm and fast in its position.
Thus the right hand, which would otherwise have had to hold the mallet, is left free to handle the manuscript, and to relieve the tip of the little finger and take. to guiding. Now, with us the process is so simplified that the operator can pell·mell with great speed and pleasure.
The advantage will appear best in the result, when I tell you that the boy can do with ease in one day what would take three men and one-third in England to 'do in the same time. So what a sighted man would take twelve months to do, my blind boy will do in three months, and the quality of the work is struck more perfectly.
WOMAN AND WOMAN'S WORK AT rHE LONDON CONFERENCE.
BY MRS. DR. J. T. GRACEY, BUFFALO, N. Y.
THE first missionary conference with representatives from various mission fields convened in the city of New York, May, 1854, That notable missional'y, Dl'. Duff of Calcutta, was visiting America, and the churches had been stirred by his eloquent words. His presence was the inspiration of this conference, which had an attendance of one Itundred and fifty members and was in session only two days. This meeting was the beginning of a new era in missionary work. Othel' conferences then followed in England and in the various mission fields of the world.
In the year 1878 a conference was held at Mildmay Park, London, at which thirty-five societies were represented, and this meeting was notable from the fact that for the first time missionary women took part in the proceedings. Mrs. Weitbrecht read' a paper on "Christian Vork Among the Women of India," and Miss E. J. Whately one on" Female Missions in, the East," and "English Mission Schools in Cairo" was read by Miss M. L. Whately. Several missionary ladies took part in the discussions which fOI– lowed the reading of these-papers.
Woman had gone to the isolation, the dreariness and monotony of heathen life; for years she had braved dangers and made all sacrifices, had established schools and been a transforming power in darkened homes, had aided in the translation of God's Word and Christian hymns, had given to heathen mothers a loftier idea of motherhool1, had been imprisoned for the gospel's sake, in loneliness and weal'iness had she patiently and lovingly toiled, yet only ten years have elapsed since she had a voice in the deliberations of a missionary conference. When she appeared she appeared to stay.
The General Conference of Missions, held in Exetel' HaJI, London, in June last, with more than twelve hundred delegates, has been universally conceded to be one of the most remarkable gathering~ ever held in the history of foreign mission work. It was notable for the presence of so many missionary women, and for the great prominence given to woman's work. Women were present from neat'ly all mission fields, and when one day the announcement was made that Mrs. Hannington, wife of the martyred Bishop of Africa, was in the audience, the applause was loud and prolonged.
Of the eighty-four American and continental societies represented, twenty-two were "Woman's Boards," each of them sending their own accredited delegates, more than fifty in number. On Saturday evening, June 9, the meeting was opened by a service of prayer and praise, and tables were set capable of accommodating hundreds of persons. At this opening session the Earl of Aberdeen presided, with his wife Lady Aberdeen on the platform at his side. Ecclesiasticism and doctrinal differences had no place, for the very introductory speech by Dr. Thompson of Boston sounded the keynote. "What have we come here for?" said he. "Not to see the old country, nor its cathedrals, nor the British Museum, nor the Tower of London, nor palaces, nor objects of art, nor to listen to the eloquence of Parliament, but to hear what the Pauls and Silases of the day are doing in the name of Him who made of one blood all the nations of the earth." "All one in Christ Jesus" was the prevailing spirit from the beginning to the close.
In the prepared programme Woman's W Qrk was tRe assigned topic for two of the regular sessions for delegates, and for one of the large public evening gatherings. Then there were meetings held exclusively for ladies, and women were made prominent as speakers at a number of public meetings, and some were even called upon for responses at lunches and breakfasts. From many lands the missionary woman was present, and told het· sweet and thrilling story, that reached all hearts.
Arrangements were made to hold the morning sessions for women in the •. Annex," a hall holding about two hundred and fifty; but the" Annex" was too small, and it was necessary to adjourn to the large hall to accom- modate the large crowd. Some one writing of these meetings said: "The women excelled the brethren in the directness and clearness of their state- ments, and the practical presentation of their work." Almost every phase of mission work was discussed at these sessions. As China was represented, it was claimed that in no country is woman's work so valuable as in the Celesttal Empire; others claimed that Japan most needs woman's help; 9thers maintained that of all countries India needed her, and the statement .vas made that one married missionary, with the feminine influences of home, is worth more than twenty single men, and that often the missiona.ry's home had been the first object lesson of love in heathen countrieR, and the wife has been the great helpmeet, carrying on work which her husband could not do.
Sir Robert Phayre presided at one meeting. " His thirty years' experience in India," he said, "convinced him that it is impossible to attempt to convert a world of men, leaving out the women, as that is clearly contrary to God's manifested will." He referred to the great amoupt of misery behind Zenana walls, as having come to his knowledge in connection with his official duties, but said, "There is no amount of oppression and evil-doing that cannot be removed by prayer."
Miss Rainy of the Free Church of Scotland spoke on "The Place of Female Agency in Mission Work." She said: ., Women should take up this work because it is evident on many grounds that the Lord will have it so. The scheme is of Him, and the way to carry it out has been made clea.r by Him. Missiona.ry women giw their attention to teaching in Sunday, weekda.y, industrial, and boarding schools, taking charge of orphanages and seminaries, Zenana mission work, or house to house· visitation, evangelistic work in villages and country districts, holding Bible classes and mothers' meetings for converts, training and supet'intending native agents, preparing a verna.cular literature for women, and last, but not least, laboring as medical missionaries among women and children."
Miss Marston, M.D., read a paper on "Woman's Medical Work." She said the work was most hopeful, that "the hospital is an institution of increasing vaIUl'>, and both there and in the dispensary the people are pleased rather than otherwise to listen to the message of the gospel. The difficulties of Zenana medical work were enlal'ged upon, and, in conclusion, several suggestions wel'e given. Specia.lists being, a.s a rule, inaccessible, a.~d consultations being out of the question, medical women in India. must either be able to undertake all and sundry cases, or have the pain of occasionally rejecting them. Experience led to the recommendation that, in addition to the usual cUl'l'iculum, there should be a year's study of special subjects."
A number of ladies took part in the discussion that followed the reading of this paper. Miss Cross spoke of the shocking condition of the women in government pl'isons and hospitals, and gave an account of a visit she paid to one of the prisons, where she saw a large number of women condemned for the crime of murdering their female children.
Mrs. Emmerson of New York read a history of the Woman's Union Missionary Society of America, a society representing all evangelical denominations, organized in 1860.
Mrs. Cappin of the African Church of America was eloquent in her justification of woman's work in many lines. She said that what was required for those women was not mere" book learning," but thorough technical education in the art of housekeeping, a.nd above all in the art of making bright, happy Christian homes. It must be remembered that their work was not merely to educate, however grand a'work that was in itself, but to win the precious souls of those women for the Lord Jesus Christ. The objpct of the society must be strictly evangelistic-that of carrying the gospel, whether by education, Zenana missions, medica.l missions, 01' whatever agency might be employed, to the homes of the East. She greatly deplored the small number of lady workers in the field, and she felt it her duty to speak out ~nd to tell ner Chfistia,l1, sisten; Qf the ~reat ~eed of worker!!, Mrs. Edge of China asked Christian mothers to put no obstacle in the way of their daughters, should the LOI'd call them to missionary work.
Mrs. Quinton spoke of the women of the Indian tribes of North America.
She said: "These 'women are hungering for spiritual instruction, and almost as soon as they hear the gospel they give their heart!! to God."
Miss Abbie Child of Boston, Secretal"y of the Woman's Board (Congrega- tional), spoke on the" Need and Preparation of Missionaries," saying, "The time is past when anybody can be a missionary."
Miss Jet'roam, for twenty-eight years a missionary in North India, said: "While preparation is of immense importance, yet missionaries cannot be manufactured; like poets, they are born, not made; nay more, they are called, and called .of God; only the Master can make a missionary. The training is in the Lord's own school."
"The Necessity for Trained Native Christian Teachers" was discussed by Miss Askwith of South India, under the following heads: Who are to be Trained?
What Objects must be Kept in View when Training?
What Methods Should be Employed in Training?
This paper disclosed the fact that there was great need ~for establishing a, United Training Institution for Zenana teachers, in which they may be taught and practically fitted for their special work. l1iss A., in closing, said: "If India is to be won to Christ, if its womanhood is to be raised from the bondage and degradation of ages, it must be greatly through the agency of Christian Indian women. We have intrusted to us the training and education of considerable numbers of these our young sisters, who, with God's blessing, may be a power for good in their native land."
Probably the" Relation of Woman's Boards to the General Boards" was among the most stirring subjects discussed. Everybody had an opinion, and both men and women said that women ought to be represented in the general boards. This was a perplexing question to some, and a special meet- ing was called to consider it.
DI·. lfurdock of the American Baptist Union" read 3, paper in which, while he placed great estimate on woman's work, he advocated that all female agencies should abide by the rules of and be governed by the poli- cies of the General Board; that it would be better for both and have a better effect on the natives when women' recognized the headship of man in order- i.ng the affairs of the Church of God,' remembering that 'Adam was the bead.' He dwelt very impressively upon the union of man· and woman in the work, though it would be a sad day for the church when diVIded by woman's boards eQ.deavoring to work independently."
A somewhat emphatic protest was offered by some of the ladies to the sentiments of the brave Doctor, and one-an American-remarked Botto 'l)OCe, "All buncombe!" Experiences were given. Some worked indepen- dently in a great measure, others jointly. One, a Nova Scotia board, helped the parent board by raising money for each "mission, and thus felt that they had an interest in all." Another complained that they were "hampel'ed in their work by male committees." while another, the presi- dent of a very large and influential society, said she "Vould rejoice to see their work lll,erged into one, for the burden and responsibility were great on women alone. She thought, however, that in that case woman should have a place on committees.
" The Evils of Child Marriages" was discussed by Miss Whately, for years missionary in Cairo, Egypt. She said "this custom was a p'eat hindrance to missionary work. There are now hundreds and hundreds of Mohammedans who attend my school and other schools, but no matter whether it be a native Copt or a Mohammedan, the girl is taken away at twelve."
Bishop Crowther, the rescued slave boy, now a bishop of the Church of England from West Africa, said: "Long ago, among the freed slave children at Sierra Leone, invaluable services were rendered by ladies. Men were helpless with their threats and scoldings, but by kindness the ladies enticed the children to school, and taught them with great succ~ss. To-day, also, ladies are filling very important posts in the Niger territory. Often children had to be whipped into school by the native :schooimaster, till a white lady came, who brought pictures and lesson sheets from England, and taught the children to sing. Soon the news spread, and the other children of the station came with zest, and learned to love education. At Bonny it was agreed by the chiefs that $10 a year should be paid for each boy and girl who attended the school. When the time came the chiefs objected to pay for the girls, 3S they could not afterward earn money as boys could. The Bishop himself then agreed to pay for the girls, who were trained to read, and sew, and knit and make bread. etc. A certain day came when the chiefs were entertained, and Miss Susan Jumbo-daughter of Oko Jumbo-made the brea.d, whtch her father praised without knowing "'I'ho had made it. When informed, he was greatly pleased, and from that time native scruples as to the utility of investing money on the education of girls disappeared.
Lady Aberdeen presided over a special llJeeting, and in a clear rich voice that could be heard all over the large auditorium, said: "The missionary conference, with its many testimonies of the world's need and of God's gracious work among the heathen, should awaken all Cll'istian people from selfish slumbers. She regarded the sight of so many missionaries and their active friends as a grand' one, and when she thought of the great number of Bl'itish and American nationality, she could not but realize that God has committed to the English-speaking race a very high duty in the evangelization of the world. Last year, with Lord Aberdeen, she had the privilege of seeing some of the missionaries at work in India, and also of attending such conferences as workers can there hold for prayer and mutual encouragement and help. The experience was one never to be forgotten. While now thanking the American delegates for coming to this great conference, she cordially aclmowledged the vigorous work of their agents in the mission field, and also that America had greatly inspired and quickened England in missionary effort. The missionaries have all told us one thingof the power of love, the power of Christ's love when it takes hold of the soul. ,.
In reference to openings in Japan, Dr. Warren of Japan said: "The women have'not been in the degeac1ed position they have in other countries, but have long been a great power both in society and politics. The childeen are under regular instruction, and the way is gradually being prepared for the reception of the gospel. Higher educatibn is well to the front also, and the openings for missionary ladies at the present time are many and important. What is wanted is that this. educational work should be accompanied by Christian teaching. Many things combine to accentuate this call to service for Christ, and already much blessing has [attended the efforts of women in the country.
"There is a great opening just now for work in mission schools. The Americans have done a great deal in this and in other respects. First in the country by some ten years, the Americans have ever since kept to the front, Especially are they ahead in women's work. The laborers do not go over in ones and twos, but in sixes and dozens, and their schools have been remarkably successful. In evangelization, also, the women have been greatly blessed. In conclusion, the speaker earnestly begged for more female laborers for Japan."
Of the openings in India, Rev. Mr. Karney said: "India is waiting for Engbsh women to go to her, not mere educators, Dot mere Christians, but consecrated workers for Christ going in the power of the Holy Ghost."
Of openings in China, Dr. Swanson said: "That if the mothers, the wives, and the daughters of a country are secured for Christ, the men are sure to follow; and in no country has a woman more influence than in China.
"There are difficulties to face. Those who go have to go into a new civilization, and to tread on ground more dangerous than they sometimes are aware of; but in the work of education an immense service is being done, not only among the young themselves, but indirectly among their parents also. Therefore th'! speaker maintained that China, of all other countries, is the field for the mission of women. The empire is awakening, .and now is the opportunity. She must either start into life or be buried out of sight; but she is not going to be buried. Here is the chance for pious women, and the female population is constantly sending forth a wail which calls loudly for the light and liberty of the gospel as well as education."
Rev. Dr. Langford, Secretary of the Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society of America. said: "Looking back upon the past, with its record of glorious enterprise and results, and looking to the futm'e, with its blessed possibIlities and opportunities, the speaker thoroughly believed that woman is to take a larger part than in the past in the evangelization of the worldnot only by going out into the field, but by looking to things at home. In the work of organization, and in getting together and putting into shape the facts which may kindle the fire of enthusiasm for missions, the women have a sphere of great influence. The pastor cannot find time, and has not the aptitude to do many things that are expected of him. In America the women have realized this and they are taking the missionary interest quite into their own hands-editing papers, distributing tracts, sending out reports and circulars, and, having faith to believe that it was by the Spirit of the living God that great works will be accomplished, they have organized prayer unions, to present the matter continually at the Throne of Grace. In conclusion the speaker prayed that God would own woman's work by making it a blessing to the entire human family."
The many social gatherings afforded a rat'e opportunity for these worldwide representatives to catch a glimpse of the best circles of Christian England. Our American ladies received very marked attention, and made an impression in the meetings, because, it is said, "They spoke with such freshness of thought and ease of manner."
The meeting was a great inspiration to aU who were present, and marks certain great facts, viz. that woman is a great power in missionary work, and that there is no longer separation or isolation of nations, of denominations or of language. There is one Bible, one faith, one great desire, on the part of missionaries, to preach the" unsearchable riches" to the people of the earth that are in darkness and the shadow of death.
lS89.] MISSIONARY HEROES IN AFRICA
MISSION ARY HEROES IN AFRICA.
BY ROBERT N. CUST, LL.D., LONDON.
My subject is not so much Africa, its people, its customs and its misfortunes, as the Christian pioneers and their work, and to this I restrict' myself. The missionaries cannot speak of themselves; it is the last thing that they woul<Lwish to touch upon, except to describe their shortcomings. A particular church or society cannot speak of the whole class fairly, as of some they know too much, and of others nothing at all. We see them in the committee room, when they are young and ardent for the fight, scarcely knowing the difficulties with which they have to contend. 'We see them a few years on more thoughtful, more subdued and chastened, yet not less earnest; we see them still later on, broken down, unequal for further service in the rleld, yet still longing to laugh at the doctor, and go back to their life's work. Some we never see again, for they remain where they fell. Many of them are men of high talent, who in secular professions might have achi{'ved wealth and fame, or in the home church might have risen to dignity and influence, but, smitten with the wondrous love of saving the souls of the heathen, they have gone forth, and fresh candidates for the holy offioe are never wanting. What is their motive? A simple faith in the Word of the Lord, who bought them. Wishing that my hearers may carry away something that may cling to their memory, I ask them to think of the famous eleventh chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, in which he traces back to faith all the great events in the history of Israel, and I ask leave reverently to adapt his argument to the history of the pioneers of African Missions.
By faith the United Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut in Germany, more than a century and a half ago, were stirred up to send out a missionary to the poor Hottentots, who were treated as dogs by the Dutch colonists. By faith George Schmidt at once offered himself to go out, and suffered hardship with a persecuted race, and, having been blessed by the conversion of a few, was forbidden to baptize them, and summarily sent back to Europe by men who called themselves Protestants, and who were jealous of their own liberty. By faith, fifty years !:.tter (1792), the United Brethren sent out three more missionaries, who founded the illustrious mission of Genadendal, or Vale of Grace, on the very walls of the ruined house of George Schmidt, seven years after the great patriarch of African Missions had been caned to his reward, dying, like Livingstone and Krapf, on his knees.
By faith the London and Wesleyan societies, the Established Church of England, the Free Church of Scotland, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, took up a share in the blessed work amidst other races of South Africa, and out of their ranks by faith Moffat undertook to translate the Bible into the language of the· Be-Chuana, Wilder into the language of the Zulu, and Boyce, Appleyard, and others, into the language of the Ama-Xosa, or Kafir-Ianguages deemed at the time to be incapable of expressing simple ideas, but which, deftly handled, proved to be apt exponents of every variety of human thought, with an unlimited vocabulary, and an unsurpassed symmetry of structure.
By faith Moffat's son-in-law, Livingstone, abando:<J.ed his home, his chapel, and his school, and started off on his great missionary progress, which was destined to illuminate all Africa south of the Equator. By faith he bore up under the perils, the fatigues, the opposition and the bereavement of his deal' wife, who sleeps on the shore of the Zambesi. By faith he worked his way to Benguela, on the west coast, Kllimani on the east, and Nyangwe on the River Kongo to the north, discovering new rivers, new lakes, new tribes, and new languages. Fi"om the drops oC sweat which feU from his limbs in those grea': travels have sprung up, like flowers, Christian missions, founded by men of different denominations and different views of church govm"nment, but united in the fear of Uod, the faith in Christ, love of Africa, and veneration for Livingstone. To the impulse, given by this great apostle, must be attributed the missions of the Establh,hed Church ot Scotland at Blantyre, the Free Chm"ch of Scotland at Livingstonia, the London Society on Lake Tanganykia, and the Universities Mission at Zanzibar. To these must be added the missions of the Church of Rome. In an interview which some years ago I had at Tunis with Cardinal LavigEH"ie, to implore him to locate his Equatorial MisSIons at a certain distance from stations occupied by Protestants, to which he agreed in word, though his practice has been different, he spoke with admiration of Livingstone. But to this servant of God ~t was not conceded to seQ one single ft"uit of his labors. He saw no mission spring up; like Moses, he only beheld the promised land from Pisgah; he died without knowing of the secret of the source of the Nile and the Kongo. But even after death he seemed to have power to charm and to conquer, for by faith his bones were conveyed by his faithful Africans to the sea-shore, from Ilala on Lake Bangweolo, where he died, along a route never traversed before, as if the great discoverer had power to add to geographical knowledge after his death, and the great philanthropist wished te leave a lasting proof that the natives of South Africa can be faithful and loyal, and capable of high enterprises, if they are kindly treated.
By faith Krapf and Rebman sat year after year at the watchtower of Mombasa, waiting till the day should dawn, calling to each other, "Watchmen, what of the night ?". writing home descriptions of vast lakes, and snowcapped mount~ins on the Equator, causing themselves to be derided, both as missionaries and geographers; yet they lived to be honored in both capacities, they lived to see the day dawn at last, to hear of Frere-Town being es- tablished as a station for released slaves at Mombasa, to hear of those internal seas being navigated, and that snow-capped mountain being visited. In hi~ old age Krapf in tearful gratitude read Henry Stanley's challenge, which rang with trumpet-sound from the capital of U-Ganda, and was gallantly answered by the Church Missionary Society, and he lived to hear of the great Apostle's Street, which by faith he had suggested, being carried out from Zanzibar to the Great Lakes, to be extended westward down the Kongo, until hands are shaken with the Baptist missionaries working up that river from the West.
By faith the good Baptist Society established themselves in the island of Fernando Po, and, driven thence by the intolerance of the Spaniards, they crossed over to the mainland, and found what seemed once, but, alas! is no longer, a more enduring inhel"itance in the Kamerun Mountains. By faith here Saker lived, labored and died, translating the Holy Scriptures into the language of the Dualla. but leaving his work to be revised by his .young daughter, opening out a new field for the talent and zeal of women. Hence in fullness of time by faith Comber started to conquer new kingdoms of the Kongo. making, alas! the heavy sacrifice of the life of his wife at San Salvador, before he reached Stanley Pool, with the great heart of Africa open to his assault; for in their hands the Baptist missionaries had carried gentle peace, and their vessel with that name still carried them onward on their blessed and peaceful enterprise.
By faith our good brethren in North America were among the first to send out their agents to West and South Africa, to pay back the debt which they oweu, and to atone for the wrong which their forefathers had inflicted. The sun was thus taken baek to the East, to lighten those sitting in darkness. Each and everyone of their churehes by faith have vied in the desire to found strong missions, translate the Holy ScriptUl:es, and to press ,.forward the work of freedom, education, ciyilization and evangelization.
By faith the holy and humble-hearted Protestant churches on the Continent of Europe, less amply endowed in material resources. but more richly in intellect, industry and self-consecration, have sent forth a golden stream "- of missionaries from the centers of Basle and Canton de Vaud in Switzer" land; of Barmen, Br"lmen, Berlin, Herrnhut and Hermansbul'g" in Germany; from Norway. Sweden, Finland and France, to hold the fort in the most exposed situations, to suffer imprisonment, to achieve great literary works, to found living churches, and attract to themselves the affections of the African. The names of the devoted men and women who have lived and died for Christ may not be known to the world, but are written in the Book of Life.
By£aith Samuel Crowther was rescued from the captivity into which he, like Joseph, had been sold by his brethren, was restored to his country, to be no longer a slave, but a teacher, a leader, a benefactor, and an'example; by faith he was set· apart to give the lie to the enemies of the African, to stultify the idle taunt, that a negro is incapable, by his nature, of culture, piety, honesty, and social virtues; by faith -he was raised up to mark an epoch in the sad chronicle of his persecuted race, and to be the firstfruit of the coming harvest of African pastors and evangelists. By faith his son Dandison, Henry Johnson and James Johnson were blessed with the great grace of being allowed to tread in his footsteps.
If any of my readers desire to know the real worth of the African mission– ary, let them read the lives of 11rs. Hinderer at Ibadan, and 11rs. Wakefield at Ribe, and of many other noble men and women, of whom this self-seeking world was not worthy, who left comforts at home to labor among the Africans; who, in spite of overpowering maladies, have, been, like Hannington, unwilling to leave ihe country of their choice, and determined to return in spite of the warning voice of their doctor, or who, like him, have died as good confessors, counting not their lives worthy, but to fill up what remail!s of the sufferings of Christ. Such lives, in their simple eloquence, cannot fail to chasten the proud heart, to drive out selfish egotism, and to sustain the sinking spirit; they leave a ray of tender light behind them, showing that the age of chivalry and of self-abnegation has not entirely passed away; that the nineteenth century, in spite of its wbrldliness and infidelity, is still able to supply crusaders to fight the battle of our 1I'£aster.
We read often in secular books, and too often in missionary biographies, how our Heavenly Father is supposed on some occasions to have graciously interposed to save the life of one of His poor children; in Roman Catholic accounts this benevolent interference is always attributed to the Virgin 11ary, or St. Teresa. Not a sparrow, indeed, falls without His command; but if sur:h interference is presumed when a good man's life is saved, how shall we account for the absence of this providential care when the good man is cruelly killed, or cut off by premature disease? Such is but a narrow view of God's providence. His ways are not our ways; He has chosen His servants for particular services: some to honor, some to dishonor. Some are selected to -live and work, to others is conceded the peculiar grace to die nobly and set a gloriolls example. Deaths are required as well as lives to complete the picture of the new life. Some may follow the steps of our Lord in a life of beneficenM and mercy; to others is granted th'e sweeter lot of filling up that which is behind of His sufferings. And in the last struggle how by grace they have been sustained, doing nothing common or mean in the last memorable scene of their earthly passion, but sealing their faith by their manner of meeting death!
Hear some of the dying words of these soldiers of Christ. In the hour of death all things are terribly real. There is no room for deception or false enthusiasm there. I have selected these words without distinction of country or denomination, but their number might be multiplied indefinitely. Arrhenius, the Swede, had only a few months of labor in the Galla country after years of preparation for his duties. His last words were: .. Jesus, help me I Jesus, help me I Amen."
Prretorius, the Swiss, was sent out for a few months' inspection of the missions on the Gold Coast; he called upon me on his way out, and promised to call again on his return; but after a few weeks in Africa he fell. His last words were: .. Is it true that I am going home to-day 1"
Of all the smaller English missions, the Livingstone-Kongo was conspicuous for its overflowing (If zeal and life and promise, and of all its agents McCall was the brightest; but he was struck down in mid-work. His last words were recorded by a stranger who visited him. Let each one of us lay them to our hearts: .. Lord, I gave myself, body, mlnd and soul to Thee. I consecrated my whole life and being to Thy service, and now, if it please Thee to take myself, instead Q/ the work 1vhich I would do for Thee, what is that to me 1 Thy will be done I"
He had hoped that his destined course might have been among- the brave [wd strong, to toil with high pUl'pose in the service of the African; but God had chosen another part for him, and as a true Christian he recogI).ized that God had chosen it well, and no weak mUl'mul'S escaped the lips of one who was ready to liv:l or ready to die. Golaz, of the French Mission to Senegambia, as well as his young wife, died within the year after their arrival. His farewell words were : "Do not be discouraged, if the first laborers fall in the field_ Their graves will mark the wall for their 8uccesSorS, who will march past them with great strides."
Pinkerton, of the American Mission in Zululand, was ordered to lead a new mission into Umzila's kingdom; he conveyed his wife and children to North America, and returned joyfully to his task. He met with many obstacles and rebuffs, but at length found himself well on the road. His last written lines were to his wife: "Thefutnre will bring its needed light, and work, and solace. My thoughts turn sadly to you and our children. All well. We go right on."
It was to him, indeed, all well, for in a few days he breathed hill last sigh alone in the African jungle; he had gone right on into glory I .On the other side of Africa, Bagster, of the same mission, had been sent to found a mission among the Ambandu; a few months before his death he had proposed to write on" The Missionary's Joys." In the last page of his jOUl'nal we find: .. We hear His voice of cheer: Go forward: one mau of yon shall chase ten thousand; the Lord your God has promised yon .the good land, which be has given to yon; most joyous is the service of our King I "
Thomson, of the Baptist Mission in the Kamerun country (that famous mission which has during 1885-86 been uprooted and destroyed by the late German Emperor), a few weeks before his death in September, 1884, unconscious of the l'uin which was so soon to come upon the scene of his labors, on his chapels and his mission schools, wrote as Collows : "I am sustained and upheld amid many and heavy anxieties by the growing conviction that the dear Master is, in His great condescension, nSing me here for the settlement of many difficulties; and llook forward to;the future with more hope than I have known for years. I believe the work here will soou assume a better and a brighter aspect, aud my heart glows within me, as by faith I see the time. Oh for more and more of grace to cast all our burdens upon the divine bnrden-bearer I Onr hope and trust are in Him alone I "
With such men (and these few are but types of many) Africa and the whole world can be conquered. Such deaths are great victories. Such words tell us that some portion of us is immortal. These confessors saw the promises afar off, and were persuaded of them, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims, and desiring a better country, that is a heavenly.
Still, they were men with like weaknesses, and cravings for love, as ourselves, and it is with heavy heart that I read of the last moments of such servants of God, dying sometimes without the solaces of religion, with no fond breast to lean upon, with none of the ordinary necessities of civilized life to sustain and comfort and smooth the path to that bourne, which men call death, but which indeed is th~ portal to everlasting life. The last journal of Hannington (who was present when I read this address four years ago) brings this point of view vividly before me. I can see that faithful Christian in the midst of his sad environment, oppressed with anxiety for the future of the work to which he had consecrated himself, still sustained by the daily reading of, and meditation upon, the Psalms of David. We find in these pages, so wonderfully preserved, no rebellious murmuring, no cries for vengeance, no appeal to the arm of the flesh. Still, as he lay tossing on his unsavory heap of straw, before his feverish eyes, during those sad days and weary nights, would rise the vision of the peaceful home, the pleasing duties, the loved companion, the little children, whom he had voluntarily left, obeying the call to serve his Master; and not in vain, for a still voice would whisper to him: "It is the Lord's will: obedience is of the essence of true courage and true love. The battles of the Heavenly King are fought in suffering as well as doing, and in dishonor, in prison, and in shameful death, as truly as In the mission chappel, the mission school, and the center oj a Christian village."
We seem at this period of the history of our missionary churches to be living over again the trials and persecutions of the early Christians in the first century. Do we not seem to hear the echo of the words of the Virgin-Saint, who at ArIes in France was slowly let down feet-forward into a vessel of boiling oil, becauRe she refused to deny her Master?
.. Jesus Christ, help me! Praise be to Thee! Lord Jesus, grant me patience! I sutrer for Thy name's sake: I suffer for a little time onlll; I suffer oJ '~1I own accord: Jesus, let me never be confounded! take me ! take me ! ..
Time would fail me to tell of Schlenker, and Reichardt, and Schon; of Goldie and Edgerley ; of Casalis, Mabille and Coillard; of James Stewart, of Lovedale, and his namesake on the Nyassa; of Grant and Wilson; of Ram-· seyer and Christaller ; of Mackensie, the Bishop who died on the River Shire; and of Steere the Bishop who sealed up the translation of the last chapter of Isaiah ready for the printer, and then fell asleep at Zanzibar; oC Parker, the Bishop, wise and gentle, holy and self-restrained, who was called to his rest on the Southern shores of Victoria Nyanza; of Wakefield and New; of Stern, Mayer and Flad; of Southon, the medical missionary, who died at U-Rambo; of dear Mullens, who could not hold himself back from the fight, and who sleeps in U-Sagara; of many a gentle ladies' grave-for women have never been found wanting to share the honor and the danger of the Cross.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKs OF AMISSIONAlty CHARACTER
I have seen and known so many of them. A few weeks before we were holding sweet converse, and then the tidings of the death of Fome one of them came floating back by letter or telegmm. They had, indeed, all gone into a br country, and to me they seem to be all there still; and, when I am musing about Africa, or studying some point connected with thatcou~try, and I look up from my paper to my African library, the forms of departed fdends seem to enter at the open door, and I seem to see theil' faces again, and to ask them their opinion. Young Riviere, a Jesuit priest, who had been turned out of Algeria and taken refuge in North Wales, used to corre- spond with me about Afdca. One day he called upon me in London and told me that he had received his orders to start at once to the Zambesi Mission field, to take the place of a dead colleague. He pl'omised to write to me from Tete, and to clear up many questions for me; but he never reached his des- tination, for he sank under his iil'st attack of fever at the mouth of the Zam- besL Differing as I do from the Church of Rome in every principle and detail of their evil system, I can still recognize and thank God for the zeal, and love of souls, and total abnegation of self, which distinguishes hel' mis- sionaries. Oh, when they are such, would that they wel'e ours!
I often think of that famous scene in one of Walter Scott's romances, where the clansman and his seven sons all fell for their chieftain, stepping forth, one after the other, gladly into the gap, and Cl'ying: "One more for Eachim !" So it is with the reserve forces of missionaries. "One more for Christ!" And how much better to have young lives and treasure spent by the missions in trying to save African souls, than wasted by the English nation in slaughtering the unoffending and undaunted freemen of the Sudan, for the purpose of main taming an imaginary prestige of having the strength of a giant without the grace of knowing how to use that strength as a Christ- ian. Wherefore, seeing that we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and press forward more and more upon our bounden duty aud service to evangelize Africa. We owe this debt to those who have gone before, that they should not have diedin vain. The .Missionary is indeed the most glorious outcome of 'the nineteenth century; the honest God-fearing man in the darkest corner of the earth, where he is most wanted. to represent the highest type of 'Christian patience and mo- rality.
.. Oh I that we now had there But one ten thousand of those men in Engla.nd, Who do no work to-dall ! ..
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
[EDITORIAL.l Report of the M/,8sionary Conference, London, 1888. Edited by Rev. Jas. Johnston, F.S.S., Secretary of Conference. Vol. 1. London, Jas. Nisbet & Co. This is the first volume of what promises to be the most perfect encyclopedia of missions in the world. We can say no more. We would not be without that report ifit cost $100 instead of $2.00. The most distingni,hed men in tbe world, in the departmcnt of Oriental languagcs, rellgions, philosophies, and ~nstom., as well as the specific history of missions, are among the contributors to these volumes.
This first volume contains exhaustive papers on Islam, Buddhism. Roman Catholici.m, Relations of Home aud Foreigu lIfissions, Commerce, etc. Then Part II. gives the mission fielus of the world-India, Ceylon, Burmah, China, Japan, Africa and Madagascar, Turkey, Oceanica, North and South America, etc. The second volnme will be eqnally comprehensive and valuable, let us rather say invaluable. I have bought twenty-five copies myself to give away, and if I had the money would pnt a copy in the hands of every minister and theological student III the country. The Arner lcanedition is issued by F. H. Revell, Bible House, N. Y.; Chicago, 150 Madi~on St.-A. T. P.
Life Of John Mlson, D.D., F.R.S. By George Smith, LL.D. London, John Mnrray. This is another of Dr. SmIth's masterly bOoks on missions. We intend to give hereafter a review article
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK
-on this remarkable man, but for the present advise every lover of heroic life and labor to read the volume. The following landatory notice from the leading journal of the world, the London 7'imlJ8, we adopt verbatim: "Dr. Smith's life of the late Dr. John Wilson of Bombay is without exception one' of the most valuable records' of missionary work in India ever submitted to the English public, and equally worthy of its subject and its author. • • • Dr. George Smith's mature knowledge of Indian affairs has enabled him to give an admirable presentation of Dr. 'Wilson's life and labors in con- nection with the great public improvements and progress of the years, extending over two genera- tions of official service during which he resided in Bombay. Dr. Smith has given us not simply a biography of Dr. Wilson, but a complete history of missionary, philanthropic, and educational enterprise in Western India, from the governorship of Monntstuart Elphinstone,1819-27, to that of Sir Bartle Frere, 1862-67. He has arranged the many subjects with which he has had to deal and the materials placed at his disposal with great simplicity, clearnesr, and efIect."
Distinguished Witnesses. By Rev. John Liggins. New York, Baker & Taylor Co. This book is timely. It fits the need of the day as tenon fits mortise in a good joint. To decry and even deny the good results of the work of heroic missionaries is easy; but the logic of events will convince any candid mind, and in this book there is a mighty massing of testimony. Nehemiah is not alone in his experience. He met manifold forms of antagonism: apathy and lethargy on the part of Jews, maliciOus enmity and derisive ridicule upon the part of Ashdodite and Ammonite and Arabian. But he simply held his tongue, minded his own business, and built the wall, hung the gates and established law and order. "A light word is the Devil's keenest sword;" there are still many that are willingly ignorant, and if all that they do not know were published, the world itself conld not 'contain the books that would be written. We must disregard the assaults of ridicule and enlighten ignorance. Let us give tae people the facts, and the facts in abundance. They may become to some the fingers of God.
In this valuable 'l'olume the high character and grand influence of missions are established in the mouth, not of two or three, but of hundreds of unimpeachable witnesses. Representative men and women, whose names carry the weight of authority, and from every class in the community, here appear on the witness stand, commanding a hearing in the Court of the Judgment. They speak what they know and testify that they have seen, and only those whose eyes are blinded by prejudice or whose hearts are hardened by willful hostility, will refuse to receive their witness. Modern missions have little to fear from the harsh or hasty words ofa few like Dr. Oscar Lenz, Winwood Reade, Sir Lepel Griffin, J. J. Monteiro, Mrs. Scott Stevenson, or even James A. Froude and Canon Taylor, while such as R. H. Dana and J. P. Donovan, JamescRussell Lowell and Alfred Rugsell Wallace, Robert N. Cnst and James B. Angell, Wm. Elliot Griffis and Wm. Fleming Stevenson, Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Thomas Tancred, and Sir Richard Temple, Lords Lawrence and Loftus, Napier and Northbrook, Generals Edwards and Haig, Wallace and Wilson, Taylor and Gordon, Admirals Wilkes and Sullivan, Foote and Gore; nay, where Darwin no less than Dutrerin, and Keshub Chnnder Sen,.no lessthan Constance Gordon Cummiug, feel constrained to give testimony to the unspeakable value of Christian missions.-A. T. P.
Ohristianity and Humanity. By Chas. S. Eby, B.A. This is a course of lectures delivered in Meljis Kuaido, Tokio, Japan, and addressed to the young Japanese mind. The author is a wideawake ~tndent of the great problem presented by a people just losing faith in the traditions and religions of the p·ast and in danger of embracing any plansible errors which offer themselves. The house is empty, swept, garnished; and now the question is. Shall it be abandoned to the occupation of a sevenfold worse infidelity, or preoccnpied by Christian belief? The author says that a short time since the cry was" No religion" ; then another cry was heard, ~'Give us some religion " ; and now the question is, " What religion?" These lectures are an attempt to answer this last inqniry. They were delivered in English and Japanese on alternate Saturdays. Two of the lectures are contributed to the volume by Prof. J. A. Ewing and Prof. J. M. Dixon, respectively. It seems to us that this outline of Christian apologetics is a very thoughtfnl and fresh one, calculated to awaken attention and well repaying careful reading. Not a few Occidental students will find in them much strong meat for thought.-A. T. P_._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ II.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK.
Missionary Society of the Methodist turns from the various Annual Con- Ohurch (Oanada), ferences show an aggregate gain in the membership of the church of SIXTY-THIRD annual report, 1887-88. over 10,000, and a fail- proportion of The General Board in their report this gain has been won on mission fields. On the financial side there is say: "The results of the past year's an advance of some $18,000, sufficient, work call for devout thanksgiving to the Head of the Church. The reat least, to show that interest in ality and zeal, and should lead us to mission work is by no means on the consider whether the time is not near decline. . . . Since our foreign work when the church should turn hereyes was begun fifteen years ago, the in- toward yet another part of the negcome of the society has steadily risen lected field of foreign heathendom. from $108,000 to $220,000, and such Verily, the fields are" white unto showers of blessing have fallen upon harvest," and the demand of the hour the home churches that there hasbeen is for reapers to gather in the Eoheaves. an almost continuous revival. The reports this year from Japan willgive After a full and detailed statement a further stimulus to missionary liber- of operations, the following summary isgiven: DlCOlllE A]iD EXPENDITURE FOB 1887-88, COMPARED WITH THAT FOR 1886·87. Income.
Increase. Decrease. Toronto Conf~rence. " ………………………………….. '" $44,488 15 $62009 London………………………………………………… . 16,810 44 54042 Niagara …………..•…………………………………… 25.788 71 Guelph ………………………………………•………. 17,883 01 1,09230 $3io'oo Bay of Quinte Conference …………………….•…..•…… 19.387 29 21824 ~~~t[~~! ~~df~~~~.w~~i C6riti~eric~'::::::::::::::::::::::::: 34;70833 2,001 15 272'4R 6,59536 1,131 94 British Columbia Conference ……………..•……………. 2,.33 17 Nova Scotia Conference. . …………………………… . 11,594 88 New Brunswick and P. E. I. Conference ….•………•..•…. 8,736 15 750'99 92 15 Newfoundland Conference …………………………….. . 5,405 42 30132 Legacies •………………………………•…………….. 14,802 38 12,89608 Donations on annuity •……………………..•………..• 1,500'00 Indian Department ……………………………………. . 8,875'58 Miscellaneous …………•…•………..•……………….• 2,01807 4oo'7i 17240 Total iucome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. $219,480 00 $19,953 2.'1 $2,34759 Net increase……………………………… . 17,605 66 Expenditure. $i60' 95 $4.55079 TorontoConference, including Japau …………………….. $29,21804 London Conference…………………………………….. 10,034 61 154'94, g: ~:e~~a:::::::::::::::::::::::.,…… ','.:::'.:::::::::::::::::::::: ~:!~ 532 99 2754 2;66993 Bay of Quinta Conference . …………………….. '" … .. .. 10,752 55 1,055 57 Montreal Conference, including French Methodist Institute.·. . 25,165 79 Manitoba and North-West Conference…………………… 29,681 70 1,426'si British Columbia Confereuce…………………. …..•…… 17,765 28 Nova Scotia Conference ………………………….. :. . . . .• 6,615 91 685 81 New Brunswick and P. E. I. Conference…. ……………… 7,587 51 51018 28 Newfoundland Conference… .. .. …………•.•…•……….. 12,678 42 Mouut Elgin Industrial Institution……..•..•• , ••.• , •. •• •. . . . . 3,458 33 2,03049 Sundries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. .. .• •. . •. . . •. . . . . . . • 18,359 28 Cost of management……………………………………. 10,571 51 33305 2,227 12 1,62898 Total expenditure …….•…•…•……•….•… " $195,469 5! $12,343 17 $6,15978 Net increase….•……••……………..•….•…•……….. 618,339 Leipzig Missionary Society. the mortality has beeu so great that it has less European missionaries than stations at present. Number of stations…………………….. 23 Ordained European missionaries………… 22 British and Foreign Bible Sooiety. Native preachers ………… '" …•……… H Candidates.. . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . '" THE eighty-fourth report of this Catechists.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 57 noble society is a voluminous book Teachers……………………. : …•••…• 267 and one full of interest. The circu- I ,ferior assistants of varions sorts………. 130 lation of the Scriptures last year was the largest in the history of the so- Total force ………………………472 ciety, the total number of Bibles, Testaments, and Portions being INCOME FOB LAST FISCAL YEAR. 4,206,0::12. The gross total of re- ceipts amounted to £250,382 lOs. 5d. C) ltributions ………………….. $69,61440 The total of expenditures, £224,823 lItere.t on legacies, profits of the Mis- 98. lid. This pays the debt of previ- ous year, over £10,000, and leaves sionsblatt, etc…………………. 4,098 72 Balance in treasury•….••…… 10,440 240 £15,000 in the treasury toward a.n- Total. ……….•….•..• ,. …..$84,153 a6 other year's work. Expenditures ……………………$7!,825 60 Balance in treasury…………. $11,835 60 This shows a falling oft" of nearly $4,000 from 1886. The society's chief work is in South India, where it numbers more than 13,000 church Imlmbers. Notwithstanding it has sent out in the last three years eleven missionaries, . 125 The society a.fl'ords essential aid to tion cif the revised Rarotongan Bible. a large number of missionary soci- In Northwest America the work is eties by liberal grants of Bibles and .chiefly "among our own people." Testaments for distribution in their respective fields. Thus in West By the important work o~ giving Africa the society's work blends with grants-in-aid to missionary societies that of the Church Missionary and for the employment of Bible-women Wesleyan Societies' work. Develop- in the East, 300 Christian women ment is the law of South Africa, and were occupied in making heathen Bible work keeps pace with it. In and Mohammedan women better ac- East Africa the society works largely quainted with the ·Word of God. with the Universities' Mission, par. Translations in six fresh languages ticularly at Zanzibar and Lake Ny- were added to the list in 1887-88, and assa; it also helps the C. M. S. In with the com pletion of the version for Egypt direct colportage work has Japan last year it is believed that for the first time been commenced the entire Bible now exists in all the among Moslems. In no part of the great languages of the world. So society's work are the accounts more mightily grows the Word of God and discouraging than in Syria and Pal- prevails! estine. The Government opposes, the people are ignorant and unawak- Seventh-day Baptist Missionary Sooiety. ened. In Abyssinia but little work was possible, owing to the Italian THE forty-sixth annual session was military occupation; while Arabia held at Leonardsville, N. Y., Aug. 23, seems ready to be more largely oc- 1888. The society maintains a succupied. From Persia comes the rec- cessful mission in China. The staord of the sure though gradual ad- tistics of the evangelistic and school vance of the kingdom of God, while work there are encouraging. Mr. and there are indications of the disinte- Mrs. Randolph have been added to the gration of Mohammedanism. The Shanghai mission. The society also work in India is carried on by six has a small mission in Haadem, Holauxiliary societies-those at Cal- land. Also mission work is carried cutta, Madras, Bombay, Bangalore, on in Austria, and on alimiterl scale Allahabad, and Lahore; it is charac- among the Jews in New York City. tel;ized as wide and resistless, though But the society's efforts are laJ'gely gradual in its advance. Threeauxil- expended in home mission work, iaries, Jaffna, Colombo, and Kandy, chiefly at the South and West. work in Ceylon. In Burmah the society gives grants of Scriptures to SUMMARY. the Burmah Bible and Tract Society. In Malaysia the work is only in its , Ohina.-3 American missionaries; 2 native sixth year, but is vigorously advanc- preachers; 2 native teachers; 1 Bible woman; ing. In North China the agent con- 5 other native helpers; 5 baptisms; 4,220 pa_ siders that Bible work is the most tients at the dispensary; 82 medical visits; 40 extensive seed-sowing of all the forms snrgical operations. of missionary enterprise. In Mid- China there is cause for much en- Holland.-l paid missionary, bnt really 3 couragement. So also in South workers, and 5 additions. China. No message of the year is brighter than that received from Mission to Jews.-2 workers; much persoual Japan. The sales have nearly quadrupl~d. In Melanesia and Polynesia work; nO baptisms, but several adherents. One event of the year is the comrle- Horne MissWns.-24 workers, including the secretary; 150 additions-85 by baptism; and 5 churches and 7 Bible schools organized.
Scandinavian MzssWn.-l worker.
Total fO'T' America.-26 workers; 150 addl- tions-85 by baptism; 5 cburches and 7 Bible schools organized, one church and one school being among colored people in New Orleans.
Total additions on the whole field, 100-91 by baptism, Reeeipts. age the funds needed for the sup. Balance cash In treasury, port of their Bethel and its w.ark, and perhaps a surplus to be sent September 12, 1887…… $247 35 to the general treasury in New Receipts by contributions and income from bequests and permanent funds, York. Where it is not possible to from September 12, 1887, raise sufficient money in the vicinity to September 20,1888…. 8,633 01 of the work, the parent society feels Received on loans ……. " 3,800 00-$12,680 36 bound to supplement the deficiency. " E:r:pens68.
Paid salaries and other ex- At present, says the Secretary, penses from September there are urgent calls to service in 12,1887, to September 20, behalf of the three millions of sea, 1888 …………………$9,700 98 men of all nations, and there is Paid loans …..•………. 2,800 00-$12,500 98 Cash balance September a great opportunity to enlarge this 20,1888………….. .. $17988 work. Men are wanted specially en- dowed for labor among seamen. We The Amerioan Seamen's Friend Society. need more money. We need collec- THIS society was organized more tions from churches. In arranging than sixty years ago. Its object is the list of benevolent objects we.
",to improve the social and moral respectfully ask church officers to condition oi seamen, by uniting the remember that our society is a Home efforts of the wise and good in their and Foreign Missionary Society to bellaH; by promoting in every port seamen, who would be largely neg- boarding-houses of good character, lected were it not for its efforts in savings banks, register offices, libra- their behalf. We need gifts from ries, museums, reading rooms, and individuals. American shipping mer- schools; and also the ministrations chants who formerly helped our of the gospel and other religious caus,e are few in num.ber compared blessings. " with other days when there was an At the present time there are 17 American marin/e. But the seamen, laborers at 14 home stations, and 19 whether on sailing vessel or on laborers at 17 foreign stations, repre- steamer, whether American or for- senting this society. eign, are swarming over the world, The Loan Library work is efficient exposed to moral temptations, phys- and useful, the society having sent ical hardships and corrupting influ- out nearly ten thousand of these ences.
libraries to entertain and instruct Finances.-During the year ending seamen. It acts also as an agent of March 31, 1888, the cash receipts of the Bible and Tract Societies in dis- the society from legacies, donations, tributing the Word of God and relig- loan library contributions and other ious publications among the men of sources of income amounted to $45,- the sea. It has published 56,900 027.08. The disbursements for mis- copies of the Sailors' Magazine, 20,- sionary work, publications, loan hbra- 000 copies of the Seamen's Friend, ries, expenses, etc., amounted to and 124,200 copies of the Life Boat $41,004.81.
during the past year. In some ports The society owns a Sailors' Home the society is aided by local Sea- in New York, in which 111,326 sea- men's Friend Societies, auxiliary to men have found, since 1842, the com- this society. These develop local forts of a home and protection from sympathies, utilize local energies, the sharks which prey upon "pOel"
choose competent missionaries and Jack" in a great seaport. It is the superintend their work. It is ex- policy of the society to foster by its pected of these, wherever possible, influence homes, orphanages, savings that they will raise in the vicin- banks, reading rooms and similar ad·
OORRESPONDENOE AND GENERAL INTELLlGENOE. 12'7
juncts to the fundamental work of for the sailors' legal rights, hying to preaching the gospelandsavingsouls. secure them by legal f'nactmentsand It also stands up, as far as it can, to vindicate them when violated.
III.-CORRESPON DENCE and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
Africa. to the mission, and at a very low rate. It is toaching to print the fol- LAGOS, WESTERN AFRICA, Sept. 30, 1888. lowing response from a far-off mis- DEAR EDITORS.-Although I am unknown sionary, Mrs. Dr. Metheny, though her own mission· is in great need.- to you in the 11esh, yet I beg to write to you EDS.] that I have been traveling all over West- MERBINE, July 30, 1888. ern Africa conducting revival meetings, MRS. M. E. BEALL-DEAR SISTER: I read and delivering at the same time some tem- your appeal for funds in THE REVIEW. It perance lectures, and so try to deepen the stirred my heart so that I felt that though Ilpirituallife of a few who are only satisfied I could only give a little, I must give that, with mere formal Christianity, and to save and perhaps the Lord would put it into the some from the cursed rum and gin traffic, hearts of others who were more able, to give which is daily slaying its thousands in our according to their ability. We are in debt streets. I desire humbly to appeal through ourselves somewhat for our own house, your kind infiuence to a few or all of the which we built large enough to accommo- Religious Tract Societies in the United date our boarding-school and preaching ser- States, for a free grant of Gospel and Tem- vice. Onr Board was not willing to go to perance tracts, which will be of great use the expense of building, and we felt that we in my evangelistic work. The part of the could not do without the buildings. so we country where I am now conducting mis- took the savings of my husband's life-time, sion services is totally in want of $2,000, and $800 of'a legacy which his danghtracts and wall sheets of Scripture texts. ter left me. The $2,000 was all swallowed up I shall be exceedingly thankful, and my in the lot, so in order to complete the house poor African brethren will be g-rateful to we borrowed money from the Board, to be you, if you will supply us with these. Before repaid by the rent of the house. The mission this gets to your hands I shall be at Accra has the use of the first and second stories. for revival services, where you will please Our work here is new-begun in 1883-though addresame. I have been sixteen and a half years in the field-ten and a half in Latakia, Syria; six I am your faithful, humble servaut, as a teacher. My husband has been twenty~ four. There are now 171 communicants in GEORGE ROSE. and about Latakia. The force there con- sists of Rev. Easson and family, Dr. Balph East Oentral Africa. 23, 188~ and family, Misses Wylie, Edgar, and Dodds of the girls"school. We here are all one BANDAWE, LAKE NYASSA, Aug. family-Dr. and I, our four children, Misses Sterrett and Joseph. We have some Roman DEAR EDIT<»IS : In the article, •. The De- Catholics, but more Maronitesandstill more Greeks. Our special work is among a pagan' serted Mission," in the May number of THE sect, nominally Moslems, but really a secret sect. We also do some work amonlr bona_ REVIEW (p. 361), I notice the following: fide Moslems. For this reason we a~e bit_ terlyopposed by the Turkish Government. "Exclusive of • . . efficient help rendered One of our teachers has for more than three months been in prison for teaching among without compensation by the African Lakes these people. Our life is one continual strain of anxiety on account of our poor Co." people. Since coming here we have had a great number of people under instruction, Work done" without compensatirm" means a.nd we have a congregationol church mem.. bers, and their children, numbering 60. Bework done at the expense of the 8hareholders, sides these some have died and some have gone away. In all 30 adults have been bnt I venture to assert that au exnmination of brought in from.heathenism. How could any the books of the Livingstonia Mission will ie Of Us endure one had not the fure Word of prove, in the most conclusive manner, that the statement in THE REVIEW has not the slightest fonndation in fact.
School work is at present in fnll swing at this station. A staff of 36 native teachers is kept well employed; abont 1,000 children attend the schools dally to receive religions and other in· strnction. Yonrs trnly, ROBT. GOSSIP, Jill.
Asia Minor.
[IN the July number, 1888, p. 530, we gave a brief appeal from Mrs. Beall of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, for help to purchase property essential God to rest on t Dear sister, I hope your selves exceedingly well off if they could· get fur- work may be abundantly blessed. Please lough as orten as the average civil servant get~ remember our work (Reformed Pres. Cove· it, not to speak of the three months' privilege nanter) in your prayers. leave which the latter can enjoy once in three years withont his right to furlough being af- "!Oour sister in Christ, Cected. A good deal might be said abont the devotion of the average civil servant to his MARY E. METHENY. work; bnt my design in writing is purely de- fensive. In di a.. Dr. Cust complains that the domestic affairs [WE admit the fo!owing from a of missionaries bulk too largely in official re- worthy missionary in IIl(lia as but ports. Sometimes it may be so; but that evil fair. In the September number we conld be easily remedied. Let no such subjects printed an able article, written by be referred to in official documents, except in Dr, Cust, entitled" The Heroic Mis- so far as they affect the work of the mission. sionary Society." Some of its criti- Onr critic may allege _that they ought not to cisms we thought at the time" un- affect it. Would the general of an expedition, duly severe," and so expressed our- or the governor of a province, allow them to sel ves in a footnote, p. 669. Our COl'- affect his work? Perhaps he might. The com- respondent, in a private note, says: parison, for which I am not responsible, is not "I know that you have given no a very happy one. When do you find generals sanction to the opinions which I con- or governors living with their families, as you demn, but rather the reverse. All often find missionaries with theirs, in isolated the same, I think it a pity that such places. where in times of illness no ejfic :ent help statements as Dr. Custmakes should is to be had for love or money? A general or go unchallenged. A good deal of governor can easily find a competent nurse to this kind of writing has appeared wait on his Wife, even if she do not happen to lately in Scotland, and I think it is have a European lady's maid with her; this a fitted to do no little harm to the miSSionary caunot always do, even if he could afford to pay for her services. Many mission- cause of missions." In the end we aries have to send 100 miles or so for a nurse believe such discussions will do good when one must be had, and when she comes rather than harm to the cause of she is often no acquisition; but all the same he missions.-EDs.] has to pay her an exorbitant fee, besides giving her food and drink while shei. in his house, and Il'IDIA, Sept. 25, 1888. more money for her traveling expenses than he DEAR EDlToRs.-Is it quite true that" mis- would ever think of spending in such a journey. siouaries have not a Warmer friend than Dr. Cust"? Was he practising the charity that What is a missionary to do in such circum- .. thinketh no evil" when he insinuated that stances if his wife take serionsly ill? He can missionaries .. take a worldly view" of their scarcely hope to have a nurse in his house till a w-'rk, .. and mix up a mission to a dying world week has elapsed, if he be able to get one at all. with visions of early matrimony, social advan- Is he to leave his wife to languish, and perhaps tage, and a pleasant career"? Individuals may to die, all alone, with no one to minister to her, do so; but I do not happen to know them. in order to preach to the heathen? If he may Most missionaries of my acquaintance might not leave his work for a time tl> attend to his have rlone better in respect to this world if they wife when she is really ill, is he entitled to give had remained at home. Again, each man must np preaching when his own health is such as to judge for himself whether or not he should indicate ueed of rest? If a missionary ought to marry, and if so, when. The primitive Church act in this way, ought not every Christian in knew no restriction in this matter, nor should every land to do the same? In that case, what we, beyond what is .. needfnl for the present" are we to understand by the words of Christ, exigencies ofeach. .. Go ye and learn what that mean.eth, I will lie says: "lIow often the Indian official or have mercy and not sacrifice" ? soldier has to ~hip off a sick wife, and cannot accompany her." In my experience this has Dr. Cnst further thinks that the attention of been quite as often done by missionaries, in pro- the mission committee is too mucb taken np portion to their nnmber. One would fancy with affairs of missionaries' familie., ., as if they from such remarks that Indian civil servants were a board of guardians of the poor." This is – were either more devoted to their work than not true of all committees. One committee that missionaries are to theirs, Or that their oppor- I know of acts on the prinCiple of paying mis- tunities of going home on furlongh' or short sionaries well, and leaving them to look after leave were fewer. Now I think the most self- their own wives and children. If all missions indulgent of missionaries w01lld thinlt tbem- were to act on this principle, they woulcl be re- lieved of this trouble, but at a pretty large in- crease in expenditure. As I understand it committees take tbis trQuble on themselves on grounds of economy, so that they may decide urging them to remain firm to their purhow much should be given in each case to en- pose of working in foreign land's~' even able a missionary to "provide for his own" in a decent way. It does seem hard that a mi,- though their entering upon that work seem sionary separated, at no small cost of feelin!!" from his children, should be grndged what is tu them to be long delayed. ' necelJaarv for their snpport. There are people at home rolling in wealth, and enjoying "very The meetings during the five days Were luxury which it can command, who grudge tae small allowance made towards the board and held as follows: Each morning the meeting maintenance of children who are to all intents and purposes in the position of orphans for the began with a short song service, toen the sake of missions. sermon, followed by many short, earnest tes- We welcome fair, well-considered criticism; when we err, tell us our fanlt iu a brotherly timonials in quick succession. After breakspirit; but do not join the common enemy in mali!!:ning and misrepresenting us. We can fast at ten the children's meeting and the bear the tannts and contempt of the ungodly; now we are being wounded, and that most ministers' meeting. At twelve a. sermon deeply, by our friends-onr best friends, it seems. Our time will soon pass away; to our again, and at three a Hindustani service~ own Master we shall staud or fan; but let Christian critics beware, lest by their harsh In the evening the opening song service treatment of us they discourage others from entering ou the work, and S3 injure the cause and the sermon. followed by an exhortation they seek to serve. It would have been easy to write at much greater length; but I forbear, from the leader and an invitation for all to as I do not wish to encroach unnecessarily ou your space. stay to the after-meeting. T-hen following LETTER from Miss Libbie C. Griffin: the benediction the precious after.meeting, BALASORE, ORISSA, Oct. 23, 1888. when sinners came to the altar and were Gon- THE Missionary Conference held each year at Lucknow, the capital of Onde, India, verted and missionaries and lay Christians began this year Oct. 10 and closed Oct. 14. They are held under tl}e auspices of the came and the Holy Ghost came upon them. M. E. lIfission in India, but attended by many missionaries of other denominations. Christians talked of rest, of complete sur.
Rev. J. H. Schiveley, pa.tor of the :r.r. E. render, and perfect trust. Some said that Church, Lucknow, leader this year, is a henceforth Christ should not only be with real evangelist. Sermons were preached by Rev. Tracy, Pres. of Etoma; Rev. Fore them but in them, taking entire possession, man, Pres. Fatipl'; Rev. Pa.rsons, Wesleyan, Lucknow; and Rev. GrilIln, F. Bap- and others that they believed that Jesus tist, Balasore; and by M. E. missionaries as follows: Dr. Johnson, Lucknow; Rev. would help them hereafter not only to con. Stuntz, Bombay; Rev. McCoy, Calcutta, Editor of the Indian TVitne88; Rev. Mansel, trol their tempers, but to lose them, so that Cawnpore; Rev. Marne, Calcutta; Rev. Hollister. Nagpur; Rev. Hoskins, Shah nothing would anger or irritate. A Church Jehanpur; Dr. Scott, Bareiley; and Rev. Thoburn, Simla. The sermons were strong of England missionary thought that he and spirit»al, aiming to bring sinners to Christ and Christians to an entire conse- should have grace to go home and treat his cration. The presence of such workers of many years as Dr. Scott, Rev. Mansell, Dr. servants better, and a Methodist missionary Waugh, Dr. Johnson, and Dr. Parker, was most helpful. Long may they live to help got back the peace of mind that he had lost not only the heathen. but the young missionaries who need their counsel so much_ in building a church and dealing with the Rev. Forman was doubly welcome because of his work in the home colleges. At the lying, cheating, thieving masons who per. Lucknow Missionary Conference a resolu- tion was passed telling of the tha.nkfulness sisted in putting mud where bricks and of the missionaries for the volunteers and mortar should be. Many missionaries knew from experience the ~emptations and trials of these two men and thanked God for the new-found power which should enable them to work with and for these heathen, so full of dark ways and vain tricks, and not be worried, or wounded, or made to sin by them. Saved to the nttermost even here, soldiers pledged themsehes to be as loyal to their new-found Saviour as to their queen, and men, women and children said. "I have found Jesus and mean to serve Him as long as I livp,." Thf':re was joy among the angels and gladness in our hearts for the wonderful things God did for us -all at Lucknow. And greater joy shall come when the beathen for whom we go now to labor shall yield to our God theirSaviour_ How to Make Missionary Wall Maps and Oharts.
(See MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD for December,p.962.) FIRST secure a carpeted room, sufficiently large for the purpose, and after removing all furni- ture spread on the carpet old uewspapers, lapping – their edges four inches. Upon these lay a sheet of muslin. 2ay 8×12 feet. This musliu is double- width ordinary sheeting muslin, and while the lIIap !s necessarily limited to 8 teet ill width, It can be 89 !nany yards long as is Wished, all in New York City. one piece, no seam.. A CONFEIlENCE ON MISSIONS TO TR!!= JEWs. This piece of muslin tack at the corners and midway of the sides and ends. Then take ~ of THE First lIebrew Christian Church in a pound of white glue and dissolve it in one gal- America, Rev. Jacob Freshman, pastor, lon of boiling water, and with a Jlat three·inch- which worships at 17 St. Mark's PIa."", New wide varnish brnsh apply it rapidly and York, recently entertained a" conference" smoothly to the muslin, and as soon as the mus- of friends of Jewish missions. The conlin is covered quickly untack it and remove the ference was opened with a sermon by Dr. papers that are sticking to its back (the glue hav- lIoward Crosby, from the text, .. Salvation ing goue through the muslin), and then relay it is of the Jews," which he maintained to be on the «arpet (a cushion of air underneath pre- not only an original but a continuing and venting its sticking to the carpet) and retack it, an ultimate fact; the Jews, pervading all taking care to keep the edges parallel with the the populations and speaking freely aU the washboard, the room beinglarge enough to allow languages of the world, are destined, with a passage all around the muslin. Donot stretch their matchless aggressive energy and abil.. it too tight. The sizing will dry in four hours. ity, to become the pre-eminent apostles and Next take a straight·edge as long as the map the predominant agents of the King whom and draw with lead pencil parallel lines for they have hitherto rejected. Among the latitude and longitude, and with these as guides speakers on succeeding days were Drs. Aloutliue the map with a lead pencil. Then color bert Erdman, James Morrow of Philadelthe land portions, etc., using Fletcher & Co.'s phia, JaB. M. King, H. Friedlander of Jeruinks. These come in powder form, in small salem. J. 111. Buckley, Wm. T. Sabine, Geo. packages, 25 cents each, and comprise nine col- Alexander, Henry Wilson, and others. The ors, but by combiuing them a number of addi- audiences usually crowded the little chapel, tional colors can be made. These powders are which accommodates about 200, and manireadily dissolved in water (Yo pint) and can be fested absorbing interest and great earnestkept bottled for an indefinite time. Pour some ness for the restoration of God's not-castof the color out in a saucer and dilute it and ap- away but temporarily blinded people. ply with a fiat bristle brush. Care must be taken not to let it dry on you, and it is best to Perhaps the most striking feature of the put thA color on a light tint and by repeated conference, next to the report of Jewish coats darken it to the right shade. The coloring evangelization in New York and other cities will then look smooth and not smeared. When from this center, was the Rev. Dr. Friedall the coloring is on, then take liquid India ink lander's account of the Jews in Jerusalem (25 cents a bottle), andwith a small ~-in6h rOltna at the present time. They are divided, he sable brush blacken the outlines and lines of said, into three classes: latitude and longitude, and make a wide border for the map. Use the brush as you would a (1) The Spanish-speaking Jews, descendpencil, drawing it toward you and backing ants of ancestors who Were expelled from away. Of course these maps are made on your Spain four centuries ago and took refuge knees. If the India ink is too black or too in Jerusaiem; filled to this day with the thick, dilute a little with water. submissive complaisance which ages of oppression had taught them, together with Next take a lead pencil and outline the letter- the extreme Oriental courtesy which they ing (make it bold), block letters, and then fill in have assimilated from the Turks, and which with India ink. If you choose you can buy two makes them the most agreeable (while yet sizes of stencil letters and outline your letters no less impenetrable) listeners to Christian with them, and then fill in with the India ink argument and the New Testament Scripafterward. The India ink must be the last color- tures. They number '1,000, more or less, or ing on, for it will wash add biur if colored over. about one-third of the JeWish population of Jerusalem. Wheu your map is finished, trim the ends only. Leave the selvage on edges to prevent the (2) German – speaking Jews, who began map from tearing. If you are careful to draw voluntarily to emigrate to Jerusalem from your lines with a straight-edge and parallel and southeastern Europe as missionary pilgrims at right angles to each other, you will have a about fifty years ago on the removal by the pleasing-looking map. If the sizing makes it Turkish Government of the restriction on stiff, fold it up until about two feet sqllare, and Jewish families in Jerusalem to 300; always then roll it. The creases will all come out. You proud and fearless to beJews in their native can thus carry it anywhere, and in use suspend it countries; drawn to Jerusalem by intense trom the two corners and middle of the upper religious zeal, for the purpose of devoting edge. themselves solely to devout exercises, to the exclusion of business, and supported in P. S. In using the Fletcher inks it is best to their austere lives by contributions from keep the maps rolled up, as the colors fade those they had left behind; in these devslightly after long exposure to strong .l!unlight. otees the missionary eocol/nters all the fierce intolerance of militll.nt Judaism, and ~NQTr ~~UAlIE! PA, QLME~CE l/4lIl!;XN. it is even dangerous, Bometimes~ toapproo.ch remaining on bond and mortgage,and some them in the hated name of Jesus; they pur_ $5,000 have also been paid for repairs, al- sue with extreme ardor works of super_ terations, and furnishing, which have COD_ ,erogation to acquire surplus merit before verted the lower part of the house into a God, and make the greatest possible sacri- tastefnl and inviting place of worship, with fices to maintain, as they do, among other reading and prayer-meeting room, the upper things, scores of Hebrew libraries and read- fioors serving as the pastor's residence. The ing rooms in the city, tending and mending property is vested in a board of trnstees, of every book with scrupulous care. which Drs.Crosby, Deems and Vincent,Ralph Wells, Esq., and a number of other well- (3) The latest comers, who in recent years known Christian laymen are members, and have been driven out in utter wretchedness the work enjoys the auspices of an advisory from Russia, Roumelia, etc., and kllew not committee, in which to the above-named where else to go but to the land of their clergymen are added Drs.•T. M. Buckley, fathers, a shipload of them having ev..n Wm. Ormiston, Wm. M. Taylor, Wm. T. been turned back from New York. These Sabine, R. S. MacArthur, and others. people are more accessible from having im- bibed something of the modern spirit, and Mr. and Mrs. Freshman serve unitedly also from the contrast of Christian truth without salary, depending solely by faith and love to the combination of superstitiou on the offerings which individuals may be and cruelty which forms of nominal Chris- moved to make expressly for their support, tianity had presented to them in Europe. the collections and general donations going This last migration Dr. Friedlander was to the payment of ordinary church expenses inclined to regard as a beginning of the and of such assistants and publications as return, analogous, in the poverty and lowli- can be afforded for the almost unlimited de- ness of the exiles, to the earlier period of mands of the work, the expenses of con- the return from Babylon. All these Jews verted Jews preparing for the ministry- speak from three to six languages; but, said of whom there are now ten so engaged or Dr. Friedlander, you need not greatly ad- laboring under Mr. Freshman's direction mire their learning, for they get their six in other cities-and to the bnilding fund. languages in infancy as naturally as they A beautifnl bi-monthly paper, called The learn to sneeze or eough. Hebrew-Christian, is published at the mis- sion, at 50 cents a year. The story of the mission in New York under Mr. Freshman may be summarized Mr. Freshman is a preacher of terse and as follows: Mr. Freshman came here in 1881 thoughtful as well as impassioned eloquence from the Montreal Methodist Conference, and usually gives the Sunday morning to after some years of successful pastoral ser- the presentation of the cause of Israel in vice in Canada; following his conversion other churches to which he is invited, with (with that of his father, a Jewish rabbi of the highest acceptance, whether to cultured Hungary) from Judaism to Christ. Having or uncultnred hearers. In his own church a strong impulse to engage in evangelizing he preaches in English on Sunday evenings, the Jews in New York, he commenced l'ublic and in German on Saturday afternoons to services in the small lecture hall of the full audiences of Jews. The pathos and Cooper Union on the first Snnday in Jan- power of the testimonies heard in these nary, 1882. In two months he was enabled meetins-s from the Jewish converts are to organize a Hebrew-Christian Church such as nothing less than the" great trib- with ten converted Hebrews, the number ulation" through which they enter into the required by Jewish custom for a congrega- kingdom of heaven could elicit. " tion. During the succeeding struggles with poverty the little church was tossed about, WILLIAM C. CONANT. occupying at different times the lecture room of Dr. Howard Crosby's church, of THE following letter from Rev. the Seventh Street Methodist church, and Geo. S. Mott, D. D., will explain itself : again the room in Cooper Union, and one at the corner of Grand and Allen streets, where FLEMINGTON, N. J., Oct. 26, 1888. preaching, Sunday-school and prayer-meet- REV. A. T. PIERSON, D.D.: I am greatly in- ings were conducted in the German lan- terested in the missionary intelligence guage. The church is denominationally which you furnished for The Homiletic Re- Hebrew-Christian and nothing else. view, and now in THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE'VORLD. You have for so long a time At length, in 1885, the buildiug No. 17 St. made this a specialty that you must be famil- Mark's place was purchased for $20,000, by iar with the many sources of information re- the aid of such men as Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, specting the foreign field, and I have go.th- Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, Hon. SamnelMorley ered a large amount of material which prob- of England, and others, who contributed to ably you have not given to the churches. I the initial payment of $5,000. The indebt- take the liberty, therefore, of making this edness has since been reduced to $10,000, suggestion to you: There is very much needed for us pllrstors a. good eyclopredia of foreign missions ual harvest; but as Mr. Grenfell was combrought up to the present time. Probably ing down the river, on his way to England, you have seen "The Cyclopredia of Missions" he met a band of native evangelists going by Newt.omb. This was published in 1834, forth on an evangelistic tour. They had set and this statement shows at once that it out of their own accord, without even th~ does not meet present wants because of the knowledge of the missionary, evidently takmarvelous advance in the work. The defect ing upon thclll8elves the Lord's command to of the work is the details. At the time it go and preach the gospel. They had not only was published these details were perhaps forsaken their own superstitions, but were desirable, but much respecting climate and vigorously seeking to propa.gate their new geography and natul'al history can be ob- faith.-Mi8S. Herald. tained from other sources. But my idea is that the articles "ould be wrought over, and' -George Schmidt. Foremost in the fight that they furnish much valuable material with ignorance and evil in South Africa for a new book. In the early days of my stands the figure of George Schmidt, pre_ pa"torate I often consulted it, and even now pared for the hardships of his missionary it is nsMul as a history of early missionary life by six years of imprisonment for conwork. In my opinion a work of this charac- science' sake in Bohemia. during which his ter would be of vast benefit to the cause of brother in tribulation, Melchior Nitschforeign missions. I believe many pastors mann, died in his arms. Whence came the aTe deterred from presenting foreign mis- zeal whkh moved Schmidt to make his way sion work because they cannot get the ma- alone to South Africa in 1737, and to dwell terial without a qnite laborious search, and among his little colony of Ho'ttentots in they have not the time for that. Bavianskloof, until in 1743 the persecutions of the Dutch settlers and clergy drove him There is another work containing very val- from the country, and their intrigues preuable information-" History of the Propa- vented his return? Whence came the argation of Christianity Among the Heathen," 'dent heart's desire, which led him day hy by Rev. Wm. Brown. This is a history, and day to a quiet spot near his German home, not, therefore, in the serviceable for,n of a and there poured itself out in prayers for cyclopredia. It was pubJished byWm. Black- his orphaned tlock far 'away, until, like wood, London, 1834. It is an extensive trea- Livingstone, he died on his knees pleading tise spread out into three volumes. for Africa.? Such burning Ijve and such persistent prayer are not of man, they are I write to you because I do not know any of God. And though the answer tarried one who can so well perform the task. We long.-yes, fifty years-it came before this have cyclopredias on almost every subject. century commenced. George Schmidt was but not one that has come to my knowledge no longer on earth to hear the reports of adequately meeting the needs of the grand the three men upon whom his mantle fellmovement in foreign missions. how:they found the spot which he had cul- tivated, the ruins of his hut yet visible, the GENERAL INTELUGENCE. whole valley a haunt of wild beasts; and, Africa.-The Congo Tribes. Those who better, ho'Y they found one, surviving become intimately acquainted with' the member of that little congregation of 47 negro race as found in various parts of who had long waited and hoped for the re- Africa bear testimony to its good quali- turn of the beloved teacher. This was an ties. The coast ne"ro who has learned aged blind Hottentot woman, who welcomed some of the vices of civilization is un- them as Schmidt's brothers with" Thanks doubtedly a sorry specimen of human- be to God." and unrolled from two sheepity ; but where native tribes can be found skins her greatest treasure, a Dutch New uncontaminated by contact with foreign- Testament which he had given her. Soon ers. they exhibit sterling qualities. Rev. this so-called Bavianskloof (i.e. Baboon's George Grenfell, who has visited all the Glen) was changed into" The Vale of Grace" tribes along the Congo, says that the negro (in Dutch, Genadendall, and where Schmidt's would stand his ground before the white poor hut stood there is now a. la.rge settleman. "There is a vitality of race and ment, with a congregation of more than power about him that is going to make him 3,000 members. From this center the work take bis place some day among the nations has spread over Cape Colony, and beyond of earth." In support of this opinion, he its borders into independent Kalfraria. gives several incidents showing the vigor Now its two provinces include 16 stations and fidelity of the natives, and especially with their filials, where 60 missionary mentioned an incident which he witnessed agents have charge of 12,800 converts. at Banza Manteka, the station at which the American Baptists have recently received Lib..ria.-On the 22d of November last the so many converts. Three years ago their Secretary of the Manchester Geographical Sociplace was a stronghold of grossest supersti- ety read an interesting paper contributed by the Hon. G. B. Gudgeon, consul-general for Liberia, tions, and there seemed no hope of a spil'it- 1889.] ,CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 133 in London. It was stated that the famous preach the gospel and couduct mission schools ,negro republic of Liberia was founded by the for from 15 to 45 rupees per month. They have American Colonization Society in 1822. The made this choice· out of love to Christ, whom work of civilizing and Christianizing the inbab- they greatly desire to serve. itants of that almost unknown country was en- tirely carried on for more than twenty years by It is now proposed to enlarge the college, add this society. The missions established along to its staff of professors, and extend its coorse, the coast and at various points inland had de- of study. The additions will include a fnlly veloped iut'? Liberia's prosperous towns and equipped medical department, with ho.pital and settlements. It became an independent state in dispensary. Bursaries will also be founded in 1847. Nearly 2,000,000 sonIs were subject to the aid of poor studeuts professing the Christiau role of the Liberian Republic, consisting of faith. The rising generation demands the about 40,000 freed slaves and their descendants, higher educatiou, aud it Is hoped by this means the remainder belonging to numerous aboriginal to provide it iu connection with Christian pre- tribes. While the state possessed a seaboard cepts, sanctions and influence. There is reason of 500 miles and an interior extending over 200 to believe that J affna College will yet be a great miles, she had acqnired no territory except by blessiu!!; to the Indian Empire. The directors treaty, purcbase, exchange, or barter. 'Bishop have appealed for £30,000. £3,000 ha. already Taylor had described the country as healthy and been subscribed. its climate salubrions and enjoyable, without a plague of flies and with few mosquitoes. Many China.-There is a party of progress in travelers had confirmed the bishop's testimony. China as in Great Britain and Irelaud, and The RepubliC of Liberia stood before the world ma.ny difficulties and discouragements as the realization of the dreams of the founders are enconntered there by those 'who of the American Colonization Society, and in resolutely'· go forward. ' For many years many respects more than the realization. Far a woman has rnled the Chinese. The Re- beyond the recognized limits of the country, gent till some two years ago, and since the and hundreds of miles a way from the coast, the Assistant Ruler, the Empress has been in- efl'ects of American civilization were to be wit- vested with immense power, which she has nessed. Men of color entirely governed the nsed to help rather than hinder the pro- republiC, an< if any proof were wanting of the gressive party. Within her pa.lace grounds, capacity of fteedmen to govern, Liberia was an says the North Ohina ,Herald, there are interestiug illustration. The ability, learning, steam-launches on water and model rail- and skill of many of Liberia's citizens were ways on land, and no doubt in the palace found in their code of laws, which for human· itself there are other products of Western ity, justice, and morality nO other country could civilization. The Empress has not refused excel. The Euglish tongue is spoken through- to listen to the VOIces Which speak to her out the republic.-From our English Oorre- from the West, nor has she shown indiffer- spondent. ence to the suggestions of change coming from the same quarter. It is now an· Ceylon.-Education. An important center nonnced that in the second month of the of Christiau activity in Ceylon is the Jaffna Col- next Chinese year the Empress will retire lege for the training of native helpers, which from office and leave the youug Emperor originated iu a spontaneous effort on the part of to reign alone. He has come to the throue the native Christians in 1867. Abottt £l,~OO at a critical time. The first railway ha.s toward its cost was raised in Ceylon, and £6,000 been opened, and may be followed by the contributed by American friends. Iu 1872 the inroads of the iron horse, with its inevita- college was opened under a board of directors ble following in the overthrow of old cns- securing its undenominational character. Never- toms and the introduction of new condi- theless it is a distiuctly and decidedly Christian tions of social life and trade. We find, too, institutiou, and has from the beginniug been that the Chinese Telegrapil Company is presided over by Rev. Dr. E. P. Bastin!!;s. successful, paying a good dividend in the sixth year of its working. The young Em- There is a flourishing preparatory school. All peror, in a decree, acknowledges with filial students reside on the premises, and are thus gratitude the services rendered by the re- separated from heathen associations and brought tiring Empress during the last thirty yearll. ander Christian influence. Every year there and promises, "with awe and care, to have been conversions, and the majority of those give his whole heart to the mnltitudinons who graduate do so as Christians. There is a affairs of the nation." Should yonng China Y. M. C. A. in connection with the college, and pursue an onward and upward course, being many of the members are good workers in the duly conservative of all that is good in the town aud neighborhood. A goodly number of present, and yet earnestly amending and the graduates have become pastors, catechists, reforming and perfecting the institutions and teachers, not onIy in Ceylon, but also iu of the empire, the future of China is as- India. Some of those who might have been re- sured. For ourselves we look hopefully to ceiving salaries of from 80 to 150 ropees per days to come. There will be disappolat- mouth iu secular employment are content to meuts and reverses. These cannot be avoided in taking new departures. But if penditure in India., and not engaging in righteousness and good will are shown in wars as they have done in the past. relation to foreign countries, and at home proper respect be paid to public opinion, Hawaii.-Since publishing the report on and as much regard to whatever can pro- Polynesian missions we have received a furthel' mote the well-being and prosperity and letter on Ha wail, from the very highest Amer- social happiness of the people, China will ican authority. It confirms aU that is said in maintain her place in the great East and the previous letter, and enlarges on One or two win the confidence and alliance of the more points. ., The American missionaries in Ha- powerful West. waii regard the Anglican mission there as an intrasion, except as a single American Episcopal India.-How the Opium Traffic Arose. Mr. minister might have been serviceable near the David Maclaren, who h"s been identified palace. . . . I am not aware that there are with anti-opium agitations since 1840, gave any Episcopal Hawaiians, save a few, particu- a brief account of the traffic. First of all larly near to royalty, and they have a pretty the East India Company, which was the surry time of it now that the kine; has become Government of India a.t the time, made so utterly degraded. While Queen Emma lived opium from the juice of the popPV. Then they had some show of respectability; she was that company sold opium to China. Thirdly, s gaod· woman. they withdrew from the shipping into China, and left that to private merchants, who .. The alienation of the roysl family from the were imprisoned, with the consequence that ecclesiastical attachments of their country has the Chinese war took place. After that the deprived the latter not only of a valuable ele- introduction of opium was legalized, and ment of moral leadership, but of moral influ- the Chinese began to grow it for themselves. ence. The adoption of Christianity by the king In due course the English Government took and the chiefs had great inlluence on the over the government of India, and now the masses, and led many, douhtless, to a formal largest manufacturer in the world is Queen profession of their faith. Victoria. Then the Chinese began to draw a revenue from opium, not only from that .. There has been developed of late, largely imported, but from that grown in the coun- through the influence of the king, some disposi- try. So the Government which had said it tion to revert to heathenism, not very widely, would never draw a revenue from the misery but in some cireles. The king, as you know, of the people, has been induced to do so. has introduced heathen customs abont his pal- We are responsible In the sight of God for ace, and this tells on the weaker natives."- all these evils. How shall the united influ- Charle,. O. Starbuck. ence of missionary societies and churches be brought to bear? I do not know what Japan.-Japanese Views of Christianity. .we can do. We can say to the Government, Several eminent publicists of Japau are however, when the Chinese treaty expires, carrying on a. very interesting discussion that the Chinese shall be at liberty to do as just now. The object is to determine they wish. The Indian Government are still whether or nat it is adVisable for the the makers and producers of the article. people of Japan to embrace the Christian Samples are brought from China, and ex- religion. The Japan Weekly Mail, in a lmined chemically, in order that the same recent issue, summarizes this discussion. kind may be produced. If we say, .. Give it It states that those connected with the up," then bd.nkruptcy seems to stare the movement say that Christian dogmas are a Indian Government in the face, because of bitter pill to swallOW, but advise that it be the failure of revenue. If the opportnnity swallowed promptly for the sake of the after for repentance is not accepted, surely God effects. Mr. Fukuzawa. a well-known wri- will take the matter into His own hands. ter, urges this course, a'though he says he Tberefore, I think, we must teach the peo- takes no personal interest whatever in re- ple of this country, EO that when God's ligion. and knuws nothing of the teaching judgment falls upon us we may be able to of Christianity; but he sees that it is the recognize it. The country should be warned creed of the most highly civilized nations. that the judgment of God will descend upou Professor Toyama of the Imperial Univer- Us in respect of this. At the same time we sity has published a work to support his must use our endeavors to induce the Gov- view. He holds that Chinese ethics must ernment to stay tbe evil. It is said, .. The be replaced by Christia.n ethics, and that 'government must live." That is what the the benefits to be derived from the intro- poor outcast of the street says. Do we ad- duction of Christianity are (1) the improve- , mit it in her case? Is the argument more ment of music; (2) union of sentiment and valid, then, in the case of a !,overnment? feeling,leading to harmonious co-operation; I do not see the way o.ut of the difficulties and (3) furnishing a medium of intercourse involved in doing right, unless it be by our between men and women. It is argued by government considerably curtailing ex- others that the youth of Japan, being free from the thraldom of~reeds, aud free to act according to reason, are so far in advance of Europeans, and instead of talking about adopting a foreign religion, Japanese should number as representatives to act along go abroad and preach their religion ot with an equal number of represeutatives of the Foreign Mission Committee in the manreason to foreign countries. Other writers agement of the mission. 2. The Foreign urge the same views. The writer in the Mission Committee should be approached at Yokohama newspaper says that those who its meeting on·the 17th inst., and requested urge the teaching of Christianity represent to appoint a sub-committee with powers to an influential section of educated Japanese complete all arrangements as to details opinion: theyare sig-ns of the times. "To wi.th this Committee, so as to secure that Japan, in an emphatically agh~stic mood, the mission may be undertaken by the came Western science, with all its marvel- Guild at asearlya date as possible. 3. That ous revelations and attractions. At the the salary of the Guild missionary be fixed shrine of that science she is worshiping to begin at rs.3500 [equal to about £240 per now." annum at present rate of exchange], which the committee understand is the minimum Moravians.'-Among the marvels ofChris- salary paid to ordained missionaries by t:anity must surely be reckoned the missionary the Foreign Mission Committee, and that work, trom century to centory, of the Moravian the terms of the appointment be otherwise brethren. At their formation they cOjDmenced the same as those in use by the Foreign to send out missionaries when they had only Mission Committee. 4. That the Rev. J. 600 members. They labored for fifteen years in A. Graham, M.A., should be formally ap- Greenland without a convert, and yet in dogged pointed soon, and arrangements ma.de "for f.ith and patience they went forward, and to-day his ordination, so as to allow of his 1I"0ing there is not a professing pagan in the whole out to India in autumn. 5. That the Foreign district which they missioned. Their work Mission Committee shall be responsible for among the Hottentots is of a similar character, seeing that the mission, before being trans… and true to their traditions they are once more ferred to the new management, is in posses.. the pioneers of an apparently impossible mis- sion of suitable buildingsfor carrying on the sion. Four of their uumber are at work right work. 6. As already arranged, the ultimate up on the borders of Thibet, and have estab- control of and responsibility for the manlished three small churches. At one of these agement of the mission shall vest with the churches they have been at work for eighteen Foreign Mission Committee, and the joint years and have made eight converts. Here is a committee elected for its management will chance for doubters like Canon Taylor to connt he in the same position as the corresponding up the cost of each convert. But let Canon Committee of the Universities' Mission. 'laylor wait until the Lord of the harvest has 7. In the mean time, and until such time as brought in the sheaves by and by, and he will the new management can be instituted, the no doubt find that, as in Greenland, so in Thibet, present Guild Mission Committee shall carry the time is coming when" a nation .hall be born out all the necessary arrangements on bein a day." The never-tiring patience of the half of the Guild." Moravian brethren has won many a hard-fought field for Christ.-Bombay Guardian. -Alexander Duff… There was an old man I wanted to see when I first went to Europe ScotIand.-The Church of Scotland in 1867. I was told not to fail to go to Edin- burgh and See Dr. Dull' of the Assembly. I Young Men's Guild held a seventh stayed inEdinburgh a week, to gel; a little of the old man's fire. He pleaded for an honr annual conference of delegates at and a half once for India, and at the end of that time he fainted away. They took him Kircaldy in November last. The at- up and carried him to the vestibule. When he revived, he said, 'I didn't get qaite tendance was large (170). Its prog- through; let me go back and finish,' They said, 'If you go back, it will cost you your ress has been marked. The aim of life.' 'Well,' he said,' 1 shall die if 1 don't.' So they carried him back. As they passed the guild is to keep young men from upthe aisle the people rose, and tears Jlowed falling into temptation. The report down every cbeek at the sight of the old of Mr. M. G. Thorburn upon the veteran. He said to them, 'Fathers and mothers ofScotland, is it true that you have Guild Foreign Mission recommended: got no more sons to give to India? I have spent twenty-five years of my life there, "1. J:c"or the work of organizing in support a.nd I have comeback to die. Thereisplenty of the mission there should be a large and of money in the bank. but your sons are not representative Guild Mission Committee, willing to go. If a call comes from the Queen consisting of, say-1 member elected by each to go there in the army, they are ready. Is Couucil of the Guild,15; 10 members elected it come to this, that the Lord calls for reat the annual Conference, 10; 10 members elected by the Committee of Management, 10–35. The duties oC this committee would be: (1) The advocacy of the mission throughout the Guild and the Church. (2) The completion and working of the organization already instituted in support of the Guild Mission. (3) The election of 12 of their
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. [F~B
cruit..for His kingdom, and they will notgo l' England to help her to resist what wa.s un- And turning to the moderator he said, • If just and unrighteous in the aggression, and ithere is no one to go to India, I will re- with England's help the Syrian chnrch had turn to them, and will let them know that restored to her those liberties which she there is one old Scotchman that can die was on the point of losing. The Lord had for them if he can't live for them."'-D. L. till this day preserved the faith of the Syri- Moody. an church, which was as strong and stead- fast as ever it was. Those who belonged to Syria.-Ancient Syrian Church. Bishop that church believed in Him in whom they Mar Gregor.ius has been making an earnest were first taught to believe. Manyadvanappeal in England on behalf of the Syrian tages, however, had been in great measure church. His remarks in Arabic were inter- taken from them. Their written books preted by Mrs. Fynn, widow of the late con- were few, and of printed books they had sul in Jerusalem and daughter of the late none. There WOUld have been no schools at Rev. Dr. McCane, prebendary of St, Paul's all but for the help which was given some and professor of Hebrew. The bishop refer- fourteen years ago by the late Archbishop red to the persecution to which the Syrian of Canterbury to the Patriarch, who then church had been subjected from the earli- visited England in company with the bishop. est times, and to the great destruction of Since then the Patriarch had been able to precious mannscripts and printed books. open elementary schools, with such native which had taken place. That persecution, teachers as he could command, to teach he said. had come down the ages, through reading1 writing. and the first doctrines of the Mohammedan occupation of the coun- Christianity to some 2,400 children of Meso- try, and even within the last forty years potamia. On the other side of the Euphra- there had been Christian martyrs among tes, where the bishop is located, no schools his people. Not long ago the Egyptian had yet been established. Educationally, Government tried to annex Syria to Egypt, that part of the country was dry and and along with that there was an attempt parched. He appealed to the people of Eng- to bring the Syrian church into a subordi- land to help him to establish schools and nate position, if not to extinguish it alto- the printing press in Syria, in order that a .gether. This was a cause from which the knowledge of the truth might be spread far Syrian church had often suffered. When and wide among the populatiou.-li'rom our the Egyptian Government made this at- English Oorrespondent. tempt the Turkish Government called upon IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MIS- SIONARY UNION."
The Character of the Chinese. and attach shameto vice. It is often BY REV. J. H. ROBERTS, KALGAN, said that vice iii never deified in CHINA. China. Yet a few such cases have THE character of. a people is of been found. There are gods of cru- chief importance to tl;:le missionary. elty, of revenge, of fornication, and I propose, therefore, to delineate of gambling; but no temples have the character of the Chinese, and I been eI'ected in their honor. In Kal- will first describe gan there is one temple to the god of I. GOOD ELEMENTS. wine. But these exceptions are so The first sentence learned at school few that they only prove the rule.
is, "In the beginning, man's nature If, among myriads of divinities, there is good." While this is false, as ap- are only four or five gods of vice, and plied by the Chinese to the individual, those not regarded with honor nor it is true if applied to the race. Man, much worshiped, and among thou- "made in the image of God," retains, sands of temples there is only one to when fallen, some lineaments of the the god of drunkenness, it is seen divine likeness. More of these traces that in general the Chinese do not of primitive excellence seem to have worship vice. The idols mostly rep- been retained by the Chinese than by resent great and good men of yore, other heathen nations. who are worshiped for their virtues 1. The first good element of their displayed when they wet'e on earth.
character is that they honor virtue '1'he ancient empet'ors, Yaoand Shun, who lived soon after the deluge, were hundred feet high. Her mother did' patterns of virtue, and are still re- recover, and she fulfilled her vow; garded with reverenee by all the and now her image is carved on the nation. The Emperor K'ang Hsi, face of that cliff, and is worshiped who. died in the year of our Lord with divine honors. She thought 1721, is to this day loved and honored she was saving her mother's life., not chiefly for his success as a war- While her zeal was misdirected, was rior, but for his justice and sincere not her motive most noble? Reverlove for the people. He often jour- ence for parents is a root from which neyed through the country in dis- many other virtues may grow. It guise, to learn whether the govern- hallows the family, it honors marors and judges were doing their duty, riage, it encourages economy and and to see what could be done to ben- temperance, and it prepares the mind efit his subjects. Once, on sll;ch a to reverence a Father in heaven. journey, when in Mongolia, his presence became known, and an attempt S. A third good element of their was made to assassinate him. character is subordination. They know how to obey. As children they A servant offered to exchange ob~y their parents, not merely till clothes with him, and was killed in they themselves become ofage,but as his stead, while the Emperor escaped long as the parents live. Theyounger to Kalgan. For this devotion the brother obeys his older brother, and servant was deified, and is now wor- never expects to be on a strict equalshiped as the tutelary divinity of ity with him. The people obey the the (Upper City of Kalgan. Other Emperor as the vicegerent of heaven, instances of servants dying to save the embodiment of justice, and the their masters might be mentioned. compassionate father of them all. The virtues of self-sacrifice, brother· Disobedience to his commands is ly love, and chastity, exhibited by often punished with death, or with the few, are admired by all the !la- death preceded by tot'tme. While this tion. Memorial tablets and arches leads to cruelty on the part of the are erected in honor of heroic men, magistrates, it enforces obedience on – vil·tuous women, and filial children. the part of the people; and the latter The way the peopJe cherish the believe not merely that the rulers memories of such persons shows that have power and must be feared, but' there are some good feelings in their that they have the right to rule and hearts. ought to be reverenced. So a law- abiding spirit is a common virtue 2. A second good element of their among them. Socialism and anarchy character is that they honor their never enter into their thoughts. parents. Filial piety is the chief When mobs and riots occur, as they part of their religion. In infancy sometimes do in China, it is always they are taught to worship their par- with the connivance of the magisents; when older they serve them trates, never in violation of their devotedly; and when the parents are commands. The people feel that to dead they offer sacrifices annually at violate the law would make them their graves. Some have been known become rebels and traitors. The law to lay down their lives for their par- was published once for all, at the beents. A hundred years ago in a vil- ginning of the present dynasty, 244 lage among the mountains east of years ago, and as it is never altered, Kalgan a girl was in grief because it is honored as the expression of her mother was dangerously sick. absolute right. What the people She vowed that if her mother might lack in independence and liberty is only recover she would sacrifice her- balanced by their gain in hearty self by leaping from a precipice two allegiance to their rulers, and in makes them willing listeners to our unquestioning submission to the law. preaching. They have a great affec- Their love for their country is in- tion for birds and flowers, which tense, and is the source of their hos- shows a kindly disposition in their tility to foreigners. But their patriot- hearts. They are very industrious. ism does not lead them to try to direct They are always at work, and are the affairs of the government, but sure to havp. a gl'eater influence in only to submit to its control and to the world than an ease-loving peoobey its commands. This obedience ple would. They have a lively coninclines them to be peaceable, patient, science and a ch'ar knowledge of right and contanted, and to obey the law of and wrong. In every quarrel some God, when they learn what that law peacemaker will come forward, who is. will appeal to the innate sense of justice in both parties. Anyone who 4. A fourth good element of their will not listen to such appeals is recharacter is the feeling of personal garded as a bmte. Again, they have responsibility for their actions. This a gl'eat longing for immortality. feeling is stronger in China than in Some of them eat pills to ward off America. If it is proved 'that a death and make themselves immorcriminal did not know the law, he is tal in this world, and others perfoI'm considered less guilty; but no plea acts of penance in order to obtain would be made of hereditary predis- happiness in the world to come. di~position to cOInmit crime; and an Their actions show a human nature insane person, if harmful to others, like ou!· own. Their pain and sufferwould be punished the same as other ings, their bereavements and afflicmen. The feeling of responsibility tions, are as real and as sad as any pervades all classes and affects all which we have to endure, but are a the affairs of daily life. If you sus- thousand times more pitiful because pect that a man wants to steal your they have no comfort and no hope. goods, put them in his care and they will be safe. He can be held respon- 5. I will mention one more good sible for anytlung that has been com- trait of their character, and that is mitted to him fOl' safe keeping. The that they have a worshipful spirit magistrates are considered respon- toward anythin/r that seems worthy sible for all public calamities. They of di vine honors. This leads them blame themselves if there is drought, to worship many idols, many objects or famine, or inundation, regarding of nature, and the good and gt'eat men it as a sign of the displeasure of Hea- of the past. But the worshipful ven on account of their sins. While sentiment is good in .itself, and exthe idea of responsibility is carried tremely valuable in relation to our too far, its result is good. The missionary work. The Chinese are Chiuese expect to see virtue reward- often said to be materialists and atheed and wrong-doing punished, both ists, but they are utterly unlike the in this life and in the life to come. perfected atheists of Western lands. They want to worship some divine It would be easy to enlarge on their being, only they do not know whom politeness, which, with all its abuses to worship. They believe that there through hypocrisy, is a form of good- must be a deity to worship, 01' else ness, and enables them to appreciate, there would be no impulse to woras a savage nation could not, the ship; and they know that a divine gentler Christian virttws, such as being is as necessary to the human meekness, patience, condescension. heart as light is to the eye, or food to and humility. They are an affable the hungry mouth. So their spil'it people. They enjoy being talked to of adoration and of trust in a divine on any subject whatever, and this being is very strong, but it finds tory, an extensive and beautiful litamong the gods of China no object erature, and polite manners. Being worthy of exclusive worship. Now ignorant of the greater civilization let the infinite power and wisdom of Europe and America, they natuand love of God be made known, and rally became self-conceited. They the worship which has been divided know that foreigners have greater between many false gods may be unit- mechanical skill than they, but beedly given to him. It is a naturalJine lieve that they are our superiors in of thought to their minds, when they morals and religion. They despise grasp the idea of the creation of the us on account of our short, tight-fitworld, that the God who could make ting clothes, which are as ridiculous the heavens and the eal"th is so far to the Orientals as their long flowing superior to the false gods as to be garments are to us. They despise alone worthy of praise. Many will us for using a knife at the table, confess the greatness and goodness which they regard as a sign of barof God who are hindered by fear of barism. They despise us for our lack persecution from becoming' Chris- of reverence for Confucius, and fOI' tians; and all the people will admit, our attempt to teach them not to at least in theory, that religion is of worship their ancestors. The wicked the utmost importance, and that the conduct of foreign sailors and mersalvation of their souls ought to be chants in China has sometimes the chief object of their lives. brought disgrace upon aU foreigners, and upon the Christian religion. All GOOD TRA.ITS ILLUSTRA.TED. foreigners are hated and feared, as enemies and kidnappers. The Port- The good traits of the Chinese are uguese traders at Macao, near Canillustrated in their treatment of for- ton, enticed the natives on board eigners who reside among them. their ships and sailed away with Theil' feeling of superiority to for- them. American and English ships, eigners was natural in the circum- as well as those of other nastances. For thousands of years tions, were used for this purpose. they have shown themselves supe- In 25 years, ending in 1875, those rior, in arts, in etiquette, in litera- traders stole and sold into slavery ture, in war, and in the science of five hundred thousand coolies. government, to all the nations with whom they came in contact. The The hatred of foreigners was in- Koreans, Mongols, Thibetans, the creased by their connection with opiaborigines of China, and the people um. The Chinese had a prohibitory of Anam, have confessed their inferi- law, and supposed that they had a ority by sending tribute to China. right to keep that poisonous drug out When new races from the distant of their land. They captured over lands of Europe, with light hair and twenty thousand chests of opium, blue eyes and a strange language, worth six million dollars, which the came to China with gifts for the Em- English, in violation of the law, had peror, it was natural that they brought to Canton; and they dug should be regarded as representa- trenches by the seashore and detives of barbarous tribes seeking the stroyed the opium, by mixing it favor and protection of the" Son of with lime and salt water. It was an Heaven." This title is applied to the outburst of indignation against a Emperor, and" all under heaven" is great wrong, like the Boston Tea one name of his realm. A civilized Party, just before the Revolutionnation in the midst of ruder ones ary War. But the British bayonets has reason for self-gratulation. The in 1842 compelled the Chinese to Chinese are a vigorous race, with a permit the trade in opium, and to large and fertile country, a great hisrefund the value of the opium which BEARING ON MISSIONS. they had spoiled! To this day the English Government has been rais- The good elements of Chinese char- ing opium in India and sending it acter and the generally kind treat- to China! No wond,er that the Chi- ment which foreigners have received nese have hated foreigners I If you are of great importance in their bear- or I were in their place we should ing on the future ot missions. They feel as they do. A foreigner can strengthen our hope of the salvation hardly ever go out on the streets of that great empire. It is evident without being reviled as "a foreign that there is a sturdy race, with devil," and the native Christians are many noble haits, in some respects called "slaves of devils," but the peculiarly prepared to receive and term denotes fear of foreigners as believe the word of the Lord. The much as hatred, and is a sign of op- Chinese are a grand material of position to us coHectively and on which to make Christians. Their / political grounds, but not individu- conservativeness, though now a hin- ally, nor because of our religion. In drance, will lead to a thoroughly 1860 the French and English soldiers reasonable faith and to a firm adher- scared the Emperor out of China ence to the truth. Apart from all propel', burned his summer palace conliiderations of the worth of the near Peking,and forced open the gates soul, are not these people, when of Peking by threats of bombard- compared with other heathen, well ment, and it would be strange if worth saving? And is it not evident such a war had left no bitterness that the consecrated money and the in the minds of the defeated peo- lifelong labors of the missionaries. ple. given for their conversion to Christ, will not be spent in vain? The war in 1884 was considered by most of the foreigners in China as un- II. BAD TRAITS. just on the part of the French. Yet, while the war was being waged, at a Secondly, let us consider their time when no Frenchman had a character as depraved and degraded right to expect safety in China, the by their sins. Let no one think from Roman Catholic priests and other what has been said that so good a peaceful Frenchmen residing in ev- nation needs nothing more. There ery part of the land were protected is another side of the subject-a sad from violence by a special decree of and painful one-and the facts may the Emperor. Other instances might well call out all our sympathy. The be given of kindness shown to for- last words of Confucius were: "The eigners. The Chinese idea is that great mountain is broken! The foreigners in their country are their strong beam is thrown down! "The guests, and ought to be welcomed wise man is decayed!" These words and cared for with the utmGst of truly symbolize the ruined condition hospitality. "When foreigners suffer of China. If you scan the faces of from a Chinese mob, it is generally the people you will see an expres- the result of their own imprudent sion of moral degradation. Tbere conduct; 'but the government is are no radiant faces except those of ready to pay the damages and pun- the little children. Vice among the ish the offenders. If a foreigner boys, and pain, from their bound should be murdered in China, the feet, among the girls, make the feat- criminal would pay the death pen- ures wrinkled and sour at the age of alty. Would that a Chinaman's from eight to twelve years. With death from violence in America all their pure ideals and lofty aspira- were equally sure of being avenged! tions and clear knowledge of their duty, they live very wicked lives. As soon as a child learns to speak it learns to revile, to deceive, and to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But lie. The impulses in us to do the those who become well acquainted same are checked through the wise with us do trust us, and the people training given us by our Christian as a whole are learning to trust forparents, but there is no moral gov- eigners where they would not trust ernment in the family of the average their own countrymen. The impe- Chinaman except that of caprice and rial custom-houses, along the coast, passion. The adults often bring upon are in the charge of foreigners, who, themselves severe diseases merely by unlike their Chinese predecessors in fits of uncontrollable rage. They office, collect the taxes without stealmake little 01' no effort to subdue ingthem. their own tempers, and bow can they teach the children to control theirs? The skill of the Chinese in cheating is well known, and exhibits at once Theil' character is thol'Oughly theirintelligence and their depravity. insincere; This is a fruit of Con- Chinese workmen need to be watched fucianism. Confucius deliberately as much as any in the world. Every told a lie; and a motto of his dis- shop or store has two sets of weights ciples is that" a lie is the excellent and measures, one for buying and subterfuge of a perfect gentleman!" the other for selling. The houses The result of such teaching is a na- are surrounded with walls instead tion of liars. Theil' heart and theilT of fences, to keep off the thieves, tongue are utterly false. Only a few but the thieves will come through questions are replied to truthfully, the gate unless it is constantly such as asking which road you should watched. If you hire a man to take, but if you do not ask with all watch your gate he will lay a tax on the forms of Chinese polite~ess, you everything that comes through your will be answered with a lie. From gate. If you hire a cook he will lay being insincere they have naturally a tax on everything which comes become suspicious of each other; into your kitchen. As it is impolland experience in dealing with them sible to avoid being cheated, each deepens one's conviction that their man tries to cheat others the more, suspicions of each other are well to make up for his own losses. They founded. Supposing the mission- are willing to be deceived, if thereby aries to be like themselves, they at- they may learn how to deceive othtribuM an evil motive to everything ers. One man asked me to sell him we do. We cannot take a walk for some eye-salve-he was sure that I exercise, nor pick up a pebble to look had it-an ointment which would at it, without being suspected of make the eyes lustt·ous and which, if searching for their hidden treasures rubbed on the skin, would remove 01' of stealing away their good luck. every wart, or sore, 01' ft'eckle, or It has been commonly reported and other dEifect. He expected that I believed in China that foreign resi- would sell him some soap, 01' somedents dig out children's eyes to make thing like it, and was willing to pay medicine of them! and a cellar under a good priceforit, expecting to more the foreigner's house is believed to than regain his money by palming conceal human skeletons ! One cannot off the same fraud upon others. A ignore such suspicions on the part of great amount of petty thieving is his parishioners. To deny the crimes done. You can see the rascals steal-· imputed to us would be useless. So ing on the pJrblic streets in the day- we take our visitors down-stairs and time. The thieves are in Jeague show them the cellar. It is a great with the police, and pay them a trial that they cannot trust us. We share of the spoils for the privilege want thelli to trust us, so that they of pursuing their calling u~molested.
will believe .out' message !J.nd have .A bo1<'t man will punish the t4ief by beating him, and a wealthy man can which he treats. It represents one have the thief arrested,bambooed, family in poverty and wretchedness and even tortured to make him con- as the result of using the ordinary fess and restore the pl'operty. An native liquor called" sake." In con- honest person, if falsely accused, trast with this is another family would be tortured in the same way. where temperance prevails, and they Wine-drinking and gambling are al- are enjoying every comfort.
most universal. The best of the One of these tracts came into the Chinese feel free to gamble during possession of a wealthy and influen- the first five days of the New Year. tial man named Nakayama, living in A man who earns eight cents a day the town of Fujioka, in the province will eat four cents' worth of fooct of Joshiu. He was much addicted to and dt'ink two cents' worth of wine, the use of "sake," and was, in fact, leaving only two cents 10 feed and a real drunkard. When under the clothe his numerous family and to influence of liquor he was very cross clothe himself. Drunkenness is not to his family, and it quite destroyed often seen, but is the source of a the peace and comfort of his home.
great deal of crime. All forms of The reading of the tract made a deep vice are extremely prevalent, espe- impression upon his mind, and he cially in the citIes, but also in the resolved to reform. The result was villages. It is surprising to find, in such a happy change in himself and the midst of such general wicked- in the condition of those around him ness, some places of the utmost de- that he wrote to Mr. Tsuda to express pravity, so vile and so violent as to his obligations for what he had make the other places seem virtuous learned, and to tell of the great ben~fit by contrast. One such notoriously that had accrued to himself and his bad place is Ni Chiianz, which ffieans family by abstaining from the U!';e of ]',fud Springs. A man went from intoxicating liquor. Mr. Tsuda wrote there to Kuan Ch'ang to see what he to him in reply that unless he believ- could steal. He stole a leg of mut- ed in the God who made and keeps ton from a poor shepherd in a neigh- us all, and trusted in Him for boring village. The latter found the . strength, he might not beable to re- mutton at the thief's house, and sist the cravings of his depraved merely asked whence he had got it. appetite, and continue as he had For this insult the thief beat him till begun. Mr. Tsuda also told him he was almost dead, and fined him about Christianity, and urged him to to the amount of twenty-six pounds accept its teachings.
of mutton, to be divided between After some months Mr. Tsuda went two temples, as an acknowledgment to Fujioka on business, and called of error in even suspecting the thief. upon Mr. Nakayama, who received This villain is the next-door neigh- him very cordially. Then Mr. Tsuda bor of one of our Christian families, told him more particularly about the ana persecution by such men is truly true God, and Christ the {)Illy Saviour to be dreaded. from the guilt and power of sin. Mr.
[Concluded in next iB8U8.] Nakayama is a man of good eciluca- Incidents of the Work in Japan. tion and intellectual abilities, and BY A RESIDENT MISSIONARY. quite readily understood and fully A JAPANESE Christian, named accepted all that he heard.
Tsuda Sen, has written a tract From that time he began to attend against the use of strong drink, the Christian services, together with which is having a considerable circu- his family; and his faith and love • lation and influence. On the title- have been (ncreasing ever since. page is a picture illustrating (in the Such has been the influence of the style of the Japanese) the evils of gospel upon his heart that he has become, in tt'uth, a new creature, and is attached to the parents on account the cHange is apparent to all. As an of such sinful and cruel practices. It illustl'ation of the power of religion was formerly sanctioned by the Gov- in his daily life, his wife had been ernment, and even while the laws somewhat careless about a quantity have been modified the public senti- of silkworm eggs, and they were ment is so corrupt and the morals of partially destroyed. The loss invol v- the people so utterly vile that but ed was a considerable sum, and she little change has probably been ef- tl'embled in fear that he would become fected. The life of such poor girls violently enraged, as was common is often one of untold bitterness.
heretofol'e, and would punish her Many are the cases in Tokyo where severely. But to hel' gl'eat astonish- they have become desperate and ment, wilen lie found out what had gone and thrown themselves into happened he remained perfectlycalm, the river in order to get" anywhere, and did not reproach her at all. anywhere, out of the world."
After a little thought he said, " We One of the great and blessed results can distribute them among our poor of Christianity is the elevation of the and unrortunate neighbors, and so morals and the creation of a better they can secure a larger Cl'op the public sentiment in regard to the coming season. Thus it will perhaps treatment of women. The result of be bcttel' than if we had sold them Buddhistic teachings makes wom!l,n and taken all the money otm;elves."· a mere appendage to man, and her This conduct on the part of her . only use to minister to his comforts.
husband so astonished and impressed Some years ago a bright and pretty his wife that she said, "This mnst be girl, who had become a Christian due to the power of this Chl'istian and was attending one of the mission relig'ion and the help of God. If this schools, was informed that her par- is the resnit of Cl1l'istianity, then I ents were unable to met all their want to become a Christian also." pecuniary oblig-ations and she had From that time she became an ear- been sold in order to satisfy their nest seeker after the blessing of God's creditors. She was very happy in the saving- presence, and now she and all school, and the tidings was to her the family are rejoicing in a Chris. like the sentence of death. Such tian's hope and a Christian's peace. were the customs of her people that The geeat change for the better she felt there was no hope. But that has come to Mr. Nakayama's when her teacher, Mrs. John Bal- home has been seen and felt by his lagh, heard what had happened she neighbors. In this way many have went to the girl's home, and found been led to a conviction of the bene- her there in a state of most perfect fits that result feom following the wretchedness. Mrs. Ballagh em- teachings of Christ, and have thus ployed every means that she could become. seekers after the same bles- to get the girl released, but no argu- sing. Some time ago one of the mis- ments or entreaties would move the sionaries visited that town, and found heaets of the cruel creditors; and, in ten persons who were awaiting bap- fact, the parents looked upon it as tism. A good Christian church is an act of filial piety on the part of a now growing np in that place. daughter to thus sacrifice heeself for One of the worst things that is met theil' benefit. Mrs. Ballagh tried to with in this heathen land is the sell- move the hearts of the parents with .ing of their daughters by the parents pity for the poor and helpless chiltl; to lives of sin and shame. It is a she told them of the great sin which.
custom that has been long established they were committing against God, and is so common that it is done,with- and ihatsuch acts would surely briug OJl.t !Shame, and no lll,rti<mla.r disgrace His jJl.dgment upon them~ but it wa.s
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. [FEB
all in vain. The reply was simply; one to procure her release. One day she happened to hear the preaching "It has been done, and there is no of the gospel and was convinced of her sin and need. She was also truly help for it." penitent, but was in great trouble, as she saw no way to escape from her Mrs. Ballagh then turned to the present sinful and sad condition. Her only way to get free was to pay girl, who sat weeping, andsMd, "Fol- the price for which she had been sold, and f01' some time she remained as low me." Both then rose and passed she was, but in great sorrow and try- ing to devise some means to escape. out of the room and into the street, At last she resolved to sell all she had, even her clothing, and thus purand thence to Mrs. Ballagh's home. chase her release. When she was set free she came to the preacher There followed a demand that the and announced her faith in God and her purpose to do His will. AHer she girl should be given up, but Mrs. had given satisfactory evide)1ce of her change of heart she was re- B:tllagh refused to do so. It was ceived into the church and is now a consistent and happy follower of finally arranged that Mrs. Ballagh Christ.
should pay the sum of $20 and the girl would be released. .
The girl then resumed her studies at the school, and at the completion of her course was married to one of the native officials. She has now a pleasant home and continues a faith- ful member of the church.
In one of the recent papers is an account of a pOOl' girl who had been sold in a similar manner and had no V ..-.:.THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY A. T. PIERSO:-r, D.D.
CHINA. The grand difficulty lies in the "tones." The language has "only SOME instructive and suggestive some four hundred and odd distinct facts and thoughts are all we have sounds" wi th which to express "ten space for. In the February issue of thousand words," and many of these 1888 the vastness of the Middle words are homophonous, although, Kingdom, the peculiarities ofChinese "by an ingenious system of infleclife and the religions of the empire tions of the voice, the number of were referred to at some length. separate sounds-to a Chinese ear, at We add here some matter of general least-is more than trebled. These interest and importance. The area inflections are the tones. In Peking of China is only one-third that of the there are only four of them, but in United States, yet China's popula- the south those who are knowing in tion is six times as large. The Uni- such matters declare there are twelve ted States if as thickly populated as or more. II' W here the sense of words China would contain over a thousand depends on nice distinctions in the million of people, or more than t wo- tflne of the voice, the opportunities thirds as many as now live on the for blunders become countless and earth. boundless. As instances of the mis- takes to ~hich foreigners are con- Language. Here missionaries con-. stantly liable, we may mention a front one of the mountain obstacles few cases. A man wishing to tell of which not even faith removes, a mountain two hundred" Ii" in without hard study, as we have height, used the expression "erh already shown in the article on the pai Ii," instead of "e·:jl pat Ii," ., Miracles of Missions," in this number. and by so doing gave the man to , Let his words be sincere and truthunderstand that the mountain was ful, and his actions honorable and ()f the height of two wMte pears! carefu!.' Such conduct maybe prac- Aga.in, Miss Gordon-Cumming tells, ticed even among the rude tribes of the south or north. When he is ain her charming book on China, of standing, let him see these two rules man, a resident minister, who told as it were fronting him. When he his steward to buy 400 poundsofMon- is in his carriage. let him see them at: golian potatoes, and the astonished tached to the yoke, then he may be steward brought him 400 pounds of able to carry them into practice." (b) eels. A lady ordered a pair of ducks, "The course of the mean cannot be roasted and served with gravy-sauce, attained to." (c) "To take example and her butler remonstrated that from others, to practice virtue is to they would not be eatable. She im- hold them in the same practice; patiently told him to do as he was therefol'e, there is no attribute of the told, and next day her guests saw a superior man gTeater than his helppair of her best gaiter-boots served ing men to practice virtue." (d) Subup for game, nicely roasted and ject for verse competition: " The moistened with gravy! You salute early morni~g red is harbinger of a man" My friend," and find you rain." Itmay be admitted at once have said" You fool," or address that these subjects are stiff, and we him as "My lord," and are cha- should especially like to see what a grined to discover you have accosted body of English competitors would him as "My pig." make of "The course of the mean cannot be attained to." The idea, Dr. MacKay of Formosa tells us too, of the two rules attached to the that the syllable to, in Chinese, has yoke of a carriage would form a eight different tones, while each tone puzzler to the majority of English has a different meaning. This is a boys. fair example of the many obstacles to be me,t with in this.extraordinary ,Filial Reverence in China. A mislanguage, that seems devised by the sionary of the China Inland Misdevil to keep missionaries out of sion tells an interesting stol'y of a China. mandarin who gave an entertain- ment a.nd presented a large testimo- Education and Competitive Ex- nial to the Christian hospital out of ammations. There are 10,000 cells gratitude for medical services renfor examination of candidates. The dered to his aged father. The son leader of the successfullistis led about was absent on duty and the father as Mordecai was by Haman. His was relieved from a sickness which name is graven on stone in the tem- was supposed to be fatal. His gratiple of Confucius, with all other suc- tude was 'boundless, and the memocessful candidates. rial tablet on which were inscl'ibed the thanks of the donor was eight Students preparing for competitive feet by four in size, suspended from a examinations may like to know the bamboo pole, carried by two men sort of questions with which the and preceded by a band of musicians. Chinese student, under similar cir- As theyapprolched the house large cumstances, has to grapple. The bunches of firecrackers were fired, Imperial Gazette is good enough to and the tablet was presented with publish the subjects for three prose very polite words. The most striking essays and a verse competition, set incident connected with this story is in the examinations for the degree that while the old gentleman was at of Metropolitan Graduate: (a) "Tru- the worst, a.nd when it was supposed Chang, being asked how a man should conduct himself so as to be everywhere appreciated, replied: that he could not recover, the wife of to the dead they are always written the absent son, acting in the place of and' fastenecl. upon the hands of the her husband, performed an act which paper men.
was supposed to propitiate Heaven Habits of the Chinese. Accord- and to secure the restoration of her ing to our notIOns of living, they father-in-law. With her own hand live on a starvation basis. Ex-SeCl'e- she cut a piece of flesh from her tary Holqomb of the American lega- own arm and had it cooked and ad- tion at Peking is authority for the ministered to her father-in-law that statement that in that vast empire he might recover. That such a thing 300,000,000 out of 403,000,000 of its in- is possible in these days, and that it habitants expend for food less than was done in the sight of mission $1.50 per month. This seems incredi- premises and by an educated and ble. These people appear to know prominent family, gives striking tes- how to make their mites go farther tinlOny to the df>pth of superstition than perhaps any other people upon in heathendom as well as to the sen- the face of the earth, timent of ~lial piety which exists Boots are an object of honor, es- among the Chinese. pecially if they have been worn by Ohinese Graveyard Customs. The an upright magistrate. When a Chinese in this country adhel'e tena- judge of unusual integrity vacates ciously to their old country customs. his office, crowds accompany lJim to To provide food for the dead, and the city gates, and his boots, dra'Yn servants to wait on them, is too fool- off with great ceremony, are enshrin- ish for any portion of the human ed in the hall of justice. A new pair race. But lately the time came for is put on and drawn off, five minutes this custom to be obsel'ved, and the on his feet being sufficient to conse- Herald says that every Chinese crate them!
grave in Woodlawn and Greenwood Chinese Religions. The most cemeteries has been decorated with leamed writer on Chinese literature incense paper, joss sticks, roasted holds the God of China to be our God, pigs, and othel' articles. At one of and as he ascended the "altar of the graves was laid a whole pig, heaven," he took off his shoes I But roasted beautifully brown and nicely if so theoretically, it is 'not so prac- spiced, the odor of which, when car- tically. ried past the Cl'owd that wereJooking Confucianism is really not a re1igio~ on, was so aromatic that it made at all, yet it is practically the relig- them hungry. The whole pig thus ion of China. Confucius was a Chi- roasted was a little over two hundred nese philosopher, who taught that pounds. After an hour's exposure man's duties al'e summed up in five before the spirits of the dead it was relations-that of king and subject, brought home in the evening. It parent and child, husband and wife, was cut up into three-pound slices {'IdeI' and younger brother, and that and sent around to the different of friend to friend. It does not shops on Matt street and eaten up. recognize the relati~n of man to The most peculiar of all the ceremo- God. Whoever cares to study this nies of the week was the sending of whole subject will find Rev. B. C.
servants to the dead. This is done Henry's book on " The Cross and the by making paper men and w~men, Dragon" one of the most fascinating which in the midst of the sacrifices and instructive volumes in,the whole are burned, the bystanders saying, range of missionary literature. It "Here are the servants who will , is published by Randolph & Co. So wait upon thee." If there are any also would we recommend Rev. H: important messages to be conveyed C. DuBose's volume on "The Dragon Image and Demon, or Th.e Three pl·esented four images, correspond- Religions of China," published by A. C. Armstrong & Son. The chapter ing to the four cardinal virtues-pion Confucianism is especialJy analytical and clear, and we have from it ety, morality, equity, wisdom, thus: I the best conception we ever had of the character and influence of this —, – -, —, – _. ethical system. From a double combination they The higher classes either embrace the doctrines of Confucius or of get eight signs, which respectively Lao-tse(orLau-Kiun), a philosopher. Both deny divine revelation, are little represent heaven, moisture, fire, winds, ,water, mountains, thunder, and earth, thus: – – -===-==-==, — —- ~. ~, =-=—-::::::::::=.=::::::= . Confuci~s arrang;d these i~~rcle; CJ ,CJ A HIDEOUS DOD IMAGE OCCUPIES ODD THIS CENTRAL CIRCLE.
CJ c::J more than systems of ethics clothed and this is held to be a complete dein a fantastical symbolism. Thus scription of the universe; and, corre- Confucius teaches that from the sponding with mental and moral original substance (Tai-ki) two prin- properties, he constructs his ethical ciples emanate: YANG, perfection, system! The whole thing strikes the the celestial, light and caloric, the Occidental mind as mere child's play, masculine principle symbolized by toying with blocks and making new the longer line – – – ; and YIN, i~ combinations out of one long and two perfection, the terrestrial, darkness short blocks. and cold, the feminine principle, representea by the divided line – -. By Hence comes one of the most curicombining these symbols, there are ous features of ConIucianism, the Ohinese Philosophical Ohart. We give a sort of diagram of this really bor a humble hut to live in ! While remarkable relic of the religion of a we are pla.ying at missions, here is a grea.t people. large and consecrated body of liIative evangelists being raised up from the Round this, rudely radiating in poor native converts of China, the eight directions, are the aforesaid house of a devoted millsionary their eight combinations of heavy dark thQological seminary, and their field lines or ba.rs, the difference being in the province of Shantung-with half the arrangement of the longer and as large a popula.tion as the United shorter ones. States-and their "wages" fifty to sixty dollars a year! A "Christian Mission Institution for Horne and Abroad" was estab- Tht' Medical Missions are very uselished Dec. 25, 1879, and is therefore ful, but have some curio;1s, experinowin its tenth year. The founder is ences. One day there came into the Pastor Samuel T. Davis, M.D., Den- dispensary a young man of twenty, ver, Col. It is a faith work, and one with a large wound, evidently cut or of its four departments is Foreign dug out with a dull instrument. His Missions. Itsupports native preach- father had been ill with dropsy, and ers in China, who at a very small the relatives decided that tile son cost preach to their kinsmen acc.rd- must. sacrifice himself to save his ing to the flesh. They are trained father's life. A piece of flesh was to preach, teach, and labor, under cut out of his left arm and cooked the direction of Rev. Dr. Hunter Cor- and given to the patient as the infalbett of Chefoo. For this life work lible remedy. Nevertheless the pagiven to winning souls they get only tient died. The relatives decided food and clothing, and travel in the that the lad must be lacking in puri- Shantung province with its 35,000,- ty of motive and filial piety. And so 000 souls. We know of no work the poO"r boy had not only to grieve more apostolic in plan and conduct for his father's death and a bad arm, on the fa.ce of the ea.rth. They but had to bear the reproach of unpreach in villages, by the wayside, cles and cousins. on streets, wherever they can get hearers; they guide inquirers, open In a temple outside of Peking is a I'Ichools, and do any work for which brass mule of life size, supposed to they are deemed capable. Dr. Cor- have wonderful healing properties bett furnishes annual reports of this for patient~ suffering fl'om every imwork. In 1887–88 twelve were sup- aginable disease. They first rub the ported by this "institution." The particular part of the brass mule cor- Lord's blessing attends their work in responding to the painful regioD. of a. remarkable manner. In one year, their own bodies, and then with the 1884, Dr. Corbett by this method same hand rub their own disabled gathered in, after careful examina- member, and the pain is expected to tion, 348 converts; while Dr. Nevius, go. Is your tooth aching? Just pursuing similar plans, gathered 260, scrub the mule's teeth, and afterthese two men together in one year ward your own, and the cure is coml'eceiving 608 new disciples. The plete. Have you an ulcer of the corself-denial of these poor natives-who nea.? Pass the tips of your fingers to are no sooner brought to Christ than and fro over the particular eyeball of they become evangelists to their fel- the mule, and then with well-regulow-Chinese-is something marvel- lated pressure rub repeatedly the ous. They live on about four or five dollars a month. One of them gave affiicted eye. True, the eyeballs ot his own house and, lot for a church and school, and then hired of a neigh- the mule hl,ve been gradually worn away by constant frictign, until now only the empty orbits are left; but the success is guara.nteed to be as 'verts come pri~cipally from the real as form~rly. The temple is cov- lower classes; we have never known ered with laudatory tablets in honor of a mandarin becoming a Christian, of the mule, which is patched in all who was in office at the time of his directions with fresh pieces of brass, conversion. Literary men areeeidom put on to cover holes produced by con- found among church members; but a stantrubbing; andanewmulestands very few Buddhist and Tauist pri,sts awaiting the day when the old one have been led to Christ. has fallen to pieces. The principal hindrances to mis- A Sketch of the Missions. When sionary work are: 1. The notorious this century began China was desti- conservatism which resists anything tute of the gospel. In 1807 Dr. Mor- foreign. 2. Self-satisfied pride. 3, The rison, first Protestant missionary to veneration paid to their sages, Con: China, landed at Canton, a few years fucius, Mencius, and others. 4. Evil Jater followed by Dr. Milne and oth- reports, spread among the people, ers. First these men sought to ac- poisoning their minds against the quire the language, constructing a. missionaries and their message. dictionary and translating th~ Scrip- 5. Superstition. 6. The opium traffic, tures; but thirty years after, there with its untold misery, leading to were only three native P"otestant enormous crimes. OhrisUans in the whole country, and only six in 1843; there were 350 in The main helps available to the 1853; 2,000 in 1864; 20,000 in 1875; missionary are: 1. The street chapel, ten years later fully 25,000, and now with opportunity after the preaching over 30,000. for personal conversation. 2. Itin- erary journeys for evangelistic pur- In 1885 about 60(, missionaries were poses. 3. Day schools, which influ- in China, in connection with thirty- ence parents as well as pupils and two societies in upward of seventy afford nucleus for meetings of a gen- cities and towns, in fifteen out of eral charlLcter. 4. The dispensary eighteen provinc_es, over 1,100 native and hospital, which afford access teachers and preachers being associ- gained in no other way. 5. Social ated with them in their work, in calls. 6. The bookstore, reading more than 500 stations. In 1875 there room, and guest rooms. 7. The wide were no missionaries west of Han- distribution of the Word of G~d and kow, on the Yang-tse-kiang, 600 of religious tracts and books. miles from the sea, but in 1885 fifty men and women were located in From all parts come reports of western China, somp of them 1,500 steady progress in Christian work. miles from Shanghai; and the jour- The Rev. Mr. Lloyd has labored in ney from that port to their stations Tuh-chow, under the auspices of the takes longer than from America, or Chul'ch Missionary Society,for twelve England, to China. In 1885 only two years. The' 1,600 converts whom he medical missIOnaries were at work had found in 1876 have grown to among the hundred millions in west- 6,000, him.self having baptized 1,000 lern China. in ten years.
During the l-ast ten yeaJ's the Bible Chinese Christians are, almost to societies have been making great a man, ready to pray in public, to efforts to scatter the Word of God_ exhort one another at their meetings, The most fruitful field is Fuhkein, in and to speak for Christ to their which are about one-third of the neighbors. Rev. Hunter Corbett whole number of converts; and yet bears witness to their childlike faith it was for eleven years before the in the power and willingness of God first convert was brought in. Con- to fulfill evel'y promise, to their un- shaken faith in prayer, their love for
PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN. [FEB••
the ScriptUl'es, and their honest and Darkness overspread'!' the earth,andgr088 faithful effort to live blameless lives, Not a few have persevered in the darkness the people, but God's glory sha.ll study of the Scriptures untu they re- arise on thee and His glory shall be seen on peat entire chapters and !Sometimes entire books, from both Testaments, thee 1 We have only to lift up our eyes toand, better yet, they are ,able io explain them. dayand seeon the very summits of heathen- SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. dom, in the midst of the death-shade, the The Vision 01 the Cross. Late one sum- waving flag of the Cross! 'l'he glory of God mer afternoon there was a rain shower in Vi~ginia, Nevada. It was very unusual, for transfigures it, and while it waves and! during summer rains are almost unknown in Nevada. The rain lasted but a few minutes, burns, the strongholds of Satan are giving f but clouds and dense darkness overspread the sky. All thevasteastern slope of Mount way before the onset of the missiona.ry' Davidson that overlooked the city was covered with a pall. and the mountain could host I scarcely be distinguished from the cloud' masses that formed its background. As al! TEXTS AND THEMES. ' eyes looked in that direction, a little tongue of mellow golden flame could be seen upon I WHAT saith the Scripture f regarding tbe very summit, wavering in the midst of midnight blackness. It was very small, 1. Tile Condition of the World: "The whole but it looked large, by contrast with the darkness around it. No one at first under- world Iieth in wickedness."-l Jobn v: 19• stood what it wa6. It was thenation's flag waving from the mountain peak. It hap- .. The dark places of the earth 'are full of the pened that, through ' narrow rift in the clouds, the rays of the sinking sun had found hal>itations of cruelty."-Ps. Ixxiv: 20. ii. their way, and that flag was the only object theytoucled, It was directly in,their path The Divine Purpose and Command: .. God and they rested on it and glorifled and transfigured it. And for an hour that burn- our Saviour will have all men to be saved, ing banner of the Republic held the fascinated gaze of the multitudes. How strange! and to come unto the knowledge of the That sinking, sun that transfigured the nation's emblem had that same day looked on truth."-l Tim.ii: 4. "Goye into all the world the fall of Vicksburg and the victory of Gettysburg 1 and preach the gospel to every creature." -Mark x~i: 15. iii. The Divine Promise: .. In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."-Gen. xii: 3. .. I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy pos- session."-Ps. ii: 8. iv. The Grand Motive : .. For ye know the grace of onr Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."-2 Cor. viii: 9.
". Freely ye kave received, freely give."- Matt. x: 8. v. The Final Consummation: "1 beheld, and, 10, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Sa.lvation to our God which sitteth upon tbe throne, and unto the Lamb."-Rev. vii: 9, 10.-Selected.
VI.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS: MO~THLY BULLETIN.
Atrica.-Cardinal Lavigerie's mission for the northern portion of Natal about Greythe suppression of the African slave trade town. Most of the Boers belong to the has been encouraged by the Pope's gift Dutch Reformed Church, and while they of S60,OOOto his enterprise, accompanied by have a.ttended outwardly to Christian ora letter from Leo praising the Cardinal dinances, they have heretofore cared little for his crusade, and encouraging him to for the native population. Three years ago go ahead in his work. His plan includes a religious awakening began among these tbe raising of a volunteer corps to fight the Boers, and the genuineness of this interest ,slave traders of the Dark Continent with was shown by their de.ire to reach the Zucarnal weapons. About a score of chival- lus, whom they had regarded as little better rous young Belgians have alreadv formed than animals. There are now fifteen the nucleus of this new Salvation Army. preaching places where the gospel is pro- claimed, and which Mr. Scott says are -Scotch Free Church Mission Among the simply the farmhouses of the Boers. He Zulus. The Rev. James Scott of Impolweni, speaks of seeing eighty Boers and three or Na.tal, writes to the Free Church Monthly in four hundred Zulus gather together for reference to an interesting work among the worship. The Zulus come from kraals and Dutch Boers, and extending to the Zulus in villages, both old and young. some ,clothed, back to carryon mission work in his native but most of them heathen in their blankets. land. .
Over one hundred in Greytown have been Alaska.-The Moravian mission on the formed into a na.tive church in connection Nusbagak river is 8,000 miles from supplies and with the Dutch church. This work is now trained workmen. It was so cold there on the being carried forward under the direction 18th of December, '87, that the moisture in the of a committee of the Dutch farmers, em- smoke congealed and filled up the ohimney ploying three native evangelists. One of with frost so that Mr. Wolff was compelled these evangelists is the son of the Znlu twice to go up on the roof and clear out the warrior who in 1836, at the signal from Din- chimney so that the stove mil(ht draw.
gaan, the cruel tyrant, fdl upon the Dntch Burlllah.-The latestintelligilDce from Tavoy leader Retiefand his party of about seventy tells of great suffering on account of the scarcity men, murdering them all in cold blood. and higb price of rice. In the town it was sell- This father still lives, and is a member of ing for more than double the ordinary cost, the Christian church and listens gladly to while far in the jungle, where the Karens live, his son as he preaches the gospel of peace. it Was not to be had at any price. The govern- -The Baptist Mission on the Congo, ment was shipping it from Maulmain and Ran- West Africa, continue~ to prosper. Seven- goon, and sending it inland as best they could to teen were recently baptized at Batlza Man- save the Karens from starvation. It was not teke, the scene of the great revival, and given to them, but sold at a price much below seven at Palabala. All who have been what it cost. The carriage of rice a distance of baptized at Palabala are men. The drink fifty to one hundred miles On a jungle path, at'a traffic offers great hindrance to the prog- season wben the rainfall averages sixty inches ress of the gospel; per month, is no slight nndertaking. Some had -The Liquor Traffic. In Africa we have to already died, either Qf starvation or from eat- contend against the devit's mIssionary ing improper food, and there is little doubt that .agency. The liquor traffic is increasing, before their next harvest is reaped in December .and it is a gigantic evil-greater, even. many of these poor people will die.
than the slave trade-debasing the people -The Sgau Karen Mission at Rangoon, Bur- .and ruining legitimate commerce. In mah, bas been under the care oftbe Vintons from Wes~ Africa ithas deepened the degrada- its beginning in 1836, and now the na.tive tion of the negro instead of civiJizing him. Christians are to erect a large schoolhouse as a Over 1S0,OOO,OOO gallons of spirits had been .. Vinton Memorial." More than 3,000 rupees imported last year in the district of Sierra were subscribed at the first meeting.
Leone, and in Lagos it was far larger, while Ceylon.-Mission Work at Jaffna. News all the land was strewn with demijohns. from Jafl"na, Ceylon, tells of continned bleSSing The Niger Company imported 220,000 gallons following upon the recent awakening among the during the last two years,and 500 cases of chnrches. Believers have been quickened to gin and 500,000 gallons of rum were landed uew zeal in the work of God; and the conver- by the Caliban, in which I sailed from Liv- sions among the heatben bave been very cheer- erpool. The selling price of rum is less than ing: At a recent communion service six stu- a penny a gallon, and the gin sold at three- dents of the Jall"na CollAge were received into pence a bottle. The liquor so sold was of the church on profession of faith. Tl:e religions the most execrable character.-Rev. W. interest is deepening in this important educa- ..Ililan. tional iustitntion. Besides the two weekly -In the schools of the Scottish Free • prayer·meetings conducted among the profes- ()hurch Mission at Bandawe, Lake Nyassa, sors. tbere are now three such meetings held 1,179 pupils were in attendance the day be- weekly among the students themselves.
fore they closed for the vacation. Of these China.-Forty years ago Dr. Morrison was <)ne-third were girls. Thirty-eight native addressing in a locked inner room two or three teachers are a t work in the schools. Chinese, who listened in peril of their lives; -Basutoland has frequently been saved now tbere are in China some 50,000 converts.
l~om the destruction of its nationality by .. Do you think," asked the captain of the ship the intervention of the missionaries, and who took him out, .. that you can make an the natives blessed their name. The result impression on the 400,000,000 of Chinese?"
in respect to education is that we have 80 'No,~' he answered, "but God can."-Oanon elementary schools, having together 4,666 Farrar.
pupils, besides the normal school and the -The Blind in China. A half a million. it higher girls' school, :with 30 or 40 pupils,and is estimated, are totally blind. The sight- 15 industrial, biblical,and theological school less crowds at ·Canton present a pathetic .stations, 94 out-stations, 19 missionaries, 176 spectacle. A photogl·aph we have seen of native workers, 6,029 communicants, and a party of them before the Presbyterian .3,412 catechumens.-Rev. A. Boegner. Missionary Hospital, taken· last winter by -It is stated that a nephew of the late Edward W., son of Dr. Thwing of Brouklyn, King Cetewayo, after six years in Sweden is a. moving appeal in itself. Mr.J. Cros~ett, in theological and other studies, has gone a.t the United States consulate, Shanghai, writes, Oct. 10, earnestly begging for teach- denominations. One hundred new missionaries ers of deaf, dumb and blind Chinese. For- were last year sent ont to China, and already eign residents are willing toaid in supporting this year several parties have been despatclied_ schools for such. Wealthy natives will help, During the last three 1I10mhs 42 have left Engspecially those who are in commercial rela- land, and 16 more leave in December. News tions with foreigners. Mr. Moody at Chi- had just been received oCthe death of one of the cago, Dr. A Gordon ..nd Dr. Cullis ofBoston missionaries in China, Mr. Eldred S. Sayers, wh() are interested in this movement. Mrs. went ont in 1886, makin~ 3 deaths in November. GUTizslafl', a pioneel missionary-, secured the -Our English Correspondent. education of a Chinese girl and a Portugnese girl at London, both blind, to labor in China. England.-Turkcy Missions Aid Society_ The latter died, bnt the other, known aD The receipts of the society for the year 1837-88 Agnes Gntzlalf, founded an enterprise at were 813,980. The society conducts no missions Ningpo. A hospital at Shanghai was an- of its own, but III a spirit of broad catholicity other memorial she left at death. Teachers aids existing organizations in Turkeyt largely of like consecration are now urgently those of the American church. needed. A professor in the Government School at Korea has expressed a willingneis -When Garibaldi had been defeated 0.1; to come to China. Will not America send Rome, he issned his immortal appeal: "Solother teachers f diers, I have nothing to olfer you but cold and hunger and rags and hardship. Let him wh() -Rev. D. W. Nichols writes from Nankin, loves his country follow me I" And thousands Sept. 24: The grent examination that hll9 been of the youth Qf Italy sprang to their feet at tha~ going on for the paot two weeks has closed. high appeal. And will you, the trustees of pos- Students from ,,11 parts of three provinces were terity-will you tnrn your backs to the appeal here. There were three courses in the exami- of your Saviour Christ f I know that you will nation, requiring three days to each. When the not. You cannot all be missionaries; but some students enter the examination hall, they are of you may be called to that high work, and all not allowed to go out until the examination in of you may help it forward.-Canon Farrar. one conrse is completed. On Friday night, September 14, at midnight, the gates were -The Church of England Women's Missionopened, and the students began marching out, ary Association has sent out four ladies to Jerucontinning in solid phalanx for twenty-four hours. Twenty·nine tlwu8an d were enrolled a salem to form branch of Mrs. Meredith's work and entered for the ftrst examination. Early there, for education and sick nursing among Saturday A.M., Sept. la, we missionaries were on women and children in the East. Two mor.. ladies follow directly. There is work for many the ground with 15,000 books for distribution more as soon as they are ready to go. among the stUdents. Had we had 100,000 books we could easily' have given them away, -The Church Missionary Society has 33a and not more than one to each individual. At missionaries, and received more than three any time during the day we had a commanding hundred offers of service in the year ending view of from one hundred to one hundred and April 30, of which forty·six were from women. ftfty thousand people. So eager were they for the books that it was with diMcnlty that we Fiji.-From special information respectwere enabled to give them to the student•• ing this colony, anticipa.tory of the Blue- Thus 15,000 books have gone out in one day. book tor 1887, it appears that the total Many of these books will go to the remoter population that year was 124,658, eighty-four parts, where the voice of tbe servant of God has less than in 1336, the faIling olf being mainly never been heard. in Indian and Polynesian laborers. Educa- tion seems to be ina satisfactoryeondiUon. -The mission property both of Catholics and It is almost entirely under the care of the Methodists in Chungkinl!;, destroyed by the missionaries. In 1887, 41,724, children Were anti·foreign riois of 1888, is being replaced with at the Wesleyan mission schools aud abou1; costlier ouildings. 1,000 at the Roman Catholic schools. There is a Government Industrial School, at which -The missionary work in China seems to be youths are tra.ined, among other things, in everywhere becoming easier and more promis- boat building, house building, and cattle ing. If the Cbinese Government does not re- tending. In 1887, 102,890 persons attended taliate on Americans for the exclusion of the the Wesleyan places of worship, and 9,83() Chinese from this country and so obstruct the the churches of tle Roman Catholic mismissions, we may look for great results in the sions. The total number of pure Fijians in next rew years. 1887 was 110,754.-0ur English Corr8llpondent.
-China Inland Mission. Ou December 3 FInland.-Rev. Eric Jansson reports 180 Exeter Hall, London, was filled with a large baptized during the year in Finland. The audience a.sembled to bid farewell to a band of missionaries abont to depart for China under mission work encounters great opposition the auspices of this mission. Last year the in- from the priests of the state church, but come of the mission was £33,700, aud the stalf the progress among the people is encournumbered 324, includin~ representative. of six aging.
France.-There recently died at Montpel- ier, France. a.n old servant woman, who had l:iven in the course of some years no less than 10,000 francs, the result of most care- work of the publication department has heeD ful economy, to the French Protestant For- the issue of aeveral books for edncated Hindus._ eign Mission Society. She loved missions, regularly read the missionary journals, and -Special fO'ltures of encouragement in th& never prayed without mentioning by name work of the Inolian Female Normal School aad M. Coillard, a veteran missionary in South Instruction Society are the Zenana work a~ Africa.-Spirit of Mi8.i<>'M. Lucknow, where the pupils have increased from 400 to 500; the work at Patna, which has beel) -A second Baptist church is to be formed enlarged and consolidated; the school work at. in Paris, France. As the flrst church has Bombay, especially that of the Normal School. recently opened a new hall for evangelistic which has supplied teachers to East Africa. services, this will make four places for wor- Western India. Karachi, and other places; Mr•• ship in that city under the control of the Sorabji's work at Poonah, which is in a most Baptists. flourishing condition; and, lastly, medical work.
India.-Speaking in Edinburgh, at the -The prlOces of Rajpootana have abolished opening of the session of the Edinburgh the custom of infant marriages. In the futnre nO' Philosophical Institution, upon .. Madras girl shall be married under the age of H, and and Southern India," Sir M. E. Grant Duff, no boy under 18, unless prior to the adoption of' G. C. S. I., late governor of Madras, said that this law a contract of marriage had been en- the two great languages of the Madras pres- tered into. These princes hold the highest rank. idency, each spoken by about 12,000,000 peo- and their example will have wide influence. ple, were Telugu and Tamil, both Dravidian tongues. Less than 36,OCO people out of -The proportion of the native Christian 31,000,000 claimed English as their mother studenls ot the University of Bengal who hav~ tongue. As to nationality, the immense become Masters of Arts is 23 time. ~reater majority were Hindus; and next to them, than of the Hindn and Mohammedan stndents. but 'at an enormous distance in point of numbers, came the Mohammedans; then Italy.-We have,noted the publication of th~ came the Chrietiaus-far more numerous in Bible in Rome by Martini, the well-known pub- southern Iudia thau in the north. Among lisher, in penny parts. The experiment half the Christians 68 per cent. were Catholics been succe"sfnl beyond expectation. About 50,- and 32 per cent. Protestants. Among the 000 copies are sold every week. The book ilJ Protestants the Anglicans were the most well printed, and each part has been reduced numerous, and in Tinnivelly they had a to eight pages. large number of nati'e converts.-Our En- glish Correspondent. Japan.-Buddhism cannot long hold itlJ -November 2 three missionaries sailed in the ground, and Christianity must finally prevail Pavonia for the re-enforcement of those de- thronghout all Japan. Japanese Buddhism ,md voted toilers in that far-off land who labor Western science cannot stand together. They under the appointment of the Free Baptist are Inconsistent the one with the other.-Jap- Foreign Board. Rev. and Mrs. E. B. Stiles are an<!86 Gazette. known as the A. C. F. missionaries, becanse , their support is to be provided in fnll by the -One of the most hopefnl indications for th& new Free Baptist organization, which is com- fnture of Christianity in Japan Is the missionary posed chiefly of young people and known as the character of the native Christians. They arC' Advocates of Christian Fidelity. Rev. F. W_ zealous in carrying the gospel to their 0 IVn peo- Brown, it is understood, is to be snpported, d ple, and also to Korea and the islands dependent least in part, by the Missionary Board of Hills- on Japan. dale College. -N0 better proof of the genuine Interest of' -Pundit Raghumith Rao, the Dewan of In- our Japanese Christians in the new civilization dore, has put forth a catechism of the Ayran- could be given than their contributions the past Vedic religion, which has excited great atten- year for edncational and religious objects. tion, taken 'llJord fer word from the West- amounting to over $41,000; and it is not pro- minster Shorter Oatechism, leaving out the fessed Christians only that give, but others, im- references to Jesus Christ I This is certainly pressed with the character of the work in prog- the most remarkable plagiarism of modern ress, especially thonghtfnl parents, for the sak~ times. of the morlll cnlture obtained in our schools. A few weeks since word came from Mr. Neesima -The Christian Vernacular Education So- of $31,000 subscribed by a few Japanese gentle ciety reports that the Training Institntion at men, including two of the highest officials in th8' Ahmednagar has been in fnll working order government, toward the enlargement of our throughont the year 1887, with fifty-seven Doshisha school so as to make ita Christian uni– atudents in attendance; thirty students left the versity.-Miss. Herald. Dlndigal Institution with teachers' certificates. The system of inspecting and improving the -A revival has been going on simultane- indigenous schools in Bengal has been vigor- ously worked. Nearly 7,000 children are under ously in different parts of Japan. As a result. Christian instruction. The chief feature of the the increase in all the churches of Tokio cannot. be much less thana thousand. Yokohama has; also enjoyed a rich blessing, and reaped a glori- ons harvest. Many of the cities and towns ot the empire are now wonderfully stirred up. -"-A Worthy Example. An exchange says that a brewer who did a large business at Mish, teacher's use. The pup,i1s provide themsulves IIi 1ms, Japau, has become a Christian and joined with a primer, a copy of the New TestamclIt, the church. He had a long and hard struggle to the native Christian newspaper, a catechism, ,give up his profitable business, but at last the grammar, and geography. The teachers are .grace of God triumphed; he gave up brewing supported in part by the natives. The object and gave his large arid costly building to be used of these schools is to teach the children to read as a church. the Bible, and so these schools become the chief auxiliary to the direct preaching of the -Japanese Mission to Christendom. A gospel.-Chronicle of London MiB8. Soc. .Japanese paper published at Kioto, called the -At Tamatave, the capital of Madagascar, 11iJO'U of Asia, has a report of a proposed mis- Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, representing the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. recently ,gion for the conversion of Europe and America addressed an audience of 1,500 natives, the lecto a "purer faith." Its conductors say that ture being translated by an interpreter. The they have noticed that Christianity is on the Tamatave paper gives a full account of the occa- .decline, and that, as religion is indispensable to sion, and thanks God for the arrival of "that man, this mission is projected. There is al- grand woman, Madame Mary Clement Leavitt ready a Buddhist mission in the United States, of the United States." and something of a literature has been created. The Watchman says: "Whereabout the evi- Mexico.-The Presbyterian missionaries -dence of the' decline' of Christianity has been 'noticed' we caunot conjecture, but it was in the city of Mexico have recently located seven -probably in some of those pessimistiC utter- preaching stations in the outlying wards and auces now and then put forth by weak believ- districts. In this way they touch the people ·ers, or the still more insignificant boastings of who could not be brought into anything known unbelief." as a church edifice. Lay talent is utilized, one- half of these services being sustained hy native J a va.-Missionary work began 40 years ago. elders. Seven societies of Holland are represented by 26 missionaries, having 25 mission stations, Paraguay.-The South American Missionnumbering 12,000 native Christians. The Brit- ary Society has started a new mission under ish and Forei~n Bible Society has one agent in very favorable auspices. ·east Java, and will soon send another for the west. Not only Java, but the whole Dutch Persla.-Dr. Bruce writes to the Church India, including Java, Snmatra, Borneo, Cele- Missionary Intelligencer: "We have no oppobes, has a strong claim not only on Europe, but sition from Moslem priests or people worth <ou Christian America for the gospel. Twenty- mentioning; the latter, in nine cases out of ten, ileven millions of people and only 69 Christian gladly receive our colportenrs and evangelists, missionaries to give them the glad tidings I In and welcome their visits. The Moslem priests .all Malaysia, with its 35,000,000 people, there now ha"e lost all their power for good or evil is only one Ame"ican misBwnary. in Persia. The Persian Government is also liberal iu its treatment of Christians and Jews, -In the central district of Java there are but through the intrigues of the Roman Catholic ,some 5,000 native Christians in connection with and (led by them) of the American ecelesiastics, the Netherlands Reformed Missionary Society. it allows Protestant Christians to be opposed, For many years this field has been under the and thereby gives us great trouble. During all .exclusive care of one missionary, who is sta- my mission life among Mohammedans, every tioned at Poerworedjo. Receutly two other persecution and opposition to our work from mis~ionaries have been sent to Poerbolingo, one which we have suflered has been set on foot, <of whom is to be engaged in training native not by Moslems, but by nominal Christians." -evangelists and preachers. Still more recently :a young medical missionary has been sent out. -High Church missionaries from England He is to be supported by the Dutch Reformed are establishing schools and churches in utter Missionary Society in Londou. An attempt is indifference to the work done by American men being made to form the various churches or and women in past years, thus fomenting stations into a presbytery, presided over by a schisms aud divisions. synod. Meanwhile Christianity is spreading .also in the Djogjokarta district, and some 5,000 United States.-Indians of North Amer- natives have accepted the truth. ica. The amiual conference of the Dakota In- dian churches and missions of the Presbyterian Madagascar.-The growth ofth'e elemen- and Congregational denominations was held in -tary schools has been extraordinary. Twenty- September at Oakes, Dak. There were repre- five years ago they numbered seveu, with 365 sented there all the missionaries to the Dakotas scholars; in 1886 they nnmbered 1,005, with of the Presbyterian Foreign and Home Boards, 102,747 scholars. The several provinces are and those of the Congregationalists under the -divided into districts, and each district has a charge of the American Missionary Association. meeting-honse, used both as a church and There were present also 228 native delegates and ilchool-honse. Most of them are built of adobe, visitors, besides those from the Cheyenne River with thatched roof, and are very plaiu buildings, Agency. The attendance ran from 500 to 800. with mud 1I00rs. The school outfit consists of :a few lesson sheets and text-books for the -The American Baptist Missionary Union calls for eighty meu to fill vacancies and open new work on the various mission fields.
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
VII.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
Foreign Mission Work of Women's Sooieties.
UNITED STATES.
Receipts.
Denominations and Societies.
1887-8. In aU.
– — —;—- 1861. . Woman's Union Missionary Society, New About york …………………………….. 53 i32' 27 $43,024 $1,000,000 1868.. Woman's Board, Boston (Congregational). 102 1,700 123,240 1,651.329 1870.. Woman's Board of the Interior (Congre- gational) …………………………. 62 1,500 51,117 481,175 1872.• Woman's Bo..rd of the Pacific (Congrega- tional) …………………………….. 5 75 4,045 45.151 1870.. Woman's Board, Presbyterian Church …. 133 111 2,725 1870.. Woman's Board, Presbyterian, of the 159,640 1,647,618 Northwest ………………………… 71 57 1,522 102,499 726,277 1870.. Woman's Board, Presbyterian, of New york ……………………………… 41 32 900 65,1'44 (30,346 1871. • Woman's Board, Presbyterian, of North- ern New York …………………….. 5 13 220 10,413 120.812, 7,193 1877 .. Woman's Board, Presbyterian, Southwest 7 376 28,968 20,732 Woman'sBoard, Presbyterian, Southern. 457 172,906 1879.• Woman's Board, United Presbyterian 43 15,619 66,273 Church …………………………… 7,658 1879.. Cumberland Presbyterian Church ……. 822 42,771 1869.. Methodist Episcopal, North …………… 75 4,383 191,158 1,680,000 ,1878 .. Methodist Episcopal, Soath …………… 22 '45' 2,399 6"9,729 355,345 000 7,100 1879.. Methodist Protestant …………………. 11,288 25,000 1861.. Friends ………………………………. 8 1,854 ……4.0.,0..0.0 Evangelical Association………………. 78 1875.. Christian Woman's Board (Home and For- 697 26,226 145,120 '"7" eign) •………….•………………… '"7" 315 "'i7:ii44 61,472 14,197 1875, . United Brethren ………………………. 1875.. Reformed Chnrch (Dutch) …………… 200 …..1.2.6.,8..7.4 1879 .. Evangelicwi Lutheran (Home a.nd Foreign) 436 27 1870.. Baptist Woman's Society (Northern Con- 1,859 75.369 780,606 vention) ………………………….. 38 44,846 1871. . Woman's Baptist Society of the West….. 45 313,628 Executive Committee Auxiliary to South- 15.554 80,000 ern Baptist Convention ……………. 7,200 1873 .. Baptist Free ….. __ , ' …………………. , 6 60,000 25,321 – -2-72,6-71 – – – – – – – 1871. . Protestant Episcopal …………………. – – – – Totals………………. 680 424 21,l134 $1,117,110 $10,307,990 CANADA.
1876.. Woman's, !,?o.ci"ty (Presbyterian), West- 475 $25,657 ern DivisIon ……………………… . 5,091 1877.. Woman's Society (Presbyterian), Eastern Division ………………………… . 6,182 1877.. Woman's Societies (Baptist), Ontario and 4,493 Quebec…… " ………….. ' …….. .. 189 14,197 Woman's Union (Baptist), Maritime Prov- illces •……•…………….•….•…. 1881.. Woman's Society (Methodist) ………. , .. .
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
1834.. Society for Female Education in the Eastl 40 $.%,000' 1852.. Zenana Bible and Medical Mission ……. . 202 50,000* 1859 .. Ladies' Wesleyan Missiollary SOciety….. ' 30 ';ii;' 35,000* 1860 .. British Syrian Schools ………………. .. 28 116 2.';,(lOIl* 18'18 .. Ladies' Association (Baptist) …………. . 44 105 3O.0no* 1~"3 .. Female Association (Irish Presbyterian).. 12 160 10,000* 1878.. Female Association (Presbyterian Churca of England) ………………………. . 13 8 10,000' 1830.. Church of England Zenana Missionary Society…………………………… . 88 49 1880.• Zenana Medical College……………… " U5,Oro 4,000* Ladies' Committee Auxiliary to London Missionary Society……………. '…. . 24 250 Ladies in Connection with Society for Propagation of Go.pel …….. , ……. . 71 300 Ladies' Free Church of Scotland ……… . 32 177 * About this sum annually. J.M.S.
View of the Missions of the A. B. O. P. M. for the Year 1888-89
MISSIONARIES AND ASSISTANTS. I PREACHING. CHURCHES. i EDUCATION.
g g ] .s MISSIONS. oi ~• I ~fr~C.lrl<n~tl 00 AMERICAN. NATIVE. ~'CI 'CI 'i0'<.:M: ~g• ~ –,–..,,—,.._ _ _1 -_–,,—;—;—1 .~S~ 00 0 ~QJ t~ . § :"8 .. oi 't1 ~. ;;~r.IJ. .-~!: bD .j..J Q,) 0 d~ oJ ~• aj 0~0 ~ .~~ ~~ 0 ..d U~l .~S ~Il <= §• :'~" dj ~ ~ ~.h ~.~ i ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ ~.~ 'I'~ ~ n j ~o· g ~ ojr18Q,)_ 0 .~O ~ ~ ~:; '8t. ~ :; "" "" .., – – ~ ~ <= 0 tl .S 00 8 00 '§+3 … -< … tti'< '", Sw ~ ~ 6 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ !~.2 ~'g ~ :ags ~ ~ in .A 0 f 2 = ='3 ==-1 19142 150 =. = 115 E",st Central Africa. i883~ . do: ""' ~t] 1l ;, ""' e3:; p:; -I<> ..q z§ '" ~ a5 0 ~ r.r. -;: -§ o§ i:'5 :Zuuel~u-:M,tips~s:i~otnT.~.~.~.!.~.~.~. 1~8~3g5 .$ 0 'E-< 00 E-< ~8 "2197 -n-3 –17 2 12 •35 -1 -,8 25 1 .6,891 16~ '9'7'9" 108 -:-1' . '1'~; – 1 ";';' -:-2' – -2115 5 10 8 2~9~ 4 [3 82 uu 100 25 1,47! 1,655 2.548 19 51 '''6 'ii" 1 …. 12 2 100 100 14 "ii:i' 'i "i2 1 …. 1 2C' 20 . "3:508 I~ 2~ 1~ ~g 2~ 3~~ IH lk~~ 2.~ J~ ~ 3~ 'lll 5,ra~ 6,~~ Western Turkey …. 1819 8 121 22 2 64 17 m 16:g<fs 29 244 1 Ii 7 32,177 Central Turkey ….. 1847 2 51 7 3 7 9 26 19 27 110 4, 160 IIl6 60 10,000 1157,,0~5163 33 4,050 229 1 7 2 89 4 195 95 .,15 4,448 Eastern Turkev ….. 1836 5 115 Ii 1 15 11 41 27 51 170 48 296 337 124 11,010 41 2.542 151 1 526 5 2241238~III1I045543 5,261 6,392 7,9~5 1 8 14 553 3 24..0712'~; 2,802 Mar"'thi. ….. : ……. 1813 7 102 12 1 10 6 29 15 32 HI 67 255 284 88 3.076 3.351 27 1.823 157 1 9 7 514 5.680 , 13.508 Ma.dura …….. : .•.. ISH 12 234 10 •••. 10 8 28 20 144 2~298 31 423 451 234 7,214 11,881 36 3,233 239 1 10 7 6. 4,779 Ceylon ………….. 118~1863 7 25 5 .•.. 4 4 13 11 30 34 304 317 39 1,065 1.806 14 1,389 79 II 6 +57 2 132, 127 7,864 8,455' 6.545 Hong Kong………. 1 3 1 2 34 19 1 5.752 1 …. 3 8 …. 11 12 4 f 384 15 308 54 1 .. '2 "43 8 384 384 10 Foochow ………… 1847 3 21 6 1 6 6 19 2 12 21 1 41 00 26 650 1,250 105 2'''3 •• 17 299 388 349 13 12 42 92 4 976 161 North China …….. 1854 7 29 18 4 20 8 50 …. 17 26 684 2.485 11 2 -42 3 44 10 142 204 Sh&usi.. …………. 1882 2 …. 4 1 4 1 10 .. . …. …. …. …. 10 2 76 75 1 5 5 . . …. .., …. .. …. …. …… .. … 4 22 27 76 27 21 53 11 112 188 171 6,309 11.000 43 6.340§ 2,1l4§ 2 92 61.054 91.0eO…. …… 2,206 41.022 } ~':f..~h~r;,· j~pai{:: m.~ 8 124 23 1.486 Micronesia ………. 1852 3 46 7 1 7 6 21 12 2U 14…. 47 68" 103 7.785 12,300 47 4.844 549 2 30 2 58 2 64 41 1.933 2.085 2011 8 13 537 Western Mexico …. 1872 2 6 2 …. 2 1 5 1…….. 7 8 181 2 120 150 2 110l1~ 10 1 12…. …. 1 23 1 30 30 Northern Mexico … 1882 3 5 4 …. • 2 10 …. 3 3 2 9 194 3H 4 93 95 3,076 68.. 2 …. 3 ~~~~i~·::.:::::::::: }~~~ ~ ig ~ …. ~ ..~ ~ …: ~~ ~ n jg l~ ~~ ~:~ ~ ~ i M1~ 7~ 7~g "7' .. 19 'i "·S 1 4 656 === 19 166 268 17 50 Tota.I… No. Pacific Institute 1872 1…. 1 …. 1…. 2 …. …. …….. …. 2…………· .. · . . . . . · · …. · .. · 1 14…. …… ………….. H 90 960 167* 160 126t 472 448 1.253 2.135 2,607 1~161'188j100.914 33630.11461 4.388 25169 3.947 3.008 892 34.855 42.733U $124.274 * Of whom eleven are physicians. UInciudlDg 80mI' under IDstructlOn but not reported in school. , The CommonSchools of Jafl'na, connected with the mission. are under t Of whom four are physICians. the direction of a lloa.rd of Jl;<lucatlQIl, alld tho teachers are not reckoned as :I: Including Hawaiian missionaries. Ch~;be:,hich might be added 753 baptized believers not yet orpnized Into missioll helpeu.
•
STATISTICS OF THE'WORLD'S MI!,SIONS
Reoeipts of the lfissionary Sooietyof the Methodist EpiBoopal Ohuroh for Year. 1887 and 1888, AS REPORTED TO THE GENERAL MISSIONA.RY CO){M;:TTrlE, NOVEMBER 14, 1888.
RBCEIP'FS I'RO>l EASTERN CONFBRENCES.
CONFERENCES. IFrOW:O;~l'!FrOl8sr~~· I,! Increase. r Decrease. (List omitted.) Oct. 31: 1887. Oct. 3i, 1888.
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …. ….. $S8fI,673 92 3629.983 77 $27,517 5.3, $67,207 63 RECEIPTS FROM: WESTERN CONFERENCES.
CONFEItBI)CES. i8 Dec~ dFrl;t~~· l'!Fr0 8,fOt';; 1,/ (List omitted.) . Oct. 3i, 1887. Oct. 31', 1888. Increase.!_ Total…. ……………………. $375,121.00 Ji370,597 471 $12,068 28 $16,592 80 Total Receipts from November I, 1886, to October 31, 1881………. …… ..•…. $1,044,19591 18ST, to October 31, 1888………………….. 1,000,581 24 .. ..
Decrea.se .. eo •••••••••••••• eO ••••••••• " . eo eo •• 0' ••••••••••••••• eo •••••.•• eo •• eo. $44,21467 RECBIPTS DURING THE L4ST NINE YEARS.
Sundry t::;ources.
$22,47841 Conferences. – – – – – – – Legacies. ,3i,710 27 YEAR!!. Totals. Increase. $557.371 14 $5,511 84 1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500,182 46 33.865 2f 20,83286 625,663 89 68,m 75 18~1. ………………. 570.96577 <l~,605 O~ IM~2 ……………….. 6:!1,38108 '18.091 ~ 21,67984 691.6M 01 00,00212 22,60604 751,469 90 59,803 89 1883 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650,77254 49,970 O~ 28.966 85 731,125 86 20,34404* 188~ ………………. 652,18800 1885 ………………. 694,03495 101,901 8~ 30.891 5t- 8:6,828 36 95,702 50 1886 ………………. 836,592 37 932,20891 133,95821 21.577 89 992,12847 165,300 11 1887 ……………….. 935.12138 76,743 22 1.0~4.795 91 52,66744 1888 ………………… 35.843 7b – – – – – – 41,983 67 – – -23,4-76-19 1,000,581 24 44,214 67" Totals …………. $6,393,448 45 $558.PZg 4' <!!'?Rfl.':'1":2 /"IF $7.221.73078 NOTE.–A star (*) after amounts III the last COll" 1, '(l.teR a decrease.
-Gospel in all Land•• German Evangelioal Mis!ion Sooieties.
[For the following table we are indebted to Rev. Dr. R. (irundemann, of Germany., "'" ,;, .;.,.;.,. ..: …; <= () 'j:; of ",,=of OJ ~".,,,~'0" '2 ,,0 SOCIETIES. wi <=8 0. S" """.."~, OJ "s~":.l<A~= OJ'~ ~ ~ ~N~'" " .,: :0;; ~ .,; :,z;,. >4 o..~ 0 .'.c0c: "Il< >'I 8~ "00 '" " ..,00>'1 ———~———— Moravian ………………………….. 107 147 83,052 29,283 590 208 $17,407 $101,281 Easel, Evangelical Mission ………… 42 120 19,187 9.497 1,057 208 7.486 199,507 Berlin, Evangelical Mission………… 48 60 17.764 8.400 1,225 53* 3.377 71.611 Rhenish Mission (Barmen) …………. 53 66 29,125 9.666 1,100 66* 5,370 88.440 North German (I:!remen)…………… 4 8 325 114 5 199; 20.389 556 Gossner Mission …………………… 13 19 34,000 11,868 1,775 80* 1.685. 42,431 Evangelical Lutheran, Leipzig …….. 2"J 22 14,014 4.500* 796 129 3,993 67.596 Hermannsburg…………………… 61 71 11,196 5,000* ….. 88* 2,000 63,713 fit. Chrischonat……………………. 1 15 400 20 5 1* 120 8,132 40* ….. 4* 200 6,585 Jerusalems-Verein………………… 3 2 150 2* 43 14,914 BreckluD). (Schleswig-Holstein)…….. 4 8 ……. '''ii' 1* 40 8.773 Berlin Woman's Mission for China…. 1 1 81 80* 77 3* 74 2,523 Neukirchen Mission…. …. …….. …. 5 5 305 3,239 East Africa.. Vereln (Berlin)……….. I 2 2 ….20* 3.000 2 3,OCQ – – – – – – —- – – – – – – – – – – Bavarian Verein·for East Africa…… 1 CO.I. Prot. Mission Verein (for Japan). 1 Totals…………………………. 368 550 209.850 78,679 6.756 823 41,994 J700,1l4 " Estimated. t Statistics of Syrian Orphan Home only. -A. B. 0. F. M.'B Almanac of Mi88ion., 1889. Foreign Missionary Sooieties of the, United States, 1887-88.
Mission- ..: …. — .. .. " " ..s .n… aries. ,/, 8- .,./,, p.1. g.; … " <I <I .<:1 d! 0 5l <i C1l SOCIETIES. '" .si III 'a American Board•…•.•.. ,; I '" '" "" ~.d.,! .<:1 0 "" " ~ j ~ ~ s oj d!" " ~ ~ … <$ — — — – – _~.S Z 's, 0 — – – '" — — "" -rn- 0 Z .a &: <;) .. <!l '"p… .".<.I. <;) $667,289 90 g60 186 286 2,135 836 30.M6 4.386 1,018 42,733 Preshyterian Board, No. 901.180 112 400 205 297 1,126 311 23.740 2,~97 464 23.77() Preshyterian Board, So. 88,049 08 89 31 35 44 ' 39 1.897 305 20 1,2;{S Ref. Church (Dutch) …. 155.381 12 123 29 32 293 47 4,559 180 122 3,357 United Presh. Board …. 103,323 15 154 19 21 385 32 6.878 1.437 216 9.942 Cumberland Presb. Ch .. 15,265 3 5 6 8 13 8 500 225 6 283 Reformed Presb. Church Asso. Ref. Presho Church 21,133 ….. 2 6 4 5 50 2 209 44 32 1.165 Reformed Church of the 2,696 4 2 ••••• 8 8 206 76 2 28 U. S. German … '……. 20.000 3 12 5 7 18 8 1,170 420 5 21& Ref. Presho Gen. Synod.. 4,000 2 4 2 ….. 7 2 20 5 1 28 *Baptist Mis. Union ….. 390,83.5 60 831 101 161 1.798 642 61,062 5.070 754 17,.504 Baptist Southern Conv.. 86,38.5 14 72 24 34 59 48 1,967 344 17 610 Free Baptists….•……. ….. 3 59 6 13 15 10 654 62 85 3,058 Seventh Day Bantists… 15.2{4 1 2 3 9 1 23 5 3 76 Baptist Conv. of U. S, … 4.529 4.598 3 2 2 1 2 1 175 50 2 27 Q:erman Baptist Breth- ren (Tunkers) ………. ….. ….. ……. 1,620 2 ….. 826.7~* 6M *Methodist Epis. Chnrch ….. 234.584* 104t Meth. Epis. Church, So.. 3 …. 5 lliO 31i ….. 131; 192 2.0~1 505 22.535 2.711 694 22,448 28 23 80 42 3.786 450 54 1.545 Protestant Methodist… 3 3 7 4 2 229 84 5 350 18.000 Africa" ~Ieth. Epis()opal 12,000' 7 5 7 1 8 9 900 302 5 408 Free )[ethodist…. , ….. 3 14 6 3 ….. 2 45 Prot. Epis. For. Miss.Soc. 2.000 41 14.'; 75 28 227 32 6 "443 91 3.364 189,932 23 3 2,073 11,074 16 5 5 4 224 ..1.2..3 9 443 Evangelical Association 14,619 5 4 14 4.105 19 462 Un. Brethren in Christ.. 4 25 Evangelical Lutheran, General Synod ……… 30.000 2 2 4 3 147 101 3.436 1,178 161 3.,558 Evangelical Lutheran, 10.288 6 50 5 4 72 4 805 235 57 767 General Conncil ., , …. For. Chri.tian Miss.Soc. (Disciples) ….. , .. , …. 24 12 22 24 2,473 798 18 ….3.8..0 51.408 24 …..2 …..6..1 43 ….. Amer. Christian Conv… 2,000 2 21 1 6 3 ….. — — – — — — – – – – –7- – TFhrieenMdesn.n..o.n.it.e.s………………. …. ·22:700· 1 . ooii 3 9 6 4 392 671 ….. 100 7 6 —- Total. ………….. $3.906.967 1,1113 2,954 927 1,200 8,617 2.243 174.784 21,978 3.864 137.905 * Work of these societies in Protestant countries of Europe 1S not here reported. t Principal and subordinate stations. :(: The portion of the missionary receipts of the church appropriated to Foreign n Mis~ions. ple te re tu rn s. '
Incom Moravian Missions are included in the tabJe of British societies. -A. B. O. F. M. 's Almanac of Mi.sions. 1889.
Canada.-The Canadian Congre- tionality. In Oceania, including the Phil- ippines. the Malay Archipelago. Anstralia. gational Year-Book fol' 188~-89 re- and New Zealand. the number is 276; in America, inclnding certain specified States ports the following statistics: of the Union. portions of Canada, British Honduras, Brazil and Pern.l.130 ; the total Churches. St… Minis. Mf'm· number of Jesnits scattered over the globe tions. ter!;. bel'S. in purely missionary work being 2,377. These 26 49 6,300 are' of various nationalities, but the vast Ontario ………. 77 1,650 majority are French.-London Times. Quebec ………. 20 15 17 Nova Scotia…… ]7 21 7 858 -The Cherokees have in operation 100 11 341 common schools. with an aggregate attend- New Brunswick.. 3 4 ance of 4,049 pupils and an average of 200 2.486 ; a high school for boys. with an aggre- Newfoundland & o3 180 gate of 211 and an average of 156 students; Labrador … , .. . 5 24 a. female seminary. nearing completion, The Northwest.. . 4 with a capacity for 165 students; an orphan asylum containing 145 children,-Ghri.tian 126 75 84 9.529 Advocate. Nashville. -Jesuit Missions. In the Balkan peninsula there are. 45 Jesuit missiona.ries; in Africa, and especially E;;-ypt, Madagascar and the Zambesi region, 223 ; in Asia, especially Armenia. Syria, certain parts of India, and parts of China. 699. In China alone the number is 195, all of French na- Oontributions to Missionary and Bible -Statistics show that there are in Bur- Societies for rifty Years. mah at the present moment 502 Baptist IN view 'of the Missionary Conference, it may not be nnseasonable to present to your readers churches, with 28,559 communicants and the results of a carefrrl examination of the home contributious to the five great religiOUS institu- about 70,000 adherents. In 404 schools theretions named below during the first fifty years of the present reign. I have divided that examina- are 12,000 pupils, and during the year there tion iuto decenniums, bringing out the average amounts contributed in each, with the relative hl"ve. been 2,134 baptismsupon a profession increase or decrease upon the preceding period. With these it is unnecessary to occupy your of fmth. The report reminds the Christian columus. public that it is just seventy-five yea-rs. It may be interesting, however, to notice that -whatever it may be owing to- the decennium since Adoniram Judson, driven out of Cal- 1848-1857 differs from aU the rest in the lower rate of increase, while in the case of two of the cutta by the officials of the East India Comsocieties there is a positive decrease of two per cent. and eleven per cent. respectively. pany, arrived in Rangoon and established The increase of the avera~e annual amount the first Baptist mission at Burmah.-ChriB-· of home contributions, including legacies but excluding dividends, in the last decennium, 1878- tian Weekly. '57, over the first,l838-'47, was, in the case of the Baptist Miss. Society… £34,953 or 157 per cent. -The Methodist Episcopal Church have. Wesleyan Miss. SOCiety. 34.114" 45 .. Church Miss. Society .. 102,717 .. 118 .. 2: missionaries in Italy, 25 native prea.chers" London Miss. Society… 23,707" 3~ British and Foreign 883 church members, 16 Snnday-schools and Bible Society……… 62,101" 131 392 scholars. In lIIexico tney have 9 mis- A/!:gregate increase (five sionaries,33 native preachers, 995 church SocietietJ).. .. .. . …… 257,592" 86 The annual average amounts of the five soci- members, 740 probationers, 30 Sundayeties for the last decenninm was £556,631, and the total amount for the jifly year. £20,798.160, schools and 1,202 schools. being about the amount spent on drink in this country in sixty days at the rate of last year's Jews.-Between the years 1880 ,and 188& consumption. It ought to be stated that these amounts in- the Jewish population of Prussia has include both ordinary and special contributions, excepting in the case of the Church Missionary creased only 2,763. The proportion of the. Society, where the figures of the special contribntions for the whole period conld not be .0 Jews (366,543) to the entire population. easily ascertained. The annual average orthese, in that society, for the last jive years was £19,- shows a falling off of .04 per cent. The 115. ProbablY this was a high avera!':e. One feature brought out in this examination is diminution has been chie11y in the provinces. worthy of note. WhQn a large contribution has been raised for a special object, it does not seem of Posen and Silesia. There were only three to teU adversely on the succeeding years; rather the contrary. So at least it seems to be towns in the entire kingdom with a. Jewish. in the case of the British and Foreign Bible So- Ciety. In 1854 that society raised special con- population exceeding 15,000, viz., Berlin. tributions of almost exactly £100,000 for the JUbilee and Chinese New Testament Funds. 65,355; Breslau, 17,655; and Frankfurt, 15,- with the result that the aggregate ordinary contributions (exclusive of legacies) for the three SM.-Jewish Chronicle. . follouing years exceeded those of the three previous years by almost £30,OCO, or twenty-three -The various Protestant missionary orper cent.; and that notWithstanding that in one of the last three years a further special contri- ganizations at work in India have 249 mis_ bution of £10,000 was raised for these objects. sionaries, 317 native preachers, and 83,819' But when the speCial contribution is raised not for any definite object, but merely to make up .. native communicants. This is an increase deficiency in previous years, I apprebend the result is very different.-Davia McLaren, in of 67 missionaries, 76 native preachers, and British Weekly. 23,748 native communicants since 1881.
-The Lutheran Missions among the Ta- mils of South India amount to 14,000 adher- ents, 22 European missiol~aries, 12 ordained natives, 6 caudidates, 56 catechists, 241 teachers, 149 schools. and 3,653 scholars.
-The General Missionary Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church has appro- priated for the coming year $1,200,000 fol'"
home and foreign missions, of which $100,- 000 is to meet outstanding drafts and inter- est. The receipts from the churches were· $2,900 larger than ever before, but the treas- ury was $78,340.13 in debt at the end of the year. The appropriations for mission wo"i-k are about fifteen per cent. less than last year. The foreign missions r"eceive $511,- 639.01, divided as follows: India, $109,300.
China, $108,019.01 ; Japan, $60,166; Korea.
$16,104; JlIalaysia, $6,500; Africa. $4,800; South America, $52,960; Italy, $47,000; Ger-· many, $30,300; Sweden, $25,068; Bulgaria.
$19,220; Norway, $14,000; Switzerland, $9,840 ; Denmark, $8.362. The new Malaysia.
Mission was regularly constituted. Dr.
Thoburn is missionary bishop of India and ¥alaysia. In al the foreign inissions there are 720 native preachers and 41.338 church.
members.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS. [FEB., 18t!9
VIII.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
(The Ia.ck of spa.ce constrains us to layover a. mass of Bilitorial Notes already in type.-ED8.] Editorial Oard to the Publio. The Bound Volume for 1888.
IN the Jan. number of this REVIEW, TilE IIrstvolume ot THEMIssION.l.BY RETIIIW .(1888) we admitted an article from Bev. Wm. Clark, D.D., on "1I1ission 0:1' THE WORLD Is now bound loud on sale. It.
Work in Papal Europe,'" and in a appearance is certainly striking, and marks an prefatory note we warmly indorsed advance, it not a new epoch, in mlssionary"litthe writer and commended his cause erature. It is a royal octllvo, printed on heavy -the Female College /Lt Florence, and lirst quality of paper, making VT4 compact Italv.. Dr. Clark was a stl'anger to pages, and substantially and prettily bound in us, but he presented so many strong crimson cloth with gilt back.
teliltimonials from eminent clergy- No ODe can form a correct Idea. of the extent, men and others whom we knew, that t:vharroiuetgyhatnhdisqiumalpietyrioalf viotslucmone.tenAts btriilel fhBenlaolYok'iss we unhesitatingly gave full credence ~ will show that it i. in itself a IUrrary of mission liurature, containing matter equal to half a dozto hIS statements, and said what we -did in his behalf. We deeply regret en books, and al1 fresh and in"pirlng, and from the ablest missionary writers in the world. At to say that we have lately received the same time it is an invaluable cvclopOJdia Of ~vidence from the best sources of in- milsions, containing a vast amount of the latest and most accurate information on every subject formation that wI! were deceived and connected with Christian missions. 'rhe eight imposed upon Ly this man, and that departments are crowded with matter of inter- est and importance to the friends of missions, he is unworthy of confidence or aid, in al1lands and in aU branches urthe Church.
.and we hereby withdraw our indorse- I. Literature Qf M"tssions. Contains some 130 separate article., most of them original, and ment and forbid him to use it. From by the ablest writers at home and abroad. the American consul at Florence we learn that no such institution now II. Organized Missionary Work. Gives the ~xist!S in Florence. And Dr. Cyrus latest reports of over 130 of the leading mission- Hajlllin assures us that our statement ary societies of the world. .about his services at Constantinople is essentially untruthful. It grieves III. Corrupondence and General Intellius. tu make such a statement, but gence. From leading mis.ionarie. in all lands, truth and justice and the cause of a. well as intelliltence from the world-field. -Christ demand it at our hands. IV. International Department. By Dr. Gr,,- A Oorreotion. cey, containing 100 pages of great interest and value. IN our January issue we gave V. Moothlll Concert of MissWns. By Dr. A. .credit for the article-" England and '1'. Pierson. Full 01 stirring papers and sugges- Foreign Missions "-to Rev. James tive themes and thoughts.
.Johnston, "Secretary of the World's VI. P,ogre88 and Results Q.f Missions. A world of the latest doings and facts, gathered Missionary Conference." We were from every source and field. misled in making this statement in a VII. Statistic, of the Wcrld's Missions. A way that attaches no blame to any large amount of the latest and most authentic etatistics. Ma!lY invaluable tables, etc., etc. -one. But we -desire to state that, VIII. Editorial Notes on many current subthough possessed of the same hon- jects of missionary interest.
()toed name, our c;::ontributor is an- Aud to add to the value Ofthi8 bound volume, It conta.ins a full and skillfully prepared Indez -other clergyman, a resident of Bol- of Contents, 80 tbst every topic treated in it, and ton, England, who has volunteered every important faet or statement or table of to post us from time to time with the etatistics given can be readily found and made -current ongoings of missionary life available to the rietasdleirt.eraOrynemwerililtsbIeitasmvaazsetdn,eosns in Great Britain. He will continue examination, at his useful service and, when the topic of scope, and the plenitude and va ue of Its his- is too brief for a separate paper we torical and statistical information. It will adorn tihall append his simple initials, or Our English Correspondent, as in and be a valuable acquisition to anI library, the present number. private or public. The price is but $2.50, free delivery. It Is a marvel of cheapne!s.
Statistical Tables.
.. The :Miseionary Review," in the hands ofMr. Wilder, earned a deserved reputation for the ekill and pain.taking labor ebown in the matter of missionary statistics. "Wild…r's Tables" were Simply marvel. in their way and are cited ". authority everywhere. We had hoped and planned to carry on this good work unto perfec- tion, but our wishes and plans for the first year failed. But we still purpose to accomplish it a$ any cost, and are maturing arrangements tha$ will bring it about during the year. In tile meanwhile we avail onrselves of the results ot others' labors. The tables we give this month, published by the Ameri"an Board, are exceed- ingly valuable for reference, while onr own table on wom~n's work is full and reliable.